Dear Ms. Trunk,
My dad has been a fan of yours for a long time, and he told me I should ask you about law school. I am a college senior at [top 10 school] and I’m pretty sure I want to go to law school. My dad wants me to try working in another field first, before I go to law school. He says he’s not paying for law school “over his dead body.” So I am trying to decide what to do. I really just want to take a year off after college while I study for the LSAT and then apply to law schools.
I appreciate your time, Ms. Trunk.
Sincerely,
[Redacted]
Tomorrow I’ll be in a training program with the head of our product division at [redacted company] and 30 other new employees. There will be 20 minutes for questions. Can you suggest a good question to ask?
What do you think about a music therapy / art therapy initiative for autistic people of all ages. My husband and I do a lot of music therapy work with children and adolescents reimbursed through Medicaid and scholarships. I am homeschooling a 6 and 2 year old and I won’t be able to work as much so I’m thinking of ideas that are not oriented to hourly fees.
I think what I want to ask is your advice. And also if you’re interested in partnership, as a research or curiosity. Or as a guide. Because I’m a music therapist and not a business person at all. My husband is also a music therapist and autistic and he is particularly brilliant as a music therapist. But he is getting older (54) and won’t be able to keep doing the same work forever and I’m trying to imagine new possibilities that are useful and meaningful in the world. He just quit his job as a school teacher to do music therapy privately so this is a good time to start something new.
Now I feel embarrassed for even writing this email because I know you’re going to see through it to the real question and the real issue, which I can’t seem to quite grasp yet.
I know you’ve told me. But can you remind me? Is it the most important thing we can do for the kids is be emotionally available and make them feel loved?
Dear Penelope,
I am so happy to have found your blog. I read What explains the outsized success of autistic applicants to college post. My 4-year-old son was diagnosed with mild to moderate autism. He has language, social, cognitive and motor delays. He is not intellectually disabled. His developmental pediatrician says that he is smart. Do these universities(MIT, Stanford, Harvard) have students like my kid? I know that these universities have students with autism, but they may be very smart and may have just social delay when they were young. I like to dream. My dream is that my kid will go to such great universities despite all the challenges he is facing right now. I feel his autism will help him get into these universities.
Dear Penelope,
Why does it seem that even people that I seem to align with are capable of finding a happy relationship, when I remain single and alone? How the hell do you do it (the normal being with another person thing, without pretending to not be you all the time? Or does ther person you are with love you just the way you are? How in the hell do I find that? Does he have a brother?
Dear Penelope,
I just made a children’s book. Literally just finished it and shared it with you.
I’m considering self publishing through Amazon (kindle direct publishing, instagram spark, or china), but I think the book is pretty good, and maybe it’s worth pursuing a traditional publishing deal. I’ve got a couple more books that are partially completed.
Never done this before and would love your opinion.
Dear Penelope,
I recently came up with an idea of doing a search engine type of thing for dance studios only. The idea is that dance studio is a HUGE market in the US but there is not enough advertisement beyond social media platforms that run by themselves. The same thing that bothers dance enthusiasts is that it’s really time consuming to find classes that interests them in their surrounding areas because of lack of advertisement.
So, with that in mind, the platform we could develop is as simple as a search engine that allows users to search up classes (using keywords or tags) and studios nearby. And for the side of Dance studios, they could register and sell their classes online on their side.
Right now it’s only an idea of mine but the potential profit even if we only take 10 percent of the sales on our app could be REALLY insane. If you think this would be a good idea let me know.
Dear Penelope,
I haven’t seen you write much about the trades, but I’m still interested in hearing what you know. My brother is a Flux core welder in Tucson and having a really hard time time finding a job. They hire him knowing he’s entry level and then let him go because he doesn’t have the skill level they want. I think we’d like to have you fix his resume, but also if you know how to go about getting those jobs where experience is required but it’s hard to get the experience without a job.
This is an email I received. I read it an I felt like she really needed to talk with someone, so I sent her my phone number and told her to call me.
Dear Penelope,
I’m a mom to a two and a half year old. turning forty in April. My daughter seems to be verbally and emotionally gifted. I’ve been at home with her since her birth. I’m a public school teacher on unpaid leave. My spouse and I struggle financially and are basically being supported by family. He’s in real estate.
I definitely have ADD, lots of trauma from a very very difficult childhood- mother is probably severely autistic, divorced parents, father got custody. Father is a narcissist he was very abusive emotionally (maybe sexually, there was an investigation in the 90’s but they let me live with him for ten years after- i don’t remember details.)
Everyone says I’m a great mother because of how verbal and advanced my daughter seems. But I struggle with socializing with other parents. I start conflict, I have crippling anxiety, i’m awkward and flirt weirdly with people, and have weird hygiene sometimes. Ok I’m autistic I get it!
I’m so scared that as she gets older she’s going to realize that her mother is a complete loser. I’m also scared that she won’t get the childhood she deserves. she deserves everything all the love, all the experiences, all the nature and community that i can’t give her. Yesterday she asked a lady in the park if her and her son wanted to play with her and she snubbed her. We know this lady and in the past she was nice and I know it’s because she doesn’t like me because of something I did or said. (She’s winning at life this woman btw this woman. A hot but down to earth pilates instructor with a gorgeous mixed raced son that attends forest school and a husband that builds shit.)
Btw my daughter took the rejection so well and made our time at the playground so much fun! She’s an old, wise, confident, resilient, soul!
The interaction haunted me all night. I take my daughter to the playground and walk around giving people mean looks because I’m dealing with crippling anxiety and fear of rejection. I act weird around the kids. I think i’m autistic although my husband says no. I feel like Im ruining my husbands life too! My daughter is very resilient, strongly attached, funny/ like hysterical, but maybe is already struggling because of us. Maybe she’s autistic too?
Anyway, Im starting a job as an early intervention coordinator so please don’t tell me to do early intervention with her. Can you advise on how to go forward? We need community, nature, and money to be good parents and at the moment I don’t have access to enough of any. We also need happy and confident parents but that’s not us either. I just wanna cry!! BTW I’m INFJ, my daughter was surprise covid baby after a short time dating my husband (we aren’t really married), I come from traditional Jewish background sort of…so lots of religious trauma. How do I help my daughter not become me and instead win at life? I need her to win at life and is there a chance for me to win also?
Sincerely, [redacted as an act of mercy]
That’s the email. She called me twenty minutes later.
I said, “What do you mean I shouldn’t tell you to do early intervention?”
She said, “I just don’t think my daughter needs it. She’s brilliant. [Blabh blah blah ten sentences about brilliance. Maybe fewer because I probably interrupted her.]
I tol her part of being autistic is being brilliant. She said she’s not brilliant. I said you are gifted. Part of having autism is being gifted. You had a mother who made you feel stupid so you have that playing in your head.
She said her mother is probably autistic but she and her daughter aren’t. Maybe her husband is autistic.
So I’m not telling you any more of the conversation. We just went in circles. She has a brilliant daughter and she thinks she and her daughter should both be shining blah blah.
After fifteen minutes she told me okay she sees that she is trying to live vicariously from her brilliant perfect daughter.
I told her don’t use perfect about a kid. It’s awful pressure and no kid’s perfect.
Why I’m writing this: I’m so tired of this exchange. It’s an every day thing for me. Every day I talk to someone who is unbelievably so clearly autistic and we have to argue about it. Because autistic people know everything. And I’m so so so so so tired of people saying their kids are doing fine when the kids are not fine but it takes 30 minutes for me to get them to say the reason their kid is not fine. I’m just really frustrated.
Just last week I had a dad tell me his kid is doing great in school.
I said, “Well, you’re autistic, so he’s autistic, so he probably has no friends.”
The dad said, “Well, he doesn’t seem to want friends so it’s not a problem.”
This did not even surprise me. It’s so frequent. I am just crushed. That’s it, really. I’m crushed. I don’t really understand why all my readers are autistic and all of them don’t realize they are. I don’t understand why people don’t see autism as a family disorder. There is not one autistic person in a family. It’s fucking genetic.
The whole problem starts with people thinking autism is a problem. It’s not a problem. There’s nothing inherently bad about it except that not understanding that the family has autism means people do messed up things to cope with autism. Like sex abuse, or yelling, or parentification. It’s so easy to see. It’s patterns. I’m so frustrated. I don’t want to be the person always arguing that yes, it’s autism. I want to be the person collaboratively learning about life with autism.
It’s so fun to talk with people who know they have autism and we can learn together. I always think the phone call will be that. I always hope for that. Okay. Thank you for reading.