Liane Holliday Willey - Pretending to be Normal

Nowadays I try very hard to gauge whether or not my reactions are being manifested by AS or by something more discrete. For instance, if I find myself in the middle of an argument with Tom, I will consciously stop speaking and run the specifics of the conversation through my mind as if it was a computer that could seek, find, and sort out all the extraneous variables that I relate to AS. I then imagine in my thoughts, two stacks of index cards — one that contains commonplace variables like stress and sleep deprivation and hormones, and one that contains AS traits like my rigid thinking or literal mindedness. Piece by piece, I then analyze a few sentences at a time, methodically analyzing which category of variables influenced each verbal exchange. For example, I typically ask myself questions like: could my understanding of this statement have been influenced by my rigid thinking; am I just under too much stress right now to hear anything properly; did I take his comment too literally; or am I misconstruing the implication of his word or words. Once I decide which influences are at play, I can then sift through the exchange again, this time throwing out the pieces that I think my AS has affected. At that point, I can finally reevaluate the conversation and determine where things began to fall off track.

Sometimes, I will be able to fix things up by asking Tom to redefine or elaborate a specific point or I might choose to ignore an entire passage or two deciding it is just too convoluted to sort out, or I might come to the conclusion that my husband himself made a comment that was just plain rude, wrong or misguided. When I have an inkling the crux of my confusion and my inability to follow his thoughts is more influenced by my AS than anything else, I will directly say to Tom — I think my AS is confusing me. Please start over and tell me again what you are trying to tell me. This confession of mine has never failed to help both of us stop the arguing immediately, whereupon Tom can begin his point all over again, but this time with a great deal more care and precision behind his words. However, if I come to believe one of the non-AS variables is at play, I will usually do what my friends are able to do, state my argument and go on my way. More often than not, I tend to believe it is my AS that is interfering with the moment.

Most of the time Tom can restructure his conversations until I can decode what he is telling me. On other occasions there is nothing he can do to forestall my rigid thinking — nothing. Typically I am inflexible in my understanding of words that convey time or order or specific action. For instance, if Tom told me he was going to leave his office in a few minutes, run by the bank, stop by the store and then pick me up from the library, I would expect him to do exactly those things, in exactly that order, in exactly that time frame. It would not do at all if he changed his mind and left the office an hour later than he had planned, ran by the bank, came to pick me up and then suggested we run by the store. Something as seemingly innocuous as this will send me over the wall each and every time. I would have been terribly shaken because he did not leave the office when he told me he would, and also because his actions did not follow the sequential order he told me he would follow. Even if I had been enjoying my time in the library and were anxious to get to the store myself, I would still be unable to tolerate this breach in time and sequence. These episodes become lost in my perseverations. Times when I cannot, despite all attempts toward the opposite, let go of a train of thought. It is as if my mind has trapped the contents of everything that has been said or shown me, far beyond the walls of a house of mirrors. When this happens, my husband has learned that the only thing he can do is ride time until I can settle my dizzying thoughts onto something untouched by my panic and my confusion.

I do not feel my rigid thinking would be a big impairment to my ability to communicate if I did, in fact, move on completely. However, I rarely do. I keep breaks like this — changes in routine, misused words, alterations in sequence, times when I have been utterly confused and then angered — in a file that I access and reexamine in total each time I face a new bout with my rigid thinking. Unfortunately, each time I begin perseverations on one particular issue, I am very likely to recant a litany of similar instances and sets of circumstances, even from as far back as a decade or more ago. Thankfully, Tom has a strong threshold for my perseverations and my rigid thinking patterns. I suppose he has finally come to accept that this chink in my character is as much a part of me as are my blue eyes.

As odd as it might sound, one of the kindest things my husband ever said to me was, «You are so weird». Not a typical endearment, but nonetheless, it brought me joy because in those few words I found a sky filled with freedom. From that comment alone, I knew that even though Tom recognized my differences, he was still interested in being with me. This gave me the go ahead to confess, if you will, every single sensory issue that exasperated, overran and confused me. It felt so liberating to tell Tom my fingers felt like they were being torn apart when he interlocked his fingers with mine — that I felt bugs under my skin when he touched me lightly — that my mouth watered and my nose burned and my stomach turned when he wore certain kinds of cologne — or that when he came too near me, it took everything in me to keep from shoving him aside.

He took each admission in stride, simply nodding as I explained what I was feeling when assaulted by certain sensations. Never once did he complain when I exclaimed I had to leave a ball game because the crowd’s constant commotion and moving about made me feel lightheaded and disoriented. Not ever did he tell me he was angry or hurt because I refused to sit too closely to him or hug him often enough or display outward affection like other couples do. At no time did he appear embarrassed or chagrined in response to my social blunders. Still, I worry that I am in some way leading him to feel he is missing something in me, a certain tenderness or smoothness, a softness or a kindness… a special something that only he can define, but that I cannot discern for myself or exhibit on my own. As a sort of insurance policy, as protection from the fact that I might not be as affectionate or pliable as he might like, I work at asking him to tell me when and if he needs more from me than he is getting from me. But because I suspect he will never burden me with the notion that I am disappointing him, I have taken it upon myself to try something that so far has managed to help me make small changes in my behavior. Like other people make lists to remind themselves to pick up milk or get the mail, I make lists that tell me how to act. On my list are things like — hold Tom’s hand for five minutes every day; squint eyes when in an overwhelming crowd; say «Excuse me» instead of « I have to get out of here now!»; count to five before replying; hug Tom three times today. When I review my list, I remember how I need to act.

I am convinced I benefit from this strategy, despite its simplicity. It seems to stick things in my memory — rules and skills and planned behaviors that I would never contemplate or remember to do without prodding, but I am routinely surprised that I need to rely on something so contrived. I have an excellent memory for most things and I am tempted to think I should remember to do something the moment I tell myself to do it. I suppose this discrepancy occurs because there is a subtle difference of content at play here. The memories I easily recall are all based on facts I am interested in or situational events that happened in my past. For some reason, I cannot seem to recall how to act as easily as I can recall how I did act. It is as if when I look backwards I see a photo album filled with vivid images and shapes, but when I try to look forward I cannot call to mind one reliable picture to guide me along. Instead, I spend a great deal of time imagining how things should happen, rehearsing possible scenarios over and over, contriving lines I might say, and directing how others should act and how I would react to their reactions. I will play this game until I feel I have exhausted every possible scenario, and then I will typically obsess over which scene is most likely to happen in real life. But, of course, things rarely turn out exactly as I had rehearsed and so I suppose it will never be possible for me to always know how to act. The human saga is just not reliable enough for me to predict.