New Ways of Understanding Autism by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2019-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Autistic people respond to their interior needs — the needs of their manual brain. This is not a whim. We need to be patient with them; when the cognitive organization is done, they will be able to make a variety of choices.

Brigitte: During the period when I was trying to decode my environment, I had to wear a particular bodysuit that covered my whole body. The garment was completely uniform: the fact of wearing one item of clothing with the same texture on my whole body meant I only had to notice a single thing; I could put any item of clothing over it if I was going out. My brain refused to process clothing made of two different fabrics or textures — that would have been one variable too many. By wearing this layer, I was able to dress appropriately for every situation, especially for work.

Since I had managed to recognize the texture of one item of clothing all over my body, with identical material everywhere, I was able to imagine this material in relation to my body as it moved. Later on, I was able to decode individual articles of clothing visually. However, I only wore one colour, because it was very taxing for my brain to notice two or more colours. So I’ve dressed in blue from head to toe for many years. I am just starting to be able to associate the image of my clothes with their texture — the texture is what I connect with my body and my movements through space.

Having clothes of the same colour allows me to move more easily without my eyes needing to constantly check my clothes. My head can focus on other things more easily if there is only one visual element to process.

When I started doing conference tours in the early 2000s, I had to sleep in many different hotel rooms. I had to pack huge pyjamas with a hood that I wore at night, so I wouldn’t have to decode all those new beds with their sheets, pillows, colours, and so on. Sleeping in my big pyjamas protected me from the multiple exhausting mental identifications that would otherwise have been necessary, and I managed to sleep. I had solved the problem in a very simple way!

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