First posted to Facebook on April 16th
Hello all, this is, to the best of my ability, my attempt to describe what it is like to be autistic. I can’t say for certain that other autistic people experience these things, or even that neurotypical people don’t experience these things, but I thought it might be interesting to explain to the best of my ability what my autistic experience is like.
My mood, or the way I feel about things, could very rarely be described as “grand” “okay” or “alright I suppose.” I usually experience things as either brilliantly amazing or terrible. For me a lot of days are an emotional roller coaster. I could experience the most extreme joy from the simplest things, like on a cold day, turning on the heating and knowing I will soon be warm, or having a cup of tea, or the fact that I own several musical instruments (yes, without even playing them, the very presence of my musical instruments can cause unbelievable feelings of happiness.) In fact a short while ago I experienced extreme happiness from switching on the washing machine, isn’t having clean clothes brilliant?
But also I can experience very negative emotions. I can be upset or anxious because I have read about an injustice in the world, I can be worried that something bad will happen to me or someone I care about, or simply about the fact that my routine will change. Sometimes I become extremely anxious about a routine change that will not happen for several weeks.
I experience intense hyper focus. Sometimes I will say, “I will try and get ten minutes of recording music done, and in a flash, two hours, sometimes two and a half hours gone, I am completely absorbed in it, and the only thing that brings me out is the need to eat. This can be very useful, but also not so useful, sometimes I will become fixated on, for example, some precedent in video games, and I will keep researching and researching until tiredness forces me to stop, and not finding the answer will drive me mad.
I also have what are called executive function problems. This is where I simply cannot get myself to get anything productive done. So when I wake up I don’t know whether it’ll be a wasted day or a hyper productive day. But on any type of day, it’s hard for me to get several things done. So, for example, I may get a lot of drum practice done, or a lot of recording of my album done, but seldom both.
I have what’s called a “spiky profile.” Most people are good at some things and bad at others, but for me the gap between what I am good at and bad at is greater, I am typically either very good at things or hopeless at things with nothing in the middle, I’m not “only alright” at anything. So I’m good at music, which is something I’m beyond greatful for, but the spiky profile can be very frustrating at times. For example, certain things need multiple skills, such as cycling. I’m good at cycling (not by virtue of being autistic it’s just that I cycle quite often), but bike repair is not my strong point at all, so it’s a constant worry that when I’m far from home on the bike something will go wrong and I won’t be able to fix it, while if my skill set was less “spiky”, this wouldn’t be a problem.
I hate loud environments. For many autistic people loud noises such as those in pubs literally cause physical pain. For me this doesn’t happen, but in even a moderately loud pub I cannot tune out the sounds of other conversations, a tv on in the background, glasses clinking against the tables, and having a conversation with someone is pretty much impossible.
Speaking of conversations, well, if you want to leave some time before dark, don’t start me talking about anything that interests me! I tend to have very passionate interests in things. If somebody asks me about a cycling trip I did recently I will go into very intense detail about the cycle, if someone asks me about my telescope I will go into the minutia of what galaxies, planets and star clusters I have found during clear nights. I get so fixated on these interests that during conversation I have to remember to ask the person I’m conversing with how their day was or what interests them to make sure I’m not bombarding them with too many details about cycling, astronomy or music. Though I have such an intense interest in things that I find other people’s love for their hobbies to be infectious, so it can just as easily happen that I will just want to hear about what interests the other person or people in a conversation without saying much myself.
I often need different ways of relaxing than other people because it’s very hard for my brain to power down. This can be good, at means I have a lot of new musical ideas all the time, but it means it can be hard to relax. So sometimes I will be able to collapse into a comfortable chair, but other times my brain won’t just shut off, so often times I use what are called fidget toys to help me relax. These can for example give a similar sensation to bursting bubble wrap. Sometimes my brain will try to fly off in several different directions at the same time, trying to do a 1000 things at the same time and failing to get any of them done, but the fidget toys can help me focus on one thing.
This next one is very difficult to explain, sometimes I find it hard to explain things in anything but the most convoluted and bizarre way possible. Sometimes I am explaining something, and I would know there is a simple way to explain it, but I simply don’t know how! Sometimes what it feels like is that I have my own language in my head and translating that language into English can be difficult at times.
So I hope this short explanation of my experience of being autistic was interesting and informative to people. Also I still don’t get what being neurotypical is like, could someone please explain that to me?
Ponderings Of An Autist 