Tag Archives: Parenting

The Pitfalls of Reading Out Loud

Posted on September 19, 2013 by | 89 comments

When Rosemary Crossley was here she spent several hours working with my daughter.  One of the many discoveries we made was that Emma can and does read very quickly, but if asked to read out loud, she will stumble and get so caught up in pronunciation I question whether she is able to comprehend what she’s reading at all.  I know I have trouble following the story.  Yet most schools ask children to read out loud, both as a way to assess what they are capable of, and also to make sure they are at the correct reading level.  If a child reads a first grade reader out loud with great difficulty, the impulse is to make the reading material simpler.  Except that if this is done with my daughter she will be stuck reading kindergarten and beginning level reading books for the foreseeable future.

I know Emma is able to read much more complicated texts than beginning readers.  I know this because I have seen her read with Rosemary and me very quickly.  I have witnessed her ability to read, not only faster than I can, but her ability to accurately answer multiple choice questions related to the text with ease when  given some resistance.  In other words, if she is asked to wait a beat, instead of being allowed to immediately point to an answer, her accuracy goes way up.  Without the pause she is just as likely to randomly pick any answer.  From Rosemary Crossley’s book, Speechless, “The resistance I provided slowed her down very substantially, and the quality of her output increased as her speed fell.  I gave Jan a picture of a cow and asked her to write me a sentence about it.  Instead she typed, THIS TYPING IS HARD.  I HAVE TO THINK.  That was, of course, the aim of the exercise.”

This idea of providing resistance is a tricky one to explain to people.  I have had some people say they just cannot understand why this would be necessary.  The only way I know of to better explain, is by comparing it to the way many, who are like my daughter, will perseverate on a word, or will rely on favorite scripts.  It is not that these scripts have no meaning, it is more that they are often difficult for others to understand.  If I hand Emma her iPad and ask her to type me a story, she will most likely write something like, “rollercoaster, kiteflyer, greenride, hurricane harbor, waterslide” which is also in keeping with what she might say out loud.

These words are powerful to her, they hold a great deal of meaning, but to most people, they are seen as gibberish.  If this then is used to assess her capabilities she will not be well served.  However if I ask her to type me a story and then hold one end of a rod while she holds the other end with her typing hand and types with one finger while I pull her hand back after each letter is typed, she might type, ““One day there was a boy called george. He had been in afight can’t tell you how he got into the fight but he was bruised all over.  He fought a lot and his teacher was very angry.  The next day he was all purple and his mother said you can’t go to school looking like that.  The very clever boy covered himself in flower and his teacher thought he was sick and sent him home.  The end.”  

Incidentally, that story is one Emma wrote when Rosemary was here working with her and is typical of the sorts of things she can and does type when given the kind of resistance I’ve described.  (You can read the entire post I wrote about her session with Rosie, ‘here‘.)  However, ask Emma to read out loud a story similar to the one she typed and she will have a great deal of trouble.  What she is capable of is far greater than what one might assume from what she verbalizes, whether that means reading out loud or with spontaneous speech.  Ask Emma to sing the lyrics of a song, in Greek no less, and she will get much of it right, but that’s a whole other post.

But how does one convince others that this is so?  Particularly when many are trained and told that reading out loud is a good indicator of ability.  There is surprisingly little written on the topic of the problems with reading out loud for those who have spoken language and word retrieval issues.  Again, in Rosemary Crossley’s book, Speechless, she writes, “her reading aloud was bedeviled by the same word-finding problems which affected her spontaneous speech, preventing her reading with any fluency.”

Obviously there needs to be more written about all of this.  The closest I have found, other than Rosemary’s book, Speechless, is a blog, The Right Side of Normal,  that concentrates on “right brained children”.  And on that blog, this post specifically, Silent Reading versus Reading Aloud, which deals with, at least some of what I’m discussing here. If others know of other resources discussing any of this, please do leave me links in the comments section.

Rosemarie Crossley

Rosie

89 Comments

Posted in Autism, Parenting, reading

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In Answer to – Medication?

Posted on September 17, 2013 by | 10 comments

A number of people wrote in on the post, To Medicate or Not with their experiences.  The post was not about medicating autism, but about some of the co-morbid diagnoses that many people who are also Autistic  have.  Quite a few people wrote about managing depression, anxiety, stress and related issues.  Some wrote about how they began trying different medications in their late teens…  “I started medication at about 19…  I started with Prozac and it went well for a while but over time it stopped working.  It did make me feel better at first.  From there and over the years, I have tried many different antidepressants for my anxiety- Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft,Trazadone for sleeping, Zyprexa, Cymbalta, Welbutrin, Effexor, and Nortriptaline.”

Many parents wrote about how they agonized over the decision to try medication and almost all of them said it was done as a last resort.  Both Autistic parents and parents who are not autistic said similar things about their decision to medicate their child.  One person wrote, “my autistic child is on ADHD meds and has been since he was four. AdderallXR until last year, now Vyvance (same med with less appetite suppression). Clonidine at night. He wants to be on them. He has told me he feels more creative and happy with his mind not looping fifty things at once.”

Another wrote, “I had been fighting the medication for a few years.  I have had anxiety since I was little.  I had the doctor refer me back to one of my psychiatrists who is willing to talk and if necessary provide a prescription.  This time we tried combining medications.  Welbutrin seemed to help a bit so we tried things like Ritalin to help increase its effectiveness.  I was able to focus much better and things seemed to go well but I got severe heart burn as a side effect of the Ritalin.  We tried Dexadrin next but it didn’t work.  I gave up for a bit and then discovered Buspar.  It is an antianxiety drug but not in a class like valium etc which are addictive. ”

Lots of people wrote about having to try many medications and often combinations of things before they found what worked.  And a number of people wrote about being judged harshly by others either for taking medication themselves or for deciding to give it to their child.  One person wrote, “…they do not know.  They pass judgment, but have not lived the experience.  They make comments and say things as though they have the answers, but they don’t.  They  don’t know what it’s like.  They can’t.  I’ve learned to say nothing and ignore the mean comments and loud whispers.”

Another wrote, “I don’t tell people anymore, because I’m tired of their uninformed criticism.”

Again, thanks to everyone who wrote about this.  Really appreciate the honesty and willingness to share your stories.

10 Comments

Posted in Autism, medication, Parenting

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To Medicate or Not?

Posted on September 16, 2013 by | 39 comments

It has been suggested I write a post about medications, both those prescribed and given to Autistic children, as well as those taken by Autistic adults.  This is not a topic I have any first hand knowledge about.  We have not given our daughter any medication, other than melatonin at night to aid in sleep, which has been nothing short of miraculous, and during those unfortunate years when I thought or hoped massive amounts of homeopathic tinctures would “help” her (they didn’t) and later the dozen or so vitamins recommended by the naturopath, we have managed to steer clear of medications.  (By the way, magnesium is helpful with constipation.)  I also have to quickly add, we have been able to steer clear of meds because our daughter does not exhibit any clear need for the medications currently available.

Personally I don’t like taking even aspirin, forget anything more hardcore, but I also am coming from a privileged vantage point.  I don’t have debilitating depression or anxiety or other issues, which would make taking medication a good idea.  The one time in my life when I was depressed and bulimic, Prozac was prescribed.  My reaction to it was less than ideal.  Even taking something as benign as ambien has a negative effect after more than one night on it.  I seem to be extremely sensitive to drugs and often have an atypical response to them.  With ambien, if I take more than half the prescribed dose I become so depressed I can barely function.  As a result I avoid taking anything, even if prescribed.

But I know people who do and have taken medications of all kinds and to say that it is optional, is being overly simplistic.  For people who need medication, things like antidepressants, or meds for anxiety or other issues that affect their ability to function optimally, it is profound the difference the right medication can make to their quality of life, their ability to wake up in the morning, their productivity level etc.  For those people, medication makes the difference between a bare, brutal existence and being a vibrant, active being who is fully in this world and able to enjoy it.  But what about those who are Autistic?  What is their experience?  Is it similar to those who are non autistic?  Is it the difference between barely scraping by and being able be fully present, or is it something else?

So I am asking for your help.  Anyone who has any first hand knowledge, whether it is you taking the medication, giving it to your child, or if you were given medication as a child, can you tell me what you take/took/were given/ or give to another and how it affected you?  Was it a positive experience, and if it was or wasn’t, exactly why?  Do you respond to medication atypically?  Did you have to experiment?  If you are a parent, describe your decision to medicate, what was the outcome, did you feel it helped or didn’t help?  Did your child notice the difference?  Any and all answers will be quoted anonymously unless you tell me otherwise or if you leave your comments below, I will only use whatever name you used to comment with unless you tell me otherwise.  If you prefer to email me, please do:  emmashopeblog@gmail.com.

Thanks so much everyone.  Really appreciate the willingness to share your experiences with me.

39 Comments

Posted in Autism, medication, Parenting

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On the Topic of Violence…

Posted on September 13, 2013 by | 49 comments

On the topic of violence or actions, that by those witnessing, appear violent, actions that harm another or oneself, there is one thing that stands out, one thing every single person who has physically harmed themselves or another person have all agreed upon, and that is the need for a self-appointed safe place.  Not a place chosen by another, which can too often be seen as punishment, but a place that the person who is overwhelmed can go to, a place that feels safe.  A place that is sacred, that will not be violated; a place that is a safe haven.

From reading the numerous comments, emails and DMs people have sent over the last few days, it is the one thing every single person has agreed upon.  (If you’d like to read the other posts on this topic click ‘here‘, ‘here‘ and ‘here‘.)  And interestingly, not only a safe place for the person who is feeling overwhelmed and whose actions are harming others and/or themselves is needed, but a safe place for all present, those who either by chance or because they are trying to defuse the situation, is necessary.  A number of people have asked, but what if my child follows me or is breaking things and is a danger to themselves?  Again a number of people answered this question with the same answer.  They all said that in such cases it will take some time, repeatedly moving to a safe space, being followed, and leading them back to their safe space.  Every single person said that talking, reasoning, arguing, placing demands, insisting that the person “use your words”, telling them to take deep breaths, demanding they count to ten are uniformly unhelpful, and in most cases, cause the person more distress and further upset.

Another aspect to all of this is escalation.  Lots of people have described how they escalate or their child does.  One wrote about a child who had 8 escalation levels and that “if he gets to 4, they’ve lost him.”  They wrote that “most kids have at least 2 before they get to the attacking stage.”  They described one child whose first level was so subtle, many did not even notice or pick up on it – a heavy sigh.  Another parent wrote about a certain look the child gets, a stare off into space that they now know means they must get them to safety.  All agree that catching it before things escalate is key.  This is something Judy Endow talks about in her book, Outsmarting Explosive Behavior.  She describes “the four stages of explosive behavior: Starting Out, Picking up Steam, Point of No Return, and Explosion.”

Ari, who is non speaking and has a blog, Perceptions, described in detail what things help and what does not.  He wrote, “Am autistic and nonverbal. Never speak. Use devices with pictures mostly, but can type (sometimes). Have been violent. Usually only when people around me have problems below.

Problem #1. No one thinks to get one of my communication devices, switch to meltdown page, and put it in my hands to see if I could use it. Communication is hard. Some times I need be helped to use picture buttons. I have a page specifically for pre-meltdowns. It never gets used.

Problem #2. Blocking me, restraining me, pushing me into a corner, or otherwise making me feel trapped is not okay without my advance consent. Can follow me, stay close enough to see what I do or where I go, but let me go. Walking is calming. Non-autistics get to walk when stressed, why not me too? Trusted friends get my permission to touch my arm to guide me in safe walking direction. So much easier when there is trust and respect.

Problem #3. I hit myself, pull my hair, scratch/cut my skin, do other harmful things. Very rarely is done hard enough to cause serious damage. I understand it is uncomfortable to watch, but interfering will make me hurt myself far more. If you cannot bear to see this, leave and call someone else who can instead of interfering with my efforts to calm myself.

Problem #4. This one applies to everyone, I think. #1-3 may not be true for anyone other than me. Problem #4 is BELIEVE ME. Believe what I say about me because I am only one who knows what it is like to be me. If I tell you that you are wrong about me, accept that you are wrong and pay attention to what I say is right.

Problem #5. I admit there are times when I cannot calm myself, they are rare now but still can happen. There are acceptable ways to protect me (and others) from harm.  It usually involves medication, thick soft blanket, silence, darkness, patience, and ice. If person can resolve #4 with me, I am happy to discuss #5. Otherwise… Energy is not infinite, left alone I will eventually stop screaming and fall asleep. There may be blood. I will not die. Ice for my head when I am done is much appreciated. This is when I am most likely to get violent towards others. I know it is scary. I know. For me too. If unsure of what to do, just stay away from me, be quiet, wait for calmness. I will look for help when I am ready.

#5 usually happens because of problems #1-4. It is best avoided.

Last time was about 1 months ago in a hospital waiting room. I am 31 years old legally independent adult (whether I should be is another matter entirely). I just needed to walk. Instead I was pushed into corner and trapped until doctor called us into private room. If had been restrained longer probably would have hit person hard. Probably would have been charged with assault. Probably sent to psych hospital again. This is not my fault. I can not fix this. But at least it has taught me self control. I can endure incredible amounts of pain/fear/chaos without reacting, now. I did not hit her.”

I asked Ari what he meant by “medication”.  He responded, “Only medication now is ativan. Had haldol many years ago and it worked better for #5 situations. But not good for anything less intense, unlike ativan. Need better. But no doctor good with this. So get no help finding better. Need body sedation, sensory pain away, fuzziness from situation, to for logical thought processes work again so can calm self.”  

He then added:  “Broken logical reasoning ability. In those moments, no logic. Only chaos.”

A parent wrote:  “People have seen it and have threatened to call the police (when he was five!) or worse.  I really didn’t know what to do because he would get so upset and frustrated.  People said to put him in therapy, but the thing I did that saved us was I put our whole family in therapy.  We learned to communicate with him in ways he understood.  We learned that we weren’t always right in how we handled it, and we often made things worse.  We learned to find effective problem solving solutions (mostly following The Explosive Child by Ross Greene) It really made a huge difference and he rarely has violent meltdowns now.  When he does, I have to step back and ask myself what was going on, was I not listening to him?  Was I placing too many demands on him?  Was I not allowing him to effectively self advocate?  He always says to me that he doesn’t want to do it, he just is so frustrated and has a hard time communicating and identifying his feelings. We are still a work in progress, learning together how to understand each other.   I KNOW he doesn’t like it when he is violent, but he is doing the best that he can with the tools we give him.  I know this because he tells me, and because I was also a violent child.  My target was my younger sister sometimes, but mostly myself.   I was beyond frustrated and felt completely powerless due to the environment in which we were brought up.  I know I am doing better with my son than what I grew up with, but there are times I screw up.  I had to relearn everything I was taught about children, about communication and about respect.  I had to learn that “noncompliance” is really just self advocacy and that it’s actually a positive character trait!   That has made all the difference.  I really believe that kids do the best that they can with what they have to work with.  Kids who are violent are frustrated and need our help to find their voice.”

If any of you know of other blogs, articles that have been helpful or are writing something on this topic, please send the links in the comments section so I can include in future posts.  I may need to make a separate page for all of this…

49 Comments

Posted in Autism, Parenting, violence

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The Conversation Continues…

Posted on September 12, 2013 by | 9 comments

The comments continue to pour in, both through email and on yesterday’s post and the post from the day before on the topic of violence and coping when overwhelmed and overloaded.  A number of parents have emailed that a behavioral program helped tremendously and a few wrote about various medications they’ve (almost always) reluctantly given their child as a “last resort”.  One parent wrote:  “I had to go to the ER because he broke my nose and when the doc saw the bruises on my arms and my broken finger they called social services.  I was told my child would be taken from me.  Another doc prescribed _____  (anti-psychotic drug) and told me it was the only shot I had at keeping my son with me.  Sometimes the choices we parents are given suck.  I never went back to the ER even after he broke two ribs and my toe.  Years later he was able to type that three kids were bullying him on the school bus and had been for years.”

Has anyone had experience with being given a behavioral plan?  Did it help?  If it did, what was it exactly?   And if it didn’t, and you don’t mind sharing about it, what was your experience of it like?  Did anyone have drugs given to you as a child and what was your experience with that?   As always, I will not use whatever name you give unless you leave it in the comments section of this blog or give me explicit permission.

Feministaspie wrote:  “The adults around me would tell me to take deep breaths, count to ten etc, and while I knew they meant well (and frankly, that was a much better way for them to deal with me than some of the other things I’ve read online, so I’m lucky really), that sort of thing didn’t really work for me. This was because at the time, I’d basically go into fight-or-flight mode so I absolutely was not thinking about that at all. I think it might also be to do with taking things literally, because apparently I’d just scream the numbers 1 through 10 at whoever told me to count, which obviously didn’t help matters. In hindsight, perhaps a more detailed plan was needed as far as that was concerned!! This made me feel really frustrated because that sort of thing was supposed to help and it didn’t and I felt like it was completely hopeless.”

Ashmire wrote:  “I’d also add that sometimes there is kind of a feeling of powerlessness, of knowing that no matter how bad I hurt someone I don’t/didn’t have the capacity to hurt them as much as they are hurting me, because they are hurting me with emotions and I can only use physical damage which just doesn’t, can’t, ever, inflict as much pain as emotions can.”

bjforshaw wrote:  “As for what helps, I would say that being given space is paramount. Confronting the violence feels like being cornered and makes it worse. What helps me is whatever makes me feel safe and unthreatened. I’m not able to speak or even type (I hate to think what effect my pounding would have on my keyboard) but as long as I’m not pressured I will be able to talk about it after I calm down. It has to be in my own time, on my own terms. That’s when I can start to explore the causes, the triggers.”

In his blog post, Violence as a Means of Expression, bjforshaw writes: “Why do I do it? That’s a very important question. I am usually able to communicate effectively but emotion is a minefield: I have alexithymia which means I have great difficulty identifying and describing my emotional states. Strong emotions, especially negative ones, are very stressful. Add to that the fact that I become practically non-verbal when under stress — words are in my mind but I can’t get them to come out of my mouth — and you have a recipe for disaster. I’m not able to communicate my state of mind or my immediate needs which adds to the sense of frustration.“

9 Comments

Posted in Autism, Parenting, violence

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What Others Had to Say: Love, Overwhelm, Violence

Posted on September 11, 2013 by | 51 comments

Yesterday I wrote a post entitled, When Upset Turns Violent.  I wrote it hoping for feedback from those who may have at one time, or currently have felt so overwhelmed they strike out and from parents who are on the receiving end of children who become violent.   I wanted to get a better idea of the kinds of support that might be beneficial to all involved.

As the comments came in, both here and through email, I realized a few things.  One was the shared feeling of shame so many felt. Tremendous shame was described by almost all the parents of kids who express themselves violently, as well as some who become so overwhelmed they become violent.  Exacerbating, or perhaps a part of the shame, was the feeling that this should not be spoken of for fear of ridicule, blame and judgment.   Many people remain silent, which serves to further feelings of isolation and disconnect from community.

Another thing I realized as I read, was how both parents and those who are in overwhelm are actually feeling similar feelings of powerlessness and wanting a safe place to go.   I identified mightily with all the feelings described and thought it might be most helpful to reprint a number of the things people have written, both from the comments section on this blog, but also from some of the emails I received.  (For those who asked that I not reveal what you wrote, don’t worry, I haven’t.)   There are too many wonderful thoughts, comments, advice and experiences to publish here in a single post, but you can read, at least some of the comments in the comments section of yesterday’s post and a few that came in on Emma’s Hope Book Facebook page.

What follows is a sampling from some of the terrific comments received.  There are many more and they are all insightful and wonderful.  So please do read the related articles at the end of this as well as all the comments from those who so generously wrote in on this blog.  Obviously, there is a huge need for more conversations like this…

A few quotes from parents –

“I just want a safe place where I can talk about this stuff.  Not publicly.  I don’t ever want to be “one of those moms”  but I want to be able to talk about what’s going on with other parents who know what it’s like.”

” I know what it is to sit in an IEP meeting begging for help for my child with my eye swollen shut and bite marks and scratchs covering my arms.”

“I am scared of ____ and that makes me feel terrible.  What kind of parent is scared of their own kid?  A kid I love with all my heart.  A kid I want to help…”

“It changes you when you live in a state of perpetual fear and not having any place to talk about that makes it  harder.”

“I would love a support group, but not where everyone sits around blaming all their problems on autism and their kid.”

Comments from others:

Emily K. wrote:  “Remove yourself from “their” space but do not leave. Defend yourself but do not leave. Let your child Leave/ escape and do not block his/her path. Follow but do not intrude. Allow space and time do not react but respond in the opposite, we need peaceful and loving parents.”

Autisticook wrote a number of really powerful and wonderful comments, this is but one of them:  “I have given some thought to what I would have needed as a child to cope with my violence. I would like to start with a caveat: first of all, anyone who knows me in real life would be shocked at my description. The only people who believe I can be violent are the people I’ve actually hit. That’s about 4 or 5 people. The rest of the world calls me sweet natured and a good person and empathic and supportive of others. I’m also just over 5 feet tall and present as extremely non-threatening.

Second of all, my parents are still the most important two people in my life. A lot of people in the autism community weren’t so lucky with their parents and have a lot more to deal with as a result. I’ve been incredibly lucky to have such generous, loving people prepare me for the outside world. I have a lot of emotional stuff that’s coming out now that I know about autism, but I don’t blame them for any of it. So here goes: the things I needed as a child and didn’t get.

1. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t punish yourself for not being a perfect parent. I can tell when you feel bad and what I’m learning is that I need to be perfect as well. When I’m not, I feel as if I’m disappointing you and making you feel bad. I want you to be happy with me. But when I make you feel bad, I feel bad as well and that is making me even more stressed out because I’m still learning to deal with my emotions.

2. It will get better. I’m trying to learn how to walk. You can show me how it’s done but you can’t force me to walk. It might take me a bit longer to learn this, or I might do it a bit later than others. But it doesn’t mean I will never learn. I just need someone to show me and teach me and support me. This is as true for feeling upset as it is for walking. Teach me how to be upset. Show me there are other ways of being upset, instead of only telling me the way I have chosen is wrong and leaving it at that.

3. Help me recognise my triggers. I might come home from school cranky and tired and overwhelmed. My brother sticking his tongue out at me might simply be the last drop. If I am not saying much, if I’m curled up in the big chair kicking my legs out, or if I seem to be absorbed in an activity like playing with my toys and not paying attention, it might be because I’m trying to self-regulate and deal with all the stuff that’s coming at me. Help me recognise that this is what I am doing. Maybe you need to learn how to read my behaviour first, like hanging upside down in the chair (vestibular stims) and kicking my feet (propioceptive stims) and the attention on my toys (visual or tactile stims). You’re the adult, so I’m depending on you to explain to me what I’m doing and why. I won’t be able to correct you on your assumptions until I’m an adult myself. So please be careful in learning my behaviour and don’t label it until you’re absolutely sure. It’s also OK to ask my input on this when I’m calm and happy.

4. Allow me a way out. If my self-regulating isn’t allowed, I can guarantee you I will get a meltdown. And once I am in that space, all I can think of is making the thing stop that made me go into meltdown. I only have short term memory and very limited reasoning power when I go into meltdown, so I will latch onto whatever trigger I see in front of me. First it will be my brother who stuck his tongue out at me. And then it will be you for restraining me from hitting my brother. Or myself for being in the way. Triggers triggers triggers. I will keep triggering until the world is empty of triggers or until I am utterly exhausted. So if you hold me down, you’re actually keeping me in the world of triggers. I need a different world that is practically triggerless. But I’m too young to know this, which is why I will sometimes keep following you and hitting you even though you try to remove yourself. Because I want the upset feeling to stop and the only way I know how to stop something is to hit it until it stops moving.

5. Don’t ask me questions. If you want to know how I’m feeling, please ask me afterwards, when I have calmed down and can find my words again. Ask me too soon and it will just be another trigger. I am dealing with my overload, with my own feelings of anger and guilt and frustration and sadness and pain, and there’s so much going on that there’s no room for words. It’s hard enough for me to even understand, LITERALLY understand, what you are saying. Formulating an answer is simply not going to happen. However, if you talk about it with me afterwards, that might be a really big help for me in learning how to understand emotions and how my mind works. I may sound resistant to questioning, but that’s also because I’m afraid of going into another emotional meltdown.

6. Don’t try to distract me. I’m not having a temper tantrum, I’m having a meltdown. Trying to get me to focus my attention on something else means I get even more input that’s getting on top of the input overload and I just can’t deal with that. Fewer triggers, not more. You can try getting me to hit a pillow instead of you, but the pillow isn’t triggering me so I might not listen to that. What’s better once I get that violent is bringing me to a GUARANTEED safe space (I emphasise guaranteed because it needs to be not just a space of your choosing, but a space where I can feel safe no matter what and where I won’t be forced out again). My safe space was the back of my mother’s wardrobe, between her clothes, because even if I had the door to my room closed, people still barged in. Once I’m in my safe space and I know people will no longer ask me questions and I can block out the noises and lights and stim to my heart’s content without someone telling me it’s wrong, I usually calm down within an hour or two.

7. Yeah, it takes that long. Please give me time to process. I will come to you once I’m ready. Because I love and trust you, even if I don’t always show it in a way that you can recognise. Please don’t punish me for not understanding why things went wrong or for losing control. I’m punishing myself already. Trust me on that.

Anon wrote:  “I used to hum to myself for comfort when I was sick (about 7yrs) and my father used to threaten me into silence – it was his ignorance and fear, not malice… but I stopped humming.”

Autisticook wrote:  “It was NOT HAVING WORDS and SO MUCH FEELS and STOP TALKING I CAN’T MAKE SENSE OF THINGS and HELP ME NOTICE MY DESPAIR NOTICE MY NO WORDS HELP ME. And above all just stop stop stop stop stop.”

Ischemgeek wrote:  “Especially big for me was stop yelling at me so I can think and figure out what you want because I don’t even know what you want and why you’re screaming at me I just know you’re screaming and I can’t take it just stop.”

And in another comment wrote:  “For me, violence of the meltdown variety (as opposed to sibling bickering violence, which stopped around age 8) was never so much about getting my way and more about gettingaway, if that makes sense.”

MonkeyPliers wrote:  “I’d be concerned about any child developing the kind of anger towards her- or himself that I learned to have towards myself from not being understood and being accused of “putting on a display” when I couldn’t regulate myself.”

Related articles

51 Comments

Posted in Autism, Parenting, violence

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When Upset Turns Violent

Posted on September 10, 2013 by | 92 comments

A number of people have reached out to me privately with questions about how to help their child who is violent.  They fear for their other children’s safety as well as their own, but are frightened to reach out for help because they worry their child will be taken from them.  This is not an easy topic.  If you do not have a child who is prone to violence, it is difficult to imagine what that child is going through.  If you are not and have never been the recipient of violence it is difficult to imagine what that is like.  Similar to self injury/harm this is a hot button topic for many people, not just parents who feel powerless to help their child and feel they have nowhere to turn, but for the person who does not have any other way to express themselves.

So I am asking for all of your help.  If you once were or currently are someone who knows anything about responding to the environment and people in your life with violence, and are comfortable telling me what that experience is/was like for you, please email me at:  emmashopeblog@gmail.com.  Also if you are in a position to tell me what might have helped, what, if anything, might have given you the support you needed/wanted.  Was there anyone you could talk to?  If you cannot speak or cannot rely on verbal speech when upset, were you able to type?  Would that have helped?  Is there anything that might help/would have helped?  Do you have advice for parents?  Do you have advice for those who are under the care of another person?  If you are the parent of a child you are frightened of and want to reach out, please do.  Please describe your situation as best you can, as well as what might be helpful to you.  In other words would a help/hotline (if one were available) be something you would use?  Would you prefer an anonymous support group where you could discuss what you are going through with others?  Would something else be helpful?  Anyone who contacts me will remain anonymous.  Anything you tell me, I will quote as anonymous.  If you prefer that what you write NOT be quoted, please be sure to tell me that.  All names and/or places you tell me about will remain confidential.

I don’t know what can be done, but it seems to me, from some of the stories I’m being told, that something needs to be done/created to help all involved.  Maybe you know of resources that have helped, maybe something you’ve tried helped, maybe there was something/one helped you.  If any of you know of anything, please let me know.  Any and all information is appreciated.  Maybe just talking about what’s going on in a safe place is a start.  You can also write in the comments section anonymously, if you prefer doing that.

92 Comments

Posted in Autism, Parenting, violence

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Dehumanizing

Posted on September 6, 2013 by | 38 comments

A daughter lies unconscious in a hospital.

Her doctors fear she will have permanent brain damage as the result of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The mother is charged with attempted murder.

We are told the daughter was aggressive.

We are told she was Autistic.

I cannot stop thinking about Issy.  As I write this, she is lying in a hospital bed unconscious.  I cannot stop picturing a photo of her laughing, her blonde hair glimmering in the sunlight, her head thrown back, a look of joy on her face.  

And I am angry.  

We live in a society where news articles with titles like “More U.S. families in the grip of autism” are commonplace.  People equate autism to cancer, refer to autism as a burden, a crisis, and an epidemic.  The Judge Rottenberg Center is allowed to remain open despite their continued use of electric shock as a viable “treatment”.  We live in a society that has allowed schools to put young students in isolation rooms,  “Physical restraints are becoming more prevalent in public schools.”  The word “treatment” is used loosely and covers a great many behavioral plans, some which allow Autistic people to be abused and even killed.  

We have succeeded in dehumanizing a segment of our population.  A segment of our population that includes my daughter.  

Anger doesn’t begin to cover what I’m feeling.  

Related Posts:

Bodies and Behaviors – by Michael Scott Monje Jr. at Shaping Clay

It is Wrong to Murder Your Autistic Child – by Judy Endow at Ollibean

To Issy Stapleton, with love. by K. at Radical Neurodivergence Speaking

Walk in Their Shoes by Paula Durbin Westby Autistic Blog

Blaming the Victim:  An Autism Parent Story – That Autistic that Newtown Forgot

Media Throws “Autism Parents” Under the Bus Again – by Ibby Grace at Tiny Grace Notes (AKA Ask an Autistic)

38 Comments

Posted in Autism, human rights, prejudice

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Sensing Another

Posted on September 3, 2013 by | 39 comments

Last week I wrote a post, Speaking vs Typing, which sparked a terrific discussion about language, communication and how we interpret what others say and do.  My friend Barb, who wrote (with Lois Prislovsky) the not-to-be-missed book, I might be you commented:

“my dear neurotypical friends, first, let me say i love that you all are putting your heads together to break down this truth into practical ideas to help me and my autistic peers who struggle mightily with spoken language communications. em is right, “language is an awkward way to communicate” and i argue that is true for everyone but highly challenging for those of us who are autistically wired in the “vanilla cake” or “mail truck” way that em and i are. it took me years to think in language. but prior to that my thinking was not faulty it was just not language based. thinking in language is not efficient for me. i wish i could give you a pretty little fact package about what works so folk like me could get such treatment and soar socially and academically. of course, the problem is…it is hard to say in language. typing makes it way easier, because i can control the speed of each thought and break it down to smaller parts to be better described by letters one peck at a time. speaking requires a rather unnatural process for me perhaps like you singing a song you heard in another language. u may be able to imitate the sounds but the meaning in each mimic is not precise. since most folk are not yet well practiced in telepathy the best way for me now is to communicate through typing. but still my thinking is not easily translated in to words. feelings, sensations, visions and perceptions that are cleanly processed in my mind dont fit well into letter symbols. there i said it – or something close. thanks for caring. trying b”

Barb’s comment made me wonder whether my daughter is able to “hear” my thoughts, even if just a little.  And that if she were able to, it would make sense that either typing or speaking would feel like an inferior, less efficient form of communication, perhaps it would be viewed as somewhat barbaric, and certainly a less sophisticated way of communicating.  So I asked her, “Can you hear my thoughts?”  To which she answered, “No.”  Not undone, I asked, “Do you feel them?”  To which she did not reply.  This post is not about mental telepathy, but is more about how we sense each other.  Some of our senses we are taught to fine-tune and others society either doesn’t recognize or doesn’t place as much importance on.

But what if we lived in a culture that did encourage sensing another’s presence and feelings?  What if, from the time we were born, our sense of other people’s state of mind, their feelings, was nurtured.  Would that change how we communicated with each other?  What if spoken language took a back seat to our intuition?  What if we lived in a society that placed more importance on our presence, than on our words?

All of this reminded me of a conversation I had with a couple of friends, both of whom are Autistic, about disability and society’s role.  I wrote a post about that, ‘here‘.  One friend said that if we lived in a world where everyone used a variety of alternate forms of communication, where a longer time period was allowed and expected between words, and supports were anticipated and provided, then people who do not speak would not be considered disabled, just as I am not considered disabled because I cannot juggle or jump as high as an Olympic high jumper.

If children were taught at an early age to sense each other without relying on language, would we evolve into a species where language was viewed as unreliable and untrustworthy?  Does my daughter view language as a lesser form of communication?  Is she not as motivated to communicate, either through typing or verbally because her other senses are more finely tuned?  Does motivation even enter into all of this?  My brain is constantly looking for intent, motivation, but what if this isn’t what’s going on at all?  What if this has nothing to do with any of that?  What if she is trying so hard to communicate by typing and speaking because she understands I want her to, but not because she has the same need that I have?  Does music call to her because it is less about the lyrics and more about the beauty of the music, the feelings the music evokes?

Is all of this way too esoteric and ethereal?  EmTypes ICI

 

39 Comments

Posted in Autism, Barb Rentenbach, communication

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Memories Evoked

Posted on August 30, 2013 by | 18 comments

I enter the subway car.  To my delight there is an empty seat near the door.  I sit, rummage through my bag for my book and begin reading from where I left off, but the words are blurry and I cannot concentrate.  I am aware of a powerful odor emanating from the person seated next to me.  I close my eyes and try to concentrate on breathing through my mouth.  My stomach clenches and my eyes begin to water.

I’m five years old.  Mrs. Williams is rustling about in the other room.  The pain in my chest is as much from the ache I feel because my parents have left on their yearly trip as it is from my fear of the woman who has been hired to take care of us for the next few weeks.  Mrs. Williams with her coiffed hair and antiseptic smell, everything about her is no nonsense, business like, a kind of grim resignation that oozes from her every pore.  When angry she uses her hand, like a paddle, it comes down swift and seemingly without emotion, as though the pain I feel upon contact has nothing to do with anything: arbitrary, remote, senseless.

I hate Mrs. Williams and my anxiety and sadness that my parents have left us, even for only a few weeks adds to my hatred of her.  She crinkles and rustles when she moves, her skin hangs from her body like an ill-fitted suit, she smells of soap and perfume that make me nauseous.  She is stocky and seems well rooted to the ground, her movements are steady and purposeful.  She rides out the time my parents are gone like a convict doing time.  I can find nothing pleasant about her.  Just thinking about her fills me with fear.   Her dislike for me and my sister is all the more apparent when my brothers are around as she obviously dotes on them and shuns us.  If ever there is a dispute, it is my fault, no matter that I am the youngest with siblings a full eight and six years older than me.   

We are told she had a son sent to Vietnam who never returned.  We are told it is because of this son that she adores my brothers.  I take this information in stride.  It is fact.  I am representative of something unwanted, something I do not and cannot understand.  She is particularly concerned about my bowel movements.  She takes note of them, even going so far as to stand guard outside the bathroom listening for sounds of success.  As I sit on the toilet I imagine her ear pressed to the door.  Why this is important is something I can’t figure out, but that it is, is evident by the reports she feels compelled to give my older siblings.  Now my brothers and sister are on high alert.  My bodily functions are examined, discussed, they have become a topic.  The more I am closely observed the more  anxious and fearful I become.   

I grip my book tightly and try hard to breathe out of my mouth. I glance over at the woman next to me.  Her eyes are closed and I realize she is asleep.  As the train careens through the darkness, her body sways with its motion.  The train turns.  She leans into me, the smell of soap, antiseptic, and some other odor I cannot identify, but that reminds me of those weeks once a year when my parents left us in the hands of someone who should not have been caring for small children, is over powering.  She is unaware of me or the memories her presence has evoked.

I think of my children.  I see the look of anxiety on my daughter’s face when she says, “No, not going to Katie’s class.  That is the old school.  Emma goes to new school.  Emma goes to new school with Mommy.”  And all I can hope for is that her new school will not be staffed by anyone whose presence gives her cause to remember them decades later with anxiety and a feeling of plummeting through an endless darkness.

Visiting the new school

New School

18 Comments

Posted in fear, Parenting, sensory issues

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Presuming Competence & Expectations

Posted on August 28, 2013 by | 22 comments

Presuming competence is not code for – my kid is a genius and capable of super human abilities.  (Though some may be, it’s not a given.)  One of the things I continue to struggle with is the idea of presuming competence.  Often I don’t go far enough and other times I go too far without meaning to.  I have made assumptions about my daughter’s ability or inability that are incorrect, or at least have been incorrect in that moment.  Whether I expect her to be able to do something that she cannot, or at least cannot do today, but may well be able to do at some point in the future or whether I do not expect her to do something that, it turns out, she is more than capable of, I am treating her as though I know one way or the other.  But the truth is, I don’t know and neither do a great many of the people who come into contact with her.

The best thing I know to do is to remain in the moment with an open mind.  Easy, right?  Yet I don’t think it’s easy at all.  I find staying present very, very difficult, which is why in Buddhism they call it a “practice”.   It takes practice to stay in the present.  It takes practice to remain solidly rooted in this moment without drifting off into some future scenario of what might happen, what should happen, what I want to have happen, what I fear will happen and then all the things I do to control all of that so everything I want will occur the way I want it to, in the time frame I want.  I’m exhausted just writing about this!

My daughter continues to astonish and amaze, just as my son does.  As both my children mature and come into their own, they do and say things on a daily basis that I find utterly delightful and incredible.  But that delight is tempered by expectations.  I know this, yet find it extremely difficult to keep my expectations in check.  My expectations often cause disappointment. I don’t like feeling disappointed, so I try to turn the volume down on my expectations, but if I keep my expectations in check then am I still presuming competence?  I can go around and around with all of this endlessly.  The only conclusion I have come to is that I’m not going to always get it right, but I’m going to do my best to stay aware, stay present and open to whatever happens without preconceived ideas of what should or shouldn’t happen and while I’m doing all of that, I’m going to remember to breathe.

Breathing is good.

 

A wild mushroom growing out of the side of a makeshift bridge – Colorado August, 2013Mushroom

 

22 Comments

Posted in Autism, Parenting, presume competence

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Routines Disrupted

Posted on August 23, 2013 by | 33 comments

We have been traveling.  Our cell phone and internet coverage has been spotty and in some places we’ve had none at all.  As a result my routine, which usually means I wake up when Emma comes into our room, (anywhere from 5:15AM – 6:00AM) get dressed and go to my studio where I begin the day by writing, has been disrupted.  The beautiful thing about traveling is that there is no room for routines.  We’ve spent a few days with my sister, gone on a rafting trip down the Colorado River, gone horseback riding, gotten lost, spent time with one of my brothers, hung out with one of my cousins, (I have a large and sprawling family that live all over the United States and even world, and my mother’s house is often the only place we get to see one another.)  So it’s been really wonderful and lots of fun.

When I have gotten up early enough to write AND the internet is cooperating, I have begun a post only to have Em say she doesn’t want me to write about the topic I began writing about.  In fact, I have started three different posts, and Em has shot down every single one of them.  This could be seen as a bad thing, but I don’t view it that way.  I see this as an incredibly good, no, a great thing.  The first time I told her what I was starting to write about and asked her permission, she said no, I was surprised.  The second time I began writing about something else and asked her permission, I was surprised and amused when she typed “no, I do not want you to write that.”  The third time I thought – this is great!  Great because this blog began with no thought of her opinion and has evolved to represent only what she agrees to and may well end because of her thoughts and opinions.

What all of this means is that I haven’t been writing every morning.

So I will end with something Em typed to me the other day and told me I could post.  She typed, “Language is an awkward way to communicate.”  She would not elaborate further and why would she, as that sentence says it all.

The Rocky Mountains

View From Cabin

33 Comments

Posted in Autism, Parenting, travel

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The Quest

Posted on August 19, 2013 by | 4 comments

The quest for various potions and remedies kept the mother  separate from her child, though she did not know this at the time.  The mother believed it a valiant quest, and prided herself in her vigilance and determination.  She would single-handedly conquer what had thus far proven unconquerable to vast numbers of scientists, neurologists, neuropharmacologists, researchers and all those who had devoted their lives to finding a cure for autism.  She would save her daughter and she would prevail.  Call it arrogance, a lack of humility or simply being unable to understand; she would reflect on her own near miss with death as justification for her belief in her ability to do what no one else to date had.  (And yes, she began to forget that her sobriety and abstinence were not due to will power or because she tried harder, but was because of the help she received from a larger group/ a power greater than herself.)  All thoughts of something being more powerful than herself were temporarily forgotten, or put on hold, or, depending on the day, justified as being part of what she was trying to do.  As I said before, she was veering from the path laid out for her by thousands of addicts who had years of sobriety and abstinence and practiced humility, honesty, openness, willingness and acceptance as the basic tenets of their ability to stay clean one day at a time.

“Courage to change the things I can…”  she would often repeat this to herself during particularly tough times, neither saying the first part, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” nor the last, “and wisdom to know the difference.”  She believed herself to be courageous.  She knew herself to be courageous.  And she had learned over the years how to tap into her innate kindness, to foster it, encourage it and nurture it, though in her quest for a cure she felt increasingly out of touch with all that and began to struggle mightily with what it meant to take “the next right action”  or know what it meant to know any will other than her own.

Whether there is a G-O-D piece to all this is not something I can speak of, nor can she, as this is a word that never brought solace, so in the midst of all of this she abandoned even saying the word and stopped trying to make sense of what it may or may not mean.  She did, however, believe in something larger than herself, a power whose meaning shifted over the years and eventually evolved to mean – kindness, love, appreciation, gratitude – these were the things she knew to do and act upon when feelings began to feel factual, when feelings served to confuse her and make her believe them, despite what was happening and what she was witnessing.  Acts of kindness were the mainstay of her “practice” for no other reason than she knew her life was better when practicing kindness than when she did not.

So it was not a leap for her to believe that finding a cure for all that ailed her daughter was an act of kindness.   It’s important that I interject here that to this girl who had grown into a woman, had spent more than two decades of her life being an addict, found abstinence and sobriety through another way of being in this world, became a mother to two beautiful children, a “cure” meant removing all those things that caused her daughter pain.  A cure meant that her daughter would be able to carry on a conversation, the way non-autistic children do, that she would not have GI issues, she would not have sensitivities to texture and noise and pain, but that she would be relieved of all of that.  She told herself these were all things her daughter would want to have removed and be “cured” of if only she could tell her.  The mother believed this wholeheartedly and comforted herself that she was doing the right thing.  The only thing.  The best thing.  Not for a moment did she think of a “cure” as an eradication of her child, but more a version of her child.  A kind of fantasy, similar to believing in Santa Claus, of who her child would be if she were relieved of all or most of her physical pain and had the ability to get along in society and this world with ease.

4 Comments

Posted in Addiction, Autism, Parenting

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There Once Was A Girl (Cont’d)

Posted on August 14, 2013 by | 10 comments

The first part is ‘here‘.

This woman, who was once a girl, learned a great many things once she stopped trying not to feel.  This was a huge surprise to her as she believed she already knew a great deal.  She learned that people terrified her for they were capable of doing tremendous harm and she came to realize she had spent many years avoiding all people as a result.  Most of her pain in her adult life came from the expectations she held and not from the actual people or things they did or didn’t do.  She learned that no one person could ever be all she wanted and hoped for, but that a group of people could.  She learned that a community with a shared goal was more important than individual grievances and that her ego often pushed her from the path she’d chosen.

She met a wonderfully, flawed human and together they had two beautiful children.  With each child her world expanded and grew.  She often reflected on all she’d learned during those terrible years of her earlier life and tried her best to apply what she was learning to her new life as a parent.  But her youngest child, a strong, independent, baby girl who held an uncanny resemblance to her mother had a dreadful time tolerating certain feelings, sensations and the world.  She could not communicate through words and her mother watched her in helpless despair as she saw herself, her early self, her former self reflected in her child’s upset and frustration.  The mother would do anything to take that pain away so her daughter would not have to go through what her mother once had.  The mother would walk to the ends of this earth if it meant she could alleviate even some of her daughter’s massive physical and emotional discomfort.

And so, without even realizing it, the mother veered off the path laid out for her by so many others.  She did not begin using substances again, but slowly over time, she found herself moving away from one of the key tenets of her new life –  she began to believe she had power over another human being’s neurology and that she knew what was best for another.  Instead of helping her child, she began to fight against her child.  She did not think of it in this way at the time.  She thought she was fighting FOR her child and for many years this is what she told herself and others who asked.  She was fighting for her child and it was a noble fight, she would go to her grave fighting, and, by the way, in fighting she avoided a great many feelings.  She did not know this at the time, but in fact this is what happened.  And while she was busy fighting and desperately trying to keep all those messy feelings at bay, her child was hurting and feeling increasingly separate from her mother, (we cannot know this for a fact, but in retrospect the mother sensed this to be true).

More to follow…

10 Comments

Posted in Addiction, Autism, Parenting

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A Few Thoughts…

Posted on August 12, 2013 by | 38 comments

I haven’t written anything on this blog for an entire week, the longest I have gone without posting something since I began blogging over three years ago.  A combination of things kept me from my routine, the first being – Emma and I were away, traveling to a new place with food we do not usually eat, people, most of whom we did not know, sleeping on beds we weren’t use to.  Everything about our environment was different, but there was something else too.  Something I can’t completely explain because I haven’t figured it all out yet.  Something that was more than just a disruption to routine, something about identity and society and how the two intersect and influence each other, what that means and how that changes the way we live our lives.  These are all thoughts that are more like wisps of random words than fully formed structures I am able to describe.  I am in the midst of these words, loosely pieced together ideas; I am twirling among them, investigating, looking, feeling and trying to be still in my discomfort of not knowing or being able to define.

Em and I traveled to a place that was created, organized and for Autistic people.  I took Emma because I wanted her to experience being in a place where her neurology was in the majority.  I wanted her to meet others who are more like her than not.  Em has not commented on our time away other than to say she had fun.  I, however, have a great many thoughts and feelings about being in such a place.  And I suppose the thing I felt more than anything else was how much more alike we humans are no matter our specific neurology.  But there is always a danger in making such a statement.  I have been accused of “sugar-coating” autism.  I have been told my daughter must be “high functioning” because surely if she were like their child it would not be possible for me to have come to a place of not just acceptance, but celebration of all that makes her who she is.  Some people have written that by accepting I am giving up.  They equate acceptance with resignation and doing nothing.  Others have said that acceptance will not get my daughter and others like her the services needed, that the negative rhetoric is necessary.

People have written me that they want to hear about the hardship, the difficult times, the pain…  they wonder at my decision NOT to talk about that.  To all those who come to this blog hoping to hear about the gory details of parenting an Autistic child – better to move along, you aren’t going to find that here.  There are countless blogs that do that far better than I ever could, even if I wanted to.  I lived too many years of my life neck-deep in pain and all that was wrong with this planet and my life.  And by the way, I did that well before I had an Autistic child.  I am more than capable of seeing the world as a dark and miserable place.  I don’t need a great deal of encouragement to go there.  Perhaps one of the greatest gifts I have been given is that I was once in such tremendous pain and know how easy it is to live in a place that feeds off that misery.  I have no desire to return to that mindset.

I am interested in hope.  I am interested in both being the recipient of and the giver of hope.   Hope gives me energy.  I feel invigorated by it.  When my daughter types something I have never heard her communicate to me before I am filled with joy. When she says something I have never heard her say, I am filled with happiness.  When she performs a new song, in Greek, no less, I feel proud, I feel excitement, I feel the beauty of her voice fill my soul, I feel bliss.  When my daughter reads something and makes a comment about what she’s just read I am euphoric.  When she tries something new, I am cheering her on.  None of this erases the moments of pain.  None of this means everything is simple or easy or that there are never moments of sadness or difficulty.

I will and do write about my own challenges, not because of my children, but because of who I am.  Placing blame on others for my issues and challenges is not something that helps me change and it definitely does not make me feel any degree of happiness.  My best moments with my daughter are spent when I have no expectations and greet each moment with wonder and curiosity.

“Type three colors,” I said this morning.

“…Violet, slate blue and red,”  Emma typed.

I’m in awe.

Emma’s ever-changing “string”

Em's String

38 Comments

Posted in Autism, Blogging, communication

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