The villagers are revolting!

(Image description: screenshot of Mongo, the giant gingerbread man from Shrek 2, with humanized Shrek on his shoulder, as the fairytale creatures attack a castle filled with soldiers and siege machines – Adamson, Andrew, and Aron Warner. Shrek 2. DreamWorks Distribution LLC, 2004.)

As always, these are Mackie’s words, lightly edited for clarity and anything he decided not to include from the original writing to the online version – posted with his blessing:

“The thought of gingerbread man going the destructive path the hateful village people think he is trying to chase them

I want to talk about you  from a long time ago – and truly (someone) had a hard time understanding that you did not believe in spanking me as punishment – because you said that knowing i was not being naughty on purpose – but i have the (person) who has now accepted me for who i am happily

The greatest thing that gave me hope was that you believed that there was more to me than was visible – that alone kept the all consuming bad dreams at bay

The people who have doubted me through the years just never could see past the noise and great things that my body does – much of doubt is based in the fear center of the brain and very much the reach that very ignorant thinking results in

my really big fear you see is that freedom will be taken away by those doubters

The problem the dominant thought process has dreams crushed in favor of the status quo and people should think that it has come time that we thought and acted differently than our ancestors did for we are very frankly not the old species we started from very long ago

Go just a little further than that and we can forever change the very society we live in throughout the world

I want to just begin knowledge gaining bringing so much wisdom to as many people as possible – really the good from my pain will become the great dream of the many – then they will be free as well

……..

Mackie has asked me to give background to this post –
It was April 9th, and I picked him up from school as usual, except that he was edgy and very vocally stimming, very loudly. All he could spell at first was that “great lies” had been told. He was so upset by it all that we had to spend some time hugging and decompressing before he could spell that he had heard adults at school saying something approximating this:
“Because the only time he (meaning Mackie) writes is with the mom – left to his own devices i have the thought in my head that says the mom is doing the actual real typing”

I’m putting this into quotes because it is what Mackie remembers to the best of his recollection being said at the time.
So, yeah. I had been waiting for the doubters to surface. As I imagine they might surface here as well one day. We’re going to have to decide how to deal with these moments, and perhaps Mackie already has with that image above – a little humor mixed in – a little sweet with the sour. After all, Mongo is only a pawn in the game of life…
Mackie says that the incident itself felt “crappy”, and that the resulting anxiety from that moment spread the way a virus does.
Since we’ve ruled out anything truly wrong with his health, I can now see how anxiety impacts his writing – it’s evident in the way it derails his thoughts, hijacks his motor planning…so we wade through it together, taking it a little bit at a time, stopping for frequent hugs and affirmations.
We’ll never be able to change the mind of anyone who refuses to be open to the notion of being able to admit that perception is not always reality – that there are always opportunities to change one’s mind, to grow, to learn…that’s just life – and we have to pick our battles. We’re going to take the time to be positive about the future, focus on what is important for Mackie, and fight those battles alongside him.