Autism & Back Flips

There's a funny sorta irony within psychology. 

Part of it's remit is the study of emotions........  which it does in an utterly intellectual way.  

Trying to explain emotions using frameworks and formulations is like trying to understand the experience of awe, or joy, or grief using geometry.

Tbf, the science of psychology seems to be the only way we can attempt to learn about emotions within a classroom.  But in reality, the only way to truly understand emotions is to feel them.

It's kinda funny that psychology as a whole does exactly what lots of us do when we want to avoid painful feelings........  we escape into our heads and attempt to science away the feeling stuff.

Avoiding feelings is called many names; defense mechanisms, cognitive bypassing, spiritual bypassing, repression, suppression, rationalisation, intellectualisation, or whatever banana you prefer to pick from the whole crazy bunch.

We avoid emotions for a damn good reason; lots of them are fucking awful.  Who in their right mind enjoys feeling sad, or rejected or heartbroken? 

To add insult to injury, we are often shamed for expressing our 'difficult' emotions, adding layers of loneliness and self-loathing into the mix.  So the stuffed-down feelings remain stuck and unprocessed, and we get to hate ourselves too.  Yay! 

In this part of the world, we live in a neck-up society.  Intellect is honoured over spirit.  Empirics are more highly valued than gut feelings.  Stoicism is respected over emotional expression.

We are rewarded for cutting ourselves off from our emotions (which we literally feel in our bodies).

By being super-rational, we get to avoid suffering the pain of loss, loneliness, despair or whatever emotional horror you're having yourself.  The downside is that we can't cherry-pick which feelings to guillotine off at the neck, so we end up being split off from all our authentic emotions.  This is when you hear people say "I don't know who I am".

Short-term this is a handy coping strategy.

Long-term, those pesky repressed emotions manifest as anxiety, depression, autoimmune disorders and unhealthy coping strategies (the usual suspects being alcohol, drugs, overworking, perfectionism etc. etc.).  At the risk of being....well.... rational, it makes sense to crash into bed for a few days, feel all the bad shit, cry, wail, gnash your teeth, want to die, hate yourself, hate the world and scream into the void.  If you're really lucky, you'll have a loving soul to hold you or buy you ice cream while you go through this, but sometimes we have to do it by ourselves.

But mostly, we are not allowed, or we don't allow ourselves, the horrible luxury of processing our pain.

Then Finian comes along and turns all this on it's head.  

He does a neat backflip and sidesteps all the intellectual defenses.  He feels all the feels, big and small, as they arise, with savage abandon.    Nobody tries to pathologise his grief as depression.  No-one labels his anxiety as an attachment disorder.  He is not prescribed medication, or instructed to stop crying, man up or get over himself.  He is allowed to process his emotions in real time, at his own pace, in his own way.  He is not shamed for it.

And then he's grand.

There must be irony in the water, as it's also funny how much we can learn from people with special needs.

"now, what page will I find those damn emotions on?"

Autism & Muses

So, I'm heading into the last stretch of my foundation degree.  

In my final essay I'm trying to coax words into well-behaved creatures that actually mean something.  I'm quite happy to let them thrum with a little wildness, as long as they help me jitterbug across the finish line.  Written words are my semi-feral friends.

I also have a presentation to prepare.  I'm confident enough to elaborate my points creatively, using my crocheted throws, with their many layers, and my paintings that make zero sense until they're finished.  Energy, colour, chaos and direction will illuminate my talk.

I'm really proud that, at the age of 51, my spirit of adventure and curiosity is exponentially burning.  My age has become an advantage rather than a limitation.

This is not what's keeping me awake at night.

It's the viva.

In the viva, I will sit before a panel and have to account for myself, without the shield of written words or power points.  There will be no props.  I will have to explain how I work, why I work, and just exactly who I think I am.  

I'd rather be Vladamir Putin's personal bum licker.

The prospect of the viva has re-awakened a stubborn core belief that I don't seem to have quite excavated yet.  Hate that.

As my training taught me, I leaned into the anxiety and discovered that I'm terrified of being a fake.  And even worse, being outed as a fake.  When my tutors discover that I tried to fool them by being clever, interesting and competent, they'll be disgusted by my boring, useless neediness.  My fear is that they'll reject the real, exposed me.  That my vulnerable self will be abandoned.

This is an opportunuty for me to embrace more layers of my shadow.  I know how important it is to integrate my unconscious so that it doesn't reactively run the show.    

It's just that sometimes I really wish I was a Nepalese goat herder.

                                                                           

Being fully human is insane.

Luckily, I have a Finian-shaped muse who I look to for inspiration.  He manages the lunacy of  this world by wearing pyjamas all day and being wholly authentic.  His inner world is his outer world.   He doesn't need defences to protect him from being unacceptable.  And I get to live with him every day.

It's about being able to integrate paradoxes.  Owning my fear doesn't magic it away, but it IS liberating.  So I get to feel scared and free at the same time.  What a ridiculous mindfuck.

I'm putting together a post-viva recovery kit of chocolate, pyjamas (naturally) and rioja.  And even though they don't know it yet, my husband is going to give me foot massages, and my daughter is going to binge-watch Brooklyn 99 with me.  And Finian will continue to muse me.

Holy props, Batman!

Autism & Off-Days

Yesterday didn't start well.

My stars didn't so much align, as malign.......  probably in the waste pipe of a sewage treatment plant, as you will see.  

I took my car to the garage for a service, making sure my husband had booked a day off work to follow me down and collect me.  I organised getting my daughter to work on time.  I had a schedule prepared for Finian. I was altogether delighted with my executive prowess.  All I needed was an 80's power suit and a crown so I could rule the world.

Only to discover that I arrived at the garage a month early.

I managed to avoid breaking down in snotty tears and decided to save the situation by taking Finian shopping for new pyjamas.  My management skills restored, we headed off to Dunnes with renewed confidence.  Truth be told, I was more than a little smug that I had turned an irritating mistake into an opportunity.  Go, me.

We wandered along the pj section, and over in the next aisle a baby started crying.  Emboldened by my brilliant adaptability , I decided to seize the opportunity to teach Finian a little empathy.

"The baby is crying" I (kinda pointlessly) said.  "what does he need?"

"Turn the baby off " he suggested, a little too loudly.

The mother glowered.  I hoped she didn't have a brick in her bag.

"No"  I persisted "what would make the baby feel better?"

Finian was unmoved.  "Put the baby in the bin" he proposed decisively.  Practical, but not entirely ethical.

We grabbed some pyjamas and made a hasty exit before we could be eaten alive by a rabid mother.

Finian's mood got higher and higher until he jittered like a Wall Street hack who'd just pulled a straight 48 hour shift.  I've never done coke (and as a former ICU nurse I never will..... it's a scary drug) but I imagine his mood was similar.  His skin could barely contain him.  This was what we call his 'knife edge' mood.  There's a VERY thin line between (borderline manic) exuberance and having a fully-loaded, shit-flinging meltdown.

It was a long day.

But there was more to come.

As we left the shopping centre, I sneezed into my own mask, which was a novel experience.  Pebble dashing my face with my own saliva did not do wonders for my sense of competence.

When we got home, I realised the dog had a cut on his paw.  As I leaned forward to look at it, he expressed his gratitude by giving me a big, wet Frenchie.  Now, I don't know if you've ever had a dog's tongue in your mouth, but it made me wish I'd been born without a face.  I may have PTSD.

I was glad when the day ended.  Thankfully, Finian's mood stayed on the happy side of manic.  

Some days just belong in the bin.

for crap days (and crying babies)

Autism & Smiling

I'm not very photogenic.

If you see a photo of me looking pretty, you can be sure I just deleted a dozen shots where I look like I'm chewing a cheese grater.  I feel sorry for the internet.  Somewhere in the ether, there's a cyberdump littered with terrifying pics of my face trying to eat itself.  It's the place where nightmares go to die.

This isn't false modesty.  

I just can't fake smile.

Finian, having authenticity nailed, doesn't even try.  He has no concept of pretending to feel something he doesn't.  As a result, when he smiles, he lights up from his core.  

Why have we been conditioned to 'smile for the camera' from infancy?  

Who are we smiling for?  

At what cost? 

In 2019, the environmental activist Greta Thunberg was criticised for not smiling during an impassioned speech about global warming.  In more recent months, Grace Tame, a campaigner on behalf of sexual assault survivors, was crucified by the media for not smiling during a meeting with the Australian PM.  Both are young, female and autistic.  They challenged injustices maintained by fat, middle-aged men, and were attacked for not smiling like good little girls.

Autistic people have been gifted with the ability to only smile when they mean it.  Much as we try to inflict our internalised script of 'smile for the camera' on them, they just fucking won't.  Autism, as ever, cuts through the crap with surgical precision.  We'd be wise to watch and learn.

They, and we, do not owe anyone a smile.

I used to hate that the camera doesn't love me.  Now I'm starting to appreciate my inability to please others with a cute smile.

My best, most authentic, photos are taken when I'm feeling awkward and slightly bewildered, reflecting my true self.  The camera can do what it likes with that.

Autism & Patience

I have a weird relationship with  Autism and patience.

I have spent actual years helping Finian to tolerate having his nails cut without breaking a sweat.  My vital signs remain god-like.  I make Buddhists look like squabbling toddlers.  I am the tranquil eye of a raging tornado.  If I was any more Zen, I'd be mistakenly buried alive but would be far too chill to worry about it.

Until I get stuck on the motorway behind a car doing forty.  

Suddenly I'm a screaming virago invoking the gods to visit the driver's genitals with purulent infections.  I invite him to perform illegal sexual acts with his mother.  I wonder aloud if his head might comfortably occupy his descending colon.

At these moments, my car is no place for the Mild Mannered or small children.

Autism seems to bring out my inner ascended angel (Saint Jean of Monaghan Bog sounds holy, no?), while minor annoyances unleash my inner hellhounds.  

It's kinda comical that two such polarised aspects exist within the same personality.  But that's the truth of it...... it's not accurate to describe someone as "nice" or "impatient" or a million other adjectives, when really we can be any of those things, some of the time.  Moods don't say anything about who we are.  They just describe how we react in the moment.

When Finian is in full-throttle meltdown, I channel the calming power of the Dalai Lama meets Mother Theresa.  

Yet if someone chews with their mouth open, I make the Incredible Hulk look like Dipsy from the Teletubbies (in my head..... I'm far too passive aggressive to say anything out loud.  I chose to experience my rage internally where it can fester into a nice stomach ulcer or an interesting psychiatric disorder).  

Autism helped me notice that very different parts of my personality can exist quite comfortably together.  I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but it definitely helps me invent creative swear words.

bitch, don't make me slap you

  

Autism & Mad Mothers

This has been one of the most difficult years of my life.  

There was Autism, usual family stuff, college and covid.  But in the Spring, the shell protecting my mental health cracked open and I fell to pieces.  One day, all the defenses I used to avoid my issues (maintaining facades, perfectionism, anxiety, depression, overwork, wine, rationalizing emotions, denying my own needs, unhealthy boundaries, whatever you're having yourself) just stopped working.

It was about fucking time.

My breakdown immersed me in a world of pain that I'd been avoiding for a very long time.

Many months of therapy have helped me to integrate most of my big psychological injuries.  There's still one or two sticky issues  I need to befriend, but I know I'll get there.  Tbh, I'd rather french kiss Boris Johnson after he's eaten a packet of Monster Munch, but you do what you gotta do.  Am wearing Big Girl pants now, and all that.

The big surprise is that processing the awfulness isn't as terrible as pouring all my energy into avoiding it.  I mean, therapy is horrendous.  It's like being atomized in a high-speed blender and then re-shaped in a really unfamiliar new mould.  It takes a while to get used to.  And making friends with the dark creatures in my mental basement has been...... unexpected.  

But avoiding it has been worse.  The relief of allowing the mask to slip is wonderful.  Breaking down gave me the freedom to recognize and discard what was bad for my soul.  It's a work in progress, but yanno.

Autism was the catalyst that forced me to engage with my mental health in a meaningful way.  It's very possible I would have continued to spin in my resistant groove for the rest of my days, had Autism not driven me mad.

It's kinda comical to be grateful for something that caused me pain, but here we are.  Alice in Wonderland knew her shit when she said "curiouser and curiouser".  

Autism & Processing Emotions

Finian got his covid booster today.

He was not amused.  

Despite social stories, schedules and reward incentives, he screamed the fucking place down.  The staff were amazing, though, and after half an hour of slowing everything down, he got his jab.  

It was a stressful procedure for him.  

And for me.  

I learned to sweat from entirely new pores while attempting to hold him.  My heart enjoyed a few interesting new arrhythmias as it tried to exit my body.  I discovered that my son makes a pretty decent kick-boxer.

So it was quite the learning experience.

What was really surprising, though, was to witness the range of emotions Finian went through, and how he processed them. 

On the car journey to the centre he was a little anxious, but was happy about the prospect of  a hot chocolate and McDonald's afterwards.  But when we reached the centre, fear overwhelmed him.  He was locked in a full-on adrenaline-fueled flight/fright response, and reasoning was pointless.  He was terrified and incoherent.  Three of us couldn't hold him.  He kicked and screamed like he was possessed (def a 'fight' rather than 'flight' guy, it seems).  After a spell of calming him down we decided to reschedule, which meant that  Costa and McDonald's were off the cards.  When he realised this, he sat down, pulled his sleeve up and sold out for a happy meal.  His legs were shaking with fear, but he tolerated his terror to get his treat.

On the walk to get his drink he skipped, jumped and flapped to offload his adrenaline.  There may have been screaming.  In Costa, the adrenaline wore off and gave way to intense sadness.  It was like watching a tsunami rising.  His sadness swelled and he howled over his hot chocolate.  He buried his head in my shoulder and sobbed.  There was zero inhibition.  There was much lusty wailing and salty tears.  It was an unapologetic snot-fest.

After maybe ten minutes of naming his emotions and giving him space to feel them, he was ready to move on.  It was like magic.  If we could all experience and express our emotions as freely as Finian, we'd be a lot healthier and happier.

By the time we got home, he was singing Lofty and the Giant Carrot (in Albanian), so all was well.

We're conditioned to be so scared and ashamed of our own feelings that we disown them.  We're numbed out under layers of booze, drugs or mindless distraction.  Or we're paralyzed by anxiety and depression as our suppressed emotions scream to be heard.  We don't know ourselves at all.

In therapy, I'm still processing deeply buried emotions from five decades ago........  all for the want of being helped to own my shit.  It's truly humbling to witness healthy emotional processing from an autistic kid.

sofa cuddles to re-calibrate

 

Autism & Fear

I finally finished one of this semester's assignments, and I celebrated by having a nap and reorganizing the hot press (airing cupboard, to non- paddies).

My gangsta vibes are lit.

It's a lovely feeling to downgrade my fancy performance anxiety to everyday existential dread.

Fear is not the most popular kid at the emotional party, but we probably wouldn't be here without it.  Our inner alarm system has saved us from being devoured, starved or trampled out of existence a long time ago.

But we can have too much of a good thing.

We live in a time and place when fear is used as a marketing tool.  Unscrupulous people with shit to sell cleverly tap into our western values, our innate insecurities (often of not being lovable or good enough) and access to 24/7 information assault.

Sex sells, but fear sells better.

We're relentlessly scared of everything, and it's literally driving us insane.

Aging.  Bad breath.  Missing out.   Being uncool.  Drinking the wrong beer.  Malnourishing our kids.  Cancer.  Body hair.  Having normal teeth.  Loss. Not being rich/thin/clean/ripped/popular/successful/young/sexy/stylish/accomplished/nourished/travelled/fragrant/healthy enough.  Last season's shoes.  Boredom.

We're strung-out consumers blindly buying the next antidote to fear, forgetting that fear is just another normal emotion.

Unless you're Finian.  

One of his many superpowers is deflecting marketing strategies.  He'd probably eat this season's must-have shoes.  Yum.  The only things that scare him are his Bob toys being misaligned, and loss of WiFi.  

Sometimes Autism rocks.

It's taken me almost a year in therapy to know how to process emotions and understand why they call it "work".  Finian is miles ahead of me.  He's almost casual in his genius at knowing what is worth fearing, and what deserves no attention.

I'm still terrified by my laundry monster (it definitely growls at me some days), and some of my college tutors are kinda scary.  But I'm learning from my favourite teacher.

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.

Autism & Amazing Parents

It's widely accepted that autism parents are saintly, wholesome creatures who could teach the Walton's a thing or two about being virtuous.  We have been gifted by the Gods with an eternal wellspring of patience, shouldering our load with inner tranquility.   We dispense kindly pearls of wisdom to those in trouble, having cultivated our Zen through the serene endurance of hardships.  

It is whispered that Buddha and Jesus are kinda jealous of the level of enlightenment we radiate.

Autism parents are the true Latter Day Saints.

"go in pieces"

No.  We're.  Fucking.  Not.

I'm having a shit day with Finian and I've just given him his third bag of crisps to try to stop him crying.  Learning to regulate his own emotions is a work in progress.  He's OK at indicating that a shower or a walk would calm him down, but he's unable to identify the reason for his irritability.  Equally, I'm OK at using Mindfulness and Other Tricks to help me attempt to co-regulate his emotions, but this relies on me getting enough sleep and eating properly.  This doesn't always happen.

Some days it all goes to shit and all I can do is throw crisps at him and hope it'll pass soon.

Today is one of those days that grabbing a shower is a hazy dream, and cooking a proper meal is the stuff of fantasy.  Balancing a Gin and Tonic on the ironing board while I tackle the laundry seems much more conducive to coping, as does a phone call to our friendly (and very familiar) take-away.  

You do what you gotta do to manage.

It's important that we forgive ourselves for being less than perfect, and for breaking the rules to survive a hard day.

Today I look like a small family of weasels live in my hair, and I seem to be wearing my husband's clothes (and not in a fun, Friday night sorta way).  Finian's breath stinks of salt & vinegar, and I may be half-baked by bedtime.

But I'm OK with not being an Amazing Parent.

Being OK will do grand.

The Waltons.
Off their tits on Mogadon.

Autism & Hormones

Hormones are impish little chemical messengers we need to stay alive.

We need insulin to transport sugar from our blood into our cells.  Adrenaline activates our primal survival instincts. Melatonin makes us sleepy at night (unless, of course, you're my autistic son who takes this as a personal challenge).  There's about 50 more hormones playing fast and loose with our well-being, trying to maintain some semblance of balance within our insanely capricious bodies.

Hormones are all well and good, though, until they try to kill us.

I'm not so much thinking about the major diseases like diabetes or osteoporosis.  I'm more thinking about the complicated stew that exists within households when everybody's hormones affect everyone else's.

For the past few years, Finian has been surfing hormonal swells and troughs that have left him half-drowned and disorientated.  Meanwhile, I've been busy honing my menopausal skills of  becoming wise (laugh among yourselves, please), developing acne and growing an impressive beard.  

The co-existence of puberty and peri-menopause is the back-lash of women's audacity to live into old age.  A century ago (in the west) the life expectancy for women was 48.  In 1500 we could look forward to the sweet release of death at 35.  Good times.

Menopause was not a thing when you were the geriatric mother of toddlers.  We were pushing up the proverbial daisies long before our ovaries cashed in their pension and retired to a villa in Costa del Sol.

These days, the chemical soup of living in a house with badly behaved hormones is the unwanted gift that keeps on giving..... like the Christmas bath salts that can be multi-purposed as drain cleaner.  We think we've reached the end of it, but it always surprises us with an unexpected new layer.

Recently we took Finian for psychiatric evaluation as we couldn't figure out if his escalating anxiety and self-harming was a result of puberty, pathology or autism.  Or maybe a thrilling blend of all three?  We're still none the wiser really.  It reminds me of the unending new layers of therapy; I dig into the dark places, process the blocks of awfulness and then endure the post-grief exhaustion.  Believing, in my naivety, that it's over.  But it never fucking is.  It'd be so wonderful to take a holiday from myself for just a while; I can totally see the attraction of searching for a little oblivion down a bottle or in a pill.  Of course, there's no real escape from our clashing hormones or from our dark stuff.  We have to be brave enough to live our real lives.  The best route of 'escape' is to work through the shit show with courage and vulnerability.

I bet our ancestral sisters, who never needed a tweezers or hair dye, are laughing in their graves at us.

not a real Christmas gift

Autism & Kindness

Kindness is a tricky concept to teach an autistic kid.

Finian gets that it's expected of him to occasionally share his salt & vinegar Tayto, but I'm pretty sure he only complies to get me outta his face and not out of a sense of moral obligation. 

Really, it's a tough enough gig for many neurotypical people to grasp.  

Kindness, as the cliche goes, is often mistaken for weakness.  This is a sad loss for the western world (it seems to be a western thing to admire stomping all over other people to get what you want?  Just look at the movies we love).  But kindness is not martyrdom.  

As I get older (and work through a lot more therapy) kindness is starting to appear as more of a superpower.  Maintaining the belief that kindness is the antidote to an often jaded, cynical world is an act of faith.  It requires strength and stamina that some days I have to dig awfully deep to find.

Here's what I believe.

Any act of kindness, no matter how small, creates a ripple effect that exponentially increases positivity and goodness.  Ultimately we all benefit, even indirectly, as it makes the world a better place.  Cynics may roll their eyes, but cynicism is lazy.  It takes thought and effort to emit kindness into a world you may have been battered and abused by.

I guess a caveat is that being kind should not hurt you.  There's nothing to be gained by channeling your inner doormat and tattooing 'masochist' across your face (you'd need a pretty big face tbf).  We are also obliged to practice kindness towards ourselves.

I think a particular challenge is to extend kindness (without hurting ourselves) to those who hurt us, or who we don't like.  That's next level Buddhist shit right there.  It makes sense that wishing ill to others is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.  The only person we make sick is ourselves.  It's a counter-intuitive win-win to extend good wishes towards those who wounded us.

Bitterness shrinks the soul and condemns us to live in the half-light.  Love is liberation.

A really hard part of healing my own wounds is being brave enough to experience the pain and bitterness I  buried many years ago. Owning the awfulness I avoided with overwork, perfectionism, wine and fakery has only been possible because I try to be kind to myself.   I've cried more in the last six months than in five decades (and I really fucking hate crying), but I also like myself better.

Being kind to myself has increased my desire to be kind to others, as I know how healing it is.

Now all I have to do is teach this to my autistic son.

morals never tasted so good

Autism & Playfulness

It's been a tough two weeks for Finian and, by extension, us.

He spent a fortnight screaming, sensory seeking, barely sleeping, avoiding food and needing constant reassurance.  It didn't pass the tipping point of self-harm or a full on meltdown, but we were worn out by the time his mood leveled out.

It's often hard to pinpoint a trigger for a mood change.  This time, though, it seems that his return to school was the guilty party.  In addition, some hormonal gymnastics were going on as he had an acne outbreak that looked like a medieval plague had partied on his face. Oh, and he was madly anxious about this being his final year at school.  So altogether it created a perfect stew to nicely boil his racing emotions.

It really wasn't fun.

Finian was miserable, tired and cranky and it didn't take long for the entire family to catch up with him. 

Absence of fun and joy can make living with Autism unbearable. We actually need to foster our own playfulness so that we can tolerate the difficult spells a little easier.  My husband and I consciously create opportunities where we can be irresponsible, carefree and a bit giddy.  We go on lots of coffee dates, hikes and  kayaking trips.  We cuddle up on the sofa, drink wine and watch comedies.  We spend as much time with friends as we can.

This is not with the intention of portraying ourselves as Barbie and Ken (besides, my boobs aren't perky enough and James has too much body hair to qualify).  We need fun so that we're not arguing over who gets the china in a divorce court down the line.

Having fun is serious business.

normal services resumed

Autism & Sadness

Sadness is an emotion in need of good PR representation.

It's usually labelled as a 'negative' emotion and we're taught to avoid it at all costs.  But sadness is an important feature of our emotional landscape.  When we're taught that sadness is unattractive, weak or embarrassing, we attach shame to it and learn to suppress it.  Emotions that are not allowed to flow and process become stuck.  They stagnate into defensive blocks and may eventually find expression in physical or mental illness.  

Paradoxically, it's impossible to experience authentic love and joy without acknowledging the inevitability of loss.  We can't know the heights of joy and love without feeling them against the counterfoil of loss and sadness.  

We apologise for shedding tears.  Repeated messages like dry your eyes, put a brave face on, get over yourself etc. cripple our authenticity and we learn to present an acceptably agreeable face to the world.  We run away to cry in the privacy of locked rooms.  Not alone do we avoid expressing sadness, but we are terrified of feeling it.

Except for Finian.

He does sad like a pro.

I envy Finian's ability to express his emotions without censor.  If I buy the wrong chocolate spread at Lidl, or Netflix cancels Bob the Builder, or there's a hole in his favourite pyjamas, he howls with abandon.  He has no concerns about ugly-crying, appearing out of control, or embarrassing those around him.  After a spell of backbone-deep sobbing, he's processed it and is good to go.

It's taken me six months of intense psychotherapy to achieve this and I'm supposed to be neurotypical.  As ever, Finian is my favourite teacher.

One thing we can be sure of is that life will give us plenty to cry about, so it's a skill worth mastering. Processing sadness isn't fun.  To be honest I'd rather chew a pig farmer's boot than sit with my sadness and learn from it.  But it's worth giving grief room to move to appreciate the good stuff.

Autism & Authenticity

Finian has authenticity nailed.

At the risk of generalizing, most autistic people I know present their true Self to the world.  Finian doesn't do personas, mind games or subterfuge.

If Finian doesn't like you, you may be escorted to the front door with an unambiguous "bye bye" (true story).  If he feels like indulging in a spot of naturism, he'll happily deposit his clothes on the nearest floor-drobe.  If your armpits smell like out-of-date ham, he'll advise you to have a shower (usually adding that you "smell manky").

Its fair to say that his flavour of authenticity may be a little.... blunt.  For most of us, it'd be wise to dial down the truth bombs.  But authenticity is a trait to aspire to.

As a counselling student, I am expected to invest a lot of time and energy in becoming as authentic as I can.  This is so that I am aware of my own issues and don't project them onto my clients.  It's about keeping my clients safe.  

Developing authenticity is painful and unpretty.  As well as making friends with our good stuff, we have to uncover and examine our flaws, traumas and unlikable aspects.  For example, I like that I'm open, funny (I find myself hilarious) and fiercely protective of those I love.  I'm not so crazy, however, about my tenancy to be insecure, panicky and clingy within relationships.  This is not an attractive trait, boys and girls, and will likely drive your loved ones nuts.  I'm working on this and often fail spectacularly, but failure is educational (right?  right???).  Hopefully this will help me become a better counsellor and a less annoying human.

Then there's Finian.  He is the most singularly authentic person I've ever met.  He doesn't need therapy or hours of navel gazing to confidently express his true Self.  He is who he is, and embodies an attitude of "fuck you" if you don't like that.  He could make a great counsellor if he'd keep his clothes on and stop telling people they stink.

Autism & Anxiety

Up until a few days ago, Finian could only reliably identify two emotions (happy or sad).

"Happy" or "sad" formed an emotional umbrella that covered everything from moribund depression to delirious joy.  Trying to help him figure out, and label, his emotions has been the work of his lifetime.

Finian is also a man of few words (unless, of course, he's scripting Bob the Builder in Hungarian.... then he talks faster than a coked up jack rabbit).  Mostly, he's rather chew his own leg off than have a conversation with someone.  Verbal economy is his jam.

So, a few days ago he seemed tense and his sister Ellen asked him what was wrong.

"I am a little bit anxious" he replied.

Finian casually mentioning that he felt "a little bit anxious" is the equivalent of a toddler looking up from his Jack & The Beanstalk book and reciting Dante's Inferno.  He got his pronouns right.  He constructed, and expressed, an entire sentence.  He identified and verbalized his emotion.  

When Ellen and I regained the power of speech, we did a little more detective work and figured out the cause of his anxiety (he was worried that there would be a "disco dance party" at respite).   The Maria Goretti respite centre he attends embodies all that is good in this world, and a text from them reassured him that disco dance parties wouldn't happen when he visits.  They are kindness itself.

Finian's ability to name even one new emotion meant that he went to bed a happier person.

We're conditioned to view anxiety as a 'bad' emotion, but in reality no emotion is good or bad.  Emotions are things that give us information about our inner and outer world..... it's only our perceptions of them that colour them with judgement.

Feeling anxiety is not pleasant, but it gave Finian the ability to change something he found threatening.  It will be fascinating to see if this new skill will help him manage future emotional dysregulation.