This article was written just for my fellow audies to read. As the sign on the treehouse reads, “No neurotypicals allowed.” However, you are invited to sit and watch from a distance, as you might learn something about the world we audies live in.
Compromising is a fact of life that anybody, audie or neurotypical, must deal with eventually in order to have a happy relationship. Whether it is a relationship between you and your parents, you and a coworker or boss, or you and a spouse, sometimes you just have to do what they ask in order for the team to accomplish its goals. Yes, we do like when things go the way we want them to, regardless of what other people think or feel. It’s not that we are selfish or obstinate, like the neurotypical world thinks we are. It is because of how very strictly we arrange the rules of our routines, the rules we live by. If you’ve read my post entitled “How I Pretend To Be (Somewhat) Normal,” you would see clearly how I sometimes just have to manipulate the rules in my head. When I give my autism seminars, I am always approached by a parent or caretaker about what to do about that loved one of theirs that doesn’t want to budge from their “bad” behaviors or ways of doing things. I guess it comes with age, but eventually you come to the realization that it is better to make the members of your team or family happy so that they can feel and know that you can contribute to this world. You just have to tweak the rules a bit.
So how does this happen? You know how you make rules in your head for every little thing? Your bathroom routine must proceed in a certain way. The way you start up your workplace for the day. The way you drive your car. The way you arrange your piles of papers. Everything follows a set of rules that only you can understand. Well, the key is this: In between each rule you have to insert a space. For example, as a rule I always shave right before I take my shower. Usually, I go right from shaving to taking my shower. Over the years, I’ve learned to insert a “space” between these two tasks, a space where interruptions and a change of plans is ALLOWED to happen. This lets me break away from the bathroom routine momentarily to do some yard work or feed my dog before going back to shower and continuing on with the routine as usual. This works so much better when your wife is adamant that the grass needs to be cut TODAY. Interruptions and change are inevitable. Compromising and doing this differently really are possible. Then you will receive lots of pats on the back for having been able to be more “flexible”. But you know, and so do I, that it was possible only because you were able to rearrange the rules!
I know that many of you have to take certain medications such as Prozac or Adderall. Anxiety and feeling that your mind is all over the place really take a lot out of you. Without these medications, it is hard to function, especially when you are expected to do so around a group of people. I know it’s not something you are proud of, but it’s also not something to be ashamed of either. Look at Temple Grandin. She has to take Prozac before she feels capable of being able to get in front of an audience to give one of her great speeches. But what if there was another way of doing things so that you don’t HAVE to take prescription medicines? In reality, there is. Even though you take only half the normal dose of those medicines because of how sensitive you are to changes, you may be just as responsive to the positive changes that the alternatives have to offer. I know this to be true firsthand. Although I’ve never taken prescription psychoactive medicines, I have taken herbal supplements instead. Did you know that 750 mg of St. John’s Wort is just as effective as 80 mg of Prozac, and has far less side effects? That’s what a study showed that was published in the November 1996 issue of the Journal of Natural Medicine. There are similar herbal alternatives to other types of medications as well, and it is up to you to try them.
But there is something that helped me far more than any herbal supplement. Well, actually a combination of things. First, you really need to go to a chiropractor and to visit him or her on a regular basis. If I go more than two weeks without seeing my chiropractor, my ability to communicate coherently, my concentration, and my hypersensitivities become worse. It is by having my nerve system free from interference, interference that happens when bones shift out of alignment and affect how nerves work, that everything in my body, including my brain’s ability to think, work better. In addition to this, I listen to my instincts, my own intuition. Many of my own successes in life are due to this. For many of us, this is not easy because we tend to doubt ourselves and become anxious very easily. What helped me to “tune in” more is practicing a formal type of meditation. By practicing meditation seriously, I can look past all the waves in the mind that make us feel “less than” and see what’s going on behind the scenes, so to speak. It’s a more insightful, “spiritual” if you will, way of looking at the big picture. These are ways in which I have helped myself to navigate the oftentimes confusing and exhausting neurotypical world. Even when reason and advice from neurotypicals seem to work against me, listening to my intuition ALWAYS produced the better outcomes.
Above all else, remember that everybody really DOES want the best for you. People aren’t out to “get” you. It may seem that way, more often than not. I know because I lived with this feeling for so many years. I had to see past this belief, and to see past my own feelings of inadequacy, before life really started handing me some great moments. There may be a troublemaker or two you encounter along the way. But on the whole, NOBODY is out to get you! There really is greatness within you and around you, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Sometimes you just have to sit there with pen and paper and start writing things down before you recognize them. Sometimes you just need to have a counselor or a mentor who points these things out for you. I myself see a very caring social worker who helps me to see things in a better light. It’s all a matter of perception, and we audies tend to feel like we are the bad guys in a good world; we are the cause of others’ misery. Everyone is indeed responsible for his or her own behavior, from the neurotypical who is a less-than-understanding crab to the person with an Autism Spectrum Disorder that points the finger at the fact that he is autistic when he makes a social blunder. If you want more insight into any of the topics I briefly discussed in this article, let’s get together and chat. All of these things that work that I mentioned here can certainly be topics in themselves for future articles and conversations. I’m an audie just like you, and I’m here to help!
No comments:
Post a Comment