So, while I'm trying to figure everything out - I'm late diagnosed ASD for those that don't know - I thought I would attempt to give you some insights as to what being ASD actually feels like to me, how I'm trying to deal with it, and what it might be like if you found yourself caught in a non-verbal host or if you are dealing with someone inside a non-verbal host.
I'm going to start by talking about frustration.
Frustration is one of the most common "emotions" I feel - it's a standard electro-biochemical neurological response to not being able to do what you want/think you should be able to do - Most people rapidly normalise these experiences and then immediately tailor their lives to minimise future instances, simple right?
Frustration is annoying and illogical - frustrating events usually contain an emotional component (which always makes matters worse) - but they can also be purely mechanical - in which case the emotional component is usually provided for you by your own mind.
Under normal circumstances I have a base line, a fairly comfortable base line for my things that at least *sound* like emotions - over the last few decades my masking has improved to the point where I don't come across like a complete freak, I don't hide in the toilet so much at social gatherings, and I can manage to do some small talk without alcohol. Its exhausting, it's mind-numbing and it's pointless. But it isn't actual FRUSTRATION.
For me, frustration is tangible. It doesn't exactly physically hurt - but it is extremely close - like it really, really wants to hurt you, and you can feel that intensity. Now - just to illustrate - odd challenges in neurotypical environments are far from new to me - but when there is absolutely no way past whatever this wall is - no matter what you have tried - you look inside yourself for inspiration and come up blank. The wall stops feeling like a wall, and starts feeling like a deliberate thing, maybe even a thing with an agenda.
Frustration is red. It glistens. It's cold. It writhes and twists and squeezes. It moves like a collection of worms, not worms that want to help grow plants. Very upset worms - and they live inside you - they live by the solar plexus and seem to communicate with the main brain via the neurons that make up your mini brain in the stomach (and then the vagas nerve presumably)...and no, I don't think if I cut open my tummy I would find actual worms, but this is how they manifest.
Once it's physically occurring the feeling of panicked frustration just takes over everything else.
Let's conjure some examples together -
1) A person is the wall.
2) A computer is the wall.
3) A system is the wall.
4) Its just possible that one day I will encounter an actual wall that is a wall, but usually there are plenty of ways around actual walls, so much so that they don't really count for much in a real day-to-day sense.
All of these issues are likely to require very different approaches, but the trigger to engage is identical - and I really cannot differentiate between the first three from a motivational perspective.
Above all, the most important thing to know about frustration is - once it is there - I don't have a way back - it will live rent free as a 'wrong' in my mind forever. Why this is important will soon become clear...
So example 1) - what do I do? It's a person, so I query. Why are you being a wall? They will explain their position, and it will be contrary to mine, because I don't want a wall. We will then be together at an inevitable impasse. I can mask with the best of them, I can almost pass as normal most of the time (energy permitting) - but upon conflict of interests that just goes out the window - most likely I will try asking and then turn my weapons on and try to wash the wall out of the way, whichever seems to the path of least resistance - but that is a terrible idea - cue countless workplace arguments, disciplinary meetings, angry colleagues that think you are just being really difficult to be a dick. Highly likely - I have to just live with that.
Example 2 - A computer is the wall - My brain tells me I can always find a solution - always. When that doesn't work the worms become very cross indeed. The most likely outcome here? There is only one, I keep going until I fix it. If this happens in a work environment it doesn't matter if my boss says - drop that now - we have other priorities - FUUUU! I'm still going to have to solve it, but now I have to solve it in secret to the suffrage of my other work. Cue workplace arguments, home arguments. Sometimes people say "Don't worry about it" - hilarious comedy.
Example 3 - A system is the wall - much easier - I can do systems - I understand processes and procedures, systems analysis is my default mind state. My likely response? Rewrite all the documentation, procedures and processes to enable the system to function optimally. Nobody seems to care one way or another if you do this - which suits me fine - because it makes me feel better and now I'm in control of everything at an operational level.
I hope I have helped you understand a little of the way my mind works in this particular sense, and I hope it's useful with your interactions with muggle folk or peers and equally if you are trying to reach out to and/or understand a struggling mind as a neurotypical person (if such a thing exists).
If you have any questions on the subject I'll happily try and answer...but it's nice and quiet over here at the moment, no-one has been blogging in years...seems a safe place to park while I pencil around my capacity.
