Doing the dishes is like driving a car
I was chatting to someone today and we were trying to describe what impact autism has on our lives and how it might look like to others. I mentioned how I can’t do the dishes anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I know how to do dishes – I have the intelligence and sequencing ability and knowledge of how detergent works and even have detergent sitting under my sink for this very purpose. In fact, I used to do the dishes all the time, sometimes twice a day! So an outsider might think: she is capable of doing dishes, she has a history of doing dishes, she has no physical reason why she can’t do dishes, therefore her saying she can’t do dishes is merely laziness: she simply doesn’t want to do dishes.
The logic does seem rather sound, doesn’t it?
I wish to explain how doing the dishes relates quite well to driving a car. To be fair it probably works more as a catchy title rather than a really good analogy, however bear with me as it will make perfect sense. Maybe.
Doing the dishes is like driving a car
Do you remember when you first learned to drive? If you’re younger than me then chances are it was in an automatic, however if you are my age or older then you may have had a choice between auto and manual (if you’re older then there might not have been a choice – it was manual or nothing). To be honest, it doesn’t make heaps of difference what transmission you learned in because the processes are essentially the same:
You sit behind the Steering Wheel of Power. Even if you learnt in a mini you’d still have felt in awe of the potential.
You adjust the seat, adjust the mirrors, make sure you’re comfortable.
You position your feet (which one’s the ‘go’ pedal again?) and do a mental check that you’re indeed ready to go.
You turn the key (clearly I’m referring to when cars all had keys) and feel a surge of apprehension.
You check all your mirrors, then turn your head and check your blind spots. Repeat at least 3 times.
You put the car in reverse (assuming that you’re backing out of the drive way) and repeat the mirror checking thing.
You put your foot down, millimetre by millimetre, and try to relax your arms as you feel yourself moving backwards. If you’re in a manual then by this point you would already have stalled…
2 minutes later you’re finally, safely, and with all gates and fences around you still intact, at the end of your drive way and ready to back onto the road. You look around, look around again, and just for the fun of it do it a third time. There’s a car slowly crawling towards you from 300m away - best wait until they’ve passed.
You’re on the road! Huzzah! Quick, put the foot on the brake (not that one, the OTHER brake), shift gears into the one that moves you forward (no time to think about what it’s called!) and do a mirror and ‘rest of the world’ check again before zooming down the road at a ridiculously speedy 5 kilometres per hour.
That’s just leaving the house.
Then there’s the stopping and starting, reading road signs (interpreting some of them first), anticipating what other cars are doing, making sure you don’t tailgate, DON’T SPEED, slow down, speed up, check your mirror, check your blind spot, read the street names, remember to indicate when changing lanes, think about what lane you want to be in, it’s a yellow up ahead – do I stop or keep going? Where am I going again? Think quickly!
Do you still feel this way every time you drive? The majority of people will relatively quickly stop actively thinking about each individual task they must perform every time they drive. Most of the above processing will become intuitive, and you will become a more confident driver as a result. Now you’ll be able to listen to someone giving you directions, you’ll be able to think about what you’re having for tea, you’ll be able to worry about that meeting while on autopilot, and sometimes you might even wonder how on earth you got where you are because you don’t remember the drive at all – your mind was elsewhere.
Congratulations, you’ve mastered the basics. Let’s make it a bit more challenging:
It is night time and you’re in a strange city on a freeway where the signage is really poor.
It’s pouring with rain and visibility is so bad that you can’t see through the front windscreen let alone car in front.
You’re running late for an important meeting.
The kids in the back are screaming.
You’re running late and the kids in the back are screaming and it’s night time and you’re in a strange city on a freeway where the signage is really poor and it’s pouring with rain and you can’t see. Oh, and just for extra good measure, one of the kids needs to go to the toilet.
How do your processes hold up then? A tad stressed, perhaps? A tad overwhelmed?
Driving a car is like being autistic
Once upon a time, I was in ‘basic driving mode’. My mental capacity was able to cope with the stresses of life and so things became quite intuitive. I could mindlessly go about day-to-day tasks without much effort and that included doing the dishes.
Then I had kids and this changed. Suddenly we’re taking it up a notch. I got a dishwasher to handle the bulk of the dishes but also hand-washed most nights and managed to ensure the kitchen was sparkling clean before bed. We’re still coping, if only just.
Then I started homeschooling those kids, and suddenly things are starting to fall apart. The dishes are still being washed but the floor isn’t being mopped every night and the kitchen is looking somewhat worse-for-wear by the time I fall into bed. I’m not coping very well but surely it’s just a matter of ‘pulling my socks up’?
Then I started studying while still homeschooling those kids, and the balance has tipped too far into Crisis Land. The kitchen is messy and I don’t recall the last time the floor was mopped. Oh, and the dishes aren’t done. Why not? Because I can’t. My brain is no longer in ‘intuitive/basic driving mode’, but it’s in ‘must process everything/challenging mode’. It’s called overwhelm or dysregulation. Behind the scenes my thoughts are taking so much longer to form and longer again to react. I can only think of so many things at once but now there’s too many and thus I can’t think of anything. Suddenly I’m not handling things that I previously could: lights are too bright, noises are too loud, being around other people is too tiring … and the dishes are too hard.
But anyone could feel this way, you say! What’s this got to do with autism?
It’s a case of thresholds
It is true that anyone can reach this point of overwhelm. I think there’s not enough kindness or respect in the world towards those mothers who are trying to do everything and be everything but are failing despite their best efforts. However ultimately it’s about thresholds and you’ll find that the threshold of an autistic person is much lower than the threshold of a non-autistic person. Our ‘basic driving mode’ is often far more basic than your average basic, if you get what I mean. And what tips our balance may seem ridiculous to your average NT. This is because our threshold is already crowded out with unseen mechanical issues such as sensory or anxiety or a deficiency in executive functioning which helps to organise and process daily tasks, and thus we’re starting with a lower threshold to begin with as we battle to pull out of the drive way and get onto the road without crashing.
So while I am quite well educated, act confident and look extremely competent (so I’ve been told), if you were to visit my house then you will probably see dishes sitting on my counter. Please don’t think it’s because I’m lazy. I’ve simply chosen to expend my energies elsewhere, such as parenting, homeschooling, studying, and generally not having a mental breakdown. At this time in my life I can’t do the dishes but one day, hopefully, this will change. One day this season will pass and perhaps something else will be too hard but the dishes will seem like a walk in the park. But until that time I will ask for help and have someone else do my dishes. And that’s ok.