This Autism Journey

Unbothered (adjective): “Not feeling or showing agitation, worry or annoyance: not bothered.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as such, but I define it as this: “Not giving two shits about what others think.” It’s taken me a long time to be unbothered. Experience and age have taught me well. It is not an easy state to get to or be in, but it is a necessary one.

Bothered

I’d like to say that I have a natural fortitude against worry, agitation, or annoyance but I don’t. I cultivated it. I had to otherwise I would not leave the house. I have gone through some very public humiliations to get to this point. For example, I have a child that would regularly pull hair. It didn’t matter if it was a teacher, friend, family member, or stranger, if he was stressed, he would pull that person’s hair. One of these hair-pulling incidents was during dismissal at school. Everyone was trying to leave and there was my son holding his teacher’s head to the ground by her hair. All eyes, students, parents, passersby, saw this. Being his mother, I tried to free his hands from her hair. It took a while, as it always did, but she eventually got free. The look on her face was one of humiliation, embarrassment, and fear. The look on my face was one of humiliation, embarrassment, shame, fear, and an immediate need to escape the situation. The silence of the crowd was harder to deal with than the stares. The silence implied that what they were seeing was bad and they were in shock that they were witnessing it.  The stares implied that I was a bad parent, a permissive parent, that needed to get her kid under control so that they could feel safe. My reality was that I didn’t know what to do or how to help my child. This upset me so much.

How I Became Unbothered

When my son was little the school social worker came to our house and helped us out a bit. I remember telling him about how awful some of these outbursts could be and how dealing with everybody’s stares was just an added level of stress. He said to me, “Society demands order. They want you to get your child in order. The best way to deal with this is to block society out.” Block society out? Is this guy for real? How do I block society out when it’s all around me?

Well, that was the best advice that someone gave to me to start walking down the path to being unbothered. I had to learn to block out society’s expectations of what a parent, especially a mother, should be doing for their child. I had to remind myself that my parenting journey looked nothing like what they perceived or thought it should be. I had to remind myself that unless they were willing to help their opinion did not affect me. I had to remind myself that I would probably never see these people again and if I did, so be it.

Becoming unbothered isn’t just a state of mind, even though it starts there. Being unbothered is taking up space in places that want you to hide. It’s being comfortable in understanding the situation and not feeling the need to explain. It’s, at times, staring back at those that stare at you. It’s speaking up when someone makes a snide remark or expresses frustration. It’s not apologizing for how you deal with tantrums or meltdowns. It’s embracing the potentially embarrassing, the unknown, the consequences. It’s accepting all the twists and turns with a sense of calm resignation. It’s being comfortable with what you know and what you don’t know. It’s growth and like anything that grows, it takes time.

Take care.