It’s been happening for a while now, and I’m not sure whether it’s that I’m more perceptive to it or that more people are aware of it or just that the ‘one in 120’ estimate of autistic people in the world’s population is a vast underestimate.
Probably all of the above.
Whatever the reasons, everywhere I go, I meet people
who are autistic, or in the process of being assessed for autism, or seriously
questioning whether they might be autistic. And, without me pushing it at all,
neurodiversity in some shape or form always comes up in conversation.
I’ve just spent a couple of days in London for work
and, without me mentioning it at all, two of the volunteers I ended up sitting
with in the pub began speaking to me about their experiences of being autistic.
This was followed, as I walked to the train station with a work colleague, by
her telling me about her husband whom she suspects to be autistic, followed by
me reaching my school-friend’s house and spending the evening talking – among other
things – about her daughter who was waiting for an autism and ADHD assessment
(and, over the course of my time staying with her, it seemed very likely to me
that her son and husband were autistic too).
None of this matters, of course, and I’m glad that I
come across as the kind of person who is sympathetic, accepting and open to
these conversations. But it brings home to me the huge prevalence of neurodiversity
within humanity – to the extent that I question whether it can continue to be
termed divergence if – when all the different ‘neurodivergences’ are accounted
for – the conservative estimate is that 20% of the population is neurodivergent
in some way. Compared to say, the number of people in the world with blue eyes,
this is twice as many – and we don’t call people with blue eyes optidivergent.
I would argue that neurodivergences aren’t divergences at all, but simply a
variation – and a very common one at that – of what it means to be human.
The microcosm of neurodivergent life
Meanwhile, back in my microcosm of neurodivergent life,
living with the more challenging aspects of my husband’s autism continues to
drive me mad and frequently zap life’s joy.
I’ve been going through some difficult health and
family stuff recently and, this week, a friend sent me some flowers out of the
blue. When I opened them and the card in front of Ethan, he asked how this
friend knew about the stuff I had going on, so I told him I’d mentionied it
earlier in the week when she’d messaged me about some concerts nearby that her
orchestra was performing in.
Ethan’s reply?
‘Ah right. So she’s obviously trying to manipulate
you then.’
WTF?!
Only Ethan could have such an immediately cynical and
negative reaction to such a kind, thoughtful gesture.
Later that same evening, I mentioned us all maybe
going out for a family walk on Sunday when I returned from my work trip. His reaction
to that?
‘It’s going to be torrential rain all day Sunday.’
Again, a lovely, cheery reaction which lifted
everyone’s spirits.
My issue wasn’t with the fact rain may well have
been forecast to fall (although, when I checked, following Elliot’s gloomy prediction,
the forecast said there was only a 50% chance of light rain and not until 2 pm.
Ethan’s response to that, ‘50% basically means it’s definitely happening’. What?!
That doesn’t even make sense. Also, has there ever been a better example of ‘glass
half empty’ psychology? I also know Ethan well enough to know that part of this
defiance of logic was his incredibly strong impulse to not ever be able to
admit to being wrong). But no, my bigger issue to all of this was that this is
what Ethan chose to lead with as his response to us all doing something nice
together. I wouldn’t have minded him mentioning the rain, but the day I hear
something from him like, ‘I think it might rain on Sunday. If we can’t do the
walk, let’s think of something else nice to do instead’ will be the day I crack
open the champagne.
As it happens, I’m writing this on Sunday – when we’ve all just got back from a walk – and when not a single drop of rain has fallen on us. But will he learn from that not to always take the most pessimistic, negative view? Sadly, 26 years of marriage has taught me that he won’t.
 |
The other trait in Ethan that drives me mad is his
natural propensity to only see himself and his needs (and, as an extension of
himself, his family).
Being in the car with Ethan when he’s driving is
incredibly stressful. He will not be held up for a moment, frequently cutting
people up and beeping at people if he thinks they’re going too slow or if their
reaction time to, say, traffic lights changing or another car pulling in to let
someone out, takes too long. But any time anyone does anything vaguely similar
to him, he’ll be furious – calling the driver an idiot and giving them a death
stare.
Today, on the walk, I told our boys to keep the dogs
on their leads until we got to the end of the path as there were a couple of
dogs often in the back gardens of the houses backing onto that path whom our
dog would whip into a frenzy barking and jumping up at them through their fence
and, I’d noticed, their dogs had actually broken the fence trying to retaliate.
To which Ethan’s response was, ‘that’s their problem’.
The fact it’s a problem that our dog is contributing to and that we can easily
rectify that by not allowing our dog to jump up at their fence, seems irrelevant
to Ethan. And I know, if things were the other way around, he’d be moaning
about the dog owners who let their dogs jump up and bark on his fence rather
than keep them on a lead.
It’s such a shame that these, seemingly instinctive responses
in Ethan dominate so many of his lovely traits – because, deep down, he is
quite a kind, caring person. It’s just very hard to get through the protective,
defensive, negative layers above that – layers that seem to have formed from
years of self-protection which, in turn, I suspect, formed as a result of too
often not being able to keep up with the world and feeling left behind, misunderstood
and simply less.
No comments:
Post a Comment