Just Fine

We are at my least favourite place in the World…the Playground. Noa, being the super outdoorsy kid that he is LOVES being outside. He runs, jumps, climbs and crawls until his heart is content.

Its great for him…stressful for me.

Because there is always that one mom/dad or parent that will invariably come to chit chat with me while I keep a watchful eye on Noa.

Wonderful adult small talk but always turns a bit awkward.

“Do you live around here? Where does your son go to school?”

I immediately tense up because that is definitely a loaded question. If I mention our suburb they may ask more questions. If I mention the school they will immediately know and that’s what starts the discussion…or not.

Sometimes its “Oh, the Autism School?” or “Really??? The Autism School?” or “Wow!! The Autism School?” …sometimes followed by an awkward stammering and their excusing themselves from the conversation.

My favourite is “Really? The Autism School?! But he looks fine!”

Groan.

Yes, he looks fine. He is fine. I’m watching my super athletic and agile son hang upside down and then complete a half flip to the ground complete with a cute Olympic style landing I showed him.

He’s totally fine. He runs and giggles and plays watching the other children. Always on the periphery, not necessarily engaged but still THERE.

He is fine. Because he has people in his life that are working to understand his needs and how to communicate with him.

He’s fine because he’s totally able to deal with all of the sounds, smells and changes around him now without having a complete meltdown.

He’s fine because he is now able to go out without wearing his noise cancelling headphones to prevent him from becoming overwhelmed and stressed.

I never understood the idea of looking at someone to assess their “normalcy”. I’m a doctor and I know that as much as I’d like to have X-Ray vision and the ability to touch people to diagnose them its not quite the way it works. You can’t see depression or anxiety or Autism or cancer for that matter.

I appreciate what they are TRYING to say. What they are trying to say is “Your child is autistic and seems to be doing really well with dealing with our surroundings. That is so great”.

So, I don’t get angry, nor do I stop engaging because I owe it to Noa and the millions of children and adults like him to explain what their world is like.  I have always seen myself, his father, our family and friends as the “bridge” to Noa. My job is to translate the craziness of our world into the words of his. I have to educate people that he is intelligent even if he doesn’t seem to be able to carry on a conversation and that his happiness is manifested just like any other 5 year old.

So I usually take a deep breath, smile and then tell them about how great of a kid Noa is and how far he’s come and what he can do and how to engage him. I tell them that he just sees and feels things differently and sometimes that different way can be overwhelming and intense. I explain that we teach him how to process his feelings and most importantly, how to do them in a way that everybody can understand.

I’m hoping that the friendly Park Mom that I met on Sunday “gets it”. She gave a slightly embarrassed smile and then glanced back over at Noa. She said “He looks like a great kid”

We are watching as Noa is drawing out a picture of a pentagon in the sand.

“Yep”, I answered. “He is just fine”