But You Don’t Look Autistic at All (Bianca Toeps’ Books)

by Bianca Toeps

The notion that people with autism might experience more stress due to a day that’s been planned down to the hour (because the more that’s been planned, the more that can go wrong) is lost on them.

I can really get very excited about logic, good design or proverbial puzzle pieces falling into place. Positive stimuli, I call them. They ‘click’ in my head, thereby erasing other stimuli. The accompanying feeling reminds me of Tetris: the moment your blocks create a line you see a flash, the mess disappears and there is new room to build. With some nice stimuli up ahead, we can overcome a lot of negative stimuli.

Stimuli are the signals we receive mainly through the five senses, even though humans actually have more than five. And then there’s the stimuli that come from your brain itself: thoughts.

I felt overwhelmed by stimuli from within: thoughts. Thoughts that raced around my head like Formula 1 cars, lap after lap.

I wasn’t laughing at her; I thought her mistake was funny. A completely different thing in my eyes.

he believes visual day planners, which are often used for autistic children, aren’t ideal.

“I understand any plan is only a plan, and is never definite, but I just cannot take it when a fixed arrangement does not proceed as per the visual schedule. I understand that changes can’t always be avoided, but my brain shouts back: No way, that’s not acceptable.

What I’d suggest is that instead of showing us visual schedules, you talk through the day’s plan with us, verbally and beforehand. Visual schedules create such a strong impression on us that if a change occurs, we get flustered and panicky.”12

I also understand that a lot of people are prejudiced and think that we autistics aren’t up to such things. That we function best in a 9-to-5 computer job and a daily planner scheduled to the brim. That’s not always the case. It’s also possible to have more of a global overview of things. If I know I can look things up, or how the timetable works, I don’t need a specified itinerary. I find a plan that goes off the rails far more stressful than no plan at all.