Adults

Duh?? But I thought... Tonight on Big Bang theory Leonard carried a box out of his apartment filled with treasures he loved: Action figures, "Star Wars" gadgets and other things that he felt his now ex girlfriend Penny would want him to be rid of. Sheldon, of all people was one to bring perspective. After blocking the stairway, and saying "Leonard, you can't do this," and then threatening to open a mint condition, Wesley, without his visor from Star Trek action figure, he questions Penny about her own childlike things.

"If I go into your apartment, won't I find Care Bears and My Little Pony's and a certain Japanese feline all over the place?" (slightly paraphrased). He looks at her sleep shorts and says "Hello, 'Hello Kitty'!

We're all children at heart, I think. But those who have Autism or AS have a marvelous ability to show it from the inside out. We may very well prefer a Star Wars Marathon to a wine tasting, for example. The paradox is that this child likeness is not always sweet and positive (Just as children are not always sweet and positive). So when the negative side of such a colorful, eccentric view of life shows itself, in the form of Meltdowns and temper tantrums, it is then that the Autistic person is expected to grow up and act their age. This where it gets difficult. The line between child and adult is constantly "blurred," often, even to an Autistic person themselves.

The Autistic heart longs for others to be just as emotionally stimulated by what they say and think and feel as they are. This is the Autistic's way of genuinely "sharing" things with others. The difficulty is that often, the others involved feel left out because the Autistic's mentality seems to be that it is only all about them. On the same episode of BBT, Sheldon's sister came to visit, and Leonard said "Sheldon, you're ignoring your sister."

"I'm not ignoring my sister, said Shely, as he peaked from behind his computer; I'm ignoring all of you.". The thought process being that if everyone else in the room were interested in Sheldon's world, there would not be any problem. (Now, Sheldon WAS ignoring his sister and then being sarcastic about it; but I think the example still holds.). I think the truth is that Autistics feel things more intensely than those who are not Autistic, a strange irony, being that Autistics are said to have a lack of empathy. In my opinion, we feel things so deeply and can become so impassioned about things, that we often can only focus on one thing at a time. This is why we withdraw and keep to ourselves so much. Transitions are not easy because we must be "pulled out" of (whatever world we're in) and the intensity of whatever we were doing won't go away. We want to return to our obsession, where we know we'll be safe and happy than to have to do something we can't predict, that may end in hurt or rejection. All of this, often makes us upset and irritable, and we can appear unempathetic and uncaring.

I think Autistics love childlike things, and things from years past, because they "stimulate" us to be safe and happy, and protected. The same holds true for movies and plays and books. All of these make believe worlds help us to know that we have control... because any danger or negativity involved is confined to the plot of the story, the game, the computer, the TV, whatever. But all of this, can make it appear as though we are immature and unable to grow up. Maybe this is why Penny wanted Leonard to get rid of all his "toys.". But make no mistake about it, trying to teach an Autistic to let go of the very things that allow them to feel safe, will never produce good results. Now, because Autistics are so prone to various obsessions, there does need to be limits. Autistic adults do realize this, and often their biggest goal is to create a balance between their fantasy and the real world. All of this, can make normal, adult things seem insurmountable to us. Keeping an eight hour a day job, and all of it's transitions can be impossible. We are, however adults, who often must "adjust" our lives to our temperament and energy level. The irony here, is that we often need to make more transitions (Say, between work and rest) then most do. Everything is a paradox.

Boundaries

Duh?? But I thought...A few days ago, my mother and I went into a health food store. Actually, my mother had wanted to put something in the car first, so I went in myself. I was startled and literally taken aback when this thin, wiry little blonde guy, jumped in front of me and yelled "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR TODAY??". Now, I knew exactly what I went in there for, but the shock of having this person almost knock me over when I came in the door made my mind go blank.
"Ummm, I'm just looking today," I said.
He said, again, as though he had a mega phone; "OKAY, THAT's FINE!!"

I quietly stepped in the isles thinking, "He's gonna scare my mom the same way when she comes in."

Sure enough, a minute later, I heard the door come open, followed by the same yell. My mother said the same thing to him that I did. We searched the isles together and I found myself hoping that I would not have to ask this incredibly enthusiastic guy any questions. Somehow, I felt that I would get a life story with each. When the front door came open a third time, this young man was at the back of the store, and he ran down an isle quick as a flash to take his place at the front, and shout out the same question. At this point, the clerk behind the register was asking me if I'd been in there before, followed immediately by...

"Yeah, you look kinda familiar."

This creeped me out. I have a phenomenal memory myself, and can easily remember someone as seeing them before, even if it was only once before, and even if it was some time ago. What creeped me out was the fact that he had not allowed me to answer his question, and was suddenly talking to me like he'd known me his whole life. This guy did not really look to me like someone who was at work that day...not working with the public, anyway. His hair was messy and disheveled, and I could tell he'd not shaved in several days. Turns out, I could not find the Turmeric and I decided to ask this young guy where it was. I got the feeling that the clerk behind the register may have been his dad because when I said what I was looking for, he looked at the clerk behind the register like,

"What do I say to that?"

So, the clerk helped me, while the young, blonde guy made another run for the door to "greet" another customer, a lady... also by herself. So, mom and I then got a history of Turmeric and everything that it's good for, and each kind the store had. The clerk then went to the back of the store to find another bottle, which turned out to be expired. By this time, all I wanted was to leave, so I tried to ease the clerk over to the register as he was talking. He felt the need to tell me that another shipment of the expired turmeric would be coming in today... he said that when I saw the truck pull up, that meant that it was here. I was not sure why it was that he thought we would actually wait for a truck. It was almost as though he thought he'd done something wrong and needed to fix it. When he finally got around to ringing me up, the blonde guy was ringing up someone else at the register on the other side of me. Rather than paying attention to my transaction, this clerk had to pay more attention to what this young blonde guy was doing. Now, I was literally in the middle of the blonde guy shouting at the customer and the clerk shouting at him because he was not charging her the right price for her item. The clerk failed to tell me that his credit card machine was not working correctly. I hit enter, and nothing happened. The clerk didn't say a word to me. After a minute, he said to me that needed to hit enter again because it did not go through. I did not want to hit enter again because what it I was charged twice? I followed his direction and then was told that my pin was not correct. I figured out that this happened because his machine did not pick up all the numbers. After another minute it was suddenly like the machine came to life... It began to make all this noise.

"ahhh, there we go, he said; see, when it does that, it means it went through"... as though I should have known that the whole time. He then realized he'd forgotten to give me one of their cards to keep track of my purchases. He asked me two more times if I wanted him to call me when that OTHER Turmeric came in.

"Thanks, I said, but we'll check back."

Now, as you can imagine, by this time, my actual thoughts were "Dear God, all I wanna do is GET OUTTA HERE!!". Finally, the clerk bagged my two purchased items. This also really bugged me because one item was in a small, glass bottle. He grabbed both items and let them hit the countertop when they went into the bag. I was shocked that I did not end up with a broken glass bottle. My preference would've been for him to place the glass bottle in a separate bag and place it gently into the first bag. To me, this was just another customer service skill that this clerk seemed completely unaware of. Mom and I waked out of the store and I turned and looked at her...

"I know, she said; we're never going in there again."

Well, I'm happy to say that I was not charged twice for my items, but I've wondered how many other people might've made that same decision about going into that store. What a paradox, ya know?... such a willingness to be thorough and helpful, but so much energy, a person ends up feeling as though they've been hit by a truck. Oh goodness!