The Life Autistic: When the Emotion Should be There

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa was a rare thing growing up. We lived in Iceland, so the trans-Atlantic flight from there to Virginia was an event, the highlight of the year.

After one of those annual trips, my folks called my grandparents and put me on the line. I’m no good on the phone now, and I wasn’t much better then.

I forget who asked or how it came up, but I recall saying something clunky:

“Well, I don’t miss you, but I do remember you.”

My parents laughed it off or something, as I remember them smoothing it over — they all knew I was an odd, hyperfactual duck.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it typifies all too well one of those fissures in The Life Autistic:

We don’t always feel the emotions that should be there.

It’s not that we don’t “get it” — we do, but we don’t, y’know, “get it.” Not like everyone else.

I’m not always sad when bad things happen to others. I relate, I’ve practiced the words, and I know I should feel more sorrow.

I rejoice with those who rejoice, but it’s not always as deep-seated in me to be indwelled with the same for people and situations.

I’m not some cold, robotic soul who has eroded all traces of human pathos from his system—no, I and many others know we don’t always possess the emotion where it should be. 

We see the gaps, and we adapt.

In time and in some cases, we do begin to feel. It’s growth, understanding, learning what is meant to fill the space. Nothing remains empty forever.

I do think back to those trips.

The long drives through the trees, how foreign they were compared to tundra.

The way the smoke clung to the wood and brick of their old house.

The ironclad hugs from Grandpa.

The two best weeks of the year.

I remember them less and miss them more.

The Life Autistic: Why Dishwashers Sink Me

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With my ‘gifts’ of robotic and inhuman focus, I find I can slog without stress through even the most mundane, monotonous things — except one.

Emptying my dishwasher.

It is indeed the dumbest thing to get worked up over, but if you want to ruin my day, spike my anxiety, and unnerve the tight-knit fabric of my task attacks, just get me unloading a dishwasher.

“Why not just not do it?”

Y’all ain’t be reading this blog long enough – tasks undone make me undone.

“Can you seek help for this?“

…

Let’s start that conversation and see if we can go more than five seconds keeping a straight face about ‘dishwasher anxiety’

“Ok, H2, you got me. Why is this such a pain?”

I’ve been wondering that too.

It’s the strangest thing to be worked up over, so I’ve given it a thought — even applied the ol’ “Task Management System” approach in deconstructing why.

1: It just doesn’t flow

I like logical, behaving things, and my dishwasher is anti-logical relative to my kitchenware arrangement.

If I start from the bottom, then I feel like I’ll forget the top rack. If I start atop, then — well, that’s it’s like it’s hanging over, and there’s too much space beneath—

2: It feels like too many steps

Even when you consider the phrase “unloading the dishwasher,” in my mind, that can only be a single step.

But when I find myself shuffling items out of the unit, staging them for later, stacking cups, bowls, Tupperware to fit in the cabinet, loading newly dirty dishes in, then taking out the silverware basket, and then—

It’s not as simple as it sounds, and that disconnect just frays me.

3: I get stuck trying to “solve” when I need to just “do.”

There’s probably an art, science, and alchemy to doing this.

Someone must have cracked the code.

This must be a solved equation.

That’s at least what I tell myself each time, getting crankier as I fumble plates and jam yet another poor Tupperware tower into a cabinet and then forget I still had silverware to redistribute across adult, toddler, baby, and —

But that is indeed The Life Autistic, conquering challenges great and small. Or in some cases, grimacing and bearing them out, one load of dishes at a time…

 

 

 

The Life Autistic: Go Until You Stop

Imagine living a week pushing against your walls, comforts, depths. To jump in unblinking, then keeping your arms out, elbows locked, and palms pressed against the ON button.

In The Life Autistic, that’s a doomsday scenario.

But it wasn’t.

—

For these sorts of events, where I’m beyond my element, I stay close to home base. Plot things out. Venture out with those I know.

But I didn’t.

I found brand new co-workers, strung together a network of fabulous people from all different parts of my business. And I had a blast with “fast friends,” enough to where I didn’t even see my team for days.

—

For the conference itself, I had each day mapped, plotted to a tee, keeping things open only enough as a fallback. Gotta be predictable, right?

But I wasn’t.

The plans I woke to were not what happened. Whether opting out of sessions spontaneously for lunches or flipping the script on my day, I—*gasp*—went with the flow.

—

On Wednesday, Tableau hosted Data Night Out at the Superdome – 17,000 people strong – crowded, cacophonous, chaotic. That should have counted me out.

But it didn’t.

I was halfway serviceable on throwing footballs, but pitiful kicking field goals. But I tried. Even professionals miss there! And the entire time in line, I got to chat with a data analyst for the FDIC for 90 minutes solid – strangers to start, “friends” by the end.

—

But.

On the day before I was to leave, my batteries ran beyond depleted. I’d confided with others who said the conference was tough. They, too, were introverts – and they couldn’t fathom me being one as well. I shared my secret:

“You just go until you stop.” 

The plan was hang out Thursday, leave Friday.

But.

I thought about staying in this hotel again. Out of my element. Voice getting more hoarse. More and more dead time. I thought about my office. Colorado. Home. My family.

I stuck it to the plan and called for a trip home.

I’m Hunter Hansen, autist-in-residence. I know what I’m about. I burned bright, burned quick, but totally burned out.

But I grew myself, and not just from 50lbs of oysters. I practiced making fast friends on the draw. I tried spontaneity for a while and enjoyed it for others’ sake. I didn’t let my being twice out of my element ruin it for others.

Go until you stop.

Then go a little bit further. Be strong. Stretch the boundaries – if just by a little. Or stretch them a lot, melt down, then reforge.

But go.