I am mentoring a young lady in archery who says she is autistic. She has been diagnosed but it is certainly not what I expected. I know nothing about autism.
She spent the last 10 days with me on a trip and I found myself in an almost constant state of anger and frustration with her. She is intelligent, dedicated and hardworking all quaities I like. But hard headed beyond belief. She identifies as a male in a females body and likes to present the image of a super macho strongman archer who pulls heavy mansize bows. She actually is very strong for a woman and draws a heavier bow than most average men but no where near falls into the category of a heavy bow puller.
Here is where my question comes in, I am normally a very patient man and I was previously not aware that I possessed a mean bone in my body. After about 4 days with her and making zero progress in getting her to address the aspect of archery we were participating in ( flight shooting) I found myself loosing patience and becomming mean and hurtful to her trying to break her like you would a wild horse.
I avoided her for a full day trying to reorganize my strategy but once I started working with her again I fell right back into the same pattern. I finally figured out she has been taunting me intentionally. I told her I wouldn’t be able to work with her anymore in the future and let her know I felt she has great natural ability but we are just not a good match. She broke down and cried and said she doesn’t want to loose me as a friend and all about how she has been hurt and abondoned through out her life so I agreed to try again. Same results of course.
Now that she is back home she keeps e emailing me with references to spanking her with a belt, sending me photos of belts with spanking jokes attached etc. It seems pretty obvious she wants to get spanked with a belt. Too weird for me!
We did manage to get 2 new world records with her last weekend so she did have some success. The records she got were not particulary well established but it was still a small accomplishment.
Could anybody recommend an approach that I am over looking to working with an autistic person??
When I dropped her off I gave her some assignments and I told her not to contact me until she could send me a video showing me she has accomplished what I was looking for. Feeling frustrated.
Autism aside for a minute, there are serious concerns here. You don’t say whether this is an adult, and whether the spanking bit attracts you (though I think not) but honestly, the spanking e-mails would be a dealbreaker for me. If he is that inappropriate with you, this is never going to be a healthy relationship. Given that he is in a female body, and a student (adult? it’s hard to tell from the OP) any upset could come back on you. Further, that emotional sensitivity could easily cause him to misinterpret boundary-setting as mean and abusive.
All of which could result in slurs to your reputation without any wrongdoing on your part.
I would also be concerned that if he is trans, stronger than you would expect from the build/gender and acting out sexually, there’s every possibility that he’s taking hormones which will negate any records you might set. That would also affect your reputation.
So, bottom line, suggest a life-coach, and walk away.
If you do work with him, I suggest releasing your suggestions like butterflies around him, with no ego attached to whether or not he finds them immediately. Whatever the appearance, he will hear you, and probably even obsess over what you have said, but you won’t see that. Give him the idea and then see what he does with it. Let him make it his own.
Encouragement and praise are the motivators to use, and any negativity will just shut him down. Trouble is, it sounds like any positive feedback may be confabulated with flirting. Maybe keep an assistant nearby at all times?
I highly recommend autismspeaks.org I found this there, which looks quite helpful, but the forums could also be a great resource.
I honestly don’t believe she is autistic, my impression is that she is just a very hard headed butch lesbian. She states that she has no interest in romance but is not attracted to women at all and if she did have a relationship it would be with a man. Not sure I believe that one either.
“Autism” is a broad umbrella right now. Still there are some generalizations that might help.
By definition a person labelled with autism will have a hard time reading your emotions and putting herself in your place. As a general principle they will do better with a very predictable structure.
So
Set up each session with a predictable routine and inform her in advance of what that routine is going to be. For example - Every session we first review what we covered last time, discuss what the assignment was to practice on for today, review what our goals for today are. (Minimally get her to explicitly reflect them back.) Then we have me do one and you do one. I review what you did right, where you could improve, (and then another thing done right). Repeat. Warn a round before the last round. End with the assignment of what to work on for next time.
Explicitly identify when you are getting annoyed and when you are pleased. Do not assume that your tone demonstrates it.
Odds are she is not baiting you but just does not get when you are upset or why.
Set clear limits explicitly and calmly. “I am happy to be a friend. I am not interested in spanking you or having that sort of relationship and do not see that as funny.”
Those seem like good suggestions, I was heading this way by neccessity as I can’t take too much interaction with her. The one thing I did really admire about her was that long after everyone else had petered out and was resting she would be at the shooting line casting arrows, until dark. I could see she was carefully practicing every move and that was the one thing that kept me engaged.
As someone who is somewhere on the autistic spectrum, I can offer the following:
I very often offend people when I have absolutely no intention of doing so, and didn’t think that what I said or did was in any way offensive. I’ve lost numerous opportunities because people have assumed that I had ill intent for some actions when I really just didn’t think anything was wrong with them. It generally has to be stated to me very explicitly that something is offensive is a certain context, because I have no real way of appreciating how other people feel about something, especially since it is quite likely that I’ve never heard anyone else mention anything similar, and I don’t know if that’s because it’s taboo or I’ve just not encountered it before. It doesn’t really matter what chronological age someone is, autists very often have to learn about such kinds of things via direct (and usually negative) experiences.
If you have problems with his behavior, you need to very bluntly point them out. Beating around the bush is not going to work. Yes, that may mean treating them like a child, but consider that in many ways they are a child regardless of age. If it’s clear that he’s being obnoxious for the sake of annoying you because he finds it funny, then clearly that’s a reason to terminate the relationship. But if he’s totally oblivious and can’t take hints, he may feel that you’re perfectly fine with it, or even if you’re annoyed, not know exactly what way in which he’s annoying you.
Certainly, it’s possible that he is hopelessly out of touch with the social realities of the world that getting him to understand how to behave properly may be impossible. But you basically have to treat him like he’s from another planet and doesn’t understand anything about Earth culture, and has no instinctual ability to understand how social relationships work here. If he’s hard-working and dedicated to improving, it shows that he’s serious about the activity, he just doesn’t know what’s appropriate. Any attempt to he has of empathy fails because he does not have a clue how neurotypical people feel on the subject, and only has his own thoughts on the matter to inform him.
I am a very second-hand expert on ASD but one thing that’s often overlooked is that autism is often crossed with other deficits and disorders - dual-axis autism and retardation is not uncommon, for example, and autism/Asperger’s combined with OCD is common as well.
I think there are multiple things going on with your student, and saying “s/he is autistic” no more explains them or give a lever to dealing with them than it would for someone with profound mental issues who says “I have cancer.”
ETA: As some above say, and you, there’s also a lot of self-diagnosis going around, mostly as Aspie rather than full-out autistic. Frankly, combined with the presence of deadly weapons, I’d consider this a truly explosive situation and get ta’fuk out.
Honestly? I’d drop the student and distance myself unless and until a therapist, guardian or intermediary who fully understands the person can be involved.
I did notice things like you are pointing out. She showed up at my house 5 days before she was scheduled unannounced. I told her she was welcome to have dinner with us but let her know it was not my job to feed her and she would be primarily responsible for her own meals. We had green burritos one night and I asked her if she wanted to have green burritos with us again the next night, she asked my girlfriend if she could cook up some red ones because she didn't like the same flavor two days in a row. Next night we had pizza and she loaded up the leftovers in the box to take back to her room once we all ate our fill. I had to tell her that the left overs were mine. Her social skills are extremely weak.
S/he may be testing you to see what gets what reaction, rather than taunting you for amusement. Be direct about what behavior you expect and what is not appropriate and will not be tolerated. Things that seem like they should be obvious or intuitive may need to be directly stated. Don’t count on any sort of non-verbal/non-written communication to get through, like facial expressions or tone of voice. Feel free to be honest: I don’t want you to send me emails about spanking; I am getting annoyed because I asked you to focus on flight shooting and you aren’t doing it; I admire your hard work and tenacity; you should ask the person who bought the food whether you can take leftovers instead of just taking them.
Don’t just say s/he is “being hard-headed”: actually state what s/he is doing that bugs you, not a state of “being” which may be too vague. State what behavior you would like to see instead.
And of course tell her when s/he is doing things right, especially any positive change.