Challenges of being autistic and a Christian

I want to start this by saying that I am very glad for my faith, and it gives my life meaning. I would be very lost without it.


But there have been some times when I have found being a Christian very difficult indeed.

A black and white picture of a Celtic style cross


I'm not talking about not wanting to follow the teachings and rules set out by my faith, or thinking that maybe there was something I couldn't make sense of, although these were also big challenges for me. But something I saw on Facebook a while back got me thinking.... I can't find it to link here, but it said something along the lines of 'doing your best doesn't mean giving 100% effort 100% of the time'. I am still a bit baffled by this, as somehow we are supposed to just know how much is enough? Anyway, this has got me pondering about my journey of faith, especially when I was younger...


When I was in my late teens, I began to encounter other young Christians from different church backgrounds, many of whom seemed to have quite strong ideas of what faith should look like. They seemed to have more of a focus on Jesus specifically, rather than just 'God' - I didn't tend to think of different Persons of the Trinity as needing to be thought of separately, as in my church it didn't tend to be a thing. Their churches seemed cooler, younger, more interesting than mine, and they didn't seem to have as much liturgy as we did in the Catholic church. Their ministers weren't old men wearing robes, they were younger and seemed more approachable. I can see why it looked interesting to my younger self. Added to this were conversations around God having a plan for our lives, wanting us to go out and spread the faith, and the need for a regular 'quiet time' with God every day in order to be doing the busiess of being a proper Christian. Plus their music was much more interesting.


None of this is bad in itself, and I am not writing this to criticise. But to a young autistic person, this can be very difficult:


1) The inflexibility of the people I encountered, some of whom were not altogether convinced at the Christian nature of the Catholic faith (something to get into another time), made me more of an outsider than my (unidentified) autism did, and made me feel that I was somehow doing my faith all wrong.

2) The focus on a 'quiet time' was a bit vague and directionless. Yes, it was nice to spend time in prayer (it always is nice), but again, the message I took from it was that without having that time, I was doing my faith all wrong.

3) The music - great though it is (and I still love it) is often very repetitive and focused on our relationship with God and what he does / has done for us, rather than who he is and how great he is just for being God. I think we need both. (I also realise that the volume and intensity of the music is actually a bit overwhelming for me these days and that I actually prefer something rather calmer so as to not shut down by the end of a service! Maybe I am getting old...)

4) The teaching about God having a plan for our lives. This was the real problematic one for me, as I took it literally. I spent most of the final year of my degree and many years afterwards expecting there to be some great big nudge twards something, but there never was...

A large gold finger pointing at a man

I got myself in a complete tangle - if God had a plan for my life, I didn't want to mess it up. But what if I made the wrong decision? Then I would be disobeying his plans. So I basically avoided making any big decisions for a long time in case I had a sense of God wanting me to do something different. Unfortunately, this proved to be a bit of a mistake - although God did have plans for my life, and has always been at my side, career instructions or very obvious unsubtle hints about what to do were clearly not part of them.


I tried, shortly after graduating, to act on what I thought was a nudge from God. I signed up for a year working as a voluntary children's and youth worker for a church in Bedfordshire through a charity called Careforce (which I believe no longer exists). I thought that as I enjoyed spending time with children, and felt that God was nudging me in that direction, that it was obviously going to be plain sailing and a positive experience. But it wasn't. To start with, my grandmother died two weeks before I was due to go - the first bereavement I had ever experienced, and I found it so hard being at home with the rest of the family grieving that I thought that getting on with the volunteering was the best way to go. I ran away, basically, and it was not the best thing for me at all. I managed the first school term there - there were some really good moments, and a few tricky ones, and then I came home for Christmas. I had fallen into another bout of depression (which I have recently realised is usually what happens to me most winters), and I was struggling with my mental health. I had encountered a couple in the parish where I was volunteering who appeared to be worried about my family being Catholic whilst I was working with the children and young people there (even though by this point I would not have described myself as being Catholic). I did not feel like I belonged, but because I didn't want to give up on what I thought God had called me to do, I was utterly stuck.

In the end, I decided to leave. I was burnt out and depressed, and my faith was badly shaken. In fact, it took me a very long time not to think of God as someone who could not be totally trusted, a trickster who got you to trust him and then let you down. I returned home to my parents, and started working in my home town as a temp. I did attend an Alpha course at the local village church, and was able to help out with some of the children's work there once my mental health was a little better. But I was definitely not as trusting of God as I had been.


The most misunderstood assumption of all

I think the worst thing I took literally was the mis-quote that people often say about how God will never give you more than you can bear. I absolutely took this one at face value, that God would somehow protect me from all troubles and make my life safe and easy if I trusted in him. This did not turn out to be the case.

In fact, in the midst of being in a very physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually abusive relationship, where I was in danger every day, I was forced to see that God would not stop the things that were happening in the way that I expected. But he did bring it to a very definite conclusion. You can read more about it in my old blog - New Life from Old.

The actual quote (from 1 Corinthians 10:13) says that God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but I only found this out a lot later.

God will not stop the bad things from happening - the assaults, natural disasters, things people do to harm other people. But he will be there to hold our hand in the darkness. If God never gave us more bad things in our lives than we could bear, that would mean that the worse the experience, the more blessed we are. Or that he doesn't love those who are the worst victims of crime or other experiences - e.g. murder victims, as clearly they couldn't withstand the experience. The logical conclusions from that line of thinking are horrific, so thank goodness that is not what God does.

Where my train of thought is going on this

As an autistic adult, I have come to realise several really important things:

1) God made me and loves me just as I am, autism and all. He hasn't made a mistake in the way I am made, and therefore he understands how my brain works and when I may need to worship him in a slightly different way from other people.

2) It is not up to me to explain my neurodivergence to other people, although sometimes it might be helpful for them to understand why I struggle with particular things.

3) Different people may suit different styles of worship, at different points in their lives. I definitely enjoyed being part of large and noisy worship when I was younger, and I definitely don't so much now. But my actual worship of God is / was just as valid.

4) I do better when I talk to other Christians about things I am finding difficult to understand, including my very wise Dad, who I didn't listen to enough when I was younger.


I think that's enough pondering for today!

Popular posts from this blog

Reading the room and social expectations

Image
or: the mammoth sewing project.... It's been a very busy month, with loads going on, which is why I haven't had time to write a blog post in some time. What with trying to manage my daughter's social life, my music commitments at church, and the new toddler group I set up in April, not to mention the end of year events happening at my daughter's school. Life has been really rather a fast-paced marathon lately. But there have been several things lately that have made me realise that my (autistic) perspective may well be different from other people's. Time for the elephants in the room Just before the end of term, I offered to make some toy elephants for my daughter and her friends to mark the end of Year 6. They were to be made from old summer dresses with a little contrasting fabric I had in my stash. I was keen to do something to mark the transition from Junior school and it was met with great enthusiasm from my daughter. So far, so good. But then I made what prove...
Read more

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other...

Image
It's been a very long summer. A lovely summer, but one which has brought the usual push and pull of different needs in our neurodivergent household. Some of us need alone time. Some of us need to have things to do outside the house. Some of us just want to stay at home and engage in hobbies which are not shared by others in the family. It has been at times a rather exhausting combination. The marathon of the summer holidays We had our usual wall planner out this summer - showing the whole summer at once, it meant that we could keep track of what we were doing when, and even plan some rest days as well. It did help, but I still found myself getting impatient by the end to get my head space and alone time back, which would only happen when I was on my own at home again. It's funny how I am often not aware of my need for a particular thing until it is not possible. In the middle of the holidays I held a one-off event for my church toddler group. Having only had a handful of people...
Read more

Galaxolotl and the brand new comic

Image
It never ceases to amaze me just how many wide ranging interests my daughter has and how much she loves taking a deep dive into the things she loves. Since the summer she has developed an intense and encyclopaedic interest in axolotls. This has resulted in some fascinating conversations, and some very entertaining artwork. My daughter, who wants to be known on here as Galaxolotl, has started drawing some beautiful comics, which she has asked me to share with you. She likes to explain about different types of neurodivergence using her artwork. Introducing Auti Lotl and friends! Auti Lotl and Halloween Hopefully I will be able to share more of these with you as and when she has drawn more!
Read more