I give Bilbo, our dog, a chew stick and he expresses unkept joy. He throws it in the air and pounces on it again and again. In his little doggy head, he has not a care in the world, and I can remember being that carefree and happy when I was a child, especially if I had the chance to swing off of something or someone. Like Johnathan Livingston Seagull, I was a high rolling bird. I loved climbing and jumping across any terrain. I was so nimble and sure-footed with a love for dangerous challenges, that the jumping I did around my school’s castle shaped walls, would be a Youtube sensation today.
When as adults do we start to lose this ‘carefree’ behaviour and why do some people cut it off completely? Surely it is one of the best parts of being alive. I mean I am not so nimble these days and need a hand getting down off of high things, but when I hear a tune that I love, I really do sing and dance as if nobody is watching. I think it’s because as we grow up we begin to take on social cues, and we are taught subtly, and sometimes not too subtly, what the norm is. We learn the discomfort of being singled out or laughed at and so we learn too to keep our head below the parapet, public attention to some can feel like public humiliation, and this is the thing we desire the least. There was a viral video a couple of years back of a fat man joyously dancing to some music on a platform while waiting for a train. He looks up to see a girl filming him on her phone and openly mocking him. As he spots her across the platform, you can see his spirit shut down right in front of your eyes. I had seen that look before in my childhood friend Margo and because it is World Autism Awareness week, I thought that I would share with you this story
Margo lived with her family in the next street to me back in the early 60’s. We grew up and went to school within a Glasgow housing estate (mostly council owned). At that time, not much of anything was understood about autism. It was clear she was different and it was also clear that the kids in school sensed it and singled her out for attention that she did not want.. Our mothers were friends and ran the creche in the church together when we were babies, so we grew up as playmates. For a year of our lives though, (between the ages of 10 and 11) it was quite tough to be her friend. Not because of anything she did, but because of the negative attention she was receiving at school. I spent a year fighting by her side and got a bit bullied for it myself. I told my parents who said they were proud of me for standing by my friend, and they gave me coaching in how to fight back along with their express approval to shove anyone that shoved me (again it was different times). So scared witless I stood our ground, and eventually, they left us alone. To be fair it only really stopped completely when Margo’s sister Silvia took a day out of her busy high school schedule to come to the school and threaten to kick the living shit out of anyone who touched us, and that is a direct quote.
For Margo, being autistic meant that she didn’t have the communication fluidity that helps people to fit in. For her, there was often so much ‘grit’ in the social ‘machine’. I, on the other hand, was active in clubs and sports, and it was fair to say that you couldn’t keep me in. Margo’s mum would order her to go along with me to various events, hoping that she would make more friends and learn how to get along, but instead, it just gave her more places in which to feel like she didn’t fit in. Her social awkwardness coupled with the ever-present threat of being singled out or humiliated made her life and the people and places she thought of as ‘safe’, much narrower. We hung out at each other’s houses a lot and when she relaxed she was super funny. I apologised once for laughing at her and she just said matter-of-factly, “I don’t mind it when it’s you that’s laughing at what I say” and that made me want to cry. It used to be that if she found something funny, she would snort out loud, and this stopped when we were around 9. The headmaster had cracked a feeble joke one day at assembly and only she laughed. She snorted then brayed a little and everyone turned to stare, they then started to laugh at her (including the headmaster), and like the man on the platform video, I saw her stop dead and her spirit shut down another little bit.
Margo now leads a good rich life. Throughout her university years she formed a circle of good friends and was accepted fully, but these childhood traits of trying not to occupy too much space and being as ‘under the radar’ as possible, stayed with her. As her career grew, she gained a good reputation as a researcher and moved quickly through the fields of science and academia. It wasn’t until she moved to America in her mid-40’s that she began to understand herself. She became informed about her Aspergers and started to realise that she was no longer a helpless child, dependent on others for physical and emotional safety. The last time I spoke to her, she said that she still finds herself emotionally highjacked when she’s involved in any perceived conflict or disagreement, but as the years have gone by, it has been easier for her to get out of that space. She told me that she puts distance between herself and the issue and ensures that she remembers the role of thought and self-talk in maintaining her wellbeing and resilience. She also said that she understood that this was a human thing, not an autistic thing.
For her part, she worked hard to learn not to fear what she saw as conflict and to realise that she was no longer in that world with those kids and so she didn’t have to feel threatened by discord. For us, within the workplace, we need to remember that a colleague who is neuroatypical doesn’t always see situations as we do and doesn’t always pick up on social cues in the same way either. We need to show more understanding when faced with what we perceive to be an extreme or odd response to a small situation, word or gesture. I think that we could all benefit from the acknowledgement that the life journey of anyone might entail areas where they feel vulnerable and can get highjack by their emotions. When I don’t understand someone’s behaviour, I default to smiling and using a kind tone. These are universal cues to conveying goodwill and are accepted as such, whatever way your brain’s wired.
Scottish Autism and the National Autistic Society have a wealth of information and a vision to support people with autism for their full life journey. A key focus is always trying to place adults with autism into the workforce, and they would happily advise you on how to go about that. An organisation benefits so much from having diversity in its workforce and not just in the areas of age, race and gender (see my post asperger-syndrome-a-unique-contribution-to-the-workplace).
The next time you are alone at home, crank up your favourite tune and sing or dance like nobody is watching.
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