She stood at the front of the room in a softly constructed orange jacket and black pants,with a large white lily type silk flower with fine gray filaments springing from it's center. She has tumbled salt and peppered curly hair and a voice that is melodic and soothing. I instantly like her.
Eustacia Cutler has a gentle wit, and a strong New England accent. She is able to point out the humour in this journey because she has travelled this road before us, when there was not so much as a foot path to follow. More of a game trail. She reaches deep within us, touches our wounds and puts us all at ease.
One of the first things she says is so haunting that I can't put it out of my mind even now, two days later. "In the midst of our confusion, comes the soul destroying feeling that we are no good as parents. We lose our sense of identity. A baby needs a mother, but equally a mother needs a baby to feel like a mother." All too commonly our children are beyond our reach, beyond our ability to comfort, which leaves us both adrift in the abyss.
She spoke of the difference between mothers and fathers and how they cope. As women, we are hard wired for adaptation. Evolution has designed us to bear children. For our bodies to swell and ripen, deliver and retract to normal again. Our breasts fill with milk, are nursed and then empty again. We learn to follow the monthly cycles and rhythms that gently guide our existence. It is what we know. We are designed to be flexible. To fill and to empty. When faced with the problem of autism, we start looking for options and coping mechanisms, ways to adapt to this staggering shift. Men's bodies are more rigid, solid. They are built to hold fast , to stand up to honour. Men often struggle deeply with the diagnosis, feeling that in their human reactions to what they are trying to manage, they are no longer the honourable people they thought they were. Shame is a deeply rooted emotion that can drive a spike into the core of any human being. Some ache to leave their families, to somehow regain that honour, but know they can't do it.
Strangers watching us managing uncontrollable random outbursts and meltdowns often are uncomfortable and frightened. Even harshly judgemental, but then they feel the guilt that they are being unkind. They move away quickly and thank God above that they are not us. As parents we feel like failures at what seems to come so naturally to everyone else, and no one sees that we have done all the same things they have done, it just doesn't work the same way with our kids. Our challenges are so very different, our successes so very precious and sometimes too few. Society is complicated and shallow. No one is in the present moment. We do our best under the barage of advice from friends, family and even well meaning strangers, and sometimes get buried under the weight of "shoulds" and "judgements" about what we could be doing better.
As human beings we harbour an extraordinary capacity for change. All of us. We are a blank states, fluid in our ever changing capacity, ever expanding and adding to the abilities of our brains. For a parent of a child with autism, our task is very similar to being asked to build a pyramid with tweezers out of sand. One grain at a time we place small pieces of learning and understanding within them, our precious children, hoping that we will create for them reliable structure within their lives. Teaching children on the spectrum requires dedication and repetition. Finding many ways to approach and reinforce the lessons, to generalize knowledge from context to context. The task is mammoth in it's vastness, and as such we keep our gaze short, just to the next hurdle, just to the next brick. Our children do grow and change. They can learn to be fullfilled as they would like to be fulfilled. She said Temple told her last year that the older she gets, the less autistic she is. She isn't cured of her Autism, but she is fullfilled as she would choose to be. She has learned to adapt.
She left us with this statement. "There are no sign posts to Heaven. Only choices. If it doesn't work, change it. Even when choosing and changing can seem a threat."
She is right. And I think about how blessed we are to have these children in this time in the history of the world. I watch Eustacia, and after listening to her story about raising Temple in the 50's in Martha's Vineyard, at a time when women were to be beautiful, respectful, quiet "June Cleaver" type mothers, I am struck by the risk she took by protecting Temple. To be ostracized by her social peers, to have her husband treat her as the enemy and try to have her committed to a mental assylum because she wouldn't allow him to put Temple in an institution. An attempt narrowly averted by a doctor who alerted her that her husband was keeping a journal on her activities. In that time, on his word alone she could have lost all of her rights and forfeited her children. She is a genteel woman when she speaks, but under that veneer is a renegade. A woman of incredible strength and courage. I admire her. And as hard as I sometimes find this path I realize without her and the contributions she and Temple have made, it would be much harder.
Society is embracing our children, the media popularizing shows like the Big Bang Theory. My son's hero has Asperger's just like him. And he lives very sucessfully on his own. What a great role model. Finding success is possible.
Eustacia understands our tremedous feelings of inadequacy. She lived through the era that believed Autism was caused by "refridgerator mothers". It was not a good era for women. The blame was placed squarely in their laps while the fathers were let off the hook. But in the end truly, none of us were let off the hook. That is the forgiveness we must provide for ourselves, knowing that in each day we do the very best that we can.
Today families work together and share the load often with one parent staying home to manage the child while the other works multiple jobs to cover the staggering costs associated that are not covered by any programs. But research is making progress and there are new options available to us all the time. New understanding and skilled professionals to guide and help us nurture our beloved children. We have made progess, and we are progressing at a rate that is amazing. It has only been 55 years that have passed for Eustacia. It seems like lifetime's ago that we would be so narrow minded in our humanity. So inhuman in our treatment of people already dealing with so very much.
Thank you Eustacia for your fearless devotion to your children, for your amazing courage and leadership. Thank you for having the conviction to speak your truth. It was an honour to meet you in person,
In love and light,
Kathryn
Eustacia Cutler has a gentle wit, and a strong New England accent. She is able to point out the humour in this journey because she has travelled this road before us, when there was not so much as a foot path to follow. More of a game trail. She reaches deep within us, touches our wounds and puts us all at ease.
One of the first things she says is so haunting that I can't put it out of my mind even now, two days later. "In the midst of our confusion, comes the soul destroying feeling that we are no good as parents. We lose our sense of identity. A baby needs a mother, but equally a mother needs a baby to feel like a mother." All too commonly our children are beyond our reach, beyond our ability to comfort, which leaves us both adrift in the abyss.
She spoke of the difference between mothers and fathers and how they cope. As women, we are hard wired for adaptation. Evolution has designed us to bear children. For our bodies to swell and ripen, deliver and retract to normal again. Our breasts fill with milk, are nursed and then empty again. We learn to follow the monthly cycles and rhythms that gently guide our existence. It is what we know. We are designed to be flexible. To fill and to empty. When faced with the problem of autism, we start looking for options and coping mechanisms, ways to adapt to this staggering shift. Men's bodies are more rigid, solid. They are built to hold fast , to stand up to honour. Men often struggle deeply with the diagnosis, feeling that in their human reactions to what they are trying to manage, they are no longer the honourable people they thought they were. Shame is a deeply rooted emotion that can drive a spike into the core of any human being. Some ache to leave their families, to somehow regain that honour, but know they can't do it.
Strangers watching us managing uncontrollable random outbursts and meltdowns often are uncomfortable and frightened. Even harshly judgemental, but then they feel the guilt that they are being unkind. They move away quickly and thank God above that they are not us. As parents we feel like failures at what seems to come so naturally to everyone else, and no one sees that we have done all the same things they have done, it just doesn't work the same way with our kids. Our challenges are so very different, our successes so very precious and sometimes too few. Society is complicated and shallow. No one is in the present moment. We do our best under the barage of advice from friends, family and even well meaning strangers, and sometimes get buried under the weight of "shoulds" and "judgements" about what we could be doing better.
As human beings we harbour an extraordinary capacity for change. All of us. We are a blank states, fluid in our ever changing capacity, ever expanding and adding to the abilities of our brains. For a parent of a child with autism, our task is very similar to being asked to build a pyramid with tweezers out of sand. One grain at a time we place small pieces of learning and understanding within them, our precious children, hoping that we will create for them reliable structure within their lives. Teaching children on the spectrum requires dedication and repetition. Finding many ways to approach and reinforce the lessons, to generalize knowledge from context to context. The task is mammoth in it's vastness, and as such we keep our gaze short, just to the next hurdle, just to the next brick. Our children do grow and change. They can learn to be fullfilled as they would like to be fulfilled. She said Temple told her last year that the older she gets, the less autistic she is. She isn't cured of her Autism, but she is fullfilled as she would choose to be. She has learned to adapt.
She left us with this statement. "There are no sign posts to Heaven. Only choices. If it doesn't work, change it. Even when choosing and changing can seem a threat."
She is right. And I think about how blessed we are to have these children in this time in the history of the world. I watch Eustacia, and after listening to her story about raising Temple in the 50's in Martha's Vineyard, at a time when women were to be beautiful, respectful, quiet "June Cleaver" type mothers, I am struck by the risk she took by protecting Temple. To be ostracized by her social peers, to have her husband treat her as the enemy and try to have her committed to a mental assylum because she wouldn't allow him to put Temple in an institution. An attempt narrowly averted by a doctor who alerted her that her husband was keeping a journal on her activities. In that time, on his word alone she could have lost all of her rights and forfeited her children. She is a genteel woman when she speaks, but under that veneer is a renegade. A woman of incredible strength and courage. I admire her. And as hard as I sometimes find this path I realize without her and the contributions she and Temple have made, it would be much harder.
Society is embracing our children, the media popularizing shows like the Big Bang Theory. My son's hero has Asperger's just like him. And he lives very sucessfully on his own. What a great role model. Finding success is possible.
Eustacia understands our tremedous feelings of inadequacy. She lived through the era that believed Autism was caused by "refridgerator mothers". It was not a good era for women. The blame was placed squarely in their laps while the fathers were let off the hook. But in the end truly, none of us were let off the hook. That is the forgiveness we must provide for ourselves, knowing that in each day we do the very best that we can.
Today families work together and share the load often with one parent staying home to manage the child while the other works multiple jobs to cover the staggering costs associated that are not covered by any programs. But research is making progress and there are new options available to us all the time. New understanding and skilled professionals to guide and help us nurture our beloved children. We have made progess, and we are progressing at a rate that is amazing. It has only been 55 years that have passed for Eustacia. It seems like lifetime's ago that we would be so narrow minded in our humanity. So inhuman in our treatment of people already dealing with so very much.
Thank you Eustacia for your fearless devotion to your children, for your amazing courage and leadership. Thank you for having the conviction to speak your truth. It was an honour to meet you in person,
In love and light,
Kathryn
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