Unmasking Autism Diary #4: Chasing My Own Thoughts

Read now (5 mins) | Thought loops: from inside Angela's Autistic mind

January 9, 2023

Dear Diary,

I got in a black and white thinking loop yesterday. I saw this sign outside a grocery store: it had a picture of a lost dog, a large phone number, and (really big), the words, “DO NOT CHASE.” 

I think most people who see a sign like that just keep walking, but I got really stuck on the instructions. 

How would that work? Am I supposed to put the number in my phone, and then, if I see the dog, just call you and tell you where I saw it? Dogs have legs. It would be gone. And how would I know that it’s yours? Is the dog going to bite me? Why were the words so big and in all caps? Do you even want my help?

I already felt like I was doing it wrong. 

I imagined seeing the dog and feeling paralyzed. Can I move toward it? Is that ‘chasing’? If I saw a dog I thought was lost, I’d want to put him in my car and drive back to the sign to call the number. But I can’t do that. I don’t have the dog’s name. I just know I can’t chase him, and I’m frustrated I can’t help. 

Presumably you don’t want me to chase him because he will run. But if I don’t chase him, he will also run and your dog will still be lost. So help me understand what you want from me here. Should I just let you know if I think I saw him and where, so you can handle it? Is that the ask? “Report sightings?” Because if so, you should edit your sign. Or do you want me to have treats with me? If so, what’s the dog’s name and what treats? I’m confused by the only instruction being, “DO NOT CHASE.” 

I played out so many scenarios before walking into the grocery store, and then when I walked back out of the store, the loop started again. 

Why did they make the sign? How is this sign helpful? Why does this sign bother me so much? Should I call the number and tell them their sign could be doing more harm than good?

I know you probably don’t even know what I’m talking about. Just move on. Who cares? It’s just a lost dog sign. But this is what processing is like for me. 

In Autistic Culture, there is a joke about the testing you have to do to get formally diagnosed as autistic: 

Q: How do you know if your evaluation will come back with an autism diagnosis?
A: You played out every scenario for each multiple choice question on the assessment, and you felt like you could answer each one multiple ways. 

I used to rewrite all my teachers’ tests in school to make the questions more exacting. I can usually see a path for at least two multiple choice answers to be correct—if not all of them.

Most wording in the world is wildly unclear.

I think some people just took the test. I took the test and used the scratch paper to rewrite the test so I could explain to the teacher what was wrong with it.

I guess this was why I pissed my teachers off so much that one of them threw me into the lockers in frustration my senior year. He really hated my attempts to be helpful. 

There are so many inconsistencies that I DON’T point out because I remember that feeling of being thrown against the lockers and being hated for my (unwelcome) attempts to make things better. I really do try to just shut up but it’s like taming a tiger, or…ummm…maybe like chasing a dog that keeps running away. 

I get into these thought loops with tests, with signs, and perhaps most especially with the way people personify God. 

The other day a lost child was found and someone posted on FB: “Prayers are powerful. God has returned her. He is Good!” 

And man, did I have to parse the fuck out of that.

What is this God that only acts upon request to fight injustice and then doles out rewards in random patterns?

So if the child was found, God is good; but if she is tortured and sex trafficked presumably God is also good? And maybe if she was harmed or killed that was His will? Or it wasn’t His Will—it was just that people didn’t pray right? Or not enough people prayed? Or they didn’t pray fast enough for God to be able to take action? Now she is going to be raped for decades because you missed the prayer window… 

I love God. I think God is the energy that makes bulbs turn into flowers and the sun rise every morning. I think God is the creative force in the universe. I pray for the obstacles that block my seeing that creative power in myself to be removed. But I am praying for MYSELF—to remind myself that I have more access than I might be seeing at any moment. 

I do not pray to a genie God who grants wishes based on your ability to follow rules or how much he likes you. 

Say a child dies. Does that mean their loved ones didn’t pray? That the prayers didn’t work? That God just decided not to grant that wish? 

And if the child lives, was that family more deserving than the families who had children that didn’t make it? 

Then there’s the twenty-four-year-old pro football player who had a heart attack on the field and lives tweets: “God Behind All This No Coincidence.”

Setting aside the grammar issues…I mean in a way I agree. If God is the hand of fate, he is behind this. But had Damar died on the field, God would have been behind that too.

If God is good when something goes our way, that implies God is bad when it doesn’t. God has to be neutral or the logic falls apart. 

I’m not saying prayer isn’t powerful. Thinking positively in a group has tremendous benefits to help calm your reticular activation system so you can see more possibilities, but the power of prayer isn’t the power to get a genie to grant wishes. 

Dear, sweet Jesus how did I end up down this rabbit hole this morning?

The sun is up - Praise be to God (see, that one I’ll happily give God credit for), and I must tend to my earthly duties. There are lost dog signs to be analyzed and multiple choice questions to be parsed. 

That’s what I do each day: navigate a confusing world where I can see a thousand options and constantly need clarification.

I remember reading this Heidegger piece once called “Thinking is Thanking,” where Heidegger argued thinking involves a questioning and putting everything up for grabs—even our identity—everything we hold dear and believe, must be put at risk to truly think. We must acknowledge what comes behind the situation—recognize it, analyze it, thank it—in order to think about it. 

Oh, BTW, Heidegger…most probably was autistic. 

Maybe I can cut my self some slack for my black and white thinking…

***

The Dear Diary Project is a public journaling project where I’m publicly sharing my diary entries as part of my annual goals. No harm is intended by these posts. My goal is to gain clarity for myself and hopefully help others, especially autistic adults, who are trying to make sense of the communication challenges we face.

“Masking is a common coping mechanism in which Autistic people hide their identifiably Autistic traits in order to fit in with societal norms, adopting a superficial personality at the expense of their mental health. This can include suppressing harmless stims, papering over communication challenges by presenting as unassuming and mild-mannered, and forcing themselves into situations that cause severe anxiety, all so they aren’t seen as needy or ‘odd.’”
—Unmasking Autism, Dr. Devon Price

*Background note: Most people only have a vague (often, highly stereotyped) version of autism in their minds and believe that autistic children need (traumatic) ABA therapy to "overcome" their disability and appear "normal."  After receiving an autism diagnosis in her thirties, Dr. Angela Lauria realized that she too had been mostly unaware of what it means to be Autistic.  Like so many people, she started her journey by first gathering information and resources from the omnipresent (and problematic) Autism Speaks, but eventually moved away from the 'autism community' in favor of the 'Autistic community,' where she found kinship with other Autistic individuals and learned to let go of pathologizing language like 'autism spectrum disorder' and 'Asperger's Syndrome.'  This autism blog (and her autism podcast, "The Autistic Culture Podcast") is meant to share her lived-experience insights to support others on a similar journey of diagnosis, understanding, and community. Embrace Autism--differences are not deficits.