Monday, May 24, 2021

See you on Wordpress

 I have officially moved!  Please find all future posts, research, and important topics at www.realisticautistic.com.  My entire archive of work has been migrated there as well.  See you there!

Friday, May 21, 2021

Book Review: Parallel Play

(Hey folks, I've moved!  Please find the new site at Wordpress!  This will be one of the last posts on Blogger- I hope you like the new site as much as I do!)

Parallel Play: Growing Up With Undiagnosed Asperger's, by Tim Page, is a "my life with autism" story from one of our older survivors.  The book mainly deals with his childhood, as the title suggests, and is written in the typical autistic conversational-explanational tone that so frequently graces our literature.  Mr. Page's prose is more polished than most, I would say, which is likely due to his many years of wordsmithing.  

I call this autistic generation The Lost Generation, personally, because few of these autistic people avoided institutionalization, and those that did typically suffered immensely.  Autism was simply not understood, let alone supported.  There was no community to which we could find advice from others like us.  No comradery and fellowship.  No support services designed to meet our needs.  

Those of us that survived without being sent to the destructive prison-institutions typically bear scars and unhealthy adaptations from the experience.  Depression and anxiety are common.  For this author?  One of those unhealthy adaptations is a fixation on death.  This isn't uncommon for autistic people- anything can turn into a hobby or fascination.  Morbid subjects aren't unreasonable, especially when a close family member (such as the author's grandfather) dies when the autistic person is young.  

In the author's case, there are no gory details to be had.  His interest in the subject included a much-heightened fear of death and interests in deceased authors, musicians, and silent films.  I suspect this book would be quite a nostalgia trip for an older person, especially one that grew up in the Northeast US at around the same time.  In that sense, I am very much not the target audience.

One thing is painfully consistent regardless of generation, though.  The pain of living in a world that constantly misunderstands and willfully rejects you is clear throughout this book.  You can see this same pain in Liane Holliday Wiley's writing.  Both Tim Page and Liane suffered immensely, and neither of them had any kind of fellow autistic community.  They were simply alone, and found their way as best they could with other misfits.  

Another painful echo found in this book as well as other autistic accounts was perhaps summarized best by Jennifer Cook O'Toole: "How can I be so smart, yet so stupid?"  Tim Page mentions scoring well on IQ tests (though no specific numbers) a couple times in the book, and inevitably with those mentions also comes a certain disbelief, and the suggestion that his father might have tampered with the results.  I certainly have no special insight into that suggestion, but I suspect Mr. Page, like many people, operates on the idea that IQ is somehow a blanket score for intelligence.  

I strongly suspect I will go blue in the face before I ever finish convincing people that no, it is not.  IQ is a measure of how well a person is likely to learn in a typical school setting, using typical teaching methods.  It does not account for learning disabilities.  It does not cover common sense, emotional intelligence, musical ability, hand-eye coordination, and social skills.  It's a highly restrictive scale that should only be considered useful in highly restrictive settings.  But because of the value people place on it, a person with a high IQ score is assumed to be good at all these other things.  When they turn out not to be, disappointment is about the kindest response I've seen.  Rejection, disbelief, and avoidance are significantly more common.

This aloneness and rejection tends to breed a mindset of "I don't fit in and it's my fault.  If only I wasn't so ____, I would have friends and be happy."  This sense of being wrong and bad is pervasive.  I should know: a part of me still believes that even though it's definitely unhealthy, bad, and just flat-out wrong.  It's the same poisonous mindset as believing that I can't be beautiful because larger women can't be beautiful (except for every other larger woman, because obviously the beauty industry is manipulative and horrible).  

It's exactly these kinds of experiences that make it worthwhile for me to step forward and identify myself as autistic.  Simply knowing "there's someone else like me" is a massive relief and boost to quality of life.  It's why representation in the media, especially genuine representation, is so important.  Parents do better knowing autistic adults, because it gives them a picture of what their kids might grow to be.  Autistic kids can receive that same benefit, but they also can gain courage to be themselves.  Also strategies and insights they might never have had themselves.

In short, they can have the things I never had, and hopefully be healthier and happier humans for it.  We march to our own drums, we autistic people.  Each of us stunningly unique.  One day I hope that uniqueness won't contain a rainbow of trauma as a given.  

Read This Book If

You want to experience a vivid slice of life narrative from an autistic man who grew up in the 50s and 60s.  They were a remarkably different time, those days before the Internet came to everyone's phones, computers, and homes.  This era wasn't my era, but I think there's value in knowing what life was like before the modern one... and in knowing the stories of the Lost Generation, perhaps find something of ourselves.

Friday, May 7, 2021

Book Review: Asperger's Syndrome: Helping Siblings

(Hey folks, I've moved!  Please find the new site at Wordpress!  This will be one of the last posts on Blogger- I hope you like the new site as much as I do!)

The Visual Guide to Asperger's Syndrome: Helping Siblings, by Alis Rowe, is a plainspoken children's book-sized publication focused on helping parents help siblings of autistic people adjust and thrive.  I found this book in the autism section, not the children's section, but it's pretty clear from the font size and pictures where it's meant to go.  At less than 100 pages in large sized font, it's not a long read. 

I picked it up anyway because this is a vastly under-served and under-recognized need.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of books geared towards educating parents and professionals.  Even books specifically focused on other autistics, often written by the same.  But very little has been done to help siblings of those on the spectrum cope with, say, the resentment of regularly being overlooked in favor of handling the autistic child's special needs.  

Sometimes, in the stress of everything that has to be done to manage the finances, support services, and even themselves, parents miss things.  These things can include their own self-care and wellness, and it can also include making time for doing things with just the sibling(s).  This is entirely understandable- after all, every autistic child is different, so there is no one "do this and everything will be fine" guide.  Children are already challenging, even without factoring in unusual developmental patterns and the need for support services, specialized learning, etc.  

Though all this happens unintentionally, it can be really hard on the neurotypical sibling(s).  Anger, embarrassment, jealousy, and frustration are common.  If autism isn't well-explained to the child, confusion and misunderstandings about why the autistic child is treated differently may result.  

This book tackles the job of pointing out common pitfalls as well as providing answers and suggestions as to how to address each problem.  It lists and addresses specific concerns and feelings a sibling might have, which I thought was useful as well as enlightening.  

One thing I particularly appreciated was that the book spends time explaining the difference between a tantrum and a meltdown, which is an exceptionally important concept for family to understand.  For the unfamiliar: tantrums are goal-oriented.  The person throwing the tantrum wants the attention, or wants something (like candy, ice cream, a toy, etc), and when that want is met, the tantrum ends. 

Meltdowns, on the other hand, are a response to overstimulated senses (like loud environments) or other adverse circumstances, and only end when the person has calmed down.  The two behaviors look superficially the same, especially to someone unfamiliar with the person, but should be treated very differently.  


Read This Book If

You're a parent of an autistic child with at least one other, neurotypical child.  This is a tightly focused, easy-to-read book meant to guide parents in helping both their autistic child and their neurotypical child(ren).  It lays out important basics as well as very specific concerns and feelings a sibling might have.  At less than 100 pages and in large, easy-read font, this is a good starting place for a parent to begin with this important, often sidelined, subject.  

Monday, May 3, 2021

Reading the Research: The Real Link Between Violence and Mental Illness

Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.

Today's article merited underlining simply because this link is still, after all this time, misunderstood over and over.  I'm tired of seeing it, so here's the truth.  There is, in fact, a link between mental illness and violence.  But it's not what people think.  

People with mental illness (which often includes autistic people) are far more likely to be the targets of violence.  We are not the perpetrators.  The perpetrators typically people without diagnosed disorders.  To quote the article: "The large majority of the perpetrators of violent crimes do not have a diagnosable mental illness, and conversely, most people with psychiatric disorders are never violent," Dr. Swanson writes.

Popular culture and the news seem to desperately want to play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey with mental illness when some new violent horror pops up.  Because people always want to know "how could this happen," but never want to consider that it might be because we've been strangling social services for decades, or because the US has so many more guns per person than other Western nations.  They seem to want a nice, safe "it was something specifically wrong with this one person" answer so nothing has to change and we can all move on with our lives.  

As any idiot could tell by paying attention, these quick, individualized theories have had no useful effect in ending violence in schools, churches, and against marginalized people.  If it's not the police shooting a black woman in her bed (or any number of other murders), it's attacks against US citizens of Asian descent, or the painfully numerous school shootings (including three in 2021).  

The suggestion that mental illness might have been involved with violent perpetrators' motives for their horrific actions is nothing more than victim-blaming misdirection.  It's much like how some awful humans seem to think that wearing certain clothes is "inviting sexual assault," as if adult male humans are toddlers with no self control who can't possibly be expected to answer for their actions.  

So the next time you see a news article on the latest school shooting or hate crime, and the author suggests mental illness might have been involved, please recognize it as the gaslighting, red herring bullshit that it is.  

People with mental illnesses are the victims of violence, not its perpetrators.  Blaming the victims solves nothing and helps no one.  

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)