Sheila Schoonmaker

Since I recently began a self-evaluation program I created for myself to observe where my limitations are and understand why they are where they are, Thanksgiving Day required a novel idea that would emotionally crush most neurotypical family members. The person I could have offended would have been my 26 year old daughter, especially since she has provided me with two beautiful grandchildren whom she may have envisioned enjoying a traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner with a grandparent of theirs (I’m one of many). Thankfully, God arranged the ideal mix of Aspies, neurotypicals, and autistic relatives to help her understand this new ‘project’ of mine¹ and why I need to do this now before my nervous system erupts (smoking and/or tremors can even be useful if not ignored, but exploding² like Mt. St. Helen’s can leave irreparable damage).

What my daughter doesn’t know yet (but will in time) is what I did do on Thanksgiving Day. I created a mock traditional Thanksgiving Dinner so I could gauge its effect on my body as I was preparing it. I already knew it would require approximately 11 hours of my time for food preparation (dessert not included) and 4 hours for cleanup. That’s to be expected when a mono-tracked person is preparing such a task alone. (If anyone regularly watches the tv show Monk,³ they can imagine the same scenario happening to Adrian Monk if he was cooking a turkey dinner).

Here’s what I noticed occurring while I was busy that day with turkey stuff:

Soft classical music playing in the background was fine, except when talking began. Then I had to turn off the radio because it was distracting. I needed the house to be so quiet that the only noise heard was the clock ticking and the refrigerator occasionally going on.

I had to clean the kitchen floor as soon as the turkey went to roast, because the grime on the floor was too distracting. That required opening the windows afterwards to air out the stink from the floor cleaner. While the cleaner’s smell was leaving, I made my bed and walked the dog. 

Every mess made from some step of cooking that I could clean up before moving on helped to calm my nerves. I wasn’t feeling tense while cooking, but that was only because I kept telling myself, “There is no time limit for any step I’m doing,” and “No one is around to complain (or laugh at me) about the way I’m working.” 

I could NOT allow myself to be paying attention to the time, because if I did, then I would be destroying my motivation I needed to keep going. The sole purpose of preparing the food was because nobody else would make this meal to taste the way it was going to under my care. Normally, what I cook doesn’t taste too good. That’s because normally I hate to cook. It is possible for me to prepare good food, but that’s only under an ideal cooking environment that meets my needs.

By not having others around, especially children who might make noise, my anxiety level remained close to zero. My brain could remain calm because I could mono-track my steps throughout the day. Adding another cook into the kitchen (even a NT who can multi-task) would help in one way, but in another way it would decrease my ability to mono-task because of not knowing when I would need to pay attention to a conversation that might begin.

Many NTs I know would laugh at the whole concept of mono-tasking and say it’s an excuse to work less hard. After all, they can multi-task and have no ability to ‘get’ what a mono-tasking person is. It makes sense for it to be beyond them to understand someone who isn’t a multi-tasker; they don’t have enough of an intellectual ability to think deeper to understand such things because they cognitively function in multi-task mode (especially if they’re females). I equate it to skipping rocks on the surface of water—NTs being the pebbles and the water being life’s activities—NTs bounce over things, while Aspies (non-medicated, non-’counseled’) travel slowly at the ‘bottom of the lake’ and come up ‘for air’ after each task has been completed. I need a little bobber at the surface that says, “Don’t talk to me while I’m busy with something down under. I’ll let you know when I’m up for conversation.” What’s the point in having company if you’re only able to talk during break times (that means being 100% off duty from dinner preparation)? I would prefer companionship, but I can’t have both. If I attempted to combine the two, it wouldn’t be just my body that would be in pain. My anxiety level would hit the roof and most likely I’d have my sleeping ability ruined for days (that’s if nothing else added to making my nerves more raw).  

Here’s what I wasn’t noticing while I was busy cooking on that day:

In spite of taking 6 ten-minute breaks during the whole affair, I was not aware of the pain in my feet, legs, hips, and back building up over the day. It wasn’t until after I ate and was cleaning up that I began to feel pain first starting in my hip and feet. By the time I went to bed, the pain was crippling. The next morning, I was not even able to walk. I did manage to get walking again after the day progressed, but I knew I had to spend that day on my back or side (sometimes it was okay to sit up for awhile).

My guess is that I should be able to walk again without too much pain by Sunday or Monday, depending on how well I rest.

Here’s what I cooked and what was in it (all organic, of course):

Salad ~ Green leaf & iceberg lettuce, large tomato (chunked), baby carrots (sliced long), chopped celery, purple onion slivers, cucumber slices, raisins, olives, blue cheese, olive oil, vinegar, Italian seasonings, salt, and pepper.

Rolls ~ Large buttermilk biscuits w/soft butter.

Wine ~ Red, from a private French réserve of Margaux bottled in 2005. (White wine makes me ill.)

Turkey ~ 13.4 pound free-range bird.

Stuffing ~ made up of toasted whole wheat bread chunks, butter-fried onions and celery; seasoned with chicken broth, rosemary, oregano, sage, ginger, marjoram, thyme, and pepper.

Cranberries ~ jelled sauce.

Mashed Potatoes ~ with eggnog (instead of milk), salt, and pepper.

Candied Yams ~ baked in granulated maple syrup, molasses, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Turkey Gravy ~ made from turkey drippings, flour, salt, and pepper.

Creamed Curry Corn ~ corn, green peppers, onions, soft cream cheese, milk, curry, salt, and pepper.

Coffee ~ Hazelnut flavored with stevia and half & half cream.

I ate my desert on Thanksgiving Day morning for breakfast. I had a slice of warm, moist pumpkin bread with butter. That, with a tall glass of cranberry/pomegranate juice diluted with seltzer water, was enough to keep me from picking at the meal before it was done.

¹When the first day of winter (Dec. 21st) arrives, I plan to gradually re-introduce a ’semi-normal’ routine back into my life. That means returning phone calls, grandchildren coming over to visit, etc. (i.e., I won’t be so extremely reclusive).

²Anyone who thinks he doesn’t have it in his nature to explode (given certain circumstances lasting long enough) is either good at deceiving himself or is close to his death and too weak from illness to erupt.

³He’s known as the obsessive/compulsive detective. Rarely does anyone spot how much of an Aspie he is because his O/C characteristics cloud out just about everyone’s ability to notice the bottom core of the way he thinks in this role he plays. I almost never watch tv, but when Monk is on, I tune in and then feel less alone with the way I think. I’m not exactly like Monk, but darn close in many ways (that are not visible).