The social struggles, routines, and meltdowns we think of as “just being a teen” can resemble autism traits and tuning into “just being a teen” is a path to understanding autism.
Once we reflect on our own emotional and social teenage experiences, we can come to show empathy and compassion rather than intolerance and at its extreme, bullying of someone perceived as different from the so-called normal, the other and the not me.
People on the spectrum often have difficulties interacting socially, communicating with others, and show some unusual behaviors to the typical eye. Does any of this sound familiar from your teen years- trouble reading social cues, facial expressions, voice tones, body language? Like we always knew what someone’s look meant? “Think he’s interested in me? Was that a look of liking me? Hard to tell. Did he just give me a dirty look? That tone of voice. Not sure what’s in that tone. I think he’s mad at me. He’s not mad at you. No, I think he is.”
On another note, people on the spectrum can have difficulty with forming and maintaining friendships. Some of this difficulty relates to social anxiety. What teen has never been socially anxious? “I can’t go to that party. Ask her out for a date? And then speak up on a date?” Jolt anyone’s memory? And how many of us as teens have never felt like we didn’t fit in? For autistics, there is a deep sense of feeling different and not appreciated for their differences.
Limited eye contact has been a hallmark of autism. “Look at this guy. He always looks away when I try to talk to him. What’s up with him?” Sadly, looking away can be misinterpreted as disinterest or an insult. But then at sixteen you always maintained eye contact during a conversation? We were plenty self-conscious back then. And then there is the other side of looking. “What are you looking at? Stop looking at me.” Don’t remember that as a teenager? Someone on the spectrum is likely to feel anxious when others are looking at them too intensely.
Now the issue of being part a group. Teens thrive on traveling in packs and can sink in a hole when they feel like an outsider. When you are on the spectrum groups equate with anxiety. All the stimulation from sights, sounds, and activity of the group can be jolting to the nervous system. Even if you sought out stimulation in your youth, it is not a strength of the imagination to consider that seeking stimulation has a spectrum of its own and recognizing helps in understanding the autism experience.
It’s easy to criticize someone on the spectrum for their literal interpretation of language, which can result in trouble understanding sarcasm, jokes, or metaphors. “Don’t you get the joke? How could you not get the joke? Really? You don’t get that metaphor?” And no one reading this can say as a teenager that they got all the sarcasm, jokes, and metaphors that came their way? We had our own struggles but were quick to forget because we like to put painful experiences out of sight, out of mind.
And classic in the autism experience can be talking at length about a specific topic and not knowing your audience, when they are tuned in or tuned out. It’s not the audience but the message that counts. Teenagers can drone on for hours as any parent knows. And sure, as teens we were reading our audiences? I hardly think so.
And who as a teen didn’t have narrow interests also common with autism? Engagement on social media, being overly interested in anything related to romance, doing all we can to be liked by others, all these can be very narrow at times. If you can step back into your adolescent page in time, that’s daily life for many autistics. Those narrow interests for some have resulted in amazing achievements. Always another side to a coin.
Autistics are known for the need for preferring routines and rituals and can feel very anxious when these routines are disrupted. Just think about when you routinely checked your social media whether as a teen or now as an adult. Style of dress, doing things a certain way or at a certain time. These are rituals we all have and overlap with autism. Before we look at rituals and routines with a critical eye, we need to examine how we routinize our life experiences, which can lead to more self and other compassion.
And then there are the autistic meltdowns. “Look at him yelling like that. Oh, yeah, seen him rant before. There’s a guy who can cope.” And those adolescent meltdowns? Slamming doors, cursing, yelling, withdrawing to your room? We have all had meltdowns and need to use those memories to help in our understanding of autism. Meltdowns come out of frustration and overstimulation and can be a way to reset the nervous system.
Until we can get a better understanding of the autism experience, people on the spectrum can easily become stereotyped as limited, odd, peculiar and the like. But from social struggles to the need for routine and occasional meltdowns, there is a lot more overlap between autism and the adolescent experience. For some of us, they may seem far apart in time. Make them not far apart in mind. It takes a village. Please share if you like this article.