HAIKU therapy for mother of autistic child.

all of this rushed out of me tonight. i haven't the foggiest notion of what I am doing. I don't know anything about this literary form. How is it supposed to work?


Shadow

The sun casts shadows.
Not for our autistic son.
We are his shadows.

New tube of toothpaste
Left unlocked, squeezed down the drain.
Add to shopping list.

Squeezing another child.
We protect others from him.
We are his shadows.

Shake, pour, smear, sniff, squeeze,
Until there is nothing left.
He can’t understand.

Delicate small throats
MUST be squeezed tightly by him.
There are the shadows.

Locked up cabinets
Pungent chemicals inside.
We are his shadows.

He can’t understand.
Or is it that we don’t know?
He must be shadowed.

Staring eyes on wild child
She’s not parenting “God’s Way.”
His brain’s on crutches.

She can not lose him.
Not to an institution.
She cries and curses.

Mom will someday die.
Ad says: “Need a new shadow.”
Too few will respond.

yours for the last one. That is the biggest fear for me when I see a family with a problem like this.

Seed in darkness yearns
Reaches up through soil and air
Fighting for the sun

stanzaa to my Word file for reflection. Your metaphors are beautiful.

what you wrote was well-done and eloquent. Your emotion and his are well-conveyed.

Please accept my sincere hope for you and your son's futures. I have been through the hell of mental illness with my son. It has taken 10 long years, but we are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

I felt I was reading my own journal. Hugs to you both. :hug:

And a poignant look into a world not many see, and even fewer can even begin to understand. I've worked with developmentally disabled adults for the past 18 years and have encountered a number of individuals who have autism. It is very challenging, both for us and for them. Kudos to you for givng your son the love and support he needs to stay at home. :hug:

Senryu is three unrhymed lines reflecting on human nature and/ore the past and can be written in the past tense; haiku follows the same structure and deals with nature/seasons and is written in the present tense only. While these are written in the present tense, they deal with human nature, and thus are senryu.

I know so little about these beautiful literary forms. We barely even touched on this when I was in high school or college. I'm saving your comments to a file to help me in the future. Doing this late last night helped me get blocked emotions forward to help me face my fears.

something new, as in taking a course. We have to take things in small doses usually because we are already overwhelmed and fatigued. DU is such a marvelous place to reach into new realms of thought and beauty. I believe all knowledge is useful to the collective consciousness.

More information about Senryu and Haiku.

http://members.tripod.com/~Startag/HkSenDiff.html

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=senryu&btnG=Google+Search

I don't have time to audit courses or pursue another degree, so I take info in small doses. My Lessons includes info on comparative religions, literature, physics, etc.

and much more effective than a degree. When you care it shows!

Asso. Degree Nursing and I'm an RN. I love learning new stuff. Of course, now I'm an amateur speech therapist and behavior analyst! ;) Just like the other parents on this board with a tough life.

The rest of us, the rest of the world, have little concept of the enormity of the job you face 24/7.

Thank you for sharing this. :hug:
And to the other moms on this thread :grouphug:

My hope for the future is for these children to have a future, for treatment, for respite for you, for prevention.

Hekate

struggling with and loving our autistic children 24/7.

I wish I could speak so elegantly about my hopes and fears for my son.

(((((((((((((((((Hugs))))))))))))))))

And you expressed two of my greatest fears. Thank you and I'm here with you. There are so many of us nowadays.

...must be something in the water.

My ex-wife and I and her big sister worry about my youngest daughter who is deaf and has other
developmental disabilities (but not autism). She's probably going to need lifelong care. The docs don't think she'll ever be able to live by herself.

I have no doubt that if you can do more you can do something with them -- a book, perhaps.

OR, in the meantime, I see no reason these couldn't be published somewhere.

They're just exquisite.

but the sentiments are beautifully expressed and well-understood by this fellow traveler/ mom of a child with autism.

I am fearful of the future for our children in a country that seems to care less and less about our most vulnerable citizens. There are days that I feel nothing but darkness ahead.

Autism is not
The life sentence that you fear.
I turned out OK.

Seriously, you may want to send those in to the Autism Society of America. I could easily see those in their montly publication The Advocate.

It would be wrong to promise anything, but there is always hope. My little brother is no longer miserable and we have an emotional connection with him after long last, not complete emergence but he got much better than they said he would.

:)

heartbreaking and beautiful.

When I go to the Dragon*Con convention in Atlanta, usually around the 4th of July weekend, there is this strange little lady who walks around in capes, tights and glittery masks. She is only known as "Danger Woman." She is an adult with some level of autism.

The convention considers her a guest, and even gives her a panel upon which to speak. She will often coral celebrity guests and talk her head off - and visit other people's panels and make the procedings a shambles. She has done so to my panels, but I know how to keep her happy - I feed her the sweetened cereal that I provide to everyone who shows at my panels.

She has probably irritated people, but she is not a hurtful person; in her own way, she's rather sweet. She usually has an adult handler nearby or within cell phone contact.

This is probably not much help, and it's presumptuous and stupid of me to offer consolation. However, if Danger Woman can take what you see as a crippling problem and become a memorable character - one I and many others will remember all our lives - there is hope.

In fact, this is her web page - does her life look tragic to you?

http://www.angelfire.com/ga3/DangerWoman/DragonCon99/DragonCon1999.html

I wish I could say that my son talks his head off, but I doubt that will ever be the case.

We had a breakthrough at school with a girl who was mute (selectively, possibly, with her autism). She began talking by "pulling" the words out of her mouth with her hand, a technique given her by a very experienced speech therapist.

I think parenting is challenging when the kids don't have a disability; I know you must pull on reserves of strength that I haven't tapped into. Good for you for expressing yourself so beautifully! :hug:

I have the same worries, who will be my daughter's shadow when I'm gone.
And my locks are mostly in the kitchen :)

Thank you for this...

:bounce:

(((Ilsa))) Thank you for helping others to understand, and for your sad and beautiful poem.