I can’t watch television alone.

A brief description of an adult with autism.

I’ve written, a handful of times, that I “have autism” or “am autistic”. (I prefer the second, as I don’t feel like I have a condition so much as I am a certain way.) I don’t say it for attention, nor as an excuse. It’s a shorthand for people to know that I am going to be weird about some things. I find, though, as I am more clear about my autism (and my explorations of it), that most people do not know that I am going to be weird, nor how. Mostly, they don’t know much of anything about autism, except for some stuff gleaned from articles about Temple Grandin, or anti-vaxxers, or some advocacy group on Facebook.

I’m not writing about Autistic Spectrum Disorders, or “The Way Autistics are the Same as You and Me.” I’m just writing about myself.

My autism has physical manifestations. The main ones are hearing — I have had ringing in my ears since (probably) I was born — and smell. I have an extraordinary sense of smell. Examples (it’s hard for me to think of these, because the way I smell things seems normal to me — it’s only been in interactions with others that I have found how odd this is): I can smell the difference between cane and beet sugar. Both are white sugar, both refined in the same way. Chemically a little bit different. I can smell that. I can smell if coffee has sugar in it. I can smell if someone is sick (usually). I can smell water at a great distance, and can smell the difference between, say, a maple tree and an oak. Or a willow. I can smell when the seasons change (always), and changes in the weather (sometimes). Other things as well. Most perfumes give me an instant headache: piercing, pounding. Some do not. Those, I find infinitely attractive.

Most of the effects/manifestations of my autism are emotional/mental/psychological.

A short diversion.

I can remember, quite well, most of the events of my childhood, going back to the approximate age of six months. Absolutely true. That was the age at which I learned to talk. I had relatives who thought I was possessed by a demon. Other who assumed I would be a child prodigy. Regardless, at that age, I spoke. In complete sentences. I would memorize the books my mother read me and recite them back to her, well before I could walk (nine months). I was also very tall for my age; proportioned normally, but very large. Twenty pounds at five and a half months. I have the doctor’s records; documents recording me talking to various relatives. By a little past two years, I had learned to read. Children’s books. I was no savant. But they were a window into the world, and I mostly lived in the world the books depicted. This condition is now (mostly) referred to as “hyperlexia”. It is usually considered an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, when it is diagnosed at all (mine was not until many years later). Prognosis is not good. Virtually all children with it are mentally and emotionally handicapped. Fortunately for me, my family did not know that.

There were more and other difficulties; most have blended into the difficulties we all have navigating the mire of childhood. My worst was potty training (pretty common with autism). I could not, often, feel when I had to go until it was too late. This lasted until I was fourteen years old. I had my last public accident when I was ten. I told none of my friends about it; didn’t really share it at all, so I don’t know how I feel about it. I eventually developed a large and strong bladder, and can last more than a day, if I have to. I know it’s the wrong response, but it’s the one I had, by myself. A little bit of kidney damage. Not a lot.

I also do not know what feeling hungry means, nor feeling full. I eat when I’m told, mostly, by society or family (if I am so lucky). I stop when my plate is empty. I don’t take seconds. When living alone I tend to lose weight until I bottom out at around 150 pounds. When around others, I tend to gain weight until it becomes awkward, then I control my portion sizes pretty aggressively. That doesn’t always work. People still usually feed me too much, too often.

I am not at all sure anyone really knows what emotions are. I know that I do not experience them the way most people do. I have emotions the way babies have them. With the exception of fear and joy, I need someone else (like a mother) to show me how I feel. I have learned to experience emotions (and it is a gradient; some I feel better, more thoroughly, than others) through the experiences of others near me. More graphically, I can feel things if a person I am “attached to” feels them. Makes me seem a little clingy. Makes me act a little clingy, and very awkward in social situations. I have found that I can navigate alone by following [internal] scripts and observing others closely. Usually some poor schmo decides they like me or are interested in me, and I can get an emotional gist of various social interactions through them. Sometimes not. I get through because people assume you agree with them if you smile a lot, make good eye contact, and talk about yourself deprecatingly; then shut up and smile again. Make small mistakes. Laugh about them. Shut up some more.

My own, authentic emotions are largely hidden from me, unless I share them with someone else, either very closely as I experience them (this is fraught, and almost always explodes painfully), or in writing (much safer, but still not always safe, and almost always results in me “oversharing” and presuming on other’s willingness to engage). I do not believe it is anyone’s responsibility to help me feel my own emotions, so I tend to be a little stand-offish in sharing them, as my motives for sharing are fundamentally selfish.

As a result, I cannot watch television alone. Not the emotional parts; the relationships. It feels hollow and forced. If I am with someone else, I get it. I get involved with the characters and the mood.

None of this is true with music.

I have been an active musician since I was nine. Started with drums and cello (because they said I was too small for the bass, my true love). Graduated to a half-size double bass at age thirteen. Picked up lots of things since. These days I mostly play guitar and mandolin, and give advice to some local musicians who ask (I lost most of my musical instruments in a home fire in 1993; it’s been hard to justify replacing them.).

Music connects directly. There are no explanations for how I should feel, no confusion over what is happy, what is sad, whether I am feeling it or just seeing it on someone else’s face.