What do we mean by "relational"?

 

Relational. That word keeps cropping up. In the Mission and Ministry module of Rochester Diocese's Bishop's Certificate, they used it to describe God, humans, the Church, God’s Kingdom, mission and ministry. But they never defined what they meant by it.

Now, it has popped up in the Worship and Spirituality module too. Here, it is one of the hallmarks of missional leadership; it is one of the characteristics of Christian spirituality; it is an attribute of God. Again, it is never defined.

So what do we mean by “relational”?

If missional leadership is relational, to whom is it relating and how? The Mission and Ministry module emphasised social relationships almost to the exclusion of everything else: my neurodivergent daughter commented that the Evangelism Styles questionnaire was “all about neurotypical friendships”. Is this all that “relational” means in mission and ministry? And if so, where does it leave autistic people who find neurotypical relationships difficult and are drained and exhausted by social interaction? Can we ever be called to missional leadership? Indeed, can we participate in mission and ministry at all?  Or must we simply be recipients of other people’s mission and ministry? Are we doomed to be forever guests in our own churches, “welcomed” but never belonging?

If Christian spirituality is relational – “knowing God, rather than just knowing facts about Him” – how does this work in practice?  How well can we really know a transcendent God? What does a “personal and social” relationship with a risen and ascended Jesus mean in reality?

If “relational” is an attribute of God, then how do we imagine the relationships in the Godhead? Do we imagine them in human terms? Indeed, is there any other way we can conceive of them? Our understanding of God is limited by our human imagination.

God is not like us, and the relationships in the Godhead are not like ours: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Jesus is human, but this doesn’t mean we should imagine his relationship with the rest of the Trinity in human terms. When I was a Catholic, the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph was held up as the ideal for human relationships, to which all of us should aspire (which is difficult, since Scripture doesn’t tell us much about the Holy Family's everyday life!). But I don’t remember anyone saying that it was a model of the Triune God – fortunately, because it certainly isn’t. Jesus’s relationship with his real Father, though evidently close and intimate, is not like our relationships with our fathers; and though we use female pronouns for the Holy Spirit, Jesus’s relationship with her is profoundly different from his relationship with his mother, Mary.

Since God made us in his image, we might expect our relationships to bear some resemblance to God’s relationships, both with His creation and within the Godhead itself. Scripture gives us clues about the nature and extent of that resemblance. But we disagree about the interpretation of Scripture, and since most of us can’t read Hebrew or Greek, meaning is also lost in translation. And any resemblance is necessarily smaller and meaner than the reality. God is bigger and more complex than we can possibly imagine.

Why does all this matter? Because when we imagine God in terms of human relationships – or worse, specifically neurotypical human relationships - we are making an idol.  

Karen Kilby, in her essay “Perichoresis and Projection”[i], described what she called “reverse projection”, in which theologians project on to God their own experience and understanding of relationships and then use that as the basis for a political and social theology:

“In short, then, I am suggesting we have here something like a three stage process. First, a concept, perichoresis, is used to name what is not understood, to name whatever it is that makes the three Persons one. Secondly, the concept is filled out rather suggestively with notions borrowed from our own experience of relationships and relatedness. And then, finally, it is presented as an exciting resource Christian theology has to offer the wider world in its reflections upon relationships and relatedness.”

As she points out, theologians are free to imagine God in any way they like. And metaphors drawn from human experience can help shed light on the nature of God. The problem arises when theologians use these human metaphors as doctrine. And this is what appears to be happening here.

Every tutor in this course has used the word “relational” to describe both God and humans without ever defining it. It is simply stated as dogma.

“Relational” is a great buzzword, but without a definition, it is no more informative than other buzzwords Christians have used to describe God over the centuries. And it unfortunately encourages humans to imagine God as a group of neurotypical friends who always understand each other perfectly and never have disagreements or rows. Only one tutor warned against imagining the relationships within the Trinity in this way.   

From my perspective as an autistic person, describing God, humans, church, Kingdom, mission, and ministry as “relational” without ever defining what “relational” means for any of these things is typical of the unspoken assumptions that make neurotypical discourse all but incomprehensible. And if “relational” is imagined as neurotypical styles of personal and social relationships – as it seems to be in this course - it excludes people who relate differently. I don’t do relationships the way most people do, and this can cause friction, for which I, as the minority, am inevitably blamed. But my style of relationship is no less “of God” than that of neurotypical people. “My Father’s house has many rooms: if it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2).

Rather than making assumptions about the “right” way of relating, and telling me (implicitly, and on one occasion even explicitly) that I need to be less autistic, this course should acknowledge the limitations of human-derived images of God and teach that there is room in God for everyone.

Image: A tale from the Decameron, by John William Waterhouse - https://johnwilliamwaterhousehome.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/1916-a-tale-from-the-decameron-.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=142384668

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[i] Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity”, Kilby, New Blackfriars October 2000.

Kilby’s views on the significance of the doctrine of Trinity are not universally shared: Gregory S Gorsuch, for example, argues that perichoresis, which he equates with “love”, is “the very ground of our mutuality with God” (Perichoresis and Projection: a response to Kilby’s Trinitarian minimalism, Gorsuch, Sciendo 2023).

However, it is not necessary to agree with Kilby's view of the Trinity for her critique of “social Trinitarianism” to stand. In his heartfelt doctrinal thesis, David Dixon Kinser uses his own experience as father of an autistic child to illustrate how the existence of autistic people profoundly challenges the “social Trinitarianism” that has become dogma, and finds in Scripture evidence that autistic styles of relating are as God-like as neurotypical styles. (Reimagining Relationships: What Autism Reveals About What it Means to Relate to God, Kinser, 2021)

Kindness and peppermints

Even in the darkest times of my life, there have always been people who were - sometimes unexpectedly - on my side. The word that comes to mind when I think of those people is "kind".

One such person was the headmaster of my first primary school. I was constantly in trouble at that school, usually for daydreaming in class or not getting on with other children. Most teachers dealt with it themselves: I spent many an hour standing in the corner with my hands on my head, or in the corridor outside the classroom. And the head of the infants school was quick to give a sting with a ruler round the legs or on the hand. But now and then, the teachers gave up and sent me to the headmaster for more significant correction. 

This school formally used corporal punishment for serious transgressions: the cane for boys, and the slipper for girls. Corporal punishment was only done by the headmaster, and only with parents' permission. My parents would not have hesitated to give permission for the headmaster to slipper me - and indeed, they did give permission for him to cane my eldest brother. 

I have no doubt the teachers expected me to be slippered. But I never was. Instead, the headmaster treated me with kindness. He told me off, of course, though I sensed his heart wasn't really in it. And then he gave me peppermints and sent me back to class. On one occasion when I had returned from a visit to the headmaster's study, the teacher called me out for eating a sweet in class. She was completely nonplussed when I replied, "Mr. Critchlow gave it to me". 

I don't know why he was kind to me. But I recall having some interesting conversations with him. My visits to his study were intellectually stimulating, not only for me, but perhaps also for him. Perhaps he realised I was bored in class and found it frustrating to work with children who weren't as clever as me. Or perhaps he thought encouraging me would be more effective than punishing me. Or perhaps he just liked me. 

Whatever the reason for his kindness, I was grateful. And I did try to behave better, though as I never really understood what I was doing wrong, this was an uphill struggle. 

Sadly the kindness ended when I left that school just as I turned eight. My new school didn't use corporal punishment, but there are other ways of being cruel to children. My new teachers were if anything even worse at dealing with my behaviour than the teachers at my previous school, so I was frequently sent to the headmistress, Sister Winefride. Her preferred way of dealing with me was to contact my parents - and my parents did use corporal punishment. I don't know whether she knew that they would beat me when I got home, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that she did. She was a complete dragon. The one time my parents stood up to her and refused to punish me was when she accused me of stealing. "Frances wouldn't do that," they said - rightly. I knew nothing about the incident. She had targeted me simply because she saw me as a disruptive child.

As I pondered on the difference between the way Mr. Critchlow treated me and the way Sister Winefride did, I was reminded of Jesus's treatment of the woman taken in adultery. There is no doubt that the woman was guilty: she had been caught in the act. And the punishment for adultery was stoning to death. Jesus points out the hypocrisy of her male accusers: "Let him who is without sin among you throw the first stone," he says. The accusers, being teachers and practitioners of religious law, knew that only God is sinless. If they stoned the woman, they would publicly commit the crime of blasphemy, for which the punishment was death. But if they didn't, then they would fail in their duty to deliver God's justice. Jesus had caught them in a double bind. Unable to resolve it, they ran away.  

But what is more interesting is what came next. Jesus, being the Son of God, was sinless. He could legitimately have stoned her. But he chose not to. He showed kindness - or what we perhaps know better as 'mercy'. He refused to punish her, and instead sent her on her way with a gentle warning not to do it again, though as far as we know without peppermints. 

Recently, I read a book about bringing up children by the Christian evangelical pastor Tedd Tripp. He takes the injunction "Spare the rod, spoil the child" (derived from Proverbs 13:24) literally. He advocates beating children with sticks from a very early age, for very minor infractions of rules, and even for things that it is hard to see how a young child could understand were wrong. His book is widely promoted in evangelical circles as a model of Christian childcare. 

The most obvious problem with his book is the literal interpretation of the proverb. The word "rod" is a metaphor for discipline, not an instruction to use a particular form of discipline. After all, the Bible uses the word "rod" in other places where it is obviously metaphorical: Psalm 2, for example, talks about the ruler breaking the nations with a "rod of iron". Sitting a two-year-old on a naughty step is "using the rod" just as much as hitting the child with a stick. Really, all the proverb is saying is that children need discipline. Duh. 

But there's a second problem, which is more relevant to the point of this post. I read his book from cover to cover, and nowhere in it did I find mercy. If a child broke the rules, it had to be punished, even if it apologised, or even if the rule-breaking was unintentional. Mr Critchlow should have slippered me instead of giving me peppermints. Jesus should have stoned the woman taken in adultery. 

Justice is fair, because the consequences of rule-breaking apply to everyone, without fear or favour. Mr. Critchlow's kindness to me was unjust. He gave me peppermints, but he caned my brother. Justice required either that he beat me, or he give my brother peppermints. Sister Winefride, who complained to our parents about both of us, was more just than Mr. Critchlow. 

But justice without mercy is cruel. Punishing someone, child or adult, who apologises for their wrongdoing, or who does not know it was wrong, or who is physically or mentally incapable of coping with the punishment, is far harsher than God's treatment of sinners. I find it hard to understand how a man who applies literally Proverbs 13:24 can completely ignore Proverbs 28:13: "No-one who conceals transgressions will prosper, but one who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy". 

It is perverse in the extreme for adults to expect mercy while showing none themselves. Jesus gives this hypocrisy short shrift: "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy" (Mt 5:7) - which carries the obvious implication that if you aren't merciful, you will not receive mercy. Reinforcing this, in the parable of the 'unmerciful servant' (Mt 18:21-25) Jesus tells the story of a man whose enormous debts were cancelled by his king, but who then kneecapped someone who owed him far less money. When the king found out what the man had done, he changed his mind. He reinstated the debts and threw the man into debtors' prison. "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart," says Jesus. 

Jesus requires his followers to show mercy. The pastor who showed no mercy to his children is a sinner. And he's also a child abuser. He shouldn't be anywhere near children. 

We need to be merciful to each other. To "be kind", as the internet would have it. Our lives depend on the kindness of others: "Kindness must watch for me this side the ground," said the poet James Agee. When there is no kindness, it's hard to stay alive. The kindness of people like Mr. Critchlow made my life worth living. And although my brother did not find kindness there, he did find it elsewhere. 

"Be kind" is not merely a silly internet meme. Our society runs on kindness. When justice rules and there is no mercy, cruelty reigns, the bonds that bind us together fracture, and society fragments. 

If we are to heal ourselves and our society, we must practise being kind. 

Related reading:

Breaking the mould  

Image of peppermints by Themightyquill - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4153632

The colour of suicide

Deep, deep burgundy. The colour of dried blood. But not the texture. Dried blood is flaky. Suicide is globulous, glaucous, glistening, like hot wax slowly rolling towards me across a white plate. If it reaches me, it will engulf me. But I am not afraid. Maybe, if it does, it will be a relief. 

I've looked at suicide before, but then, I didn't notice its appearance. I was too frightened. But now, I am no longer frightened. It is there, and I gaze at it calmly, realising it is part of me. Always has been. Always will be.

Suicide calls me. Until recently, the call was deeply buried, But the events of the last two weeks have brought it to the surface again. 

Maybe, if I contemplate it for long enough, examining its shape, its texture, its colour, its movement, it will stop calling me. Or maybe I will stop resisting, and let it engulf me. 

The perils of being a high-profile autistic person

The last two weeks have been a rollercoaster. 

My BBC Newsnight appearance, where I gave Nigel Farage chapter and verse on what the dossier he obtained from Coutts actually said and how bank risk management works, went down extraordinarily well. I became famous for my calmness as he shouted at me. The calmness was of course a masterclass in autistic masking: my emotions were so deeply buried that I couldn't even feel them, and as a result he couldn't find any buttons to press. That, along with the photographic memory that makes me able to recall exactly what is written on a particular page, proved extremely useful. Being autistic has its benefits. But it is also terribly, terribly dangerous.  

Following the Newsnight appearance, Guido Fawkes did a hit job on me, which dredged up comments I have made in the past about Nigel Farage, my open and forthright opposition to Brexit, and my hatred of the Home Secretary's policy on refugees. I certainly won't apologise for these opinions: they are shared by very many people. But to Farage and his supporters, these opinions discredited me as a credible witness on Newsnight. 

I didn't feel that anything I said was coloured by hatred of Farage, nor by love of banks. To me, I was simply stating the truth as revealed in the available evidence. But when I satirically put on my Twitter biog "hates people, loves banks", people took it as fact. Neurotypical people, so quick to find hidden meanings in other things I say, on this occasion chose not to see the hidden meaning. After the Spectator's Andrew Neil publicly called me a shill for banks, I changed the biog.

Simon Jack's apology made my position worse. He described a BBC report that I knew to be factually accurate, because it was consistent with what my own research had revealed, as "incomplete and inaccurate". This was widely taken as representing the BBC's official position. To their credit, BBC Newsnight distanced themselves from his apology and stood by what I had said, and the BBC's News Channel gave me a solo spot to explain what I had found in my research. But to no avail. NatWest Group's CEO had apologised for the language in the dossier (though not for the account closure), the BBC had apologised - so I was hounded on social media by people determined to force me to apologise too, even though nothing I had said was untrue. Perhaps someone with a different view of the world would have given in. But that's not my style. I refused to apologise, and wrote a post on Coppola Comment expaining why the truth matters. 

Farage went gunning for the entire NatWest Group Board, and started a wider campaign promoting himself as the "voice of the unbanked". Under pressure from a clearly rattled Government, NatWest Group's CEO, Alison Rose, stepped down, followed by the Coutts CEO. The media reported that she had broken client confidentiality and GDPR. There's no evidence she has done any such thing, so being me, of course I said so. That didn't go down well either. 

Now, NatWest Group is negotiating a settlement with Farage that involves cancelling the notice given to close his Coutts accounts and giving him a financial sweetener, no doubt in return for shutting up and leaving the Board alone. It is over. The truth has lost out to politics. 

I didn't know it, but throughout this storm, I was being watched by Farage and his supporters. Perhaps someone with better understanding of how politicians behave would have realised that they would do this, but it honestly didn't occur to me. I know now that everything I said was recorded, with lawyers at the ready in case I put a foot wrong. When I inevitably did, they pounced. 

I am now being threatened with legal action for libel. I'm not going to discuss this here, except to say it has to do with comments I made on Twitter in the context of a financial analysis of the limited company Reform UK Party Ltd., and it cites as evidence of "malicious intent" my refusal to back down over the facts of Farage's account closure and Alison Rose's resignation, and my previously expressed opinions as reported by Guido Fawkes. 

I don't believe anything I said was libellous. But clearly, others think it was. And that brings me to the point of this post. 

Despite my apparent facility with language and ability to explain things with clarity, I have significant communication difficulties. I tend to take things very literally and don't understand the nuances of social interaction. I say things that to me appear straightforwardly factual, and am then surprised and shocked when people read into my comments meanings that I never intended. I create storms without meaning to, because I don't understand or anticipate the emotional effect of my comments on other people. I am vulnerable to allegations of deviousness, manipulation and even dishonesty, because I don't see that my comments can be read in more than one way. 

My inability to understand how people might interpret what I say has caused me serious problems all my life. As a child, I was punished for "upsetting people". As an adult, I have lost friends, relationships and jobs. I have tried and tried to change how I communicate, and much of the time I do manage to hide my difficulties. But from time to time I still say things that get me into an enormous amount of trouble. And I still don't understand why. Why are people so determined to find hidden meanings in statements of fact? Why are people so quick to attribute malicious intent? And why are they so inconsistent - taking what I say literally one minute, then the next minute, reading into my comments things I never intended?

My persistent difficulties with communication are the reason why I finally, desperately, asked for an autism and ADHD assessment in May this year. I needed to know why I struggle so much with social interaction that others find easy. And now I'm coming to realise just how vulnerable my autism makes me. 

The higher my public profile, the greater the risk that my communication difficulties and inability to understand social nuances will cause me serious problems. People like the clarity and rigour of my financial analyses, but are unforgiving of any mistakes in my communication. And mistakes there inevitably are, because good though my mask is, it only gives me the appearance of "normal" communication. The deficiencies are still there. They will always be there. And for that reason, my high public profile is dangerous to me. 

There aren't very many high-profile autistic people. Perhaps this is why. The risks arising from a high profile in a world that refuses to understand, let alone accommodate, autistic communication styles are just too great, and the costs of mistakes are far too high. 

Where do I go from here?

Grief is orange

One of the most troubling aspects of my autism is my inability to name or describe emotions - a condition called "alexithymia". Some years ago, a friend expressed astonishment that I couldn't name emotions. I was equally astonished that she could. But she wasn't the only one. Almost everyone I encountered could name, describe and express emotions in ways that other people found acceptable. It seemed to come naturally to them. But it didn't to me. 

Wordsmith that I am, I know hundreds of words describing emotions. They buzz around in my head like a swarm of bees, inviting me to pick one. But I don't understand them. They are just words. They don't meaningfully link to what I am feeling. I don't know which one to choose, and I end up confused and overwhelmed (yes, I know these are emotional words, but they are for you, they don't describe what I actually feel).

For some reason, my friends had learned to name and describe emotions in childhood, but I had not. Why, I did not know. I had learned the words, but never connected them to feelings. My non-verbal expression of emotions upset people, but I had no other means of expressing what I felt. And I still don't. 

My therapist gave me a framework that he thought would help resolve my confusion and make it easier for me to express emotions verbally. He restricted emotions to four: grief, anger, fear, happiness. Pick the one that best represents what you are feeling. The restricted list does help in one respect: it reduces the clamour from all those words demanding that I pick them, which helps me to remain calmer - if I remember to use the list. But it's still just a list. I do not know whether the words I choose actually represent what I feel. And sometimes the words are simply inadequate. A restricted list doesn't help when you are being asked detailed questions about how you handle emotions in yourself and others. 

During my autism assessment, there was one particular question, which I think was about fear, that I could not find words to answer. Overwhelmed with a ghastly feeling which I could not begin to describe, I fell silent.

But although I could not find words to describe it, I could see what I was feeling. I looked deep into myself and contemplated it. It had colours, and a shape, and texture. I could not tell my assessor - or you - what that emotion was, but it was a swirly elliptical shape, oriented northeast - southwest with a depression in the middle, made up of an unpleasant mixture of dark browns and dark blues with a lacy tracing of white. 

I don't know why I never realised before that I see emotions in colour. After all, I see so many other things in colour. Maybe I was so desperate to find the words to describe them - to be normal - that I ignored my own, highly visual experience. Or maybe I was too busy trying to run away from them. In that psychologist's room, I couldn't run away. I had to stop and look. And for the first time, I let myself see. 

I've since realised that other emotions also have colour, and texture, and shape. Mostly, I don't know what the emotion is, I only know what it looks like. So I can't tell you what I am feeling. Maybe I should paint it. 

But there are signs that now I am finally recognising emotions as visual objects, I am beginning to connect what I see with some of the words that buzz around in my head. 

Recently, it dawned on me that my autism is sufficiently severe to be a serious disability in the workplace, and that this may make the safe, well-paid employment for which I long impossible. 

As I contemplated this reality, I was overwhelmed with - orange. My head filled with various shades of orange, in a geometric shape which was almost a square but with the two top corners cut off, with lines running horizontally and vertically through it. The orange shades had a texture almost like muslin: diaphanous, and with visible threads. And where the corner was cut off at the top left, there was a dark green spike, like broken glass, against a brightly lit, faintly blue background. 

And two words came to me. Grief, and loss. Not the grief of bereavement, but grief for the person I might have been, and for the loss of hope. I hoped I could change. Indeed I clung to the belief that if only I tried hard enough I could change, that I could learn to name and express emotions in a socially acceptable way, to handle social interactions better, to cope with uncertainty and change. To do jobs that involve dealing with people. To be a good "team player", since that seems to be expected of women in employment. But autism is permanent. There is no cure. That is my loss, and my grief. It is orange, and green, and the light shines through it. 

I also discovered that music, which as you know I hear in colour, can change the colour of emotion. I was sitting in the car listening to Brahms's first symphony. At first it had no effect - but then the key changed, and the orange in my head gave way to a deep calming purple. And I immediately felt better.  

You'd think that orange would be a happy colour. But not in my world. Grief is orange. 

What's the use of a diagnosis?

"What are you going to do with it?" asked a friend of mine when I told him about my autism diagnosis. It seemed an odd question. What does anyone do with a diagnosis of a lifelong incurable disability?

In truth, I don't know what I'm going to "do with it." 

I originally thought it might help me find and, importantly, hold on to stable employment. But on reflection, I'm not sure it will. In fact it might make it considerably more difficult. I already had two characteristics that tend to put off prospective employers, namely my gender and my age, and I have now added a significant disability. Of course, the law nominally protects me from discrimination on all of these grounds: but there is a vast gulf between the law and reality. I discovered after my diagnosis that only about 20% of autistic people are in employment. The rest are either precariously self-employed, like me, or living on benefits. What a tragic waste. 

But although I do need a stable well-paid job (more on this shortly), that wasn't why I got the diagnosis. I asked for a diagnosis because I needed to know. Many people self-diagnose, not least because NHS waiting lists for adults are years long and private diagnoses are costly. But for me, self-diagnosis was not enough. I needed a formal diagnosis to quell my own self-doubt - to silence the critical voice inside my head that insists there's nothing wrong with me and I'm just being dramatic. I do my best to ignore this voice, but at times it is very, very loud. I thought that if I could wave a formal diagnosis backed up by a detailed report, it would shut up. How wrong I was. 

"Everyone is a little bit autistic," said my friend. I felt as if he had torn up the report and scattered the pieces on the floor. "See, you're making it up," shouted the voice in my head. 

I know my friend is wrong. Research shows that there are significant differences between autistic brains and neurotypical brains. But my assessment did not include brain scans. It was done purely on the basis of self-reported and observed behaviour. The report says that my self-reported behaviour is "clinically significant", suggesting autism, on almost all criteria, and my observed behaviour, on a clinical severity scale, indicated "moderate autism", though it does not explain what this means (I have asked for an explanation). But I do not know whether my brain is actually different from that of neurotypical people. So although I know my friend is wrong, his words cast doubt - again - on the reality of my autism. 

Why did I tell people about my autism? I could have kept quiet, or just told a few close friends. But I seem to need validation from other people. I need to be believed, because otherwise I won't believe myself. The trouble is that, as I have discovered, there's no guarantee that people will believe me, even with a formal diagnosis. I now realise I should have been a lot more careful about whom I told. 

It's astonishing how many people will cheerfully gaslight someone with late-diagnosed autism. They wouldn't question a diagnosis of, say, a congenital heart condition. Nor would they say "everyone has a little bit of a congenital heart condition". But they apparently feel it is perfectly ok to tell someone they aren't really autistic, or that "everyone is a little bit autistic". 

Anyway, I'm not "a little bit" autistic. I'm significantly autistic and I also have ADHD. Perhaps surprisingly, I'm not angry that this wasn't discovered earlier. In fact I'm rather pleased with myself. A child diagnosed with moderate autism and ADHD now would be given substantial support, and an adult would be able to request reasonable adjustments to help them cope in the workplace and would be protected from discrimination and harassment. I have had no support, no adjustments and no protection. Instead, I have been bullied, punished and driven out of work. But I have survived. That's something to celebrate. 

To my surprise, the immediate effect of having a formal diagnosis was to give me permission to feel exhausted. I hadn't realised how tired I was... I had been doing less and less freelance writing, because I found it draining. However, it had become my main source of income, so I was reluctant to give it up. But it left me with no energy to write my own blog, or do any singing, or even read a book. And the thought of pitching ideas made me feel sick. So when my freelance work evaporated completely in April, it was something of a relief. But ever since, the voice inside my head has been nagging me to get a job. So the diagnosis has already been helpful. Taking on a new job when I'm still utterly exhausted from the last one is a very bad idea. 

I will have to find a job at some point, because my savings aren't limitless and although I'm earning some money, it's not enough to live on. But it's not urgent. For now, I need to rest, and read, and sing, and do the garden, and write pieces like this, and rediscover the fun of writing finance and economics stuff. And finish writing the book that is now two years overdue because I couldn't find enough energy to complete it. Eventually I expect I will be able to work again - though I doubt if I will ever again do as much freelance writing as I used to. 

Looking back, it's evident that during my adult life, and probably during my childhood and teenage years too (my awful school reports suggest this), I've suffered repeated episodes of autistic burnout. I've written about some of them on this blog - interestingly, I labelled them "Slow burnout" long before I even suspected I was autistic. I usually managed to get myself out of the job or situation that was causing the burnout, and resist finding another job until deteriorating financial circumstances forced me to do so. And I've just unwittingly repeated the same pattern. 

The question is whether, knowing what I now do, I can break the cycle of overwork, exhaustion and burnout. I will need a lot of support - it's not easy to break the habits of a lifetime. I've joined an autistic women's group, and I shall look for other sources of support. Above all, I will need the help of friends: the long-standing, loyal friends who didn't turn a hair when I told them I was autistic, and the new friends I'm sure I will meet as I travel along this strange yet oddly familiar road. 

Related reading:

Slow burnout series (to find these posts, click the "Slow Burnout" label on the sidebar)

Diagnosis

 

Behind the mask

As those who have read my previous post know, I have recently been diagnosed with autism and inattentive-type ADHD. Most of the people who saw my announcement on social media and read my post were kind and supportive. I am really grateful to you all. But there were one or two people who didn't seem to understand what this diagnosis means for me. 

Receiving a diagnosis of autism is not like receiving a diagnosis of, say, cancer. Autism isn't an illness. It's not something that people acquire or develop in later life. I was as autistic at three as I am at sixty-three. All the diagnosis has done is belatedly recognise a disability I have had for all of my life. 

Nor is autism something that people can overcome with medical treatment or therapy. I will be autistic for all of what remains of my life. There is no cure. Counselling might help me work out what I can and can't do, and indeed I have been advised to seek counselling. But it won't make me any less autistic. 

Autism is not a lifestyle choice. I did not obtain a diagnosis because it was "fashionable", or to justify an unconventional lifestyle. I was not looking for sympathy or excuses for my persistent social and emotional difficulties. And I was not trying to avoid taking responsibility for my behaviour. Far from it. 

I wanted to find out why, despite the considerable time, effort and money I have spent trying to learn how to "behave better", I still upset people without meaning to and act in ways that others consider weird. Why I still find social engagements exhausting and draining. Why I still melt down when things get too much for me. The event that sparked my decision to ask for a diagnosis was a hugely embarrassing meltdown in a doctor's surgery.  

Now, as I come to terms with the knowledge that my social functioning and emotional management are permanently impaired, I find myself wondering why I spent so many, many years trying to fix something that was never fixable. I suppose I hoped that somehow, someday, I would get better. Now that hope is gone, and in its place must come acceptance, not only on my part, but on the part of all who know me. My "difficulties" are part of me. They are, we might say, who I am. 

As a child, and even as an adult, my problems with social interaction and emotional management were dismissed as "bad behaviour" that I could correct through my own efforts. As one of my managers at SBC Warburg said, "Frances needs to work on her social skills". 

To motivate me to improve my behaviour, I was provided with a judicial mix of sticks and carrots. Did this work? Well, sort of. I copied the behaviour of others, mostly successfully, and eventually learned how to conform to social expectations. But oh my goodness people's behaviour was confusing. It appeared to be a mixture of double standards, unspoken expectations and value judgements, none of which I understood.

Initially, I modelled my behaviour on how older people treated me. But this turned out not to be a good strategy. Repeating to others things my mother had said resulted in punishment rather than approbation. And at the age of about 9, patting one of my school teachers on the head because I was pleased with something she had said did not go down well. From this I learned that the way my parents and teachers treated me was not necessarily a good model for how I should treat others. I found this confusing. 

Since modelling my behaviour on that of older people didn't work, I decided instead to copy the behaviour of children that older people regarded as "good". As long as I could remember what they did (or didn't) do that older people received approvingly, and replicate it appropriately, I could avoid the sticks and I might even qualify for a carrot. But this is harder than it sounds. It meant accurately observing other children's behaviour and recalling it at the right time. I didn't always know what the "right time" was, so now and then I replicated supposedly "good" behaviour at the wrong time and ended up in trouble again. And "good" children aren't always well-behaved (this is one of the weird double standards that I have never understood). So I was sometimes punished for bad behaviour when I had copied what I thought was good behaviour. I found all of this very confusing. 

Some aspects of my behaviour proved resistant to change. Despite being repeatedly told I must learn to control my temper, I remained prone to meltdowns. Working in groups was difficult and stressful, and I had a distressing tendency to say or do things that upset or annoyed people. And I didn't socialise much with other students, preferring to pursue my own interests independently. Because of this, I rarely received the promised carrots: on the only occasion that I ever came close to receiving a medal for Good Conduct at my secondary school, some girls in my class took it upon themselves to complain to the Head about my behaviour. My form teacher tore them off a strip in front of the class, but I still lost the medal.  

As an adult, I sought help. I spent eight years in individual and group therapy to try to understand why I struggle with relationships and learn how to manage them better. The therapeutic model was Transactional Analysis, which is rather a good model for someone who doesn't naturally understand how people interact. "What do you say after you say hello?" asked Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis. This is a question that I had often asked myself. I genuinely didn't know. 

I found Berne's extensive documentation of "pastimes" and "games" that people play enormously helpful. Many of the pastimes seemed silly to me - I'd much rather talk about something interesting - but if that's what I had to do, then I would learn to do it. And learning how to avoid getting into nasty games* turned out to be essential for my survival in the workplace. 

One of the members of my therapy group took issue with the way in which I approached meeting new people. "I don't get you," she said. "You don't do what I expect." Puzzled, I asked her what she expected. "I would expect you to find out about people. You know, by questioning them." It had never occurred to me to do this. In fact I find being questioned by a stranger unpleasantly intrusive, so if I had thought about it at all, I would have assumed that others dislike it too. But apparently this was wrong. So I decided I could learn to do this "social questioning". I watched what she and others did and copied them. 

Now, I've learned how to ask people where they are from and what kind of journey they have had. I've learned to listen attentively while they talk enthusiastically about their children, their pets and their holiday plans. I can even talk about the weather, if I really must. I've also learned how to make eye contact, since it seems to be expected. In a social gathering, I can engage most people in conversation - what is known as "working the room". And I can honestly say I usually enjoy it. But I still find entering existing conversations hard, and I still at times find myself isolated. And it's exhausting. Last week, I attended social gatherings on two days running. The next day I was so tired I spent much of the day asleep. 

But I wonder whether I should have responded to my therapy group member differently. I didn't do what she expected, but equally, she didn't do what I expect. My idea of getting to know someone is not to question them, but to have a conversation about something interesting. The challenge is to find something that both of us are interested in. I'm afraid that doesn't generally mean their children or their holiday plans, though I might enjoy talking about their pets, as long as they are happy for me to talk about animals (which have long been one of my absorbing interests). But I have a range of other fascinating topics we could talk about...  

She expected me to adapt my behaviour to meet her expectations. And because I have been criticised all my life for my social behaviour, I assumed that this was reasonable, and tried my best to do so. But is it reasonable, really? Why should I adapt my behaviour to her expectations, while she makes no attempt at all to adapt hers to mine? Perhaps it's not me who has the problem, but those who are unable (or unwilling) to understand that the way I interact with the world is different from theirs. 

In my individual therapy sessions, we discussed what I called my "mask" - the fake "self" that I had created in years of trying to conform to social expectations. I saw my real self as having a seriously disfigured personality, and I believed - with, to be fair, some justification - that if I allowed people to see my real self, they would reject me. So I hid her away behind a mask of social conformity. 

I dared not let the mask slip, but it became more and more difficult to maintain it. By the time I was in my mid-30s, the mask was fractured and my real self was showing, to the detriment of both my home life and my employment - which rather reinforced my view of her as disfigured and destructive. And I was exhausted and burnt out. 

My therapist tried to help me to come out from behind the mask. But I now know that what he really helped me do was build a better mask. Looking back, it seems odd that my therapist apparently never suspected I might be autistic, even though many, many autistic women create masks like mine. Perhaps my original mask was better than I thought.

But no mask is perfect. Good though my therapy-built mask is, it slips now and then. And it is terribly costly to maintain. I am so tired... 

Maybe, eventually, I will come out from behind the mask I have so carefully constructed. But I'm not ready yet. So when you meet me socially, I will be the person you've always known me to be. But if you really want to understand me, then remember that what you see is not what I am. I've given you a glimpse in this and my previous piece of what is behind the mask.

And if I disappear, and don't answer your calls or your emails, it's not because I don't want to know you, it is because I've taken off the mask for a while. I will be back. 

Related reading: 

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Ursula Le Guin

The Ones Who Stay In Omelas - Coppola Comment

* In Transactional Analysis, "games" are almost universally negative, many are hurtful, and some are deadly.