paperdollsandhyperbole:

This is a social story, what many autistics in the 80s were “trained” to think to appear neurotypical at all costs

Some background information you need to know:

Social stories are still used today but back in the 80s it was like social stories on steroids. They were drilled into our heads, act “normal” at all costs. I know my parents were particularly keen on this. I went from special Education classes where they knew I was autistic and visually impaired, when we moved my parents took advantage of that to mainstream me and not pass my health information along to the new school. Social stories became all that more important. Must. Act. Normal. At. All. Costs.

Being autistic was treated like it was something to be ashamed of and that is a thought pattern that is hard to break to this day.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s with autism was very much the “quiet hands movement”, (https://juststimming.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/quiet-hands/ good article!) which is to say we were silenced and punished if we stimmed. (For allistic people The term “stimming” is short for self-stimulatory behavior and is sometimes also called “stereotypic” behavior. In a person with autism, stimming usually refers to specific movements that include hand- flapping, rocking, spinning, pen clicking, desk tapping, beatboxing or repetition of words and phrases amongst others.“)

Stimming can mean we are happy or stressed or angry or any other array of emotions. Stimming is not a universal trait and no too autistic people stim the same.

It was also the land of Applied Behaviour Analysis (refered to as ABA for the duration of this post) where any stimming or “undesired behaviours” were squashed out of you as quickly as possible and replaced with “desired behaviours”.

Every night before bed, we would go through the story of how to behave like a neurotypical person. Social stories began before I could read, at first they were pictures. Pictures of faces and facial expressions I couldn’t see or understand.

Location: lunchroom table, 4 of your friends or at least people who are semi-nice to you and a new girl. You know you should follow the steps to make the new kid not think you’re “weird”.

Get your lunch, resist slapping your hands down the rows of cubbies.

Sit down

Don’t rock

Don’t hum or tap your fingers

Get out your lunch

Don’t rock

Look at the new girl, in the eyes even though it feels bad

Smile

Don’t rock

Don’t pull your sandwich apart, normal people take bites

Don’t rock

Join in the conversation, even though they are all talking at once and bouncing between different subjects and when you finally think of something to say, it was 3 subjects ago and you feel dumb

Don’t squint because the overhead lights feel like you are standing too close to the sun.

Don’t rock

Also, don’t cover your ears because the lights buzz and the clock is loud (normal people don’t hear it) and everyone is talking at once and it’s loud and people’s lunch wrappers are crinkling.

Don’t wrinkle your nose at all the smells of everyone’s lunches mixed together with the smell of pinesol cleaner

Don’t rock

Don’t talk in big words you just learned, that isn’t normal, they don’t like that

Don’t touch your clothes, quiet hands, sit on them. Don’t touch the table or walls or other people.

Don’t look relieved that lunch is over.

Go to the library instead of outside. It’s safe there because there is no one but the librarian and she is nice and doesn’t talk or make me talk.

So that is a social story, that is what runs through my head at every interaction with another person. The situation changes but it runs through my head. Still.

It’s exhausting, continuous stream of orders. But I’ve been trained like a dog that was whacked with a newspaper when it did something bad that acting “normal” is paramount to anything else.

And it is virtually impossible to crack, let alone break.