The Little Routines--I

Joel requires routine in his life. He needs the routines that establish the order of events and give him a sense of stability and love. Without a system, a sequential approach to daily living, he becomes uncomfortable, insecure, edgy, fearful, and emotionally distraught. While this is generally true for people, for an autistic child it is even more pronounced.

Routines do not have to be nor should they be restrictive. They, instead, give a unification to a world that appears to be a random mess. Very little about the world makes sense to a autistic person. It all seems nebulous, frightening, unusual, and completely unpredictable. Very little stays the same every day and it all appears to have changed from the day before. This makes for an existence that could be paranoid and schizophrenic. Instead, many autistics simply prefer a withdrawn personality that is absolutely trusting when confronted. This appears to be ironic at first look, but makes sense in the thought processing of an autistic. If the world is scary, why not deny it and live happily in your own existence, rejecting those things that are threatening. An odd attitude, but think of it this way: if you see a black widow, you know to stay away from it. If you see a black widow, turn away and then turn back, you hope to see it again. But if you don't, you ought to be nervous.

But the autistic is not only not nervous, he also is no longer aware of the existence of the spider in the world. Out of sight, out of mind is the practice for an autistic. Because of this lack of a concept of danger, the next time he sees the spider or any spider, it poses no threat in his mind. I suppose if the spider bit him, he would then be hesitant about spiders, but that is a learned response from experience not from instincts. Not that he is unaware of danger entirely (although know that there is very little instinctual awareness of danger in an autistic's makeup) for he knows to look both ways when crossing a street, and the bark of dog is a little frightening to him. But in general he trusts everyone and all things. It makes for a happy, unaware existence and one in which all of us are envious in many ways.

I recall the children's story about the sister who told her parents that her brother "talked to a stranger." The Dad was horrified and proceeded to tell his little boy about the dangers of strangers and the awful things that could happen to him. The boy became frightened of everyone and everything and the world then looked like a dark foreboding place at every turn. The Mom, of course, fixed this by pointing out that good things in the world and how it is wise to be cautious and a little wary at times but for the most part life is grand and we should not be frightened of everyone. A funny little story to remind us to look at the world optimistically when we can but don't avoid realism when necessary.

For Joel, and many autistics, he cannot see the world realistically but instead see it under a different lens. A view that is ordered, positive, comfortable, rosy, and predictable. Back to the routine idea, Joel needs an ordered system to provide a strong sense of stability to his world. Without it, all is frightening, dark, cloudy, mysterious, and confusing.