"I'm stunned by the illogicality of others, and they are stunned by the fact that I'm a robot." This phrase perfectly describes the peculiarities of my interaction with the world around me. I'm like this robot. Or an alien. I can only guess how the other people see me. But now I know for sure that others consider me at least strange. The feeling is mutual. Many actions of people around me seem completely irrational and illogical to me.
For a long time, this baffled me. I didn't understand what was going on, and considered myself a deep introvert, a withdrawn, gloomy dude who did not understand people and their feelings at all. I kept wondering what was wrong with me…
A special way of living
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder of mental development. I like the idea that ASD is a special way of interacting with the world around us.
Here are some characteristics of people with ASD:
difficulty maintaining social interaction;
decreased ability to recognize emotions, feelings, and motives in others (also called alexithymia);
taking language too literally;
difficulty maintaining conversation, taking turns in exchanging remarks, and recognizing the appropriateness of topics of conversation;
problems with nonverbal communication and recognizing body language, intonation, and cues;
difficulty maintaining prolonged eye contact;
having a narrow, often unusual, area of interest;
stereotypical, repetitive behavior, gestures, interests, or activities;
strong dependence on a familiar routine;
monotonous speech;
unusual reactions to incoming sensory information;
high perceptual sensitivity, which can lead to sensory overload, especially among strangers and in new environments;
marked clumsiness.
ASD features can manifest themselves in completely different ways in different people. For some, they can be very pronounced and seriously interfere with normal life. For others, these features will be only slightly noticeable. Such people may seem a little strange and eccentric to others.
Geek syndrome
High-functioning forms of ASD include Asperger syndrome, a developmental disorder characterized by severe difficulties in social interaction, as well as a limited, stereotyped, repetitive repertoire of interests and activities. It is usually diagnosed in adulthood. For example, Anthony Hopkins was diagnosed at the age of 80.
ASD and Asperger syndrome are often called "geek syndrome". In the press, you can find claims that Bill Gates, Keanu Reeves, Bob Dylan, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Tim Burton, Messi and Elon Musk have signs of ASD. In his book "Autism and Creativity", psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald retrospectively diagnosed ASD in Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Albert Einstein and Michelangelo.
Little is known about the causes of autism. Autism is suspected to be related to a defect or weak expression of the OXTR gene, the oxytocin receptor gene, which results in neurons in certain parts of the brain becoming insensitive or weakly sensitive to oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone and neurotransmitter that is synthesized in the hypothalamus. It plays an important role in the social behavior of primates.
I am not an expert, so I will not go into details of the classification and diagnosis of ASD.
In this article, I just want to tell you about my own observations and thoughts, share how a person with pronounced ASD lives and works in the environment of ordinary, “normal”, neurotypical people.
1. About loud sounds and open space
Since childhood, I have been terribly frightened by loud, sharp sounds. One of my vivid memories: we are sitting on the platform of a dacha station and waiting for an electric train. The bright summer sun is shining, the birds are singing beautifully, a bumblebee is buzzing busily nearby, people are quietly chatting on a nearby bench. And suddenly I notice that a scary freight train is approaching from the city. It is almost inaudible yet, it is still very far away, but I am already shrinking in advance and covering my ears with my hands. After all, when it passes by, it will definitely start honking to warn people at the crossing near the station. This HORN turns my insides upside down. I literally make an effort not to run. I wince and try to plug my ears as tightly as possible to at least slightly reduce the impact of this sharp, nightmarish sound. I really like trains, I am not afraid of the rumble of a heavy train, I am not embarrassed by the vibrating platform under my feet, but the horn is really scary. The train has long since passed, the dust has settled, the grandmothers on the next bench look in surprise at the strange shaking child, and I still can’t come to my senses from what I experienced for a long time.
In general, any extraneous sounds distract me greatly. Extraneous sounds include: conversations, phone calls, footsteps, knocks, rustles... Well, you already understood that I am describing an open space. Imagine that you are trying to prepare for an important exam in the very center of a busy metropolitan train station. That’s exactly how I feel in an open office. Even if everyone around is silent, I still won’t be able to completely disconnect from the surrounding space. I will constantly be distracted by minor movements and rustles coming from my colleagues.
In the vicinity of other people, I can only somehow concentrate with headphones playing music. Well, music helps me. Not just any music, of course, but only my favorites.
By the way, along with increased susceptibility to loud, sharp sounds, I also got increased sensory sensitivity. At some point, I found out that I feel temperature changes and tactile effects much more acutely than other people. It turned out that this is not just like that. There are studies that show a connection between ASD and impaired body thermoregulation. I also have a negative attitude towards any physical contact with strangers, and especially with strangers. Friendly hugs at corporate parties and meetings with colleagues are not my thing at all.
What I do:
I try to avoid working in an open space.
If it is necessary, I choose a time when the number of people in the office is minimal. Before switching to remote work, I often arrived at the office at 7 am or even earlier.
I collect a collection of my favorite music and choose soundproof headphones, with which I can somehow reduce the level of external irritants.
2. About emotions
I often find it difficult to recognize the emotions of other people. Especially by appearance—by facial expression, eyes, facial expressions. There is a test in which you need to determine the emotion a person is experiencing by a photo of his eyes. The photo does not show the rest of the face—only the eyes. I failed this test miserably.
It is extremely difficult for me to communicate with emotional people. They seem completely unpredictable to me, and I do not have ready-made algorithms for interacting with such interlocutors. I just do not know what to do when someone shows very strong emotions. Especially if this happens in a work, official setting. If this is accompanied by screaming, loud laughter, sobbing and other violent displays of emotion, my brain simply switches off. At such moments, I just shut up and wait for the person to be ready for normal, constructive communication again.
What I do:
I try to minimize communication with overly emotional people.
I'm learning to filter out emotions to get the information that really matters.
I practice recognizing emotions whenever possible, although it's not easy.
3. About a fixed gaze
It is very difficult for me to look into the eyes of the person I am talking to. That is why I often look away during a conversation, looking at some object or landscape in the distance. It seems to me that this is a quite comfortable option, but some people are surprised and even angry by it.
In my youth, I read a lot of psychological advice about the importance of making eye contact with interlocutors. I overcame myself and gradually somehow learned to look people in the eyes. But this led to the opposite effect—now my interlocutors "hang" from my "fixed, heavy, unblinking and strange gaze". The problem is that I do not know when to stop looking into the eyes of another person. I just do not feel this moment. So I realized that during a conversation it is better to look at some tree in the distance than to try to follow advice intended for ordinary people.
The ideal conversation for me is when people sit on a bench, look into the distance at a beautiful landscape and slowly exchange balanced, thoughtful phrases on some interesting, important topic.
What I do:
I am critical of the advice of psychologists, which is intended for "ordinary" people.
I consciously control the time during which it is considered normal to look into the eyes of another person.
When talking, I try to sit not directly opposite, but to the side of the interlocutor.
4. About algorithms of social interaction
As a child, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. Now I understand that it was my grandmother who did a lot to help me live with my peculiarities in the future. I'm not sure that at that time she could understand that it was somehow connected with ASD. In any case, she never told me that there was something wrong with me. She just calmly and gently corrected my behavior. For example, I still remember how she patiently and methodically weaned me off constantly monotonously rocking from side to side. As a child, I had such a habit, typical for people with autism. When I thought about it and started rocking and shaking, my grandmother simply asked me again and again to stop doing it, so as not to frighten others. It worked, even as a child I learned to control this peculiarity.
My grandmother also taught me the basic algorithms of behavior. The thing is that sometimes it is difficult for me to understand how I should react correctly to a particular social situation. It often happens that my reaction turns out to be strange from the point of view of the people around me. What seems simple and obvious to others remains illogical and incomprehensible to me. Therefore, I need special algorithms—how to react correctly in different situations. Most people have these algorithms by default, but people with ASD often do not have them.
Now I understand that my grandmother carefully and systematically loaded such behavior patterns into me—under the guise of advice on politeness and etiquette, she explained to me how normal people behave. Now it often happens that my reactions look somewhat stereotypical. But at least I know what to do in more or less standard situations.
Another source of such scenarios for me was television. In general, as a child, I talked very little and spent a lot of time alone—in my own strange and magical world. Movies, TV shows and series helped me learn some standard scenarios for interaction. In fact, I memorized fragments and the structure of dialogues as phrases in a foreign language. I still involuntarily memorize complex, little-known quotes from films and TV series and reproduce them from memory. However, this is where the “magic” abilities of my memory end. What a pity that my RAS package did not include an eidetic memory block, it would have been very useful to me!
A large collection of records with all sorts of interesting audio productions also contributed to the replenishment of my pattern library. In general, since childhood, I have been forming my own set of scenarios.
Problems begin when social interactions go beyond the templates. If my library does not have a ready-made behavior algorithm, I can either fall silent or start behaving “somehow wrong”. Sometimes it happens that I interrupt other people or speak at the same time as my interlocutors—I do not feel the moment when it is right to start talking. Sometimes I can accidentally say something that will upset or offend another person. Not out of malice, but out of ignorance. Moreover, I may not even understand that I have offended someone. Again, due to the inability to recognize emotions. Therefore, I am constantly learning and expanding my library: I study social interactions the same way others learn a foreign language. It is a pity that high-quality ready-made textbooks and manuals are not published on this topic.
The closest people know about my peculiarities and help me a lot. They help with filling my collection of behavior algorithms, suggest the correct reaction patterns and generally support me in every possible way and “conduct educational and explanatory work among me” about such a complex and completely incomprehensible world of social interactions.
What I do:
I am constantly expanding my library of templates and algorithms of social interactions. As a support service, I have my own communication scripts.
I try to record and remember the answers and phrases with which I unwittingly offended other people, so as not to repeat it.
5. About “light and easy” communication
Do you know what is the hardest and most painful thing for me at work when communicating with people? Maintaining light, easy conversation. This is also called small talk — small talk, conversations about purchases, mortgages, other people’s acquaintances and acquaintances of these acquaintances, travel and other “common” things. I have few ready-made patterns and algorithms for maintaining such “light” conversation. For ordinary people, such conversations are a way to unload, take a break from work and worries. For me, this is the hardest test. In this mode, I constantly have to process huge amounts of information in order to maintain a conversation and give something similar to the answer of a “normal” neurotypical person. As a result, my internal processor very quickly overloads and overheats. I just fall silent, drop out of the conversation and stare into space. This is my way to cool down a little and return my brain to a normal base mode. I understand that from the outside it looks a little wild. That's why I try to avoid such conversations at work whenever possible.
By the way, a long, absent-minded stare is one of the signs of a neuro-atypical person. I sometimes switch to this mode. It would be difficult for me to explain what's going on in my head at this time. In this mode, I kind of distance myself from the world, while remaining a part of it. I continue to see and hear everything, but at the same time I let all incoming information pass by the brain's center for analyzing reality. This is a magical feeling: as if you temporarily left a room full of screaming people and are looking at a quiet, majestic sunset. At such moments, I truly feel like a part of the huge world around me. This really helps me unwind and relax.
What I do:
I compose, write down, and memorize standard phrases and answers to various topics that may arise in a "casual" conversation with other people in advance.
Whenever possible, I try to avoid pauses in which small talk may arise.
6. About hints and omissions
My version of RAS “out of the box” includes some valuable, albeit slightly cut-down modules, such as “Empathy”, “Altruism” and even “Humor”. Since my college years, I have been trained to recognize sarcasm. Another thing is half-hints and especially omissions. It is very difficult for me to understand such subtle nuances. Apparently, this is due to the fact that I do not have many subprograms that are “loaded by default” in ordinary people. What seems obvious to others and does not require additional clarification is absolutely unclear to me. Therefore, I always ask to formulate all requests and tasks as specifically as possible.
Often, during a conversation, I have to ask clarifying questions. Unfortunately, some people get annoyed by this—they think that I am making fun of them. But I do not even think about it—I just want to make sure that I understood everything correctly. I don’t know when the other person will decide to play these socio-psychological guessing games again.
Remember the joke about the wife asking her husband: “Buy a loaf of bread, if there are eggs, take ten”? The husband comes back with ten loaves of bread. After all, there were eggs! It’s funny to you, but for me it’s everyday reality. Welcome to my world!
By the way, it’s always much easier for me to perceive any information in the form of text rather than by ear. Apparently, this is due to the fact that I can free up a significant part of my brain resources from the tedious process of interacting with the other person and direct them directly to studying new information.
What I do:
I achieve a clear and extremely specific formulation of any task that I have to solve.
If necessary, I always ask clarifying questions.
I try to explain to the other person that my meticulousness is due to the fact that I want to do my job as efficiently as possible.
Whenever possible, I try to receive information in writing.
7. About speech and intonation
My speech is monotonous, with few variations, "mechanical". It seems to me that I demonstrate real miracles of artistry and could perfectly voice cartoons. But from the outside it is perceived as speech almost devoid of emotions and intonations. In short, like the speech of a robot. If intonations do appear, they do not at all correspond to the way ordinary people speak. You know how in American films, when they show people speaking Russian loudly and expressively? It sounds cacophonous and harsh. Sometimes I, too, probably speak like a foreigner (or an alien).
Even when I am inspired to talk about something, it sometimes sounds strange. Sometimes I speed up, sometimes I slow down, I pause in the wrong places... Add to this the fact that I still do not always pronounce the letter "r" well. As a child, I was taken to a speech therapist, I even learned the whole of "Borodino" by heart, but it didn't help. If I need to tell something that is not related to interesting (for me) things, it turns out worse—I become like a robot who not only does not know how to speak correctly, but also does not always understand what exactly needs to be said and is appropriate.
What I do:
I practice intonation. I repeat phrases after my loved ones, announcers and actors.
I make sure to follow the intonation accents accepted in the Russian language.
8. About interests and favorite topic
I love texts, formats, algorithms. I adore everything related to systematization and documentation. I can spend hours discussing the intricacies of formatting and storing texts or the peculiarities of typography. I can spend days thinking about whether to separate a number and a % sign with a space (there are different opinions on this matter). To calm down after another noisy meeting, I can read Rosenthal or Milchin's reference books. Or some encyclopedia. And in general, I just love reading!
Most people with ASD have their own "favorite topic". For me, these are texts and programming. I was lucky, I was able to direct this feature of mine into a professional direction. I defended my PhD dissertation in the specialty "System Analysis, Management and Information Processing". You could say that I found my element. But not everyone is so lucky. Unfortunately, many fail to “monetize” their hobby, as it is so far removed from the professions of the “ordinary” world.
I also really like monotonous actions — for me, this is a way to relax and unload. I like to wash dishes, methodically format some long text, systematically and consistently solve a large task, take a long time to sort or sort something, and finally, just do a general cleaning.
What I do:
I use my narrow area of interest in my professional activities.
I gladly take on monotonous work that “ordinary” people refuse.
9. About order
I grew up in a family of art restorers. My parents loved me, but they were young, always busy with their own affairs and creativity, often went on long business trips. We lived in an old communal apartment on Vasilievsky Island. You can imagine what a mess and creative disorder reigned in the apartment. As a child, I took it for granted: I did not pay attention to the mountains of dusty canvases, huge gilded frames, piles of boxes, tubes, hundreds and hundreds of brushes, jars, rags, the floors were simply littered with books, piles of papers and sketches everywhere. In more mature age, I realized how much I love order! After all, from my earliest years, I subconsciously tried to maintain strict order in my little world.
As far back as I can remember, I have always systematized everything. As soon as I learned to write, I began to make lists, inventories, tables, schedules. I have a few funny artifacts left—examples of my "documentation" written in an uneven childish handwriting with many spelling mistakes. A little later, my favorite toy became a typewriter—the mistakes remained, but the typography improved significantly. By the way, in second place in the rating of my favorite toys was a mosaic—I could spend hours assembling, disassembling and reassembling different pictures. With the help of a mosaic, I constructed entire worlds on the field—cities, buildings and spaces.
I love order in everything. I believe that each thing should lie in its place. In all areas of life, I form many systems and structures in which I place objects and ideas from the world around me. Minimalism is also very close to me, because with fewer things it is much easier to maintain order.
You might think that any disorder irritates me, but this is not true. Rather, it surprises me. I sincerely cannot understand how it is possible to constantly forget everything, not fulfill your own promises, not write down important information, not have a convenient planning system, not systematize your knowledge. It is so pleasant and interesting: to organize everything, to compose and follow rules, to keep lists, to record results. I am attracted to the process itself.
What I do:
I effectively use my obsession with order in my professional activities.
I popularize my ideas and discoveries in maintaining order as much as possible.
I try to soften the "anger" that I bring down on violators of order in my systems.
10. About introversion, mentoring and public speaking
For many years, I considered myself an introvert. It seemed like everything was right — after all, it can be difficult for me to communicate with people, I can hardly stand noisy parties with loud music and so on. But still, something didn’t add up. For example, I have absolutely no fear of public speaking. I can easily go on stage in front of an audience and start broadcasting something. You can do this without preparation. Panic attacks, “butterflies in the stomach” and shaking knees are not about me. And in general, communicating with people does not bother me as long as it remains within the framework of an official dialogue. It is not at all difficult for me to call somewhere on business, to resolve some issues. I teach other people without problems and with great pleasure, I can talk for hours about processes, programs and technologies. However, when something informal begins, I immediately “freeze”.
It's one thing to talk about something interesting from an institute department or from the stage at a conference. Something about systematization or documentation! I'm in my element here. So I'm not an introvert. But after the presentation and answering questions, I prefer to immediately retire to the speakers' room, where I can rest and relax in silence. Because for me, networking, noisy afterparties and informal communication with strangers on the sidelines are a quiet horror.
What I do:
I use the lack of fear of public speaking.
I try to minimize the amount of unnecessary communication.
For many years I wondered what was wrong with me. Until I found out that I have ASD. It was a revelation of sorts. I began to consistently receive answers to all the questions that had been bothering me since childhood.
Knowledge is power. Now I don’t try to squeeze myself entirely into the framework of “normal” social interactions. I consciously train and build the necessary and useful skills. Knowing and understanding my own characteristics helps me turn them into advantages.
I don’t have real “superpowers” that some people with autism have (for example, phenomenal memory, a special gift for mathematics, etc.). True, I can draw, but this is more likely just a bonus passed on to me by my parents. I can also write understandable texts. I can easily solve problems, I can think about and write code all day long and really enjoy the process. I see connections, notice things and details that others don’t always see. I can systematize information without being distracted by emotions and unnecessary social issues.
I know for sure that I am not alone. Somewhere on Earth there are people with autism spectrum disorder (according to some estimates, there are about 1-2 percent of us). Some, like me, already know about their peculiarities. Others are just guessing what is wrong with them. That is why I decided to write this article. After all, knowing and understanding ourselves gives us strength.
Life with autism spectrum disorder is not a joy ride. Both for the person with ASD and for the family and friends. Especially for loved ones. There is no “magic pill”, ASD is forever. If such a medicine suddenly appeared (and I had a choice), I am not sure that I would want to change and become someone else. “Everyone always has the right to be like themselves.”
This is a translation of my original article.
To learn more about autism:
