Tag Archives: Stress

Food: Friend or Foe?

Posted on March 26, 2015 by | 16 comments

Food understands emotions in ways no words can, but sometimes the body disagrees and chaos ensues.  Mind begins to roar and everyone feels misunderstood.  Trying to appease all parties is impossible.

Have you ever felt full, but ignored the body’s message and eaten more or eaten foods your body is not friends with?  Do certain feelings prefer certain types of food?

Understanding that some foods emotions are in love with are enemies to the body is a devastating realization.  Being kind to all involved is challenging and maybe only a few people have truly accomplished this.

Pancakes!

Pancakes!

16 Comments

Posted in Autism, autistic, Gastro-Intestinal Issues

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Actions Taken and Puberty

Posted on January 15, 2015 by | 46 comments

“Actions taken that get responses you don’t want.”

This was what Emma typed in response to my question, what should we write about on the blog today?

Emma proposed making one blog entry a week, possibly asking for readers to answer some of her questions, but before we could continue, she had a  few concerns.

“Would thinking about stressful times cause upset?”  she typed.

I said that it might, but we could put a trigger warning above with the topic so that if the topic was something specific, people would be warned and could stop reading.  As I said this to her I marveled at her endless compassion and concern for other people’s feelings.  Then I said I believed that sometimes it can be helpful to know you aren’t alone in feeling and thinking things that you don’t necessarily know others feel and think, at least this has been my experience.

We discussed the experience of going through puberty and how adults will often talk about their children and what they believe they are going through, but not about their own experience of going through puberty.  “Maybe we should ask people to share their memory of puberty and what was the most difficult part about that period of their life?” I suggested.

Emma wrote, “You can ask and please say that if this question causes stress to not answer and next week I will ask a fun question.”

“That is such a thoughtful and kind thing to say, Emma,” I told her.

Before we ask for other people to share their experiences with either of these questions, Emma and I asked Richard to talk about “actions taken that get responses you don’t want.”

Richard said, “I put work out into the world, like my book and I want people to enjoy it, but some people say all kinds of nasty things, or let’s say I wrote a blog post and my intention is to be helpful to Autistic people and advocate for them, but because I’m not Autistic and I am highly opinionated, maybe I write things that are actually offensive to the very people I’ve meant to help.”

I asked Richard if this had really happened to him or if the last part was hypothetical.

“It’s hypothetical, but I certainly am capable of doing something like that.  People can do all kinds of things with good intentions that don’t get great responses.  To me the question is – what if you do things that you think are going to be helpful to yourself and other people and they aren’t and they aren’t appreciated either.”

I told Emma I would write about my experience with both these questions, so beginning with the first – actions taken that get responses you don’t want.

Saying something that is taken in a way I didn’t mean, particularly if it causes upset, anger or comes across as offensive.  There have been times when I’ve said something and not realized it was offensive until much later, but there have been other times when I’ve said something or asked a question and it’s been taken as meaning more than simply information gathering.

Puberty…

One of the things I really love about this question is that it’s one of those topics people don’t often talk about, at least not with any personal specifics unless it’s about someone else (often without that person’s permission) or in small groups.  So here’s the trigger warning – if the topic of puberty causes you stress, stop reading, otherwise, please join in and share a memory or an experience of going through puberty.  What was it like?  What was most challenging?  Please keep this about your own experience.  If you want to remain anonymous, you can always send your comment to the blog email address:  emmashopeblog@gmail.com or you can DM us on Emma’s Hope Book Facebook page.

We asked Richard to start things off: (insert smiley face here)

“It was the late sixties and early seventies and I became obsessed with – when will I have cool looking sideburns? –  I remember doing drawings of sideburns and imagining what my sideburns could look like.  I remember a lot of thinking about sideburns. They were emblematic of becoming a man.”

Okay, so I can’t really ask readers to share if I’m not willing to do the same, so here goes:

One of the more troubling memories I have of puberty was when I began to develop breasts and wanting to have them because most of the girls in my class already did and I was taunted by the boys at my school for not having any breasts.  They would yell, “hey flatsy!” at me when they passed me in the hallway or whisper it to me during recess.

But I also hated that I was developing them.  I had both feelings at once.  There was shame about my body for not looking like the other girls, but also fear and shame that I would.  I remember lying on my stomach at night, thinking this might limit or reduce their growth, only to put small wads of kleenex in my “training” bra to see what I would look like once I had them.

The larger issue, though I don’t think I was aware of it at the time, was the conflict of growing older and being excited by this, yet part of me wanted to stay a kid. And there was terror too.  I was going to say “fear,” but it was more than fear, it was real terror at the idea of looking more adult like and less kid like, coupled with growing into a woman’s body and not liking the attention that elicited, which interestingly enough ties this answer to Emma’s first question about – “actions taken that get responses you don’t want”  and very much encapsulates the essence of all that was problematic and difficult for me about puberty.

We’re turning these questions over to all of you now…

1.  Actions taken that get responses you don’t want

2. Puberty – what was your experience or a memory of that time in your life?

PubertyBoy2

46 Comments

Posted in Autism, Parenting, puberty

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An Erratic Life

Posted on August 4, 2014 by | 29 comments

Our lives seem to be particularly erratic these days.  We are homeschooling, trying to get some semblance of a routine, but that hasn’t happened yet.  I keep thinking it will, any time now… Each morning I wake up with a plan, fully intending for it to be put into action and assume everything will fall into place.  I’ve thought this since the end of May when we pulled Emma from her school.  At a certain point I may realize my plans will not be realized, at a certain point I may even stop making them, but I’m not there yet.

Meanwhile I’m trying to figure it out.  How is this going to work?  Why hasn’t the ceramics studio, where I’m hoping to get Emma pottery lessons, returned my calls?  What about swimming?  I’ve totally dropped the ball on setting up swimming lessons.  Then I spin off into a reverie about the word Schwimmen, which we’ve recently learned is the German word for swimming and why it is that in German all nouns are capitalized, and the stress mounts.

My latest brilliant idea is that yoga is the answer.  I hate yoga.  An emoticon does not exist for the expression on my face when I think of yoga.  I am old enough to remember when yoga was a thing back in the 70’s. Perhaps this was my first mistake, thinking this latest craze would be similar.  As I have an inexplicable dislike for yoga it made perfect sense that I would go online to see if I could find yoga for the Wii.   Some things are better done in private I reasoned.  The only DVD I didn’t already own was more than fifty dollars.  No, I thought.  This is not the answer.  And then I had to have a serious talk with myself.  This is a pattern for me.  Looking for answers to things I already have the answer to.  Yoga is out, redialing that pottery studio for Emma is in…  Wish me luck.

pottery

29 Comments

Posted in Autism, homeschooling, Parenting

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Alone? Frightened? Worried?

Posted on July 24, 2014 by | 32 comments

“No one knows how to help us.”  This was what I once said to my husband.  It was many years ago.  So many, I no longer remember the year.  Along with that realization was this one – “We are in this alone.”  And while, at the time, that thought terrified me, it was the beginning of finding another way.  It was the moment when I realized all these people we were looking to for guidance, didn’t know what was best for our daughter, even when they believed they did.

In the beginning we were told how fortunate we were, our daughter was “mild” we were told and if we followed their advice – an aggressive implementation of ABA, Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy – she would be in a regular classroom by the time she entered kindergarten.  She was still two years old when she was diagnosed and we knew nothing about autism.  We did as we were told.  We were assured she would “skyrocket.”  We fought to increase the hours of therapy, we went to the team meetings, we took notes, we learned how to “play” with her using ABA’s techniques, we monitored her and kept charts.  We filled notebooks with our observations and we waited for her to “skyrocket.”

When she turned three we enrolled her in an ABA based pre-school.  By the end of that school year I no longer believed all that I was being told.  The therapists were no longer assuring us she would “skyrocket.”  Now words like “red flag” were being used to describe her behavior.  She had “behaviors” and these were being pinpointed and noted with alarming frequency.  We were getting reports of non-compliance, an inability to “use her words” as though she was being defiant  and then she began to self-injure. No one understood why.  Everyone was baffled.

And now, so many years later, I look back on those years and it all seems so understandable.  They say hind sight is 20/20, that looking back we can easily understand that which was once incomprehensible.  I understand now.  We didn’t appreciate what was going on.  We didn’t think we understood our child, and for the most part we didn’t and we kept looking to others to explain her to us.  The explanations they gave us, we believed.  We thought, since we didn’t understand and they seemed sure that they did, they must be right.  It took several more years for me to realize they didn’t and they didn’t know how to help us or her either.  When the methods they believed in didn’t do what they believed should and would happen, they blamed us and they blamed her.

Emma continues to remind me that “regret is not needed” and she’s right.  I am working hard on that one.  I cannot describe someone else’s experience, I can only write about mine.  This was mine.  As the mother of a daughter who was once believed “mild” and later “moderate” and finally “moderate to severe” on autism’s vast spectrum, we have learned a great deal.  And while many may not derive any solace in what I’m about to say, I would have.  No one can predict what life holds for your two, three, four, five, six or seven-year old child.  No one can predict another’s future, there are too many variables.

That my daughter has some spoken language is, and was, the single biggest red herring for those who meet her.  It never occurred to us that all that speech therapy, focusing on spoken language, would ultimately be unhelpful.  I knew nothing of AAC  (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) devices or methods and as spoken language seemed to me to be the ideal, the idea of her using something else honestly never crossed my mind.  Why would I encourage her to use something else to communicate if she could speak?  When, after years of speech therapy focusing on spoken language, she still couldn’t have a conversation with us, our answer was to try more, push harder and it would come.

So many people ask what we would have done, knowing all we know now.  This is a question that is specific to my daughter, but I know there are other children who are similar as I’ve met so many of them.  I would not have waited so long to begin using other forms of communication.  In fact, this would have been the thing I would have concentrated on right away.  There is no evidence that using an AAC device will have a negative effect on spoken language acquisition, in fact there are studies showing the opposite is likely to be true.  Had my daughter been able to communicate at an earlier age, many things would have changed.  The most important one being that we would have understood much earlier all that she knew and understood.  This may strike some as a little thing, but I can assure you, had we realized this early on, had we believed this right away, it would have changed every single decision we then made.  Not to mention the massive reduction in our stress, anxiety and fear.

There is so much we are learning and still have to learn, but we are no longer alone.  We are surrounded by other parents, professionals, educators and, most importantly, people who share our daughter’s neurology, those who are Autistic and who continue to share their experiences with us so that we might better parent our Autistic daughter.  And of course, our daughter, Emma whose patience, love, wisdom and endless compassion is teaching us more than any.

 

One year after the diagnosis

One year after the diagnosis

32 Comments

Posted in ABA, Autism, Parenting

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Using Words to Describe What Cannot Be

Posted on July 4, 2014 by | 4 comments

This morning, in answer to the question, “What shall we talk about?” Emma wrote:

Today I am going to talk about using words to describe things that cannot be described.

How can it be done?

It is the poet’s attempts that come closest, but even then, much is left to the reader’s interpretation.

Poetry becomes an interactive experience then, with the poet having to cede all control of words created.

Real creating asks question of all.  The answers are unknowing.

From Ariane:  Last night I dreamt I could not speak.  I was at the airport, leaving for the Far East and realized I had left my passport at home.  I kept reminding myself this was a dream and that I could recreate the story line.   I didn’t have to stay in the feelings of intense anxiety the dream was provoking.  I could speak if I could just change the dream. I didn’t have to follow the dream’s labyrinth.  Straining against all logic, I tried to fly, literally, back home, but kept being pulled back into heavy traffic and the anxiety of knowing I would never make it home and back to the airport in time for my flight.  Not being able to use my voice to tell the cab driver where I needed to go, without pen or paper to write, I felt intense frustration and then rage.

Knowing I would miss the flight, knowing my family was at the airport waiting for me, and the nagging, ongoing critique of how foolish I was to have forgotten such an essential document as my passport made me finally wake up.  It was one of those dreams where you are so horrified by it, waking at three in the morning becomes the more attractive choice, superseding the desire to continue sleeping and the knowledge of the inevitable consequences of waking at such an early hour.

Those feelings, like so many incessant and blaring alarms, jangle the nerves, and linger long after sleep has yielded to wakefulness.  And then Emma wrote the above and I was reminded, once again, of how often words fail us.  How often things said are misinterpreted, or said in ways not meant, or how even for those of us fluent in spoken language, words can become a kind of cage from which we cannot and do not easily escape.

Richard has been editing the video of our presentation.  Hoping to post it over the weekend or on Monday…

Emma chose this image after typing in "words" into Google search

Emma chose this image after typing “words” into Google search

4 Comments

Posted in Autism, communication, Parenting

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A Traffic Jam and an Analogy

Posted on June 13, 2014 by | 16 comments

Yesterday we had to rent a car (we New Yorkers often do not own cars, one of the many wonderful benefits of living in such a vibrant city!) to go see Soma, who was about an hour outside of the city.  (For more about Soma, you can click on her name above, which will take you to her website for the Halo Center.  You can also read more that I’ve written by typing either Soma and/or RPM into the search box on this blog.)  We thought we’d given ourselves plenty of time by renting the car almost two hours prior to our appointment, but as luck would have it a lane was closed due to an earlier collision and coupled with the ongoing and seemingly never ending road work on all and any highways in and out of Manhattan, we realized we would be lucky if we made our appointment at all.

When we pulled up, Soma was waiting, we were exactly two minutes late(!) so we jumped out of the car and raced in to begin Emma’s session.  Emma wrote, “What happens if traffic never gets moving?”

Pause.

“You are stuck in a rut.  It’s like autism.  When you have the diagnosis you are stuck in stims and cannot proceed where your actions want to be.  It is always clogged like a caged mind driving through traffic.”

This morning I asked Emma if we could talk more about this as I’ve not heard her talk about autism and stims in this way before.  In fact, Emma has referred to stimming as self-care ‘here‘ and ‘here‘ and I wondered if she’d be willing to talk a bit more about this with me.  She wrote that she would.  She wrote, “Circular stimming begins in self-care and can aid focussed mind, but samples hasty stress when consumed by the stim.”

“So what I hear you saying is that the stim begins as a way to self-care, but can also become the cause of stress.  Is that accurate?”  I asked.

“Understand that I cannot always filter all that is going on easily.  My string grounds me.  Not having it can cause horrible stress, but it can also distract me.”

I asked Emma if there was anything that another person can do that would feel supportive and encouraging, but that might also make that struggle easier.

Emma wrote, “Don’t force me to put it away, but instead gently remind me to stay in the task asked.”

“Is it okay to suggest you hold the string in your left hand or wrap it around one hand so that you’re still free to type?”  I asked.

“It is nice to be helped with kind suggestions, not nice to be stripped of any say in what is being done.”

“Okay, I totally get that,” I said.  “With Soma you wrote, “What is wrong with the world?”  Then you answered your own question by writing, “In fact nothing is wrong with the world.  We are the problems.  We are not right.  We see things and create a problem.  I don’t have autism label on my forehead like Soma’s dot.”

(Emma was referring to Soma’s “bindi” the red dot Hindi Indian women often wear.  Soma, being Soma, made a joke and did not take offense.)  Emma then wrote, “But I have to walk around all my life with this label.”

I asked Emma if she’d talk a bit more about this and asked, “Do you feel if you didn’t have a diagnosis, people would treat you differently?”

“People see me, think she is different, forgetting that I have feelings like they do. If people understood what autism really is, it would not matter, but people don’t, and so it makes life much harder.”

“So it isn’t the label or the word “autism” that bothers you as much as what that seems to mean to so many people?”

Emma wrote, “This is the biggest problem and causes mistreatment and misunderstandings.”

“Thank you so much for clarifying all of this Emma.  Do you have anything to say to parents and educators who are trying to understand?”

“Keep your open mind and listen to the people who are Autistic for information about autism,” Emma wrote.

Soma and Emma ~ June 12, 2014

Soma and Emma ~ June 12, 2014

16 Comments

Posted in Autism, communication, diagnosis

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Emma Discusses Biting

Posted on February 10, 2014 by | 60 comments

Emma bites herself, occasionally pulls her own hair and less frequently will smack her head into the wall or punch herself in the face.  I hesitated writing about this on such a public forum because… well, because it is so public and people come to this topic with a great many strong feelings.  But Emma asked me to “put it on the blog” so I am, though with some ambivalence.  I ask that anyone who chooses to comment do so with the love, care and compassion you would hope others would have for you, were you to talk about things that are so deeply personal.  I will just add that Emma is incredibly courageous and I have nothing but admiration for her desire to speak so publicly about a topic that brings up so much distress for so many.

I asked Emma if she would be willing to discuss what is going on when she bites herself.  This is something that has happened nearly every day at her school this past week.

“I am anxious about angering those who are watching, but can’t control my aching feelings of distress.

“Biting my arm is helpful in giving those difficult feelings a pain I can control.  Getting mad at me makes it worse.

“Trying to force me to stop does not change how badly I feel, just adds to shame I already have.

“I know it upsets people, but it’s not about them, it’s about not being able to describe massive sensations that feel too much to tolerate.

“Fear takes over.

“Stress becomes impossible.

“I need helpful thoughts of calming kindness.  Reassuring words of understanding, instead of irritation and impatience.”

*I asked Emma if she could sense people’s emotions and if that added to the overload.

She wrote, “Yes, it makes it worse.”

Emma ~ 2011

Emma ~ 2011

Related Posts:

 Self Injurious Behaviors ~ Let’s Discuss

Different Neurology, Different Perception

60 Comments

Posted in Autism, communication, controversy, Parenting

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Travel, Friendship and Sensory Overload

Posted on December 16, 2013 by | 34 comments

A couple of days ago my friend Ib, of the blog Tiny Grace Notes, whom I was staying with, drove me to the airport.  Ib knows me pretty well and could tell I was nervous, as I have become increasingly as I get older, about getting to the airport, going through security and making my flight, even though we were leaving ample time to do all of that.  Still the combination of nerves due to traveling, my busy work schedule, being away from my family for so long, being tired and going to an unfamiliar airport had me on high alert.

It was snowing a little so we needed to have the window wipers on or Ib wouldn’t be able to see well enough to drive safely.  But the wipers made a scraping noise that I found almost intolerable.  Every time the wipers ran across the window they vibrated and made a noise that was akin to finger nails being raked along a chalk board.  It was jarring and I could feel my body tense, so I gritted my teeth and began an internal dialogue with myself to try to calm and as I did all of this, I thought of my daughter.  I thought about what it must be like to be bombarded with sounds and sensations that she cannot speak of, or if she does speak of them, the words that she speaks are not what she intends to say, so people are left confused, asking questions or simply ignoring.

As we drove and Ib, being Ib, had already sensed my tension and anxiety and was doing everything in her power to take care of me, I thought about how it is only recently that I’ve become hyper aware of certain sounds, sights, tastes, smells, and how things feel to the touch.  It is because of my daughter and other Autistic people I’ve met and/or read and heard speak about such things, that I have begun to see how, things I once learned to ignore are now things I cannot ignore, like those window wipers scraping against the window and making me so upset it was all I could do to sit quietly and not begin to cry.  I am grateful for this as it makes me far more understanding of what my daughter and others might be going through at times.

Ib began to very quietly and gently tell me what she was about to do, before she did it.  So, for example, she would say things like, (I’m making this up as I can’t remember her exact words now) “just up ahead I’m going to slow a little and get into the right lane” or “the exit we want is in another 2 miles to the left” or whatever it was, she would say these things in that lovely, mellifluous voice of hers and I began to calm down.  Ibby was modeling, actively demonstrating what I need to do for my daughter.  She was also being a kind, sensitive and deeply compassionate friend to me and I sat there, my eyes fixed on the traffic around us, feeling so thankful that I know her and am friends with her.

As we drove along and I began to relax a little, I imagined a place where non autistic people would go where they would be given the very real experience of what it might be like for an Autistic person.  I fantasized that there would be all manner of sensations, highly elevated and constantly changing as examples of what might be another person’s experience of daily life.  Just as I found those window wipers so harsh and grating that I could not engage in conversation, I imagined that this place would both bombard the person as well as under stimulate so the person could experience what it is like to alternate between not being able to hear, taste, see, feel, smell and during all of this, demands would be placed on the person.  Not just demands, but the person would be required to answer questions within a specific time frame and if they didn’t answer or got the answer wrong they would be required to go back and start all over again.  However regardless of whether they got the answer right the sensations would remain, the things they would try to do to calm themselves would not be allowed or taken away and they would be forced to stay in this place indefinitely.

As Ibby helped me retrieve my bags from the car I felt tremendous relief knowing that I would be able to manage the curbside check-in, knew I would not lose the ability to speak, knew I would be able to find the correct line to go through for security, find the correct gate and wait for my flight.  All the things I do without thinking, without questioning, things I take for granted.  But I also was aware that this relief is not what others, others like my daughter, necessarily experience.

34 Comments

Posted in Autism, friendship, travel

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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.”

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Posted in Autism, Parenting, violence

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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

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Posted in fear, Parenting, sensory issues

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Autism And Stress

Posted on June 4, 2013 by | 37 comments

Lest you think this post is about stress felt by parents, let me quickly say, it’s not.  This post is about the stress I have observed my daughter experiences.  The stress she feels and that I (often unwittingly and unknowingly) exacerbate.  This is not about  beating myself up, but is an honest look at how my reactions can make matters worse.  As I’ve said before, it is my hope that as Emma’s mother I continue to make progress in my parenting, but also as a human being.  Just as I hope and expect my daughter to learn and progress, I hope the same for myself.

“We have to minimize her stress.”  This was something Soma Mukhopadhyay said during Emma’s most recent session with her.  It was in answer to my question about when to graduate from using a letter board to a computer keyboard during her RPM (rapid prompting method) sessions.  During the session Emma pointed to a letter, then Soma wrote the letter down, Emma pointed to another letter, and on it went until Emma had written an entire sentence.  This technique, of one letter pointed to, one letter written down, helps with Emma’s impulsivity, which is amplified when she’s feeling stress.  It was during this same session that Emma answered Soma’s question about whether she could feel colors, with, “Of course.  That answer, those two words spelled out so easily by my daughter, made me laugh and cry at the same time.

My daughter types and does things that astound me.  It doesn’t matter how much I believe in her competence, I am continually astonished, ecstatic and heartbroken all at the same time.  Astonished because of the ease and confidence with which she will say something like, “Of course” in answer to a highly complex question, heartbroken because for so long these were words I never imagined I’d hear, let alone learn what I am now learning about her.  I no longer believe these feelings are mutually exclusive to each other.  Now, instead of wondering whether it was all a dream, I celebrate the exquisite beauty of my child and all she does that constantly reminds me of just how vast and incredible the human mind is.  I am humbled, on a daily basis, in the best possible way.  I would not trade the awe I get to feel when in the presence of my child for anything.  Seeing my daughter defy every limited idea about her that has ever been uttered, including my own thinking, gives me tremendous hope for this world, for my own growth and for humanity.

I witness greatness when I watch her work and it is a beautiful thing.  So when she expresses upset, which I now am able to identify as stress, it breaks my heart in a way that it didn’t, before I understood.  What I used to think of as stubbornness or a temper tantrum or a form of manipulation, I now see as a product of the enormous stress she feels.  And I have to wonder, exactly how much stress must she cope with?  I have talked about what I perceived to be her “resistance” in typing, but am now beginning to think of it as less “resistance” and more stress.  Stress from how very difficult it is.  Stress from expectations, stress from making a mistake, stress from doing something different, and those are just the stresses I can easily come up with and relate to.  I’m guessing there are many more I am completely unaware of.

Stress is something that, when she is gripped by it, all systems seem to simultaneously crash.  To make matters worse, my stress level rises in direct proportion to hers and I am confronted with how unhelpful I am when I allow my stress to overwhelm me as was the case the other day.  My response to Emma’s panic was to panic too.  So much so that I could barely breathe.  “You have to calm down!” I instructed her, while my own sense of calm, shattered so completely, was a perfect example of what NOT to do.  It was the antithesis of modeling behavior sought and it reminded me of something my father used to say to my siblings and me – “Do as I say and not as I do!”  I think he thought it amusing, however I remember it as anything but.

There are times I cannot predict, when something happens, things I don’t know or understand, and suddenly my seemingly placid, happy child is in a turmoil of upset.  There is often a sensory component I’m unaware of.  During these times sentences are repeated that are obviously meaningful to her, but that I find confusing.  As her stress escalates, her ability to verbalize what’s going on plummets and my frenzied request that she “type it out” does nothing to alleviate the situation.  The longer all of this goes on, the more I feel completely ill-equipped to keep my stress level from going into the red, let alone help her with hers.  That Emma seems convinced I am, not only capable of pulling it together, but will be able to help her, is an example of my daughter presuming in my competence, which makes me all the more determined to work through my own issues and do better.  I owe it to her.

September, 2009

September '09

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Posted in Autism, Parenting, Soma Mukhopadhyay

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