Item
High Functioning Autism during a Pandemic
Title (Dublin Core)
High Functioning Autism during a Pandemic
Description (Dublin Core)
For those that are somewhat familiar with autism, one might believe the pandemic was perfect for someone like me. People were encouraged not to speak to each other in person, everyone had to keep a distance, and masks were everywhere to conceal the face. These things, for me, were what I dreaded.
I had a pretty good routine going before the pandemic. I had just graduated college with my bachelor degree and was getting used to being married. I was also caring for my grandma as one of my first jobs. I got to get up every morning, earn money, and make sure my husband was well cared for. My husband and I would go places for date nights and we would sometimes do spontaneous things like midnight grocery shopping for ice cream. Things were just carefree. Then a few months into our marriage, things changed a lot (more for me than for my husband).
I enjoyed going to church in person for both my spiritual needs and for the social aspects it gave me. Once March 2020 happened, I couldn't go to church in person. Church was online and it became harder for me to get into it and actually concentrate. I then just stopped going altogether for a while because I wanted to have that human connection I was missing. Eventually, I was able to go to church again, but I had to wear a mask. I dealt with it even though I didn't like it. It was sad to see so many people's faces covered by cloth. It made it feel like I couldn't connect to people as well. My social skills aren't terrible if everyone wears a mask, but I'm more likely to miss certain cues or tell when someone is joking. I focus on the mouth a lot when people talk, so not getting to see mouths was bothersome.
Other elements of my life changed, and autism made it worse for me in some ways. Due to my older habits of wanting to go places more often, the stay-at-home orders that occurred at the very beginning made me feel like a prisoner and that I couldn't choose things for myself as often. This increased my anxiety a lot, to a point of a mental breakdown. My husband was luckily very understanding of my issues, so I was eventually able to recover once I gave myself more work to occupy my time with.
Of all the COVID rules I had to follow, social distancing was one of the easiest things for me, but only in a few ways. I was fine with talking in person from a distance, as I already do that naturally, but I was not okay with having to talk to people more often through online video like Zoom. Zoom feels so unnatural because seeing people through video is not the same as seeing them in person. I didn't have to do it very often, but I was greatly unhappy at the annual family Christmas celebration in 2020 was all on Zoom. It didn't feel as festive as I would have wished.
Autism in general has made COVID much harder to deal with, and sometimes I think that if I didn't have it that I could have adjusted better to the abrupt changes COVID brought into my life. I did learn some things though. I learned that I need a set routine to get things done, and that if I have a problem, I shouldn't feel afraid to be more honest about it. With my husband having had to work from home due to COVID, both of us have had to work on better communication skills. I don't think everything I've learned from this experience has been bad, but it's also not something I want to go through again.
I had a pretty good routine going before the pandemic. I had just graduated college with my bachelor degree and was getting used to being married. I was also caring for my grandma as one of my first jobs. I got to get up every morning, earn money, and make sure my husband was well cared for. My husband and I would go places for date nights and we would sometimes do spontaneous things like midnight grocery shopping for ice cream. Things were just carefree. Then a few months into our marriage, things changed a lot (more for me than for my husband).
I enjoyed going to church in person for both my spiritual needs and for the social aspects it gave me. Once March 2020 happened, I couldn't go to church in person. Church was online and it became harder for me to get into it and actually concentrate. I then just stopped going altogether for a while because I wanted to have that human connection I was missing. Eventually, I was able to go to church again, but I had to wear a mask. I dealt with it even though I didn't like it. It was sad to see so many people's faces covered by cloth. It made it feel like I couldn't connect to people as well. My social skills aren't terrible if everyone wears a mask, but I'm more likely to miss certain cues or tell when someone is joking. I focus on the mouth a lot when people talk, so not getting to see mouths was bothersome.
Other elements of my life changed, and autism made it worse for me in some ways. Due to my older habits of wanting to go places more often, the stay-at-home orders that occurred at the very beginning made me feel like a prisoner and that I couldn't choose things for myself as often. This increased my anxiety a lot, to a point of a mental breakdown. My husband was luckily very understanding of my issues, so I was eventually able to recover once I gave myself more work to occupy my time with.
Of all the COVID rules I had to follow, social distancing was one of the easiest things for me, but only in a few ways. I was fine with talking in person from a distance, as I already do that naturally, but I was not okay with having to talk to people more often through online video like Zoom. Zoom feels so unnatural because seeing people through video is not the same as seeing them in person. I didn't have to do it very often, but I was greatly unhappy at the annual family Christmas celebration in 2020 was all on Zoom. It didn't feel as festive as I would have wished.
Autism in general has made COVID much harder to deal with, and sometimes I think that if I didn't have it that I could have adjusted better to the abrupt changes COVID brought into my life. I did learn some things though. I learned that I need a set routine to get things done, and that if I have a problem, I shouldn't feel afraid to be more honest about it. With my husband having had to work from home due to COVID, both of us have had to work on better communication skills. I don't think everything I've learned from this experience has been bad, but it's also not something I want to go through again.
Date (Dublin Core)
March 24, 2022
Creator (Dublin Core)
Self
Event Identifier (Dublin Core)
HST580
Partner (Dublin Core)
Arizona State University
Type (Dublin Core)
Text story
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
English
Home & Family Life
English
Religion
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
autism
family
husband
relationship
church
quarantine
zoom
home
Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)
mental health
autism
anxiety
marriage
church
mask
social distance
work
Collection (Dublin Core)
Disability
Mental Health
Linked Data (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
03/24/2022
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
04/01/2022
04/25/2022
08/02/2022
Date Created (Dublin Core)
03/24/2022
Item sets
This item was submitted on March 24, 2022 by [anonymous user] using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive
Click here to view the collected data.