The Doctor Is In: My Success at the Crossroads of Autism and Spirituality

The Doctor Is In

My Success at the Crossroads of Autism and Spirituality

Dr. Patrick V. Suglia

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Patrick V. Suglia

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is dedicated to my dad, who was alive at the time I started writing it but who never lived to see it published, thus becoming a part of the story.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the wonderful people who have taught, supported, and encouraged me over the years, and those who continue to do so, because without them this book would not have been possible. I would particularly like to thank my dearest friend Lisa LaRe-Richter, who is the author of the foreword of this book. I would like to thank Dr. Ellen Bagetakos-Handlin, who introduced me to my spiritual teachers, Betty McKeon, my Reiki Master, and the late Dr. Sid Williams, the founder of the chiropractic school that changed my life forever.

Contents

Foreword by Lisa LaRe-Richter

Introduction

1. The Brilliance of Autism

2. What If Your Doctor Had Autism?

3. In the Beginning

4. The Early Adult Years

5. At a Glance

6. Forming Rules to Survive

7. Between Here and There

8. Relationships and Married Life

9. Compromising and Other Things That Work

10. Practical Advice

11. Madman in the Desert

12. The Book of Healing

13. Autie Ego

14. On the Spiritual Path

15. Transcendental Contemplations

Who Is Dr. Patrick V. Suglia?

Foreword

by Lisa LaRe-Richter

I have always had what I used to call a soft spot in my heart for others, especially others who seem to struggle to fit in. Truth is, I am one of the others too! I have come to learn over the years that my soft spot is really empathy, compassion, and understanding, the ability to look through a window into the soul.

During my elementary years, I struggled with fitting in. I grew up in a neighborhood that included almost all of my extended family from my mother’s side, which makes up one half of my Italian heritage. My father’s half was also Italian. But from as early as I can remember or understand, even within my own nuclear family I felt the separation of not fitting in. My mother’s side of the family was Northern Italian, and my father’s side was Sicilian. And if you know anything about Italians, this is a BIG deal. I was composed of both. As an only child, the spotlight seemed to focus on me but almost never for reasons I agreed to or wanted. If that wasn’t enough, I went to a parochial school that was in a Polish neighborhood. Blonde hair and blue eyes made a person more socially acceptable. I was composed of neither.

I was born to an Italian catholic family, but I didn’t conform to the catholic teachings at home or at school. I questioned everything, which added to my disconnect from others, both in family life and school. I received the necessary commandments that home and school required only to mean that I walked the walk, but I really didn’t talk the talk.

During these early years, I always enjoyed Patrick’s friendship and company. This was something the rest of my classmates didn’t always understand. He was different. He looked different. He talked different. He acted different. By default, this made me different. It has taken me, since first grade, almost 45 years to figure out why. Why I cared, why I allowed the opinions of others to affect me, why sometimes I did try to change and conform to fit in with them.

Patrick and I have remained friends, with lapses of contact over the years. We reconnected a few years ago, and our friendship remains strong. It fits perfectly, and the whys from others matter not.

Today I am an artist, an autistic support teacher, a pesca-vegetarian, an animal lover, a beachcomber, a wife, a mother, and a loyal friend. I don’t need to fit in anymore. I am accepting of myself. I am perfect as I am. We all are.

Gary Zukav, author of The Seat of the Soul, once said that we do not have any one soul mate in this world. We are all souls in the universe connected. I am incredibly fortunate to have my husband as my soul mate. He often teases me by saying that he saved the world when he married me. If I tell it my way, I saved him. We have a connection like no other, one that many don’t understand. We are totally opposite, yet exactly the same. This also describes the two children we created together. We have two exceptional boys, men in the making. One has an Autism Spectrum Disorder, the other marches to the beat of a different drummer. One has a professional diagnosis, and one does not.

Both have struggled to fit in, in one way or another, at one time or another. I am trying to raise them with the notion that it doesn’t matter what others think. Be true to yourself. The Universe has great plans for you. When, where, and with whom have already been decided. Fitting in matters only to the one putting the puzzle together. Without each unique piece, the whole picture eludes them. Lucky for those of us who have the vision and can see without a reference directly in front of us. (back to top)

Introduction

When people hear about all of the challenges I had growing up with autism and other health problems, they tell me I should write a book. Well, this is that book, finally! My main purpose for writing it is to let people know that human beings who have all sorts of difficulties can certainly make a difference in this world. The goal of this book is to help people who may be struggling either with autism or with finding their own place in this world to obtain encouragement and to give pointers from my own personal journey and lessons I learned along the way.

Keeping people with learning difficulties and who may act or look differently out of sight, and likewise out of mind, is archaic and ignorant thinking. Parents who find it exhausting and who often feel hopeless when they are raising a child with special needs tend to feel they have been burdened and that their child may have no place or purpose in this world. I am here to tell you that quite the opposite is true. The old way of thinking was to try to strengthen the weaknesses of those who lagged behind because of their limitations, often with great frustration and failure. But thanks to new ways of thinking from people such as Dr. Donald Clifton, the father of strengths psychology, the paradigm is starting to shift from focus on that which needs to be corrected to what talents one is already gifted with that can make them contributors to society. It is particularly important to see children and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) in the newer light because for as much as they are challenged in the ways they learn and interact with the world around them, they are equally as brilliant and gifted in some way.

This book is not only about what it’s like to be autistic. It is also meant to pinpoint, in very specific ways, how spiritual living helps to override some of the defunct ways of thinking that a person with an ASD tends to live by. Spirituality is not to be confused with religious belief. A person can practice a certain religion yet not live spiritually. Likewise, there are lots of spiritual people who do not adhere to any one particular religion. In her book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about a spiritual path that changed her life. This is the very path that I have walked since it was first introduced to me in 1998. In this book I will share the lessons I learned through this practice, showing how they relate to autism in particular. When I broke the chains of ordinary living by becoming spiritually aware of the world around me, it became easier to do away with some of the self-imposed limitations that autistic thinking presents. Throughout this book, especially in the latter chapters, I will mention my guru which is the same one Elizabeth Gilbert talks about in her book. I will also share how I interpreted her teachings and made them practical in my life.

I talk about my struggles from my childhood years onward into adulthood. I point out all that I accomplished and all the health challenges that I endured despite my autistic ways of dealing with things. Having to interpret and process situations from a different, yet often naïve, point of view may be seen as either a strength or a blessing, depending on how you look at it. However, when it came to the most important intimate relationship in my life, being married to a caring woman with struggles of her own, it initially proved to be limiting and tremendously trying. What had started out as a promising, loving relationship eventually proved to be quite a challenge to hold together. Despite the fact that I was always very astute at written expression, which is what captivated my former wife’s heart and mind, it was quite evident that my verbal and interpersonal interactions were tremendously lacking.

As with all people on the autism spectrum, learning how to communicate is a lifelong effort. Interpreting subtle verbal clues and body language, knowing what to say to whom, learning how to act in public, and also maintaining the boundary lines between appropriate and inappropriate behavior are all constant struggles. As a result, the words and gestures of others will be misinterpreted, paranoid feelings will develop, and jobs may be lost in the process. I am no different. A person probably would not guess this to be true simply by looking at me or by reading my resume. I don’t look like I have anything wrong with me, as most people with an ASD do not, and I have achieved tremendous academic success. After all, there is a Dr. in front of my name. But the story behind the story may be quite surprising to many.

Throughout this book, I will be sharing insights and advice with neurotypicals (people who do not have autism) in hopes that they will keep certain things in mind when interacting with an adult or a child with an ASD. The chapters in between my life story will share lessons learned and revelations based on events talked about up to that point. I often use the term autie to refer to any person who has one of the autism spectrum disorders, either classical autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, or PDD-NOS, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. When I mention autism I am likewise referring to any one of the disorders or the entire spectrum collectively, as the case may be. I hope this book helps bring to light for you the myriad of fascinating ways the autistic mind works. You may find some of it to be thrilling, unexpected, and enriching. Enjoy the adventure! (back to top)

1

The Brilliance of Autism

What goes through your mind when you hear the word autism? Most people think of somebody who will be less than in the worldly, pragmatic sense. When an autistic person shows that they are creative or are able to contribute to society, the non-autistic person may ooh and aah that a person of lesser status was somehow able to show signs of a functional intellect. Well, maybe I'm being somewhat sarcastic. But to those of us who have autism, I say that it's time for the non-autistic population, or the neurotypicals as we call them, to realize that it is usually we, the auties, who end up saving their butts with our brilliance.

We're usually the ones who are able to point out the obvious when others cannot see it. Where would this world be if not for the amazing contributions to it by Einstein, Mozart, Beethoven, Jane Austen, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Thomas Jefferson, Carl Jung, and Vincent Van Gogh, to name a few? Or, in our lifetime, Bob Dylan and Bill Gates? I wonder if Bill Gates, as an unknown way back when, would have ever been hired anywhere if he had revealed up front that he was autistic. Probably not. The literal meaning of the word autism translates to read, a state of being absorbed by one's self. What this really means, as I see it, is that autism is a state of being so awe-inspired by your own view of the world and not knowing how to communicate it adequately. Eventually we learn how to, though, much to the askew glances of the neurotypical world. Sometimes when we speak we say the wrong, or socially inappropriate, things. But when we speak, we usually always say the truth. We can't help but to be oddly creative by the neurotypical's judgment. We're just being ourselves in our autie reality.

I am quite a fan of fellow people on the spectrum who give speeches and presentations. It’s not merely because they are people with autism who can speak brilliantly, which is perhaps why neurotypicals enjoy them (as if they never expected someone with autism to be able to do this), but because they tell it like it is. Well, telling it like it is is what makes us appear so off-color. We say what we want, we do what we want, we dress the way we want. We make our own rules. We don't really care what society thinks because we know we are brilliant in our own ways. We are absorbed by our own self. It's time that the neurotypical world realizes this and doesn't scold us for being ourselves. If you look past the label and see what we can do for the seemingly strange (to us) world around us, you'll listen and you'll give us a CHANCE.

I got to where I am in life because of mentors, or guardian angels as I call them. I talk about my mentors and how they helped me later in this book. Every person with autism needs a mentor. It's not that we are disabled. Because of the way our brains process information, we need to learn how to do things on our own accord and in a different way. We need to repeat things over and over and over again until we get them right. When we finally get it, we are not only good, we can be great! We may even outperform the neurotypicals who are doing the same things. Why? Because our intuition allows us to see the elephant in the room when others can't. We find better ways. We become very efficient, self-sufficient. We are absorbed by our own self; we are AUTISTIC.

It is understandable why a neurotypical employer wouldn't want to bother hiring somebody with autism. Who wants to be around somebody who doesn't fit in? Who wants to feel like they have to drag somebody when what they are looking for is somebody who can magically jump right into the shark-infested waters and swim? But really, who wants to hire somebody who's not afraid to tell them that they can do their job more efficiently than they can? It's a new science -- trying to figure out how to coexist with people who take a different path to learning and in how they relate to the world around them as if they were from another planet. We auties are not from another planet, and our problems are not going to go away.

Why does autism exist in the first place? In all those years ago, we can truly say that some brilliant people were wired that way, as some are in this day and age. For others, especially nowadays, their condition may have been unfortunately induced by some toxic or allergic exposure, or maybe even a physical trauma or illness. In any case, autism is what it is, and autistics are what they are -- people who can contribute to this world in amazing ways. If you are a person with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), or you have a child or loved one who is, get together with others in autism support groups. Don't navigate this world alone. There is definitely strength in numbers. Also, find a mentor. Employers, stop thinking that people with autism are disabled. There are those who are able to do the job asked of them and those who are not, just as there are neurotypicals who may or may