What If?
This is the 26th blog post for this year (hence 26.26), and for me it feels obsessively like the most important one, because 26 is my favourite number of all time (I was born on the 26th). At a glance, my obsession with my number seems like a small quirk, but those who know me knows that it goes deep! With that said, I wanted to use this blog post to ponder something that was on my mind a couple of months ago: what if I weren’t autistic? What would be different? How would my personality be different? Is it worth even thinking about the what ifs?
Right off the bat, my immediate answer to “what if I weren’t autistic” is “EW”, because I wouldn’t have me any other way. Of course, being autistic can be super challenging, and in ways that I don’t even want to admit. There are times when I think it would be so much easier to not be around so that I am not a burden to others. In the past week I have thought this on at least two occasions that I felt I caused an issue. (And note: while I have these thoughts from time to time, I do not EVER think about harming myself in ANY way.) My life is great and I think it is impactful to others, perhaps due to my different ways of thinking of being. So no, I would not change being autistic at all.
Admittedly, I do wonder about how my personality would be different, because sometimes there are clear ways when I see the autism aspect of things get in the way of how I/my personality would like to react. Here is an example:
A couple of months ago I was heading to Miami and had my window seat as usual. Traveling is an overstimulating experience for me so I'm specific about certain things to make it easier. The night before when I checked in and selected my seat, there were other window/middle seats available. Important info. A girl (about 9 years old) sat in the middle seat with her mother in the aisle seat. Groan, because I am one of those people who’d advocate for a child-free flight. She was fine though, she generally kept to herself and was quiet (just one cut eye because one time she was pulling my seatbelt or something, but she got the message after that!) Anyway, from takeoff, I gathered she had an interest in flying because she was asking her mother about the safety card and other questions. She tried to look out the window and if it’s one thing I despise, it's people being in my space and looking into my space. It makes me physically uncomfortable. So of course I did what had to be done: I turned my whole body to the window and blocked the entire view. Horrible, I know, but…I don’t want anyone leaning or peeping over me when you’re a random person. I was thinking too that the mo could have selected the window seat for her the same way I chose mine. The flight was uneventful and I was gearing up for the landing. I really like the approach into Miami because I like seeing the landscape, and predicting when the Goya rooftop sign and IKEA will come into view. So my face is usually glued to the window. On this day, I was on the other side of the plane so the approach was different and even more picturesque because we got more landscape. I saw the little girl craning her neck and of course I blocked the view again. But there was a HUGE part of me that wanted to switch seats and let her have the window seat because the view was great, and that definitely would have made her day. My personality felt like she should have had that chance to see it and I should have been kind to her. The autistic part of me said 1) I don’t want to sit next to her mom, who might touch me because she took up the whole seat, 2) how on earth would I even begin to communicate that because although the words were in my head, they were not going to reach my mouth to make small talk with a stranger in that moment, 3) the executive function skills to not be rigid in my thinking that seeing the approach is something I have to do to feel safe wasn’t skilling 4) the emotional regulation hadn’t kicked in to let me not feel overstimulated and frazzled that this little girl was trying to encroach on my personal space to look beyond me out the window. So as much as my personality wanted this little girl to have this moment of happiness, the autistic me won out and the girl had to watch the view out of the other window. I felt badly about it, but that was one time when I wondered what would have happened if I weren’t autistic. There are many times I might come across as being unfriendly or mean (not unkind) because I didn’t respond to someone, or didn’t do something within a social norm, when I feel like my personality would want to be friendly.
On the other hand, who’s to say that a non-autistic version of me would be the better version of me? Sure, I’d be a little less weird, but I don’t think I’d be a better human. If you have a child and you’re in this mode of thinking about what could be, I don’t think it’s worth speculating about the “what ifs” because the alternative may not be close to what you’d prefer anyway. It’s better to accept what IS and work on making that version the best he/she can possibly be.
In the end, I’d take me being a “strange little creature” every day, and all I can hope for is to continue to learn from mistakes, and learn enough not to keep making them.
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