A Resilient Autist: A Story of a Successful Canada

A successful country doesn’t have people going at each other, yet it keeps increasing. Today, you’d be so lucky to land a job that you’d do almost anything to get it and even more to keep it.

I left my house in the city because of rising crime and a feeling of being unsafe. It was a traditional red riding, and I moved to a longstanding blue riding. I watched tent cities creep in close to my old address, and I’m awash in relief to have left.

Today, are we supposed to watch all the Conservatives move to the West and all the Liberals to the East, and shake hands and be done? Well, I’d be happy in a cabin, whether it’s here or there, but I do like Canada as a whole.

Outside the cities, what people were saying around me made sense. They introduced me to the non-mainstream media channels and different voices who were trying to shake the sheepishness out of voters. Voters like me, and I listened. I did my work and my research before becoming a card-carrying Conservative.

I’m not pushing you to vote Conservative. I’m pushing you to get informed and make your own decision.

It’s my belief that you will also agree that Blue offers a solid, responsible, and nurturing path for the future. However, if that’s not the case, please point out my blind spot to me – I’m genuinely interested in knowing, because only then can we begin to find unity. Simply calling the other side names doesn’t help Canada or anyone.

A Soft-Hearted Family-First Romantic

I did research that included reading Poilievre’s biography. Did you know he’s a soft-hearted romantic and a family-first man who leads with them as his priority? If I enjoyed his ability to take a debate head-on with laughter, facts, and no notes, I was sold on his personal history and the way he makes choices.

I can trust someone who operates on principles and is transparent about what they are. That way, I can predict what he will do. Unlike Carney, who double-talks, outright lies, and leaves out relevant details.

Pierre Poilievre recently revealed that he wonders what kind of future his nonverbal daughter will have. It echoes the sentiment expressed by Parenthood’s television parents have for their son, diagnosed with Asperger’s.

They have high hopes. Children who have difficulty with relationships might not experience love, careers, or even living alone. These parents, who’ve experienced such things, express concern and sadness.

Today’s parents of healthy kids wonder if home ownership is out of reach for their children.

When I was growing up, a university education was in jeopardy. When my grandmother was growing up, it was knowing your neighbours and never locking your doors.

How do we have high hopes for the next generation, only to become aware that progress hasn’t marched forward in all directions? Irrevocably, something always gets left behind.

A Hard-Hearted Survival-First Realist

I remember my mother yelling distinctly, “I hope your children turn out just like you.”

I spat back, “I’m not having kids!”

The look on my mom’s face was one of horror, shock, and pain. In my short life, I couldn’t figure out one reason why she’d opted in. She was always angry and yelling, and one of her four kids was the problem. If I were an analytical kid, there was a long list on the con side, not one pro. Why have kids?

Especially so if they were going to turn out like me.

At that young age, I knew that other people had an easier time of it than I had. I spoke at a late age; today, they would have called me nonverbal. The way I went through life, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, especially if I had to have a front-row seat, watching a difficult life unfold and being unable to do much about it.

One of the reasons I watched the television show Parenthood was to see the character Max, who has Asperger’s. Sadly, I kept thinking, ‘I did that, too.’ This includes photography, a hobby shared by the two characters, and for the same reason—when you have to be around people, it’s helpful to have a reason and something to interrupt or mimic eye contact. Plus, the darkness of the lab is comforting.

I got through until retirement with determination, brute force, and willpower. Work was torture for me, rife with social expectations and politics, and I couldn’t wait to retire, while also knowing it would be a long shot to remain employed until sixty-five.

A Hard-Earned Retirement-First Achievement

I scrimped, saved, invested, and pursued the growth of wealth as my number one goal. I made it out at 47 before burning out any career prospects.

To those parents with high hopes, a career is possible, but it might be shorter-lived than the average person’s.

Luckily, a lot of money can be saved when you don’t entertain, forget to invest in friends and the costs of maintaining relationships, and don’t bother celebrating things on the calendar because there isn’t a party to attend or throw.

Helpfully, analytical people are good with accounting and stock markets. I read The Wealthy Barber at twenty-one and invested my first $1000. My siblings took their cheques and threw a party. See the difference? It was always apparent.

You might think that’s sad, as parties are something you enjoy and have brought you many sweet memories. I can only recall humiliations, gaffes, embarrassments, and many negative experiences, with the most neutral being the awareness that everyone else is having fun, and you are not.

You singularly are not. If you want to feel crushing loneliness, enter a room full of people and know that, on a particular dimension, you have nothing in common with anyone.

I have only one relationship. I held on when I met someone who went through life with the same desire to be alone, who experienced the same discomfort in a room full of people and the same dispassion toward any party, event, or celebration.

Rocky, you might call our relationship, while it’s been a steady and slow progression toward understanding how the other experiences the world. Love is the patience to understand and to sit with someone in their world instead of always forcing them into yours.

It was such relief after living my life so forced into your world that I didn’t know someone else would live in mine. The difference was apparent when I discovered a conversation recorded by accident during a long road trip. The device was set to record only when there was noise.

A twelve-hour road trip generated less than one hour of talking. That’s the most quantitative difference I can offer of how fast your world is compared to how long I need to find the right word to express myself, and never having the time.

Instead, I realized I was supposed to talk, and words came out. Later, I’m constantly reviewing the conversation and wondering why I said such things, trying to remember what I said, and in the future, trying not to look like a liar, hypocrite, or whatever else my fast-talking got me into. The sheer effort of communicating with someone else was exhausting.

In this relationship, I finally found my words, honed my voice, and now, look at my words fly onto the page. I can do it in real time, but I’ll never look forward to another meeting or gathering of people trying to look like they aren’t competing against everyone else and who will do anything to win.

Twenty years of rockiness came up sometime next month, a date neither of us knows, although we can both remember the specific weekend when it snowed in May. We picked a day and said, “Happy twenty years,” to each other.

The giddiness might fade, but the dedication remains. I did not see this love as a child, this patient acceptance, but I finally learned it.

Competition or Contribution?

I was not the child my parents wanted or thought they deserved. As I watch Max’s parents respond and address the challenges he presents, I think they deserve an award—an award for stepping up and filling bigger demands than required by other parents.

Maybe one day, there will be one, more than the simple knowledge that you helped your child succeed. With that help, I’m sure they will surpass whatever I was able to accomplish.

I don’t believe I accomplished much. I am not a role model. In a world of influencers and polished people claiming perfection, I am the first to say I am no competition.

But just because I will not win doesn’t mean I have nothing to contribute. I believe this to be true for everyone, while this skewness that exists in society today is a part of the problem.

My contributions are ones of hard research, painful lessons, and all the schooling you can get on the subject of “So, what did we learn from this?”

Proper Performances or Authentic Actions?

I hope for friendships, long conversations about ideas, shared jokes, and mutual interests. Maybe one day, someone will reach out to me and say, “Hey, can you explain what you’ve written here?” Despite my best efforts, I am sure I have some explaining to do, but I wonder if I’ll ever get through to anyone.

As I age, I become less worried about properly performing and more relaxed into my authentic self. I wrote a book about authenticity because I had to figure it out, and I thought maybe someone else could use this, too.

My adult life has been one of brushing off harsh lessons and learning the right ones, the most important of which is “Be yourself.”

When you are anyone else, you will mess up. You will mess up anyway; when they are your mistakes, they hurt far, far less. You can shrug off some of what other people would call a mistake. When you are authentic, perfectionist judgment doesn’t bother you.

Sadness or Joy?

I share my inner reality to show you that your sadness might be misplaced when you think of your child not being able to experience the same things that brought you joy and still bring you joy. I shudder to think of what it would be like to have to be a mother, a wife, or, worst of all, a Liberal if I’d turned out the way my parents wanted.

Your mission, should you accept it, is to discover what brings your child joy and how to create a life full of their sources of pleasure, no matter their labels.

As someone who has been behind the ball, but finally on this mission myself, I have discovered that being me brings me joy, and performing, fitting in, behaving, conforming, and generally acting the way a well-behaved grown woman should behave doesn’t. Aren’t you glad I’m not at your party now? I’m sure we both are.

Oh well, well-behaved women rarely make history. For Pierre’s daughter, she’s already made history. I expect that she will master her words far, far before I did.

Way to go, Team Valentina! I hope the Canada you inherit is strong, sovereign, and successful.