Why is there such a huge difference between the criteria for autism, with autistic people claiming the main symptoms are sensory overload and masking, and scientists claiming interaction abnormalities and ritualistic behavior to be main symptoms?
I have to laugh about the “ritualistic behavior” thing. Hah.
Interacting with many NTs on a casual basis feels like I’m in a spy movie from the ‘60s.
“Hello, how are you?
“I am fine, how are you?”
“Fine.”
“Good morning!”
“What’s good about it?”
“Did you see that ludicrous display last night?”
“What’s Wenger doing sending Walcott on that early?”
“The thing about Arsenal is, they always try to walk it in.”
“Nice weather we’ve having today.”
“Yes, but the weather in Switzerland is blowing.”
“OK, agent 99, here is the secret document on microfiche.”
It feels like a challenge-response between undercover individuals attempting to identify members of the in-group. I have had people I know make sports-related comments, usually something about a televised game the night before. When I respond that I don’t watch sports, they lose all interest in talking to me =at= =all=. Some of them, from that point on will act as if I were invisible.
It is VERY ritualistic. Think about handshakes. I’ve run into many NTs who have very definite ideas about what makes a good handshake. Hard, just firm, grasp the wrist with the left hand, gentle, crushing, extended shake and hold with very close eye contact, one quick hard shake and release, barely grasp and let go, etc. … Many will say that they base their opinion of a person on the first handshake.
But they don’t all agree on what makes a “correct” handshake. Get the ritual wrong, you are out forever. Some will use it as a power play; shove hands together, then suddenly drop their hand a couple of inches so they have your fingers, not your palm, and squeeze hard.
My inclination is that when I interact with someone, especially at work, I walk up and just ask the question I need to ask, or pass on the information I need to impart. People would often look offended or upset, and I would go over and over in my head what I might have said to upset them.
Sometimes people would angrily say “You could at least say hello!” What? We’re at work. It isn’t a social event. We’ve been at work for hours. We’re not friends, you aren’t interested in even talking to me except for work purposes. What is there to get angry about?
I’d call =that= an “interaction abnormality”.
If someone says “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my first cup of coffee”, everyone nods with understanding.
If someone says “I have to check every door to make sure it is locked before I go to bed”, most people will indicate they get it, but think it is a bit extreme.
If someone says “I always pause reading a book halfway down the right-hand page”, most people will think that is weird, ritualistic behavior. I do this. I have a very good reason for doing this - I am regularly in the process of reading a dozen or more books concurrently. I pause my reading halfway down the right-hand page and put a bookmark in. Then when I come back to any book, I take up reading again halfway down the left-hand page.
This reminds me where I am in the book, kind of like when a show comes back from commercial and they reiterate a bit of what happened before the commercial.
This is not ritualistic behavior. It is a well thought out behavior with a purpose.
As to masking: because of the seeming inability of many NTs to handle differences in behavior and preferences, to get along I must learn those greeting rituals, avoid being “outed” as not a ball game watcher, and somehow suss out exactly what kind of handshake this person I just met requires to accept me.
This is masking. It is exhausting. If you don’t think it is, think about some time when you were faced with a person speaking to you at great length about something you have no interest in, in a social situation you cannot avoid (perhaps an event at work). I’ll bet within 30 seconds, you were ready to chew your leg off to escape.
Now imagine doing that for 12 hours every day.
Add to that, many on the spectrum tend to have sharper senses; better hearing, more sensitive sense of taste and smell, more sensitive sense of touch, more vivid sense of vision. And often have difficulty, compared to NTs, in filtering out unwanted/uninteresting sounds, smells, and visual stimuli.
So now imagine that person boring you, is doing so at high volume in a subway station at rush hour. Do that for hours at a time, every day.
Got the picture?
Perhaps an illustration of why a person and someone diagnosing them may view different aspects as more or less important.
Your doctor cannot feel pain. When a Dr sticks you with a needle, the Dr does not feel any pain. You feel the pain. But people stick you with needles all of the time, so you have become rather stoic about it.
The Dr can, however, see a rash. The Dr will see the rash as more important than your pain, and so wants to give you a series of painful injections to help hide, but not cure, the rash.
Meanwhile, you know that the rash will still itch. It won’t be as visible, but only at the cost of an ongoing series of painful injections.
So naturally, to =you=, the rash is less important.
A British sitcom called “The IT Crowd” covered ritualistic behavior in NTs quite well in an episode about “proper men” and football. I took some of the above quotes from that episode.
Now where is that much vaunted, supposedly-superior ‘Theory of Mind” that NTs are always telling me they have?
