"My Happy Place" and "His Secret World"
Here is a phrase that I probably say 3000 times a week:
"I am going to my happy place"
It is something I say when I want to escape what is happening to me in the present and go on a mental holiday. I utter that phrase as I close my eyes and go to a land of make believe that is a shelter from all the crap that ends up in my emotional inbox.
When I proclaim that I leaving Earth and going to my happy place I am simply informing my brain that I have taken all that I can handle and it is time for me to go to the panic room in my soul.
I visit my happy place all the time. I go pass through this wormhole whenever I want to escape a moment that is causing me grief. I go there all the time. It is my defensive reaction to stress. I go to my "happy place" when a my dentist tells me that I need another root canal. I go there when I am confronted by an angry person in a parking lot who wants to talk to me about my woeful parking job. I go there when I lock the keys in my car at the gas pump.
Here is an example of how that works:
When the plumber begins to tell me that they need to replace my septic tank and how much that is going to cost I stop him mid sentence with my intention to leave. I simply announce "Excuse me sir, I am going to my happy place now. Good-day to you!" With that, I mentally check out and I am whisked away to a land of rolling green hills and talking bunnies who have anoited me as their leader. While I am still standing there physically in front of the confused plumber who is probably concerned that I have just had a stroke, I have spiritually teleported to my secret world where the plumbers bad news cannot reach me.
Does this change the fact that the cost of my plumbing repairs is going to be an expensive as sending a class of pre-schoolers to the moon? No. When I return from my "happy place" I will still have to confront the fact that my family was now going to have to become street performers to pay his bill. It is a temporary place of respite that helps protect me from the onset of the stress. I am fully aware that my admission of this makes me sound insane. I, however, would caution you to think about your life before you cast judgement.
We all have places in our mind we vacation to when things become too complicated or painful in our lives. During those times when the all the stresses of the world weigh on our hearts we can easily slip to the world behind our eyes and go somewhere else.
We call it daydreaming.
It those daydreams we are able to construct an imagined reality that for as long as our lids are shut we can live in. We imagine a better house, a nice vacation, financial security, better relationships, whatever. Granted, you may a firmer grasp on reality than I do and don't go to your "happy place" in mid-conversation with the police officer who pulled you over for speeding. (which take it from me is not a good idea. doing a brief, self-guided meditation in front of a cop where only force him to administer a breathalyzer to you. he does not care about your "happy place"...he only cares about why you were going 45 in a 30)
There is a secret world that we all go to from time to time. It is our safe place. It is a place that when we visit for a few moments can help us have hope for the future. When we daydream we "check out" and are gone for a few moments.
What happens though, if we never come back from our secret world? What happens if we just live in our daydream and don't reconnect to the world around us? What happens if we decide our temporary visa to our "happy place" isn't enough and we apply for permanent citizenship?
What would happen if we never wanted to come out of our secret world?
If that were to happen it would almost be like we were stuck within our own minds and those people on the outside who keep trying to communicate with us would only serve as annoyances. Those would keep trying to shout us back into their reality. They would become frustrated because we are stuck in our own world and not in theirs.
They just wouldn't get it.
They would think we were lost and they needed to help us be found. What they would fail to understand was that we were totally happy here. It was nice that they cared, but really we didn't want to join them in their reality. Their reality is filled with worries, anger, problems, confusing relationships, and obstacles that would require hard work to overcome.
How tempting would it be to stay safely inside our "Secret World"?
Why in the heck would we want to deal with all that when we could stay safely inside our house of make believe? It is so much safer to stay in our "happy place" and leave the real world to the rest of the suckers.
Sometimes I wonder if this is how my autistic son viewed us "outsiders" for many of his years with us. Noah was certainly happy living in his own world where we spent most of his time. There were times when he would visit us in the "real world" and give us a moment of actual attention, but he would quickly slip back through the teleporter back into Noahville when he needed to. For so many years he was so content with playing with his small lego pieces or fiddling his fingers (who in his mind would become action figures that were hell-bent on defeating bad guys) that the rest of us who were trying to get his attention became background music.
Noah had developed his own language and his own way of play that was so different from anything I had ever seen that I always had a hard time understanding what was happening in his "secret world". I spent so much time trying to steal him from there. Trying to get him to come over the fence to where we lived. Every time I tried it I could tell it was a severe irritation to him.
When trying to break apart his own world I would try to get him to interact with the world around him in a manner that I consider appropriate. In my eyes it was not appropriate to flap his hands or fidget with his fingers all the time. In his world those were actions that were considered extremely typical of it's residents. So of course, with my constant need to control, I would keep riding him to quit those behaviors without trying to understand.
As he grew older I kept trying to tell him how he should play with his toys. I wanted him to play with them in a "normal" way - whatever in the hell that means. I did not like how he would wave them in front of his eyes or have them fly around the house in a manner that seemed without purpose. I would always challenge him on the motivation for his particular toy as if they were actors in a play.
"Why is Spider-Man twisting around like that?" I would ask Noah as he would contort Peter Parker's alter-ego around at the dinner table.
"Because that is how is how he gets to his base." Noah would respond with a tone that indicated to me that he thought I was an absolute doof.
"Why doesn't he use his webs to get there?" would be my next logical question. Apparently I thought that if I could get my autistic son to answer this question I was going to get him to play with the toy in a manner that I saw fit.
"Because he doesn't want to. He wants to do this." Noah said with his eyes focused on the red and black superhero who was frantically being twisted around.
"But...Spiderman uses his webs to travel" I insisted. This is what any "Father of the year" candidate would do, right?
"No he doesn't"
"Oh yes, he does. Spiderman swings on his webs around the city." I said without the self-awareness that I was having an argument with my then 7-year old about how a fictional comic book character moves about New York.
"No."
"Yes, he does." at this point I was getting ticked off that Noah was not participating in my reality and stuck inside his own where Spidey gets from place to place by breakdancing. This was an offense that I needed to correct.
Apparently Noah had enough of me as well.
"Dad!" he shouted. "You are ruining my imagination."
Yikes. It was true. I was. I was forcing him to play in my world without spending anytime in his. What would have been a better activity for me is to join him in his play-world and follow the same rules he did. I was not going to get him anywhere by shouting on the outside and telling him how to live. I needed to go where he was. There I could play his way and gently introduce my way and slowly maybe we could maybe make a connection. I could show him that there was maybe another way of playing with spiderman...
Noah spent so much time in his own secret world and it took me years to realize that I needed to spend some time in his place before I could convince him that the "real world" was a place that he needed to visit more often. Looking back my initial approach of trying to talk him to leaving his world behind was a failing effort. Why would he want to come over to our world? Our world has people who did not understand him. Our world has people who yell. Our world has therapists and doctors who tried to stretch him out of his comfort level. Our world had peers that were not like him at all. In his "happy place" he was safe and sound and without anyone who could hurt him.
I wanted him to quickly leave his secret world behind and join us. I would get frustrated and try to get him to "snap out of it". Bad idea. The real solution was through showing him unconditional love and understanding that "our reality" was a place that he would be safe in. We needed to make him feel at home away from the world in his mind.
His "Secret World" was no different than my "Happy Place". It was a just a place where we vanished to when the world becomes too much. We just needed him to spend more time with us than over there. I am happy to say that today he is a permanent citizen here in the "Real World". I hope he is as happy about that as we are...I know that things are rougher over here than it was in the world in his mind.
Yet, from time to time when life becomes hard, complicated, or over-whelming he goes back to his Secret World or for a brief vacation from the stress.
Of course, who doesn't do that?
"I am going to my happy place"
It is something I say when I want to escape what is happening to me in the present and go on a mental holiday. I utter that phrase as I close my eyes and go to a land of make believe that is a shelter from all the crap that ends up in my emotional inbox.
When I proclaim that I leaving Earth and going to my happy place I am simply informing my brain that I have taken all that I can handle and it is time for me to go to the panic room in my soul.
I visit my happy place all the time. I go pass through this wormhole whenever I want to escape a moment that is causing me grief. I go there all the time. It is my defensive reaction to stress. I go to my "happy place" when a my dentist tells me that I need another root canal. I go there when I am confronted by an angry person in a parking lot who wants to talk to me about my woeful parking job. I go there when I lock the keys in my car at the gas pump.
Here is an example of how that works:
When the plumber begins to tell me that they need to replace my septic tank and how much that is going to cost I stop him mid sentence with my intention to leave. I simply announce "Excuse me sir, I am going to my happy place now. Good-day to you!" With that, I mentally check out and I am whisked away to a land of rolling green hills and talking bunnies who have anoited me as their leader. While I am still standing there physically in front of the confused plumber who is probably concerned that I have just had a stroke, I have spiritually teleported to my secret world where the plumbers bad news cannot reach me.
Does this change the fact that the cost of my plumbing repairs is going to be an expensive as sending a class of pre-schoolers to the moon? No. When I return from my "happy place" I will still have to confront the fact that my family was now going to have to become street performers to pay his bill. It is a temporary place of respite that helps protect me from the onset of the stress. I am fully aware that my admission of this makes me sound insane. I, however, would caution you to think about your life before you cast judgement.
We all have places in our mind we vacation to when things become too complicated or painful in our lives. During those times when the all the stresses of the world weigh on our hearts we can easily slip to the world behind our eyes and go somewhere else.
We call it daydreaming.
It those daydreams we are able to construct an imagined reality that for as long as our lids are shut we can live in. We imagine a better house, a nice vacation, financial security, better relationships, whatever. Granted, you may a firmer grasp on reality than I do and don't go to your "happy place" in mid-conversation with the police officer who pulled you over for speeding. (which take it from me is not a good idea. doing a brief, self-guided meditation in front of a cop where only force him to administer a breathalyzer to you. he does not care about your "happy place"...he only cares about why you were going 45 in a 30)
There is a secret world that we all go to from time to time. It is our safe place. It is a place that when we visit for a few moments can help us have hope for the future. When we daydream we "check out" and are gone for a few moments.
What happens though, if we never come back from our secret world? What happens if we just live in our daydream and don't reconnect to the world around us? What happens if we decide our temporary visa to our "happy place" isn't enough and we apply for permanent citizenship?
What would happen if we never wanted to come out of our secret world?
If that were to happen it would almost be like we were stuck within our own minds and those people on the outside who keep trying to communicate with us would only serve as annoyances. Those would keep trying to shout us back into their reality. They would become frustrated because we are stuck in our own world and not in theirs.
They just wouldn't get it.
They would think we were lost and they needed to help us be found. What they would fail to understand was that we were totally happy here. It was nice that they cared, but really we didn't want to join them in their reality. Their reality is filled with worries, anger, problems, confusing relationships, and obstacles that would require hard work to overcome.
How tempting would it be to stay safely inside our "Secret World"?
Why in the heck would we want to deal with all that when we could stay safely inside our house of make believe? It is so much safer to stay in our "happy place" and leave the real world to the rest of the suckers.
Sometimes I wonder if this is how my autistic son viewed us "outsiders" for many of his years with us. Noah was certainly happy living in his own world where we spent most of his time. There were times when he would visit us in the "real world" and give us a moment of actual attention, but he would quickly slip back through the teleporter back into Noahville when he needed to. For so many years he was so content with playing with his small lego pieces or fiddling his fingers (who in his mind would become action figures that were hell-bent on defeating bad guys) that the rest of us who were trying to get his attention became background music.
Noah had developed his own language and his own way of play that was so different from anything I had ever seen that I always had a hard time understanding what was happening in his "secret world". I spent so much time trying to steal him from there. Trying to get him to come over the fence to where we lived. Every time I tried it I could tell it was a severe irritation to him.
When trying to break apart his own world I would try to get him to interact with the world around him in a manner that I consider appropriate. In my eyes it was not appropriate to flap his hands or fidget with his fingers all the time. In his world those were actions that were considered extremely typical of it's residents. So of course, with my constant need to control, I would keep riding him to quit those behaviors without trying to understand.
As he grew older I kept trying to tell him how he should play with his toys. I wanted him to play with them in a "normal" way - whatever in the hell that means. I did not like how he would wave them in front of his eyes or have them fly around the house in a manner that seemed without purpose. I would always challenge him on the motivation for his particular toy as if they were actors in a play.
"Why is Spider-Man twisting around like that?" I would ask Noah as he would contort Peter Parker's alter-ego around at the dinner table.
"Because that is how is how he gets to his base." Noah would respond with a tone that indicated to me that he thought I was an absolute doof.
"Why doesn't he use his webs to get there?" would be my next logical question. Apparently I thought that if I could get my autistic son to answer this question I was going to get him to play with the toy in a manner that I saw fit.
"Because he doesn't want to. He wants to do this." Noah said with his eyes focused on the red and black superhero who was frantically being twisted around.
"But...Spiderman uses his webs to travel" I insisted. This is what any "Father of the year" candidate would do, right?
"No he doesn't"
"Oh yes, he does. Spiderman swings on his webs around the city." I said without the self-awareness that I was having an argument with my then 7-year old about how a fictional comic book character moves about New York.
"No."
"Yes, he does." at this point I was getting ticked off that Noah was not participating in my reality and stuck inside his own where Spidey gets from place to place by breakdancing. This was an offense that I needed to correct.
Apparently Noah had enough of me as well.
"Dad!" he shouted. "You are ruining my imagination."
Yikes. It was true. I was. I was forcing him to play in my world without spending anytime in his. What would have been a better activity for me is to join him in his play-world and follow the same rules he did. I was not going to get him anywhere by shouting on the outside and telling him how to live. I needed to go where he was. There I could play his way and gently introduce my way and slowly maybe we could maybe make a connection. I could show him that there was maybe another way of playing with spiderman...
Noah spent so much time in his own secret world and it took me years to realize that I needed to spend some time in his place before I could convince him that the "real world" was a place that he needed to visit more often. Looking back my initial approach of trying to talk him to leaving his world behind was a failing effort. Why would he want to come over to our world? Our world has people who did not understand him. Our world has people who yell. Our world has therapists and doctors who tried to stretch him out of his comfort level. Our world had peers that were not like him at all. In his "happy place" he was safe and sound and without anyone who could hurt him.
I wanted him to quickly leave his secret world behind and join us. I would get frustrated and try to get him to "snap out of it". Bad idea. The real solution was through showing him unconditional love and understanding that "our reality" was a place that he would be safe in. We needed to make him feel at home away from the world in his mind.
His "Secret World" was no different than my "Happy Place". It was a just a place where we vanished to when the world becomes too much. We just needed him to spend more time with us than over there. I am happy to say that today he is a permanent citizen here in the "Real World". I hope he is as happy about that as we are...I know that things are rougher over here than it was in the world in his mind.
Yet, from time to time when life becomes hard, complicated, or over-whelming he goes back to his Secret World or for a brief vacation from the stress.
Of course, who doesn't do that?
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