When we got the official diagnosis of autism, we had NO idea of the shit-show we were walking in to. It’s funny because we didn’t just walk in and look around for a bit, we went ahead and moved right in. We had unpacked and met the neighbors before I had any idea what was actually happening.
You’re probably thinking I’m talking about all the things about autism that I knew nothing about. The therapists, the stimming, the meetings, the setbacks, the regressions, the common comorbidity of other disorders, blah blah blah. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m referring to is the general misunderstandings about not only autism, but my actual child.
You see when people hear autism, they generally recall what they know, what they’ve seen, what they’ve heard. If you’ve seen an autistic person portrayed on tv or in a movie, they are mostly staring at a wall until someone drops a box of toothpicks or finishing med school when they are seventeen and struggling in their relationship with the sexy but supportive costar! They can’t hug or make eye contact but they can tell you the names of every country in alphabetical order.
Everything, every single thing you think you know, is probably wrong. I get it. I’m not judging you for not knowing. I don’t research other disorders because they don’t affect my life. I learned what I know about autism mostly out of necessity.
Jack wasn’t diagnosed until after his fifth birthday, mostly because he didn’t have enough “autistic tendencies”. He didn’t line stuff up. He wasn’t picky with food or clothing. He hugged and kissed everyone he met. He wasn’t like the movie characters, at all. When we heard the diagnosis it was devastating, mostly because we didn’t know anything about autism. Hell, we didn’t even know what we didn’t know!
We misunderstood too. We went from watching a news story about a football player who befriended an autistic boy (and hoping our children would also be so kind someday) to wondering why that was worthy of being on the news. Why were we seeing news stories about an autistic child being able to help stock shelves at the grocery store? Or because an autistic kid had made a friend? Why are we all so surprised when an autistic kid can do something “normal”? And why in the actual hell is it on the news??? We had unknowingly walked into a world where if someone wanted to be friends with Jack (GASPING and clutching my pearls) we should be on our knees thanking God that someone was “seeing past his disability.”
Our most common question from strangers (yes, strangers are amazingly intrusive when your kid has autism) has been “what is he good at?” They always seem surprised when we answer with “making people feel extremely uncomfortable really fast.” Jack doesn’t have a savant ability but he will ask what happened to your teeth or why you’re missing an arm. (Cue me desperately trying to get away from the checker at Target who is glaring at me). Most autistic people aren’t savants. Strangers are curious if he can do trigonometry and we are curious if he will ever stop interrupting people to ask,” why is corn?”
So the number one misunderstanding: not every autistic individual is a savant.
A close second has to be “only special parents get a special kid.” First of all, I’m really sorry none of you are special. Secondly, the super special parent’s handbook doesn’t exist. We got no (seriously, none) extra training when Jack was diagnosed. We had to wing it just like we had been and just like we continue to.
Rounding out our top three is “will he grow out of it?” This is asked with a serious face and meant to be taken seriously. Short answer, no. Long answer, no. Can he learn to live with it and function within society? God willing, and we work every day to make that a reality.
Honorable mentions:
Have you tried the diet?
Medicine?
Spanking him?
Supplements?
I’m truly happy for your cousin’s neighbor’s mailman who cured their kid’s autism with witch hazel and dancing in the moonlight. We decided to go the route of professionals because we have no idea what the hell we are doing. We were thrown in the deep end and are still just flailing about. We will probably always be floating around in the deep end.
Lucky for us, we got this super cool kid. He is funny and kind. He is logical. He has an amazing imagination. He loves fart jokes and pranking people. He is stubborn. He is cuddly and sweet. And he’s autistic. He is seriously just like your kid. He’s just as annoying (how can one human ask so many questions in a row?!?) and hardheaded. He’s not any more or any less special.
Our kid, just like your kid, doesn’t need to have a “special” ability to make him interesting or to make his autism ok. At the end of the day, I worry about all three of my kid’s futures for the same reasons. Luckily for me, I only have to answer weird questions about one of them.
Incessant Buffoonery 