The popular Final Fantasy anthology series is one of the most groundbreaking video game series of all time. What makes each one of them groundbreaking is their in-depth world building, diverse characters and character arcs. However, what really makes Final Fantasy so unique is their themes and allusions to the real world. Their most famous games being Final Fantasy VII alludes to the corruption of capitalism and the role it plays on the environment while also having imperialist themes as well. But what game is really political of the series is Final Fantasy XII, which was released in 2006 for Playstation 2. Since its release it’s been remastered and ported for Playstation 4 and 5 as Final Fantasy XII:The Zodiac Age, expanding more on the world of Ivalice. But I’m not here to talk about the greatness of the game, which is indeed one of my top favorite Final Fantasy games, I’m here to talk about the themes and the allegorical connections with West Asia, specifically Palestine.

When we are first introduced to Dalmasca, we see the wedding of Ashelia B’nargin Dalmasca to Rasler Heios Nabradia, the invasion and colonialism by the Archadian Empire of Nabradia, and eventually Rasler’s death and Dalmasca’s fall to colonial rule. Dalmasca is an allegory for an Arab country, with developers of the game saying they took inspiration for the name from the Syrian city of Damascus. And while they took inspiration from Levant for Dalmasca, to me all I saw was Palestine. The city of Rabanastre is still very reminiscent of the old cities of Akka and Yaffa, historical but yet modern, with bustling bazaars and Arabesque architecture. The clothing the characters of Dalmasca wear are very Levantine coded. Many argue that they’re blonde, but I am here to tell you that as a Palestinian I have cousins with blonde hair and blue eyes, some with red hair and freckles on their olive skin! They captured the diversity of the region through Dalmasca which is something I truly appreciate. (Also lookup some of the concept art for Dalmasca and Nabradia because they are very Levantine influence.)

What made me think of Palestine was when Vaan infiltrates the Palace, there’s a seal you have to find a seal with a lion reminding me of the Tree of Life mosiac in Hisham’s Palace in Reeha(Jericho). But what really kicks it off is how we’re introduced to Ashe and the resistance.

Ashe ends up being alive after her faked suicide and created a resistance group to fight against the Archadian Empire. Which the Empire uses Vayne Solidor arguing that he will be a friend to native Dalmascans(this is a lie of course). We find out the treaty signing of her late father with the Archadian Empire was a trick to eventually take control of it. And Ashe was clearly against this. The historian and Palestinian in me couldn’t think about the early British colonial efforts of Palestine and the Levantine, where the British Empire were lying to Arab bourgioise leaders on the promise of an Arab state after the Mandate was over, only for it to be nothing but false. Ashe and the Resistance along with Basch and the eventual party of Vaan, Penelo(native Dalmascans), and Balthier and Fran joining them eventually help liberate Dalmasca. Each one realizing their problems are related to the colonialism of Dalmasca, with Balthier’s father and nethicite, Vaan and Penelo wanting freedom of exploring, and Basch wanting honor restored.

Final Fantasy XII was released after the Second Intifada and the US invasion of Iraq. Instead of portraying Levantine coded characters as evil, Square shows them as wanting nothing more than liberation. When Vossler brings up trading the stone for Dalmasca to Ashe, she is furious implying that the Empire won’t hold up their end of their bargain. Vossler reminds me of the Oslo accords, or the 1947 Partition plan telling Ashe to accept her colonialism as a puppet government.

Oslo Accords introduced the puppet government of the Palestinian Authority, something every Palestinian is against. Oslo was a way for Israel to gain more power and access over the West Bank and Gaza, areas that Palestinians still had very little authority left. Vossler was telling Ashe to accept being a puppet government for the Archadian Empire, and like a true Palestinian, Ashe was against that. The loss of her motherland and the lost of her home is what motivates her to keep fighting, which I wanted to mention the importance of Rasler.

Someone on Twitter mentioned that Rasler is from Nablus, which is very similar to the city of Nabudis of the country of Nabradia which was an amazing take. Because Nabradia is the first country to rebel and fight against the Archadians which I reminded me of the people of Nablus during the British Mandate period. The fellahis of Nablus refused to accept British electricity as seeing it as a way to accept colonialism and Zionist settlers infiltrating their land. The Palestinians of Nablus rebelled by lighting their homes and businesses with oil lamps and candles. To this day Nablus is seen as an area of resistance filled with people who are very active against the Zionist colonial movement. In FFXII Nabradia ends up being in this weird pseudo-occupation. Nabradia is technically it’s own country but also under Archadian rule, with the fortress being where the Imperials are most active, and many Archadians moving to Nabradia and Dalmasca(according to the NPCs in the Nabradia and Rabanstre aerodomes). Though Nablus is in the West Bank and is technically under Palestinian Authority it’s been under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War and is experiencing a growing number of settlements as many people living in in the West Bank, face.

Ashe continues fighting on, realizing that revenge will not motivate her anymore, especially when listening to a fellow Dalmascan Vaan, whose brother fought for the liberation of their home country as well. She will not respond by blowing up Archadia as the Occuria want, but she will fight through her means of resistance. Her uncle ends up supporting her, and she even states how Dalmascans, do not like to use drastic methods, as nethicite seems to be a code for nuclear weapons. Palestinians want the same thing. Yes, armed resistance actually works, and it helped Ashe achieve liberation for Dalmasca. Reminiscent of how armed resistance works in cases like Algeria, Cuba, South Africa, and hopefully Palestine. But Palestinians will not be use nuclear weapons, like some imperial powers do, because we will not stoop as low as our oppressors who use nuclear weapons, like how Vayne and the Judges uses nethicite to freely.

There’s a quote Ashe says when speaking to her allies in Pharos that is relevant. “In all Dalmasca’s history, not once did we rely on the Dusk Shard. Our people resolved never to use it, though their need might be dire…That was the Dalmasca I wanted back.” Though Ashe is talking about the use of essentially a nuclear weapon, it still spoke to me as a Palestinian woman. Ashe only wanted her country back, and for her people to be liberated and it’s even more powerful when she declares Dalmasca is liberated to her uncle and fellow resistance members. Dalmasca is free, and librated state again by its people and her allies. Palestinians want a liberation like Dalmasca and in a modern case like Algeria.

There’s another line that sticks with me, that Ashe says that reminds me so much of Palestine. When she approaches Vayne in Bahamut and he asks who she is, she states “I am simply myself. No more and no less. And I want only to be free.” She may be in exile, she may be a member of the resistance, but at the end of the day she Ashelia, a daughter of Dalmasca. Who wants nothing more than freedom and liberation for not her people, but for herself. And like Ashe, I want nothing more than that.

Palestinians want the land our families tended too for centuries. We want our right of return. As someone who always cries at a Final Fantasy ending, hearing Ashe say that made me tear up, because I hope to hear similar words in regards to Palestine.

Israel says there is “no suspicion of crime” in the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh despite an international outcry, two weeks after Israeli forces shot dead the veteran reporter in the occupied West Bank.

Abu Akleh, a veteran of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network’s Arabic service, was shot in the head on May 11, when she was reporting on an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp.

Her tragic death sent shockwaves across the region, drawing global condemnation. The United Nations and the European Union, among others, called for a full investigation into what has been described as a deliberate killing “in cold blood.”

The Israeli regime too promised to launch a probe into the appalling killing of the iconic journalist. It even called on Palestinian Authority, which rules the occupied West Bank, to cooperate in its so-called investigation.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, however, rejected a joint investigation by Israel on May 12, saying, “They committed the crime and we do not trust them.”

In a speech addressing thousands of Palestinians at a memorial for Abu Akleh, he also stressed that Palestinians “hold the Israeli occupation authorities totally responsible for her killing”, vowing that “This crime cannot go unpunished.”

The leader also said that instead of participating in a joint probe into her killing, the PA would “turn immediately to the International Criminal Court to prosecute the criminals.”

On Monday, Israel’s Military Advocate Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi said in a statement that “Given that Ms Abu Akleh was killed in the midst of an active combat zone, there can be no immediate suspicion of criminal activity absent further evidence.”

Tomer-Yerushalmi, whose comments will definitely infuriate Palestinians, will ultimately be responsible for determining whether any individual Israeli soldier will face disciplinary action over the fatal shooting.

She noted that the Tel Aviv regime does not yet know whether the journalist was killed by stray Palestinian gunfire or by an Israeli bullet aimed at an armed Palestinian, meaning that she does not consider the intentionally targeting Abu Akleh by Israeli troopers even as a possibility.

The military “is taking every effort to examine the circumstances of the incident in order to understand how Ms Abu Akleh was killed,” Tomer-Yerushalmi said.

Eyewitnesses and journalists who were with Abu Akleh on the day she was shot described the shooting as a “deliberate attempt” to kill journalists.

Shatha Hanaysha, a news correspondent and an eyewitness to the shootings, said they were not caught up in crossfire with Palestinian fighters like the Israeli army claimed, stressing, “It was an Israeli sniper” that shot at them.

“We made ourselves visible to the soldiers who were stationed hundreds of meters away from us. We remained still for around 10 minutes to make sure they knew we were there as journalists,” she wrote in a blow-by-blow account of the shooting incident.

As no warning shots were fired, the journalists, all wearing press helmet and body armor, felt safe enough to move towards the camp, Hanaysha further said. However, “Out of nowhere, we heard the first gunshot.”

Soon after the incident, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also claimed at first that “it appears likely that armed Palestinians — who were firing indiscriminately at the time — were responsible for the unfortunate death of the journalist.”

However, the latest footage, which was filmed by a Jenin resident, shows quiet moments, with no sounds of fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinians, confirming that Abu Akleh was shot dead by Israeli snipers on purpose, and not accidentally by a stray bullet as Tomer-Yerushalmi trying to suggest.

More than 50 US lawmakers have so far called for an investigation into the crime as Tel Aviv is refusing to launch a probe.

Over 100 leading artists from across the world have also condemned Israel’s killing of Abu Akleh, demanding accountability for the regime’s crimes.

The ICC has already opened an investigation into possible war crimes by Israel in both the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. However, Israel does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and has called the war crimes probe unfair and anti-Semitic.

Autistic and ADHD burnout are both characterized by pervasive, long-term exhaustion, loss of function, and increased difficulties with managing daily tasks. While there is considerable overlap in the features of both types of burnout, it is important to note that the Raymaker et al. (2021) study specifically addresses Autistic burnout. However, ADHD burnout shares many similar characteristics due to the overlapping demands on cognitive and emotional resources.

Primary Characteristics of Neurodivergent Burnout

• Chronic Exhaustion: Persistent, deep fatigue that doesn’t improve with rest.
• Reduced Tolerance to Stimuli: Heightened sensitivity to sensory inputs, such as light, sound, and touch.
• Increased Executive Functioning Challenges: Greater difficulties in planning, organizing, remembering, and managing daily tasks.
• Loss of Skills: Deterioration in executive functioning, which includes difficulties in thinking, remembering, planning, performing basic self-care, and managing daily activities.

Additional Symptoms

In addition to intense emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion, neurodivergent burnout can lead to:

• Emotional Dysregulation: Increased difficulty managing emotions, leading to outbursts or intense anxiety.
• Enhanced Neurodivergent Traits: Increase in repetitive behaviors, sensory sensitivities, and more difficulties adapting to change.
• Cognitive Impairments: Increased difficulties with memory and focus, making it hard to perform everyday tasks.
• Increased Executive Functioning Challenges: Greater difficulties in planning, organizing, remembering, and managing daily tasks.
• Inability to Mask: People often loose or decline in their ability to mask, which is one of the reasons that burnout is a common time for neurodivergent adults to be identified.
• Time Perception Challenges: Greater difficulty in perceiving the passage of time, leading to procrastination or last-minute stress.
• Increased Impulsivity: Heightened impulsivity that may lead to risky decisions.

Common Contributors to Neurodivergent Burnout

Research highlights several common contributors to neurodivergent burnout, including:

1 Masking:

• Constantly suppressing Autistic or ADHD traits to appear “neurotypical” demands significant cognitive and emotional effort, leading to exhaustion.
• Masking creates a disconnect between one’s internal state and external presentation, increasing stress and anxiety.

2 Minimized Needs:

• Having social and sensory needs dismissed by others because they appear “fine” due to masking.
• Lack of understanding and support from those around them can exacerbate feelings of isolation and frustration.

3 Lack of Appropriate Supports and Accommodations:

• Not having access to necessary accommodations, whether in the workplace, school, or social settings.
• Inadequate support structures can leave individuals struggling to cope with everyday demands, contributing to burnout.

4 Executive Functioning Fatigue:

• Frequent transitions and managing multiple stressors can lead to executive functioning fatigue
• The mental effort required to organize, plan, and execute daily tasks becomes overwhelming, leading to decreased functionality.

5 Overall Load Exceeding Abilities and Supports:

• When the cumulative demands of life exceed an individual’s capacity and available supports, burnout is the likely outcome.
• Balancing work, social, and personal responsibilities without adequate support creates a high-risk environment for burnout.

6 Hyperfocus:

• Intense focus on a single activity to the exclusion of everything else can lead to neglect of basic self-care and rest.
• While hyperfocus can be productive, it can also drain energy reserves, contributing to burnout.

Burnout Recovery

Recovery depends on the person and the specific causes. For a more prolonged season of burnout, a person may need to significantly restructure their lifestyle and remove themselves from the causes of their burnout. It may become more difficult to recover the older a person is. Following are some of my go-to tips for recovering from burnout:

• Attend to the sensory! Moving in ways that feel natural and good, reducing sensory load, engaging in sensory activities that are restorative⁠
• Spend time unmasked (again, masking is consistently one of the highest predictors of burnout). ⁠
• Ensure appropriate accommodations are in place (at school, work, etc.). ⁠
• Practicing good boundaries in relationships (we have fewer spoons). ⁠
• Engage in activities that are enlivening (special interests, passions, time alone, or with those whom you can safely unmask). ⁠
• Support healthy rhythms by prioritizing healthy sleep hygiene, routines, & practices. ⁠

Be Cautious of Depression Treatments for Undiagnosed Neurodivergent Burnout

Mental health providers will often prescribe “behavioral activation” for depression (assigning activities that help a person gain a sense of accomplishment, and achievement & helps them get back out in the world). This may make burnout worse unless it is adapted for the Autistic or ADHD person. Behavioral activation, if used, should focus on implementing sensory activities, special interests, rest, and must avoid activities designed to increase time spent socializing in neurotypical spaces.

Similarly, “cognitive reframing” is a common technique used for treating depression. Attempts made to “cognitively reframe” the experience may intensify shame around burnout (particularly if the therapist or person does not understand it is an Autistic/ADHD burnout).

Broadway is a major east-west thoroughfare in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In Vancouver’s numbered avenue grid system, it runs in place of a 9th Avenue, between 8th and 10th. The street has six lanes for most of its course. Portions of the street carry the British Columbia Highway 7 designation.

The route begins as “West Broadway” at the intersection of Wallace Crescent and 8th Avenue, in the affluent residential neighbourhood of West Point Grey, a few kilometres east of the University of British Columbia (UBC). Past Alma Street, Broadway takes over from 10th Avenue as one of Vancouver’s major thoroughfares, as it enters Greek West Broadway (or Greektown) section of Vancouver’s Kitsilano district. East of here are several blocks of generally trendy, upscale shops interspersed with low-rise apartment blocks and small supermarkets. The surrounding neighbourhoods generally consist of large, older homes dating from the early twentieth century, many of which have been subdivided into rental suites.

As Broadway approaches Arbutus Street, the commercial establishments become larger before transitioning into a mix of small to mid-size apartment blocks. East of Burrard Street, the apartment blocks get progressively taller, and commercial establishments larger and busier. Between Burrard and Main Street, Broadway can be considerably congested by vehicular traffic. Past Granville Street, Broadway yields completely to medium-to-large commercial structures and high-rise apartments and condominiums. Between Cambie and Main, the commercial establishments become smaller and somewhat more downscale.

At Ontario Street, two blocks west of Main, the route becomes “East Broadway.” After bisecting Main and Kingsway, traffic on Broadway eases somewhat, and the character returns to a mix of small-to-medium apartment buildings and commercial establishments, interspersed with older homes – all considerably less affluent than those to the west. At Commercial Drive, Broadway passes by the Commercial–Broadway SkyTrain Station. Past here for several blocks, the neighbourhood consists predominantly of older residential homes.

As Broadway travels east of Renfrew Street, the neighbourhood once again becomes mixed, with older homes to the north and larger industrial, commercial, and warehouse establishments to the south. Broadway finally ends at Cassiar Street, just short of the Vancouver-Burnaby boundary, where it becomes the Lougheed Highway.

Broadway was created at the turn of the 20th century, along with other gridded roads south of False Creek, to meet the needs of an expanding population in Vancouver. The name of the route was changed from 9th Avenue to Broadway in 1909, at the behest of merchants around Main Street (at that time the hub of Vancouver commerce), who felt that it bestowed a more cosmopolitan air. Commercial establishments originally spread out around the intersections of Cambie and Main Streets, while the character of the rest of the route remained predominantly single-family dwellings.

By the 1970s, the length of Broadway had become a major arterial route in Vancouver, conveying commuters from downtown to the neighbourhoods of the west and east sides. With the growth of UBC and the expansion of the Vancouver General Hospital (one block south of Broadway between approximately Oak and Cambie), traffic demands accelerated. In the 1990s, the agency then responsible for public transit in Greater Vancouver — BC Transit — introduced an express bus route, the 99 B-Line, to help reduce congestion. The Vancouver transportation plan for Broadway notes that congestion is such that the bus service is at capacity, and will not be eased until a new rapid transit line is built paralleling the street. It is anticipated that the SkyTrain’s Millennium Line will be extended to Central Broadway by 2021; the extension is expected to connect with Canada Line at Broadway-City Hall Station, at the intersection of Broadway and Cambie Street.

A West End city block is about to be sold for nearly twice the price paid for it less than two years ago.

The Vancouver Sun has reported that Alberta Street Nominee Ltd. is “under contract to sell” two mid-rise office buildings and one high-rise apartment tower to Asia Standard International Group and Landa Global Properties.

In the spring of 2014, developer Peter Wall’s company bought the 1400 block of Alberni Street for $83.5 million. Broughton Tower, a 20-storey apartment block on the site, was built around 1970.

According to the Colliers International website, listing agent Simon Lim negotiated the 2014 sale for a land area of 43,282 square feet. The building area is 91,000 square feet.

“With the City of Vancouver’s adoption of the new West End Community Plan in November 2013, new developments in this area are designated for a maximum height of 500 feet,” the real-estate company stated at the time. “The primary challenge in the sale was finding a sophisticated purchaser that understood the latent land value and development potential.”

During the 2014 election campaign, Coalition of Progressive Electors mayoral candidate Meena Wong held a news conference outside the property to raise her concerns about renovictions.

The English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in Stratford, Essex, on July 28, 1844. His father, Manley Hopkins, was a successful businessman with literary interests who wrote books on marine insurance and columns and criticism on a wide range of topics. His mother, Kate Smith, came from a wealthy London family; her father was a doctor near Tower Hill.

Hopkins was educated at High Gate School and at Balliol College, Oxford, and converted to Roman Catholicism in 1866, following John Henry Newman. He destroyed his existing poetry, became a Jesuit novice, and after studying for a period in Wales, taught in Sheffield and then at Stonyhurst School, Lancashire. He was ordained a priest in 1877.

Hopkins became professor of Greek at University College Dublin in 1884, and lived in Ireland for the remainder of his life. These were unhappy years for him, accentuated by his poor health. Norman White (1992) wrote, “Hopkins’s powerful and original temperament, a strange mixture of innocence and expertise, of old prejudices and clear-sighted observations, worked against his achieving happiness and success” (p. vii). He died of typhoid on June 8, 1889, at the age of 44, and was buried in the same cemetery as the Irish patriots he so disliked.

Few of Hopkins’s poems were published in his lifetime, but his work was anthologized after his death. The first edition, edited by his friend Robert Bridges, appeared in 1918 — and he became a highly respected and influential poet. He is known especially for the device of “sprung rhythm,” whereby the numbers of syllables in lines may vary while the stresses remain the same. His best-known poems include “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” “The Windhover,” and “Pied Beauty.”

Hopkins wrote, “I always knew in my heart Walt Whitman’s mind to be more like my own than any other man’s living” (White, 1992, p. 340). Whitman is thought to have had Asperger Syndrome; this chapter presents the evidence that Gerard Manley Hopkins may have had the same condition.

Family and Early Life

Hopkins wrote in 1878, “I do remember that I was a very conceited boy” (White, 1992, p. 1). He was the eldest of a large family. His mother was very interested in history; his father, Manley, wrote widely and showed features that we later see in Gerard, “the most obvious being voracity of mind” (White, 1992, p. 5). Besides books on aspects of marine insurance, Manley produced “two books of poetry, a drawing room play … a historical account of Hawaii, and, with his brother Marsland, a book of religious poems, differing from his other poetry” (White, 1992, p. 5), as well as book reviews, articles, dramatic monologues, hymns, letters, poems to newspapers, and an unpublished novel. His library included works on the orders of chivalry, rose growing, astronomy, and piquet, and he was interested in mathematical calculation — he appears to have had Asperger-type interests. In Manley’s book The Cardinal Numbers, to which Gerard contributed, “facts become isolated from the argument in which they arise and, like the encyclopedic facts in Gerard’s diaries, are marveled at in their own right” (White, 1992, p. 6).

Around the age of 10, Gerard “was precocious and original, and his aesthetic preferences were decided. When he and (his brother) Cyril had some childish illness his mother found him crying, ‘because Cyril has become so ugly! From an early age he showed a combination of inventiveness and didacticism, which were to become a characteristic of his poetry” (White, 1992, p. 19). He was also very interested in drawing and sketching, with an eye for detail, and was well known at school for his comic and grotesque drawings. However, he did not fulfill his early promise as a visual artist. He became very interested in architecture and was influenced by books on the Gothic style, whose values he became “dictatorial and priggish” in advocating (White, 1992, p. 21). He was always a close observer of nature — persons with Asperger Syndrome are often great observers (e.g., Gregor Mendel, Charles Darwin). A cousin remembered that as a boy in the garden, Gerard would arrange stones and twigs in patterns.

White (1992) noted, “He had a clear, sweet voice as a child but could not read music, and in spite of the family interest in music never learned to play an instrument properly” (p. 22). Later he tried to play and compose, and had to teach himself out of a textbook by trial and error. At 10 years of age he was “small for his age and delicate-looking, his head large in proportion to his trunk and shoulders. Photographs of him in the junior school show his mouth hanging open, eyes hooded, with the top lids heavy and half-closed … His eyebrows were already permanently raised, with an appearance of sardonic superiority” (White, 1992, p. 24).

Hopkins developed several friendships in his last years at High Gate. For example, he had a rather intense and intimate relationship with a boy named Alexander Strachey, but Strachey rejected him, which upset and baffled him greatly. He had an Aspergerstyle difficulty in negotiating relationships. Thus, it appears the reason Strachey did not go for walks with him was that Hopkins had not asked him. Hopkins hoped to learn from this relationship. White (1992) said, “There is an overwrought quality — as well as an innocence — about the account of an exchange with Strachey” that Hopkins recorded in great detail and sent to another friend, E. H. Coleridge. Hopkins and Strachey never made up; Hopkins commented to Coleridge, “It is still my misfortune to be fond of and yet despised by him” (p. 34). This type of communication problem often occurs in persons with Asperger Syndrome.

Hopkins did not really do well at school, and it was not a happy period for him. He could not negotiate the school relationships satisfactorily. However, university relationships are of a different quality, and he performed better there from a social interactional point of view. At the university for a time, he was nicknamed “Poppy,” which may refer to his physique.

Social Behavior

For Hopkins, the Jesuits presented the most complete rational framework for resolving the problems of personality. Hopkins was hoping to impose on an unpredictable existence a sense of rightness and order, even at the price of putting himself out of joint, in some respects, with personal and national culture. In any event, his oddness and strangeness were merely exaggerated by his position as priest (White, 2002).

According to White (1992), “When the poems show an encounter between his private self and the outside social world it is seldom a happy one” (p. 381). Hopkins had major difficulties in behaving in socially appropriate ways. For example, while he lived in Dublin he was befriended by the McCabe family of Donnybrook, whom he often visited. One evening when taking his leave, he shook hands with McCabe and then held his hand out for the penny tram-fare (White, 2002).

In 1865, Hopkins wrote in a poem of “the incapable and cumbrous shame” that made him “more powerless than the blind or lame” in his dealings with other people. “His tendency was to find books more attractive than tutors; however authoritative he pretended to be, a book was a tool, which could be used as his impulse suggested” (White, 1992, p. 75). Solitude seemed preferable to him to company. In Dublin, 20 years later, he wrote, “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life/Among strangers.” The sense of being a stranger, of not fitting in, is common in people with Asperger Syndrome; this also reminds one of Temple Grandin’s “anthropologist on Mars” metaphor.

In Dublin, Hopkins became known as “a small, shy, almost insignificant man” (White, 1992, p. 383) — he made little impact, and is hardly mentioned in the numerous Dublin memoirs of the time. It seems that he was soon forgotten in Ireland, and was invisible to Irish eyes. “In the classroom he was unable to cope with discipline, said a student, and never really won the confidence and affection of his pupils” (White, 1992, p. 385).

He was “twitted by his colleagues in the same sort of way as he was ragged by his pupils” (White, 1992, p. 385) — none of them intended to hurt him, and probably did not realize how sensitive he was. As a priest, he preferred his people to be unquestioningly devoted to authority, and therefore preferred to work with the poor in Lancashire rather than the educated and affluent in Oxford.

Hopkins had a harsh superego and was primarily homosexual — he “apparently never experienced guilt-free sexuality.” He was scrupulous in detecting weaknesses of the flesh and “always anxious about the moral problems of physical beauty,” whereas in fact “Nothing goes beyond glances, awareness, and ‘temptations’: the objects of attraction remain at a distance” (White, 1992, p. 114). Sexual “sins” were a major preoccupation; he would look up “dreadful words” in the dictionary. White (1992) commented, “When he gave up the idea of being a professional painter, because it placed too great a strain on his emotions, he was probably basing his decision on such temptations: ‘evil thoughts’ occurred to him while he was drawing, particularly when he drew a crucified arm, and a crucifix of his Aunt Kate’s stimulated him in the wrong way” (p. 114). This suggests either sadism or masochism and excitement about it. According to White, “His reaction to his indiscriminate sexual feelings was a desire not to resolve but to crush them. His judgment by absolutes combined with sexual inexperience to produce a standard of female purity that was narrow even by the standards of the 1860s” (p. 129). White also pointed out the almost complete absence of women from Hopkins’s writings, “except for virgin martyrs” (p. 164). He also felt guilty about idleness, inattention, lack of concentration, and spending time frivolously — just like Ludwig Wittgenstein, who had Asperger Syndrome (Fitzgerald, 2004). After a frivolous day Hopkins wrote, “Idling. Self-indulgence. Old habits [masturbation]. No lessons. Talking unwisely on evil subjects. Wasting time in going to bed.” “By daily identification of shortcomings, Hopkins hoped for self-improvement, but weaknesses continued to show themselves” (White, 1992, p. 119).

Hopkins was extremely scrupulous. He wrote “The Wreck of the Deutschland having read in The Times about an incident in which a ship foundered in the mouth of the Thames, causing the death of some nuns who had been expelled from Prussia. He mentioned it to his rector, who said that someone ought to write a poem about it — so Hopkins did. It seems that “Particular aspects of this martyrdom appealed to him, and the event seemed to contain hidden messages and symbols: the German and English national implications, the reported cry of the tall nun, the number (five) of the nuns” (five being the number of Christ’s wound’s; White, 1992, p. 250). Hopkins appears to have been preoccupied with nuns.

Narrow Interests/Obsessiveness

“Hopkins’s arrogance, reinforced by stubbornness, surfaced when he pursued one of his compulsive lines of interest. He had to choose his own questions, work out judgements according to his own rules and impulses, and find answers in his own time … His obstinate independence of mind was constantly deflated by his recognition of areas of ignorance where he needed authority” (White, 1992, p. 75).

White (1992) also pointed out that Hopkins sometimes despaired at his apparent inability to control himself and his destiny. His solutions were typically impractical and extreme; his work was sometimes neurotically elaborate. He attempted to simplify his problems and evade his demons by complete submission to ancient comprehensive ideological systems; he became a Roman Catholic and then a Jesuit.

Hopkins was interested in linguistics and etymology, as persons with Asperger Syndrome often are. He became fluent in Latin and Greek. He frequently wrote about birds and animals — persons with Asperger Syndrome are often interested in nature. He was also fascinated by skyscrapers, as was Wittgenstein.

After more than a year in Dublin, “he had become not only more isolated but more intense and eccentric. Subjects which he could not argue about aroused an unbalanced dogmatism. Strange and disproportionate passions, not sanctioned by events, appear in his letters, and show why his reputation for eccentricity increased among the Irish” (White, 1992, p. 398).

For a period, Hopkins “bombarded his friend (Mowbray Baillie) with wild linguistic surmises, observations of obscure etymological coincidences, and demands for answers to questions on Egyptian language and mythology. Baillie had to expend midnight oil and patience to keep up with the constant letters and postcards — three were sent on one day” (White, 1992, p. 414). One wonders if Hopkins went through a mild hypomanic phase when he was doing this.

Routines/Control

Hopkins’s social outlook was conservative. In Dublin, he was “indignant at the lack of respect his students showed him as a priest” (White, 1992, p. 17). He was suspicious of enjoyment, and, according to White (1992), frequently looked on beauty as a forbidden sweet, rather than as an essential of life.

Joining the Jesuits did not make much sense except as an Aspergertype decision: Indeed, it was a masochistic decision probably aimed at appeasing his cruel superego. The Jesuits’ bodily penances of the time, which involved beating themselves, would somewhat appease the autistic superego and also give masochistic gratification.

Language/Humor

Hopkins was extremely interested in words, as we have seen. In his writings, he tended to use an elaborate, convoluted style of language, which could be seen as “Asperger language.” Sometimes he sounds a “medieval note” . Persons with Asperger Syndrome, as they seem out of place or out of time, are often said to be like characters from the medieval or renaissance periods. This was true of the French avant-garde composer Erik Satie, for example (Fitzgerald, 2005).

There appears to be little evidence of Hopkins having a sense of humor apart from occasional practical jokes, such as blowing pepper with a bellows through a keyhole.

Lack of Empathy

Hopkins “never mentioned his father’s job in letters, and showed no awareness that his comfortable home and education were dependent on his father’s hard-won income and social position” (White, 1992, p. 5).

He was seldom tactful where art was concerned. In his assessments of his friends’ work, he was more likely to blame than to praise, and to show insensitivity to personal feelings — this would be characteristic of someone with Asperger Syndrome. At his first meeting with the poet and critic Robert Bridges, who became his friend, Hopkins “crudely and uningratiatingly… tried to question the reserved Bridges on his morals, as though he were Bridges’s parish priest,” according to White (1992, p. 303). This was tactless.

Hopkins was a strong imperialist. While in Ireland, he was never able to put himself in the other person’s position and look on Irish politics from an Irish point of view: The Irish sympathies he developed before he set foot in Ireland had narrowed or vanished (White, 2002). This would suggest a lack of balance and empathy.

Hopkins also showed his lack of empathy in an unintentionally amusing sermon he gave at supper in the community refectory in Wales one evening. The gospel of the day had been the feeding of the five thousand, and Hopkins took as his text the sentence “Then Jesus said: Make the men sit down.” White (2002) suggested that he must have seen its ordinariness as a challenge to his powers of imaginative transformation and expansion. The sermon was not a success. After 15 minutes he had clarified neither argument nor purpose. He tried to rectify the situation by repeating the key phrase, Make the men sit down. Hopkins’s voice was inclined to become shrill and lose authority when raised. His ineffective dramatization proved too much for the audience, and people laughed at it prodigiously. The last five minutes of the sermon were not delivered.

Naivety/Childishness

Hopkins never developed sexually and “never grew out of eccentric experimentation; after his death people remembered how as a Jesuit master he had shinned up a goal-post to cure a pupil’s toothache, how he had rescued a monkey by climbing along a dangerous ledge” (White, 1992, p. 69). Persons with Asperger Syndrome tend to be novelty seeking in nonsocial situations.

Hopkins was always being misinterpreted. “He was ‘so naive and simple,’ said John Howley, one of his students, that he ‘neither suspected he was being ragged, [nor] was able to see that remarks of his were open to misreading.” He once said that “he regretted that he had never seen a naked woman: this said in all simplicity opened up a new chance for ragging, and was perhaps even solemnly misunderstood” (White, 1992, p. 385).

While Hopkins was on a break in Monasterevin in Ireland, “On a long walk he was given a lift by a man in a cart. After some time he asked if they were now near Monasterevin; the reply was ‘We’re not, then, but we’ll be coming into Portarlington presently.’ Hopkins had not asked the man which way he was going, and they had been traveling in the opposite direction” (White, 1992, p. 495).

Hopkins showed “naive emotional reactions” in political matters; for example, in his near-hatred of William Gladstone. He was a “naive imperialist,” according to White (1992, p. 157). While a Jesuit novice, in letters to his mother, he recounted with childish enthusiasm the injustices meted out to Catholics in Spain and Poland.

When he was studying in Wales, the older Jesuits regarded his enthusiasm for the Welsh language as naive.

Moods

Hopkins suffered a great deal from depression; for example, June 1865 was a time of despondency and inertia when he could not get up in the morning or go to bed at night, and solitude seemed preferable to company. In 1885 he wrote,

The melancholy I have all my life been subject to has become of late years not indeed more intense in its fits but rather more distributed, constant, and crippling. One, the lightest but a very inconvenient form of it, is daily anxiety about work to be done, which makes me break off or never finish all that lies outside that work. It is useless to write more than this: when I am at worst, though my judgment is never affected, my state is much like madness. I see no ground for thinking I shall ever get over it or even succeed in doing anything that is not forced on me to do of any consequence. (White, 1992, p. 394)

During a retreat in the Irish midlands in 1889, he said that he felt the loathing and hopelessness that he had often felt before. Fear of madness had made him give up the practice of meditating, except when on retreat. He complained a great deal in his letters, and showed a high level of self-pity. The Irish poet William Butler Yeats remembered him as “a sensitive, querulous scholar” (White, 1992 p. 425).

Identity Diffusion

During the second half of 1865, Hopkins thought he had passed through a crisis of identity. “The old self was repudiated, but he had not yet knitted together the valuable pieces of his past. It is doubtful if he ever achieved complete coherence — he seems always afraid of his unconquered demons, and took strong measures to keep them down … Beneath the simple and apparently external form of Hopkins’ apostasy lay a complex act of repudiation, involving an inability to come to terms with his own temperament” (White, 1992, p. 129).

It would appear that joining the Catholic Church was a way of trying to resolve his identity diffusion or confused identity. The Catholic Church was more rigid and therefore more attractive than the Anglican Church for someone lacking a strong core self. In another sort of identity confusion, White (1992) refers to clashes between Hopkins’s poetic and priestly personae.

Appearance/Demeanor

In Dublin, many of his characteristics — appearance, way of talking, mannerisms, and so on — appeared typical facets of an English aesthete. Hopkins became known in Dublin as a small, shy, almost insignificant man; he was considered effeminate and stood out by, for example, wearing the kind of slippers that young girls wore at that time (White, 2002).

Conclusion

From the above, we feel that it is highly probable that Gerard Manley Hopkins had Asperger Syndrome.

• Michael Fitzgerald, Former Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry