As everyone basically knows, my husband, Ryan, is autistic. I have mentioned it in previous posts, but after some recent conversations Ryan and I have had, I thought it might be interesting to give the topic a post of its own.
See the thing is, not many autistic people get married. I'm not sure of the exact statistic at the moment (Ryan knows it, but he's asleep right now and I am NOT about to poke the bear, haha) but, it's pretty low, so him and I are kind of outliers. He received his diagnosis in middle school which, is a bit late in the game by today's standards, but he was diagnosed solidly before we met.
Ryan's autism has always meant something different to me. Age has evolved my understanding and his coping mechanisms. It was never a secret, and even when we first met, he was very open about it. There was never some big huge conversation about it where he sat me down and debriefed me on asperger's syndrome and what that meant. He just told me and at that point, to me, it was nothing more than an explanation. It was a, "OH that is why he seems a little aloof, that is why he seems a little weird, and that is why he speaks his mind." As I got a little older I started to put two and two together. It was more than just an explanation, it was something that had a direct and vast affect on his life. It was something that made life a little bit more challenging for him, and it meant that his mind worked differently than other people.
As an adult my understanding is now much different, as is Ryan. His coping mechanisms have grown exponentially and have gotten to a point where most people are surprised to learn of his diagnosis. Basically, he does a fantastic job of hiding it. Ironically though, while his coping mechanisms have improved, we feel vastly more aware of its affect on our life than we did in the beginning.
See, with all the school shootings going on in the United States, we always have to shift the blame because humans naturally want answers. Unfortunately that leads to the diagnosis of autism being thrown around after these casualties. It seems that every time there is a white male shooter, he ends up being labeled as autistic, even if he received no formal diagnosis before the incident. This caused some problems. I will never forget an incident in one of my English classes. Now mind you, I am NOT outspoken. I do not anger easily, and when I do get angry I typically end up spending an irrational amount of time planning out exactly what I am going to say, how I am going to say it, and when to say it (and usually I never even get to that last part). I was the quiet one, very quiet.
I was sitting in English, minding my own business when talk of a recent school shooting came up. One of the more outspoken students was talking about the kids he didn't want to mess with because he did not want to "be killed" when one of them came back as a school shooter. I thought the conversation was dumb, but was minding my own business. The conversation was stupid, but not personal. It wasn't personal until Ryan's name got brought up as one of the "possibilities." At that point, my understanding of his autism became fuel to my fire. I stood up from my seat very suddenly and in front of the whole class and teacher and told him what a jerk he was. I didn't curse or scream, but it was the most anger I ever showed in high school. The teacher looked over at me with a look of obvious surprise and the class went quiet, no one said a word. Not sure what to do next, I calmly sat back down in my desk, hoping their stunned eyes would just look away. Eventually they did, when the silence was interrupted by the voice of a girl sitting next to me, "yeah, you're being an asshole, stop it," she said. After what seemed like ages (but I know was only seconds) people went back to what they were doing and dropped the conversation. Regardless, to this day I will always be grateful to the girl sitting next to me who stood up too.
As adults, his autism definitely means something different now. His coping mechanisms have matured to a point where, unless he tells you, you would never even guess that he is autistic. He is obviously high functioning, but that does not mean that he doesn't work hard. He has social scripts mapped out in his head for interacting in certain situations, as he describes it to me, he has to be very aware of the things he says in public situations, every single day. Navigating social situations seems to take about a 1000 times more effort for Ryan than it does for me, but that comes with the territory of having a disability, some things are just going to be harder for him in order to appear "normal."
As I said earlier in the post, even though he has developed coping mechanisms so good that most people don't even realizr he is autistic, we, as a couple seem to be more aware of it now. I think this is mostly due to me becoming more educated and developing a deeper understanding of what it means to be autistic. During those early times when we first got together even though I knew he was autistic, I don't think I was capable of having too much of a concept of what that actually meant. Like I said, I just thought he was kind of goofy and even though I could look online and see the affect autism had on him, it was hard for me to understand. As an adult I am able to put two and two together much easier. I am now able to pick up very quickly when he might be having a hard time in a social situation, or when he might just not be understanding something that seems obvious to everyone else. In Ryan's own words, autism means he sometimes lacks common sense, and that is something I definitely have to be aware of.
Normalacy specifically is an interesting piece to the puzzle of autism though. See, many autistic people (and Ryan especially) do not participate in certain social scripts. Autism simply prevents him from seeing the point. The things that neurotypical people do every day to achieve normalacy often times seem useless to autistic people. For Ryan this manifests in a few ways, one of which is the fact that he HATES small talk. Of course there are times when small talk is important, like in job interviews or when trying to network, and over the years he has learned how to do it. He thinks we should go right to the big stuff though, why ask how someones day is going if you don't care what the answer is and they probably won't answer honestly anyways is his thought process for things like this.
The most interesting situations though are the ones where he knows there is some kind of social script that he should be following, but he does not know what the script is, so he makes up his own. For instance, once, while picking up our bags at the grocery store the cashier told us to have a good day, instead of returning the sentiment he picked up the bags, and walked away while saying "weeeeee." Which, as you can imagine was a pretty funny sight for others considering he is a 26 year old man.
I am sure part of his ability to function in our relationship and in other situations comes from his generally happy demeanor. That way, when he has what we call an "autistic moment" where he goes completely off of the social script or does something really goofy, the actions he takes are not negative. People around us who don't know might have funny looks on their faces, but they just assume he is a guy being goofy.
On a more personal level in terms of our relationship now dealing with his autism seems SO normal, but our relationship does take a little extra work that others may not have to deal with. One of these things is sleep. Ryan sleeps quite a bit, getting enough sleep is one of the ways that he is able to stay off of the medication he used to be on in middle and high school. So, naps when he gets home from work are not just a luxury, they are an important coping mechanism for him.
Our conversations can often be incredibly one sided too, and I don't just mean with me talking. When Ryan gets going about his specific interests, like math or hockey, he can go and go for hours! On the other side of that, of that sometimes he has a hard time reading me. I could be talking about something emotional and he will listen, but sometimes has trouble knowing exactly how to respond.
Overall though it really is a learning experience for both me and him. I will constantly be learning about how his autism affects our relationship and family and he will always be learning how to cope in a world that operates in a way that he often does not see the point of. But, in the end his autism is what makes him the person he is and neither of us would change it.
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