Friday, January 18, 2013
Music Takes Me to the Other Side of Physical
Asking questions I am very good at. Mom and I take turns sometimes. I do a lot of thinking in my autism. For me, I just want to know what it is like on the other side of physical. It looks so easy in observing what is a huge process for me. Understanding sometimes helps. For me, movement is surgery. I have to systematically prepare for everything not reflex. It is why I love and hate impulse. Impulse is a shortcut to action, a nonthought way of doing that gets something; urges that are strong enough to bypass my need to think the movement through. My music is like that too. It takes the commands to another level - song; and sometimes the song replaces the command in triggering movement. I am much more fluid with music as a background. I love my radio as my most favorite possession after my string. Relaxing I can do with it. Do you know what that is to an Autist? - Everything.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
More of the Same Old Arguments
Mom cut my board in half. She said she did it to help teach me two-handedness. It was horrible; two boards, not one, with no carryover for my eye movement, like playing two songs at once and not being able to follow one for listening to the other it was. It made it easy to use my other hand though, until I needed a letter on the other missing half of board.
Do you move as a single motion? My movement is tiny steps put together. Hiccup my motion and you destroy it. I am a giant stop sign at times. I lose my place in the action and cannot even start again because I'm left in a different position from where I was at start. This is my motor initiating problem at play. The Board is another problem I have, not seeing parts within a whole. Mom should have known better, but it might work for someone else without my issue there.
My issues are not another's, I know. Autism is so individual oriented, issues and solutions both. I often wonder at why they are so intent on recognizing us as a group experience. Autism is as diverse as neurotypicalism but no one calls NT a "spectrum".
I wonder too if my being on spectrum takes away from others more able. I am who they aim to eradicate with a cure. But how would you know the difference between annihilating me and them. My life is of little use by society's standards, but a lesser version may yield you a scientific genius, math or music savant. The world might truly lose without these small gifteds. It is in the small extremes that radical work as gains are sometimes realized; to think or do the unthinkable, achieving the previously thought impossible. It takes at least the dedication of the obsession routinely practiced in autism to focus on what others find the absurd, to realize the unachievable goal. NTs make fun when self advocates compare themselves to the Einsteins of the world. I am surprised by this. I guess I am worth more than I think. I am at least in good company in the process of annihilation.
Abortions of good NT's happen every day. The disabled have no complaints. We are not yet the automatically acceptable nonpersons NTs are at prebirth. We carry a higher conscience factor. As absurd as it sounds I think it is true. It says a lot about NTs. You might want to think about that.
Do you move as a single motion? My movement is tiny steps put together. Hiccup my motion and you destroy it. I am a giant stop sign at times. I lose my place in the action and cannot even start again because I'm left in a different position from where I was at start. This is my motor initiating problem at play. The Board is another problem I have, not seeing parts within a whole. Mom should have known better, but it might work for someone else without my issue there.
My issues are not another's, I know. Autism is so individual oriented, issues and solutions both. I often wonder at why they are so intent on recognizing us as a group experience. Autism is as diverse as neurotypicalism but no one calls NT a "spectrum".
I wonder too if my being on spectrum takes away from others more able. I am who they aim to eradicate with a cure. But how would you know the difference between annihilating me and them. My life is of little use by society's standards, but a lesser version may yield you a scientific genius, math or music savant. The world might truly lose without these small gifteds. It is in the small extremes that radical work as gains are sometimes realized; to think or do the unthinkable, achieving the previously thought impossible. It takes at least the dedication of the obsession routinely practiced in autism to focus on what others find the absurd, to realize the unachievable goal. NTs make fun when self advocates compare themselves to the Einsteins of the world. I am surprised by this. I guess I am worth more than I think. I am at least in good company in the process of annihilation.
Abortions of good NT's happen every day. The disabled have no complaints. We are not yet the automatically acceptable nonpersons NTs are at prebirth. We carry a higher conscience factor. As absurd as it sounds I think it is true. It says a lot about NTs. You might want to think about that.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Snow and Life Both Deceptive
Snow I love and hate. It is so beautifully deceptive. It covers the ugly barrenness with a blanket of white, looks so perfectly pure in its never touched state. But appearances can be deceiving. To walk in snow requires caution for slippage. It is slippery and unstable as a foothold.
My life is ugly like the barren trees sometimes, but it is still stable underfoot in soul. A beautiful life is sometimes not all it seems either, whether it is filled with money and things or just everyday busyness it may still be a slippery and unstable existence. Sometimes I want to trade my life for another, but then I see the snow and think about it, and I decide my life is not so bad after all. I have God and family who love me.... and right now, I also have an expectation of coffee. Life always looks better with a cup of coffee in hand.
My life is ugly like the barren trees sometimes, but it is still stable underfoot in soul. A beautiful life is sometimes not all it seems either, whether it is filled with money and things or just everyday busyness it may still be a slippery and unstable existence. Sometimes I want to trade my life for another, but then I see the snow and think about it, and I decide my life is not so bad after all. I have God and family who love me.... and right now, I also have an expectation of coffee. Life always looks better with a cup of coffee in hand.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Christmas - A Valuable Reason to Work at It
Old events remembered often bring up negative emotions for me, so I am going to write about only good thoughts today.
Christmas is coming. It is a good thing in our house, but overloading too. This year I hear my Mom say "fifty family". They all come for Christmas Eve dinner. A special meal and prayer it is to celebrate respectfully the birth of Christ; and too, to remember our loved ones who are no longer this side with us. I love the occasion as a gathering of love and traditions old, but it is not an easy day for me - sights and sounds abound, touching all about, intentional and nonintentional, movement required to join and avoid others actions, waiting incessant, emotions to be absorbed and processed, communications to be translated, smells to be endured. It is not just a nice gathering for me. It is exhausting work, only made valuable by the reason for the day.
Christ camer into the world so simply. Let the meaning of that speak for itself.
Christmas is coming. It is a good thing in our house, but overloading too. This year I hear my Mom say "fifty family". They all come for Christmas Eve dinner. A special meal and prayer it is to celebrate respectfully the birth of Christ; and too, to remember our loved ones who are no longer this side with us. I love the occasion as a gathering of love and traditions old, but it is not an easy day for me - sights and sounds abound, touching all about, intentional and nonintentional, movement required to join and avoid others actions, waiting incessant, emotions to be absorbed and processed, communications to be translated, smells to be endured. It is not just a nice gathering for me. It is exhausting work, only made valuable by the reason for the day.
Christ camer into the world so simply. Let the meaning of that speak for itself.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Acceptance Is Never Too Late
Today I asked my Mom if I should question her judgment in telling me I am "magnificent." It has not always been her message. I guess autism is a process of growth for both parent and child. Just as I had to grow into my personhood, she had to grow into her parenthood.
The child who starts with acceptance is extremely lucky. More often I think it starts with parents like mine. I know they love me now, but they were more the enemy back then. I only wanted to escape the onslaught of the world back then, too much it was. If I had been surrounded by peace instead of turmoil the world may not have been such a scary place for me.
My Mom is a "do it" person. Patience she needs to work on. In some ways this was good. I could do in motor for her what I could not do for myself or others. It caused her to believe in me when I did not. It also caused me to hate her.
Anger was my motivation for a long time; to not become a puppet. I understand compliance as important, but it also teaches lessons better left unlearned. It makes you afraid to initiate beyond what is asked of you. Fear of failure is a compliance creation in part; to sit and be released on positive responses only is what does it. Lessons in autism frequently transfer by association. Positive reinforcement as a word but not practice, negative reinforcement that only serves to heighten an anxiety that already screams for relief - this was my invitation to the world.
Take a child whose senses have already deserted them and expect them to learn in this environment; this is your ABA, the real lessons you are sometimes oblivious to. It is why I say learn your child. To pay attention to their discomfiture is a gift you give yourself. It saves them and you from having to walk each alone through the process of growth. A path shared is a positive journey for both parent and child.
Mom and I crossed paths more often than we shared them. We became a team much later, but the damage remains in emotional memory response for me. To write sometimes revisits it.
Knowing I am "magnificent" in her eyes now, not because of anything of I've done, but simply because I am helps a lot. Acceptance is important. It can never come too late.
The child who starts with acceptance is extremely lucky. More often I think it starts with parents like mine. I know they love me now, but they were more the enemy back then. I only wanted to escape the onslaught of the world back then, too much it was. If I had been surrounded by peace instead of turmoil the world may not have been such a scary place for me.
My Mom is a "do it" person. Patience she needs to work on. In some ways this was good. I could do in motor for her what I could not do for myself or others. It caused her to believe in me when I did not. It also caused me to hate her.
Anger was my motivation for a long time; to not become a puppet. I understand compliance as important, but it also teaches lessons better left unlearned. It makes you afraid to initiate beyond what is asked of you. Fear of failure is a compliance creation in part; to sit and be released on positive responses only is what does it. Lessons in autism frequently transfer by association. Positive reinforcement as a word but not practice, negative reinforcement that only serves to heighten an anxiety that already screams for relief - this was my invitation to the world.
Take a child whose senses have already deserted them and expect them to learn in this environment; this is your ABA, the real lessons you are sometimes oblivious to. It is why I say learn your child. To pay attention to their discomfiture is a gift you give yourself. It saves them and you from having to walk each alone through the process of growth. A path shared is a positive journey for both parent and child.
Mom and I crossed paths more often than we shared them. We became a team much later, but the damage remains in emotional memory response for me. To write sometimes revisits it.
Knowing I am "magnificent" in her eyes now, not because of anything of I've done, but simply because I am helps a lot. Acceptance is important. It can never come too late.
Friday, November 30, 2012
A Person, Not a Cause
A ribbon that is a puzzle - Is that what I am in your language of symbolism? Who makes this stuff up? A ribbon signals a cause. A puzzle you put together to make a whole picture. Is that what I am to you, something to be pieced together to completion like a puzzle? Whatever the intent, It reflects your approach.
Questioning, a question mark, for autism I would understand, but a puzzle and a cause? Not even a person do they use in the symbols. Our autism is the only focus, not the child who deals with it. Autism should not rule personhood nor be an excuse for you to ignore it. We are children first. The ethics of that gets lost in the ribbon of your cause. I am not a puzzle to be pieced together. I am blood and breath, a living, breathing organism, not a broken object to be fixed.
Make sense of the world for me, that is what I needed. Treat me as valuable and loved. Touch me with respect for whatever are my issues. Know my behaviors have purpose and carry meaning. Recognize my intelligence as not reflective in my sensory dysfunction.
Ask yourself for whom you grieve. It will tell you for whom you act in treatment. Help me, don’t seek to eradicate my underlying nature. There is value in everything in God’s creation, even autism. Don’t start out in a panic. It is a journey you embark on. A puzzle brick road that takes you home to a person I see as a possible symbol, but then I love Bill, so a puzzle brick road speaks of love to me .
The symbol needs to be redesigned, preferably by an autistic individual as artist . Our identity should not be reduced to a cause, especially one that denies our underlying personhood in its symbols.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Making Your Child a Partner in Autism
Understanding sensory processing makes for an explanation of my autism. Senses translate the world. Injured senses misinform. My response is what you call autism.
Senses work both alone and together. Multiply the senses by their parts and it equals a plethora of possibilities in autism. Stims often reflect the autist's sensory reality as different. Learn what we experience as a way to reach us. Understanding puts us together at a start point.
Forgive me but I hate all knowing experts who know nothing of my processing. It is irresponsible treatment to go at autism blindly. Like a sloppy effort it yields a sloppy result, a damaging outcome. Children are turned off and away from the world you seek to have them understand and join. Lessons unintended are taught – things like failure, confusion and inconsistency. The world is capricious, unyielding, and hostile to the children of autism. You can be our guiding light or persecutor depending on how you approach us. Only taking time to learn about us will forever save a multitude of sins against us. No one knows this better than I. I am a child of sensory dysfunction, the "severest of the severe" Mom says. The good news is growth is always possible. Lapses show themselves. Corrections and compensations can be developed. Much of what you see in our autism is just that, our own systems attempting to adapt for what’s missing. But false premises yield poor adaptations – like my walking on tip toe to avoid being swallowed by the earth. Only it is my life’s work to adapt for what my body fails to do. But lesser impairments may be addressable in a shorter time span for others.
But this writing is not supposed to be about sensory dysfunction. It is actually about common sense in approaching treatment. We are not an experiment to be tried. My humanity is one thing that should be treated always as sacred. Learning that encroaches on it is ill conceived. Learn to teach. Teach to my strengths. Use my strengths to teach to my deficits. It is a win win,not a win lose, you seek to succeed.
Only too know my intelligence can shine through one time and become lost in sensory confusion another. Cause and effect learning requires consistency of response. The light I know will always respond consistently to on and off. Not so my sensory learning. This is obvious to me now; not so when I started. Navigating the waters of sensory dysfunction eases our learning and lives. Autism is not about intelligence. It is about performing in an inebriated state most of the time, making sense of what is nonsense to us, trying to see through muddy water to find the fish hiding behind the rock. It is all these things at different times. Your understanding does not make clear the water for us, but it offers bait for the fish.
Senses work both alone and together. Multiply the senses by their parts and it equals a plethora of possibilities in autism. Stims often reflect the autist's sensory reality as different. Learn what we experience as a way to reach us. Understanding puts us together at a start point.
Forgive me but I hate all knowing experts who know nothing of my processing. It is irresponsible treatment to go at autism blindly. Like a sloppy effort it yields a sloppy result, a damaging outcome. Children are turned off and away from the world you seek to have them understand and join. Lessons unintended are taught – things like failure, confusion and inconsistency. The world is capricious, unyielding, and hostile to the children of autism. You can be our guiding light or persecutor depending on how you approach us. Only taking time to learn about us will forever save a multitude of sins against us. No one knows this better than I. I am a child of sensory dysfunction, the "severest of the severe" Mom says. The good news is growth is always possible. Lapses show themselves. Corrections and compensations can be developed. Much of what you see in our autism is just that, our own systems attempting to adapt for what’s missing. But false premises yield poor adaptations – like my walking on tip toe to avoid being swallowed by the earth. Only it is my life’s work to adapt for what my body fails to do. But lesser impairments may be addressable in a shorter time span for others.
But this writing is not supposed to be about sensory dysfunction. It is actually about common sense in approaching treatment. We are not an experiment to be tried. My humanity is one thing that should be treated always as sacred. Learning that encroaches on it is ill conceived. Learn to teach. Teach to my strengths. Use my strengths to teach to my deficits. It is a win win,not a win lose, you seek to succeed.
Only too know my intelligence can shine through one time and become lost in sensory confusion another. Cause and effect learning requires consistency of response. The light I know will always respond consistently to on and off. Not so my sensory learning. This is obvious to me now; not so when I started. Navigating the waters of sensory dysfunction eases our learning and lives. Autism is not about intelligence. It is about performing in an inebriated state most of the time, making sense of what is nonsense to us, trying to see through muddy water to find the fish hiding behind the rock. It is all these things at different times. Your understanding does not make clear the water for us, but it offers bait for the fish.
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