My holiday destination of choice is Paris. Eminently gettable-to on the train, its beige, ornate buildings peacefully homogenous, smaller and quieter than London…. I could go on, but suffice it to say that I enjoy my time there. One of my friends used to live in Western France; we would meet in the capital for girly weekends.
On our first morning there I would drag my friend to the same cafe and order the same thing for breakfast: Tarte Tatin with vanilla ice cream. The perfect circle of gelatinous, caramel-coloured apples would arrive to a silent chorus of raised eyebrows, perhaps unsurprising given that it was about quarter to nine in the morning.
“Did you know that Italians often eat cake for breakfast? They get most of their sugar intake first thing in the morning.” I tuck into the nearest wedge of candied apple.
“Really?” My friend parsimoniously tucks into her slice of toast.
“Yes, and they live far longer than English people; they are far healthier.”
“Hmmm.”
“And did you know that nutritionists say that if you are going to consume sugar then it is better that you do it first thing, because the excess energy is burnt off through the day…”
“Uh huh?”
I eeked out some of the vanilla ice cream and pop it onto the tart. My friend scraped a miniscule amount of butter into her toast whilst shaking her head in despair. “You just want apple pie for breakfast,” she said.
I have a good head for facts. Did you know that the Mediterranean and Ionian Sea meet on the coast of a town called Santa Maria di Leuca, and their meeting point is marked by a yellow and red striped hut? Did you know that lilac and purple primroses are actually the result of a cross breeding with primulas? Did you know that Maya Plisetskaya was the only Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Bolshoi ever? I do. In theory I have learnt that it is best not to bombard neurotypical people with facts, but unfortunately, I do not always apply the theory in practice.
I was a “clever girl” at school, meaning that I was quiet, did as I was told, worked hard and had a natural aptitude for certain subjects. Of course, from everyone’s point of view, including my own, I was also neurotypical. Now that I have my autism diagnosis, how much of being a “clever, good girl” can be reinterpreted through the lens of autism? I was quiet and did as I was told because I was scared – adrift amongst alien people who always seemed to know the right thing to do and didn’t feel or experience things the same way that I did. I worked hard because work was solitary and therefore not overstimulating. And I excelled in certain subjects because I had a brain that was permanently set to “find a fact” mode and still is. Facts were, and indeed still are, my friend. They are interesting (perhaps not everyone would agree), they come in handy, they help me navigate the world, and they deepen my understanding of life when my autism holds me back. Whenever I catch neurotypical people feeling sorry for me; when they assume that my autism is a burden, I think of all the things that I know. I remember how quickly I can pluck salient information out of books/articles/anything I lay my hands on, and how quickly I can recall it when necessary. When I watch people scrabble around for a number, a name or a fact, their eyes narrowed in concentration as they roam the befuddled recesses of their mind, I feel profound relief that I am autistic.
The trouble is that just because I can usually find factual evidence for everything I do; it doesn’t mean that I should still do it
As any autistic person will know, there are certain stereotypes attached to being “us”. One such stereotype is the autistic know-it-all, reeling off facts oblivious to whether their listeners are interested. I always feel a little hurt when our love of the factual is taken to be arrogant or didactic. I suppose that we do want to enlighten people on our favourite topics, but not in a superior or pompous way. We just really love knowing things, and we are concerned that other people might be missing out on our glorious facts.
Facts link to another negative stereotype of autism – the idea that we don’t feel; that we rely on facts because we have nothing else, no other sense than the intellectual. I actually feel quite nauseous at the damage that the “robotic” stereotype has done to the autism community, and it couldn’t be more wrong. At the other end of the scale to our facts, we also have our hypersensitivity – the extreme, completely immersive way in which we experience touch, sight, sound and taste. I recently went to the theatre to listen to a recitation of T.S Eliot’s poetry, and was struck by the way poets try to present the world in a way that autistic people already see it. They pick out sounds, colours, smells and layer them densely – exactly what autistic people do as a matter of course. Surely, combine this sensitivity with our ability to seek out and retain knowledge, and we should be invincible?
But I confess that, as I have grown older and more comfortable surrounded by my factual friends, I have started to use them to my own advantage in a way that is controlling – autistic, but not in a good way. I can furnish a fact to back up almost everything I do, which begs the question, where do you draw a line between fact and excuse? I have won arguments by quoting statistics and did-you-knows: they roll of my lips so easily. But I am often wrong all the same – I am just more articulate in the moment due to my little storage facility of facts, and I experience some pangs of guilt over this.
Sometimes, as I said earlier, just because you can come up with a logical reason to do something doesn’t mean that you should. Then again, the next time I go to Paris, I will probably still have Tarte Tatin for breakfast.
