On the Spectrum

We watched 2 seasons of the show A Typical about an autistic character who is coming of age - I highly recommend it!

“I think you’re on the spectrum,” Kathy said, as we watched the main character, Sam, look through the notebooks he used to document every part of his day.

“I do that, for sure,” I said. 

“And the keeping of the schedule, to the minute?”

“Organization is key!” 

We watched a couple of more episodes and some of the frustrations felt by the autistic character were frustrations that I express on a daily, or weekly basis.

“Do you see it?” Kathy asked. “The obsessions, the anger when timing is a little off.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

And, truth be told, I’m pretty sure that we all have a little touch of a lot of the mental instabilities.

The autistic grow frustrated when things aren’t a certain way that they’ve planned out.

(Me too).

Precision and organization?

Guilty.

And the show is good in a number of respects. The most effective part of it is that it allows people who don’t normally understand the autistic to catch a glimpse into what it all means.

“Well, he’s organized and efficient and prompt and precise,” I said. “We know you aren’t autistic.”

“Ha, ha,” Kathy said. “Nope. I’m whatever the opposite of that is.”