Setting an example for our autism youth

My desk area for Galaxy Zento

You might remember, a couple blog posts back, where I wrote to you all about my Galaxy Zento project and what you could do to help with the setting of that example. Well, you worked wonders, my friends and tripled the number of people I was reaching. That's not a million people or anything, but it was a record and I'm grateful. The record? 676 people reached. That's more than 5x the number of LIKES on the page. Thank you!

So today I want to share more about my experience growing up and my son's experience in comparison with autism. I want my experiences to give hope to families struggling with understanding their kids and hope to kids who aren't sure where their lives are going.

This is NOT to say that I have the final answers to anything in autism. It's not meant to give false hopes to anyone. But if you have no hope to draw on at all, where does that leave you?

When I was growing up I was considered to be one effed up kid and that's just the language that got used. During the divorce of my parents I vanished into a fantasy world tried to get others to believe that I had bionics like the Six Million Dollar Man. Today, my son is trying very hard to convince us that he's a star in outer space with super powers. The fantasy is still there.

My son and I collect together

I developed rituals before I was ten of doing things in even numbers. I had to turn lightswitches off or on twice, zip zippers twice, turn objects twice and so on. I felt severely compelled to do this and I don't remember thinking there would be anything but bad luck if I didn't.  I developed a stim of clearing my throat, just like my son does today. I had other stims too and sensory issues. I liked the feeling of some fabrics under my fingernails and cool surfaces were calming to me.

I developed trouble in school early. In my last article I explained that my son has gone through a spot of bad behavior, stealing back his DS when grounded and sneaking out of the house at night through a window with a six foot drop. Well. When I was 8 or 9, I was told to stay after school. I knew I would be in trouble at home if I were late and I told the teacher my father needed to be called. She said it was my problem. I asked to go to the bathroom. She let me and I snuck out of school and ran home. I destroyed letters I was supposed to deliver to my father from the teachers before that (only two days before) and had to stay after again. This time she said I was NOT going to the bathroom. However she left the room,  summoned by the principal and I was gone.

When the phone call came, I got the most horrifying belt beating you can imagine and sentenced to my bed for thirty days. I was to come home, do my homework on my bed, eat dinner on my bed and I could only leave my bed to go to school or the bathroom. I could have one stuffed toy. My father let me out of that punishment after a week. He didn't think I could handle the whole thing, but I never, ever did that again. I won't punish my son like that, but he is in a lot of trouble right now. The difference is I have a team of people to work with him and explain things and teach him. All the while he still gets disciplined. The point is, I had my behavior rough spots too. I had my ticks, my stims, and all the things I see in him today.

By the time I reached 6th grade, I had very few friends (there were 3 of us) and two of us were bully magnets. Before I went to Jr High (a total freaking nightmare) I was playing with kids 5 years younger than me. Just like my son prefers to play with kids either way younger or almost adults (sound familiar?). I didn't understand kids my age at all. It was a concern but not addressed very well, so continued. Those were the times. Now I'm hoping to keep him from being bullied like I was.

A painting I did for autism

Despite my life and all I went through, despite not having support for autism as kid; despite running away from home at 14; despite my random life that I will be sharing here soon; despite the fact that my medical health has gained deteriorating factors, I am still doing things. I still became a parent of four kids, I still have a part in their lives, I still held jobs, and now I'm still striving to do something, anything. I want kids with autism (who are unsure of their lives) and kids with bipolar or who are being bullied, to know that they can do something too. That is what Galaxy Zento stands as an example of.

You can do this too. You can take the accomplishments of your life and show them to your kids. Show them that it's not over until it's over and life has possibilities for them. Show them other people who do amazing things despite disability. It's not about being gainfully employed either, it's just about doing something that you can be good at. And that's a great start!

So thank you for sharing Galaxy Zento. I hope more of you will continue to "like" and follow the page. And when the first novel (The Chessmen) gets published, you'll hear about it first. Thank you!

Cyber bullying drama: Putting out the fire

There is a Facebook page being circulated that I will not name. I won't name it because I don't want to give it any further power and frankly, it doesn't deserve any of the attention it's getting today. What it's doing is definitely wrong and who ever is behind it should be held accountable. That's easier said than done.

When people post horrid things on the internet, what they really want is your attention and disdain. Mostly attention. In this case, a person or persons has listed names of people in a negative way. It's a common behavior, especially with no facts listed to give the least bit of credit to the accusations. So, it's really not very elaborate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-bullying

http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/index2.html

http://www.cyberbullying.us/

http://kidshealth.org/teen/school_jobs/bullying/cyberbullying.html

http://www.ncpc.org/cyberbullying

Please peruse these websites for information on cyber bullying. What's sad about some of the cases here is that these are adults, not high school children. Adults should know better but even so, they get lots of responses that only fuel their fire. So I'm going to share what I learned from direct experience. These are the truths of these bullies to remember;

1) Nothing will change their minds. No matter what you do to try and "shame" them, it won't work. In the same manner, you cannot reason with them either. No matter the real reason behind what they do, they either take pleasure in it or see themselves as some kind of authority figure, dishing out "punishment".

2)Anything you say will be twisted against you, no matter why you said it.

3)The more anyone responds, the more power it gives them. It doesn't matter if you responded to insult the bully or reason with him/her. They especially enjoy it when one of their targets is responding.

4)The only way to silence them is to ignore them. They will eventually move on to other targets.

Now, everyone who is a target of this web page, has every reason to be upset. They have every reason to want to stand up for themselves and give a bully a nice black eye. But this is the internet and a black eye doesn't always land as intended. So here is what you need to no in gauging the threat of an internet bully.

1) Capacity of true danger: How dangerous is this person to you? Do they have your personal information? You should never post personal information on the internet. If it's there, remove it! Can they physically show up at your home or place of work? Can they contact there and have they tried? You need to look at just how physically dangerous they could be. Yes, how much they can do in cyber stalking at home and business is also important, that means they have your personal information and you should report them.

2) What are they actually doing? You need to take a long look at their behavior and ask yourself what it really means in affect to your life. Can their words on a screen actually do something to you? If all they've done is post a name with some random accusation, that really can't do anything to you. Most reasonable people, if they see this will be able to piece it together for what it really is and move on. If they've posted your personal information, made threats or suggested others should hurt you, then that would be illegal. If they are contacting you directly and you save the info, you may have something against them.

That brings me to a fatal issue you need to know about these conniving internet bullies. They know a secret. That secret is that, so long as they don't contact you directly, they can post what ever they want on the internet about you. The idea is to trick you into contacting them so they can say YOU are the bully. They will use passive aggressive tricks and go to great lengths to employ them, without ever making a single threat. So long as they upset you, they are getting what they want. The evidence is in your response.

That's why self defense against the internet bully.... is silence. And sadly, you can't everyone to do that, so they will get the attention they desire. But what will you do?

Examples of what don't work:

Write a blog about them, name and shame: They'll just do the same thing and claim you are lying about them, you bully.

Attack them right back: They'll use it to say you attacked them, with name calling (if used) and anything else they can make look negative. Your anger is their friend.

Email them to get them to stop: anything you send is evidence of bullying for them.

Now, the best thing you can do if you aren't sure (before you take ANY action) is to call your local police and ask them what to do. Then... you do it.

Don't give this person the time of day. Don't give their name credit. They should be nameless and never known. They want infamy, why give them what they want? After all, there's more than one way to apply self defense. Fighting back doesn't always mean being aggressive.

Autism: Expecting too much of ourselves

There is a trait in our self patience I want to talk about today. I don't think this is in all of us but it's in me, my son, and I've it in many others. We have a tendency to take the world around us very seriously. In doing that we take ourselves twice as serious as anything else. We don't give ourselves margin for error. We get very upset with ourselves in the process.

A witness may not understand where the sudden anger came from. They might even think we are angry at them or someone else in the room. It's amazing how hard it is to explain in the midst of the moment. Where do such high self expectations come from?

For one, they come from wanting to be acceptable to everyone else. To us, we see our shortcomings as very expensive and potentially damaging. If we've had bad experiences in the past with others misunderstanding our mistakes (and most of us have)it compounds the issue. Past experience may include bullying, where enough daily taunting hit its mark. Dealing with impatient parents, teachers, or any other adults who punished us for those shortcomings make a mark too. It's hard to overcome your programming from youth.

Think about it, if you grew up with a condition that made you struggle, and no one gave you any patience in it, would you give yourself any patience today? I doubt it because you were taught otherwise. With a natural tendency to take things too seriously, we are at a disadvantage from the start. It's also what causes us to not do so well with stress. We can carry only small loads in that department.

My 9 year old son, already has hardships with himself. We counsel him on them the best we can. We tell him that everyone makes mistakes and they aren't the end of the world. We teach him that a mistake is an opportunity to learn something new. We teach him it's not worth being angry at himself. Hopefully, by starting in his youth, this will make a big difference for him as an adult.

For me, it's a hard lesson because I was taught the other way harshly. The bullying was hell and they often said I deserved it because I was a screw up in their eyes. There were a lot of them and the school was unmoved to assist. Have enough bullies on you and society takes a new shape. The drunken and drugged step-parent figure didn't help. I had no safe place to go. The only marginally safe time of day, was when my father got home from work. Even then, I would hear her ranting over what a horrible child I was to the point of screaming and yelling. Her punishments that included drinking sour milk, chemical burning my hands, and screaming daily obscenities also taught me the wrong lesson. I was taught that mistakes are not allowed, or you will be punished most severely.

So, now I'm hard on myself. It's not as bad as it was just a few years ago. I can give myself credit for what I've learned. I've come a long way. Now my story and these facts serve to help others. As with any of my blogs, I am glad to have it shared where ever my readers feel it would help. Just use a link back to here for shameless credits sake, right?

Remember to give yourself credit, it's actually a healthy thing to do.

Looking ahead and concerns for our youth

Sometimes I find myself thinking about all the monsters out there in our society. I find myself realizing that I must teach my son to defend himself against them. It's a very complex mode of thoughts.

If I were only talking about physical altercations with school/work bullies or some mugger somewhere, it would be simpler. If I were only talking about stranger danger, it would be fairly concrete. But no, it goes much deeper than that. It can also get far more convoluted.

There are many kinds of human monsters out there and the ways they will seek to do damage are as diverse anything we know. Some of them victimize for possibilities of money, others for some perverted pleasure. It reminds me of one of the types of bullying I had to live with. There was no defense against it and it worked very very well.

It was done by some very good acting and sounded very convincing. Once I was sitting by the projector in class as the teacher was talking. One student piped up and said, "David, leave the projector alone". He sounded convincing and the teacher bought it. They already thought of me as a "problem child" so it was easy to get me into trouble. I was thrown out of class without touching the projector or anything near it. The boy thought it was outright hilarious.

False accusations and other ways of being used are things I fear for my kids. Our kids on the spectrum are reported to having trouble with areas of trust and even being too trusting, or gullible. Unfortunately, this is one fire that has to teach it's heat in it's own way on many levels. You can't teach them to watch out for everyone and everything. You can only do your best to teach good decision making. Teach that if something seems wrong, don't do it. Even that won't protect them from someone who will prey on their good intentions.

It's also sad, that onlookers will take this little act at face value and leave the victim hanging for it. That we haven't learned in our society by now, too look deeper than the surface of what's happening. That is how innocent people get smeared and marked because others don't stop to look at the details that matter. That's why we are all supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. But that doesn't seem to apply to general society. Something that needs to change.

Until it does, I will have to do what I can to help my son prepare for the predators out there. They never stop coming. I'm still a target and I'm forty. It's a very sobering fact. So, as you walk around out there today, try to take notice of the underlying details. Ask yourself what all the possibilities could be. Just to see what you can come up with. And try not to take that person you saw, or how someone else marked them, at face value. If it really matters, seek out the truth for yourself.

Picture of Nelson Muntz property of FOX.