Living on the Spectrum with COVID-19

Dear Extroverts,

Never fear!  You will survive COVID!  I know you are not used to keeping your distance from your fellow man.  One day, no estimate on when that day will be, you will be able to gather in groves and chat to your hearts’ content.  Why you would want to do that is beyond me but to each his own.

 

Dear Introverts,

Extroverts are new to this social distancing thing.  Don’t laugh too hard.  If and when the day comes when social distancing is no longer encouraged, it’ll be their turn up at bat again.

 

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IT’S OLD HAT TO ME

With “IT” (my nickname for COVID) came the phrase “social-distancing”.  If I heard it once, I heard it a zillion times on national and local news stations.  It wasn’t a phrase I said a lot myself before “IT” came along.  But it is a phrase I know all too well because I live it every day.  It’s not that I don’t like people; I just don’t like being around them much.

MASK ADVANTAGE

Masking my Autism comes naturally. I’ve had more than a half-century practice at it. Wearing a physical mask that’s required these days due to “IT” doesn’t come naturally, but there is an advantage to my Autism. I don’t have to be so careful about talking to myself in public with a mask covering my mouth.

FORGETTING WHEN I’M OUT OF ZONE

I had a good track record of wearing my mask in public.  But I did forget it more than once at places where masks were required.  On one occasion, I had been in the grocery store for a minute or two before I realized I was bare-faced.  My walk out of the store and to my car felt much longer than it was.  Although it probably wasn’t the case, I felt all eyes were on me since my bare face stuck out like a sore thumb.  I was thankful, though, that the store “masked” guard did not shoo me away at the door.  If that had happened, it would have haunted me for no telling how many years.  I could say I forgot the mask or wasn’t paying attention.  But that wouldn’t be the truth.  My Autism doesn’t stay at home when I go shopping.  I try not to zone out in my imaginary world when I’m out and about, but I sure did that time.

NO CHANCE

One of the “IT” safety rules is not to put your hands in your mouth and not to touch one’s face.  Fat chance of either happening!  It’s hard to stop touching my face when most of the time I don’t even know I’m doing it.  Plus, I’m a nail-biter from childhood.  Nailbiting is one of many ways I stim.  I am also a neck-back-and-shoulder scratcher even when I don’t have the itch to itch.  My way of compensating for this while “IT” is a threat is to double down on another “IT” rule:  handwashing.  And, making more use of my wooden back-scratcher.

GOT SOME WALKING IN

One of the things that came into existence thanks to “IT” was floor up-and-down arrows located at the end of the store aisles.  Since one of my autism traits is that rules are more of a need than a pain to me, I bowed to the arrows.  Now my record was not 100% adherence to all store visits, but my record of obedience wasn’t shabby as compared to a good portion of my fellow shoppers.  I got more walking in because at least half the time I would have to go down a neighboring aisle to go in the right direction in the aisle that had something shelved on my grocery list.  This was a good thing since I’ve heard say that walking is better for my legs than sitting.

CONTACT TRACING – NO PROBLEM

So far, as of this writing, I have not been positive for “IT” or the two family members I live with.  If that should change, contact tracing would be as easy as pie for me.  My contact list would be fewer than the number of fingers on one hand.  Even before IT, it wouldn’t have taxed my memory to list my contacts.  For one thing, I’m retired.  For another, I live on the Spectrum where time alone is golden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hobby Chatting

There aren’t many things I want to do with someone else.  More than one person, forget it since three is all that’s required for me to tune out, go mute, and come up with an escape plan.

My most favorite thing to do with another is to chat about my hobbies.  If my pal shares the same hobby or at least asks me questions, I’m on cloud nine.  I receive a burst of energy after a hobby chat with someone who did not roll their eyes, yawn, or intercept the ball and change the topic.

Unfortunately, my peers who are in the 60’s or above age group, do not share my interest in my hobbies such as electric scooters/bikes, video games, and the latest in technological gadgets.

For example, I have family/friends who have waded into the pool of voice-activated gadgets.  Some have one or two of Amazon’s or Google’s line of products.  Me?  I’m the proud owner of five of Amazon and two of Google.  I only need at the very least one but that hasn’t stopped me.  If I like something, including food products, I will go overboard!

I enjoy talking about all of my gadgets and it is hard to find someone who is as keen on hearing about them as I am to talk about them.

I have better luck with my electric scooters/bikes.  I have six of them.  My nephew will engage me in a chat but I only see him in person three or so times a year.  The only other ones amidst my family/friends who have taken an interest are the youngest of the clan – my grandniece and nephew.  I admit, though, they prefer to ride them than chat about them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Blade Left Standing

I’ve come across many Autism information websites that tell me something I live every day:  perfectionism is very common among people with autism, as well as the general population.  I kid you not, it is an exhausting trait to live with.  On the positive side, it has earned me heaps of praise from family, colleagues, and friends for a job thoroughly and well done.

Such as back in the day when I was a librarian.  I was the library senior cataloger and I was the one who gave most of the books their address on the shelves.  If I passed by a book on the shelf that was out of catalog order, I would put the book back in its rightful place.  This could be a real pain because there were library patrons that could be relied on for putting a book back in any place other than where they found it.

I had long been obsessed with gadgets.  A few years ago, I moved back to my Mom’s house.  Up until then, I had lived in apartments with no lawns.  Thus, having a yard just naturally led to adding to my gadget collection a battery-operated clipper, battery-operated weed eater/edger, and electric leaf blower/vacuum.  No one was more pleased than my younger brother who hasn’t raked a leaf, trimmed a bush, or mowed the yard since.

My autism doesn’t leave me when I am doing yard work.  The drive for perfection lengthens my time with my yard tools.  Before I turn the mower off, I am on the lookout for any tall blade of grass left standing.  If I see one, I will head over to run that single blade down.  I will not put the lawnmower to its resting place until the yard looks like a smooth-like work of art.  I usually follow up the next day with the edger to go after the weeds that I could not attack with the mower.  If I see any weeds or blades of grass sticking up like a sore thumb, they are done for.  I won’t say to myself, “I’ll catch ’em next time.”

My drive for perfection has its limits.  That’s a good thing!  I do admit sometimes that I’ve been licked and have to compromise.  Such as when I take on the alley behind the yard.  I use my weed eater instead of the lawnmower for it since it is a small area.  My neighbors would probably agree with me that I give my portion of the alleyway the shortest haircut.  I admit I overdo it but I can’t help that inner drive within me to not leave an eyesore of a blade standing.

If I haven’t been able to get to the alley for longer than two weeks, I am whipped.  Two weeks or longer is ample enough time for the grass and weeds to multiply beyond my taking them on in one run.  I’ll compromise with my inner self and whack down the tall ones and let the tiny ones live another day.

I do not mow the lawn every day or week for that matter.  I must wait for the grass to grow enough for my lawnmower to digest.  Another reason is I want there to be enough difference between before I mow and afterward.  If there isn’t much difference, there wouldn’t be much to pat me on the back for.

Strangely, I am not a perfectionist on every task I take on.  For example, I am the dishwasher in my household.  My Mom is so kind as to alert me to a dish that hasn’t passed the clean test.  I tell her that I forgot to put my glasses on when I washed dishes.  I’m not absolutely sure if it rarely happens or if my Mom sometimes lets a spotty dish go without comment.

 

 

 

 

House Call

I think all of us with Asperger’s have an in-built talent in some field like putting paint to paper, jiffy-on-the-spot answers to math equations, solving jigsaw puzzles in a flash, etc.  I have witnessed such with school students with Asperger’s who had a particular talent which gave them opportunities to achieve that wonderful feeling of “I did it!”

I have a way with electronic gadgets.  I once received a fine compliment from a colleague who told me that whenever her computer goes to a blank screen, the first thing she did was to call the computer tech office.  But she noticed I would first try to revive it on my own and had a good track record of not having to resort to calling the computer hotline.  I welcome compliments even though I seldom believe they are true of me.  But this one was special because I do take pride in my record of “gadget CPR”.

I have as much knowledge of what’s inside a gadget as I do what’s under my car’s hood.  That being ZILCH!  It’s just I have some inclination to figure out what button to push, or where to click, etc. to get the gizmo to do what I want.  My track record isn’t 100% but not too shabby.  Now my know-how on simple everyday things I come up short, but my computer know-how is compensation.  After all, I can always search on Google on how to boil water.

A family friend of mine thinks I can do anything.  She’s overrated me, but it’s nice to think there’s someone who thinks that of me.  One time she called me about her brand new cellphone.  It was one of those flip phones.  The small leaflet of instructions left a lot to be desired.  At least, she figured out how to make a call and how to receive one.  It’s not that she was wanting it to do all it claimed the leaflet said it could do.  She just wanted to add a contact directory and considering how much she paid for it, she wasn’t asking for the moon and the stars; just the moon.

She asked me to make a house call.  She could have called her phone carrier or the phone store but they don’t make house calls and I don’t charge for house calls.

I became convinced that whoever was the engineer for this phone had one goal in mind when he or she designed it:  to make the most difficult cellphone ever invented for the user to navigate, browse, edit, and input. I almost gave up when the phone’s screen turned blue.  It wasn’t dead but the screen was blank.  In other words, it was in a “coma”.

A lightbulb went off in my Aspie brain when I took another look at the phone instructions’ cellphone diagram.   This phone’s “OK” button had many uses.  One of which was to turn back on the home screen after it is pushed and held for at least five seconds.

As for its keyboard, it is no slight exaggeration to say I was flabbergasted at how difficult this phone requires multiple steps to enter one letter at a time.  It doesn’t have a touch keyboard that lights up on the screen like many cellphones.  My friend who is loaded with common sense came up with a good idea to lessen the load.  I give her credit since I would not have thought up the idea.  When we added her personal contacts, she had me only input their first names.  If all her contacts’ names had been short as her oldest son “Tim”, it would have taken maybe a half-hour instead of an hour and a half house call.