Tag: autism spectrum

The Life Autistic: Only I Could Have Gotten This One Word in a Performance Review

102699917-159836292.jpg

When I saw the word, I laughed. Out loud. In the middle of my review.

“I’m sorry,” I told my boss. “I said I wouldn’t read ahead to the feedback. But this — it’s too true.”

I’m fortunate to get a performance review every year, which assesses my work and includes feedback from my peers, co-workers, and clients.

I say fortunate, because I’m optimistic; these past few years have been a bit tougher on me.

I made a career switch to something that would test me differently, leaving behind a decent run in middle management, where most everyone seemed to appreciate me, people respected my work, and leadership threw me a ton of money.

I gave that up because I needed a different challenge.

And it has been a challenge — a humbling one at that.

I pivoted to an area where I started from scratch, needing to build my skills, connections, and clout all over again.

Expertise and experience take work. My reviews from years back were like annual coronations of that effort, while now they’ve been more building blocks and stepping stones in my current career.

This year, though, amidst half-decent feedback and kind commentary, one phrase stood out:

“Hunter tends to be a bit obtuse in his analogies…”

OBTUSE!

Unlike the Warden in Shawshank, I got the connotation straight away. I wasn’t mad – that’s a brilliant word! That takes English dexterity, a connoisseur’s word, one that I appreciated.

Obtuse wasn’t just deliberate. It’s just me.

The rest of the comment was positive, but ‘obtuse’ rang as an unassailable attribute, something that typifies me as much as redheadedness.

It was my worst review in years, relatively speaking. It’s a newer gig to me.

But that’s ok.

I’m going to try harder things. I’m going to get good enough to have a chance to be bad at something even more difficult.

Though my stories, analogies, and communication might have obtuse angles, there’s one angle I hang onto that helps most of all:

Positive.

The Life Autistic: What We Do When You Don’t Talk to Us

lonely-crowd.jpg

If you’re neurotypical, what words does this scene evoke? Lonely. Isolated. Ignored. Alone.

If you’re living The Life Autistic? Normal.

Sometimes that’s fine. Sometimes it’s discouraging, even disconcerting. Sometimes we’re just off in our own thoughts. Sometimes it’s our way of saying “come talk to me.”

But it’s always productive.

When you’re in a spot like this as often as I am, you learn some coping tricks, some of them clever.

I’ve made an art of treating it like a multi-input listening exercise, the aural equivalent of a panopticon.

In college, I didn’t come to conversations with seat mates easily, but I learned an awful lot about them, picking out details, concerns, insights.

At work, same story — I’m a reliable tag along, even if I just end up listening to everyone else talk and putting their stories in my back pocket.

The real trick is when I bring it back, to everyone’s surprise.

“How did you know that?”

“Did I . . . tell you about this?”

“Wow, I’m surprised you remembered that.”

I’m no good at breaking the ice. At least not right away. When no one talks to me, I just listen. And remember. And recall.

And that all makes one heck of an icebreaker.

Fast forwarding to a recent endeavor:

I’ve started getting back into the Sunday School habit, since it’s a smaller group, more of my age cohort, etc.

There I sat, as each of the couples there found their own little pockets, surrounded in discussion, finding other normal people to talk to.

At first, it discouraged me, since I’d thrown myself in the mix to try being more social.

But I know who I am at this point. It isn’t going to change. Neither are others.

So I listened.

Picking up what others say, things they share. What they’re about.

Maybe later down the road I’ll be looped into a conversation.

It’ll be a while, but it’ll pay off.

“So you’re Hunter, and — wait, well, how did you know—”

It’s . . . what I do when you don’t talk to me. 🙂

 

 

 

The Life Autistic: Not a Klutz (Anymore)

Screen Shot 2018-10-01 at 8.31.25 AM.png

Growing up, I hated the fact that I wasn’t “well coordinated,” or “athletically gifted,” or otherwise all too dextrous.

Turns out, the starting stats for The Life Autistic cheat us in physical skills.

They just do. We’re not naturals at this.

So I decided to cheat back.

After college, I lived in my grandmother’s attic, where the muggy winter temps of Virginia took their toll. To keep warm and, well, “not bored,” I tried juggling my folded socks.

They were just the right size, they didn’t bounce, and after picking up dropped socks for a half-hour, I’d gotten a good cardio workout and slightly better at juggling each time.

It never occurred to me that my autistic traits might hinder natural athleticism, but they might accelerate what I needed to pick it up.

Discipline. Habit. Focus. Practice. Repeating and trying something I wasn’t good at. Hour after hour. Day after day. Week after week.

I’m not a natural. I’m still not. 

But I can be an unnatural. 

After months of dropping balls, hours of YouTube videos, and days of practice, I became a passable juggler. Enough to where it impresses kids, some adults, and can put on half a show and keep people entertained.

What I didn’t realize was that juggling helped erase a lot of my clumsiness.

The only real anecdote I have to show for it: I’ve owned iPhones for 10 years now. I’ve gone from a 3G, to a 4S, to a 5S, 6S, and now an iPhone X – a beautiful glass block.

I’ve never put any of them in a case, because I don’t drop things much anymore. And if I do, I can catch falling objects with (more) ease, and that’s saved me hundreds of $ in broken iPhone glass.

Yeah, I still run like a duck with giraffe legs, and I can’t throw darts/baseballs/cornhole bags with much accuracy at all.

I’m still quite autistic, but thanks to its benefits, I’ve erased one of its deficits.