Former Child, Still Autistic: Robert F. Kennedy Hasn’t Got a Clue

Talking recently about autistic kids, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said, “These are kids who will never pay taxes. They'll never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

As a former kid and still autistic, let me say that maybe he got the baseball part right, because I was a terrible baseball player. Fly balls put me into a panic, and pitched balls evaded my bat most of the time. 

But I played baseball. Two years of little league, and as few games of schoolyard ball as I could muster. 

He might be right about dating, too. Looking back I realize I dated about as well as I played baseball. I went on my first dates when I was twelve or thirteen, but I didn’t make a habit of it for quite a while. In fact, I never made a habit of it, except with my wife. 

Still, I remain proof that, just as a man with a brain worm can become Secretary of Health and Human Services, an autistic kid and man can date.

Mr. Kennedy might also be right about the “job” business. I’ve had a dozen or so jobs and excelled at most of them, but the truth is, autistic people like me often prefer to start businesses of our own and to be our own boss. 

That’s not “holding a job,” it’s being an entrepreneur—a “lil’Elon” if you will. 

(I won’t!)

I’ve never published poetry, but I’ve written lots of songs and a book. Do those count.

As for the toilet, I must say my biggest fear is reaching a point in life where I have to use a toilet assisted. But I guess if I do, I’ll keep calm and carry on. It happens to the best of us—even us autistic folk.

But where Mr. Kennedy really got it wrong is that business about never paying taxes. He must be mixing up regular autistic people with the autistic billionaires he hangs with today. Being something less than a billionaire myself, I can tell you I’ve paid lots of taxes! DOGE can confirm this. They have the data. 

Maybe they’ll give the money back now that they know I’m autistic and bad at baseball. Let’s call it an administrative error.

As the saying goes, if you’ve met one autistic person you’ve met one autistic person. We’re all different. We each face different challenges in this neurotypical world, and some of us face more than others. I’ve had it good.

But the biggest challenge most autistic people face is the ignorance and prejudice of people like Mr. Kennedy.

April is Autistic Awareness and Acceptance Month. Our Secretary of Health and Human Services hasn’t got a clue.

Peter O’Neil is an autistic attorney, husband, father, grandfather, musician, writer, and the author of My So-Called Disorder: Autism, Exploding Trucks, and the Big Daddy of Rock and Roll.

Retiring While Autistic

Someone on LinkedIn asked how people were doing in their autistic retirements. "Great!" I responded. After all, I had written a book and several articles, spoken several times about neurodiversity, played music in public, read a ton of books, traveled extensively in Italy, twice, and even learned to bumble along in cracked Italian. 

But what about when energy flags, or when I'm too ashamed of our disintegrating democracy to travel abroad? What about when I miss having a kid in the house? What about when I miss the old joy of taking on and exposing a corporate defendant, or the small pleasures of an office chat?

I'm beginning to think a lot about how to continue living a full life as an aging autistic person. If anyone finds this blog, I'd love to hear your thoughts, too.

An Autistic Year Abroad (and a Rebirth Fifty Years Later)

Most of what I have written for the press are articles about the value of neurodiversity in the workplace. (See HERE or HERE or HERE). Neurodiversity is like every form of diversity--it brings new and useful ways of seeing and understanding into our businesses and civic enterprises.

But life as an undiagnosed autistic or neurodivergent person can be bewildering, so recently I wrote about my experience fifty years ago in a year abroad program in Florence, Italy. 

You can find that article HERE. 

I write about how neurodivergent people can find themselves alone in a crowd. Happily, however, we adapt to some degree, even if it takes a long, long time. We gain hard-won skills. We learn to recognize a facial gesture. We learn to talk about nothing. We learn to get by.

My Virtual Book Tour, Stop One

Well, I'm probably too old a dog to learn the trick of YouTubing, but here I go--a YouTube channel in support of my book My So-Called Disorder: Autism, Exploding Trucks, and the Big Daddy of Rock and Roll. YouTube picked the right thumbnail--my lifelong hero, Chuck Berry, leaning against someone's Cadillac in the alley behind the Blueberry Hill nightclub and restaurant in St. Louis. This video is an introduction to my odd(tistic) fascination with Chuck; my late, late life diagnosis as autistic; how my autism helped my legal career; how it hurt my social life, (especially as a young man;) and a bit about why I wrote the book in the first place. BTW: the book it's a good read--fast, funny, and reasonably literate. 

Great Neurodivergent Minds Sometimes Think Alike

My friend Dorothy clued me in to Dan Piraro's wonderful blog post (which, at the time, had an oddly familiar title!) in which the cartoonist talks about the strengths of neurodivergent minds and how doodling helps some of us listen better. To find his blog post, (since retitled) CLICK HERE. One of my own legal doodles (the only thing to keep me awake and listening during a partner meeting) is reproduced below.

My Guitar was Made in Indonesia

As an undiagnosed, autistic, teenager I couldn’t find love even when it grabbed me and kissed me. Or, at any rate, I couldn’t keep it. I was a true Peter Pumpkin Eater. After a few hours, or days, or weeks, whoever came looking for love in this particular wrong place would lose interest, or feel rejected, and look elsewhere. 

And yet, despite my lack of success, I always had hope—and always expected that I would find love or that it would find me. (My theme song, at the time, was Jimmy Cliff's "Sitting in Limbo.")

 

Looking back I credit my parents and my family for my early optimism. We were a dysfunctional crew, drenched in alcohol, but we were creative, smart, interesting, interested, and accepting. My six older siblings provided built-in playmates, my mother provided constant encouragement, and the whole family—even a dad who lost his way due to alcoholism—provided love. It was the first thing I told each of my two therapists when I sought help understanding why my youthful life was so different: that I was loved as a child and knew it.

Which means I knew that I was lovable. What a gift for an autistic child.

In My So-Called Disorder: Autism, Exploding Trucks, and the Big Daddy of Rock and Roll, I quote some of the songs I wrote as a teenager, pointing out that most of them are very “autistic.” When I bought a new electric guitar about 12 years ago, (it was a modern, Indonesian copy of the cheap used Silvertones I used to admire at Uncle Bob's Music Mart,) it inspired me to write a song that celebrates Silvertone guitars and all of my other early special interests--stars, telescopes, Chuck Berry, the blues--and also the love that eventually found me when I had finally learned not to let it slip away. As I whispered in the original home-made recording of the song, it is dedicated to my wife and my kids. (And my granddaughter!)

As a child I lusted for

Those old Silvertone guitars.

I used to lie outside in the dark and wonder

At the mystery of the stars

I played the same kinds of records then

That I listen to today

And even then I knew in my heart

I’d be with you someday

Didn’t know what you’d look like

Didn’t know how you’d sound

Just knew life was better when

You were around

I had more hopes and wishes then

Than I have today

Cause a lot of them were granted when

You came walking my way

Life’s full of mystery

Life can be so hard

The people we love are lost

You can be dealt an awfully difficult card

There are times when life is full of joy

And then such deep despair

But I can make it through it all

As long as you are there

The stars are harder to see these days

Washed out by all those city lights

My guitar was made in Indonesia

But it looks and sounds just right

About to hit the road again

Memphis, Clarksdale and St. Lou

Sitting on the banks of the great Mississippi River

I’ll play this song for you

                                                                                                                                                                    c. Peter O’Neil

We never know what our loves will look or sound like, but like a copy-cat Indonesian Silvertone, they make life better.

Having studied what it means to be autistic for a few years now I realize how lucky I was lucky to have a family who loved and supported me, and a mom who encouraged my many, many quirky interests, and fought for me whenever she saw some injustice.

The Blessing of Neurodivergent Company (and Neurotypical Allies).

It's a blessing to meet other openly autistic people. We're all different, and yet we get each other. In fact, it turns out that several of my lifelong friends (there aren't that many) are autistic or otherwise neurodivergent.

What I'm coming to understand more and more each day, however, is how important "allies" are. My career would never have taken off if I hadn't found a mentor and ally in the great product liability attorney Paul Whelan, who didn't know I am autistic, but who knew me. I can look back on life and see other "neurotypical" allies and friends, though not too many. You can recognize them by the rainbow of friends who surround them--gay, straight, black, white, whatever. They invite outsiders in.

We should all do the same. We should recognize that our differences are what make us great, and are what should unite us.