What Sky Wants You to Know About ASD

As you probably gathered from my meltdown post a couple of days ago (link), Sky's been going through another regression. I always know it's bad when his teacher, typically the model of patience and tact, sends an e-mail with the subject head "Sky's Week."

Especially when it's only Wednesday.

I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say he's been out of sorts and disruptive, and I've been spending a lot of time this week writing e-mails and meeting with teachers and therapists to try to figure out what's up.

Often, Sky acts worse when he 's worried that people don't understand how hard he is trying, so in an attempt to help alleviate some anxiety, I encouraged him to write a story to share with his teacher and classmates.  I gave him a couple of prompts, but he created most (95%) of this story on his own. He hopes it will help people understand what it's like to have a "special brain" like he does. I hope it's just the beginning of him learning to advocate for himself and for others with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

"I have autism. It's very hard sometimes for me to control myself. It feels like I'm gonna to explode!!"

"I do things that I'm not supposed to do. For example, I kick my shoes off at school at the wrong time (Editor's note: Is there ever really a right time to kick one's shoes off at school?). I take my shoe off when I sit in class."

"I get mad at my sister sometimes because she sings, whines, yells, or cries. I get so mad that I hit her sometimes."

"It's very hard to concentrate on stuff like 'Rocketship Math' (Editor's note: Catchy new name, but same old math facts) at school. It's hard to listen, too. Like when I am listening to someone else, I start getting distracted."

"I like to hear crashing sounds and see pieces break, so Angry Birds is perfect!" (Editor's note: It's true. It's as if the game was made especially for him--killer for the iPhone battery, though).

"Here's something I wish everybody could understand: that it is the hardest thing to control myself. It takes up all my energy." 

"So, I told you the story about how I feel sometimes, and my baby brother, too, has a special brain. But, that's another story. THE END!"

This last one kind of cracks me up. Pink P is convinced that Stow has asthma and food allergies like she does, and Sky thinks Stow has autism like him. As for me, I'm hoping he finds different ways to commune with his brother and sister. Oh, and I love, love, love Stow's pants in this picture.

For other illustrations by Sky, click here and here.