Reasonable Adjustments, naturally.

Well, we've all talked a lot about what went wrong in 2021, but I don't want to dwell on that.  Good things happened too, although our media seeks to keep us as depressed and hopeless as possible, on a diet of disasters and bad news and celebrity banality galore.   You have to look for balance.  Seek out positivity.  Excavate a new and beneficial path.  It's for that reason I have promised myself more time with Nature in 2022. 

Like many people with Asperger's/ASC, I have always found comfort and wonder in the natural world:  Alone on a beach, in a forest, by the side of a pond - I can while away hours, watching a spider clambering through the grass, or a Jay, burying peanuts and marking the place with a few well-placed leaves.  Equally, I can be transported by the song of a Dunnock or a Starling in my garden, or hang motionless in the water on a solo night-dive, torch off, to watch the bioluminescence of the plankton swirling around my hands.  Nothing brings me such peace as when I am alone with nature.  

I have never really thought too much about what I need for my own peace of mind - I have always done what I thought was needed by others around me - parents, friends, my family, my employers...  Now, however, when I consider how I can feel such desperate anxiety, even in familiar environments and in trusted company,  I am certain that I need to make a significant change and immerse myself in nature, once and for all.  

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by every aspect of the natural world - from geology and palaeontology and detailed scientific aspects of entomological studies to bird-watching, underwater exploration and growing my own fruit and veg.  I have created countless paintings, illustrations, photos, projects and collections to extend my connection.  My years in environmental consultancy taught me how intimately entwined our lives are with the natural world, despite our efforts to separate ourselves from it, and it also taught me how complicated, impactful and effecting those relationships can be.  

My years in education brought home how much our young people have lost as our society forgets its relationship with the natural world.  Will this lead to a society that is ignorant of nature?  It has certainly distanced itself from the devastating impact we have had upon it, so perhaps.  It is true I have been dismayed by the lack of interest shown by young people I have taught in sustainability, plastics in the environment, ocean acidification and climate change and even just being out of doors. But when I witness the wonder shown by a small child as a pill bug unrolls from its little segmented marble, or when they see the caterpillar miraculously become a chrysalis, I know it is recoverable.  Indeed, we must keep trying. The alternative is unthinkable.

My own son has been brought up with Nature, land and sea.  His curiosity was indulged at every opportunity, visiting amazing places, learning to scuba dive, joining scouts, meeting and talking with ecologists and naturalists from an early age.  I knew he was 'hooked' the day he came in from the garden and told me how some of the little wolf spiders were carrying tiny snail shells instead of egg cases: We sat and searched the internet for information on this and he was delighted when we found an old paper that noted this phenomenon, with reference to the 'strong maternal instincts' of these wolf spiders. 

So, what about those who have missed those opportunities, who have been shut down by fear, or lured by the comfort of 'minimum effort', and cannot be persuaded to look up from their smart phones? How do we reach them? 

When I think about social media and consider how it can corrupt, misinform and ensnare, I temper my thoughts by considering its ability to influence, enchant and educate.  If they won't come out to meet nature, we must take it to them.  So why give our children these powerful and poorly-understood tools, only to complain about how they use it?  If we gave a child a hammer and no instructions, they would probably destroy something with it long before it occurred to them to build something with it.  We must be ready with materials to use, be prepared to show them what can be done, what is achievable, accessible, and be confident in our answers when they ask 'why?'.  Only then, can we tempt them out into the real, authentic world and all its wonders.

I'll never forget the expression on the face of the teenage student who had never tasted a raspberry before (only the fake flavours in sweets) as he stripped the canes on our school allotment of their fruit.  Likewise, I will never forget the day we found a juvenile blue shark in the shallow waters off our favourite beach: We tried to show the local holidaymakers its stunning colour and explain how it may have become disorientated, but they were convinced it was dangerous - children were pulled from the water by their parents.  My consternation only increased when those same parents later encouraged their children into the water to feed their unused crabbing bait to a large male grey seal...  There is much to learn, but the effort is essential, and this is something I will never tire of.  

 My son when he was much younger, discovering for himself that the skin of a shark is rough - priceless.

 

When the Driving Force meets the Energy Crisis

Of all the differences I could list between the experiential worlds of  people with Asperger's and those without, the most important one, I think, has to do with energy.

By energy, I mean the whole gamut of subjects which begin with expenditure and end with refuelling. (Or stopping...)  The energy draw required for everyday life (in an Aspie's existence) is enormous.  When your understanding of the world is arrived at through cognitive means, energy becomes an important consideration.  To try to describe this in terms that can be appreciated by an NT is not difficult: Just imagine thinking about everything you do, down to the smallest decision.  Every decision preceded by conscious thought, deliberation and then followed by a in-depth analysis of of the results...  Exhausting, no?  And how do you 'refuel'?  Think about the way people talk about re-charging their batteries... Relaxing with friends, going out for a drink to a nice bar, having a massage for instance. For many Aspies, 'recharging' can only happen in the absence of people and noise and touch, so finding opportunities can be difficult.   But this is not the main issue...

The problem arises when you consider that NTs can have tremendous difficulty in grasping the level of energy required by an Aspie for normal functioning in a social world, and the scale of its impact on the person doing it.  (Aspies can have similar trouble grasping that much of the slow, careful decision making they rely on every day, is done intuitively and without much conscious thought by NTs.)  Without this appreciation of the facts, our struggle is invisible at best; misinterpreted at worst.  Add to this the unpredictability of the social world and I would hope most would start to see just how 'different' and difficult our experience is.

So why aren't we all burnt-out husks by the age of twenty?

Since my diagnosis (when I was 43) I have met and got to know a number of people on the spectrum, and I quickly became aware that many of those people (myself included) have enormous capacity, drive and motivation.  This did not appear to change, even when if the person had withdrawn; unable to engage with the world: Their passions and interests were pursued with the same enthusiasm and energy - just from within their bedrooms.  We keep going, and as a result, we are capable of amazing feats of concentration and perseverance.  In TA, we might call this the 'Try Harder'  driver.  (When someone has been told that they are at fault for the majority of their life, the response is often to try harder, out of guilt, to gain acceptance or prove others wrong...) A few of my closer friends admit this ultimately self-destructive dynamic, but to expend energy on drive and enthusiasm when so much is taken up with merely navigating the everyday is unsustainable.  Something must, and usually does, give.

It is unfortunate then, that another 'driver' often accompanies that of 'Try Harder', and that's 'Don't Fail'.  People who find themselves in this dynamic simply can't win, often spiraling into crisis after crisis.  Of course this isn't limited to Aspies, however, our capacity and drive works against us - helping us reach new depths of despair.  It can be very difficult indeed to extricate ourselves from these defensive strategies when we live in such a chaotic social world where it can seem impossible to make sense of anything with all the contradictions:  "Do this accurately, but don't spend too long", "Tell the truth/Don't be rude"), "This is the priority/This is the priority/You should know the priority", "collaborate with colleagues/compete with colleagues", "Socialise/have fun".  So where should we expend our precious energy?  All too often, the answer is: 'on surviving', and even the most intelligent of us can, on occasion, convince ourselves that the effort isn't worth the reward.

Too few teachers and employers are aware of this, and the lack of understanding leads to more unnecessary pressure being piled on top.  As an educator, I do understand the frustration:  "Why, when this student is so capable, are they making so little effort?" The answer, of course, is that they are making a huge effort, simply to get through the day. If they have little energy left then, to decipher vague and contradictory expectations, we should not be surprised.  Few understand that it is even more frustrating for the student (who knows their own potential) having constant obstacles placed in their path.  It is in no way an even playing field.

It would be particularly cruel then, if we were to not only fail to understand these difficulties, but also to criticise those with great, and recognised potential, for failing to 'excel'.  Sadly, this is the overwhelming experience of many of the people I have met over the years, who identify as Aspies (myself included). Such intelligence, capacity and drive is essential in our fast moving technological world, and they should be accommodated and valued for the assets they are.  These people are the real movers and shakers, not the 'celebrities', the 'politicians' and 'corporate sharks'.  It is society's obsession with these things that has us swimming in a sea of plastic, teetering on the brink of climate catastrophe and making nationally important decisions based on nothing more than the mindless rhetoric of social media.

Time to listen to reason, I think.

Climate change protesters state the seemingly obvious...to the seemingly oblivious