I have a bit of a temper on occasion. I also have high blood pressure. I suspect the two are related.
One of the things that is certain to get my blood well and truly boiling is comments being passed on either Megan or us when we’re out and about. Autism isn’t well understood by the general public and the behaviours and conditions associated with it can lead to a lot of assumptions which a certain type of person is unable to resist vocalising in my presence. Picture a middle class young hausfrau out and about with their own funkily attired kids, replete with 3-wheel cross terrain pushchair or maybe a pushing 70 OAP with grim outlook and idiotic attitudes popular around the time Palmerston was Prime Minister.
So, I’ll outline a few scenarios, what was said etc.
The scene: Pushing Meg to school in her pushchair (although she’s 5 Megan needs a pushchair).
Idiot: That child’s too big for a pushchair.
Me: Is she really? Funny thing but due to her autism she has no real sense of danger and would run out into the road if she wasn’t in a pushchair and I don’t know about you but I didn’t bring the mop and bucket necessary for removing my daughter from the inner wheel of the truck that would run her over with me – did you? Whats that? You didn’t know she was autistic? Didn’t stop you opening your great flapping gob though did it?
The scene: Sainsburys, shopping. Meggy like to sing loudly in Sainsburys as it echoes really well. It also helps her cope with the colours and lights.
Idiot: Can’t you control your children?
Me: I sincerely apologise for my daughters expression of happy, contended sound. Surely at some point a law will be passed to stop children enjoying themselves in this irrresponsible manner. By the way, she’s autistic and at this point unable to stop the information overload that is causing her to try and contain the emotive responses by vocalising them. I’m sure as a renowned expert in autistic behaviour you’ll be able to offer me a solution to this. No? How surprising.
I could go on and on but Im sure you get the idea. As well as the vocalisations there are ‘the stares’ to contend with. I have no intention of apologising for my daughters mannerisms. She flaps her hands, she rocks back and forth, she sings loudly, she babbles away but this is who she is. Its not exactly akin to skinning a cute kitten with a blunt spoon now is it? I love who she is and whilst I don’t expect others to love my daughter as we do, I do expect a little bit of courtesy and acceptance of difference. If you have questions – ask me. I won’t be offended and neither will Megan. But don’t assume or generalise and then pass judgement otherwise you’ll find a very rude, beardy, big bloke being extremely sarcastic to your face.
Left Brain Right Brain 
I’d love to have the guts to sing out loud in supermarkets. It would really take the edge off the soul-destroying banality of the places.
It does always amaze me how many people are willing to speak out of turn, to challenge you on things when they know nothing about you. I once had a woman accost me at a train station for “trying to look too cool” (i did not look cool). Sarcasm is the best defence. It makes you feel better, even if they don’t understand you.
Gah! That gatekeeper is annoying, it wipes your comment out when you forget to input the answer to the question – would be nice if when using the back button the comment remained intact… third time lucky!
Anyway, I used to work with adults with varying degrees of autisim (not that I am any kind of expert on the subject) and we would often be out and about, doing stuff. I used to get really cross when people refused to engage. e.g. “Hello, can I have a buger and chips please” – spotty, biege, idiot youth, turns to me “Would he like a drink with that” – Well why don’t you ask him dumb ass!
On the whole I think there is an increasingly biege trend in our society, anything that doesn’t quite fit with Calvin Klien’s view of the world just startles and shocks. People are to quick to judge without investigating the facts, this comes from have their opinions spoon fed from the mass media. People are forgetting how to think, I am sure of it!
Heh – Megan sounds cool; anything’s an improvement on the soulless muzak of supermarkets.
“Gah! That gatekeeper is annoying, it wipes your comment out when you forget to input the answer to the question � would be nice if when using the back button the comment remained intact.”
Bugger :o(
I think I’ll move that field up above the name then – see if that makes a difference.
edit: moved field up and styled the field to be more noticeable.
Yeah people do not understand us.
Probrably because they still think it is “rare.”
Like I said only us and our families and those who bother to learn about us, understand us.
Except for a very few other people.
Its where blogs like this come in I think, and shows the power of the net – I keep checking back to check on how Kev and Megan are doing, not only does Megan sound like an extremely cool young lady – but it lets me see things from a whole new perspective.
And, of course, I love the pink on the site 😛
Very true Helen, very true but I think that the more you as an autistic and I as the parent of an autistic talk about our lives then the more interested the people who read it become. How’s college going by the way? Email me if you’d rather talk privately 🙂
Indeed. It does me good to see so many people not directly invloved responding in this thread. Faith in humans is often hard to come by (I’m looking at you George Bush!) but this definitley restores a lot of that faith.
Sad but true – but as I say, this thread proves that not everyone has forotten just yet. And thats a great thing.
Hi Kev
We’ve had the “your a big boy for a pram” comment when out with our ASD son. Fortunately for me my boy started rocking and making those lovely gutteral noises right on cue. Idiot backs off red faced totally stuck for words. How I smirked! Didn’t need to say a thing!!!
Hi Clair, welcome along – I heartily recommend a high dose of sarcasm. Set it at a level just below that required to blister paint and you’ll walk away with both a smirk and a warm glow of satisfaction ;o)
I’ve never tried explicit sarcasm, but have been tempted to.
I find the best thing is to try to filter out those negative voices, and connect with your child. The world is full of clueless sanctimonious know-it-alls, and the best we as parents can do is to demonstrate for them a different way to approach different kids.