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I once spent a year working at a church as a visitation pastor. I assisted in all the ministries of the church, but my primary duty was to visit people in the hospital or when they were unable to come to church. When I arrived, I spent a week being driven around by the minister I was replacing--a mostly-retired minister of great wisdom, skill, and compassion--as we visited all the people who were on his usual list. The elderly, the disabled, etc. It was a marathon, as we did about a month's worth of visits in a week.
I am autistic. I am fully capable of being social, but it takes me a lot more effort than it does neurotypical people. Reading peoples' body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions does not come naturally to me, and my own natural expressions do not "fit" with what I'm actually feeling unless I'm consciously acting. I can read people, and I can "act normal," and do this while doing all the other things a minister needs to do while visiting. But it takes a toll, and I can only do it for a limited time. I certainly can't do it all day every day. So, as we drove on back roads from one house to another, I would relax. I would let myself rest. I would stop acting. I didn't explain this to the minister who was showing me the ropes. I didn't know how. This was only a couple of years after I had been forced to admit I was autistic, after a life spent trying to "pass for normal." I'd known I was autistic for years at this point, but hadn't done much research to figure out what that meant or tried to figure out how to explain my autism to other people.
I didn't know this at the time, because he never said anything, but he was very hurt and offended by what he saw as my "coldness." He decided I was a young buck fresh out of seminary who thought she knew everything and wasn't willing to listen to the voice of experience. I learned that he thought this second-hand, from the lead minister, six months later. We were driving to a minister's gathering a couple of towns away, and on the way there, she told me what he thought of me, and why.
( I was devastated )
I am autistic. I am fully capable of being social, but it takes me a lot more effort than it does neurotypical people. Reading peoples' body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions does not come naturally to me, and my own natural expressions do not "fit" with what I'm actually feeling unless I'm consciously acting. I can read people, and I can "act normal," and do this while doing all the other things a minister needs to do while visiting. But it takes a toll, and I can only do it for a limited time. I certainly can't do it all day every day. So, as we drove on back roads from one house to another, I would relax. I would let myself rest. I would stop acting. I didn't explain this to the minister who was showing me the ropes. I didn't know how. This was only a couple of years after I had been forced to admit I was autistic, after a life spent trying to "pass for normal." I'd known I was autistic for years at this point, but hadn't done much research to figure out what that meant or tried to figure out how to explain my autism to other people.
I didn't know this at the time, because he never said anything, but he was very hurt and offended by what he saw as my "coldness." He decided I was a young buck fresh out of seminary who thought she knew everything and wasn't willing to listen to the voice of experience. I learned that he thought this second-hand, from the lead minister, six months later. We were driving to a minister's gathering a couple of towns away, and on the way there, she told me what he thought of me, and why.
( I was devastated )
