When I was a kid, I was obsessed with reading. I would read anything. From literature to encyclopaedias, dictionaries, magazines, anything I could get my hands on I would read. Anything with letters. I was obsessed with reading signs and posters I saw on the streets, the names on the shops, everything and anything. Even now whenever I get out I have to, HAVE TO, read everything I see. If I see a poster or a shop name or anything, I will stop and read it. I try to stop myself from doing it if I am in a hurry, but it's often compulsive. I have to do it. I remember how upset I was feeling shortly I had learned to read and I realised that I couldn't read all the shops' names because they were in English and I hadn't learned the English alphabet yet, only the greek one. I remember how motivated I was because of it to learn English and be good at them. I was only six at the time...
Ever since, I devoured everything I could get my hands on. This continued all throughout primary school and stopped when I hit adolescence. By that time I had read everything we had in the house (most books at least twice), which is a major achievement, as I was the child of two bookworms and EVERY room in my house had to have a bookcase. We even have a basement filled with books. As long as this stopped, I stopped reading. Books I mean. But I never stopped learning. I was really into the school knowledge, I loved learning the school subjects, maths, physics, geography, chemistry (oh, chemistry was one of my favourites!), ancient Greek, history, everything. I also did after-school lessons in some school subjects, in English and French (many greek kids do). My parents had sent me to music lessons since I was six (that's another blog post I plan to do) and they also sent me to computer lessons as a teen on top of everything else. We learned basic computer programming there which I looooved and I was told that I was really good at.
Knowledge became a pain in the a** when it became compulsory. National exams. Preparation for the national exams. This was not something I enjoyed. I wanted to learn because I WANTED to, not because I HAD to. Tell me that I HAVE to do something and I'll do the exact opposite, even now. It was also the time when my anxiety and depression kicked in and occupied a major part of my brain, so there wasn't as much space for knowledge as before... Then I went into university and for my four years as an undergrad the same pattern continued. I craved knowledge, from many different sources, but only on the things that I liked and found interesting. I found autism interesting. Autism became an obsession, I wanted to know everything I could about it. So did neuroscience. I was always the annoying kid on the front row that would ask a ton of questions to the lecturer and make everyone else wonder when I'll shut up or be satisfied with the answer. I rarely was. I stopped asking when I was told to and I often went to the lecturer after the lecture ended with my next question. I followed the lecturer to their office, asking more questions. It had never occured to me that I was being a bother or I was annoying to them and frankly, even if I was told that I am I wouldn't really care. I just wanted to know. If they pointed me to a book, I had to get it and read it straight away. And I would have made so much more of my time there if I wasn't that obsessed with trying to socialise and fit in...
Even socialising though I approached from a scientific point of view. I tried to learn people through books, since it was impossible for me to learn them through social interaction. I had to study them. I soon moved away from reading about them and started to observe them, which I realised was an excellent form of obtaining information and making sense of the world. I am so lucky that my job is so largely based on observing people (you have to first and foremost observe a child on the spectrum to learn what is troubling them and why) and learning to do that with people in my life in general was a really important skill that I then transfered to my job.
After I finished university, I realised that I had completed all the necessary steps of knowledge and I panicked. As far as I knew, there wasn't a protocol for obtaining structured knowledge anymore. I was left alone in the world and the time had come where socialising and being aroung people should take more of my time and sitting alone and studying should take less and less (or at least that's how it seemed to me at the time). I freaked out. What sort of deal was that? How was I gonna live like this? I didn't want to. I was desperate to find ways to continue learning. Continue providing my brain with information. Diving into my work and overwhelming myself with work obligations was one of the ways I found to do that. In a country where unemployment for people of my age was as high as 80%, I managed to work close to 12 hours a day. It was exhausting (particularly the socialising bits of it), but oh so satisfying... I learned to learn people. To guide people. To help people become a better version of themselves. I learned so many things...
I was missing/craving structured learning however. I continued my French which gave me a taste of it, but it just wasn't enough for me. I decided to move abroad and do a master's degree. Which I managed to do, thankfully, so I spent all last year doing that and stuffing my head with more knowledge on top of my knowledge. During my master's, my intellectual bulimia became "worse". I had to read all, or most, articles related to my assignment topic in order to do my assigments. I had to read as many library books as I could. People had to tell me to actually stop reading, because I could be doing it forever. That's when my mum introduced me to this term. "You have intellectual bulimia", she told me during one of our Skype calls. "You cannot stop learning. You have to know everything about the things that you are interested in. It's a good trait, as long as you keep it under control and it doesn't overwhelm you".
I love this term. I wish it was a real condition, so that I could diagnose myself with it. I do have intellectual bulimia and an overwhelming need to know everything about the things that I am interested in. I don't think that I will ever want to stop learning. Once my masters finished (which has been less than a month during which my hands were something more than full), I started becoming agitated again. What will I do now? What will I learn this year? I have moved into employment and I will do my best in that area, but, in a way, it doesn't look as challenging for me anymore. I love it, but I know how to do it. I have strategies in my head to put in place the moment I start working with a new person with autism/special needs. I love doing it and my brain feels really satisfied while doing it, but what about the rest of the time?
I decided to start learning Japanese. I always wanted to but never had the time. I want to finally do it once I sort out my finances. I want to continue my French. Once I succeed in getting my proficiency degree in French, I want to start learning Spanish (alongside Japanese). Once I am done with Japanese Korean will come. Then Mandarin. Once I am done with Spanish, I want to learn Italian. Then either German, Russian or Arabic. I will continue to a PhD next September, so that should also satisfy my knowledge cravings for a while... I also want to do a conversion course in psychology (which is one year) and then a master's program to become a clinical psychologist. After I am done with languages (which won't be for another ten years or so from the looks of it, haha) I want to get into music and instruments. And overall by the time I die I want to know as many things as possible. I now know that if I don't do that, my brain is going to go crazy.
Is this an autism thing? I think it is. I know many other aspies/auties who have the same need, the need to always learn something. I think that for us is so much easier to make sense of the world from a learner's position, through the structure of an education program or a book. It's safe, interesting and serial, which is how we learn. It's so much better from the chaos of the social world, which is incomprehensible to us, too stimulating and too hard to process with stimuli coming from every which direction. We are amazing learners most of us, given that our interests are cultivated and the learning environment is one that suits our individual learning style. And eventually all this knowledge helps us put the puzzle pieces together and start seeing the big picture. This is the autistic way to knowledge, I think. It doesn't have to be bulimic, like it is in my case, but this is how I think it should be structured, more or less.
I would love to know what other aspies and auties think about it, but many peoples' stories came to mind while I was writing this...
