Day 19 - āI hate it when...ā
As youāve gleaned from prior posts, I hate it when you forget autism is a developmental disorder and not an intellectual one. We are so. Fucking. Tired. Of being treated as lesser, or like we donāt understand what youāre saying to us.
Outside of the reactions to othersā behavior, though, I have some personal āI hate it whenā...Iāve let you into my mind and told you what I appreciate about how my brain works, but there are things I donāt like, for sure.
I hate that personal stressor things trigger a toddler-like need to SHUT DOWN. Like writing this blog, for example...the vulnerability I feel usually leads to a need to go to sleep for a long time, once Iām finished. Or after a long day socializing. I donāt want to talk to anyone, I donāt want to engage my brain anymore, I just need to shut all systems down and sleep. Especially if thereās been a meltdown (meltdownā->shutdown)...and oh boy do I hate meltdowns. Theyāre really rare, thank dog.
I hate that my executive function is an absolute bag of ass. This is probably the biggest thing I would change. It got infinitely worse when my disability got bad (EDS), for some reason. And it drives me up the damn wall.
I hate my low function days/moments. Itās like my brain just wonāt kick into gear, or the gears and wheels are rusty and grinding, & itās rather anxiety inducing. I usually āhideā on my low days, sometimes in my darkened bedroom, and watch favorite shows or movies, or get lost in a good book - if I can. On low days I find myself re-reading crap constantly because itās not making any sense, so Iāll even avoid complicated recipes...I have no idea why these days/moments happen, but boy do they piss me off/make me anxious (thatās kind of the same thing for me. My anxiety nearly always manifests as anger). On my low days, youāll see (if you were a fly on the wall, because I suppress this even around my own family), me walking in tight, anxious figure 8ās and flapping my hands in a distressed way, as I anxiously try to mentally kick my brain into gear. (It doesnāt work, but it IS a little soothing. And my dogs are SO sweet...they gather around me tightly and just seem to know I need them.)
š¤·š»āāļø Thereās probably more I could expound on that I donāt like, but writing this one has been pretty distasteful. I try not to dwell on things I hate anymore, so Iāve put this entry down multiple times and come back to it when Iām in a decent frame of mind. I think Iām tired of talking about it now, so Iām gonna just stop talking.....
Which is a good segue into Day 20 -
āāāāāāāāāāāā-
Ahh communication. This entry will be long, because I have a lot to communicate LOL....
Personally, I write far more coherently and eloquently than I speak. My brain goes too fast...I often trip over words; my brainās three steps ahead of whatās coming out of my mouth and I get scrambled sometimes. I can also take the time to think about what I want to say/HOW I want to say it. Like many autistics, Iām a blurter. LOL...I am constantly trying to remind myself, just because I think it, doesnāt mean I have to say it. This gets a LOT of us in trouble...one of my most memorable examples is, I *loudly* blurted āthatās BULLSHIT!!ā in a church one time. (I was speaking on how my devout Methodist grandmother, who regularly takes communion at her church, was not permitted to receive communion in a Catholic church, merely because she isnāt Catholic, despite the fact that this woman is all about some Jesus & a devoted churchgoer - not just on Easter and Christmas.) In my defense, it WAS (IS) bullshit. I just didnāt need to practically yell that in church. As you can imagine, it was like a needle scratching across a record & everyone turned to stare. (My poor husband rescued me.) š¤¦š»āāļø Sigh. Itās a good idea to keep me out of most church services.
I am rather famous (infamous?) for calling bullshit straight to someoneās face, BLUNTLY. Itās out of my mouth before my brainās ātact gatekeeperā Iāve spent over a decade trying to train is even half awake at his post (itās a him because my husband is the one who taught me how to use tact in the first place. And itās a him because said āgatekeeperā is lazy and falls asleep on the job all the time š). Have you ever just blurted your honest thoughts and heard shocked gasps or someone just busts out laughing? Yeah. That happens to me regularly. Or uncomfortable chuckles and someone will blink a few times and say, āoohhhkay, well, you could said that a different way.ā (My old response to that was, Iām not responsible for what your reaction is to what I say...youāre in charge of your own feelings. I *understand* now how irresponsible and unfeeling that is, and I try to keep that in the front of my mind, even when Iām frustrated and nearly burning up with the desire to speak my thoughts in their raw form, but this is routinely an area I struggle to adapt to...and I am very sorry when I hurt someone I care about.)
On the other side of this same coin though, this is a trait my friends respect deeply, because Iām not cruel hearted or anything. You always know where you stand with me, and Iām the last person to try and lie to you. I SUUUUUCK at lying. And on the rare times when I do, I usually end up eventually telling on myself (this drove my older stepsister NUTS when we were kids, because she liked to do lots of sneaky things, and I donāt have an inherently sneaky nature LOL...so āDO NOT tell mommaā was a *serious* risk for her, if she let me tag along š). Lying to someone just feels disgusting. Oily. Shameful. I hate lying. Plus, my short term memory is a grabasstic bag of CRAP, so thereās a good chance I wonāt remember the lie and get caught anyway. š¤·š»āāļø My boys also suck at lying or hiding stuff, and generally prefer not to...but I also give them a safe forum to be honest. (Iām sure thereās LOTS of crap I donāt know, but youād be surprised how much they DO tell me.)
Another thing with me personally is that I go mute sometimes. Iām not being deliberately obstinate. Iām not REFUSING to speak in those moments...sometimes I literally canāt, and the effort of doing so will make me gag, or even projectile vomit. Sounds very dramatic, doesnāt it? It is. (And it annoys the SHIT out of me.) Thereās not a fucking thing i can do about it. The movement of my tongue in my mouth will literally begin to trigger my gag reflex, and if I try to power through it, Iām rewarded with my lunch returning to the surface anyway, regardless of my desires, and sometimes rather unexpectedly & violently. USUALLY this happens when Iām uber stressed, but sometimes it seems kind of out of the blue & catches even me off guard. If this happens but I still have something to say, I start texting instead, and explain. Most people - especially my hubby - are very kind when this happens. (I donāt want your pity, I just want you to switch to written communication for a minute until I can figuratively kick the fuck out of the engine in my āspeaking centerā and get it to work again.) Other times, I will literally get tired of talking. Like my mouth and tongue - and somehow, the āword formingā part of my brain feels physically exhausted (weird, I know, but I also spend the vast majority of my life silent - I am home alone all day, hate talking on the phone, and simply donāt speak much, by choice. So maybe it is actual āmouth fatigueā ššš - Iāve stopped eating before because I just got tired of chewing, too, even though Iām still somewhat hungry. š) I am usually *perfectly* happy to keep listening! And Iāll stay engaged in the conversation usually. I am just...done audibly talking. Iāll literally say āmy mouth is tired of making the sounds now, but please keep goingā...but I think my husband is the only one who doesnāt find this unusual, and rolls with it. It usually happens after a long, animated conversation...instead of winding down, though, it just..stops. If I try to keep going, cue the gagging. I can stay engaged in the conversation if you let me start writing/typing instead of speaking, for my responses. So thatās a āfunā little trait of mine that many neurotypicals find unsettling. Please donāt take it personally. My mouth just doesnāt want to make the words anymore - and Iām probably mostly done adding what I needed to add to the conversation anyway. Iām a great listener when this happens, though. š
Communication is a really interesting thing with all of us, because itās a struggle on one level or another. I will tell you, itās a frequent topic in my groups. āWHY CANāT NEUROTYPICALS JUST SAY WHAT THE FUCK THEY MEAN?!?! š©š©š©ā Iām dead serious - you might think, because weāre sensitive (generally), we canāt āhandleā it? Youād be so very wrong. What we canāt handle is when you dance around a subject or we have to try and translate what you just said to us (which most of us are not that good at). Just fucking say it! Nine times out of ten, youāll just get a look of dawning realization and a āoh, shit, okayā response. We can handle it. Just. Say. It. Weāll respect you a lot more in the morning, LOL š
I think every autistic has some sort of beef with neurotypicals when it comes to communication (as Iām sure you have yours with us, obviously).
You guys operate under some weird ass rules that we simply donāt understand - especially if you donāt tell us those rules & just expect us to know. Like, if my husband hadnāt patiently taken years to show/teach me how the way I said certain things were hurtful, I would still be in the āyeah sheās cool but sheās kind of an assholeā territory. (I still struggle to grasp this, or at least it still frustrates me....truth is truth, whether itās an ironclad general fact or your own personal truth - and yes sometimes the truth hurts, but like...I donāt pin any responsibly for that on the truth teller, if that makes sense?)
Working in rescue also helped hone my ability to speak āneurotypicallyā to others - I work with a LOT of women, and boy do a lot of them NOT appreciate when you bluntly tell them what you think. Men on the other hand....
I know *lots* of autistic women who prefer friendships with men, largely centering around this communication thing. We hurt menās feelings a little less regularly than other womenās. I know I was like that, until I got a little more used to how I have to modify my communication with most women (but that annoys me, Iām gonna be honest - it annoys my Autie friends, too). The only time I am as starkly blunt as I used to be, is when speaking to my female Autie friends (because they can handle it), or most of the dudes Iām friends with. But if my message is getting ālost in the sauceā and youāre not getting my point, I usually give a frustrated sigh, WARN you that Iām about to tell you flatly what I need to say, because we arenāt getting anywhere, and just say it.
Yes I am the friend who, when you gush on and on about your new back yard bred puppy, talking all about how youāre gonna breed him when he grows up, is gonna flatly say āheās not breeding qualityā, if theyāre not. Then Iām gonna ask you why you want to do such a thing, given that youāre aware of the massive load of rescue dogs (PARTICULARLY Great Danes and Cane Corsos) - and probably beat your argument down every step of the way. That doesnāt always go badly though - one of my closest friends was considering breeding their dog, and while it was a beautiful dog, it was not one that should reproduce (from an āimprove the breedā perspective). We barely knew each other, but I gained a reputation for being kind but starkly honest...and I knew what I was talking about...and now I have this personās deep respect, and they have mine (because they listened and did the research I asked them to - and did not add to the breed population). So itās not *always* a trainwreck, because the people who end up respecting how I communicate, usually end up VERY close friends. AND I WANT THAT IN RETURN, which is refreshing for a LOT of people. I want your dead honesty in return - PLEASE. Itās so much easier for me to process and accept. For example, my house is almost constantly in some sort of disarray. I have one friend who will come in and go, āgirl. I almost canāt breathe in here - this clutter is too muchā(and then she offers to help me tackle it!!).
Or, fairly recently, āoh my god those curtains are so horrible, I hope youāre getting rid of those when you redo this room.ā
āBut I MADE those curtains! I love that print!ā
āUgh. No. Theyāre terrible. Get rid of them.ā
My feelings were not hurt in the LEAST (I of course had a flash of āyou bitch, I was so excited to find that print and I MADE THOSE, ya jerkā š). At first I said, āwell youāre just gonna have to suck it up and deal with my shitty curtains, because I like themā š, but then as I was redoing the room, I took them down...and it DID look a lot better, so I left them down ššš....
So I guess my point with all this is: every autie I know deeply wishes youād just fucking spit it out. We WILL often miss or misinterpret the point if you āfluffā it too much (around my neck of the woods, we call it putting too much gild on the lily, though Iāve never understood that one. Idk if a āgilded lilyā is/was ever a thing, why anyone would gild a lily in the first place...LOTS of us struggle with colloquialisms that donāt make literal sense. š Recently a friend was baffled over āshit in one hand and wish in the other and see which fills up fasterā, and fully half of the respondents to her post were people baffled by why anyone would shit in their hand - I and a couple others had to explain, and it just ended with them going āwell thatās a fucking stupid saying anyway, and wishes arenāt things you can put in your hands, eitherā ššš...but Iām from the south, and these things are just part of our vocab. MOST of them are easy to grasp for me, like ānervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairsā, because I immediately picture it and can grasp the meaning. But others I donāt get - the gilded lily is one LOL)...
We are LITERAL AS FUCK. Itās why we ruin lots of jokes, too. My poor husband is the dad joke king - and I ruin fully 1/3 or more of his jokes by being too literal (which he also finds amusing, so thatās good). Sometimes we realize weāre ruining the joke but we donāt care, because itās dumb, or we just .... canāt....HELP IT. š©š
Jeez, I could almost write all day about autistics and communication LOL!!
But to summarize (and not succinctly, sorry), I guess, for me and many many others...we are often blunt, direct, almost painfully honest, and very, very literal. Your unspoken rules of communication absolutely go over our heads, unless you - yannow - *communicate* and explain them. Weāll probably tell you those rules are stupid and exhausting, but we will TRY and stick to it as best we can. But see, we literally have to think about every single word that comes out of our mouths, because we communicate far more directly than you weird fuckers do. And it is literally actually exhausting. Itās not an easily natural thing for us to adapt to, your weird way of saying things but not saying what you really mean. Youāre wasting a LOT of words there, sir, and we are now getting obsessively confused over why you would do such a thing. š Itās also why I keep getting banned from Facebook. My recent one was because I said - in one of my Autie āsafeā groups, where I should be able to just say what I mean - that I tend to punch or want to punch people who deliberately startle the shit out of me. We were talking about how stupid April Foolās Day was, and how we hate pranks. Three of us got banned for 30 days for just...well. Facebook called it āincitement of violenceā. šš„ŗšš¼šš¼šš¼šš¼šš¼šš¼šš¼šš¼
But I havenāt met - yet, maybe? - an autistic person who is cruel natured - not one of us gets any joy from being a bully type. WE feel everything on a higher level, so we kind of assume you do, too...you might think, āthen why are you such an asshole?!ā, but itās simply that we - or every Autie I know, anyway - struggle to grasp how directly communicating your feelings is so fuckin hard or hurtful for yāall. I think anyone struggles to grasp something they themselves donāt experience. All you have to do is explain, though, and keep guiding us towards communicating in ways that we both find acceptable. I mean weāre champs at accepting all manner of different human - regardless of race, sexuality, and so on - but the communication is one area that frustrates the ever loving SHIT out of most of us, because it makes so little logical sense why anyone would say a bunch of useless words that muddy up their intent.
My closing advice? Help Your Pet Autie ā¢ļø (this is absolutely a tongue in cheek term btw) understand how youād like to be communicated with, and guide us. BE SPECIFIC for fucks sake - we suck at guessing what you might want, and itās so frustrating that weāll often just stop communicating at all. Instead of saying āit hurts me when you say thisā, try saying āthe WAY you said this hurt my feelings because of ____. Maybe you could put it like this insteadā (or, āyou know, you should really just keep shit like that to yourselfā) and *give examples*. Donāt expect us to come up with different ways of saying shit, because we donāt understand what it is specifically you want, and itās not very logical, therefore itās not ānaturalā for us. Plus, everyone is different. I canāt talk to one of my sons the same way I can talk to the other, without certain negative reactions. Give us a chance to know your needs - we DO CARE!!! - but be CLEAR. I know in your world, tact is a big deal, but MOST of us will miss the fucking point if youāre too tactful (and when we misinterpret, we always err on the side of worst case scenario, and make the issue wayyyyy bigger than it should be. Being clear is soooo important).
And hey. Maybe itāll help clear up some communication in other areas of your life. Being clear isnāt a license to be a fucking asshole; nobodyās giving you a license to unleash on everyone about how much you canāt stand humans...if WE hafta be quiet about that, so do you lmao...fairās fair. š But quit hedging and hinting and hoping we will pick up on the whatever your grievance is - because we wonāt. Weāll just know youāre unhappy, and start panicking over guessing what we did wrong, and just shut down, because we have no idea.
Just. Fucking. Say it. š