Tag Archives: treatments

The Way We Treat Others

Posted on November 4, 2013 by | 39 comments

There is no other life than this one.  It doesn’t matter what one believes regarding death and the after life, this is the one life we have, right here, right now.  How will we live it?  What we do, what we say, how we behave in this moment is indicative of how we do anything.

I’m reading Rosemary Crossley’s first book, Annie’s Coming Out, which she wrote with Anne McDonald and was made into a movie in the 80’s, released in the US under the title, “A Test of Love.”   (As a side note, I find it interesting that the book’s title places Annie as the protagonist and yet the US film title suggests the therapist is.  By the way, I’m one of the people who believes both Anne and Rosemary were/are heroic and have nothing but tremendous respect for both.)

“Children, even children who could sit up, were generally laid down to be fed.  Their heads would rest in the nurse’s lap, and their bodies would lie across another chair placed in front of her knees.  This meant children were being fed with their heads tilted right back, a method called, for obvious reasons, ‘bird feeding’: gravity drops the food straight to the back of the throat, and there is no chance to chew.  Children were encouraged not to shut their mouths – a second mouthful immediately followed the first.  I have filmed a nurse feeding a child:  food is piling high on his face because he is unable to swallow it at the rate the nurse spoons it in.”  ~  Annie’s Coming Out by Rosemary Crossley and Anne McDonald

The above is, but one of many harrowing passages in the book describing the institution Anne McDonald was placed in when she was three years old.

“To be imprisoned inside one’s own body is dreadful.  To be confined in an institution for the profoundly retarded does not crush you in the same way; it just removes all hope.”  ~ Anne McDonald in the book Annie’s Coming Out

It is impossible to read this book and not feel horror.  Horror at our ignorance, horror that a place like St. Nicholas Hospital was more the norm than not, horror for all we didn’t understand or know, horror for our capacity as human beings to treat one another with such indifference and cruelty.  It is easy to console oneself with the thought that this happened more than thirty years ago and this sort of thing would never happen now, not here in the United States, not now.

This article in the NYTimes was written just last year, I wrote about it and other atrocities ‘here‘.

How will we view the “treatments” commonly used with Autistic children thirty, forty years from now?  What will we think about the commonly held views regarding autism and Autistic people.  Will we look back with the same horror I feel as I read Annie’s Coming Out?

Anne McDonald and Rosemary Crossley

Anne-Mcdonald2-200x0

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Posted in Autism, Autism "Awareness", Autism Books

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The Blurring of Diagnoses

Posted on October 9, 2013 by | 32 comments

There was a time in my life when I could not get through an entire day without throwing up.  I would get hungry, eat to the point of discomfort and vomit.  I went to therapists who tried to help me.  I tried various techniques, stalling methods, eliminating certain foods, but in the end nothing I did helped.  I couldn’t stop.  I remember sitting in my apartment, afraid to eat anything because to eat meant I would purge.  It was no longer a choice.  It was something I had to do.  All of this was complicated by body image issues, tremendous shame and the belief that who I was depended on how thin I was.  That I was dying inside seemed less important than how I looked.

“One major distinction between an addiction and a compulsion (as it is experienced in obsessive-compulsive disorder) is the experience of pleasure. While people who have addictions suffer all manner of discomforts, the desire to use the substance or engage in the behavior is based on the expectation that it will be pleasurable.

“In contrast, someone who experiences a compulsion as part of obsessive-compulsive disorder may not get any pleasure from the behavior he carries out. Often, it is a way of dealing with the obsessive part of the disorder, resulting in a feeling of relief.”  ~ About.com

When I read a description such as this one, I begin to question my eating disorder as addiction and wonder whether it was much closer to the definition for OCD  because though it all began with a desire to quell pain and seeking pleasure, by the time I found recovery, pleasure was illusive and no longer part of the equation.  “This can get a little confusing because there often comes a point for people with addictions where they don’t really enjoy the addictive behavior, and they are just seeking relief from the urge to use or engage in the behavior.”

“Although this can look like obsessive-compulsive behavior because the pleasure is gone, the original motivation to engage in the behavior was to feel good.”  ~ Helpguide.org.   So we have come full circle and are back to addiction.

I bring all of this up because as with anything whether we are talking about addiction, OCD,  anxiety or any of the other numerous issues many people struggle with, the labels can overlap.  So I was an active addict and when I was active, my addictive behavior mimicked pretty classic OCD behavior.  There was a point when the idea of sitting with my feelings, sitting and not tamping them down with food was inconceivable to me.  I really believed I would die.  This statement describes OCD almost exactly.  “OCD… characterized by uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts and repetitive, ritualized behaviors you feel compelled to perform.” ~ Helpguide.org

And yet, even though OCD looks a lot like addiction, there are differences.  Differences that make helping someone with one or the other tricky, but understanding the differences is important.  For example the two most common forms of treatment for OCD is cognitive-behavioral therapy and medication, though neither have proven to be entirely successful and often it is said that OCD, like addiction is something one must learn to manage for the rest of ones life, these treatments flourish.  Treatment options for addiction have proven to be equally challenging.  Some people have found help in working a 12-step program, but others have not.

“While the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder usually occurs during adolescence or young adulthood, younger children sometimes have symptoms that look like OCD. However, the symptoms of other disorders, such as ADD, autism, and Tourette’s syndrome, can also look like obsessive-compulsive disorder, so a thorough medical and psychological exam is essential before any diagnosis is made.” ~ Helpguide.org

Someone whose neurology is autistic may have OCD AND a whole host of other things too, similar to the non autistic population.  Because there is so often an overlap, people mistakenly think that autism is the same as OCD or assume that ALL Autistic children and people have OCD.  The lines between the two become blurred and the distinctions get lost.  So much of what people believe IS autism, are actually co-morbids.  Without making the distinction between what is and isn’t “autism” we may be treating something that we should not be or are missing what we could treat, but aren’t.

Autistic neurology, like non autistic neurology needs to be separated from the co-morbids that affect some, but not all people.  Just as I am non autistic AND an (not active) addict, no one would leap to the conclusion that because I am both, ALL non autistic people are also addicts or that addiction is the same as being non autistic.  Yet, we see this kind of thinking over and over with autism and Autistic people.

Em on her pogo stick copy

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Posted in Addiction, Autism, obsessive compulsive

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Autism “Experts”

Posted on July 5, 2013 by | 57 comments

Yesterday Emma asked Richard a question.  It was a question she’d never asked before.  It was a question that made us both inwardly gasp and later discuss at length.  It was one of those things that was noteworthy and made us both rejoice.  It was an example of progress, not just Emma’s, but as I’ll explain, our’s too.  Emma’s reaction to Richard crying out when our impish kitty, Merlin leapt onto his back, was what one might expect, except it wasn’t.  As all four paws, claws extended made contact with Richard’s flesh, Richard howled out in considerable pain.  Emma ran into our bedroom and asked, “What happened Daddy?”

Had we been in the midst of some “therapy” or “treatment” protocol, as we almost always were a few years back, we would have attributed this new, never-before-heard question to that therapy or treatment.  We would have felt a wave of euphoria, believing, even if only briefly, that this new treatment or therapy could be credited for her voicing such a question.  We would have remarked to each other that this was proof and only later, perhaps the following day or day after that, we might have questioned our conclusions.  We might have discussed any other significant thing that might have occurred or we might have waited with guarded excitement for the “next” wonderful thing that would prove to us, once and for all, without a doubt that this thing we were doing was making a difference.  As though our daughter would otherwise stagnate without our constant tinkering.  As though she would not make any “progress” without our various interventions.  As though autism meant complete stagnation and no movement of any kind.

Since we no longer adhere to this line of thinking, we simply spoke of what we’d just witnessed with joy, while shaking our heads at how fabulous it was that we are making progress along side our wonderful daughter.  And as we mutually applauded ourselves for the headway we’ve made, we attributed all of it, her question and our reaction, to what it was – life, maturity, learning, growth and the fact that we humans have a tendency to change and progress and how wonderful is that?!

No one told us this seemingly obvious fact when Em was first diagnosed.  No one told us this, probably because no one thought it necessary to.  Except that in my case anyway, it was necessary.  It was more than necessary.  It was required.  Because with all the misinformation we received upon Emma’s diagnosis, one of the implications was that massive amounts of intervention, forced interaction and jumping through a million hoops was more than necessary, it was required if we wanted to see any “progress.”  It was suggested that if we didn’t do all these things, we might as well resign ourselves to the idea that our child would never move beyond where she currently was.

“I can’t stress strongly enough the importance of diving into action immediately. Every expert in the field agrees that early intervention is essential and critical. The “wait and see” approach is detrimental to your child.” ~  Lynn Koegel and Claire LaZebnik

It should be noted, “Every expert” who is NOT Autistic, may believe this, though I’d argue with the word “every.”  It wasn’t until I began reading blogs written by Autistic people and talking with my Autistic friends, that I started to seriously question this idea.  I also began questioning the whole idea of what “progress” really meant, but that will have to be tackled in another post.  It wasn’t until I began questioning the idea, that I then began also questioning who exactly were these people calling themselves “experts” and how none of them were Autistic, nor did they seem particularly interested in hearing what Autistic people were saying.  Do any of you find it curious that so many of these so-called “experts” do not seem to personally know any Autistic people outside of a clinical setting?  The very people they say they are experts on?  Don’t you find that odd?

Can you imagine if a number of men claimed to be “experts” of women and what it is to be female, but none actually knew any women outside of their professional setting?  Can you imagine that when women spoke up or suggested these views were in direct contrast to what they, as women, lived on a daily basis, these male “experts” ignored them or suggested they couldn’t possibly know what they were talking about because women couldn’t be relied upon to make sense of such things?  Perhaps even suggesting that women tended toward hysteria and being overly emotional? Can you imagine laws being enacted that directly affected women’s lives and their bodies, with a complete disregard for how women felt about such laws?  Any of this sound vaguely familiar?

“What happened, Daddy?”

Em dressed as a pink poodle ~ 2007

Em- poodle

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Posted in Autism, diagnosis, Parenting

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