Just Missed Autism

The lore has it in my family that I was almost two years old before I walked, talked, sat up, did anything at all. I was one of those odd babies that was happy to sit and stare at a red square of fabric all day long.


My mother thought I was retarded. Dr. DeBart said that if I didn’t show signs of life within the next few weeks, they were going to take me in for testing, to see if I was, in fact, retarded.

My mother, twenty-four years old, was very upset and went crying to her mother, my grandmother, better known as Nanny.

When my mother sobbed, “And Dr. DeBart thinks he might be retarded and he has to get tested...”
Nanny said, “Give him to me for the weekend.”

By Monday, I was crawling, cooing, involved with the earth.
My mother asked, “What’d you do? Is he okay?”
Nanny said, “There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just lazy. When he wouldn’t sit up, I wacked him. When he wanted to eat, I made him get it for himself.”

I have a natural propensity toward autistic behavior. I’d rather get off on a color or a sound for hours on end. I have to fight it. Though pulling in for some repetitive, enjoyable sensory experience seems preferable to social interaction and gives one a sense of control...it is anything but that. We do rely upon others and being separated from people for extended periods of time causes anxiety.

One must find the balance if one likes those little trippy times, all alone, smelling lavender and listening to a suspended chord while staring at the sky. Man cannot live on happy, firing neurons alone.