Friday, 18 September 2009

• Letting go of ASD traits, both good and sad

  A few weeks after Quinn started therapy, my husband happened upon me bawling in the kitchen.

  No shocker there, I wasn't making a big deal about it. I had been bawling in the kitchen for about 9 months.

  After he gave me the thoughtful, if obligatory, “What’s wrong?” I said something honest that sounded completely stupid.

  “All these therapists keep telling her to do things and trying to get her to say stuff…It’s like they are trying to change her.”

  “And,” I added, sobbing, “She doesn’t need to change. She is completely awesome just the way she is.”

  Well, duh. They are trying to change her.

  Because although she was completely awesome in many ways, she also couldn’t make eye contact without screaming, and would pick up anything with writing from a pizza coupon to the Bible and recite “Are You My Mother?” verbatim. 
  

  The stacking created incredible towers. The spot-on Mary Poppins scenes brought joy to a lot of people. The freaky ability to sit with her thumb in her mouth dead silent then burst out with “Five boys and three girls, eight people” was a great party trick for a toddler.
  

  But even then I knew what was quirky and interesting and even sort of fun at two was not going to have the same effect on people when she was eight. Or 17. Or 30. I knew she had to change, and that unlike a lot of kids, that change might not come without uncomfortable boundary pushing and loss.

  But as much as I feared for her future, I loved who she was. No pretense, no bullshit, no cloying cuteness or need for approval. Amazing spacial and visual skills. Focus.

  Couldn’t describe lunch, but would tell you, A parachute is like an umbrella” in a moment of clarity, only to sink back away for hours or days.

  Part of me was afraid of the change, and part of me was upset knowing that if these therapists saw things that needed changing, other people were seeing it too. And that might be all they could see.

  In the end, there were trade-offs.

  There are things that we backed away from temporarily that we are now nurturing again, and there are things that crop up that we try to nip in the bud.

  When she hums, when she repeats, when she obsesses, when she takes things too literally, I pinch her little chin and say, “Quinn, no back-sliding.”

  Then she lies face-up on the hardwood and pushes herself  around the room with her feet:  “Like this? Like this? Like this?”

  Like that. Exactly.

  URL: http://talksmallforkids.com/2009/08/20/asd-therapy-coping-with-change/

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