Autism Month: Container Analogy

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and I have a very special post this week where I explain what it’s like for me living with Autism and meltdowns. Let’s get started!

Preamble

I struggle with Autistic meltdowns. As early as I can remember, I’ve been asked why I behave certain ways (usually as punishment for misbehavior perceived to be intentional), and just as long, I’ve been coming up with different –sometimes contradictory– explanations of my mental processes. Few were memorable except possibly a school essay circa around 2008-2009 comparing myself to a squishy energy ball with situationaly dynamic properties.

My analogies grew in complexity as I tried to build one unifying theory. It grew so many rules neither I nor anyone else could keep everything straight for a predictable model of my reactions. I could be fine after a loud noise one day and in terrible pain from a quieter one the next. In self-preservation, I would sometimes force myself into the worse reaction to afford others’ understanding when I needed it.

Then one evening in or around 2016 (wild guess), I penned the first draft of my container analogy as a frustrated message to a long-time friend over Discord who had sent me into a bad meltdown. It overflowed the 2,000 character limit, comparatively grew into a Calculus-grade explanation of how the rules change to my previous brute-force, Algebra-like rule sets, and was ultimately never sent after pending review by a trusted family member in case it was too hot a take. Instead, I put it into a document which had my entire Autism support group nodding, impressing our psychologist, who encouraged me into researching how to copyright it.

Since then, I’ve re-imagined it a time or two, and I’m ready to share it as part of Autism Month. If you or someone you know is on or is a caregiver for a member of the Autistic spectrum, it is my hope and prayer that this analogy can be a tool of healing and understanding.

Container

If I were to ever depict the control room of my brain, it would feature a container with an inlet and an outlet – a buffer between all incoming sensory information and my ability to process it. When fluid arrives faster than it can drain, the level rises and will eventually overflow in a chain reaction known as a meltdown, where all the fluid is spilled across the floor of BrainHQ. Higher thought processes –including evaluation of probable consequences– are impeded as base instincts attempt to clean up.

Processing generally happens over time, but a particularly suitable environment can reduce the amount of incoming fluid, freeing up resources for additional processing capacity. A meltdown in progress can go from raging to manageable simply by retreating to a designated space.

The most important difference about this container is its dynamic and invisible volume. Only its relative fullness, processing speed, and state of meltdown are known by its owner at any given time. By mentally tracking how full it’s been over time, its current capacity can be estimated. Involuntary or uncontrolled meltdowns dramatically shrink the container’s capacity to the point where even small stimuli can instantly overflow a post-meltdown container. Similarly, the expectation and execution of a particularly good time or special event can expand the container’s capacity to temporarily cope with volumes a neurotypical brain automatically can filter through.

A trigger is a stimulus that fills this container more than it should – either when compared to similar stimuli or had the same stimulus been experienced by most anyone else. One or two large ones can easily “trigger” a meltdown. Small, normally ignorable triggers in rapid succession can leave fluid sloshing around for subsequent triggers to splash fluid out of the container, causing a meltdown over several otherwise nothings.

In one unpublished telling of this analogy, I visualized the container and fluid as a barrel with apple cider so as to relate to a fictional character of mine I was role playing against an avatar of myself in a story format. In one scene, the cider spoiled, soaked into the wood of the barrel, and leached back into future thought processes at semi-random intervals. These echos are a particularly nasty kind of trigger where each echo comes back as an individual trigger joining its all its previous peers at once for an amplified effect. Individual instances generally fade over time, but re-exposure to memorable triggers has a way of inciting instant recall.

Strategies

Everything brought up so far has been passive. You can’t expect me to scrub toilets and tell me to have a mindset of going on vacation to cope. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things to do to optimize the container’s performance.

The container has some elasticity. When needed, it can be stretched, but extra fluid has to be dealt with as maximum capacity rebounds below normal. This holds true for both big, stimulating event as well as when a meltdown would be obviously and immediately dangerous, like while driving. Overuse of this strategy can damage the container’s maximum capacity long-term.

Opposite the first strategy is to prematurely trip a controlled meltdown-like state where some input is ignored as a triggering stimulus passes by. This can be as mild as mentally blanking out a loud car as it passes to full-on turtle mode, where all input bypasses the container and gets dumped. A sampling of random input can be retained to determine if it’s safe to bounce out, but the better the sample, the less effective the bypass strategy will be.

Sometimes, more fluid is expected than will ever fit or can be bypassed. This is when clumsy base impulses in charge of cleanup seize the controls meant for the higher functions now stepping back into a bunker. Senses –though heightened– aren’t as immediate a concern as the autopilot guides a melted individual to safety. This perceived degree of separation feels similar to controlling a video game character or navigating a choose-your-own-adventure style dream. Consequences are still harder to conceive of, but the higher functions have a veto in this mode if the path of least resistance is reasoned to be more dangerous than wading through the trigger-infested fluid.

The last strategy is a cry for help. Petition another person for aid. Depending on the situation or individual, it may be as simple as explaining the situation verbally with words to as vague as acting “off” for someone to notice and ask. Embellishment may be used sparingly to convey a sense of magnitude or urgency, but over-outlandish comparisons run the risk of rejection.

Extensions

I’ve tried to integrate as much of my analogy into a single narrative as possible, but I’ve found it to be easily extendable. Even so, some details don’t fit in well elsewhere.

Fluid spilled in a meltdown –if not cleaned in a timely manner– will harden and take even longer to recover from.

There is a strategy called masking I personally am not a fan of relying on, but it works for some people: a foreign pattern of behavior is emulated using extra mental resources. Overuse leads to burnout.

Burnout is where the brain unwires potentially needed skills from speech to social skills to computer programs. Burnout may last anywhere from a day or two to long enough to re-learn the skills from scratch.

Another way to look at base instincts/impulses is as an idiot doppelganger at the brain’s controls. One of my notes from the cider version of this analogy visualizes this doppelganger as being made of spilled fluid. But it was competing with imagery of my character’s shadow separating out to wade through the fluid to operate the controls. I loved both illustrations so much, I couldn’t pick a single one, and eventually lost interest in the project. They may work in a fused for thoug.

Misconceptions

There is a distinction between triggers and meltdown vs anger and temper tantrums. The two sets may appear similar and occur concurrently, but one is a type of fight, flight, or freeze sequence, while the other is a basic human emotion driven by perceived injustice allowed to degenerate into bad behavior. This is why I have taken to making a distinction between triggers and Autistic triggers when talking with people outside my inner circle.

Autism is said to be a spectrum: no two people with it are the same. Once you’ve met one person with Autism, you’ve met one person with Autism, and the next one will be different. A stimulus or deprivation thereof may be soothing for one person and a supermassive trigger for another.

Takeaway

Autism is a lifelong challenge, but by the love and grace of God, my family loves each other. It breaks my heart knowing there exist members of the spectrum locked in a state of perpetual meltdown and masking as a matter of survival. The quality of life the Almighty has blessed me with I definitely would wish on those who would make assumptions about me based on their own experiences [particularly those with Autism], make hurtful or degrading judgments, and leave without a second thought. I believe this post has the potential to help.