My Experiences with Neuroatypicality

These days, I read a lot in the media about neuroatypicality, ADHD, and autism. These topics have been discussed since around 2008. I remember this so clearly because back then I published an article in my magazine Hugi about schizoid personality disorder and received feedback that many members of the computer art demo scene didn’t have a personality disorder, but rather a form of autism that exhibits similar symptoms.

It could also be that it just seems to me that these topics come up often in the media because I live in a bubble. But the incident I want to write about here took place in 2004, at a time when neuroatypicality wasn’t yet a common term.

At the time, I was working as a medical student in the Department of Hematology and Oncology at Vienna General Hospital. During the summer break, I had gotten into the habit of going to bed late because I spent a lot of time reading Wikipedia, which was still fairly new back then. As a result, I was sleep-deprived when a chief’s rounds took place on the second day of my clinical rotation. After the rounds, one of the senior physicians approached me: “Are you slow?” I explained that I hadn’t slept much, and was sent home with instructions to catch up on my sleep. The next morning, the senior resident asked me to review the medical records of the patients on his ward. I memorized them and passed the subsequent exam with flying colors—his exact words: “That wasn’t so bad!”

The next day, I had a clarifying conversation with the psychologist I had been referred to. She began the conversation by asking, “Has anyone ever told you that you’re ‘different’?” My colleagues had the impression that I was struggling with my work. They had also noticed that I sometimes moved in a stereotypical manner. After I had talked about my IQ test results and my excellent academic performance, the psychologist responded positively and said she would do her best to ensure that I could complete my clinical internship. That’s exactly what happened—though until the very end, I was barred from performing certain tasks that were sensitive and that they didn’t want to entrust to a student they didn’t trust.

From today’s perspective, it is very likely that I have a mild form of neuroatypicality or autism, which manifests itself, among other things, in the fact that I think a great deal about all sorts of things and am only subconsciously aware of what is happening around me. The repetitive movements also fit this pattern. At the time, however, even experts were not very familiar with this diagnosis.

This raises the question: Should medical professionals fit a certain personality type, or are different types—including people on the autism spectrum—suitable for this profession? And: Why do we generally and automatically associate being different with lower ability or intellectual disability (which is why I was assigned the task of studying the medical records)? In this regard, it is not only those with neuroatypical conditions who are expected to conform to society’s expectations, but society itself that needs to become a little more tolerant!

When I was working as a resident in 2014, I was also sent to see a psychologist. His job was to come up with a diagnosis, at the request of the chief of staff—who didn’t like me—so that he could declare me unfit for the medical profession. I didn’t make it easy for him, and as far as I know, he ultimately wasn’t able to come up with a diagnosis. My employment contract was simply not renewed on the grounds that I was not suited for the medical profession because I was "clumsy and socially awkward."

Claus D. Volko