Saturday, 12 September 2009
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I Must Be Missing Something!!!!
I know I must be wrong. I know that I must be missing something, but right now, I’m so mad I could spit fire that turns into…hell. I turned to see my Alex crying a silent, non-breathing cry with his mouth in his hands. Eyes tortured. Body contorted. Activity all around him, two adults looked on, in his direction, less than 10 feet from him.
I hurried to him, asking “What’s wrong…What happened?” Nothing, he was still amidst his silent, hysterical cry. I turned to the adults, “What happened?!?!” One did the passive, unconcerned shrug of the shoulders, head tilt to the side, frown of “beats me.” Very. Unconcerned.
I asked again, to the other adult, who obviously heard me the first time I asked, not to mention seeing me rush to Alex’s side. Again, less than 10 feet from Alex, less than 5 feet from the 1st adult. He looked on cleaning his glasses, then said in an equally unconcerned, sappy voice, “He’s asking for a helicopter. We don’t have one. I looked.” Never looked up from the glass cleaning, no eye contact, no inflection, no concern.
Yes, these two were neighbors. Not the good neighbors. Ones that we don’t know very well at all, but whom we didn’t necessarily think bad of. Now, I don’t know.
In hind sight, I saw “Glasses” move Alex’s hands away from him. Alex can be touchy, so I understand. The look on his face though was of uncomfortable, non-understanding contempt. Annoyance.
With the “Other”, I recalled a conversation where she told me that in her profession, she didn’t like working with the elderly. They call her for “stupid” things, like asking her to pull up their socks. I recalled thinking, “Well, they need your help. They can’t reach down and physically do it themselves or they would. Why wouldn’t you want to help? Wouldn’t you want the help if you were elderly?!?” Then just as quickly, I thought, “I guess ‘the elderly’ isn’t for everyone…I don’t do her job, so I can’t understand.”
I didn’t say either.
Only, in hind sight, it does say that there’s a lack of understanding for those who are incapable of helping themselves. A lack of compassion. A lack of general humanity for those in the later stages of their lives, those who are not of able body, of able mind.
I had to pick Alex up, carry him into the house and take some time to calm him down. The only thing I could get from him…that someone was mean to him.
So I’m mad. Pissed actually. So incredibly pissed and I don’t know if it’s right.
I don’t know if I should expect that someone would react the way I would, the way most would if they were standing less than 10 feet from another human being that was in such pains that they were sobbing in front of all.
I don’t know if I should expect that someone would attempt to comfort a child, call the attention of a parent, offer a kind word, a reassuring gesture.
I don’t know if I should expect that educated adults, parents of one, expecting another, should have any concern for a child who can not speak for himself, a child they’re very aware of, as is everyone in our cul-de-sac; should they have any twinge of a thought to reach out to a silently sobbing, tortured young boy.
I don’t know. I must be missing something!
(Photo above By: Mechkad)
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About the Author
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- From: generalhysteria
- About Me: I’m a mother to 3 children, one with special needs. Alex (6), Violet (2) and Ben (1). I have done a great many things in my life thus far, but being a wife and mother is the most challenging.
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Comments (17)
Sorry this happened. People can be insensitive jerks! Just so sorry!
I'm sorry this happened to you and your child. In my opinion you have every right to be upset and angry, very angry. What you can do with that anger? I don't really have any answer for that. It is sad and very frustrating to realize that there are people out there who because of either a lack of understanding or integral compassion can be so cruel and thoughtless.
I have seen people view my kid, who, although high-functioning, still has insurmountable issues with autism. You've every right to be furious, scared witless...all of the above - there are many who, even after reading what autism is about, still insist that much of the difficulties in interpersonal relationships are somehow caused by the kid who is autistic. It is painful to watch the emotions boil in my kid's eyes, while the people around him get annoyed by his take on the emotional defensive mode.
The thing of it is, even after all the best education in the world, people often cannot relate to someone as difficult to comprehend to them as the one person in question, to them; I remember seeing somewhere that the experience can be compared to a penguin trying to relate to ducks in a pond; they're all birds, they all have wings, yellowed feet - so why can't the penguin fly? The ducks don't get it. Why can't the ducks handle the icy cold depths where the spring feed is - and the icy cold fish therein? The penguin cannot comprehend it.
Who can translate between the ducks and the penguin? I guess it's up to we, the family members who wear our puzzle-piece ribbons, to translate it - and to seek out other ducks and penguins more familiar with each other along the way. I don't know. I'm just a flightless duck, whose youngest son is a penguin. I hope that made sense?
It can be so disappointing when people don't treat our children as we would treat theirs. Hopefully after watching you they learned something from the experience and maybe next time won't be so hesitant to act.
Thank you everyone for your comments.
I guess, I know, that they world is full of these people. BUT, I also felt that with more education, more attention to the things that strike our children, adults, the elderly, people would learn more compassion, embrace differences, be more understanding. BUT, I guess I was wrong.
You have the right to be pissed. I would be too! On the other hand, it's crazy because in these times you never know if a parent would be pissed at YOU for trying to comfort their crying child if they aren't around. But they shouldn't be so heartless about it and uncaring. THAT is wrong and yes again, you have the right to be very angry. I'm sorry this happened!
I feel your pain. My son has felt your son's pain. You know, I've often said that my son has taught me more about life than I would've ever learned had he been neurotypical. Honestly, he has taught me more about PEOPLE, their personalities, their hang-ups, etc. I think raising our autistic children is a gift sent straight from God the Father, in that we are taught and reminded daily of His greatest commandment - 1. Love your God with all your heart and soul and 2. Love your neighbor as yourself. We are fortunate that we know how to LOVE people for exactly who they are - unconditionally.
Thank you for sharing your painful story. Sometimes it's hard to believe that anyone else in the world ever has to deal with the heartache of selfish humans. Keep persevering and thank God that you are not like those "blind" people who are too good to reach out to the needy.
Thought this would be appropriate for this topic......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD78i6eoGkM&feature=player_embedded
Wow that sucks.
I don't get why some people have such issues with kids. I mean, it's one thing if you just don't want to be a parent... but that doesn't exempt people from helping the others out, on a small scale at least sometimes.
I don't have any autistic kids in my family but heck if my sister's two year old were crying like that I'd be freaking out too. I know how to make her laugh instead and I do.
I say you go a little easy on them. Yeah, they were kind of jerks, but people are just different.
I worked with "at risk" (inner-city) kids for several years. Many people aren't trained and don't have the instinct for caring for others. A lack of compassion is not a crime, even if it is a bit of a shame. My coworkers all handled crying differently. If it was a young child, I would generally pull them into my lap and just hug them until they stopped crying. Some of the men, scared witless, would hand a crying child a popscicle and run away. One suggested leaving a child alone to cry until he felt better.
That's especially common when kids throw fits. When I was angrily hysterical for little reason as a kid, I remember my mother carrying me into my room and saying "You want to throw a fit? You're welcome to, but you'll do it without an audience. You can come back in with us when you're ready to play nice." And that was the right thing to do for me.
I don't know that much about autism, and a lot of others don't either. They might try to apply strategies that work with their own children, but are completely unhelpful in other situations. That's why I'd go easy on the neighbors... because they just may not know how to react. Maybe they somehow thought that he'd get over it faster if they didn't pay attention... I've seen people try that with other children before.
If my neighbor's kid was crying, I probably wouldn't do anything about it, either. I would want to, but if I didn't know the neighbor very well and didn't know how they or the child would react, I wouldn't. Some parents would freak out if you touched their kid.
I would, however, care more when the parent asked me what was wrong, and probably try to get the parent, just not comfort the kid.I totally understand this post. But unfortunately some people have not been brought up to have respect or compassion for other human beings and simply don't see it as their responsibilty and therefore avoid helping others as much as possible. I find it saddening that we can't rely on people to do the decent thing but sadly that is the case.
The truth is that there are a lot of insensitive self adults in this world who care so much about themselves that they have no compassion for others, even children. But it's also true that if your child were throwing a temper tantrum at me because I didn't/couldn't give him a helicopter, I'd talk to him like an adult (talking down to children is patronizing and makes them stupid) and tell him that I couldn't give him what he wanted and even if I could I would never give it to him while he was screaming because that's not how we treat others, and if he continued either tell you, or ignore him till he got the hint and asked nicely.
I'm so sorry you had to deal with that. I'm not sure whether they were being nasty or not.... it seems as though they are just clueless and don't know what to do for your child. But I feel your pain - I've been there many times!
I really don't understand this post. The people just didn't know how to act at that point. The one adult said he looked for the helicopter your kid was looking for and couldn't find it. I don't know what you expect him to do for your kid at that point. I guess that was just "Glasses", but I don't know what more you wanted from him.
"Other" sees this kind of thing a lot, probably. And she really doesn't understand what's going on. Both of them probably don't have a good grip of what's happening at that point. Or maybe they don't know how to deal with specifically autistic kids. After all, a lot of them hate being touched, hate those reassuring pats on the back, and things like that. I don't know if your son gets violent or not, but a lot of autistic kids do when you get near them. It's tough to extend a helping hand when you think the person you're doing it to could attack you if you don't keep your distance. After all, you mentioned you don't know them well, so they probably don't know you or your son very well.
"The look on his face though was of uncomfortable, non-understanding contempt." I feel like this sentence can help you understand what's going on. He felt uncomfortable because he wasn't sure what to do or how to help. Non-understanding is the real word that answers all your questions. He didn't understand; he didn't know how to react.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
what jerks (for lack of a better word).
i would've built him a helicopter.
I am so angry for you! That's awful! You must have been wrenched inside out. Thanks for sharing the story though. Man, I feel for you.