Sven Klose was born in Germany and ended up in Scandinavia. He was a musician and has ended up a teckie. He was someone rejected and bullied and is now an advocate who can hold his head up and knows who he is. He’s one of the remarkable people with ASD listed on htttp://www.auties.org and here is our interview:

DONNA:
Hi Sven.‚ Who is Sven?

SVEN:
My name is Sven Michael Klose. I was born 1975 in the northwest of Germany. I would scream all day as a baby. At four months I started to walk and showed obsessive interest in technical things since then.

DONNA:
Ah, quite the born teckie then.

SVEN:
I wouldn’t notice when I was called. I would go anywhere if no-one took care of me; I’d just leave the playground for example. Shortly after my first birthday I started talking full sentences at once without babbling before.

DONNA:
How sweet.‚ Yes, many people with ASD do similar re walking.‚ They skip crawling and go from standing straight into walking, which means they miss an important part of neurological hand-eye development and neurological integration stuff.‚ I was one of those standing ones and then became a stepping one, then walked with support by 2 and unsupported by 3.‚ I didn’t babble, but was heard to do 2 hours of my grandparents voices in the conversation they had had except I was only 18 months old.‚ In other words I was a tape recorder and this was the early 1960s, the era of that film noir – Children of The Damned (who looked pretty autistic) and before all our autism books and films.‚ In other words I looked ‘possessed’.‚

Anyway, got assessed as psychotic at age 2, as was the thing in the 1960s, the archaic Victorian children’s homes became choked with thrown away kids labeled psychotic and disturbed as if it gave the parents licence if not obligation to give up on, discard them and ‘get one with life’.‚ I remember beginning to babble and crawl at age 4.‚

I had quite fluent echolalia by age 5 and began to move to constructing sentences with interpretive meaning around age 9-11.‚ I think having interpretive mental language makes a difference between a more feral autie and a more cerebral and reasoning Aspie.

I live in a strange middle world.‚ I think in movements and feelings, perhaps cognitively closer to the world of the deaf/blind.‚ And I have to translate from that expressively and receptively in interacting via conventional written or verbal speech.‚

SVEN:

First, I would grab the rim of any furniture close enough an pull myself up. I’d then “walk” along it. Got fragments of memories of that! Can tell what our homes looked like. But I couldn’t NOT remember the toilets in early days. No wonder: I wore diapers… I thought it was normal to have memories of one’s first couple of years. What a treasure lost for most people.

I see there can be overwhelming difference in the development of autistics — it’s reasonable to have different names (HFA/Asperger’s, whatever) for it. But when adolescence hits the Aspie – oh dear! – chances are good that feralty will ensue. 🙂
I couldn’t hurt anyone. When I was 15 I wanted to take my usual ride back home on the bus. I was denied the only seat left, because the guy said it was for his school bag. I grabbed the bag, put it on his lap and waited for something to happen. Nothing happened. Next day his brothers or whoever convinced him to mop me up. So, when I entered the bus back home next day I was already so mad about everything, ready to deal with bad folks a very new way – that guy ran towards me, calling for a fight. Do NOT underestimate autistic reflexes: caught his head with my right arm instantly and punched that stupid face until I ran out of strength. He left the bus with his brothers and friends crying. I thought “damn. that’s it. you’re as good as dead tomorrow.” but the opposite happened. Next day that guy’s face looked like he tried to kiss a potato grater in action. I was treated very friendly for the remaining time at school. People who treated me badly and saw what happened on their own froze at the bus stop when I showed up. I almost enjoyed that but I froze as well.

I’m a very visual thinker, and a synaesthetic, too. Everything’s slightly mixed up (non-autistics may consider it a psychedelic trip they could only stand for a short period of time I suppose). When I learned new words, I used the synaesthetic picture to memorize them. New words hit me like a disco light show. If Im down nowadays I read what is said from the text on my inner screen.

My abstract thinking is synaesthetic, too. The more I get the time to delve into my kind of perception without need to interact with others interesting things happen. When I tried to interpret the shape and color of a date I got pretty close to the week of they day based on the color resulting of some process I do not understand. Watched a very old movie about two autistic (and severely mentally disabled) twins who should tell weekdays for dates. I told the first four weekdays faster than them and I almost fell off my chair, shocked. Since when am I suppoed to be a savent? I could tell every second weekday to dates for about three days. Then it was gone. Probably disappeared under a pile of thoughts. 😉 It’s now too blurred.

But that’s also the mental state I can use to recognize concepts of the world, no-one has names for. It is very hard for me to write or tell what I just know. When someone would ask me if it was ok to do something with a piece of code that affects tens of thousands lines of other components, I could tell if it was a good thing to do it or not. But it takes a horrible effort and time, completey distracting me from what I just did, to explain it.
Recently, I say something like “trust me. the last time you didn’t take my advice, we all got robbed two weeks of our lives. Ill come up with an explanation later. But I have a very bad feeling about this.”

That said I remember this important thing: when Im in that mental state I got the feeling that there will be someone interrupting me, maybe to ask the 42 quadrillionth time if I was O.K. Sure you know that feeling…

So, yes. We seem to share some “problems”. It’s not a bug, it’s feature, tho. It’s very spiritual thing. And we live in a society where such concepts do exist but they’re hidden, not part of main education. People personalise God as a symptom of that. But I got the impression that some people develope spirituality when they grow old. The wise grannies. 😉 If one spends lots of time on something, that knowledge beyond words _will_ form in that domain. Not much of a difference to non-autistics that is. But I wonder if autistics are more capable of doing a kind of thinking others would need to train extensively for years.

Im quite happy that I can outline that thoughts right now.

I got drilled badly. A doctor told my Dad that I was mentally disabled which he knew better. Glasses were suscribed because they found out that I was short-sightened and the drill did the rest for them.

DONNA:
Ah, so you’ve done the ‘autistic does army’ thing.‚ I think this changes us, those of us who’ve been through it.‚ It breaks some of us, emotionally, cripples identity, we become puppets and give up all we appear to have acquired because WE didn’t feel WE acquired it, we had complied… people forget SOUL matters to all humans, autistic and non-autistic alike.‚ On the other hand I owe that ‘army thing’ for much of the neurological patterning which underpins what skills I have now got on many levels, and also the ability to ‘rise above’ my disability and fall into DOING whether or not I WANT to, whether or not I UNDERSTAND, but just because the task needs doing, is pragmatic to do, responsible to do…as a feral child, without that ‘army thing’ I don’t imagine I’d have developed these things, especially because I’m naturally pretty non-conformist, socially reluctant to trust, nervous of entanglement, naturally solitary.‚ But being accepted as feral was equally essential to my soul.‚ From acceptance one can choose to explore, reach out, in trust, in curiosity, by default.‚ Pushing a child psychologically too far with drilling can kill all of that.‚ It’s a fine balance, good cop, bad cop… that reflects life.‚ I believe both approaches and the balance between them, that’s a healthy developmental diet but not over indulging on either angle.

SVEN:

Yes, it’s still something I got to deal with. Cut off a branch of a young plant and you’ll still notice the difference when it has grown to a tree. We need to manage our focus accordingly. I love my parents. There’s nothing I do not understand about them.

My Grandma knew best what was good for me. She had the (mental) resources and would even get into a rage if someone treated me wrong. On one occasion she punched someone in the face who told my father that I’d need to get punched. However, the few weeks I spent with her as a kid weight like years. She accepted that I would always eat the same food for example. At home I had to fight nausea if the food had the wrong texture, for example.

I spent my time obsessing: I would spend the WHOLE DAY staring into the inside of our telly to draw what I saw, hoping that I could figure out what was going on. (I spent years almost gagging for answers.)

DONNA:
Cool, how curious of you.‚ I was working on a different level, more sensory, less intellectual.‚ I had to stroke or rub my face on all shiny and velvety textures, put things in my mouth, eat textures and objects, tap things for their sound, move them to feel their resistance differences when shaken/flicked, find how each thing reflected or caught light.‚ The difference between us sounds like Neanderthal versus Cro-Magnon ;-)‚ but I’m CERTAIN each is an EQUAL type of intelligence.

SVEN:

I do not agree! 🙂 I didn’t get much answers out of it. I love playing around with shiny things. I call shiny things “nerd traps”. 🙂 A good way to find out who’re the real nerds in your local computer club. 😉

Like those multi-colored lamps with glass fibers one can toss around.
At that time I could also just sit there all day, whirling up my hair with one finger just to feel the texture. Like I could feel each hair separately. Took me ages to get rid of such habits. Im a natural born addict. Today, I even wear clothes with a bit of silky, shiny texture.

My obsession was bad for my parents because an eletrical shock from the house’s current would probably have killed me instantly… car washes, robots and loudspeakers were more specific obsessions that came up.

DONNA:
Yes, I’ve met many wonderful auties and Aspies totally transfixed by electricals.‚ I was fixated on the spinning of fan blades, especially when inside of those cage things… the spinning juxtaposed against the lines of the cage… fab…. but I didn’t ever care about electricals per se… I don’t remember using anything but a light switch and a pop up record player (they had these toaster-style pop up battery operated record players in the 1960s, the type people took on the beach, and I’d stick singles in them to make them play music or stories) until late childhood.‚ Then I got a thang for the vibration of the washing machine… I really didn’t connect that plugging something in made it work… I remember venting at objects when THEY wouldn’t work…as if they all had volition.‚ I didn’t even turn the TV on until late childhood, I’d just either get lucky and someone else had or I’d watch the blank screen, waiting.‚ In late childhood my father got one of those vibration machines with the big belt at waist height.‚ That was the first electrical I began to technically work.‚ I’d stick the belt around my head and press the switch.‚ I was pretty hilarious/disappointing depending on one’s perspective.

SVEN:

I’d play records by turning the record myself. What a pleasure! And soon forbidden…. 🙁 Wonder I was allowed to stare into the washing machine.

I always used to draw a lot when I was young. Never scribbled, tho. My grandma showed me how to hold a pen and how to draw a smiley with it. The very same day we went for a walk and she had trouble distracting me from watching a harvester at work. After 45 minutes she finally managed to get me back to her home where I drew the first thing on my own: the harvester I saw – from my memory – detailed – at the age of three – upsetting the family.

DONNA:
Cool.‚ I was taught a picture of a dancer, alone on a stage.‚ I drew it and only it from age 3 to age 9. Then I realised I could draw from volition and not just rote.‚ And I drew cows from a classmate’s small plastic cows.‚ I drew cows until I was 13, then I drew my father’s tatoos.‚ In adulthood I burst into painting, starting with cats as symbols of me, and solitudinal landscapes, gave those all away – heck – and then entered a second painting phase in my 30s, mostly figurative,‚ conceptual, and today have done over a hundred paintings and they sell around the world.‚ I’ve got 2 in an exhibition at present in the United Nations Building in New York, which is wild, to have paintings fly across the world as if they have a life of their own, their own diary.‚ I’m so sorry to hear your gifted level of skill upset your family.‚ I have heard this so many times.‚ Parents ashamed, enraged, intimidated, afraid, just because a child’s skill seems ‘spookily’ indicative of a prodigy.‚

SVEN:

Whow. I have some aRtistic friends who would become jealous reading about your success. 🙂
My familiy was _positively_ upset! 🙂
My drawings were primarily technical, no own things in it. I impressed my schoolmates in secondary with funny comic strips. Last year in secondary school I could do what I want in the classroom as long as I would provide the art teacher with a couple of pages of my comic strips. It saved my graduation. It was the best note on my report and it was required to make up for sports…
At 16 I got forced to draw and it was over since then.

When I was four I got kicked out of the kindergarten because I would “disturb” the other kids.

DONNA:
Oh, we share that to a degree.‚ In my first week of school apparently my mother was called in by my teacher and told I wouldn’t stay seated, wouldn’t answer questions, sang to myself and wandered all day and this was ‘disturbing’ the other kids.‚ The teacher was quickly assured in the most brutish of styles that this was HER problem and my mother was not to be called in for anything so stupid ever again, or else.‚ We were ‘that’ type of family.

🙂

SVEN:
At the age of six I got an eletrotechnical construction kit. One could even build a medium wave radio station with it! It kept me busy so my parents could relax more. I was also obsessed with music but got no support for it.

DONNA:
I was very much the solitary self entertainment machine.‚ But my entertainment was through making sounds, movement, exploring objects and space sensorily.‚ This is why I feel I had ARTism but was not yet an artist and that much of that extreme ARTism in young children, especially if too anxious, socially phobic or just delayed in development, to show the ART, then people can easily view extreme ARTism as AUTism, and at some level the two really are either indistinguishable or commonly co-occur until the person chooses and develops artistic expression instead of free floating feral ARTism.‚ My husband is a teckie, and I love the contrast.‚

SVEN:

My girlfriend as an aspie filmwriter. (Yes, the writer’s strike was very appropriate.) We add up pretty well. 🙂 And we live 550km apart. 🙁 If things don’t work out, we can chill out at different places, doing our work.

At ten my parents bought me a Commodore VIC-20 home computer. One year later I got an Amstrad CPC which I used to learn assembly language and cracked my first copy protection. I read machine code programs from hexadecimal dumps. Thousands of instructions represented by two-digit numbers.

DONNA:
I’m sure my husband can understand that.‚ I can’t even imagine it internally, but he’s a trouble shooter for super computing and grid systems etc… I know the words and know it means he works with really complex computer things!‚ I CAN email though, and I’m a great Google searcher.‚ I have even learned to make simple slideshows and upload them to YouTube.‚ I can also work a can opener, or at least OUR can opener, when I can recognise it from the garlic crusher.‚ I’m not stupid, just object blind and context blind…. its an agnosia thing.

SVEN:
The first two grades at school were O.K. Third grade (had to switch to another school, because we moved) started to prove difficult, getting along with the other kids. It was bad. I got mopped up before and ofter school. But with the fifth grade (everyone in .de switches to secondary school then) I faced utter horor. When I was thrown into the schoolyard’s trashcan, it was O.K. for the teachers. It’d teach me, they ‚ thought.

DONNA:
Oh, I’m so sorry that happened to you.‚ It’s really sick.‚ I was also put in the rubbish big by my fourth grade teacher at a new school which didn’t understand me, then pelted with chalk and the duster.‚ It really stuck with me.‚ Luckily I went back to my old school which understood me.‚ I really wish some of the classrooms of the 60s and 70s and 80s had CCTV.‚ Sure, I was wild and feral, but people like that teacher had a part in that.‚ Although self injurious since 2, I hadn’t attacked others until grade 5, so the mistreatment by others does give licence to those of us who have repressed rage but haven’t yet vented it at others.‚

SVEN:

As I wrote in the beginning: some venting can be essential.

At some point they wanted to throw me out of school but that wasn’t exactly the sort of help I required: I was attriuted with an I.Q. 139 and therefore a lazy bum. Finally managed to graduate from secondary school with qualification for college. Had to do one an extra year to pass but I hardly went there anyway. I just couldn’t take it but was drilled to take the overloads as they happened.

DONNA:
People forget souls, what can I say.

SVEN:
At the age of 18 I left home. I was mad. I hated almost everything about the world. But on the other hand. It doesn’t like me either so I figured I’d be exactly the type of guy it deserves. Well, it kept me from committing suicide…

DONNA:
I’m glad you’re standing, keep it that way.

SVEN:
I lived with my Grandma for the next couple of years. I started to focus on music. Grandma wanted me to continue with programming as well and got an old one for free. I tried to become a trader but was abused to do cheap hard work instead. I concluded that the were only two ways for me to go: get to university or to live on welfare. I was told I’d be too old to return to school (I was 19 and that idiot support worker for the unemployed basically lied) and I should try some traditional occupation (which just proved hopeless).

DONNA:
Yes, without the social skills, most employers don’t have a clue how to work with people with ASD.‚ I have employed a few people with ASD and I know their challenges so I set work accordingly and I don’t take their social skills issues personally.

SVEN:

There’s hell of a nastiness in that hacker/computer scene. And I hate it. Some people deliberately(!) behave like assholes and it’s accepted, because they’re very good at something. It’s not the sort of company I’d recommend to autistics.

I did a couple of primitive jobs. During a break a student told me about a college at the University of Bielefeld where I one would just start studying at the same time! I started college in 1996. I chose music and psychology. I’ll never regret that. But then I had to live two terms without any money.

DONNA:
Yes, when a shrink helped me back into education (I’d finished education at age 15 after many schools) I wanted to do music but didn’t have the $40 for the exam.‚ So I never got to study it but took sociology instead.‚ I wish I’d done music but I’m a published singer-songwriter nevertheless, and I think I had the anthropological style for sociology, it fitted me, and I could rote learn frameworks and regurgitate texts so that was good too.

SVEN:

This is the first thing you wrote I read. I’d love to listen to some of your records. I got some recordings of mine online but they’re all flawed.

During the second term, the welfare office noticed that they were not responsible for me since college was at daytime, not in the evening. It took them six mothns to process my new application for financial support. I just got my own flat and all the trouble you can imaging. My teeth still show the signs of that period.

DONNA:
Yes, having rotten teeth is heartbreaking to the poor.‚ They can be wonderful people, talented, hearts of gold, and all potential landlords, rental agents, potential employers, potential friends or partners see, is rotten teeth, and they are pushed to the end of the queue or out the door.‚ Yet the governments of most countries provide either no free dental for these people, or have waiting lists up to 7 years for free dental work, which basically keeps these people on the streets.‚ And dentists, who earn doctor’s wages, could volunteer one days work a year to treat street people and fix all that, but most wouldn’t.‚ It could get so many people off the street and back into society but those who can help prefer to deal with ‘clean’ ‘monied’ patients… most people mistrust street people….but I digress.‚

SVEN:

Yeah. Before you get proper information about possible treatments they ask you about your occupation first. Insurance was cut down here, too. So I anwer, that I got an insurance and that I want to know about the full spectrum of possible treatments regardless of the costs.

Well, if I state that Im a software developer, they assume Id be sort of rich. Ha-ha.

1998 I took a job as a web developer for a couple of hours a day. It was turned into a full-time job in 2000. Some music teacher who didn’t like me personally, told the headmaster that I would have stayed away from college for a month (this got the reports of the courses I visited) and I was done with my plans to become an academic, because I couldn’t take another term without money.

In 2002 I burned out, quit and left for Berlin.

DONNA:
An exciting time around Berlin with the wall down.

SVEN:
Thanks to the Internet I knew quite a lot people there. I could commit to my care for other people with what I have learnt during psychology classes and hard thinking for myself. People would talk to me with problems and I would help them to figure out what they really want with least suggestions possible – just like a psychotherapist would do it. I took care that I look people in the eyes (found out about that in a psychology periodical in 1996) and so on. I was quite happy and gained self-confidence. Autumn 2002 a “friend” passed me an article about Asperger’s syndrome for breakfast. I read it and I saw my life pass by on my inner screen.

DONNA:
Yes, I had heard the word autism since I was 10, a teacher had taken me home as I’d been in the street after my parent’s usual partying and subsequent usual domestic brawls.‚ And this lovely woman was the fiance of a car salesman at the party.‚ The next day of course she found I had no functional language, was largely Selectively Mute, didn’t understand what I was seeing (I’m object blind and context blind, I use my hands to see and understand things I’m used to, but not in new places) and so when she brought me back to my parents she used this ‘A’ word and they’d always been told I was psychotic (since age 2 in 1965) and disturbed.‚ So my father took this in but autistic was not a word mothers wanted to hear in 1972-73, an Elvis film, the first mainstream autism film, had just come out about an autistic girl, basically Dr Elvis plays her music and cures her in spite of the damage caused by her mother – you get the old hat scenario – but though I heard this word, I thought it was an adjective meaning ‘withdrawn’ so I kept thinking I had some kind of madness and as an adult strove to learn what kind of madness that was.‚ In the course of writing Nobody Nowhere in an effort (before intended suicide) to get an answer about this ‘madness’, I discovered the word autism in a text book and freaked.‚ Later opinion and diagnosis confirmed I was autistic, and of course at that time all people with autism were deemed severely mentally retarded and the public view was we were all silent, sullen and rocking in a corner, so my case shook that stereotype to the core, which paved the way for re-diagnosis of entire generations of adults assessed as psychotic and disturbed in early chidhood… about 5 years later Asperger’s became a diagnosis, and those like me were distinguished largely by our language backgrounds.

SVEN:

Still took me five years to cope with the diagnosis. I was pretty sure from the start that I have Aspergers. Got some basic psychological education. It was no surprise.

All that memories of terror, a life without basic rights, having to face the music thousand of times – and contrasting to that the few people intelligent enough to figure out how I could not only do my shit like everyone else had to, but I would even do them better – outside class settings for example (and I was still having nerve ends where others had hair). It was too much for me. I sought some help and got a diagnosis of Asperger’s in early 2005 by specialist. (confirmed by the Max-Planck-Institut Berlin; where they want to scan my brain from time to time for studies).

DONNA:
I’m so pleased it validated you, gave you an opportunity to begin to self advocate.‚ So many adults with ASD have killed themselves because their parents were too ashamed, guilty, whatever, to discuss their early history or childhood diagnoses, or because they believed they were broken, damaged, and felt there was no hope they’d ever fit in as ‘normal’ people.‚ Fortunately, today we are creating our own communities, sometimes healthy, supportive ones, and creating constructive reachable models for people with ASD.

SVEN:

There many aspies who still haven’t got over their diagnosis and that can be a bad when trying to set up an association.

However, I spent five years of socializing in associations in Berlin, with lots of bad company and taking the chances to make real friends. I obsessed with playing the saxophone since 2000 and I now formed a jazz quartett, initiated projects like a royalty-free jam session which is still taking place. I was about to make some living with playing music when welfare was cut down below basic needs in 2005. I couldn’t afford repairs for my saxophone, so I had to borrow one. Social life without money for a drink? Forget it. Associations’ members started to steal drinks just to have a proper time with friends. Everyone got crazy. Again, I couldn’t handle it. I cleaned pub toilets from summer of 2006 until 2007 just to get going and it was even illegal.
I had my first proper birthday party: it crowded a pub with some 40 people I really love… some of the best support I got was non-autistic.

DONNA:
Very cool story.‚ Unfortunately, being a woman, my own encounters with such non-autistic ‘support’ too often meant systemic sexploitation at almost every turn.‚ That ultimately enraged me to pathological proportions but it took a long time to let anyone around me so more than the forced smile and nervous laughter.‚ I’m ok now, but…
Saying that, there were a HANDFUL of wonderful non-autistic people who really accepted me as equal and have kept my faith in the importance of non-autistic people in the worlds of those with ASD.‚ I don’t at all find non-autistic people ‘neurotypical’ or ‘mundane’ and I’m deeply sickened and offended by some zealots spouting ‘a good NT is a dead NT’, what kind of self righteous, psychopathic crap is that?‚ How self defeating for the ASD world that any of our members would spout such tripe.‚ The NT thing was started in GOOD HUMOR by Jim Sinclair, then lead to satire, but was taken over by militancy and it’s really gone to such an ugly place now.‚ Hence I won’t encourage the term and use ‘non-autistic’ instead.‚ One can’t claim to be diversity friendly whilst presuming all non-autistic people are alike.‚ They truly are not.‚ Many are apathetic, care only about their own.‚ So what, same is often true of the ASD community.‚ Many care deeply but in the only patronising or patriarchal or co-dependent ways they’ve been taught to care.‚ Many ARE anthropological and really DO embrace diversity at all levels.‚ ‚ And many are so tired of their own facades and conformity or conformist-non-conformity for that matter, that they ARE neurodiverse even if they may hide much of their own neurodiversity.‚ I think this tedious reverse prejudice of the ‘stick the boots in’ subculture within the AS community ranks has really gotta stop.

SVEN:

I agree. I disliked the “NT” from the started when it became a common term. Recently a bad article about autistic pride and disability was published in some magazine and one aspie discussion board immediately got hung up on an adrenaline binge that lasted for months, unwilling to accept that a certain statement occured in the wrong context. At the end, no-one could relax and the discussion board was completely erased by someone who got mad.

Germany is a shocking place for people to grow up with Asperger’s. And it’s now also unbearable for autistic adults. In the summer of 2007 I wanted to emigrate to Scandinavia. Someone in Munich realised that that was the ideal moment to get an excellent and incredibly cheap software developer. I emigrated to Bavaria (a German joke). Only a detour.

DONNA:
Yes, and those barriers are real, but we can’t forget there really are some good non-autistic people, just as you found.

SVEN:
Now Ive been living in Munich for eight months and it wasn’t exactly what I expected. An office on my own isn’t enough if the walls are so thin that you can hear your fellow worker talk and listen to music, not mentioned city centre construction sites. No extra money for good work. No perspective for the future. And I’m underchallenged.

DONNA:
Heck‚ I hope this interview inspires some fab autism-friendly employer to see what a trooper you have been, how resilient, determined, how experienced and dedicated you are to your interests, and steps out from the ranks to offer you something that really suits and respects you.‚ If someone wants to offer you work, how would they contact you?‚ And where are you willing to work?‚ Also if you’re in self employment right now, what services are you offering people?

SVEN:

I’m a software developer. I do not only write code, I design systems.
I know a broad range of programming languages and platforms and can learn a new one in less than a week. Im the guy who’ll read through the most important w3c.org XML specifications over the weekend and put it to use on Monday: I can roll up my sleeves and get into large projects in no time.

With 23 years of programming and reverse engineering experience I not only know how things work down to the metal, I also know the many pitfalls of software development that incorporates many contributors and can provide you with the right concepts to cope with it at ease.
Chaotic code and organisation do not receive my attention, unless you want me to clean up a mess.

I work hard and concentrated for many hours in a row. Everything I do, I can also teach. It takes me about 3 hours to teach someone how to use HTML and CSS, so he/she’d be able to learn more by oneself and do most stuff required in jobs.

I’d work almost anywhere outside Germany. I love travelling so don’t expect me to settle. I prefer to work at home when it requires my full attention – a move may not be neccessary anyway.

In case you have something to offer, mail:

pixel@copei.de

A CV is available. When it comes to hard- and software development, chances are, that I could also recommend someone else who is a true expert in his area.

Until I find a job in Scandinavia (Iceland, Norway preferred) I want to work at home. I want to laugh at work as much as anyone else. I want to do great work. I want to live in a country that guarantees that the kids I might have will receive excellent education, regardless of my financial situation or social status and where I can also teach computer programming and music. I’m about to make a change past June.

DONNA:
I really think self employment has so many soul rewards which can outweigh the financial ones (and instability) of having an employer.‚ I think developing and expanding self employment ideas and their marketting and visibility for people with ASD is essential for many and http://www.auties.org has hoped to be part of providing that opportunity to people without charge.‚ Thanks for being part of this interview.

SVEN:
My pleasure! 🙂

love + respect
Sven

p.s.: Should I ever get to write my autobiography Ill send you the first copy.

DONNA:
Fab.

Donna Williams
author, artist, composer, screenwriter
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.auties.org