Auntie SparkNotes: My Autistic Classmate Is Driving Me Nuts

Dear Auntie,

I am a first-year college student, and so far, I’m enjoying college! However, there’s this one guy in my class who’s not making it easy for everyone else.

Let’s call him Joe. From what I have heard, Joe is somewhere on the autism spectrum, and he has some anxiety issues. I usually don’t give too much mind to things like this, but he bothers the heck out of everyone.

He was in my chem class last semester, and he’s in my advanced chem class this semester. Both are huge lecture classes, but I see him often because he was in my recitation session last semester and is in my recitation this semester, which are both lead by TAs. I think it’s best to describe what Joe does in bullet points:

He talks back to the TAs. For example, we’re currently learning a formula using frequency, but frequency is symbolized by the Greek letter “nu” (v) instead of the letter “f”. Joe asked the TA why the professor uses “nu” instead of “f,” and the TA said that that’s just what we’re going to be using. Joe then snapped, “Then how do you expect me to do well in this class when you don’t use the right letters!?”
In situations like the one above, Joe will go sit off to sit in a corner on the floor and start moaning, “But it’s not faaaaaaair!” He also likes to lie down on the floor, making everybody walk over him.

During recitations, we have quizzes. When he’s given a quiz (sometimes when he’s still lying on the floor), he reads the questions out loud over and over again. When the TA calls for time, he starts yelling, “NO NO NO!” and starts sobbing loudly. No, he doesn’t just cry, he EXPLODES. It’s so loud that people from down the hall have come in and asked if everything was okay.

Last semester, because of this, the professor had Joe be given twenty minutes to do quizzes instead of ten. This sounded fair, but he still acted the same way, except he would yell at the TA when it was time to take up the quiz, saying, “NO! THE PROFESSOR SAID I COULD HAVE EXTRA TIME!”

Last semester, he yelled at the TA for not giving him a Periodic Table sheet for a quiz we were going to take, and he accused the TA of trying to fail him. When the TA asked him to calm down, he insulted her and screamed at her more. When another student offered him his own Periodic Table, he yelled at him and started sobbing because he wanted his own Periodic Table and not somebody else’s.
Last semester, the professor would have us do “clicker questions,” where we used these devices called “clickers” that had buttons on them to answer example questions on the PowerPoint. One time, Joe came running to the front of the lecture hall and confronted our professor RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LECTURE. The problem was that his clicker was out of batteries, so he couldn’t answer the clicker question that had come up. So he was commanding the professor to give him an extra set of batteries. Of course the professor was pissed and told him to wait until the end of class, but Joe stayed standing there on the stage crying for ten minutes before going back to his seat.
There are many other situations like this that don’t involve being in class. He has talked back to other students, and I have seen him get into tantrums in other events. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if he wasn’t in my class, but my brain feels like exploding sometimes when I’m trying to work next to him.

Some of my friends who live in the same dorm he lives in hate being around him, too. They tell me that they can’t even watch a movie in the common room without him constantly interrupting them.

The thing is, though, I feel horrible when I don’t want to be around him because he has a mental disability. I know that the things that he does are only a symptom of what he has, and I shouldn’t be expecting the same behavior from him than from a neurotypical person. And I know that transitioning from high school to college is tough for everyone, and it must be extra hard for him.

But we’re already well into the school year, and I get to my wits end whenever I’m near Joe. I don’t want to think badly of him just because of his disability, but I cringe so much every time I see him acting like a toddler. Does this mean that I hate handicapped people and don’t know it? How can I be more accepting to Joe’s disability?

For starters, sweet pea, you can recognize that accepting a thing does not require you to like it.

Especially when that thing is a grown man throwing repeated, toddler-style tantrums on the floor of a college lecture hall to the detriment of everyone else’s work.

Because as much as Auntie SparkNotes admires your efforts to forgive Joe’s behavior on the basis that it’s the result of his disability, you’re really doing no favors to the autistic population by suggesting that they’re incapable of acting like human beings. There’s a big difference between acknowledging and making allowances for non-neurotypical behavior (which is reasonable), versus expecting autistic people to act like total asshats because they’re autistic (which is insulting.) There are millions of people out there on the spectrum, and the vast, vast majority of them are not obnoxious, disruptive jerkasauruses—because they recognize that it’s not okay to act that way, and they develop strategies to avoid it.

In short, Joe’s behavior is not representative of his disability, and his disability is not the reason why you don’t like him. You dislike him because he’s combative, rude, volatile, and objectively unpleasant to be around.

Of course, these are also reasons why Joe probably shouldn’t be in college right now. Not because he’s autistic, but because he apparently doesn’t have the skills he needs to cope with his condition and conduct himself appropriately. (Autistic kids can’t help the way their brains are wired, but they can—and do—succeed at college by finding ways to handle challenging situations without, say, lying down on the floor and screaming.) But there’s nothing you can do about that. He’s there at the pleasure of your school’s administration, just like you. And like any disruptive person, he’s probably going to continue being as difficult as he’s permitted to get away with.

Which bring us back to your original question about how to be more accepting—and fact that you can accept Joe’s disability while still being appalled by his behavior. It doesn’t mean you hate handicapped people in general, or even autistic people in particular; it just means that autistic or not, it’s never especially comfortable to see someone acting out in socially unacceptable ways.

What I want to gently suggest to you is that it doesn’t need to be. You don’t have to like Joe, or be friends with him; you don’t owe him anything at all, except basic human civility. And you don’t have to find a way not to feel frustrated when he starts screaming at your TA or otherwise disrupting your classes (and honestly, it would be pretty weird if it didn’t bother you.) You just have to be able to tolerate your frustration without acting like a jerk… which is, incidentally, one of the more important non-academic skills you’ll pick up at university.

For now, that probably means doing what you’ve been doing, keeping your distance from Joe when possible, and keeping your cool when you have to be in close quarters. It’s okay to do that, Sparkler; it’s okay to avoid unpleasant people, whatever their reasons for being unpleasant are. But depending on how disruptive he becomes, it might also eventually mean talking to your professors about how things might be changed—compassionately, and productively—so that everyone, including Joe, can get the education they came to class for.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
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