Living with Asperger's: Finding the holy grail

Editor's Note: This is the second part of a three-part, first-person account of David Stamps' coming to terms with Asperger's Syndrome.

The year 1975 found me in Cambridge, married with two girls, no job, no prospects and still a fierce desire to find my way into something that would challenge me for longer than three months and yet put up with all my quirks.

This was a period of great ferment in the computer world. The microprocessor, the heart of every PC on the planet, was just beginning to appear. This was happening in Seattle, Cupertino, Austin, and Cambridge. I was slowly drawn in. I stalked the Harvard and MIT bookstores and read all the new magazines about the emerging technology. Within two years, after a few twists and turns, I had self-taught myself computer programming, and never looked back, as they say.

I had entered my first college, Antioch, in the summer of 1964. It had been a disaster for all the aforementioned reasons, but there was an even bigger problem looming at the end of the term. Antioch was a work-study college and required me to find a job from among their lists of available work experiences. I remember poring over the job descriptions and nothing drew me; I literally could not see myself in any occupation, for even a term.

So, I dropped out and began a 10-year odyssey. My odyssey included a three-month stay in a psychiatric hospital, numerous hard-hat jobs, marriage, and two beautiful girls.

Life continued to be a puzzle. It felt like walking through a swamp — rarely finding dry land in the form of calm, friends, avocation, or even meaning to life.

This is why finding computer programming was such a big deal: It was dry land at last! It was certainly not an immediate end to my pain of existence, but it was a start.

My marriage didn’t survive and I moved several more times, but gradually life was beginning to make sense. In mythical terms, I had found my holy grail; now I just had to bring it home.

In that sense, I am no different from anyone else. We all start out in life with baggage looking for our grail, and sustain many wounds along the way. Hopefully, we find our secret heart’s desire and return with it.

Returning can be as hard as the search. Along the way, we have wounded many — others and ourselves. Indeed, the land we long to return to no longer exists, so we have to make it anew. Application programming was my holy grail and Laconia was the land of my birth, but little else was the same. Alcoholism and smoking were among my grievous wounds.

To say application programming was my holy grail is not meant to sound trite. For the first time in my life, I found something that could fulfill and sustain me. This gave me a platform from which to grow, and grow I did.

While I was able to cease drinking rather abruptly, I found that recovery is a long road that continues to this day. The longer I worked on recovery, the more dry land appeared. I attended groups and workshops and slowly grew up. Along the way, someone mentioned that, for those in recovery, life seems richer for all the pain along the way. It certainly deepened me.

Although I was still plagued by self-doubts and uncertainties, I began to feel a measure of self-confidence. In 1988, after confronting a developer who tried to build illegally next door, I took John Ashey’s advice and joined the Laconia Planning Board. This was the start of a whole new life of public service.

It was a time of turmoil and change in Laconia. The sheriff had recently raided the Planning Office relating to South Down and other developments. Zoning ordinances had not changed in many years. Many “legacy” businesses were struggling to survive. Urban renewal was considered a dirty word.

However, I discovered a core group of dedicated people who did not want to give up on Laconia, and so I joined in. I helped write new master plans, new zoning ordinances, participated in planning charettes for many shuttered buildings, develop the river walk and WOW trail, found Laconia Main Street, grew the Multicultural Festival and continued the “saving” of the Belknap Mill. For the first time in my life, I felt connected to the people and place of my birth.

I came to realize that citizens make the quality of the community they live in. Laconia is blessed to have so many people working to make it a better, more livable community.