Saturday, July 20, 2024

As an autistic person, how are your reflexes?

 As an autistic person, how are your reflexes?

Odd. I’m rather clumsy by nature. When I was a kid, I’d regularly fail the “think fast” thing where someone throws something at your head and says that mid-flight.

I was in the habit of running up stairs two steps at a time. Numerous times, I missed a step and, by rights, should have smashed my shins and elbows and taken a tumble. Yet each time, I’d adroitly catch myself on my toes and fingertips.

In my 20s, I had a big glass coffee mug on my desk at school. I kept knocking it off. To my great surprise, I caught it each time in mid-air by the handle.

I have assessed each tool I use, and preprepared myself for dropping it. Drop most hand tools and small parts, let them fall and pay attention to where they land. Drop something fragile/expensive, I’ll catch it. Sharp, jump back. Large and heavy, bring my foot up under it, then lower quickly to match speed to slow it down so it doesn’t slam into the floor. I’ve never caught a knife or let a 3 pound hammer hit the floor or injure me.

I took up fencing at 18. I decided to use my clumsiness to cover my intentions. What surprised me, and the people I was fencing, was that I could wait for the other person to begin moving and still complete an attack before their attack landed. In one case, I launched a fleche (running attack) on someone who didn’t even get his foil up horizontal by the time my foil tip touched him. I’d launched the attack the moment he habitually pressed his foil tip against the floor, thinking he was far enough away to be safe.

It wasn’t just that I was fast - it was that he was carrying out an action at what he thought was a safe distance. Pressing his tip into the floor and sort of flicking it multiple times. He had to realize what was happening, that he was in danger, cancel his current habitual action, formulate a response, and carry it out. He looked very surprised. What made it even sweeter, was that he’d just been trash-talking me.

In unfamiliar circumstances, my reactions are slow because I have to think about what I am doing and how to react. So I have spent a lot of time on mental preparation and practiced in the use of everyday objects as defensive and offensive weapons, and practiced how to hit hard without breaking my own bones. This has saved me more than once. I have been told that I can move very quickly.

Realizing this ended direct bullying of me in high school.

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