Page 28 - SEN106 SEN Magazine May-June 2020
P. 28

As researchers, clinicians, parents and other professionals,   then, we should be aware that compensatory strategies may   not necessarily serve a positive role for all autistic people and   be careful about necessarily promoting such strategies, for   example, through social skills training. Training an autistic   person to “appear” neurotypical may not necessarily result   in the best outcome for that individual. Overall, much more   research is needed to understand wide individual differences   and complexity in autistic people’s experiences. As Duncan   so aptly puts it, compensation is both a friend and a foe. It can   be an “indispensable lifeline”, but this may come at the cost of   sacrificing a happy and healthy life. Here, Duncan tells his story.  Duncan’s Story  My life has been a story of all-pervasive coping strategies. I   have a fulfilling career, but only thanks to a vast amount of   support and perhaps a pinch of luck. Without my compensation   mechanisms I’d have been able neither to carve out this life for   myself, nor to survive it day-to-day. As I grow older, I realise just   how heavy a toll they exact. These strategies get me through   life, but exhaustion and frequent burnout is the price. With   them, I can almost pass for neurotypical, but then I find I’ve   got in too deep and I crash in a scrambled heap.   Since childhood, I have had to be constantly rescued from   precipices of behavioural disaster, skewed perception,   emotional anarchy, sensory turmoil and social despair. My   parents three times moved house to accommodate my needs   and give their bizarrely wild and unpredictable offspring a   chance. Eventually, my diagnosis of autism made sense of the   chaos and contradictions, but the everyday challenges endure.  An important strategy is eye contact. “Look at people when   they’re talking to you”, my mother would encourage. Today   everyone thinks I do it very convincingly, but when I’m tired I   struggle to maintain it. It’s a conscious, learned skill, and lots   of energy goes on “doing” the eye contact at the expense of   fully digesting what the person is saying.   I like people and I love life. I learned to watch and analyse   others, creating my own persona in order to swim rather than   sink. I observed social successes and noted precisely how   they were achieved. I scripted and rehearsed conversations,   and copied behaviours became my own as I painstakingly   matched them to the situations I met. But I was clueless inside,   calculating my reactions without nuanced understanding. Often,   I have appeared to be socially confident and adept when I’m   a crashing mess of confusion, so the support, explanation   and reassurance I’ve desperately needed are the last thing   anyone around would think to give me. Sometimes I pull it off,   but sometimes I don’t, and inner bleakness and feelings of   unworthiness result. Whenever I said something that worked   in a conversation, and I felt I’d said something that contributed   a flowing energy to the dialogue and didn’t stick out, I felt an   inner swelling of pride and success.   Another important strategy is “layering”. I’m invariably gripped   by obsessive anxieties which have to be constantly thought   through. So I layer my thoughts and attention,   packing the intrusive thoughts onto a lower   level of processing in order that I can proceed   with the events of the moment.  The careful management of my schedule is   another strategy, and I’d highlight two typical   instances. Firstly, I struggle to keep the bigger   picture in mind and I become obsessively   absorbed with one topic. Counteracting this   is vital to maintaining equilibrium and good   mental health. Secondly, my compensatory   strategies exact a heavy toll on my energy,   so it’s essential that I plan ahead, spreading   out my work pattern with frequent breaks to   recharge. My desire to test and flex my social   muscles has often led me to over-socialise,   but social situations are exhausting and can   be baffling, so I have to ration them.   Compensatory mechanisms form the glue   that holds my fractured being together in    the face of the world. I couldn’t manage   without them, but sometimes their camouflage   is as much my foe as my indispensable    lifeline.    These strategies get me through   life, but exhaustion and frequent   burnout is the price  ■  An important strategy is eye contact.  28  SEN  106  senmagazine.co.uk  Autism


































































































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