No more apologies - for Meltdown behaviour.

I am 52 years old and 2 years ago, I was diagnosed Autistic. I've learnt a lot about myself during the past two years and about ASD in general. One thing I have come to recognise is when I am having an Autistic meltdown. 

I am currently waiting for a CT scan as, like many other Autistic folk, I suffer with other medical issues. Asthma and Eczema as a child, Urticaria and allergies. The most recent is more serious heart pains though, especially when highly stressed or exercising. Despite this, I am still doing my best to keep a full time job down. An office job with over 45 hours a week and more every third week, when we have to work on Saturday, yes, six day weeks do suck. 

For the most part, we cope well with the workload. There are three of us doing pretty much the same job, although we all each specialise in one particular aspect. But generally, the workload is easily manageable as we can share it out. Manageable that is, until one of us is on holiday. 

These past 2 weeks have been really busy, and although we've had some downtime, it's been far less than usual. After this 2 week break, the other within our trio is on holiday as well, so we've three weeks where we're a team of 2, and I am the other part of that team, as none of the holiday booked is mine. 

We're at the end of the first 2 week stint and we've an increasing amount of specialised work that really needs focus, by one, out of the office. That means working from home. Ideally (and as initially planned) there should have been an overlap where all three of us were in and one person could take the time out to work on the specialist work, but, until the day before, we didn't realise that wasn't the case. 

The 'solution' was to let me do the work of 3 people, on my own. But with such short notice and the anticipation of a day from hell. It triggered a meltdown. The choice was my colleagues, it was their decision whether to do the work, and leave me alone, or come into the office. I expressed, it no uncertain terms and under the influence of a meltdown, my opinions on the matter. At this stage, I was calmer than I expected, but it should be stressed, at this stage also, I am out of control, I am on autopilot and my behaviour is very much pathological, controlling my behaviour here is impossible. I slammed doors on the way out of the work and could hear people astounded at my fury and rage. 

The day after, I retuned to work to find the decision had been made to let me work alone, no one had let me know, and as disruptions to routine aren't particularly welcome in an Autist's world, it triggered meltdown number 2. With tears welling up in my eyes and neural pathways going berserk once again I expressed my opinion on all those involved, and proffered suggestions for how we could cope, only to find things had already been put into place to help me. (To my delight). 

During that second meltdown, at the moment I learnt my fate, I said things that many would consider offensive, but not face to face to those who had left me in this predicament; to others in the office. Of course, we're all colleagues and friends, and I know how the world of gossip works in a neurotypical world, so I have no doubt, those offensive things will have been repeated to the people who they were aimed at. I say aimed at, but that's unfair on myself, they were things spoken about someone else. 'Aimed at' implies intention, and there was none, they were just neural responses. 

I have no doubt as well, that these people, who will likely be offended, will expect apologies. I have been here before. I know how the world works after meltdowns. Step one, is the guilt I impose on myself. For two days now, I have been beating myself up and putting myself down because of my behaviour. Because of behaviour I cannot control, because of my disability, I feel like worthless shit. Step 2 dish out apologies and in some cases consolation gifts. (I've taken one person out for a meal and paid because of meltdown behaviour previously). 

So why wouldn't I want to apologise for the behaviour? Won't that make me feel better? Isn't making up the best part of any disagreement? 

Well no, it is not. Apologising means I accept responsibility for what happened, and I am sorry for the behaviour that I displayed and while I do regret it happening, I have to be fair on myself. I literally couldn't control that behaviour. 

There is a teenage kid up the road from us who is also Autistic. We can hear his meltdowns from our house. It's so sad. He's uncontrollable, loud and hugely offensive when it happens, I've heard him yell at his parents 

"I hate you both, I wish you were both dead". 

Did he mean it? You could argue in that moment that he did mean it. But he really didn't, and tomorrow he will wonder how he could say something so evil. Of course he didn't wish his parents were dead. Will they make him apologise?  I really hope not, but somehow I expect many parents of Autistic children would. He will already be riddled with guilt and additional anxiety about his next breakdown, worried by what might come out of his mouth next. Like a Tourettes sufferer that might scream quickly

"Fuck off" or "fuck off you cunt". 

Would you demand an apology, if you were in their vicinity and thought it was aimed at you? Would they feel obliged to apologise? Their neural pathways are triggering swearwords they have zero influence over. We understand this, and wonderfully, with Tourettes sufferers at least, by and large, we accept it nowadays. 

But we accept 'poor' behaviour less so with Autism. When I have learnt to mask my Autistic traits for so long, so well in fact, I didn't know until Age 47 ish, when I watched Atypical and connected with poor Sam. I even kidded myself I was 'normal' with my neurotypical behaviour. But I simply cannot control my behaviour during a meltdown. It really isn't my fault, it's a disability. But 'masking' makes it look like we do have more control over our behaviour. You will rarely see me stimming (playing with my fingers to give my brain a release) but it does happen. 

Here is what I am prepared to do though. I will offer clarity when I am back in a 'usual' calm state of mind again. If I have said something you found offensive, I will clarify whether I truly believe that to be the case and we can have a normal conversation about that. It may be that some of the things I said I do believe to be true. But some words that come out of my mouth genuinely are spoken without any rational thinking whatsoever. I don't mean them, I have no control over them, and as someone who is deserving of acceptance of their disability, from now on,  I will accept no personal responsibility for them. I have to in order to embrace and love my Autistic self more. It might not be me talking, it's highly likely during a meltdown, it's my Autism.