Me and my Vulcan

Hi there! I decided to create this special section in my blog: “me and my Vulcan”. I first created a mixed media art painting to represent us, though I might use cartoonish style next time. I am the earthling here, and he is my Vulcan. So, what is this about?

We are a couple of trekkies. Deep down our bones. And, believe it or not, I am the earthling (neurotypical) and he is the Vulcan (autistic). We discovered that he was so some months ago! So yup, he was diagnosed with HFA in adulthood. I’ve decided to share our experiences about this topic here with you, and create art and cartoons with what we feel is important. Well, what I feel is important, and what he might think it is. Because, as you will discover neurotypical are more about feeling this or that and being highly “illogical”, and high-functioning autism is more about “logic”. So here we are: an illogical earthling and a logical Vulcan, together.

He has a high IQ, is really quick, pure logical, very tidy and can talk to you endlessly. He sees everything in pictures, and I am the one who “overloads” him. I am highly emotional, but I am logical too. I love collecting decks, drawing, and getting piggy with my art supplies. I speak several languages and I love learning more. (If you are a fan of Star Trek, and you saw the latest movies, you know a couple that does resemble those specifications LOL )

The main difference is how our brains are wired. Mine is wired in a way, and his in another way. Most people are wired like me: we are emotional, illogic and we do “weird things” sometimes. His is wired in a different way making of him highly logical, as Spock in the original Star Trek series. To get it please take a look to this graphic.

On the left (pink area) we get the neurotypicals (till the right side of the black line). I am more in the center, since I apply almost as much feelings as logic. However, to put you an example, his daddy is at the far top right, making of him a pure feeling being. My Vulcan, however, is located at the far end of the left side, the autistic side. He is not Aspergers, (even though there is a lot of discussions about the differences between HFA and Aspergers) he is completely autistic and has an systematic brain. It means that his amygdala is reacting when it should not (among other things that a doctor will tell you better than I do).

In short, how he sees the world, and feels it, it is different as I do. It is easy for me to understand when someone is happy or sad, or has an attack behavior. For him this is difficult. He does not understand human emotions. And when he thinks, he’s amazing! He stores into his mind images and not ideas. When he thinks about the word “dog”, pics of all the dogs he’s seen till now appear at light speed. When I think about the word “dog”, I sense the idea of dog. His mind words as Temple Grandin‘s does. So he is a visual thinker. To get the picture, see this movie (I couldn’t understand what he meant when he tried to explain to me how he thinks till we were referred to this movie and I saw what Temple does. He literally said, while watching it: I do that! Exactly that! Can you understand me now?):

Unlike Temple, he is hard to catch. There is nothing that suggests he is autistic, but he is. That is why he’s been diagnosed when an adult. Even though when he was a kid, he could have been diagnosed, luck or fate kept him in the shadows, surviving along the way till now. There is nothing to suggest he is. You need to pay attention to small details, or live with him. Otherwise, you won’t notice anything.

When we found out that he was a Vulcan a whole new world appeared in front of our eyes, and many things fell into place for both of us. We connected the dots and realized that, if we had known before things would have been easier. However, we also discovered that we had reached a balance alone. This journey, how we discovered it, and how I approached it as his couple, is amazing. We thought that sharing it would help other couples that might encounter similar situations (or be in the same situation).

This is a section to learn about it with a smile on the face. That is why “me and my Vulcan” invites you to discover something new while learning how to heal or cope when you feel not-so-good (if you are the neurotypical). My Vulcan will have pointed ears in the blog, so that he’ll be easy to spot. I hope you join our journey 🙂

LLAP

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