The question mark. Such simple, necessary punctuation that we use daily without giving a second thought. I personally have nothing against the question mark. My Mum, however, does. She has very strong views on the question mark. I’d go so far as to say that she despises them.
I was talking to Mum a few days ago about a particularly busy and stressful day she had in work. The conversation went like this:
Mum: “I was trying to complete this piece of work and I kept getting e-mails with question marks everywhere. Question marks! Why where they sending me e-mails with question marks all over them!?”
Me: “Erm, what do you mean? Question marks? As in they were asking you questions?”
Mum: “Yes! But with question marks at the end! Question marks! Oh I find them so very offensive.”
Me: “But Mum, they will have needed to put a question mark at the end of the sentence if they were asking you a question.”
Mum: “Well I know that, but I still can’t stand question marks. When I see one in an e-mail I feel as though I’m being shouted at…like that person is being very, very offensive. Why don’t they just put an exclamation mark instead! That’s what I always do!”
Me: “So in work you ask questions over e-mail with an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence?”
Mum: “Yes. It’s much better.”
We laughed a lot throughout this conversation. Please don’t think that I laugh at all my Mum’s perceptions, thoughts and behaviour. I don’t. However my Mum just told me that she gets very offended by a question mark. I found this very funny. But one thing to know about my Mum is that she has a wicked sense of humour. She may not ‘get’ mainstream jokes and sarcasm very well, but she finds the most odd, dark, strange, sometimes un-funny things extremely funny. Mum think’s the ‘neuro-typical’ things I do are bizarre and hilarious. Sometimes my Mum’s ASD ways make me laugh out loud. And more often than not, when the pair of us are alone, we’ll be laughing our heads off at some new revelation of hers or mine. And we both love this part of the learning process.
So, back to the question mark. We talked some more about it and Mum told me that to her, a question mark looks like an old, shouty, angry man whom she finds very aggressive. I did some research and found out that Synaesthesia is three times more common in adults with autism compared to the general population. Synaesthesia is a condition where one sense automatically triggers another. Some people experience tastes when they read or hear words and some perceive numbers as shapes. My mum sees an angry, shouty old man when she sees a question mark.
Why am I telling you all this? Because perception is everything. The way my Mum perceives the world, from people, animals, light, sounds and even the humble question mark differs vastly from the ‘norm’. My Mum has spent her entire life trying to adjust her behaviour and thoughts so they align with everyone else and it exhausts her. I think it’s about time I adapt my behaviour to best support my Mum and I hope that this will encourage those around me to do the same – it’s not always possible, but it’s the little things. A recent text from me to my Mum looked like this:
“Hey Mum! How are you! How’s your week at work been! Lots of love xxx”
There will be hundreds of instances like this that we’re both yet to discover. The more time I take in understanding where our perceptions differ, the more I can understand the incredible way my Mum thinks and acts.
Hopefully this means that I can better support my Mum and offer advice when she has no choice but to encounter a question mark.
myotherworldlymum 