Imagine a life where you feel sadness, pain, anger, love and joy, but you cannot express these feelings or tell people about them.
Imagine being born into a world which you do not understand, how to live in or react to.
Compare this to being thrown into Jurassic Park as a baby and forced to live and survive there. Impossible, you would say.
But this is the daily, hellish struggle of people on the autism spectrum. For me, as a mother, the most difficult aspect is that we do not understand what is going on in autistic people's brains.
You never really know what they are thinking, what they are feeling, how they experience a situation.
You know they experience heartache, pain and sadness, but they are not able to tell you until there is a sudden meltdown, which is an outburst caused by severe anxiety and stress.
Things we do everyday can cause autistic people unbearable stress and anxiety. As a parent, one tries to buffer them from situations which can cause embarrassment and stress for the family and for the child. Later on it is just easier to stay at home, where the situation is "controlled". But, like other human beings, autistic people love to be among people, once they feel safe and a routine has been established.
My son, Charlie, loves to eat out at his favourite places. We will order the same dish and cooldrink every time. Charlie will keep his attention focused on my phone or his iPad, playing Minecraft like a pro. He is not interested in looking at the whales through the window or interacting with me. When he has finished eating, he will gather his things and go to sit in the car, where he will wait for me to finish. This is on a good day.
Other days, he will hit the table several times, hit his iPad and scream at me in his very deep voice. One's only resource then, is to try to calm him down and get him out of there without injury to him or yourself.
The behaviour of people with autism is unpredictable. You never know how Charlie will react to the same situation, the same food, friends, the ocean, animals.
Most of the restaurant staff are really accommodating and know us by now. But I cannot say the same of the average person in the smaller villages outside of Mossel Bay. The next time he walks "over" you at the local shopping centre, or steps in front of you in the queue with his head down, not making eye contact, know that he does not "register" you.
He is not drunk, on drugs or being rude. (These are all comments that we have heard in the last couple of weeks.) He is just trying to get through this seemingly simple act of going into a shop that he feels familiar with.
May I kindly request that you stop the stares, glares and whispering. Don't try to help in any way. We are ok. Trying to make the best of a challenging and difficult life.
Just accept us as part of society, where we are all a little bit weird.
