Tag Archives: autistic adults

Watch Emma Fly!

Posted on April 26, 2013 by | 33 comments

Years ago Richard and I went to hear Temple Grandin speak (this was before the documentary about her had been made).  She had slides and gave a terrific talk about what it was like growing up as an Autistic child in a not autistic friendly world.  After the talk she went into the front entrance of the auditorium where she sat near a table displaying her latest book.  I went over to tell her how much I enjoyed reading her two previous books and to ask her if she had any suggestions for me regarding Emma’s inability to stay seated when on an airplane  prior to take off and again once we landed.  (This was something Em had a terrible time dealing with and would get a look of abject panic, before launching into a high volumed scream that had all the passengers covering their ears.  We were pretty desperate to find some way to help her cope.)

Temple said she was pretty sure there were sensory issues at work and gave some suggestions of things we might do to mitigate those.  I remember thinking that Temple in no way resembled my daughter and then made the assumption that Temple must have been far more able when she was my daughter’s age than my daughter currently was.  Whether this is actually true or not is something I cannot know, but a version of this thought process on my part is one I’ve repeated over the years on more than a few occasions.  So desperate to quell my fears and worries I have sought to find my daughter’s adult replica.  I have made the mistake of comparing an adult, possibly an adult who is now even in their 30’s, 40’s or even 50’s, and then drawn conclusions about what I imagine they were like when they were my daughter’s age.

Comparing Em to any adult has proven to be unhelpful to me, to my daughter and, I imagine to the person I am comparing her to, if they were aware I was doing it.  In addition, comparing a child to an adult is never going to give an accurate view of anything, there are too many variables involved.  And this kind of thinking completely ignores the fact that all human beings progress, evolve and change.  This is an obvious statement when applied to a non autistic child, but somehow I came to believe that my Autistic child was different.  I worried she would not progress.  I worried she would not be able to learn.  I worried because, in part anyway, we were given information about our Autistic child that has been proven to be not true.  We were given information that was in direct contrast to presuming competence.  Just as Emma no longer suffers when traveling in an airplane, she also now reads and writes and has, as of three days ago, mastered the complicated skill of a “catch” at her trapeze school.

Excuse me while I jump up and down while wiping away my tears of joy.  Emma wasn’t able to do a catch upon her first try or second or even third.  Em has been going to trapeze school for more than two years.  She also goes to gymnastics once a week where she has been working hard for almost three years strengthening her core muscles.  In the last month she is now able to do a cartwheel.  Emma began learning to type two and a half years ago.  She practices every day.  She practices reading too.  She practices and works really hard.  None of this has come easily or automatically, there is no “magic” involved, unless magic means being given the opportunity to work toward her strengths, to learn and practice and the belief that she can and will succeed.  Watch that video again, because all her hard work is paying off.  Watch Emma fly!

Bungee jumping barefoot – December 2012

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Posted in Autism, Parenting, presume competence

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The Tug of The Unknown

Posted on February 21, 2013 by | 12 comments

Ever since Em was first diagnosed I have looked to others to tell me what was best for her.  I have read countless opinions.  I have read hundreds of articles written by self-appointed Autism experts, educators and therapists.  I have listened to organizations, I have consulted doctors, neurologists and developmental pediatricians.  Emma has had quantitative EEGs, hearing tests, vision tests, colonoscopies, endoscopies, x-rays, and more hospital visits than any child her age should have to endure.  She has been prodded, poked, examined, questioned and discussed.  She has had more “professionals” come and go in her short life than I have in my entire 52 years.

A year ago I began meeting Autistic adults and what they were saying and describing first hand wasn’t what all those experts, doctors, educators and therapists had been telling me.  In fact what Autistics were telling me was often in direct opposition to what all those other people said.  The more I listened to what Autistics said and how they experienced their childhoods and life now as adults, the more I saw how wrong most of the professionals were.  It’s not that any of the Autistic people tried to predict what my daughter would be like as an adult, or that I came away believing I’d just met an older version of my daughter, but I’ve gained a clearer picture of autism and I am not as afraid as I once was.  As a side note, I have yet to meet a single Autistic adult who has assured me my daughter would be just like them, quite the opposite in fact.  Each and every person I’ve personally been in contact with has made a point of saying they are not representative of any Autistic child.

When I went to the Autcom Conference in Maryland last fall I met a great many older Autistic adults.  People who are in their 40’s and 50’s, some had been institutionalized, others lived in group homes, some lived with their aging parents, others lived independently, but all were Autistic and while it was surprising to meet so many (the hidden Autistic adults that our society knows almost nothing about)  it was a relief too because the fear I had and to a lesser degree still have about autism falls away the more time I spend with those who are Autistic.

My fear is about the unknown.  My greatest fears are those I create in my mind.  I have to remind myself of this on an almost daily basis.  I have tremendous fear.  I have always been fearful.  Long before I had children or got married I have lived with fear.  Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of relationships, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of being hurt, fear of hurting others, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of life, fear of being.  You name it and I can figure out a way to fear it.  I have mornings when I wake up and feel fear like a second skin shrouding my body and mind.  There are days I cannot shake it.  There are days when the best I can do is get up and just put one foot in front of the other.  There are days when I cannot even acknowledge how scared I am.  A good day is when I keep doing the next thing that needs to get done and not say or do anything hurtful to anyone who crosses my path.  Those are the days when the image of myself is that of being covered in a thick cloak.  I keep my head down, keep to myself and do my best to not cause others pain.

Then there are the days when even that is too challenging a task.  Anger is almost always the result of tremendous, debilitating fear.  This is just one reason why I so vehemently object to the way in which autism is depicted in the general population.  Just about everything that is currently written by non-Autistic people regarding autism is fear based and increases fear.  And where there is fear, anger is not far behind.  Fear and anger cause many to behave in ways they wouldn’t, were they not feeling terrified and/or enraged.  Fight or flight.  I do both, sometimes within minutes of each other.  Neither is particularly helpful.

I know I still have a tendency to look to the “next thing” that will help my daughter.  I know this is what I have a tendency to do.  I am trying to trust myself and her more.  I am trying to remember that I don’t always know what will help and, as it turns out, neither does anyone else, but I can make sensible, informed decisions.  I am trying to accept that no one can predict with absolute knowledge what will occur in the future.  I am trying to parent my children with respect for who they are, what their interests are and not what they may or may not become.  I am doing my best to be present, to enjoy the moments of joy.    When I go off into future, fearful thinking, I try to gently pull myself back to the present without admonishment and judgment, but rather lovingly and with kindness for my own faltering, uneven progress.

Em – 2002

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Posted in Autism, fear, Parenting

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IS Autism an Epidemic?

Posted on October 19, 2012 by | 42 comments

When Emma was diagnosed as Autistic, we read that autism was an “epidemic”.   I remember the figures – 1 in 166.  In 1980 the rate was 1 in 10,000 according to others it was more like 1 in 2,500.  Andrew Wakefield had published his “study” of 12 subjects in The Lancet, regarding his belief that vaccines were linked to autism, six years before.  The Lancet’s retraction of the Wakefield study did not occur until 2010, and the fallout was, at the time of Emma’s diagnosis, being widely felt.  What I didn’t know, until much later, was that Wakefield had applied for a patent just nine months prior to the publication of his, now discredited, study for a new MMR vaccine that he said was safer.  Wakefield, it seems, stood to make an enormous amount of money.  Yet I and many parents like me wondered if there was truth to Wakefield’s “findings”.  Despite subsequent studies showing that his findings were false, people wondered.  After all, autism was an “epidemic” so what was causing the epidemic?  It seemed vaccines provided an answer.

Except, what if there was no epidemic?  What if the word epidemic was being used by organizations intent on raising money?  These were the questions I began to ask.  If autism WASN’T an epidemic, then where were all those Autistic children when I was a kid?  And where were they now?  Why didn’t I know dozens and dozens of Autistic people?  They should be everywhere I concluded and since I didn’t know of any personally, I decided to look for them.  So began my search for Autistic people.  (I know my wording sounds archaic, but I actually meant for it to, because it illustrates my thinking not so long ago.)  I periodically googled phrases like – “where are all the autistic adults?” or “Autistic adults” or “Autistic adults in the work place” or anything else I could think of that might lead me to them.  I found very few.  I came upon Temple Grandin and Donna Williams, whose books I immediately read, there were a handful of others, but the shelves of the “Special Needs” section of the bookstores I frequented were filled with increasing numbers of memoirs written by parents, not Autistic people.  When more and more people began blogging, I started googling “Autistic blogs” and came up with not a one.  For years I would periodically look and when my searches came up empty, I concluded – It must be an epidemic.  It seemed a logical conclusion.  And eventually having concluded that autism was in fact an “epidemic” I stopped looking for Autistic adults.

Then two things happened within a six-week period.  A follower of this blog sent me a link to Julia Bascom’s blog – Just Stimming and another parent encouraged me to read the anthropologist and father of an Autistic child, Roy Richard Grinker’s Unstrange Minds:  Remapping the World of Autism who suggests autism is not an epidemic and the current rates are a more accurate reading of what has always existed.  It was a one-two punch; I began to question everything I thought I knew.  From Julia’s blog I began reading and reaching out to Autistic bloggers.  Through my, at first tentative, communications I began to find many, many more.  It was literally like discovering an alternate reality, and as mind-blowing as anything I’ve ever experienced.  The more I looked, the more I found.  Within eight months I went from not personally knowing any Autistic adults to knowing hundreds of people who are my age and older.

One friend of mine and I were discussing all of this the other day.  He pointed out that many people, like him were beaten, often brutally by their parents to make them stop their undesirable behaviors that might make them “stick out” or in any way noticeable.  He said, “People like me would hide our Autistic traits as best we could.  We were still considered the weird kids and the outcasts, but we were not called Autistic.”  He reminded me that he and others like him were trying their best to remain as “inconspicuous as possible because the only signs we had were the “Kick Me” signs that would be put on us by bullies.”  He then went on to say, “We had to do our best to be invisible and/or find a way to blend in or hide to stop the beatings by family and class-mates.”

As I think about all of this, I have more questions.  What about the autistic girls who were like my daughter?  Would my daughter, had she been born in the 50’s, have learned to “pass”?  And if so, what does that say about our school system, because Emma is in no way near grade level?  Would she have been deemed learning disabled, but taught how to “behave appropriately”?  Would she have, through punishment, been able to conform?  What about her language?  Would she have just been thought a “quiet” child?  The little girl who, if she’d been punished enough, learned to sit silently in the corner?  At what cost would this have occurred?  Or would we have been told to institutionalize her for the “good of the family”?  Would we have been advised to save our son and ourselves from being “dragged down”?  Has our thinking changed so much?

I ask these questions honestly.  It took me a very long time to find all those Autistic adults I’d been looking for since my daughter was diagnosed in 2004.  When I was still looking, I never, not for a second, thought in finding, I would also find hope.   It never occurred to me that I would form relationships that are, not only important to me, but relationships I cannot imagine being without.  Friendships that are vitally important to me, people I love and look forward to seeing and spending time with.  People who would patiently explain to me what it was like growing up in an era that did not “recognize” autism.  People who try to help me understand what it is like living in a society that does not want to see or hear them.  People who do not enjoy the basic rights I enjoy and do not even think about.  People who are condemned, abused and misunderstood.  And yet, that is exactly what happened.

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Posted in Autism, Parenting, vaccinations

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Parenting and The Depiction of Autism in the Media

Posted on May 17, 2012 by | 13 comments

We are inundated with disturbing imagery regarding autism in the media.  Perhaps one of the most famous is a video Autism Speaks made.  It is a video montage with a number of parents speaking of their distress and the difficulties they face while raising an autistic child.  Their children are almost always present as the parents speak.  The camera cuts to these same children in full meltdown, stimming or sitting alone in a playground in stark contrast to their neurotypical peers who are running around shouting and laughing, while playing with one another.  At one point a parent discusses how, for a brief moment she allowed herself the fantasy of driving off the George Washington Bridge with her autistic child.

The video is disturbing on many, many levels.  I’m sure it was successful in raising a great deal of money.  However, as someone who once viewed images such as these through the lens of ignorance and as a result was paralyzed with the fear these images induced, I am aware of the underlying emotional manipulation that is so obviously being employed.   It is propaganda, whether intentional or not, biased, deeply prejudiced and intended to create fear.  And it is doing tremendous damage to Autists.  These types of imagery perpetuate the marginalization and unfortunate stereotyping of people on the spectrum.  In using the images of Autistic children it negates and ignores the effect these depictions have on those same children in ten or fifteen years from now, when they grow up to be autistic adults.  Sadly it is not just Autism Speaks who is engaged in this kind of negativity and bias.  News programs routinely air shows about “savants” who are seen as fascinating curiosities or programs about the tragedy and horrors of autism, citing statistics and the growing numbers, with shrinking resources etc.  How did we get here?  What happened to ethics in journalism?  What happened to the idea that journalists have a moral responsibility?

For those who do not have an autistic person in their life or have never met one, these images are the only things you have to base your perceptions on.  Just as when I was first told Emma was autistic, my mind grabbed onto the image of Dustin Hoffman rocking back and forth while muttering in his role as Raymond Babbitt in the movie Rainman.  Raymond Babbitt and Emma are as dissimilar to each other as I am to Raymond Babbitt.  But at the time of Emma’s diagnosis I knew of no other autistic person, so this was who I immediately thought of and then felt confused as to how my daughter could possibly be autistic.  Many years later, when I met Temple Grandin at a lecture she gave, I again found myself looking for similarities.  There were very few.

Over the years there have been countless news programs showing autistic children, teens and adults and while some of the people depicted share one or two behavioral similarities to Emma, I have yet to see any, where I think – Oh, that’s what Emma will certainly be like in 15 or 20 years.  Comparing Emma to adults on the spectrum is something I have been doing for years without realizing it. This is not something I do with my son Nic.  In fact it never occurs to me to compare him to adults.  I know and trust that Nic will continue to mature and grow up to be the responsible, kind, thoughtful, intelligent human being that he is already showing himself to be.  Why do I not do this with my daughter?   Clearly this is where my work lies.  It’s a double standard that I hold, one for my neurotypical son and another for my autistic daughter.  Here is where using the word neuromajority really is appropriate and more accurate.  Nic is in the neuromajority and therefore I understand and assume things about his future that I cannot know any more than I can predict my daughter’s.  But because he is in the neuromajority I am able to lull myself into a calm state of thinking that I know, or feel that the chances are at least better than good that he will grow to be the person I can see him becoming now.

With Emma, her future, in my mind, remains a giant question mark and so I can fall easily into fearful thinking.  The one thing, the single most important thing that is making an enormous difference in my thinking regarding my daughter, is communicating with Autistic adults.  There are a number of them that I particularly like and admire, that I reach out to and who are kind enough to take the time out of their busy lives to communicate with me.  I do not assume Emma will grow up to be just like any one of them, but in communicating with them I am given tremendous hope because unlike the media coverage of autism and autistic people, they do not live their lives from one dramatic sound bite to another.  They are complicated, interesting, intelligent people working, studying and living their lives.

As a result the frightening portrayals the media seems so enamored with are softened, I am able to be logical in my thinking when confronted with those images and now even choose to avoid those programs.  I do not need these depictions to compete with the very real autistic person in my life who struggles, yes, but who also progresses, who is funny and happy, smart and kind and loving, sensitive and unique, who will continue to grow and mature to become a young woman with all of those qualities and more.   If there is one thing I can cite, which has changed how I think more than anything else, it is in being in contact with these kind strangers who are autistic.  I’ve written about this before, and I will continue to write about this, because it is the thing that has changed everything that I believe and has opened my mind to the very real infinite possibilities that exist and has given me hope.  I fall easily into fearful thinking, but I was capable of that long before my autistic daughter came into my life.

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Posted in Autism, neurodiversity, neuromajority, Parenting

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A Fantasy For Autistics

Posted on April 27, 2012 by | 28 comments

Last Monday Emma was profiled in A Slice of Life Series that the blog Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism has been running through the month of April.  This is the blog I wish had been around when Emma was first diagnosed, but that I am so grateful exists NOW, because it is by and for Autists and those who care for them.  Almost all the comments were from Autists who have blogs of their own and I recognized almost every single one of their names.  One of the people who reached out, Savannah, has a terrific blog called, Cracked Mirror in Shalott.  After she commented on this blog, I went to hers and read a powerful post, entitled Payment about teaching life skills to young Autistics.  The first sentence of her post is:  “I don’t want younger Autistics to learn some of the skills I have- or, at least, not the way I learned them.”

I will do her writing a disservice by trying to relate it here, so I urge anyone reading this to go to the link I’ve provided.  I commented on her post and inquired if it would be okay to ask for any thoughts on how to help Emma learn to wash and rinse her hair, which we’ve been working on for close to a year now, with on-again-off-again success.  In reply I received not only a lovely and thoughtful response from Savannah, but another from someone else, who had some terrific suggestions and also has a blog, Chavisory.  As I pondered the various responses I began to formulate a fantasy.  A fantasy of what I would love to see, what I hope I will live long enough to see, a vision of a different sort of world.  A world in which adult Autists were mentoring and helping younger Autists.  A world where adult Autists were involved in every aspect of society, education, government, policy.  I imagined a world where Autistic writers had columns in every major newszine, newspaper and magazine.  A world in which every single school had Autists teaching, devising curriculum, training and teaching neurotypicals how to best teach children on the spectrum and as I allowed this fantasy to develop I felt a surge of energy and excitement.  I literally felt like jumping up and down.  When Richard appeared, bleary-eyed and slowly reached for his cereal bowl, unable to contain my excitement any longer, I blurted out, “Can I tell you about my dream?”

“Can you tell me?” Richard asked, with a dazed expression.

“Yes.  Can I tell you?”  Unable to hold back any longer I launched into my fantasy, while Richard was still forming the words – “Yes, of course. Tell me.”

“Can you imagine what it would be like if adult Autists were writing books, teaching us, training us parents how we could best help our Autistic kids?  Can you imagine how amazing that would be?  Can you imagine how helpful that would be?  Autists have insights that we can’t possibly have, they understand better than anyone the various sensory issues, delays in motor skills that might be making it harder for children like Emma to learn how to do some of these things.  Can you imagine?  Can you imagine a world where schools were created and run for and by Autistics?”

And before Richard could reply I kept going. I was on a roll.  The excitement I felt just thinking about all of this was so great I couldn’t sit down.

“Think about it.  It would be so amazing, unlike anything we’ve ever experienced.”

As I considered this fantasy world I felt the stirrings of determination.  Why does this have to remain a fantasy?  Why can’t this be a reality?  What would have to happen for this to go from far-fetched fantasy to reality?   I’m sure others have had this thought.   What would need to happen?  What are the next steps?  I bet others have begun to make this a reality and if so, I’d love to know about them.

Thoughts?

For my latest piece in the Huffington Post – Running With Mermaids

To read Emma’s profile in The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, click ‘here.’

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Posted in Autism, Parenting, special needs

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Autism “Awareness” on Huffington Post

Posted on March 26, 2012 by | 2 comments

The following post has just been published on Huffington Post.  This piece is important to me as it is the introduction to four or five subsequent posts I am planning for the entire month of April, written by autists.   April, for those who may not be aware, is “autism awareness” month.  These autists who will be writing posts for me to submit are the voices that have changed my life.  These are the voices that, because they’ve changed my life are changing my daughter’s life.  These are the voices that are NOT being included in all the fund raisers for “Autism Awareness.”  How can we possibly hope for awareness if autists are not being included?  Please help me by sharing the Huffington Post link (here it is again, in case you missed the first one) through email, facebook, tweets, share it, comment, please, please comment, even if it’s just to say, “I read this” and send the link to as many people as you can.  We need these posts to go viral.  And I need each and every one of you reading this to help me.  Please.

Let’s change what “awareness” means.  With your help we can.

For those interested, this is Paula Durbin-Westby’s blog, one of the autists who has agreed to write the first piece to kick things off for the Huffington Post.

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Posted in @The Huffington Post, Autism, Autism "Awareness"

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