A window into autism?

by Benison O'Reilly on Thursday, June 10th, 2010

On Tuesday night, after the homework was done and the dinner eaten, and I was washing up before sitting down to write my next blog (which I planned to be about the latest research on the gluten-free casein-free diet)—kapow!—our electricity went off.  There were howls of protest from eldest son, who was on Facebook, and middle son, who was playing his new X-Box 360, and Joe, who was just about to have a bath.

It turned out to be a blackout.

Fortunately we were well equipped with lanterns, torches and candles. Joe and his dad are used to these situations, being experienced campers. We also had our wonderful gas fire to keep us warm, but no electronic games, TV or Internet.

It went on for almost three hours in the end.  We all sat by the fire, me sipping a consoling glass of red wine. Joe played with his ever-expanding Super Mario collection & talked about his toys with his brothers. Then, we he went to bed, big brothers sat down & had a proper conversation with me (although by this stage the biggest one was dreadfully missing his Facebook).

I was telling big boys that they may as well go to bed – that clearly we weren’t going to have any electricity restored that night, when—bang!—everything came back on:  lights, computers, clocks, the lot.

And I developed a sensory processing disorder.   All the noise and light were completely overwhelming after hours of candles and conversation and warm fires. I retreated to the calm of my bedroom.

So, for a brief few minutes, I think I experienced what it is like for many people on the autism spectrum all the time. I’m not saying everyone with an ASD has sensory processing issues–I refuse to generalise to that extent—but from my reading of books by adults with ASD it seems to be an extremely common experience.   It also makes sense that it would be common, if we believe the latest theories that autism is a largely a disorder of neural connectivity.

Anyway— just possibly, maybe—I was granted a small window of enlightenment into what many people with ASD have to endure every day and I’m telling you it wasn’t fun.  These people deserve our respect for just exiting the front door each morning.

I will write about the GFCF diet in my next blog, by the way, but in the meantime thought some of you might want to check out a new blog, written by a mum, Suz, whose little boy was only recently diagnosed with an ASD. Best wishes to Suz and her family and particularly Batsman – he sounds a real cutey.

http://www.theiloveyousong.blogspot.com/

Tags: autism, sensory issues