Autism Answer: Your Story

 

Morning view

You were born into your circumstances, remember that? Slowly unfolding to become yourself, guided by the spaces presenting themselves to you. Spaces that shifted as home, family, and expectations evolved around you.

It was almost never up to you, where you went or how. So small and without any control, you were moved this way and that, told what was what, expected to find your way to fit in. Also to stand out.

Sure, you were quickly thinking beyond the things people said, feeling emotions beyond easy comprehension. You asked your own questions, were met with mixed reactions. It’s sad when I think of how often you were cruelly shut down or insidiously (even if unintentionally) misled. I’m sorry about that for you.

But the freedom, too! Especially in your mind. Especially when you think of the ideas you’d explore, alone in yourself, tangled up in there with all the stories, rules, expectations, and myths given to you by others. The freedom to move ideas this way and that, consider them from every angle, overlaid with the ever growing roster of experience you were racking up. Freedom to imagine and think about their things your way. 

Yes. Despite the freedom there was nothing you could do about the filtering in of expectations on you from others: what you should or shouldn’t be doing. And then that other level, what “someone like you” should or shouldn’t be doing.

Your questions and ideas were encouraged by some, punished by others. Ya, it was messy, and the freedom was still only of imagination and mind, or spiritual, or whatever, and it was never without the influence of outside of you, but it was there. It was there!

Do you think it was that freedom from inside yourself that finally spilled outward? The freedom of thinking, of exploring your own ideas, that pushed you to seek your proper place, physically? I think it must have been. Or at least, it contributed.

Where do you physically go when you know you didn’t physically choose where you are? Your first choice: somewhere else.  

Speaking of physical, those were the first real years of seeking to understand your sexual self, weren’t they? How crazy it is, that ride! It’s almost like losing the freedom of your mind while getting some freedom of body. The hormones have ideas of their own but don’t speak our language or obey our rules, so we’re desperately telling the story of why we did what we did or they did what they did or who they think I should be or who I think I am and who I want to be, trying to catch up with what’s happening to ourselves and our peers…. Well, you know. You were there.

Remind me, what was that hurt? That big one? Those big ones? I can’t remember the specifics. You know, the hurts that stand up and everything in life seems to whirlpool around them. They don’t even exactly hurt anymore, but the fluidity of yourself flows with the feature of them.

Oh, but those passions! Remember that? The roar of things mattering. You grappling for the handles of the machine, needing to handle it right. And then diving into the details, the assemblage of the thing, the parts that put it together and knowing there was a way, must be a way, needed to be a way, to make it work. Society, life, care-giving, the world. It mattered.

Aaaaahhhhh…. But the desire for death. I hope I’m not rekindling that feeling. It was around that time, wasn’t it? Well, it was not only around that time, but you had a time where it was loudest. Maybe I’m wrong about that? I do know that your desire for death was different than mine, coloured differently, driven differently, but the mood of giving up was the same, I think.

I was somewhere, I don’t know where, when you came to understand your body as political. All of it. Every inch. Inside. Outside. It probably shouldn’t be, but it is. Correct me if I’m wrong but you’re still moving between accepting this political aspect as a challenge to meet, and disregarding the whole thing: you have days where you just are.

I know sometimes you wonder if you are missing something, avoiding something, forgetting something. Sometimes you wonder what you are meant to do.

I know sometimes you know. Sometimes you know everything and nothing.

Have I told you: that’s my story, too.

I am not you, I know that. I promise, I’m not comparing my beginning, middle, and where we’re at now with yours. I’m not trying to discount your story by making it about me.

Yet, it’s true.

That’s my story too. 

                                  

Hugs, smiles, and love!!

Tsara Shelton (X.com) 

Autism Answer: There Is Nothing, Until There Is Something

 

 

There is nothing, until there is something.

When I was about ten I had a best friend named Rayna. We both strongly hoped to become wondrous writers one day. We had similar wants from the writing we imagined one day publishing. We wanted to be recognized as wise; as people who could use words to disturb readers into feeling and thinking differently; as writers who were special, spectacular, and unequaled.

Our reactions to blank sheets of paper, however, were drastically dissimilar. And her reaction, I confess, shocked and almost offended me.

I would stare longingly at the sheets, caress them first with my eyes, then my soul, then my fingertips. I would fall into the nakedness of those sheets, usually white or off white in colour, and I would imagine being someone who could provoke those pages toward brilliance; the one writer who could commune with the truth living within each unique page; craving to be the one author who could unearth it, coax it into the light. It would pain me, that desire. That need. Sometimes, when I was brave, I would find a pretty pen and draw a tiny heart in an upper corner, or a small tangle of vines, as is still my habit. (I am now 50.)

Rayna, by contrast, would take the strongest pen nearest and scribble angrily all over the page. Her passion was clear, her need was tangible, her pleasure mixed with pain was on display. “I have to, it’s mocking me, I have to,” she would be saying. Maybe not those words, but that sentiment. It hurt me to see. I couldn’t understand. Even as she explained, even as she matched the intensity of feeling I had toward the same blank sheets, her action was simply unfathomable to me.

But I wanted to write, and I wanted to understand, and I wanted to be all the characters.

So I tried.

We were best friends for only a year, but I remember our friendship often. I remember her need to scribble strongly, to take over, to take action on the intense feelings, often. I remember the size of my desire, my belief in an immensity waiting to be discovered, my fear of ruining it, often.

I recognize both of us in others, now. I see how we are offered a stimulus (something presenting itself, something happening) and how we reach into the same grab bag of emotions (desire, dread, joy, fear, anger, love, worry) and how we take an action in response.

We so often don’t choose the same reactions, and we so often don’t understand each other, and we so often don’t try or want to.

There is nothing, until there is something.

I think it matters that we pay attention to and reflect on the something we make out of nothing. 

Hugs, smiles, and love!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: Love is not a Tornado

 

A tornado with hearts and the words "I love": image by Ian Langtree (my soul mate!)

 

Love is like a tornado.

 

I love and I love and I love. My sons. My grandchildren. My mom. My sisters. My brothers. My friends. My soul mate. My nieces. My daughters-in-law. My step-daughters. I love and I love and I love.

 

It is unpredictable and intense. It drops where it will and it tears things up. I cannot make it obey me, I cannot demand that it is tender with the people I care about. 

 

Love is not a tornado. 

 

It does not cause destruction most of the time. Instead, it creates. It connects me to meaning, to the deeper strength and substance inside myself. Because of the variety of people I love, because of my desire to feel close to them, I stir myself up inside to uncover hidden possibilities of understanding or empathy. Where I find none I am often able to plant a seed and grow something wonderful. 

 

Love is like a tornado. 

 

When people I love hurt, it tears me up. It is unstoppable and natural and entirely horrible to hurt the way it can hurt. It is unfair. It is violent.

 

Love is not a tornado. 

 

I love and I love and I love. My sons. My grandchildren. My mom. My sisters. My brothers. My friends. My soul mate. My nieces. My daughters-in-law. My step-daughters. I love and I love and I love.

 

It makes me more. It makes me bigger than myself. I cannot experience so much of the world in so many different ways without those I love living life and sharing what it is with me. They share, I share, we consider each other's ideas and observations, we grow and gain because of it. 

 

A tornado is a violently rotating column of air most often quantified by the amount of destruction it leaves behind. Love can be like that. 

 

But love is not that. 

 

Love is a connection that allows for freedom. That would fight for that freedom. While, simultaneously, fighting for changes when who you love - yourself or the other - would be better with change. Better for you? For them? This is the tough stuff love signals us to think about. There is so much involved it can feel like a tornado. 

 

But love is not merely destructive and dangerous when it is active. Also, it is soft and sweet, it is the breath of a baby sleeping soundly in your arms; it is strong and supportive, it is the sister who shows up with an industrial air conditioner when you can no longer take the heat; it is honest and kind, it is the mother who tells you to do the dishes with your brother, not for him, because though it takes longer and seems like a skill your brother will never have, you are wrong and he is worth the time it takes both of you to learn that. 

 

I love and I love and I love. My sons. My grandchildren. My mom. My sisters. My brothers. My friends. My soul mate. My nieces. My daughters-in-law. My step-daughters. I love and I love and I love.

 

Loving people is hard. It can be easier to just not do it. Sure, it brings brightness and beauty, but so does a sunrise and that is less likely to cause emotional turmoil.

 

Love is like a tornado. As are most of our human emotions. 

 

States of uncertainty, tumultuous and worrisome, unpredictable and unconfined. 

 

But love is not a tornado. 

 

Love is the hardest most beautiful thing you can do with your tumultuous tornado like emotions. 

 

Don't be afraid to unleash love upon yourself and those who are worth the wonderful exhaustion and vulnerability of it. 

 

Like a tornado.

your love can reach the clouds, command attention, and influence the landscape. 

 

Do that.

 

Hugs, smiles, and LOVE!!! <----- not a tornado.

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: He Smiles in his Sleep

the sun rising, reflecting on the river, across the street from our house

 

“Snuggle bug, Shay Shay, you awake?” I ask quietly, crouched on my haunches beside him where he sleeps on the floor in our basement. My twenty-six year old son makes a small sound in response. I lean in closer to rub his shoulder and see his face. His eyes are closed and the softness of sleep is settled on him like fairy dust. 

 

I see a comfortable smile settled on his lips. 

 

My second youngest son is smiling in his sleep.

 

Rubbing his shoulder I speak again, a little louder this time, “It’s 6:45, you gotta get up for work.”

 

“Rugga bugga, baby boops,” he replies. This is a common reply from him. It most closely translates to, “I heard you.” 

 

There is movement now, he shuffles a little under his weighted blanket, his eyes remain closed and the smile does not fade. 

 

“I’m going to go upstairs and make coffee. See you in a few minutes Shay Riley Bones,” I straighten up carefully, trying to use my muscles purposely and to take advantage of every movement. I like to use life as my exercise room and every movement is an opportunity to stretch, strengthen, or simply care about my body. Also, I don’t want to hurt what I have always called my “old lady knees”. I am pretty much fifty years old now, but these have been my old lady knees since my elementary school track and field days.

 

“I like coffee,” Shay says as I slowly walk away toward the stairs that will lead up to our kitchen where organic shade grown fair trade coffee beans await to be ground and brewed. 

 

I love these mornings. I love making coffee while beneath me my second youngest son unfolds his giant body, stretches out of his bed on the floor (his preferred place to sleep) and gets ready for a job he feels competent and appreciated in. Meanwhile, above me, my soul mate showers in preparation for a day working at home, sitting focused at a computer that is next to mine, accepting a slightly annoying onslaught of obsessive touches, squeezes, and smooches from me. I love standing in the kitchen, lights off surrounded by shadow, while my gaze easily consumes the sunrise kissing the river outside our front room window and the cats meow for their specially made milk and morning affection. I love this spot where I can be in shadow while watching and feeling the world unfold via its morning routine. The house is big, but each room offers such specialness I don’t mind the size. 

 

The coffee beans have been ground and are steeping in the French Press. I set my adorable cube timer to the perfect four minutes (this timer is one of my favourite gifts given to me by Ian, the soul mate I moved in with only a few years ago) and take myself to the front room to stretch a little. Four minutes of random stretches in front of a window facing the river. Lovely. 

 

The timer beeps, upstairs I hear the shower turn off and imagine my soul mate toweling himself in our en-suite bathroom, I stand straight and smile. 

 

I remember seeing my son smile in his sleep, and I am overcome with a sense of gratitude. 

 

This home, this life, this morning routine that brings me such joy, is a gift. 

 

Another favourite gift given by my soul mate. 

 

A gift given to us. 

 

Invited into his home we – my second youngest son and I – have carved our space in it. The basement is my son’s domain, where there is a kitchen, a bathroom, washer and dryer, a pool table, a bar, a sauna. He is not dwelling in darkness and brooding, though he could if he chose. Some days I’m sure he does. But for the most part, he works, he plays his games and watches his shows, he listens to music and bounces around, smiling easily. 

 

My domain is sort of everywhere. I have a dance room where I can turn the music up, close my eyes, rock out and imagine myself alone in but also at one with the universe. I have roller skates and headphones for summers outside around and around the pool. I can spend hours listening, singing, and skating in circles. There is the car where I take people places and go to the grocery store, where I listen to French radio stations and practice saying and singing the words. But mostly, my domain is beside Ian. My soul mate. I follow him around unnecessarily. This is a big house and there are many rooms, the outside is sizable too and there are many delicious spots to sit and read, think, and write. But mostly I follow him around, often with a coffee in my hand, and mostly he doesn’t mind. 

 

We – my second youngest son and I – love living with Ian. 

 

We miss the ease with which we used to have access to the rest of our family, now that we are here in Quebec and they are still there, mostly in California. We have feelings and challenges that are hard, that hurt, that we must deal with. We work to be our best selves and to discover how we can best pitch in, how we can best take part in creating an environment that includes our influence, insights, and work. We struggle to know how we can be helpful without being underfoot or overstepping. 

 

But we are graced with a man who opens his home and requires very little from us. I do the driving (though I don’t pay for the fuel). My son pays rent (enough to feel good about pitching in while still paying far less than he would elsewhere). We are living in a situation where we play a part and ask for responsibilities yet are asked to do little beyond taking care of ourselves. So though we are human and have human hardships, we are also humans with less hardships. 

 

I sometimes wonder, should we work harder? Worry harder? Are we wrong for finding joy in this easy life gifted to us? Should we be more? Are we missing something and burdening others without knowing? Are we unfairly happy?

 

Maybe so. Maybe so. 

 

But I will not deny the perk of this place we are in.

 

My second youngest son smiles in his sleep. 

 

Hugs, smiles, and love!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: The Core of the Problem

 

pocket watch

When working with a piece of machinery we can fairly easily believe that the machine will last longer and work better if we care for the various parts. If we fix and maintain things at the core of the machine, rather than jury-rig or jerry-build or find funny ways to make things work (hold one side this way while shifting the other side that way and then press this thing this way, it's not broken it has personality!) they will last longer. If we take care of a machine by noticing things before they become bigger problems and then properly replace or maintain the working parts, the technology will likely be healthier because of it.

 

That's not to dismiss the tricks we use to make things last. That's not even to say that it is always better to maintain a machine at it's core. But we must admit, usually it is. 

 

People are not machines, but it is true that we are also generally healthier and happier when we maintain ourselves at the core. 

 

When we investigate why our knees are hurting rather than only avoid stairs; when we explore the reasons behind our behaviors, the beliefs behind our feelings, rather than only wish we did or didn't have those behaviors or feelings; when we play an active role in creating a life we like rather than only feel hard done by when we don't like the lives we have; when we do the investigating and exploring and make potentially healthy adjustments - to our diets, behaviors, environments, beliefs, etc - we last longer and work better. 

 

Going with the flow is beautiful, but we must know ourselves well enough to choose which flow, rather than have one (or many) whisk us away; a flow that might threaten to drown us in a life that stifles our ability to be who we like being, or to even discover who that is. 

 

That's not to dismiss the little tricks we use to make ourselves happy as we are flowing. That's not even to say that it is always a good idea to follow a feeling or behavior to the core. But we must admit, usually it is. 

 

I think we can make ourselves crazy by examining every little detail of ourselves or others as though it is the most urgent matter. But we can also find ourselves drowning in mismanaged health and lack of joy when we do not examine enough about ourselves. 

 

If we are particularly different, if our personal machinery behaves in ways that are unusual or extremely challenging, we will find it harder to maintain ourselves, I'm sure. But like an unusual or uncommon piece of machinery, something unique and not mass produced, we are still capable of finding our core and keeping ourselves going. We will have less people who will understand or make space for us, less places to find the parts and information we need, but it is there. 

 

People are not machines (though some of us have machines as part of ourselves) but people created them. And we created them for us, and sort of in our own image. We build things and explain: This works to move that which shifts this which sends a signal to that which interprets the signal based on this while over here the valves (if properly lubricated) will pump this and ignite that. 

 

That's how we work. One thing leading into the other thing feeding this other thing and a gazillion things working for and against each other in order for us to be, well, us. <--- Yes, I paid attention in biology and know smart science things.

I do understand the people who scoff at others for caring a lot about nutrition, exercise, mindfulness, and more. I do understand. In truth, I treat my machines poorly, choosing not to take care of what's going wrong but instead jury-rig or bandaid. (Though I try not to scoff at the folks who do take good and proper care of their machines.)

 

But finding a good balance between taking good care of ourselves and each other, while relaxing and not allowing the work of taking care become a problem itself, is something we ought to applaud. After all, we are responsible for ourselves, and if we applaud that in each other we will be better. Better at being healthy and better at applauding each other. 

 

Don't be afraid to ask why you feel broken or unable to function properly. Don't be afraid to look inside yourself and seek the core of the problem. 

 

Always know there is something you can do and you are not unworthy of the work.

 

You are not a machine, but it's okay to think of yourself in that way if it helps. Something that can be maintained, upgraded, made to work well within the parameters of the machine it is. 

 

Take care of yourself. Not in a "hold one side this way while shifting the other side that way and then press this thing this way, it's not broken it has personality!" sort of way, but in a getting to the core of the problem way. (Important Note: when we take care of ourselves by getting to the core of the problem we continue to have personality!)

 

Be patient, it can take time. And admittedly you might not find the core of the problem, but if you don't try you are at risk of adding cumbersome piles of misleading blame over it. You are at risk of wasting time pointing out problems of others because it is easier to see what appears broken than to sift through the mechanics and minute details of every little piece that makes you tick. 

 

But, man! It is rewarding work! 

 

When you find the core of a problem and make a change, everything comes into focus and finds itself working well! It's fantastic and invigorating! (Until the shift moves everything into a new place that creates new areas of problems to find the core of.... but, don't let that stop you! The more you explore your own health and happiness machinery, the easier it gets to recognize what's up.)

 

People are not machines.

But it can be useful to pretend.

 

Hugs, smiles, and love!!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: How "You" are You?

 

Me at the bus stop

"She's so nice; such a sweet quiet girl," they would say about me. They were saying it because, well, I was being nice and, also, quiet.

 

I don't know when I started being nice, sweet, and quiet because they said I was, and I liked that they said I was, but I did. I remember seeking that input, wanting to know they were still thinking of me as nice, sweet, and quiet. Wanting them to validate that I was still the me they had said I was. 

 

I was a child. I was newer to the world than the adults. I was someone, born as someone, but I was also a small someone. I looked up at the grown-ups and was told what to do by them and grew in the direction of attention. I grew out of a seed that was me, but my growth was encouraged and influenced and fed by those I listened to and learned from. 

 

It was not their fault, the adults, when my attempts at being nice, sweet, and quiet became unhealthy for me. It was me, trying to have people think of me as nice, sweet, and quiet that was dangerous. Rather than explore what it really means for me to be nice, to be quiet, to be sweet, I chose - for several years - to try and elicit a response from people that proved they thought I was nice, sweet, and quiet. 

 

During those years I failed to learn that it is nice to say no to what I don't want or what I don't believe in, it is sweet to believe in someone so much that you push them to try harder (my brothers too often bore the brunt of my attempts at sweetness while I talked condescendingly to them and let them give up) and being quiet because I was afraid to say the wrong thing was not something to be proud of; being quiet because I want to learn what others have to say and give them space to say it, that was my best kind of quiet.

 

I pondered much of this often when I became a mother. How to encourage healthy growth in the direction of who my sons are. How to tell them who I see when I see them without taking away any potential for all the other thems they might be, and without pushing them to fit into any expectations. Man, it's not so simple!

 

It's such a common suggestion: Be yourself. Discover yourself. Don't be who you think others want you to be. etc. 

 

And it's good stuff. Yet, we are always ourselves, aren't we? I go back to the time I was trying to fit into a description of me and when I listen to my thoughts from that time, they were me. They were me trying to be a me that is complimented, or noticed, or impressive, or whatever it was I hoped for at the time. But, I was me. 

 

As a parent, I try to leave room for who my children choose to be. But I also tell them who I see. I can't help it. I love who I see.

 

When our loved ones have certain types of disabilities or disorders I think it can be even harder to get this right. The challenges of communication, the uncommon behaviors, can challenge us in ways we are unprepared for. We start seeing what we don't like, what we are dealing with, what we think we are supposed to be looking for, what is clashing with the environment, and even when we put a positive spin on what we're seeing we're still seeing from a place of behaviors, where things are often lost in translation. Behaviors are communication, but we are often unequipped to understand them in any useful or real way. 

 

As we help them discover who they are, help them grow in the direction of attention, we may make the mistake of giving the wrong attention in the wrong places. 

 

And as our children grow they will always be themselves, but with too much pollution in their environment they will be unable to grow into their best selves. (I hope you'll visit the All Brains Grow website to learn how to help our special needs children grow in healthy powerful wonderful ways.)

 

It think it's true, you should be true to who you are. I think being yourself, discovering who you are and what you really believe, is a valuable pursuit. 

 

This does not mean we should ignore who the world says they see when they see us. It is feedback. It is worth incorporating in our own estimation of who we are. 

 

I am nice, but not everyone would think so. Because being nice, I now know, is not the same in everyone's opinion. But in mine, I am nice. 

 

So, know who you are. Be you.

 

Be you, in this world with others. 

 

"The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, it will tell you." ~Carl Jung

 

Hugs, smiles, and love!!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)