Maybe we are not so different…
This, in a sense, is a follow up to the article I wrote earlier about my experience with dipping into autism advocacy. If you haven’t already done so, it would make sense for you to read that article first.
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Imagine if you will, a hypothetical mother. She has an autistic son. She believes that her son was developing normally, but that sometime around the time of his early childhood injections, he started to regress with the signs of autism. She associates the two things, and now absolutely believes that the injections caused her son’s autism. This mother cares deeply for her son, and would do just about anything to reverse that regression, turning him into a normal child once more.
Her son is now seven, and has been receiving an array of treatments, including chelation and the use of a hyperbaric chamber over the last five years. The mother sees some signs of treatments working every now and then, but her son is clearly still autistic. She has learned not to trust mainstream Doctors, after all, they believe in the shots that gave her son this condition. Instead, she is more inclined to believe unconventional specialist Doctors who have brought their own treatments and potions onto the market, with very encouraging results promised by them. To hell with the cost – if it helps her son, it is worth every penny.
Now, this really isn’t meant to represent anyone in particular. It is just meant to give something of a picture of a mother who is prepared to go to any length to reverse a condition that she perceives her son has developed rather than inherited. If you are reading this, and think I’m talking about you, then I’m not, I assure you. I’ve just created a stereotype based on what I’ve read. It may well be an inaccurate stereotype, but I’m sure there are some parents out there who the above fits very well.
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I don’t identify at all with what the above mother holds to be true.
I see autism as an inherited condition. I’m sure that the environment in which you grow up has a bearing too, but fundamentally, I believe that neurological differences are the causes of most of the differences in being that I experience compared to a typical person. I don’t believe that autism can be cured. The brain scans showing atypical brain activity that I’ve read about are one good reason why I believe this. The other, of course is that once again, I believe this is inherited, not acquired – and if it isn’t acquired, it can’t be reversed.
But do you know what?
I really think that our hypothetical mother and me actually have a lot in common.
Firstly, there is a small matter of relentlessness. Our mother will do anything to reverse what happened to her son. To this end, she has spend a huge amount of time researching anything she can find in book form or on the Internet that may offer a hope – no matter how small – of her son improving. Whilst the scenario is different, I know this trait well. It’s the one I indulge in my Special Interests. Let’s take Asperger’s as an example. In the last year, I’ve read and read and read about Asperger’s, until information is spilling out of my ears. I want so much to know and understand how I work, that I’ll spend long hours reading obscure texts to decide whether they apply to me. Along the way I have become very knowledgeable about the information I’ve read, and can talk at length about it. So can our mother. But there’s somethign that we’ve both missed here. Context.
I usually refer to this as seeing intricate detail, but missing the bigger picture. I do this a lot. I can talk at length about how Asperger’s impacts people, but I fail to see how it impacts my wife, and what more I might do to help her, or indeed what I might do to help myself for that matter. None of this often gets a look in. Instead, I continue to fill myself with information about my Special Interest. Our hypothetical mother clearly has a similar problem. She’ll spend hours reading about an obscure new procedure that is largely untested but might just help revert the damage to her son, but she’ll fail to see the well respected reports like this, that show that autism isn’t an epidemic, and that in fact there are just as many autistic adults (albeit many of them undiagnosed) as there are children.
In short, we both see very specific things about autism, but fail to see the bigger picture at times.
We both see intricacy of detail in things too. She sees how a new treatment has lead to a little more eye contact or more words from her son over the last week. I see how I’m a little more anxious this week, after writing about certain topics.
But maybe here we are both missing the bigger picture again. Hypothetical mother is failing to take in how even autistic children develop over time – it is just often delayed or a slower progression than with a typical child. I’m probably reading too much into my anxiety levels too.
We are quite similar, in many ways. But why?
Well, it occurs to me that when children get diagnosed on the autism spectrum these days, it is not uncommon for one or more of their parents or for other family members to start their own journey of autistic self-discovery. Unless of course you are hypothetical mum, because she knows her son was damaged by injections, he didn’t inherit the condition.
But what if he did inherit it? What if he inherited it from his mum?
Maybe we are not so different…
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