Gift #2: Introspection

Picking up where we last left off, I feel that the second most valuable gift I have received as a parent of a child with autism is the gift of introspection. Webster defines introspection as: a reflective looking inward: an examination of one’s own thoughts and feelings. I suspect that I am probably not alone in the fact that before autism, I lived life largely unaware of the origins behind my thoughts and feelings. Without question– I just was, and my feelings just were…Such is often the effect of the culture and belief systems in which we are immersed.

As the youngest of six and the daughter of an Appalachian coalminer/retired military man who was himself one of 15 siblings–we lived a life dictated by tradition. Without question. You ate what was served, never questioned authority, and were grateful for what you had.  Anything worth doing was worth doing right. And company is like fish–after three days it stinks. Needless to say, we never visited with anyone more than three days… In Appalachian culture especially, differing personal opinions and feelings just aren’t something you talk about. What you do is dictated by what is “right”. How you think or feel, or why people might do what they do is irrelevant.

When my child was diagnosed and I was told that autism was a “severe lifelong disability” with no known cause, and the treatment recommendations were three hours per week of intervention–for the first time in my life, I did question the authority. In my mind, you didn’t treat brain cancer at the Minute Clinic. There had to be something more we could do.

When I was growing up in eastern Kentucky, much of the culture surrounding child-rearing tended toward the strict and traditional. The end goal was for children to be obedient. I had never heard it surmised that difficult behaviors could have any other purpose other than willful disobedience. The tantruming offspring of others in the Piggly Wiggly checkout line were meant to be spanked. Obviously the parents did not know how to parent properly. It wasn’t long after having a child with autism, having received more than my fair share of judgmental stares and advice, that I began to question and challenge these old paradigms. And soon, I began to extend more thought and grace not only toward the behaviors of my own three children, but also toward the frazzled parent struggling with the screaming child in the church pew behind me. I learned that to effectively change undesirable behavior–anybody’s behavior–I first had to be willing to take a good look at myself and modify my own behavior and responses toward that individual. Consequently, today I am a more patient, dynamic, and loving parent and member of society because of…not in spite of autism.

Many months into our child’s home ABA program, we began the process of teaching Ben about feelings. What did sad look like? In what ways was it appropriately expressed? After all, wasn’t it individuals with autism who failed to understand such concepts and needed to be explicitly taught?

Around that same time, I had begun writing my first book about our family experience with autism–and quite accidentally discovered a facet of life that was entirely foreign to me. When my writer’s introspective light shone upon my own soul, I soon realized (as a result of the blinking cursor on my computer screen) that I lacked the emotional clarity necessary to adequately communicate the complexities of my own feelings.  This level of inward searching was a task that never in my thirty-some years had I been asked to do. And so it was, I began highbeaming that proverbial flashlight into the unchartered territory of my mind so that I could better understand my feelings surrounding our experience with autism. I learned yet again, that autism was my teacher… and I was the student.

Looking back on my mountain heritage, I respect and admire the loyalty, honesty, and strength of character in the generations that came before me. I believe in the sanctity of the simple handshake as the equivalent of being faithful to my word. I can move toward the great fears in life without flinching…too much anyway. I can get things done. And I never stay more than three days. However, I still come up lacking. Like all—I am a deeply flawed and vulnerable human being.

But I believe that Divine wisdom knows what I need–and sometimes what I need arrives in the unlikeliest of packages…I believe that autism can have profound and life-changing effects far beyond the living borders of the actual person with ASD. Life-changing effects that can change humanity for the better–if only we are willing to pause once in awhile, look inside ourselves, and demonstrate a willingness to continually grow.