Learning with the Experts

When I explain to people that I have Aspergers, the response can be somewhat polarised.  I am met either with a knowing smile and a slow nod, (as if this is mere confirmation of a long suspected fact) or with utter consternation and denial.  However, both camps can easily be united in disbelief when I mention the fact that I work in a school.  With teenagers.  Front of Class. As a cover teacher.  And in my spare time, help out at my son's primary school and with the local Cubs and Scouts.

It's too noisy, surely?  Too much social interaction?  How can you empathise?  Communicate?  Too stressful? What? No timetable?  Constant change?  Different students and different subjects every lesson?  Nobody on the Autistic spectrum would choose to do this!

I suppose it does seem strange, but let me explain:  I like working with kids.  I prefer to spend my time talking to kids than to adults.  Kids make much more sense.  They are honest (to a fault, like me).  They prefer honesty, but if they do lie, then it can't be hidden (like me).  They are full of wonder and curiosity (like me).  Their potential knows no bounds. They are brave, have amazing resilience, humour and kindness.  They do not judge.  They can always change their minds.  They don't dismiss anything as boring or valueless without trying it out.  They feel everything keenly and react honestly, feeding back instantly.  I could go on and on.

I love learning - It's essential to me, and I will never stop.  To be around people who are as honest as me, as open as me, as full of wonder as me, as fallible as me, as energetic as me, as silly as me (as anyone who knows me and my penchant for giant inflatables can testify!), and as much fun as a barrel of puppies, too - well. It makes adults seem a stuffy lot..

Ah, but those of you who know my previous incarnation of 'Graphics Specialist' working in Environmental Engineering, will wonder why I haven't always worked with kids...  Well, I worked with scientists then, and in my book, that's almost the same thing:  Wonder... curiosity... lack of social sophistication... sound familiar?

Yes of course, it's exhausting, yes it can be frustrating, heartbreaking, infuriating, but at school and cubs, I can be myself with the kids, and I know where I stand with them.  They don't placate, humiliate, undermine, dismiss.  They praise when they are impressed, they criticize when they are not.  It is clear to me when I have inspired them, when I have upset them, when I have amused them, when I've made a difference to them, and I collect the experiences eagerly.  It is easier than being around adults, and I learn more from them than I can in adult company.  I am learning about social interaction as they do - It is more inspiring than anything I have ever done, and when I see them growing up and learning how to manage in the world, it gives me hope for myself.

Charley shows off his Viking ship homework

Friends with benefits

I recently attended a workshop hosted by BASS (Bristol Autistic Spectrum Service) on Friendship. Hearing others' definitions of friends, and hearing about their expectations and experiences was sobering. Friendship is something I have coveted for as long as I can remember, but it has always eluded me.  I have watched; enchanted and bemused in equal parts, as people perform their social dances around one another, but I always have the feeling that this is not for me.

I have difficulties with the most simple elements of the dance...  Compliments, reciprocation, interest and recall of important events, facts and anniversaries all present potentially friendship-ending problems for me.  I do want to have friendships, and I have attempted them, but even when the exchanges seem effortless, the sense of foreboding is palpable...  "Don't get too comfortable", warns The Voice: "It'll all go wrong eventually."

And so it does.  I am undecided on whether this is self-fulfilling prophecy, mechanical error or sheer inevitability, nor am I entirely sure the differentiation matters.  I have waited patiently for the friendship which becomes seamlessly 'intuitive', but it has never materialised.  Failure after failure (usually my own fault) has taught me a lesson that is hard to ignore:  I do myself, and others, less damage if I don't have friends.

I suspect that some might balk at this - after all, it's an effort for everyone isn't it?  You'd be right to question it, but there is a caveat.  If it was purely just hard work, I would achieve it.  I work very hard.  At everything.  There is nothing that I don't try my best at - it's just my nature.  But friendships are not just about me...

The aspect that concerns me most is the possibility of really hurting someone else; achieving the opposite of what you intended.  People's social circles are complex and pitfalls lie in wait around every corner.  Nothing scares me quite as much as the prospect of making and then losing friends. None of the maintenance required for friendship occurs to me intuitively, so the risks of alienating or hurting someone are heightened.  My sensitivities are also heightened, and the idea of losing a friend because of something I have said or done is devastating to me.  People who I could call friends have been so few and far between, the prospect of failure generates a fear so great that the isolating alternative seems safer. I know I have inadvertently hurt people I considered friends before, and undoubtedly will again.  No different to anyone, you think?

The difference is, that there will be no explanation forthcoming to bring the friendship back from the brink - I will not have realised what I did, and people who have been hurt will rarely feel like spelling it out..
The difference is, I will feel shame so keenly that I will probably never have the courage to speak to that person again.
The difference is, I cannot afford to lose friends - it is far too great an investment for me.

So what does friendship with me entail?  Only the most tenacious sorts will get past the first hurdle, better known as 'getting me to realise that you are interested in being my friend'.  (After scaring everyone away for a number of years, I can be very slow to interpret these messages.)
The next step can take forever, so make yourself comfortable.   I am unlikely to accept any invitations to go out for coffee, or meet up in any sense.  I need to gather data.  (Don't worry - this doesn't mean hacking your Facebook account or stalking of any kind!) This might entail a period of email exchanges on a range of subjects.  I cannot make those intuitive judgements, that come so naturally to NTs, in a few short face to face meetings, nor a few texts or a Facebook comments.

Think of this less as a test and more as a reality check: Anyone who loses patience with this process is never going to make it in the long run.  It's a way for people to get out before they invest too much. In all honesty, anyone wishing to be a good friend of mine (not just a casual acquaintance) has to be prepared for a long and frustrating road:  I will forget Birthdays, anniversaries, dinner dates... you name it.  It will not occur to me ask you how you are, how your family is, how your job interview went.  I will say tactless things about your outfit, your behaviour, your family. But...

I will apologise genuinely and unreservedly if you tell me where I went wrong, and I will sincerely try to learn from it. I will never stop trying to be a better friend.  I will be a loyal supporter and fierce defender.  I will always seek to lighten your spirit and make you laugh. I will always be honest.  I will never be boring.

Of course, I will also try to teach you all about Quantum Physics... which is a good thing, dammit!

Capacity building

I recently travelled to Egypt for a diving holiday.  Seems such a straightforward and harmless statement doesn't it?  I went on holiday - just popped onto a plane and got off in another country, got my transfer to the accommodation and Bob's your uncle!

Here's how my experience really went:

We piled into the car at 4.30pm on Good Friday and took to the road.  Apparently, the rest of the UK did, too.  Even though I wasn't driving, the ensuing 2 hours, 45 minutes of motorway driving left me exhausted:  The driving conditions were poor, with rain, darkening skies and roadworks and breakdowns everywhere.  When travelling at speed, I find the rate of visual input completely overwhelming, but I am also plagued with anxiety which furnishes me with constant, detailed and realistic visualisations of potential incident after potential incident.  The truly exhausting part was having to hide all this from my son, so that he wasn't affected by my anxiety.

Fortunately, I have had plenty of experience of staying in hotels (required in several of my previous jobs) so I am not as affected by strange accommodation as I might be.  The grossly decorated lobby with its alarmingly squishy carpet was airy and open plan, so I was able to relax somewhat - only the constant visualisations of horrific plane crashes from the neighbouring Gatwick Airport to concern myself with...

An early morning rise for check-in saw the return of my favourite coping mechanism:  Panic humour. Being hyper aware with anxiety means excellent comic timing, and there was a wealth of material in peoples' reaction to the ludicrous management and staffing in the check-in queues...  A welcome distraction from the looming flight.  By the time we entered the departures lounge and it's wealth of noisy, smelly, crowded food outlets, I was exhausted and staring at the joins in the flooring materials whenever possible.  Still aware of the importance of 'staying positive', I kept up the cheery exterior and focused on my son, who was taking everything in his stride, considering it was his first trip abroad... only my husband was aware of my mounting anxiety.

The bus journey to the plane seemed to take forever - showing every possible angle of the plane that was to be our transport to Egypt.  I forced myself to endure it, inwardly chanting things like "no, the rivets are supposed to look like that", "don't look at the engines" and "you don't know anything about what well-maintained landing gear looks like", and trying to remember air travel versus air accident statistics to put my mind at rest.  This self calming continued on board - "they look competent".  "At least the pilot seems mature"...  The facade nearly slipped when my son insisted I sit next to him in full view of the tiny window for the 5 hour journey.  A matter of minutes later, I found myself in the ridiculous position of 'whooping' for my son's benefit at the excitement of the take off, whilst simultaneously crushing my husband's hand in terror!

As soon as we were allowed, I got out my chosen book and put on my mp3 player at top volume, determined to distract myself from anything that might remind me that I was in a plane.  Sadly, my book choice could have better, beginning as it did, with an explosion at an airport...  Luckily, my son's tablet battery lasted almost the entire flight, so I didn't have to keep up the facade for him, but my husband's hand suffered every time there was a little turbulence...

The next five hours are, thankfully, already fading from my memory - a nauseating cycle of anxiety, trolley avoidance, speculation and visual scenarios until our imminent arrival at Hurghada was announced. Any relief was short lived as figures for the statistical likelihood of failures on landing began whizzing though my head, despite my understanding of the overall safety of air travel.  After a bit of waiting around, security checks and baggage collecting, we made our way to the exit to meet our transfer. I was practically a zombie by now, all my coping mechanisms exhausted, so the hour and a half break-neck drive to our destination (with no seat belts and a tendency for our alarmingly young driver to drive at on-coming vehicles even when blinded by their full beams) passed relatively quickly.

I did not sleep for the next 3 nights.  This seems to be as a result of the anxiety of this type of travel - I usually just crash after too much social interaction - sleeping for longer than usual, but foreign travel requires another magnitude of effort.

The journey back was somewhat less stressful, buoyed as I was, by having survived the journey there!   Why put myself through it?  Well this isn't simply a fear of travelling...  I know it will improve, as everything does, with familiarity - my capacity for dealing with travel will improve.  It is only now that my son is old enough to have qualified as a diver that we can all go together.  I am immensely pleased to be a diver and able to see the amazing sights under the Red Sea, as the memories generated by the holiday in between these terrifying episodes have to be amazing to justify the effort!

Happy New Year... (First published 5th January 2016)

Making friends and maintaining friendships has always been nigh on impossible for me.  I can only assume that there is some point where the interaction becomes intuitive, and no longer requires excessive effort on the part of the friends.  In my experience, this juncture in a relationship usually sparks an end to proceedings:  Either I have lost interest in the person, or they in me.  The other possibility is that the person becomes too close, and I begin to panic about the consequences of an ill-considered remark or forgotten appointment. I have read many books on the subject, including Eric Berne’s "The Games People Play" which has proven useful but the mechanics, when tackled on a purely intellectual level, are exhausting.  I do not prefer my own company – it’s just often easier to be on my own.

Christmas and New Year is especially exhausting in this sense.  Regardless of what they may say, people have high expectations around this time.  People must be kind, thoughtful, organised  and strive for perfection, (based on what criteria, I cannot fathom, but God forbid it's the TV adverts…) presumably under pain perhaps of being 'struck off the Christmas List'.

I enjoy the pomp and ceremony around Christmas time – I love singing carols, making and wrapping presents and decorating the house, so I keep the stresses associated with Christmas reasonably at bay.  The real test comes with the return to work in January: Remember to say ‘Happy New Year’, ‘How was your Christmas?’ and ‘Did you manage to get away?’ (my personal favourite as it always conjures up an image of Santa robbing houses and getting chased by the  police as he makes his escape on his sleigh!)

Keeping up with appropriate comments and responses when I have no particular interest in what other people have been doing is really challenging.  They might be surprised to learn that I have no interest in telling them what I was doing either.  I hold no ill-will towards anyone if they  forget to send me a card, and I would like to think the same is true for them…

I assume that, like much of what passes between people in everyday conversation, these exchanges serve to maintain and strengthen friendships and social ties.  I see no logic in treating people differently according to the time of year, but I confess to putting a great deal of effort into playing along!  I can’t help thinking that things would be a lot simpler and less traumatic if we were to go back to just sitting around picking fleas off each other…