I was prompted to write my first blog when I saw the frantic rush by shoppers to buy toilet roll. It triggered my own anxiety about what would happen if panic buying resulted in me not being able to buy the very specific brands of food that I must have.
The world did not run out of toilet roll, pasta, crunchy nut cornflakes or any other items and my anxieties about shortages were unfounded.
However – my distinct lack of anxiety about the potential impact of coronavirus on my health – I believed I would be at low risk due to being healthy and unsociable – was proven completely wrong.
I did become ill in the weeks following writing my original blog and needed to visit the hospital due to my continuous cough and breathing difficulties. This hospital visit was unlike any hospital visit I had made before. Some positives came from it and I was able to share my personal experience of sensory distress and confusion with the health board who were developing some fantastic resources for people who have a learning disability or are autistic. I’m glad I could use that traumatic experience to help others.
I worked as a key worker until late August and also in my role within Autism Wellbeing. We began producing information for people affected by autism. Tips for autistic people; their families; carers; and colleagues; covering everything from the language used in the pandemic; masks and PPE; coping with change; self-care; returning to work and school; and coping with the “New Normal”.
Our popular Covid-19 Resource pack has been widely shared and downloaded. You can get a free copy by following this link:
https://www.autismwellbeing.org.uk/product-page/autism-wellbeing-covid-19-support-pack
In fact, we were nominated for and awarded as “Local Lockdown Legends” for the work we are doing online and in our Facebook peer support groups for autistic adults and for parents/carers. (And by the way; many group members are in both groups).
At home we focused on our son. He was already home educated and I watched how parents of school educated kids tried to juggle working from home with providing a full time education. An impossible task. Collectively across society, we all did our best and realised there were many benefits to the computer screens and games consoles we often feel as parents are ‘taking over’ our children’s lives. The ability to chat online and out loud to friends, to play games together and stay in touch from the privacy of our own homes is invaluable and has been a life saver for many people. Here is a personal post I shared on Facebook as the first UK lockdown was announced. And a follow up 2 months later:
We are still learning about what is important to us. We have found that routines work well – and letting each family member set the routines that are most important to them is even better. I tend to bake a cake each weekend, we have pizza and a film on a Saturday – we have found that making the weekends special is important for us so we don’t feel lost in a world where every day feels like Sunday.
My initial fear – in fact it was more like a recurring bad dream, was of the pandemic ending abruptly and the streets being filled with people making lots of noise and desperate to hug me – imagining this filled me with terror. Of course, this is not how it has panned out.
I am so lucky, I live in a beautiful place. The natural world has been my escape, my place of solace, my predictably changing best friend throughout the pandemic. I have watched the bare branches of the beech and oak trees in my local woods fill with leaves until the woods became darker under the shady green canopy. And now, they are almost bare again under the steel-grey autumn sky. I have seen wood anemones make way for bluebell and the foxgloves. The Red kite I began observing on March 13th probably nested and raised chicks – but I’ll never know – my blog diary was never finished due to travel restrictions. I satisfied myself with writing about the history of Red kites in Wales instead. Here’s a link to my wildlife blog below. I also continued to write a nature column for my local newspaper as well as running my wildlife Facebook group.
Our family also faced challenges. Being unable to visit a parent who was rushed into hospital on two occasions during lockdown – not even being able to find out what was happening due to confidentiality rules, was upsetting and frustrating and left us feeling helpless. Not being able to meet as a family to lay another family member’s ashes to rest and pay our last respects was tough too. The uncertainties of the pandemic were topped off with the uncertainties of family life.
And on top of this my husband and I have post viral fatigue. Long Covid is what people are commonly calling it. I have had swollen joints, shingles, urine infections, breathing difficulties, and tiredness like you cannot believe. I have barely enough energy to keep myself feeling regulated and my sensory processing has swung from hearing every noise, finding daylight painful, becoming nauseated by any smell – to – not feeling a thing, not knowing where my bruises have come from or finding my hair is matted from where I have rocked unknowingly and continuously all night long in my sleep.
I have felt confused, scared and bewildered. I initially felt annoyed that people were clapping for the NHS – mainly because I like peace and quiet and the sound of my neighbours beating the hell out of saucepans every Thursday evening left my body activated and ready for flight, fright or freeze from the moment I got out of bed on a Thursday morning. I now wish that society was still coming together in this way – the sense of us all being “in it together” has diminished. People are calling other people out for perceived breaches of lockdown and are jumping on bandwagons they had no interest in before. I watched friends throw every ounce of their energy into campaigning about “Black Lives Matter” – my sentiments are with them all the way but it felt like this and other topics were being used as a distraction from the boredom, worry and upheaval of the pandemic; and I watched with shock, bewilderment and disappointment as I saw other friends demonstrate the most ill thought out and racist behaviour ever. I witnessed parts of society get fed up with staying in when the sun came out, so off they headed for the beaches and countryside. It felt like all the world was out of control all around me. It looked to me as if everyone was on the verge of total emotional overwhelm – people I view as level headed were sharing memes and fake news without checking for facts first – pressing “Like” or “Share” because it gave them a shot of something that momentarily eased whatever negative feelings the pandemic created in their bodies.
And I kept baking my cakes on a weekend, kept working, kept walking every day I could. Kept up my self-care and kept going and going and going. My ability to keep doing the same thing again and again in the same way has kept me focused and strong.
And some days I felt peace and at one with the world – I loved the simplicity, the lack of socialising, the space – and the quiet. And on other days I felt stifled, trapped and unable to find any peace – either internally or outside my body. Our one living room felt way too small for a family and I would have given anything for the endless questions about when can my son see his friends again – or the rants about what the government were or weren’t doing – or the continual noise and movement that inevitably comes with living as part of any family – to just stop!
I wondered whether autistic people would fare better than others because we are so skilled at having to cope with uncertainties. We rely on routines, structures, and rules, and are famous for preferring our own company. I wrote about how there was no better time to be an autistic person. In fact, I have a secret to share… Although my autism was never hidden, I had never articulated to the wider world what it was like for me. So I decided to write a blog because I knew I was very unwell – I wondered if I would die from coronavirus and I rushed this out so at least people would know what life was like for me if I did die. I also wrote an article for the local paper about finding peace in nature and calling for humankind to be compassionate towards each other.
Did I do better than anyone else because I’m autistic? Well, firstly it’s not a competition. We all need to play to our strengths in order to thrive in life. My strengths are by their nature autistic. Unfortunately, the medical model of autism describes them in terms of deficits and what is “wrong” with me. My need for consistency and routine, and my unique way of experiencing the world through my different sensory processing system are viewed as symptoms of a disorder. Does being autistic make the pandemic easier to cope with for me? Yes. Would it make it easier to cope with for you? Probably not. We each need to utilise the coping strategies that work best for us. But of course, there is scope to learn from each other, regardless of our neurologies…
Many of us have found we have needed to work from home during the pandemic – and many employers have embraced this and seen the benefits. Some disabled people have been requesting to work from home for years, whether due to accessibility issues that affect mobility; or accessibility issues around transport, communication and the sensory aspects of workplaces. Lets hope that those people who work better this way can continue working from home. I have been home based for many years and was able to give tips to other working people about planning your day; taking breaks; effective communication; and work/home balance.
No discussion about the workplace would be complete without mentioning video calls. I went from being someone who could not even look at a photograph of herself; to being an active participant (if a bit overwhelmed and reluctant at times!) of conference calls; to being featured in films and training videos. It was a Herculean achievement, reached by taking many painful, brave and challenging small steps. The world of conference calls highlighted many of the challenges autistic people face with communication. Not just the act of being on screen and talking to people – that can feel bad enough! But the technological issues that occur during a video call – these feel familiar to me in my face-to-face interactions:
- The lag between speech and mouth movements that makes verbal and non-verbal communication slightly out of synch – that’s how my brain processes communication ordinarily. I put a huge amount of effort into matching up facial expressions, body language and speech so that it makes sense to me.
- The background noises are amplified on a video call – the scrape of chairs, tapping of keyboard keys, coughs, hiccups and slurping tea – these all sound at the same volume and intensity. Welcome to my usual world of sensory processing where nothing gets filtered!
- The lack of spatial clues means you can’t tell where those “mmmm’s”, “uh-huh’s” and other meta-communication is coming from. You may miss the shaking head of disagreement from the person off-camera because your focus is on the person who is speaking. There is soooo much to take in. No wonder we get zoom fatigue!
Did I take up any new hobbies? No
Did I get fit? No….Sorry Joe Wicks…
Did I learn anything about myself, my family and the wider world? Yes, loads.
Do I feel hopeful?
I have fluctuated between feeling hopeful and feeling despair. I viewed the initial “togertherness” positively: the sense of communities supporting each other, clapping together, helping each other out. I remember a video doing the rounds on social media back in the early summer that spread a message of hope and how we’d learn and become a better society because of the pandemic. I cynically thought to myself, that we probably wouldn’t.
I watched the way the media used language, imagery, metaphors and colours to emphasise whatever mood they wanted to portray. I made accurate predictions of the government’s next moves – I’m no conspiracy theorist, or political expert – just an accomplished spotter of patterns!
I have seen people ride by on a rollercoaster of emotions, I have occasionally hopped on and off myself! A “coronacoaster” as one meme describes it.
Coming out of a 17 day Welsh lockdown today, having been on tenterhooks over the US election, fatigued by post viral illness and worried about my family and what the future holds; I could easily feel hopeless – I do feel hopeless. And that’s OK. This pandemic really sucks sometimes!
But when I reflect and look back at the positives that have only happened because I have been alive on this planet in this exact period of time, then yes, I do have hope…
- I have gained friends
- I made a flute out of a carrot
- I have started a PhD
- I have swung on rope swings, gone wild swimming in rivers and ridden my motorbike
- I am working with colleagues who value me
- I have overcome challenges I thought I’d never face
- Covid didn’t kill me
- I have written…and written… Autism blogs, wildlife blogs, nature columns, information sheets, contributions to a paper on Sensory Trauma, contributions to ‘Neuroclastic’, Facebook groups and pages, and scene 1 of a play- my first ever work of fiction.
- And on one occasion I chased a pig and got over 30,000 social media views for my efforts!
Undercover Autism 