Autistic rigidity exists so that there can be a sense of there being any boundaries at all!

If there’s no perceivable framework “out there”, do I have to bring along one of my own?

Are SUVs “portable frameworks” which do a better job of isolating people from what’s outside? How many are sold for that reason? Travel in an SUV vs. travel in other vehicles - that’d make an interesting experiment for autistic folks.

A visual metaphor I have used in support-group meetings is that of being in a room whose ceiling/roof suddenly disappears, giving a view of the sky - perhaps of boundless opportunity for growth and understanding. Yet at the same time the floor falls away, and the view downward can be terrifying: what if I fall into that abyss? If height is taken to be a positive aspect of one’s development, then depth could certainly represent the negative. The eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, as described in the Biblical book of Genesis, seems a salient example of this phenomenon.

The floor and the ceiling - and the walls for that matter - were boundaries. How comforting, and how supporting, they can be. Without them, what would hold us up? What would protect us from whatever might be lurking out there? So their absence - or their apparent absence - can be very troubling.

I have seen a photograph of a room I never wish to enter. It is an apartment bathroom whose floor is covered with a huge photograph of the ground as a skydiver might see it. The boundary - the floor - is still there, but it strongly appears not to be. Perhaps this example accounts for the seemingly irrational fears which can occur among folks on, or off, the autism spectrum.

Last revised: June 23, 2007
(c)2007 Dave Spicer
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