Asperger's on the Inside

And now for the beginning of my adventure overseas.

When Robert first told me that he wanted us to pack up and relocate to Houston, I was quite taken aback and felt strongly against the idea. We’d recently just settled into life in Ormond with a new baby, and I was enjoying my new life and finding my feet. I had my nursery all set up—my perfect little baby place. What do you mean I should take it apart and pack it all up?

But it had become clear that Robert’s career was going to require some overseas experience for advancement, and I knew this Houston job offer he’d received was a great opportunity for him. If it wasn’t Houston, Robert explained, then it could be Angola, Chad, Qatar, or elsewhere. So, under pressure not to hold him back, I agreed to make a go of it. After all, in comparison to Chad, Houston didn’t sound so bad, I reasoned. And it was only a two-to-three-year project. So I decided to think of it as a holiday adventure.

Once the decision was made, I quickly went online and made myself busy investigating this new place—Houston, Texas—that I knew so little about. When I Googled Houston information, the first thing that came up was a pie chart of the population by race—approximately 40 percent Caucasian, 32 percent Hispanic, 16 percent African American, 12 percent Asian or other specific races, and less than 1 percent “mixed.” That was odd. I wondered why race should be of concern to anyone and why there was so little interracial mixing. I hadn’t lived in a country where there was racial segregation before. I didn’t understand it.

The next thing that came up was the weather, typically forty to ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit and twenty-nine to ninety-nine degrees Fahrenheit on the extremes. That didn’t sound so bad. I had yet to learn that the Houston summer lasts for almost six months of the year and is relentlessly consistent between ninety and one hundred degrees every day with extreme humidity. It wasn’t like Melbourne, where those high temperatures are reached for around five days a year, tempered with the dryness of the heat.

I questioned Robert on how his work would be helping me settle in and was assured that they would find me a local mums’ group and activities for the kids. We would have hotel accommodation paid for us for the first month’s stay and a relocation consultant to help us with all the transitions and paperwork. I was also told about an active expatriate wives’ group which I would be included in. So far, so good. His work seemed very accommodating.

In my head, I pictured this mums’ group as a friendly social community of women who hung out together daily, somewhat like compound life but with full access to the greater community. My vision had all the ladies living in their own houses, but right by one another where we could meet up in the mornings to do daily activities with the group—shopping together, going out to parks, and raising the kids together. Perhaps even cooking together or going to each other’s houses for the evenings. A place of harmony and warmth.

The concept of living so closely appealed to me in the same way that high school had. Being constantly around others is an easy way for me to make friends—whether they like it or not! I feel secure when I run into the same people every day. It keeps me up to date on their lives and them mine, so I can relax and be me without the need for small talk to bring people up to speed. And if I do say something that goes down badly, I can always be reassured that I’ll still see them the next day and the next until it eventually blows over! You know, being stuck in people’s faces is a good thing! At least that’s what I thought. But it turned out my daydreams were very off the mark.

My friends at home began to stir ^[44] me about rodeos, cowboy hats, and people saying “y’all” to the crowd. (I was later told in Texas—jokingly—that “y’all” is singular and “all y’all” is the plural!) I saw a clip on TV of a Texan police officer pulling over a car, patting down the driver, and talking to them very seriously. The officer was wearing a khaki-color sheriff’s outfit with a badge, a wide-brimmed hat, and a gun in his belt. All humor would’ve been lost on him! It was down to business. And I thought, “My gosh, where on Earth am I going?”

But there was no time for questioning. The move was pushed through in a great rush. We first heard about the transfer offer in November, and by mid-January, we were on a plane with all our furniture packed up in a ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We would have to survive for a few months on the little we had fit into air freight. And when you consider the immediate needs of a young baby, this was not a lot! Isaac was only four months old at the time of the move.

Settling in our hotel in Houston, rather abruptly, I found myself in for some culture shock in little, unexpected ways. Robert had put some thought into the transition and had selected a hotel by the Galleria so we could be right by shops and buy groceries and everyday needs within walking distance. But amusingly, the Galleria didn’t sell groceries! It was an American-style mall, and I’d been clueless about what that meant.

In my hotel room, I couldn’t find a kettle to prepare boiled water for the baby bottles the way I was accustomed. How do people prepare bottles quickly without instant, sterile water on hand, I wondered. When I called the hotel desk to order one, the lady I spoke to didn’t seem to know what a “kittle” was but suggested I boil water in a pot on the stove. So that wasn’t helpful. And so on it went, with many strange little things that were done differently from what I’d been used to.

Then, just a week or two into the stay, we had the most awful experience, which ended up with Isaac in the hospital overnight. Unbeknownst to me, Isaac was intolerant to the American formula we changed to and, over the course of a week, started vomiting up to several times a day. I assumed he’d picked up a local cold that one of his little friends was suffering from, so I let it go a day or two. Robert had already commenced work, so I was attending him alone, unable to drive yet. But one afternoon, Isaac cried so intensely that I called Robert to come home and we rushed to the emergency room.

Isaac ended up put on an IV for dehydration and was sent in an ambulance to Texas Children’s Hospital. In an unfamiliar country, it was terrifying. I can’t even describe to you the horror of being a new mother holding your little baby limp in your arms. Thankfully, the hospital was able to identify his problem as milk protein intolerance and set us up with the right formula, and he remained healthy from then on.

But despite that awful bit of initial drama, I felt positive overall about the move and started to find my feet quickly.

After I’d been at the hotel a few weeks, another expatriate mum, Carina, came and joined me with her two-year-old son. Our husbands had moved role at similar times and had organized for us to stay at the same hotel. It was a big relief to me to have someone to cling to (don’t tell her I worded it that way!), and we got along well and quickly began the process of navigating Houston together—or perhaps the truth is that she led me.

Carina showed me the way to the local grocery store, and we would walk our strollers down together to pick up supplies. I went to her hotel room one day, and we lay on her bed talking about real estate and where we planned to move.

During our various wandering, Carina often would get phone calls regarding various elements of her move that would delay our walks significantly. I myself had avoided getting a phone and having to call people. I left most of that sort of organizing to my husband, so I was unstressed and at my leisure. But despite her occasional busyness, we did end up with a lot of free one-on-one time. We talked about most things that two ladies might talk about.

Over the same time period, I also found out that the local Houston expatriate wives met up every Friday at a café, and I was invited to join them. I wanted to go, but driving on the other side of the road was daunting at first (we drive on the left in Australia), and I took a while to ease into it. So it was some months before I was mobile enough to get myself there. Carina seemed quite confident in the car and had jumped straight into driving around. She gave me a lift to the café once, and that was the first time that I met the other ladies. For me, it was an uncomfortable group of strangers, but at least they seemed welcoming.

Around a month after arriving, Carina and her family moved on to their rental house in the far north of Houston, and I found a rental downtown at least an hour away. The house search process had been rapid, as we’d had a limited period in which the company covered hotel expenses. We settled for a house in a wealthy, green-treed, “inner-loop” area near my husband’s work.

The presentation of the area was flawless—the gardens manicured and seamless, the houses freshly painted and swept and set toward the back of the blocks to show off the large front yards. Many front windows were without curtains, allowing viewing of a finely furnished “show-off room” to the street.

We found out, upon touring the house, that our landlords had lowered the price to attract the right tenants, and they took to us with our young baby. So we got a pretty good deal.

Upon moving out of the hotel, I remember feeling a great sense of relief at finally getting away from the room service and having private space to myself. I know it probably sounds odd that I would want help to go away, but as an introvert, I just liked my private space!

Moving into my new house, the neighborhood seemed serene and friendly at first, and I was relieved to discover how safe it was. I’d been concerned about living in a place where people carry guns and crime statistics per unit population were high. But the Houston police were everywhere, driving patrol cars past our front yard every hour or so, directing traffic, or even sitting on motorcycles by the front door. I guess the crime wasn’t in our area!

Seeing so many policemen was sometimes unnerving, certainly something that would seem unnecessary at home. But I got used to their presence and stopped noticing surprisingly quickly. It’s disconcerting, really, how quickly we just accept the status quo.

However, after a few months of living on our street, my impressions changed, and the neighborhood started to feel more empty and superficial. When I took Isaac for a walk down the streets, I would encounter maids, gardeners, and nannies with children, but few of the property residents.

The children were almost always Caucasian with Hispanic carers, which just struck me as different. In theory, it should’ve all been fine regardless, but here, there was a language barrier, and I quickly got a sense that me joining in socially with the child-care people just wasn’t going to come across as normal. It was a situation that felt awkward, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

I found out that the other locals who lived on the same street were usually “busy” out and about (doing who knows what). I met a lovely lady who lived across the road from us. She cooed over Isaac and expressed enthusiasm about coming to visit him regularly, but each time I tried to organize it, she had to cancel on me. One time, her church suddenly needed her at the last minute. Another time, she had to drive a friend’s daughter to a funeral. And so it went.

In the end, I realized she was just too busy and heavily leaned upon by others, and I gave up. The neighbor to the side talked about hosting a small gathering to welcome me into the street, which would have been perfect, but she also never found the time to make it happen.

I soon learnt that it was the American or at least Houston culture to greet others with great enthusiasm and talk about catch-ups and doing things together but not always follow through. At home, this would be considered a little rude. But here, I guess it was the social ritual. A similar ritual to saying, “Hi, how are you?” “Let’s catch up some time.” A polite line with no meaning. And the people here are just used to knowing that it’s all talk.

I also learnt that it was the culture for people to rush from place to place. Somebody will come over for a dinner and then have to leave because they have another dinner to go to. Multiple events would be planned for single afternoons or evenings. What a crazy, hectic lifestyle.

This part of the culture didn’t suit me well, as I personally take a while to relax and settle in to a social occasion. When I see friends, I like to take my time with them and talk to them properly over hours. Such is the culture at home. But it wasn’t the Houston way.

In the end, I never did manage to make more than acquaintances of any of the neighbors. They were interested in smiling and having keen, welcoming, nice-to-see-you chats on the odd occasions when I ran into them, but I didn’t get any further than that. I wonder if it would have been the same had I moved into a less wealthy suburb.

I asked the relocation consultant that Robert’s work had assigned us about mums’ groups in the area. At home, the local child help centers would gather people with babies of the same age to attend training together on raising a child and for social gathering. Playgroups Australia will also organize for local playgroups for children of similar age. I was told that there was nothing like that here, only the private gatherings that individuals might happen to organize. She was unable to locate any near my area.

At the same time, I began going to the weekly Houston expatriate wives’ meetups. Carina had moved too far away to be involved in these, but I met a lot of other seemingly nice ladies, and initially, things appeared to be going well. I would take Isaac to the café, and he would play with the other children while I sat, ate lunch, and talked.

It was a large group, so I didn’t get much opportunity to go into more juicy topics, but I was doing okay with the small talk, or at least I seemed to be acting the part well. I can’t say it was exactly stimulating for me. Besides, initially, I was so busy setting up house that I didn’t mind the large portions of time by myself in between.

But then, time passed and nothing changed… and more time passed again and nothing changed… and yet more time again… and after many months of sameness, it occurred to me that I wasn’t getting anywhere with making friends. With so much time alone each week, I was starting to get bored, and boredom can be depressing.

Looking at the other ladies around me, I could see that they were interacting. Outside of the group, they were going over to each other’s houses for coffee and dinners or ringing each other up about events that were on to make spur-of-the-moment arrangements. There would be little chats about it here and there at the café meetup. How much fun people had had at little things here and there that I hadn’t heard of or been invited to. I started to wonder why I wasn’t falling into these smaller social circles too.

It became clear that what I needed to do was make some closer friends. But how? How do I get involved in real conversations with people in such an Aspie-unfriendly large group setting?

Back at school and university, it wasn’t so hard to meet people in more private situations, because, love me or hate me, every day we would have to be there in the common room together! But here, time spent together was spontaneous and completely voluntary, and I had no idea how to break in.

I lamented about how nice it would have been to have that imaginary expat community I’d dreamed up when I first envisioned coming to Houston—the fun communal living situation I’d imagined, like the one that Carina and I had had. No rallying to be on the invite list or calling around to see what’s on. Just an automatic invite to whatever routine thing was on, day in, day out, with the same people every time. It seemed the obvious way to do things to me. Why couldn’t real life be simple like this? But I guess it wasn’t the way the expat ladies wanted to do it out here in the great U. S. of A. Real life was complicated.

I was a straggler in the group, and I didn’t know what to do about it. And things only got harder from there.

To be continued…