Email | Print

I grew up autistic and tried to compensate for my social incompatibility by quiet readings and dreams of becoming a great man. Or, maybe, as Chinese astrology says, I was simply inclined to be a loner as all Oxen are. Or, apparently, totalitarian societies tend to make some people extremely introverted.

I tried to understand why I was so incompatible. Is it me or is it the Soviet regime that I have to change or both? Communists found my diaries criticizing the system and citing the West as a perfect example of a true democracy, so I eventually ended up in a mental hospital where I was tortured for 13 weeks. Pills and injections devastated my already fragile body and mind. Even when I got out I couldn't speak about this nightmare to anyone. It was too risky and nobody likes to say, "I was in a mental hospital."

So I had to be silent until, courtesy of the Department of State, I safely arrived in New York City in 1995. But years of repressed embarrassment and anger made my autism worse. Struggling to be rooted in a new land without any family or friends plunged me into a coughing fog of emergency rooms, physicians and eventually shrinks. Yes, I've got depression.

Welfare and Medicaid kept me going until the time came to start working for my food stamps. I did my best, but after several failures, a commission concluded that I'm too sick to work. A state agency assisting the handicapped to rehabilitate through employment helped me to get my first computer and training, but they eventually left me to myself as they didn't have services for self-employment-oriented clients.

So, with some time on my hands I started to wonder what to do with my life. Do I still want to be a great man? Yes, I was ready for noble deeds. Now, when I had a break from the struggle to survive, I started focusing on something important.

My neat plans were disrupted by a beautiful young woman who seemed to genuinely love me. It was so unusual. She didn't believe that I was mentally ill. "You are all right, you just had difficult times in life," she would say calmly. Her love has awakened me from my emotional coma: I started to learn how to act without constantly attracting curious glimpses, how to be normal and enjoy life.

At one point we decided to start our own business so we can move forward and become independent. We thought about a website where friends could be made by matching compatible horoscopes. It was so in tune with how we met. I advertised in a local newspaper looking for a girl with compatible Zodiac signs, she called and we fell in love from the first date.

We have built the website www.DoubleSign.com by sacrificing everything for it. Now DoubleSign just needs venture capital to make its decisive leap to worldwide success. My American Dream is for DoubleSign to one day go public and become a household name.