Tag: autism

Be like a woman

This blog post is more of a prose-poem, but I think it does tie in strongly to health and wellness. In order to be a healthier person, I’m learning to be more like the amazing women who have influenced me.

No, I’m not planning on a change in how I identify my gender. I worked hard on my sexy dad bod and I rock it, I own it, and I plan to keep it and polish it. However…recent reflections have me thinking I need to be more like the wonderful women in my life.

I love the women in my life, and I hope I can be more like them.

It’s easy to start with my life partner, my wonderful wife Sonja, she of the amazing accomplishments who is never satisfied with anything but her best effort. Some days I really hope she cuts herself a little slack because she goes so hard. She is relentless. She’s better than me at so many things, and wiser than me, and definitely prettier than me. I honestly don’t know how she does what she does. She’s a great mom to special needs kids who are neurodiverse, and she’s a great teacher and professor, and she’s a great administrator. Simply put, I live in awe of the person who sleeps beside me each night. I guess that’s the way it should be, but I’m not always worthy of the love she shares with me. Everybody wants some of Captain Amazing, but she still finds time to support me and make me feel like I can grind through another tough day. I wish I could be more like her. I wish I could be as wise and patient as she is with the kids. I wish she could see what I see when I see her–maybe she would relax and “back off” just a bit. But no, I guess she wouldn’t–she has a hunger that can never be satisfied, and that’s what makes her so great at everything she does.

I love the women in my life, and I hope I can be more like them.

I feel like some kind of useless evolutionary remnant. The 21st Century man…what I’m good at we really don’t need very often. I squish scary bugs when I’m asked to, but I don’t need to protect the family by bashing in someone’s skull or turning a spoon into a ninja weapon. Those kinds of skills are pretty damned useless for our everyday lives. I still have plenty of testosterone, I guess–I’m building lean muscle at the age of 48. Do we need it? Not very often. I am good at carrying the heaviest things, and making stuff work. For my everyday life, though, I wish I could be more like Sonja. I wish I could be more like a woman, the wise women who have guided us all for thousands of years. If you think about it, the wisest and most peaceful words of our prophets and religious icons are to be “like a woman.” As Jesus said, wisdom (hokmah or sophia) is justified by her deeds. Be like Mary Magdalene, be like Mary Martha. Women are justified by their deeds, and those deeds seem far wiser than my own most days.

I love the women in my life, and I hope I can be more like them.

My daughters are good examples for me to follow, too. Though we have sometimes butted heads (perhaps because we have much in common), Kyla has become a terrific person. She cares about people with great diversity, and works to make sure everyone is included and has a “place.” She cares about social justice and works to help causes when she can. She’s doing well in school and becoming a well-rounded and interesting young woman. I have made my share of mistakes as a step-dad, and been far from perfect, but the product of the work Sonja and I have done certainly is inspiring. I have learned from Kyla and I could improve myself by working to be more like her, to see and understand the world in the way she does.

Maura, too, has become a great young woman, though she told me today she still “identifies” as a kid. She’s my kid. But she has a quiet, patient way with Iain that is really helpful when he is upset. She “gets” him and she can “whisper” him into better managing his anxiety or upset. She has learned to be curious and asks great questions, and she has always been a “helper.” I know she’s sure to do great things. I’m thankful to know her and hope she understands I’m doing my best most days–I am just a dude, right? A dude who became a dad. I am still learning from Maura, and being more like her would instantly make me a better man.

I love the women in my life, and I hope I can be more like them.

My mom, Marva Sansing, helped me to explore the world and fed my curiosity. Not only was she a great teacher in her classroom, but she taught me and my sister Pam so much, too. She bought me books where I had an interest, regardless of what it was. The hours we spent digging through books at bookstores left me with some great selections over the years, and I gained a lot of wisdom from what I read. I try to be like Marva, too, and inspire curiosity and learning in my children. The wisdom that is curiosity is worth sharing.

My grandmothers, all three of them, were a huge influence on me. Mamie or Eula Sansing, my dad’s mom, had a quiet way about her and a way of smiling at the silly things I did. We could just sit in the quiet and enjoy our time together. I have so many great memories of just sitting at her dining table and passing time, talking about whatever off-the-wall ideas I could come up with. At one point, I even forced her to learn how to draw a dinosaur when I was 3! Poor Mamie. But she tried because I asked. I could do no wrong in her eyes–her acceptance was complete and indelible.

Nonnie (Vergene Hagood) and Aunty Pal (Opal Hagood) were Bowen sisters who married Hagood brothers, Elmo and Raymond. My mom, Marva Hagood-Sansing, had two sets of parents growing up, effectively. I inherited both sets of grandparents, and learned so much from all four of them. Nonnie had a master’s degree and had worked as a kindergarten teacher and elementary librarian. She loved stories and continued traveling to local schools and telling stories she had memorized (or written herself and memorized) to elementary school children even after she retired. She told me quite a large number of those stories when I was young. A childhood survivor of polio (another great story, trust me), she was eternally optimistic. Sometimes I think I get a bit of my optimism from her, because she had a way of making a positive view of the world infectious. She even taught me to read before I started kindergarten, even though my mother had told her not to because of some research or ideas from that time. I suspect my advantages in literacy, and in school generally, flow naturally from my early start. I’m highly performing in the verbal realm for someone with diagnosed autism–it surprised the PhD who diagnosed me. I spent a lot of time with Aunty Pal as well. She always made sure a growing boy had plenty to eat, and she and Raymond would sneak me money for good grades! My parents never knew until I was out of high school, but I was cashing in on my report cards as often as I could manage. She was a tall, graceful, amazing woman throughout her life–I saw the way Raymond doted on her and helped her with all the chores around the house. Strong a man as he was, he gladly waited on her hand and foot. I learned so much from both of them, and from the way they loved each other.

I love the women in my life, and I hope I can be more like them.

I realize I am a flawed creature–I must claw and scratch my way to decency each and every day. Sometimes I think I pick fights just because I like fighting. I just can’t help myself. But I am going to strive to “be like a woman” each and every day of my life. I want to be more patient, more kind, more gentle, and more nurturing in all that I must do. I want to be a better listener, and I want to be more wise. Of course I’ll fail–I’m only a man after all–but for me to realize the wisdom I have learned from all the amazing women in my life, I need to be like a woman in as many ways as I can manage.

The lies we tell ourselves

As human beings, we seem uniquely talented at self-deception. These well-known words by Sir Walter Scott seem to apply not only to how we deceive others, but to how we deceive ourselves: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave/ when first we practise (sic) to deceive.” Most of us must spend some time unraveling that “tangled web” if we are to unlock our true potential.

As a student success instructor for the last year, and having trained to teach student success since 2015, I have been forced to unravel some of my own “webs” of self-deception. I texted this to my life partner Sonja recently, and she gave me permission to share it for publication: “I try to get it when you talk about your eating disorder and seeing yourself differently than you really are, but with my body I think I am pretty realistic…maybe even a little bit extra optimistic. 😆 But I was depressed and really feeling like a failure for so long before CVID, ADHD, and ASD diagnoses…I don’t really see myself for what I am and what I can be. My view is distorted and twisted still from my past experience. I am sorry I still struggle with that. I am trying to see myself with ‘fresh’ eyes. I can see better and do better.” Sonja and I have talked for years about how she sees, mentally, her body differently than it really is. I have read many women are impacted by this condition, but more and more men are struggling with issues of body image as well. This is certainly one area where we tend to lie to ourselves.

For me, the distortion comes in how I view myself in a social context. I sometimes have a very negative view of myself, despite how others may see me. As I share with my students, it took me 12 years to finish a bachelor’s degree. I struggled with depression throughout that process, but was never treated successfully. Finally, in my late 30s, I was diagnosed with CVID, a primary immunodeficiency. No wonder I had so many pneumonias. No wonder I was exhausted so frequently. And no wonder it was hard to finish my degree. I had a long, uphill road to manage all I had to manage and successfully negotiate college. I began IV treatment for CVID in 2011, and have since stayed much healthier and been able to exercise consistently.

I also struggled to finish my graduate degree. I was accepted into a PhD English program in 2001, the year I finished my BA, but I didn’t manage to finish a graduate degree until 2016. Why? I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2013, the year I began my most recent attempt at a graduate degree. I received treatment and thrived in graduate school, finishing while working and attending part-time. I was even honored by the program my last year, and finished with a perfect 4.0 average. I never would have expected to finish with an “unblemished” GPA, but I did it.

So who am I? Apparently, I’m a 4.0 student. However, I don’t see myself that way. I still see myself as the struggling student, the struggling person, the depressed person on the verge of a complete nihilistic meltdown. It’s time for me to begin seeing myself the way I am, not the way I was. This is easier said than done, but I know I have to keep working on it.

Most recently, in 2017, I was diagnosed with high functioning autism. In some areas I am very high functioning…but in other areas, I tested lower than what used to be called “Asperger’s syndrome.” I have some significant deficits when it comes to social interaction. I jokingly told Sonja, “What! I flunked Asperger’s?” But I do feel that way at times. It’s hard for me to see myself and my deficits in a realistic way–I just want to be like everyone else and live like everyone else. SPD, or sensory processing disorder, is a major component of my autism and of the way I “sense” the world. While I can do well enough one to one, or perhaps talking with two other people, I really struggle with larger groups of peers. Teaching is much easier for me–it’s scripted, and I can play my role well enough to manage a classroom and provide a solid community for my students. Sometimes I need to use headphones to manage sound input–I tend to do this at home. Perhaps I am embarrassed to do this publicly? I can struggle with smells and tastes as well, so I frequently opt out of public gatherings where food is served. I try not to be a “pain” about my issues, but if I try to force myself into the “norm,” into the standard, it is excruciating for me. I do wish that people would become more educated about SPD, as that would make my life and my children’s lives much easier.

Ultimately, I’m still trying to better understand and unravel my own self-deception. I know enough to know I’m not who I thought I was…but who am I? The more I understand, the easier it is to function well. I can “cut myself some slack” if I understand where a behavior or misperception originates. I have a logical mind, but there is sometimes a significant disconnect between my own logic and my “feeling,” my perception of myself. I have to keep untangling this web of misperception if I am to be the person I want to be and achieve what I want to achieve.

Are you deceiving yourself? If so, how? It’s worth meditating on your own thoughts and feelings in a way that allows you to really “see,” who you are and what you can do, and not be the victim of your own self-directed lies.