Are You Ok?

We are fortunate to live in a friendly neighborhood that have gotten to know my sons and are accepting of their individuality. If I happen to be walking with only one of them, several neighbors who are walking themselves will ask where his brother is. Most people will  say hello to them as well. Of course, not everyone does this, but overall, everyone is kind and welcoming which we are very grateful for.

I recently was walking with my family on one of our daily walks and in typical fashion one of my sons was way ahead with my husband and pups, and my other son was behind walking in his usual leisurely way. He is what I call a “scenic walker” where he likes to walk at a slower pace and really observe his surroundings. While his twin brother sees activities like walking as more a task to check off and complete in the fastest way possible. This is a direct residual effect of his early days with how aba was done with him( he is now 26) as he is very much a task oriented individual. He walks so rapidly that in order to keep up, you become a speed walker like him. He will slow his pace to look up at an airplane, but that is about it.

There were construction workers up ahead paving the road and, in the past, I would have diverted from our route due to the noise level and smell, but this is a non-issue now for them. Since I was farther behind, I had the ability to see one of the construction workers stop and stare at my speed walker son. While I thought nothing of it, he did the same thing when I passed with his twin. In the past, my initial reaction would have been depending on my mood to ask him what he was (insert expletive) looking at or hand out an autism awareness card to “educate” the individual on why my son(s) were dysregulated or stimming or whatever was happening. I chose to ignore the individual this time and focus on the beautiful weather instead.

It reminded me of another time, when again while walking with my sons and husband, a car slowed down and was seemingly following us down the road and it looped back around. It became somewhat creepy, and I stopped with my son who enjoys taking his time walking as he was farther back even for him. The woman who was driving the car, rolled down her window and asked my son directly if he was okay. Given my son could not verbally answer, I began to answer on his behalf and the woman interrupted me and said:” I am asking him, not you.” My initial reaction was to respond in not so nice a way. I took a breath and essentially told her; he was fine and that I was his mother, and he was just walking slowly. She didn’t seem to believe me as she interrupted me again and asked him directly. Losing my patience, I responded to her that he had a disability and could not verbally answer her. She stared at us a few minutes and rolled up her window and drove off slowly. In retrospect, what I realize is that my son walking with his baseball hat pulled down and at a slower pace trailing behind was probably a bit odd looking. While this stranger’s approach was initially annoying to me, another way to look at would be that she cared enough to stop and check in with my son. How many people see clear signs of distress or their gut telling them something is off and choose to not stop or get involved.    I think we all get used to our family members idiosyncrasies and become oblivious to how they may look to individuals in the world that may not know someone with ASD. I can also remember a time (clearly, there is a common theme here!), when we were walking when we lived in a nearby town’s center and my son became extremely upset as we were going down a different street. My husband was trying to contain him as he was attempting to cross the street. There was a man walking a rather large dog on the opposite side of the street and began yelling at my husband to stop what he was doing to my son. My husband who had his back to him, yelled back for him to mind his own business. The man continued to yell at me husband until somewhat comically he actually recognized my husband as he got closer and called him by his actual nickname which resulted in my husband turning around and recognizing him. The interaction changed completely, and my husband explained that my son had Autism and was trying to bolt across the street. My husband and this man had played together in a sports league in the past. The man apologized as he thought my husband was using excessive force with my son, not realizing the real danger my son was putting himself in by trying to bolt. My son was staring at the dog as I don’t think he had seen such a large dog up close as it was a super friendly Great Dane. Thankfully, the interaction ended on a positive note, but it was also an eye-opening experience for everyone involved. While I know that we all wish that are children or family members would be accepted for their amazing individuality, that may not be the reality. Sometimes our perception on events may be off as well. We can be just as biased as others based on our own experiences. Most people, I find are merely curious about our family members, but perhaps don’t have the best approach. I think most caregivers have had the experience of being out and about and encountering another family with a child/adult with ASD and just by simply nodding or smiling a lot is communicated as we share so much in common regardless of the level of ASD that the family member may have.   At this point, I think with April Autism Awareness month having passed, most families are more inclined to focus on acceptance vs. awareness and hope the world is moving more in that direction too.