Marc Rosen on NewsDay

Post Reply New Topic

BY MARC ROSEN | Marc Rosen lives in Roslyn Heights.
November 24, 2007
It seems nowadays that autism has become a center of controversy. As an autistic person, it disheartens me to see that most people lack a clear understanding of what autism is like for their children, peers, students and so on, yet they claim to know what is best for us.

Autism is called abnormal and a disorder only because neurologists operate under a Philistine's notion that there is "normal" within all things, and that only their arbitrary definition of "order" is valid.

An autistic person often is said to think outside the box, or deliberately cross the line. I can tell you from experience that we don't. To us, there's no box, there's no line. And we find neurotypical people absurd for complaining about something that just doesn't exist. This comes from the fact that many of us don't naturally develop intuitive thought and imagination, though once we learn how, we're quite capable of these feats.

I have been diagnosed with various autistic spectrum disorders. As I proved more capable than the charts predicted, the diagnosis was modified repeatedly, from PDD (pervasive developmental disorder) at age 2, to low-functioning autism when I learned to speak in sentences at age 4, to high-functioning Asperger's Syndrome when I was found to have an IQ well above average, to high-functioning autism when the Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis no longer fit.

This is a common experience for autistic people, but even more common is the idea among those of us who have found acceptance that we're happy the way we are and don't want to be "cured." The part about us that is especially different is that we don't process data via symbological means. In other words, we don't consider things to have greater meaning than themselves.

I had severe social difficulties from preschool onward, and by the time a term like "autism" would have had any meaning to my peers, most had already drawn conclusions, and would continue to do so.

My isolation, combined with a longstanding rift I had with my family, led to severe depression by age 9, which went undiscovered until I was 14 or so. Unable to express my emotions, I was placed in outpatient therapy for four years, which was enough to allow me to see my existence as valid. In all, I'd say that part of my life wouldn't have happened if I were better understood and wasn't persuaded that I was diseased, disordered or sick and in need of a cure.

Parents, educators and others who work with autistic people should take these words to heart, and continue to do all they can to work with autistic kids and teens, rather than trying to make them normal.

My answer to Marc Rosen


Your story is very like mine: rift with my family, depression in various periods of my life, When your parents realize you are "special" (social clumsyness, odd interests, they try to intervene with some form of "correction", medical or pharmacological). You perceive these interventions as a intolarable attack to your internal arrangements for survival, you resist and the rift with your family aggravates dramatically and ends in all out conflict.