Lynne Soraya works for a Fortune 500 company in the Midwest, where she has learned to harness her unique mix of aspie talents to build a successful career. In her spare time, she blogs for Psychology Today magazine, as well as very sporadically at her personal blog “The Aspie Life” (http://aspielife.blogspot.com/).
What is the value of a story? I’ve written nearly all of my life…but, for many years, it remained a private thing, a tool to work through my more difficult problems. Almost a decade ago, I found myself facing one of the most challenging periods of my life. I discovered that I had Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum.The first thing I did was read – anything I could get my hands on. Then, as I always have done when faced with an issue to work out, I wrote. What I found was that the acknowledgement of the Asperger’s label filled in a gap in the story of my life, which I had never been able to explain. It tied up loose ends. It made the picture of my life whole.
What I found along this journey, was that other people’s stories held vital clues for me to make sense of my own. And as I explored my own experiences, I began to wonder…if others’ stories were so valuable to me, was it possible that others might be helped by my story? This was how my blog began…first at “The Aspie Life” on Blogger then at “Asperger’s Diary” on Psychology Today.
The aim of my writing is to use stories, mine and others’, to build awareness and help others like me. It is my hope that the stories, information, and resources I share will help the world at large to learn that while life on the spectrum can be a difficult at times, it can be a rich and valuable life.
Those on the autism spectrum have a great deal to offer the world – the challenge is to harness their strengths, and work with their differences. Tolerance and understanding is key. Ability comes in all configurations.
