April: Battle bots and battle bits...

 Out here in the real world (read:the shadowy universe outside the computer screen...scary, isn’t it?) it's the equivalent of the Nerd Olympics as our high school robotics team battles it out in the district championships. Trying to push these posts through at the same time is… well…no small challenge.

Here’s why:

Schedule conflicts: 

A bit different within the autism context then you might infer. While the actual schedule is, indeed, jam-packed with overlapping responsibilities and no shortage of double-bookings, it's the disruption to the schedule that causes the true conflict. Executive functioning...that ephemeral skill set that allows for neurotypicals and those unaffected by any deficit to appropriately prioritize tasks, manage time, respond to additional stimuli, etc.. -is, to put it mildly, extremely important and horrifyingly non-existent within much of the autistic community. 

Here’s a quick deep dive…ready, set…submerge! 

You walk into Target as an autistic. You’ve got your list: toothpaste, cereal, toilet paper, whatever.  You’ve got your wallet, and your phone, probably already logged into the Target app and ready to scan. You know what you are here to do. But then…one step in the door and the air is…different. It’s cooler/drier/chalky. It smells like plastic and perfume and body odor and shampoo and coffee and…and  …and.  Shallow breaths to acclimate. Shallow, hitching breaths as your brain-body connection overcompensates and triggers hyper-drive. Just wait, there’s more! The lighting is flickering. Each aisle… sometimes even, each panel, flickering at a slightly different wattage. One or two super bright bulbs draw your attention and your feet start off in that direction, independent of reason. And at the same time, there’s a hundred-plus individual conversations surrounding you like so many waves of sound. It’s as though your brain is on a swivel joint, locking in on one and then another and another and another, unsure if it needs to stay linked or not. Individual limbs seem to be trying to secede from the union as your autistic brain deems every bit of input equally important . . . equally actionable. You stumble or trip or careen or flail  . . . or defiantly scream silently STOP and freeze  . . . rigid  . . . not even allowing your lungs to inflate. Every single piece of sensory stimuli  . . . every single data point  . . . has hit you like a ton of bricks  . . . all at the same level of priority. Why? Because you don’t have a natural system of executive function. You didn’t come with the encryption key that handles prioritization. 

So here we are, at the Stabler Arena of Lehigh University, with our Team and with our team (Team 41-RoboWarriors. Go bot, go!!!) and the schedule is ...well, not. Sleep schedule? Disabled. Wake-coffee-breakfast-shower? Disabled. Morning routine? Disabled. Do I need to continue? No? Good.

Cause, me? Disabled.

Sensory Processing Overload:

Remember that Target trip? The lights and sounds and smells? The overwhelm and breakdown? 

Well, since Thursday early a.m. it’s been a tsunami for the senses here. From the relative calm and quiet (yeah, yeah  . . . I did say relative) of the jam-packed, caffeine-fueled, body-sprayed, sugar-giddy bus ride that seems to take longer each time, we arrived here in the arena. Thousands of students, advisors, parents and public  . . . with a handful of mascots, cops, military and scouts for good measure. Cheek to cheek and howl to scream. Blaring speakers. Flashing lights. Bots on speed. Students possibly also on speed. The volume is so ramped up that even the sensorily-challenged can feel it in their bones. The concrete floor practically pulsates with it. There’s scouting to be done, on our little handheld screens, and matches to analyze, and the jumbotron flashing ever-changing stats  . . . all competing with the overhead speakers and the emcees and our team advisors. Planted in too small and too short stadium chairs where the hard plastic cuts into back and thighs at equal intensity. Where legs have to be folded at accordion angles until the muscles scream for relief and you untangle to find a new suitable knot configuration. Where the constant stream of traffic of team members coming in and out means getting up and out of the way seemingly every time you’ve finally found a measure of comfort. It’s a battlefield, and I’m not just referring to the field where the bots are battling. Choking on air that’s at the same time too dry and practically sopping with teenage sweat and hormones. Pressed in like sardines. Deafened by the roar and wincing from the shrieks. Body temperature in constant flux. Face mask straps digging in. Team uniform scratching the skin with its coarse fabric. Nauseous from so much sensory input and adrenaline and caffeine. And straining…at all times…to focus down to one little pinprick of light in all the raging fireworks of sensory stimuli, to find out the bot to scout and mark its stats. There’s no off switch and no relief…just a constant barrage of attacking input (at a pace that puts our bots barrage of cargo to that high hold to shame!) that slowly wears you down to a quivering exposed nerve.

Emotional dysregulation:

Coupled with all the chaos of crowd activity is the very real emotional over-drive and override that comes par for the course with any event, no matter “the size” or the perceived import. Similar to sensory overload, emotional dysregulation means all those highs and lows and adrenaline hits…well, hit…at the same time and at the same very important level. So sitting here in the stands with the team, invested in our bot’s performance highs and lows, means a flood of every emotion in overlapping waves.  Drowning here, and no one knows it. The only option for deliverance is to just give in to the total system failure…emotional, not robotic (Go Team, Go!) and sink into the deep of numb.

Numb.

Gray rock.

Expressionless.

Not an empty shell, though from outside appearances it may look that way, but, in fact, a shell so compacted with emotional data that it’s become a black hole.

By the time a match ends and the scores flash our win across the screen, the fight to remain afloat is long since over and the surface you see is still and smooth…and empty.

~~~

But when all is said, it is April.

A month in which your attention is turned to the autistic community, and perhaps our only opportunity to be heard and seen and read.

So, needs must.

We speak and write and create and produce our advocacy…our experiential expertise…

for you to consume and adapt to  and learn from…

no matter our other obligations…

no matter the cost.

We’ll spend May in the fetal position.