Shut Up and Listen

It has bothered me over the years that when I tell somebody a story about something I've struggled with in my life, or even something traumatic, people think the way to make me feel better and validated (if that is indeed what I'm looking for, but it usually isn't) is to say, "That happens to everyone" or "That happened to me one time..." and then they tell an anecdote that is tangentially related.

No.

Stop.

It is a simple fact that those of us on the autism spectrum have problems with things that most people take for granted. So unless your experience is really that similar (and I doubt it is), then I don't want to hear your story.

So shut up and listen.

Here are some examples of when this sort of thing has happened:

When I was a kid in the 1990s and dealing with autism in an era in which it wasn't well-known, I found myself getting obsessed with movies and television shows. I knew this was weird. I told my therapist about this, and he said, "Oh, everybody gets obsessed with things. Some people are obsessed with... relationships."

Where do I even start with this one? First of all, it was considered "normal" to be obsessed with relationships, but not with movies and television shows. And I wasn't even in a relationship, let alone getting obsessed with one. And I don't use the term "obsession" lightly, and I didn't back then. The way most people use it has the connotation of "slightly preoccupied". With me, it had the connotation of "all consuming". So no, that didn't make me feel better. It just made me feel like my shrink had no idea what he was talking about.

Shut up and listen.


Over the years, before I got the job that I've been at for three years now, whenever I told people about being fired from job after job, or having a hard time finding a job, people often would respond by telling me about being laid off and unemployed, say, for a year and a half.

No, no, no! You don't tell someone who has been chronically employed for 14 goddamned years after finishing college about the time you were jobless for a year and a half. They have nothing to do with each other, especially since chronic unemployment is textbook for autistic people.

Shut up and listen.


Last year, when I was running a debate Meetup, I got into a conversation with one of the members. I told him that I was on the autism spectrum and made some vague allusion to the fact that college was "a difficult period in my life". This guy said, "Well everybody goes through a difficult period in their life."

First of all, no. I'm not going to go into a tangent about exactly what it was, but I promise that what I went through in college was fairly unusual. To add insult to injury, the guy who said this had some kind of connective tissue disorder that made him unusually short and, with no tactful way to say it, he looked a bit odd. If he had trouble with some physical task due to his condition, it would be pretty shitty of me to tell him that everyone has trouble with [insert physical task here] sometimes.

Shut up and listen.


Recently, at a writing group, I workshopped a personal essay I wrote about an obsessive crush that I had at age sixteen during my summer group trip to Israel. As the essay made clear, this crush, on one of the counselors, had been all-consuming and seriously disrupted my experience. I chased this guy around like I was Pepe LePew and did stupid things like waiting for him outside of buildings in the middle of the night. One night I was up until 1:00 AM crying over him. 

While we were discussing my essay, I said something about how 23 years later I'm still embarrassed by my behavior. Someone thought it would be a great idea to tell me that she had a crush on a counselor when she was a kid, and she tripped and fell in front of him, and it was soooo embarrassing. 

No, no, no, no,  fucking NO! First of all, did she even read my essay? Well, yes, she did, and that's why her reaction is even more ridiculous. My piece made very clear that I was dealing with something much more serious and intense than giggling over a "cute guy". Her story about being embarrassed about falling in front of a counselor she had a crush on is not in the same universe as my embarrassment about spending an entire god damned summer obsessively chasing my crush around.

Shut up and listen.


If somebody tells you a story about something they've struggled with, just shut up and listen. Don't pretend you know how they feel. Rather than making them feel better, it comes across as dismissive and invalidating. It makes the person feel even more isolated because they are seeing further evidence that you don't appreciate the gravity of what they have to deal with. I would never tell someone starving in Africa that I know how they feel because I was hungry when I skipped lunch one time, or even because I once fasted for a day. Nor would I tell a black person that I understand how it feels to be frightened around cops, because one time I was slightly nervous around a particularly nasty one. I'm not going to tell a quadriplegic that I know how it feels not to be able to walk because I broke my ankle 25 years ago.

Really, what is so difficult about saying, "Hey, you know what? I really don't get it, but I imagine it's rough."

Or better yet, just shut up and listen.

Things That People Didn't Get (or "And Fuck You for Saying So")

Note: As always, names changed to protect peoples' privacy.

Whew, it's been a while since my last post! Well, we're three months into social distancing, and a lot has changed. I'm now working at home, and my company just decided that this will be a permanent thing. Not thrilled about it, as I don't like being stuck home all day. I'd at least hoped that once things improved (even if in a couple years) we would be back in the office... but anyway... it is what it is.

Recently I've been thinking about things about me that people just didn't get when I was a kid, in that dark age known as the '90s. I've also been thinking about how people who barely knew me felt entitled to make objective pronouncements about certain experiences I had because, hey, I was the ultimate unreliable narrator, right (and yes, I'm being profoundly sarcastic)? I keep wishing I could go back in time and correct these people who made these comments and pronouncements and then conclude by telling them, "And fuck you for saying so."

Here are a few gems from my childhood:

1. Between the ages of 11 and 14, I went to a therapist who had no idea what autism was. Well, to be fair, in the '90s nobody knew about it. So instead of just being honest and saying he had no idea what was going on, at our last appointment he gave me an index card on which he'd hand written a "diagnosis": "Difficulty picking up on social cues and adjusting to new situations."
Okay, first of all, these are symptoms, not a diagnosis. Having difficulty picking up on social cues is, of course, a hallmark of autism. But back then an autism diagnosis wasn't even on the table. As for "adjusting to new situations"? That too is a sign of autism, but it's one I never had. I don't know where this assessment came from. Christ, even when I was a kid my parents commented that I was good at trying new things. And contrary to the stereotype of the autistic kid who gets upset when their routine is disrupted, nope, never an issue for me. And I would've been thrilled at the idea of going to a new school-- specifically, a small, private school-- because I was being emotionally abused by my peers.
And at the time of Dr. Bonehead's "diagnosis", I was getting ready to go to overnight camp for the first time. And guess whose idea it was? Mine. My parents didn't even suggest it. I had aged out of my day camp and decided to go to Camp Negev because my brother had gone there and loved it. So as far as having "difficulty... adjusting to new situations"? No, I don't. I never did. 

 And fuck you for saying so.

Backstory for the next 3 items:

I went to Camp Negev for 2 wonderful summers, in 1995 and 1996. 1995 was difficult in the beginning because after years of emotional abuse at school I was a bit guarded and on edge. I wasn't homesick, I wasn't upset that my routine had changed, or anything else that people reading this who are familiar with autism stereotypes are probably thinking about. No. It was because I was terrified that I was going to be emotionally abused again. Fortunately, my counselor, Jonas, reached out to help me become more relaxed, and he was a great friend and mentor for a few years. If not for him, I wouldn't have begged to stay second session, let alone come back in 1996.

In 1997, I went on a summer trip to Israel, one associated with Camp Negev. There, I developed an obsessive crush on Chuck, one of my counselors. I had a really difficult time because this obsession disrupted my summer (obsessive crushes are very common for people on the autism spectrum). My mind was all over the map, my mood swung at the slightest provocation, and my behaviors were erratic. I spent the year in sober reflection, but the damage had been done. I came back to Camp Negev in 1998 for the C.I.T. program, but they wouldn't let  me work with kids until second session because of "concerns" based on my Israel trip evaluation.

Fellow C.I.T.s commented that they'd seen significant growth in me and thought that I wasn't given enough credit. I, like other C.I.T.s, noticed that a lot of counselors were more concerned about smoking pot and engaging in the fraternity culture of the staff at Camp Negev than being good counselors. There was an alarming lack of responsibility when it came to the kids. I picked up a lot of the slack but, like many people on the spectrum, wasn't given credit for it. As is also textbook for people on the spectrum, an honest mistake-- such as saying, "Oh shit!" when not realizing that an eight-year-old kid is standing behind me-- was seen as a major infraction. Meanwhile, leaving kids alone in their cabins so they could go to the lounge and smoke weed was perfectly acceptable. The stress caused by the injustice eventually took its toll. I had two meltdowns during that summer. It was a significant improvement from the Israel trip, but these meltdowns proved to be the nail in the coffin for a future as a counselor at Camp Negev.

2. At camp when my counselors broke the news to me that I wasn't going to be able to work with kids because of their "concerns", my counselor, David, told me, "You're going to have to prove that you can change." No, it wasn't, "These are things that you have to work on", but rather "you need to change" because, hey, who I am at my core is wrong, right? This was just one of many times all summer when he was short, rude, and nasty to me. Telling someone that they need to change instead of working on some things is a really cruel, callous thing to say.

And fuck you for saying so. 

3. A couple months after camp, I wanted to apply for the gap-year Israel trip. Unfortunately, with my application I received a cover letter that essentially told me that they had "reservations". One of the reservations was that they thought I wouldn't be able to work in groups and that the "unfamiliar settings" would be a problem for me. I called the central office and asked for my C.I.T. evaluation. As I predicted, it cited inconsequential things that I did wrong and commented, "Could not be dealt with on a level that was appropriate for the C.I.T. program."

Um, wow? First of all, with all the pressure I was under that summer, I would like to see anybody not blow up at some point. Second, there is very little doubt in my mind that David wrote the evaluation without the help of my other counselor,  a wonderful person who had a more nuanced view of the summer. And why the hell was there this "unfamiliar situations" thing thrown in again? Once again, going to Camp Negev was my idea. Going to Israel was my idea. And I wanted to go back to Israel for the gap year program. A friendly reminder, I have never had issues with being in "unfamiliar settings".

And fuck you for saying so.

4. At a winter 1998 reunion, I confronted David about my evaluation. I talked about all the good things that I had done that I wasn't given credit for that summer and how lots of counselors got away with egregious inappropriateness.  David had the audacity to tell me that I "did not have a good summer", citing the two meltdowns (which, back then, people dismissed as childish temper tantrums instead of the end result of intense, complex emotions). Um, actually, yes I did have a good summer. Did I get frustrated at times? Yes. But life isn't black and white. I generally had a good time that summer. But oh, no, David told me that not only did I not have a good summer then, but that I didn't have a good summer in 1995 or 1996. David wasn't even my counselor those two years, so it wasn't like he had spent any time with me. This is just one of many times when someone in my childhood told me that how I felt about an experience I had was objectively wrong. Telling me that I didn't have a good summer when I felt that I did was a lousy, dismissive, invalidating thing to say.

And fuck you for saying so. 

5. When I was in 9th grade, I stormed out of class one day because my former friends-turned-enemies had been bullying me for the millionth time. A student teacher had been supervising the class, and as I walked through the hallway, I ran into my regular teacher. He took one look at me and shook his head. He said, "Every day with you it's the same thing. You can't handle your problems and you end up crying. Go to guidance."
I couldn't handle my problems? I was tired of being abused and I removed myself from the situation. How is that not handling my problems? And let's not forget the problems that the other kids had where they felt it was okay to bully me. Or was the fact that I was constantly bullied an indicator that I was the problem, not the other kids? 

When somebody is taking care of themselves after endless torment, that is not reflective of their inability to handle their problems.

And fuck you for saying so.