COMFORT ZONE.

Many a time, I have heard people say, "You have to get out of your comfort zone." But what is your comfort zone? My definition of a comfort zone is a place where you feel comfortable. That may be a physical place, it may be a mental space, it may be many things.

We are allowed to make one mistake in our lives, and for me, mine was living on the Sunshine Coast. When I was twelve, I had to deal with vicious bullying. Yes, the transition from primary school to secondary school can be challenging, like having to adjust to wearing a different uniform, which is only a minor change, but a major change, is that you go from having a class teacher who teaches everything (okay, in some schools, they can have composite classes (my brother was in two of them) and in some year levels, they may divide into different classes with one teacher teaching students with lower levels of maths and another with higher, and the same for English. I was in the higher classes for English but the lower for maths) to having a different teacher for each subject. Most times, the class teacher is also the teacher for one subject and some may have the same teacher for two subjects, such as maths and science or English and Social Science or what have you. When you reach ninth grade, you have three elective subjects and your form class may be your maths class or one of your electives. It was in this year that my family took a two-week holiday (something my father desperately needed) to Coolum, on the Sunshine Coast. Two weeks spent waking up of a morning and spending some time on the beach, not many tourists around, looking out from our rental unit at the ocean was bliss. My statement is, the Sunshine Coast may be all right for a short break, but if you're not a redneck or a dope-smoking hippy, living there long-term is a bad idea. Okay, there are people who came and stayed there, and Coolum was, once, the working class person's hidden gem south of Noosa, or the place where some manual workers would go of a Friday afternoon, following an early knock-off and camp for the weekend, but not anymore. Wealthy Southerners have decided to retire there and there are also tattooed single mothers and people off their heads on marijuana or other drugs.

So, for a while, Coolum was my comfort zone. Until I started reading regular letters in the local newspaper from pro-development agitators and hard-right wing people who blasted the Labor Party as socialist without understanding socialism. Throw into the mix poor quality housemates and in my last few years, I went from trying to avoid going to Brisbane to finding any excuse to go to Brisbane, when I realised that that was where my true support network was and still is.

It was in those high school years that I found some people were becoming interested in cars. Many of the more aggressive people liked Holden cars, but I, because these people were bullies, tended to support the Fords because the Ford had more bland styling (I can still remember a kid in my class with learning difficulties said, "Only p-words for homosexuals drive Fords.") My mother claimed, and I can't quite understand this, that if someone says, "Do you like this?" you say yes or no depending upon what they say. I remember a guy from a writers group (now deceased) who told the story of a guy called Alex and Alex supposedly knew a lot about a lot of things. Alex talked about the stock market and revealed his ignorance, Alex talked about viewing the planets in the sky until someone said, "How could you see anything, when the sky was covered by ten-tenths cloud?" So, if someone asks you what you think of a certain team you have to know enough about them to know where they are on the points score, who they are, and so on, or you could look a fool. Many people I knew in the writers group had yet to grasp the import of "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." I knew one stupid woman in the group who claimed that the revolting abbott was not a misogynist and Julia Gillard's speech attacking him was nonsense. Well, if a minister for women has outdated views on abortion, cuts funding for domestic violence shelters and hails it as wonderful that an all-male establishment allowed an international women's day event to be held as wonderful, then I don't know what else can be done to prove he is a misogynist. And, to then write a nonsensical article about a woman's virginity, something I say is not a man's business unless he is planning unprotected sex with her.

This year, I was finally able to, through circumstance, go past my old high school and I didn't immediately recognise the place. I found pointing out to my father the places that represented joy and realising that it wasn't all bad was quite empowering. Like saying that that block was where my interest in Japanese began and that was where I spent many happy hours doing modern history and economics and that it was also the block where the maths teacher turned on the fans because a kid was supposedly farting and remembering how this teacher was fair, and how, one day, when members of the class had been fooling around while he was trying to teach, just before lunch, he allowed a few of us, including me, to go out, yet another kid yelled and demanded something fair. I almost hit the ceiling in shock when the teacher yelled, "You want something fair? I am asking for something fair!" What I could see was that the kid thought everyone should have to stay in, when in reality, the teacher was only punishing those who were fooling around and allowing the good ones to go to lunch.

It is one thing to tell a person to get out of their comfort zone, but what is more unhelpful is telling them to abandon what makes them comfortable. In my case, as I've alluded to, I will only drive a Japanese car, but if you have a non-Japanese car with some Japanese content on it, that can be a compromise. So, where I would say, "Okay, if I buy a Ford that was assembled in Australia, I check with a mechanic who uses KYB Shock Absorbers and say, "Is there a KYB application for that car?" If the mechanic says, "Yes," well, ask them to order the shock absorbers before I take delivery of the car and then, transfer the car to the mechanic to have the shock absorbers replaced. I remember a service adviser who worked for Toyota was amazed and said, "You'd do that, even though it would be brand new?" and I replied, "If it didn't have KYB Shocks, yes, I would," as that would be in my comfort zone.

Just the same as my mother won't get it through her head that with the exception of my rheumatologist, who is, in a way, like an old friend, and very much a gentleman, I am not comfortable with male doctors. My father suggested, and I've found this to be good, "Don't make a big deal about only wanting a female doctor. If you ask your GP, who is female, to refer you to a female specialist, and she asks you why you chose her, just say, "My GP said you'd be good to go and see,"" rather than highlighting the sexual abuse. If you go to a public hospital, you can maybe ask, BUT, if you go to a private doctor, you get a referral to a particular doctor. One thing that makes me uncomfortable in a group practice is when doctors who are not part of your health care team start speaking to you, which I try to avoid them. And that nobody else has to know about the male doctor who performed the non-consensual intimate exam.

Stepping outside your comfort zone, when you're good and ready, with support if needed, can boost your confidence, BUT not if you take away the support that a person needs. As an autistic, I also remember my mother telling me to buy an Adina watch, something that would not have been possible while I didn't wear glasses all the time and I would have, to remain in my comfort zone, had to have searched for clothes that were made in Japan or made from Japanese material and the only way I could have worn the watch would have been with a pair of jeans made from Japanese denim, and I would need to see proof of it, and my Japanese spectacles. And I would have needed a Japanese watch for the times I didn't.

So, don't force someone outside their comfort zone, and if they are autistic, DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT, force them to abandon something that makes them feel comfortable. Be it the desire to have two Japanese and two Chinese garments or a piece of fabric on a lanyard around their neck. AND, never tell an autistic person, if they haven't got exactly what they want to, "Close your eyes and imagine," for you cannot pull the wool over an autistic person's eyes, as we will want proof of what you're saying. Some of us may not like tags on our garments, but I need them to be able to say, "Chinese underwear, Chinese socks, Bangladeshi made shirt, Bangladeshi/Cambodian made shorts or jeans, and shoes from wherever." and with a car, we need a receipt that has the registration, which we can check, and proof that says, "KYB Shock Absorbers fitted, front and/or rear." That, is the difference, also, between a comfort zone and what makes someone comfortable.