Michael seeing a reflection of a past Michael
One of the major struggles that I face being autistic is that I have a hard time seeing how my actions affect others. Over the past decade or so I have gotten a little better at this, but it is still a serious struggle for me. Over the past decade I have learned to control my temper and my meltdowns. I once melted down externally in public in a verbally and physically violent manner. Now when I do meltdown it is in private, and the meltdown tends to be internal. During the same period of time, I have learned to be much more gentle in how I speak to others than I was in the past. Despite these areas of serious growth, I have still struggled to see how my actions have been experienced by others.
Recently I have had some experiences which have helped me to understand how people perceived me prior to my learning to get more control over both my meltdowns and the way I spoke to others. In my regular daily activities over the past half year I have come in contact with a guy who is about 10 years younger than I am and communicates in very much the same manner I once did. He does not intend to come off as abrasive, but his communication style is just that. He knows quite a bit about certain subjects and can get rather short and impatient when others do not comprehend things at the same level he does. Just like I once was. This particular person and I get along very well most of the time, except for when he is talking down or getting impatient with me. He has made it rather clear in small talk that he views me as a friend and doesn’t mean to offend me. Others in my group have warned me about him and his communication style and advised to not take it personally. When I first started communicating with him my initial reaction was “omg, he is a carbon copy of me 10 years ago.” Due to knowing how I once communicated I have worked to keep my responses professional and with empathy toward his communication difficulties. This has been eye opening to me.
There was another experience lately that was even more eye opening to me. I am not going to give the particulars to save embarrassment to those who were there. I will just say that I watched a drunk person throw a nasty temper tantrum while out with friends one night in a place that is a rather relaxed environment. The person unprovoked started screaming at others, yelling obscenities and flipped a table with bottles on it over on its side, hitting someone in the leg. The person was quickly escorted out of the place we were by staff and things very quickly quieted down. It took me about a day to emotionally and mentally process what I had just seen happen. This person had a drunken temper tantrum. Temper tantrums are structurally different than a meltdown, and yet the optics of a temper tantrum and a meltdown look rather similar. It has been at least 6 years since I have had an external meltdown in public where people other than my family could see it. However, the memories of a lifetime of meltdowns are still fresh in my mind. I know what it is like for me to experience a meltdown, however it never registered with me until this experience how others perceived me when I was melting down. This was eye opening for me.
These two experiences have been enormous in helping me learn how I was once perceived. Autistic people are often seen as being cold and uncaring, but we are not. It is not that we do not care, but rather that we have a rather difficult time understanding how others react to our communication and sensory disorders. These two learning experiences are monumental in my personal learning to navigate the disorder I have called autism.
Glory to God!
