Chapter 6

Coexisting with Other Living Things on a Blue and Green Speck of Dust Hurtling Through Space

One of the symptoms of PDA is that we apparently: ‘Appear sociable, but lack depth in our understanding.’ I can be a sociable creature but in the most unorthodox of ways. For instance, I need a hell of a lot more alone time than many of my friends it seems, and when I don’t have these mandatory spells of solitude I weaken. At school or at work, it is sometimes mandatory for one to be gregarious, which is not ideal for someone whose sociability is beholden to a timer.

One of my favourite things about having PDA is my enduring desire for everyone, and everything, to be on an equal plane. That desire in me manifests in a number of ways. One example would be my tendency to ‘equalise’ my environment at school or at work whenever I detect a gassy dictator of an authority figure, and another is my relationship with the natural world.

I don’t consume animal products, only plants and fungi. If it’s got a central nervous system, then it ain’t going in my mouth. There are some people who would describe this as ‘veganism’, but I tend to eschew such divisive and ideological terms. I don’t even feel too comfortable calling it a ‘plant-based diet’ either; it is my default diet. I don’t identify with the label. I don’t wake up and say, ‘I am a vegan’, I don’t go grocery shopping and think, ‘time to get me some vegan food with which I will make some vegan meals and wolf it down into my vegan stomach all nice and veganly’, and neither do I plan on having the v-word on my gravestone as an epitaph. But, as with my label of ‘PDA’, I am aware that it is sometimes necessary to confer a name on a certain mode of behaviour, especially when I’m in an orthodox environment. I can’t expect people who cook for me to telepathically infer what my dietary requirements are. The hairband analogy I used in the previous chapter definitely applies here. When I am asked by some people, ‘How do you deal with being on such a restrictive diet when you have PDA?’ Well, the answer to that is simple. I don’t restrict myself. At all. I eat everything I want to eat, it just so happens that what I do eat doesn’t contain any animal products. The vegan label is redundant when people adopt a plant-based diet as a result of living ethically. But when the fearmongering cult of ‘veganism’ militantly peddle their agenda a la carte, the whole moral point of it breaks down. Veganism just doesn’t work when imposed as an ideology, not to mention some vegans are nothing short of annoying. I say this, even though I am, de facto, one myself. The last thing I wanted when I was transitioning, was some greasy bloviating freak reproaching me about my lifestyle choices, this would have had the complete opposite effect of what was intended. I got here through freedom of thought, mindfulness, extensive research and experimenting with new foods. My predisposition to equalise becomes relevant here in that I am not a subscriber to speciesism. That is to say, I am literally incapable of seeing how human beings are any more special or important than other living organisms on the planet. Sure, our intelligence is bad-ass, but what else do we have apart from that? Could birds of prey be considered better than us based on their eyesight which is far superior to ours? What if it the sense of smell ranked highest on the scale of sensory importance? Then surely dogs and bears would assume the high horse, no? And speaking of horses, look at how much mightier and speedier these noble beasts are than us. There is no objective moral hierarchy in the natural world. Maybe my thinking in this fashion is ‘part of my autism’, but whatever it is, it’s not just haughty teachers and bosses I have beef with, it is the unqualified arrogance of the human race I am so resolutely compelled to equalise. I could state, unapologetically, that my PDA characteristics have actually determined, or at least obliquely influenced, my ‘veganism’.

So, let’s bring it back to human beings for a moment, shall we? There isn’t much left of this book now, but I could never bring myself to wrap it up without mentioning a few of the peculiarities of my love and social life.

By virtue of the brittle and tenuous thread that connects my heart to the heart of another, friendships and romantic relationships have always been a bit of a challenge and a mystery to me. I should state, quite frankly, that ingratiation has never really been something I’ve struggled with apart from when I was very shy when I was very young. I have, at times, been very popular over the years. My social ability, albeit unusual, still held water in the ‘ability’ department. I was able to make friends, but if there was something I was exceptionally bad at, it was keeping them. Ah, yes, losing friends was my forte. This would usually happen after doing something inappropriate, dangerous or just plain weird. I’ve learned that there are two types of people in this world: those who show an appreciation for abstract art and those who don’t.

My earliest woes in the realm of relationships lie with my dear younger siblings. I should at this stage point out that it was more their woes than mine. I had a propensity to scapegoat as a young whippersnapper. When we were small I would tease my brother, Ben, but as I got a bit older I verbally took a lot of my anger and frustration out on my sister, Ella. Of course, I am riddled with guilt because of this. It was never out of malice, just the sheer confusion and incognizance of why I was the way I was, which isn’t an excuse I know, but I can safely say that my siblings and I all get along beautifully now. Notwithstanding the sporadic friction, the three of us have actually always been very close. We have waded through many quagmires together, having all lugged around the heavy burden of mental anguish since our characters first formed. We have bolstered our bond by maintaining our idiosyncratic and consoling sense of humour, our unique method of perceiving and making sense of life and of course our own brand of ‘weirdness’, which we share with no other, apart from maybe other neuroAtypicals who would know exactly the kind of weirdness I’m referring to. My brother is elegant and warmhearted, and my sister is sensitive yet strong, and in some ways, a more contained and enigmatic version of myself.

With my first friends, and with my cousins on family get-togethers, I was often described as ‘bossy’. I needed to be in charge of the games, I needed to be the main character, I needed to be the funniest in the room, I needed to win and I needed to have the last say. If any of these stipulations weren’t met for whatever reason then I wouldn’t think twice about ruining everyone else’s fun in a most sociopathic and megalomaniacal fashion. I would stress that I was quite good at holding the games together which would have been met mostly with appreciation from other children, but insofar as I wasn’t being overwhelmingly domineering, which I mostly was. Since my presence would often prove too intense for many of my peers, I often sought comfort in playing with children a few years my junior (which would be ideal for everyone involved, as I could act the clown all day knowing that I’d never receive any judgement from my audience or bore them in anyway).

A couple of things that have always made me seethe with rage is when other people comment on or hazard a guess at how I might be feeling, or gratuitously narrate my life. It feels like I’m being boxed into some kind of prison of opinion. Once when I was a child I was subjected to a bout of ribbing by some other children. It was all light-hearted and good-natured. I was often on the receiving end of banter and taunts, which I sometimes minded and sometimes didn’t, but I was becoming rather flustered in this particular instance for whatever reason so I decided to withdraw into myself in order to better process everything that was going on. A boy came up to me and said, ‘Harry’s gone quiet’, so I punched him in the face. Now, no disrespect to this person; he meant no harm, but this comment, that would be totally harmless in any other context, was the absolute last thing I needed to hear at that moment as I was very busy trying to mentally digest everything that’d happened; I needed total space in order to do that. He halted the process with that one measly comment. He was right; I was being quiet, but I didn’t want to know. I sometimes feel, and this is going to seem a strange word to use, ‘maternal’ about control; as if control is my baby I need to protect.

I have always been a lot more sure-footed on a one to one basis than I have been in large groups, unless of course I am dominating them. I am prone to feeling a little hemmed in by people en masse and will resort to drawing attention to myself by being silly as an attempt to deal with sensory overload. I think the reason I love talking to one person at a time is because I feel very much in control in this context. There is, after all, nothing to dominate, unless that person is constantly interrupting and larking around (there are times when the feeling of being interrupted is so unbearable that I feel as though I’m being annihilated). They speak, I listen, and then I speak and they listen. I have said this before and I’ll say it again: autistic people can be like walking environmental barometers, in that when we are upset, people assume there is something wrong with us when in reality something is wrong around us.

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It is almost impossible to resist the urge to pursue those who take our breath away. And for people with PDA especially, as that desire is tenfold. Desire is what drives us and, simultaneously, consumes us. While it is important for people with my type of brain to choose wisely, the very act of discriminating between people in an attempt to winnow out the more logical or convenient options is to miss the point of romance and love entirely. I say, if you are drawn to someone, then go for it. The intellect need not engage in this field. The intellect is crucial in the arenas of academia, politics and science, but not the human heart (unless, of course, you’re a cardiologist). Some feelings really aren’t meant to be rationalised, they are simply meant to be felt.

I think the person who taught me, inadvertently, how to treat women was my cousin, Rosie. Rosie and I grew up together, she is a year younger than me, and the two of us were inseparable as children. She was my first best friend, and, perhaps, my only true friend, come to think of it. I mucked about with other children, but no one connected to me as deeply as Rosie did. I trusted Rosie, and felt I could allow her into my world. She always listened to me and helped me to feel less alone. Rosie accepted me just the way I was, as I did her. We were always mischievous and could be a bit of a handful for our parents and grandparents whenever we’d get together, but we had a more serious side to our bond. When the two of us were put to bed, and our silliness and laughter eventually ceased, we would talk into the night, sometimes for hours; I’d never want our conversations to end. Rosie’s friendship helped to foster in me a tact and chivalry, and ever since I have always preferred the company of females to males.

Seducing girls for the purpose of, say, a kiss, a one-night stand, or some other casual tryst, has always been an area where I demonstrate considerable proficiency. However, as soon as I develop actual romantic feelings for a person, I can turn into a bit of a maniac. I noticed, in my teens, how I had a bit of a problem with recognising boundaries before a relationship kicked off, for example, sending too many texts! One thing I started doing in my early twenties whenever I acquired the phone number of a girl I liked was to delete their number every time I sent them a text, lest I overwhelmed them. If they text back, then great! If they didn’t, then it wasn’t meant to be. That limbo stage is torture for me, but I calm right down once it becomes ‘official’ which often comes as a surprise to girls. Conversely, it is in romantic relationships when my PDA is at its most pronounced. In the past, I have felt like a cornered animal in a relationship, in that when someone gets too close, I bite. I have even found the ‘boyfriend’ label to be suffocating at times. It’s almost like signing a contract at a new job; one cannot escape without rigmarole.

Whenever something goes wrong in a relationship I have found that there is no better remedy than talking about what happened. Communication is key. That was probably the cliché and no-brainer of this chapter…but I have found that it helps me when I share with my partners on a regular basis. That isn’t to say, have mundane conversations about work and the weather. Talk and connect deeply – really embrace each other’s internal worlds. Review the week: did everything go smoothly? Is there anything we could be doing to improve a certain aspect of our relationship?

I used to have ‘sorry ceremonies’ with one of my girlfriends in the past. As we’ve established in Chapter 4 and a half, meltdowns are like an epileptic fit in that once they start then stopping them is out of the question. One must simply wait for it to pass. Following a tiff with said partner, and after mustering a sufficient level of humility, I’d approach her, embrace her, apologise for any damage caused and then ask, ‘What went wrong there? What have we learned? Is there a way we can prevent that from happening again?’ Blaming her for everything while refusing to take any blame myself may feel like the preferable option at first, and perhaps that is what one feels when they are at the peak of a meltdown rapidly purging emotion from their system, but once everything settles down then a quick shift in perspective is paramount. It takes two to tango after all, and I like to see the PDA-related episodes as ‘co-creations’. Strictly the PDA ones though… Of course, if one of us were to arbitrarily whack the other person round the head with a golf club then it would be downright unfair to expect the victim to admit to being just as culpable as the attacker, and then be expected to apologise for being a ‘co-creator’ when they were merely sitting there minding their own business before being assaulted without provocation and nearly killed.

When I get triggered in relationships, I like to see it as my partner exposing or highlighting a part of me that had been shaded before that point. As if she’s bringing something in me to the surface that needs to be addressed, repaired or gotten rid of. I might flinch and recoil and tell her, ‘NO! You leave that where it is!’ But my PDA is not sacrosanct, I do not require a ‘safe-space’ in which I will be held back and kept in a fearful delusion. I may even thank my partner for shedding light on a part of me that I never knew existed. My girlfriends really have been my greatest teachers.

One thing I’ve noticed that calms me down when I am in the throes of a volcanic moment with a romantic partner (and I can’t quite put my finger on why this might be) is when they start crying. Perhaps the vulnerability is a good antidote? Whatever it is, it jolts me right back in control.

Saying sorry is something I have had to teach myself to do, I would never say it as a child for two reasons: 1) grown-ups might have told me to say sorry (need I go on?), and 2) pride. Over the years I watched other people who didn’t say sorry and quivered and cringed at how foul and repulsive it is. No one wants to be that person, so I slowly changed my ways. Nowadays I say it a little excessively, or so I’ve been told, but I’d rather that than to never say it at all. It’s important to learn to say sorry if you have PDA because when we are triggered we have it in us to say hurtful things. Yes, we don’t usually mean it, but it is still highly unpleasant for the recipient.

I am going to say this as well for those with PDA who are struggling to make their relationships work. I have had to do my best to prevent meltdowns and fights. It is not solely up to my non-PDA partners to live their lives in fear, tiptoe around me and do all the preventive work. None of us is perfect, and the unfortunate truth is that our partners will trigger us occasionally no matter how hard they try not to. I will reiterate, PDA is not sacrosanct, and we, as PDAers or autistics, are not infallible. To say otherwise wouldn’t be too many steps away from domestic hegemony. Learning to become self-aware and keeping track of how my behaviour might be impacting those around me has saved my life. It is also crucial to be aware of what it is exactly that will set one off and to know one’s role in the relationship. I happen to love making the bed so that has always been my job. I get uncomfortable when someone else makes it. My most recent girlfriend felt the same way about the kitchen sides; she’d get uncomfortable if I were to go to clean them, so I left the kitchen sides for her to clean, and she left the bed making to me. Teamwork. Everyone can find their way of contributing to their relationship. If you love to cook, cook! If your partner loves to do paperwork, then let them! Perhaps there are some things you can do together without snapping at each other after a few minutes into the activity? Like cooking as a team, or doing the shopping together. But if cooking as a team or shopping together is likely to predispose you to triggers, then avoid these activities and find something else to do.

With regards to the autistic person’s difficulty with ‘changing the picture’, then yes, this is something I am not great at myself, and of course it is impossible to swan through life without ever incurring a change of plan of some nature. The pain of change can be akin to heartbreak. I always ensure I know exactly what I’m getting myself into before committing to it, but I personally prefer living spontaneously and not making any plans at all, because when I make a plan, I have to stick to it or I’ll freak out. Surrendering to the natural course of events has helped me considerably over the years to become more flexible in my routine. If a plan has been made, however, and, for whatever reason, it changes, then one thing I used to do as a child was to pretend I had the plan chalked up on an imaginary blackboard in my mind. If it changed, then I’d take an imaginary eraser, delete the plan and then chalk up a new one. Perhaps even have a backup plan ready; one that’s equally exciting as plan A. The main objective should be having a good time rather than having a good time by means of a particular modus operandi. Even incorporating change into one’s routine can prove effective, in other words, make constant change habitual.

One thing I catch myself asking in relationships is, ‘is this fluid or is this forced?’ If things are forced then this shouldn’t be ignored. Perhaps our time as a couple has expired? Or maybe we just need a little break? These issues need to be talked about while they’re in their infancy otherwise they may exacerbate over time. We often feel that we become a unit in relationships and forget that we are individual people who constitute a relationship. I have found that retaining my sense of individuality in a relationship, by focusing on my own passions, what makes me happy as a person and simply finding time to bask in solitude has been instrumental in maintaining a stable relationship. Should the day come for my partner and me to go our separate ways, be it temporary or permanent, then provided that both of us have infused our respective lives with meaning, the initial pain of severance won’t be quite as intense knowing that we both have something in our lives worth living for.