Anna Visloukh - A Thunderous Silence. Raising an Autistic child. My True Story

I had a feeling that the doctors were operating largely on intuition, as if they were searching in the dark. «Let’s try this drug, and see if it helps.» «Let’s put him on a new diet.» So we tried everything. One thing after another, but nothing helped, and sometimes he got worse.

One day our dermatologist told us with sympathy in her eyes, «I recommend that you take him to the seaside. Two to three weeks, no less, but a month would be better. It has helped many, even if only for a short time.»

So off we went. We went to Yevpatoria in the Crimea where we had friends. With their help we arranged for all of us to stay in a sanatorium right on the beach. It was a wonderful holiday in the company of our friends and their children. Unfortunately, the entire month of our holiday passed and we couldn’t make our boy get into the sea. We tried everything! We splashed around and swam before his eyes inviting him into the sea’s warm healing waters.

I was so depressed by this. We had come all the way to the Crimea specifically to get him to swim in the sea, but not even once would he get into the water. No amount of persuasion would change his mind. What were we supposed to do, drag him into the sea like we used to drag him into the bath? Obviously we didn’t. Only the day before we left, holding his father’s hands, did he agree to lie down in the shallow water and splash around for a little while. That was it.

That was the moment when I realized that our son would only do what he considered to be to his benefit. If there was anything suggested by whoever else, be it his parents, teachers or others, he would completely reject it or only accept it under severe pressure. Even under pressure, not always. I realized this, but I refused to accept it at first without reservation. Accepting this fact was a slow and painful process.

I don’t really remember my first day at school. Do you remember yours? I recall it only vaguely. I only remember a few bright flashes from the beginnings of my education.

My first impression was of being bored. I already knew how to read and write; when we were given the task of writing letter elements it took my classmates an age to do, and I completed it in minutes. I ended up just sitting there idly. Oh, here’s a bright idea! I took a penknife out of my schoolbag, the penknife I had honestly won in an outdoor game, and diligently carved my name, «Anyuta», into the desktop. How cool was that!

Unfortunately, the adults did not appreciate all the virtues of my autograph. Seeing this, the teacher was speechless for a moment, and the next minute I was dragged off to the Principal’s office. They called my parents, and they spent a while trying to decide what to do with me. Should they upgrade me to the next class?

They didn’t, because there was no such precedent in the Principal’s mind, so they chose an easy solution: after completing an allotted task, I was allowed to just quietly read a book. My father took the knife away from me after giving me a hard slap. Then he painted my school desk over.

My second memory is of the public ceremony when I joined the ranks of the Little «October Children» scouts, I was nine then. My mother had ironed my school uniform for me, it consisted of a brown dress with a snow-white apron. She set the alarm clock and went off to work. We lived in a military town, and kids not only walked to the school and back on their own, but were also free to run around the town, and nobody bothered to lock the door of their apartments.

I was wandering around the apartment, waiting for the time to go to the ceremony to become an October child, when I suddenly remembered some important business, and for some reason that business had everything to do with ink… That’s right; I spilt ink all over the snow-white apron and had to go to the ceremony like that. The badge, a little red star, was pinned to my apron over a large purple spot shaped like Africa.

I can’t describe the reaction of my pedant mother, when in the evening a neighbor, the mother of one of my classmates, told her in a patronizing voice, «Masha, why didn’t you even wash your daughter’s apron? I understand that you must be very busy…»

All these troubles were more than offset by my end of year school report card: I was top of class in all the subjects. In short, I was an excellent student. Learning came easily to me, even if nobody knew what subjects I was studying or when I did my homework, especially when I was in high school. Nobody bothered to ask, the responsibility was all mine.

Being good at school was a tradition in our family. We were all excellent students: me, my sister, my husband, my niece and her husband… Our daughter was not far behind when it came to winning medals, as was part of our family tradition. So, we had next to no problems with her during her schoolyears. Even in my wildest dreams I could not imagine that this wonderful family tradition could suddenly be interrupted.

I was so confident that the genes inherited by me and my children coming from mixing the three Slavic bloodlines, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian, were strong enough. When I finally realized that my son just would not do what was required from him from his very first day at school, I felt as though I had fallen on top of a hedgehog, hidden in the foliage of the forest. It felt painful and uncomfortable, and I had no idea how to deal with it.

Despite possessing a freedom-loving character as a child, I always did my homework on time without question. Now I realize that there were several reasons for this. First and foremost, I was a very ambitious and sensitive child, so even in my worst nightmares I couldn’t see myself standing before the class with nothing to say because I hadn’t learned the lesson.

I always wanted to be top of the class, not only in studies, but in every aspect of school life: I was the permanent head of the October Children squad, then the head of the school pioneers’ organization, the Komsomol organizer in my class and in my school on the whole. I had unquestionable authority over my peers, including even the bully of our class, Pashka, especially after my girlfriends and I had cornered him under the fire escape and given him a good beating as we couldn’t stand his escapades any longer.

The second reason is that learning was easy for me. I took things on board at a single glance, so once home, I only needed to quickly scan my tutorial books, and… voila! I was free as the wind. I could do whatever I wanted, be it playing in the yard, attending clubs and circles, there were many in my childhood, or read books. I devoted almost all of my spare time to reading books. If you put together all the books that I have read in my life in a straight line, it would possibly go all the way around the planet, or at least half of it.

Finally, there is the third reason that has played a fairly unattractive part in my adult life when my children began to study. Like it or not, however modern and free-minded you may consider yourself to be, every representative of our generation has come out of the Soviet school system, based on the conventions instilled into the young builders of communism.

At the time, to study hard was not just a Soviet ideological mantra (you might remember that Lenin used to say, «Learn, learn and learn»! ). At that time, it was the mentality of an entire generation and the aim of all intelligent people who would overcome all possible and unimaginable obstacles to get there. There is nothing bad about this, and in fact we are even proud of it. The people of the USSR read more than any other country in the world! What discoveries, scientists, and what achievements were made!

The space program is a great example, and I must mention the nuclear one which my parents have made a contribution to. I could not imagine that one day the time would come when there was no longer a need to study. Or if there’s such a need, still studying will not be like the process that we were taught from birth. We were brainwashed over the years into specific behavioral patterns and structures.