Category Archives: autism

Can People Really Outgrow Autism?

Posted on February 28, 2012 | 1 comment

This is an interesting article. Is it possible to outgrow neurological symptoms? I doubt it, but I do believe the brain can accommodate some neurological problems in other neural pathways and overcome some challenges. I don’t think we can outgrow autism. We just adapt and try our best. What do you think?

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Posted in autism, autism research, autism theories

Dealing with Sorrow

Posted on February 21, 2012 | 2 comments

My Oma is very ill now. It is like a waiting game. Cancer is terrible. It destroys people bit by bit. I try to live in a normal way, and at times I forget in the moment about the situation and I’m OK. Then I remember the situation and I immediately become tense and irritable. I think my grandmother is blessed because illness is not the core of her life. It is halting it, but it hasn’t defined her. She is blessed because she is loved and people visit her and comfort her. It is nice to see the relatives treat her with such love. This means she has earned her love, I’m sure, because it is heartfelt, not obligatory. But still I know the time is drawing nearer when we will need to say good-bye. I try to prepare myself because I know I can’t lose control of myself and in autism our emotions take over. It is a big challenge to me to grieve in a normal way and not ride the roller-coaster too fast on an emotional slope downhill. My Oma loved me as I am, and though I know she wished I hadn’t been born with autism, she loved the boy inside and was not stuck on my flapping and my stims. My grandmother is lovely and has shown me how to deal with hardship gracefully. I will miss her lots.

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Posted in autism, emotions, grief

My Book

Posted on February 10, 2012 | 7 comments

When I was twelve I did a thing very important to me. I began writing about autism. Nearly every day when I came home from school I wrote. It was like a fire in me. I felt so lost in a way because I lived a life of isolation since I was so limited in my ability to make friends. I felt really misunderstood in my dealings with professionals, and I was the only severely autistic kid in my general education classes. I wrote to help me deal with a miserably hard disability. I wrote to educate about incorrect but widely believed ideas about autism. I wrote about my weird early years in an intense home program that really missed the boat and left me terribly frustrated. I wrote about my journey to communication from total silence, and I wrote to help me accept myself. I wrote on and off for three years. My mom felt my book was really important because it exposed the inner truth about autism. It took my dad longer to adjust to the idea of me being published because I would be scrutinized by everybody and he was wary of biased reactions- something I had encountered so much in my life. After lots of delays, we will finally have a book later this spring and I won’t be alone in my message. I think at least three other books by non-verbal autistic people will be published too. It is a new trend. I am happy I will be part of it. I will keep you posted when I have more news.

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Posted in autism, autism education, book, emotions, idoinautismland

It’s Not Polite

Posted on February 7, 2012 | 2 comments

Today I observed that I am hardly the only autistic person who compulsively grabs food. I got together with a group of autistic friends who are all non-verbal and all communicate by typing. I guess sometimes it is necessary to see others do what you do to realize it is really not okay. I tend to grab appetizing things sometimes, even if it is from someone else’s plate. I know it is bad manners. I have been told this many times, but impulsive behavior is not thinking behavior. I saw that my actions are really not acceptable when I saw others do the same. One mom had a drink that looked colorful. Two kids drank from it before she could stop them. The mothers of the drinkers were embarrassed and I thought, “I do that.” Then another family arrived and in seconds the son grabbed my mom’s sandwich and took a bite. Too fast for her to stop him. At first she said, “It’s okay,” when the embarrassed parents apologized. Then she said, “I actually don’t like it when people tell Ido it’s okay because it’s not. I want them to correct it.” The parents agreed and said that people take more offense now that their son is older, so after that my mom told the boy that he shouldn’t bite her sandwich and it’s not okay to take food from her plate. I think people need to do this more. My feeling is that people shouldn’t excuse our bad behavior because we are disabled. When we are rude we need to be told that clearly and not enabled by understanding, polite tolerance of something that isn’t acceptable. My mom wouldn’t have let a dog snatch her food, let alone a human, but we tend to be too forgiving if people have autism. Don’t worry. We can take the correction.

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Posted in autism, impulsivity, self control, tolerance

Exercise and Autism

Posted on February 3, 2012 | 1 comment

When I was a small boy I went to occupational therapy. They had me go on swings, hammer pegs, climb on ladders, and jump on trampolines. I remember one occupational therapist telling my mom that I had low muscle tone. In this case wouldn’t exercise, including weights, improve my muscle tone? We worked on my vestibular processing so I went from one swing to another instead of stretching, becoming more fit, or becoming more muscular. The result is that I was not fit enough, which is a problem in a mind/body communication deficit. Being fit enables me to tell my responsive body what to do. I work out with a trainer now because I need to have my body learn to be responsive. Now I see where my problems lie. My soft muscle tone needs to get stronger. My cardio endurance needs to improve and I need more core strength, so I work on everything. Stretching is my most necessary thing and I detest it because it is painful. I will do it because I need to and it is worth the hurt. A lot of my current problems could have been prevented if people had worked on this when I was small. I think it is essential to work on fitness and flexibility for autistic people in a regular program.

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Posted in autism, exercise, occupational therapy

A Great Change

Posted on January 31, 2012 | 1 comment

Every morning when I go to school I feel good now. This is like a real blessing because for five months every morning I felt like vomiting before school. I was frightened I might have to spend four years in that tension. Thank God my mom found a woman who helped me transfer into my new school. It was looking like it might not happen and it was scary because I was so miserable in my old school. This counselor did the necessary paperwork and I got in. I am so grateful to her for this. Now I have an opportunity to just learn. My school is smaller and mellower than before. The kids are more respectful of the teachers in class, and my classes are good. The great thing is the school works with my parents to make it succeed for me. They cooperate, meet, discuss, and they are nice too. I had this in middle school and again now, but for the first semester of high school I had the opposite. I can’t understand the reason they were so hostile there. The team really didn’t seem to want things to work out. It is not clear to me why they had attitudes like this. I have to say I get a smile each time I drive by that school now and know I will never go there again. I thank all the folks who made this possible.

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Posted in attitude, autism, education, school

Happy and Sad

Posted on January 18, 2012 | 2 comments

It is a happy and sad time for me. My new high school is a nice, very caring place. My teachers are better than my old school. My classes are smaller, and it is more easy-going in general, so this part of my life is much, much happier than last semester. I am sad because my grandmother is not well. I don’t visit her now because she is too frail and I don’t control my movements well. I know she is leaving me in the near future, though we never know when, but my heart weeps inside. She is such a lovely soul and she hurts now too much. It is an amazing journey to live a life, and hers makes the world a kinder place. It is life, I guess. Joy and sorrow are always in the wings waiting for us. Sometimes one. Sometimes the other. Sometimes both at once.

2 Comments

Posted in autism, emotions, happiness, sadness

Dumbstruck

Posted on January 13, 2012 | 4 comments

I had a weird experience recently. I asked a lady who was talking to me as if I was an infant if she could talk to me normally- and she said, “I won’t. I talk to all people with autism this way”. I was dumbstruck. I never had someone say this to me before. What do you think about this attitude?

4 Comments

Posted in autism, frustration, tolerance

The Internal Autismland

Posted on January 3, 2012 | 3 comments

The frustration of having autism is matched sometimes by the frustration of the parents of an autistic person. It takes so much work, perseverance, and motivation to fight on the bad days or moments when Autismland swallows their child whole. My poor parents say it is remote and far away expressions I make in those times. How I annoy others when I’m in Autismland is a problem.

Choosing to stop or escape is not always possible. My parents or aide have different strategies to pull me back to reality. I exercise or think. They make me do one or both. It helps a lot forcing me to think when my brain is sliding into sensory heaven. It is a struggle between my senses and my mind. If no one helps, my senses usually will dominate when I’m in one of those moments.

Now, I realize I’m no picnic during one of those episodes. The horrible thing is I bug others then, but I don’t change in the way I want because I don’t have the control I need when these episodes occur. Other times I get easy control over myself. It may need lots of training, like sports and music skills. I notice jumping jacks help me reset my mind too. I think the difficulty is the intense OCD aspect. It is hard to resist sometimes. It is scary too to be at the mercy of stims or impulses but I am appreciative when people persevere in helping me regain control of myself and return to Normal-Land.

3 Comments

Posted in autism, body responsiveness, sensory system, stims, strategies

Stims, Tics, and Freedom

Posted on December 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

I wish I could stop the majority of my stims. It is sort of weird to imagine my life without the stim in charge of my impulses. It is hard to explain what it feels like to people who have never stimmed, though perhaps you can imagine if you have tics or weird habits that are hard to stop. I see kids playing with their hair, gum, biting their nails. These are stim-like, though not as compelling, I’m sure. Stims are not conscious. They are relaxing, distracting, or invigorating depending on which one it is. Some are entertainment stims too.

The problem with stims us that they make me and other autistic people remote, detached, and hard to connect to. I think this is how stims are different than biting nails, for example, which is a habit. Biting nails isn’t a doorway into another realm, but stims are. It is the reason why I find it hard to eliminate them from my life.

They are compelling, tempting, and easily accessed. To resist is hard beyond imagining. I think I’d love to have just one stim free day to have a respite and see what life can be without stims in it. Would it be boring or flat, or just calmer? I don’t know. I guess I would quickly adjust to a new way if it was available, but it isn’t as of yet.

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Posted in autism, self stimulatory behavior, sensory system, stims