Editor's note: This is the second segment of a two-part guest column written by an area lawyer with Asperger's syndrome. The first part of the column ran Monday, June 23.

All the physical and social awkwardness associated with Asperger's syndrome can be deadly in certain types of work situations. I probably could not have picked a worse working environment than the "big firm" milieu. I am not smooth in any sense of the word. I don't understand ego and social hierarchies. I have learned that I cannot work in a big firm, since I do not pander to an overblown ego. Apparently, this is not a winning attitude in big firms with egos of corresponding size. Yeah, I said all that. This is me: Aspie Uncensored. I see my husband cringe when he reads this, but why stating my opinion is wrong, I still do not understand.

This is also why "Aspies" are often labeled as arrogant. I am not arrogant. I say what I think; I expect you to do the same. Someone who is neurotypical - an NT - can think I am arrogant, but it does not mean I am. I have very little ego in the sense that it has to be fed by others and their pandering. I want to come in, do my best work, and leave. I respect my supervisors' greater experience, but can they not respect my intelligence and ideas, or at least teach me why their position is better so I grow as an attorney? Because I am an Aspie and do not know that I am not supposed to, I will question your every directive. Why are my questions perceived as challenging authority instead of as a quest for understanding? How else can I learn? In academics, the one place where I have had great success, questioning is not offensive, but encouraged.

I still remember my very first court appearance, as I am sure all attorneys do. Mine was not one of those fly-under-the-radar moments. The mission in any associate's very first court appearance is, to quote a "Saturday Night Live" skit, "Get in, get out, and nobody gets hurt." That was definitely not my experience. When an Aspie is involved, it usually is not.

I was arguing a motion to compel against a well-regarded and experienced trusts-and-estates attorney in Surrogate's Court in another county. He was trying to take advantage of my inexperience and parlay that into a decision for his client. The judge asked me a question, and I responded in depth based on my rather extensive knowledge. The opposing attorney claimed a knowledge superior to my own. I can safely say that his limited exposure could in no way compete with my 20 years of education and multiple degrees in this antiquated academic area. I called him on it right there, in front of the judge, and corrected him with typical Aspie rigidity and Aspie affect, direct and harsh. The judge and the entire courtroom filled with movants had a good laugh. Only later on did I realize that it was the expense of this other attorney. The opposing attorney was sputtering in anger. The judge said, "Well, I guess she told you, didn't she?" Needless to say, my humiliation of him - accidentally, mind you - was not easily forgotten, and did not make the other side well-disposed to me at settlement time. Furthermore, I probably can count out a lateral move to his firm.

Interpersonal perils

I appear to lack understanding, empathy, or sensitivity to others' feelings. Most people know how to react to a conversation about a miscarriage. Not me. My neuropsychologist calls this "ego-centric perspective." I personally resent this, and think it illustrates how ego-centric NTs are. Only NTs assume that because I am not thinking about or intuitively understanding their feelings, that I must be only concerned with my own. I am not ego-centric; I usually cannot be bothered.

Because Aspies are rigid, rule-oriented and obsessive, we are very task-oriented and do not let our emotions get in the way. Other people's emotions are irrelevant too. Recently someone said to me, "You know what I like about you? You aren't afraid to say exactly what you are thinking, and don't give a (expletive) what someone thinks." My first thought was, "Gee, I thought I was doing a good job of controlling that." While it is true that I don't really care, I do, for the sake of ease in this world, try to bite my tongue. My husband knows that only about 10 percent of my thoughts escape my mouth; the other 90 percent rush out in a decompression hour at home, during which he listens, patiently advises and has a good laugh. Only those whom I can trust are privy to the decompression period.

Then there is the literalism. It is an interesting thing. I understand analogy, simile and metaphor, but that is because I learned the rules of them in a literary context. I can and do use them in writing and planned speech. The figurative vernacular speech used in social context is quite different. One experience illustrates better than any explanation the interaction of literalism and the awkward quality of my social interactions.

I call it the Rice Krispie incident. My husband and I were leaving a party, and I was collecting my dish with the left-over Rice Krispie treats in it. The hostess said, "Make sure I get one of those before you leave." I cut her a piece and noticed she was talking to someone. I didn't want to be rude and interrupt; I was taught that interrupting is rude, and I rigidly follow that rule. I stood there awkwardly, feeling myself hover but not knowing how to overcome it, and debated internally what I was supposed to do. I took the piece and, while she was talking to another guest, gently took her hand, placed the treat in it, and walked away. Phew, I thought. Got it. She just looked down at her hand with this huge chunk of cereal and gooey marshmallows in it, and laughed, "Only you would do that." She was right. Only I would do that.

This was not long after my diagnosis. My husband and I looked at each other. It was at that moment that what it meant to be an Aspie, or married to one, crystalized for both of us. My husband explained to me later why I shouldn't do that again.

It is exactly this sort of literalism that has caused me conflict at work. I will do exactly what my supervising attorney tells me to do. I write down the words as they are said to me; this is yet another compensation technique. I have to take notes because of one of the other Aspie traits: sensory overstimulation. I also repeat back my understanding of the assignment and frequently e-mail status updates or questions to compensate for this minefield. Many supervising attorneys do not respond, though, which undermines all my compensation techniques. Even though I view this as their fault/responsibility, because I am the associate, I get the blame.

When a supervising attorney changes his or her mind about the scope of an assignment, I tell that person without a thought to my future or how impolitic this may be, "That is not what you told me. I am happy to do a different, additional or expanded assignment, but this is what you told me to do - look, I wrote it down! Here are my notes; here are my e-mails." I am telling you how I perceive and understand things. An NT, especially an insecure NT attorney, hears in this approach insubordination and the challenge of authority. I know this because I have been told so. I also know this because attorneys are always so engaged in the adversarial process that many view most of their interactions as adversarial. Once someone sees what my adversarial looks like, they never mistake it for my general quest for comprehension.

If I get an assignment in writing, it will be executed exactly as ordered. I cannot judge what an NT "really" wants; I am overly literal and cannot read between the lines of an oral communication. We Aspies simply do not understand why NTs do not actually say what they mean. Why "the whole nine yards," for example? I mean, if you want to get a first down, you need 10 yards. Nine yards comes up short, so why is that meant to be the entire amount if you come up short? And if you have less than the actual goal, why would an NT use it to illustrate an amazing effort? Once I found out that originally a bolt of fabric was only nine yards, and buying the entire nine yards was an incredible investment, I then was able to understand the use of that phrase. I cannot use or understand phrases for which I do not understand the reason d'etre. Patently, I say what I mean.

Asperger's syndrome is easily characterized, in part, by the brain's inability to correctly perceive and process sensory information. Those non-verbal social cues? I do not process them correctly. Probably, in part, because my brain is too busy coping with all of the other sensory processing problems. Because my brain cannot filter and prioritize sensory stimuli, I have some unusual gifts (or curses). Four of my five senses are acute and extraordinarily perceptive instruments. I can perceive the saturation of color in minute degrees; patterns are mesmerizing for their very essences, visual spatial relations are challenging. Background and foreground noise are at the same volume to my ear. The hum of the lights, computer and HVAC system give me a headache, and the conversation at the table across the restaurant is rarely that interesting. I smell much more than I wish I did, and certain smells make me ill enough to wretch. My sense of taste, I think, has been relatively unaffected.

Touch, for me, is perhaps the worst. It is not uncommon for Aspies to have a very high pain tolerance and a low threshold for touching at all. The sense of touch does not just implicate the human touch, but everything that touches skin: fabrics, waistbands, shoes, hair implements, heat, cold, hard, soft, beauty products and chemicals. Then there is the texture of food. Many an Aspie will not eat foods merely because the texture of that food bothers them. I am one of those. There are foods that will never pass my lips and rarely see my table because their texture so sickens me.

This panoply of sensory stimulation without categorization or prioritization, along with my constant quest to figure out how to act, means that I can get terrible headaches. I try to reduce my sensory stimulation as much as I can to help reduce the physical stress my body undergoes daily. Yet, if I am in a law office with an open-door culture, my closed door can be problematic. If I sit with the lights off, well-meaning people will insist that they should be on. And while I think these subtle adjustments are meaningless, I have learned that there are many NTs who subscribe social meaning to these behaviors. It appears to be my bad luck that they are always my supervising attorneys, and my office is always next to the copy room, elevator or break room.

An explanation of the disability, relatively unknown in the general public, is incredibly difficult. It is one of the reasons I am writing this column. The other reason is that as this diagnosis becomes more common, NTs will find themselves having to interact with Aspies more often. Aspies do compensate, but NTs need to learn to accommodate to get the best out of an Aspie - and there is a best!

A verbal assignment given in a chaotic office means I may not be able to hear what you are saying because there is too much going on, and I will shut down. I request that all assignments be made via e-mail or memorandum, but not everyone will comply. Imagine living in a world where your brain does not filter out or prioritize the sensory information it receives. I am bombarded every moment of every day. It makes the world rich and beautiful and overwhelming, challenging and, at times, anxiety-ridden.

Sometimes to cope with the overload, an Aspie will engage in a stim, a self-stimulating activity for the purpose of self-comforting, or go into a total shutdown. When I am totally overwhelmed by my environment, I will start to count ceiling tiles, floor tiles, dots on the wall, figure out the repeat in a pattern or rock in place or engage in obsessive-compulsive behaviors. In a store where I am overwhelmed, I will sit down for a few minutes with my fingers in my ears. It helps quiet the assault. Apparently it bothers other people to see me with my fingers in my ears. Why does an NT care if I put my fingers in my ears to help filter out excessive sound? What is the difference between that and ear buds from an iPod?

Anxiety and depression are often co-morbid conditions to Asperger's syndrome. I live with anxiety because I know I will somehow commit some faux pas in your weird world and you will let me know that I am rude, arrogant, insubordinate, stupid or mean. Every morning, I would start my day at my big firms with the fear and anxiety of waiting to be yelled at, and literally not understanding what I did wrong.

I live in anticipation of the rejection that comes from "inappropriate behavior." Many people do not have the compassion to forgive my faux pas. I have lived with chronic depression because I have been rejected too often for being so different, and have been the target of people's cruelty. During middle school, I was stoned by the neighborhood kids. Other than the Bible and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," how many times have you heard about people literally being stoned? I have been misunderstood, intellectually, behaviorally and emotionally, my entire life.

Asperger's gifts

Despite this, I want no pity, just understanding, compassion and some patience. I ask not to be stoned, literally or figuratively. I view most of my challenges as gifts.

Instead of ego-centric, I am direct. Instead of obsessive, I am tenacious and diligent. Instead of disrespectful, I am honest and a straight shooter. Instead of arrogant and rude, I am not a sycophant. Instead of unempathetic, I am self-confident and always look to the future. Instead of overly literal, I am detail-oriented. Instead of overly stimulated, I am aware of subtlety. Instead of having a lack of judgment, I am fearless and brave. It is all a matter of perception - which goes to the very essence of Asperger's syndrome. Aspies and NTs perceive and process the same world differently.

I do not need to be "fixed" or "cured." I do wish the world were a bit more compassionate, understanding and patient. We would all benefit from that. I do like who I am. I live in a world that few have ever experienced in richness, enveloped in wonder. I read articles about pulling children "out of their world" and into the NT world, as if we are lonely. I am not lonely in my world, so long as I am not attacked in yours. NTs rarely appreciate that the world on the autism spectrum is not bad at all. In fact, I think it is NTs that miss out. And I will never get why who I am and what I do bothers so many NTs. Does it really matter that I am not just like everyone else?

What I need to be a good attorney is merely support and the right practice area. I need a mentor who says, "You should handle it this way because ..." Or someone who understands that what NTs find grating or offensive is intended as neither and that a little compassion goes a long way.

Patience with me means that you get a view of the world through my eyes, and it can be a wild, bumpy, fun ride. I know my weaknesses and strengths. I know that I should not negotiate. I am not, to quote a law professor's comment during a mediation contest, "warm and fuzzy." I am rigid in my positions once taken and zealous in my advocacy. I am a writer and a researcher and I am a very good oral advocate (social interaction is not required). I can just obsess on my subject. I make policy arguments, factual arguments and intellectual arguments with ease. I get frustrated with motion practice because so much of it is like the implicit social rules that I don't understand. Because of my obsession with patterns, I always view law in attempt to reconcile facts to patterns, patterns to law, and then law to policies. I spend my life attempting, with little success, to understand why NTs do what they do so that I can do it too. The quest for understanding is a skill that transfers to law and advocacy beautifully. My dream is to work either as a professor, a judge's clerk or an appellate advocate. A blissful workday for me consists of research and writing an appellate brief or memorandum of law. These are areas that maximize my gifts and minimize my weaknesses.

I do always wonder, though: Should I let people know that I have a disability? The disability is so subtle, without any obvious physical signs, especially when I am in control of my stims. My success as an Aspie is dependant on two things: 1.) my compensation techniques for my disability and 2.) your understanding the breadth of Asperger's syndrome's impact. There is a reason it is called a pervasive developmental disorder, after all.

Should I let judges know so that when I appear before them, if I have an uncontrolled Aspie moment, they understand that I am not being rude, contemptuous, or some other such obnoxious behavior? Would opponents take advantage of my disability? Would people be afraid to refer clients to me if they knew? How much should I out myself, and to whom? Even now, some close friends might recognize me in this story, and I ask them not to ‘out' me.

I tell my story to educate my colleagues and to aid in humanizing the people of a profession that the general public has often characterized as both inhumane and un-human.

This column was written by an attorney practicing in Western New York. Send any inquiries or replies to the author c/o adeckmiller@bizjournals.com.