Autism & The Conquest of Prejudice

Humans are a needy bunch.

And I often think on how one is to view this neediness of us needy humans.

There is for me, on a few mornings of a week, a ritual that so recently has usurped me of the quiet freedom of the mornings which had ruled thitherto. Instead are those mornings now ruled by a duty, this task of giving and helping with the needs of another and learning to understand them.

There is a boy, with whom I work on these mornings. It is asked on these mornings that he makes himself ready to go out for the day. But he cannot feed himself without prompting. Nor can he ably bathe himself and give a brushing to his teeth in the absence of any of my firmly stated prompts. On from this, I thus must urge him on to the attendance of these necessities lest they remain unattended.

And after the doing of these deeds, we go out and into the world. And almost always is there the woeful oncoming of this truly sore predicament – that this boy shall then do all that he can to earn the attention of the public by many jovial efforts to embarrass me as we are together. And since his discovery that this antic of his thus offers endless grief to myself and my own sense of pride which does so stringently dictate that embarrassment is a horrifying travesty, he has not ceased.

I think that he may know that I find some fun in it – more than I ever could confess to him. Assuredly can I request that he ceases with these antics, but some joy would be sundered as well. It truthfully is a joke that is made from the trust that he has thus to be so audacious. It is a part of our odd bond that I am happy to be with, and that I would be sadder to be without.

Such is how it is between us – we both find belonging in the other. We both share in the same tribe. And we are both so free with the other that with impunity is he able to annoy me so gleefully, and with impunity am I able to annoy him by my complaints of his antics with my own glee. And in it all is there our respect for the other.

Also is there truthfully so much that he does to help me with his of his own self. Much is given to me by him, so much that bears insight on what it is that one may need; there also is how they may need it, and then why it may be needed. This trio of interrogators, what, how, why, altogether beckons from one a mass of empathy.

It could also be said that this boy is lazy and untidy, demanding and demeaning, that he is a doer of ungood deeds. It could be said that he is an icon of delinquency. None of this is true to who he is, though I know that it can be easy for others to feel such for another.

We humans are sorters of unsorted items and ideas. What we know thus goes with what we understand, and what we do not know must also be understood. It otherwise is frightening to us. And so, we can learn to become wise to an unknown item or idea. We yet may try and take that unknown item or idea and sort it with what we already know and understand. Such begets the mistaken mixing of ideas that are inharmonious.

A genesis for prejudice is in this erred sorting of inharmonious ideas. The adjectives, careless, and, selfish, with the noun, hooligan, are inharmonious with the person that this boy is. And I know that this can be seen of him by onlookers and unlearned watchers, for once had I also judged him.

I once did not think too much of those whose mannerisms towards many considerations thusly were unalike to my own mannerisms. A remnant of this bias was vested in my thoughts for this boy at our earliest meeting, for I thought that there were those who could strive for more but that this boy was among those who did not try.

This thought already, but still slowly, was being trimmed. I now have many more friends and each from among them has much to give which can and has swayed my mind to understand more of those things which are strange and uncanny. I find no guilt in having been so wary of others – the world is not a straight place. It is very odd and it is made so verily odd by strangeness and uncanniness in the deeds of strange and uncanny folk. And it is not so easy to be taught that such are only things that I yet have learnt to understand, not things that are wrong.

So, I visit the house of this boy for the first time and I see that he is asleep in a his room with a floor littered by unsorted clothes and dirty dishes and cutlery and also the rotten crusts of vegemited bread. And I see all of this, and I think that this boy is lazy and carefree. It did seem as if we were from different planets – or so goes that idiom which seeks to stress the inharmony of one with another by metaphorifying light-years between them.

I chose to keep with him. I knew that there was a truth to who he was that could not ever be seen by me after one meeting or yet even a few. I had the awareness at that time thus to know that what I felt was not the truth for each odd sight. A little more thought was needed, and it was not in the absence of such a needed thing that any growth for myself, or fulfilment of my duty to him, could come into existence. Also readily had I learnt that the truth was a resident in this abode upon the other end of an effort of waiting and watching and then listening.

I learnt that he was somebody who was not too unalike to me. Those challenges of his with which I was brought to help him thusly were challenges that had manifested for myself in a style that was more apt for myself. And that was the truth of it – the poetic discovery of similarity within that which is so seemingly dissimilar.

He did not shower – and one could say that such was so as he was too lazy to shower. Yet the truth is that he is baffled by the faucets and cannot ably cause for there to be a flow of water at the temperature that he desires. And so, he refrains from doing that which he does not know how to do, as any other man or woman would do.

He does not make himself lunch for school, for he rarely has the food that he likes so to make himself lunch, for he eats it all soon after it is bought. And one could say that he is a slop who should know not to eat all of the food in his house if he wishes for there to be any for lunch. But he truthfully is hungry as he is a tall and large boy. Also are there many tastes that are unbearable for his mouth. This is very alike to how I was when I was young and thus can this difficulty be understood by myself.

And often is he late for school as he is kept late at home by distractions. And one could say that he should pull up his socks and be more attentive – for it is known by all that such an act as ensuring the proper accoutrement of one’s socks thus will be enough to resolve any plight of dithering or waddling. But he truthfully is of the sort who cannot shift their focus so easily from one task to the other. His mind is kept by what causes it the most amount of enthusiasm. And I, for myself, know of many times that I have been late for my work as I have been kept at home by my effort to ensure that my shirt is so neatly tucked so that there is no error even in the inches.

I find in him ever many more traits that are shared by myself. I see the truth that his antics and those hectic causes for annoyance are possessing each in themselves a genesis from a source that is exact to the source of my own antics and causes of hectic annoyance.

We are makers and doers of trouble and we both are in need of help from others. All folks need help – but it is those on the Spectrum whose challenges cannot be hidden from the world were an effort of hiding even tried.

That earnestness has given me a way to find some belonging in the work that I do with this boy and the time that I spend with him and the friendship that has come from it. Who he is thus was a challenge against my notions of a proper and an improper character. I could not choose to feel uneased by him and his ways when first I met him. But I could and I did choose to think that it was more right to work with him and learn what I could of him and myself than to flee and fail to understand why he was who he was.

The manifestation of prejudice from the human brain is not antithetical to nature. It is per our neurology that we are wary of the unknown. Yet would so much be lost were one to abstain from any effort to find anything else to feel for that unknown thing – to come into knowing it, perhaps. It can be a gruesome thought to think such of oneself, that one is judgemental of those who are dissimilar.

When I first went to the house of this boy, so truthfully was I aware of the stress that he enticed. The processes of alienation were manifested from the ancient abode of the Amygdala and I could not choose to hold any willed barriers against it. But I yet chose to believe that this stress was for someone I did not understand and that I should try only to learn to understand him.

The most aggrieved victim of my prejudgement has been my own self. I have behaved towards myself with intolerance and impatience once upon a time. I have feared those areas of myself that were unknown to me, for Autism was an area of myself that I never departed to explore. But there came a time of discovery and I found ownership with myself. And thus, I know the processes of prejudice in myself and I know the good that can come from its confrontation.

I had found understanding in myself and now I have found understanding with this boy. He is my friend and he has far to go until he finds his place in this world. But he has those who care for him to find such a place and who cherish to have him in their lives and who clearly see the truth of his character.

We both went roller-skating not too long ago. He tried and he stumbled and he stubbornly sat himself down and grumped from behind his irked and snarled lips that he never would try again. Soon was he asking others on the length for which they had been skating, and soon again was he up from his grumbling stop and upon a campaign for triumph had he then set himself.

He keenly clung to me whilst I gave him my help to keep him upheld. He often mistook his balance and fell and after each time he swiftly would take my hand to be uplifted to his feet. And he cheerfully told me that he was becoming better in this feat to which he had given himself, and that he was meaning to become even better.

He swears that he is not a feeler nor a carer. But he felt happy then – he was striving for more per a medium that was different to what society may expect and what I had expected. Like everyone, he yearns to find something meaningful for himself, and some place in which he feels that he belongs and is cherished.

And I find joy with his happiness, and his earnestness with who he chooses to be.

And this was given from my willingness to learn about who he is.