Lunch with Eric Chen

I had a great time meeting and chatting with Eric Chen yesterday over lunch. Eric is a young man living with Asperger's or "high-functioning autism" in Singapore. He has done much advocacy work (he's written 2 books and is working on a third) and is currently developing several projects related to autism awareness and self-healing. He is a motivated, exceptional guy and I am so happy to have met him. Coincidentally, our meeting also fell on Eric's 27th birthday :) Happy Birthday, Eric!

I had prepared a few questions that I wanted to ask him, but our conversation lasted for several hours and topics ranged from autism and Asperger's to education, politics, the economy, and our (humankind's) future! We covered way too much for me to write everything down here on my blog... but I wanted to note down a few very interesting things that Eric shared with me:

I asked Eric to tell me a bit about his childhood, living with Asperger's. He described his experience as a dreamlike state, as if he were sleepwalking. He did what he was told by his parents and his teachers, but he was not aware of himself. He was therefore able to tolerate all the bullying at school. During primary school (elementary school), with the help of his mother and teachers, Eric became more and more self-aware, which was great, but unfortunately he also began to understand the people had intentions - for example, bullies have bad intentions, they intended to hurt him - and was therefore very hurt by this knowledge.

During our conversation, Eric continued to refer to neurotypicals as "Earthlings" or "humans on Planet Earth". He sees himself as very different and very separate from us. I wanted to know more about how and why he thought of himself as so different. He told me that his thought and thus communication patterns are very different from ours. I noticed that he jumped from topic to topic during our meal, which made it very interesting but also a bit difficult for me to follow his train of thought. He told me that when he first arrived at the restaurant, he did a mental scan of all the faces to see if he could recognize me (from the photo on my blog). Interestingly, he sees shades of colors around some people and can predict what their personalities are like! He also explained that he was taught to make eye-contact while conversing with others, which did not come naturally to him. He had to put in the extra effort to find something on or behind someone's face/head that he could focus on (e.g. a distinguishing feature such as a mole or an earring), which helped him learn to maintain eye contact.

I noticed on Eric's website that he wrote that parents and educators of children with autism should accept that they want to be left alone. They shouldn't force these children to socialize with others. However, in my personal experience, many of these kids and teens want to socialize with others but don't have the skills to do so and therefore experience much loneliness. Eric reminded me that every child and every person with autism is different. Caregivers must understand that while having friends is a good thing, forcing a child to have many friends is not the solution to their socialization impairments. It's not the quantity, but the quality of the friendship. Having one great friend may be good enough. Even a pet can serve as a friend!

We chatted briefly about Chinese culture and the notion of "shame". Eric told me about a time his mother was fundraising for the Autism Resource Centre (where Eric was diagnosed in 2001). Some strangers walked by, saw the word "autism", and remarked, "These are the children of parents who have done something wrong in their past lives!" Luckily, his mother was resilient enough to ignore these hurtful comments.

A few years ago, Eric began to have a series of unusual and remarkable spiritual experiences. They have helped him understand our "neurotypical ways" and socially adapt to them. The experiences have actually motivated Eric to want to pursue a B.A. in psychology in the near future. He believes that spirituality and psychology go hand in hand (psychology is spirituality trying to disguise as science!) and that one must be spiritual in some way to truly understand the human psyche.

After these series of events, Eric became very dedicated to his own form of autism advocacy. He believed that he had a duty to share what he learned and experienced with the world. Just a few few months ago, however, he rediscovered that inner healing and peace actually resonated more deeply with him. He now focuses on helping others grow spiritually and emotionally and live meaningfully.

Eric sees himself as a visitor, a guest, on Planet Earth. He respects the people here (even though he doesn't fully understand or agree with everything we do) and wants to help us let go of suffering. In fact, he finds great joy in helping people let go of pain. He has already helped several individuals with something he calls "emotional releasing". You can read more about it on his newly launched website: http://rainbowhuman.com.

To Eric, autism work can be likened to world peace. Accepting different people is what world peace is all about. However, he believes that you must heal yourself first. Then, you will naturally develop the empathy to help others. If you resolve your own emotional obstacles, you can help make the world a better place for everyone, including people with autism. You have to first be happy yourself to share it with someone else. He then said that you can heal yourself through healing other people. When I questioned the paradox here, he told me that this paradox is key. It's a continuous cycle of healing!

I hope that Eric and I stay in touch and have the chance to meet again. I am looking forward to staying updated with his projects on healing and I am especially anxious to hear what he thinks of his classes in psychology (I was a proud psych major in college, I'm a big advocate for the field!) If you have any questions and would like to contact Eric directly, please let me know and I can put you in touch with him.