Some people feel that autism gives them a new perspective on life and on what is important. I have been known to say that, myself. But lately I have been feeling that it is depression that has given me a perspective on autism, and everything else!<\/p>\n
It will probably not surprise my readers to find that I am prone to bouts of depression. This condition has been with me for a lot of my life, particularly adulthood. I do not make it a secret, because 1) I believe there is no shame in having problems like this; and 2) I hope that my openness will make it easier for others with the same issues to get help.<\/p>\n
I was having coffee yesterday with a man who qualifies as being my oldest friend. I met him when I was in sixth grade. We teased each other and hung out together and ultimately we went to the high school prom together, as friends. I love him like a brother. He is a true ziese neshuma, a sweet soul. But I’m not sure that he always “gets” me. After reading my book and knowing me for this long, he still asks, with a face furrowed full of concern, “But how’s Nat?” And it kind of feels like he is assuming that the answer is a sad one.<\/p>\n
These days — and for quite some time, I believe — the answer is, “Great!” But I already feel, when the question is posed the way it was, that I seem to be protesting too much (?) How can I explain to people that Nat simply is. That I have known him for seventeen years, eighteen if you consider my clueless pregnancy, and I have never known a different Nat, an Otherwise Nat, the What-If Nat. I would love to, of course. But in the same way that I would love to live a whole different life, simply because there are so many things I don’t get to do in this incarnation. When I was a little girl, I also wanted to be a boy, just to live that particular kind of life, too. So NT Nat would be a trip, I’m sure; a delight, and a pain-in-the-ass. But he is already those things.<\/p>\n
It is not Nat, nor is it autism, that makes me pause when people offer to cut me some slack. They seem eager to do so, for his sake. My uncle practically canceled coming to Passover at my house because, “You have your hands full, with the three boys.” I had to convince him that, NO! Everything is fine! I just get really depressed sometimes, that’s all!!!!<\/p>\n
But I think that people really believe my life is harder because of my sons, Nat in particular. Maybe it is easier for them to feel compassion about something like autism, than to find out about something like depression.<\/p>\n
My life is harder because of depression. When I am feeling good, as I have been for the last week (you can tell by my blog posts; the more dancing and writing, the better), there is a golden cast to everything around me. Autism is a part of my landscape, just as the muddy yard and the noisy birds. Depression, on the other hand, sends cold wet clouds across everything so that I can’t be happy anywhere. Nat, (Max, and Ben), with their beauty and gentleness, are like colorful little blankets to wrap around myself, even during the darkest times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some people feel that autism gives them a new perspective on life and on what is important. I have been known to say that, myself. But lately I have been feeling that it is depression that has given me a perspective on autism, and everything else! It will probably not surprise my readers to find […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-fY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}