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| Image credit: Photo by chinger7 on Flickr |
A little over a year ago, I read an article in the New York Times that focused on the difficulties faced by typically developing siblings of autistic children, which was of interest to me because I have two children: one autistic and one neurotypical. One issue the article brought up was the challenge children have forming a concept of what autism is. When therapists asked the neurotypical siblings to give a general definition of autism, they weren't able to do it. They could name specific behaviors -- say, that autism was what made Johnny unable to talk -- but they couldn't give a quick general definition. And the problem, of course, when you name specific behaviors is that autism encompasses such a broad range of traits that none of them will be true for all autistic children: some are unable to speak at all, while some speak with a vocabulary and articulation far beyond their peers.
I found myself facing the same difficulty when asked what codependency is. Like autism, codependency manifests itself differently in different people, yet is still identifiable, to those with experience, as part of the same spectrum. And like autism, codependency affects our experience of the world and our interactions with others. So, I could say what my codependency looks like or what the codependency of others I know looks like; I could name specific behaviors, but I found it hard to articulate an overarching definition. We as a culture, it seems, don't seem to have a language readily available to describe different perceptions of the world or different internal experiences.
And that lack of a simple, recognizable definition makes life mired in denial all the more confusing. The criteria are vague and lots of people fit some but not others, right? Couldn't anyone be autistic or codependent or not? I remember, when my son was a toddler, reading about how autistic children don't like to be touched, and thinking, "Well, my son can't possibly be autistic, because he wants to be held and cuddled all the time." And I remember reading about codependency, and how codependents have difficulty making decisions, and thinking, "Well, I can't possibly be codependent because I have taken on the role of decision maker in my family of origin and every relationship I've ever had." Then, of course, I'd read other parts of the description that did seem to fit, but enough didn't to leave me in doubt for a long time.
I imagine this is what it must have to define cancer before humankind had a concept of cells. If you describe cancer by its symptoms alone, it's hard to say what it is. One person might describe it as diseased patches of skin, while another would describe it as a hard lump in the breast, while someone else might say it caused prostate swelling and trouble urinating. And maybe women would hear the prostate definition and claim they couldn't possibly have this thing called cancer because they didn't have a prostate.
Somewhere in our language of human behavior we don't have the equivalent of the concept of a cell, so we are stuck describing the manifestations of the behavior rather than the root of the difference.
This post originally published at The Second Road. on August 7, 2008.
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