foldingfittedsheets:

With permission I will now be sharing my absolute favorite story from my friend Buck. For flavor, here are some facts about him.

Buck, like myself, is on the spectrum. Most comfortable in a cowboy hat, he grew up rural and was named after his grandfathers favorite horse. He carries that same grandfathers ashes on his person. He is often mistaken for a staff member when he goes to the zoo.

Back when Buck was a small little lad his father took him and his sister out boating. His dad judged that he was old enough to apply his own sunscreen for the day on the water and subsequently filled his tiny hands with a dollop of lotion.

He cautioned, “Here, just be careful not to get it in your eyes.” Buck held out his hands to receive the sunscreen, and his dad turned away to attend to Buck’s sister.

Buck’s dad had only turned away for a moment to start on his daughters protection when Buck’s shrieking cry cut through the warm sunny day. He spun back around to behold Buck, sunscreen spackled completely over his eye sockets, screaming his tiny head off.

Buck’s dad was absolutely flabbergasted by having issued the warning “Be careful of you eyes” only to have his son immediately slap a half a tube of sunscreen directly into his eyes. He couldn’t have foreseen the twists of Buck’s tiny autistic mind.

Buck had looked down at the sunscreen in his hands. He had heard the warning. It naturally made him think- he had to be careful of his eyes… BUT! What about his eyelids? If he didn’t get sunscreen on his eyelids then they might burn!

Tiny Buck could not imagine anything worse than sunburned eyelids and slapped his hands up over his eyes after that brilliant realization, only to instantly self inflict the burning he had hoped to avoid.

theory of mind failure on the part of the neurotypical

gives substance designed to help one be careful.

says specifically: “be careful of your EYES”

and then is surprised when substance gets applied to eyes.

needs course in empathy & imagining the thoughts of others

(ok it does depend somewhat on whether the spoken warning was ‘be careful not to get it in your eyes’ or 'be careful of your eyes’ – the anecdote contradicts itself on that so i wasn’t sure)

(it’s just, the first thing this reminded me of was the time my partner handed me a precariously heaping plate of food and said 'be careful’ which I obviously took to mean 'if you move it too fast it’ll collapse everywhere’ and then when I burnt my hand they insisted they had warned me 'be careful it’s hot’)

(but then we’re both deeply on that spectrum and while we were together it was always a contentious matter of opinion whose theory of mind failure was at fault for anything)