Pandemic Pause
Grant Newland
The pandemic turned everything upside down; talking about how it affected me specifically seems absurdly redundant because we all lived through the same thing simultaneously. It has unified us in the belief that everything is fucked up, and we can’t do anything to change it. Providing allowance for a whole generation to speak the same nihilistic language, like an undercurrent of hopelessness and rage. However, recently it occurred to me that giving power to that way of thinking can limit their potential. It leaves people thinking they know the score and have all the answers, but I’ve realized there is a lack of inspiration when I generate answers through this lens. I want to try and get away from this way of thinking, share with you a little bit about who I am, and describe why the pandemic was especially challenging for me as an autistic person and as an associate here at SPEC.
Learning I was autistic was a bit of a whirlwind. When I was five years old, I remember waking up and catching my mom packing a bag of clothes with a couple of my favorite toys. Allegedly, she prepared me and told me exactly what would happen, but I must not have listened because I only remember being confused and scared as she loaded me into the car to head to some strange place. After what felt like a very long drive, we came up on what was, at that time, the most daunting building I had ever seen. However, what looked like a skyscraper to me was, in actuality, a children’s hospital. The next handful of hours remains a bright, colorful blur of memories. I remember being led into an elevator that ascended higher and higher until we were just shy of the very top floor of this daunting building. At this point, I learned I was stuck, staying in this strange, ominous tower for a week.
Living there for that week felt like the longest and most upsetting week of my life. Although everything here was designed not to disrupt our day-to-day routine, the kids weren’t forced to attend classes, and free time was filled with ice cream and movies, which would have been some of my favorites were they not on repeat throughout this whole adventure. I loathed every second of it. I was overwhelmed by group therapy sessions where I’d sit with people twice my age who had threatened their fathers with medically induced suicide or had been sent in for an evaluation because they got caught dealing drugs. I would then go to my room, sit by the window overlooking the street, and cry for god knows how long. I just wanted to go home.
What I just shared is probably a shared trauma for many autistic adults. I think it’s important to start there when talking about how the world has been hitting me lately and what’s been adding to that looming sense of discontent. My experience with the hospital, a seemingly pleasant but judiciously controlled environment where one’s behavior is objectively observed, studied, and assessed, is the reality I have existed in throughout my life. Lately, the difference is that I do it to myself. For example, one of the symptoms I have always struggled with is emotional regulation. The idea of being “just a little bit” angry, stressed, or upset has been laughable to me. Over time, I learned to look out for and avoid temper tantrums early, but it is not easy to stop something you do not know is coming. Although it has gotten easier with practice, I have spent a good portion of my life on the lookout for triggers. Constantly trying to avoid and prepare for my worst impulses. I have had to do everything slowly and carefully and approach improving my situation by framing it within the context of: “What is the safest way to make this happen?”
When I turned 21 in 2020, I was an adult by every legal metric. Turning 21 is supposed to be an exciting time in one’s life, but being behind regarding social skills, I was once again left completely awed and terrified in the face of the unknown, just like I was when seeing the hospital for the first time. When the reality of my situation sunk in, I realized that not only would I have to start supporting myself, but I also needed to be responsible for supporting my mother, who has disabilities and personal demons of her own. I understood that this was not a thing I could fuck up. Although my meltdowns were happening less frequently, down to once every couple of months instead of every day. I knew that my emotional regulation needed further improvement in order for me to pull this off and stand on my own. Not knowing how to make that happen scared me to death.
When the pandemic hit, I needed to isolate myself inside because I live with a highly immunocompromised individual. As someone with social challenges, that did not seem like a huge ask. While some part of me was relieved and even enjoying the solitude, whatever plans I had to spin up my life and tackle my challenges outside, in the real world, were put in a holding pattern. At first, they said it was just two weeks before the ball could get rolling, then another month, and another. Over time, I became used to this pattern until one day, I blinked and realized I had lost three years of my life. My late start to adulthood had mutated into something much worse, a roadblock that had the potential to stop any growth or chance at self-efficacy dead in its tracks. To put it simply, I was angry, but more than that, I felt grief because I knew I would have a harder time starting my life, especially when things got much harder for everybody simultaneously.
One of the few things I gained from the world being put on pause around me was a sudden near-limitless abundance of free time. Nothing was expected of me because it wasn’t safe to do anything outside the house, so I did what any creative young millennial with too much on his mind would do. I played a lot of Virtual Tabletop games. My gaming group quickly became not just my only social contact outside of my mom. They became my emotional lifeline. Every Friday, we would meet and find some story to spin or a new game to play, and as we applied ritual and reverence to this time, these meetings quickly evolved to be like how I imagine good therapy functions. For three hours every week, I had a space where I could turn my brain off and immerse myself in narrative and good company. Allowing me to have a safe place to give voice to all the nihilistic resentment I had stockpiled within myself among friends who shared similar struggles.
Strangely enough, meeting these people and making time to speak with them every week became much more for me than just an escape from hopelessness. When I eventually shared with them the core of what I’ve shared here, their response left me somewhat baffled and overwhelmed. To my surprise, conversations on personally draining topics turned to empathy, understanding, and advice. I couldn’t believe that anybody would care enough to try to help. My lack of resources and confidence left me feeling like a poor student, but just having people show their care and concern felt life-saving in and of itself. Years of these conversations and support between games eventually led to actual opportunity: one of my friends had gotten a job they loved and wanted to get me involved.
Joining SPEC was like dying of thirst your whole life; for the first time, a stranger hands you a glass of water. Every new lesson about SPEC’s purpose and mission felt like a new blessing. After feeling deprived of opportunity for so long, quickly, my sense of bitterness, dread, and grief was replaced by a fervent desire to make the most of this chance. Although I came in ready to do anything, I quickly realized that while the collective presented itself as an “open learning and contributing system,” SPEC’s founders and facilitators were academics and professionals in their fields. The principle goal of leveraging collective intelligence and the resources of a vast host of contributors to serve the greater good is an excellent objective, but only if everyone has something to feed into it. For someone in my situation, a high school graduate newly entering the workforce, the lack of clear objectives or pathways to contribute led to many unfulfilled hours. Many meetings felt like I was merely reaching for something to do, looking for some project to work on where I could build these critically needed skills. Time passed, with no progress made. No ideas stuck for long or lasted long enough to be sustainable. Finally, after a couple of months, I did something I would normally never do, going far beyond my carefully controlled “safety zone” for creating change: I spoke up.
In a traditional work setting, challenging your boss is usually ill-advised. Pulling them into a meeting and angrily stating that the system they helped build has failed you, on a personal level, would be especially questionable. However, to my surprise, my meeting with the co-founder didn’t burn any bridges. All of a sudden, my general nihilistic philosophy was challenged. I realized I had found a space where stepping outside my comfort zone and actively advocating for myself could help create positive change for myself and other people like me. I now have clearly stated goals in my work here as an RA at SPEC. I can use the skills I have to help in an administrative capacity while gaining the skills for future employment through mentorship and collaboration. I found that SPEC genuinely values my feedback and experience and is in the process of putting systems in place for people who do not already have degrees and well-paying jobs to pull knowledge and resources from. I’m happy my initial pessimism was proven wrong. I thought that things were bad and that no amount of stating that fact would change anything. The pandemic left me feeling that all my issues were in arrested development, in a holding pattern of pessimistic thinking and hopelessness. I learned that this is not the only way things can be, not if people advocate for themselves and exercise their right to make their voices heard.
