James Collier:  

***UPDATED 11/28/23*** Hi, thanks for checking up! Some say life's a journey, not a destination. Which is true for some. For others, it's what happens while you've made other plans. In a nutshell, in the past 30 years, I've worked retail, customer service, food delivery, run my own taxi and courier service, even driven big rigs, totaling over 1.5M miles all told. I've seen more of the continental US in five years than most will see in a lifetime. I’ve saved some lives being in the right place at the right time, but I’ve also seen things I wish I hadn’t seen. I’ve even had someone special whisked away by her career opportunities before I could propose. No one has really seemed to ‘get’ me since. Maybe one day. But these past ten years in particular have brought clarity to this rough ride. Apparent unknown breathing issues date back to an early age. From my 20s on, they got progressively worse, making the world a gas chamber to me until I was sick whenever on the road. For years, a persistent cough gave the illusion I was a smoker, when I was not. In 2017, even though trucking was a great fit for me and I enjoyed it, doctors ordered me to give it up. After trying all manner of things, doctors gave it a name in January 2023 – incurable Paradoxical Vocal Fold Motion / Irritable Larynx Syndrome. Even minor exertion gets me winded, and I collapsed two minutes into a stress test. Experimentation has revealed that ingredients in some favorite beverages and foods, and ironically, even most cough drops, actually agitate the cough. Avoiding these has helped to mitigate it to a minimum, but I still have to wear masks when outdoors. But that’s not all. In the midst of this, April 2022, I was also diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, with related sensory issues. While these disorders qualify me for disability, I want my life back, even if it was never going to be what I wanted it to be, much less perfect. Unfortunate backstory. Records from a 1980 Kluge Children’s Rehab assessment show multiple therapists’ reports noting various autistic traits, even stating verbatim “high risk for learning disability”. Apart from a half-hearted, “He’s a little slow, but he’ll grow out of it” (a common BS myth), a conscious decision was made not to tell my folks. Hence I was cleared for public schools that were ill-equipped for my needs, subject to bullying, shaming and other abuse, some by staff. I was presumed lazy and defiant, but everything that prompted these things was autism-related. Misdiagnosis and projected ableism made it impossible to accept my limitations and learn to work within them, veritably trying to make my way in the world with both hands tied behind my back. I won’t lie, knowing I was willfully misdiagnosed and what I’ve been through as a result has made my head WW3 for about a year. But more recently, I was reminded that I’ve done pretty damned well in spite of it all. While my journey has been a bumpy road, I’ve accomplished quite a bit. My travels quite often put me in the right place at the right time to keep others from harm, and such things help me to be grateful to have done these things while I still could. In addition... I’ve written a crime / law / mystery novel, “Lucky Number Thirteen”, as Colyer Jameson, e-published on Kindle, inspired by a fare burning me with counterfeit early in my taxi career. I planned and started two sequels, but worsening autism-related focus and retention issues make it unlikely they’ll be finished. I also discovered I could sing through a drunken karaoke encounter in the late 90s. This led to recording / producing my own original songs, using the ominously prophetic name Allergic To Air (AllergicToAirMusic on YT). Obviously the cough and other issues have hindered further fruition of that as well. I also came to realize that in my trucking career, that I was unwittingly using GPS technology to help counter ASD before I was even diagnosed. Being reminded of these things has helped me in various ways. A major one is to realize that others’ impatience with me made it difficult, if not impossible to learn to work within my limitations and find ways to counter my autistic traits to help me function better, because it made me impatient with myself. And while it’s taken time to unlearn that, I’m in a lot better place than I was a year or two ago. My life is still far from perfect, and never will be, but I’ve made improvement, and some things are no longer a problem. Other inspiration came from songs and movie quotes. Denzel Washington’s “Progress, not perfection” from The Equalizer was a major one. Sean Bean’s “sometimes we just have to step back, see if the solution to our problem lies outside the box” from Death Race 2 was another. But the most profound was Robert C. Treveiler’s explanation of his autistic son’s plight to him. “You think, if you don’t fight back, that maybe they’ll like ya. Stop pickin’ on ya, calling ya ‘freak’. Well, here’s what it is. They don’t LIKE ya. They don’t DISLIKE ya. They’re AFRAID of ya. You’re DIFFERENT. And sooner or later, different scares people.” Some may disagree, but it’s the truth, and that needs to change. Those with ASD and SPD are often treated like lepers, and it’s due to sheer ignorance and blind fear. Whoever said “no man is an island” knew nothing of these disorders. The referenced film, “The Accountant” (2016, Ben Affleck / Anna Kendrick), and the short-lived streaming series “As We See It”, are a good glimpse of what ASD and SPD are like, and the effects of ablesim. So what IS it like to live with ASD and SPD? Well, that varies. I know that’s not much of an answer, but it’s the truth. They affect different people in different ways. And we all see it differently as well. Some of us think of it as a superpower, others a curse. It’s even been termed “a different ability, not a disability”, though I’m not sure I agree with that one 100% in all cases. Quite simply, there is no template. If you know one person with ASD, you know ONE person with ASD. You can’t know them all. It’s simply...Expand for more