“Change Scares Me”

“Change scares me. I feel as if I need to stay within the boundaries and cannot go outside those lines. I keep everything simple because the boundaries outside of myself are so fixed. It is too scary to step outside of myself. I feel less scared when I keep things simple. If things become too complicated, how will I know how to react? I might be seen, as “wrong” and I cannot let that happen. By keeping everything the same, I will have some control over what to expect. If change happens too fast, I lose control and do not know how to be and react.”

Let’s make sense out of this autistic child’s experience. We can only surmise what he might be telling us. It seems he has defined limits that he cannot go beyond. It is interesting to wonder why these borders got strongly defined. He seems to get too anxious if he goes beyond his boundaries and we may also say beyond his comfort zone. He is afraid that he will not be able to react appropriately if he goes beyond what is familiar to him. He is also afraid that he will be seen as doing something wrong which in turn he needs to defend against. He is also letting us know that having control is important to him because he is afraid he does not know how to act beyond his defined boundaries.

We are all familiar with the person with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who needs to keep everything in order. If one thing gets out of order the child may either tantrum or immediately correct the ‘error.’ For example, one boy I knew would line up in order his alphabet letters. If I would take the ‘A’ and put it behind the ‘M’ he would immediately put the ‘A’ back in its proper place. Some children will tantrum if they know one way to travel to school, but a different route is taken. Another child might become difficult when the sequence of activities within the classroom or at home is changed.

Change is difficult for all people autistic or not. Change presents an uncomfortable position for us. For example, people typically sit at the same place around the dinner table or may sleep on a certain side of the bed. We all have a reaction to change, if somebody else sits in our chair or our side of the bed. It is normal to feel irritated by these changes especially if another person creates them. We feel our territory has been invaded and we want things to go back to the way they were. We may feel unjustly intruded upon, unfairly treated or even taken advantage of.

This is also true for the autistic person except the person with ASD reacts more strongly and may not know how to regulate himself when a change is imposed upon him. I believe that the autistic person struggles so much with change for a number of reasons: 1) because of an incomplete attachment, the child is not sure of himself and cannot use himself in relationship to others (lacks self-agency), 2) he has no way to tell others how he is feeling or to defend himself, 3) living in this manner may lead the child to closely monitor what he does know and thus keep everything in order, 4) this order may bring him a sense of mastery over his environment and a sense of calm in an internally un-calm existence, 5) when he keeps things in order he knows what to expect and knows how to interact within this controlled world, 6) change to this ‘order’ presents the fear of the unknown which is probably accompanied by extreme anxiety, 7) something new, such as a new route to school or a new food to eat presents unknown possibilities that he has had no experience with and especially no control over, 8) in essence he does not feel prepared to interact with the change. It literally ‘rocks’ his universe.

I believe that change is one of the hardest things for people with ASD to master. I believe the child holds on to not changing because 1) internally he cannot go from one part of himself to another, 2) control or not changing allows the child to feel sure of himself and know what to expect, 3) if you cannot talk and defend your point of view you cannot allow anything to be different than what you already know and have immediate control over, and finally 4) to allow another to impose a change is basically saying “I trust you and myself.” It also says, “I can allow you to have power and influence over me.”

In my next blog, I will discuss how one can work with the person with ASD when the child is resistant to change and needs to control his environment.