Is It OK To Be Autistic?

A question from an autistic client asking about whether it’s ok to be who they are, reminded me of my childhood.

One of my favourite things to do as a young boy was go with my dad in his car to get petrol.

Nothing odd about that, you might think but my dad used to drive 15 miles to a garage in another town to fill up his car for reasons unknown when there were garages selling the same petrol less than a minute from our house.

He liked to drive and to be out of the house so to him, it was a perfectly reasonable decision.

My mother thought it beyond ridiculous and said so.

Routine was important to my father so he was just being himself.

We thought him eccentric but he was almost certainly autistic without the benefit of a diagnosis that would have helped us to understand him and him to understand himself.

My brother, eleven years my senior, can immediately play on the piano any piece of music he hears, just once. He was also the world’s worst-ever babysitter.

Instead of taking care of his insecurely attached little brother, he would turn out the lights and then unscrew the fittings so that we were too scared to turn them back on.

Other highlights were his two-week holiday in Yorkshire resulting in his adopting a northern accent still evident to this day.

“Where are you from originally?” I imagine someone asking him and then finding his reply hard to believe.

He also built a full-size working traction engine. From scratch. Without a plan.

He too was the source of much frustration and annoyance for our mother and is almost certainly autistic despite never having had a diagnosis that would make no difference to any of us, least of all him.

He does what he likes, that’s all.

My sister was serially disappointing to me in my teens and twenties through habitually accepting invitations to gigs, parties and nights out only to back out at the last minute.

When it came to it the pull of her routine and the social anxiety that made her feel intolerably uncomfortable was greater than her desire to follow through on a commitment she’d not really wanted to accept in the first place.

She is autistic, a diagnosis that helped her to answer the question, “What the hell is wrong with me?” with a simple but powerful, “Nothing”.

Wondering why I have a very small circle of friends that I am hopeless at maintaining contact with, mostly prefer the company of animals, and struggle painfully with small talk was also made easier by my own diagnosis in adulthood but its impact was felt most keenly in terms of permission to allow myself habits and behaviours that might seem strange to others but, as they do no harm, is none of their business.

This week it was -5 so I drove to the top of The Downs with the dogs to walk in temperatures sinking significantly lower. Why? Because it was Wednesday and that’s where I go on a Wednesday.

In my reply to the client I tell a story about how my daughter used to clash with her mother over emptying the dishwasher because my wife would say, “Would you like to empty the dishwasher for me?” and her internal response was, “No, I wouldn’t like to,” so she didn’t.

She is autistic and was interpreting the question literally, which is what she does and who she is.

When the request was changed to, “Please will you empty the dishwasher?” there was no longer a problem.

It’s always OK to be you, in fact, it’s a necessity, but it helps to understand what you need and to ask for it either from others or, sometimes even more importantly, from yourself.