SEX, DRUGS, AND ASPERGER'S SYNDROME

There are many world-renowned autism experts. Their research has greatly improved public understanding. But before using the term neurodiversity was chic, only a of handful of writers, artists and filmmakers were working to move public attention away from The Label to The Person.  SCOTTY HOLMAN was part of that new wave. A poised and articulate writer who could connect autism, homosexuality and drug addiction in a single story, usually told from a personal perspective.

There was an audience ready to listen. Within 2 years of his diagnosis at age 25, Scotty had written 40 articles for print and digital magazines.  I read everything Scotty had written on social media and in publications like ForbesOnline.   His style quick and engaging; His perspective frank and fresh. Of course I can be who I choose to be.  These qualities endeared Scotty to members of diverse communities. But he also spoke for his generation and might have become the modern JACK KEROUAC for the socially conscious 2010's.

People born before the X Generation were still new to the Internet.  Sure, information was out there., Some of it was good; Most was bad.   But it was like background noise.  Advocates couldn't get their questions answered.   Our goal in creating AutismBrainstorm.org. was to establish authoritative, information hub connecting autistic people, parents and educators directly with the experts who could help.    

 In 2012, I hired Scotty to be artistic director for our site.  I loved his writing voice.  He smart, quick, and lovably sarcastic.  A Trifecta in The Arts.  

I had been working on a concept for a novel about autism and decided I needed him to write it.   My concept; his execution.  An alien wakes up on a deserted beach, clueless about who he is or why he is there. What ensues is a personal journey toward self-understanding unfolds.   In order to understand earthlings, our hero must understand what it is to human emotion.  The more he learns, the more human he becomes.

It was the story of Pinocchio updated as well as a metaphor for Scotty's own transformation.

His first book tour would be include a speaking tour of the college circuit. He was going to be phenomenal.  It was going to change his life for the better. But it didn't. Scotty overdosed three years after his first arrest.

Scotty and I were on the phone discussing our book when the police entered his home and arrested him... the first time.

His father had him arrested for breaking an order of NO CONTACT. The night before, Scotty had been at a bar with his sister when she received a text from her father. He wanted to know where she was but she was in no shape to respond. Scotty stepped in and texted back for her. Once home, she confessed what had happened. 

The rest is a long story 

Scotty was stuck in a legal and. bureaucratic WHIRLPOOL for three years.  This is not an unusual outcome for special needs citizens who run afoul of the Law.  We assembled a multi-state legal defense team and support team.  On the team included a police officer, an autism expert, an attorney, a judge, a parole officer.  We raised some money for Scotty through sales of an " I AM AUTISTIC CALENDAR” that featured 12 of Scotty’s pithy observations.

Our goal was to get Scotty released and under the care of our management team.
 

Delays.  Time lines.  Time zones. We never succeeded.  During the first days of his incarceration Scotty suffered physically.   He was denied access to his prescribed medications.   He described the agony of his dystonia from withdrawing one of them from.  Was it true?  Or, was he addicted to Meth?  We'll never know.  

Scotty spent the next year drifting among his friends. Meanwhile plans for the book was going nowhere.  I managed to speak with Scotty on 2 occasions during his last stay in Osawatamie.   But he wrote with a floppy prison pen (no pun intended) on a yellow legal pad.  He was exploring ways to incorporate his prison experiences and the characters he met there into his book.

The following are excepted from the book we were collaborating on when he was arrested. 

  "A REAL BOY” by Scott Holman ...... An Intimate Inquiry into a Fragmented Psyche. After 40 years of secrecy, one woman reveals her multiple personalities and risks losing a lifelong friend. But how can her friend be lost… when she may not actually exist?

CHAPTER ONE: A ROOMFUL OF TEDDY BEARS (December 2012) 

Tanya was late. This was not a bit surprising. Put a paper bag over her head and the poor thing would likely require a GPS system to navigate her way out.  A 36 year-old, Gucci clad rag doll, her utter helplessness was instantly detectable. 

In public she resembled an unusually insecure peacock strutting through a group of elitist and exceptionally proud pigeons. Her hair was cut and dyed to resemble, as closely as possible, Marilyn Monroe’s. The hair, I’ll admit, warranted attention but her poor face was deeply scarred by years of severe cystic acne. I’ve seen photos of Andy Warhol, who suffered similar dermatological issues, posing for the camera in a blonde wig and white dress, his lips pouty, his eyes upturned… Warhol couldn’t quite pull off Marilyn but Tanya could certainly have been mistaken for Warhol impersonating the cinema queen. 

  To add insult to injury, she was insufferably unintelligent, evolutionarily unnecessary… You could see it on her, from the freshly cracking paint of last week’s pedicure; to her crooked, lip gloss sticky smile; to the bobbing and twitching cherry of her Marlboro Light. I’d known many people like her throughout my life.

Never skilled at forming lasting friendships, I tend, instead, to collect misfits, eccentrics, shameless bums… Always the black sheep of an otherwise proud lineage, they are harmless and hapless; most simply made a wrong turn on Easy Bake Oven Avenue and failed to retrace the roads leading back to their sanitary slice of life. 

Others struck off in search of open spaces and new ways of thinking; adventure or money; or perhaps merely a lifestyle guaranteed to piss off their parents. Eventually these fallen angels all meet in the same shadowy places, dazed, jilted and barefoot, limping along the cigarette butt littered fringes of society. I don’t know why I attract such a curious sideshow of comrades. I suppose it’s for the best, if not for them I wouldn’t attract much of anyone at all. 

  My name is Joseph McCloud…

Part 2 

Francine Upjohn did not immediately catch my attention. She was admitted to the Crisis Stabilization Unit, one of a number of units which make up the massive state psychiatric hospital in Osawatomie Kansas, several days after I arrived… or more accurately.. been involuntarily committed, following my suicide attempt. 

This was far from my first attempt and would probably not be my last. My life had become unstable… chaotic. Depression and anxiety ruled my every waking moment. As recently as a year ago when at the age of 25 I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, few ever noticed let alone commented on the unusual behaviors I occasionally displayed. I had learned to cope... sort of. Without support, my life became utterly unmanageable reduced to an unending series of emergency rooms visits and psychiatric hospitalizations." 

Scotty's video Educating Law Enforcement; I'm Not On PCP has been used by many police departments to promote autism awareness.  It might have helped more. His words might have encouraged more people to self-advocate.  He might have been  successful and lived a long, rewarding life.  

But he didn't.