Month: April 2018

The Stone

I had my hiding places where,
when things were bad,
I sought refuge from the storm
– my dad.
I could retreat to think
and ponder why
my father hurt me so
and safely cry.
Cry because my mother
didn’t care
and when I needed her
she wasn’t there.
The common dog and cat
protect their own.
My mother stood and watched
——— a silent stone.

By Linda Hanson

I like to illustrate my poems because I am a visual thinker.

What profound message does this poem carry? Just this. Kids usually have two parents and one should never look the other way if they even suspect a child is being abused or treated unfairly. This is true whether the child has ASD or not.  However, often a child with ASD cannot speak for themselves or does not know how to ask for help. Maybe I would not still be having nightmares if the abuse had not gone on for my entire childhood.

The Hot Spoon

Mommy makes hot tea
in a brown teapot,
then pours it in his cup.
He heats a spoon
in the hot tea
and looks my way.
I watch.
I breathe fast.
I want to run
and hide from him,
but don’t dare move.
I know what’s coming.
He does this often.
I can hear my heart
beating hard
as I choke on
a swallow of nothing.
I watch
as the spoon lifts
from the cup
and comes toward me,
hot,
very, very hot.
Quickly he presses
the hot spoon
on my little arm.
I want to run
and hide from him,
but don’t dare move
so I hide
inside myself.

Written by Linda Hanson -01-2008

I thought of my father as whisker man because he almost always had a stubble of whiskers, not enough to be soft but just enough to scratch my face raw when he gave whisker rubs to try to get a reaction. I believed all my childhood that he was not really my father. My sisters all had brown hair and blue eyes and I had blonde hair and green eyes. Regardless of whether or not he fathered me, he was the man in charge and determined to get a reaction from me, whether by a whisker rub, a hot spoon, or by picking me up by my hair.

I am sharing these poems and true stories because I want others to know that just because a child with autism does not respond, it does not indicate an empty shell with nothing inside. I could think. I could feel. I could be hurt badly enough to still cause nightmares in my senior years. It may even be possible that because of the sensitivities that come with autism and the inability to intuitively figure out human interactions, the damage may be even greater. Maybe also because many with autism are gifted with an incredible memory, the pain is not easily forgotten.

Walls

The little girl
constructed walls
around her soul
and heart;
strong walls
with no windows,
thick, impenetrable walls.
Within her walls
she could exist,
safe,
secure,
alone,
crying silent tears.
No pain was felt
behind these walls.
Broken nose,
ruptured appendix,
scorched flesh,
crushed skull,
bullet between the eyes,
mommy’s unconscious,
naked in the snow,
broken glass,
black water
full of bloodsuckers,
screams of rabbits
skinned alive
could not get through
her walls.
The child grew;
the walls were strong,
well built,
secure;
she was alone,
no one to share,
to know,
to love,
behind her walls.
Time and experience
broke down
the walls;
she could extend
her hand,
her heart,
her soul
through the opening;
sensitive,
vulnerable,
one hand reaching,
grasping,
searching,
the other ready
to patch the hole.

By Linda Hanson 03-1995

With no formal autism diagnosis until my senior years, many theories and diagnoses were put forth as to why I was non-communicative and, well, weird! As a very young child I preferred to be off by myself, doing my own thing. I could spend hours with a hammer, cracking rocks to see the patterns inside them. There was a creek behind our house and I would go there as often as I could to watch the ripples and patterns on the water.  I was a shadow watcher and intrigued with shapes and patterns.

I did not have the concept of time that my mother thought I should have and I was often late getting to the bathroom. In rural Alberta in 1952, the bathroom was a little wooden structure set a distance away from the house and very stinky. All my life I have had the ability to smell things those around me could not sense and the outhouse was one of the worst offenders, worse to me than even the hog pen. No surprise then that I often would not get to the outhouse in time.

Punishment for wetting or messing could range from a spanking to having to wear soiled underwear on my head. On one occasion I put my undies down the hole of the toilet and did my best to clean myself up. The punishment for that incident was to be hung down the toilet by my heels. I wrote a short story about it which I will post separately.

The poem Walls described my sense of having protective walls around me.  I had always thought I put the walls there. My neuropsychologist said the walls are quite normal for autistic children who are unable to comprehend the world in neurotypical terms. I did not master speaking until I was six and could read and every word that I could spell became part of my vocabulary. My ability to use language improved quickly then but mostly in the form of written language. Even all these years later I communicate much better in written format than in spoken language. I was a very prolific artist as a child and I am convinced after reading Temple Grandin’s book “Thinking In Pictures”, that I also think in pictures. Even when I do a google search, I use the image search feature. No surprise then that as an adult I am an artist and a poet of sorts.

In the poem I refer to silent tears. One of my strange traits was that I felt emotion but could not show it. I also felt pain but could turn it off. Thus, when my mother got angry because I was not doing the laundry the day my appendix ruptured, I turned off the pain and did the laundry. That night I wet the bed and had a very high fever. My grandmother took me the following day and dropped me off in town with my older sister to look after me, and we went to see the doctor. I was immediately sent to the hospital. However, my grandparents had given us a dollar ro buy supper at the gas station cafe and we went there first before going to the hospital. I had no idea that it was a very bad idea to eat a greasy hamburger immediately before surgery, especially with a ruptured appendix. To conclude this tale, I was in the hospital for twenty-one days recovering from peritonitis from the ruptured appendix while everyone talked about how I did not feel the pain.