Tag: cure

Autism and grief

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his) ~ 1 Comment

I am not grieving, despite the concern (?) from CS in a comment on my most recent post.  (Nor am I simply in denial as I’m sure some will tell me about my thoughts on autism and raising an autistic child.)  I have written about grief and autism before, though, and this seemed like a good time to dust that post off and repost it.

From April 2006, Autism and the 5 Stages of Grief:

= = == === =====

For many families, a diagnosis of autism in a child brings about a profound sense of loss. Since most people don’t actively educate themselves about autism before the diagnosis – let’s face it, no one thinks it can happen to them – most of what they know comes from what they may see, hear, or read in the media. Unfortunately, the vast majority of stories about autism in the media are about the ‘devastation’ of autism, of how kids are ‘lost’ in a strange and terrible world away from society.

As a result, I think that many people who find themselves facing an unexpected diagnosis slip into the 5 stages of grief. The link provides some details on the 5 stages, including some discussion of why some think they are not valid, but here are the 5 stages themselves:

  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance

These are the stages, as I understand it, that a person will go through if left on their own, if they don’t receive any support or gain any understanding beyond the feeling of loss. One of my goals with Autism for Parents [ed: an unfortunately now defunct site] is to present an alternative to these ‘default’ stages that treat an autism diagnosis as a devastating loss with a series of steps that parents can take to fully understand their situation and go beyond mere acceptance.

Here are the steps I’ve come up with.

  • Denial – unfortunately, unavoidable [ed: at least until everyone accepts that it could happen to them and/or that it is not a bad thing to have happen]
  • Confusion – again, unavoidable
  • Understanding – the process a parent takes to understand the situation. In this step, will answer the questions that come from the confusion stage.
  • Plan – based on understanding gained in previous step, make a plan for your life ahead (something parents do with all kids)
  • Act – live life to the fullest, adjusting the plan as your understanding grows.

I’m interested in any feedback to help refine the individual steps, or the overall concept itself. I’ll explore each of the steps in a bit more detail in subsequent posts and will consider all comments/suggestions.

===== === == = =

Another comment, this one from Phil Schwarz, talks about the real need for grief in some situations, but also reminds us of what it is we are really grieving.  Phil references Jim Sinclair’s Don’t Mourn For Us, which I discovered, and wrote about, along with Phil’s Cure, Recovery, Prevention of Autism? not long after writing the “5 Stages” post.

To me, the most important stage for parents is Stage 5 – ACT.  In this context I don’t mean act in a “big” way, trying to change the world while all but ignoring your child.  I mean act in a “small” way, as a parent, doing your best with what you’ve got and raising a happy, confident, and self-assured child that becomes a happy, confident, and self-assured adult.

Or, as Phil so eloquently put it in his comment:  It’s what you do beyond the grief that matters.

They’re not normal, whatever you say

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his)

This is the fourth of three posts of excerpts from Elizabeth Moon‘s novel The Speed of Dark. (Part one – How normal are normal people?,  part two – What does it meant to be “me”?, and part three – Do I need to be healed?)

Like any good story, The Speed of Dark has an antagonist that provides the main character his dilemma and challenge.  I thought it might be worthwhile to share some of Mr. Crenshaw’s thoughts on Lou and his co-workers.

“Your guys are fossils, Pete.  Face it.  The auties older than them were throwaways, nine out of ten.  And don’t recite that woman, whatever her name was, that designed slaughterhouses or something —.

“One in a million, and I have the highest respect for someone who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps the way she did.  But she was the exception.  Most of those poor bastards were hopeless. Not their fault, all right? But still, no good to themselves or anyone else, no matter how much money was spent on them. And if the damned shrinks had kept hold of the category, your guys would be just as bad. Lucky for them the neurologists and behaviorists got some influence. But still…they’re not normal, whatever you say.

…

“The law does not require a company to bankrupt itself. That notion went overboard early this century. We’d lose the tax break, but that’s such a tiny part of our budget that it’s worthless, really. Now if they’d agree to dispense with their so-called support measures and act like regular employees, I wouldn’t push the treatment – though why they wouldn’t want it I can’t fathom.”

As you might be able to gather, Mr. Crenshaw’s motives for pushing a cure are somewhat less than altruistic.  But it is quite obvious what he thinks of autistics.  Not all that different from how many view autism, and autistics, today.

Do I need to be healed?

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his) ~ 6 Comments

This is the third of three posts of excerpts from Elizabeth Moon‘s novel The Speed of Dark. (Part one – How normal are normal people?, and part two – What does it meant to be “me”?)

In this excerpt, Lou is considering what it might mean to be “healed”:

If my self definition is limited and rule-dictated, at least it is my self-definition, and not someone else’s. I like peppers on pizza and I do not like anchovies on pizza. If someone changes me, will I still like peppers and not anchovies on pizza? What if the someone who changes me wants me to want anchovies…can they change that?

…

Asking if I want to be healed is like asking if I want to like anchovies. I cannot imagine what liking anchovies would feel like, what taste they would have in my mouth. People who like anchovies tell me they taste good; people who are normal tell me being normal feels good. They cannot describe the taste or the feeling in a way that makes sense to me.

Do I need to be healed? Who does it hurt if I am not healed? Myself, but only if I feel bad the way i am, and I do not feel bad except when people say that I am not one of them, not normal. Supposedly autistic persons do not care what others think of them, but this is not true. I do care, and it hurts when people do not like me because I am autistic.

As I finished up my initial draft of this, I came across Estee’s post What do we think we know? We know what it is like to be us, we know how to do things, we just can’t always explain it.

Hopefully I’ll have my full review done by the end of this (thankfully long) weekend.

What does it mean to be “me”?

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his) ~ 1 Comment

This is the second of three posts of excerpts from Elizabeth Moon‘s novel The Speed of Dark. (Part one – How normal are normal people?)

In this excerpt, Lou is considering what it means to be “Lou”, and how he would be different as an adult if he had been different when he was younger.

If I had not been what I am, what would I have been? I have thought about that at times. If I had found it easy to understand what people were saying, would I have wanted to listen more? Would I have learned to talk more easily? And from that, would I have had more friends, even been popular? I try to imagine myself as a child, a normal child, chattering away with family and teachers and classmates. If I had been that child, instead of myself, would I have learned math so easily? Would the great complicated construction of classical music have been so obvious to me at first hearing? I remember the first time I heard Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor … the intensity of joy I felt. Would I have been able to do the work I do? And what other work might I have been able to do?

It is harder to imagine a different self now that i am an adult.

This particular scene resonated with me as I have had these same thoughts, from a parent’s point of view, as I’ve watched my son grow from a toddler to a 17-year old. (For examples, see Thoughts on curing autism and Whose decision is it?)

For some similar thoughts from a current day, real person with Asperger’s check out Steve’s post Marching to her own drum.

Next:  Do I need to be healed?

How normal are normal people?

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his) ~ 8 Comments

The Speed of Dark - CoverAfter seeing a reference to it in a comment to a blog somewhere last week, I picked up Elizabeth Moon‘s novel The Speed of Dark and read it over the weekend. The novel, set in the near future (30 years or so), is the story of Lou Arrendale, an autistic man presented with the possibility of being cured, his contemplation of what his decision – either way – would mean, and the consequences of his eventual decision.

I need to process it a bit more before writing a full review, but the short version of the review goes something like this: If you haven’t read this book yet, go out and buy it now and read it tonight.

As I pull together my thoughts for the full review, I’d like to share some key passages that really stood out to me as relevant to my own contemplation of autism, neurodiversity, and a cure (among many other things). This is the first of three such posts, my goal is to have a review done by the end of this coming weekend.

Some of Lou’s general thoughts on being normal:

I do not think everyone else is alike in every way. She [Dr. Fornum] has told me that Everyone knows this and Everyone does that, but I am not blind, just autistic, and I know that they know and do different things. The cars in the parking lot are different colors and sizes. Thirty-seven percent of them, this morning, are blue. Nine percent are oversize: trucks or vans. There are eighteen motorcycles in three racks, which would be six apiece, except that ten of them are i the back rack, near Maintenance. Different channels carry different programs; that would not happen if everyone were alike.

And some of his thoughts based on a specific situation:

Sometimes I wonder how normal normal people are, and I wonder the most in the grocery store. In our Daily Life Skills classes, we were taught to make a list and go directly from one aisle to another, checking off items on the list. Our teacher advised us to research prices ahead of time, in the newspaper, rather than compare prices while standing int eh aisle. I though – he told us – that he was teaching us how normal people shop.

But the man who is blocking the aisle in front of me has not had that lecture. He seems normal, but he is looking at every single jar of spaghetti sauce, comparing prices, reading labels. Beyond him, a short gray-haired woman with thick glasses is trying to peer past him at the same shelves; I think she wants one of the sauces on my side, but he is in the way and she is not willing to bother him. Neither am I.

Next up: What it means to be “me”.

Stop assuming you know best

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his)

I came across the following in Michael Dowd’s Thank God for Evolution:

To have a powerful relationship with your own intuition and instincts – and thus to have a clear channel of communication with the creating, sustaining Life Force of the Universe (whatever you may choose to call It/Him/Her) – one must cultivate humility in this sense: Stop assuming that you know best how things are supposed to go in the world. Rather, try on an attitude of gratitude – not just for what is easy to be grateful for, but also for those challenges and difficulties in life for which you cannot yet detect a silver lining.

Having faith and being in integrity means trusting that each and every one of us is doing the best we can, given what we’ve got to work with at the time. It’s trusting that, from the perspective of the Universe, everything may be “right on schedule.”

Just thought I’d share.

Just a plain, ordinary, loving, proud parent

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his) ~ 7 Comments

I started writing about autism, specifically about being an autism parent, just over three years ago. One of my goals was to provide information that would be useful for parents who have recently received a diagnosis of autism for their child. This post is my attempt to give you, as a parent of a newly diagnosed autistic child, an idea of what you will likely find as you try to understand what that diagnosis means to you and your child.

Parenting is a challenge, no matter who your kid is. No matter what you do, someone somewhere will tell you that you are doing it wrong. If you are already a parent, you know what I mean. How many times have you heard someone tell you that your kids should spend more time outside, less time on the computer or with their video games, more time reading, less time on the phone; that you should spend more / less time with them, give them more / less independence, etc etc.

It is no different being the parent of an autistic child, except maybe for the passion with which complete strangers will tell you how poor a job you are doing. A few things you can expect to hear from others, or read in blogs, etc:

“You’re going to screw your kid up if you get him vaccinated.”
“You didn’t vaccinate? Why the hell not?”

“If you don’t start with intensive early therapy and treatment, there is no hope for your child.”
“If you start with all that intensive early therapy and treatment and try to change him, he’ll be emotionally scarred for life.”

“Why are you trying to mainstream him at school, he would be better off in a special placement.”
“Why aren’t you pushing for a mainstream placement, that is where he should be and the school just needs to suck it up.”

“You can’t blame that person for getting upset, that outburst was quite disturbing and invasive to others.”
“Screw that person. They need to just get over it an realize that everyone is different and has the right to be who they are.”

“You need to cure your child of this terrible affliction, recover him from the damage that has been done and get on with your life the way it was supposed to be.”
“Your child doesn’t need a cure, you need to accept that he will be different, that your life will be different, and that you need to just get on with it.”

These are, of course, examples from the extremes. But you will quickly find that there is not, in general, a lot of middle ground in terms of how people will judge you.

In your readings and explorations of autism, you will find that there is no known cause, and that some people think that vaccines are the cause. Some will even say that there is no cause (or least no need to find a cause). Those who think it was caused by vaccines will try to convince you that you need to cure your child through diet or other types of medical procedures, some will say you need intensive behavior therapy. Some will tell you there is no need for a cure. These are all things you will have to decide for yourself.

As you learn more about autism, you will also find yourself learning more about autism advocacy and all the forms it takes. There are groups of parents, medical professionals, and others that will tell you your child has been poisoned by vaccines and that you need to cure – sometimes referred to as recovery – him through diet or other medical treatment. There are those that will tell you that you need to cure your child through intensive behavior therapy. Many, though not all, of these advocates will also help you understand the accommodations and supports that you will need and are entitled to. Then of course there are all of the organizations that have formed to promote these various forms of advocacy. Importantly, the vast majority of these advocates are not autistic themselves.

Once you realize this, you will discover a separate world of autistic advocates for autism. You will quickly find that, despite the stereotypes, all autistics are not the same. You will hear that your child wasn’t poisoned by vaccines, or anything else, and that there is no need for a cure. You may also hear or read that some autistics do want to be cured. You will get plenty of advice – some good, some not so good – about how to raise you child from the perspective of someone who used to be an autistic child. You will hear from autistics diagnosed as adults, and learn what their life was like as an autistic child without the benefit / burden of a diagnosis.

About two months ago, autism blogger Lisa Jo Rudy challenged parents to “quit autism for just one day.”

Your child with autism may always be autistic, but there are places and circumstances in which it either doesn’t matter – or in which your child’s special talents make autism irrelevant. Whether it’s at the beach, in the woods, at a concert, or creating a work of art – just for one day – go somewhere where autism doesn’t matter.

Just for one day, quit being the parent of a child with autism. And become just a plain, ordinary, loving, proud parent.

Everything I’ve learned about parenting an autistic child can be boiled down to an incredibly simply stated idea (provided to me by a fellow autism dad): Parenting is parenting. My response to Lisa’ challenge reflects this attitude:

Just one day? Every day should be like that. At the very least, every day should start like that. You can’t always control how a day will end up, but only you can control how your day starts.

I am the parent of a trampolinist. I am the parent of a horse-back rider (equestrian?) I am the parent of two pianists. I am the parent of two high school students. I am the parent of two avid gamers. I am the parent of an autistic son and an NT son.

I am, to use your words, “just a plain, ordinary, loving, proud parent.”

Every day.

Everyone will have something to say about how you raise your autistic child, most everyone will judge you in one way or another. In the end, of course, the only person’s judgment of you as a parent that matters is your child’s. All you can do is be a plain, ordinary, loving, proud parent. Everything else is just details.