{"id":3111,"date":"2018-04-18T14:07:07","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T21:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.org\/?p=3111"},"modified":"2018-04-18T14:07:07","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T21:07:07","slug":"i-have-autism-a-mothers-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/i-have-autism-a-mothers-story\/","title":{"rendered":"I Have Autism: A mother\u2019s story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"When I tell friends I was recently diagnosed with autism, some of them scoff and call it nonsense. They say I function fine, that I smile, laugh and socialize. I\u2019m a mother who is active in the lives of my three sons; I have published two novels, and have spoken publicly at conferences and schools across the country. In sum, I don\u2019t fit the preconception.
\nI can understand where they\u2019re coming from. Many, when they think about autism, picture an awkward teenage boy who has trouble making eye contact and is obsessed with gaming.
\nBut, as the old saying goes: If you\u2019ve met one person with autism, you\u2019ve met one person with autism.
\nWhen I was little, I felt like I watched the world from inside a glass box. It never occurred to me to try to connect with what was happening outside it.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t really think of myself as having any sort of role to play. I was just a set of eyes and ears.
\nTime passed, however, and by the age of 10 or 11, I started to want to connect. I observed more carefully. I studied others\u2014their body language, their laughter. For the most part, my mimicry was subconscious. Other times, it was deliberate. For example, a certain teacher had this bright, happy way of saying \u201cHi!\u201d that made people feel good inside.\u00a0 I remember deliberately deciding to say \u201cHi!\u201d to everyone I knew in that same happy way.
\nSometimes, I\u2019d get things wrong and was bullied\u2014even by \u201cfriends,\u201d which was tragic and bewildering. I desperately wanted the world to be a decent, clear, golden-rule-following sort of place. Of course, I learned it wasn\u2019t.
\nEventually, I more or less shed the glass box. I grew up, got a job, got married and had three wonderful sons. One of them was diagnosed with Asperger\u2019s at age 11.
\nIt took me until my kids were practically full grown, in order to get it\u2014to look back on my life with a clearer lens, and realize that it might not be just my son who was bringing the joys and challenges of autism into our family.
\nI started to figure it out while I was writing The Someday Birds, my first novel.\u00a0 It\u2019s about an autistic boy on a long journey in search of his father, and how he learns to feel more at ease in the world. At first, I thought I was writing as a heart-gift for my son. But I soon realized that the voice emerging from the pages sounded an awful lot like that little girl from long ago.
\nSo-called \u201chigher-functioning\u201d autistic women are relatively rare birds.\u00a0 And the reason for this, I think, is that we remain undiagnosed. We fly under the radar, blend in.
\nGrowing evidence shows that autistic women can be deeply empathetic and eager to be involved in the world. We observe social cues more carefully than males. We camouflage our symptoms. We don\u2019t fit stereotypes. We can be champion chameleons. But life as a chameleon can be exhausting.
\nI need a lot of downtime in which to \u201cdetox\u201d from public events. I jump with panic when my phone rings\u2014then take a deep breath and answer so calmly, you\u2019d never know. Trips to the store often end with me heading home because I can\u2019t take the sensory overload.
\nThat\u2019s just a few of the daily surface challenges. But I love connecting out in the world, so I go and do. I\u2019ve just got to find the right balance, to learn when to push and when to recoup. It\u2019s not always easy.
\nThe only one who wasn\u2019t surprised by my recent diagnosis was my mother. She took my hand and said, \u201cI always suspected it was something like that.\u201d My mom is an extremely sensitive introvert who also had issues as a child. Between you and me, I suspect she also might be somewhere on the spectrum.
\nHere\u2019s the thing: It\u2019s a wide spectrum. Autism takes as many different forms as the people it affects. Autism is a human condition, emphasis on the word human. I hope we can learn to expand our definitions of all the various, beautiful, different and\/or challenging ways that autistic brains work in this world\u2014to accept them, and make room for them all.
\n 
\nSally J. Pla in an award-winning author of two middle-grade books. Find out more about Sally\u2019s work at sallyjpla.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I tell friends I was recently diagnosed with autism, some of them scoff and call it nonsense. They say I function fine, that I smile, laugh and socialize. I\u2019m a mother who is active in the lives of my three sons; I have published two novels, and have spoken publicly at conferences and schools […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-info","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/specialneedsresourcefoundationofsandiego.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}