Its world autism day today! I like days like this because social media often becomes aswell with many and varied stories of autism. For most of the year I feel like the autism narrative is one working from a deficit model. That when we read about stories of achievement, success or hilarity, they are in spite of autism, or perhaps because of it.
On days like today, however, when we open ourselves up for a conversation about autism, so many more stories come flowing in and begin to chip away at the problematic assumptions that have collectively been made about people on the autism spectrum.
My sister is on the autism spectrum. I could talk for 87 hours about it. About the good things and the hard things, about how frustrating it can be and how wonderful she is. sometimes I worry that all of these stories I have turn her into my aspie sister. She's not. She's my sister. And she has aspergers. But thats not everything.
I want to tell you a story, and I want a sentence that links it to what I have said. I can't think of a way to articulate it properly but it is along the lines of "lets celebrate world autism day by celebrating the people in our lives who are on the autism spectrum, but lets not celebrate their autism, lets just celebrate other randomly excellent or hilarious things about them." HA! I tricked myself into articulating it. Ok, story time..
Rewind the clock approximately 15 years and one day. The Gun* and I share a bedroom. Its not ideal. She is on the brink of puberty and I am a repulsively and unapologetically filthy child.
As a child I was a spectacularly deep sleeper. Alarm clocks had no power over me, their pathetic beeping attempts to wake me were just incorporated into my dreams as a siren or a bomb. Unfortunately, this deep sleeping also affected my ability to go to the toilet. Rather than wake up, I would simply recognise a need to pee and, in the course of my dream, find my way to a toilet to relieve myself. It was only once I realised that I couldn't hear the splash back of the toilet, and I was greeted with a warm sensation, that I would realise that I had yet again dream peed. It wasn't like I had no control, I would go to the toilet, I just wouldn't go to the actual toilet, and it was therein my problem lied**. Now, I'm not saying this happened all the time, but it definitely happened more than never. You can imagine the repulsion of my sister at having to share a room with not only her little sister, but her little sisters urine too.
So its April 1st at some point near the turn of the millennium. I wake up in the morning blissfully unaware of the culturally acceptable day long free pass for bullying that occurs annually. I get out of bed and resume frolicking in the loungroom. several minutes pass and I hear an almighty roar from the bedroom. The Gun is standing by my bed pointing an accusing finger at a wet patch in the middle and hurling a stream of disapproval. "thats DISGUSTING! I can't believe you wet the bed AGAIN! you are SO GROSS, when will you learn?!"
I am utterly bewildered. But I didn't wet the bed. My pants were dry and I didn't recall having gone to the toilet in my dream. Normally when I wet the bed I would wake up straight away and this time I had just gone about my day as normal. I voiced my confusion to the Gun, and she just responded with flawless logic. "The bed is wet, the bed is yours and you have previously wet the bed. Clearly, you wet the bed last night." I furiously patted myself down wondering how it was possible that my pants were still dry, but I couldn't argue with that logic so I just accepted it as fact. In that moment, if you had hooked me up to a lie detecter and asked me if I thought I had wet the bed, I would've said yes, and the machine would have believed me.
"AHAHAHA!! april fools! When you got out of bed I snuck into the kitchen and got a cup of water to pour onto your bed and you thought you wet the bed!"
The prank was well thought out and well acted out and Mum applauded her creativity and impeccable yet terrifying ability to gaslight people, however was unimpressed with the now wet mattress so the Gun had to drag the mattress out into the lounge room to air out and dry while I was sat down and explained what the heck aprils fools meant (and in hindsight it wouldn't've hurt to explain what gas lighting was while they were at it.)
It was by far the best April fools I have ever fallen victim to, rivalled only by this years prank. But thats a story for another time, maybe 15 years time.
*My sisters pseudonym. Named after the Flemington Bull action Rifle, which is too long to say.
**go back and finish the other story and then when your done come down and read this little tangent..
To this day whenever I go to the toilet either just before bed or having just woken up, I have a set of procedures in place to avoid accidentally using dream toilets. I am not allowed to pee with my eyes shut. I have to be able to feel something cold, whether its a tiled floor, or the outside of the toilet bowl. I have to be able to vividly recall my entire walk to the bathroom. I have to do all of these things before I start peeing, and if I can't do any ones of these things then I have to try and wake myself up before I am allowed to pee. It might sound crazy but the other day I was awake and I was about to go to the toilet and I thought "gee I don't really recall walking to the toilet. So I touched the outside of the porcelain bowl and it was WARM AND SOFT! I set off the alarm bells and awoke from a dream. thats right ladies and gentlemen, the system's in place for a reason and it is a good system because its been at least 10 years since i've wet the bed.
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