In the Munich poison plant garden, deadly and harmless plants were deliberately placed side by side. Veronika Pengler, 27 years old, is leaning over one of the beds and explaining how to distinguish the plants from one another and also why it is so easy to mix them up. Such a mistake could never happen to you yourself. Pengler studies horticulture, has dealt with various poisons since childhood and is also highly gifted - her IQ was estimated at over 145 points. Even so, psychologists had said for years that she would never graduate from high school. How does that fit together?
Pengler has Asperger's Syndrome, a highly functional form of autism. For every seven male Asperger's patients, there is only one female patient on average. On the one hand, this is probably due to the prejudices of psychologists, who easily confuse the syndrome in women with borderline disorder, but on the other hand it has to do with the patients themselves. "Autistic women mask a lot in order not to attract attention," explains Pengler in the poisonous plant garden where we met for a walk. "We learn from series and films about the world of normal people, like from a script."
In this world of normal people, Pengler only finds his way through therapy.
She visits therapy in Munich, where she also lives and studies.
Others spend a couple of weeks cramming for the exam phase.
On the other hand, she has to constantly acquire new skills in addition to her studies in order to survive only in everyday life.
Pengler is particularly sensitive to noise and odors.
If her class was too loud again during school, she suffered a mental breakdown due to the overstimulation.
The girls in her class tormented her by closing the windows and spraying thick clouds of perfume.
I couldn't even look at faces anymore
Today, when she is studying horticulture, she only has to deal with the body odor of fellow students. Like the scent of wild garlic or stinking hellebore, your sweat odor cannot harm it because it is an organic odor. Veronika Pengler's aversion to everything artificial played an important role in her choice of course. In the big city she felt an extreme anxiety that weighed on her like a gray cloud. “Only in nature does my soap bubble get big enough to let other people in,” she says.
Nevertheless, she would not have wanted to meet a journalist that day. There are especially many unwritten rules among women that bother her. Her therapist explained to her what functions such conventions fulfill, for example why polite compliments are not always entirely sincere. The best thing about this learning process, however, is that Pengler does not have to give up her own perception of things in therapy. For example, why for her nature is a church, how she chooses walking paths according to the sum of its trees, or why she places blueberries on crossroads to sacrifice them to the gods - the therapist comes to meet her on all these lines of thought so far nothing strange anymore, just something radical.
The myth persists that therapy cannot help with autism. The disorder only plays a minor role in psychology studies and in the subsequent training; later on, many therapists no longer dare to approach autism. That is why there is still a shortage of offers in Germany, especially for adult autistic people. In 2019, one of the few addresses in Munich closed at the Max Planck Institute. Now, with the VFKV Institute (Association for the Promotion of Clinical Behavioral Therapy), there is a new contact point where young therapists can even specialize in Asperger's Syndrome in their training. Veronika Pengler particularly likes the fact that the therapists there, like her, are still beginners.
Most of the young patients who come to the institute have already received several misdiagnoses and have run into a wall for a long time. In order for Asperger's autism to be recognized, a concomitant disease often has to be added; at Pengler it was burnout syndrome. Her attempts to adjust to her peers have caused her so much stress that she ultimately sabotaged herself. The Asperger's symptoms did not decrease at that time, but increased: "After my burnout, I could no longer even look into faces, follow conversations or be touched." Since then it has not been so important to her to belong. Today she lives with her boyfriend, who is also on the autism spectrum - and who similarly likes to stay to himself.
Pengler now also understands what makes her an outsider.
She picks up spiders, but shudders at the ingredients in cosmetic products.
Not everyone in their mid-twenties who uses cosmetics wants to be instructed in detail by her about the products.
People without autism are full of contradictions, says Pengler, they are reckless and careless.
“If the normal world were to adapt to us for a change, that would even be beneficial.
In any case, there would be more honesty in the world. "
What if it never happens?
With the help of her studies, Pengler wants to found an integrative horticultural company one day in order to get other autistic people a job in the country.
Victor Sattler (23 years old) is studying psychology and sociology at the University of Munich. But he gained real knowledge of human nature more as a waiter, bartender, tutor, at the theater and as a journalist.