Out and in

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Getting out of your bubble to interact with others for while (a little while, because a long while is not possible) requires a huge effort. You have tu put up a face, play a part that is not yours. As Kafka said to his friend, and lover for a night, Milena, it’s like if one, before getting out of his room, should sew his suit, attach buttons, cut the walkstick, fabricate his hat, knowing that, as soon as he is out in the street, some strong wind will blow to pieces all his vestments. But the worst is still to happen. When he goes back to his room, (or bubble, or burrow) he finds it devastated. It will take another strenuous effort to put it in order again. The bubble is made of spider silk. And sometimes you cannot even repair it if it is damaged. You have to do the whole web again.

I agree.

Yes it's a great metaphor.
For a while this summer, i escaped my bubble/burrow. Not by choice, more like an episode of mania.
It's taken a while to recover, but i feel 'normal' again.
What preoccupies me now is not the mechanism of getting out of the bubble, but why and what made me do so in the first place. Certainly didn't feel much like a choice, just something that happened.
I've since come to doubt that i have 'free will', but i digress.

Yes...the disintegration of 'self' that you speak of is very much a part of the autistic experience. Our sense of self is ever fragile, even in very high functioning autistic people. It remains relatively setting/routine specific. It can be destabilised, even destroyed as you so clearly illustrated, by unexpected, uncontrolled change of known settings/routines or entry into new settings/routines, yet to be learned. Certain settings can be too complex, too stimulating for a sense of self to be developed specifically for that particular setting.

Many of us seem to have developed different 'selves' for each daily routine, specific to the time/place and people involved. When routinesand their parts and consistencies are disrupted, so the sense of being a safe and functional 'self' is damaged. In extreme situations autistic people may literally perceive they cease to exist as an indpendent entity, but simply blur or slide into the external reality, resulting in complete panic. This is why many of us require the presence of a safe, known person to ground us when entering complex novel settings, social settings and the more anxiety-provoking higher offices within the workplace.

A very wise autistic man who taught me well wrote: "Think of competent and apparently normal functioning autistics as being like an onion. We are purely autistic at the core, but can learn "layers" of coping behaviour specific to some settings, but not all settings. Each layer of coping behaviour is a separate "project" or "program" we have learned. Peel away the layers and the autism is always there.

Hobson, who wrote "Autism and the Development of Mind" and "The Cradle of Thought", is said to be the only NT researcher who has come anywhere near understanding the process of being autistic. Having read both, I have to agree.

Always, always take good care of your 'self'...

Didn't Dostoevsky write about people being comprised of many layers, like an onion?
Not that he was refering to Autism in any way ( being born way before it was invented/discovered.)

Sorry, i digress (again); just that your post reminded me of something i read many years ago.

Juillette.......

Interesting,about the need for a "grounding person" to be with,when out in public.It is like day and night,when I venture out into the world by myself and with my sig. other.It's like carring a teddybear with me,I feel so much safer.It truely changes my whole experience from insecurity,over whelmed with senses to being able to breath when I just touch his hand or look to see that he is there.I feel more able to be "myself" when he is with me and not have to slip on a "society persona" as I do when by myself.....I had never really thought about this before.

I feel the same way!

It feels like other people are forcing me. In these cases, people seem more "disappointed" and not happy.

People just have to realize that it's just me!

A way to dilute and mediate the face-to-face encounter with the Other has been for me in the past to belong to some little non focused groups, where partecipation in interacting or conversation may be only desultory and not obligatory. You stay with the group, who implicitly knows and accepts that you are “special” and do not expect from you a full participation in the social game. You may quit when you like. Students being in the place to attend a lesson, or to queue for a meal in a campus cafeteria. O going together to a movie theater. People know each other, accept each other, but don’t make expectations on you playng a part. Unstructered friendly groups.