WHAT NEUROTYPICAL FOLKS NEED TO REMEMBER.
Tonight, members of my family are watching a football match, but I have been pushed to the point of meltdown. Here’s why.
Monday: My brother says that he’s coming over to watch the football and he’ll bring my sister-in-law, nephew and niece. So far, so good. My father says that my sister-in-law, niece and nephew will go home after dinner and I’ll have to take my brother home. So far, so good.
Tuesday: My father says that I might have to give my brother and sister-in-law a head start and then drive over and collect my brother and drive him back here and then drive him home, afterwards. Again, so far, so good.
Wednesday: My brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew arrive. My sister-in-law talks of getting a taxi home. My father says, “No, Peter can drive you home.” I agree to it and say that I had been considering three options.
One: My sister-in-law comes over with my brother and the kids. Then she goes home and I take my brother home.
Two: We follow the second plan.
Now, here’s what happens in practice. My sister-in-law, when I’m READY to take her home, and she has been drinking, then says that my brother will accompany her home, as he’s had one drink. I explode and say, “Look, this is the FOURTH change of plan! Stop It!”
My father then says, “Should neurotypical people have to just accept that?” Well, yes. See, an autistic person can understand if you have made plans to go out, say, and you get sick and you can’t make it or have to change your plans. But when you have made a plan, and that person says, “Oh, no, we’ll do this,” and then, “No, we’ll do that,” and then, when you’re ready to do it, they change plans suddenly. To me, it’s like my father said when he was boss of a company and he allowed the sales representatives to choose the colour of their company cars. Some of the representatives said, “Why can’t we have Commodores?” and Dad said, “Because Ford don’t make Commodores.” “But why do we have to have Fords?” “Head Office said so.” “I don’t want a Ford.” “Well, go to a company that offers Holden cars, instead.” Then, when the reps stopped going on about that, they’d come and they’d say, “Can I have a red one, please?” “Okay.” So, Dad would order a red one. Then, the next day, they’d come and say, “Can I change the colour? My wife wants me to have a Jonquil Yellow one, instead.” “All right.” So Dad would ring Ford and they’d say, “We won’t have any that car for six weeks.” So, they’d take out a new lease on the car. Head Office then asked, “What are you doing?” “I let the reps choose the colour.” “No, you can’t do that.”
If I had been the manager, I would have said, “Right, here’s the deal. I’m giving you each a colour chart. If you want to, you can go home and discuss it with you wife or partner, and then you list up to five colours that you’d like. If we can’t get your first preference, we’ll go for your second, and so on. What you put down is locked in and cannot be changed. If you list one colour, and we can’t get it, you’ll just have to accept whatever we can get.”
In that respect, I say, thank goodness they were only dealing with one company, not two. I remember my former neighbour could get any make he wanted within reason. He was going to get a Falcon, but he decided he didn’t like the look of it and switched to a Commodore. In that case, if I had been the manager, I would have said, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You can have the choice of a Commodore or a Falcon. Some of you will instinctively choose one or the other. For those of you who are unsure, this weekend, you can go and test drive the Commodore at the Holden dealer and the Falcon at the Ford dealer, and when you come in on Monday morning, you must definitively say which one you want. If you request a Falcon and we order it, that’s final. You can’t come and say, “Changed my mind. I want a Commodore, now. You’ll be told, “Next time.”””
Autistic people understand if plans need to be changed once or twice if something comes up, but if someone asks you to lock in a plan and they do, but then you change, it’s infuriating. My sister-in-law might have thought she was being considerate, but if she had really wanted to be considerate of her autistic brother-in-law, she would have said, “I won’t have anything to drink, as I’ll have to drive my kids home.” Not to have had two vodkas and lime and soda water and then be onto a third and suggest my brother go with her and then, when my brother says that I can do it then, when I’m ready say that my brother will go. That infuriates an autistic person!
Autistic people may not be as flexible as neurotypical people, and that doesn’t mean the whole world has to change, it means don’t be that flexible with your plans that you’ll break them.