#AutisticAF

This is a song for kids… and mebbe a few #AutisticSurvivor adults…

How did autistic & other neurodiverse kids survive the Dark Ages before IEPs, 504 plans, targeted therapy, noise-canceling headphones…?

Here’s some brutal autistic truth-telling for you:

Many, many of us didn’t.

One recent, large Swedish study found autistic suicide rates are 10 times higher than the neurotypical population (those blessed with “normal” neurology).

My own first attempt came in 1970, age 17… when, in a dissociative state, I drove a classic, white Ford Mustang head-on into oncoming, nighttime highway traffic…

I survived. The car didn’t.

Successful autistic suicides must have been astronomical before our disabilities became common knowledge in the 80s or 90s.

And those of us born before the 1970s, who survived… alone, bewildered, rejected, defenseless, unprotected by parents, teachers, therapy, medication…

Used our inherent creativity to come up with some pretty weird defense strategies. No two alike, I imagine….

I wrote the song/poem below about my only true childhood friends… Delusion, Denial, Distance, Dissociation…

As I explain in the song, I escape into my magic cape.…

My parents loved movies, but were broke when I was kid. My dad… who later molested me… was then a student on the GI Bill at Harpur College (now SUNY Binghamton). They couldn’t afford movie tickets… let alone babysitters.

So one evening in 1957, they packed me, my infant brother, some Jiffy Treat popcorn, and a few beers into the family Nash and drove us to Starlite Drive-In to see, of all things, the sci-fi/horror classic…

Invasion of the Body Snatchers…

Which hit my 4-year-old autistic brain like an atom bomb of sensory overload.

I had suffered horrifying night terrors since age two or three, dreams of violent attacks by horrifying monsters night after night…

Those film images of Pod People, especially doctors & parents, traumatized me in the same way The Exorcist would 40 years later.

My parents, far from comforting me, soon tired of getting up in the middle of the night, and simply told me I’d grow out of it.

Desperate to end the night terrors, somehow I taught myself to lucid dream. I could “wake up” inside my nightmares and turn into Superman. (I got as addicted to the George Reeves TV show as any future Trekker might….)

After beating the nightmare monsters up, I could slip into deep sleep.

At some point, I began to think I was Superboy in real life. With real parents on an alien planet, and real superpowers I held in check to spare mere mortals….

My secret conviction was strong. A constant subtext to my everyday world. An obsession I ruminated on for years during class, riding my bike, whenever I was alone. At the least, until 3rd or 4th grade.

I bought every comic book I could afford. Knew all the different colors of Kryptonite. Might be the only human to ever think Bizarro World was actually funny.

After all, this was the history of my people…

As an adult, trained as a mental health counselor, I’d say my fantasy had the power of a schizophrenic delusion. Even tho schizophrenia in children isn’t considered possible by most.

Later, my delusion morphed into my unspoken belief that I was a religious figure, even an incarnation of Vishnu….

To this day I hold the fantasy of my imminent “enlightenment” at bay…Obvious compensation for a far drearier reality….

Some say there is a crossroads where autism, schizophrenia, attention deficit, borderline, and others hang out as cousins, genetically related…

I may have visited that crossroads. And sold my soul to Someone to learn to write.…

With this song, performed only once or twice, I try to bring you into that world.

Btw, the kids we’ve played Comic Book Hero for love it.

Anybody know any autistic friendly, charitable music producers…?

COMIC BOOK HERO

Beat: Eurotrance (say about 138 bpm)

Verse
Saw “Body Snatchers,” I was four.
Haunted my dreams, waking to screams,
Back to the wall, hiding from it all,
Creatures in the closet coming thru the door.

Chorus
But I’m Superboy when I close my eyes
Defeating supervillains in my disguise
No matter how they howl, no matter how they lie
Comic Book Hero when I close my eyes!

Verse
Flying past that bully on the way to school
Mocks how I dress, can’t make me feel less.
I escape into my magic cape,
My secret powers defeat the cruel….

Chorus
But I’m Superboy when I close my eyes
Defeating supervillains in my disguise
No matter how they howl, no matter how they lie
Comic Book Hero when I close my eyes!

Bridge
Treated like dirt, bullies live to hurt,
And monsters sleep just fine at night.
Walking dead want to eat my head,
My alter-ego hides me from sight….

Verse
Fifty-five, still walk among the living,
Work in a factory, feels like a prison.
Bullied by zombies in clipboards & khaki
Demons in disguise in a world gone whacky…

Chorus
But I’m Superboy when I close my eyes
Defeating supervillains in my disguise
No matter how they howl, no matter how they lie
Comic Book Hero when I close my eyes!

But I’m Supergirl when I close my eyes
Defeating supervillains in my disguise
No matter how they howl, no matter how they lie
Comic Book Hero when I close my eyes!

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