Habits and special interests.

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Why abiding strictly to rituals and habits? In “Rainman” this is seen from the outside, like the other aspects of the AS personality. As for habits I think that they stem from a need for “homishness”. It is reassuring to establish rigid schedules and abide by them. It’s feeling at home, when, in fact you don’t have a home. The environment is made cosy by people who accept you for what you are, without questioning, unconditionally, like good parents, relatives or an understanding companion for life. If you don’t have them, you take shelter in a time inhabited by your rites and repetitions. Repetitions, doing things (meals, for example, in the same way, hour and with a bowl of flowers before you, and the compamy of the same kind of music – for me some rock at dinner and some jazz at supper) are reassuring and we need reassurance desperately.
As for special interests there is something with the same roots of repetition and one added element.
To cultivate a special interest is in part to create a world you can inhabit because you know it well. It’s asocial because others are not so good at it. And in the weakness and vulnerability you suffer in connecting with others, you may affirm yourself with some kind of knowledge in which you feel sure because you know others cant’ compete with you.
Thwarted vitality, moreover, brings you to look for outlets where concentration of efforts may bring you a satisfaction of achievement which is denied you in a life more spread in the general interests.
I don’t know if Kant was an autist, although I suspect strongly he was one, but his overorganized life (no wife, women, children, walks at the same hour) smells of an effort to compemsate something he was missing. (I want to say that I have never succeded in reading him). An other example who is considered a blatant Asperger is Glenn Gould. His only life was music, and he could’t play the piano without the same stool, until it got worn out.
As for me, it’s years that I put myself to sleep with the same reacord of Gould’s rendition of the Goldberg variations (the first one of the two). This belongs to habits, of course. I. enjoy Glenn Gould playing Bach, but this is divagating.
It would be interesting to know here other’s habits, why they feel habits are essential, and if they why they have their special interests. This last thing is probably more difficult to know and would require a different thread.

Hey, I like Glenn Gould too! This is probably because I'm a pianist also.

I start my typical day by going to a local coffee shop. I almost always go to the same ones. While drinking coffee, I study the music I am going to practice later in the day. Or, if I have some interest, I use the time to study up on whatever that is. I love this morning ritual. It has to be alone time, so I try to go places where I won't meet people I know.
After that, I practice piano for a couple of hours. If I have time, I take a walk. This walk always follows the same route. I guess I feel safest this way. I really don't want to interact with anyone on these walks. I just want to look at the plants and trees and enjoy the weather. I also enjoy observing all the changes that occur on the same streets that I've walked on so many times.
I usually have to work in the late afternoon and evenings. I work at a library, where things tend to be the same every day.
When I get home, I almost always read a little of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. For some reason this novel always helps me to fall asleep.

These are some of my most consistent rituals. I suppose they have several functions. They keep unwanted social drama out of my life, which gives me time to pursue interests. These interests give me a sense of purpose that keeps me from feeling empty inside from lack of human contact.

I have to have my Tea between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. If I miss my Afternoon Tea, I can't function for the rest of the day.

I have to work on my Routemaster Art in two 30-minute chunks, over the course of the evening. If I don't do that, I end up having a sleepless night, like I did last night.

I also have to have dinner, before the sky is pitch black. If I can manage that, than I can get the rest of my garbage out, before it gets too dark. I have dinner at 6 in the summer and at 4 in the winter.

I have to watch Ugly Betty at 8, every Thursday and Heartbeat at 8, every Saturday. If I don't watch either of these two shows, on any given week, I have a hard time getting started with the following week.

I have to sleep with a Routemaster on my Night Dresser, every night. It helps me to feel connected with my Soul and my Personality. It also makes my dreams more pleasant. This is even more important, since pets aren't allowed in my apartment building. I've solved the problem, buy buying myself a Routemaster piggy bank, in Victoria. That way, people make the conclusion that I use it as a piggy bank, instead of a Security Blanket, when in reality, it's really the other way around.

I have to go bowling with a group of people from my Clubhouse, every Tuesday afternoon. I feel dissoriented for a couple of days, if I don't go bowling every Tuesday.

You write beautifully Paolo.

You wrote:
"It is reassuring to establish rigid schedules and abide by them. It’s feeling at home, when, in fact you don’t have a home. The environment is made cosy by people who accept you for what you are, without questioning, unconditionally, like good parents, relatives or an understanding companion for life."

Yes, and everyone who walks this earth requires stable structure in order to cope, feel safe and operate to the best of their ability whichever path they take. This is particularly true and a good deal more pronounced for every autistic person, regardless of what level they are functioning from one day to the next. If it is not given us, we create our own. Take for example a child who continually plays computer games or watches television/videos all day. Without substituting this scenario with a more structured day, not only is learning greatly compromised, but the child is in a sense, living in the world of computer games/videos. This situation leaves a child living in a fractured fantasy world in which he is in total charge. Nothing sensible is learned, in fact, anxiety tends to be heightened and the information learned from such forms, is not useful. If a child's learning is not based on systematic practice in a structured manner with real-life experience so that learned information may be stored in the brain along with similar information, then learning is somewhat chaotic and dysfunctional. It's what we choose to incorporate into our daily routine that is all important. A good balance in work and play is essential.

You wrote:
"I don’t know if Kant was an autist, although I suspect strongly he was one, but his overorganized life (no wife, women, children, walks at the same hour) smells of an effort to compemsate something he was missing."

I agree. Perhaps his earlier life was so chaotic in terms of lack of safety, structure etc, that he, like so many, felt compelled to overcompensate. For some, the need for structure is so great and anxiety is so high, that all patterns created tend to be very discrete and tight and designed in such a way as to keep others out.

You wrote:
"As for me, it’s years that I put myself to sleep with the same reacord of Gould’s rendition of the Goldberg variations (the first one of the two)."

What a nice way to drift off to sleep...

You wrote:
"It would be interesting to know here other’s habits, why they feel habits are essential, and if they why they have their special interests. This last thing is probably more difficult to know and would require a different thread."

My days are highly structured for my son's sake particularly(I home educate) and my spare time is primarily spent answering emails(usually late at night) from parents re autism & their children. I always try to watch a movie each Saturday night and music is also very important in our family. I'm looking forward to watching Life Is Beautiful (La Vita E Bella) tomorrow night on dvd. It was brought back from China of all places courtesy of my daughter last year. I adore movies and my daughter stumbled upon a veritable Aladdin's Cave filled with many interesting and unusual films while there. I'm still trying to wade through them all!

Thanks for such an interesting, well-written piece.

I've a myriad of routines I need to indulge & comfort me. My hot tea & cigs. when I wake up, and lots of time to figure out how I feel (mentally and physically) before going anywhere or doing anything. I only like a few foods, so that has to be the same. My tastes & tolerances are quite narrow, though this doesn't feel like a choice, it's an internal demand. Going to bed, I usually need music (or tv) on to distract me, otherwise I can't get to sleep. I crave reliability, stability, smoothness, and consistency from my environment-hence I'm often disappointed.
Habits can be good, when they help you do stuff you don't want to do but know you want done. Like taking care of the catbox (every 24 hours, I've never skipped a day)-I dread it (disgusting !), but I dread it NOT getting done even more.

My counselor tells me how other people can (mentally) bring their sense of "at home within oneself" along, when they go out into the world. I only feel marginally safe/protected in my apt., not in public or around strangers.
I'm lucky in having found a partner, a couple friends, and a few counselors who appreciate me. I can feel "at home" with them, which is not how I felt growing up.

I've heard that most people want to be "king of the hill" in some way, and since we keep running out of "hills" to be "king of", humans invent new ones. A person wants to be the best, most, worst, whatever is the utmost superlative (for good or ill)-in a specific area. Not saying folks do want to be different for sake of being different-just that the obvious challenges have been achieved by humankind, so we have to seek more obscure & dubious accomplishments. No offense to anyone, I hope. For instance: I'm smart but not THE smartest person, I'm middling (neither the best nor the worst) at most skills or activities-so, what else can I do or be that's unique ?

Very true. I'm frustrated because I don't feel talented (and courageous) enough to be anything.

The attraction for some special subjects is not uphazard for me. I can trace it easily and connect it with my unsatisfying human sociality. I have one special interest dominating everything else and it is living nature. I have never had an instruction in natural sciences. I fear science as an enterprise which makes humans go astray, something having little to do with contemplation, which is good, and much with manipulation, which is sin, if sin exists somewhere. There is still a general climate favoring science, even if we live no more under the illusion of progress. But I am passionately interested in the understanding of life. And while I know little of biology, my frame of mind is very much influenced by the discoveries about animal behaviour, biology and genetics. It’s all somehow the great attraction I have for natural life, animals, trees, flowers, but something more that a sentimantal empathy. I think that all the secrets of morality and beauty have their roots in the biological imperatives. In humans they are very complicated and distorted by culture (or nurture), but I think that it’s impossible do away with biological imperatives, that we are animals like all other animals and that the overall frame of mind should be one of respect for life in its inner working and connections.

Another interest perhaps not so special, but special for the intensity with wich I pursue it is that for fiction and cinema. I have seen thousands of films in my life and there is scarcely a day in which I don’see a movie. I see most of them in theaters, but also in home video and DVDs. Here the connection with my social deprivation is clearer. In movies I live the life denied to me. The first impact is one of heightening the anguish, when I see depicted the life of which I have never be a partcipant, the void and futility of my existence. But then there is the assurance I gain by understandig better my situation.
I can’t tolerate commercial movies, comedy (unless it’s signed by such directors as Billy Wilder or George Cukor). I have seen “The apartment” a dozen times and “Doctor Strangelove”, perhaps twenty times. When I feel overly depressed I put my copy of Strangelove (but is it really a comedy?). I have also seen the trilogy of Apu, by the Indian Ray many times. In don’t know anything about running-shots, distance shots and other technicalities. I see movies at the first afternoon performance in the second or third row od seats in order to stretch my legs. In the city where I live there is a very good offer of indipendent films, retrospective of authors and Asiatic and African cinema. I like Marianne Moore, Helen Hunt, Susan Sharandon and (particularly) Gena Rowlands. I consider the Dardenne brothers (Rosetta, Le fils, La promesse, L'enfant) as the best of contemporary cinema