autistic behavior – OldLady With Autism

The way we learned to cope with life may not work for us as adults

Autism works in us, and in our worlds in many ways from the day we are born to the day we die.
we have many struggles, most not visible to any human perception, which cause us to expend more energy, try harder, fail more frequently, cause us endless frustration, exasperation, shame and self blame.
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Many of us grew up with our autism working “behind the scenes” and we as well as our family/caretakers/ teachers, peers had no idea why we perpetually failed to perform as expected. Most of us learned coping behavior of many sorts to deal with the constant negative input surrounding our “failures”.
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Self blame, shame, aggressive self defensiveness, avoidance, mimicking behavior and camouflage, hypersensitivity and reactive behavior , including substance abuse, emotional or physical abuse and violence to others.
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Many to most of us reflect adaptation of our behaviors common in trauma responses, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn/appeasement.
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We may have dysfunctional family behavior patterns going back generations and including physical abuse, drug or alcohol abuse, fights and arguments, estrangements, lack of emotional care or neglect of children, and so much more. Unhealthy patterns are for the most part learned and can be “unlearned” and replaced with new and healthier behavior.
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I have come to the conclusion that autism hidden in many families includes parents, grandparents, siblings, and cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. who may also be autistic, in older generations like mine, there may be years of “handed down” learned behavior patterns that helped families live their lives (unhealthily in most cases) and simply survive around undiagnosed autism. I bet if you think about it, you can see the unhealthy family patterns of your own experience. Nobody knew!!!!!!
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The survival techniques we learned as children in such unhealthy homes rarely work well for us when we reach adulthood. Many of us have lived long and painful lives trying to use unhealthy behaviors we learned to survive in many cases even before we could speak. We may not have any idea at all that we have choices we can make every day in the way we choose to respond to others and how we may react to others in any situation.

Here’s the good part about this heritage of unhealthy learned behavior:
We can “unlearn” it.
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I was stuck in a rigid pattern of trained response to the demands of others, and I never had a clue that I had alternatives that I could choose in how to react or respond in any situation. I had to have an outsider point it out to me. I had to have “how to do it” explained to me. I had no insights or ideas beyond those I had been taught and clung to throughout my abusive childhood to survive.
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With the help of a therapist I was able to learn healthy communication, how to set boundaries and enforce them, how to recognize when I was being used, intimidated, manipulated, abused, and how to defend myself in healthy ways by making better choices and choosing from several responses that were healthier than the learned automatic responses I had learned through trauma as a child.
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Practicing new techniques and consciously applying them was very emotionally scary at first but as I gained skill through practice, I was able to become independent, make my own healthy decisions, and defend myself from unhealthy demands by others.
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I believe if I could do it almost anybody can.
Getting therapy to learn healthy communication and decision making was the best thing I ever did for myself. Therapy saved my life and my sanity, and it was not until 40 years later that I discovered the autism that worked behind the scenes in my own growing up and family life.
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Even without your therapist knowing about your autism, you can learn and grow new skills to help you interact in healthier ways for the rest of your life. Ask your therapist to teach you healthy self assertive communication , how to set boundaries and enforce them, how to make healthier choices.

There is no shame in reaching out to learn things others can teach us, there is no shame in recognizing that we need new “tools” to live healthier every day lives, and no shame in asking for help to do that.

What we learned in the past may not be serving us as grown adults, and we have so many new and different choices in tools we can use, we might just need somebody to help us learn “how to do it”.

Hope you find what you need. Don’t be afraid to explore the possibilities!

Making the perfect victim

One topic that keeps coming up on the autism discussion forums I belong to is how many of us have been victims over time.
We seem to have suffered more than average rates of crimes ( simple physical and or sexual assault, fraud, intimidation, manipulation for profit, use and abuse by those we believed were friends or even domestic partners, on and on).
One of the most asked questions is “how can I know when people are taking advantage of me, how do I figure out if what I am experiencing is abuse?”
What makes us so vulnerable to this sort of use and abuse?
I believe it is a number of factors.

One of the characteristics of autism is its “black and white thinking”. We take things literally and often do not see what is “behind” a statement or a behavior.
If we think we see a duck, we do not suspect it is really something else.
What we think we see is what we believe.

We tend to be anxious to find approval and friendship, and romantic love. ( Isn’t that human nature?)
But it seems we are not equipped to see (hidden motives) behind the face that is put on to gain our confidence.
We take things literally, so if my man friend tells me he loves me, do I even suspect he does not, but has more nefarious purposes? (gender used in this case is just an example and does not reflect that this can and does seem happen to all of us regardless of gender). Manipulative use can come from people we see as ‘friends’ , buddies from work or other situations asking for money, asking us to give them homes with us, help them do things, even directing and or pressuring us to do illegal things, either innocently, or knowingly.

I know one thing that made me very vulnerable was being taught to be compliant and obedient. This was the style of child rearing practiced in the 1950’s and 60’s. Kids were meant to be seen and not heard, they were to be polite and obedient to adults, neighbors, teachers, the minister, the folks in the stores and other public places. We were taught unquestioning response to adult demands.
I was punished over and over for asking why, although I was looking for clarification of intent or purpose and not questioning the actual commands that were given to me.
I was taught to sit still, to not speak unless spoken to, to be in all ways at all times a “nice little girl”, to be a “lady”, and society’s expectations for women to please men was role modeled for me.
I was taught to seek approval in everything I did, and to wait for directions, not to take my own initiative, and to in all things be subservient, looking for approval.

This ties in to lifelong struggles to appease any person I come in contact with. I must strive to please every person I meet. I learned this behavior as a very young child and it was the safest way to live in my world.
That approval was the only way I was able to keep myself safe, if I did not have approval and permission or direction from somebody else more powerful (and EVERYBODY was more powerful) then I did not proceed, for it was not safe to do so.

Thinking back, I realize I had learned these lessons and this behavior before I even entered school, and subsequent experiences throughout my childhood repeated and re-enforced the lessons.
I had learned not to be self assertive under any conditions, to wait for instruction , to seek approval. I was not allowed to get angry, and was punished severely for any angry or resentful behavior.
Combine that with my autistic lack of insight into human nature, lack of understanding of social and other interactions, lack of life experience and lack of explanation for any factors beyond ” Do it when I tell you to, and how I tell you to” … you can understand how I was ‘set up’ to fail. I was raised to be the perfect victim, and this is what I became.

Flash forward to today’s ABA , where kids are taught the exact same things to make them “socially acceptable” and “cure” their autistic behaviors.

They must endure adult pressure for extended periods of time, are taught to seek approval, act only when told to act and in the way that those adults choose, how and where they choose. This is performed for up to 40 hours a week usually before the child enters school.
ABA kids are taught to accept touch from those in power over them, uncomfortable, often sudden touch in the form of tickles, hugs, etc etc and taught to endure and act to please the controlling adult.
They are taught to do without protest the rote projects they are faced with performing.

ABA kids are taught to perform for approval or ‘rewards” such as a bite of a favorite food, much as dogs, or circus animals have been trained for years.

What will become of them when they are faced with demands from society, from classmates, from unreasonable bosses, co workers, high pressure sales persons, or demanding manipulative devious “user” adults who demand money, sex, or other unreasonable and unhealthy behaviors?
Will they have been taught to discriminate, or will they blindly try to appease those sorts for approval?

I can tell you which behavior I chose and used until a suicide attempt at age 30 sent me to therapy, where I learned how to become healthily self assertive.

I did not know there were alternatives to appeasement behavior. I had to be taught!

38 years later and I still struggle most days with appeasement behavior.
( for more information look up” freeze, flight, fight, fawn” patterns of behavior.)

Tag: autistic behavior

Autism and maladjustment or maladaptive behavior

Autism : Teaching compliance