Why We Need Mentors

I've called this "Why We Need Mentors", but it could just have easily been titled "What Happened To My Life?"

I began my adult life with a whole bunch of expectations, most of which involved assuming my life would be like other people's - marriage, motherhood, mortgages, the white-picket-fence-with-2.5-kids life in the 'burbs' thing... I didn't truly know how people got all that. It seemed to 'just happen' for them, and so I presumed it would for me too.

Well, some of it did. I did get married and become a mother, though younger than I'd thought I would. My marriage however was an abject failure - I made a lousy choice of mate, who proved not a good provider or all that stable, and we were never able to buy our own home. And then I started reading feminist stuff, eventually leaving the marriage and coming out.

 Still, all that meant was that I reframed my expectations. Instead of a man, I assumed I would find a long-term female partner, I'd get my degree, get off the benefit, and we'd settle down in happy domesticity, a sort of lesbian version of the white picket fence thing.

It didn't happen. Instead I had a string of short-term failures interspersed with long periods of celibacy, where I tried to figure out "what I did wrong", and how to do it differently next time. Then I'd launch myself out into the mating market again, thinking I'd solved all my problems, only to find - BANG. Another failure, and I'd reel back into celibacy again.

Friendships were another area I consistently failed in. They imploded, or drifted apart, or just never got off the ground properly in the first place. I couldn't understand it. I thought I was being friendly, helpful, nice, etc, why did no-one want to know me? Why was it such a struggle to connect with others?

I was attending university on and off during these years, but at times I struggled there too. Academically, I was doing okay, getting mostly As and Bs, but there was a lot of social stuff that I just didn't 'get'. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself at this time to be 'normal', and eventually, that pressure resulted in my health collapsing under the strain.

It would take another ten years before I would be diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but the pattern was clear from the beginning - any severe stress, and my health took a nosedive. I began to use it as a reason to not do certain things, but only because I couldn't articulate my deeper, more long-standing reasons, which no-one would have accepted or understood at that time anyway. I still kept believing that my life would, at some magic point, straighten out, that everything would fall into place and come right. It never did.

I ended up leaving the city and living in the country for many years, while I tried to heal. During that time I finally managed a long-term relationship - only it wasn't exactly as happy as I'd dreamt it would be... I tried so hard to 'fix' it, draining my health, my vitality, the last of my youth, hope, romanticism and emotional energy in the process. I finally left only when I felt I had nothing more to give. And only then did I come to understand, way too late, that I'd been the victim of sustained emotional abuse.

I took stock - no partner, few if any friends, no job, no money, no possessions worth a damn, my health a wreck - where did I go next? Eventually I moved away to be closer to my family and start anew. Life since then has had a few ups and downs, but I still find myself, in my late fifties, poorer than I've ever been. I have no permanent job and little chance of one, my health is still not the best and in some ways is getting worse with ageing (eg the onset of arthritis), I've never owned my own home and am never likely to, short of a miracle. My family are supportive and help when and as they can, but still, life could be better. A lot better.

As for relationships - well. I picked all the wrong people, it's true, but then I could also say that none of the 'right' ones ever picked me. Suffice to say it's an area I'm not willing to venture into again, for a whole host of complicated reasons, of which being 'burnt' too often is only a part. In terms of connecting to others, the best thing that's happened for me in the last few years is not relationships but the aspie friendships I've made - they're one of the highlights of my life now.

But overall, my life has been, in many ways, a train wreck. Very few of my dreams and expectations have ever been met or realised - I've never owned my own home, never had a relationship that was worth the effort involved, never had a career (except for my writing of course, but I've yet to work out how to make that pay), I didn't even manage to finish my university degree. I rate raising my daughter as my biggest achievement - and don't get me wrong, I would still rate it that way no matter what else I'd done - I just wish I'd been able to achieve a whole bunch of other stuff too.

So what has all this to do with mentors?

It's this - when things have gone right in my life, it's always with the help, guidance and support of others. A typical instance is my getting to uni - for a while, I was friends with a woman who'd done several degrees, and who 'knew the ropes'. I quizzed her endlessly, and she very patiently showed me how to enrol, told me all about degrees, courses, prerequisites etc - we later drifted apart but I'll always be grateful to her for her assistance. It's very likely that I wouldn't have gotten to uni at all without her help. It was typical of a consistent pattern - if people were willing to patiently explain things to me, and guide me through new things, my life went much, much better. Other times, I got through life changes only with the practical help of family and friends. When I was lacking such support, that's when my life would go haywire. The inevitable result was a good deal of anguish and stress.

Maybe some of all this would have happened anyway, aspie or not, mentors or not, - I would still have come out for instance. But there's no doubt in my mind my life would have gone a lot better, if only people had realised just how ignorant and in need of help I really was, and given me a lot more guidance.

Many other aspies seem to be the same, I've heard many lament how they can't make or keep friends or relationships or jobs or stay in education, how their lives are going to ruin, they're homeless or unemployed or whatever, because they just don't know how best to get by in the world, they lack the practical knowledge or skills or social skills to rescue themselves - and no-one is helping them.

                                                                                                                                          
WE ALL NEED MENTORS. Everyone of us on the spectrum needs mentoring, sometimes throughout our lives. It doesn't have to be a big, formal thing - though that can help those who don't have families etc to step in and do this role - but it is a very real need, even when the individual is well into adulthood and seemingly independent.

Now, I understand that most people live busy lives and they can't always spare the time - even if they understand the need - to mentor someone. But whenever anyone, be it a private individual or a member of an agency or organisation, can fulfil this role, I would plead with them to do so, as the lives of the autistics they touch can only be better off for it. Because with the right practical help and patient support, we can achieve great things.

Aspergirls and Burning Bridges

Another excellent book I’ve just finished reading (courtesy of my local aspie group library) is ‘Aspergirls’, by Rudy Simone.[1] All the way through, I felt like she was talking about me and my life. One chapter in particular struck me though, and that was the one entitled ‘Burning Bridges’. Till I read this, I thought I was the only one who did this, but it seems it’s quite common, even more so with us females on the spectrum, she considers, than our male counterparts.

Basically, ‘burning bridges’ happens when something is not going right in our lives, and we simply don’t have the skills to do anything about it. So we do something drastic that severs that connection. It can be anything – ‘blowing up’ at a friend or suddenly dropping them, leaving a group or church or other association, having a serious meltdown at school, work or some public place that sees us expelled, fired, or banned from there; abruptly quitting a job or a relationship, moving house or even countries. The pressure has built up, we haven’t a clue how to fix things, so instead we self-sabotage, just ‘blow it up’ and walk away, our ‘bridges’ to that person or people or situation burning behind us. The trouble is, without help and support, we never do develop the skills we need to handle our problems (or not till quite late in life) and so we keep destroying our lives, over and over again.

This may seem a contradiction to the idea that autistics don’t like change, but there is one slight caveat to that. We don’t like change except when we initiate it. Abruptly destroying something, just throwing it away, can seem like the only control we can exert over a situation we don’t like. I know I have done most of the above over and over in my life, from childhood on, with the possible exception of public meltdowns (and there it would depend on how you define ‘public’ and ‘meltdown’), and moving country (which I definitely considered, but couldn’t do for practical reasons). I’ve destroyed or sabotaged or walked away from friendships, left relationships or destroyed chances I had of them, changed the places and people I socialised with or at, changed university majors several times, moved house many times, severed contact with people (often because I was too embarrassed by my behaviour to see them again), stopped going to shops or other places (again, because of embarrassment at my past behaviour), moved up and down the country, and generally started all over again, time and time again. It became intimately connected with my secret shame - I couldn't handle life well, and I knew it.

Sometimes, these changes weren’t under my control – a friend would move away, or a house I was renting would be sold. But mostly it was me and my own inner restlessness. I always thought the next place, the next person or group would solve all my problems, would be the one/s I’d fit in with at long last, would transform my life, or just transform me.

It never did of course. And eventually, like Rudy Simone, I was forced to stop running and face myself. And realise that I’ve undeniably hurt some people along the way, destroyed potential or actual friendships, and no doubt thoroughly got up many people’s noses. Looking back, I can see in some cases it was for the best that I did walk away from those people. But many another time, some help with learning how to recognise my feelings, express them in a constructive way, and to deal with conflict or unhelpful situations, would have changed my life considerably. This tendency to self-sabotage is a very real problem, and something we need help learning how NOT to do – and the younger we learn it, the better. This is where a mentor or advocate would be of huge help – they could teach us better ways to cope with the difficulties we have in life, whether they be sensory, emotional, social, academic, job-related, or indeed anything. Yes, I have more or less taught myself now, but it was hard. If someone had just taken me by the hand and said ‘there’s a better way’, how much easier my life would have been. How much less damage I would have done, to myself and others.

Perhaps things will be better for the next generation, perhaps they will get the support and guidance they need, whether it be from older auties, or non-autistic helpers and mentors. I certainly hope so.

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[1] Simone, Rudy. (2010) Aspergirls – Empowering Females with Asperger Syndrome. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London and Philadelphia.

Autistics And Mentors

The feeling is growing stronger in me, that the one thing adults and adolescents (and probably even children) on the spectrum need more than anything else is mentors.

By ‘mentors’, I mean people who can help us find our way through the often bewildering, frightening and overwhelming maze that gets called ‘life’ or ‘the world’. Such people could be either understanding (and knowledgeable) NTs, or older people on the spectrum who have also acquired knowledge and/or solid skills and want to pass them on. The role could be a formal or informal one, paid or volunteer, under the auspices of some organisation or (possible, but less likely) government department, or simply personal or family connections.

A mentor could help us auties in lots of ways, but here are the main ways I feel they could be of use to us (I’m still developing these ideas, so don’t take this as the definitive list) :-

1) Acting as an advocate or (peer) support when we have to deal with government departments, banks, doctors, landlords, prospective employers, universities, etc, etc. Some autistics have people doing this role for them already.

2) A sort of ‘go-to’ person to ask all those thorny ‘social savvy’ questions of – “Why did she say that?” “Why was what I did wrong?” “How do I ask them out on a date?”

3) A similar sort of person to ask practical questions like - “How do I go about doing such-and-such?” “Who do I see about this?” “What does this letter mean?”

3) A sort of ‘co-ordinator’ or ‘liaison’ person so that, even if they are not able to help us directly, they can point us in the direction of those people and agencies who can.

4) Someone who can either direct us to online or face-to-face groups for those on the spectrum, or co-ordinate such groups, or provide/arrange a place for them to meet. Note: if such people are not on the spectrum themselves, I would expect them to act as the initiator only of such groups, and not to actually join in the meeting, or try to ‘manage’ it, or us, in any way.

The main thing about such mentors is that they help us in a positive way. My definition of ‘positive help’ is assistance that empowers the individual. By this, I mean it helps us feel stronger in our selves, increases our independence, self-confidence and self-esteem, grants us more control over our lives, and leaves us feeling good about the relationship with the mentor. ‘Negative help’, on the other hand, is ‘help’ that leaves us feeling weak, more dependent and ‘needy’, feeling bad about ourselves, and ambivalent towards the person supposedly ‘helping’ us.

Many a time in my life, I’ve wished for such support, even looked for it, asked people for help, but either they weren’t willing to, or didn’t understand exactly what I needed, or in what form I needed it. Sometimes I was even criticised simply for asking. It has meant a lifetime floundering around trying to find my way, making heaps of mistakes that, if they could have been avoided, would have made my life so much easier. I would probably not be in the position (of poverty, joblessness, poor health, etc), that I’m in, if I had had such help. I’ve learnt a lot of skills along the way, sure, but I did it the hard way – the extremely hard way. I would love it if both present and future generations of autistics didn’t have to struggle and stumble through life as I did.