Maybe what we really need is a Window of Safety
a modest proposal on Weird Pride Day for we who are assaulted daily by the neuronormative world as we attempt to navigate it (and for allies who want to help us create sanctuary spaces)
How is a Window of Safety different than Window of Capacity?
Anyone who has attempted to heal themselves somatically has most likely run into various iterations of the idea of a Window of Tolerance or Window of Capacity. If you haven’t, the basic idea is that there is a sweet spot in the functioning of our autonomic nervous system where the parasympathetic (stillness/rest and digest) and sympathetic (action/arousal) nervous systems can switch in an optimal way that makes it possible for us to both relax and act in ways not triggered by trauma response. Outside of the Window of Capacity for instance is anxiety and hyper-vigilance on one side and/or a numbness and depression on the other. The switch mechanism is located in the ventral vagal nerve, which is considered our “social” capacity whereas the dorsal vagal nerve is the more “animal” response, like for instance when an animal “plays dead” as a survival strategy then has to go through a whole series of shaking and whatnot afterward to move out of this response.
The idea in Window of Capacity training is that we who have been traumatized a lot in life (which of course includes a lot of people) end up with an ever narrower Window of Capacity, so that even seemingly mundane life events can over time triggering us into either hyper or hypo arousal. And then we look at how can we get back a sense of safety in order to widen our capacity.
All of this is good and important work. People like Linda Thai and Arielle Schwartz are excellent teachers I highly recommend for these trainings and explorations.
However, I want to propose that for Autistics, maybe the framing of a Window of Capacity, which is generally described as what I would refer to as peak neurotypical behavior, which includes what Remi Yergeau in Authoring Autism refers to as a “pro-social bias," is not as useful as the idea of a Window of Safety.
What I mean by this is that instead of the insistence on dragging us out of hibernation or cocoons (about which more later), maybe there could be an understanding, including in how it is framed in language, that before any emerging into the world safely can even be considered, we First need to feel safe within ourselves.
And that is no small thing to achieve.
Why?
Because as I and many autistic writers have described, our primary experience as Autistics in a neurotypical world is one in which every sensory response we have And every “social cue” (aka neurotypical vagueness, which is tacitly understood by other neurotypicals apparently but not by Autistics and in fact even these understandings are a bit tortured since intercultural communications Also stumble on lack of shared tacit assumptions, but I digress…) we “miss” is pathologized. Not to mention the way our bodies are policed from an early age to force us to move, speak and breathe even in ways not natural to us. In other words, we have been Performing since Infancy to gain admission to the party.
So, if say I dunno a very late diagnosed Autistic woman falls into what would be considered a “dorsal vagal shutdown” after decades of a dancing seal act…are we meant to drag them into a “Window of Capacity” so they can become discernible to the neurotypical world again?
Wouldn’t that be perhaps cruel?
Could we reframe “dorsal vagal shutdown” into what I am going to call:
Cocooning
How is a cocoon different than a dorsal vagal shut down?
Let me count the ways.
When a caterpillar encases itself in a cocoon, it isn’t having a trauma response, is it?
No.
It’s giving itself a shelter and space and protection from the outside world in order to let itself do an amazing thing…transform into a totally different creature than can fly.
If a well-intentioned person attempted to pry a caterpillar out of its cocoon because it seems like it’s isolating or shut down or somehow trapped, they would kill the creature.
Because between the caterpillar stage and the butterfly stage, there’s a liquid stage.
So basically what I’m proposing here is we honor autistic experience and necessity and not try to cut ourselves or one another out of cocoons that we have created as a Window of Safety…lest we destroy ourselves altogether.
The Shell is Sometimes Necessary.
To the outside world this may look like all kinds of problematic. But what can appear like isolation or be experienced as someone being hostile or withdrawn or whatever could very well be that person (and especially if said person is autistic) protecting themselves so they can transform into a being that can be in the world.
In my experience this process has happened both unconsciously and consciously. And in one case included staying for way too many years in a really controlling relationship. I am now in another cocooning phase ever since my diagnosis in 2021.
I myself was pathologizing how “isolated” I have been and etc…until I reframed it as a cocoon and began to consider a Window of Safety as what was necessary more than yet another millionth failed attempt to enter the world without shapeshifting into some performance of myself that ends up feeling really awful when I’m alone again and realize oh fuck me, I did it again.
But here’s the thing. I can’t keep pretending I’m gonna reemerge as a caterpillar. I have to understand I will have wings and be a butterfly. Like it or not. A totally new shape. Something I’ve never been. I’ll have to learn how to fly instead of crawl.
Hibernation
What I have done many times consciously in my life is hibernated. This is different than cocooning, because like say a big bear, when hibernating I need rest and to be away from the world’s demands, but when hibernation is over, I’ll come back to the world a more rested bear. Not a unicorn or a spider.
This is also part of the Window of Safety, but I think of it as a process that is far easier to communicate to the norms, because many people do this at one time or other in their lives.
As most of you know, I’m emerging from a writing hibernation now. I gave myself two months to focus entirely on revising my book and that was incredibly important and I learned a lot, not to mention revised over half the book.
This process meant holding barriers, not just boundaries. Sometimes the holding the space for oneself is an energetic move, and it’s not understood well by most people. Probably needless to say, my autistic friends all got it without any explanation. Because unlike the stereotype of Autistics, we actually Do like to have friends and community, but we can do so without extra effort with one another, because just like 98% of the population understands certain social tacit rules etc, the 2% of Autistics do, too, but they’re different. Because we are a tiny minority globally, and many of us have issues with communication to the larger world, our experience and tacit experience amongst each other is immediately pathologized. It would be easier if we spoke a totally different language or could be considered a separate species, because then maybe some people would try to discern us. But, we are indeed human just like the rest of you, except different in ways that very few people who aren’t autistic attempt to understand. In short, much of the time we are considered “a pain in the ass.” We know this.
So, if you wanted to get anything done, wouldn’t you hibernate, too? Of course you would. And yes of course allistic people can go through versions of this, too. Especially people with other neurodivergent experiences or anyone who is otherwise marginalized or made to feel unsafe in this world. However, I’m speaking from the Autistic point of view, so please bear with me. (No pun intended.)
Writing as Window of Safety
I’ve discovered over these past two months a lot about my writing process.
I believe writing, too, is part of the Window of Safety because it’s a world I can create without immediate interference from the outside world, which means I can allow in unfettered imagination, syntax, thought, intuition, and even play. Of course in the next phase where I share the writing, a whole other process enters. But this part of just me and the writing…is different.
Because of Long COVID I can’t just sit at my desk for endless hours how I used to be able to do. I can usually only write or edit a few hours a day (which is a good day).
So what the hell were the other hours?
Sometimes napping, eating, watching stuff, reading stuff, walking in the park, meditating, doing qigong, tai chi and yoga, sometimes aerobics, though I had to be careful with that lest I trigger post exertional malaise. I also attended virtual recovery meetings and kept in touch with people in that world, most of whom are also Autistic, since I started an autism-friendly recovery meeting after being diagnosed. This keeps me grounded and gives me a safe way to interact with people, within a structure that is transparent and understandable and designed with Autistics in mind. I celebrated 39 years clean and sober last week at that same meeting. John and I will also talk about our projects periodically, and I’ve been in sporadic contact (though nothing like I was from Oct-Jan) with my mother, who has now entered hospice. My beloved cat, Ugo, is also very sick. So, this hasn’t been a stress free time.
But even with all that, I took time every day for the writing. And made real progress. And in so doing strengthened my own Window of Safety.
I also discovered that even when I’m not writing, I’m writing. Most all writers already know this, and I gave lip service to it for years, but I began to see the truth of this during this focused hibernation. Even when not at my desk the project was always there, and I made discoveries about it even when not directly working on it. While that’s happened before, because this book is drawing from my own experience reframing my life after a very late autism diagnosis, this integration was crystalized. Every interaction with others and myself is part of the book, even if it doesn’t go into the words that will end up on the page. It’s similar to how everything that happens in rehearsals for a play, even if it doesn’t end up in the performance, does in fact end up in the performance, as energetic layers that may not be consciously perceived, but can be felt.
In this process, the closer I can round in to write to and from my experience, including Autistic research (of which there is a lot now, thank goodness), history and looking at my own past writing for clues (diaries and plays mostly), the closer I am to understanding how my butterfly wings are constructed. How I might even fly.
It gives me space to consider all of this…not thinking about ways to seem better able to “manage" neurotypical expectations, but instead to turn the table…no actually scratch that…upend the damn table. Forget about tables and hierarchies and who sits where and who’s on top or or on second or whatever…to step into my own presence. Not asking for permission. Not asking to be told what language in which I should write about this. Allowing for a uniquely Autistic syntax to emerge.
Expanding the Window of Safety
My hope is this writing—both here and in the book when it’s published—can expand not only my own Window of Safety, but that of others’ too. Or at least let others who may be in their own necessary cocoons that it’s OK, they aren’t defective, it’s a process. Same for anyone in a hibernation period.
I will find out when I travel to see my mother tomorrow if this new expanded Window of Safety is portable. Can I only maintain it within the confines of my study? I don’t know. I don’t try to write when visiting her, because it’s not possible, but I will note experiences and hopefully journal when I can.
I have asked a few trusted people to feel free to poke this bear at times if they don’t hear from me, because I can also fall into an unhealthy isolation that can morph into deep loneliness and sometimes melt into a maudlin self-pity—like the dirty slush on NYC sidewalks after the first days of snowfall. But to be able to ask that of people, I need to know who is safe and who can hear this request and understand it.
I used to loathe the idea of safety. I was the kind of person who ran into any experience that I felt afraid of just to show I could. To spite you. That isn’t any better than never challenging yourself at all. And can be way more dangerous. Overriding legitimate fear is not dissimilar to another lifelong habit of overriding pain or illness. Long COVID did that one in for better or worse. Part of all this is autism related of course, lack of interoception and such, but some comes from an ACES score of 10 and a childhood of having to face scary situations way earlier than anyone should have to do so. So much so in fact that any form of safety felt…well…unsafe. And I had to tip over the applecart just to breathe.
So the fact I’m even proposing a Window of Safety in and of itself is a miracle, and is the product of decades of work in therapy, yoga, meditation, recovery (39 years clean and sober last week!) and then finally…the rosetta stone: discovering I was autistic. Oh. OK. Now I get it. OK.
Weird Pride Day in a Hostile World
I’m introducing this concept of Windows of Safety on Weird Pride Day (March 4) and sharing the theme (“in a hostile world”) that Autistic advocates and writers Helen Edgar and David Gray-Hammond chose for this day.
It’s an important qualification because all these attempts at Windows of Safety can’t be done alone, as much as I wish that weren’t true. Autistics need not only to protect one another, which we do as fiercely as possible, but we need our allies, too, to help us create sanctuary.
If you would like to be such an ally—and if you are reading this, I assume you probably do—when thinking about how you could support your Autistic friends or family, begin that process by asking them. Even if someone autistic is nonspeaking, they can communicate, maybe not with words, but if you listen, you will hear. Maybe don’t worry about making us “better” or “fixing” us, but notice how the world is hard for Autistics sensorily and in terms of communication and maybe consider how you could make that different—even if it’s just in your own home or classroom, office, or community group.
The more places that are safer for us to be without having to mask, the more you will be able to see and connect with us. You might not understand why or even how we are attempting to protect our own Windows of Safety, but presume competence— that the Autistic/s in your life are doing what they need—and act accordingly. Acceptance, true acceptance, is one of the most precious gifts you can offer.
This applies within Autistic communities, too, since we are on/in/within a multi-dimensional spectrum that can be quite spiky. Our autistic friends can also need or want things we don’t understand or see. I’ve run afoul of Autistics who I totally misunderstood and vice-versa. We aren’t telepathic (hilarious overzealous attempts to give us superhero status notwithstanding). We are people here on the earth with some wildly different sensory and social and embodied experiences and perceptions.
I’m not the first and won’t be the last to say: making the world a better place for Autistics will make the world a better place for everyone. As Nick Walker in Neuroqueer Heresies proposed, we could create a “neuro-cosmopolitan” world in which Weird Pride wouldn’t have to be considered…well…weird. A world that would be a lot more fun and safer for everyone, really, because while Autistics have to mask more to pull off a facsimile of so-called normal, so does everyone else to varying degrees, and isn’t it all just a little…exhausting?
Look at where neuronormativity has brought us. Look closely. And ask yourself, is that what we want? Really? I’m not going to list all the reasons this is a bad idea and point to current events, because if you’ve read this far, you already know. But maybe let’s consider how allowing for, inviting, and helping create true Windows of Safety for Autistics (and indeed all neurodivergents, disabled, and otherwise marginalized people— without recourse to gate-keeping or name-calling), could over time truly change the world. Not with bombs and power grabs, but molecularly, rhizomatically…from the inside.
May a thousand dandelions bloom (through the cracks in the sidewalks).
Silent Writes Are Back!
Speaking of Windows of Safety, I host a virtual silent writing space once a week (as of now, though I may expand) for paid subscribers. Those who have been attending have told me how much it means to them to have this protected space to write together apart for an hour. I offer an optional prompt and brief meditation. And at the end we check in briefly. Join us if you like!
Details can be found here.