Adventures with Asperger's Syndrome

As I write this piece, lockdown measures to halt the spread of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) have been in place for over five weeks, which has seen the landscapes of our lives completely altered with self-isolating. Staying at home, including working from home where we can, social distancing when going out for necessary reasons such as to obtain food and/or medicine have pulled many of us out of our comfort zones. Different households, and indeed different individuals, circumstances are a factor in how they affect our experience of lockdown conditions, including how we cope with it. For me, being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome who has experienced high level social isolation, of the many things that living through Covid-19 lockdown conditions can teach us is the value of common humanity. Between October and November of 2019, I undertook an eight-week course in Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC). Developed by psychologists Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, the purposes of the practi