Autism & Coping Uncomfortably

Pop quiz.

Is it ever OK to laugh at your kid's autism?

Finian does loads of hilarious stuff.  He wears three pairs of pyjamas at a time.  He steals his sister's (way too small) clothes and puts them on. He tries to sit on my knee even though he's 6ft 3.  He creases up at his own jokes (which usually revolve around purposely mixing up the words of songs).  He steals sweets and hides them somewhere really obvious.  He scripts cartoons in foreign languages (Albanian is today's favourite).  He says "x says fuck off" so that gets to swear without getting in trouble.

It's easy to find the humour in these.

Then he does annoying stuff.  

He asks the same questions a thousand times a day.  Right up in your face.  Tapping you repeatedly on the shoulder.  Usually when you're trying to watch tv, or read, or get housework done. "Can I go for a spin?".  Over and over and over.  And over.  And over.

He paces constantly.  

He plays dvds and online videos across five different platforms.  At the same time.  Its a constant, tiresome game of switch-on/switch-off.  He puts the volume up.  I put the volume down.  I close doors, turn things off, negotiate volume (hmmm.... I can see here that I need to stop negotiating and lay down some hardass rules.... damn, but writing shit down is helpful!).  I'm exhausted before I can turn my attention to other stuff I need to do.

The annoying stuff  eventually becomes insufferable.

Sometimes the only way to deal with the growing tension (other than exploding, which won't help anyone) is to poke fun at the behaviour.  Not in a cruel or demeaning way, but in a fun, silly way.  Sometimes I find myself feeling a bit uncomfortable about this, because it's not like he can defend himself.  He knows that we're having a laugh, but he's unable to retaliate.

When I was a nurse we often made VERY tasteless jokes about death.....made all the more tasteless as we were often surrounded by the dead and dying.  Sometimes we laughed til we cried.  In hindsight, we laughed at death to cope with the awfulness of losing patients we cared about.  Without using some kinda turbo-strength coping strategy, we'd have quickly been devoured by existential emptiness.  If we didn't laugh, we'd have run screaming from the horror of it.

Laughing at the absurdity of it made so much more sense.

So, poking fun at Finian's behaviour seems a better option than screaming.  And the fun is directed at his behaviour, not at him as a person.  Laughing is healthier than pouring vodka on my cornflakes, or sucking benzos like breath-mints.  Still, I wonder.

Not that I'm over-thinking.