Muxworthy's Musings

T he first part of this is going to be a bit obvious for a lot of people. Put quite simply autistics deal very much in truth and facts and can on occasion hang onto them like a dog with a bone. On occasion we don’t so much speak the truth in love, but in way that leaves people shell-shocked. For instance before I realised that things sounded better in my head and should remain there unspoken things like this used to happen: Teacher: King Herod was a very nasty man. Me (age 5): He was so horrible I would have piddled all over him miss! I spent the rest of the lesson standing in the corner. So as you can imagine the whole thing about ‘taming the tongue’ in James 3 is especially difficult for autistics. That is not to say I should use this as an excuse for just blurting out the first thing that comes into my head as I see it as a fact. It was only after more than my fair share of arguments, awkward silences and the benefits of a very forgiving and loving wife do I have to think ...

Some of you may have noticed by now, but through these series of blogs I am trying to work through the attributes I listed when I began this. I have to admit that as I have gone on the more difficult I have found it. This is because I have had to take a good long look at myself and as Oliver Cromwell would say ‘Warts and all’ and come to some sort of conclusion about myself. So here is one of the many paradoxes in my life and that is the fact that I can usually clam up in a group environment but have no problem standing up the front and speaking. It has been quite a source of discomfort for me personally when in a meeting at work, church or in a group of more than four people I can clam up completely. The only conclusions I can draw from this is:   1.       I adopt this ‘silent’ mode simply because I am trying to process all the inputs from the other people and come to some sort of conclusion of my own. 2.       I grew up in...

In a lot of ways this follows on from the last blog and for me was beautifully summed up in a sentence I read in a book about Asperger’s. What follows might appear as immodest as it is funny: ‘If it wasn’t for aspies the human race would be still sitting around having a meeting discussing the principles of the wheel rather than making it.’ I am not going to launch into a great discourse of inventors and innovators throughout history who were possibly autistic. Frankly there has been enough conjecture on the internet without me pitching in! All I can speak of is my experience as a child of God with autism. We as autistics tend to be original/creative thinkers in some shape or form, I know of artists, computer programmers who have autism and are very gifted in these areas. My particular area of creativity had been in the technical design of buildings which nearly always meant coming up with a new way of putting something together – on one project I had to design how a wall made of ...

For me this is where it starts getting difficult to write without sounding like a big-head as I deal with the next subject, which is ‘Insight’ I worked with a man called Haydn Dennis from Swansea who was not only responsible for training me in the field of architecture but more importantly he led me to Christ. One day we had a window cleaner come into the office bringing with him the triangular ladder he used and Haydn asked him why this tool of the trade was shaped in such a way? The answer was that it allowed him to rest the ladder firmly on the mullion of the window in order to clean it. After this conversation Haydn passed on the following nugget of wisdom to me ‘Treat everything as if it is the first time you have seen it.’ This simple principle has helped me in so many ways, both in my day to day work but more importantly when reading scripture. Of course this is totally dependent on me actually not being in too much of a rush to remember it in the first place. That I beli...

In the first part of this series I listed what are for me the positives of Asperger’s Syndrome. I am all too aware of how the negatives affect me (and others). Each day I have to make the conscious decision to live out the positives, sometimes I am successful, sometimes I am not. However, writing all this has given me the opportunity to revisit again and again the following verse and make sure I apply it to my day to day living: Philippians 4v8: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy— think about such things. I’d be the first to admit that my brain is wired in such a way as I can recall all sorts of things, which is something that has left more than one person (usually my wife) gaping in amazement, even stuff I have no interest whatsoever in, for instance football. Although it is not so much Sherlock’s Mind Palace but Jason’s Brain Shed...

With hindsight and all the advances in neuroscience you might have already asked the question why wasn’t this picked up when I was younger? Well, it was and it wasn’t, in old fashioned parlance I could have been described as a ‘problem child’ and back then tragically the panacea for such ills was a jolly good hiding. Thank God we have moved on since then! I realised very early on (around the age of five) that even though we are all different I certainly was more different than most and I certainly couldn’t understand why everyone else didn’t see the world like I did. I was well used to being described as odd, weird, peculiar etc. and there was one incident in my teenage years summed this up. We were in a physics lesson (with thankfully a great teacher) and he was explaining the meaning of the word ‘anomaly’ and it went something like this: Teacher: An anomaly is something that is in a group but not part of it because it is different. Let me explain: Take Muxworthy here (pointing a...

First of all I would like to thank Lady Gaga for the title of this blog.  As a result you may be reading this with a deal of trepidation as to what might be coming next.  Some of you might already know what I am about to reveal about myself, either because I told you or you have worked it out.  Also for those of you who have read my previous blogs any preconceived idea of me might be about to be turned on its head.  I’m Autistic – there it is, out in the open.   To be precise I have what is more commonly known as Asperger’s Syndrome, sometimes referred to as being an ‘Aspie’.   So first let me start with some personal myth busting:  ·        I am not like Rainman – He was an Autistic Savant. ·        I did not ‘catch’ Autism, it is something you are born with. ·        I am not mentally defective or intellectually sub-normal – far from it! ·   ...