Autism and Misplaced Guilt
Journeying toward self-compassion
Today, I came upon a light with a “no turn on red” sign, and before my brain could process the information, I blew past it and only realized my infraction after the fact. And I feel guilty about it. Guilt that is more proportional than the circumstance warrants.
Does this sound familiar to you?
If it does, I think there are reasons why this may be so. But let’s talk first about the divide between the literature and lived experience.
The literature
If one reads the academic literature on this subject versus the writings of autistic people, one finds mixed results. It’s easy to become confused.
While the literature and some peer-reviewed research tend to acknowledge that autistic people have lower levels of self-compassion than neurotypicals, it continues to bolster the narrative that autistic adults feel reduced regret in their after-action analysis of a particular behavior. Some of the literature suggests that while alexithymia may account for fewer experiences of self-conscious emotions, including the emotion of guilt, autistic people do experience self-reflective emotions of guilt. Though the literature almost universally suggests autistic people feel shame due to stigma, more of the disagreement seems to be between people who are assessing the emotion of guilt.
In case one is wondering, yes, guilt and shame are different. Guilt is more situational. It is a corrective mechanism that helps adjust our behavior to the individual circumstances so that next time, we act in accordance with what is expected of us. Guilt is like being zapped as one of Pavlov’s dogs, forcing us to associate our wrongdoing with specific external consequences that we quickly internalize. Guilt is applied retroactively; we use it to recognize the patterns where we were wrong and try to do better in the future. Our pattern recognition zeros in on past mistakes in the form of feeling guilty, and if executive functioning or emotional/sensory dysregulation does not hinder us from acting differently at any given moment, most autistic people do their best to use whatever corrective measures they can.
On the other hand, shame is a state of being. It can stem from trauma, and it results in feelings of inadequacy — of never being enough. Brené Brown defines it like this:
I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging — something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.
(The subject of autism and shame could be another article entirely.)
The literature gets some things wrong about guilt and autistic people.
Guilt
Many of the studies used to come to these conclusions about autism and guilt are done with preschool children or kindergarteners and are then extracted at face value and applied to adult autistics. Age-adjusted literature is needed before such broad, sweeping conclusions are drawn about whole adult populations.
Secondly, Simon Baron-Cohen’s term “Theory of Mind” (ToM) is often overbroadly used to suggest that because autistic people cannot “put themselves in another person’s shoes,” then by Jove, of course, that means they can’t feel guilty because they naturally do not know when they have offended others. However, impaired ToM is also said to exist in many co-occurring disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety. One wonders whether the “ToM card” has become weaponized whenever it is convenient to point out when another has been insensitive.
While it is true that one cannot feel guilt about the things one doesn’t know they have done to offend someone, the emotion of guilt is something autistic people experience. Go on a website like Wrong Planet or even Reddit, and you will see threads miles long that include autistic people with lived experiences sharing how they feel overly guilty.
The people-pleasers among us know guilt like a robin knows its own nest. We are constantly tuned to others for microaggressions and for signs we missed the mark. But because autistic people aren’t great at reading social cues, I believe we are prone to misplaced guilt. An example of misplaced guilt is the child who feels they are to blame for the cause of their parent’s divorce. Sometimes we may feel guilt when there is no need to, and yet other times, we may overlook the fact that we hurt someone and not feel guilty. Think of the autistic person you know who over-apologizes constantly. This may even be something you do. But maybe you have also hurt others and been oblivious to it.
I like to think of it this way. We were born into life as a tabula rasa — all of us were. But somewhere along the way, one acquires an internal handbook to the rules of the game of life that just so happens to match the culture one lives in. Just as any game or sport has rules and a handbook that can adjudicate any potential situation, our handbook for social situations in our culture came late in the mail or perhaps did not arrive. Like an anthropologist in a foreign country, we try to observe what others are doing without being able to consult the handbook directly that others have at their disposal. Unlike Barbra and Adam Maitland in Beetlejuice, who have a “Handbook of the Recently Deceased” to navigate their hundred or so years as ghosts, we, on the other hand, came into life as living beings without such a book. We are not even in a position to say…”Hey friend, can I borrow that handbook of yours for a minute? I am unsure if how I acted towards this person was the right way to go about it.” No, we are on our own. There is no handbook, just our own judgment based on past experience.
Many of us have difficulty receiving positive or negative reinforcement from our environment about our performance because neurotypicals do not always communicate directly. We do not know if we hurt someone because they may not tell us and leave a trail of breadcrumbs instead, forcing us to construct meaning out of them, accurate or otherwise. Without consistent reinforcement, our guilt can wax and wane — sometimes commensurate with the situation but other times wholly unnecessary and life-draining. We can never be sure if our guilt is justified. This is a demoralizing way of life when friendships, our economic station, and everything else depend on reading situations accurately and making amends when appropriate.
For some of us, we cannot even apply the Golden Rule to guilt because our standards of how we want to be treated may deviate quite dramatically from most people. For example, if someone dropped in on me unannounced to make a social call, this would upset me because I would have lacked the ability to compose myself before their visit. However, they probably would have felt they were performing a nice gesture. Similarly, if I do not call someone, it may be that I do not like to receive phone calls myself. But many people do. Therefore, the Golden Rule flies out the window.
The mismatches some autistics have between guilt and the expectations of their environment can land them in contact with the criminal legal system. But as someone who has tried advocating for autistic individuals ending up in the system for many years now, my experience has overwhelmingly been that once they have been made aware of the implications of what they did, they are generally horrified their actions harmed others, which brings on immense feelings of guilt inside them. The guilt can be so paralyzing that one hardly needs the criminal legal system to “correct” the behavior. Many of these autistic people internalize the guilt to such an extent that they will police themselves beyond what any outward surveillance state could ever do so that they never repeat the same mistake.
Taming misplaced guilt
I often seek clarification with others since I am so prone to misplaced guilt. However, I do this with people I care about where I am not engaged in the typical power struggles with coworkers or someone else who can negatively impact my life. If I think I might have hurt someone based on signals I am receiving, I often ask that person directly. Ninety-five percent of the time, I am usually told that I did not do anything. But be careful; don’t always seek clarification, or people may see you as someone who can be easily taken advantage of.
While we autistics do not share a common golden rule around niceties and social etiquette with our neurotypical counterparts, we can create our own “handbooks” that look at broader themes of universal loving-kindness. If we are experiencing autistic burnout and do not have enough loving-kindness to give to essential people in our lives, we can let them know it is not them; it’s us. We can tell people that although we value their relationship and genuinely care about them, at the present moment, our gas tanks are empty. We do not have anything to give, and if we want to even go through the trouble of explaining what autistic burnout is, that is entirely up to us.
The point is if we cannot show perfect loving-kindness in every single moment, there is no reason to compound our autistic burnout with more guilt when we do everything possible to explain to others that we are taking some time to withdraw. Some people will understand this, and some will not. But once we compassionately explain the situation, the onus is on them as to whether they choose to understand.
Remember that even neurotypicals get into the batters’ box and strike out often. Sometimes, those with the most home runs also strike out the most. Being autistic, you are going to strike out. Chances are your internal compass is very sensitive to the signs of this, but know you are doing the best you can. It sounds cliché, but give yourself healthy doses of self-compassion.
Also, keep in mind that some people are jerks. No matter how hard you work to please them, they aim to make you feel guilty because they enjoy it. It is part of a narcissistic temperament that makes these people act this way. Try to save any feelings of guilt you have from people who gaslight you or tell you that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. They are not worth your energy.
Conclusion
In the movie Defending Your Life, Albert Brooks’s character has died and enters Judgment City, where he must prove to a celestial court that he is ready to move on and not reincarnate again. Everyone there knows everything about him because they read “zeros and ones” on his chart and, therefore, know him better than he knows himself. His defense lawyer, Rip Torn, does a lackluster job defending him to the court, while the prosecutor has a field day showing how much fear Brooks had in his previous life. Brooks cannot argue with the lawyers or the court because they have monitored his thoughts and actions his entire life.
Many of us imagine that there is a judge of our lives who oversees everything we do. However, if there is a God that is akin to that celestial court, he already knows you feel guilty, so what is the use of adding fuel to the fire? Feel the guilt and then let it dissolve like a Tums in water. Stay grounded in your body while you allow yourself the feeling and let it wash away. Keep repeating the mantra “lesson learned” and move on. No amount of guilt will be productive after that, and it is likely to fall into the “misplaced” category if you can not put the lid on it.
As we delve into the heart of our experiences, we find that guilt, especially for many autistic individuals, is more than a mere emotional response; it is a mirror reflecting our deepest fears and our most earnest desires for connection and understanding. In human emotions, guilt is a compass guiding us through the murky waters of social interaction and self-reflection. Yet, it is not the presence of guilt that defines us but how we choose to respond to it. Do we allow it to constrict us, to limit the boundaries of our existence? Or do we embrace it as a teacher, a guide on our journey towards self-awareness and emotional growth?
For those of us who are autistic, guilt often becomes a constant companion, whispering tales of misunderstandings and missed cues. But soften the voice of your superego. Don’t make it disappear, just soften it. Navigating the complexities of guilt is embarking on a healing journey, but only when you apply the necessary doses of self-compassion. This journey requires us to confront and embrace our vulnerabilities with understanding and grace. It is a journey that challenges us to strip away the layers of societal expectations and stand unadorned in the light of our authentic selves.
