Even with Autism, Growing Confidence in Social Situations

by Eileen Parker on January 26, 2012

Hubby and I went to a little get together at his friend Jim’s house, which included Jim’s girlfriend and his friend.

The anticipation of a social activity still makes me anxious, but I did it!  Yes, I made five or more faux pas (that I know of), but I just ignored it.  In certain situations, hubby helped me out with an explanation of what the person was talking about, and he did it in a way that wouldn’t seem odd.

I suppose I can come across as odd, but I don’t care as much anymore.  A part of it is because I’m in my forties, so I am not as self-conscious as a twenty-something.  The other part is learning social skills by rote, which hubby, my mum and my kids have taught me.

I also learn by observing.  For example, I noticed that in a non-personal, know-the-person-well social situation, only say things that last at the most 15 seconds.  A minute means talking with a person individually if they bring up the topic first.  Even then, say something for 15 seconds then wait for them to say something.

I also learned to follow the leader.  No one brought up work, so I didn’t even thought my small business is something I enjoy talking about.  But, I will save that for talking with other business owners, which I am learning also, but that’s another blog post.

Related Article:  My Autism, Social Training, and Twinkling Lights

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Autism Organizational Ability…or Not

by Eileen Parker on December 1, 2011

Autism Organization

Autism Disorganization

I’m in the not organized category then at other times, I hyper-organize to a point that is not necessary.  Most of the time–not organized.

My mum said that as a child, I had stacks of papers and books in my room, and she couldn’t figure out how I could find anything.  I kept and still do keep lists of activities I must remember to do, such as household chores, when children are coming over (the ones that don’t already live here), or when to run errands.

I also keep papers of thoughts or ideas that I don’t want to lose, and in OneNote in my computer, I have pages upon pages for both personal and work.  I end up with repetition, so I have to stop myself sometimes, ignore the lists, and just do.

I often wonder if that is behind the autism inertia some adults have reported online.  Is that analysis paralysis?  I want to know all the details before I begin or the task or project doesn’t make sense to me–this doesn’t fit well in the regular job workplace at all, but that’s another post.

“What is the priority?” I ask myself.  So I get one of my many clipboards and make a new list of only priorities and fill the entire paper.  I now ask hubby to help me set ONE priority to get done, which helps tremendously.  He says I can’t do all things at once, so just do that one thing while ignoring everything else.  It works.

What has helped are online organizational tools and a list of what I am to do each day at work with specific blocks of time for specific activities that I keep on the wall in my office.  Reducing visual distraction helps a lot.  I also have three large whiteboards I use to plan and work through ideas using multiple colors of markers, which is a great visual help for me.

I have learned so much about organization that after my business, maybe I’ll be a professional organizer.  Kidding.

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New!  For parents of autistic children, I started Autism Community Conversations by conference call.  And, it is free.  Join the mailing list and you will be notified of upcoming calls.  Spread the word!

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Join in Autism Community Conversations with Eileen Parker–that’s me.

by Eileen Parker on November 12, 2011

Eileen-Parker-Autism-Community-Conversations

I had an idea.

Parents ask me questions, which I don’t mind at all. Some call out of the blue and others during conversations while they have questions about choosing a weighted blanket. Some of them spark new blog posts, and the rest live with me.

So, I decided to start regular conference calls named Autism Community Conversations.

If you do take part, keep in mind that I do not have all the answers for your child. I know my inner experience and how I have dealt with the world around me, the good and the bad. How I have learned and developed over the years is important, I think, since all people grow and change over the years, so autistic people are no exception.

Mandi, my Community Outreach Coordinator, is the super social person at my company. A job where she is talking with people by phone and email all day is her idea of great fun. In the box below, you can sign up to receive notices of upcoming calls and summaries of what the group of us have discovered. (I see a lot of blog writing in my future.)

Mandi can answer questions about the conference calls or take questions in advance at 612-644-9352 or at Calls@CozyCalm.com.


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With Autism, I Don’t Wanna Hold Your Hand

by Eileen Parker on November 11, 2011

Autism-shaking-handsYes, I am hearing the Beatles tune in my head, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”  This is what popped into my head while my daughter and I were at the Verizon store–a place that always creeps me out.

Creepy #1  I am warmly greeted at the store with major eye contact and a handshake.

Creepy #2  The sales rep calls my name then warmly shakes my hand with full eye contact.

I do like the warmly, but shaking hands is way too intimate for me.  Inside I am screaming, “Don’t touch me!”  I want to look at phones and tablets, rather than eyeballs, which are also too intimate and discomfiting.

Minutes after arriving in the store, I am off kilter and anxious from making my way past these touchy people.  Then my auditory processing gets challenged with a barrage of questions from the sales rep, which stressed me because I’m still processing the first question when he is on the third.

Then help arrives!

As has happened so many times over the years, my 22-year-old daughter (much to my relief) took over the hand-shaking and conversing for me.  I compare it to an American-born  child of parents who don’t speak English.  The child translates.

My daughter knows when I start to feel frustrated and threatened, which can turn into curt responses and clipped questions, which can seem rude, even though it’s not my intention.  I just want them to stop, so I can buy a phone!

Even though it’s my daughter who is upgrading her phone, I am the account holder so he directed questions to me then my daughter would step in and answer.  Even I could recognize his growing confusion.  I am guessing that this is outside of the social script so he felt a little lost, but that is ascribing autism traits to him.  I’ll ask my daughter.

Dear daughter’s explanation:

She says he is confused because when a parents brings in the child, the parent directs.  The parent will ask the child, but the parent does the talking because it’s their account, and the parent okays it.

I think both explanations could be true, along with many possibilities.  It comes down to any person not truly knowing what is going on another person’s mind.

We didn’t buy a phone.  At home, we bought a refurbished one online from Verizon and it cost $6.  And even though Verizon’s website is difficult at best for finding the true price, it didn’t talk.  Whew!

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Autism yes, but I have learned talking scripts – WCCO interview

by Eileen Parker on October 4, 2011

Eileen Parker WCCO TV

Joe the camera guy from WCCO

 

WCCO-TV folks were here last week interviewing me for a story about Cozy Calm and my weighted blankets, which ended up turning to autism also.

I have learned how to media interviews.  When I was in public radio, I was on the asking questions end of the microphone, so it didn’t require much interaction.  But, being on the answering questions end of the microphone, I had to learn.

It started in radio through voice classes primarily for clarity, vocal variety, and pauses.  I still use those skills in daily life even though I can still slip into monotone with my family and friends, but they don’t require vocal variety from me.

Over the years, I taught continuing education courses, so I learned how to teach, which involved speaking and how often to make eye contact.  Then I learned public speaking, which involved all I had learned before, with new skills such as scanning the room and using hand gestures to name a couple.

These are all scripts I have learned that have helped me get along in the world.  For those who haven’t had to learn social skills in a literal way, it can be compared to learning math.  There is a way to do it, so you learn the rules.  Ditto for social skills.

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Autism, Pain, and a Killer Cat

by Eileen Parker on August 20, 2011

I believe I have a high pain threshold.  I have read mentions of this in autism groups, but I don’t know how to gauge what is a high pain threshold since I can’t experience another person’s normal physical pain.  The only direct reference I have received is from a doctor doing a procedure who said I have a high pain threshold.

Due to my issues with proprioception, the awareness of my body in space in relation to other objects, I bump into things a lot.  Hubby will ask me about a big purple, yellow bruise and ask, “Owwww, how did you get that one?”  My usual reply is, “I don’t know.”  Evidently, I should have noticed at the time I hit something.

I know if something is serious because I am in pain right now.  This is the story:

One of our daughters came to stay with us for a while with her cat, named “Cat.”  Syracuse, our huge 20 lb+ Maine Coon cat, hates Cat with a fury.  He will stop at nothing to attack her.  Cat stays in our daughter’s room, but daughter left the door open last night, and the fight started.  I jumped out of bed to stop the fight.  I couldn’t find the water spray bottle, so I did like I usually do with Syracuse, I picked him up.

What was I thinking!?

Picking up a cat in a rage is a bad idea.  He bit into my arm so hard that he tore a piece of my wrist open on the soft underside.  Daughter got him out of her room with a broom.  He bit into that broom and wouldn’t let go of it as daughter pulled him out.

In the bathroom some yellow fat drops were oozing out of the inch-long rip in my skin, which I was quite fascinated with.  It hurt, but it should have hurt a lot.  Hubby cleaned it up and pulled the skin together with band-aids.  I wanted to look at the cut.

Today it hurts like hell.  I thought at the time I should have gotten stitches, but I don’t think that is the problem.  It’s swelling and getting red on the whole bottom side of my wrist, and the veins leading to the cut are throbbing, so I suppose I have an infection.

After I’m done writing, hubby is going remove the band-aids, clean the area, and put hydrogen peroxide on it to kill some infection.  It’s quite fascinating to watch hydrogen peroxide foam up on a cut.  Maybe you think I’m morbid for being interested in big cuts and hydrogen peroxide, but I get fascinated with the littlest things.  I have seen this as a regular thing in children, but perhaps the autistic ones don’t want to be robbed of their fascination by a band-aid.

Knowing that I sometimes don’t feel pain that I should prompts me to be more aware of even a twinge of pain somewhere because it could be something a little more wrong.  That does not mean living as a hypochondriac, as you can tell because I didn’t go get stitches, but it means that I have to be more aware.

I must mention that Syracuse is the cuddliest cat, so much so, that I call him “my baby.”

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Autism Hyperfocus is so Relaxing

by Eileen Parker on July 26, 2011

Autism Distraction

Confusion from Distraction

I have a very chatty family.  I used to wonder why people said things that had no purpose.  I still don’t understand, but hubby explained to me that small talk is a way that people connect.  I have learned to do it on purpose at times.

Beyond the lack of purpose, the constant or intermittent flow of chatter distracts me, and I become either immobile or roam the house doing little things because it’s hard to have my own thoughts.  I feel angry, but as an adult with autism, I have learned to keep it to myself to a point.  Children usually don’t know how to regulate themselves to not “act out” or have a “melt down.”

Once I added my business to the mix, the interruptions increased to a degree that I hadn’t dealt with before.  They are normal and good interruptions that are par for the course of a day of a business owner.  It took two years to learn strategies to cope so I could get projects done.

Okay, I’m not super adept at it and may never be, so I find time to hyper-focus.  Such intense concentration on a topic or project is a feature of autism, and it relaxes me so I can deal with the rest of the world.  It takes me away from distraction and envelops me in serenity.  It quiets my mind and my feelings.

Maybe hyper-focus is autism meditation.

 

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It’s Not Every Day That ABC News Calls to Ask About Autism

by Eileen Parker on June 4, 2011

Yours truly is on ABCNews.com with my photo even!  The reporter, Katie, was doing a story on the American Psychiatric Association’s proposal to remove the Asperger’s diagnosis and grouping it under the autism label for the DSM-5.  The DSM-5 is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

In the story, the experts had their differing opinions, but I wasn’t one of them.  Instead Katie chose to use my positive words for the beginning and closing of the article.  I like positive.  Good call, Katie!

- Eileen.

 

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Autism and scraping our knees and getting back up again

by Eileen Parker on April 18, 2011

“Absolutely be yourself. We are all extraordinary, wonderful people.” It’s 1:00 a.m. as I am watching this video and my eyes area tearing up. I have worked so hard to get myself to where I am. I have a strong relationship, a business, three cats, two children, two step children, and believe me all of that is not easy when you have autism.

If you have autism, watch and/or listen to this video. If you don’t have autism, regardless of functioning level, don’t hold your autistic child, spouse, or family member back. They will metaphorically fall down and bruise their knees, but that is normal, quite normal. So, fall down and see how much higher you can go.

Has it been easy for me? No. Flat out, No. Am I stronger for it, better for it, feeling better about myself for it? Hell yeah!

I read a book a gazillion years ago about a person who became blind. At the blind school, the instructor said to the student that there was a sharp corner to watch out for in the main area. The student asked why they just didn’t pad it. The instructor replied that the world doesn’t cushion us from every possible hurt.

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Sensory Processing Disorder SPD and Showers

by Eileen Parker on March 23, 2011

shower spd

Showers--love 'em or hate 'em

 

A mother with a child who has SPD called the other day about a weighted blanket for her son.  She was explaining her son’s difficulty, and I told her I understand because I also have SPD.

She has so many questions then, and we talked for quite a while.  One of the topics that came up was showering; her son can’t stand it.

Nor can I.

It actually came up in Sensory Integration Therapy.  The OT was working with me to get over the extreme aversion to water.  I didn’t realize how much I reacted to it; it was upsetting actually, like I had to jerk my hand away from a fire.

She had me working up to it by having me run my hands through beans, then rice, then pliable stuff like Play-Doh, then shaving cream then water.

To this day, while I cook, I have to force myself to knead bread dough or squish hamburger to make meatballs.  Cleaning fish fillets is right up there too because it’s wet.  The family goes up to Canada every year fishing, and I’m the one who has a lot of experience filleting them.  C’est la vie.

I have to force myself to take a shower too.  It’s a necessary evil that I dread with a passion, but I relish in the feeling of being clean.  It’s a mental tug of war, but inevitably, the clean wins over the distaste of water.

Back to the conversation with this boy’s mother.  Here is what I told her from my experience:

  • Get the bathroom warm with a heater before the shower because the clammy feeling of cold after getting out of the shower feels awful.
  • Adjust the shower head so the streams of water coming out are “thicker” and have a more gentle feeling hitting the skin.  The thin, hard streams of water feel like pin pricks.
  • Let him pick out his own shampoo, soap, and conditioner because the scent could repel or calm him.  I have a certain soap I have been using for two decades because the smell relaxes me.

 

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