your dreams will be reduced down to breathing, and you will be grateful

Posted in featured, Society

The thing about not-being-a-person is:

They will say those people and the price of being a person is to nod and agree that yes, those people aren’t people at all.

They will have no idea who they are talking to.
You yourself will start to forget, too.
They will say a million small things that sow the seeds for violence done against you, and you will smile and let them.

You will do math, constantly.

How much do I want to be a person today? How much do I want this …

...[Read More]

on 03/5/12 | 2 Comments | Read More

Re-education: Why do we insist on speech therapy for “high-functioning” kids?

When my son was diagnosed with Autism, the assessment team gave us a detailed report of all of his “deficits” — mostly his communication style. His eye contact was not typical. His speech was [Read More]

on 10/14/10 | 8 Comments | Read More

Identity Politics and Neurodiversity

We’ve had some discussion here on Shift Journal recently about the extent to which characters and behaviors should be described as autistic. Mark Stairwalt speculates that when people feel unco[Read More]

on 10/13/10 | 10 Comments | Read More

Grieving the Dream and Living What Is

When I first began delving into the words written by parents of autistic children, I found myself troubled by phrases like “the heartbreak of an autism diagnosis.” At the time, I was just beginni[Read More]

on 10/12/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

A Hair-Dryer Kid in a Toaster-Brained World

Okay, so: the presentation. First, I should tell you that we orchestrated it with the stealth of CIA operatives. We didn’t want Bud to see me in the building, because we knew that my presence woul[Read More]

on 10/11/10 | No Comments | Read More

A Year Ago at Shift Journal

For all its charms, the weblog platform does also bury older content for no better reason than that newer material has come along. While we all like to feel we’re improving, whether you are writing[Read More]

on 10/11/10 | No Comments | Read More

Ari Ne’eman, Behavior-Modding the Lovaasians

The showbiz maxim “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” is one that was nicely illustrated less than a month ago at MTV’s Video Music Awards, when Taylor Swift gave over her entire spotligh[Read More]

on 10/8/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

Katara & Holly

Sometimes, when life gets difficult it takes focusing on the simplest pleasures to help you take a step back and see progress. Really, think about that word for a moment. Progress. We live our live[Read More]

on 10/7/10 | No Comments | Read More

The Paradox of Changing the World with Words

Words and how we use them to relate to the world can be, as Andrew Lehman discussed in a post last year, somewhat paradoxical. Although we use words to describe and frame our relationship to our surr[Read More]

on 10/6/10 | 5 Comments | Read More

How I Feel About Those Who Want a Cure

Please be warned: If you’re hoping for an anti-curebie tirade, you won’t find it in this post. Likewise, if you’re hoping I’ll say that autism is a disease that must be eradicated, you also [Read More]

on 10/5/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Circle of Friends

It was incredible. I met with Bud’s class today at lunchtime. I was expecting it to go well. I was actually expecting it to be great. But, I’m telling you: IT. WAS. INCREDIBLE. I can’t eve[Read More]

on 10/4/10 | No Comments | Read More

A Year Ago at Shift Journal

For all its charms, the weblog platform does also bury older content for no better reason than that newer material has come along. While we all like to feel we’re improving, whether you are writing[Read More]

on 10/4/10 | No Comments | Read More

Versatile Blogger Award (and retrospective nod to Andrew Lehman)

It’s hard to imagine anyone I’d rather have Shift Journal be tagged by for the Versatile Blogger Award than the grand old codger of autism blogging, early friend of the site, and man who’s seen [Read More]

on 10/3/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

Should We Label Characters?

I recently watched A Wrinkle in Time, a movie based on Madeleine L’Engle’s book of the same name. Watching this movie brought back memories of my childhood, when I fell in love with L’Engle’s [Read More]

on 10/1/10 | 9 Comments | Read More

Reflections on Being Jewish and Autistic: Different Minorities, Same Critique

For almost two years now, I’ve become increasingly aware of how other people regard autistics. As you all know, the news is not altogether good. As I’ve waded my way through all manner of error [Read More]

on 09/30/10 | 5 Comments | Read More

Stand Your Ground

If I may be forgiven a bit of motherly bragging, I’m quite proud of the mature way my daughter handled a recent social situation. As I mentioned in a previous post, she is a college freshman st[Read More]

on 09/29/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

Wearing Masks, or, Thoughts on Foxes

Last October I wrote a short little blurb on passing, using the mythos of the kitsune as an allegory. Mark e-mailed me back in April about his newest essay on the Uncanny Valley. Long e-mail now sho[Read More]

on 09/28/10 | No Comments | Read More

Opportunity, Possibility, and Community

I’ve been given an incredible opportunity. It’s been two weeks since the opportunity was presented to me, and I’m still reeling from the possibilities it holds. I’ve already told you that Bud[Read More]

on 09/27/10 | No Comments | Read More

A Year Ago at Shift Journal

For all its charms, the weblog platform does also bury older content for no better reason than that newer material has come along. While we all like to feel we’re improving, whether you are writing[Read More]

on 09/27/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

“Autism” the Word, as Glimpsed in the Wild

The autism wars will likely continue, I predict, for some time after the larger culture has rendered its own decision and moved on. Or so has run my thinking, anyway, since I stumbled onto Mom-NOS’[Read More]

on 09/23/10 | 7 Comments | Read More

Autism as Adverb

As I’ve mentioned, I’m currently reading Lev Grossman’s latest book, The Magicians. I’m bringing it up again because in the last couple of chapters, I’ve twice come upon[Read More]

on 09/23/10 | 5 Comments | Read More

The Illusion of Typicality

The cypress trees of Louisiana’s bayous (to continue Shift Journal’s venerable landscape metaphor tradition) are very well adapted to their natural habitat. They can get along just fine with most[Read More]

on 09/22/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

A Year Ago at Shift Journal

For all its charms, the weblog platform does also bury older content for no better reason than that newer material has come along. While we all like to feel we’re improving, whether you are writing[Read More]

on 09/20/10 | No Comments | Read More

The Unbroken Spectrum: The Shared Closet

Inveterate list maker Lili Marlene has carved out another instructive subset from her still growing referenced list of now “… 174 famous or important people diagnosed with an autism spectrum [Read More]

on 09/17/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Choosing How We View the World and Our Place In It

Here, in West Texas, the heat’s still on. It’s fair week here, so we’ve had the typical showers that everyone associates with fair week. We are, believe it or not, into the fourth week of the [Read More]

on 09/16/10 | No Comments | Read More

Prickly Ponderings

Although the song “America the Beautiful” praises amber waves of grain, when I was a little girl I wasn’t much impressed by that image and would have preferred a field of blooming thistles inste[Read More]

on 09/15/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

Why We Fear Passion

We long to feel. This is the irony of a child like mine who feels too much, in a world that is losing its ability to feel at all. Have you noticed that most children have an inborn passion? Even if [Read More]

on 09/14/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

A Year Ago at Shift Journal

For all its charms, the weblog platform does also bury older content for no better reason than that newer material has come along. While we all like to feel we’re improving, whether you are writing[Read More]

on 09/13/10 | No Comments | Read More

What’s Fair Is Fair

As those of her generation are able to do, my mother the other day—with just the slightest stern shake of her head—remarked at “How much has changed,” since I was a child, and even more since [Read More]

on 09/10/10 | No Comments | Read More

Horse-Assisted Therapy and Eye Contact

In the past couple of months, I’ve begun horse-assisted therapy at Miracles in Motion in Keene, NH. I decided to begin the work after reading about the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard, the California w[Read More]

on 09/9/10 | No Comments | Read More

On the Border

My daughter, the newly minted freshman, came home from college over Labor Day weekend. The first thing she did when she got back here Friday evening was to go out to the high school football game wit[Read More]

on 09/8/10 | No Comments | Read More

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