Movies and autism

Autism can be about familiarity, about not changing and having something that grounds you, like an old pair of slippers or that particular jumper that has a hole in it but you can’t bring yourself to throw it out. Well, for me, movies are like that old jumper. I have my favourites and I watch them with an intensity that beguiles the times I have seen them.

Take the Alien franchise… I think I have seen the first two movies well over 200 times, then there is the Jurassic Parks 1,2 and 3, which I have watched over 200 times. I saw the original Jurassic Park in the cinema 14 times before it made it to video (yes, I am that old). I’ve seen ‘The Meg’ twenty times at least and I can’t guess on ‘Jaws’.

All of these movies are my stims. I watch them because I am comfortable with them. They are filled with tension, but it is tension I know is going to happen. I do the same with books. There are some, like James Herbert’s ‘Domain’, or ‘Ghosts of Sleath’ that I have read and reread until the book itself is dog eared and damaged. They make me feel comfortable and put back spoons.

And I need the spoons in order to do other stuff, in order to function in the world. So, yes, there are a lot of movies that I have seen more than five times. In fact, it isn’t unusual for me to see movies many, many times over.