Boo' ya Moon and Aspergers

Hey diddle diddle

The cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the moon.

The little dog laughed 

to see such a sport 

and the dish 

ran away with the spoon.

Be careful telling a nephew with Aspergers that the “cow jumped over the moon.” Instead of laughing at the absurdity, he'll say, "Don't you know the moon is 221,463 miles from Earth, its furthest point is 251,968 miles away with the average distance being 238,857 miles? So technically speaking Aunt Tatie, a cow cannot jump over the moon.” I suppose the dish running away with the spoon got lost in his moon calculations. 

Speaking of moons, Stephen King wrote about an imaginary refuge called Boo'ya Moon in his novel Lisey's Story. With extraordinary concentration, people could transport themselves to an alternate reality if they needed escape, or privacy, or perhaps rejuvenation. I had just finished reading King's book the summer before my nephew's diagnosis and we were working outside together in the garden as we often do, when I noticed him staring into space. "Where are ya?" I asked, " Are ya smelling flowers on Boo'ya Moon?" He looked towards the figure interrupting his private time which would be me, the Aunt who has more patience than Epsom has salts. (I really need to update my clichés...perhaps something like The Aunt who has more patience than Microsoft has bugs would be more au courant.) 

I ‘tease’ children gently, easing them away from viewing their peculiarities as serious defects of which there is nothing funny and everybody else has none. Having been an odd child myself, it was a revelation discovering what my kids loved about me the most, were my eccentricities---oddities not pathological in nature providing endlessly hilarious material for family reunions. I learned during childhood to take myself lightly which has been my saving grace during a hideous dump-and-run marriage after which the weight packed on like insulation around Alaskan water pipes. If it weren’t for my good-hearted self-deprecation lightening the burden of isolation (not insulation), I might not have found a nephew’s Asperger traits to be endearing. Obviously, other people weren’t fascinated with a boy who visited Boo’ya Moon when they told him to do three chores at once. Giving him one task at a time was fine. Two tasks was pushing it. Three was a Star Trekkian transport to Boo’ya Moon.

I won’t kid ya about visits to Boo’ya Moon being endearing or funny to everyone in his life. It wasn’t. Other people interpreted his blank stare as defiance. As if he were intentionally defying their authority, refusing to “Clean the catbox, empty the trash, and bring the mail in from the mailbox,” because he was a rebel. Or stupid. Too stupid to remember three things when he pondered ideas like ‘perpetual motion’ while the rest of us were stumped over the law of attraction. Or lazy. My nephew has been called lazy, too. If he managed to complete two out of three tasks but not all three, the only reason people could come up with was his characterological indolence, a sin, a fatal flaw---was he evil grab the Holy Water.

People psychologize other people’s behavior which is defined as a fundamental attribution error. That means they explain other people's behavior based on that person’s disposition or personality. (An error we don’t make with ourselves since we tend to view our ‘situation’ as the culprit more than labeling ourselves with personality deficits). In other words, people thought my nephew could not complete the three tasks as ordered because he was stupid, lazy, and/or defiant. He would be so stressed remembering all three things in proper order, that he automatically checked out. Boo’Ya Mooned it. 

One year after giving a name to his stress and anxiety reactions, he was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome on the autism spectrum. When my nephew was undergoing diagnostic tests involving me in the interviews, too, I mentioned his visits to Boo’ya Moon as an answer to one of the psychologist’s questions. My nephew busted up laughing and the clinical psychologist was startled for a few seconds. I feared her next question would be directed at me: “How quickly can YOU could pack your bags for a stay in the mental hospital?!” Instead, she turned to my nephew and asked if he realized how lucky he was to have an Aunt who was comfortable with his occasional visits to Boo’ya Moon. 


Then she posed a joke to see if he would laugh at himself which he did with only minor hesitation. “You are a peach!” she grinned at him and for a second, I feared he would teleport right there in the interview. Then he realized that a peach was a fruit and fruit grew on trees and he couldn’t actually be a fruit so obviously, the clinician was teasing him with an absurdity and wow, wasn’t that funny! Imagine calling a humanoid a peach!

P.S. I wrote about Refrigerator Mothers on the two posts linked below which might be interesting to people dealing with children on the autism spectrum. My nephew is high-functioning so I am not suggesting my methods for coping with Aspergers is a universal. As with all children, knowing them intimately, recognizing their limitations, and connecting with them as a trustworthy parent/nurturer is essential. 

My nephew and his mother moved in with us when he was five years old. I divorced only a few years afterwards. He is almost twenty today.

Hugs,

CZ

Resources

Refrigerator Mothers

Refrigerator Mothers Commentary

ASC: Autism Services Center

Autism Society