X marks the spot (at 4am)

At around 4am on Saturday morning, a very dark, overcast, and rather drizzly night, I was approximately here (link to Bing Maps); somewhere near the "X" formed where the zig-zaggy footpaths cross that descend the steep valley side. I was somewhat wobbly from several bottles of my favourite ales. I don't always walk home this way from my regular Friday night trip to hang out with my little crew of friends at one of their houses, but the time, location, and inebriation are pretty representative of what I would consider a perfectly normal 3-4 mile walk home. The other walking options are similarly cross-country, or involve long stretches of road with no pedestrian footpath. Very heavy rain or snow might make me think twice, but don't normally put me off. On particularly beautiful nights, I have even had an unplanned snooze after sitting down to admire the stars or the dawn-chorus.

My usual trip to the supermarket is somewhat shorter, but similar; there are stretches of road with no pedestrian pavement, and they involve crossing countryside on muddy, unpaved public footpaths, carrying as many supplied as I can on my back.

The commute to my last place of work took in a two and half mile walk along an old railway line (you can see this on the linked map if you switch to Ordinance Survey view), and a 400ft climb to the top of a very exposed hill (over 1000 ft at the summit). That was just to get the bus to Halifax, after which I walked another mile or so to the office. I did this in both directions every work day, in the dark in winter, and in all weathers. I even astonished the boss when I turned up having battled through waist deep snowdrifts; of course, most of my colleagues who lived in Halifax itself had phoned in to say they couldn't make it!

So what's my point? That I'm super-fit and smug that I'm so much hardier than everyone else? Hmm, I'm certainly not all that fit, just very stubborn. There is a certain pride I take in it, but I recognise it as being a rather perverse and masochistic kind of pride. So here are my main reasons why I do this (some might say post-hoc rationalisations, and I would not disagree.)

  • I find public transport extremely overwhelming due to the noise, movement, and close proximity to other people. Being alone in a taxi with a complete stranger is also very uncomfortable, and I find being in any kind of road vehicle very disorientating. When attempting to learn to drive, I quickly realised that my autistic traits make it, at the very least, very risky for me and other road users, so I decided it was prudent never to do it (likewise cycling on the roads.)
  • Local bus routes don't really go where I want to go without having to change buses in the busy city centre (another completely overwhelming environment), and the last buses of the day are so early that there'd be little point going out at all if I were to rely on them to get home (the work commute would also have taken longer without the walking.)
  • I'm very house-bound a lot of the time due to social phobia and sensory sensitivities. These walks are the best exercise I get, and I find walking extremely therapeutic for my mind too. Even battling through the elements has it's own, slightly masochistic, feeling of achievement (I used to be a caver/pot-holer), and it's nice to see the wildlife and the stars, and to be out when there are no other people around and the roads are extremely quiet.
  • I have a very deep aversion to involving anyone else in these things, even indirectly. I hate that a journey, or having shopping delivered, might be subject to other people's timetables and mistakes. I hate to ask for help, full stop, and do things under my own steam even when others might consider it ridiculous to do so.
  • 4am doesn't seem late to me due to my lifetime of late-onset insomnia. It is totally normal to me to have gone to school or work after only a couple of hours sleep. I know no different, so I just grit my teeth and battle through the sleep-deprivation every day.
  • For decades now, this has been how I live; primarily within the radius that I can walk, and always walking when it is remotely possible. It feels utterly natural.

Reactions to this "lifestyle choice" from friends are very varied. The friends that I visit at our Friday night gatherings don't bat an eyelid, and some of them have quite similar habits (at least a couple of them are almost certainly also autistic; the others don't lead particularly "conventional" lifestyles, either). Other friends react with complete horror, and implore me not to take the risks which they perceive I'm taking. I have only realised very recently that my reaction to their concerns probably seems flippant and ungrateful; but I know what the risks are (years of hiking, caving, etc.), and I accept them as a reasonable compromise so that I can work, shop, and socialise. In the decades that I've lived this way, I have never come to serious physical harm, have never been in trouble with law enforcement (I stick to footpaths and never trespass), and the only time I've been mugged or attacked was in broad daylight in a city-centre park. The fact that I will almost certainly not be able to continue like this as I get older frightens the hell out of me, quite frankly.

So I thought I would throw this open to comments from people here. There are no right answers, and I'm not looking for pity. I've just realised how little I question it and how much I've underestimated how bizarre it can seem to other people. What does anyone think? Am I completely crazy to do this? Are my justifications just perverse rationalisations? Do you do these things too?

  • I found living in a shared house quite difficult partly due to having a communal toilet and bathroom and never knowing when they would be free. My boyfriend and I had a room with a Paraffin heater. I had really long hair so I would boil a kettle, wash my hair in a washing up bowl and dry it over the heater to avoid using the shared bathroom (which was grotty).

    There was usually something strange going on somewhere in the house. Someone started leaving notes in a peculiar Tolkien-like language. I never worked out who it was. The landlady said she was psychic and that my boyfriend would come to a bad end. Sadly some years later he did. One of the elderly men in the house cooked on an upturned iron in his room. He did not speak - he had a cleft palate. Another elderly man who lived there used to cough up lots of blood in the loo.

    In spite of all this we had some happy times there. The landlady was quite eccentric - one day we found her eating Sunday lunch at 11am - she had put her clocks back instead of forward! She also had a cat which she didn't realise was pregnant. When we saw a wriggly thing on the carpet we thought the cat had brought in a rat or a mouse but in fact it was having kittens! 

  • In that shared house, the nightwalkining woman was the only one I made any connection with. The other tenants avoided the two of us.

    She was the only one who would talk to me.  And she was in as big a mess mentally as me. She openly discussed how after her mental breakdown she'd been sectioned and diagnosed as.a paranoid schizophrenic. 

  • He had secret stairways and passages installed in his mansion so that he didn't have to meet with his servants in his perambulations around the house.

    Oh yes, I can understand that one. If I'm feeling a bit burned out, I can end up not seeing my landlady for weeks at a time - she lives in the room below me, and we share a kitchen!

    Back when I was a student, sharing rented houses, I'd always have something in my room to use as an emergency bed-pan. I sometimes just couldn't handle even just a brief accidental meeting on the stairs on the way for a pee, especially if I knew that any of my house-mates had guests in the house. None of these are people that I disliked, or found any harder to get on with than anyone else; but when I'm not feeling communicative, I just can't stand any interaction at all.

    She has gone for a nightwalk  in her bare feet and now they were cut with bruises and blood.

    I have done similar once or twice, though not really by choice. When I have a melt-down, I will usually try to flee if I can, and can get several miles before coming to my senses, usually with no idea where I am or how I got there. My legs just keep going until my instincts find what they want, which is usually a quiet green space of some kind. I've had this happen a couple of times when I've had no shoes on when I've melted down. I've never seriously injured myself or got into trouble during a melt-down flight, which rather amazes me, and thankfully, it's not happened for a very long time. I manage my sensitivities better to avoid overloading than I used to, and I more often shut-down rather than melt-down if pushed too far; to a certain extent, if I feel a shut-down is imminent, I can force it to be a shut-down instead if I can sit or lie down and concentrate really hard.

  • This conjures up a really vivid picture! 

    It's quite extreme to walk barefoot on hard pavements littered with rubbish and glass. When I was young and my shoes hurt I sometimes walked home barefoot, but these days I only take my shoes off to walk on sand or grass. 

    In Germany as a teenager I went on a ramble late at night. We saw shooting stars and everything looked quite different to how it did in daylight. Most of the group disappeared into the darkness so it felt like we were walking in twos and threes. A really great experience. 

    I met some very unusual people when I lived in a shared house. Thinking about it now they probably thought I was unusual too! 

  • I, have never been a regular nightwalker.  I enjoy walks in.the city, beside canals,  through woods, countryside. But  in the daylight.

    After dark, I feel uneasy. I can visit city centres when some shops are still open and there are people about.  And it's well lit.  Outside the city centre I don't want to be caught in the dark .  

    But at 4am.    I want to be indoors with the doors locked.

    I have however known some unusual people.  Many years ago when I lived in a shared house, one woman went on  nighttime walks.  Once she woke me up around 3am, banging on my door, asking for dettol, plasters and bandages. She has gone for a nightwalk  in her bare feet and now they were cut with bruises and blood.

    She had just put a jacket on around her underwear and decided to go for a walk in the middle of the night.  Unfortunately we were living in the city with hard pavements,  stones, glass and dogshit everywhere. 

  • This is a fascinating thread.  I'm just wondering if any of you have read Steve Silberman's Neurotribes.  Silberman was, of course, the journalist whose research led to the findings about Hans Asperger's controversial past.

    Aside from that, though, the first chapter of the book - The Wizard of Clapham Common - is about the 18th century scientist Henry Cavendish (or 'natural philosopher' as he would have been known at the time, when investigations into the workings of 'God's Creation' would have been regarded as more of an enlightened hobby).  As Silberman says, Cavendish 'defined the scope, conduct and ambition of the scientific method for centuries to come.'

    He would also, at the time, have been regarded as deeply eccentric.  He had secret stairways and passages installed in his mansion so that he didn't have to meet with his servants in his perambulations around the house.  Rather than speak to his servants, he communicated with them via notes left on the hall table.  It was noted that he refused to look at anyone with whom he was conversing, and he was much more of a listener and observer than an active conversationalist.  Sounds familiar to me!

    Here, though, is the first paragraph from the chapter - and a good introduction to our Henry...

    Every evening in the last years of the eighteenth century, at precisely the same hour, a solitary figure stepped forth from the most unusual house on Clapham Common to take his nightly constitutional.  To avoid the prying eyes of his neighbours, he stuck to the middle of the road, never hailing those who recognised him or touching his hat to acknowledge passersby.  Dressed in fussy clothes that had last been in fashion decades earlier, he walked with a distinctive slouching gait, his left hand behind his back.  His route, like his departure time, never varied.  He would proceed down Dragmire Lane to Nightingale Lane and walk for another mile, past quiet town houses and rows of oak and hawthorn trees, until he arrived at Wandsworth Common.  Then he would walk back the way he came.  He had made only one revision to his itinerary in a quarter of a century, after attracting the attention of two women who planted themselves at a corner where they were likely to catch sight of him.  Spotting them from some distance away, he abruptly launched himself in the perpendicular direction, making an undignified but effective escape through the muck of a freshly-ploughed field.  After that, he scheduled his walks after dusk, when he was least likely to be seen.

    A fascinating character, and one I immediately warmed to when I read this.  I usually go out for my walks during the daytime (and I always take the same routes through quieter streets), but I much prefer to do so at night.  It's just that, around here, the night streets aren't always so safe.

  • Agree with you about asking for help. I've got an ankle injury currently so I'm off work and pretty much immobilised. A couple of my work colleagues want to 'pop in' or get me shopping and this is causing me a great deal of stress. When I say it is not convenient or necessary, because the thought of them coming round is too overwhelming, I worry that it looks as if I am not really injured and stuck at home.  

  • This is such an interesting thread. It brought back memories of when I was young and lived with a boyfriend. We walked long distances regularly - to go shopping, to meet up with our few friends, and tomgo to the local Folk Festival, carrying all our camping equipment in the pouring rain! We really enjoyed the freedom and independence.

    I was sorry to see that constraints can be placed on the freedom to walk these days - his seems like a real infringement of civil liberties. 

    I always hated getting the bus to school, so I would walk instead. That meant I could save up my unspent pocket money and spend it on second hand books. I also used to buy random things that caught my eye - once a huge shiny green marrow, which my mother then stuffed for supper. 

    I got woken at 4am by my anxious rescue dog. I thought she needed to go outside but it turns out she just wanted a cuddle. I often wake up around 4am in any case - bizarrely when I look at my digital clock it is usually around 4:42 which it is right now! 

  • Pretty much the exact opposite for me.

    I go to bed at 11pm. Lie awake until 4am before finally nodding off.

    I go to bed at midnight. Lie awake until 4am before finally nodding off.

    I go to bed at 1pm. Lie awake until 4am before finally nodding off.

    I go to bed at 2pm. Lie awake until 4am before finally nodding off.

    That's on typical nights. If there's something stressful on my mind, it can have the same effect on my sleep as anyone else. Once it gets past about 6-7ish, I generally don't bother to go to bed at all, in the hope of a better sleep the next night (it rarely works, but then nor has anything else I've ever tried or been prescribed.) My body clock thinks I live in the US Mid-West somewhere for some reason, and always has; I was no different as a child.

    Autistica recently emailed me with preliminary results from research I'd helped with regarding autism and sleep. They reckon that up to 60% of autistic people have a sleep condition of one kind or another. Late-onset insomnia, like mine, seems to be most common, but there's a huge variety.

  • The whole situation has really knocked my confidence (not that I had any to begin with...). I too thought I wasn’t doing anything antisocial - if I passed anyone I’d smile, I walked in lit places and on paths and I was careful to walk in very quiet places - but apparently this issue stemmed from individuals calling the Police ‘concerned for a young girl wandering around alone late at night’. In hindsight I can see why it might have troubled some people, especially as it was mentioned to me that they thought I was a minor (which surprised me as I’m in my mid twenties), but I meant no harm to anyone. I don’t think those reporting me meant anything bad at least, but it has impacted on me dramatically.

    I’ve spotted those late night boy racers too and I think they require much more Police attention than I or you! 

  • I'd rather get soaking wet and cold to the bone from walking

    I'm well known for it too. Even if I'm just out for a recreational walk, really inclement weather won't put me off, if walking is what I'm in the mood to do. It's not even as if I'm particularly well kitted out; my normal dress is somewhat outdoorsy but I've never spent hundreds of pounds on high-performance hiking gear, and I wear whatever footwear is comfortable on my feet and stops them from overheating, even if it means getting my socks and feet wet. I get some odd looks sometimes from groups of expensively kitted-up hikers when they see me coming past in my cheap overcoat from the market and favourite comfy footwear (I very rarely feel truly at home in a pair of shoes until they're beginning to fall apart! The constant talking to myself under my breath probably doesn't help much, either!)

    I understand what you mean by burning energy off; and anxiety too. I'm not as routine as you with when I walk, but very much so with where I walk. I will go for an exploratory ramble quite often, but if I'm walking to burn off energy and anxiety, I tend to have a small selection of very rigid routes that I take. They can become so ingrained that if there's been something eating at my mind, I can get home with no memory of the walk itself, nor even which one I did. My late night walks home can be a bit like that; some kind of "autopilot" kicks in, and my conscious awareness doesn't seem to register it unless something's obviously out of place. It took me quite a while to feel comfortable with the local walks when I moved to a new area a year or so ago, even though I have no problem with map-reading or sense of direction (well, unless I'm experiencing sensory overload, in which case I don't know my *** from my elbow!)

    Oh, and I forgot to say I'd rather get into trouble than ask for help. I loathe asking for help.

    And if I do I feel indebted to that other person for ever.

    Yes, the same. To tell the truth, this is a deeper problem than anything to do with the walking; even if I overcame this, I'd probably still walk a lot, just by preference. The weird thing is, I'll happily do anything for anyone else (so long as they make it clear what they want, of course), But I feel compelled to try to meet my own needs as independently as possible, and the struggle to ask brings anxiety of its own, whether it's a friend, relative, doctor, or just the supermarket delivery man. It can be so paradoxical too; for want of asking for a few simple favours, which I'd gladly return, crises happen which end up requiring far more help, or help which is far more invasive (if you can get it, of course!)

  • when the Police became involved

    I'm sorry to hear that.

    I have to be honest, this is the only part of it that gives me any great anxiety, and my heart is in my throat whenever I see a police car go past. I'm never doing anything which I would consider anti-social, I'm always as quiet as I can be, I don't break the law in any way, and the only things I'd be carrying are my keys, wallet, phone, and cigarettes. I have been stopped several times, but thankfully have always been allowed on my way with advice to be careful, and maybe a later drive past to check that I've been honest. In fact, I'm rather shocked just how few times I do see the police, especially considering how often I notice people who are doing things which are reckless and anti-social in the early hours (e.g. "boy racers" literally racing, parties you can hear from two blocks away, domestic arguments, etc.) Despite my aversion to dealing with authority figures and hatred of telephones, I have performed my civic duty by reporting a few of the things that I've seen, albeit anonymously.

    I've never been reported to the authorities that I know of, but that is my biggest fear, especially knowing that it would likely be gossiped about. It's not just that I might be restricted in my walking by some sort of order, but not wanting to expose myself to people who feel that way about me; exactly the social anxiety that you mentioned.

    So be cautious, but do as you have to in order to live your best life, no matter what others think of it.

    Thanks. Likewise to you too.

  • Oh, and I forgot to say I'd rather get into trouble than ask for help. I loathe asking for help.

    And if I do I feel indebted to that other person for ever.

  • I do this too... I'd rather get soaking wet and cold to the bone from walking or cycling than take the bus. Or the car, because that really knocks me out.

    But for me it also has to do with wearing myself out physically. Especially in the morning I need to get rid of my energy.

    I used to walk my dog for at least an hour, then cycle 35 - 40 minutes to work. At night - same thing in the other direction. 

    I guess in my case it is also an obsession. These days I start the day by walking an hour and 15 minutes at a brisk pace. If I only walk an hour, I feel dissatisfied and annoyed. I don't care too much about the weather and 

    Getting rid of my energy and exercising in this way also meant that I could sort of function and socialise and work among others. 

    But I just always thought I was off and weird really :-D Other people have said I am tough by the way :-)

  • Coming from a person who went for a 1.5hr walk around their local neighbourhood at 2.30am this morning because they couldn’t sleep and were distressed, no, this doesn’t sound crazy to me! 

    I can relate to all of your points, but particularly in relation to the walking being therapeutic for the mind and not asking for help from others. I also find I can walk a terribly long way (12 miles has been known), even when I am tired or upset, but I usually put this down to the adrenaline in my system from anxiety.

    I confess that I hadn’t been aware how disturbing my behaviour of late night walking was to others until very recently when the Police became involved and promptly warned me of my ‘anti social behaviour’ - unbeknownst to me I was causing ‘alarm and distress’ to people who saw me as they thought something was wrong and I looked under 18 to them. I felt absolutely terrible for this as I hadn’t thought there was anything harmful of me taking a walk to clear my mind or to help me settle to sleep. How wrong was I?! So that got me slapped with an ‘Acceptable Behaviour Contract’ as though I am some criminal, and now I’m even more cautious about my actions in public than ever before (basically, the whole thing did nothing for my social anxiety). So be cautious, but do as you have to in order to live your best life, no matter what others think of it.

  • Nice long read.  Before I started I got the wrong end of the stick.

    For me 4am means..... I almost always wake up and cannot get back to sleep.

    I go to sleep at 11pm.   I wake at 4am.

    I go to sleep at midnight  I wake at 4am.

    I go to sleep at 1am.   I wake at 4am.

    I go to sleep at 2am.   I wake at 4am.

    I am a mess.