Is My Son Autistic?

My son is 3 years old, about to turn 4 after Christmas. There have been things I've noticed about him that make me wonder if he might be autistic like me. Just little things and only occasionally, but there are things there making me suspect it nonetheless. We know that autism is (or at least can be) genetic, so it would completely make sense for any child of mine to potentially be autistic too. Before we dive in, I'm not saying that any given traits listed here are necessarily autism-related, rather that I feel there are too many of them to not at least consider the possibility of autism.

The first thing I've seen in him is that he seems to like lining things up neatly. I haven't seen him lining things up too often in the traditional sense, but he definitely likes building huge towers out of Lego and other things, which is essentially just lining things up but vertically instead of horizontally. He builds towers as big as he can with Lego, with Play Doh pots, sometimes with cushions. And I've found him lining things up on the floor like cars and dinosaurs before.

Something else he does is that when there's a loud noise such as a hoover or a hand dryer in a public toilet he'll cover his ears and complain that it's too loud. This is the one that I'm least convinced about being an autism trait because his sister does it too, and it never seems to actually upset him as such so I'm wondering if that's maybe just a child thing, but still. The possibility of autistic hypersensitivity can't be ruled out.

Speaking of hypersensitivity, he often complains that his eyes hurt. He had his eyes checked recently at the hospital and they found nothing wrong, which for me strengthens the case of it being a hypersensitivity to light. To be honest I haven't specifically noticed what his environment is usually like when his eyes hurt, but he has told me that it's when the lights are bright. I think it's definitely worth me noting down what the surroundings are like in future when he complains. The fact that he's had his eyes checked with no problems found is very similar to how I had my hearing checked several years ago because people noticed I couldn't hear them, yet the testing found that my hearing was fine. His eye pain could potentially be a light sensitivity just like my "hearing" issues are actually auditory processing issues.

After me mentioning that he might be autistic, my wife started to notice little things like he doesn't make eye contact that much. It's not something I've noticed myself, but that's maybe because I don't tend to do well with eye contact either. There's been times when she's had to tell him off that she's told him to look at her and he never does. It wasn't until I mentioned autism that she then realised that maybe that's why and demanding for him to look at her isn't doing any good. Because of my own aversion of eye contact, whenever I've told him off I've always told him to listen to me instead of to look at me.

He can be very hyper emotional at times. Sometimes when he shows this it can easily be put down to simply being a toddler and getting upset or throwing a tantrum as toddlers do. But other times it's not quite so subtle. When he watches anything on TV that even has the slightest bit of peril or threat he suddenly decides he doesn't like it and wants it turned off. It happened with Toy Story 1 and 2 when Buzz and Woody both lost their arms, it happened at the beginning of Ice Age when Scrat struggled to get that nut only to end up getting trampled on by a mammoth, and it even happened with the TV adaptation of The Gruffalo when the Gruffalo picked the mouse up to eat him, although he soon got used to that one. I think this is a sign of hyper empathy because he is a very caring boy and is usually happy to help or share with other people.

There are a couple of things that he is/was late at developing although I don't think that he's late to the point of being abnormal or causing a problem. His old childminder suggested that we had him referred to speech therapy because he was a bit behind but we've always put that down to him being born 8 weeks premature. The speech therapist wasn't worried and from memory I think they agreed with us. With that said there are certain sounds and words that he's currently struggling with saying so he's in the middle of being referred again, although from what we can tell it seems to be more to do with tongue tie this time than autism. We've also been trying to toilet train him for a while now, and it's only in the last couple of weeks or so that he's reached the point where he'll tell is he needs the toilet or he'll go to the toilet on his own so we've been able to completely switch him from nappies to pants until bed time. If I'm honest I think the main reason for him being delayed is that I've not been able to keep on top of training him like I really should have. He had gone backwards with toileting for a while until his nursery suggested trying him in just pants for a full day and he just took to it from there.

So there are a few reasons I think my son might be autistic. I'm not a psychologist or an expert but I think there's enough there to wonder about it. It doesn't make any difference to me or his mum whether he's autistic or not so we've got no plans to get him assessed. Whether he is or he isn't autistic nothing will change, and he's still the same handsome, funny, kind and caring boy that he's always been. All it means if he is autistic is that he's like me, which I can only see as a good thing.

I'm glad to be back to blogging after taking last week off. Let me know your thoughts and comments on this week's post and do the usual - subscribe with the button at the top, and follow me on Twitter @DepictDave. Also don't forget to send me your questions on Twitter using #AutQA for the Q&A post that I've got planned next week. You've only got 1 week to get your questions to me so do it now!

Exciting Things Coming

Just a quick post this week as I'm having a busy day and if I'm honest I haven't been mentally in the best place recently. I wanted to pop online anyway and give you a quick update of things that are planned/happening at the moment.

The first thing I want to mention is that the National Autistic Society is asking people to sign an open letter to all of the UK party leaders ahead of next month's general election. The letter brings to attention the fact that the updates to the government's autism strategy have been delayed because of this election, and it asks that the publishing of it takes a priority as soon as the next government is established. The existing autism strategy (entitled Think Autism ad published in 2014) is in place to support autistic adults by putting a duty on the government to produce guidance for local authorities to help them support autistics in a variety of ways including giving autism training for key staff and developing a clear pathway for autism assessment and diagnosis. The main update to the new strategy is that it will be extended to include children as well as adults. Please click here to read and sign the letter to the UK party leaders. At the time of posting this blog, they need just 600 more signatures to reach they target 5,000.

Second order of business is just a reminder to ask me any and all questions you've got over the next 3 weeks on Twitter using the hashtag #AutQA. I'll answer your questions in the 6th December Q&A post as that's the week of my first anniversary of being diagnosed.

I'm planning on taking a day to go out into York city centre for some market research to survey my fellow locals on their views, opinions and understanding of autism. I've always been curious to find out exactly what the people of York think and the logical/analytical side in me is keen to crunch some numbers and produce a report of my findings. With Christmas coming up it may be the perfect time to get out and find people to talk to so I'm going to aim for a day over the next couple of weeks or so and I'll keep you all posted.

Speaking of Christmas, I spent some time last night designing an autistic Christmas jumper that I'm looking to get printed for myself. Once I've got it I'll model it and post a photo online. The main reason I've designed it is for me to wear it myself, but I'll see what people think of it and if there's any interest in other people buying ones for themselves I might make a few more to sell. Who knows, maybe I'll end up following in the footsteps of some of my favorite autism advocates and creating my own autism clothing range!

The last thing to mention is that I'm looking at expanding the blog's online presence. I haven't really used Facebook for a long time now, but I'm thinking of creating a Depiction Of Dave Facebook page soon when I have the time to sit down and set it up properly. I'm also planning on re-branding my existing Instagram account to be a blog-only one. I've been using it as a personal account since I first installed the app in 2013 but I don't really post that much on it, so if I use it specifically alongside the blog I'll be able to increase my engagements and carve out another way to interact with you guys. Pinterest is another social media thing I'm keen to look at. If I'm honest I don't understand Pinterest but I know people and places that I can learn from as it's apparently a really good tool for bloggers to use.

I think that's everything I wanted to mention this week - just a quick one to keep you in the loop. As always, please follow the blog with the "Subscribe" button at the top of the page because it helps me out loads. Also feel free to follow me on Twitter @DepictDave. I'll keep you updated on any more social media pages as and when they happen, so there'll be loads of ways to follow me.

Victim Blaming: A Sudden Realisation

The reason I write this blog is because it's a way to use my limited time and skills the best way I can in autism advocacy. Any dealings in the world of autism will inevitably cross over into the mental health world although autism in itself isn't a mental health condition - it's just a difference in brain structure. It can also cross over into the way people treat each other and the way we raise our kids. This week's blog post isn't directly about autism other than being about the personal experience of an autistic person, but it does address my treatment at school and the issues it has caused. It's something that I suddenly realised today (although there is a delay of a few weeks between me writing this post and its scheduled publishing date) and it's something that the more I think about it the more I'm really unhappy about it. That being the heavy level of victim blaming that I was put through during my school years.

As a kid I was always bullied. Badly. On the surface of it, it was mostly for being overweight but I think I might have mentioned in a previous post that although I was severely overweight I wonder whether I would have been bullied anywhere near as much if I was neurotypical. It's clear to me that nobody knew I was autistic at the time but I must have been outwardly "autistic enough" to show some sort of difference or weirdness, and although they couldn't pin it on anything specific as they didn't know I was autistic they still saw fit to harass me for it. Targeting my weight was just the most obvious and easiest way they could do that. Why else would the autistic fat kid get bullied when the neurotypical fat kids were all treated absolutely fine? I tried countless times to get help to stop the bullying but my school did nothing about it. I was simply told to ignore the bullies and they'll stop. So I ignored them. They didn't stop. There were at least a couple of times when the bullying got so bad and/or I'd put up with it for so long that I reached breaking point (which takes A LOT for me) and I snapped and I physically lashed out at the bullies. Each time I reached breaking point and got into a fight the school would tell my parents "I'm not surprised, it's been a long time coming" and even "It's been heartbreaking to watch how the other kids treat him." Yet they were happy to punish me after they sat back, watched the abuse that the other kids put me through and did absolutely nothing about it. These teachers at my school were the so-called responsible adults whose care I was under. This is neglect and victim blaming, and it's absolutely not OK in any way, shape or form. It wasn't OK at the time and it'll never be OK due to the lasting damage that it's done to me, even now 16 years after I left school (I'm 32 - that's half my life!).

Because of the victim blaming I was put through I now feel like everything is my fault, or at least is going to get turned around and used against me. If there's something I don't agree with or where I should put my point across I don't, simply because growing up I was always told to ignore these things, encouraged to bottle it up, and then punished when it caused me to lash out. What kind of message does that send to a child at school age? It does nothing but show that their thoughts, their feelings, their opinions don't matter, and that when they reach out for help they'll either be ignored or have it turned around against them. If I'm completely honest I don't know which is worse. And yet people always wonder why I'm the quiet one and keep myself to myself. Your childhood is where you and your view of the world are shaped in preparation for adulthood. If your school can't (or in my case won't) set you up properly for adulthood then not only is it setting you up for failure in later life, but the school itself is failing in its duty of care.

I've always had a hard enough time talking to people and building relationships since I'm autistic but my experience at school certainly didn't help matters. The vast majority of my bullies at school were boys and I'm convinced that this is the reason I've always got on a lot better with girls. In fact, I'd even go as far as saying that I often feel intimidated by men to a certain degree, especially the ones who are overly laddish, macho and full of bravado. I would also partly blame this for my difficulty in forming romantic relationships as well. Because I always got on better with the girls I almost always found myself friend zoned when I hoped for something more. I'll leave the relationship side of it there because I've already addressed it in my previous post on Sexuality. Feel free to check it out if you want to delve deeper.

I have to wonder if things would have been different had it been known I was autistic. Both my primary and secondary school were equally guilty of ignoring the bullying that I went through, but looking back I think there was 1 teacher at my primary school who went as far as bullying me himself. I can't remember much about that part of my life but what I do remember is how he made it obvious that he didn't like me. I remember being put in detention a lot specifically by him although I really can't remember the reasons for it, and I'm not convinced that I knew/understood the reasons at the time. Based on what I can remember I think he probably just didn't like me because I was different, and I'm guessing that there was something I used to do that he saw as acting out when in fact it was most likely just autistic child behaviour. Either way, the way he treated me as well as the way my bullying was handled were unacceptable. I can't help thinking about whether this would have happened if the schools knew I was autistic? Would both primary and secondary schools have done more to protect me if they knew I was autistic? But then on the other hand, would an autism diagnosis have just given the bullies 1 more thing to target me for and made things worse? Would school have done more to establish and accommodate my needs outside of the bullying if they knew?

It's a shame that these questions will never be answered, and it's even more shameful that my experience at school has left me with these scars that I'll have for the rest of my life when they could have easily been prevented. It's strange how I never even thought about it this deeply until I saw a post on Twitter recently about a school that was guilty of victim blaming and it resonated with me so much. It's also strange how even though I always knew what happened at school it never really occurred to me how bad it really was until it got given the name victim blaming. I really wish that there was something I could do about it in terms of the specific schools I went to, but at least by blogging about my experience as well as about autism as a whole I'm raising awareness and educating so that hopefully the same kind of thing doesn't happen to other people.

It's been a bit of an emotional one this week but I hope it's helped put some things into perspective and helped your understanding. As always, feel free to comment if you've got any thoughts to share, and don't forget to follow the blog with the "Subscribe" button at the top of the page as well as following me on Twitter @DepictDave.

5 Gifts For Autistics

Christmas is only 68 sleeps away and whenever people ask me what I want for Christmas or birthdays I've never known what I wanted, but since being diagnosed autistic I've come to realise that there are quite a few different things that I could do with. This could be either because it's beneficial, or just because I like it. So here's a list of a few ideas that you could buy for the autistic in your life. Please also be aware that this post contains Amazon Associate links, which means that if you purchase the items via the links I will earn a small commission. The exception to this is the very first link, which is to Chewigem, not Amazon, so it's not part of any affiliate program.

Chew Toys
Last Christmas is where I really started to realise that I had a problem with chewing. When I say "problem" I only mean in the sense that because I'd never had a chew toy at that point I resorted to biting my fingers and left them in a pretty bad state. At the time I didn't know what was available for a chewing need like mine, so I asked in a Facebook group and people suggested a few different places. The one I ended up going with was Chewigem who sell a whole variety of chew toys as well as other things like noise cancelling ear plugs for example. I'll leave the link here for the button necklace I've got from them, but obviously it's best to have a look at their full range and see what you/the person your buying for might prefer. One bit of advice to bear in mind is that each chewable item they sell shows the durability, flexibility and firmness of the item you're looking at. You'll need to check these to make sure you get a chewer that's right for you/them. I didn't know about this when I ordered my first chewer and got one that I chewed through pretty quickly because I'm a heavier chewer than I realised.

[Image description: My button necklace chew toy. It's circular and grey with a scaly pattern. The cord is black with a clasp in the middle and wrapped around in a circle-shape. The cord is tied to the chew toy through a small hole near the edge. The whole thing is sat on a wooden table.]

Fidget Toys
Some of Chewigem's items do cross over into the fidget category, but when I say fidget toys I mean things like fidget spinners, fidget cubes, stress balls, squishy putty and a whole lot more. One of my mutuals on Twitter posted a short video of her playing with some Thinking Putty which caught my eye as it looks great to play with. Another mutual uploaded a link to an Infinity Cube which also looks fun. There's a picture down below, and the link to the pictured Infinity Cube is here.

[Image description: A black Infinity Cube on a white background. The cube resembles a 4x4 Rubik's Cube and all the segments are joined by small hinges so that it can be unfolded, separated and played with.]

Sensory Aids

Depending on the needs or preferences of the autistic person you're buying for they may need any of a number of items to help with their sensory needs, and a lot of them fall within a reasonable gifting price range. The most common things are sunglasses and sound cancelling headphones but autistics can have a whole host of sensory issues so it's worth speaking to the person you're buying for if you're not sure what sensory preferences they have. It could be something as simple as loose fitting clothing for example.

[Image description: Sunglasses shown from the front on a plain background. The frames are thick and black, and the lenses are tinted blue.]

Weighted Blanket

This one tends to be quite expensive, but they can be quite helpful to a lot of people, not just autistics. My weighted blanket definitely helps me sleep, which is something I need since I work late and get up early with the kids. In fact, ever since my wife bought me it as an early birthday present a few months ago I've slept under it every night instead of our duvet. She got me it in the middle of summer when it's been quite warm, but I'm sure I'll use it a bit more in winter when I could do with a blanket while I work or while I play video games. My wife got me it quite cheap (we're talking under £30, as opposed to the usual hundreds) from a shop on Amazon that was quite new so they obviously wanted to get their foot in the door and some good ratings on the page. It's gone up in price since then as the shop gained more traction, but you can find my specific blanket here.

[Image description: My weighted blanket laid out neatly across my bed. It's a king-size bed with stripy, flowery bedding in grey and white. The blanket is dark grey with a soft and slightly fluffy top side.]

Special Interest Gifts

This one is pretty obvious, but any autistic loved one would be over the moon any gifts related to their special interest. Everyone has different interests but mine is professional wrestling. Last year one of the presents my wife got me for Christmas was a Becky Lynch action figure after I saw one in a shop and posted a picture of it on Twitter. This went alongside the John Cena figure I already had, and since then I've added Tyler Breeze and Alexa Bliss to the small collection. I'd be more than happy with almost any wrestling-related gifts. The kid in me would love a replica Universal Championship belt, but they're far too expensive and we've got nowhere to put one so that's not going to happen.

[Image description: The photo of the Becky Lynch figure that I posted on Twitter. It's from the Elite Collection and is from before her "The Man" gimmick as she's wearing her steampunk gear in the form of a long, black coat and brown top hat with goggles and a feather attached to it.]

These are my 5 gift ideas that you could buy for your autistic loved one(s). With any luck it's been helpful and given you some inspiration if you've been stuck on what to buy for them. As always, don't forget to follow me by hitting the "Subscribe" button at the top of the page, or on Twitter @DepictDave. It helps me out a lot!

Autistic Parenting

This week's post is just a short one because of things that are going on in the family, so I haven't had much time to write. I wanted to talk this week about autistic parenting. What I'll do at the moment is briefly discuss my main struggle with being an autistic parent, then I might come back to add some other points to it at a later date. Being an autistic parent isn't to be confused with being an autism parent. Let me start by clarifying the difference between the two:

Autistic parenting: Being both autistic and a parent, regardless of your children's neurotype.
Autism parenting: Being the parent of an autistic child.

I needed to clarify that because autism parents have a reputation of misunderstanding their child's autism to the point of viewing it as a horrible disease that needs to be cured and eradicated from the world. I'm not trying to tar all autism parents with the same brush as I've seen evidence of some autism parents embracing their child's autism as well as the autistic community by actively reaching out to us for help so that they can better support their autistic child. But the reputation remains, and is one of the reasons I write this blog; in an effort to ease the misunderstanding and the stigma, and so that people can better understand their autistic loved ones, autsim/autistics as a whole, or even themselves if they're on the spectrum (with or without a diagnosis).

Anyway, it's autistic parenting that I'm looking to focus on here because I'm a dad of 2 young toddlers, and obviously I'm autistic. This brings its own unique set of challenges compared to neurotypical parenting because of the way we think and process the world. The main thing I struggle with (at least as far as I can tell) is picking my battles. By picking my battles I mean determining which arguments with my kids are worth fighting for even though it may upset them and cause lots of drama, and which arguments are worth just giving in to give everyone an easy life. An argument that's worth sticking out is for example if your child wants to play with a knife. If you say no your child will most likely get upset (or at least mine will) that they can't have what they want, but it's dangerous for them to play with knives so the answer is a firm no before they even get a hold of one. An argument that's not worth fighting might be like the other day when my daughter wanted to wear a pullup instead of a nappy. Initially I said no because the pullups are for her brother to help him potty train and I don't want to waste them. My wife's input then was to just let her wear the pullup because they're about the same price as nappies anyway and it just saves a lot of drama. So Girl Child got her way.

I'm very much an all or nothing kind of person in that I either go to one extreme or the other in most situations. So I try to do/get my kids to do everything "the right way" as much as I possibly can. With the example above, should the nappies be kept for my son because that's why we bought them? Yes, they should. But thinking about it, does it really matter if my daughter wants to wear one instead? Not really. It's still covering her for when she wees or poos. All it means is we've got 1 less pullup and 1 more nappy than we would normally have had.

I'm going to leave it there for this week because I'm short on time, but don't forget to follow with the button in the side bar, subscribe with the button under the header, and follow me @DepictDave on Twitter to keep up if I post any updates later on in the week.

UPDATE
I've got lots of spare time over the next few days so thought I'd pop back and talk a bit more on autistic parenting since I didn't have much time before. This lack of time is common for all parents, but it severely limits how much time you can set aside for self care, which is often needed more by autistics than neurotypicals. In my particular case it's difficult because my wife works during the day while I look after our 2 kids, then I work from tea time until midnight which means I'm pretty much on the go all of the time except for the 6 hours or so that I'm sleeping. Self care is needed by everyone from time to time, although it's absolutely crucial after things like autistic meltdowns, burnouts etc, and I've had a couple of incidents where I've been burnt out over the last year and a bit. Admittedly, the burnouts were caused by lots of different things happening all at once (the car needing repairs family illness, work and a few other things) but the way the kids were acting in the period leading up to me burning out seriously didn't help. They were just toddlers being toddlers - they all have good days and bad days - but this was just a couple of really bad days with them being grumpy, clingy and generally difficult to handle. I think I mentioned this in my previous post about burnout but I had to just spend the day at home on my own either in bed or laid on the sofa to recover while my wife took the kids out somewhere for the day.

A lot of autistics have sensory issues that can make parenting difficult. These can be to do with any of the senses. The most obvious one being noise because children are really, really noisy, especially when they get over excited. The lack of sleep that comes with parenting young children also doesn't help. I personally find myself much more sensitive to the cold when I'm tired, and the sound of my screeching 3 year-old hurts my ears and head more.

There are always things that can help with any sensory issues, but one issue that might not seem so obvious is an aversion to being touched, and this can cause issues with breastfeeding. Having supported my wife through 2 births and the breastfeeding journeys that followed I can absolutely agree with the saying "breast is best". But that doesn't mean that your baby absolutely has to be breastfed because it may or may not be right for you, especially with a touch sensitivity issue. While breast might be best in general terms, you can only do the best that you can for you and for your baby. I understand from experience with my wife that some women might be absolutely adamant on breast feeding (especially with an all or nothing personality like mine that I discussed earlier) but there is always bottle feeding that you can try if breastfeeding doesn't work for you. Nobody will demonise you for bottle feeding - in fact, quite the opposite here in the UK where it's mostly deemed more acceptable to bottle feed, at least in public. As long as you're doing the best you can for yourself and your child, then that's all anyone can ask of you. And that applies to all aspects of parenting, not just breast/bottle feeding.