Autism Celebration Month: “It HURTS, mother!” Improving Empathy and Support for the Neurodivergent

It HURTS to do work, mother!

It’s been a year since La Petite Fille cried out in her pain and anguish and her words still cut me to the core. La Merveilleuse Famille de Olde Blogge was struggling to get La Petite Fille through her last stressful year of high school. With graduation approaching, her grades slipping, and the demands of the school year had reached a fevered pitch. For my autistic daughter, it had all become too much.

Naturally, La Mère was trying to increase her productivity and the quality of her work desperate to help her graduate. What was once PDA-fueled resistance quickly escalated to meltdown.

The pain and agony in my daughter’s voice were just soul crushing to me. There was nothing I could do to shield her from that pain or help Ma Belle Femme to understand her better. I could only watch helplessly as my wife’s good intentions were wrecked on the shoals of my daughter’s emotional overload.

“It HURTS to do work, mother!” expressed all of the pain and agony she must feel every time she works towards completing an assignment and meet a deadline. It perfectly encapsulated her frustration of living in a world that didn’t understand her needs much less be bent to accommodate them.

Hearing the raw agony in my daughter’s voice is what motivates me to better understand her experience. I wanted to shine a light on invisible struggles like hers. My hope is that by sharing her story, others might develop more empathy, tolerance and support for those who learn differently – like Ma Petite Fille Courageuse.

I’d like to look at three different psychological tendencies that stop even well intentioned people from effectively helping people with autism: (1) processing emotional pain, (2) mirror neurons and fundamental attribution error (FAE), and (3) accommodating the needs of people with autism.

Accepting the Reality of the Emotional Pain of Autism

Emotional Pain is Equal to Physical Pain

Neurological studies have demonstrated that emotional pain is experienced in the brain using the same regions that physical pain is. In fact, the neurological experience of emotional pain is so similar to that of physical pain that taking acetaminophen helps reduce hurt feelings by reducing activity in the same areas of the brain that are active when experiencing physical pain. There really is little to no difference in between experiencing physical and emotional pain.

Without this understanding, Ma Petite Fille’s lament of feeling intense pain from her mother’s demands that she do her homework seemed ridiculous. However, if she had stubbed her toe or had cut herself, we wouldn’t have been demanding she complete her homework; we would have addressed her pain and discomfort, and, ironically, accepted any of the emotional aftereffects of the physical pain, anxiety, anger, depression, or what have you as legitimate, allowing the homework to be put off for the night. We would’ve responded to her with empathy and kindness, and indulged her physical and emotional feelings.

Developing Empathy for the Emotional Pain of Autism

When she is just claiming that “work” causes her intense feelings of distress, sadness, frustration, anger, or some combination of all of them, we scoff and are certain that she must just be trying to make excuses so she can return to cruising social media and YouTube or whatever the kids are doing on the Interwebs these days.

What if for those of us with pathological demand avoidance, really do experience real pain when trying to do the things that we’re expected to do, that are demanded of us? You wouldn’t expect someone to run on a broken leg, right? That would be ridiculous. We allow students with injuries that cause pain and difficulty when walking to use the elevator at school, right? We accommodate them.

Rather than dismissing such reactions as excuses, we must recognize emotional pain for what modern science tells us – a profoundly physical experience, no less excruciating than a cut or bruise. With this knowledge in mind, showing empathy to all who suffer, visibly or not, becomes a matter of basic compassion.

Why is it so difficult to offer the same empathy and understanding to someone with PDA or having an autistic meltdown as we do when someone suffers a physical injury? The answer lies in mirror neurons.

Empathy and Mirror Neurons

Mirror Neurons the Mechanism of Empathy

#ScienceFact, mirror neurons are strongly associated with human empathy. When we see someone else going through a thing, the areas of our brains that would be used if we were doing it are activated. We wince when we see someone cut themselves. We feel sad when someone tells us about ending a relationship. Mirroring allows us to mentally step into another’s shoes and share their experiences to some degree – be it physical pain, emotional joy or cognitive processes. This neural mirroring is the root of empathy, enabling understanding between all people.

For mirroring to occur, we must see not just outward behaviors, but grasp the unseen context behind them. A cut finger and stubbed toe are completely comprehensible to all who witness them. Anger, frustration, and resistance while doing homework is completely understandable. But feelings of intense debilitating emotional pain to less obvious triggers, like homework demands, vex our mirror neurons.

When Mirroring Fails, Empathy is Lacking

Watching La Petite Fille meltdown from just trying to start doing her homework, we do not mirror her meltdown. We mirror just suck it up and get it done instead. After all that is what people have been doing with unpleasant tasks since time immemorial, right?

If we’re not having our empathy triggered, what is happening in our brains when we see someone proclaiming their emotional pain with no discernible or equitable cause? When it is perceived as being disproportionate — proportionality bias, remember? — to the cause, we are likely to attribute the reaction to some character flaw. Science has a name for that, too, fundamental attribution error (FAE).

Overcoming Fundamental Attribution Error

FAE, Neurotypical, & Neurodivergent

Daily life on the spectrum can consist of overwhelming sensory, emotional, and social stimuli. The mundane can quickly become extraordinarily stressful, which can lead to a loss of emotional regulation and control, otherwise known as a meltdown.

To the neurotypical such reactions can seem “crazy” because the triggers are imperceptible to them.

FAE, Context, and Neurological Hardwiring

Fundamental attribution error is the cognitive bias that attributes the cause of misbehavior to their internal characteristics or personality traits, rather than considering external factors. If we saw someone struggling to carry a heavy package up some stairs, we might stop to help them. We would understand their difficulty in trying to manage a weight that was beyond their strength. We wouldn’t condemn them for not going to the gym and building muscle mass sufficient to cope with the occasional heavy package, right? We wouldn’t think that they are reacting badly to a situation because due to a character flaw, right?

Because of the neurological basis of empathy, the FAE response to people with autism is completely understandable. It is hardwired into us. It takes significant cognitive effort to overcome, which runs afoul of another very human tendency, the resistance to thinking in deference to just reacting emotionally.

Autism Awareness Month & Building Empathy

This is why Autism Appreciation Month is so important. It helps us all understand the underlying causes of the “peculiar” behavior of autistics. It helps us improve our response to these individuals when we encounter them. Such understanding helps improve our lives and those of people with autism.

Strategies for Developing Empathy

As an ally to the neurodivergent community, we can all work to expand our own understanding as well as spread awareness to others. By consciously adjusting our mindsets and interactions when autism is presented in daily life, each of us has the power to positively impact societal attitudes through our own evolution in thought and deed.

Consider the underlying cause

True understanding begins from within – by resisting the tendency of FAE, we can check our own assumptions and widen our lens to see diverse experiences. When encountering atypical behaviors, remind yourself of the importance of empathy, not judgment, as your first response.

Ask yourself: What factors may underlie this response, visible or not? Sensory and regulatory challenges frequently trigger meltdowns, so maintain an open mind before rushing to conclusions.

Being empathetic and supportive

By understanding the pernicious effect of FAE when confronted by the irregular and out of the ordinary, we can resist blaming character for behavior and begin being empathetic. We can consciously remind ourselves that everyday situations and stressors can be overwhelming to others and rather than blame them we can respond with acceptance even if we can’t do anything to directly ease their situation.

We can develop a repertoire of supportive reactions, offering a kind word, making suggestions for diminishing sensory overload, offering calm support however needed. A kind word can go far for those overwhelmed in mind or body.

Resist stereotyping and stigmatizing

With compassion as your guide, resist stereotypes that stigmatize neurodiversity.

Rather than focusing on a person’s failure to cope, we can all recall at time when we’ve been there. It isn’t just people with autism that have meltdowns, everyone does. The main difference is simply the scope of circumstances that will drive us over the edge.

By expanding our awareness, we can make small interventions that can make the world a better place for people with autism and those around them.

Autism Appreciation Month: A Call to Action

One of purposes of making April Autism Appreciation Month is just to help educate the neurotypical community about the autistic experience. Then, we can begin to give the sensory, emotional, and social sensitivities that people with autism experience on a daily basis equal merit as those that people with physical difficulties have. We can prioritize public accommodations for those issues unique to autism more widely available.

Going forward, this important context helps frame why neurodivergent experiences like autistic meltdowns demand the same consideration we give physical ailments. We must broaden our definitions of pain if all people are to find understanding.

Most of all, keep an ongoing dialogue on these issues. Autism awareness is a journey, not destination. By maintaining curiosity over complacency, and empathy over apathy, we raise each other to new understanding. With sustained effort, a society of true inclusion can become reality for all. Our shared humanity far outweighs any differences between us.

Image Attribution

This image was generated using Poe’s StableDiffusionXL bot using the prompt, illustrate a public autistic meltdown