Autism Blues

I've been a bit down this weekend about the autism. Alex is so lovely, and fun, and I know how lucky I am that he is as social and in tune with us as he is, and yet.

I want him to ask me to read to him. I want him to be able to tell me if he's in pain. I want him to tell me what he's thinking about. He is so independent, and sometimes I just think he thinks of anyone around him as a tool to be used. That's hard.

When I was driving around town the other day, I came to the conclusion that it's like being in a tug of war. Some days I can feel myself being more like Alex, we spend time not talking, just communicating non-verbally, I can feel myself being more like he is. Other days I can see him being more in touch, where I think 'normalcy' is just around the corner, and all it will take is the right activity, the right toy, the right book, and he'll be with us for real. I forget sometimes that it isn't Alex on the other side of the tug of war rope. It's the autism I'm pulling against. Alex is the prize.

I read an article that compared autism to computer operating systems, and people with autism as running a Mac OS in a PC world. I want an emulator that I can plug into my baby. One that lets him still be Alex, but able to function in the mainstream. And then I get annoyed with myself. Why do we want everyone to be the same. I tell people all the time that we need to prepare our children for the real world, but I wonder if we're really just making ourselves slaves to some kind of life that we don't particularly want to live.

But that is naive and idealistic too. We all do need to deal with the real world, one way or another. I'm just afraid that sometimes we're ignoring our talents and our children's talents in favor of security or conformity.

I think I've got a bit of a rebellious streak.