A conversation with my mom about autism
TL;DR
Tommy describes talking with his mother, who believed autism is an overused made-up label. Instead of arguing, he said the condition is real whatever it is called, and described how it shows up in his life. She came to recognize herself in it and later researched it, and his takeaway is to work around labels to share understanding.
I had an interesting conversation about autism with my mom several weeks ago. Some people of her generation believe autism is another made-up disorder and label that is overused and over diagnosed. Rather than argue, here’s what I said:
I can see how you could see that. There are a lot of people being diagnosed as autistic now. Let’s, for a moment, assume it’s just another made-up disorder and label we smack on people. Regardless of the name, the condition is real and has existed for centuries. The labels have changed. “Spaz”, “dork”, “weirdo”, “looser” are some of the labels that I’ve heard and had applied to me. I specifically used some of the words her generation put on autistics.
After a few minutes, my mom was willing to listen and engage in a different way. We started talking about the ways autism presents in my life: hyper awareness to sights and sounds, discomfort in social situations, difficulty reading people’s emotions and intentions from facial cues, difficulty sharing my own emotions both facially and verbally.
Ten minutes later, she said something that surprised me: “All that sounds like me, too!” Bingo.
A couple of weeks later, my mom called. She had been looking in to what makes autistics different. “If I had known all this when you were a kid, I might have raised you differently and you wouldn’t be the person you are today.” Love you, Mom.
Sometimes labels get in the way. Work around them to share understanding.
