How God Clears His Inbox, and Other Lessons From Autism

I am at the pinnacle of dissertation.  Tonight I defend my proposal.  It shall be on the experience Catholic families have raising an autistic child Catholic.  Mine is one such family, so the next few posts shall be my own memories of taking my son, Liam, to Mass, preparing him for the reception of the Sacraments and my feelings of joy and sorrow as we journey this road together.  Hopefully, it will be funny.  With any luck, God will get a word in edgewise.

To begin:  Liam was born as the first son in a family of four girls.  My daughters used to pray with me every morning many years ago, asking God for a baby brother.  (I also used to pray for the virtue of patience and humility, too.  I was young and naive which God seemed to take perverse pleasure in answering those.)  Liam came in 2002.  The funny thing about God:  When you pray for something, sometimes He gives it to you right at that moment, and sometimes He gives it to you after the cumulative effect of prayers.  The problem with the latter is a lot like praying for rain.  You pray and pray and pray, then finally, God answers your prayers....all at once...with a flood!  That happened with me.  God answered several prayers with Liam, all at the same time.  Apparently, God goes through His inbox like I do.

Anyway, Liam was born and we knew right away there was something different about him.  He would wake up at 2 AM and just lay in bed, cooing.  It was as though he was capable of interacting with the angels.  When he would begin to whine (because babbling never happened with him) I turned on the television for him.  He loved movies, even at his young age.  These would settle him and give me a few extra hours to sleep.  I knew it was odd though.  None of my other kids did this type of thing...ever.  To see Liam happily laying in bed, watching videos of Mickey Mouse or the Little Mermaid at the age of 9 months was weird.

We knew there was a problem by the time Liam was 15 months but I sensed it by 12 months because he never babbled.  He only screeched.  In fact, we nicknamed him Screamin' Liam.   He screeched with the high pitch Eee  Eeee  Eeeeeeee all the time.  Everywhere.  Liam screeched when he was happy.  Liam screeched when he was mad.  Liam screeched to get our attention and to make us leave him alone.  The screech was Liam's only language.  No matter how many times we exaggerated the syllables of words to help Liam learn to speak, the only sound he could produce from age 6 months to age 4 (except for giggling when we tickled him) was a screech.  Sometimes we would tickle him, just to hear him make a sound other than a screech.

Not only was it annoying, it made going to Mass a nightmare.  We were relegated to the crying room for nearly four years because of that screech.  It would begin well, with Liam rocking or sitting quietly with his Pixar toys surrounding him, but it would inevitably end with my husband or me fumbling over the other kids to scoop Liam up and take him out of the church before the ladies behind us would whisper and huff.

My favorite place to take Liam during these times was the garden outside the church.  This was especially so in the summer, as it was cool and there was plenty of space for Liam to run.  The garden at our parish had a brick wall surrounding it where the Stations of the Cross were hung.  These were made nearly 100 years ago and hung in our original church built in the 1850's.  Made by prisoners at the local prison, they were truly a gift of love and they fascinated Liam.  His screeching couldn't bother any of the other parishioners there, and I would often meet others parents with restless babies or children.  Mass may have been uncomfortable on the inside, but outside, it was peaceful and welcoming.

Many Sundays, I took Liam to the Stations Garden to run around and play while the Homily was given.  This was not a commentary on the homily.  Liam just wasn't capable of sitting that long as one person spoke.  It was as though the minute the Gospel was over and we all sat down, Liam started up.  We could keep him still for the readings.  He loved the responsorial psalm which was sung by the choir, so we had his attention for the better part of the Liturgy of the Word, but he never made it through a homily.  Even today, at 13, Liam announces he must go to the bathroom when we sit after the Gospel.  His bladder is timed to the homily, only now, he can get the basic words out to ask to leave.  At three, four and five, that was not the case.  A screech was his only weapon against the dull, droning sound of a priest putting a philosophical spin on the readings.

When we lived in Ireland for two years, we had neither the crying room, nor the Station Garden.  We were stuck with Liam in Mass, or forced to take him outside.  In Ireland, it rains or mists 80% of the time,  Going outside was a miserable choice, and the old church in our little village echoed so loudly, it was more incentive for Liam to screech.  We had to find another way to manage Liam.  Enter the gummy bears.

Giving Liam gummy bears was a brilliant idea.  My husband kept a packet of them in his pocket, and when Liam would start to screech, my husband would reach into his pocket and slip one to Liam.  Problem solved...that is...until Liam figured out he could get more gummy bears by screeching.  We just complicated our problem.  We had been trained to use Applied Behavioral Analysis, or what I like to lovingly call, HTYCBGLM, or How to Train Your Child to Be a Good Little Monkey.  We had to really shift our thinking on that one, and give the gummy bears to Liam before he began to screech, telling him, "Good quiet."  It took a while, but after about 6 months of it, Liam began to suppress his urge to screech.  We thought we were finally in the clear, that is, until Liam discovered the difference between Irish pews from the American ones.

In Ireland, the church pews are made of wood and have higher clearance under the seats because they are not cushioned like our parish pews in California.  For a five year old with sensory issues, this could be a nightmare or a Godsend.  Liam loved to walk on the pews in Ireland because they made a lovely, tapping/thudding/stomping sound.  He delighted in the sound and subsequent echo.  In California, we never thought about it.  Once we came to Ireland, all bets were off.  The first time Liam walked on a pew, we received a few scornful looks from the older parishioners, but a lot of giggles and smiles from the others in our parish.  Quickly, I maneuvered Liam off the pew, only to discover the benches were high enough for him to crawl under!  Liam crawled right under the lady in front of us, up through her skirts!  Thinking back on this, it makes me laugh but then, it wasn't so funny.  Her glare could have stopped a train!  All the while, Liam giggled with delight at the new adventure he had discovered.  We were left with no other choice but to move to the first pew and shovel gummy bears into Liam to keep him quietly sitting on the pew for a solid hour.

Funny.  I don't remember a single homily Father O'Shea ever gave.  I think my anxiety radar wouldn't allow me to focus on anything but Liam as he would find new ways to make Mass my hour in Purgatory every week.  If I thought it was difficult when he was a child, I was deluded.  Liam had far worse things planned for me as he grew.

The moral of this story:  Be careful what you pray for.  When God empties His Inbox, He does it all at once and, sometimes, blends them all together into one, massive answer.  God seems to like to kill several proverbial birds with one single stone!

Preschool Psychology: Ode to Miss Chelly

This week's readings in Baar (1997) for my Cognitive Psych class had some real-life examples for me. The priming effect seems to be an issue I encounter often, such as when I was looking for a misplaced homework packet on our pool table. The loss of a good friend to cancer yesterday was a good example of intentions and expectations. Both were very humbling lessons. My preschooler summed it up perfectly. "I will see Miss Chelly in Heaven, but I don't wanna go there...yet!"

Our pool table is the junk drawer shelf of the living room. Everything goes on that table, and my husband forbids anyone from clearing it except for him. Consequently, it piles up with junk mail, book bags and recent purchases. My eyes glaze over at the idea of looking through the mail on the pool table, as it is much like the abyss of a hoarder. (Okay, I am exaggerating here. My husband probably feels the same way about my makeup drawer!)

When my son misplaced his homework packet last week (code for "The dog ate my homework. Oh wait, we don't have a dog!") I walked around the pool table pile, looking for it but not seeing anything. It was there. I just couldn't see it because my brain refused to register anything on the pool table. The priming effect was at work, and it seemed to be like a subroutine running in C programming language. My brain processed it as it always did. It was the same as usual, like saying the Apostle's Creed or any of the other prayers during Mass. It never changed, so my mind could not see the variation. It only saw the concept of pool table. After an hour of looking, we gave up. My son went to school with his excuse and my husband tore into the pool table piles. Eventually, the homework surfaced. It was lying underneath an APA journal I received the last week and the bean box I had placed on the pool table a month ago for our four year-old to use as a calming tool. (No, I don't tear into the APA journals the second they arrive!) I was encountering the priming effect.

 Ironically, I had the experience of intention/expectation play out yesterday that was quite dramatic. I lost a good friend to cancer. I had never lost a friend to cancer in which I could actually see the course of the disease consume her. It was a shock to me. Even though I had knowledge of the effects of cancer (my grandfather died of cancer,) I did not have an adult awareness of the disease.

Watching Shelly battle with cancer was something I had no experience with which to draw upon and it left me with the expectation that I would know how to handle the loss when if finally happened. Last night, it happened. Even though I had seen her two weeks ago, and even though I had watched her husband's Facebook page hourly in the last two days, the impact of her death hit me as if broadsided by a train.

I thought I was prepared. I knew it was coming. I had great intentions to be comforting, solid as a rock and unmoved in my faith of heaven. Yet,even though I thought I was ready to hear the words of her passing, I simply could not believe it when it finally happened. It just didn't seem possible. She was just here! I was just talking to her a few weeks ago, and she was so positive and hopeful. I have no experience in dying, myself, (fortunately) so my frame of reference was based on observations but not of experiencing it.

I have never seen anyone actually die. I had never even seen someone close to death, and the sight of Shelly the last time was a shock. Her pain was evident, and the tubes draining and feeding her seemed unnatural. There was no way to prepare for it. My brain could not wrap around the idea of death.

 It is the one great mystery we all share a lack of knowledge in, and I am still trying to make sense of it. How does a person go from being on this earth, to suddenly not being here? My expectation of death will always be this vagueness, just as though I have the words on the tip of my tongue. I know it is there, but I cannot bring it up as I have a missing piece to connect it. I know the concept, but the experience has yet to be real to me. I have no context with which to compare it.

I find myself saying the same thing as Temple Grandin in the movie, Temple, "Where do they go?" I was quite convinced I knew (i.e., heaven and hell), yet each time someone dies, I know nothing. My intentions and expectations have no basis in knowledge, so I am left with a vague sense of what just happened, and it always shocks me when it does happen. I simply cannot reconcile it, and live to tell the tale (at least in a blog.) Death is everyone's greatest "state of no experience" (Baars, 1997, p. 122) and we simply won't have the context to draw from until we each die.

It is a lot like my son saying his homework is lost, even though it sits right in front of me on the pool table. Until I get right into it, take things apart and experience it, I will not have the context to know what happens. It will remain a mystery, just like the mysterious dog that ate my son's homework, the mysterious abyss that is our pool table, or the mysterious abyss that is death.

 Baars, B. J. (1997). In the theater of consciousness: The workspace of the mind. New York: Oxford University Press.