How An LSD Trip Helped Me Understand My Autistic Daughter
I still remember the first book I found that described the character of my daughter. It was called Hedgehog children, and from the time I laid my eyes on the book I knew the author was onto something. The front cover had a picture of a kid that wanted to just hide away from the world, just like a hedgehog.
My daughter has Aspergers, the high functioning form of Autism that makes her look almost normal, and also excel at school. As any parent of such a kid will tell you, the public life is a completely different thing to the private one. At home is where we deal with her need to recharge. She recluses herself most of the time. To give you an example, I made it clear that it is not good to be listening to music on her earphones while having dinner at the table so she started wearing earplugs around the house.
I’ve read a lot about Aspies, enough to have identified both my wife and my mom as one. As with many Aspie couples I am on the other side of the spectrum. My test results shows the other extreme of Aspie qualities: Extrovert, happy around people and so on. One finding that intrigued me the most is how, contrary to public opinion, Aspergers is not really the lack of feelings, but actually the loudness of them.
Since I read Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson I had been curious about LSD, which seems to be making a come back in the progressive circles that I am part of. When a friend offered to organize some LSD for me and a friend who were interested I jumped at the opportunity. I did not realize then that it would help me understand the Aspie world better.
My friend told us that to make the most of the experience we should do things in nature, listen to music and enjoy food, since most of our senses would be in overdrive. On the day of our trip we decided to go to the Zoo and then for a walk in nature.
Our sensory experiences admiring trees, enjoying food and listening to music were as spectacular as our friend had told us they would be. However, what called mostly my attention was my response to being around people.
As we were riding the public transport to the Zoo, the whole motion made both of us uncomfortable. Familiar places were flashing in front of us at speeds that made us dizzy. As a group of teenagers boarded, their loud exchange became insufferable. I remember the feeling of peacefulness as we got off at the Zoo station. It was an immediate relief to get out of that noisy environment.
We immediately looked for some solace in nature and ended up admiring the enhanced beauty of trees and bushes on our way. As we entered the zoo I remember a sense of panic going down on me as I realized we had to pay for our entrance.
While this was happening it just clicked on me that this was exactly the kind of responses that my daughter would have in the same circumstances. Unable to be able to filter all the input to her senses she needed a way to go back to a quiet place. If I would have had some earplugs back in the tram I would definitely have used them. The anxiety that the loudness of being around people caused was a strong contrast to the peace of being alone in nature.
The zoo visit was nice in itself, we spent so much time looking at the plants and the animals in this large hall where you can walk around them. We were laughing at silly things and seeing nature from an angle that we had never experienced before. But then we had to get out to use the restrooms and grab some food.
I still remember walking into the restroom leaving my trip partner behind. It felt so scary to be alone, and as I walked out and realized that I was alone a given panic set upon me. The social anxiety continued as we ordered food, and while the culinary experience was a fantastic set of sensory highlights, the stress of having to be near other people made us want to get out into nature.
This made me realize the quiet that my daughter is always searching for by going for walks in nature near to where we live. On the weekends she would leave early in the morning and come back home at around 9 AM. She never likes going there later when she would find other people around. Until this experience, I had never understood her urgent need for quiet and peace.
I also realized that the paranoia that she usually has around new people, or people she does not know well also comes from this sensory over-stimulation. As we were walking through the forest, an old couple with a little kid were trailing us. When we sat in a bench to try to enjoy some of our chocolates, the little kid just came and looked at us. It was the typical thing that you would expect a curious little kid to do, yet to us it felt so threatening. Luckily my trip companion reacted quick and asked the grandparents if it was OK to give him some chocolate, just to make him go away.
This incident also made me think of the fear of my daughter when it comes to meeting new people. It became clear to me why especially the folks that want to hug her and play with her are the ones where she ends up having the strongest reaction against. The sensory overload of such an interaction must be scary overwhelming just as the staring of that little kid was to us.
At the end of the day, we just wanted to go back to a quiet place where we could be alone. We lived through some scary moments on our way back, most of them involving people and means of transport. I do however especially remember sitting in the park as the evening lights were fading away, enjoying the richness of the flavor of an orange and some fresh-baked bread.
Food has never tasted so good. Taking a bite of every orange slice. Feeling how the little vesicles containing juice would explode in our mouths. And the crust of the bread, with its indescribable sensations and tastes. This enjoyment made me remember the fixation of my daughter with her food. How she would actively chew with an open mouth on food she likes. And no matter how many times you tell her to not do it, she will never obey.
While I am not recommending an LSD trip to understand your Autistic relatives better, I do still believe that trying to see the world as a collection of loud sensor elements would help appreciate what the world looks and feels to them like. Also, I am not claiming that Autistic minds are always on a trip, just that LSD is an interesting way to enhance your senses to help you understand what a sensory overload feels like.
It helped me realize why the Hedgehog analogy is a good one, and how to help my daughter reduce showing her spines to me by making sure her senses are not always overloaded.
