So, from my understanding, when people say “Autistic people need routines,” this is what they’re talking about.
The every day, minor things the person surrounds themself with that are predictable.
Because Autism is a perception disorder - how we receive and process information. And by having specific things be constant, we give ourselves a buffer where we can safely ignore the incoming information, or else feel some otherwise-lacking domination over the flow of information.
My example is how I clean the baby room when I close at the day care. I have a specific order I do things in, partially for efficiency (by cleaning counters, then floor, I can use the same cleaning cloth and still get hygienic results).
One day my coworker, seriously trying to help, cleaned the counters for me before leaving.
And I was so stressed that particular day, I wanted to scream at her, because she’d ruined my routine.
On a good day, it wouldn’t have mattered. But it hadn’t been a good day, and she upset my routine. When she left, I cleaned it again. Not entirely because I didn’t trust her not to do it right (although there was an element if it in my control frenzy, “This Must. Be. Clean!”), but largely because that day I needed to re-establish my control over my environment.
Individuals who need what neurotypicals would recognize as “routine” - the same food eaten the same way, take the steps left foot right foot every time - generally feel the most out of control of the information they’re trying to balance. Extreme “routines” mitigate this flow, break it up into predictable chunks, save a few spoons for later.
When I’m in a good place, routines matter less to me, because everything takes fewer spoons when I’m not anxious.
But the more stressed I am, the fewer spoons I have when the cost is inflating, the more predictable things keep me from being overwhelmed.
The more that doing something the way I feel comfortable with doing, that I have chosen, feels like I have the tiniest bit of control over this overstimulating world.
