MY AUTISTIC PARENTS

My parents were both born in the early 1940s during the peak of WWII. Autism was mostly unheard of until the late 1980s and 1990s, even though it was technically "discovered" long before then. I'd very much like to acknowledge and explore with you my silent generation parents' undiagnosed neurodivergencies in this blog...shall we?

EARLY LIFE

Both of my parents unfortunately experienced a lot of abuse in their childhoods. My dad grew up poor on a farm with a large batch of siblings, a kindly mother and an alcoholic father. Mom was the oldest of four and was treated much differently than her younger siblings. Neither spoke much about their traumatic childhoods, but it wasn't difficult to put some of the pieces together to recognize that their upbringing was not easy at all for them. 

Junior prom 1960

I never knew my dad's parents as they passed away before I was born, but I have many vivid memories of my mom's parents and I witnessed first hand how they treated my mother, even as a grown woman with four kids of her own. Let's just say that I don't have a lot of happy holiday memories, most of which began and/or ended with my mom in tears. It went way beyond typical family bickering, they were cruel and degrading to her. 

UNDIAGNOSED

As a person who has also spent most of my life undiagnosed, I know how immensely confusing and difficult it is, but I imagine that it was even moreso for my parents. Mental health and special needs were not a priority, or even acceptable in those days, as people like us were hugely stigmatized and many were hidden away in horrible asylums. To this day, many doctors still encourage parents to institutionalize their neurodivergent children. 

It wasn't until a few years after I discovered that I was autistic, that I had an a-ha moment and realized that my parents were also very autistic. I did not know that it could run in the family, but once I started putting two and two together, it became so blatantly obvious. Eureka! Now let the ancestral healing begin!

MY AUTISTIC DAD

My dad, who passed away when I was a teenager, was a painfully quiet and frustrated man. If I had to diagnose him, I would say that he had selective mutism, Asperger's, OCD and PTSD. He also slept a lot, which could have been caused by depression or autistic burnout...or both. His beLoved mother had narcolepsy, so it's very possible that he had a milder case of that, too. I can recall many times when I would hand him something to sign for my school and he would seemingly shut down completely as he was looking at the paper. It was as if he would just turn to stone. And whenever I would ask for help with my homework, he would get very aggravated, so perhaps he was also learning disabled like I am. Dad was also a very caring person. He volunteered at nursing homes, homes for the blind, at the VA hospital and at various festival fundraisers. He truly taught me the importance of volunteering and helping others. 

Volunteering at the VA

MY AUTISTIC MOM

My mom, who passed away in 2012, was the opposite of my dad. She was chatty, goofy, funny, animated, childlike and mischievous. And the older she got, the less she masked her autistic personality traits, which often caused people to think that she was drunk, on drugs or in need of psychiatric help. I would diagnose her with Asperger's, ADHD, PTSD, bipolar or other manic disorder, and severe depression. I think mom would have actually been really thrilled to discover that she was autistic because she had such a big heart for anyone who was different, or who, "marched to the beat of their own drummer", as she would say. My three siblings and I never had children of our own, so mom didn't have any biological grandkids, but she did get to be a step-grandmother to my brother's autistic stepson, and they adored each other. They really had a special connection and seemed to speak each other's language. Now we know why, don't we! Mom Loved people and always wanted to help anyone. She loathed racism and other forms of bigotry or discrimination and she always tried to stand for what was right, even if she was the only one standing. I think if she didn't choose to go the housewife route in the 1960s, she would have been a political activist of some sort. 

Mom

MY AUTISTIC SIBLINGS

I am the youngest of four kids and I was born in the late 1970s. Myself and two of my siblings were all late-diagnosed in our 40s and 50s, and our undiagnosed eldest sibling is most likely neurodivergent, also. It truly does run in our family. Growing up in the '70s and '80s, autism was only briefly mentioned in the 1988 film, Rainman. There were no learning disability diagnoses or special ed classes for us in school, and many of us old school aspies were just labeled as shy, quiet, lazy, annoying and weird. My siblings excelled academically, but I struggled so much in school, so even my own family labelled me as "dumb" and "lazy" at times. I actually Love learning, but not on standard, neurotypical terms. My brain just does not compute in that atmosphere, and it only took me forty years to realize that that's totally okay. 

1978

2012

CLOSURE

The older I get, the more I can understand and empathize with my mom and dad. I can honestly say that they were not good parents, but they were good people with a lot of undiagnosed and unresolved issues. I chose not to have my own kids because I know how extremely overwhelming, overstimulating and difficult that it would be for me personally. When my parents got married in the 1960s, there was a lot more pressure to have kids than there was in my generation, and although no child deserves to be abused or neglected, I fully understand the emotional impact of autistic burnout and PTSD, so I definitely feel for any autistic person raising a whole human being. 

This photo perfectly demonstrates their opposite personalities

Finding out that I was autistic at age 40 was a huge relief for me and it answered so many questions. I only wish that my parents could have experienced similar revelations about themselves at some point. Neither of them had any proper closure in their lives except for the unsolicited forgiveness that often comes during terminal illness, absent of all apology or physical presence. They had to create their own closure with their trauma, just like they had to create their own reasoning as to why they always felt so different from everyone else. Why they were treated differently. Why they always felt so gravely misunderstood, for that was truly the worst part of not knowing that I was autistic for 40 long years. 

Max Jerry Horowitz

THE GRATEFUL DEAD EXPERIENCE

If you know any deadheads, aka the most "deadicated" of Grateful Dead fans, you have probably heard one say, "there's nothing like a Grateful Dead show!" And I can assure you that they are definitely not just referring to the music. 

ATMOSPHERIC 

I personally do not consider myself a deadhead; I have never had the privilege of seeing Jerry Garcia live (the late lead singer). I have never been on tour or travelled around the country to follow them. Hell, I don't even look or dress like one, although I probably would if I had the threads! But I have been fortunate enough to be in the deadhead atmosphere a good handful of times and let me tell you, there is nothing like it. 

DOES NOT CONTAIN METAL

Before I continue, I have to clear up a common misconception about the Grateful Dead. Don't let the skulls and roses fool you, they are not a heavy metal band. In fact, they do not fall into any one set music genre at all. They are blues, folk, rock and/or roll, bluegrass, psychedelic, Americana, hippie, cosmic, a little bit country, trance and very, very jammy. The only thing metal about the Grateful Dead was Jerry's beLoved electric guitars, and their famous, enormous "Wall of Sound" speaker system. 

DSO

I am not 100% positive, but I think my very first dead crowd experience was a Dark Star Orchestra show at Milwaukee Summer Fest in my early twenties. Dark Star Orchestra is a popular Grateful Dead cover band from Chicago founded in 1997. They choose a Dead show from the archives and play it to a tee, and they do it well. 

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Upon arrival, I immediately felt at home. The sea of summer tie dye and welcoming faces immediately struck me in a whole new way. As a highly empathic person, I had never in my life been in an environment where the energy wasn't heavy or formidable on some level. Amongst hundreds of total strangers, I felt completely safe and cared for...dare I say, even Loved, which was made even more evident in my second experience. 

EAGLE'S BALLROOM

My second deadhead crowd experience was also a Dark Star Orchestra show, this time in Autumn at an old, rundown music venue in Milwaukee called The Eagle's Ballroom. The place had no ventilation and beads of condensation quickly formed all over the grand, marble staircase. I went upstairs to the bar to fetch us some beers, and as I started walking double-fisted back down the staircase, my foot slipped and I slid the rest of the way down the stairs, landing on my elbow, but barely spilling the two full beers that I was conveying...now that's talent! It must have looked absolutely ridiculous and comical, but to my utter surprise, not one person laughed or even smirked...except for myself. In fact, about a dozen or more kindly folks rushed to help me and make sure that I was okay. I even remember one or two of them gasping when I landed. I have never and will never forget that moment. Up to that point, I was so used to being laughed at, mocked and disregarded, that I actually wholeheartedly expected it at that moment. Had it been a metal concert, I am positive that it would have been a different scenario. That's not to say that all heavy metal fans are uncaring, it's just usually a less friendly, different vibe all together. 

The Eagles Ballroom. Milwaukee, WI

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Turned out that the name of the band itself had super kind-hearted, benevolent origins. In folklore, The grateful dead refers to departed souls who are indebted to those who helped fund or arrange their funeral. As someone who has always been a little bit morbid and totally interested in different afterlife customs around the world, I was really delighted to learn this.

GRATEFUL MYSTICISM

In September, 1978, The Grateful Dead did a series of shows at the Great Pyramids of Giza, one of which played out during a full moon eclipse. I wonder about the many setbacks that they endured trying to get this show going, from two injuries, an out of tune piano, a band equipment truck getting stuck in the sand and more. They said they wanted to "harness the ancient energy" of Egypt. Maybe they got what they wished for, but not exactly like they had hoped. The shows did go on nonetheless, and with the eclipse and the beauty of the ancient, mysterious backdrop, they did get to experience some magic. Also, guitarist and founding member, Bob Weir had somewhat of a mystical experience on stage. In his own words; “I got to a point where the head of the Sphinx was lined up with the top of the Great Pyramid, all lit up. All of a sudden, I went to this timeless place. The sounds from the stage – they could have been from any time. It was as if I went into eternity.”

COSMIC DEAD

The Grateful Dead were not a new age band. They had plethora of songs about women, gambling, drugs and corruption, but they also had a lot of dreamy, cosmic, and trance-like music to balance it out, and I think that can be easily seen as the epitome of mysticism, the yin and the yang, positive and negative, Love and hate, you cannot have one without the other type of thing. Plus, it wasn't about the lyrics. I believe the main reason behind the powerful Love vibes of the crowd was the frequency of the music, not the words. I believe the band were receiving what are called, "cosmic downloads" intended to spread healing energy, not only to the crowd, but to Ripple out to the whole universe. This may all sound pretty "out there", and it literally is haha. And The Grateful Dead were not the only ones receiving these downloads either. I believe many musicians, artists, filmmakers and authors through time also received them. 

As a writer, musician and an artist myself, I am fully aware that when I'm singing, writing or doing something else artistic, sometimes an energy seems to "take over" and the creativity just flows out effortlessly. It's in those moments that my vocal chords spontaneously emit polyphonic overtones that seem to come out of nowhere. The same type of overtones that you hear in Mongolia and many other parts of the world, including Tibet, Scandinavia, even Italy and Russia. When I write a meaningful poem, sometimes it's like I go into a trance, and 5 minutes later, there is a true tear-jerker manifested on my page. I believe these types of energies hold a lot of healing frequencies and vibrations, and I think The Grateful Dead were masters of those frequencies. 

CONCLUSION

There is nothing like The Grateful Dead. 

2012

I tend to think of my life in two parts; pre-2012 and post-2012. Sometimes they even feel like two totally different lifetimes. I ponder over this year quite a bit, not only because it was a very pivotal and harrowing year in my personal life, but also because of it's cosmic, symbolic and prophetic significance.

FEBRUARY 

Earlier in the year, my dear mother was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, which I will likely talk about more in future blog posts. She and I decided that she would be cared for in our home and that I would be her caregiver, like she did for my dying father 16 years prior. 

Mom was given six months to live and she chose not to fight the cancer. She was ready to join my dad and all of our other Loved ones who had crossed over, and I had no choice but to respect that. I honestly think that I would have done the same thing if I was in her shoes, she had such an immensely hard life.

Photo: mom in her early teens

JULY

I'll never forget the awful heatwave that we experienced in July, 2012. It seemed to be neverending. And me being very sensitive to the heat and vulnerable to heatstroke, it was a really difficult time. 

One night around 4:00 AM, I went downstairs to check on mom and to do our normal early morning routine. As I looked to my left out the back window, I saw intense flashes outside, so I went outside to investigate. Turns out we were experiencing a strange weather phenomenon called a heat storm or silent lightening, but I believe there are many different names for it. 

I can honestly say that I was actually a bit afraid because of how ominous it looked. Huge, low, dark cloud to the north of us and constant lighting that sometimes appeared to span the entire sky. What was most eerie about it was the utter silence. There was no thunder, rain nor wind, and the only sound was the intense cacophony of crickets chirping, which intensified whenever the lightening struck as if the crickets were getting electrified and amped up by it. It was quite a show! 

I took a nine minute video of it, but the storm lasted much much longer, it seemed never-ending. The frequency and intensity of the lightening and crickets made the video appear like it was time lapsed, but it wasn't edited or doctored at all. I can't explain the feeling this phenomenon gave me and I was totally mesmerized, electrified and frightened all at the same time. 

I remember at one point thinking that I felt like I was the only person in the whole world witnessing this. The next day, no one was talking about this, not even our local news, so maybe I was the only one! If I hadn't captured it on video, I might have thought that I dreamt the whole thing. I've never seen anything like it before or since that morning. Until this year (2023) when multiple people sent in similar videos to a YouTube channel that I follow. 

The reason I am talking about this here is because I feel that this storm was somehow significant to what transpired after my mother passed on. I am still not sure how, but I deeply feel it had something to do with my first transformative experience. 

(Here is a clip of the storm video:

https://youtu.be/Jwblyx7EFM4?feature=shared )

SEPTEMBER

At almost a quarter after 11:00, the morning of September 27th, my mother passed away with myself and her hospice nurse, Jen at her bedside. It's difficult to explain the strange mixture of immense grief and also relief that comes with losing a Loved one to terminal illness. It's almost as if we hold our breath throughout the entire illness, and when they cross over, we're able to take our first gasping breath in a very long time, for they are no longer in pain and they are free from this painful, 3D existence, and those of us who are left behind no longer have to helplessly witness their suffering. 

Along with the relief and grief of it all, I feel like a part of me I passed away when she did. It felt like our lives somehow merged and I was "infused" with her essence. I now believe that this was the beginning of my first dark night of the soul, a phenomenon that I did not learn about until last year. There are many definitions of dark night of the soul, but I define it as a near-death-like experience. It's also sometimes referred to as, "ego death." 

Some of you might remember the movie, The Neverending Story..

[SPOILER]: Toward the end of the movie after Fantasia was destroyed by "The Nothing", Bastian finds himself in a dark place with the childlike empress. She places a tiny grain of crystal in his hand, which is all that remains of her Ivory Tower. I see The Nothing as the cancer that destroyed my mother and the empty darkness they find themselves in as the dark night of the soul, the eerie quiet and numbness that comes after someone passed away. The single grain of crystal in his hand is the glimmer of a new beginning that comes after the darkness, which for me came a few months later in December.

DECEMBER

Around mid-December is when the fog finally started lifting. I dismissed it back then as a whimsical coincidence, but now I know that I received a definite sign from my mom when I took this photo of some Santa decorations and there was a beam of light coming out of nowhere. Mom absolutely Loved anything to do with Santa Claus and Christmas, so it was a very fitting sign indeed. 

Then came the night of December 20th, 2012, the night before the Mayan calendar was to end, which I was only vaguely aware of at the time, but now it has become a very significant date for me. The night of the 20th, I watched a documentary about the power of thought. When I laid down to bed that night, I prayed for the first time since my mom was sick. I said that if I woke up the next day, that I would change my life. I admit that I didn't necessarily want to wake up the next day, but if I did, I might as well try to do better and be better than I was before. I wanted to be someone that my mom could be proud of, and most of all, someone that I could be proud of. I was not bargaining with the universe, it was much more of a promise. 

So when I woke up the next morning, I knew that I had a lot of work to do, and a lot of attitudes and habits that I had to undo. Thus, December 21, 2012 was not an end at all, but a whole new beginning, and I solemnly kept my promise. 

So now here we are 11 years later in 2023 and I am still doing the work. I have made quite a bit of progress, but have had many many setbacks and hurdles along the way. I still have a long way to go. 

"You're my forever Love and I wish I could buy you a heavenly star..."

-Mom (drugged up at the hospital, but still the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me)

Cosmic T. Bee

Hello, my name is Trae and I'm a cosmic bee, but I live on planet earth for now. I chose to incarnate into this human body about 45 earth years ago for reasons that I did not start to realize until I was more than three decades into my mission, and I cannot remember a time when I didn't feel profoundly out of place here. I will use this blog to log my earth mission experiences, as well as the many lessons learned here. 

The film, E.T. - The Extraterrestrial came out in theaters when I was three going on four years old, and my earth parents took us to go see it. "It'll be fun!" they said. This would be one of several early memories of me realizing that I was very different, even from my own family. 

I was immediately overwhelmed and overstimulated by the huge movie screen and the thunderous sounds in the theater, as well as the chattering and snacking noises around us from other movie-goers, all of which my parents and older siblings did not seem to notice. 

The movie starts and I'm trying to regulate my four year old, overstimulated brain so I could concentrate on the movie screen. Spoiler alert: In one of the first scenes, E.T. the extraterrestrial gets accidentally left behind on earth by his mission crew. I started crying and my family thought that I was scared of E.T., when really I was scared for E.T. I was feeling immense empathy and concern for him, but I was far too young to articulate that depth of human emotion to them. This particular emotional trait would end up being a source of much pain, confusion, isolation, and yes, alienation throughout this earth experience, but also self awareness and lucidity. 

As I stated earlier, I didn't start finding out until I was well into my third decade that there was a name for what I was and that there were others like me. I am not big on 3D labels, but these particular labels were tremendously helpful during a truly difficult shift in my experience. I'm an empath and an HSP, (highly sensitive person), an "indigo child", an "old soul", a "starseed", And I didn't find out until I was 40 that I was also autistic. Yippie! These realizations have led to a turbulent, yet beautifully eye-opening path of remembering my true self, down into a deep, geometrical cosmic bee hive of innerstanding, which I will elaborate on much more in future posts, I'm sure!