A Pink Mountain: Like Mother, Like Son

By Joanne Garland

My memoir encompasses a wide range of topics, beginning with my lonely and abusive childhood. Added to that mix, I recount in detail my personal struggles with hyperhidrosis and depression. I also chronicle my son's life, with his eventual diagnosis of autism, and the subsequent awareness of my own autism, playing a leading role in the telling of my story. I include excerpts from my own poetry to assist me in telling that story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662423154

Book preview

Chapter 1

Rejected Child

To speak of my earliest years, I can’t say very much. I was given up for adoption when I was a baby, and for most of my first three and a half years, I was raised in a loving foster home. I saw my foster parents again when I was thirteen years old. At that time, they told me that my father didn’t want me and that my mother, despite her desire to keep me, just couldn’t. I was told that my parents got a divorce after they got rid of you. My foster parents also told me that I suffered from convulsions (seizures) when I was in their care. Those convulsions must have been of the epileptic kind. I was not given medication to control those seizures because babies in those days (1960s) were not prescribed medication like they are now. Maybe those seizures explain why I wasn’t officially adopted until I was three and a half years old. My foster parents were old enough to be my grandparents when I was a baby and so, therefore, were not allowed to adopt me. I have seen pictures of me that were taken when I was in their care, and I looked like a very happy child. I was traumatized when I was taken from them. I mean this with the utmost seriousness when I say the happiest home I ever lived in was a foster home.

In July 1969, I was finally adopted by a family who happened to live in Utah. I don’t know when I became potty-trained because my foster parents told me that I wasn’t potty-trained by the time I was adopted. Come to find out, autistic children are some of the most difficult to toilet train.

Let’s just say my happiness as a child took a nosedive from the time of my legal adoption. I have memories of my legal father who died when I was four years old. I remember loving him. He was a big burly sort of a man, whom I’m guessing must have died from a heart attack. I used to sit on his lap and help him steer the boat when we took it out on the lake. And I remember what I said when I tied my shoes for the first time at the rather young age of four, I can’t wait to show daddy. I must have felt some kind of love for him, and I think he loved me.

My legal mother was basically the flip side of his coin. I remember constantly having meat forced down my throat. I had a real fear of choking when I was a child. I was given steak and other sorts of meat that was difficult to chew. I simply didn’t like eating this meat out of my fear. I was afraid of choking on it. Autistic children have very specific fears, and this was one of mine. But my legal mother wasn’t of the understanding sort, so as retaliation, she would take me and the meat into the bathroom and force it down my throat. She even did this when we were in a public place. I guess that’s what the bathroom was for. I was the kind of child that never needed to be told, Eat your vegetables. They were always the first thing I ate. I said I was different. I have no memories of her beating me per se. She used a different form of abuse.

Well, after the death of my legal father, she decided that she had had enough of me. She literally sold me to a couple from Phoenix, who already had an adoptive son, but were now too old to legally adopt another child. Age restrictions were placed on prospective parents thirty-plus years ago. What was I worth? Two hundred dollars, circa 1971.

The date of my sale must’ve been the thirteenth of January because from that point on, my birthday was always celebrated on that day instead of on my real birthday, six days earlier. I was told that January 13 was my birthday. I did not find out when my real birthday was until I was twenty-two years old when I went to the office in Phoenix and bought a copy of my birth certificate for five bucks. I was appalled, to say the least. They bought me and stole away my birthday all at the same time. Many adults my age let their birthdays go by without much fanfare. Because I was deprived of something that belonged to me when I was a child, I have always tried to be nice to myself on January 7, no matter the day it falls on. I am one of those people who believe that birthdays should be celebrated on birthdays, not before, not after.

Suffice to say, my childhood was a lonely one. My new parents were no better than my legal mother. I picked up the habit of lying at an early age. I learned this habit from adults and adopted it for myself. My new mother (hereafter, I will refer to her as my stepmother; she was not deserving of the word mother) was a churchgoing Catholic, and she would punish my lying by telling me that I would burn in hell for lying to her. I remember being told this when I was five years old. She basically put a curse on me.

She also told me that I was Satan’s daughter. Her words stayed with me for many, many years. While growing up, I couldn’t perceive of God as being love. This concept didn’t exist for me until I accepted Jesus Christ in my heart when I was twenty years old.

When I was about eight years old, my stepmother kicked me out of the house. More than thirty years later, I still remember her exact words: Pack up and leave, and don’t take anything with you, unless you brought it with you when you came to live with us. I remember writing a note before leaving. Part of it went something like this. I didn’t expect to stay here for more than two years anyway. I had been lied to by adults. A lot of foster/adoptive kids probably are lied to. Those adults in authority feed you vicious rumors about spending the rest of your life with a certain family, only for you to watch as the bubble bursts right in front of you. Therefore, I had no faith in this arrangement being a lasting one in the first place. As I headed out the door, my stepmother told me, Don’t go across the street. I started heading in that direction because my best friend lived there. Where else is an eight-year-old child supposed to go upon being evicted from their home but to a best friend? Even as an abused child that has just been kicked out of the house, I still obeyed. I started down the street. I passed eight houses before my stepmother’s husband (hereafter, my stepfather) came by in the car to pick me up and take me back home.

This wasn’t the only time in which I would be kicked out. About a year later, it happened again as I was eating my breakfast of Froot Loops cereal. My stepmother told me, When you’ve finished your cereal, leave the house and don’t come back. Now, for people who are unaware, an autistic child, generally speaking, does not know how to read between the lines. Autistic children interpret the words of others literally. It is a black-or-white issue. It either can, or it can’t. It either will, or it won’t. It either is, or it isn’t. No room for gray areas. If you, or someone you know is anything like my son, then you, or that person has trouble understanding the difference between a lie and a joke, or teasing. The gray area that exists between a lie and a joke, or teasing, is a difficult area for most autistic people, especially children. I believe, that we, as a group, think and react to literal meanings of words. So when I was told to leave and not come back, I set out to do just that. I knew she wasn’t joking when she told me to leave and not return. I may have been a bad child (according to what I was told), but I was also obedient. I did as I was literally told. I finished my cereal, got up, and left. I had a friend named Pamela who lived in a trailer several blocks from my house. I went there. I told her my stepmother told me to leave and not come back. I remember her giving me an apple to eat and spending the entire day with her.

I had no intentions on returning home, but somehow, I did. I don’t remember how it came about, but I know the police were not involved.

Around this time, my stepmother had come down with cancer. The cancer took both her breasts and her left arm. There were times when she was very sick. But not too sick that she wasn’t still able to torment me. I don’t have even one single memory of her showing me affection of any kind. The only time she ever touched me was when she was hitting me and that was usually with an object. Her cold demeanor toward me started from the outset.

Now I want to say a few things about adoption. There is a major difference between adopting a newborn baby and adopting a five-year-old child. A baby has no recollection of the original parents. The slate on that baby is clean. The five-year-old child is basically independent. She can feed and dress herself. She can communicate verbally.

And perhaps, most importantly, she has memories. Like I said earlier, the foster home I lived in for my first three and a half years was a loving place to be. My foster parents were my parents when my slate as a baby was clean. I was removed from a loving environment and thrusted into one much less happy. My only source of happiness there died when I was four years old. Then I was shipped again into an even worse environment than the previous one had been. I went from having two loving parents to having one, to having none. I had three separate sets of parents by the time I was five years old. And I had been traumatized four times by that age as well. I have always maintained that I needed a child psychologist by the time I was five. I needed help that never came. The point I’m trying to make is this: A child who is adopted, not as a baby, but as an older child, is most likely to be damaged goods.

The child has been damaged, or traumatized in some way, shape, or form. Something in that child’s life has gone terribly wrong. The prospective (adoptive) parents should keep this in mind when deciding about whether or not to adopt a kid as opposed to a baby. Chances are you don’t know the experiences that child has already had. When you adopt a kid, that child can be expected to have issues, or problems of some type.

How is a young child supposed to make the transition from happiness to sadness and rejection? The child will inevitably lash out, or react negatively in some way. My stepmother only noticed me when I was naughty. That was the only time I ever got attention. If attention is not awarded when the child behaves appropriately, then the child will undoubtedly misbehave quite often because negative attention is still sometimes better than no attention at all, at least in the mind of many children, autistic, or not.

Not only did I take to lying as a young child, I also took to stealing. The meager allowance I was given was not given consistently. So when I wanted a candy bar and didn’t have the money, I simply stole it. I knew better than to ask my stepmother. Every time I did ask her, she said, No. And candy bars were only a quarter when I was a kid.

Halloween became my favorite holiday because all I had to do to get candy was say, Trick or treat, and perfect strangers gave it to me. They showed me more kindness than my stepmother did.

I became more independent than probably most children my own age. My mental attitude was the only person I can depend on for anything is myself. This carried over into my teenage years. I absolutely detested asking anyone for help of any kind. Even if it was more difficult to manage and would consume more of my time, I would still accomplish it on my own before asking for assistance. That’s how independent I was. Product of my upbringing. That attitude is still with me today. I don’t mind people depending on me, but I don’t like depending on someone else. I expect to be disappointed, and like most people, I’d rather not be.

Looking back on my childhood and knowing more about Asperger’s Syndrome, I now realize that I possessed certain characteristics that should have classified me as autistic. I had visual processing problems, which caused me to use peripheral vision. I used to look at people from the sides of my eyes, particularly my stepmother. She would notice this, and I sensed that it was yet another thing I did that she didn’t like. I was unable to do anything about it. It’s just the way I looked at people sometimes. I think what encouraged it was my fear of her. Her very presence frightened me. After I went to bed, before falling asleep, she would go outside and look at me from outside my bedroom window. I mentioned this to her once, about me seeing her looking at me from outside my bedroom window, and she lied by telling me that it was my guardian angel looking at me from there. I wasn’t buying it. This woman, who told me that I was Satan’s daughter, now claims that I have a guardian angel? Now, tell me, who is lying to whom? If it’s not okay for a child to lie to a parent, then it’s less okay for a parent to lie to a child. Because the adult, at least, should know better. And if parents lie to children, it’s only natural for children to lie right back.

It’s a learned behavior.

It’s especially a learned behavior in autistic children, as we mimic the behaviors of other people more frequently than neurotypical children do. Or, maybe better said, unlike most neurotypical children, autistic children are less likely to outgrow their mimicking behaviors. Even as an adult, I still sometimes mimic the behavior of others.

It took me years to overcome my habit of lying. I had to literally train myself to tell the truth. I did that after becoming a Christian. And I never lie to my son. I have been accused of being too honest with my son. Honest to a perfection, or honest to a fault, depending on your point of view. I’ve caught my son in lies. And I can’t count the number of times I’ve told him, "I don’t lie to you, so don’t you lie