Editor's note:  Ian is a third-year student at Huntington College, a small Christian liberal arts college in Indiana.  Ian writes a regular column for the college's student newspaper, on issues big and small.  The Digest has previously published some of Ian's columns.  These were written during Ian's second year.

THE BEST OF SUMMERS? THE WORST OF SUMMERS?

The best of times and the worst of times - that describes my summers.  After a great but challenging first year of college, including a summer school course, I was really, utterly ready for a vacation.  Happily, I just sort of crashed at home for a few days.  Then the boredom set in.

Understand me, I love being with my family.  However, too much of a good thing isn't always so great.  Doing little outside the house except shopping at Wal-Mart and lifting weights at the MPEC leaves me dopey and not very alert.  I needed a job, but I'm really unable to have a normal job, due to my autism.  I cannot control my body to do physical labor, though I am quite strong.  On my own, I can't do tasks that require good hand and eye coordination.  I am smart, but I can't show my intelligence without a trained person to facilitate my communication.

Lots of people have hard lives and go on with life anyhow.  Very few people choose their own handicaps and few people are completely content with their lot in life.  Know that I wish under every star in the sky that I could talk and that I wasn't autistic.

In high school, when I went to my chemistry lab, I sometimes would have one of my pity parties.  I would keep thinking about my disability and how I needed two people to sit on either side of me so I wouldn't hurt myself on the experiments we were doing.  "Why," I thought, "people must think I am an idiot or something."

The other students in the lab might not see past my outer appearance and therefore miss who I am.  Girls will miss my very handsome face.  The guys across the room seem to be laughing at me.  My mind was racing away with my sanity and I was falling deeper and deeper into my pit of despair.

These thoughts may remind you of a similar time in your life.  When I first went to high school, these thoughts would lead to an out-of-control screaming fit that made everyone around me duck for cover.  My dad then explained that every high school student had those same thoughts.  When I have them now, I remember that inside my autistic body, I am just like everybody else.  We have the same insecurities and fears.  No one escapes pity parties.

This reminder to myself actually cheers me up.  It also gives me insight into why other people act kind of weird sometimes.  I have screaming fits, others try to impress people by boasting or by making fun of somebody else or by dressing on the edge of public decency.  Some find friends with whom they don't feel insecure and some just act aloof.

Wait, being unable to talk isn't so bad after all.  Maybe a good scream isn't the worst thing that a pit of pity leads to.

Going bananas and embarrassing myself isn't really something I am proud of. I am most proud that I haven't had a screaming fit in a long time.  I don't have any trouble seeing that my reaction to feelings of insecurity isn't good.  For others, recognizing what their reaction is might not be so simple. Doing away with their silly behavior might not be an easy thing to do.

I guess all of our lives have both the best of times and the worst of times. Maybe my summer wasn't so terrible.  One thing is for sure.  I'm very glad to be back on the Huntington College campus again.
 

LIVING ON HOOSIER TIME

 In Indiana, we don't "fall back" in October or "spring forward" in April.  This makes us distinct from our neighboring states.  Hoosiers, like anyone else, like to be unique in some way.  It gives us a claim to fame. Every year TV ads appear urging Hoosiers to support changing Indiana's time to Daylight Savings Time.  Lawmakers introduce bills to this end.  In TV ads, policemen say that by providing the extra hour of daylight, Daylight Savings Time lowers crime.  This makes it safer for our children to play in the evening.

Opponents to this legislative initiative claim that it is really motivated by certain Indiana businesses.  These businesses assert that they lose money due to their constantly changing hours of operation with respect to their neighboring states.  Supporters of not changing remind us that Indiana lies right on the edge between two time zones.  This means that the sun naturally provides us with a sufficiently late sunset during the summer months. Then there are people like my dad who prefer the evening news to get over by ten thirty p.m.  Since going on Daylight Savings Time would make the evening news always come on at eleven p.m., he strongly opposes such a change.  In fact, he supports going on sort of a daylight spending time, so that Indiana always agrees with Central Time.

I've never heard anyone seriously suggest this solution.  While it would be dark very late into the morning in December, winter sunsets would be later in the evening.  Indiana businesses would have stability with the neighboring states.  Summer sunsets would continue to fall sufficiently late in the evening.  Dad would be happy.

Of course, one possibility would be to accede to the demands that we go on Daylight Savings Time.  No longer would out-of-state relatives telephone during supper because they forgot that we never "fall back" or "spring forward".  We would never need to reset our watches when traveling to the east.  Each summer morning, the sun would rise an hour later, making it easier to sleep in.

However, one problem would arise.  We would lose one of our distinctives. Having just discarded another unique tradition, Hoosier Hysteria, we can ill afford to discard our time change tradition as well.  Why, I can almost feel a huge piece of our state identity slip away from us even as I am writing this.

We might as well fire Bobby Knight, send Larry Bird back to Boston and disavow the state name of "Hoosier".  We might as well forget that it was fellow Hoosier Ed Roush who brought us 911.  We could tear down the Dan Quayle museum or acknowledge that Ohio plays better basketball than Indiana. We could get to church an hour early or an hour late like people in the rest of the country who forget to set their clocks forwards or backwards.  We could miss summer sunsets because we have already gone to bed.  We could balance our desire to stay up and watch David Letterman against getting a good night's sleep every weekday evening, instead of just nights from October to April.  We could take comfort in being like everyone else. Unlike the rest of my family, I am a native Hoosier.  I am proud of my state.  I don't mind hearing people say "set down" instead of "sit down" or "pin" when they mean "pen".  I love to hate Purdue on the basketball court and live and die with I.U.'s Hoosiers.  Flatness seems normal to me, as does a continual wind.

I don't want to be like everyone else.  I like it when out-of-staters say, "Oh yes, you are the ones who never change your time."  In the interest of maintaining our uniqueness and Hoosier pride, let me suggest that now is not the time to start changing our time.
 

MY USUAL ANSWERS

        From time to time, I've been asked to be part of panel discussions on autism.  Below are some typical questions that I get asked during these discussions, along with my answers.  Remember that before I started using facilitated communication (f.c.) at 13, I was thought to be mentally retarded and went to special education classes.

1.      What was life like prior to your use of f.c. ?   My family and teachers and fellow students (who were also world-valued as mentally disabled) made my life interesting and bearable.  However, I was very frustrated because nobody knew somebody smart was in here.  Because my body doesn't obey my mind very well, one couldn't detect my intelligence from my actions, which often do the opposite of my intentions.

2.      What was school like before f.c.?    Nobody would explain math or language rules to me.  Instead, I worked on matching shapes and colors and on bathroom skills.  I didn't get to read good books.  It was so frustrating.  I easily learned stuff in my head, even though I couldn't do them physically.

3.      What was school like after f.c.? Still very frustrating, but for much better reasons than before.  Each new experience was like a dream come true.  Each new experience just blew me away at first.  I would lose it and run screaming through the halls at school.  I eventually would adjust to each situation and cope, but that first year was wild.  I still have to adjust carefully to new situations, but school is still like a dream come true. Here is a list of things I had to adjust to: chatting with "normal" students; small group discussions; being around girls; test anxiety; going through high school hallways; not easily being able to "goof off" in school like other kids; adjusting to new facilitators.

4. What could the teachers and the school have done differently to make school a more positive experience? Most of my socially unacceptable behaviors are not an effort to manipulate or control others.  They start as an uncontrollable response to some situation and sometimes trap me into a behavior pattern that is triggered by a physical location or another person.  Instead of treating me as a troublemaker, school people need to help me break that pattern.  Putting pressure on me will just make it worse. Breaking the pattern is often quite easy.  Change the physical setting when possible or introduce a new person that I like into the setting, even if only for one or two times.  Be creative, but don't act like I'm a juvenile delinquent.

5. Talk about going to college.  The best thing about my first year of college was writing a column for the school paper in which many other students that would never on their own talk with me got to know me better.  I loved my classes.  College requires lots of reading, but not much daily, dumb busy work.  This suits me fine.  My biggest problem at first was that I had brand new facilitators.  This limited me to a very part-time status.  I did CLEP two courses: English composition and literature.

6. What has been good about college and what has been difficult? Unlike high school, most tests are essay tests and even the objective tests are harder.  The professors have been very nice and have been very willing to make appropriate accommodations for me, a student with disabilities.