BITCH OVER TROUBLED WATERS.

I have no illusions about how much a dog understands and thinks though of course we can’t really get inside a dog’s head or world to prove we are right but most people connected with dogs are of the opinion that a dog lives in the present, understands very limited language and even that which they do understand is confined largely to tone of voice rather than long and complicated sentences. Still, because of my desire to imbue Rosa with human qualities like knowing how I think and understanding my troubles to the extent a human would, I sometimes imagine she might, just might really connect with me and be the exception rather than the rule. Why wouldn’t I think that? I love her, she is my guide, constant companion and friend.

In my rational moments when I am being unsentimental and sensible, I know Rosa’s world is straightforward, uncomplicated and that she is happiest when kept to a routine. I know that we are different and that Rosa lives in the present while we either live in the past or obsess about the future. She does not find her world baffling, frightening or overwhelming but there is a significant and deserving group of people who do find our world baffling and, if left to themselves, would be obliged to remain in their own, were it not for the skilled help of others.

Autism is a fascinating and mysterious condition in which I have long been interested and about which I have read a lot and am still learning. Put at its simplest, it causes deficits in three areas which are language development; imaginative play and knowledge that others’ intentions and minds are different from ones own. The word “autism” comes from the Greek word “autos” meaning self and it is with the self that autistic people are normally preoccupied. They are not selfish as is the man who pushes past you in the bus queue or the person who indulges in greed while the poor starve and has no conscience about it but they are instead locked within their own repetitive behaviour and trapped within themselves just as a blind person would be trapped in the house without proper mobility training or friends to take them out and of course white canes or guide dogs.

Just as someone once had the bright idea of training a dog to free blind people from the involuntary prison which blindness can create, so a parent of an autistic boy had the idea of buying a retriever in order to give his son a chance to escape the prison of autism and the transformation was miraculous. The story was told in the deeply moving book: “A Friend like Henry” by Nuala Gardner, which I have recently read on a talking book sent to me by RNIB. Dale is not cured of his autism since there is no cure for what is a life- long developmental disorder which is on a continuum of severity which ranges from high functioning Asperger’s Syndrome sufferers to severely autistic indifiduals at the other end of the spectrum. Just as with blindness and blind people, one size does not fit all but again just as with blind people, help can and must come mainly from skilled
professionals but can also come from volunteers who have a desire to give back to as well as take from society which predates Cameron’s juxtaposed idea of the “big society” which doubtless he coined in order to kid us into thinking that politicians care after the woman with the handbag told us there is no such thing as society.

Of course I said: “Ah! Isn’t that wonderful”! When I read certain parts of the book and I cried when I read the part where Dale told his parents that he loved them after his dad communicated with him by inventing a voice for his dog. I sent the book back, sat down, cried some more because on some deep level of understanding I connected with this autistic child. I know what it’s like to be lonely and baffled by my surroundings.
Like Dale, I rocked and flapped my hands as a child and like some autistic people I sniffed people’s hands in order to identify them. I screamed when my nan tried putting new clothes on me during the day because one dressed in the morning and undressed at night and that was that. I was described as a late developer at school and was picked on by teachers and though visually impaired people may disagree with me I consider that one is in a blind island state as eyes are the umbilical cords that connect us to the world.
Autistic people are “islands” in a sea of confusion and whereas I can’t make eye contact with people, they avoid it. It’s little wonder then that I empathise with them especially as I am forthright and sometimes brutally honest as is someone with Asperger’s Syndrome but of course there’s perhaps less excuse for me as I have been able to learn the necessary social skills to prevent my brutal honesty.

I felt impelled therefore, to see if I could help them by offering to take Rosa to Papillon House school, in Surrey, for autistic children. Since I was turned down when I volunteered for hospital radio on health and safety grounds and have also been rejected twice by the Samaritans I expected the same response from the school I contacted. I couldn’t have been more surprised and delighted when they eagerly agreed that we could go and last Monday, January 9th, Rosa and I went there and of course as one would expect she was adored by the staff as we went from class to class where I demonstrated how to stroke Rosa who lay down like a little lamb, showing none of her usual exuberance. Dare I even begin to think that she actually knew these children need calm and gentleness so they won’t get agitated? I actually believe she did, just as she knows the same with regard to the autistic adults I know who have visited my flat.

I am no saintly blind person doing good works and don’t want you to think so. I need to get out of the flat and do something useful. I need to be valued and to contribute to the society from which I am obliged to take and I have found out something that I did not know with regard to autistic people. Like everyone else they long for love. They long for friends and for acceptance and are entitled to reach their full potential and to be given every opportunity to do so and just as you walk pups that you hope will be guides that’ll help us through our troubled waters, so I was pleased to volunteer Rosa to become a “bitch over troubled waters” that threaten to engulf anyone who doesn’t get the help they need, regardless of whether they have disabilities.

A little boy, aged seven, made me smile for the first time since the dismal and exclusive Christmas season during which many without families become social outcasts and lepers and casualties of this highly selfish and vile time of year. Asked why I need a dog, he said: “To help June walk”. When asked why I need a dog to help me walk, he replied: “Because she is old”! That was this autistic boy’s gift to me, a smile which kept me going all day. Having survived another vile Christmas, is it any wonder I know how they feel and want to help them? I can’t wait to go back and be with them again and thanks to Rosa who now has a hobby as well as a job as a guide dog, I can.

(the end)
(Copyright June Bowden, 12th January, 2012).