Here's Your Mirror

When you are the parent of a child who is non typical, you learn very quickly to celebrate and revel in the simplest of things. As a Mom of a young man blessed with autism, I have often been known to cheer things other mothers might groan at.I know as the mother of a son I often was overjoyed/aghast at the same time during our teenage years. YAY!!! age appropriate behavior...Oh No! age appropriate behavior! It's a fine line with boys!!

 I was reminded that we who are lucky enough to parent amazing children never take anything for granted, and revel in what might to others look like mundane accomplishments. A young friend of mine is also fortunate enough to be the parent of a male child blessed with autism. I have felt honored the last few years to be able to share with her as we are much farther down the road in our travels than she is-and it is always nice to know someone who has been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

Recently we were both excited to share 'milestones' with our young men. Susan's guy will be 7 years old in a few days, and she was so excited to share that he had used a fork to eat spaghetti for the first time. I was excited for her. Now most moms are probably not excited by something a simple as a child learning to use a fork, but for some of us that is worthy of celebration. When my son has achieved something like this I have often wondered, how did that switch get flipped?

My son is an adult male now, and he did something the same week that most moms wouldn't be celebrating, but at our house it was amazing. He was watching his favorite sport, a NASCAR race, and a driver did something that caused him to exclaim "What the hell was that?" My first response was to ask "What did you say?" not because I am offended by the occasional use of the word hell, but because my son has never before used any type of expletive and I wanted to be sure I heard him right.
So, I said "What did you say?" (I have hearing problems he is used to me asking that) and he said "What the hell did he just do?" Yup, I heard him right, I thought. Then I thought how cool, I heard him right. Now that doesn't mean I want my son to be in the habit of throwing around four-letter words, it means I am always excited when my son does something that is age appropriate, and I am certain that "what the hell..." is an appropriate response for a 27 year old male sometimes.

Never taking anything for granted is a gift that some of us moms are able to cherish. Celebrating our children no matter what. Celebrating a 7 year old using a fork to eat spaghetti, or a 27 year old just being a guy. It's the little things in life that are never little for some of us. Perhaps there is a lesson in there for all parents. Celebrate our children, revel in the mundane, the ordinary, and your children will bless you every single day!

Of course this all reminds me of my favorite Erma Bombeck column, the one I share every time a mom finds out she has been blessed with an amazing child. I am including it here, and Hey, Susan, here's your mirror!



Most women become mothers by accident, some by choice, a few by social pressures and a couple by habit.
This year nearly 100,000 women will become mothers of handicapped children. Did you ever wonder how mothers of handicapped children are chosen? Somehow I visualize God hovering over earth selecting his instruments for propagation with great care and deliberation. As He observes, He instructs His angels to make notes in a giant ledger.


"Armstrong, Beth; son. Patron saint...give her Gerard. He's used to profanity."


"Forrest, Marjorie; daughter. Patron saint, Cecelia."


"Rutledge, Carrie; twins. Patron saint, Matthew."


Finally He passes a name to an angel and smiles, "Give her a handicapped child."


The angel is curious. "Why this one God? She's so happy."


"Exactly," smiles God, "Could I give a handicapped child to a mother who does not know laughter? That would be cruel."


"But has she patience?" asks the angel.


"I don't want her to have too much patience or she will drown in a sea of self-pity and despair. Once the shock and resentment wears off, she'll handle it."
"I watched her today. She has that feeling of self and independence that is so rare and so necessary in a mother. You see, the child I'm going to give her has his own world. She has to make him live in her world and that's not going to be easy."

"But, Lord, I don't think she even believes in you."


God smiles, "No matter, I can fix that. This one is perfect -she has just enough selfishness."


The angel gasps - "Selfishness? Is that a virtue?"


God nods. "If she can't separate herself from the child occasionally, she'll never survive. Yes, here is a woman whom I will bless with a child less than perfect. She doesn't realize it yet, but she is to be envied. She will never take for granted a "spoken word". She will never consider a "step" ordinary. When her child says "Mummy" for the first time, she will be present at a miracle, and will know it!"
"I will permit her to see clearly the things I see...ignorance, cruelty, prejudice....and allow her to rise above them. She will never be alone. I will be at her side every minute of every day of her life, because she is doing My work as surely as if she is here by My side".


"And what about her Patron saint?" asks the angel, his pen poised in mid-air. God smiles, "A mirror will suffice."

Dang It People, watch what you say!

So, since I am going to rant about something that was said on one of those 24/7 TV channels this morning, I should first issue a bit of a disclaimer. I used to be a broadcast journalist. A radio News Director/reporter, in fact.Of course this was a long time ago,before we had 24/7 'coverage' of  everything. I should also say that I honestly believe the 24/7 channels aren't good for us.We used to get news after the reporters had time to find the facts, and verify those facts-triangulation was the way we went about our business.

But now, we have 24/7, and quite frankly a lot of what is said has no basis in fact. This morning on one of those channels one of the pundits in talking about the tragedy in Colorado, decided to weigh in with his conjecture that the shooter was on the autism spectrum. Now this personality has no way of knowing whether or not this is true, and what is worse, this personality has a son who is on the spectrum. So, you would think he would know that it is hard enough to be different in this society, to walk around as a person with autism or aspergers without people judging your behavior, or treating you as less than a person.

It makes no sense to have said this and put the thought out there. Honestly, sometimes we are meant to keep our thoughts to ourselves. I have had to listen to people comment on my son being different for the last 25 years.  It happens all too often. We can be at WalMart or the grocery store and someone will say something ugly about my son. Loud enough for me to hear them, loud enough for several people to hear them.It was rude, it was hurtful, and it is totally unnecessary.We've been asked to leave churches because they didn't think it was good for people to see "someone like him" in the congregation. It's hard enough to deal with without the added linking to the tragedy in Colorado.

We're all reeling over the news form Colorado. Believe me, I get it. In addition to the sense of helplessness, disbelief,and shock we all feel when these things happen, it brought lots of memories up for me. I am a gun violence survivor. Not once, not twice, but 3 times. Twice I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was a random victim. The third time I admit, it was personal and may be the only time you will hear me say thank goodness he wasn't sober! I was riding in a car on  freeway nearly 40 years ago, and a sniper on an overpass was shooting people. Random, senseless violence. It leaves us all reeling.

But, nothing is served, by the 24/7 barrage of conjecture, opinions, misinformation and disinformation we are all bombarded with these days. When my husband was killed by a drunk driver I inadvertently caught the report on the local news the next day. I rocked me to my core. I can not imagine how the families and friends of the Colorado victims feel. I can imagine years from now how those who survived will feel.

I do know that words have power, and words can be used to heal or hurt. And the words this morning conjecturing whether the shooter might be on the autism spectrum or not were out of line,not based on any kind of known fact, and unnecessary. The only thing they can accomplish is make it even more difficult for those of us who live with the autism spectrum to be able to walk through the store or down a street without being looked at with fear and mistrust.This type of  irresponsible conjecture puts our children at risk. It is difficult enough to find acceptance in our society, but these comments give people reason to fear our children. Fear based in fallacy, promulgated by unwarranted conjecture.

Sometimes, we all need to keep our opinions to ourselves.

But then, that's just my opinion.

Seeking

There is so much talk these days about religion-who has it, who needs it, who lost it, who walked away from it, who religion walked away from. As a society there seems to be a huge divide, growing larger every day. I remember the first time I was ever 'challenged' because I supposedly lacked the proper belief system. I was a freshman in college. I chose to attend a small 'Christian' liberal arts college in rural Missouri for my undergraduate degree.


I was in a Freshman English class, and we were discussing a play by George Bernard Shaw. I gave my opinion to the professors question and the next thing I knew a guy a few seats away jumped in to say that my opinion was wrong because "She's from Los Angeles, she wasn't raised in the church like the other girls were." Now, it was the early 1970's, and rural Missouri did indeed feel like a different world than Los Angeles, and this west coast hippie chick looked, and maybe thought differently than most of the other young women in the class.He was right, according to his definition I wasn't 'raised in the church.' But, to say my opinion wasn't valid based on an assumption that I didn't have the proper religious upbringing because of where I was from seemed a bit presumptuous to me, and I of course said so.


So there I was, 18 years old, explaining to these 'Christian' young men and women that there are indeed churches in  Los Angeles. In fact, it can be argued that the Christian Fundementalism and Pentecostal movements began in Los Angeles at the beginning of the 1900's. Of course, Los Angeles has always been a cultural melting pot. When the pueblo was founded in 1781, two thirds of the original settler were of mixed heritage with Native American, African, and European ancestries.The towns were built around Catholic missions. With growth came many cultures and strong histories of religious  diversity. But, none of that mattered to the other members of that class. I didn't belong to their 'club', so rather than discuss with me why I had different opinion about the play than they did, they decided that I couldn't possibly understand correctly.


Now I often can't remember why I moved from one room to another in my apartment, but I remember that conversation in that Freshman English class 40 years ago because it was one of the many things that helped guide my journey.I set out to learn all I could about religions. In the decades since that class, I have earned 3 college degrees including  an M.A. in Comparative Religion.  I have attended many different 'churches', and experienced God in and out of those institutions. I consider myself a woman of strong faith. I have friends who totally disagree with my belief system, and probably pray for me daily because they are certain that I am doomed.  Many would term me an unbeliever-simply because my belief system doesn't line up with theirs.I am, in a particular type of religious vernacular, 'unchurched'. In that, I am not alone.


Now, I have nothing against churches.Spirit has sent me to church often. I have spent many hours sitting in many different churches over the years. Some of the best times and some of the worst times in my life have taken place inside a church, and even though I have been hurt, if Spirit were to send me to church again, I would go. But, at this time in my life, church is not where Spirit sends me. So, I have to believe that I am where I am supposed to be.


There are many others who have left the church these days. Not being in a church can be hard for some, and it can be daunting to be at peace with the situation. But, if we are open to Spirit, we can find that peace,and learn that sometimes we are called to a place we might not choose on our own.


Finding that peace isn't easy. Soemtimes we have left a place that is totally disfunctional, often we are leaving a place where we have been hurt, where the things of Spirit are used to abuse and misguide and control. When we find the courage to say enough, I don't accept this, we are often on our own. It becomes so easy to doubt ourselves and peace is hard to come by. We thought we had a relationship with Spirit, but now that relatinship looks and feels different, broken somehow. We often find it difficult to trust again.


It is hard to put a relationship back together when the trust has been damaged. Been there, done that. It may never be "like it was before", but that doesn't mean that it can't be a good relationship, rebuilding the relationship is perhaps about putting together a new thing, a relationship that was better than it was before. It is so hard to let go, but I think that is what forgiveness is all about. Letting of the past, and the hurt, and moving towards a new thing.
The dictionary says forgive is to give up resentment of or claim to requital for... to cease to feel resentment against.

I think that to forgive is to let go of any claims we have against the one who offended us. I think it is human nature to want to be the one who is right. To forgive means we let go of the need to be right, to let go of the need to prove our claim. To forgive means that we no longer expect to be compensated for our hurt or loss. AS in the forgiving of a debt, when we forgive our claim to compensation no longer exists.We no longer need to be right.By forgiving we choose to no longer live with the feelings brought on by the offense.We choose to no longer be weighed down by anger,or shame, or embarrassment. No more guilt or denial. We choose to let these things go, so that it frees us to move on with our lives.To move on and make a new relationship, not merely going back to the way it was before, but building something stronger on a solid foundation of newly forged trust.


When it comes to matters of our belief system, often the one we first have to forgive and build a new trust with is ourself. Sometimes we can feel guilt and shame for buying into something we no longer believe. So we have to earn to extend that forgiveness to us. Maya Angelou says "When you know better, you do better." So we forgive ourself for the time when we didn't know better, and as we learn to do better we move forward.

Spirit didn't mislead us, sacred literature didn't abuse us. People who don't know, and probably don't want to know better used these things to control and misguide us.So, we forgive, we give up any claims against ourself or others and we seek that place of peace. To seek that peace that can only come from Spirit. Try to stay composed no matter how agitated the world around you becomes.Seek peace. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. Shalom means that people are in a good relationship with God, with themselves and their bodies, with other people, and with the earth. For people to be in shalom means that their life is balanced and that they relate to the whole of what surrounds them with a peaceful spirit.We can find that peace no matter where Spirit has sent us or sent us away from.

My Hero

I had an interesting conversation with my son today.My son is a person with autism. He is 26 years old. I started questioning his pediatrician when he was just a little more than a year old.We visited our first so-called expert when he was 18 months old. Much has changed since then, thankfully. Those first 'experts' were so wrong about so many things.

My son is my hero. He meets every day with optimism, and is truly the most content person I have ever known. Things most of us take for granted can be difficult for him,but perseveres and learns how to deal with any challenge.

Having a conversation is not easy for him. He talks to me the easiest when we are in the car. There is a reason for this, when we are in the car, Mom has to pay attention to driving, so I can't ask him for eye contact, or even to look at me. Because his brain works differently, he doesn't see things the way most do. He can't read body language or facial expression. He is challenged by tone of voice. Today, it dawned on me that that also describes those of us who communicate with others on the computer. When we read a post on facebook, or a message board, we can only read the words. We can't read body language, or facial expression. We can't hear the tone of voice.

So, back to the conversation I had with my son. We were discussing a commercial we had seen while watching some NASCAR programming. In the commercial, a driver mentions that the rate of autism in our children is now 1 in 110. When my son was diagnosed nearly 25 years ago it was thought the rate was 1 in 10,000. So our conversation was centered on not only the need for awareness campaigns, but on the increase in numbers of persons with autism.

I guess I need to point out that we have always considered my sons autism as a blessing. We accept that his brain works differently, and that that difference is not bad, it is just different. I am often astounded at the way he thinks. I was told I was "an unrealistic" parent by certain experts because I said that if we can figure out how the autistic brain works we would find the answers to most of the worlds problems. I thought that when my son was a toddler, I totally believe it now that he is a young man.

When we talked, my son said awareness is necessary so that more people can see that different is just different, not wrong, or bad. Just different.People need to see that there is nothing to be afraid of when someone is different,and that being different doesn't make you less of a person. We also talked about how awareness campaigns might help those who aren't blessed with autism to be more patient with some who are.

Then we talked about how many more people are being born blessed with autism. That is when I was reminded that the answers to our problems might just be in those autistic brains. "What if," he said, "there are more people with autism because the world needs the way we think. What if our brains are evolving to help."

What if, indeed! In a world where more and more communication takes place on the computer. More and more communication takes place where we are unable to read body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. In a world where in my lifetime technology has evolved more than I can even comprehend some days, what if more people are being born with brains that function differently because we need them.  I was definitely given something to think about, and that is only one of the reasons he is my hero!

I need One

I am still not functioning very well due to the lingering effects of the shingles. When you have a chronic medical condition, especially a chronic pain medical condition, you have a finite amount of energy. You spend most of that energy dealing with the pain, and the rest of it dealing with everyday necessities of life. So, something as simple as a common cold, or as difficult as the shingles, can wreak havoc with your body, because there simply are no reserves of energy to deal with it.So things like writing a blog tend to not happen, even though you have the best of intentions. Then, the next thing you know you are feeling pretty damn sorry for yourself, and more things in your life get left by the wayside. It is all too easy to start thinking that no one else has things as bad as you-which you know is a crock-but it feels like it some days. Then you start withdrawing into yourself, because honestly who wants to be around someone as miserable as you.


Dang, we tell ourselves some stupid stuff!!! (maybe it's just me that does that)


Truth is we need people, and there are more than likely people in our lives that are missing us.People in our lives that think we are pretty cool.


Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.~~Jane Howard~~


We need others. We may at one time or other stick our noses in the air and sniff "That's OK, I don't need anyone else." But it's a lie, we know it's a lie when we say it, we only say it so that some other person is not allowed to see how badly they are hurting us by leaving us or rejecting us. But, the truth is we need others. We need some people just for a season, and that is OK. They may move into our lives and move out again. But we need others, because we have a need to be loved, but more importantly I think, we have a need to love. Hopefully, we will learn that we have to start by loving ourselves, taking care of ourselves, learning and living the truth about ourselves. This enables us to surround ourself with the right others. When we are operating under the untruths that get stuck in our head, we often surround ourself with the WRONG others, so instead of being strengthened, encouraged, loved, we end up depleted, despairing, and destroyed. When we choose to love ourselves we will create a tribe, a group of others who have our greater good at heart. But when we are choosing to operate outside of love for ourself, we can surround us with toxic, discouraging others.Sometimes, we are that toxic discouraging other,and we need our tribe, clan, friends to help us remember our truths and to love ourselves again.

One More Day

Well, today snuck up on me. How can a year have passed since I posted this
http://eb-thefatladythinks.blogspot.com/2011/01/january-19-1981-january-19-2011.html ?

What a year it has been, my 30th year of sobriety. Today marks my 31st anniversary of the day I chose to get sober. I have to say the last few months have been the most difficult in those 31 years, and that is saying something as my life has very rarely been without difficulty. But, even as I have battled my demons- stress, addiction, depression, illness, etc.- the last few months, I have continued to work on my sobriety.


There have been many times lately when I said to myself out loud "Damn, I need a drink." Fortunately my next thought has been "Stop it, you don't drink."  I am not ashamed  to admit that that next thouhgt comes slowly some days. Sobriety really is one day at a time. For me it is one moment at a time most days.

Why 'One day at a time'?

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.~~Abraham Lincoln~~

For me that means I need to concentrate on living in the moment. Being present and living in the moment helps to keep me focused on the task at hand. When we live in the moment, one day at a time, we don't have time to become mired in regrets and worries over what happened and how we SHOULD have done. No guilt, no condemnation.Which is not to say that if we hurt someone we should not make amends. It is to say that if we live in the present, the past can no longer hurt us. We can let it go, forgive ourselves and others, and choose to live  for today.Living in the present means that we no longer have to constantly review the past, trying to explain our actions or the actions of others. No more guilt or blaming. Living in the present means that we do not have to worry, assume, obsess about what may happen in the future. If we do that we sometimes project unwarranted negative outcomes to things, when all we really have to do is deal with the outcomes of our actions today, this day.

So, today, this day I will celebrate one more day of sobriety. One more day of hangin' in there, no matter how difficult life has become.

Easy? No, I don't think it is ever easy, but just because a thing is hard to do doesn't make it any less worthwhile.  

Women and Obesity and a New Year

My dear friend Colin posted a photo on facebook this morning that he considered disturbing in its implications and got my mind going...



When I was growing up it was unusual for someone to be as overweight as me. I was an anomaly. As American society moved towards the obesity epidemic we had to go through the late sixties and early seventies, where thinness became the societal norm for beauty. Caucasian thinness, stick thin anorexic models such as Twiggy came to represent the ideal for beauty in our culture. We moved away from normal women, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Mamie Van Doren, women with curves, and in doing so we spawned eating disorders in our young women. In the middle part of the century only women of wealth could achieve the desired beauty, and they did so at the expense of their health. Anorexia became a disease for the masses instead of just for the F.Scott Fitzgerald neighborhood. As we moved through the late part of the century we were becoming obese because of changes in the agrarian nature of our society, HFCS and unhealthy convenience foods became more prevalent. Every one started eating like poor people, who had often been overweight because fresh fruit and vegetables were unavailable to urban poor. Cheap carbohydrates, hormone laced meat products, these became more widely available.  The culture started getting fat. A whole generation of women became what I had been all my life, obese. But they became obese in a culture that adored thinness, they hate themselves. So now we add self esteem issues to the obvious health issues of heart disease, diabetes, etc. We have a generation that is getting fatter while hating themselves for it.Such a difficult road to travel, our bodies resist starvation. But, hating our bodies while not able to attain the so called beauty standard brought a generation of women for whom Prozac and Zoloft became the norm, widely available to the masses, where before we had upper and upper middle class women abusing valium. Self esteem issues that helped turn normal women into morbidly obese women while they used the most widely available mood altering drug-food- to try to feel better about themselves. Vicious circle created.

So, now we have a diet industry, and a generation of women who hate themselves so much that they can not grasp the theory that they need to take care of themselves, physically, emotionally, spiritually, before they can take care of others. Generations of women grasping at every fad diet that comes by, when the truth is it is never about 'dieting', it is about learning to eat well, giving food its proper place in our lives.  Food became lover, friend, mother, father, giving us pleasure that should have been derived elsewhere. We learned to hate ourselves. Learned to not value our contributions because we looked different than the standards of beauty. White, upper middle class standards applied to the rest of us. Standards that we never should have aspired to reach. As the words of the song from the musical Oklahoma, 'round and pink and pretty', should have been what we strived for. Women are meant to be full bodied, for work, and childbirth, for the survival of the species. The estrogen that makes us feminine is created and stored in our fat cells. The cultural norm of thinness makes us less feminine, and as we strive for liberation as feminists we enslave our bodies in reaching for a mythical standard of beauty.So how do we stop the vicious circle? How do we keep from enslaving the next generation in the endless cycle of hating our bodies? I think we start by learning to love our selves right here, right now, and what better time than the beginning of a New Year!

Let this New Year be the beginning of a new life in each of us wherein"old things are passed away." Let all blessed old things stay, but let the clutter of our heads and hearts be removed, that new inspirations and new affections may come in to gladden our lives.~~Chester Burg Emerson~~

It's the New Year.Here we are. The entire culture is health obsessed for the next few weeks. All of the grocery store have 'healthy' foods on sale, the TV is plastered with ads for this and that crazy weight loss product. Everyone is motivated. As the weeks go by, and the quick fixes are just too hard to keep up, or the same old issues keep rearing their ugly heads, that motivation will slip away, and it will be back to business as usual. Except for those of us fortunate enough to have figured out that it is not about a quick fix, or the newest fad diet. It is never about not eating. It is about making the best choices we can make at any given moment, learning to find the old issues and deal with them, so that we can kick them to the curb and get on with the business of learning that we are indeed beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, articulate, deserving, worthy individuals.

We are deserving of the best that life has to offer. So in order to achieve that we will let those old negative thoughts and untruths hat clutter up our minds be the "old things that are passed away." They aren't worth keeping around, they are ugly non productive lies that were told to us by others our ourselves so often that we began to believe them and live them. Just as a child will live up to expectations or down to expectations, so will we. So we must get rid of that junk cluttering up our minds, and replace the old things with blessed new things. The TRUTH of who we are and what we can accomplish when we realize that it is our choice to accomplish it. New inspirations, new affections, affection for ourselves. Loving ourselves enough to know that when we take care of ourselves we take care of the others in our lives better. Loving ourselves enough to only let true things hang out in our memory, and to make the best choices we can in any circumstance. To know that the choice we make may not always be the best, and to forgive ourselves for those times and to make the best choice in the very next moment. So bring on the New Year, we are ready to meet it, ready to do the work we have to do to make it the best year ever. Choosing to let our choices be the things that gladden our hearts.