Photo: Robert Stirrett
I’m sort of a sucker for Dr. Phil. His column in a recent issue of O: the Oprah Magazine was, I’m certain, written just for me:
“One of the greatest limitations we face as human beings is that we look at the world from our own subjective perspective–especially in situations that directly involve us. Anytime there’s something personal at stake, you’ve got a built-in bias, right?”
Right.
When the initial shock of my son’s diagnosis began to ebb, and the profound ramifications of his autism sank in, I became what you might call “a person with a built-in bias.”
That is to say, “Nobody had it as bad as me.”
Yes. I realize how self-centered, arrogant, and small-minded that sounds. I was all those things and worse. I couldn’t see beyond my own anguish and pain to recognize that far greater pain existed anywhere else I might care to look: my own neighborhood, our country, the universe.
But I didn’t look. For a while I simply couldn’t. My son’s life was more important to me than the vast suffering of the world or the political tenor of our country or my neighbor’s mother having breast cancer. Other parents’ problems with their kids paled in comparison to what I was going through with my son.
The whole world became my own, exclusive crisis, and I was stuck there, grieving and angry with my feet dug in. Woe to the fool who dared breach my hell, bearing his own inconsequential concerns.
One morning when Daniel was three I tried attending a meeting of the women’s Bible study I’d been part of for several years. It was held at the church where I’d been baptized and had attended my whole life. Our group met in the church nursery so our children could play while we conversed and discussed whatever literature we’d decided to read. I used to look forward to those meetings every other week, and enjoyed the fellowship of the women, many of whom I’d known for years.
It became more difficult to attend as Daniel got older. He was detached, disinterested in the other children, and prone to abrupt changes of mood. Monitoring his behavior left me distracted and, no doubt, distracting to the rest of the group. Just being with these women with their “normal” lives became stressful, threatening, as I watched their children develop typically as my own child fell deeper into his mysterious, impenetrable world. Where I once felt wholly part of something I now felt isolated, anxious and alone.
Hurrying to escape that morning as Daniel’s behavior escalated, I encountered a man at the church’s front door. Holding it open for me, he acknowledged Daniel’s inarticulate sounds of frustration with a nod of his head.
“You should try it with twins,” the man advised. “That’s what my daughter has to do!” He nodded again, smiled broadly, and gave me a little wink.
“Well,” I began, determined to set this guy straight, “my son has a disorder that makes it pretty — ”
He didn’t even hear me. “Just try it with twins! Give that a try! My daughter really has her hands full!”
Outraged and speechless, I scooped Daniel up and rushed to my car, shaking all the way home, incensed by the ignorant, self-consumed ass who didn’t recognize a real parenting challenge when it stood whining at his feet.
If only I’d had Dr. Phil’s advice back then: “If you can develop the ability to really see through another person’s eyes, you’ll be tapping into an incredibly powerful tool to managing your life.”
If only I’d been capable then of heeding that advice.
Years later I still think of that encounter, and imagine our conversation if I’d been able to leave the cocoon of my frightened self-righteousness for just one moment, and ask him about his grandchildren. I could have indulged his pride, cooed over baby pictures, and taken a back seat to his obvious delight. Or perhaps I’d have learned that he was in fact worried sick, afraid that managing twins was overwhelming his daughter just as mothering Daniel was overwhelming me. We could have had a dialogue, a meaningful if brief exchange that left us both a little stronger, a little more connected, a little less alone in our experience.
I do that easily these days. I enjoy such random encounters tremendously. Thank God I’ve gotten over myself enough to do so.
I try to forgive the woman I used to be, for how I felt and acted back then, when I believed the world had come to an end. Daniel’s autism was not the end of the world. It was not even close to that.
It just felt that way for a while.