jack zimmermann

des-zimbits:

Questions I have about Autistic Jack Zimmermann:

Was he ever assessed or diagnosed? Did someone spot that this wee babby was touched in the head? Did anyone catch it, think it was significant, care? I mean, there’s good odds he was, but what if he wasn’t?

If he was assessed or diagnosed, do Bob and Alicia know? (You’d think, “they’re his parents, of course they know” but I know many people whose parents weren’t told.) If they were told, do they think it’s a valid diagnosis? Did they reject it as criticism of Their Perfect Baby? Do they champion “He’s not disabled, he’s just unique”?

Did anyone ever tell Jack? Did anyone ever tell him why he was so weird, why he had problems making friends, why he had screaming meltdowns when his hockey bag wasn’t packed just so, why he couldn’t eat half the foods everyone else did, why everyone got bored of listening to him talk before he got bored of talking, why the world was too loud and too bright and nobody else seemed to notice? Did anyone ever explain that to him and help him with it? Did anyone ever tell him that he wasn’t broken, he was just Autistic?

Or did they keep it a secret from him? Did they “not want to stigmatize him”? Did they “not want him to feel ‘less than’ the other children”? Did they just leave him to conclude that he was broken, and not the kind of person who would have friends or be lovable the normal way, but at least he could play hockey?

When did he first encounter Autism in somebody else when he knew what it was?
Did he sit down with an Autistic classmate at Samwell to work on a group project to have her say, “It’s so noisy and overwhelming in here, can we move somewhere quieter?” and while they walked across the Quad she apologized, “I’m just really sensitive to environment, it’s an Autism thing,” and he said, “No, that makes perfect sense. I don’t know how anybody could think in there.”? Did he meet a child, a seven-year-old who wouldn’t look him in the eyes but could recite all his statistics, hands flapping like leaves in the breeze, and exclaim how impressed he was because her hockey card collection was bigger than his? Did he sit down in a classroom for a community outreach event while someone explained how the school was designed to teach children how to self-regulate through sensory activities, pick a Tangle toy out of the basket of fidget toys on the desk, play with it the entire time without noticing and almost accidentally walk out with it after?

Does he figure it out when he has an Autistic child, when the pediatrician explains Autism to him and he says, “Wait, but–I was exactly like that when I was a kid.”? Does he hum back, that wild high distressed noise he’s forgotten he used to make, the noise their kid makes that drives Bitty a little nuts, hums and adjusts the pitch and rocks back and forth on his toes until he and his kid are doing it at the same frequency, in the same rhythm, and then his child is calm again? When he tells Bob and Alicia, do they say, “Yes, the doctors thought you had the same thing when you were a child”?

Does he start to understand himself as an Autistic adult, let his hands start to flap at his sides again when he’s feeling anxious, accept that his weirdnesses aren’t flaws? Does he take deliberate joy in the ritual of taping his stick before a game, does he let himself go grocery shopping for both the super-organic-ultra-natural peanut butter Bitty likes, and also the exact same brand of cheap, processed peanut butter he liked as a child? Does he get Autistic friends, people he can sit around a table with not making eye contact but definitely making sly, deadpan jokes? Does he meet fans who say, whose parents say, they’re autistic, and tell them, “Me too?”

Does he understand himself as an Autistic man who gets a life of his own, a house he takes care of, a job that he loves, an Allistic husband who loves him like mad, and a bright future that shows no signs of dimming?

Does he find a way to tell the rest of the world that’s what he is, too?