Sit, Roll Over, Play Dead

Autism is hard.  It is hard for the person who has it.  But it's also hard for the family because despite the challenges of the autism, there is still a whole family that needs to function.  Over time, without a conscious effort, you start adapting the family's life to the autism.  You do all sorts of things that are seen as odd to "civilians" without giving it a second thought.  The seemingly odd becomes your family's "normal."  Everyone in the family just goes along with it - like McDonald's runs before going to a restaurant to eat, making sure to know where the McDonald's is before going to an unfamiliar place, double-checking the white paper napkins in your car's console.  It's like you're trying to live a life despite the autism.  Or as best as it will allow.

As I said, all this "autism adaptive" behavior, happens without the family realizing it.  What really has occurred is that the R.A. has gradually and methodically trained us well:

I will only eat McDonald's french fries.  I know we are in the middle of the White Mountains but that's your problem, not mine.  Figure it out!  And by the way, get this Burger King slop out of my sight!

I know there are 48 other stores in the mall but we will only ever visit two. I'm feeling magnanimous - the Food Court doesn't count.

I realize it's 4 o'clock in the morning but I have a hankering for Pringles NOW!  So get your lazy, sleep drunk as* out of your bed and hustle down to the kitchen and get me some - unbroken.  And get me one of my juice boxes while you're at it.  And don't try to pass off one of those substandard "Mott's Tots"  boxes o' crap.  I will be able to tell.

In many ways the R.A. has broken us.  We don't even protest or attempt to disagree.  We just do as the R.A. demands.  It's easier that way.  I think we are also so sleep deprived that there isn't much left of our already deficient mental capacities.  I now understand why sleep deprivation is used by cults to control their members.  I do all sorts of crazy sh*# because the R.A. instructs me to.

This evening the R.A. has been working for hours on intricate Dum Dum floor models.  The models stretch from the living out to the hall.  The areas the R.A. has chosen for his models are high traffic areas but we know better than to attempt to move them or the R.A.  Instead, we are all contorting our bodies and tiptoeing in between and around the lollies - even if we're carrying things.  My brother, the world traveler, is currently home until his next international adventure.  But even he adapts without asking questions.  Tonight my brother came in from a frisbee game, wove his way through the models, complimented his nephew on his designs, and hit the shower.  It's just the way things are.  Pretty much all the time.  We are extremely tractable.

Good humans, now go get me some more ketchup before I ask the Kitchen God to vaporize your entire planet.