Sustained Inaction

I woke up from a dream this morning where someone from my past was being incredibly unfair to me. At some point, I exploded in rage and started to yell about said injustice, and referenced being autistic. This being a dream, the person felt really bad about how they were treating me, and that’s about all I can remember.

It’s very common for my dreams to “prime” me for the rest of the day, so of course I spent the next hour or so pondering my past as a result. I think I’ve finally figured out something that never really made sense to me.

Acoustic Dampening

As a rule, I notice that I seem “incapable” of performing some action unless it’s something that would happen organically from the situation. For instance, when I was two or three, my mother tried to teach me how to do a very simple dance, and I outright refused. The movements were confusing and I didn’t understand the point, so I simply didn’t participate.

One of my babysitters also ran a Sunday School or something while I was growing up, and sometimes I was present during these events. These days often included music, singing, and physical activity during the songs. One in particular that I remember was some kind of song which included pantomiming climbing a ladder. I neither sang, nor climbed the ladder. They eventually compromised with me and I agreed to at least stand during the climbing portions.

I never once sang in elementary music class. I had an early growth spurt compared to my cohort, so I was taller than most until everyone caught up in middle school, so they put me in the back of the bleachers. I lip-synched every single concert I ever attended. Yet up to first grade, I hummed the Knight Rider theme constantly, secure in my knowledge nobody else could hear it because it was in my head.

I had no reason for any of this. I wasn’t defying anybody, or traumatized by some past authority figure, or some other foundational reason. I just couldn’t bring myself to participate in those ways. But it goes even further.

Practically Paralyzed

While it’s fairly clear that this kind of thing applies more broadly to singing or dancing, it’s not necessarily that simple. I went to a friend’s twelfth birthday party, and they had some kind of silly participation-based game where you drew cards with an “action” on them. Mine was to roll an egg across the floor with my nose, and I couldn’t make myself do it. His mom drove me home for breaking the rules, and I cried the entire time, but I still couldn’t force myself to participate. He spent the rest of the year bullying me because I’d fallen too low in the pecking order.

Some would say it’s fear of embarrassment, but what’s more embarrassing? Being driven home by your friend’s mother and making a scene, or doing the silly activity? What’s worse? Taking part in an activity with everyone else, or being perceived as pathetic and being bullied as a result. I knew where this would all lead, and yet despite that, I could not take part no matter the cost.

This has happened time and time again through my life, and goes back as far as I can remember. I could come up with a dozen similar scenarios where my inaction escalated to a far more serious outcome than if I’d simply gone along, and that was always irrelevant no matter how many times it happened. Once I recognized this behavior, I simply started avoiding situations which called for any kind of group activity or improvisation, because I knew where it would eventually lead.

But why? Thanks to the dream, I think I finally figured it out.

I think I can’t do something unless it makes sense in the situation. As soon as I have to mentally justify it, it’s like I get caught in some kind of loop that prevents the action. I’ve concluded that this usually applies to things like singing or dancing because those aren’t normally spontaneous events, and explains why group activities affect me the same way. “Why are we doing this?” I ask, and then it’s all over. Once I have to justify doing it, I can’t participate even if I try to convince myself I should.

Is there a board game that has an interactive component? That’s not something I’d generally enjoy, ergo I can’t play that because the physical or musical portions simply would not occur. Did someone ask me to say a phrase using a peculiar voice I’ve done on occasion at random? Probably not happening. Dance with my wife at my own wedding? Begrudgingly, after months of mental preparation, at great mental cost, and purely because I knew how much it meant to her.

This goes way beyond being bashful or defiant. It’s hard-coded into my very DNA. Not even copious amounts of alcohol, the very source of liquid courage, can overcome this preposterous unwillingness. I’ve tried.

Pace Maker

Along with my utter inability to move when prompted, I’m paradoxically incapable of remaining still. Some people fidget unconsciously, and I’m right there with them. But I take it several levels further.

I often pace around a room incessantly. This often drove my parents nuts when I was younger, and they frequently told me to stop. “It makes us nervous,” they’d say. I didn’t understand why, but I stopped. For a while. Usually I went outside so I could just wander around the neighborhood by myself.

If I’m in a rolling chair, there’s a 100% chance I’ll twist it back and forth the entire time I’m sitting. One time I did that during a job interview while the recruiter desperately tried to stop me surreptitiously, all to no avail. I only found out after the interview because he told me. They hired me later that day and I worked there for five years. Still, I got the message that I need to watch for these “unprofessional” inclinations and temper them when possible.

I find rocking particularly soothing and always have. One time in Kindergarten, the teacher brought up some pseudo-science that children who rock themselves weren’t rocked sufficiently as babies. Well, I still do it even in my 40s. The strange thing is that it helps me think or listen as well. If I’m looking at the ceiling and rocking, it’s because I’m trying to pay very close attention to something I’m listening to.

People never understand this, so I try my best to fake eye-contact by looking past their shoulder. That allows me to de-focus and listen while mostly fulfilling their expectations. I have lots of strategies like this; ways to seem more normal but also accommodating behaviors I’ve long since accepted as immutable.

What happens if my coping strategies fail, or I’m unable to exercise them? If I can’t stim, I invariably get overstimulated. If this exceeds my threshold, I snap like dry kindling and mentally shut down. This happened once during a work orientation during my first job out of college. They had us separate into groups and assigned group tasks. Our group was supposed to write and perform a song related to team building.

This was, of course, my worst nightmare. I was a captive audience. It was literally my first day at the company. I tried to mentally prepare but failed miserably. Instead, I sat in a relatively obscured corner, covered my head with my arms, and violently rocked back and forth until the event was over. Luckily there was enough empathy that this didn’t adversely affect my tenure there, but it could have easily gone another way.

I’m gently swaying side-to-side as I write this very post.

Sooth Sayer

Recently I’ve stopped pretending I can operate without these extremely visible cues, so I just tell people why I’m doing it. I’d rather people know I’m mildly autistic, and that’s why I’m staring at a corner during a meeting. Why I’m watching some group event rather than taking part. I’m not being standoffish, I don’t think I’m better than anyone, and I’m not being anti-social. I know my limits.

Neurodivergence is not as socially stigmatizing as it once was, and I find I get a bit more leeway if people understand. I try not to use it as an excuse, because I still need to learn social norms if only to be polite. But I’m much more likely to screw up, and I don’t want that to control how I live either.

Much of this has reminded me about how I interact with the world in general. I keep it at a distance, not because I’m intimidated by it, but because it’s fascinating. I want to watch and learn, to listen and experience. Somehow I find being part of it mildly disturbing, like I’m tainting an experiment.

I was in a church youth group for a while, and I recall wandering aimlessly through the church one day. There was a young woman screaming and crying in a closed room, not in despair or pain, but through some newfound lament or acceptance she discovered and was being guided through. I’ve never felt any emotion to anywhere near that extent, and I found myself envious. How nice it must be, I thought, to feel so strongly about something.

Most children jump up and down in excitement about something or another. I never did, and still don’t. There’s a glass ceiling that limits my capacity for all things emotional, whether it’s anticipation, grief, or even love. It’s not like I’m an unfeeling robot, but I’m diminished in a way that’s difficult to truly articulate. Is it alexithymia? I can’t say. But I will admit to feeling less human on occasion as a result, since I can’t really feel things the way most other people do, nor can I really relate.

That kind of self-doubt is fleeting, but an inescapable reality when I really sit down and consider who and what I am. It’s a mistake to be sure, and one I’m trying to finally relinquish. I’ll settle for it being a source of consternation rather than mild grief.

So no. I don’t hate you. I do care in my own way. Sometimes I’ll feign interest or emotional response more akin to expectations; people crave reciprocation. Maybe not as often as I could, because I feel it’s inherently dishonest. Perhaps I should see it as mapping my emotions to their standard equivalent. But would that be accurate? I’m not so sure.

Ah well. Just another tool on the masking pile.

Until Tomorrow