An Ordinary Mom With An Extraordinary Kid Celebrates 1000 Ausome Things # Autismpositivity 2013

 

This post was originally published by An ordinary mom with an extraordinary kid at http://anordinarymomwithanextraordinarykid.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/an-ordinary-mom-with-an-extraordinary-kid-celebrates-1000-ausome-things-autismpositivity-2013/, and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

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Today is the last day of April, which also means it is the last day of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month. But it is also the start of Autism Positivity 2013 Flash Blog, where bloggers are invited to blog about autism. This year’s theme is 1,000 Ausome Things. Since it is already late afternoon and I still have to make dinner, help with homework, and prepare my lessons to teach my class tomorrow- 1,000 things just isn’t going to happen. We’ll see how far I get. So here goes…
My son has made me and many others laugh every day. To say he is blunt is to put it mildly. He tells it like it is; the good, the bad, and the ugly. I find it oddly refreshing and that is Ausome.
The reason I don’t have more time to work on this blog entry may be in part to my five hour breakfast, that’s right I said five hours. Breakfast with my autism moms just can’t be rushed. The strong, brave, courageous, and beautiful women I have met throughout this journey are Ausome.
Daniel has a totally unique way of looking at everything. Wouldn’t life be boring if everyone dressed the same, acted the same, and thought the same? He always has me looking at problems in a different way and coming up with some really fun solutions. That is Ausome.
Daniel will never give into peer pressure. He is not going to do something just because it is the “thing” to do. If he doesn’t want to do something, he isn’t going to do it- no matter. That is Ausome.
My ten year old will take my hand as we walk. He likes to know I am right beside him and I don’t think he will ever feel he is too old to hold my hand. The love I feel holding his hand in mine is Ausome.
On those cold Saturday mornings in November when my friends are freezing their butts off at the first of four soccer games of the day and knowing Daniel is not a team sports kind of kid, I can schedule his activities around my schedule. Cuddling on the couch under a big blanket on cold mornings is Ausome.
Okay, I know this is bad but I admit I have done this. I have used Daniel’s autism on occasion as an excuse to get out of things I don’t want to go do. For instance open house at the beginning of the school year. It is crazy; kids running around, parents pushing to talk to the teachers about their kids, bored and overtired screaming younger siblings. All of this puts me in full sensory overload yet I let others believe the reason we have a private open house earlier in the day is Daniel’s sensory issues. Using Daniel’s autism diagnose to avoid things I don’t want to do is Ausome.
Daniel’s autism related delays caused him to not meet various milestones when others his age were meeting theirs. Through hard work and perseverance (his and ours, not to mention his therapists) Daniel has reached those milestones and continues to advance. Realizing how hard he struggles makes me appreciate his achievements even more and that is Ausome.
After Daniel received his diagnosis, I began to attend Autism Society meetings (this is where I met my mommas). The more I attended these meetings the more I wanted to get involved. I am now on the board of our local autism society chapter and this year I am in charge organizing the summer camp for children on the spectrum. I never would have been involved with this organization had it not been for my connection to autism. Giving back to my community is Ausome.
In the last seven years I have read everything I could get my hands on about autism. All that I have learned has not only helped me parent Daniel, it has also changed the way I teach in my classroom. Being able to meet all of my students needs now in a way I was never able to before is Ausome.
Parenting a special needs child with Jay has brought us even closer. We are a team at the most important game of our lives. We work so hard to score a win for Daniel. Growing closer to my husband everyday is Ausome.
Okay now it is getting close to my bed time so I will finish with my favorite Ausome thing. Yup- you guessed it… Daniel.

Need I say more?

My Many Confessions Celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013

This post was originally published by Kimberly Theriault on My Many Confessions at http://www.mymanyconfessions.com/my-many-confessions-celebrates-1000-ausome-things-autismpositivity2013/, and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

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It’s that time of year again. (Although I wasn’t around for the first!) It’s the last day of April.It’s time for this year’s Autism Positivity Flash Blog. This year we were all asked to describe at least one thing that we think is “ausome” about Autism. The goal of this Flash Blog is to have 1,000 bloggers come together to create a list of 1,000 ausome things about Autism. A lofty goal, indeed.

The point of this exercise is to help counter the many stigmas, misinformation, negativity, and fear that surrounds Autism and paints it in artificial light. It’s a way for Autistics, care-givers, parents, and allistics to come together to embrace diversity. It’s an exercise with much importance.

But, it is harder than it looks. It’s hard for me to choose just one characteristic from a group of people that have taught me so much. It’s hard for me to pick just one thing about the most influential person in my life, my daughter. It’s hard for me to single out only one quality that all Autistic’s have because like all people they come in different shapes, sizes, molds, temperaments and colors. They are as different as you and I. It reminds me of an often muttered phrase in the Autism Community – “If you have met one Autistic person; then you have met one Autistic person.” It rings true.

But underneath all of their different qualities lies one trait identical amongst them all. One trait that stands out in their ranks. One trait that I find lacking in the average neurotypical.

They are genuine. Authentic. Bona fide. Sincere. Honest. Giving. Forgiving. Accepting.

They are genuine in their ability to be sincerely felt. They do not pretend to be what they are not and they are not affected enough by others need for “sameness” to try and change themselves. They embrace themselves and their differences in a way I wish most people could embrace themselves.

They are authentic to themselves. What you see surely what you get. They do not hide their feelings from others – especially when it comes to the cause. If they are happy you will surely know it. If they are not, you too will know this.

They are bona fide. What they claim to be and what they are is one in the same. They never put up a façade. There is never a false front.

They are sincere. In all of their words and gestures, what is deeply felt is expressed.

They are honest in all they do – possessing an honesty with themselves that appears lacking in most. They are honest to others because when you are honest to yourself it comes naturally.

They are giving. They offer up their knowledge freely and openly. Sharing with the world their truths; no matter how “unsavory” the truth may be. Favors asked are always met with a readily helping hand (even when they don’t have the time.)

They are forgiving even to those who have caused the most hurt in their lives. They seek to forgive those who continually portray their mere existence as worthless. All one has to do is ask for it.

They accept everyone equally. They are not prejudiced. They are not bigoted. They are truly allistic.

I know what you are thinking – you’re thinking that that was more than just one trait. And you’re right. But all of those traits together make up one much bigger. All of those characteristics can be encompassed in just one word: Goodness. Yes, no matter what you have been told, no matter what you think, Autistic’s embody an innate ability for goodness. They really are wonderful.

 

To learn more about this year’s Autism Positivity Flash Blog, click here.
To learn more about how the Autism Positivity Flash Blog got started, click here.
For a full list of all entries, click here.

Nat (@quarridors) Celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013

This post was originally published by Nat (@quarridors) at http://quarridors.dreamwidth.org/11703.html. It is reprinted here with permission from the author.

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It’s been a year since I was first referred for assessment, and seven months since I was diagnosed with an autistic spectrum condition. This September I gained the knowledge of exactly why I was different, 20 years after becoming painfully and hopelessly aware at age 12 that I wasn’t and couldn’t be like other kids, no matter how hard I tried. After years of searching, I finally knew for certain that the word that described me was ‘autistic’.

I have many challenges. I don’t deal with stress well, I’m not very aware of my body or my emotions, I find it difficult to organise myself without making a lot of conscious effort, I have sensory sensitivities that can easily overwhelm me, I tend to hyperfocus on ‘irrelevant’ details, I struggle to maintain friendships, I’m difficult to live with, the things I love doing are considered odd by most others, and I can be too rigid or literal when I communicate.

A year ago I was having a very difficult time of things, which is why I sought help from my GP, to finally know for sure why I struggled with so many ‘simple’ things. Getting a diagnosis was a huge relief but also triggered some painful reflection on friendships I’d lost, opportunities I missed, decisions I’d made then discounted based on how that change hadn’t solved my personal problems.

But six months on from that difficult first month, I’m able to look back on the positive results of the initially difficult conversations with friends and family, I can see the improvements from disclosing to my employers. I can reflect on the help I’ve been given to identify and act on my emotions. I can look at my home life, my social life and my work life and see just how much happier and more effective I am when I’m able to focus on getting things done and being a good person without worrying about doing things in a way that looks ‘normal’.

Now the challenges have a name and a shape, I can start to work around them, or with them, I can use my ‘inertia’ to ‘slingshot’ between tasks, I can ‘garden the path of least resistance’ and build functional routines that make me happier and more effective. I can use my tendency to develop and follow rules for everything to develop coping strategies that actually help. Now I have the knowledge, I can work out how to write a manual for myself.

Best of all, I’ve found community, I’ve found others who are also different in the ways that I am. People who think like I do, move like I do. I’ve seen my ‘unique’ physical and verbal quirks spontaneously produced by Internet friends I’ve just met in person, felt like I was meeting someone else from the same foreign country I come from. The same kind of different. I’ve found friendship groups who let me be my own stimmy, unfiltered self, and like me for it. I’ve learnt not to bluff and hide when I don’t understand, and I’ve actually started to make more connections.

And I’ve come to appreciate more of the ‘ausome’ things about me…

I notice, think about and take pleasure in small details that other people seem to miss or overlook.

Although I find complex emotional awareness difficult, I’m very aware of simple emotions like happiness, meaning that I jump around in glee at least once almost every day.

Unlike most people I meet, I no longer have the deluded belief that everyone thinks in the way I do, likes the things I do or sees the world how I do. I knew early on that there wasn’t anything that ‘everyone likes’ or ‘no one likes’.

I’m able to talk about what I do badly with total honesty without this meaning that I have low self esteem (the emotions specialist who worked with me seemed to think this was a rare skill).

Because I’ve always been aware that unwritten social rules are a challenge, I tend to try to be as intentionally thoughtful and considerate of other people’s feelings as much as possible.

By now, I am adept at explaining my own access needs and the reasons why they’re important, I have scripts for most situations and I can be the calm and ‘level headed’ one in situations that others find upsetting.

Despite having extremely fragile working memory, my long time memory for certain things is incredible.

I can hold the details of a complicated system in my head and see how one change will affect everything.

I tend to spot flaws and focus on the details, so I’m good at proof reading and analytical thinking. This makes me extremely well suited to many aspects of my job.

Because I have to organise myself ‘by force’, I already had the organisational strategies and tools to organise complicated work projects without training.

Having an incredible eye for detail and colour, and the hyperfocus to work on the same thing for hours and hours on end means that I was able to train myself to produce digital paintings that give people pleasure:

I can spend 15 hours on a single hyper-detailed image: (Click images for larger versions)

Being autistic is who I am, who I’ve always been. Getting to 32 with unidentified autism isn’t easy, there have been a lot of challenges and I have many regrets, but truly understanding and accepting my place on the autistic spectrum has been one of the best things to happen to me. Having this knowledge doesn’t change who I am, but it does help me to like who I am, and get so much more out of my life.

This post is part of the Autism Positivity Day 2013 Flashblog, finishing off Autism Acceptance Month 2013.

To learn more about the autistic spectrum, read the Storify I created for World Autism Awareness Day 2013.

 

The Musical Autist Celebrates 1000 Ausome Things: and 2 in particular, Absolute Pitch and Synesthesia #AutismPositivity2013

This post was originally published on The Musical Autist at http://www.themusicalautist.org/the-musical-autist-celebrates-1000-ausome-things-and-2-in-particular-absolute-pitch-and-synesthesia-autismpositivity2013/ and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

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We are thrilled and honored to be a part of Autism Positivity Day Flash Blog 2013.

It’s so great to join together, on this last day of April, to advocate for Neurodiversity, to celebrate the many beautiful things that only autism can bring to society. Like Absolute Pitch! Synesthesia! Need we say more? People that know autism already get our point. But we’ll take this opportunity for some brief explanation, or at least point you in some directions you’ll enjoy going.

First we’d like to say, The Musical Autist organization feels entitled and compelled to promote these two phenomenons as autistic traits for two reasons.

1. We put autistic people FIRST in our organization, in leading and guiding the organization itself. These are folks on the spectrum who have Absolute Pitch and Synesthesia for themselves, and they can attest to the wonderful musical gifts (though sometimes challenging, like with any gift) that Absolute Pitch and Synesthesia can be. Feel free to go here to read Paula Durbin-Westby’s experiences with Synesthesia, and you can also go to Sunny’s page to learn more about her. We’ll be posting another vlog soon, and Sunny will share with you her experiences with Absolute Pitch throughout her lifetime.

2. The other reason we feel entitled and compelled to promote Absolute Pitch and Synesthesia as traits of autism is because of our connections with the field of music therapy. This is the kind of stuff Music Therapists love to study! Check out our Community Music Therapy Team. There you will find some wonderful, competence-presuming, evidence-based-practice-minded Board Certified Music Therapists who interact regularly with people on the spectrum that have Absolute Pitch or Synesthesia. We’ve studied some of the neurological underpinnings of autism, and we also realize the efficacy of highlighting the positive traits of people on the spectrum in order to cultivate self-empowerment and self-advocacy.

I mean really, wouldn’t YOU want to know what note or chord was being played just by hearing it? Wouldn’t you enjoy seeing specific colors when you heard certain tones?

To learn more about Absolute Pitch, we highly recommend reading this fascinating research study that came out last year. Or, if reading research is not your forte, you can find some great discussion about the article from Norman Lebrecht, which will highlight the topic of Absolute Pitch for you without getting into the nitty gritty of the research. To learn more about Synesthesia you can go to the wiki page here. You can also go here and here for perspectives on how much research still needs to be done. But our favorite article on the topic of Synesthesia is from our friend Ariane, at Emma’s Hope Book. After you read that, we highly recommend bookmarking Ariane’s site and visiting regularly.

Are you someone who has been paying attention to all the autism “awareness” this month? Have you heard the latest autism prevalence rate projections which are utilized for the fundraising pleas of organizations that paint autism to be a disease or something that families need to mourn, in order to raise funds for research intended to “extinguish” autism? Are you exhausted by it all like we are? Then you’ve come to the right place! Now go to Autism Acceptance Month (you’ll see that our Sensory Friendly Concert was on their list of events), then spend some time reading the many amazing bloggers linked to Autism Positivity Flashblog.

Have fun! Be inspired! Be hopeful!

Your mindset is more than half the battle.

Your mindset has the greatest impact on those around you.

Sleep Deprivation Diaries celebrates 1000 Ausome Things: Aaron #AutismPositivity2013

This post was originally published by Courtney on Sleep Deprivation Diaries at http://sleepdeprivationdiaries.blogspot.com/2013/04/aaron.html, and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

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In honor of the positivity flash blog.  See https://autismpositivity.wordpress.com/

I am posting 30 awesome things about Aaron, one for each day of this month.  I could easily post 1,000,000  but I’ll start with 30.

#1.  Aaron has the best belly laugh.  You have to work for it, but when he gets going, its amazing

#2.  Aaron is so sensitive.  If someone is crying or upset, he gets very worried.

#3.  He can say so much without saying a word and has taught us how to really listen and the power of non-verbal communication.

#4.  Aaron is so curious.  He is mischievious and delights in trying to figure out how anything and everything works.

#5.  He is so funny and inherrantly silly.

#6.  He notices everything and will watch the mail truck, see how it moves, the motion of the wheels, the whir of the engine.  He knows how to slow down and enjoy life.

#7.  He is a great big brother to Owen.  Even though he struggles with sharing and Owen grabs his toys a lot, he shares his matchbox cars which is really tough for him.

#8.  He does not care what other people think.  He will play, script, do his own thing and not worry what other people think about it.  I admire that quality so much.

#9.  The look of pride on his face when he accomplishes something he has been trying really hard to do.

#10.  He does everything in his own time and on his terms.

#11.  He has been proving doctors and therapists wrong for a long time just by being him.

#12.  He is so in touch with nature.  He is just quiet and present outside.  its where he is most at home.

#13 The look on his face when he plays in water of any kind

#14.  The scream of joy when he sees the elevator doors open and can climb inside

#15.  The pure, primal joy he experiences when he sees and hears the garbage truck.  I never knew anything could make anyone so happy.  Its awesome to watch.

For the last 15, I will post pictures because they show the best window into his Aaron-ness

Autism Blues Celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013

This post was originally published by Leo Zanchettin on Autism Blues, at http://autismblues.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/autism-blues-celebrates-1000-ausome-things-autismpositivity2013/ and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

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So here we are at the end of another Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month. This year, I discovered this really interesting site. It’s a “flash blog” called Autism Positivity. I’m guessing that a flash blog is something like a flash mob. It appears out of nowhere, does something really cool, and then disappears. The goal of this flash blog is to present 1,000 pieces from people touched by ASD—pieces that celebrate the positive side of the ASD constellation.

So what’s “ausome” about being an ASD dad? Simply put: my family.

• First, there’s my oldest, a thirteen-year-old boy with PDD-NOS. Socially, he’s catching up with his peers. He’s beginning to find his “tribe” in the heartless scrum that is middle school. He has a quick wit and a nimble mind. He also has a rich vocabulary. So what if he sometimes can’t distinguish between the literal and figurative speech some of his friends use? It’s helping him learn the ways of that alien species, the neurotypical adolescent.

• Then there’s my twelve-year-old daughter. She is as aspie as they come, and she knows it. And she owns it. And she uses it to her advantage as often as we’ll let her. She can retreat into her own rich, private world for hours but still come out of herself when she sees the need. She clearly marches to her own drummer, but she is beginning to show that she “gets” where her brothers and sister are at. Plus, she has my mother’s smile. What’s not to love?

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From DUSYA: The difference between normal ( NT”S ) and autistic people

The DIFFERENCE between NORMAL ( NT”S ) and AUTISTIC people

I have been observing Normal people and how they show empathy and emotions in general

and I have been observing how Autistics show empathy and emotions .

I have also observed how I myself sense empathy and emotions in general !

I admit that I used to be VERY confused about my OWN feelings and although I am getting to know myself better or maybe I should say ; UNDERSTAND myself better , I think I was observing others and their emotions to better understand my own ( This probably sounds STRANGE ?!) .

From conversations that I have had with a variety of people , I learned that if you do NOT understand your emotions then it is not ONLY OK but also NORMAL and that EVERYBODY goes through that cycle !

I want to talk about an experience that I had a few months ago and I will try to make it short !

I use to go to a group where ONLY women would be present and these women were normal and I did my BEST to connect with them although I realize that there were only two women with whom I could relate to a certain degree because these women viewed the world similar to me meaning they had similar views about work , Role of women , Prejudice etc…

Once I got an e-mail from a woman who was not part of the group I went to but she was still part of our group ( If so to speak) and in the e-mail was a message about a little girl who was in the hospital due to a car accident !

Her parents were OK but the girl was in a comma !

The e-mail was sent to all of the women in the group and I offered to send a GET WELL card .

I send the card to the neighbor and after a week we all got the e-mail that the little girl died !

I was DEVASTATED !

I was so sad that I felt guilty and thought I maybe killed the little girl ( I get irrational when I am depressed or upset !) .

A few weeks later I send an e-mail to one of my friends from the group and asked about the little girl and all she said was : Yeah , It is sad .

My thoughts to this respond was ; Is that ALL she can say to this tragedy ?! .

A month later , I met the woman who send the e-mail about the little girl and I wanted to have a conversation with her and I thought we could share with each other how we felt about this LOSS although we were not related to this child , But again the only respond I got from this woman was : Yes, It is awful isn”t it ? and then she just left me with an opened mouth ( I was shocked ) .

So after this experience I was trying to understand WHY or what is the difference between US meaning why is it that normal people do not seem to to grieve or feel sadness and why was I CRYING after I heard of the girls death ? ! .

It is impossible to say that normal people do not have emotions and I will NEVER say that anyway , But I was indeed puzzled !

Although I am STILL learning to understand emotions and although I know that there have been MILLIONS of books written on that topic ( Kind of ironic) , I have made though an interesting observation ( A LOT of people who know me fairly well say that I like watching people )

Normal people seem to show their empathy and emotions ( Like sadness ) by just saying ; That is SAD .

When Autistics feel emotions or empathy , Autistics ACTUALLY SHOW emotions by crying or having a temper tantrum or meltdown or being or just go MUTE for DAYS !

Today I also found out that if a normal person feels sadness and goes MUTE or cries then these people are sent to a PSYCHIATRIST , But if Autistics cry or go MUTE then somebody says : OH ! That person is AUTISTIC , him or her ALONE !

It seems that in our culture , If you feel like crying or screaming then you get sent to a psychiatrist then something is MENTALLY WRONG with you !

People have FORGOTTEN that crying , Feeling depressed , being sad is a part of BEING HUMAN

and I would say that if you do NOT have all the above emotions , THEN you DEFFINETELY need a psychiatrist !

Thank you for reading

DUSYA

#AutismPositivity2013: speaKnots Celebrates 1000 Ausome Things

This post was originally published by Sharon daVanport on speaKnots at http://speaknots.blogspot.com/2013/04/autismpositivity2013-speaknots.html and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

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#AutismPositivity flashblog’s celebration is today, and not a day too soon! It is a perfect way to close out the month of April.

April has a history of being a challenging month for Autistic people. With all the awareness campaigns which fail to include the very people they claim to support, well, it can be an onslaught of overwhelming haze parades.

Fast forward, and the past couple years have been easier to tolerate with the new initiatives like that of Paula C. Durbin-Westby’s Autism Acceptance Month. And this year our community has another fantastic contribution added by Autistic Self Advocacy Network with the launch of their Autism Acceptance Month website. Valuable contributions by Autistic people are moving to the fore front and our voices are being heard.

April was made a bit sweeter with Autism Women’s Network #AutismUpside campaign on Twitter. It proved to be a daily source of encouragement and Autistic solidarity. We’ve been able to keep our Twitter feeds maxed out with more upsides than the dreaded fear-based campaign posts. Check out the Storify review listing all the #AutismUpside tweets.

Now we come to the very last day of April, and there could be no more AUSOME of a way to say farewell to this month than to celebrate#AutismPositivity2013! The blog contributions have been fantastic. You can read the flashblog submissions here.

HAPPY #AutismPositivity2013!

 

Autreat – 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013 Barbara Delsack

Poem by Barbara Delsack

Autreat

Here I am
Not even a “”cousin””
and I feel at home

You call it your Shangrila
But you accept me, too

I leave my tumultuous existance
for a few days
I leave my responsibilities
and my restraint
I leave my roles and my faces behind
to be free to be

I hate the re-entry
Dealing again with games
and deceit
With judgements
and expectations
That try to define me

I try to stay pure and true
to myself for yet another year
Until my return,
Not even a “”cousin”” but at home

Drive Mom Crazy Blog: celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013

This post was originally published by Jason Ross on Drive Mom Crazy at http://drivemomcrazy.com/2013/drive-mom-crazy-blog-celebrates-1000-ausome-things-autismpositivity2013/ and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

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As Autism Acceptance Month comes to a close today, we need to end with a bang with this Flash Blog of Autism Positivity while getting ready for Positivity Day sometime in May for everyone! And, Don’t forget about the Autistic Artistic Carnival on Drive Mom Crazy Blog coming this June 18, Autistic Pride Day!!! Read the Featured post on the front of my blog 

For me, Autism is a positive experience, but this Flash blog alert is for everyone who needs to feel that too.

Remember this from all those Autistic people as a whole feeling unwanted, insecure, or unaccepted:

Des’ree “You Gotta Be” song,

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold
You gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard
You gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm
You gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day

Being Positive about being on the Autistic Spectrum is important, it’s essential for self-esteem, and not allowing anyone to bully us to think we are nothing.

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