(Autistic) Demand Avoidance

Have you ever wondered why someone important in your life seems to be capable, but not do certain tasks when asked even if they seem perfectly reasonable, minor things to do? This is an examination from the author’s personal experience of why this phenomenon occurs, especially in autistic people.

Let’s start with a concrete example. I’m an autistic individual living with my mother, about to embark on an undergraduate psychology course. I’ve manifested hygiene issues for some time now, and more recently my mother asked me to put plates and cups I’ve used into the dishwasher instead of leaving them lying around for her to do.

When she made the request, it felt quite serious as she stated it might affect our relationship. What a simple thing to do, though? Yet, immediately, I started to become frustrated- internally, it became a kind of prolonged queasy anger. And all I had to do was pick up a plate, and put it in the dishwasher.

Why do we normally refuse to perform simple tasks? Well, to begin with, it might be that what we are doing currently is more important than the other thing, especially personally. Having to divert energy from something that you’re doing takes a certain amount of logistical processing before we do it. For most people, this is easy. For some, it’s a bit more complicated.

For an example of the kind of person who might find this as a difficulty, let’s consider those in the competitive and competent range. You’ll likely know someone who fits this description. These people are highly motivated, yet have a sense of the difficulties performing any task. They also have some measure of intensity, and enjoy the passions of life, in their own way.

Let’s think about this a bit more carefully than we usually would. It appears that asking someone like this to break away from what they’re doing should be simple. They tend to show that they’re more than capable in general. Yet they refuse, or oblige begrudgingly. Even if they do the latter it might take some time. This brings back the topic of logistical processing. It stands to reason that if the person is intense, competitive and capable, the first mentioned trait is responsible for pushing them above and beyond- they pour lots of attention into the things they do.

Pouring lots of attention into doing something requires a lot more energy than normal, which additionally likely means you have to do fewer things in general, compared to an appropriate benchmark person. Say you make these investments on a daily basis, expecting the kind of things you have to do, and keeping track of your commitments. Suddenly, a new one comes flying in from your peripheral vision. Wait, I haven’t budgeted for that!

It is the person’s procedure and desire to do something thoroughly and well that causes the issue when needing to perform lots of low intensity, frequent tasks. Namely, it is decision fatigue. What sort of thing do I have to do? What is its value? Then- what is the procedure? When will it be expected to be done by? For someone used to pouring more attention than average into the things they do, it may sound strange to an observer, but, this can be exceptionally demanding, causing the responses outlined above.

Of course, most people can and will perform these tasks in the end, and it may even be good for them to have their attention pulled on a regular basis, to distract people from their natural way of going about doing things. But what about, for instance, autistic individuals?

Something observed in autistic people reliably, neurologically speaking, is that they form very dense clusters of neurons for tasks compared to their neurotypical counterparts, who tend to have sparser networks connecting to further reaches of the brain. After I performed the (very simple) task, I noticed that I needed to spend a strangely large amount of time doing absolutely nothing at all, just allowing my thoughts to go about their business. This seems like a rather large order, even considering the logistical processing issues already mentioned.

This is a hypothetical explanation, and I am not qualified in neuroscience. To me, however, it makes sense that if most neurotypical people want to do something other than what they currently are, they just ‘reach out’ to those concepts and do them. For an autistic person, however, their thoughts reverberate around the things they have built up the most experience in and reference the most often, and only after they have done that can they ‘reach out’ somewhere else.

This can make autistic people really, really good at what they do, and yet much worse at random other things. When I start to do something more peripheral to what I usually do, it is extremely uncomfortable and takes up lots of energy. I have to start considering all of the various, complex facets of whatever it is and how to do it. This results in absolutely tons of time taken trying to conceive a whole new framework of performing the task. For a neurotypical, they might not relate to the same level of focus, but they just ‘reach out’ to the pertinent information in a different region of the brain to do the thing.

These difficulties, by the way, can play out even worse when attempting to multitask. So, let’s all go to the library and get some research done together.

Then, I’d have to bring up all the information I have on socialising- and then, separately, all the information on researching at the same time! Of course, you can still alternate between these things, but an autistic person will have to navigate very dense clusters of thought while doing so, rendering the experience all the more frustrating, or near impossible.

Hopefully this goes some of the way into potentially explaining this phenomenon. At least coming up with a working understanding helps to foster good communication with family and friends.