Dear Judy,
Would you please explain why some people on the spectrum are afraid of animals? My daughter is terrified of dogs and cats and I'm having a hard time convincing people in my family that this is part of her disability.
Also, I would like to be able to explain to them why she isn’t conveniently turn-on her "melt down" behavior as a way to willfully manipulate people and situations.
A Parent
Dear Parent,
My own personal experience is that I have sometimes had fears that are not any different than the fears that "world-people" (people I refer to as outside of me) sometimes have. However, my reaction to fear seems to be more intense. I think it has to do with the difficulty in regulating the feeling and expressing of emotions.
On a scale of 1 to 10 the felt emotions were close to a 1 or a 10 when I was a child, and the expression of those feelings tended to match the looks of all-or-nothing. I've recently turned 50 and now I am able to travel the scale of 1 to 10 more easily, but tend to stick to the two ends, rarely being at a 5 which I think = indifferent to good or bad feelings = no good or bad feelings. I think the experience of life would be much easier at a 5, but I haven't a clue how to get this to work out. I still find it impossible to modulate my expression of any #10 (good or bad).
So, maybe your family will be able to understand that every person has fears, but for an autistic person, because of their neurological differences in regulating the intensity of both incoming and outgoing data, both their feelings and their reactions to their feelings can be much more intense than most people seem to experience.
When looking at a person who is being intensely afraid it is possible to observe all the physical characteristics of the "fight or flight response" (think Biology 101) - pupils dilating, sweaty, momentary freezing, etc., ultimately culminating in "fight" or "flight." This is a biological response in reaction to a perceived life-threatening situation.
When any person or animal is in survival mode, they do not have any choices available to them, but instead are operating off their built-in automatic instinct. I think that autistic people have many more instances of these kinds of reactions in their body due to their neurological differences in the automatic regulation of emotion/reactions.
So, ultimately, the fear may not be part of autism, but your daughter's reaction to it certainly is! But for real, how much does the "what-causes-it?" really matter when a fellow human being perceives herself in a life-threatening situation and is fighting for her life? Wouldn't any reasonable human being want to help her in whatever way possible?
I do not know how to convince someone else that meltdown behaviors that happen in response to “fight or flight” survival are not turned on and off at will. I only know my own experience at being entirely unable to have any control over this. As an adult this matters very much to me as I do not ever wish for others to see my meltdown behavior. It is very embarrassing to me. Believe me, if I knew how to turn it off, I certainly would!!!!!
What I can tell you is it seems that the behaviors are an automatic response to neurologically induced intense physical feelings in my body, similar to coughing when something is stuck in my throat or blinking when sand blows in my eyes. Try not to cough when you swallow and it goes down the wrong pipe. How would you feel if someone then not only blamed you for coughing, but expected that you would learn how to not cough when you were choking!
I know I did not directly answer the questions you asked, but maybe reading the inside experience of an autistic person might be helpful towards encouraging the world-people to be kind towards their fellow human beings. Your daughter is doing the best she can when faced with fears. I cannot do any better than my best. Can you?
Judy
To purchase Judy Endow's recent book "Making Lemonade" go to her web site www.makinglemonadestore.com
Reprinted with permission from Austim Society of Greater Madison www.autismmadison.org