Autism & The Cute Quotient

I'm not entirely sure when Autism stopped being cute.

Back in the day, Finian was met with indulgent smiles when he flung himself into the arms of strangers.  He was chubby and cuddly and loudly generous with hugs.  His disregard for boundaries disarmed the most defended of people.  He took Cute, blended it with feral vitality, and unleashed his own irresistible brand of Lovable onto the world. There was no-one he couldn't charm.

Then, in the space of a few disorientating months, he sprouted body hair and grew 3 feet taller.  

The once compact, rosy-cheeked, ankle-biter scaled up into a man-sized Jitterbug, composed mostly of knees and elbows.  

He began to scare people.

Ngl, it was kinda a shock.  

I'm a card-carrying Irish mammy.  I am blessed with the unshakeable knowledge that I have given birth to the Most Beautiful Children Who Have Ever Existed....... but even I can see that Finian is at risk of becoming known for all the wrong reasons.  My son's deceptively adult body is governed by a banana republic with a drunk toddler managing the war cabinet ..... but all this limited world can perceive is an alarming eccentric with little regard for social convention.

It's my job to keep him as safe as I can in a world not designed for the neurodivergent.

There's nothing about this in the DSM.  There's no graduation ceremony, graph or flow chart to give us a heads-up.  We don't receive slices of cake, or HSE memos, or milestone reminders, indicating that the Delightful Quotient has degraded from Enchanting AF into Social Menace territory.

Special needs parents have to figure things out for themselves.  We have to be clear-eyed about what can make our kids lives difficult, and be creative with how we circumvent future hardship.

Finian is an unpredictable pre-schooler inhabiting the body of a nineteen year old man.  My task is to be his tree in the storm;  I need to have strong roots anchored deep in safe earth, with flexible branches that bend with the wind.  Because I enjoy a stretchy metaphor so much, I also need to be the leaves that evolve with seasons and create beauty out of air and earth.  No small task.

Flexibility, the willingness to embrace change, is central to the wellbeing of our special needs kids.  When we bend, we won't break.

Autism & Takiwatanga

Native Maoris don't recognise autism as a disability.  This 'primitive' culture were rocking neurodivergence long before white people arrived with a welcome gift of smallpox and genocide.  

Indigenous embrace of those with special needs is so pure that they don't have a word in their vocabulary for disability.  

The closest phrase they have of a definition of autism is "takiwatanga", meaning "his or her own time and space".  

What a beautiful phrase to taste and roll around your mouth.  

His or her own time and space.

Imagine if we enjoyed this flavour of autism, instead of wishing to change it, break it or spit it out?

In this insane corner of the 'civilised' world we value speed, productivity, material wealth, aggressive acquisition and perpetually anaesthetising 'entertainment'.  

We are rewarded for running on empty, using a burnt-out engine imposed on us by a toxic culture.

The notion of sitting quietly with ourselves is so alien that it fills us with terror.  Most of us have never met our true selves.

In my work as a counsellor, one of the first exercises I invite my clients to try is to practice five minutes a day of sitting in stillness.  Most struggle hugely with it.

In the west, we sleepwalk through our lives at lightening speed.

It's no wonder we frame autism as a set of infuriating deficits.

So, I caught myself feeling impatient with Finian yesterday.  

He is a handsome, able-bodied young man but I have to help him have a shower.  I found myself rolling my eyes as I had to rinse his hair and help him shave.

I'm a product of my western values, so I'm not being too hard on myself about this, but my life with Finian is teaching me to experience the world with a wider lens.

I took a deep breath and stayed with the discomfort of slowing down.  I remembered to be, instead of do.

In first nations cultures, our autistic loved ones embody mindfully living in their own time and space.  Seems to me that primitive cultures and disabled people are lightyears ahead of the rest of us in knowing their own souls.