The World Turned Upside Down
June 28, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Did you (if you are the parent of an autistic child) feel that, on learning of your child’s diagnosis, the world turned upside down—-like this?
But take a look again at that map.
It is the same world—same countries, and continents, and oceans; same names, just from a different perspective. I like how the water (the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic Ocean) is on top—-water being the major element it is for my son Charlie.
And I’m thankful to be Charlie’s mother and to have been given the chance to learn to see the world from another point of view. Maps can be read in more ways than meets the eye.
It did for a few days, then slowly I realized that he was still my son and the same person he’d always been, who was so fun, beautiful and loving. I also did enough research to realize that his future might be more promising academically and socially than I first thought when he received the diagnosis.
For me it turned things right-side up. For the first time something made sense.
But then it also lead to my own diagnosis.
On the 15th November 1647 private Richard Arnold, a soldier in Cromwells new model army was shot for mutiny.
What has this to do with your blog, nothing except for the way my eclectic mind works, the title you have chosen, the “world turned upside down” is the title of a classic history of the English Revolution by Christopher Hill, which I first read after watching Andrew Mollo’s classic movie “Winstanley” where I first learnt of private Arnold’s execution.
Did Private Arnold have the same autistic genes i carry? who knows?
That’s a fine reference—says more than might be thought. I for one am gladly settled in our (upside down) corner of the world and always adjusting my perspective.
Thanks, Kristina. This is a very cool way of showing how perspective is everything, a topic which has been much on my mind the past few days.
Initially my wife and I were completely thunderstruck. A few weeks later I saw a child with a horrible cancer, and that really put things into perspective – as bad as I thought things were, boy could they be worse. From that day on, I looked at every day I spent with my daughter as a gift. I see each little victory she accomplishes each day, be it a successful potty trip or making eye contact and babbling “dadadada” , and I deem myself the luckiest dad on the upside down Earth.
Have you read How to Eat an Artichoke?
YES…in one day, my world turned upside down overnight. It took years for me to accept Ben. I went down the cure road, the blame road (thimerosal) and finally the acceptance road.
The magic thing about the acceptance road is it doesn’t focus on your child, but on every child with a “label”. It isn’t really a road at all…more like the eyes of my heart are opened.
I thought of finding out about Charlie (which was a gradual process) as, once, analogous to an earthquake. Somehow we’ve managed to stay on our feet and accommodate ourselves to, and grow into, the new lay of the land.
Ah, the world of ever-changing perspective. I think the diagnosis came as a relief to us. Nik’s birth was the thing which turned our world upside-down and we have been learning to read the map of our lives in a very different way than we had naively imagined those years ago before Nik was even a “twinkle in his daddy’s eye.”
That kind of reminds me of the “Welcome to Holland” poem.
My world definitely flipped upside down but in a good way. My son made me a better person. He saved me from drugs, alcohol, and who knows what all else because I put him first and not garbage.
There have been points in my life where I wasn’t sure if my ASD kid would live another 2 minutes (only happened a couple of times). I was sure then and at other times that if my child the entire universe, not my universe but the entire real universe would be destroyed. Not literally, but that’s how horrified I was at the idea that my child might die.
That’s when I saw the fate of the universe, not just the position of countries on a map, at stake. Getting any other diagnosis related to may child was a walk in the park compared to that “unsettling” (no, starkly terrifying) experience.
Maybe that’s why I can’t get this business of “I thought my life was over when my kid got an autism dx,” that I hear some parents express. Not that they have no right to feel that way, but I can not relate to it.
I guess my mind can’t cope with putting the word “died” in there I meant:
I was sure then and at other times of worry, that if my child died, the entire universe, not my universe but the entire real universe would be destroyed.
It appears my last post got lost somewhere, so I’ll repeat it.
On the lighter side, 1 to 5 times every million years, the world’s magnetic field reverses itself, and north becomes south, and vice-versa. Some feel that this may happen soon.
When this next happens, the map you linked would become the new map of the world!
Joe
Maybe it got lost in some magnetic field reversal……… that would be something to live through!
Yes, very much so. I think primarily because we weren’t even sure what autism was. We said, “Okay, he has autism. How do we fix it?” Starting there, we had a lot to work through not just personally but with family and friends. How had we been so sheltered? Anyway, I love this post on perspective and am semi-curious about the swapping poles idea. I think I like “upside-down” in the figurative sense better. We’ll see!
Adele, I have heard of Eating an Artichoke and find the analogy intriguing—-I alluded to it here!
Changing magnetic poles? Read “Reading the Rocks” by Marcia Bjornerud for a great geological look at similar phenomena in the history of our planet.