Self-care for high-masking Autistic adults
When I was a child, I used to lay down with my face in the grass and watch the ants meander through the blades, taking in the perspective of being a giant among small beings who saw crumbs of dirt as boulders. I still remember the sensations of the breeze, the smell, the tiny universe I had uncovered and could marvel all day in. At some point, that looked strange to others, I had to explain myself, and the message was clear: putting your face in the dirt and watching ants is bad. I don’t remember the moment of the lesson, but I know it happened because of how hard it was to get back in the dirt again 30 years later.
Restoration is an essential part of thriving while autistic, but I know many autistic people who gag at the term self-care. There are some good reasons for this reaction and yet I find myself curious about what else is happening here. Autistic people are on to the commercialization of self-care as well as the frivolity of many of it’s more typical components. Massage? Don’t touch me. Journal? Too demanding. Bubble baths? hard to get just right. There are many autistic people barely getting along in survival mode who see self-care as a luxury. Or, more hauntingly, they may have been trained out of the ways they naturally restore themselves. They may think the don’t need it or can’t have it, or what they like is forbidden.
But I have to say, no one does joy and relaxation like my autistic kin. If you want to know how to deeply appreciate the sensation of water, a swing, the intricacies of grass, or a complex song, ask an autistic young person, or one who has rediscovered themself. There is the potential for wonder in everything. Our ease with wonder and our ease with pain are intertwined.
High masking autistic individuals are trained early to tamp this down. Don’t hum. Turn the music down. Stop spinning. You are feeling too much. These messages sink in - if you want my care and respect, just be a little bit less. And whatever you are drawn towards, leave it.
I know many autistic adults who don’t know what they like, and don’t know how to restore themselves when the harshness of the world has depleted them. It is in our training, to forget. We can, if we allow ourselves, go back to the moment when we were allowed to be drawn to what we were drawn to, in order to find what might bring us some peace. For me, that is getting my hands in the dirt, making slow art of flowers, helping my child build fairy societies, and picking and sorting the seeds off of plants in the fall. My capacity since I returned to the practices that I was always naturally drawn to has increased many fold.
The fitting into society training is now outdated. You are an adult with some degree of freedom and choice. You don’t need anyone’s permission to do the things that many autistic people find soothing, and you may not find what you need in a self-care manual. If you are finding it hard to go back to your childhood self and ask with interest what it would like to do, you can run a few experiments. You can try these:
splash in water
sort or reorganize your collections
return to a show with your favorite characters and watch it all over again
Wander around with no agenda
destroy and then rebuild something, or figure out how it works
hang around animals
follow an interest down an internet wormhole
rearrange the kitchen or the furniture
put on music and move your body
climb a tree
gather items from outside and categorize them or make them into an artistic tableau
Enjoy. You just might find some other folks who like these things too.
