Body Positivity

Let's take a moment to talk about Body Positivity, shall we?

I keep seeing all these things about body positivity, but it's always associated with being chubby or overweight. Stay with me here, I'm all about body positivity, I really am... Everything I can find says that it's mostly to address unrealistic beauty standards. That's great, but that mostly means that those that are skinny are shamed for being skinny because that's "unrealistic".

So, what happens to being body positive then? How can I, as a skinny person, be body positive when I'm shamed for being skinny? There's all these posts about being chubby and cute or fat and cute, and all of that, and I'm all for it. Body positivity is amazing and great. I'm on board fully. I read about it and it says it includes all body types, but then the more I look, it talks more about not focusing on losing weight, or weighing too much, or being over weight, or not being as skinny as society makes you think you need to be... etc, etc, etc. If I say anything about how I'm skinny and cute, or I'm happy with being skinny, I'm shamed because I'm projecting an unrealistic beauty standard. It's not okay to be skinny anymore, or rather, it's not okay to be okay with being skinny.

I'm not sporty, I'm not fit, I don't go to the gym, I don't work out. I'm just... skinny. Naturally this way. And that makes it worse. If I say that I don't work at it, that I'm just naturally skinny, I get "don't rub it in" or "don't you ever eat" or "you should really eat more" or "you're too skinny, you're just skin and bones". If I'm cold, I get "you got no meat on your bones, you need to eat more so you have something to keep you warm!"

Body shaming is body shaming, whether you're saying someone weighs too much or too little. Doesn't matter. If you can post on social media that you're chubby and cute, I should be able to post that I'm skinny and cute, but I can't. I'm far too uncomfortable to do that. I know I will have people upset about it if I do. It's not okay to do that. It's not acceptable because it's not okay to be skinny anymore. Rather, like I said, it's not okay to be okay with being skinny anymore. Especially naturally skinny. Going to the gym to get skinny and working towards it is one thing because you had a goal and you worked towards it to reach it, but just being this way is something completely different. Somehow this is far worse, like I'm some sort of affront to all woman kind for the way my body is naturally and that if I mention it at all I'm bragging and trying to shove it in the faces of everyone that's either not skinny, or those that have to work hard to be skinny.

So I say nothing and I'm just happy for those that are happy with themselves, just wishing I could be outwardly happy with myself as well.

Hardships and where they lead us

"Why does nothing go right for me?"

I'm sure that sentence sounds familiar to everyone. I've used it from time to time myself. The last little while, that's exactly what I've been thinking. There have been so many bad things that have happened to me lately that I don't even know where to start.

I guess I'll go back to December. My work had a Christmas party at a Country Club in Park City. Derek had a lot of homework he wanted to finish, so he didn't go. My Jeep got about 18 miles to the gallon and I knew I was going to be having a few drinks, so I didn't want to drive. My good friend Ashley offered to drive and a few of us were riding up with her.

We had a couple drinks before we left and headed up. The night, as a whole, was a lot of fun. The servers were horrible though. Every time I'd even get close to finishing my wine, they'd poor me some more. For most people, that's not horrible. For me, on this night, it was.

We left the party and went back to Ashley's. As far as I know (I don't even remember leaving the party), we had a couple more drinks and then I threw a fit saying I needed to get home. I guess they tried to keep me from driving home, but I wasn't having any of it. I took off.

What I do remember is sitting on the curb in handcuffs. Then being in the drunk tank at the jail.

Since then trying to pay all of my court fines and everything else along with all of my normal bills has been really difficult. I did it to myself, I realize that, but it's just been really hard.

A couple of months after this happened, my Jeep's engine died. It would have cost us $4k+ to get it repaired. We decided that since we'd have to get a loan to take care of it anyway, we may as well just set the Jeep aside for the kid to work on and get a loan for a new car for me. I had a 2005 PT Cruiser Convertible shortly thereafter. I love my car. I miss my Jeep.

The Jeep stayed where it was for a time, and then we desperately needed the money, so we sold it (insert crying emoticon here). Didn't get as much for it as we should have, but oh well. The deed is done.

I dropped my work phone in some water and destroyed it. I took it back to work and they told me that since I was back in Tier 1 (never my decision, yet another big thing that has gone wrong for me), that I no longer need a phone with the company. I had to get my number ported to another phone. I got a phone with Boost Mobile.

The things listed above are not the only things that have gone wrong for me lately, but those are the biggest ones, and really the only ones I want to mention in a public forum.

Now, if you've read this far, fantastic. Not everything I have to say is negative, I promise. Hahaha.

Everyone always says that everything happens for a reason, right? Throughout all of these things, I could not have agreed less. I could not see any reason for anything that I had been going through, except for the universe to be making my life a living hell.

However, something really fantastic came from all of this negativity. Well, at least one thing. In the process of dealing with all of my court stuff from my DUI, I was told by the judge that I would need to do 9 more days in jail. I told him that if I did 9 days in jail, I'd lose my job. So he stated that he could take that 9 days jail time and change it to the equivalent in community service. I was much better with this idea (despite it being 216 hours worth) and agreed to it.

I was considering doing my community service time at some place like the Humane Society, where I had volunteered some time before. I told Derek about this idea and he said he worked with someone that actually works at an animal shelter. I got a volunteer application and started volunteering the next week at the West Valley Animal Shelter on 35th south.

I actually really enjoy volunteering there. It sucks getting up early, but the work I do isn't bad and I get to see some really great animals every day that I'm there.

One day, Tyler, the guy that Derek works at Sears with, came in with a puppy and said "Look at my new puppy!" He seemed like he might be planning on adopting the puppy, but I never really knew for sure with him. Anyways. The pup was adorable!

Anyway, so I talked to Derek about this puppy and said that I wanted to get a puppy. He said that Australian Shepherds (what this puppy is) are actually a really good dog. He said that if he was available, we should get him.

I text Tyler the next day and asked if he was going to adopt the puppy. I honestly had no idea if he was serious about adopting him or not. He wrote back and said he thought so. I told him that if he decided not to, to let me be the first to know because I wanted him. He said that if I wanted him, he would let me have him because he had just gotten kicked out of his house. He then told me he thought the puppy was deaf.

After doing some research, something in the genes for Aussies with this coloring can cause them to be deaf or blind. I told Derek this and he just shrugged and said "That's not a big deal. We'll just teach him sign language." So we brought him home.

This is how he started:

This is where he is as of yesterday:

Hahaha! He's growing really fast. The first picture above is from the first night we had him (July 1st, 2013). The second picture was from last night (August 28th, 2013).

At first the cat was not happy at all. He was constantly running away from him and bapping at him, etc. He still runs from him and chases him, and still swats at him, but they seem to get along a lot better now.

Granted that position only lasted about 30 seconds or so, but at least I could get the picture.

We named him Axel Toes. He was approximately 2 months old when we adopted him, so his estimated birth date is around the beginning of May.

He is in fact deaf, or at least mostly deaf. We have started teaching him sign language and he's responding quite well to it. He seems slightly afraid of Derek sometimes (Derek's the enforcer, whereas I'm mostly the cuddle buddy), and he's definitely a mama's boy. When he's in trouble, he hides between my legs, which a lot of the time doesn't do him any good because I'm not going to just let him get away with everything like he seems to think I will. lol!

At any rate, my point of this is that sometimes it seems like there's nothing good happening, when in fact, if given enough time, something good will generally come out of it. If I had not gotten the DUI and dealt with all the crap that came along with it. I would not have had to do community service, and I never would have found this amazing puppy and we would not have had this opportunity to go through such an amazing experience that will likely echo throughout the rest of our lives.

The Autism Spectrum and Education Responsibility

In the year 2006, I discovered that my son; whom had difficulties communicating and socializing with children of his own age; had autism. I would spend at least the next 6 years of my life attempting to educate others in autism and how it works. I felt that was my responsibility. Much like Temple Grandin stated in her speech “The World Needs All Kinds of Minds”, Jareth learned in a very different way from other children; and similar to “Shakespeare in the Bush”, he simply could not understand when trying to explain things the way we would to others. It was my responsibility to inform his teachers of how best to reach him. Like in the text “Letter From the Birmingham Jail”, I knew I would be persecuted for stretching outside the “norm” to reach him and help others reach him the only way, I knew, he could be reached. In the text “Part-Time Indian”, the author was picked on and bullied for being different and being true to who he was. It is my responsibility, as his mother, to ensure he can hold on to his identity while facing injustice and inequalities throughout his life.

Much like the picture above, my son faces a life behind the theoretical bars the world has constructed around him. The world seems to have a single story about autism and about “disabilities” in general. I believe that the responsibility to enlighten others in the mysteries of autism is much like the Elders did for Laura Bohannan when she attempted to explain how she had interpreted the story of Hamlet in “Shakespeare in the Bush”. People that do not have experience with autistic children believe they have all the facts and all the information necessary to understand autism, but they are only looking at it from their point of view and from the limited research they seem to have done. Attempting to explain to them that how it works in theory is a very different story than how it works in practice is not an easy task. However, it is my responsibility as a mother of an autistic child to do whatever I can to help them understand.

The definition of autism is very vague, as its still; to this day, unclear where it stems from exactly and what exactly all of the symptoms associated with it are; which is easy to see in one of the first articles that can be found when doing a search for autism on the internet: Autism – Mayo Clinic Definition.

The website defines autism as: “one of a group of serious developmental problems called autism spectrum disorders that appear in early childhood — usually before age 3. Though symptoms and severity vary, all autism spectrum disorders affect a child's ability to communicate and interact with others.”

When anyone outside the autism world reads a definition like that, they seem to focus immediately on the term “disorder”. When this term is heard or read, it is interpreted as a disability. The world believes that those with a “disorder” or “disability” are at a “disadvantage” and they treat them as such. In my mind, this is a horrible inequality to these brilliant minds.

Temple Grandin stated that these special minds need a certain kind of education; and that children with autism are not getting the kind of attention that they need in order to learn the best way that they can. This is a terrible injustice and I have been working on rectifying that with Jareth’s teachers. These students need the opportunity to express their individuality and identity without hindrance.

I may not be put in jail for the way I am approaching the situation, but much as Martin Luther King, Jr. stated in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham”, I cannot sit idly by in my life and not be concerned about what happens in my son’s education. I will fight for the best education I can give to him. It is not usual for public schools to allow an autistic student to mainstream into the regular classes, but to place them in the resource classes. Jareth was in resource for a time and we found that he was far behind in his learning from other children his age. My husband, Derek, and I would not let that happen. We went to several meetings with school board representatives as well as the resource teachers, the principal, and the regular teachers in his school to ensure our son would receive the best education possible. He was mainstreamed the very next school year.

In the text “The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian”, Sherman Alexie states that when he started at Reardan High, other students stared at him and called him names, all because he looked different. His identity had caused him to be outcast from the very beginning. This is what happened to my son. He was treated differently from the time he joined the main class. He has never really had any friends, and I know this is because the other students his age cannot relate to him at all. They’re not sure how to socialize with him because he is different. He hasn’t been bullied until this year. And much like the story, he fought back. I received a note from Jareth’s teacher one day stating that Jareth had punched another student. That other student had been picking on him rather relentlessly. Jareth did the only thing he could think to do to make the other child stop bullying him. He punched him.

Now, I do not condone his behavior at all, however, I feel that if he is met with injustices, he has a right, nay, a responsibility to fight back. I would prefer he used “nonviolent direct action”, as Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently worded it; however, he is only 10 years old, so I will afford him this small violence just this once.

I can understand why the children treat him differently. I would have been much the same had I gone to school with someone on the autism spectrum. I may very well have and never even known it. That person probably would have been someone that I went out of my way to avoid. Jareth is in the Asperger Syndrome portion of the autism spectrum. As defined on the Autism Speaks Website,

children with Aspergers have “limited or inappropriate social interactions; "robotic" or repetitive speech; challenges with nonverbal communication (gestures, facial expression, etc.) coupled with average to above average verbal skills; tendency to discuss self rather than others; inability to understand social/emotional issues or non-literal phrases; lack of eye contact or reciprocal conversation; obsession with specific, often unusual, topics; one-sided conversations; awkward movements and/or mannerisms”. Jareth expresses many of these symptoms.

I know that if I had known anyone that had these tendencies, I would have done all that I could to steer clear of that person. I’m not one for bullying or teasing, so I would never have done either of those to that person; however, I would not have pushed to be friends with them either.

I know children are cruel creatures to each other. In light of that, I have done what I can to help Jareth integrate normally into society while still holding on to his identity. I have been helping him learn how to deal with inequalities and injustices that I know he will face throughout the entire time he is alive. This is my responsibility as a mother with an autistic child.