Autism and an angry bus driver

Note: I came across this piece of writing that was written over 2 years ago about an event that happened around 4 years ago while sorting through my writing folders. It’s a story that never got told in my memoir and I think needs to be shared. I have left it in it’s original state.

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In life you have those experiences. You know the ones I mean, the ones that shift your perspective and awaken something in you. I had one of these shortly after starting work at the bank.

As I got onto the bus the bus driver said something aggressively towards me. He was leaning forwards and his face contorted in clear anger. I barely processed what he said and to this day can’t figure out what it was, it was something along the lines of ‘full of yourself aren’t you?’ It was a comment aimed at me feeling entitled. I had absolutely no idea why I was the target of this unprovoked aggression from the bus driver.

I held up my ticket and smiled at him. Pre-programmed behaviour that was part of my strict routine in how to get from kerbside to sat at my seat. This behaviour did not help his attitude towards me, now I was smiling at an aggressive man as he made his views very clear. As I walked down the aisle of the bus the events started processing. I started losing my bearings and grasp on reality. The world started going out of focus and I could feel myself being pulled into a state of meltdown. I was on my work commute and had no body with me. I was scared.

I sat at the back of the bus and desperately tried to cling onto where I was. That I had to get home before I could break. And break I was going to. My mind scrambled to understand as I tried to shut that down and just get home. The more I tried to understand the more frustrated I got. I had not the faintest clue what behaviour of mine had triggered this extreme reaction from the bus driver, but I knew I had done something wrong. I got my phone out and text my mum, I explained what the bus driver had said and asked her to decode it for me and explain what I had done ‘wrong’. She asked me a question that didn’t even cross my mind, she asked ‘did you run or walk to the bus?’. I said I walked. She said he had expected me to run.

I then re ran the events through this filter. I had noticed the bus was already at the station from across the road. I hoped it had left before I reached it, it was easier to get onto a bus once I was stood prepared, as opposed to rushing while it is already there. I also do not engage with the bus driver when approaching. I keep my head down, as I always do out in public, and kept my normal pace. As I got closer to the bus I started to get my bus pass out to prepare for it perhaps still being there. If I had to do this once I was on the bus I would have fumbled it and taken forever. The bus driver took all this behaviour as someone who took it for granted that he would wait for me, that didn’t appear grateful nor tried to rush. And he decided it was within his rights to get aggressive with me based on his interpretation of events.

This experience is a prime example of why a lot of autistics will say that being autistic is not what makes our lives hard, it is societies inability to understand us. The world very often sees me as something very different than what I am.

This taught me that it doesn’t matter how incredible my employers were, how understanding my friends and family were, I still had to interact with an ignorant world outside of those safe spaces.

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