One of the main manifestations of autism spectrum disorder is issues with social communication. These can manifest very differently in each autistic individual, and I’m sure that I’m no exception! I still have issues today, but I’ve come a long way since childhood when they were a lot more apparent.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a shy and quiet person. I wonder if my shyness and being afraid to speak to other people is what kept me from wanting to go to school and why I would cry when I left home and while I was at school. My kindergarten teacher seemed particularly irritated by my crying and threatened to spank me if I cried during our kindergarten graduation program. However, my crying actually served me well at one point. There was a substitute teacher one day in my first grade class, and our teacher had several sheets for us to complete. I thought I had finished all of mine, but apparently I had not. The next day, my teacher was back and was paddling students who did not finish their work the previous day. She called my name, and I started crying. I can’t remember if I explained that I thought I had finished my work. In the end, she did not spank me. I would also be afraid to approach my teachers to ask them anything, even to be excused to go to the restroom, and would try to get classmates to ask for me.
When I was in first grade, my family moved. I had to go to a new school. I don’t remember much about that transition, but a teacher introduced me immediately to a very friendly girl with whom I ended up becoming friends. That really helped me to adjust to the new school. While I was never outgoing and popular, I did feel like I had some friendships at this school. I went to school there until the end of fifth grade.
In sixth grade, I started at a new school. This transition didn’t go as well. While I was introduced to a group of students here as well, none of them really took to me or became friends with me. I cried a lot during the school day at this new school as well, and that fact didn’t exactly endear me to the other students. My sister was actually able to make some friends, and I spent a lot of time with them as well. I felt more or less like a “tag-along”, though, as I always felt that they preferred my sister’s company to mine and that I was just there. At one point, I thought one friend was actually going to be close to me. However, in the end, she ended up becoming better friends with my sister, and to add insult to injury, she ended up teasing me and being mean to me. I just wasn’t “cool” to her. At the time, I was obsessed with watching cartoons and drawing cartoon characters, so I’m sure that didn’t jibe well with the general teenage girl interests.
Although things were a little better in high school, I was still shy and awkward. I remember a couple of times saying things in a tone of voice that others thought was rude, although I didn’t mean to be rude at all. I remember another time a student reacting to my facial expression as I was reacting to something that was happening. Perhaps I was over-expressive, and she thought it was funny. It’s been so long ago that I just can’t remember what exactly happened, but there was an incident in a group project for one of my classes. I can’t remember what I did or said, but one of the group members said something that the teacher overheard, and she said it was “uncalled for”. I can only assume he was talking about me and what I said or did. I know a few times I was accused of being “dense”, so it’s possible I did or said something that came off as being “dense”. I can remember at times not “getting” things that others were saying and coming off as strange to others. During my high school years, my sister and I babysat together. I remember the kids taking better to her because she was more friendly and outgoing. I was more quiet and reserved.
College was more or less a continuation of high school. I did live in a dorm for one year and didn’t really have much of a relationship with my first roommate. She was more of a “partier” and ended up moving out of our room to live with someone else. I lived in my dorm room alone for a term and then got another roommate. I had a better relationship with her because she was more like me. We were together in our room quite a bit, and we both enjoyed watching television. I really wasn’t very involved in anything extracurricular in college. When I moved back home and commuted to school, I would go to the Baptist Student Union between classes to study, and while I would sometimes see others there and would even eat lunch there when they had weekly lunches, I didn’t talk to others much. I made friends with someone from church who is very outgoing, and we’ve gotten and remained close since that time. He was able to bring me out of my shell quite a bit. I also made another friend at school who now attends my church with us.
Other than the close friendships I made at school and church, I really feel that work has done a lot to bring me out of my shell. In order to do my job, I’ve had to learn to communicate and to speak up whenever I have questions or concerns. E-mail helps with this greatly as I communicate much better through writing than I do through speaking. I try to handle my communication limitations to the best of my ability. If a co-worker or someone with whom I’m working on a particular assignment needs to speak with me about a complex topic, I may send that person an e-mail beforehand outlining my own thoughts so that we can just discuss my e-mail when we get together. I’ve done that before meetings with co-workers as well, especially when I feel that I’ll be the one driving the meeting. Getting things written out beforehand for others to see and read really prepares us all. There’s no way I would feel comfortable just going into a meeting without anything written down or prepared beforehand.
I feel that I’ve come a long way with my communication issues since I was a child. While I do still feel shy and have a hard time approaching people I don’t know well or if I feel I’m going to be interrupting something, I feel that I’m much better about doing it now than I was when I was a child. I think relationships that I’ve built over the years have helped to strengthen my confidence. While I’m better with written communication and face-to-face communication, I really hate talking on the phone or teleconferencing. I hate having the audio with nothing visual to go along with it. Being able to see and hear at the same time is very beneficial for me and helps me to pay attention better and retain more. If I just hear a voice and have nothing else to tie to it, I have a much harder time focusing. Another reason I hate talking on the phone probably has nothing to do with autism, but I hate it because it’s a “time-suck”. I really can’t do anything else while on the phone because it’s hard to split focus. I especially can’t watch a show or engage in a solitary activity and feel that when I am doing something I enjoy on my own, a phone call is just an interruption, although I do feel guilty when it’s an important or emergency call! When going to visit families and others whom I don’t know well, I’m always glad to go with someone who is outgoing and better at speaking and starting conversations. While I may interject something here and there, I can more or less sit back and listen to the others speak. In a lot of social situations, I feel I do a lot better when I accompany someone who is talkative and great and starting and maintaining conversations. It keeps me from having to put forth as much effort.
While I’m thankful for the friendships I’ve made over the years and feel like I’m better at connecting with people today, I can still have issues. For a couple of years, I had my office in an area that ended up hiring someone new for the custodial staff there. She was always very friendly and chatty with others in my office area, but she always seemed cold towards me. She would rarely talk to me. I would smile at her in the hallway, but she would never respond. I remember that she would skip vacuuming my office when I was there, so I finally just decided to walk out when she was vacuuming so she would not skip my office area. If I could not leave, I would have to make sure I was able to get her attention somehow so she would vacuum my office. I’m not sure if she thought she was bothering me or had some other reason for behaving the way she did. I’m not sure why she treated me differently from others, but I can only assume that like in high school, she may have taken an expression or something else the wrong way. In fact, I kind of felt like I’d gone back to grade school! I’m actually relieved that I’m no longer working in that area so I don’t have to worry about seeing her everyday and figuring out how to deal with her treatment of me.
Social communication issues can still manifest, but they can certainly be handled in ways that help me to communicate with others or at least to feel more comfortable. I feel that I’ve found ways to circumvent my limitations so that I can manage social situations or communication with others well or at least as well as I can. Autism doesn’t have to keep one from being a part of the social scene. For me, I just had to find ways I could adjust and handle myself over the years as I’ve had to deal with people and social situations.
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