Mysteries of the autistic life: How we learned to love change, maybe.

If you yourself are autistic, or familiar with someone who is, then you may have noticed something...strange, about us. I mean besides everything else. You might have noticed that we have a, fear of a certain something, a defining fear if you will. One that both comes at a moment's notice, but can also leave just as fast. Can you guess? It’s the one, or a major, catalyst for all our fears, concerns, reactions and overreactions. It's the kind of thing that causes us to act totally calm and placid one day, than completely go over the edge in our minds the next. It gives us a reason to start ranting and raving about how our world is ending, acting like that one guy who is off his meds (Not something I recommend, even if you don't take meds. Trust me on this one).

 

Change. Change is the enemy. Now, I don't mean our fear of change in the same way as those people who fear The Gay Agenda or the liberal-elite’s agenda (a chronic fear of agenda’s). Nah, here is an example of the changes We fear: uni during the summer, and only half the semester? Oh will, at least it's supposedly quiet. That's going to help me, right? Right? Wait, they changed the length of the summer courses, so now it's the same as a regular semester? Great! Quiet and the same kind of work as a regular semester!

 

I'll just...what do you mean they changed the bus schedule? How am I supposed to get there now? I guess I can try out a new route, something I’ve done twice before, but I won’t like it. (on bus): Welp, off I go. At least nothing is going to happen to me. Unless I get lost, or the bus gets attacked, or I get attacked, or I miss my stop, or the driver misses my stop, or _____________ (add irrational fear/s here) .

 

(upon arrival) Oh my god I made it! Thank the lord! Now to try and make it safely to the campus, praying all the way, while trying to retain what shreds of sanity I have left after the seemingly long and/or fraught-with-danger bus ride. Usually both.

   

 

We love our routine, it helps keep us grounded, helps to give us a feeling of security and a safe place for us. If something goes wrong in our day, if we are preparing for an event that we know will test our nerves, we can rely on our routines to help ground us and give us something familiar to do. It can either help calm our nerves and prepare ourselves mentally for the event before hand, or bring us back down to earth from the hype and allow us to process what happened. Or get us calm enough to do that when we get a chance. And when it is disturbed (as the example above, something that has happened to me not to long ago), it can destabilize us. Make us feel like our world is spinning out of control.

 

As it would for anyone else, but we adjust to change harder than most depending on the severity. Takes a couple of weeks for me to adjust to the new changes. But that is life, that mystical, confusing-as-hell movie with seemingly no coherent plot or believable plot twists at all. But hey, at least it’s not predictable in any sense of the word, and all the characters are likable, interesting and believable, Like Donald Trump! Hmmm, bad example. Okay, believable and interesting, like, Hillary Clinton!  Another bad example, politicians are always a bad example for this sort of thing.  Will, at least they’re interesting. It even changes genre’s: Romance, one minute, Drama the next, then horror at the end of the day (relationships, am I right?).  

 

But, as my dad told me, the key is to take actions to lessen the sudden jolt of change. Like preparing early, making sure you have, or will have, everything you need, when you need it. Planning your route and daily tasks: when does the event start? When does it end? What is the route you will take there and back? That's called preparation. Those of us on the spectrum do the same thing, but slightly different. It’s called over-thinking it, or second guessing yourself. What is that like? You do the research, get all your plans down and such, than do it again, just to make sure nothing else has changed. The next day, you do it again, can't trust it to stay the same over the night.  

 

And as the day grows closer and closer, you begin to frantically make sure that all your plans are still sound, that the rug has not been pulled out from under you yet again. You get a feeling that you need this to work properly. And then, once the day has arrived and you’ve checked your plan over and over the last couple of days, you’re still hoping that everything will go right. Relieved when it all does. Another way that might help is, if you’ve done this sort of thing before, remind yourself of that, and how it felt once it was all over.

 

One other thing you can do is do something physical the day before: go to the gym, take a walk/jog/run, climb a rock wall to replace your fear of failing at the event with the fear of falling and becoming too injured to attend any ways (works better if you have a fear of heights). Actually, that would give me a calming sense, not having to go because severe trauma, anything but actually having to go to the event. It’s a win/win situation.

 

 

Even something more risky, like white water rafting, or playing chicken with the ground (other people call that skydiving. You know, the crazy ones).The point is, do something to take your mind of the upcoming stressful event, then prepare on either the day of (if you have time) or the night before. Have all the stuff you need laid out and ready to go at a moment's notice. You'll be glad for it, right up until you’re near your destination where, with increasing anxiety and a feeling of hopelessness, you'll wish you could relive that day all over again. Or get maimed from rock climbing, white water rafting or playing chicken with the ground.

 

 

But the beautiful thing is, once its done, its done. You don’t have to do it again, which means you don't have to worry about it again. It becomes just a blip in your routine, a slight detour before your back on course. Or if you do have to do it again, you’ll know you can do it, you’ll have learned from the experience. Over time, it’ll become less and less new and frightening, And more and more a new routine. You’ll grow used to it, comfortable with it. It’ll become a new skill you have, like levelling up in your favorite game. Either way, you only stand to gain from the experience. So don't sweat it.

 

If nothing else works, then how about this: have you heard this before, where the best way to get your mind of a black eye, is a broken leg? Something like that.