Written by J, an adult with autism
Okay, everyone who knows me and reads this blog knew that I was going to do this eventually, so here we go. I’m going to talk about my cat. This might not seem autism-related at first, but keep reading. It gets relevant, I promise.
My husband and I already had one cat. We very much did not want a second cat. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to deal with a litter box, but those things are unbelievably vile. I couldn’t imagine dealing with more of that unhygienic nonsense. Also, our first cat was pretty territorial, and we didn’t think she’d respond well to sharing her house with another feline. I did want another pet, though, and was on the verge of adopting an English bulldog named Emma, when some manner of pet crisis in my stepdaughter’s mother’s house led to the following text message to my husband: “I never want another birthday or Christmas present for the rest of my life if you take my cat.”
How do you say no to that? You don’t. So we found ourselves in the position of adopting a nine-month-old calico kitten who had never been to a veterinarian in her life.
She was nasty. Her fur felt like Velcro, she constantly had boogers in the corners of both eyes, and she drooled all over everything at all times. When we took her to the vet to be spayed and vaccinated, he examined her and started listing off different parasites. I truly thought he was just telling us about potential cat diseases or something, but eventually it sunk in that he was telling us all the things this cat actually had. I think I heard my credit card scream in pain when the vet ran it for all the treatment. And then I got to go home and spend the next month squirting drops into the cat’s ears (for mites), dripping medicine down her throat (for intestinal parasites), and force-feeding her pills (I don’t know what those were for – something gross, I’m sure). Cats don’t enjoy any of those things. Medicating a cat is like sticking your hand into a bag of rusty nails that all hate you. She was not a cute cat. She was not at all appealing. Plus, she was a huge thief and I practically had to nail down anything in the house that I wouldn’t have appreciated her stealing and hiding. I was really not her biggest fan.
But after the medication part was over, she started following me around. She crawled into bed with me at night and slept with her little body pressed against my legs. She rolled around on her back, begging for tummy rubs, and head-butted me to get me to stroke her ears and scratch her chin. It took a couple of months, but I fell in love with that nasty little thief. Purely because she insisted on it.
People with autism are often not appealing. We can come off as cold, single-minded, and eccentric, and none of those things make people want to be friends with us. Yet, most of us really want friends! And that’s how I’m like my cat. In order to have relationships, I have to be persistent. I don’t stalk people or anything weird like that, but I do have to nurture friendships in a way that I think most neurotypical people don’t. Or maybe they do the same stuff, but it comes naturally to them. I don’t know.
I’m happy to say that I do have some really great friendships, and for the most part, we got there because I insisted on it. I enter birthdays and anniversaries into my Google calendar and make sure that I send a present or at least a text message to celebrate the event. I make a point of getting in touch regularly and actually take notes sometimes about what’s been going on in their lives so that I can remember what to ask about. None of this comes naturally to me, but I’ve found that it’s an effective way to build relationships. I guess it’s kind of hard to dislike someone who reaches out repeatedly and remembers your birthday, even if she does super annoying stuff like talk about her cat all the time.
Sometimes I feel like a robot, because it’s difficult to figure out how to care about people. It honestly is. I don’t always get it right, and neither does my cat. One night, she stole a bag of pink Mediterranean sea salt from the kitchen and deposited it in bed next to me. I think maybe she thought I’d like it, but I was mostly confused and annoyed. At least it wasn’t a dead mouse, right? Her little heart was in the right place, even if I had zero interest in waking up with pink salt all over my sheets. No matter how hard relationships are, life without people is really lonely, and no one wants to live like that. My cat didn’t, so she set about making me love her. And sure enough, I do. Because she insisted on it.
Her fur is now silky and her eyes are booger-free, but she still drools like a leaky faucet. I love her anyway, and I really didn’t have any choice in the matter. I think if you give people no choice but to love you… Mostly, it happens. Just don’t do stuff like bring them imported salt in the middle of the night, because even if you have the best of intentions, no one else is going to see it that way. The line between “awesome friend” and “crazy person” can be blurrier for people with autism than it is for most everyone else.
Cats can get away with being nutty and random. Humans, not so much. Persistence is the key to insisting that people like you, but striking a balance is also important. I wish I had tips on how to achieve that balance, but I really don’t. Trial and error is how I learned to make friends, and it can be pretty tricky, but it’s worth the effort to figure out for yourself what works and what doesn’t. What I can say is to parents of children with autism: Don’t let your child get discouraged. The more they put themselves out there and work at connecting with other people, the easier it gets. It has yet to get truly easy for me, but it’s a million times better than when I was a kid. Other people, especially kids, are going to be mean. It’s unfortunate, but unavoidable. You can really help by telling your children that 1) If someone is cruel, it is okay to not continue to try to be friends with that person, and 2) Not everyone will be like that. You can be a source of comfort in the face of rejection and provide encouragement to be thoughtful and persistent with the people who are kind.
Side note: If you haven’t read All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome, I highly recommend it. I’ve found that a lot of autistic people love cats, and maybe that’s why. We’re kindred spirits. This article was inspired by page 3 of that book: “He likes to be near the people he loves, but he doesn’t want them to hold him.” That’s me all the way. My closest friends give me handshakes or fist-bumps instead of hugs, and that’s how I know that they love me. They know my boundaries and respect them, which is a very important thing in friendships. And in cat ownership.