How to motivate an Autistic person.

Clarity and preparedness 

 If I have to travel anywhere new, I'll need plans. No one else's plan's, my own. In my old life, whenever we had meetings, a few members of our management team would always hook up with me. Marc, once told me, the reason he always jumped in with me was because I'd know exactly where the venue was, where the best places to park were likely to be, what time we would have to leave to arrive early, what the hotel was called, what the check in arrangements were and so on. He was right, I am wholly uncomfortable if I do not know any of this. Another colleague I work with now, Ken, has observed I'm very much a details guy. I have to know exactly what to do, I am pretty hopeless with any ambiguity, if it isn't totally clear, I flounder or stop dead in my tracks. 

Likewise, with the En suite we're having installed, I have to know exactly, what tiles we're having, what toilet, tap, shower, etc and until that's all decided and written down, and approved, how can we just wing it? How can we move forward with any plans, until we know exactly what is going where? How can I sleep not knowing? I'm told it can all be changed even after the building work has started, but I can't be comfortable knowing everything isn't already properly planned out, to the literal millimetre, before things are booked in. (I'm letting someone else do the building schedule, I simply couldn't cope with that). 

Curiosity and Motivation

However, to motivate me I simply need an idea. I saw a post yesterday that said many Neurotypical folk can be motivated by urgency, reward and expectation, where as neurodiverse folk are more likely to be motivated by curiosity, novelty and challenge. For me that is most definitely true and for my old Boss, who knew me best, he used this to make his job managing me, really easy. He was fully aware of my skills and capabilities, so would simply drop a 'possibility bomb' and leave.... for example, he might say;

"Do you think in future we could get better doing this another way...."

or

"Do you think we could improve that, it seems like it could be simpler...."

Those sorts of phrases would get my mind racing, there would be a short period of thinking followed by frantic, action. Like lighting blue touch paper, I would fizzle with thought, reflection research and possibility, and then the rocket would literally go off and I would work like no one you'd seen, achieving what he wanted, in half the time most would take, if indeed they decided to pursue it at all. 

Life Goals

In life, it's been noted by my link worker that all of my career, has been decided for me, either by luck, fate or being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. I worked for my Father first, because it was easy. When that business folded, a friend got me an interview across the road, at Tandy. They were bought by Carphone Warehouse, and when my mental breakdown happened in 2014, after two years arduous battling, failure to secure a position anywhere meant I started my own business through desperation. 

The only life goal I had was aged 15-19 when I loved drawing so much, and cars, that I wanted to be a car designer. I secured an interview at Coventry university, where I was told to go back and get a foundation course in Art before re-applying. 

But of course, demotivation is way easier than motivation with ASD sufferers, and this put me off ever wanting to look at it again. In much the same way my Art teacher put me off wanting to pursue a career as an artist, because realism, my preferred style, was somehow invalid. Of course, with age, now I know that's nonsense, but the damage was done, 4 years 'learning' under his stewardship and I'm loathe to ever pick up another pencil again. 

Doubt, or removal of certainty, can be, to many an Autistic person the causation of a severe meltdown. I know severe Autistic sufferers who can have full on panic episodes, simply because an item in the kitchen isn't where it ought to be, and make no mistake, this is no laughing matter at all. Expecting or thinking something is going to be, or 'should be' one way, only to find out it isn't like that at all, causes incredible physiological changes that can be short lived panic attacks or long term life changing events. 

I recall reading a book, ironically called 'being happy' expressing the danger of using, or thinking things 'should' be one way or another, but for ASD sufferers, this isn't something we can let go of. I read this chapter many a time thinking how different life might be if I could let go of this train of thought, but it is literally in my DNA that I have to know how things 'should be', because of this godforsaken disability. 

Executive Functioning and doubt. 

And this leads me on to my final point, the one which has gotten me up, once again, at 3:30am to write this blog post. Without certainty I have severe discomfort. Think of this like imposter syndrome on steroids. If I feel like I shouldn't be doing something, or all of the pieces aren't in place. I want to bail. I want to run and disassociate myself with whatever the original thing was that is now feeling wrong. 

After meeting with my link worker, it's been suggested that maybe I should pursue a career offering technical support. Something I now have a few years experience of, and something which occasionally gives me great reward. Taking a complex technical problem and fixing it, either through research or using my prior knowledge can be quite rewarding. So I'm all in. For the first time in my life I have a life-goal. I need to pursue a generic IT qualification (as I have none) and use that, tied with my experience and go for it. I should secure a position, not through, fate, desperation or luck, but through design. 

But the process of enrolling on the course has been fraught with communication failures and lacklustre systems. My application stalled several times and required intervention from outside sources just to enroll and now it's happened, self doubt is creeping in again, questions from elsewhere, have my mind racing in the middle of the night. Is this seriously what I want? Does this satisfy my creative bent? I've an email from the course tutor, wanting a call to assess my suitability for the course, and an email from a concerned friend asking if I am sure this is what I want to do? And so, once again, I am in turmoil. 

What if I pursue it and I'm not capable? What if my academic failings of past come back to haunt me again? What if I am unable to find the time around my other commitments to study enough to keep up? Why am I doing this at all? 

These doubts aren't new, they destructively creep into any plans for self development and paradoxically because they remove the certainty (see point one), because these doubts make me question the plans, they make me want to bail, give in, hide my head under a pillow and do nothing instead. 

And this is perhaps why us Autistic folk are dreadful with Executive Functioning. The ability to look after our own development, careers and well being. We do not 'throw caution to the wind', we don't 'feel the fear and do it anyway', we feel the fear way before anyone else senses it and we do nothing, we hide. Not because we can't achieve these things, but because it's not simple, it's not planned out to the n'th degree, it's not clear, what we should do, or whether we would succeed. Because future careers and courses are ambiguous and uncertain, we simply cannot commit, in the same way a neurotypical person could. 

Executive functioning is ill-defined nor is it well understood, but the above diagram goes some way to highlight some of the functions Autistic folk struggle with. All of these make furthering one's career, or planning for one's own future, an absolute nightmare. Not being able to control my emotions or impulses has left me with some very difficult apologies to make. Having poor working memory and an inability to physically or mentally organise my life, makes academic success challenging to say the least, especially when that is paired up with a desperate inability to initiate or prioritise tasks. 

It's little wonder people who suffer with ASD find progress so difficult. I'm only starting to understand some of the challenges that have faced me, my whole life. Challenges that have been hidden away for so long that I can finally start to see and fight. Although success still seems a long long way off.