Late Night Line Up.

Got Rho to finally pen something for the blog - to be honest I've been trying to get her to write something for ages - as I reckon it's interesting to get another perspective on stuff pertaining to 'Ver Autism' as we call it around here.

As ever it'd be interesting to hear other folks take on it, in a nice way obviously!

So Rho it's over to you.....

Rho and myself discussing stuff yesterday.

 

This is my first wee foray into the land of blog, if you like it, thanks! If not, it’s Ash’s fault….anyway, here goes….

Ash and I were having one of our late night autism chats. (Just for the record, Ash and our 3 kiddlings are autistic) We were talking about photos, Ash reckons his autism-dar goes off when he looks at someones eyes in a photo and we were chatting about what that could mean.

That sort of “distracted” look.

So I was thinking about the day to day things that my family talk about and how they behave and interact, and the eyes thing and I had a thought….

Could it be that autistic people aren’t “present in the moment” in the same way that neurotypical people are?

I mean, I can sit and stare into space and think of nothing or daydream, if I get the chance. My thought processes are pretty straightforward. I do think about the past and the future, I do stress and worry about things, but mostly my mind is a quiet place, in the moment, just plodding along, doing what it needs to do, stopping for cups of tea, making decisions, moving on, etc...etc...

My family, however, seem to inhabit the sort of mind where the past, present and future are all running simultaneously. Everything that’s ever happened, everything happening now and infinite scenarios of what will happen in the future seem to be in their thought processes constantly.

SO MUCH INFORMATION!!!

Much more difficult to have a quiet mind.

Much more difficult to be “In the moment”.

Much more difficult to do a lot of things.

I’m not for a second saying that I think autistic people can’t concentrate, but my thoughts are, that to actually turn off all that brain information takes so much effort, that it’s going to have to be something that they’re REALLY interested in.

This is obviously just my personal observation, the more I think about it however, the more it explains a lot of behaviour, Try to imagine the whole of your personal timeline stuff running through your head all the time and you suddenly understand more about an autistic persons need for routine, the over stimulation, the squeezing, the “not listening” etc. 

It would also explain my family’s “gift” for remembering every single thing I’ve ever said and done or told them about :)