Last week I had one of those days where I felt like a failure. I was exhausted and depressed and totally overwhelmed. The day started out pretty well. Then around mid-morning a friend said that she didn’t know how I managed as a single parent. (Here’s a news flash: some days I don’t either.) She said she thought if she were me, she would have been tempted to give Katie back to the birthparents. A few minutes later, after further discussion, she took her statement back, but the damage was done.
Later, while repairing a loose button, I found not one but six ragged moth holes in one of my favorite sweaters. Katie was downstairs, crying because she was tired after a long day at school and didn’t want to do her afternoon “play” therapy. I sat on my bed and I cried too.
This is not, of course, the first time someone has told me that I should have given Katie back. The first person to do so was my ex-husband Michael shortly before I filed for divorce. In his defense, he was drunk and severely manic at the time. We were both reeling from Katie’s autism diagnosis. Still, I would have preferred a very different response from the man I thought would be her father. It felt like the worst form of betrayal. But given Michael’s dysfunctional childhood, the answer did not come as a complete shock. It was painful and heart-breaking, but upon further reflection (and a lot of therapy), not a surprise
What has been a surprise is the number of people since then who have told me that they too would have responded as Michael did. I do not fault them for this choice—I know all too well how difficult life is with an autistic child—but it is one I never would have considered, one I cannot bear to contemplate. Even when I’m exhausted, depressed, and totally overwhelmed, when my life is a sweater unraveled
The moment I saw Katie in the hospital, an hour after her birth, she was my child. There was never any thought of going back. Not ever. Even when Katie was diagnosed and everything changed. Even when I realized Michael was leaving and I would be parenting alone. Even on those days when I don’t know how I will survive until bedtime. Even then, I cannot muster the will to change course. I may not have chosen this life initially, but I continue to choose it—consciously and whole-heartedly, on good days and bad.
I don’t know how some people find it possible to abandon a child while others find it equally impossible to do the same. I don’t know why some days I feel like a failure. What I do know is this: there is not much that a good night’s sleep cannot fix. Even single parenting and autism look better in the morning.
Believe me, I know.
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
Thoughts on “Quiet Hands”
Take, for example, the post entitled Quiet Hands by Julia Bascom. Julia has autism, although I suspect most people reading her work would never guess. Or wouldn’t if she wrote about something other than what it means to grow up autistic in this country. I can’t get enough of her writing. I can’t get enough of it because she explains all the things my daughter Katie can’t yet explain.
Perhaps I should explain.
Unlike Julia, Katie doesn’t flap often, as many on the spectrum do, but she touches absolutely EVERYTHING. I’ve never told her “quiet hands,” but I have told her on many, many occasions to stop touching. Don’t put your hands in that stranger’s purse, don’t handle all the produce at the grocery store, don’t touch the tires on that monster truck, don’t touch the fragile things at Grandma’s house. I assumed her need to touch was based on a lack of social boundaries and nothing more.
Then I read Quiet Hands and realized that like Julia, Katie may use her hands to make sense of her world, a world that is more often than not painful and terrifyingly out-of-control. She uses her hands to gather and process information. So when I tell her to stop touching, what I am really saying is this: Stop expressing yourself. Or more bluntly, stop talking.
Or worse, I don’t want to hear what you are trying to say.
Or worse yet, you are broken and bad. I don’t accept you the way you are.
I had no idea, absolutely no idea, what I was telling her with my well-meaning words. Clearly I need to rethink my approach. There must be a better way to balance her needs with those of, well, pretty much everyone else.
What struck me when I read Quiet Hands was the memory of all the times the aides in Katie’s speech-intensive preschool program did hand-over-hand with her and how, even at 2, prior to her diagnosis, she fought it—fought it as if her life depended on it. I figured out pretty quickly that if you sat next to Katie and showed her what you wanted, she would copy your actions. No fighting involved. But I had to beg the aides to stop with the hand-over-hand. I literally had to beg until one of them agreed to try it my way and saw that it worked.
Even now, 5 years later, I still need to tell new therapists not to do the dreaded hand-over-hand. The response is, more often than not, but that’s how we’re supposed to do it. Some listen to me; most insist on doing it anyway. Katie responds so aggressively that they stop trying pretty quickly.
It makes me sad that she has to fight so hard to be heard. But thanks to Julia, I now understand what Katie is fighting for.
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton