What would be some difficulties someone with autism would face as a cop? I know it would differ from individual to individual since it seems experiences with autism vary widely (I think? I'm still learning), but generally speaking. Like sensory overload might be an issue, right?
You’re right, every autisticperson is very different. We don’t personally know any who have worked aspolice officers, and we have a hard time imagining that any of us would wantto, to be honest, but hey, everyone is an individual and anything is possible.
There are a lot of possible problems to face here. Sensoryoverload is a very strong possibility. Sirens are awful for a lot of us.The sound of gunshots could be extraordinarily painful too. If there is astandard uniform, it might be hard to tolerate – many of us have trouble with manyparts of clothing, even the seams on socks, and have trouble finding any itemof clothing that doesn’t cause us irritation or pain all day.
In fact, hypersensitivity in general could be a huge issue -including hyperempathy. Not all autistic people are sensitive in this way, butmany are. Hypersensitive/hyperempathetic people are easily overwhelmed byviolence and seeing others suffer. Mod Aira says: “I know that if I sawsomeone get shot, I would be incapacitated for a long time. There’s no possibleway I could do the shooting myself. I’d be more likely to let myself get killedthan to kill someone.”
However, plenty of autistic people report having normal or lowempathy, so that wouldn’t be a problem for everyone.
Another huge hurdle wouldbe dealing with unexpected situations. Most of us have an important need forroutine and we need to plan in advance what we are going to do and what’s goingto happen to us, or we can get really anxious and overwhelmed. This comes froma combination of factors.
One factor is sensoryoverload: we have to process every detail of information that comes in throughour senses and can’t ignore the parts that aren’t important. This varies greatlyfrom person to person, but Mod Aira can offer an example from her ownexperience: “When I want to cross the street, I can’t just check to see ifthere are any cars coming and then go. My brain has to process the gum andcigarette butts stuck to the ground, the cracks in the pavement, the clouds inthe sky, the people walking by, and so on and so forth, until I finally confirmthat there are no cars there, and it takes time. And when the supermarketchanges its layout, I can stand in an aisle for five or ten minutes looking foran item that’s right in front of me, because I just can’t get through all thenew details quickly enough.” This is the case for many of us. For some, itcan take a matter of seconds to process situations like this, and for others,it can take longer. But if we have to take in new information and react instantly,it’s just not possible. Just imagine how long it would take Aira to identify asmall and unexpected detail like a gun in someone’s hand.
Another very large factoris anxiety. Most of us have a need for routine and get upset when it isdisrupted. When we know what’s going to happen, we can prepare ourselves forit, plan for it. We get used to it and we don’t have to worry or fear. But whensomething changes unexpectedly, we have to deal with something we haven’tprepared for, and we can’t do that quickly. It can be very overwhelming and we can have meltdowns or shutdowns over it. If we know that our routine is goingto be disrupted, we can have serious anxiety problems, trouble sleeping, andother issues. Many of us have spent a lot of sleepless nights terrified of theevents of the next day – even fun and positive ones like parties and seeing oldfriends – because we didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, and ouranxiety went through the roof.
Someone who works as a copwould not be able to develop much of a routine. So much of the job is dealingwith and reacting to the unexpected, the combination of constant anxiety andpossible sensory overload would be extremely stressful. It’s quite likely thatthe person would wind up overloaded a lot of the time, and possibly even havingmeltdowns – something that would be very, very dangerous for a police officerto have happen during work.
In fact, anyone with ahistory of anxiety or meltdowns would probably never be accepted into thepolice force to begin with. But not all autistic people have a history – it’sperfectly possible that the person would get the job, start working, andsuddenly be facing a level of stress, anxiety, and overload they’ve never hadto deal with before. This could trigger meltdowns for the first time in theirlife – something which could certainly cost them their job, if not worse.
Looking at the physical side of things, a lot of us have issueswith motor skills and coordination, and dyspraxia is a frequent comorbidity.Shooting a gun, fighting, running and climbing fences (all things you see incop movies – we don’t really know the details of what actual cops do on aday-to-day basis) could be difficult. So could driving a car, a thing most copsdefinitely have to do. Many autisticpeople have difficulty driving, and some can’t do it at all. Some can do it,but are constantly afraid while doing so, because they have to take in so manydetails at such a high speed, and can easily miss something critical and windup in a car accident.
Finally, there’s the social aspect. Autistic people tend to havea lot of trouble with face-to-face communication. For some of us, it’sdifficult to understand what people are saying, especially if we can’t seetheir mouths. For others, nonverbal body language is completely impossible tounderstand. Many of us lose the ability to communicate under stressfulsituations. And most of us have trouble with eye contact. I would imagine thatworking as a cop would mean having to pay attention to the small, subtle partsof communication - imagine talking to a suspect and having no idea if they arelying, even if it’s obvious to everyone else. Imagine dealing with asmartmouthed kid who hasn’t actually done anything illegal, but being unable toidentify sarcasm. Imagine being unable to lie convincingly, but needing to doso in order to save a life. Imagine being a cop and having to rely on thehonesty of the words people say, rather than the way they say them. This couldget dangerous really fast. In fact, many autistic people actually have troublewith the police, because our body language is seen as rude or inappropriate,and we answer questions in a literal way - even when we’ve done nothing wrong,we might be seen as resisting arrest or insulting a police officer. We mighteven be seen as dangerous when we’re not.
All this is not to say it’s impossible for an autistic person tobe a police officer (and if any of our followers have experience with this,we’d be happy to hear from you!). In fact, if realistically and respectfullywritten, this could make a very compelling story - the autistic person sodetermined to become a cop that they overcome the many obstacles placed intheir way (or tragically fail). Maybe it’s their special interest, and theyspend their whole life working towards it. It’s also important to keep in mind,as always, that any one autistic person might not have all of the above issues.But your character will have a LOT of hurdles to overcome, and you need toaddress those in your story.
-Mod Aira and Mod Cat
