A familiar scenario

A familiar senario

Reading this story today, scouring the news for anything linked to autism awareness day – there’s not much tbh, this article, by someone only named as B’s Dad reads like my recent blog post, the elephant in the room, about autism invisibility.

It’s a heart-rending read, not least because it details what is for me, a very familiar scenario, of fighting to make Jonah’s difficulties with the world understood. Luckily for us, the people who deal with him regularly are all too aware of Jonah’s difficulties. At parent teacher conference yesterday the gloves were off. Jonah has been turning furniture in the classroom, angry outbursts are common, and when he doesn’t get his own way his eyes burn a hole into hell at the back of the classroom. when I suggested arranging a child psychologist, the teacher was firm. “I think this is a good idea,” she said, no mincing about, and any pretence I keep up that I don’t have to deal with this, that I keep up a cheery façade and feed him fish oils, crumbled.

I watched Living with Autism on BBC 2 yesterday, and it was a stark reminder of the trajectory Jonah may be on. The bright eyed boy from the fifties featured in the research is now a monotonous, monsyllabic fifty seven year old, who takes delight in growing sunflowers but not, it seems much else. I don’t doubt that Jonah’s life will not progress with so many limitations – he’s verbal for a start, as well as being highly academic – the cherry on an unsweetened cake that fools many people into thinking that there’s nothing wrong at all –  but watching sweet little Joe Allison shuffle off into blinkered, sheltered adulthood was a stark reminder that the limitations there are aren’t going to go away, and I must steel myself for that.

On the other hand, the lovely relationship detailed in the show, about two adults on the spectrum living together in a co-dependency that cuts human relationships down to the quick: “you’re my required amount of social interaction a day,” also goes to show that for ASD sufferers, there is much to be gained from cutting out the hearts and flowers, emotion and bullshit, and in a more understanding world, Jonah’s probably going to be just fine.