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Puberty and Other Autism Suspicions Confirmed

It turns out that my autistic twelve-year-old son is in fact in puberty. This obvious fact was confirmed today by a specialist at the Adolescent Medicine Clinic of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. The doctor held his testicles in her gloved hand and proudly announced, “Stage three.” A google search would have told me the same thing, or the dark nest of hair in the region she was examining hesitantly while he tried to shove her away. I still bathe him every day and wipe his ass after he goes to the bathroom. I am well aware of what’s going on down there. But if I somehow managed to miss those clues, maybe his seemingly constant erection at every inopportune moment for the last year might have indicated his maturation. I might have also guessed when he removed the mounted head of the trophy buck from our living room wall, straddled it and began moving back and forth surprisingly rhythmically. It was the furthest thing from funny at the time, but by that evening I admit to sending my s...
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Welcome to Our World For the first time, my teenage son with autism and I are ahead of everyone else. We have already developed a skill that the rest of the world is having trouble acquiring. Who would have thought coronavirus would be so…novel? Long before stay at home orders, before shelter in place became a thing, we were killing it. Why? Because we have been socially distant for fourteen years. When we go out in public, it is nearly effortless to stay six feet from everyone else. In fact, our fellow humans make it easy. They stay at least six feet from us . Picture us in line at Starbucks, Thomas making a sound I can only describe as barking, a sound so loud my ears ring, and just like that, our perimeter is vacant. Thomas’s hands reach out to grope strangers who have moved against the wall in the Mobile Pick-Up area. It’s as if our fellow patrons read our personal autism rule book. Rule #456: do not reinforce a negative behavior. As a bonus, we are simultaneously worki...
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Warning

A couple  of  weeks ago, my husband put one of those extra sturdy metal dividers in my Jeep. I think it says ,  “Kennel Guard” on the bottom, a double-layer grid that in my rearview mirror, really looks like a cage. It’s made to keep one of those big, unruly dogs in the back seat  to keep you safe  while you’re driving.  Except,  I don’t have a dog. What I do have is an angry , autistic  sixteen-year-old who is so addicted to YouTube that having it has made him as violent as not having it. Before we got to the point we are now, deep in the throes of  what can only be called  withdrawal , he was only  allowed  YouTube  when he earned it  as a reward, three times a day, five minutes at a time, at the exact same times every day —after completing his morning routine, after successfully sitting at the table for dinner, and after bath.  It   had been  that  way for about a decade. There have been times w...
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