Things I’d love to be normal — Asking to open gifts in private

I’ve never really enjoyed my birthday.

Like I actively dread them.

Which doesn’t make sense to me. Because birthdays combine so many individual things that I love. I love eating to excess. I love attention. I love getting gifts (though admittedly that’s only recently). I love dressing up in bright colours and I like parties. I’m not even against a piñata.

But I fucking dread my birthday every year.

As part of my autism, I experience something called alexithymia. One way to understand alexithymia is that I struggle to express my emotions. It is often very tricky to explain what I’m feeling.

Interestingly, I don’t actually experience my alexithymia as primarily a communication issue. I don’t find it super difficult to communicate how I feel because I can’t find the words. As previously discussed, I am a man of many words. I actually experience it as a difficulty in understanding or even identifying my feelings. It’s almost like I have to work out my emotions.

Maybe it’s best I explain it. Like, I’m be going about my day and suddenly something will be up with me. I’ll feel a feeling of some kind and I won’t be able to identify it straightaway. So I have to sort of interrogate it. I’ll ask myself questions like:

• Dude, are you just hungry?
• What just happened? Has it happened before?
• What stimuli are there? Is there a loud noise/bright light nearby?
• Is this feeling familiar or new?
• If you were sad, what could that be about?
• If you were frustrated, why might that be?

It’s a really interesting process. (Dear readers, this is a call to action! Let me know if the doobly doo if you want more writing on it!)

If I lost you for a second, don’t worry. Suffice it to say, that I don’t enjoy my birthday and I don’t know why.

Until today.

Because today I think I finally worked out what the ‘Birthday Feeling’ is. Let me explain.

Today, potentially the sweetest thing that has ever happened to me happened to me.

On Sunday, my two year old daughter went to the theatre with her mum. In the play, apparently, there was a character who wrote someone a letter. So that night after the show, the little one decided she wanted to write a letter to me, just like they did in the show.

Which is inarguably adorable.

Her sainted mother then wrote me a lovely note about how fantastic my daughter is (which I wholeheartedly agree with!). On the bottom of the letter, my daughter drew a picture of me which absolutely captured my abstract essence. They even put it in an envelope addressed to me! Amazing!

And, even more lovely for me was, knowing that I’m not one for surprises, the little one’s mother even sent me a message to know to look for it when I got to the school to pick the little one up. No on-the-spot panics. Delightful.

So basically everything’s excellent.

I know for a fact that I have an incredibly lovely gift coming from the person I both love most in the world and, much more importantly, also know for a fact to be the best human in the world. I’ve got a huge smile on my face and my heart is full.

I get off the bus to her school for pickup. I find her upside down on a hammock. Obviously. She’s rad. After the necessary faffing around and cajoling, I asked if she wanted to give me the letter. Her face lights up. We run into the building to get it from her cubby, both of us equally unabashedly happy. As she hands me the letter, all of a sudden it happens. I feel it.

The birthday feeling.

As she looked at me, I suddenly felt like I was about to… I don’t know… What’s slightly less dramatic than exploding (metaphorically)? Fizzing? In that moment I guess you could say I felt like I was about to vibrate out of my body in discomfort. That’s it. I was as uncomfortable as I could be.

I remind you, dear reader, that the reason I am exquisitely uncomfortable (in the bad way) in this story is because my beloved daughter handed me a really thoughtful gift.

The ‘Are you doing an autism?’ Test

Hello. How are you? You good? Great.

Right, I want to talk about something I do all the time these days but before I do so I want to make it absolutely clear that I have no actual credentials on this subject. I am not a professor or anything and I don’t claim to be speaking facts. For those in the cheap seats, I am not an expert on autism. So everything I say is how I conceptualise my autism NOT (I REPEAT NOT) me declaring to anyone ‘what autism is like’ or ‘how autism works’.* I’m just a writer with self diagnosed autism and a desire to share his experiences with those who like hearing them.

OK, cool? Cool.

I think sometimes it’s useful to think about autism as something I am. I process the world in certain ways it seems to me and I definitely describe myself as being autistic. Saying I am autistic is definitely helpful to me and describes something about my character.

But I also think, in addition to autism being something one is, it’s also sometimes useful to conceptualise autism as something one can do. Hence the phrase ‘doing an autism’. When I say ‘doing an autism’ I’m referring to classic autistic behaviour. The reasons I might be doing this are many. I could be highlighting it for comedy.** I could be trying to avoid the behaviour personally. I could be trying to explain what it feels like or illustrate something about autism. You get it.

‘Doing an autism’ to me means doing classic autistic behaviour in a way that’s relatively typical and/or obvious.

Interrupting Fun Fact About Autism: Not realising you’re ‘doing an autism’ is a classic example of ‘doing an autism’.

As an autistic person who is trying to learn to speak emotions, I often find it useful to check to see if I’m doing an autism. If I’m feeling a big new feeling or a social interaction isn’t feeling like I expect or anything like that, I find it useful to take a moment to undertake my ‘Are you doing an autism?’ test.

Here’s my ‘Are you doing an autism?’ test:

1. Clarify what you believe.
2. Clarify what you’re doing or thinking
3. Ask yourself, do your actions/thoughts reflect your values?
4. If not, you very much might be doing an autism.

There’s exceptions to every rule but I find this a place to start when I’m feeling a little emotionally lost.

To be clear this isn’t a ‘thing’. I didn’t read this in a book or anything. This test is something I made up because I find it helpful.

In fact, almost like I planned this article, it was super useful on this exact occasion.

Back to you in the studio, Matt

Thanks, Matt.

So when you last joined us I was freaking out about a note from my little one.

Let’s run the ‘am I doing an autism?’ test!

1. I believe that my daughter is amazing. I love receiving gifts. This is an amazing gift.
2. I feel intensely uncomfortable about this gift from my daughter.
3. No. These things do not match.
4. I’m probably doing autism.

And, as I write this 8 hours later, I’ve finally figured out what a big part of the birthday feeling is.

I hate it when people watch me open gifts.

Quick aside…

We’re doing a little break in the main article now to do a quick list that I need you to know for the rest of the article to make sense. So imagine we’re doing a fun little interlude. I’m imagining the soundtrack to this being that piece of classical music they used in How I Met Your Mother. It goes ‘diddle iddle duh. Diddle iddle duh. Diddle iddle iddle iddle iddle duh’.**** Anyway imagine that music from the frankly incomprehensive description. I’m not here to hold you hand. On with the interlude!

Some Stuff A Lot of Autistic People Aren’t Generally Super Keen On

• Surprises
• Intense eye contact
• Hard to read emotional situations
• Challenging social situations (especially ones with unstated but very real etiquette expectations)
• Having to hide or hold back what we actually think
• Not being able to be honest
• Hurting people because they respond inappropriately without realising.
• Not choosing their own stuff
• And many many more

You know just in case any of that comes up later.

Back to you, Matt.

Thanks, Matt.

So it turns out that receiving gifts is an autistic nightmare.

Genuinely, even thinking about it now makes me feel a little bit nervous. Here’s why!

First of all when you get a gift, everyone looks at you. In the eyes! What are you supposed to do? Where are you supposed to look? What do I do with my stupid meaty face? Not a fan of that.

Worse than that, they are all waiting for me to make a reaction. And I never know how to react to anything. I definitely don’t hide initial reactions well. From experience, my initial reaction is also not the desired or anticipated one. But here I have a small crowd waiting for me to respond to an unknown stimulus. And to do that well. Not a fan of that.

Worse than that, this is one of those scenarios where there are emotional traps. You have to be polite for one. Never an easy task. You have to be grateful. Which isn’t always easy***** People want to know what you think but they also want that to be nice. That’s not necessarily my forté either. Plus the gift itself is probably an in-joke or a result of a conversation I don’t remember. Oh, and this is probably emotionally important to them too. They spent money on it. They spent time and effort on it. So there are literal emotional stakes to all this. Definitely not a fan of that.

Worse than that, there is no escape. If you feel overwhelmed and make your excuses and run to the bathroom or something, people will wait for you. You can’t put it off or escape it. Viewing the reaction of the person receiving a gift is a traditional and expected part of the gift giving process. Really not a fan of that.

But, here’s my question. Need it be?

Is this something that we actually have to do?

Because I don’t think the thing that stresses me out is actually receiving the gift. It’s being watched opening it and having to produce an acceptable initial impression in an emotionally pressurised environment that I can’t escape from.

Can we just… not do that?

Because I can’t describe to you how amazing it feels to open a gift in private.

I get on my bed. I open it slowly. I realise what it is. I can react how I want. I can laugh. I can feel loved. I can be incredibly grateful. I can google it. I can be confused. I can raise my eyebrows. I can find the polite words I need to.

But more than that, I can get used to it being something in my life. I can work out where I want it to live in my apartment. I can work out which drawer it will live in. I can imagine myself using it. I can get hyped on it.

The way I experience autism means I like to get used to new ideas. New things scare me a little. So it always takes a while for me to feel comfortable around both new ideas and new objects. You could almost think of it as buffering.

But once I’ve done the buffering I can do all the things I’m supposed to do. When I’ve done all the autistic processing I need to do I can thank the person properly. I can embrace them for gift without worry. I can give the grateful, polite response that the gift giver wants to hear and that I genuinely want to give. A response that’s basically impossible in the moment.

I want to be clear here. This initial difficult reaction to receiving gifts happens even in literally the best of circumstances. Because that is what happened yesterday. Yesterday I received a gift in the literal best of circumstances for an autistic person (in my humble opinion):

• I knew what the gift was in advance (or I knew the kind of thing to expect).
• I knew exactly when and how I’d get the gift.
• I was in a location in which I felt comfortable.
• I knew that I would love the gift.
• The person giving me the gift is my favourite person and, as stated above, the best person that currently exists.

And my mind still did an autism and I got the birthday feeling.

That kind of conclusive evidence leads me to believe that innovation is both possible and necessary.

Here’s my pitch:

It should be normal to be ask to open gifts in private and thank people later.

There’s a number of ways we could do this. We could:

• Drop presents off the day before the party so thanking could happen at the party.
• Collecting presents at the party with the expectation that they’d be opened later. Thank you cards/calls would follow.
• Have a break in proceedings for the person to go and open gifts in privacy and come back

I don’t think the practical method really matters too much on this one. It’s the principle. We could replace the watching of gift opening with anything. I just want to be able to opt out of being watched while opening gifts.

Because honestly, most of the time, making life easier for people with autism is just letting them do what is comfortable to them. Autistic people, and other folks who don’t like receiving gifts for whatever reason, often know what would make them feel more comfortable and all they need from people is for them to be cool with it.

In fact, that’s exactly what I’m suggested. I would love it to be normal for me to be weird around gift giving. I’d love to for it to be normal to want time alone with a gift before I interact with the gift giver. And mostly I would love it to be normal to be able for ask for this kind of accommodation, and for it to be normal for others to ask me to accommodate their idiosyncrasies. Because, as I think we all know, these accommodations can make all the difference in a person’s life.

Before we wrap up, I’m worried that this suggestion is ripe for misinterpretation. To be clear I don’t mean any of the following:

• That watching someone open a gift is wrong or bad or anything like that.
• That anyone who has watched me open a gift has inflicted anything on me or anything.
• That anyone should feel bad for watching people opening gifts.
• That some people don’t enjoy this whole process.
• That this is something everyone or even anyone should do.

And, to be crystal clear, I also want to make sure I don’t sound super ungrateful. I am not saying that I don’t appreciate the gifts. Gifts are lovely. I’m not saying that any of the gifts I’ve received are bad. They aren’t. I’m not saying that I’m mad at anyone and noone has done anything wrong.

I’m also not saying that receiving gifts is only hard for autistic people (or even all autistic people). It’s hard for people for a wide variety of reasons. The reason it’s hard for me is autism, but I’m not trying to claim a universal truth or anything.

I’m just saying that I would like to do things a different way because it’s more comfortable for me. I know it’s a little weird, but I don’t think it would ruin anyone else’s fun. In fact, I don’t think it would change much for most people. But it would change so much for me.

Basically, when all said and done, I just think it would really nice to have the option of opening a gift in private.

I think I’d dread my birthday less if I could.

And that would be awesome.

Until next time, lovelies. Thanks for reading.

Thanks so much for reading you guys! It’s a constant delight to be able to share my writing with all of you.

Speaking of which, I just got my 50th follower! How exciting! Thanks for everyone who has subscribed thus far. I’m incredibly flattered! And if you haven’t done so yourself, I would love it if you did!

Feel free to leave a like on the blog, if you liked it. Actually, I just find out today that you can fit the clap button up to 50 times on any given article. So feel free to go nuts!

And as always, I’d love to know what you think. Do you like receiving gifts? Is there anything you would change about the gift giving process? Let me know in the comments below!

You’re looking wonderful. Whatever you’re doing is working and I’m here for it.

* Whatever the fuck that might mean.

** Not for nothing, writing ‘I could be higlighting it for comedy’ is absolutely doing an autism. Fuck it, I’m leaving it in. You can’t stop me future Matt.

*** Out of curosity, as I wrote this I asked myself, ‘would you be OK with someone not autistic using this phrase?’, I got a feeling I couldn’t identify… I’m sure it’s nothing.

**** Here’s the thing, you might be thinking that this is a terrible description. I get that. But! I’m 95% certain that my mate Will will read this and now exactly what I’m getting at, and sometimes I write things just for me. And in this case him.

**** I’m not about putting people other than me on blast on this blog but there is a shining example of this in my mind. A family member of my received a rodent themed decorative wine bottle holder and managed to not show their initial genuine reaction on their face. I have truly never seen a greater act of restraint. I could not have done it.