The Good, the Bad, and the Truth

I linked this article because I think it demonstrates an important truth: optimists don't have a monopoly on inspiration. Put another way, pessimism and inspiration are not mutually exclusive. I began composing a reply, but I was interrupted interrupted by my son screaming, pounding on the walls, and tearing down pictures. Why? Because he suddenly decided he needed an "adventure" by which he means someone getting in the car with him, taking him someplace, and buying him some food. (And no, this wasn't about hunger. He'd just eaten half a pizza.) No one would drop everything immediately and do that for him just because he demanded it, so he started his screaming and wall-pounding. This was not a meltdown. A meltdown is much worse. When I said no, he began alternately threatening to keep pounding on the walls until I took him on an adventure, and briefly stopping his pounding to demand an adventure as a reward for stopping. I told him that no means no, and I will not respond to manipulative behavior. That meant we had no choice but to ride it out. So we did.

That's life around here. I tell it like it is. When something good happens, I celebrate. I don't mope around whining about my miserable life as the father of a boy with autism. When things are hard, I don't put on a counterfeit plastic smile and spew some saccharine platitudes about the glass being half full when it's darn near empty. I'm 100% real 100% of the time. Some people can't handle that, but at least I know they're rejecting the real me, not some synthetic version of me manufactured to please the public and failing to.

Have you noticed how a sanitized, Disneyfied version of a great story, whether a true story or a classic work of fiction, is never as satisfying as the original? Tame the fear and the sadness, and you tame the joy as well. I have no choice but to face anger, fear, and sadness untamed. I intend to embrace wild joy. That's what I like about Understanding My Son, Kicking Kittens, Life is a Spectrum, Big Daddy Autism, Both Hands and a Flashlight, On the Spectrum, Autism Herd, etc. The laughter is sweeter and the tears more poignant because they are real. I'd rather have real sadness than fake happiness. I will not allow other people, nor other parents, nor even other autism parents tell me how to interpret and experience my life in their funhouse mirror. It is what it is.

A few months ago, I visited an online homeschooling forum. Several moms were--let's call a manually-operated digging implement a spade--bitching. And there's no bitching I find quite so irritating as euphemism-clad Christian bitching. So what were they bitching "sharing" about? It seems that each mom had at least one kid (usually a daughter) who was a pessimist or, at the very least, whose optimism wasn't up to snuff. Here's the deal-breaker: they were not content to demand an honest assessment of events from that child; they demanded that she put a positive spin on everything. They were going to train this pessimism right out of her and make her a bleeding optimist! Their methods ranged from the absurd to the cruel. Have you ever felt the urge to do the impossible, reach through the computer screen and slap someone? If a positive attitude were so good and powerful and holy, and a negative attitude so rotten and weak and reprobate, how did they expect their negative attitudes and actions to inspire optimism? I immediately began composing a rebuttal in the form of a satire, titled "Optimism is a Serious Character Flaw." I wasn't foolish enough to send it. In fact, I never finished it, though I might one of these days.

Yes, we all have our good days and bad days. Yes, we all have moments when we tend toward excessive pessimism and others when we tend toward foolish optimism. If you choose not to talk about one or the other, you have the right to remain silent. But when you tell someone else they have no right to speak the truth because it makes you uncomfortable, and especially when, by speaking, that person inspires another to take righteous action, you can just go where liars go. I refer, of course, to Washington.

Coming Soon: Autism Parents: Two Camps, and Why I Don't Fit in Either One.