For only the third time in our history, Aotearoa New Zealand is under a national state of emergency. This occasion has been caused by Cyclone Gabrielle which has closely followed several weeks of extreme weather events that has caused widespread flooding, landslides, roads, homes and bridges being washed away over much of the upper half of Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island). Even before the arrival of Cyclone Gabrielle, the cost of the damage of the recent extreme weather events has been estimated to exceed the costs of the Christchurch Earthquakes of 2010/2011.
The land over much of Te Ika-a-Māui reached saturation level over recent weeks where some areas have received several months of rain in as little as a day. The forces of Cyclone Gabrielle – winds, rain and low atmospheric pressure – have added to the chaos with emergency services being overwhelmed over large areas of the country. For those who still insist that climate change is a hoax, all they need do is look the frequency of extreme weather events compared to previous decades.
In the Manawatu region where we live, we haven’t experienced much more than a severe storm. However some rivers in the region that have catchments to the east and north are now running above capacity and breaches can be expected. Our home is perched on the lip of the valley overlooking the township of Feilding, so our home can’t be threatened by flooding. The valley wall is not very steep so even if the land was waterlogged, it’s unlikely that significant landslides would occur. Over night we experienced winds with gusts of up to 120 km/h (75 mph), which is not exceptionally strong, and moderate to heavy rain. So in this corner of Aotearoa it’s been almost a non-event, and likely to remain so, unless more bridges get washed away or the Manawatu River rises significantly higher than expected.
True extent of damage yet to be seen as Cyclone Gabrielle cuts off Gisborne | Newshub
I was originally going to title this topic something along the lines of “My experiences of the intersection of being autistic (undiagnosed for 60 years), being religious, being in a mixed marriage (by the way of ethnicity, language and religion), living in a liberal, secular, bicultural, multi ethnic society, and how language and social expectations affect communication across these intersections“. A little bit long and yet still not quite defining what I wish to say over a series of posts starting with this introduction.
Being autistic in a neurotypical world is fraught with difficulties, not least of which is communication. Because of how I communicate I have been described as deceitful, dishonest, devious, disingenuous, confused, incoherent and a liar, amongst many other derogatory terms. Perhaps from a non-autistic perspective it may seem so, but it most certainly not my intent. I earnestly try to be unambiguous, accurate and truthful at all times. I abandoned trying to be succinct a long time ago as doing so guarantees a misunderstanding of what I am trying to communicate, so I tend to be somewhat wordy as I throw in analogies and examples to hopefully illustrate what I mean.
Autism is usually defined in terms of deficits – for example: “Deficits in social communication and interaction”; “Lack of facial expression”; “Lack of eye contact”; “Not engaging in imaginative play”. This is how the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version 5) defines autism and is the “Bible” used by the American medical profession to diagnose and treat mental disorders. For this post I will briefly touch on Deficits in social communication and interaction. At best, that description is deceptive, at worst, it is patently false.
Until the internet became ubiquitous, autistic folk had little to no opportunity to meet and share experiences with other autistics. Before the internet I had never met another autistic person, and although I might have met as many as a handful “in the flesh” in the past 20 years, I communicate with fellow autistics every day online. We were lead to believe that we were little more than a list of deficits. We do indeed struggle when communicating with neurotypical people. But now we can meet in the tens or even the hundreds, and on such occasions it is the neurotypical minority of those who have joined us who display the very same deficits usually attributed to autistics. It has become evident that autistics can communicate just as effectively as neurotypicals when that communication is with others of the same neurology. The problem arises when people of different neurologies communicate. As neurotypical folk outnumber autistic folk by about sixty to one, usually the blame is placed entirely at the feet of autistics.
What I am describing here is the double empathy problem. It’s a theory put forward by Dr Damian Milton around 2010 and has been slowly gaining traction ever since. The theory does fit the experience of autistics and most of us believe the available evidence supports it, but the non-autistic community seems to be less willing to even contemplate the concept let alone investigate it. Here follows a very brief summary of the double empathy theory:
Simply put, the theory of the double empathy problem suggests that when people with very different experiences of the world interact with one another, they will struggle to empathise with each other. This is likely to be exacerbated through differences in language use and comprehension.
Dr D Milton, 02 March 2018
Perhaps I could have titled this series “The double Empathy Problem”, as it seems apparent to me that the theory fits not only the issue of mutual understanding between autistics and non-autistics, but also mutual understanding between those of different religious persuasions, and those with different ethic, cultural and language experiences. However, I don’t intend this series to be theoretical or based on anything other than my own personal experiences and how those experiences have coloured the way I perceive and respond to the world in which I live. So for the meantime, the current title will remain.
I wish this series to be an exploration with no destination in mind. I am 73 years of age and autistic, although I and everyone else was unaware of that fact for 60 years. I have suffered from migraines for a little over 60 years, and of that I have been painfully aware (pun intended). More recently I have discovered I have aphantasia (an inability to form mental images), alexithymia (emotional blindness) and prosopagnosia (face blindness), and although I have probably had these from the day I was born I was not aware that how I experienced the world was any different from that of my peers.
I have no idea where this series may lead nor if it will go far. It’s been an on and off affair for some time in the wordlessness of my mind. Yes, that’s another unusual characteristic I possess. I don’t, can’t think in words, again something I didn’t realise others could do until perhaps a year or two ago. There’s probably a scientific name for this condition but I have not seen any reference to the condition let alone a name for it. Converting thoughts into words is a laborious procedure if I can’t draw on my stored source of preconstructed or memorised word sequences, so it’s unlikely that future posts in this series will occur at frequent intervals. For example I started this post at 8 this morning and apart from an hour while attending a Zoom meeting, and breaks for refreshments and calls of nature, I have been working solidly on it all day. It’s now 11pm. That works out at less than 100 words per hour!
If you wish to join me on this journey, you’re more than welcome. If you wish to contribute a comment or question my interpretation of my experiences, please feel free to do so. What I will not tolerate is any attempt at gaslighting. If you don’t know what that is, Google it, or wait until I cover the topic in a future post in this series. I have been subjected to gaslighting, both intentional and unintentional for much of my life as no one, including myself, realised my experiences were any different from those of my peers. I now know differently, so please don’t try.
This week’s music track is a little different as there’s no lyrics to accompany the video clip. The reason being that it’s an instrumental, unless you consider the occasional growling of “Mouldy old dough” worthy of being called lyrics. Mouldy Old Dough was originally released in the UK in early 1972 but it seems to have been somewhat of a flop. After reaching number one in Belgium, it was re-released in the UK and spent four weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart in October 1972.
It did somewhat better in Aotearoa New Zealand, where it reached the top spot on the 15th of December 1972 and remained there until it was overtaken by Lobo’s “I’d Love You to Want Me” in early February 1973. If I was to hazard a guess as to why it was so popular, I’d say it was an ideal track to accompany a relaxed family barbecue or picnic over the summer.
In the early 1990s, there was a revival of the popularity of Mouldy Old Dough when it was adapted as the theme music for a series of television commercials by LOTTO NZ for its Instant Kiwi scratchcards.
Mouldy Old Dough was written by Nigel Fletcher and Rob Woodward who were part of the novelty music group Lieutenant Pigeon. Woodward’s mother, Hilda, features on the piano in the YouTube clip below. I’ve also included a couple of the Instant Kiwi TV commercials which might help non-Kiwis understand why the instrumental had a resurgence of popularity in the 1990s.
Another Spectrum 