[“I realize one of the reasons I struggle so hard to deal with change that happens or to bring about change is because I lack the ability to imagine what life would be like if it were different.
I am reminded of the story of an autistic college student. The boy had classes at 8:30 a.m., but the battery in his alarm clock had died. He was concerned he would oversleep and miss his lessons, so he had to think of a solution. The one he came up with resonates so deeply with me. He decided to sleep in the classroom at school. He lacked the adaptive skills to replace the clock battery.
I have so many of this kind of incident in my life that I have stopped noticing them. Perhaps the most dramatic was the first time I ever drove in the snow. I noticed my car was behaving differently on this unusual surface. I realized I didn’t know how to deal with it. I did what at the time seemed utterly logical: as I lost control of the car, I opened the door and threw myself out. I was lucky. The car narrowly missed my head and brought itself to a halt by crashing into a tree. Since then I have avoided driving in snow whenever possible. On the occasions I must do so, I inch along at a couple of miles per hour. Until this moment, it has never occurred to me to ask someone to teach me how to drive safely in the snow.
Many autism experts believe daily living skills, such as managing finances, need to be explicitly taught to people on the autism spectrum. Everything most nonautistic people pick up as they go along—how to shop, catch a bus, cook, clean, or manage money—are skills that are difficult for me to acquire simply by assimilation. I need a book, a video, or someone to explain and show me how to do it.
There’s a perception that anyone with average or above-average intelligence will naturally pick up these skills. Strangely, intelligence seems to have little to do with it, and one study even found that problems of this kind are especially prominent in those autistic people with greater cognitive abilities.
I have been lucky that I managed to somehow muddle through. The points where my deficits might have been picked up were missed, or the people who have helped me have failed to mention how unusual my issues have been. Every month the phone would be cut off. I had no system for paying bills. In the past, we have had to have a prepaid electricity key. Even now something unexpected—like a demand to pay the Dartford bridge toll—can go unpaid until the amount has more than tripled. I cannot adequately explain why this happens.
My bank manager and accountant got together and sorted out a system for me. It was a simple one. I would have two current accounts: one to use with my debit card, the other for direct debits. Rather than paying myself only when I thought I needed to, a set monthly amount would go into my bills account, and each week an amount would be transferred over to pay for daily living expenses. The system worked well. At least it did until I started earning less money. It hadn’t occurred to me I would have to cut back.”]
laura james, from odd girl out: my extraordinary autistic life, 2017
