Let’s call it a personality screensaver…

A co-worker (or neighbor or relative) is talking to you. They’re relating an anecdote from their week that is fairly banal, uninteresting. They’re going on and on.

At first, you listen. And…because you’re nice…you try really hard. You’re paying attention, trying to keep up with the story…but eventually you zone out. Your thoughts drift and you begin to think about work or errands you need to run or whatever. At that point, your own thought stream has taken over and you are completely disengaged from the conversation.

However…when that happens? You don’t suddenly slump forward and turn off like a light switch. You are still nodding your head. You are still making sounds: “Uh-huh…right…uh-huh”. You are still sending the I-am-listening signals.

Your thoughts are in one place, far away…but your body is connected into the interaction.

That’s your personality screensaver.

It’s an auto-pilot, basically…a mode we use from time to time as a way of interacting with others when our minds can’t focus.

So, take this concept a little further…

Imagine waking up one morning and finding that you only have a personality screen saver. You’re stuck in it. You can’t turn it off. You navigate the world, interact with people…and find that your thoughts are completely disconnected from the moment. People are talking and for you it’s just abstract, distant noise. Yet your body is sending all of the correct signals, in spite of you.

The detachment you feel…no one can see it. You have no way to express it because your body is locked into the screensaver mode.

Isolated in groups, lost in familiar places.

This is basically what happened to me when I was 15.

II.

Prior to that time…from elementary school through junior high…I was not really developing socially. I wasn’t developing body language, for one thing…and I could not interpret the social cues of others. Didn’t even know those cues existed.

(A lot of our communication is non-verbal, so it’s the kind of thing people never think to tell you about.)

So, I grew up…a verbal kid, but unaware of the non-verbal. Each year, my surroundings grew in social complexity…but I was not maturing alongside them.

In elementary school, this led to awkwardness, bullying. In junior high, it was completely unbearable because the maturity gap between myself and others was larger, more painful to see. It was embarrassing, quite frankly. I had no way of understanding the social gap between myself and others, but there it was, leaving me shut out, anxious.

Then high school, age 15: everything went up another notch in complexity. I couldn’t handle it. I was trying so hard to make friends…failing…and getting so nervous that I had trouble keeping food down. Being at school meant: shaky, drowning, lost.

So that’s when it happened. I changed: I turned my personality off, shut it down. I started over.

It was a hard reboot. On the other side of it, I was a new M.

Watchful, analytical.

Hyper-vigilant.

I put all of my energy into seeming like others. I buried my emotions, reactions and began to mirror the body-language of others. I also began pre-scripting a lot of my conversation.

In other words: I turn my body into a never-ending personality screensaver. I practice body-language over and over…I suppress my thoughts, reactions…I mask the difficulties I have with sensory issues.

Within a year or two, I have the basics down. I learn how to blend in…how to hide in plain site. For the first time, my body is sending correct signals.

So, to some degree it works. I do become more socially adept…but only at a superficial level. I navigate basic, day-to-day interactions well, but nothing more. It all goes back to the same problem, the challenge with understanding non-verbal communication. Even though I was developing a complicated understanding of social mechanics…my social comprehension was not improving at all. I was analyzing social cues instead of integrating them in a more meaningful, intuitive way.

At 15, I made friends for the first time. I improved to the point where I could do that.

But I was completely lost in the personality screensaver…distant, trapped inside of myself, operating with false personas. I was unable to form relationships beyond a superficial level.

It was seeming without being. Language without language.

III.

By the time I met people who could identify what was happening…with my senses and social pragmatics…I had kind of lost interest in the answer.

30 years old, following a decade of hiding from the world, someone says “autism spectrum”…by that point, it didn’t seem relevant. Nothing seems particularly real when you’re depressed…not reality and certainly not words and labels.

I told one of these people…these “soothers”…that I did not generally find concrete answers to be helpful.

Most of these people would get annoyed, quote diagnostic manuals, but one of them said, “Fair enough. What do you generally find to be helpful?”

I thought about it, asked if she’d ever heard of a typeface called “Helvetica”. She didn’t say anything. She just waited.

I quoted the definition of Helvetica from Wikipedia. It’s something I would read a lot, had memorized. It goes like this:

“The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, had no intrinsic meaning in its form…”

No intrinsic meaning in its form. I couldn’t relate to people…but I felt a strong sense of kinship with a font.

The soother thought about it, replied, “If you’ll tell me more about Helvetica…I’ll drop the diagnostic stuff.”

I said, “Okay.”

It wasn’t much…but it was a starting point.

IV.

As I read blogs, personal stories, I can’t help but feel a little nervous when I hear about spectrum kids going through intensive social skills training. I have to wonder…are they learning to truly connect with others…or are they building their own personality screensavers?

(I’m not against learning social skills, just concerned about unintended consequences. I discuss it in more detail in this post.)

In a world that puts so much pressure on people to assimilate and resemble others, being different can hurt…but learning to hide those differences? That can be equally destructive, if not more so.

I don’t know what the answers is for this…how the balance is struck.

I just think it’s important to think through a range of consequences when teaching social skills and body language to those on the spectrum.

Try remembering what your own personality screensaver feels like…because most people have one.

A co-worker (or neighbor or relative) is talking to you. They’re relating an anecdote from their week that is fairly banal, uninteresting. They’re going on and on.

You zone out, begin to go through the motions of listening…blankly nodding your head, saying, “Uh huh…right.”

Next time this happens, imagine that state becoming permanent. Imagine being trapped inside of your own social auto pilot…lost, far away (no intrinsic meaning in your form).

It may not give you answers to some of these questions…but it can lead to something like empathy. As starting points go, that’s a pretty good one.