INFANT MASSAGE CLASS: “EARLY SIGNS”

Articles and blog posts on the early signs of SPD (sensory processing disorder, which I call sensory processing differences) and autism fill me with a mixture of recognition (yes, much is familiar), trepidation (at this point I’ve reached a certain level of saturation and also seen many stereotypes and errors), annoyance (ditto, plus the occasional offensive or condescending bits can set me back for days), and, sometimes, gratitude (after all, some of this stuff could be very helpful to parents – and most writers mean well!).

I usually find that I am holding my breath as I read, waiting for the triggers...yet I am compelled to read, always hoping to learn more about our neurodiverse world.

My son G was diagnosed with SPD at three, autism at eight. Being a bit spectrumesque myself, I would never have thought there was anything about him that needed to be evaluated (his evaluations were always at the behest of his teachers) but in retrospect a few things stand out.

My earliest memory of being aware of G’s possible difference from his “normal” peers occurred in an infant massage class. We mothers – this was in the East Village, in New York City, but yup, all mothers – were told to sit in a circle. I don’t remember precisely how old the babies were – early parenthood is kind of a blur – but they were all quite young, a few months old at most. We had pads and brought blankets and placed our babies on their backs on those blankets. We were given diagrams of massage strokes and instructed in proper technique for stroking and soothing our babies.

Infant massage was meant to be a bonding exercise. To stimulate our babies’ brains and help with their digestion! To make them happy! Healthy!

Except - my baby didn’t seem to be with the program. While all the other babies enjoyed a free and loving massage – yeah, try getting that a few decades down the line, babies! - my darling G was having none of it.

Figure I – Infant Massage Class. Not Shown: Ashamed Mother.

As soon as I tried to massage him, heck, as soon as I lay him down on his back, the screaming would start. Sure, there was the occasional peep from another baby, but nothing like G’s agonized cries. I actually tried three sessions before giving up in despair.

Clearly, I was missing some important mothering skills. I blamed myself, of course.

When G was a baby, I thought of myself as someone who accepted all people, someone who would never discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation...Someone who accepted and loved people of all sorts. Yet I knew little to nothing about neurodiversity!

It would have been helpful to me as a new mother to have a positive concept of other kinds of difference, an idea of the incredibly wide ranges of neurology, physiology, psychology, sensitivity, sensory processing etc. that make up human beings. Obviously, this would not have led to shifting blame to my baby! It just would have made things make sense.

It would have helped to know that my baby needed deep pressure, not fluttery strokes that probably felt like torture to him. It might have been best to keep him partly or fully wrapped so that he could locate his body safely in space, instead of flailing around. He never liked being moved; there might have been better ways to transition him.

Instead, all I knew - in that context, with the limited knowledge I had – was that something seemed wrong. Since I myself had also always been “different,” this initially added to my disorientation and self-blame.

These moments keep coming, but now they come cushioned with fundamental commitments to diversity, acceptance, and hope.

When you and/or your child live(s) with an invisible, complex difference, explanations and strategies can be elusive and imprecise. I still sometimes don’t know whether my child needs help; and when he does need help I don’t always know how to help him. Sometimes I try to help him in unhelpful, unwanted or unnecessary ways, as do others. Other times we miss the boat and G is on his own with his challenges when some wisdom or support is sorely needed.

When G was screaming in the otherwise serene and harmonious infant massage space, I knew he was deeply uncomfortable, but I didn’t know that he had SPD, or that he was autistic, and that his sensitivities would benefit from a very different approach. Parents who recognize their children in “early signs” lists will I hope have important tools at their disposal, not least the knowledge that all parties concerned are doing their best – and that that is just fine. For the Full Spectrums, the labels that apply to us are mostly useful in that regard.

There’s still so much I don’t know, but I do know our differences are not our “fault.” I know that what is “wrong” is not us but a world that is primarily designed for the “average,” “normal” person – whoever that is.  

I know that I accept and celebrate G exactly as he is.  Same for me. And you. And you, and you, and you...:

This blog is a safe space for people to recognize a full spectrum of human being, and to explore how we might make the world a more welcoming place for all. Parents and caregivers who are searching for ways to understand, connect with, and support their children, individuals who are exploring their own differences, early-signers and adult-figure-outers, you are all welcome here.

Please visit the other sites below for more informative and inclusive posts.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Welcome to the Sensory Blog Hop — a monthly gathering of posts from sensory bloggers hosted by The Sensory Spectrum and The Jenny Evolution. Click on the links below to read stories from other bloggers about what it’s like to have Sensory Processing Disorder and to raise a sensory kiddo!

An InLinkz Link-up

ON BULLYING

The other night, Pardner and I watched Bully. I almost wish I could unwatch it. I sobbed through the whole movie.  I am NOT the one who needs to watch these movies that show how awful bullying can be and make points about why we should not bully. I’ve always been in the get-bullied category, along with G. (Also, it was like me watching Forks Over Knives  or Glass Walls. That is, I am already vegetarian, and it HURTS to watch this stuff!)  

Bully should be required watching, though, for all students and all parents just in case. And all schools. All people, okay? If you are around children and/or teens in any capacity, and have the possible capacity to influence them in such a way as to potentially prevent bullying or protect someone from bullying…PLEASE DO. You could be saving a psyche or a soul…or a LIFE.

In honor of this sentiment, I have decided to publish a post I wrote long ago but never published. This situation – which occurred four years ago - was so tender to me that I long worried that I might have risked writing with bias, or out of anger. Enough distance and space have passed to feel comfortable in what I say, and to know that the post is as objective as it ever will be (bearing in mind that I believe strongly in truth and integrity, but also know that there are always a range of perspectives!).

Thank you for reading.

ON BULLYING, or, YAY, PARENT A!

This is the story of one of the worst things that ever happened in our household.

One time, when I went to pick G up after school, two older girls were teasing him. I saw them from afar, heard singsong voices. G ran to me crying and said they were “bullying” him.

I approached Parent A. She had a talk with her daughter and her daughter apologized and in fact became a friend to G.

Parent A knew that

1.      kids sometimes act thoughtlessly cruel and that

2.      they should be called out on it, sensitively of course, but firmly, and that

3.      most kids will grow and do better, if given the opportunity to do so.

I approached Parent B, the father of the other child. He agreed to speak with his daughter.

However, when he did so, his daughter completely denied any teasing or bullying. Parent B then called me, and insisted that his daughter had not teased my son, despite my having witnessed it, despite the other girl admitting to it, despite my son’s words and tears…

I knew Parent B’s daughter sometimes had problems with lying, and my son had told me she was teasing him on several previous occasions (just not through tears – he had been able to “handle it” the other times). I knew that accepting our children’s lies and not giving them consequences for misbehavior cannot be a good thing. But what was I going to say to someone so determined to believe their child that they would ignore the observations of three other people?

So I let it go.

Really, what is there to say in such a situation?

A few days later, Parent B approached me in the parking lot of our children’s school. I had both kids with me. G ran into the car as, to my surprise, this man began to yell at me and get in my face. Gutsy, tiny Z stood her ground, holding my hand in her little one.

He began by berating me for what I was wearing: “Look at you!” he sneered. I looked at myself. Yes, I was wearing a sundress. I am sometimes “guilty” of an Aspergian disregard for propriety and convention in attire and other areas but: sundress. He proceeded to yell at me for what felt like a million years, with choice bits such as, “"You have a problem and I am going to make sure you know it and pay for it" and “You’re gonna get what you deserve!” and “You know why this is all your fault! You know why you feel guilty! You know you have a guilty conscience!" and so on…

Have I mentioned I was completely blindsided?

I am not at all good at responding to aggression for many, many reasons, some neurological, some psychological…When overwhelmed by emotions and/or sensory input, my processing speed drops to ZERO. I am -- quite literally -- unable to feel and think at the same time, never mind talk. The only coherent things I was able to utter, each more than once, were: “Please stop yelling at me in front of my children,” “What are you talking about?” “Please step back!” [he was all up in my grill, sort of under my grill, actually, as he was shorter than me], and – the only even slightly offensive thing, but in itself kind of a 1950s B-movie sort of utterance -- “You have a lot of nerve!”

Plus, I wasn’t able to defend myself because I wasn’t even sure what he was talking about: What did I deserve – and why? Why on earth was I “guilty” – and how did this rather random fellow know all about it when I did not?

Also: why the rage???? Clearly, he was trying to “defend his child” – but from what, exactly? From the consequences of her actions? And what about her actions? Considering that he never once mentioned his daughter during the entire tirade, something else was going on there!

I was so confused.

Then he went on to my parenting: “Everybody knows there’s something wrong with [G] and you’ve done NOTHING about it!”

After some more choice invective, he concluded with, “You obviously don’t care about your kids at all!”

At that moment, I was able to say my first logical sentence of that awful “conversation” (As if somehow I had to justify myself to this lunatic!):  “What are you talking about? [Okay, that was not the good part.] My life revolves around my kids!”

“Your life,” he sneered triumphantly, “revolves around finding more boyfriends!”

I walked away, dazed and silent, hand in hand with my baby girl.

Lovely, lovely eidetic memory: every foul sentence Parent B had spewed was seared in my mind for all eternity.

My baby girl hugged me, hard, when we got in the car and said, “I am sorry that bad man was yelling at you, Mama,” and I – usually totally against making our children take care of us – drank in that hug and those words like the nectar and comfort they were. I had just been literally attacked in the parking lot of my son’s darling, cozy elementary school, a place that had felt as safe and sacred to me as a place could feel.

Later, I took further comfort in knowing that I have spent every possible bit of energy since G’s birth trying to do right by my children. I took comfort in knowing that autism is a neurological situation, not a psychological one “caused” by “refrigerator mothers” or some other nonsense.

I took comfort in my KNOWLEDGE that there is NOTHING “WRONG” with my son! I can’t say it didn’t hurt – hugely – to know that “everyone” “knew” there was “something wrong with” him. I didn’t give a rip whether people thought I’d neglected to do something about “it,” but such gross misperceptions of a wonderful, kind, loving boy broke my heart. And as much as I knew Parent B was exaggerating, I, sadly, never felt at ease in that town again.

I took comfort in my peaceful and (mostly) happy and healthy family (remember: peaceful, healthy and [mostly] happy, not perfect!)

Both fathers in the children’s lives -- my ex-husband and my now-husband, the gentle and even-tempered Pardner -- wanted me to press charges. (And you know when my ex is mad at someone on my behalf it musta been bad.)

But I didn’t want to “cause” more problems…

After a few days of processing, after I finally stopped shaking, I was able to have some thoughts: OH! So that’s what this is about? Let me get this straight: the reason G has autism is I am someone who, after I got divorced, dated someone and, upon occasion, wore a sundress?

Or: if only I had “done something” about G, Parent B’s daughter would not have found it necessary to bully him?

Or: is it that the reason she bullied my son was because *I* deserved it? And I know why, right?

Also: I guess G was not “credible” because there was “something wrong with” him???

By the same token, I suppose my word, too was worthless! Everybody knows lying goes hand in hand with being a liberated female, not to mention a gay divorcée. You see, there’d apparently been some conjecture around town – spurred by a neighbor/”friend” -- that different cars had been seen at my house on different nights…Guess what, gossips, my future husband had several old cars when we were first dating. Oh, and I have friends.

***NB! I reserve the right to date whomever I please! As many at a time as I so choose! Additionally, unlike the aforementioned gossips and believers thereof, I reserve the right to reserve judgment about people to what I’ve directly experienced and know to be true.***

Call me literal.

Oh yes, I was shaken. It was a wretched experience. Even now, I find myself shaking FOUR YEARS LATER as I think about these events.

In time, I came to realize that Parent B had an extra-large helping of what some of my friends and I refer to as “iss-yews.” He’d essentially been taking out his own insecurities and anger (said “iss-yews”) on an easy and vulnerable target: a single woman with a non-typical child.

Nice going, Sport.

The take-away: I now bear in mind lessons learned around:

Bullies:                               
      >> They exist. Be careful. Handle with administrative support where possible.

Discrimination:                   
      >> Exists, persists. Ditto.

Hidden, but entrenched – and strong! And ugly -- blech! – misogynyy:
      >> Ditto.

Gossip:                                
      >> Inevitable. Live your life as fabulously and honorably as you can!!!!

Ways to approach adult bullies (or NOT):     

      >> Don’t. See above.

Teaching children boundaries and values (and what not to teach them!!!) -- and

Teachable moments in general:
      >> Can be hard, but are sometimes necessary -- or unavoidable.

The sometimes misguided ferocity people feel around “protecting” their children (yoohoo, catering to lies does not serve/protect our children!):

      >> Can result in the perpetuation of a vicious cycle of emotional or even physical violence.

How people can conflate their own iss-yews with their kids’ iss-yews, in molto toxic ways:
      >> Strange but true. (This relates to the synergy I experience first hand from learning about the spectrum vis-à-vis my son and then myself, in what is a substantially more healthy dynamic!)

How some people will dismiss and/or attack you for being “different” (autistic, single, whatever…it’s all about context and narrow-mindedness!)…

      >> …And how some people will NOT!

…and so on.

It seems like – I think? Probably? - for neurotypical people, the majority of these things can be obvious: people gossip, people act like jerks. G and I do plenty of things that tick people off, but they are 99.9% unintentional. We have to remind ourselves of the possibility of these unfamiliar and intentionally hurtful possibilities in order to be able to handle them atall. For what it’s worth, both G and I have been bullied less as we have integrated the above and gained some social skills over the years.

He heads to Middle School next year so I won’t get too cocky or prescient here.

As for Parent B, I know we are supposed to forgive people. Maybe I will get there one day. For now, though, I still want to kick his as$. And, seriously? With a little advance notice/processing time I could.

Anyhoo, if at all possible, if you ever find yourself in a situation where your child is teasing or bullying another child, be more like Parent A…PLEASE?

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama