Carly’s Voice (43 page)

Wishy dishy I’ll hold you tight
and stay with you til the pale moonlight.

Wishy dishy let’s wash your hands.
Then I’ll tell you a story I promise you’ll understand.

Wishy dishy dinner’s almost done
and then we can have some real fun.

Wishy dishy time to close your eyes.
It’s time for your nanny to say her good-byes.

Wishy dishy you’ll never know how much I love you so.

“I love it, Carly,” I said enthusiastically, and gave her an unrequited hug. I was
moved by the simplicity of the lyrics as well as the maturity of thought.

The time Carly would get to spend in class was short that spring, only about eight
or nine weeks, as classes ended early for exams. But she soaked up every minute and
proudly told everyone who cared to listen about her experience in school. It was the
ultimate “I told you so,” as she had been asking to attend a traditional school for
years.

As a final psychology assignment, Carly was required to describe three of her dreams
and then analyze them using the basic psychological principles she was taught in class.
I waited expectantly. Would her dreams be conflicted and anxious to match her internal
tension? Or would they be lofty and exciting—a reflection of a vision of some future
self? Over the years of receiving notes from fans and followers, Carly had been asked
repeatedly about her dreams. Though she confessed to vivid visions, she had never
described any in detail.

When her assignment was complete—or as complete as she could make it given the creeping
pace of her typing—she wanted to share it with both the teacher and the principal.

Dear Ms. Liko and Ms. Abrams,

I just would like to thank both of you for giving me the amazing opportunity that
you did by letting me participate in the Dream Class. I enjoyed being apart of the
class and school. You both may never really know how much it meant to me that you
believed in me. I hope I made both of you proud and I hope that I will be able to
see both of you in the halls next year.

Your hard working and eager student,
carly fleischmann

Carly then spread her dreams out in front of us like a patchwork quilt. Each one seemed
to represent a shard of her experience among us. In one, which she referred to as
a recurring dream, she was invited to speak to an audience about her experience with
autism.

I am in a dark room. I can’t see anything but hear voices. At first it’s little whispers
but then the voices appear louder and louder. I start turning around and around to
see who’s talking but because it’s so dark I am not even sure if I am actually turning.
I stop moving and right at that moment over a hundred lights turn on and I am blinded
once again but this time not by darkness but by lights. The voices start to fade lower
and lower. I can hear hushes like people trying to silence a crowd. My eyes start
to show images, foggy images but nonetheless images.

I start to see blurry faces that seem to surround me. When the fog finally dissipates
I find myself on a stage in an auditorium. This stage is not a normal stage. It’s
round and the audience surrounds you. You can feel hundreds of eyes looking at you
from every direction.

I start to pan around and as I complete my 360 a voice suddenly talks over a loud
speaker. Because the voice comes out of nowhere I jump back. Startled, a man in the
front row gives me a weird look and I turn away from his gaze and begin paying attention
to the voice.

The voice is announcing me as Carly Fleischmann, an autistic girl, who found her voice
by using a computer to communicate. The voice of the announcer goes on to say I will
be talking about autism and ways to cure it.

I can’t believe my ears. I remember thinking if I could cure autism wouldn’t I be
the first person I’d cure? Finally the voice says “without further adieu, Carly Fleischmann.”

I look around this small round stage and I notice my
computer is nowhere to be seen. I start to panic and I can feel thousands and thousands
of eyes looking directly at me. I start to scream and notice something strange. I
have control of my voice. I look out in the crowd and try to say a word. At this point
my view changes and I can see myself. With my lip quivering I manage to say the word
“hi.” Shocked, I say “My name is Carly Fleischmann.” Then I start talking more and
more. All of a sudden someone from the audience says “Aren’t you supposed to be using
a computer?”

I tell him “I don’t need it anymore.”

The man stands up and says “I’m not paying good money to see a girl that can talk”
and he starts to walk out.

The rest of the audience starts to agree with him and walks out. I am left all alone
on the stage thinking I just was able to do what I’ve not been able to do for many
years, that is talk. And now I’m being punished for it. Then all of a sudden the lights
go off all around me and I wake up.

Most people see only Carly’s external conflict, the battle to control the outbursts
and urges that govern her interaction with the world. Beneath the skin lies deeper
conflict. For years she had been writing that the world must believe in people with
disabilities, believe they have an inner voice and purpose aching to get out. I assumed
her proselytizing was for our benefit: We will be better people if we believe in those
who are unlike ourselves. But Carly’s dream gave me a peek into what it must feel
like to be someone under constant scrutiny and doubt. She once said in an interview
that she has never used facilitated communication, and bristled at those who were
skeptical about her ability to produce original creative and emotive thought. She
reminded people that no one had a hand “up her butt” telling her what to say. We laughed
at her words, but their meaning was pivotal to her.

At some point, we all have anxiety dreams: showing up unprepared for an exam or arriving
at school in our underwear. Carly’s dream showed a more complex set of anxieties.
The media—social and otherwise—had portrayed her as a thought leader in autism ever
since she started communicating the experience of autism. She often seemed to relish
the role by asking people on her Facebook page to send her questions about autism
to “get it out in the open.” Is there a paradox here? The more she yearned for the
limelight, the more stress she felt.

Worse than the weight of responsibility is the snare of cynicism. Who is the man who
scoffed at her in her dream? He is everyone that has doubted Carly all her life. Carly
learned that if she did not communicate, she would be thought of as intellectually
delayed, the disabled person her doctors had predicted she would be as a child. But
if she
did
communicate, she is a sham because people who fit her description, according to many
psychologists, are thought to be incapable of creative thought. Tammy and I had seen
the accusations online before. That Carly must not really have autism if she can articulate
her feelings so eloquently. Or that her writings must somehow be facilitated or coached.
Carly found herself playing Cassandra: screaming the truth to the deaf ears of disbelievers.

And a new worry laid on the pile of parental neurosis was the fear that Carly would
give up trying. If communicating is a monumental task and yet met with skepticism,
was Carly’s spirit sufficiently strong to persevere? She once wrote her friend Gaby,
“Do you ever feel misunderstood? I do all the time.”

Carly’s dream project continued, revealing other facets of her inner sanctum.

My next dream takes place at a school. I find myself walking the hallways to get to
my class. The bell has rung and I know I’m
late but even though no one is in the halls I feel like I am working my way through
a crowd. In the hallway I see a clock. The hands start moving around and around. I’m
trying to make my way to the stairwell but it feels like it is taking forever. I look
down on the floor and notice I am standing on a floor escalator the kind they have
at the airport and I am going the wrong way.

I start to run and manage to make headway. I get to the end of the hallway and start
to ascend the steps. Then I notice them start disappearing behind me. Afraid they
might vanish in front of me, I start to run and run. I make it up the stairwell and
turn the corner to my classroom. I put my hand on the door and the bell rings. The
class empties and the crowd from the class knocks me and pushes me all the way back
to the start of my dream.

I see this as an anxiety dream. How many times have I dreamt of trying to make a phone
call only to have the buttons on the handset disappear or to run like a cartoon character,
my legs pumping but covering no ground. I am not surprised that Carly would have feelings
of stress as she begins growing from a girl, protected by the confines of her disability,
to a young woman entering the mainstream world.

Carly completed her project with a dream that made me smile, although I don’t believe
she saw it as a lighthearted vision.

In my last dream I was on a beach with Brad Pitt and Justin Timberlake and we were
sitting together talking.

We started to laugh and all of the sudden a reporter started asking me questions and
then another and another. I looked over at Brad and Justin for help but I could not
see them and was surrounded by reporters. I tried pushing my way out of the
crowd but kept on getting knocked back into the middle. A man with a deep voice said,
“Carly, I’m coming to get you.”

The sea of reporters started to sway and I saw a large, dark hand appear in the crowd.
Another one emerged and just like a parting of the sea, this man opened his arms and
cleared a large passageway through the people. I started to follow him into a small
building and the crowd of reporters began to follow us. We started to run and run.

And the man said, “Do you see the room at the end of the hall? Go in there and lock
the door.”

So I headed to the door. When I finally got there I put my hand on the door and it
was locked. I turned around and saw the reporters running at me. They came closer
and closer like a freight train. Just as they were about to run me over I woke up.

Even without her assessment of what she thought this dream meant, I was left with
a melancholy smile—amused by the presence of her two longstanding crushes and concerned
about the presence of the media. I wondered if in fact her public attention hadn’t
been a double-edged sword. Carly has had more public involvement with press and social
media fans than most teens. While she had voluntarily put
herself
out there, I wondered if it was taking a private toll on her. But Carly has her own
mind and a steely determination. She had found a calling in life—to share the truths
and debunk the myths of living with autism—we let her steer the boat through those
waters believing it would build her self-esteem.

Many aspects of her dreams were, I’m sure, typical of a teen growing from childhood.
For Carly I am sure they were heightened, as all of her senses seem to be, electrified
by the voltage that surged through her body. I am reminded how far she had come. How
far we had all come. I thought of something Carly had once written,
“Living
with autism has been hard at times and the gains are great, but challenging to get
to.”

How simply she captured a decade and a half of struggle, but her dreams told me she
was only partway to her ultimate goals. “How far do you want to go?” I asked her at
a team-planning meeting.

“To be honest I don’t know yet. I would like to travel. I would like to go to university.
I would like to date.”

“How wonderful,” everyone told her.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it would take to make that wish come true.

We are sitting around the dining room table. But we are not eating. We’re having some
sort of meeting. Tammy, Carly, Howard, a therapist Carly works with to help her with
her OCD. And me. We are talking about Carly’s future and where she sees herself.
We
are talking. Carly is writing.

She tells us she understands that she is not the easiest kid to bring up, yet how
hard she tries—every day.

We acknowledge that we know and are very proud of her.

She ponders what life will hold for her. Whether she will ever be independent, be
free of torment. Regardless, she says, she has plans.

Carly writes that she loves us and forgives us for the things that she has had to
endure. Things that a child should not be asked to endure, I think to myself. Not
by her parents.

I am moved and proud and tearful.

But in this particular dream, I am awake.