Taking the Scenic Route

Although this might not be true universally, I believe it to be true with my son. 

I think that one of the long standing beliefs of the autistic experience is just dead wrong.  I challenge the belief that autistics are unable to ‘read’ people.  I think instead of being unable to understand what people are thinking and feeling, the opposite is true.  I think the main challenge they face in this area is not that they can’t ‘read the social cues’, it is that they have an intuition that is far deeper than average and the problem comes in when what they see at a deeper level does not match up what they see on the social mask level.  Compound this with adding the other layer of social mask, our communication, and it gets really difficult because describing complex emotions is very difficult, even for the very verbose among us.   

I know that I have a deep intuition about people.  I don’t like to talk about it often, because it sort of freaks people out, but I have incident after incident after incident in my life where I just *know* things, especially about people I am emotionally close to.  It isn’t *quite* psychic…at least not in the sense that I get visions or anything, but when I am able to make my mind quiet, I can see beyond what the person is saying, even if I can’t always put it into words.  (it often is what compels me to write…trying to put words to the abstract pictures and waves in my brain and clarify it to myself.)  If somebody is going through a major change or chaotic in their life, postitive or negative, I am often able to feel it.  Unfortunately, if my mind is really busy and bogged down in my own crap, the message isn’t always able to make it to me fully, but I am learning to try and “listen” when I suddenly start thinking about somebody totally out of the blue.  It is usually something that needs my attention.

I see this trait, only on a much deeper and more intense level, in my son.  Over and over again I see him respond to people in dramatically different ways.  I know within a short amount of time people’s true attitudes about my son, just by his reactions.  Now, don’t get me wrong, the signals he gives off are subtle, and at times I wonder if it is fully his body language I am able to read, or if it is something less tangible that I am able to feel (although it is probably a combination, I think it leans towards the latter), but the signals are, none the less, quite apparent to me.  I often have to tell people when I see the signals, because they are so subtle and I want people to have that feedback, but, ironically, most people who do have this attitude understand that.  Conversely, when somebody ‘appears’ nice, but comes to him with a critical spirit, the reaction is more overt, and, interestingly, very much the autistic stereotype.  It is like the intensity of the discord between what he sees and what he feel is so overwhelming that he can’t cope with it.   As is true with most of life, the majority of interactions are someplace along the continuum, with more moderate reactions. 

In a nutshell, he largely reflects the attitude he is approached with.  Not the conscious attitude, but the unconscious one.  Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised that it can sometimes take a bit longer for him to warm up to people simply because it is difficult for his parents, whom he also feels, to warm up to them.  It is the combination of energies that he reacts to.  Once we feel comfortable, then it sort of clears the air for him to make a more accurate assessment.

A good example of this would be when we went to see my best friend for the weekend.  He hasn’t seen her for more than a few passing moments, since he was five months old.  He doesn’t really know her in the conventional sense.  Now, if you follow the theories of “how an autistic should react” to being thrown out of his routine, rushed into a “stranger’s” house where he has never been, after a three hour car ride in a strange car, and then left there for an hour or two while mom & dad go to an appointment, you would conclude that it would result in a total shutdown or meltdown.  It is the height of stress for somebody that supposedly thrives on routine and predictability.  However, the opposite was true.  Not only was he fine, he actually interacted with some of the daycare kids there in addition to Dawn and her family.  (Zora, on the other hand, was a mess).  Dawn has worked with autistics in a group home and was quite impressed with his abilities.  She also just plain loves him deeply.  He was comfortable and happy all weekend and didn’t want to leave.  He “knew” her immediately, at least what he needed to know…that she has a kind and loving spirit.

I think that his outward appearance of autism is actually an extreme sensitivity to both the physical and nonphysical world.  For the most part, his difficulty with communication is similar to what I experience, only greatly magnified.  It is difficult to put the flow of emotions and pictures in his head into a language we can understand.  It isn’t that he isn’t communicating, it is that we don’t understand the language well.  As he picks up his ’second language’, I suspect we will find he has a lot to say about the world, if only we have the patience to listen.