Autism Answer: Don't Judge, But Also Do Ask For Change

A pic of my oldest son with words he wrote about judging

I know, I know, I know: if I'm not judging you then I must be okay with everything you do, right? I mean, I don't judge. You do you.

Sometimes, that works fine. If I'm not judging you I can still choose to walk away, to judge your behaviors and beliefs as not for me, not my jam.

But what about my kids? My grand-kids? My closest friends and family? Do I just let them do whatever the heck they want without asking for, teaching, and insisting on change? Nope. Obviously that doesn't make sense. It doesn't connect us, it doesn't help us help each other. 

And it sets us up for being abusive and being abused. 

It's often not easy or obvious, and for sure mistakes will be made, but we should remember that asking for change, or teaching a different way to be, is not inherently judgmental, critical, or fault-finding. It can be, when we're being intolerant and hence telling a person to be a different person. But it isn't true that if we are not judgemental we won't ask people to shift, change, grow.

In fact, when you ask yourself to shift, change, and grow you may notice you do your best work when not sitting in judgement of yourself but, rather, seeing where your habits, behaviors, and beliefs are hindering or hurting you and trusting yourself to make changes. It is beautiful. It is an evolving of yourself that you influence. Not by hating something about you but, rather, by choosing a new thing. When you're busy hating a thing, you keep it alive. You feed it and give it power. It keeps you busy hating it and there's less time for changing it. When you instead see it as a hindrance, or something you were mistaken to believe, or something that once helped you but now hurts you, you more easily move on. (Er, more easily. Not always easily.)

We can do that with our loved ones. Growing up with autistic brothers gave me a unique perspective. Actually, it was growing up with autistic brothers and a mom with unique perspectives that gave me a unique perspective. But I saw first hand the differences between experts being fake nice with my brothers, judging them as less than or broken inside, while trying to force them to be different people vs my mom who saw them as born beautiful, burdened with overwhelming challenges, finding ways to handle those challenges that were, sometimes, less than ideal, and worth all the hard work and curious nature she could muster to help them be them, but in healthier safer ways. She raised the bar with my brothers and insisted they could be successful. She was almost merciless in her insistence, but she always considered who they were and what they wanted as she urged them to shift, change, and grow.

It's hard to explain the difference, but it is all the difference. Seeing people as generally awesome inside, navigating their world, the world their body and environment provides, and probably needing help from others along the way, is a non-judgemental view. We all need help from others along the way. Which is wonderful. That's how we learn about others.

Seeing different people with different styles as different rather than wrong is what we're after, I think, but that doesn't mean we can't ask for change. For growth.

Silly example:

When I was thirteen my mom confronted me about something, I don't remember what, but I know it had to do with my behavior at the time. I responded in a fun way. I chose to punch her over and over again on her thigh while screaming, "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" I was mature for my age. tee hee!

Anyway, she didn't say it was okay for me to do that. But she also didn't think I was bad or wrong for doing that. She reached into my torment and asked why I was doing that, made sure I knew I must never again do that, and helped me figure out a different way to navigate my pain. (Our pain? I did punch her.)

This. This is what it can be to love someone without judgment but with expectations of change.

It worked, too. I never said mean things to her ever again. (Mom, if you're reading this, pretend with me, kay? giggle!)

This is my long winded way of attempting to remind us of the thing I often need reminding of: It is okay to ask someone you love to change. It is okay to ask someone, including yourself, to behave differently. It is more than okay. It is what love often looks like. It is necessary, I believe, to practice knowing when to do so and knowing not to hate or think bad and wrong of the person, or even the behaviors, you are hoping to change. The behaviors are all symptoms and clues. The person is the seed.

Also, it is necessary to practice being open to the possibility that we ourselves are the one who may want to change. I can't tell you how often I would be asking a brother to change, to be more like something I thought was better, when suddenly I'd realize this was not one of those times when I knew better. This was me asking him to be different for my convenience.

Note: I said "I can't tell you how many times..." but if you look through my blog you will see that I have certainly tried!

Anyway, long story short: Don't judge the people you love, including yourself, but do believe in and teach change.

I guess I could have just said that, huh?

Hugs, smiles, and love!! 

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: Sweet Serenity

 

Serenity in my arms at her first birthday party

Serenity: the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.

 

"Mom," my oldest son looked at me, concern surrounding him in a thick fog, contributing perhaps to the slow moving demeanor he appeared to have, "are you going to be okay? I have to take her to the hospital, are you staying or coming with us?"

 

Oh, I wanted to go. I wanted to be with him and his wife as their second daughter was born, but by some terrible twist of fate I was dizzy, pasty, unable to stand. Practically passed out on the couch as my son ran from one room, taking care of his labouring wife, to another, asking questions of his unexpectedly faint mother. 

 

"Maybe get Dramma. She can be with you and I'll stay here with Nevaeh." My mom could go with them to the hospital, and I would stay here, sleeping alongside my oldest granddaughter who was oh so soon going to be a big sister. 

 

My son ran up the stairs to wake my mom. I stood shakily up from the couch and went to my daughter-in-law, rubbed her back a bit while she lumbered wide legged out of the tiny downstairs bathroom. The roaring noise in my head was overwhelming and I was grateful it could only be heard by me and was unlikely to wake the baby in the other room. Even the labouring mom was moving with more grace than I could muster, and though the sound in my head was distractingly loud I could tell she was doing a good job of keeping quiet. 

 

Quickly, my mom and son came down the stairs. Again I was asked if I was okay, and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, but again I opted to stay home with Nevaeh. They promised to keep me in the loop, photos and updates would be sent, and away they went.

 

With effort I moved my body toward the bedroom where Nevaeh slept. I saw her, there at the end of my fuzzy tunnel vision, tiny and sleeping on the big bed of her mom and dad's. A little baby, only one year old, about to become a big sister. 

 

Silently and carefully I crawled in beside her. I didn't want to wake her, but I had to feel her in my arms. I placed one arm over her and waited, she didn't move. I scooted my body closer to hers, I softly kissed her forehead, I felt myself drift peacefully to sleep. 

 

My phone was beside me on the bed, and I would open my eyes periodically to peek. Is she here? Is everything okay? It seemed things were moving along well at the hospital, and with each text or image that brought me closer to Serenity, I felt my body move closer to it's regular untroubled self. No longer feeling faint, simply bruised from it. 

 

Then, as Nevaeh stirred in my arms, in the wee early hours, I felt a true calm. I felt peaceful. I felt Serenity. My phone dinged.

 

There she was. Beautiful! Here! Born in a room I where I was not but where my mom and son were. Beautiful!

 

Nevaeh opened her eyes and looked at me with uncharacteristic softness. She is a sweet girl, but rarely is she calm and soft. She's almost always spunky and sassy. However, in that moment, she was serene. I showed her the picture and quietly announced, "There she is, Nevaeh. There's your baby sister, Serenity."

 

Nevaeh reached out and touched my phone with all the softness in the world. Her tiny fingers traced the cheeks on my screen. They moved slowly, softly. Soft small sleepy fingers touching the screen displaying her sister. I was overcome with love for these girls. These sisters. I was grateful, oh so grateful, to be there in that room. In that moment. Watching big sister trace tiny fingers over baby sister, happy and calm. Peaceful and complete. 

 

I put the phone down as Nevaeh snuggled into me to fall back asleep. Dreaming, possibly, of her baby sister. Feeling, in my arms, like a gift. A gift on her sister's birthday. 

 

Serenity: a beautiful baby, a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, born four years ago this day.

 

Once morning arrived in earnest I brought Nevaeh with me to meet Serenity in the hospital. 

 

Serenity. There she was. It was a gift for me to share this moment - the moment of meeting Serenity - with my oldest granddaughter. The two of us having snuggled waiting for her, and now she's here. 

 

But I am also selfish. And I couldn't wait until my own moment, alone with Serenity. A moment I would get that night in the hospital.

 

It was my turn.

 

My son went home, my mom went home, Nevaeh went home, and I stayed. I chatted with my daughter-in-law, and walked the baby that night. Serenity woke up many many times, and I was fully there. Not faint. Yes, a bit tired, but oh so there. 

 

Serenity: my granddaughter, a child who helps me feel untroubled by the distance between us, calm in the certainty that we are not distant.

 

It is my fate as a grandma to only sometimes be there. The day Serenity was born was my first time choosing so clearly not to be there. It hurt, but became beautiful too. 

 

Today Serenity turns four. Once again, I am not there. Oh, I want to be with her! I want to hold her, sing to her, talk about how stronger she is with her. (When I saw her last month she woke me up every morning to show me how stronger she is. ) 

 

But it is also beautiful where I am, who I am with. Hence, it's okay. Serenity knows I am there when I can be, and when it's the right choice for us. Well, she doesn't know, she's only four, but she feels it and I hope one day it will grow into a knowing. 

 

In the meantime, I will always be here for her. Wherever my here is, wherever her here is, she has me.

 

Happy birthday sweet sweet Serenity!

I love you!

 

Hugs, smiles, and love!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook) 

 

 

"We write to taste life twice; in the moment, and in retrospect." ~ Anais Nin

Autism Answer: I Don't See What They See

 

 

eye glasses on a glass table, out of focus furniture in the background

The kids all crowded around the game table—

Wait, I say kids and perhaps you imagine young children. The playful energy, adults necessarily nearby watching for mood shifts and play gone too far. You think of little voices, shy little ones, hyper boys ready to push.

But I’m referring to young adults. They are kids to us older adults who either birthed them, or are relatives of those who birthed them. Now that I’ve clarified, you picture similar but different people, right?

There is still the high energy, some are shy, maybe hyper boys pushing each other, but it’s different. Adults are watching in this case as well, but with less likely need to step in, though not none.

Did I mention alcohol?

Ah, maybe shift a bit again. There is alcohol. It’s a birthday celebration for the youngest cousin who is now drinking age.

There are about ten of them. Mostly girls, a few boys, all decked out in swim gear and sporting sun kissed cheeks, sun burnt shoulders here and there. The shy one isn’t overly shy, the boys not any more hyper than the girls. It is sunny, there is a pool near the game table, everyone is getting along, the older adults are fairly relaxed and enjoying the beautiful scene.

It is beautiful.

Should I, I’m honestly asking, describe beautiful people in order to ask you to picture the scene beautifully?

What color skin should they have? What sizes should their bodies be? What disabilities should I include, if any? Sure, you'll want diversity, but to what degree?

I was there and it was beautiful. I could clearly feel that. I enjoyed the range of conversations and energy styles. I loved noticing how some of the cousins reached out to newly introduced friends. How some sons and daughters delighted in a social opportunity of this sort.

It got a little less beautiful, in my opinion, with more alcohol.

But, for several hours, it was all simply beautiful.

Kids and adults alike.

However, I ask in earnest regarding appearances of people because, I confess, I hardly noticed and I cannot accurately describe much of what they looked like.

Yet, at least one of the adults (in our older adult group) said enough things about physical appearances that I couldn’t help wondering, not for the first time, what don’t I see?

Comments wanting to become conversation on weight, skin health, ethnicity, and the like, were confusing me a little, giving me a feeling that I am missing something.

Yes, I do see our outsides. I see weight and color and skin. But it is a part so included in the whole that it’s not often specifically noticed. I am aware of the clues on our outsides that point to how we’re doing on our insides and so I don’t try to not see. Yet, for much of my life I’ve noticed - based on the comments of my peers - I am often not seeing what they are seeing. My mom has pointed it out to me a few times, so I know I’m not wrong. A room full of people can be commenting on how something or someone looks, and I often don’t see what they see. (Please note, I don’t mean only bad stuff. I’m not talking about gossipy comments, although I do mean those as well. I’m referring to simply noticing how people and things look.)

This sometimes feeds a worry of mine, about myself.

A little after the birthday celebration, a celebration where most of us were waltzing around in swimsuits, I was asked if I had felt comfortable, attractive even,  at the gathering.  Ummmm…. I felt hopeful that I was not too boring, wanting to be helpful but not get in the way, curious about these people – many of whom I was meeting for the first time – and their stories. Was I supposed to think, also, about appearance? About looking appropriately, I don’t know, good?

Oh, sure, when I first stepped into the yard wearing my swimsuit, my hair unwashed and sloppily ponytail-ed, I was wishing I’d shaved my legs and bikini line, wished my bathing suit wasn’t the wrong size putting me in the position of having to adjust it more often than I’d like. At one point I was told there was dark under my eyes so I presumed I was looking a little old and tired. But I simply shrugged it off and continually stepped into the group hoping to add something beautiful. A listening ear, a helping hand, an interesting, maybe even funny, story or two.

I didn’t much see what I look like or what others look like.

I have wondered this before. Is being “body positive” more than being comfortable in my body? Am I missing something when I don’t much notice the differences, the variety of beauty? When I don’t see what they see?

And I have wondered often, did I embarrass someone? For lack of understanding, for not knowing what I don’t see, did I embarrass someone?

I know I sometimes do.

“Mom,” my youngest son once said in his usual thoughtful careful manner, “could you please come to my school event, but wear pants that don’t have so many holes in them?”

I don’t pretend to not see at all. I recognize a neat smile, eyes that are unique, an extra long beard. But, as I said, it is all part of a much bigger whole.

Books and covers, I was thinking about before sitting down to write this out. I do notice myself attracted to a book cover based on looks. If it looks like the type of texture that feels good in my hands, if it has colors and images that appeal to me, I notice. I think my attraction is in large part due to the experience of knowing which colors and styles are popular in my favorite genres. I see it and want to touch it, to know more about the story and feelings I might find inside. It is quickly more than the cover. As I read the hints and meaning represented on the cover reveal themselves. They change for me.

The kids, I guess, were like covers on books. People were looking at them and seeing more than I was because the other adults knew them better. They knew more of the stories inside and, hence, were able to recognize more meaning beyond the cover itself within the cover itself.

I saw them too, but not as much with my eyes. Hardly with my eyes. I guess, since kids are not books, there wasn’t the need to pick and choose which ones to pay attention to, which cover to reach out and hold. Their stories would simply reveal themselves and I was open to all the genres around me.  

I do try to use seeing more, but I often get it wrong. My mom has noticed. She’s noticed for years. I don’t seem to see what others are seeing. My sister has noticed, too. When I have been watching her kids in her house and she comes home, she's learned to be careful not to immediately say, "I need to clean this house," because, most likely, I think I already did it for her. I often see clean, I often see not broken, when others see dirty and broken.

I don’t mind, mostly. This is not a huge issue and hardly worth exploring. But sometimes I worry that it means I am the reason everyone is feeling uncomfortable, and I don’t know it. Because I don’t see right, I might not know how wrong I look.

I don’t see quite the same as others so when I try, I worry I’m getting it wrong. The point is, to fix it I’d have to see what they see.

Here’s the rub, I mostly like not seeing. It is a newer discovery about myself. I like it. I like hardly noticing these things.

And it is hard to learn a new skill. So, maybe I also like liking it, so I don’t have to learn.

There is the risk of missing an important clue about a loved one or myself, a change in appearance that is a symptom in need of investigation. So far, though, others have been helpful in pointing these things out. (Recently, when a cat was losing weight but I hadn’t noticed, the problem was addressed, because other people noticed.)

So, for now, I think I like not seeing.

Do you see?

Hugs, smiles, and love!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: Quitting Lying Meant Learning The Truth

 

My sister and I (then)

 

 

My sister and I were tall-tale tellers as little girls. We loved to invent entire worlds of reality and put ourselves in important roles at the center of them. We shared some of these stories with friends and cousins, insisting we were truly as fascinating and valuable as our stories suggested. I don't know about my sister, but I honestly believed we were being believed. 

 

As we got a little older both my sister and I quit lying. If I'm remembering correctly, my sister did so in more of a slow weaning herself off way. Me, I quit cold turkey. As I would do with my unhealthy addictions later in life, I didn't try to balance it out or dabble when it made sense, I instead decided absolutely no. None. Never. Nope. 

 

Now, I have quite a few things this way. Makeup. Smoking. Alcohol. And with them it was less complicated than lying. Sure, I fell off the wagon a few times with those addictions also, but hardly. And quitting was, mostly, simple.

 

Not so with lying. Partly, I suppose, because it was my first time quitting something. Partly, because it was a habit I had honed in all my environments. It had followed me everywhere. But, mainly, it was oh so challenging because to quit lying I needed to know the truth. But the truth - who I was, what I wanted, where my skills were - had largely been invented to impress. I hadn't taken time to figure out the truth and, in fact, hadn't thought it was of real value. I wanted to be like the stories I read and the songs that moved me. I wanted to be a story that made people feel, dance, change. So I tried to make me up as such. 

 

But lying, I had noticed, did not give me the feeling of those stories. Instead, it gave me the feeling of denying them. Of faking it. Of wanting to be an important story and desperately pretending. 

 

So I quit cold turkey. But I didn't stop. Sometimes, because I fell of the wagon. But mostly, because I didn't know the truth. 

 

I was trying, truly truly truly trying, to dig down to where I was, to where my beliefs and feelings and dreams were, so I could always tell the truth. Some I found easily, most I spent years and years discovering and tweaking. 

 

Lying, to me, felt like denying myself. Felt painfully duplicitous. I had a belief that being wise, which was something I wanted to be, and being kind, which was something I also wanted to be, and being a good influence on the world, something I extra badly wanted to be, especially as a parent, meant being authentic, in touch with my simple self, and learning to change, to grow different when that different was in line with what I believed was right. 

 

Hence, every lie - big or small - meant I was not wise, kind, or a good influence. It meant I didn't like me enough to say what was true. And since I am me it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to be someone I don't like. I have the power to be a me I like and not doing so is cowardly. 

 

I am now sometimes honest to the point of ridiculousness. It can be challenging for me to give a simple question a simple answer because I'm in the habit of taking ten hours to follow all my thoughts to the core of the truth of the answer. People are often sorry they ever asked me, "What song are you in the mood for?" 

 

And I still sometimes lie. I recently said, "I don't have to pee badly, we can keep going," when I really did have to pee badly but I didn't want to make our group stop to pee. And yes, worse lies too. Not even all that long ago. But I then told the truth. 

 

I don't like lies. For me. However, interestingly, I don't worry much about lies others tell. I would rather people tell me the truth but mainly because it's more relevant and insightful to build on honesty. And where my children are concerned I hope for the truth more because I want so badly for them to feel they can be truthful with me. 

 

I can't know what it means to others, lies and lying. So if they are lying it isn't for me to say how good or bad that is. I'm fine working with what I'm given. 

 

But me? I can't allow lies from me. When they happen, and they do, I get to work figuring it out; seeking the truth, exploring the reason I lied, making necessary changes, and telling the truth.

 

My sister and I told some interesting tales when we were little. If you remember a couple of girls wearing pretty nightgowns to school and explaining it was because we were angles from heaven here on earth to take notes and report back, and these pretty nightgowns were our heavenly attire, well, nice to see you again! 

 

But now we both work at living our lives with truth. In line with our beliefs, values, personalities, and preferences. Which, we've discovered, is not only more comfortable and pretty, but also far more fascinating. There are more layers, more sensational stories, in discovering and living our own truths than either of us could have ever imagined! 

 

And guess what?

That's the truth. 

 

Hugs, smiles, and love!!!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook) 

 

My sister and I (now-ish)

 

Autism Answer: Something About This Does That - A Way of Thinking About Behavior

 

A snuggle, a smooch, a long stretch of the arms and legs, a comment to or from my partner about how quickly the morning moves and oh my goodness we're getting up late again, a pee, a brushing of the teeth, and all of this while the promise of morning coffee percolates in my mind. Something about anticipating, picturing, brewing, and drinking my morning coffee fills me with feelings of purpose, joy, maturity, contemplation, and peace. All are feelings I enjoy and all are feelings I experience deeply while sipping my morning coffee, and then off an on in a variety of ways throughout the day. 

 It is tempting to say "my morning coffee gives me these feelings" but that wouldn't be right, or helpful. What if one day (dare I even type the words?) I can no longer drink morning coffee? *Ouch! That hurts!* What if, one day - not soon, please! - I am faced with reasons to no longer settle into my day by sipping this delightful drink? This gift of goodness? This beautiful brew? Though it hurts to imagine, I actually have reasons, even now, to consider this option. 

If my morning coffee gives me these feelings I adore, what would I be left with? So, no. The truth is this: something about my morning coffee fills me with these feelings. Feelings I love at the beginning of my day. Knowing it's not my morning coffee but, instead, something about my morning coffee, leaves room to explore what it is about it and find it somewhere else. (Going further, of course, I could say: Something about starting my day with theses feelings fills me with happiness. So, if those feelings are no longer lovely, I can explore what it is about those feelings I liked and find that somewhere else.) 

This is powerful shift in thinking. Less important, I admit, when talking about my morning routine. However, when thinking about how to help your children, or how to yourself or a loved one with autism, well - the shift is life changing! 

For example: "Something about the way he jumps and screams around new people is helping him," is more true and useful than "He has to jump and scream around new people." 

Even if you know nothing about how the brain works, the shift helps. It gives you the freedom to find new ways, less startling ways than jumping and screaming, to help your autistic loved one around new people. Rather than avoid new people, or tell all the new people merely "get over it he's autistic," you can all work together to figure out what it is about jumping and screaming that helps. Is it a way to push the anxiety outwards so it isn't hurting inside? If so, practice other ways of pushing anxiety out. Is it a way of pushing people away because the anxiety is too much? If so, maybe practice meeting one new person at a time for less anxiety. Or, if that is worse, many people at once for less anxiety. 

I admit, these are not the best ideas but they are ideas. And they are grown out of the knowledge that something about a behavior is helping (even when our behaviors hurt us we are doing them because in the moment they somehow also help or alleviate a hardship) and that we aren't just doing them because we're bad, crazy, attention seeking, etc. Also, it allows for the truth that we can find other ways as well. 

However, if you do understand a little about how the brain works, then you can find even brighter, better, more impressive, faster-changing ideas and actions. My mom, Dr. Lynette Louise ("The Brain Broad") and her protege, Louloua Smadi, are building a website (called All Brains Grow, here is a link to their Facebook page --> All Brains Grow) specifically meant to help people with this. Using the arousal model they help people become detectives who are able to follow behavioral clues in order to bring brains and bodies into balance. Are they jumping and screaming because of too many high frequency brain waves? Or, quite possibly, because of too many low frequency waves causing a need to stimulate higher frequencies by jumping and screaming? It's fun to find out and life changing to realize it is always true that we can find healthy ways to help ourselves. 

I wish All Brains Grow was around when I thought my son, Tyran, needed to have his Linkin Park CD playing at full volume in order to fall asleep. Back then I didn't realize it was "something about" his Linkin Park CD playing at full volume that helped him fall asleep. Had I known it was something about the loud as heck rock music, and not only the loud as heck rock music, I would have been more able to help him discover specifically what was going on in his brain at bed time. I would have been more likely to be less annoyed and more curious. And even if we never quite figured it out, we would have been a team. A team trying to figure it out. 

Note: the All Brains Grow website is not yet available, but there is a lot of valuable autism, neurofeedback, behavior, and brain growth information on my mom's Brain and Body website. Click the following link: BrainBody.net

So, when you're tempted to say to yourself: "I need quiet mornings to be happy," try maybe shifting it to, "Something about quiet mornings helps me wake up happy." That will be more honest and helpful. That way, if your rowdy grand-kids spend a few weeks with you or your neighbors get a new yappy dog, instead of thinking these noisy mornings mean you can't be happy, you'll have an opportunity to dig down to the core of yourself and discover what it is about quiet mornings you like. Maybe you can recreate what you like but in a new way. 

Heads Up: You may discover the most delightful way to wake up is to the sound of rowdy grand-kids and every quiet morning away from them is a challenge of its own. Something I heard from a friend. tee hee! 

The point isn't to not like quiet mornings of course, but to remember that it is something about quiet mornings you like - a not so urgent jump into the day, perhaps, that potentially messes with your high or low frequency brain - and you absolutely can find a way to like mornings of all types if you find yourself confronted with them. 

So, if there is something about this idea you like, yay! Feel free to share your thoughts. And if there is something about this idea you don't like, silly you. Try again. Giggle! No, feel free to share your thoughts. 

There's something about people sharing their thoughts that helps me think bigger, feel more, and learn from lives I cannot live. In encourage you to thoughtfully share your thoughts. 

Hugs, smiles, and love!!!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Guest Post: There is Nothing Else

I rarely publish guest posts. When I do they are always written by someone I love who is writing while on the cusp of something. Considering or reacting to a transition of sorts. 

I am kind of addicted to learning from transitions. 

And when someone I love takes the time to share their own version of things, the way they think and feel and worry and hope, particularly during the vulnerable time of a transition, well, I love to listen. 

This guest post, written by my stepdaughter Meagan, is a stunning example of that. On the precipice of adulthood she shares her observations and apprehensions with clarity.  She expresses and explores her thoughts with sincerity, asking us to join her. Asking us, even, to provide answers. 

Originally published on Disabled World, she has given me permission to share the piece here with you. 

Take a journey back in time, to April 20th, 2022, and travel Meagan's thoughts with her - thoughts she will never have for the first time again, in precisely this way. Thoughts she chose to share with us, and share well. 

Perhaps because there is nothing else. 

Silhouette of someone standing by a field

 

 

Nothing Else 

by 

Meagan Langtree

 

Lately I’ve taken to trying to wrap my head around the way the world works. Maybe it’s because I take the first step into adulthood 66 days from today and I can’t help but ask ‘why?’. It doesn’t sadden me, or at least not all the time, but I keep finding myself stuck acknowledging the world as it is, with its horror and delight and passion and cruelty, and desperately trying to be content with it. Is it not traumatising to be human? To have power and freedom but, no, not really, and to know that the path you’re on of school and work and marriage and kids and death is a system set in stone that billions of people before you have already played out? Isn’t it traumatising to continue anyway, knowing that’s the only way you could ever possibly go?

Things only happen once, and they will never happen again. Today is April 20th, 2022, and this is the only April 20th, 2022 there will ever be. The way our history has played out was a roll of the dice every single second and the things we take as facts could easily be thrown on their head if history went even a little bit differently. What would the world be like if instead the British had been murdered by the Indigenous peoples? If we never even lay a single finger on each other at all? The single flap of a butterfly’s wings can set in stone the path of a tornado. How do we cope with this incredible, unstoppable power we hold knowing that our family, friends, and enemies have the same incredible, unstoppable power that we do? Is it worth any less knowing there are billions of people who have that same power too? Do bugs think us ungrateful for crying over a lost child when we so often crush their own without thinking simply because there’s not a thing they can do to stop us? The tears I cry from the stress of a midterm fast approaching pales in comparison to the tears I cried when I realised late one night that my mother doesn’t love me, or instead, that she did love me, but it has always and will always be just half an inch away from enough to try. Are those tears worth any less because of it? 

 

There’s no answer really, and it’s up to the person who I’ve asked the question to (whoever that may be) to decide when really no answer will ever be truly right. How do you cope knowing that the answer changes depending on who you ask? How, in a world of eight billion people, do you choose who to listen to? How do you cope knowing that who you are now was determined by the people who have hurt you the most? How do you cope knowing not one of the eight billion people on this earth will ever, ever really see you, because no matter how hard they try, information can never be truly accurate once it passes through the selfish filter of the mind? I’m not entirely sure how to live knowing I will never be able to see the world through the thick prison bars of my cones and rods.

 

My sight is one of the many senses I am so lucky to have, and it has brought me nothing but pain. I have seen the cruel stares of hundreds of my childhood peers, the look on a loved one’s face when I’ve hurt them so purposefully (why, oh why, did I do that?), and I have seen my brother’s knife at my mother’s throat and a three digit number blinking on the teeny tiny screen of my childhood telephone that I just didn’t have the strength to call. And yet, if I had my sight ripped away from me in a freak accident, I know I would surely end it all. It’s so easy to forget that when you look around it isn’t the world you’re seeing but your own projection, and there exists a possibility that we may be surrounded only by poorly rendered video game models of our ‘pets’ and ‘families’ and we would never really know, and it would never really matter. But if that projection were to leave me, I would surely die. Anything is better than nothing. Our minds create such vivid images of beauty in people and sunsets and forests and lakes to keep us alive, because surely we can’t be suffering for nothing, but at the end of the day if your vision fades away, the world goes with it. Blind people have not lost a sense but instead they have broken free of a prison only to find that there exists nothing beyond our own eyes’ interpretation. There is nothing behind the projection, not even poorly rendered video game models. Still, when your vision begins to fade and the doctor breaks the news to you, you cry, because you can no longer ignore the truth; this world does not exist, but it is truly, truly fucking awful. At least before you had something pretty to look at.

 

I’m lucky I’m not blind. I’m lucky I had only lost my sense of smell and not my hearing or my wealth or my intelligence or my perceived value. I’m lucky my mother still found herself pregnant despite having only one ovary, and I’m lucky I was born well off and healthy and ‘gifted’ despite being a geriatric pregnancy, and I’m lucky that I had people who loved me even before I existed (when it is easiest to love someone). I am lucky, and oh God I am so, so grateful, and yet I can do nothing but cry. It’s too hard. I’m only a child.

I would wish I was never born at all, but I’m much too selfish for that.

Please don’t misunderstand me: This isn’t to say that the pain I’m experiencing now is caused by the way of the world. I am painfully aware of it whenever I’m not quite distracted enough. No, I cry because I know exactly how the world works, and yet I have no other option but to go along with it. There is nothing else. There is no more zooming out to do, no other path you can walk, no other option. It’s this or it’s nothing. I cry because this is all we have and all we will ever have, and it is so horrible. I cry because I will love and kiss and scream and destroy and feel and it will be nothing but a fraction of a millisecond of a flash in the world. No matter how hard I cry, no one will ever see it, and even if somehow someone could truly understand me, the sun will still rise in the early hours afterwards and the sun through the window will bathe my wooden floor with warmth and I will surely appreciate this as I walk from the bedroom to the world outside in silent mourning for home. Our lives will only be one fraction of a millisecond. I know my feelings mean nothing, and they get me nowhere, and they don't matter, and yet I will keep feeling them every single day for the rest of my life. I simply can’t control myself. Not even the only thing on this earth that belongs to me is even truly mine.

As cold as the world is, if death had not been quite as terrifying, we all would have killed ourselves a while ago. If religion had never existed at all, and hadn’t scared us into procrastinating our death as long as possible out of fear of eternal damnation, how many more millions of people would be hanging from their bedroom ceiling by their necks today? If we as a society knew for sure there was no afterlife, and death was only an infinite sleep, would we feel more comfortable accepting our fate? Maybe the only reason we run from death is the fear that if we die, we will have to keep living, and we can’t risk being born in a life that has even less than we do now. I will run from death with my riches and my talent because even though I’m suffering, at least I don’t have to worry about money. To know that we wake up and breathe and live each day only because we fear the alternative is itself traumatising. Knowing that every single day the universe flips one coin for each and every one of us that decides whether today we will live or die, is traumatic, and it’s a miracle that for the past 6,508 days, my coin has never once predicted death. For this I am grateful. But how long do I have left until my luck runs out? Will I know which kiss will be my last? Would it even matter?

I think of the roman soldiers, the housewives of the 50s, the dictators who slaughtered millions, the homeless people I see by the station, and I wonder; did they cry the same way I do? Did their mother, the only mother they would ever have in all of the six million years we have existed and the thousands more to come, hold them in her arms when they were born and love them the way only this specific mother could love this specific child? Their blood is remnants of the only world outside of suffering we will ever live yet never remember, as it would surely only make us mourn what we once had. How long did those remnants stain the bed sheets before they were cleaned and forgotten?

The people of the past have also cried, and loved, and feared, and screamed, just as I have, and where has it gotten them? Where will I be? 

It is traumatising to know that even though I can’t get this idea out of my head, when I am wronged sometime today or sometime tomorrow or in a month from now, I will still scream and yell and belittle, as if the person in front of me had never felt the way I have when my favourite song comes on the radio and I just can’t help but smile, or felt the same racing heartbeat standing in front of the class to speak, or the warm feeling in my heart when I am surrounded by those I truly love. I will forget. The truth will always slip away from you. Living in a fake world with fake issues is simply much easier to digest.

It is traumatising to know you will forget, and then to do it anyway. I betray myself over and over and over again when I let memories of the heartbreak and sorrow and helplessness I often feel on lonely nights slip away from me in the morning light. I betray the girl who’s terrified of growing older and doesn’t quite understand anything at all and who thinks for a moment that it really would be better if she jumped off a high rooftop to escape the pain of being human. I leave that girl, screaming and sobbing and aching from the inside out, to rot in the prison of yesterday. I have survivor’s guilt each and every day I wake up alive and know that that girl had died yesterday and no one will ever remember her. No matter how much I grieve, or how strong her pain was, I too will forget it all after only a few hours.

The hardest part of it all is knowing that this pain is not my own, and it is something that every single person deals with and has dealt with at some point. I am not special for these thoughts. Even though every moment is its own and special in the way that it will only ever happen once, they are all the same in that every single person alive is suffering. It is April 20th, 2022, and I am suffering. I look forward to tomorrow, and to my 18th birthday party, to my summer vacation in California, my school and my marriage and kids, despite knowing I will be suffering. What else is there to do?

 

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