I love to read advice columns. I’m not sure why; maybe to reassure myself that other people have problems that are worse than my own, but the columnist can still manage to solve them in a couple of neat paragraphs. Recently, I read one about two parents who were arguing about their six-year-old’s security blanket. The father thought the child was far too old to sleep with a raggedy old blanket, but the mother thought that the kid should get to hold on to it until he was at least eight or so. I looked at my own stuffed tiger and thought, “Wow, my parents did NOT get the memo that there is an age limit for that sort of thing.”
When I was five, my mom took me to the Burke Museum in Seattle about a week before my birthday. After exploring, we went to the gift shop. My mom kept pointing out all of the cool Native American art, but my attention was immediately focused on the stuffed tiger sitting in the gift shop window. I love tigers. I love all cats, really, but tigers are a special obsession, and I knew immediately that I HAD to have that tiger. My mom said no. I was devastated. We left. On my birthday, I was thrilled to open a package that contained that very stuffed tiger. To this day, it remains the best present I’ve ever received.
And to this day, I still sleep with that tiger. I really can’t sleep without him, to be honest. He’s comforting. He’s familiar. And I’m so very glad that my parents never decided that I was too old for him. He, himself, is quite old now, but to me, he’ll always be that beautiful tiger sitting in the gift shop window. Yes, that is an actual picture of him. Yes, he is missing both of his eyes (both due to dogs, one named Captain Jack and one named Colbert). He’s completely threadbare in places, and I really tried to make him sit up for the picture, but those days are behind him. I launder him regularly; I swear he’s a very clean tiger, he just doesn’t look it. And look at me, justifying my tiger’s cleanliness to you, because I know that he’s nasty-looking. But I love him.
No one really knows about my tiger, except for my parents and my husband (who is surprisingly understanding about him). It’s not something I broadcast, and when I have visitors, I hide him behind the pillows on the bed. Sleeping with an ancient stuffed animal is a weird thing I do in private, and for many adults I know with Autism, the weird stuff we do in private helps make it easier to fake normal in public. I bet a lot of neurotypical people have their own weird stuff, but for people with Autism, it tends to be more like a novel-length list than a few weird quirks. We’d be here all day if I listed all of mine. The tiger thing is just the most socially unacceptable, mostly because the poor thing looks like it was in range of a nuclear blast at some point.
Look, I’m not a psychologist, and I do urge you to do whatever your child’s therapist advises. From my perspective, however, it’s a mistake to force your child to give up the weird stuff at all times. Let him carry around his security blanket, let him wear his t-shirt backwards, let him make sure all of the light switches are in the same position for absolutely no reason. There does come a time when those behaviors are no longer acceptable in public and should be minimized. But as far as I’m concerned, the privacy of your own home should always be a place where you feel safe letting your freak flag fly.
This article is part of the Faking Normal series written by an adult with Autism who hopes to demystify Autism and help readers understand themselves or their children better. If you have questions or topic requests for J, please email her at jblog@washingtonautismadvocacy.org.