Perplexity in the Social Sense
Another first-person, micro-autism-moment.
Assimilation leads to security. For most, this learning feels natural. Safe.
Perplexity is a term in psychology to describe the loss of the common sense. Common sense is a social construct. It does not mean what is natural or objectively true, but rather what is agreed upon by the masses.
With this perplexity comes a strange shortage of automatic understanding of events, objects, words, situations… that *most* humans naturally grasp.
Perplexity is when you lose familiarity with your world. And there are varied ways this can happen.
Perplexity can present as a confusion of everyday objects that the person once understood. The person with Dementia pulls a coffee mug from the cupboard but cannot recall what this strange item is used for. They may stare for several minutes until the nurse comes along and redirects the resident.
Don’t think I’m excluding the rest of you. Everyone has experienced feeling perplexed from time to time.
You may have been perplexed by a friend’s way of doing things in their own home. Or you may have said a word over and over until it lost all meaning.
Didn’t we all try that at least once as a kid? For me, it was the word fork. Why is it called that? So many things are random and bizarre.
Perplexity in neurological disorders, like Dementia or Autism, causes severe impairments to their daily functioning.
I believe monotropic processing leads to social perplexity in Autism.
I failed to pick up on social priors that others learned in childhood. Why?
The autistic person never fully grasps why things “are the way they are” because our symptoms began in the formative years.
Autistics lack that effortless assimilation because we are not peering into the same world. Our mirror is very different from the rest. Yet we still grapple for understanding, like anyone else, and we can come to different conclusions based on having a different perspective. It can take us longer.
Thus, autism is considered to be a Developmental Disability.
I invite you to imagine feeling this confusion in everyday social events, trips to the grocery store, or interactions at work, as though you have never understood the reasons behind any of people’s strange behaviors.
To accomplish this, you’ll need to stretch your imagination.
Start by imagining a warped mirror. Maybe it’s not flat. Maybe it’s upside down, and we never grow accustomed to that. A funhouse mirror is an excellent analogy here. Could you navigate a space like this?
I like metaphors. Autism does not stop us from grasping imagination ;)
Here is a real-life example:
Yesterday, I was in a large outlet store looking for a specific item. I came across walls and walls of dresses and blouses. All with a small floral print pattern. Very folk. Very feminine. Very tiny. They sucked me into a vortex.
When we say we go into “tunnel vision”, we by no means intend a metaphor. I see what looks like a vortex. It is a literal swirly tunnel. It is narrow. Maybe a foot, no wider.
I am sucked in. This vortex is maybe three to four feet out from me, ending at the pattern my eyes have locked onto. It depends on the captivating object’s dimensions and location.
Nothing else is within sight because everything else is outside the vortex. I am trapped inside this vortex tunnel.
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I am not even seeing the dresses. I am only seeing the pattern on the dress. And I am enthralled by repetition more than anything.
I have noticed that the smaller the pattern, the more likely I am to experience the visual of a tunnel linking my eyes to the patterned item. If I am locked onto a grid of windows or something equally large in my greater environment, I do not see a literal tunnel form with those bigger patterns.
The concept of the garment’s purpose becomes irrelevant. This is the perplexity component and will be discussed further in part two.
I am walking along, no, pulled along the aisle to view the patterned dresses on the wall, one by one. My feet keep going as I am dragged by the vortex, as though my own will to direct actions is muffled- overridden.
Suddenly, a woman’s face is in my view.
She did not exist, then BAM! Her face is right there in my tunnel with me. Not even her whole body. I only saw her head and shoulders in the tunnel.
This happened back-to-back with two salespeople popping into, then out of my tunnel as I walked on, flustered. I must have come off rude. I could hardly think of words to answer their questions.
This used to happen when I was in the zone at work. My coworkers thought me rude. But I was just super focused.
My husband was behind me in the store; I had no awareness of his position. I searched for him. I needed to hang on to something. I felt that if I had a blanket with me, I could have plopped right down on the floor to wait for help. Anything to hang onto.
It is really weird to lose the sense of the space surrounding you. It takes a while for vision to re-widen. There could be a danger in the vicinity, and I would not be able to see it. I get the sense people do not understand this about autism.
Special interests are a very mild form of this monotropic suction.
Now you see how much I can miss, quite literally, visually miss, in the day-to-day social interactions. I miss a lot. This is why masking does not work well for me. All I can do is try not to complain or bother anyone with my shortcomings.
Would you like to try to envision this problem next time you go out socially?
In some buildings, they intentionally create grid patterns on the walls with windows or paneling. Keep an eye out for it while you are out in public. Notice there are patterns everywhere you go. Pretend they captivate you.
Imagine it prevents you from picking up on social cues from the people you are with. Now, try to be polite and stay in the conversation, despite missing most of it. And don’t forget to smile! They will pester you if you don’t smile. Then you’ll experience what it’s like to be interrupted in this state. ;)
Sounds in the environment can have the same effect if they are repetitive. Anything repetitive grips our attention.
That’s been my life. Everyone else in the room knows exactly how to behave, while I am lost. They pick up on the social cues; I am forever uncouth. How am I expected to mirror others when my mirror often morphs into a vortex?
I stand there wondering if my posture is weird. What did I miss? Am I in the way? I usually think of this concern first. (Because we do care about others) I hope I wasn’t out of it too long. I hope I did not inconvenience anyone.
I try to come back to the bigger picture. People keep asking if I need assistance; I must be doing something concerning, and they’ve noticed.
I am now too aware of my body. I become rigid.
I hang on my caregiver’s arm. I hope no more salespeople approach me.
This is the focus problem in autism. It takes us longer to come back out and register and process everything around us. It is never effortless.
My husband asked how long it took me to expand my vision to see full figures again. I was able to see my surroundings by the time we got to the checkout station. Those can pull me back out. It’s a behavioral pattern I have learned. Because we always need to come back to reality when it comes time to pay.
My coordination is awkward, and I am constantly stressed by normal social expectations I can never live up to. All those times I was corrected for “not paying attention” in school. I wish they understood what was happening within.
But I could not verbalize it. It took me 42 years to be able to explain experiences like this one. I had to first figure out what was different about my processing, and that took obsessive amounts of research, writing, and reflecting.
Writing is what I use as a mirror in place of socializing. It’s reflective, cognitive-based, and solitary.
