First of all, I wouldn't normally post something like this, but I'd like some advice on what I should do if a similar situation occurred again, as its rattling round in my head.
I was formally diagnosed as having Aspergers Syndrome at the age of 5, and Dyspraxia as a teenager. In some aspects it barely affects me, and I've sailed through my GCSEs, A Levels and my degree, and have very strong vision and determination in life, also getting on pretty well with my parents. However, I find that in a few select situations, I can become easily overwhelmed and panicky. The below event is an example of this happening.
THE EVENT IN QUESTION [The exact precise order in which these events occurred might not be 101% correct, as I'm sure we all know that our short-term memory is not the best, but this is written to best of my knowledge]
- I was shopping in the supermarket for my parents- this itself is not an issue as I do it all the time
- I'd lined up at a self conveyor checkout (the one for big shops), grabbing a separator, [I think] misjudging how close I was getting to the other guy in front of me, the process of grabbing it
- I'd then started to put the food/drink on the conveyor belt, behind his shopping
- The other guy said 'do you want to get a bit closer, mate'? (this was either whilst I was grabbing the separator or just whilst I was beginning to unload)
- My mind froze and I stood still, trying to understand what he meant: I thought he meant do you want to move your food/drink a bit closer to his
- He then revealed he was being sarcastic- I genuinely thought he was being serious, and he got cross at me, talking about social distancing rules, using the 'f word' in the process
- I then got very panicy and nervous, trying to stay calm. I didn't know what to say, and I just said 'that's a bit rude isn't it'?, to which he responded by getting even more cross. I did think for a split second that I might quickly explain to him that I found sarcasm difficult to understand
- I then held up my hands and said I was sorry
- Nothing more happened after this, I just let him get his shopping done and go off
I'm also almost permanently in defence mode when I'm interacting with strangers, over analysing things like voice tone and the posture. Thanks to a pretty bad schooling experience, even 7 years after leaving secondary school, I'm still tending to treat people as 'guilty until proven innocent'. The situation was a classic example of this happening. I think the guy in front of me sounds like he was in defence mode too, almost certainly, as implied by his response, because of the whole Coronvirus crisis.
What more,if anything, could I have done? What would you have done in that situation? What should I have done if I had given into my anxiety and attacked him? Luckily, I hadn't slept very well the night before, and this slowed down my reactions, so I was less likely to react impulsively.
I've never carried around an Autism alert card, as I've felt my symptoms were just so mild it wasn't necessary to. But would such a card have helped my case if I had hit back?
