How to talk about autism without being another trite, nicey nice article about how people are wired differently?

Do you remember Middle School? Junior High? Grades 7 to 10? Ages 12-16ish? Brutal years. Horrific.

For those of us who were never normal, those years are the stuff of hell.

I remember a girl; a normal, tall, beautiful girl. But thin. Strung out a bit. She found my eyes intriguing. She simply grabbed me by the throat one day in the girls bathroom and pushed me up against the wall and told all her pals to stare at my trippy eyes. I’ve always hated my eyes. Ever since that moment, I would rather cover them up then anything else… Anyone who comments on their unusual-ness generally gets a very uncalled-for cold shoulder from me. It’s not their fault that I survived teenage hood.

I remember being mocked in the hallways at school – being leered at and asked if I were blind because I was really uncomfortable with eye contact and really intimidated and overwhelmed by all the kids.

My back still hurts – 30 years later – from being hyper extended when I slipped on the vault after being hooted at like a gorilla by the boys when I was sprinting towards the springboard.

Yea. Whew. Those years.

My son – he’s 13 going on 14 going on 50. Wise, beautiful, perfect, fragile boy. SO strong. SO many gifts. SO very fragile. With a deep depression in his heart from all the pain caused by his parents separating, caused by moving to this old hold home from the big beautiful country home he’d always known, caused by mean kids who know he’s just different. Who call him “autistic f*ck” just because he beats them at a game of Minecraft. Just odd. Just… autistic.

…

My computer shows me all my pictures when it thinks I’m not watching. A lovely gallery of my children. My boy, with eyes that sparkle with deep wisdom, warmth, love and happiness. The boy who always smiled. Who knew every train engine in the entire world of Thomas the Tank before he was 3 years old. Other children were weird around him. Before we knew he was autistic, I remember being so confused when other children would hurt him, on purpose, and how their parents would apologize and look embarrassed but not really actually sorry for what their child just did to my own. He remembers every one of those children by name, the ones who would hurt him. They are as present to him now at nearly 14, as they were when he was 4. I have always felt like a failure because I couldn’t find the right words to put those parents with their apologetic but uncaring eyes in their places. To make them actually understand that allowing their child to kick my boy was not an okay thing. But. I was already a broken thing by the time my own child started to be harmed… broken things don’t quite know how to fight back within the bounds of appropriate social norms.

My son says he hates that he’s known as disabled. I couldn’t believe my ears when he used that word. He is far, far from disabled. He is just differently wired. Is that the same thing as disabled? Is not being able to write with a pen or pencil well, but being able to memorize entire books and all of Greek and Norse mythology…disabled? He’s physically perfect in every way. His athletic gifts continue to astound. His natural inclination towards justice, honesty, earnestness, goodness… these things make him disabled in every social sense of the word.

What kind of a world do we live in where basic human decency and goodness, where being a literal and honest person and trusting that others are as they say they are…makes you disabled?

His love and mercy and kindness towards others brings me to my knees in thanks and wonder. Parents of other children who are struggling (from down syndrome or hearing loss or for other reasons) have gone out of their way to tell me how my son made sure their child felt included, seen; how my boy made sure they were involved in the games with other children.

How could they, then (the normal people)? How dare they make him feel this way? How do I, his mom, help him protect his very special, God-given gifts of mercy, compassion, empathy and justice as the world of hateful, deceptive people teaches him just how foreign he is to them?

I have no answers, only questions and prayers to God to help me guide my children through this rough patch. I know he is walking a dark path right now of depression. He’s in counseling, but it’s hard for him to open up about how deep that well of sadness is – he shares with me, but I’m often at a loss – my own pain starts to take over and this conversation is NOT supposed to be about me. If we make it through, I pray his gift of Mercy stays with him, but has evolved and grown stronger and that he develops compassion and some awareness of how cruel our world often is.

I wish there was some way to tell parents to raise their kids to be kind. I’ve met so few families with truly kind, good kids. But, seriously people. Celebrate the differences and teach your kids to appreciate those who aren’t the same as them. Someday, they will need these unique minds to help them figure out harder things – fomenting hurt and hatred by sheer meanness is just not okay.