The nieces are playing in their room.
Sep. 1st, 2009 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
I just went out to check on our carrots, but I couldn't find them at all :( I did peek at our pumpkin, which is getting nice and orange - last week it had a lot of green. When I told my mother about our pumpkin she laughed and said it was some other type of gourd, we didn't plant pumpkin. When she found it herself she couldn't figure it out, but by this time I had - last year, our pumpkins ended up in the compost, but they didn't turn to dirt by springtime, so when I stirred the compost (more or less) seeds spewed out all over the ground. I tossed most of them back in the compost but one or two must have stayed and sprouted, and now we have a baby pumpkin!
We have a few other melons/gourds as well. Sunflowers make wonderful stakes for them so they don't rest on the ground and, unlike corn, you have a chance to enjoy them before the animals do. (And if we don't get ALL our sunflower seeds, well, it's less of a loss than not having all our cobs of corn!)
I'll get to work on those terrible comments now from those articles I posted yesterday. This is your only warning - some of these comments are absolutely hateful. (Some are good, and I'll try to include a few of those as well.) Don't read if you don't want to.
Responses to the mom's editorial
I suggest this because our teenager has developed a highly oppositional and defiant nature, which at its worst manifests as a complete refusal to go to school; at its best it is a refusal to try a different kind of food. But the point is that whatever this writer’s child is like now, it’s bound to get worse when adolescence strikes, so whatever resources can be put in place now will stand you in very good stead for the future.
Clearly, the ONLY reason her son has for not wanting to go to school is because he's oppositional and defiant. Can anybody say that with a straight face?
I think that stories like this show that it needs *more* attention to combat the misinformation, but so do other disorders that wrack whole families, particularly schizophrenia
This one probably speaks for itself.
Thank you for sharing. I hope and pray for all with and without autism.
This comment is so useless, I had to LOL.
I wonder if the genetic screening menitoned above would lead to termination rates simmilar to those of people who have downs fetuses and choose to abort. I know personally that if I were ever to become pregnant, and found out I was carrying a downs or autistic I would terminate without prejudice. I know it sounds cruel but I know myself.
But do you know anybody who actually has Downs or is autistic? Or are you relying on one-sided pieces of one person's problems? I support people's right to abort for whatever reason, but to say it's "without prejudice" is a bit much.
Two issues:
1. Asperger’s (along with other forms of autism) appears to be a combination of multiple genetic and congenital factors. No screening would be possible for a very long time.
2. Unlike other disorders, Asperger’s has positive elements (even if the author focused on many of the negative elements). I have it myself, and I wouldn’t give it up even if I could. I do regret what I put my parents through prior to the age of 15 (I mellowed in my late teens), but I think the trade-offs are worth it (and I think my parents mostly agree). Jumping straight to eugenics is going too far.
Thank you, Josh.
This is not, as the NYT headline mislabels it, “Autism’s Unvarnished Truth.” It is one person’s unvarnished experience.
Thank you, Jay.
Moreover, it’s important to remember that just like with any group of people, not everyone on the autistic spectrum (indeed not everyone who shares the same sub-label) is the same. Calif @38, I am truly sorry for your experiences, but my father who was an (undiagnosed) Aspie was a wonderful parent. My siblings and I always knew that he was proud of us.
We've hit a group of good comments.
Raising an autistic child is HARD everyday, all day. So unless you are RAISING an autistic child, be quiet and let us vent for a few minutes.
The trouble, of course, is that you're not venting to yourself, you're venting to people who are going to get all their ideas about the spectrum from your vents. And that's not fair or helpful for anybody.
Kathleen, true Asperger’s really do lack empathy. They can simulate it, but they never really have it.
(He then goes on to totally ignore what she said about having an autistic son, naturally.)
Wow, Bob. Way to not pay any attention whatsoever to recent studies in the area. Or do you know so much already you don't need to learn any more?
I agree that we must embrace these tortured souls and love them for who they are — and stop trying to make them more acceptable into our culture. It’s the culture that needs to be more accepting of them — because these special kids do not possess the ability to change.
Wow, I feel sorry for her kid. Yes, her son can change, and will change over the course of his life, just like everybody else!
My son’s uniqueness, his talents and sensitivity, and sweetness are no longer enough to balance out our nightmare.
And someday, this child will be an adult and loose on the world. And nothing we do can help him.
Her son is 16. Speaking from personal experience, he's probably not gonna act this way when he's 26 or 36. God, do people forget how much adolescence sucks even for NT kids?
As someone who comes from a family that is infused with autism, and as an autistic adult 47 year old woman, I’m dismayed after reading this article. My high functioning autistic son, who is now 23 years old, resembled your son’s behavior at the same age and then some.
If you feel like you got the short end of the stick by having your son in your life, then you need some serious counseling. Get over the mourning of not having the kid you wanted and be totally accepting of the kid you got. It will make things better for you, I promise.
Yes, this.
In response to the aspie's response to the first editorial
This is not about “hurt feelings,” or having a “right” to vent. This is about the very real consequences facing autistic people–segregation, bullying, institutionalization, abuse, murder–in a society that continues to allow negative stereotypes to go unchecked.
The Unvarnished article was just one among many; these stories are a dime a dozen with their insistence that words like “stress” are insufficient and must be replaced by things like “nightmare,” “tragedy,” or “cancer.” Day after day, this is what people see, not just those of us who follow autism stories obsessively, also those with a casual interest. They take this “information” in and respond accordingly when encountering someone autistic. This is how prejudice and abuse are perpetuated.
Then when a member of the minority being discussed dares to speak out, she is accused of picking on someone who has every right to “express her feelings” about how hard it is living with people like us. Along come a few more people with “burden” and “affliction” to explain how the autistic has missed the point. We lack empathy, you see.
See, now, I read this person's blog. Apparently everybody was talking about this and I just missed it. Not sure how....
But it is important to consider how our words in public can harm others. The mother, in choosing to speak out about how horrible her life is because of her son’s autism, has reinforced the prejudices and fear that already abound about autism. My son has a hard enough time without New York Times blog posts about how horrible people like him are.
Yes, that.
I understand what you are saying, but the mother describing her experience was not mourning a lost child. She clearly loves her son.
Yes, like the part where she explicitly says "The deep mourning for the loss of the child we thought we would have, watching longingly as other parents play with their “regular” kids."
Yet more evidence that those with autism are unable to empathize or relate to others emotionally. Sorry, harsh, but it’s true. As other posters have noted, in varying degrees, autistic children are biologically incapable of experiencing empathy. While normal children grow into adults, they can say, “Wow, I was a real brat, I might’ve deserved what I felt at the time was unfair.” Of course, for an autistic adult, this kind of mature perspective is largely impossible.
Note that this commentor makes no effort to empathize with us - and is ignorant besides. Do you know what's going to happen if somebody pipes up and says "Actually, I'm on the spectrum and I know my parents had a hard time with me"? Is he going to change his mind due to new evidence? No, no he is not! HE is going to say "Well, you're lying, you're not really autistic!"
Fucking twit.
Why doesn’t anyone admit that perhaps parents of autistic children wish their kids were different- “normal”? Why is it considered not politically correct to admit, that even though you love your child, you wish they did not have this disease?Isn’t i it also fair to acknowledge the parents’ perspective?
Let’s all be honest about the burdens of raising children with Autism!
All anybody ever DOES is "acknowledge the parent's perspective". It's that same perspective that leads people to kill their autistic children, and as often as not get away with it.
@#32: “No part of the autism spectrum is mental illness”
Um, yes it is. Sorry. I really dislike it when people with a disability of mental illness equate it to being gay or black. It’s not. And I speak as a profoundly hearing impaired person. I am disabled and different and I totally accept it, but it’s not like being gay or black.
You know what you're NOT? You're NOT autistic and you're NOT educated. (You're not right either.)
However, an opinion is an opinion and can’t be “wrong”. We’re not dealing with quantifiable, objective facts, but emotions and feelings, and you can’t deny what someone feels. Sarah is right. The mother is right. Where’s the contradiction?
Actually, an opinion is a statement that is "up for debate". It's in the dictionary, read it and weep.
I wonder how Sarah would fare if she were required to care for an autistic/Asperger’s child…
And if she did (as others do) it'd be "She's not really autistic. Her child's not really autistic. It doesn't *count* for this reason or that reason". There's no *point* to this.
I am not on the autistic spectrum, so I cannot fully understand your experience. It is striking and upsetting to read the comments. There is an obvious disconnect. You and other autistic people are accused in stereotypical fashion of lacking empathy by people who are themselves displaying caustic lack of empathy.
I am getting a sense of the discrimination you must face daily when I read the general support and sympathy on one thread toward the mother of an autistic child and her journey compared with the accusations and judgements toward you as you respond.
Thank you, Stephanie.
I work with parents of children with Asperger’s. Anger outbursts and rage attacks described by Lisa are thankfully rare in Asperger’s. Most with children & teens with Aspergers are quite shy & introverted, they are more often victims of school bullying. Sadly, stories about the majority shy & placid children with Aspergers does not illicit dramatic interest and are thus less likely to be published, or debated.
Parents have complained to me that the media tendency towards describing rare but dramatic cases, associated with violence & difficult behavior, is misleading school authorities into thinking that all AS children act the same.
As a direct result of this, I know of several teens with Asperger’s who are presently barred form main stream education because school authorities growing fear of Asperger’s & violence.
This, this, THIS is why people try to share that gloom-and-doom isn't useful! People talk about "finally getting the truth out", but the fact is that their "truth" is all people know as it is!
From the third article
There is a term used in several of the above posts that really needs to be addressed. That term is “autistic” as in “I have an autistic child”. It is much better to say “My child has autism” or “a person with autism” rather than hanging a label on the person. Do NOT allow the disease to define the person. The same goes for people with diabetes, epilepsy, any other disease which has a “-tic” label”. If you think of your loved one as a person first, who just happens to have a medical condition, you’d be surprised how much fuller your relationship with that person will be.
Gosh, if only changing my speech to an awkward and unnatural speech pattern could make my relationships better! (I wasn't that snarky when I replied directly.)
And the fourth
… and not a word about the other people ALSO playing the game, waiting and waiting for her son to throw the pitch.
The game is baseball. I think they can afford to wait :P
I argued for years against the common belief that Asperger’s kids did not understand (some said do not experience) emotions; my child was for some neurological reason hypersensitive to emotional fluctuations and would go into hysterics if I so much as raised my voice by one tone. She experienced people’s expressions and tones of voice as if they were amplified a hundred times, and I got so I could understand how frightening this would be.
Now the latest research is showing much the same thing — that kids on the spectrum are not emotion-blind, but overly sensitive to the resonances of feelings.
Great, can you go say that to whats-his-face on the other entries?
While it appears to be hip here to jump all over Elizabeth and Amazed, they both have a point. You do not think that kids are not forced to mind their manners, be accepting of others, pay attention, and stay inside the lines every day of their lives? Baseball is the one time they can have fun, and if any child, Aspie or not, is taking so long at the pitcher’s mound that the umpire has to issue a warning, this is beyond a reasonable amount of time.
I would reply to this, but - holy fuck, a sport organized by grown-ups is their *only* opportunity for fun? God. That SUCKS.
Okay, that's it! It's not as bad as I'd thought, though I didn't read any of the ones who couldn't be bothered with paragraph breaks.
Here's one more link.
We have a few other melons/gourds as well. Sunflowers make wonderful stakes for them so they don't rest on the ground and, unlike corn, you have a chance to enjoy them before the animals do. (And if we don't get ALL our sunflower seeds, well, it's less of a loss than not having all our cobs of corn!)
I'll get to work on those terrible comments now from those articles I posted yesterday. This is your only warning - some of these comments are absolutely hateful. (Some are good, and I'll try to include a few of those as well.) Don't read if you don't want to.
Responses to the mom's editorial
I suggest this because our teenager has developed a highly oppositional and defiant nature, which at its worst manifests as a complete refusal to go to school; at its best it is a refusal to try a different kind of food. But the point is that whatever this writer’s child is like now, it’s bound to get worse when adolescence strikes, so whatever resources can be put in place now will stand you in very good stead for the future.
Clearly, the ONLY reason her son has for not wanting to go to school is because he's oppositional and defiant. Can anybody say that with a straight face?
I think that stories like this show that it needs *more* attention to combat the misinformation, but so do other disorders that wrack whole families, particularly schizophrenia
This one probably speaks for itself.
Thank you for sharing. I hope and pray for all with and without autism.
This comment is so useless, I had to LOL.
I wonder if the genetic screening menitoned above would lead to termination rates simmilar to those of people who have downs fetuses and choose to abort. I know personally that if I were ever to become pregnant, and found out I was carrying a downs or autistic I would terminate without prejudice. I know it sounds cruel but I know myself.
But do you know anybody who actually has Downs or is autistic? Or are you relying on one-sided pieces of one person's problems? I support people's right to abort for whatever reason, but to say it's "without prejudice" is a bit much.
Two issues:
1. Asperger’s (along with other forms of autism) appears to be a combination of multiple genetic and congenital factors. No screening would be possible for a very long time.
2. Unlike other disorders, Asperger’s has positive elements (even if the author focused on many of the negative elements). I have it myself, and I wouldn’t give it up even if I could. I do regret what I put my parents through prior to the age of 15 (I mellowed in my late teens), but I think the trade-offs are worth it (and I think my parents mostly agree). Jumping straight to eugenics is going too far.
Thank you, Josh.
This is not, as the NYT headline mislabels it, “Autism’s Unvarnished Truth.” It is one person’s unvarnished experience.
Thank you, Jay.
Moreover, it’s important to remember that just like with any group of people, not everyone on the autistic spectrum (indeed not everyone who shares the same sub-label) is the same. Calif @38, I am truly sorry for your experiences, but my father who was an (undiagnosed) Aspie was a wonderful parent. My siblings and I always knew that he was proud of us.
We've hit a group of good comments.
Raising an autistic child is HARD everyday, all day. So unless you are RAISING an autistic child, be quiet and let us vent for a few minutes.
The trouble, of course, is that you're not venting to yourself, you're venting to people who are going to get all their ideas about the spectrum from your vents. And that's not fair or helpful for anybody.
Kathleen, true Asperger’s really do lack empathy. They can simulate it, but they never really have it.
(He then goes on to totally ignore what she said about having an autistic son, naturally.)
Wow, Bob. Way to not pay any attention whatsoever to recent studies in the area. Or do you know so much already you don't need to learn any more?
I agree that we must embrace these tortured souls and love them for who they are — and stop trying to make them more acceptable into our culture. It’s the culture that needs to be more accepting of them — because these special kids do not possess the ability to change.
Wow, I feel sorry for her kid. Yes, her son can change, and will change over the course of his life, just like everybody else!
My son’s uniqueness, his talents and sensitivity, and sweetness are no longer enough to balance out our nightmare.
And someday, this child will be an adult and loose on the world. And nothing we do can help him.
Her son is 16. Speaking from personal experience, he's probably not gonna act this way when he's 26 or 36. God, do people forget how much adolescence sucks even for NT kids?
As someone who comes from a family that is infused with autism, and as an autistic adult 47 year old woman, I’m dismayed after reading this article. My high functioning autistic son, who is now 23 years old, resembled your son’s behavior at the same age and then some.
If you feel like you got the short end of the stick by having your son in your life, then you need some serious counseling. Get over the mourning of not having the kid you wanted and be totally accepting of the kid you got. It will make things better for you, I promise.
Yes, this.
In response to the aspie's response to the first editorial
This is not about “hurt feelings,” or having a “right” to vent. This is about the very real consequences facing autistic people–segregation, bullying, institutionalization, abuse, murder–in a society that continues to allow negative stereotypes to go unchecked.
The Unvarnished article was just one among many; these stories are a dime a dozen with their insistence that words like “stress” are insufficient and must be replaced by things like “nightmare,” “tragedy,” or “cancer.” Day after day, this is what people see, not just those of us who follow autism stories obsessively, also those with a casual interest. They take this “information” in and respond accordingly when encountering someone autistic. This is how prejudice and abuse are perpetuated.
Then when a member of the minority being discussed dares to speak out, she is accused of picking on someone who has every right to “express her feelings” about how hard it is living with people like us. Along come a few more people with “burden” and “affliction” to explain how the autistic has missed the point. We lack empathy, you see.
See, now, I read this person's blog. Apparently everybody was talking about this and I just missed it. Not sure how....
But it is important to consider how our words in public can harm others. The mother, in choosing to speak out about how horrible her life is because of her son’s autism, has reinforced the prejudices and fear that already abound about autism. My son has a hard enough time without New York Times blog posts about how horrible people like him are.
Yes, that.
I understand what you are saying, but the mother describing her experience was not mourning a lost child. She clearly loves her son.
Yes, like the part where she explicitly says "The deep mourning for the loss of the child we thought we would have, watching longingly as other parents play with their “regular” kids."
Yet more evidence that those with autism are unable to empathize or relate to others emotionally. Sorry, harsh, but it’s true. As other posters have noted, in varying degrees, autistic children are biologically incapable of experiencing empathy. While normal children grow into adults, they can say, “Wow, I was a real brat, I might’ve deserved what I felt at the time was unfair.” Of course, for an autistic adult, this kind of mature perspective is largely impossible.
Note that this commentor makes no effort to empathize with us - and is ignorant besides. Do you know what's going to happen if somebody pipes up and says "Actually, I'm on the spectrum and I know my parents had a hard time with me"? Is he going to change his mind due to new evidence? No, no he is not! HE is going to say "Well, you're lying, you're not really autistic!"
Fucking twit.
Why doesn’t anyone admit that perhaps parents of autistic children wish their kids were different- “normal”? Why is it considered not politically correct to admit, that even though you love your child, you wish they did not have this disease?Isn’t i it also fair to acknowledge the parents’ perspective?
Let’s all be honest about the burdens of raising children with Autism!
All anybody ever DOES is "acknowledge the parent's perspective". It's that same perspective that leads people to kill their autistic children, and as often as not get away with it.
@#32: “No part of the autism spectrum is mental illness”
Um, yes it is. Sorry. I really dislike it when people with a disability of mental illness equate it to being gay or black. It’s not. And I speak as a profoundly hearing impaired person. I am disabled and different and I totally accept it, but it’s not like being gay or black.
You know what you're NOT? You're NOT autistic and you're NOT educated. (You're not right either.)
However, an opinion is an opinion and can’t be “wrong”. We’re not dealing with quantifiable, objective facts, but emotions and feelings, and you can’t deny what someone feels. Sarah is right. The mother is right. Where’s the contradiction?
Actually, an opinion is a statement that is "up for debate". It's in the dictionary, read it and weep.
I wonder how Sarah would fare if she were required to care for an autistic/Asperger’s child…
And if she did (as others do) it'd be "She's not really autistic. Her child's not really autistic. It doesn't *count* for this reason or that reason". There's no *point* to this.
I am not on the autistic spectrum, so I cannot fully understand your experience. It is striking and upsetting to read the comments. There is an obvious disconnect. You and other autistic people are accused in stereotypical fashion of lacking empathy by people who are themselves displaying caustic lack of empathy.
I am getting a sense of the discrimination you must face daily when I read the general support and sympathy on one thread toward the mother of an autistic child and her journey compared with the accusations and judgements toward you as you respond.
Thank you, Stephanie.
I work with parents of children with Asperger’s. Anger outbursts and rage attacks described by Lisa are thankfully rare in Asperger’s. Most with children & teens with Aspergers are quite shy & introverted, they are more often victims of school bullying. Sadly, stories about the majority shy & placid children with Aspergers does not illicit dramatic interest and are thus less likely to be published, or debated.
Parents have complained to me that the media tendency towards describing rare but dramatic cases, associated with violence & difficult behavior, is misleading school authorities into thinking that all AS children act the same.
As a direct result of this, I know of several teens with Asperger’s who are presently barred form main stream education because school authorities growing fear of Asperger’s & violence.
This, this, THIS is why people try to share that gloom-and-doom isn't useful! People talk about "finally getting the truth out", but the fact is that their "truth" is all people know as it is!
From the third article
There is a term used in several of the above posts that really needs to be addressed. That term is “autistic” as in “I have an autistic child”. It is much better to say “My child has autism” or “a person with autism” rather than hanging a label on the person. Do NOT allow the disease to define the person. The same goes for people with diabetes, epilepsy, any other disease which has a “-tic” label”. If you think of your loved one as a person first, who just happens to have a medical condition, you’d be surprised how much fuller your relationship with that person will be.
Gosh, if only changing my speech to an awkward and unnatural speech pattern could make my relationships better! (I wasn't that snarky when I replied directly.)
And the fourth
… and not a word about the other people ALSO playing the game, waiting and waiting for her son to throw the pitch.
The game is baseball. I think they can afford to wait :P
I argued for years against the common belief that Asperger’s kids did not understand (some said do not experience) emotions; my child was for some neurological reason hypersensitive to emotional fluctuations and would go into hysterics if I so much as raised my voice by one tone. She experienced people’s expressions and tones of voice as if they were amplified a hundred times, and I got so I could understand how frightening this would be.
Now the latest research is showing much the same thing — that kids on the spectrum are not emotion-blind, but overly sensitive to the resonances of feelings.
Great, can you go say that to whats-his-face on the other entries?
While it appears to be hip here to jump all over Elizabeth and Amazed, they both have a point. You do not think that kids are not forced to mind their manners, be accepting of others, pay attention, and stay inside the lines every day of their lives? Baseball is the one time they can have fun, and if any child, Aspie or not, is taking so long at the pitcher’s mound that the umpire has to issue a warning, this is beyond a reasonable amount of time.
I would reply to this, but - holy fuck, a sport organized by grown-ups is their *only* opportunity for fun? God. That SUCKS.
Okay, that's it! It's not as bad as I'd thought, though I didn't read any of the ones who couldn't be bothered with paragraph breaks.
Here's one more link.
