Susan Boyle’s powerful, graceful Asperger’s statement
The singer reveals her diagnosis -- and the
"relief" of it
By
MARY ELIZABETH
WILLIAMS
If you received a diagnosis for a disorder
that’s often stigmatized and misunderstood, a condition that’s perpetually
challenging and isolating, how would you feel? What would be your response,
learning you have Asperger’s? For Susan Boyle, the answer is, “relieved and
relaxed.”
The 52-year-old Scottish
singer, who set the bar for the term “overnight success” in 2009 with a riveting performance of “I Dreamed
a Dream” on “Britain’s Got Talent,”
has spent the past four and a half years enjoying a level of success that few
talent competition runners-up ever dream of. She’s sold millions of albums,
been nominated for two Grammy Awards, written an autobiography and become the
subject of a hit musical. But she’s also very publicly grappled with the
pressures of instant stardom — there has been a hospitalization for “exhaustion,” a few painful televised bouts of stage fright, and the toll of seemingly endless commentary on her “frumpy” and “slow” demeanor. When you factor in all that a small-town
woman whose prior show business history consisted of singing in the church
choir has experienced in the past four and a half years, maybe then it’s easier
to understand why Boyle took her diagnosis with such apparent grace.
In an interview
in the Observer this weekend, Boyle,
who’s currently promoting her fourth album, acknowledges that “Some articles
have said I have brain damage,” and says, “I have always known that I have had
an unfair label put upon me.” After seeing a Scottish specialist a year ago,
Boyle learned that her IQ is in fact above average, and that “I have
Asperger’s. It is a relief.”
People with Asperger’s — a condition on the
autism spectrum – are generally characterized by having difficulty with social
interaction and communication. As Boyle’s interviewer Catherine Deveney
describes her, the singer possesses “warmth, kindness and empathy” but also
displays “delayed eye contact … visible anxiety until the stranger in her
presence settles into at least superficial familiarity … slightly offbeat
laughter in the middle of conversation … [and] sudden and obvious emotional
withdrawal if she feels uncomfortable with a particular subject.”
The interpersonal
challenges people with Asperger’s often face can make it easy for them to
become the targets of bullies and critics – and Boyle has spoken and written
much of her struggles in that arena, stretching back to the time she was a
child. But in recent years, thanks to increasing awareness and more refined
diagnoses, much ground has been gained in understanding both the condition and
the people who have it. In 2007, John Elder Robison’s memoir of his life with
Asperger’s, “Look Me in the Eye,” became a New York Times bestseller. Two years
ago, actor Paddy Considine said he was feeling “more
comfortable and confident and in control” since
learning of his Asperger’s, and Dan Harmon revealed how he realized that he’s on the spectrum when he began researching the character of Abed for
“Community.”
Recognizing that there’s a reason for one’s
behaviors, rather than some kind of personal failing because they’re not like
everybody else’s, has got to be pretty validating — especially after more than
five long undiagnosed decades of living. For a smart woman once mocked as
“Susie Simple,” one who has also battled depression and “got laughed at because
people didn’t think I’d do well … It’s a condition that I have to live with and
work through, but I feel more relaxed about myself.” Boyle says she hopes that
now “People will have a greater understanding of who I am and why I do the
things I do.”
The world can be a cruel
place even when people do understand what you’re dealing with. But with her
candor, Boyle – one of the
most successful musical performers in the world right now (take that, Miley) — has offered herself up as a role model
of what is possible when you dream a dream. She’s opening up the possibility of
more compassion and understanding for misunderstood and teased people with
Asperger’s all over the world. “I am here for a reason,” she says, “and it must
be to make people happy.”
Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme
Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on
Twitter: @embeedub.
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