Published on 12, July, 2020
I came up with sth to help them imagine it:
Try to imagine being dropped from helicopter into a sea during storm, blindfolded, without knowing the height. Then you hit the water, and while being shocked from not fully anticipated contact, your first thought is ‘’I can’t swim’’. Nonetheless, you start fighting for your life, throwing your arms around without skill, yet staying on top somehow. Then, you think, you can hear a familiar voice shouting ‘’Swim, you have to’’.
Hit the water is the moment when you turn 18, and realise the enormity of the task ahead.
Blindfold represents inability to read people correctly.
‘’Swim, you have to’’ is ‘’Act normal’’, something I was told as a child more often than anything else.
Lots of lovely imagery that gave me a smile in the posts above ↑↑↑, but a bit too abstract in my opinion without concrete examples.
I've only had to explain my flavour of autism to a handful of people, but I feel the most understanding I've imparted has been with an email where I painstakingly tried to transcript what goes on behind my mask for even the most trivial (for a NT) event (like picking up my nephew & niece after school, or going out for a meal).
My first model was a plane RWD-5