My life with Asperger's | Daniel Wendler | TEDxUniversityofArizona

How can we make sure everyone has a community where they feel accepted? For many people - the awkward, the shy, or simply the misunderstood - life is a lonely experience, and good friends are hard to come by.

Daniel Wendler experienced this firsthand. He has Asperger's Syndrome, a neurological condition that prevented him from learning social skills naturally. Without the social skills to make friends or defend himself from bullies, Daniel grew up an outcast.

Daniel did not let his challenges define him, however. When he realized that his struggles were due to his lack of social skills, he decided to study social interaction as if it were a foreign language. Over time, through books and with the help of his family, he taught himself the social skills that he was unable to learn automatically. He used his newfound skills to reach out to other "outsiders" and discovered the power of close relationships and genuine community.

Today, he works to share what he learned with others. He is a social skills coach and runs an online resource that has had over a quarter million visits. He believes that everyone deserves a place where they belong, and that all of us have something in common with the awkward kid sitting alone in the cafeteria.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Have you ever had that dream

where you're back in school
and you're naked?

Do you remember the shame,
the helpless frustration of that dream?

When I was growing up,
that dream was my life.

Not that I went to school naked ...

(Laughter)

But the shame, the frustration,
the sense that everybody was against me,

that was real for me.

I was seven years old and I felt
like my school was a battleground

where everybody else
was on the opposite army.

And I didn't know why or how to fix it.

That was my life.

And this is me.

I was kind of awkward,
as you may be able to tell.

I didn't have a terrible life:

my family loved me,
I had a couple friends,

and when it came to Super Mario Bros.,
I was a pretty big deal.

(Laughter)

But I didn't fit in at school
or anywhere really.

And I didn't know why.

I would try my hardest
to make friend, and I just wouldn't.

I would be friendly,
and people would be mean to me.

I didn't know how to make it work.

I had three memories from that time.

One is I was walking home
from school with my mom,

and saying, "How do you talk to people?

I don't even know how to talk to people!"

Another is that I sat down
at a lunch table,

and every other kid at that table
stood up and walked away.

Me being me, I decided
to exploit my newfound power.

I followed them from table to table,

(Laughter)

forcing them to move around the lunchroom
before I gave up, and ate alone.

My third memory is coming home from school

sobbing, running into my dad's arms,
and saying "I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad."

So growing up was tough,
elementary school especially.

Middle school was a little bit easier,

but I still had a lot
of trouble fitting in.

I'm the one in the tie-dye.

(Laughter)

So it wasn't until high school,

when things really started
to turn around for me.

My parents are great parents.

They're in the audience,
so if you see them, give them a high five!

But, all parents want to think
that their kids are normal,

but by this point, my parents had realized
I was marching to a different drummer,

or maybe an entirely different orchestra.

So, they took me to a psychologist
before I started high school,

and I was diagnosed
with Asperger's syndrome.

If you haven't heard of it,

Asperger's syndrome is a neurological
condition on the autistic spectrum,

and basically what it does

is it made it so I was unable
to learn social skills naturally.

You can think of it this way:

if you take a baby
and that baby is born in Japan,

that baby's going to learn Japanese,

just growing up naturally,
listening to the world around it.

Whereas if you take an adult
who's never spoken Japanese

and you drop him in the middle of Tokyo,

that adult's going to have
a much harder time.

In the same way, for somebody
without Asperger's,

people learn social skills naturally,

just by observing the world around them.

Whereas for somebody with Asperger's,

it's like being the adult
in a foreign country

where you don't speak the language.

It's much, much harder to learn.

When I was diagnosed,
it was this huge epiphany

because, remember,
I didn't know why I was struggling.

But now I understood: oh, it's because
I don't have social skills!

I remember, my psychologist gave me
a list of the social skills

people with Asperger's struggle with,
and I was, like, oh, all right,

let's get to work!

So I started studying social skills,

I started reading books on body language,
conversation, etiquette ... you name it!

I started watching movies with my parents,

where I would pause
the movie like 10 times,

"Hey, what just happened
in that conversation?

Hey, I don't understand
why this character did that.

Hey, explain these social cues to me!"

And I started to get better,
and it started to make sense.

I started being able to figure out

the systems that govern
the way that people interact.

I started being able to create
metaphors and ideas

to help me know how to respond.

Let's talk about body language.
Body language is fun.

Go to the bookstore,
pick up a book on body language.

It'll tell you all the things
your body can do.

My favorite is that feet signal intent.

If somebody's talking to you,
and their feet are pointing at you,

it means they're focused in
on talking with you.

If they're talking to you,

and their feet point towards the door,

they want to go!

And so you should probably
let them end the conversation.

But body language is also difficult:

there are so many different signals
that mean so many different things.

Like, if you rub your nose,
it means that you're uncertain,

whereas if you rub the back of your neck,
it means that you're anxious;

similar actions, similar meanings,
but a little bit different.

And so I'd be looking at somebody,

to figure out what their
body language was saying,

and by the time I'd figured it out,
the conversation moved on,

and I'd completely forgotten
what I was supposed to be talking about.

But this is kind of what it's like
to try to figure out -

I mean, you know, look at this list.

What are these people feeling?

It's really hard to see in just a moment.

So what I did was I decided, okay,
let me condense this.

And, so I took all
the body language signals

and I grouped them
as just comfort and discomfort.

I decided, all right,
I don't need to remember

if rubbing your nose means uncertainty
or anxiety or indigestion or whatever.

I just need to know

you're not totally comfortable,
and maybe something's wrong.

Then I can take that,

and I can try to figure out
what's wrong, so I can fix it.

If I'm talking to you,

and I notice you start giving off
body language signals of discomfort,

I can say, all right, let me look
at the conversation, at the environment.

Let me see if there's something
that I can fix here.

Remember, before, people would get
upset with me and I wouldn't know why.

I'd be talking to somebody and think
this conversation is going great,

and they'd blow up!

Because I'd missed all of the signals.

Now, I can start to see what was
happening, and start to, like, adapt.

But I still had to learn
how to have conversations,

and conversation's tough.

There are a lot of
conversation books out there,

but they all just talk
about conversation tips and tricks,

which is not very helpful.

It's like if you wanted
to learn how to play baseball,

and all the books you read just told you,
well, keep your eye on the ball.

That's not the rules.

You're not going to know how to play.

So I did a lot of study, a lot of
practice, a lot of thinking it through,

and I figured out
the secret to conversation.

Are you ready for it?

Ready to write it down,
or tweet it, or whatever.

Conversation is a sandwich.

Specifically, conversation is like
making a sandwich with a friend,

where you add an ingredient
then you pass the sandwich to them.

They add an ingredient,
they pass the sandwich back to you.

I know you guys probably don't
tag-team your sandwich creations,

but it's a metaphor, so work with me …

Because this is the way
that conversation is supposed to work.

You add something to the conversation,

your thoughts, your ideas, a story,

and then you invite
the other person to speak

by asking them a question
or something like that.

You're adding the ingredient,
then you're passing the sandwich.

And they do the same,
they pass it back to you.

So, I knew what I was supposed
to do in conversation.

I knew how to keep
the conversation flowing,

and how to know when
I was supposed to add something.

But I still needed to figure out
how do I be a good conversation partner?

How do I make sure I'm picking topics
that people are interested in?

And this was difficult for me because
I used to ramble so much growing up.

Like somebody would ask me,
"What did you do today?"

and I would tell them - all of it!

(Laughter)

This was rarely the actual answer
they were looking for.

So I had to figure out,
how do I tone it back?

How do I avoid rambling?

How do I only tell them
what they're interested in hearing?

What I decided was,
I developed this technique

that I called the creaky door.

And it works like this.

Let's say you're getting home late

and your front door is old and creaky.

You won't want to open
that door all at once

because (Door creaking) it's going
to annoy everybody in the house.

So you open it
a little bit at a time (Creak),

you open a little bit more (Creak),

you keep going (Creak, creak, creak),

until eventually you've got the door
all the way open, and you can enter.

In the same way,
if somebody asked me a question,

I would share part of the answer,

and then give them
an opportunity to ask for more.

So if somebody asked me,
"What'd you do this weekend?"

I could say, "Oh, well,
I went to the pool,"

and then I would stop.

If they were curious, they'd ask,
and I'd tell them more,

and if they weren't, they wouldn't ask,

and we would change the topic,
and no harm done.

I figured out all these systems
for how to interact with people.

I had to put it into my own language.

I can keep going, keep telling you
all the different things I figured out,

but, as we discussed,
I have a tendency to ramble,

so I'm going to cut
myself off right there.

But the point is this:
I started getting better at social skills.

I started, not being perfect,
but being good enough.

I started having conversations

where I understood the non-verbal signals
that were coming my way.

I started being able to make friends
and be a part of a friend group.

And, guys, I want you to get
how incredible this was for me.

Social interaction was something
that I'd struggled with my entire life.

But now I'd learned that it was not
a permanent disability,

but was something I could overcome.

Like that was huge,

but, even more than that,
was learning just the joy of friendship.

For somebody that was
on the outskirts his entire life,

to be a part of a friend group,

to be somebody that people
wanted to hang out with …

Like, that was so incredible!

I think that I realized just how much
things had turned around

when I got a phone call
from my friend Mark.

He said, "Daniel, let's get the group
together this weekend."

I said, "OK, sounds like a good idea,"

and there was, like, this long pause,

and he said, "So you're going
to organize it, right?"

I had somehow moved
from social outcast to party planner.

(Laughter)

And, guys, to be somebody with Asperger's
that learns social skills …

You could think about it like a kid
with terrible eyesight

getting glasses for the first time.

But to experience the joy of friendship
after a lifetime on the outskirts?

That's like giving the kid glasses
and then taking him to the Louvre.

And so, Spider-Man's Uncle Ben says,

"With great power
comes great responsibility."

It's a TEDx University event,

so we're going to have
some highbrow citations here.

(Laughter)

So with great power
comes great responsibility.

So, if I had the power
to open the door to this new world

of friendship and acceptance,

didn't I also have responsibility
to do that for others?

So what I did was simple.

I started looking for the kids
that used to be like me.

For the kids that were weird,
that were different,

that just didn't quite fit in.

Then I made friends with them.

And what I found is that those kids
were the most incredible friends I had.

I think it was their time on the outskirts
that made them so incredible.

Like, our culture has this weird thing,
where it thinks that pain isn't normal,

where it thinks that the default state
of humanity is to be happy all the time.

And so, when you have
this pressure to fit in,

you also have this pressure
to bury your pain and put on a happy face.

But when you're not going
to fit in no matter what.

When you're an outcast,

even if you acknowledge
that life is hard sometimes,

it gives you the freedom
to acknowledge your pain,

and then to acknowledge
the pain in others.

And so it builds compassion.

Or you can think of it another way:

Thoreau went into the wilderness,
away from society,

because he wanted to live deliberately.

But when society forces you
into the wilderness,

it also forces you to live deliberately.

You can make choices,
not based on what's in stock -

not based on what's in style,
or what your friends think,

but just based on who you want to be
and what you want to do.

So, as I reached out to these people,

I found that they were incredible friends.

I found that the people I reached out to
because I thought that they needed me,

they were the people that I needed

because they were
the most able to support me.

I'll tell you a story.

My freshman year of college,

there was a girl going through
a hard time - one of my friends.

So I really poured myself
into trying to support her,

and then, one day, I get a phone call
from home, and it's bad news,

really bad news.

I hold together long enough
to get off the phone,

and then I just lose it.

Like we're talking tears, we're talking …

It was massive …

And I'm crying, and then
I feel an arm around me,

and I look up, and it's my friend
that I've been supporting.

She held me and comforted me,

and she was exactly the person
I needed at that moment.

And guys, it wasn't just
that my friends helped me learn,

it wasn't just that
my friends helped support me,

but my friends helped me learn
it was okay to need support.

Because when I first started being social,
when I first started tasting acceptance,

and what that felt like,
I became so afraid of rejection.

I became terrified that I would
do something wrong.

I was going to make some faux pas,

and people were going to be like,
"Daniel's an impostor,

he's secretly awkward all along."

(Laughter)

Let's throw sticks at him!"

Like, obviously, this is not
the most realistic fear,

but our greatest fears
rarely are, are they?

And so I had so much pressure
to always put my best foot forward.

But that's lonely, right?

Because when you're
only putting one foot forward,

the rest of yourself is still held back.

And so, over time,
my friends started to show me

that they liked me just for me.

That I didn't have to be the party planner

or the shoulder to cry on all the time.

Like, it was okay to just be Daniel,

even if Daniel was awkward.

This is Sam, who I dated in college.

As you can see, she was very good
about creating a space

where I felt the freedom to just be me,

even if that was really awkward.

Or here's some of my dearest friends
in a Disneyland teacup.

Where else do you go with friends?

(Laughter)

And so, this group, we became
so close because our freshman year,

we decided that, once a week,
we would get together,

and just make time
for being real with each other.

That time looked different every week.

Sometimes we'd discuss a topic,
sometimes we'd play a game,

sometimes we'd just hang out
and enjoy each other.

The only rule was that we had
to bring our real self to that hour.

And so I brought real Dan,
week after week,

and I was met with acceptance,
week after week,

even when real Dan was pretty awkward.

(Laughter)

And so, over time, my friends
helped me realize it was cool,

that I could be Super-Dan, the Social Man!

It was cool I learned
these social skills and stuff,

but I didn't have to be Super-Dan
the Social Man all the time.

Like, it was enough to just be me.

And I hope that you guys get
that it's enough to just be you.

I hope that you get
that there are people out there

that will like you
just the the way that you are.

And that you shouldn't stop
looking for those people

because I think, ultimately,
it's those people that define us.

It's people that don't give up on us,
and that see the good in us,

even when we're pretty hard on ourselves.

Like the proverb says,
"It takes a village to raise a child,"

but really, we need a village
around us every day of our lives.

My story is the story of a village,
it's not the story of me.

It's the story of the support
I received early on from my family

when I was struggling so much.

It's the story of friends
that encouraged me,

so I could encourage somebody else.

It's the story of kind words
that I got that I could pass on.

Ultimately, it's the story of the idea

that everybody deserves
a place where they belong.

Like, when I was seven years old,

I ate in the cafeteria alone

because nobody wanted to sit with me.

If I tried to sit with them, they'd leave.

I think it's safe to say that nobody else
in that cafeteria saw any value in me.

But I think it's also safe to say

that the people in my life
that did see value in me

were the reason I was able
to get to where I was today.

Like, I don't want to brag,
but I run a website about social skills

that's been visited over 40 million times,

the news has done a story on me,

and I'm kind of giving a TEDx talk
about my life, right now.

(Laughter)

I think it's safe to say
that there was value in me for sure.

But I realized that, because of the people
in my life that let me know.

I realized that I couldn't
have done it alone.

Guys, the point of my talk
is really simple and it's this:

nobody deserves to be alone
and nobody can really make it alone.

So if you are alone, reach out
to people, let people know.

And if you see somebody else
that's alone, be their friend.

When I was seven years old,
sitting alone in that cafeteria,

I was desperate for somebody
to come up to me.

I was desperate for somebody
to sit down at my table

and let me know that I was worth
being friends with.

If you had been in that cafeteria with me,

if you had seen the kid eating lunch
by himself every day,

would you have been the one
to sit down next to me?

And if your answer is yes,

then could you be the one
that would sit down next to somebody today

that's in just as much a need
of a friend as I was then?

Could you be the one that would see
somebody everybody else has rejected,

and say I can accept that person?

Would you be the one that sees somebody
that might be awkward, weird or different,

and be able to say, "You know what?
they might make a really cool friend."

And then could you be friends with them?

Could you sit down next to them
and ask their name?

Could you listen to their story
and become a part of it?

I promise you that if you do,

you just might find that they become
an incredible part of yours.