Art About Autism

I am very proud to show off my latest piece. It is called, "An Autism Sibling's Childhood." It is about my childhood in Oregon. We had picnics at the coast, trips to the mountains, and of course, autism with all of the unique, beautiful, and sometimes complicated characteristics that go along with it.

The medium is a linocut print. I carve these in an artist linoleum and hand print and pull them. It gives them an irresistible rustic look. Every print I make from this block will be unique.





View listing by clicking here.

Siblings

I am an autism sibling. I've had lots of my experiences come to mind lately as I've been thinking about what my family may be like in the future. I live in a very family oriented part of the country. It is not uncommon to see a woman my age or even younger tote three or four children to the grocery store. When people see that I have a four year old and no other children and no signs of expecting, I get asked, "Do you want more kids?" Rude, I know.

I have a memory bank full of experiences of what it is like to be an autism sibling. I wouldn't call my teenage years "normal." My brother is classically autistic in the moderate range. While there were definitely rewarding experiences, there were also lots of challenges.

This is a story I wrote for autism siblings in a previous post. Even though I am not much of a writer, I feel like for this story I included a good balance of the good and the challenging.
Read The Chocolate Effect here.

I did have some friends that were like the Allison in the story and I will always be grateful. (Admittedly though, we would usually hang out at other places besides my home.) My most Allison like friend, (as far as the purposes in the story goes, anyway,) was the young man that I eventually married. When we were just friends in high school Jason would invite himself over and hang out. He put up with my brother's antics marvelously. My sister and I coined the challenge of our brother with new people "The Jared Test" and when we were young adults we used it on all our dates. We learned quickly which of the young men were most patient. It turned out to be a very viable test.

So as I have my memories running through my head, and my future family before me, I've been feeling like I am missing a perspective. That is the one of the parent of the child that has the autism sibling. Are there any parents out there who are willing to share? What do you do with your autism sib kids to help them learn from, be patient towards, and in some cases, have normal social lives despite their challenges at home?

The Face of Autism

This is just a fun little project that included everyone in the family. My husband shot this photo while doing an Eli "photo shoot," meaning stalking him with a camera until a picture of his face is obtained. (He also managed to get one with a big smile!) I did alittle photo editing on the photo. (I did tons of photo editing in college... already getting rusty!) It is still overexposed, etc, but I found the end result with his little gaze to be pretty meaningful. I can also imagine my brother at this age looking at me with his own gaze which somehow still looks at me and through me at the same time.

Immunizations

I had an experience afew weeks ago that I have been thinking about ever since.

I went to see a friend who is an autism sibling like me who had a new baby, about one month old. That little guy was such a doll, and so aware. He could tell that someone that was not mom or dad was holding him, but he decided he could tolerate me after afew minutes. I felt such a connection with the little guy, with the exception of weight and looks, he was just like my little boy at that age... behaved in the same ways. I was so excited I told my husband all about him when I got home. Then he asked me, "Have they been doing immunizations?" And that was all it took for me to sit on my couch and cry for awhile. My husband understood what was wrong and just lovingly sat there with me.

I've spoken before about how I sometimes think about things I would have done differently as a parent in my Mother's Day post. Immunizations is one of those things. I wish I had not been so unaware. Maybe my son would have had less symptoms and had been able to enjoy life more from an early age if I had waited and watched him for symptoms first, waited for safer immunizations, or simply avoided immunizations all together.

Eli has been in biochemical intervention for one year this month. Biochemical intervention has made a difference, even though we can't afford even half the therapies we wold like to have him in. None of his therapies are covered by insurance, and his diet and supplements are hard for us to keep up with. Despite this, Eli can interact in ways he couldn't before, and finds happiness in things he didn't before. (During the drafting of this post he signed "dance" along with a verbal approximation and he grabbed my hands and we danced around the living room!)Previous to Eli seeing a DAN! doctor, his father and I read "Changing the Course of Autism" by Dr. Bryan Jepson. The experience of reading this book was amazing. It is such a compilation of research. It explained to me things that I saw going on with my son and my brother, and the autism community in general, and I was instantly converted.

Now understanding the connection between genetics and autism, and also immunizations and autism due in part to heavy metals, I am appalled to admit that Eli has had the "full schedule" of shots up until the age of 24 months, flu shots, plus he was enrolled in one immunization study. (The doctor, who had children of his own, said that the study was one he would do, and I was way too trusting back then.) My son now has an immunization waiver which allows him to attend public school.

To all the people reading this thinking, "this girl is off her rocker," I want to tell you something: I was once you. Consider the big business that has been built around the immunization program, and what the business implications may be to said big business if each child in the country had one less mercury infused immunization. Consider the government all these years in supporting this big business by requiring children to have a full schedule of immunizations in order to go to school. Then consider that the CDC can't seem to recognize the evidence right in front of them. So I put it to you, I am not a professional after all. Tell me, do these dots deserve to be connected?

Here's an interesting video of CDC accidentally admitting there is a link between autism and immunizations. (I am indebted to Ginger's blog, www.advenduresinautism.blogspot.com for this link.)



Parents, please educate yourselves. Let your mother/father instincts guide you.




"The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief [. . .] of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense."
Elizabeth Bennett in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

The Chocolate Effect: A Story For Autism Siblings

This story is my own material. Although it is fictional, (and admittedly still needs work,) it is based on my own experiences. I am NOT an author by any means, I just wanted to try doing something for young autism siblings out there. They need to know that they are not alone.

We autism siblings learn the value of true friendship young. We have experiences of both frustration and joy that many of our peers many not understand for many years. But most of all, we know how to love and we fight for our siblings with autism.


The Chocolate Effect

Yesterday when I saw my little brother walk out of the kitchen with an odd high pitched giggle and something brown around his mouth, I looked in the kitchen. I found a chocolate candy wrapper lying there on the floor by the cabinets. I was angry. Who left a piece of chocolate candy where he could find it? I knew then that the next day, today, was going to be a bad day.

It just happened to be clothes shopping day. We had planned to all go shopping at the Emporium. So, off we all went on an afternoon shopping trip, mom, my sister, my brother and I. It took more than one of us to keep up with my little brother. He was weaving through racks and climbing underneath them. It is hard to shop that way. I started loosing hope of getting a new shirt. Then we all smelt an especially messy, well, messy. Mom took my brother to the restroom to change him. She called to me to get more wipes. I was embarrassed, but I sensed her urgency and I ran out to the car to get more. When I got back there were some fashionable teenage shoppers in the restroom. “Eew, what is that smell?” one of them said, and they giggled as if the girl had made a good joke. I could have climbed under a rock. I gave the wipes to mom and the teenage girls left. We went home.

Later that evening my best friend Allison came over to work on biology with me. She was my lab partner and we had a write up to do. The minute she walked in my little brother was clinging on her arm, blowing in her face, and getting upset if we tried to ignore him. It was time to do the thing that we were often compelled to do in such cases. Allison and I ran into my room and locked the door behind us. This usually led to 15 minutes of my brother pounding and screaming at the door. It was always so loud that we couldn’t hear each other talk. Today it was 20 minutes of screaming and pounding. We tried to ignore it, and when he finally found something else to interest him, we could talk about how bad the day had been.

The next day when I came home from school, I walked in the door and heard a high pitched giggle. Oh no, I thought, left over chocolate effect. But the little person of my brother ran to me smiling. I could tell this day was going to be better than yesterday. He handed me a crayon and pulled me by the hand to the kitchen table that was scattered with paper. He wanted me to color with him. So I did.

When Mom later discovered us coloring at the kitchen table, she told me that she wanted to go to the grocery store for some things to make dinner. So, once again, we all went on an afternoon shopping trip. There we all were walking along at the grocery store, mom, my sister, and me, all except my little brother. He was galloping along with us, waving his arms around, and jabbering to himself and anyone walking by. Sometimes we held his hand, but he stayed with us. All except for the time he ran off to look at the lobster tank. On our way out, some older boys from my school were walking in, and they looked at my brother as if he was bothering them. I ignored those boys and their lip and eyebrow ring faces. Then, I felt sorry for them. I thought about how much they were missing. Their reaction made me think they would probably never take the time to get to know a person like my little brother.

Later that afternoon, Allison came over again. We had work to do to make up for not doing it the evening before. My little brother clung on her arm, but he was not blowing on her face today. It was a nice day outside. We went out to the backyard with our papers and got my brother up on the trampoline. He actually separated himself from us and jumped, and jumped, and jumped. Allison and I got our write up done. Allison is a true friend.

After Allison left and we went in the house for dinner, my little brother gave me a hug. I hugged him back, because I know how sincere he is. I looked down into his hazel eyes. I remembered the day when he was a baby and I told mom that he would have hazel eyes like mine. She insisted they would be blue and wouldn’t believe me until one day, they just were. I thought about the day when he was a toddler and my world fell apart alittle when I learned of autism. I thought about my joy when he eventually learned to hug me and show me that he loves me.