Over on Medium.com, Abby Norman shares experiences from her youth in a family with a brother, Caleb, who has autism and a mother with an eating disorder. Able to observe and interpret Caleb's ways of communicating, Abby acts as a translator to give him a voice that others will hear and, one hopes, understand.
From the piece:
What calmed him was lying on the bed for hours, motionless, watching the numbers of the digital clock change.
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He did not potty train on schedule. Instead, he had somewhat of an intense penchant for smearing feces all over the rug and walls of the house. This was his way of saying, “No, I’m not ready yet.” ... His relationship to the toilet had nothing to do with his bodily needs: the toilet was his method of rejecting objects. If he didn’t want something, he’d flush it down the toilet.
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He was only aggressive in the sense that, when startled or overwhelmed, he would kick and scream. They started out seeming like normal tantrums; but while most kids could be consoled, Caleb could not be, and he would have to literally wear himself down before he would stop.
The author notes that even in understanding her brother's differences, she was not necessarily his ideal caretaker. The piece continues:
Once he started school, the nightmare only intensified. I say that not to describe what life was like for us, but for him. School, with its unpredictable nature and constant social interaction, its lack of structure for kids who needed anything other than “normative learning.” The truth was, Caleb wasn’t really special needs. He was extremely intelligent.
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At home, his day to day life was more or less consistent. While my experience growing up with a mum with an eating disorder was difficult, for Caleb, the obsessive-compulsive nature of her lifestyle was exactly what he required to stay calm and safe. He and my mother had, and to this day still have, a very symbiotic relationship.
Previously: Inspired by his autistic son, a Stanford researcher works to understand the biochemistry of autism, The Reason I Jump: Insights on autism and communication, A mother’s story on what she learned from her autistic son and Autism therapies: It still comes down to parents
