The Road Not Taken

Day 12:  The Road Not Taken

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
Took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

-          Robert Frost

I have always loved poetry and that poem, in its entirety, has long been one of my favorites.  But in my personal world of Autism, the road less traveled is the one I steer clear from.    

Coleman has a thing about routine in general and roads we drive on in particular.  It started about two years ago when one day, as we were driving home, Coleman wanted us to go straight across a particular intersection.  “Go That Way?” he asked innocently.  That Way was a longer route home, going a couple of extra miles out of our way.  “Sorry, buddy, but we go right here.  We go This Way to go home” I replied.  No big deal.  But the panic in his voice surprised me. “NO!  GO THAT WAY!  PLEASE GO THAT WAY! THAT WAY PLEASE?!!” But I had already made the turn and if there was one thing I felt sure about, it was that turning back to go That Way would not help us in the future.  In the behaviorist world, it would be giving in to the behavior.  So I tried to talk to him, calm him down as I drove, but it was no use.  He was crying, sobbing (something, actually, even in anger rarely does), big tears, begging to just go back.   He had the girls concerned, stunned to see him so upset over this.  “Just turn around Mom, go back.  He is really sad!”  But I didn’t.  We arrived at home, the girls stepped out of the car, and I came around to get Coleman out.  He was still upset, and I was trying to apologize, to say it was ok.  But he was a mess, didn’t want to get out of the car, to please go back, just go That Way.  It lasted for at least an hour.  I think back, and wonder, maybe I should have turned around that day.  Maybe if I had just gone back that one time things would be different.  But I didn’t and ever since that day, Coleman has been fixated on what roads we take.  In his world, there are two directions:  That Way or This Way.  That Way refers to the way he likes to go, the familiar way.  This Way is the road less traveled.      

There are only a three places where the road we travel is critical to Coleman, and I have no idea why it's these three spots:  the road leading out of our neighborhood (go straight please, not right), the intersection at Queen Anne’s corner (do not go down Main street, continue straight and go right on Gardner Street) and coming up Main Street (a right onto Cushing street is not allowed).  That’s all, three little streets.  Three small spots in the great, vast world of roads.  Three tiny intersections that, oh yes, we happen to find ourselves on every single day.  Two years into it, we have learned that his anxiety over the roads we take, like so many of his other anxieties, are best controlled when he is prepared for those times that we cannot comply with what he wants. 

Like a good boy scout, our motto for Coleman is Be Prepared.  It is our best defense for a positive experience.   We try to prepare him for where we are going, when we are leaving, who we are seeing, how long we will stay, what he will do there, what we will do there, and in some cases, what road we will take to go there.  Pretty much everything that’s going to happen from the moment we leave to the moment we return.  Some trips require little to no preparation (i.e. a drive to school) while others require substantially more. 

One of the first ways we started to try to prepare Coleman was through a picture schedule.  This proved very successful, both in school and at home, and we continue to use it from time to time even now.  The schedule is a small board with mini pictures that essentially tell the story of his day.  It might start with a picture of breakfast, followed by a picture of school, then a picture of a pool for swim lessons, one for dinner, and finally ending with a picture of bed.    I think this was successful because I can visualize Coleman’s mind working just like this:  in his tiny head he held a big trunk of pictures, so many pictures in fact, that it was overwhelming to him because he was unable to remember what they all meant and unsure which he would need for the day.   And then the schedule arrived and it gave him the information he needed to draw from that big trunk in his head, and it soothed him.  The pictures and schedule gave order to the chaos in his little head.  They worked beautifully for a long time with Coleman and they were a very big help in navigating unfamiliar events.  But the problem we eventually ran into was changes to the schedule.  If you had something on the schedule, you had to do it.  If you had beach on it, and it rained, well, bummer for everyone because you were going to the beach.  If you had a particular store on it, and the store was closed when you got there, well, best of luck leaving the storefront for the next hour because it was on the damn schedule for goodness sake.  Coleman also became hyper-fixated on the schedule, wanting to review it over and over and over, so that it eventually became more of a hindrance than a help.  But for a good amount of time it was wonderful, and we still pull it out for vacations and trips. 

We have since learned other ways to prepare Coleman for things that are coming up, and we are largely successful.  For directions, if I know we have to go a way that he dislikes, I tell him ahead of time.  “We have to go This Way first, but later, when we go out again, we can go That Way.”    For visiting friends houses, we tell  him where we are going, give him familiar names or faces, and tell him some of the things we will do there.  Repetition is the key and by the time we do what we are doing/go where we are going, he is ready for it.   But there are exceptions, because we are not yet God, and we can’t control everything.  And because life, as we all know, can be unpredictable.  And because we are Human, and sometimes just forget. 

Like when we were going to a cookout at our friends house last summer.  We talked all about it, told him we were going to the Keliher’s and how he would play with the kids, jump on the trampoline, and go on the swings.  We thought we were ready.  But when we pulled up to the house, Coleman said “NO! GO  TO KELIHER’S!”  We all looked at each other.  “This is the Keliher’s, Coleman.”  “NO LIAM!  GO KELIHER’S!”  Dang it.  We had been talking all about the Keliher’s house, prepping him for the time there, but he knows the Keliher house as Liam’s house – their son Liam is one of Emma’s closest friends – he has been there many times for drop off and pick up.  We should have been saying “Liam’s house” when we prepped him, but we just didn’t think about it.  So he wasn’t ready for Liam’s house – he was ready for the Keliher’s.  He got over it (largely because of the trampoline) and we laughed with the Keliher’s over it.  “Sorry, he doesn’t want to be here.  He wanted to go to the Keliher’s house which is way cooler than Liam’s house.” 

There are lots of other times when the unexpected happens, and he can fall apart.  If someone needs a ride home when we pick the girls up, and we haven’t told him they were coming with us, Coleman will not exactly make them feel welcome in the car.  “No Riley!” or “No Caroline” or whomever it is that we didn’t warn him was coming.  Thankfully, the friends of Abby and Emma understand Coleman and they don’t let Coleman’s apparant disdain for them at that moment bother them.  If we happen to bump into you in the street or at pick up or drop off or if you come in to get your child at our house, and we haven’t warned Coleman, well please accept out apologies when he only greets you with “NO! GOODBYE!”  But overall, thankfully, Coleman seems to recover much more quickly these days from these kind of set-backs.  Not always, but usually.  He has learned patience, and sometimes, if we are really lucky, we can go This Way and take the road less traveled.