A little while ago I wrote about how Parents and carers alike should find that little bit of time to ‘chill’ when they can and ‘take 5’ from it all and how other people in society need to take time to understand exactly what it is that they all go through.
In among the many comments I received was one from a lady on the Spectrum who agreed that it must be stressful being a parent of a child on the Spectrum. This person pointed out though just how stressful it is being that person on the Spectrum having to hear just how difficult it is for others to cope with them! Also she pointed out just how difficult it is to exist in a world that only seems to accept a certain set style of person.
As much as I would like to I can’t write about ‘Everything’ in one blog (trust me I would write pages and pages if Anna didn’t rightly pull on the reigns lol) If we try to cover too much then things become jumbled and lost….so today I am going to take on that ‘other side of the fence’.
No matter how considerate and understanding we think we are we all still have our own ‘viewpoint’ that is different to everyone else. When we are calm and relaxed we are able to not only take on board our own concerns but also be more open to others. This is great because at these times we can sit back and be more understanding. The problem with this is that this state of mind doesn’t stay with us all the time. Once we become busy, preoccupied or stressed and under pressure this state of mind slips away. Just like those on the spectrum we eventually reach a point, which is further on but still there, where we start to struggle with processing information. At these points it’s amazing, often without realising, how narrow minded and self centred our thinking can become. I don’t mean this in a negative way; it is just a natural defence that happens when we are under real pressure very similar to that of ‘fight for survival’.
So let’s all imagine that situation where someone on the spectrum starts to show challenging behaviour. Screaming, shouting, throwing things around and the tension is building. You’re tired, you’ve had a hard day at work and very little sleep the night before. You need this situation to come to an end right now and at that very moment all those basics that you know will usually help you just evaporate from your mind. It is amazing to think how quickly under those stressful, tired states we can forget that the person presenting this behaviour to us doesn’t in any way mean it. They haven’t made a conscious decision to behave this way for no reason, they are reacting to something that has happened which may appear nothing to us but to them could be a critical thing. This is where we need another moment to ‘take 5’ or just ‘take stock’. This time it isn’t for our benefit but for theirs. It is important to just stop and remember that they can’t help the way they are feeling and what they are doing. I know…I REALLY DO KNOW it is not always easy to stand back and think about this especially when someone is maybe trying to throw something at you! I myself came to the aid of some night staff who were holding a bedroom door closed because the person the other side of it had woken in a bad way and started to destroy his room in the most vocal and physical way. I took over from the distressed staff and gave them the chance to go downstairs so they could get a routine put in place whereby we could safely support the lad to get straight into his day routine and away from this situation. I spoke softly through the door to the lad using few words to lessen the information he was having to process and to bring the tension down. After a while the screaming and smashing stopped with the odd reply of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ coming back. When full silence had returned I asked if I could come in the room and slowly opened the door…….let me tell you I have never closed a door so quickly again in all my life as a television flew through the air straight at me! This caught me off guard and I panicked forgetting the basics and suddenly to me the person the other side of the door was no longer Autistic and responding to whatever had upset him during the night, now this was a guy that wanted to introduce my head to a flying television! My slamming the door shut and shouting ‘Don’t do that’ and ‘Stop’ was a natural response (I had just woken up from only 2 hours sleep on a sleep in so was very tired) but it wasn’t the right response as this straight away heightened the tension again and the screaming and smashing the other side of the door returned.
Closing the door was the right thing to do, as none of us wants to wear a television, but slamming it and yelling was not the right thing. At that time more than ever I needed to keep in mind what was happening ‘the other side of the fence’. On the other side of that door was not a violent nasty person out to hurt me but a very distressed and frightened young man. He wasn’t smashing the room up and screaming because he is a vandal but because he was very anxious and distressed by whatever it was that had upset him. The answer here is to find the cause of the ‘behaviour’ or to ‘distract’ the person away from the situation. The wrong thing to do is to try and tackle the behaviour head on without knowing or understanding what the problem is. If you don’t know what is causing the problem how can you deal with it?
To fully understand what is happening you have to be able to see things from that ‘other side of the fence’. If you can put yourself in the position of that person and understand what it is they are seeing and feeling then you will find things a lot easier to deal with.
I think it is important for us all to understand just how painful and distressing some things can be to someone on the spectrum. When we run late for things it annoys us and might make us a little angry. The same for when our plans suddenly get changed. It’s not the end of the world and we will get over it. That is OUR thinking from our side of the fence. If you are on the other side of the fence and timing/schedule is a very VERY serious thing to you without which your entire life crumbles then you will react in a very different way! You won’t be a little annoyed and see it as something that can be overcome. At that moment the world has stopped. You suddenly lose comprehension of what is happening. Anxiety takes a grip and communication drops. Right now you need to express all these thoughts and feelings but with communication having dropped you can’t just say ‘oh I say I’m upset…’ you have nothing constructive to string together and the only way to show this distress is to scream, lose it or break things. You are not doing this because you are bad or want to be destructive but because right then something critical is happening and you need to get people to listen and understand you right now!
Yes I know many of these things can happen quickly so there isn’t always time to take stock and reappraise the situation but if you can just manage to think about how they are ‘feeling’ and what is happening inside them you will find it easier to manage that situation because now you shape it in a way that helps them rather than a way the conflicts with them.
Understanding the other side of the fence won’t just better enable you to deal with such situations but also give you more of a chance to pre-plan things in advance. By stopping and looking at everything you are organising with that view point from over the fence you will be surprised just how many things you suddenly notice could be a problem and so can change things to avoid those situations.
I think another comment that we must all think about is the one that the young lady made about having to hear what others around you say such as mentioning how ‘difficult I make things’. I know none of us would ever mean to make a comment that could hurt someone but it is easy to say something that can be taken in that way. A side comment such as ‘well it’s difficult to plan things with you in mind’ is just being honest and no harm is meant but to that person who already has to deal with their own issues of being on the spectrum this could eat away at them and really bother them that they cause so much stress. Just imagine if this was playing on your mind how much it would bring you down.
These things we can easily work on ourselves but the biggest task is to start and get the rest of society to also take into account the ‘other side of the fence’. The sooner we can raise awareness so that everyone stops to consider this then the sooner we can make society more inclusive of everyone on the spectrum.
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I don’t think this behaviour is the person trying to communicate at all. I believe that I have been on the otherside of the fence and what happens is, I think, is a primal irrational reaction, a seeing red and for some purpose that evolutionists will probably explain a pent up anger emerges often directed to what we love most. Not that we want to communicate but that there is a need, an urge, to get it out, an andrenalin rush that takes over that for some reason is bent on destroying. Once it goes the feeling is not one of relief but of despair that this uncontrollable thing has raged up inside. I agree that trying to talk through this seldom works unless it is a sudden realisation that what we are doing is wrong. An authoritative presence can suddenly calm the beast that has awoken.
I have surprised myself writing that but having read the article it is my response. Keep up the good work, we need all the help we can get.
Always great to have someones point of view. The primal irrational reaction is something that we all have. There is a point for every single one of us where that kicks in.
On the Spectrum people suffer with the same things but they have many other reasons why that point can be reached and Communication is more often than not a main reason.
It is important to remember that we don’t speak for every ‘single’ case or individual so there are always differences to be found in whatever we say compared with ever case of Autism.