Asperger's at the movies

Don't ask me why; the kid's been to plenty of movies in theatres before and never had a problem.

Yes, he took all his meds today just fine. 

But, just got back from an "Asperger's moment" at a showing of the new Pixar movie "Up," and it's still upsetting me.

#

Eldest Son was wiggling.  He can't help it; he's fidgety.  Apparently he kicked the seat of the guy in front of him; apparently he did it enough to bug the guy.  Guy's a grown-up, a dad; his own wife and girl are there too.  Daughter seems about the age of Eldest Son.

Guy turns around and says to Eldest Son, politely, "Will you please stop kicking my seat?" And we all think that's the end of it.

('Course not!)

5 minutes later, Guy turns around and says AGAIN to Eldest Son, "Will you PLEASE stop kicking my seat??"

D.H. intervenes, saying strictly to E.S., "You need to move, or else you're leaving."

E.S. goes rigid in his seat and starts to ask loudly, "Why do I have to move?"

I try to play peacemaker, saying, "Just come over here with me" (to where there isn't anyone in front of us) "I'll move too."

E.S.:  "NO!  I can't SEE as well from there!"  (3 seats to the left.)

D.H. (to me):  "He has to move, or else he's leaving."

E.S. (bursting into loud, shocking, sobs):  "NO!  Why do I have to move?  I didn't do it!"

But I get him to move.  I sit down with him, 3 seats over.

Crisis averted?

Heavens no!

E.S. cannot stop sobbing.  Loud, heart-rending sobs.  I hiss, "E.S., you HAVE to be quiet, or you will have to leave!"

E.S. (loudly, sobbing): "I WILL be quiet, if you'll just tell me why I had to move!"

Me, whispering: "I'll tell you afterwards, but you need to be quiet, RIGHT NOW!"

E.S. (sobbing):  "I CAN'T!"

(It's true, when he gets like this, he can't.)

Me:  "Just try!  Please!  I don't want you to have to--"

Mom from row in front of me gets in my face:  "I know he's upset, but my daughters can't hear the movie, and--"

Me:  "I understand, but my son has Asperger's, and--"

Other Mom:  "I understand, but my daughters--"

D.H. (from further down the row):  "He has to leave, now!" 

D.H. grabs E.S. and hustles him out. 

I slink over to sit between my two normal ("neurotypical" or NT) children for the rest of the movie, weeping -- silently.

#

What do you do when you have an eight-year-old who looks like a ten-year-old and talks like a twelve-year-old -- and can't manage himself in a movie theatre as well as his four-year-old brother?

Did the guy in front of us have the right to watch a movie without having his seat kicked?  Yes, of course.

Did the mom in front of us have the right for her daughers to watch the movie without being disturbed by my son's howls?  Yes, of course.

Did someone have to remove E.S. from the situation until he could calm down?  Yes, of course -- and since I didn't do it when it became necessary, D.H. had to.

Was there some way we could have handled the situation so that my eight-year-old child could have seen the rest of the movie just like all the other kids?

What should we have done differently?

#

Guy no doubt left the theatre thinking he was in the right, thinking, or perhaps even saying out loud to his fam, "Can you believe that mom wouldn't take that rotten kid out of the movie theatre?"

Guy and Mom in Front of Me were probably congratulating themselves on the calm-but-firm way they stood up for their rights to that over-indulgent mama who was letting her kid get away with murder.

Other parents probably were thinking, "How dare that noisy brat ruin the movie for the rest of us!"

Other parents may have said to their kids later, "No kid of mine's ever gonna behave that way!"  (I have had one boy innocently report to me that his parents said that to him, concerning Eldest Son's behavior.) 

And they're probably right, none of their kids WILL behave that way, and lucky for them.  But instead of patting themselves on the back for what good parents they are, in reality, they need to realize it's because their kids are NT.  After all, my NT kids did fine, too. 

#

Agreed -- Eldest Son had to leave the theatre, at the point where he couldn't keep quiet.  I KNOW that when he crosses that line, he really, truly CAN'T help it -- and I should have let D.H. take him out in the first place, before he started howling.  Maybe he could have gotten it together in the lobby and come back in. 

If an epileptic kid went into seizures in the theatre, they'd take him out -- he can't help it. 

If a diabetic kid got low-blood-sugar-y and started to convulse, they'd take him out -- he can't help it. 

I should have taken E.S. out myself.  I should have let D.H. take him out.

But I didn't want him to miss the movie, either. 

I really, really wanted for him to just move to another seat and calm down, and watch the rest of the movie. 

He was almost there -- I truly do BELIEVE he was almost there -- when Mom in Front of Me had to stand up for her daughters' rights.  (Can I blame her, really?  If all my kids were NT, wouldn't I do the same?)  But then it was Game Over. 

#

So, everybody -- can you please have a little more compassion if you see something similar happening? 

Do you really believe that a kid that big would behave in such a way as to have to leave a movie he really wanted to see -- if he could help it? 

Do you really believe that a parent who cared enough to take all her kids to a movie like that would allow him to behave that way if there weren't extenuating circumstances?

Remember, we paid money for the tickets, too.  And 2 of our 5 family members missed half the movie.

#

This is our life.  Always on edge, never sure when or where, exactly, the explosion will occur -- just knowing that sooner or later, it will.  And, when it does, neither we as parents nor our child will be viewed with compassion by those around us, but rather, will be judged.  And judged harshly.  Will be blamed.    

#

Dear fellow movie-goers:  Y'all had to put up with a couple of minutes of it in the movie theatre, then D.H. obligingly removed the problem from your midst. 

We live it. 

We eat, sleep, and breathe it.  Literally. 

Every meal we eat as a family is influenced by Eldest Son's rigidity, his obsessiveness, his socially inappropriate outbursts.  Every evening is shaped by his inability to turn off his restless mind and just go to sleep -- like our NT kids do.  Every picnic, every party, every school play, every play date (not that there are many of those), every visit to a playground, every family get-together -- we live it. 

Waiting for the explosion that, sooner or later, WILL come.  We cannot escape it.

Eldest Son lives it too. 

Everyone's always mad at him.  He's always getting hauled off from one thing or another because of his outbursts.

Do you think he likes that?  Do you think that's fun for him? 

He lives it too.  He can't escape it either.

It's in his head.  It's who he is.  He can't escape it either.

And doesn't he have rights too?

#

So what SHOULD we have done differently?  So that Guy's rights and Mom in Front of Me's daughters' rights, AND Eldest Son's rights could have happily coexisted? 

Should have hauled him out sooner -- check.  But then that might have precipitated the very explosion we were trying to avoid.  (Believe me, that's a frequent occurrence.)

Should we have him wear a scarlet A on his head, and explain to everyone around us exactly what it means to be a kid with Asperger's?  Or is it none of their stinkin' bidness?  Or does it become their bidness when his neurological problems disturb their peace? 

(By the way, we've avoided talking to him in terms of the "label."  He knows he's different and finds some things hard that come easily to others, but we've never sat him down and said, "You have Asperger's and this is what it means."  Maybe we should and we intend to later -- but his therapist agrees that now is not the time, yet.  -- He was too wound up to have noticed when I whispered it to Mom in Front of Me.)

In retrospect, I wish I had asked E.S. to sit on my lap or something the first time Guy turned around.  But, at that time I already had Littlest Brother on my lap -- he had been burying his face in my shoulder at some scary part, I no longer remember what.  So I was preoccupied and didn't pay enough attention to the incident until it was too late.

When your oldest child is a special-needs child, and your younger children are still young enough to be needy, whose needs do you drop?  You're juggling these 3 little eggs, which one do you let go splat on the floor?   

Today at the movies, it was Eldest Son.