Can you imagine living in a home and country in which you do not fluently speak, read, or write the native language? Your family and peers do not understand you because of the way you communicate and because your worldviews are different from the norm. The level at which your family functions is so dysfunctional that you are unsure you are even loved. You feel alienated from others because you are misunderstood and have been psychologically labeled as abnormal. Could you imagine dreaming of a life called ‘The American Dream’ while living what you felt was a nightmare?
This is Alan’s story.
After our tour at the Medical University I asked Alan (introduced in the previous blog) to join us for dinner. Later that night, Alan and I sat down at a coffee shop and began our friendship. Thankfully, he easily opened up to me and allowed me to enter his world.
Alan has always felt different. He has never felt understood or heard by his family or peers. He has received a lot of condemnation from others about how poor his Chinese is. From a young age he learned to speak English so well that English is now his language of choice. As a medical student he even orders all of his medical books in English. Alan loves reading The New York Times and reads many English novels.
Alan has been the recipient of constant teasing and name-calling, which has cut like a knife leaving wounds immeasurably deep. Alan has chosen to isolate himself from others and searches for peace in solitude. He spends all of his time in his studies and research to distract himself from his pain and loneliness.
The only form of love Alan knows is physical and verbal abuse from his father towards him and his mother. His father never ceases to remind Alan that he is such a failure and disappointment to the family. His mother cannot understand why he doesn’t connect well with others. She took Alan to a psychiatrist where he was given the diagnosis of having Autism and Paranoid Personality Disorder. She now views him as defective.
His entire life Alan has been repeatedly told all of these lies. As a result, he has feelings of depression and social anxiety. The longer he hears the lies of failure, disappointment, and inadequacy the harder it becomes for him to oppose them.
Alan dreams of moving to the United States to pursue a new life of opportunities and freedom. He is applying and hoping to get a scholarship to continue medical school in the US at a school like John Hopkins or Mass General. He wants to save up money to buy a flight to the US and start over new.
After countless hours getting to know him, let me tell you, the world is missing out on getting to know Alan. He is a funny and intellectual guy who is easy to know and love. I see so much harbored greatness in him just waiting to flow forth. From my degree in Psychology and after working with many individuals with Autism, this guy is so far from the spectrum that it seems absurd that a psychiatrist would even begin to think that he has Autism. If you know anyone with Autism, the characteristics are very recognizable. Because Alan mentioned the psychiatrist’s explanation that he has a lack of social skills I am assuming he was diagnosed with Asperger’s. Even with his slight accent and very different cultural norms, Alan and I were able to communicate very well with each other. He always looked me straight in the eyes when talking to me, paused and ask questions appropriately, and mentioned nothing in particular that he seemed to be fixated on. Alan said in regards to being told that he is too quiet and abnormally isolated, he said that he doesn’t like to get to know others because they always want to get to know information about his personal life. Because his family and personal life are so hard he doesn’t want to let others in. He said that on several occasions he has tried to keep friendships at surface level, but when friends ask deeper questions and he responds with, “I would rather not talk about that,” they have been offended and no longer care to know him.
At the coffee shop I shared with Alan my story and how God redeemed me from a very similar life of wrongly diagnosed labels. We were both shocked that while we come from such different worlds we could so easily relate with one another. While it deeply saddened me that Alan is experiencing so much pain, I was beyond thankful that God created an opportunity for me to use my past to relate and empathize with him. Alan allowed me to share about my faith, but stated that he respectfully did not agree with Christianity. He said that he had actually read the Bible and was unsure of many topics discussed. He said that he believed in God, but was not sure if it is the God of Christianity.
We ended the night far from the strangers we were only hours earlier and with plans to meet again.
To be continued…
