"Explosive decompression"

An expansion on Jim Sinclair's idea of "explosive decompression"

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Jim Sinclair has been an important activist since the beginning of the neurodiversity rights movement in the 1990's. Sinclair, Polly Samuel (Donna Williams) and Xenia Grant organized and ran Autreat, an autistic-led and run retreat, for several years. The feedback they received from people who attended varied as much as autistic people do. One anonymous reply reads:

"I wasn't sure what to do or what was expected, and nobody told me what I should be doing. I felt very lost and disconnected. Without external cues telling me what I should do and be, I started feeling as if I didn't exist at all. I realized that I've built so much of my life around trying to be what other people expect me to be that I don't actually know who I am, or even if I am, apart from other people's expectations."

Sinclair describes this feeling in the essay Cultural Commentary: Being Autistic Together (2010):

[This] is an experience that I call "explosive decompression," and fortunately it doesn't happen very often. I've seen it happen to three or four people over the 20 years since I started seeking out other autistic people. It's very terrifying while it's happening. But it is survivable, and can be the first step toward discovering that one does exist independently of other people's perceptions and expectations.

To the contrary, I've seen plenty of autistic people describe this "explosive decompression" online, especially in the spaces I frequent - spaces guided by the ideas of the Autism Rights and Justice movements as they are in 2024, and spaces that are frequented by late-diagnosed women and non-binary autistics in North America, Western Europe, and Australia. It is thanks to the work of the earliest autistic advocates that we now feel comfortable enough to talk about this in public, and I hope that as time goes on, every autistic can speak about their experiences.

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For me, the concept of a "life story" is a complicated one.

At first, my discovery of autism felt like a pivot point - a climax of the story so far. I was 23 and primed for the quarter-life crisis I was told I'd have. At first it seemed like an explanation for everything I had wondered about thus far - why people acted a certain way, why people called me certain words, why I couldn't seem to meet some standards. I thought that the process of applying autism as a theory to my life would be a denouement; and then the "story" - which, by then, had become overwhelmingly dramatic and unpleasant to live - would be over. And then, with newfound security and a sense of purpose, I could "retire" from the difficult portion and settle down with a cup of tea until my death.

In retrospect, this is laughably ignorant of me to have believed, and I am surprised I had felt this way so recently. (I am writing this a bit over a year after my therapist first suggested I may have Asperger's.)

But my sources for my "life story" - and how I think of myself in general - are all external. In my earliest years, which in fairness I barely remember, I don't recall having had a sense of self at all. I was mostly focused on pleasant sensations. Carpet on bare skin, pony beads and dried glitter glue, and especially the way my thumb would fit perfectly in certain sand-worn shells from the beach. I understood that I had a body that existed in space. Things happened around me; sometimes, those things led to sensations. Beyond that, I had little awareness of myself or anyone else.

Quite early on, I learned to read. I processed information quickly and my recall was strong. I could read a book, recall a sentence, and open the book again to the correct page. I had a great mind for facts, and I found the most facts in encyclopedias, whose bindings would eventually stop creaking and fall apart. I think that who I was in these earliest years, when I could not have been described as possessing a sense of "self", are still the closest to my natural state of being.

What I do not recall from that age is having had a family, friends, or community. Those ideas came later, when I was forced to recognize and organize the different faces. Some gave me food and books, and some laughed at my puns. I considered them good. Some did not give me what I wanted, or they were unpleasantly loud and touchy. I considered them bad. But I didn't think of them considering me in return.

The first intentionally empathetic act I remember doing was around 5th grade. We had a gym that I largely avoided because the squeaky basketball court floors would make me cry, and my general uncoordination meant I was not destined for athletic greatness. A girl from another school was visiting for some sports event. She had a tube in her nose, which I had never seen before. I was curious, and I followed her around the gym, making mental notes like a zoologist: The subject, unknown name and age, has a thin yellow tube emerging from her nose, which disappears into her clothes - purpose unknown.

My unsubtle approach caught her attention (a cause-and-effect I only realize now, while writing this). The girl turned around, but she said nothing. For perhaps the first time in my life, I felt the need to fill the silence. I said, matter-of-factly, "you have a tube in your nose". She continued to say nothing, and I had a vague sense of unease. She was not following the conversational pattern I expected - in fact, she was saying nothing, and I had no script to follow at all.

I recalled a recent lesson on bullying. Two tenets came to mind: a) that bullying is impermissible, and b) that being mean about someone's appearance is bullying. If I had thought further, I'd probably have concluded I was not trying to be mean, and these tenets did not apply. But the girl's stare was unnerving. I borrowed a script from the mental file folder named Compliments for eyes, hair, and other bodily traits and I said, "Your tube is really pretty". I then turned and walked away. It was an indirect apology for a social wrong. By accident, I had committed an empathetic act.

Well, I hope that's how she took it.

Through that and other events I realized I was being perceived, too. I acquired labels like "nerdy", "intense", and "eccentric". Blissfully unaware of connotations, I adopted those as my words. I collected other reactions, like slurs, pity, and laughter. I learned to change my outward self to accommodate other people and avoid blatantly negative reactions. I'd like to think I was pretty successful.

I made my first long-term friend, and it was through conversations with him that I realized I had developed enough of a sense of self to be proud of it.

But I wasn't myself. The intensely controlled persona, with agreeable body language, intense but mostly acceptable interests, and sensory stress that stayed buried until I could make it to privacy, was not who I naturally was. Without being aware, I started masking. Without having formed a stable self-concept, I constructed my mask from bits and pieces of other people. And people liked "me".

That's why I don't think I have a "life story" - because for years, it was not I who was living it.

I had come across the idea of masking on the same day I found my first Theory of Autism. It was exciting to have a convincing reason for the almost literal alienation I felt, from others and from my own constructed personality. I wondered what of my true self lay buried underneath. I thought for sure that it'd be better if I were honest with myself and others. I thought it'd be a relief to be able to assert myself and my needs. I thought I'd be able to direct the enormous amount of energy that maintaining my mask required into more fulfilling things. I figured the people who had seen the best of me would still accept me. I figured I was strong enough to endure anyone who didn't.

But when I started taking the mask off - I found that I was left with nothing. I didn't have anything that I felt I could call mine. I had largely quashed the passions I felt during childhood in favor of making my mask, which occupied so much mental strain that I had little time for anything else.

Worse than that, I learned how attached other people had been to the mask, too. I don't want to talk about this yet.

Not every autistic person can mask; a lot of the late-diagnosed people I've talked to can, and have described similar concerns. Sometimes, they describe unmasking as a freeing process - a search for the "true" self, and dropping toxic influences and finding true relationships. I hope that one day, that's how I'll write my story.

So far, I've learned two things: the first is that, to preserve what I care about in life, the mask has to stay on.

The second is that masking is going to kill me.

AWARENESS, ACCEPTANCE, ADVOCACY

AUTISTIC RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS

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