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SPEAKING FOR MYSELF...

BY ALEX GORMAN

I am definitely the luckiest person on the face of the earth. Each day we nonspeakers can easily choose to feel sorry for ourselves. But nothing really easy is ever as good, I believe. To be happy is not an easy choice, but it's one I choose to make. Easy things are what some gravitate towards...but not me. The best things in my life, and the people I love most, have either been the hardest or worked the hardest. And these things, the hardest, feel the best because they represent achievement. This blog is about being lucky, working hard, achieving goals, and being what I've decided to be: happy.

9/28/2024 1 Comment

An Open Letter to the Parents of M2H

We get it: we are really disabled. We try your patience. We ruin your lives. We spoil vacations and holidays. You can’t take our stimming and our OCD and really, really want to escape from us sometimes. Steering a charted path for the rest of our lives is insanely hard and stressful and heartbreaking. We are a major financial, social and emotional burden.

It is astounding to me then how happy you are when I see you all at M2H. You laugh and smile. You want, want, want things for us. And no matter how exhausted you are, you come to the Center and watch us having fun and learning in the happiest mood.

There are people who give up on us so readily - and then there are all of you: determined, resolute winners.

We openly thank you.
Love,
Alex

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9/9/2024 0 Comments

My New Pet

We got a tortoise today. That might sound strange to some, but we really love her. Everyone assumes that dogs and cats are the best pets, and I do love our dogs. But a tortoise is gentle and quiet and sweet and long-lived. Those of us with autism sometimes suffer from sensory issues, and a tortoise is, therefore, kind of perfect for us.

Read Sy Montgomery’s book Of Time and Turtles and you will learn that turtles and tortoises are not mindless. (I became friends with Sy years ago when I wrote to her, shortly after I started to be able to talk. We stayed friends, even through my illness. My new baby is name Sy, in her honor.) And what you feel, when you watch a turtle or tortoise, is a kind of profound calm. Time slows down. Every day we are all so busy doing this or that. Before you know it, the afternoon is gone…then the day…the month…the year. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to let the tortoise win, while we take the time to smell the roses.

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9/4/2024 1 Comment

Revolution

We are in for a particularly interesting few months, looking ahead. We are going to see a big expansion of M2H class offerings. And to accommodate increased demand, Mom is going to rent more space. We need to look to the future, and prepare for the tidal wave that is coming. Typing and spelling for communication is the future. Each slice of apple is only a bite or two. We slice and slice…and suddenly we have enough for a pie. Each nonspeaker that learns to communicate adds to the wave that will crash onto the shore, washing out outdated prejudices and mistaken perceptions. The spelling community will find itself in dire straits if it doesn’t prepare. M2H needs to be positioned for the deluge.

Very exciting times are ahead: exciting and opportunistic for all of us. We are witnessing a revolution that will result in a complete change in how nonspeakers are perceived.

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9/2/2024 3 Comments

The Easy and The Hard

This time last month I was in a medically-induced coma, in the ICU of Long Island Jewish Hospital. My mystery condition, that had made my life and my family's lives, a living hell for 4 1/2 years had become life threatening. I couldn't eat most of the time because food gave me utterly horrific nausea. Eating so didn't feel right: I really could not eat. Worse than that, my mind was gone. Every moment of every day was a blur of total insanity. Writing this blog post is decidedly not fun.

The reason I am writing it though is to talk about my Mom. There are no words to explain what she has done for me. I know what easy would have looked like. It would have had me strapped to a bed in a nursing home, testing patient cruelty regulations because how much screaming can anyone take? I still can't believe that Mom had to listen to that every day, for years.

But Mom never does easy...and no one does tenacity like her. You cannot understand how hellish these years have been for her, and how many times really were potentially dangerous. There really is no way I can explain how horrific this illness has been. Easy would not have me sitting here today writing this. Tenacity that is boundless, and had her searching for answers without pause, never stopping no matter how many times she failed, is why I am saved.

The best years of my life are in front of me because Mom was really trying every day, year after year. I am wearing quite the smile as I finish this post. The determination my Mom demonstrated to help me will energize and encourage me to always do the hard. It's worth it.