Couch, Rose, Autism

The psychologist’s office was a tiny one, more fitting as a storage room than a place where intimate thoughts are shared by the brave or desperate. One side of the beige-colored room there was a two-person couch, across it was a generic armchair so plain and boring that I no longer remember what it looked like. I sat at the couch. The psychologist himself on the armchair facing me was quite young. Too young, lanky, nervous, acne covered his lower face like a beard or beestings, a reverse Batman cowl. If he were ever to find himself in a movie, he would be the puny nerd getting wedgies in the boys’ locker room or having sand kicked in his face at the beach.

At the start of the session I told him I was thinking of quitting therapy for one reason or another. He was polite and told me that we would circle back on that subject at the end of the session. It was our first meeitng though I have had other sessions with another psychologist in that same office. He went through the notes of the previous psychologist, asking me questions here and there. 

After the session, he told me that because I wanted to quit he wouldn’t be able to formally, officially give me a diagnosis. There were tests that needed to be taken. I asked him what was wrong with me and reassured him that I didn’t need it to be a formal and/or official diagnosis. What, I asked, in his personal—not professional—opinion, based on what he heard in that session, is wrong with me? 

I noticed first his hands before I heard the word. They shook—not the full, uncontrollable tremors of the rattled—it was almost imperceptible as if I was imagining the whole thing. Maybe I was. Reality is such a delicate light and shade show that flickers and dances. An illusion here, a ghost there, shadows and mirages. But this was my reality and I wish to stick to it. In my reality, his hands shook and his smart watch, which he wrote on his left wrist, shook ever so slightly. The light from an incandescent bulb at ceiling flickered on the surface of the black plastic and metal of the smart watch.

And then the word, “autism.”

I am autistic, apparently. That was the first impression anyway. I asked how certain he was. He said he would need to run tests, of course. Of course. But he was 80 percent sure. All this based on what he heard from me in one session. 

“What am I supposed to do with this information?” I asked. 

He nodded and understood what I was asking but didn’t have an answer. He struggled to find the right phrase to describe why it mattered that I knew and I had to supply it to him. 

“Red thread,” I said. To which, he nodded again. 

Autism was the red thread with which to explain every action I ever took in the last 48 years of my life. The unexplained outbursts and selective focus and inability to deal with people, all of it, explained away by that one cruel word, autism.

The red thread that linked the hardships I had been carrying for over a year now, the career halt, the obsession with watches, the failed relationships, all of it. Autism. 

“You will of course need time to process,” he pointed out. Was there a crack in his voice? I noticed the slightest of stutters. “But if you do come back, we can then run some tests. You are a high-functioning autistic so you should be in the borderlines of the spectrum. But there’s no mistaking it.”

Then he said something else. “You’ve been vilifying yourself too much. This explains some of your actions.”

Does a single word exonerate my past sins? It wasn’t really my fault. I have autism, see? I don’t know how to react to things properly.

I have yet to fully process all of this and yet to decide whether I would return to find out what flavor of autistic I am. What if I have Asperger Syndrome? Do I really need to know? Do I want to know? What am I supposed to do with that information? My mind started coming up with examples in my past that could be explained by that singularly cruel word. It has me questioning everything about my life. So, this is why I did this. This is why I did that. It all made sense, somehow. 

You’re here for watches. So let’s talk about watches.

I had always thought that I collected watches wrong somehow. Yes, they say that there are no wrong ways to build up a collection. But they–whoever they are–always say these things and none of the things they say made any sense to me. I never followed anyone’s pattern, only the beat of my own drum. I always thought that was because I should form my own thoughts. As it turned out, maybe I was just autistic.

Let’s see. When I find something I like, I tend to repeat it rather obsessively. The meal I ate yesterday was good so let me have that again. I like a particular style of watch? I want seconds please.

Case in point: A few weeks ago I bought a 1959 Rolex Oysterdate with a black dial. It was 30.5mm in case diameter, a manual wind. This weekend I just got a 1967 Tudor Oyster Small Rose with a black dial, manual wind. There are dissimilarities. The Tudor is 34mm and lacking a date. The more pedantic watch collector might say, “they’re not the same.” But they are. To anyone looking at them casually, they’re very similar, even the aftermarket straps they came with when I got them. To differentiate them a bit, I put the Rolex on a mesh.

Why did I get the Tudor? What “space” could it fill that the Rolex possibly couldn’t? Was this autism at play–the involuntary need for repetition, the embrace of comfort, and aversion to change?–or was it just a case of me sticking to something that pleases, you know, like a normal human being?

I have four gold rectangular watches with the almost the same dimensions, same color straps. Brown seems to tickle my fancy. I’ve got three Seamasters. Two PRX-looking integrated bracelet watches, including an actual PRX and one that was actually made in the 70s. Multiple dress watches that were interchangeable. No field watches. No pilots. Six Omega, four Longines, two JLC, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I’m not flexing. I’m establishing pattern. Repetitive, focused while wearing horse blinders, inability to try something new. All textbook symptoms of autism. And there I thought I just knew what I wanted. I thought I was just being an individual with my own thoughts and taste. Maybe a bit obsessive, sure, but your average garden-variety passion. Was it all just autism? What about my own preferences outside the neurological compulsion to repeat myself? Where does mental disorder stops and my real self begins?

I’ve got… I guess you can call them issues. I just call it living. I never really thought about where the outbursts come from or the inability to understand other people’s very specific perspectives on things–trivial or otherwise–or the emotional stagnation. I just thought these were developed over decades of a flowing and dancing life. The unbearable lightness and the harsh truth. Ennui was a state that everyone fall into from time to time. Now, all of that is just… autism?

Does it really exonerate my sins, all my sins, my anger-addled youth, all the failed connections, all the hate, disappointments and frustrations? The red thread the connects all things me, including the watches I acquired as an extension of how I perceive the material world and how it sees me.

In Douglas Adams’s novel, Mostly Harmless–book five in the highly inaccurate trilogy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novels–the main character, Arthur Dent, had a watch that was gifted to him by his godfather (I think). It has a day-date and moonphase complication, which was totally useless. The watch worked. It’s just that when the Earth got destroyed by the Vogons to make way for a hyperspace bypass, the watch had no real purpose anymore. In space, the hours, minutes, seconds did not make any sense. The planets Dent found himself adventuring in never had 24 hours. The moon or moons, if the planet had them at all, most likely didn’t cycle in 29 days. Totally useless, as Arthur Dent’s daughter pointed out in the book. But Dent kept the watch and wound it every time it stopped and it told a time that only made sense to a singular creature in the entire universe. Melancholic, poetic, and downright depressing to think about. I sometimes feel like that watch, ticking my own tocks to a rhythm that didn’t make sense except to me. I thought I was just being me.

When I visited my vintage girl and her lovey-dovey girl to get the Tudor Small Rose, I told them that I was most likely autistic. They burst out laughing. Like this was the funniest shit they’ve ever heard. I laughed with them. Afterwards, they started teasing each other by insisting the other person is also most likely autistic. They laughed because my behavior had always been, I guess, textbook. I told my 18-year old daughter the same. Not only did she too laugh, she air fist-bumped.

She screamed, “I knew it! I knew it!” Textbook.

I did not expect laughter. But I thought this was the perfect way to deal with such news, at least with me. If I were 7 years old, being pre-diagnosed with autism would’ve been serious news. The family would have to gather together, they would have to pat me on the back, give me a hug, offer patronizing, meaningless platitudes. They would have to take all of it in earnest. But what do you do when you find out a middle-aged man is autistic? You shake your head, laugh, and say, “I knew it.” I mean, how does this change anything for me, really? What am I supposed to do with this information?

I’ll tell you what I don’t want. I don’t pity or sadness or intense politeness. Life has a wicked sense of humor that’s almost blasphemous. So laugh with me because I find it hilarious.

So.. what’s next? Do I stop collecting, at least for awhile? How do I know that I’m collecting for the joy of collecting and not giving into the elves frolicking in my brain? And what about the lack of control over my own destiny? Self-determination had always been important to me. Now, what do I have?

I don’t actually know how to conclude this post. There are no answers, just more questions. So I’ll just end it here. One last thought: Do I at least like the Tudor? The Small Rose is gorgeous and worth keeping. For now.