Susan Senator

We are now phasing in more away weekends for Nat, to accustom him more to making his weekends work well in the group home.  The problem is, I got the idea in my head a while back that Nat’s move-out in November, at 22 would be similar to Max’s move to college this fall.  I mentioned this topic to Nat a couple of times, not knowing I was contributing to his anxiety level. At school he has been having episodes of anxiety which are almost always around House to School, vans, dismissal, and absences.

I forget sometimes just how much Nat knows, even though we are all hearing frequently about this person with autism or that one who learned to communicate at last and almost the first thing he or she said was, “Stop treating me like I don’t understand!!!!”  (Carly Fleischmann is my favorite success story; I know the family personally and I really admire Carly for her skills and quick wit. Carly also attended Extreme Sports Camp with Nat.)

Nat doesn’t like to type to communicate, but he is becoming very adept at terse, no-frills speaking.  The other day the staff had to pull the van over to the side of the road because one of Nat’s housemates was having a seizure.  Nat kept repeating, “Drive to school,” or some other of his commands, but of course they could not until the student was restored to calm and safety.  This occurrence also meant that Nat could not get the explanations he needed to calm down, and having the bus pull over is a huge deviation from the routine.  These days, Nat needs us to talk to him, regularly, and also, to watch what we say.

Nat is a thin guy, all bone, sinew, and neuron.  He almost jangles with neurological activity when he walks.  During the fall, we reduced his Resperadal — in my view, the less of it, the better, because of potential side effects — and he became more lively.  Actually, he became more alive.  And being alive comes with anxiety and worry as well as joy and other emotions.

I believe the lower dose of Resperadal made him able to talk more.  It makes sense:  if you are less sedated, you are more awake.  He has less to shield him from what’s going on around him.  We believe he can handle this now, and so far, so good.  This development reminds me of when he was 10 and we tried him on zoloft.  Zoloft cut down on his anxiety a bit too much, so he was way too relaxed and giddy, and eventually became mischievous, which then begat aggression.  (Or so we think.)

Nat is talking bit by bit, more and more, yet with every new occurrence of his competence, we are surprised.  It’s become a thing for Ned and me, more of our Couple Culture (which I think is a key to successful marriage.  You need to have history that you enjoy and refer to and laugh about.  You need to be loyal to your couple history, and elevate it above anything else in your life.  That is my two cents, and I’ve been happily married for nearly 27 years).  So Ned and I have our Nat stories that we bring back to each other, like I did with the Stop&Shop trip; that was the Saturday Nat Story.

Last Sunday Ned took Nat on a walk into our downtown and they passed a woman in a car that was double-parked, in front of an empty space; she was waiting for traffic to clear so that she could parallel park there.  She was waiting too long for Boston standards.  This is the kind of annoying thing other drivers notice and honk at.

After they passed her, Nat turned around to look at the car sitting there.  Staring at the woman and the car for some time, Nat finally pointed right at her and quietly said: “Park.”

Sometimes less is so much more.