I’ll start at the end.
The day after I chaperoned my school’s graduating seniors to Cedar Point, a junior asked me how it was.
I shrugged. “It was fine,” I deadpanned.
“Don’t you ever have any fun?” the student asked.
And here’s the thing: I had had fun. It was fun. I just….
Okay, so. I’m Autistic. I have alexithymia, which means (in part) that I struggle with proper shows of emotion. I have been scolded at funerals for failing to show anything resembling proper grief, and I often fake my emotions in order to fit in.
The more I unmask as an Autist, the less willing I am to pretend, and the more I find myself exploring my own emotional state. And yes, it’s often not what’s expected, and I spend a lot of time confused at the displays of emotions of others.
As a child, I most identified with Spock and the Incredible Hulk. Those were my two baseline emotional states: Stoic detachment and blind rage. You wouldn’t like to see me angry.
But I digress.
Cedar Point, for those of you who don’t know, is an amusement park known for its intense roller coasters. It does have a handful of tamer options for those of us who don’t care so much for that intensity, but the coasters are the draw. The park is situated on a peninsula jutting into the southern coast of Lake Erie, a favorite rust belt destination.
There have been occasional attempts to give a theme to the park, the remnants of these being most obvious in Snoopy’s area (and branding) and Frontier Land, but its current incarnation looks like a teenager tried to shove as many high speed coasters as possible into a small region of Roller Coaster Tycoon. Coasters seem to tangle between each other, although this is more illusion than reality.
Recently, two camels escaped from the petting zoo and wandered the midway, leading many commenters on social media to ask, rather incredulously, “Cedar Point has a petting zoo?” (Yes, it does, in Frontier Land.)
So, anyway, the field trip.
Because these were seniors (less than a week from their graduation, at that), they were given more leeway. What that meant was the four staff chaperones stayed together and were watchful in case of problems, but the students mostly did their own thing.
The other three staff members were not particularly hesitant about roller coasters. But while I used to go to Cedar Point fairly regularly in my youth, I have never been found of them. The Mine Ride is the most intense one I’ve been on and enjoyed; I also went on the Blue Streak once and closed my eyes for much of it.
As a youth, I was mocked greatly for this. Indeed, when I mentioned the Cedar Point trip a month ago to a student and said I wouldn’t be riding any coasters, that student mocked me. I have gotten into the habit of rather defensively and pre-emptively labeling myself a wimp, so the nettles don’t sting as much, but the nettles still sting.
Luckily, the adults I was with saw the opportunity that was offered to them: Someone willing to mind possessions while the rest of them rode coasters. Plus, of course, they are all mature individuals who realize that thrill rides aren’t for everyone.
This afforded me several things my Autistic brain loves: Quiet time alone, a sense of purpose and belonging, and the opportunity to observe humans in their natural habitat without judgment. Certainly most people who saw me sitting alone on a shady bench, with my gray hair and my motley stack of possessions, assumed I was the Keeper of the Goods while others were off screaming.
(I did, by the way, go on a total of three rides, if you’re willing to accept the Sky Ride as a proper “ride” and not just a way of getting from one place to another. The other two were the beloved Mine Ride, which I had to inhale uncomfortably to be strapped into, and the Ferris wheel.
But I digress.)
One thing that I have never understood about roller coasters is the screaming. I don’t recall ever having had the urge to scream during a ride. It is not the way that I respond to that type of stress; I scream when I’m emotionally overwhelmed, sure, but it serves a different purpose than screaming on roller coasters appears to serve.
By which I mean, I would never voluntarily put myself in a position where screaming would be a part of a pleasurable activity.
The first haunted house I remember going to was set up in my father’s church. I had even helped set it up, so I knew what was in it, more or less. Nonetheless, I only lasted halfway through, leaving through a side door. I didn’t scream. Instead, I clung in the darkness to the person next to me, who scoffed at my fear.
I was young then; a tween, I think. I have been to other haunted houses since then, much more intense ones. I’ve enjoyed them, but get annoyed at the jump scares. I know they are completely safe, so I find it difficult to detach from that and experience them with the proper level of fear or thrill.
Indeed, I tend to find them mostly tiresome with short periods of excitement. And I feel like saying that comes off as some sort of detached flex, but again, as a child, I was terrified of them.
Objectively, I know that haunted houses are completely safe, and so for me they lack a proper consistent thrill. Objectively, I know that roller coasters are completely safe, but all the same, I don’t derive pleasure from the long lines followed by a few minutes of jostling at high speeds, inducing nausea and causing, apparently, a good deal of screaming.
Another aspect of my Autism is Sensory Processing Disorder, a thought I’d had more than once during the day of watching others ride coasters. Even on the top of the Ferris wheel, knowing I was completely safe but feeling the familiar panic of a lack of control, of “What happens if…?” followed by something that simply couldn’t happen, I wondered why anyone would voluntarily do this to themselves.
The answer is: They wouldn’t, not most people. Most people have a different reaction to such situations. Certainly there are Others Like Me, but that’s not the point here.
I feel like there are some appropriate responses to riding thrill rides: Screaming. Joy at having experienced it. A lack of breath at the speeds and the shifts.
Here is a joke: I used to go to amusement parks a lot, but then, I stopped. Why? I just didn’t Cedar Point.
But there’s a truth there: I really don’t see the point, not of the rides themselves. My reaction to the few coasters I’ve been on has been to go emotionally catatonic, and then when someone asks me how it was later, “Fine.”
It was fine.
I did enjoy the day greatly, though, because of all the quiet analysis I was able to do. People watching in solitude, without the judgment that might normally appear to engender. And the strange experience: I could empathically and vicariously enjoy the experiences of others zipping past on the various rides, even though I myself didn’t want to go on them.
One highlight: The Sky Ride is a cable car system that goes both directions over the midway. We decided to ride it late in the day, because we had about half an hour before we had to start gathering students for the trip home. Each car holds two or three people, so we took two cars.
As we rode one way, I passed a teen (not one of ours) riding in the other direction. They looked at me excitedly and held out their hands in the “Rock-Paper-Scissors” mode (fist nestled in palm), but it was too late for me to realize that’s what they wanted, so I waved. They smiled and waved back.
They didn’t seem to care that I’d missed the opportunity for a game; they’d made a connection with a stranger that lasted a moment and had no direction for growth.
And that’s fine. That’s good. That’s okay.
That’s the point.