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”
