Susan Senator

I woke up at 5 a.m., to dark rain. But I don’t care, unless it makes my flight dangerous (I’m going to Toronto today to participate in Estee’s conference, The Autism Acceptance Project: Redefining Ability and Quality of Life — with such a subject, how could I not participate??!! Very new and exciting stuff.).

My presentation is a power point that I used to call “Extreme Parenting.” But now I call it “Making Peace with Autism.” I talk about the arc of our family life, broken into roughly three phases: 1) Worrying and Wondering; 2) Diagnosis, Learning Curve, Grief; 3) Understanding, Acceptance, Connection.

I also have some “talking points,” such as:
1) Trust your gut;
2) Figure out your priorities;
3) Get the facts and support;
4) Be as eccentric as you need to be;
5) Give yourself (and everyone else) a break;
6) Success is how you define it

I illustrate these points with excerpts from MPWA and slides from over the years. I talk in between about this and that, stuff that just happened, stuff I’ve been thinking about (like the disability baggage one carries around, the meaningless meaning of terms like “Low-functioning;” — I love to end with that one and then to show pictures of Nat being bar mitvhahed and riding his bike with me. Low-functioning, my Seven-For-All-Mankind blue-jeaned ass!

Look at my baby. Natan-El, “Gift of God”