![]() ![]() His understanding of autism seems more nuanced today than it was when he wrote “Scattered,” over twenty years ago.) ![]() Also, ignore the couple of breathless passages where he talks about autism. (Ignore his emphasis on eye contact, because Autists often have other ways of achieving attunement with people we are close to. Pay attention to the chapters mid-way through the book where he talks about emotional attunement between a mother and infant and the neurological wiring that is present in all of us around the unspoken communication of attunement. Gabor Maté writes extensively about the research around this emotional communication in his book about trauma and ADHD traits, “Scattered,” if you are curious to take a deep dive. I will fail that test every time, 100%, and so will most Autists I’ve known.īut there is a deeper-than-language, visceral sense of picking up on intense emotions of those around us that we all have, from birth. Now, that may be true if you show me a still photograph of someone’s eyes, snipped out of a still photograph of their face and ask me to identify the word that describes the emotion those eyes are conveying. If you read the wrong writers, you will be told that we Autists can’t see or read emotions and that we have severely impaired empathetic perception. Remaining calm when someone else is melting down is so crucial because your emotional content is more information we have to process when we’re already overloaded from processing too much. But what about when you can’t remain calm? What about when that Autistic person’s meltdown is triggering your own trauma response? Why is Being Calm During Someone Else’s Meltdown So Important?īefore I address my own question, I want to talk about why it’s important to stay calm, if you are able to. When you look up what Autistic people have said about how to help us through meltdowns, the most foundational piece of advice you will see again and again is to remain calm.
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