I was reminded today of how Alex’s perspective on some things is actually truly insightful.

Don’t get me wrong, people on the spectrum struggle with many challenges in many different ways and on many different levels.  A reminder that is echoed all too often by someone asking me “what the hell is wrong with him?” when Alex has yelled out at the top of his lungs in public “then I will just have to let it go!” This is usually when he is fixated on something that cannot happen or when his schedule is disrupted. For years we have worked on helping him deal with sudden changes in schedules or disruptions due to things or people you can’t control. He has learned to deal with this himself through a LOT of work but there are still times were he reaches a critical point and needs help to deescalate. Over the years he has developed a lot of visual cues to help.

It seems lately that everyone is so angry. There is a lot of venomous hate and anger out there and it now seems somewhat acceptable to post it on social media – almost making it acceptable. The very thing we have worked on with Alex – how to stay calm, how to breath, how to avoid that melt down point, now seems unfortunately labelled as “funny” and “entertaining”. There is nothing entertaining about anyone having a meltdown.  Yet we seem consumed by this in the media. Of course there is no lack of angry “Karen” references now to these types of incidents. Even Alex has said to me “hey mom, don’t be a Karen” when I have yelled in the car over someone cutting me off while driving”.

Alex and I were talking about this recently as we witnessed a man screaming at a store clerk because they lost his order. Once the man left the store Alex told me “he’s not a Karen, he just needs to get out of the mud”. I asked him what he meant. He replied “people get stuck in the mud – just muddy people. They look bad but they can’t help it once they are in it all they know is mud – so they sit in it and throw it at others. It’s not healthy. Better to stay out of the mud”.

As I thought about his analogy, it occurred to me how insightful that was – on so many levels – likely a visual someone gave him maybe in school or in his behaviour therapy to deal with his own challenges of not reaching that boiling point. Even not getting stuck or fixated on negative stuff or negative media.

So my advice from Alex for 2023, stay positive and stay out of the mud. There are better places to be and go.

Happy New Year!