Stimming Coldplay While Watching “Parenthood” (2024)
feat. an Abridged Autism Pop-Culture Timeline
My introduction to the autism spectrum was the same as yours: Tom Cruise’s Raymond Babbitt driving across the country to the tune “Iko Iko” while his near-catatonic brother Charlie counted cards for profit. Raymond didn’t even know he had a brother because his parents had buried Charlie away in a mental hospital. You see, Charlie was autistic. Raymond found out that he had an older autistic brother IN HIS FATHER’S WILL. The film was 1988’s Rain Man and, as praised as it was, winning the Best Picture Oscar as well as locking Best Actor up for Dustin Hoffman as Charlie, it did a tremendous disservice to the one in every 100 people who are actually on the autism spectrum because it gave us the impression that autism equals Charlie Babbitt and Charlie Babbitt only. We weren’t given another cinematic autism example until Leonardo DiCaprio captured his own first Oscar nomination in 1993’s “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” - a film that portrayed a slightly more-capable autistic boy with little control over his emotions, but the film played him incapable of making a single decision, stranded in a bathtub of cold water overnight as if, without direct instruction, anyone on the spectrum would freeze to death. Neither of these films were written by someone with firsthand autism spectrum experience and both were clearly aiming for melodrama. Watching these films, I was terrified to ever discover that someone I loved might be on the autism spectrum. The films painted time spent with a person on the autism spectrum as overwhelming — and real relationship with a person on the autism spectrum as impossible. For this reason, I had no idea when I saw the films that I was likely on the autism spectrum myself.
I’ve never been diagnosed, primarily because once my wife and I understood the ins and outs of autism, I was well into my 40’s, but I know that I showed all of the signs as a child. I know this because I have two children of my own who have been diagnosed on the autism spectrum, as well as one grandchild - and I now know what that diagnosis entails. However, despite my Rain Man-induced trepidation, spending time with my autistic offspring is the greatest joy and blessing, and they represent some of the deepest relationships I have ever experienced. I wish I hadn’t been so afraid of that diagnosis, and I wish Rain Man and Gilbert Grape had done a far better job at helping the world understand that autism is, above all, a spectrum - a vast and lengthy range of challenges where practically no two people on the autism spectrum are alike. The character of Charlie Babbitt was about as extreme an example as one could create - rewarding within a narrative - but destructive as the International Poster Child.
I knew I was different from everyone around me as a child. I had a constant series of physical quirks and facial ticks, little sounds that I would make like nnkay nnkay nnkay under my breath that were a real treat for the listener. They were hilarious for about 45 seconds and then made you want to pop your head in the microwave. I knew this - but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop them. I obsessively popped my knuckles in a specific order, starting over again if one didn’t pop. I would repeatedly stretch out my facial muscles, elongating my nose and letting my eyes drift upward to where you could only see the whites of the pupils. I did not do this to be strange. I did it because my body craved some sort of a reset every twenty seconds or so, and these physical exercises felt like a reset. It’s quite hard to explain - unless you know exactly what I’m talking about. And what I wish I had known in the mid-80’s was that one out of every 100 of you knows exactly what I’m talking about.
I had a terrible stutter, but not at all like my Dad’s stutter (in retrospect, he was very likely on the spectrum as well). My stutter was because I needed to make these other strange clicks and sounds before and between words. I needed a deep inhale or exhale in the middle of words. I needed to say “Um - you know what…” before every third idea. Because I was terrified of social situations - my greatest nightmare was being the focus of attention without having anything to say. Now is the moment when the people who knew me best will say, “You weren’t autistic! You were the one with all the jokes! You were the one always in front of the audience!” To which I would reply, “Exactly. But, what you didn’t know was: that was SUPER CRAZY HARD.” In fact, those were the ways I chose to deal with my stutters and noises and physical ticks. I knew I had a knack for being funny, and I saw what being funny could do. So, I started memorizing a repertoire of things that I could say so that I wouldn’t get caught empty-mouthed. I also discovered that the more brutally-rehearsed I was at my jokes, the less I would stutter and make noises and have physical ticks.
Everyone who knew and loved me noticed these facial stretches and ticks and noises and stutters, but because their only understanding of autism was Dustin Hoffman, it never crossed their mind that there was anything about these bad habits that I just couldn’t kick. With enough gumption and effort, my family and friends felt that I could (and should) just stop it. In the meantime, my friends made relentless fun of all of these quirks. I’m not pointing a finger. I retaliated by making relentless fun of them. It was the only thing I could do - because I knew I couldn’t stop. I was so crowded in my brain. So much anxiety. So many thoughts. There was just a marathon of ideas happening in there, stretching from one end to the other and looping back around - a highway of imaginations and worries and creativity and fear, all colliding into one another with no breath in between any of it. The only thing that would calm my insanity was music - hours and hours of music, catalogued and memorized and performed in front of my bedroom mirror for an audience of no one. It would actually bring me peace.
Now, there is a name for what I was doing with my face and voice - it’s called stimming. It’s short for self-stimulation, and it basically means some kind of repetitive motor movements used to soothe the body and mind. You know it. You’ve made fun of people for having it. Some with autism will make laughable facial expressions, some run in circles, some make rhythmic movements with their fingers, some line up objects. It can range wildly, but if an individual is on the autism spectrum, there is likely some sort of stimming. And, if they were doing this in the 1980’s, people just thought they were deranged or on dope.
I rapidly discovered that comedy was an incredibly helpful tool with my social struggles, so I practiced and refined and implemented. It wasn’t long before I decided that performance was an enormous part of what I wanted to do with my life. If I could always have some sort of act, then I would never have to be unrehearsed in front of people. I could either be alone in my room writing (which I loved) or reciting those words in front of people, which saved my ass socially.
The challenge was my crowded mind that provoked all of these ticks and stimming whenever I was anxious. I couldn’t do that on stage or when public speaking - so I pushed myself hard and, the moment I started college, I signed up for every class I could that would refine my speaking, presentation, and stage presence. Voice, Diction & Phonetics, Oral Interpretation of Literature, Fundamentals of Acting, Oral Communication - it didn’t matter. I wanted a fresh start as soon as possible before this new college crowd noticed all the details that made me oft-putting. And it worked. I literally beat the stimming out of myself through education. Now, was all of this the right way to go? Was it fair to my capital-s Self? I don’t know. And I’ll never know. Because I was never diagnosed, therefore I was never seen with clarity by my peers. Yet, I was also never told that I simply needed to accept stimming as something too difficult to stop. I don’t know what a diagnosis would have done for my youth. I certainly would have felt much more acceptance and far less rejection. But, then again, I might have not become who I am today. Now, I’m not trying to box in those on the autism spectrum. It’s called a spectrum because everyone is different. But, because everyone is different, I believe that - though many may not be able to overcome certain facets of autism, others may find that they are able to if it is a goal they choose to pursue. For me, it was paramount for what I wanted to do for a living - and I didn’t know any better.
In fairness, I am very far on the high-functioning end of the spectrum. This definitely impacted my ability to be trained out of certain dynamics. This can also be said of our second-born, Nora - who has been diagnosed with high-functioning Asperger’s (a particular form of autism associated with very high intelligence), but she wasn’t diagnosed until she was almost out of high school. She, as well, was not an obvious diagnosis because she existed between an older sister and younger brother close-in-age who flanked her socially. She rode the wave of both of them, sharing circles of friends and letting them do the heavy-lifting. She was also highly intelligent and capable in so many categories, it was easy for her to cover the challenges she was experiencing. She had many anxiety issues of which we were aware, but in our ignorance, we did not know it was autism. In no small part because of the lack of diagnosis, she pushed herself to perform on stage as the lead in theatrical productions and has, to this day, been able to juggle hosting, crafting and leading a half-dozen Dungeons & Dragons narratives at a time. But, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t all terrifying. And it doesn’t mean she didn’t need very real help.
But, I’m not really here today to talk too much about myself or Nora. I’m here to write about the one who changed all of us - and that is David. My fifteen-year-old. David is the one who started us all on our very real, perspective-shattering, and life-changing autism journey. How was our youngest able to change everything? Because David is the one who exposed to all of the rest of us just how much we were on the spectrum. It was David who taught us that the spectrum was something to be embraced, not feared - and it was David who had to face redefining himself in the face of diagnosis and social stigma. My marriage, our family, my career - we all have two stages: BD and AD, Before David and After David. Our entire universe pivoted on a family crisis - and it never went back.
You know how, when you dream you are falling, you wake up right before you hit the ground and you are nauseated but feel like you’ve just sprinted a mile? That’s how my wife Kaysie and I felt when we discovered we were pregnant with a fourth child. We were just about to turn forty and had felt quite finished with our brood for several years. But, we had never done anything “official” to tidy up the option, so we found ourselves gobsmacked by the reality of being new parents again in 2009. This was not optimal as Kaysie was beginning to have chronic back pain (she would eventually have over a half dozen surgeries) and the idea of carrying a baby was daunting.
It was another boy: David Asher Steele, and we were ecstatic - until the boy was inconsolable. All day. All night. At restaurants. At church. At the grocery store. Always crying. Always angry. Never speaking. What were we doing wrong? We were attempting to parent the same way we parented the other three. It had worked on them (again, didn’t know about Nora - and she didn’t react the same way David did. You see? Spectrum.) We had considered ourselves pretty amazing parents the first three times around. I mean, nobody gave us an award or a fruit basket, but our children were happy and (to date) crime-free. But, when David came along, he transformed our family.
Between the raising of our first three children and the birth of David, pop culture had attempted - with a bit more success - to accurately portray the autism spectrum. There was HBO’s Temple Grandin (2010) starring Clare Danes in an Emmy-winning portrayal of the titular autistic groundbreaking scientist. Her layered performance broke barriers, but still left audiences assuming all on the spectrum cranked the quirky to eleven. Significantly better ground was covered in the 2004 work of literary fiction “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” wherein author Mark Haddon paints a rich and expansive portrayal of a teen boy on the autism spectrum as he struggles with the death of a neighborhood dog and the impending doom of his family. Haddon’s rich narrative succeeded by not making autism the star of the book, but rather a flavor. In so doing, he painted the most accurate picture of the way a person on the autism spectrum thinks than any effort before him. This educated and insightful look caused readers and audiences to not only empathize with protagonist Christopher Boone, but to want to be his friend. Author Jonathan Safran Foer went even further in his post-9/11 treatise “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” in which his autistic protagonist is so high-functioning, he continues to astound the experts and critics on his path to answers. The film’s response to this was to not make the main character autistic at all. Thanks again, Hollywood.
But, the true groundbreaker in autism pop culture was the NBC dramedy “Parenthood,” which ran from 2010 to 2015. I have never met show-runner Jason Katims, but if I ever do, I am going to thank him from the bottom of my heart for transforming my family and literally saving our lives. You see, “Parenthood” starred (among others) Peter Krause and Monica Potter as Adam & Kristina Braverman, the parents of Max (Max Burkholder) — a young son just-diagnosed on the autism spectrum as the series begins — and his older sister Haddie (Sarah Ramos) who struggles to fit into the family’s new dynamic. The show follows many other family members down many other rabbit trails, but this one storyline, which lasted the entirety of the series, was based intimately on Jason Katims’ own experience discovering with his wife that they had a son on the autism spectrum and attempting to raise him right. This is how Katims changed my life. BEFORE we had any diagnosis in our family that any one of our children was on the autism spectrum, my wife and I watched these early episodes - and as any great narrative does, we were compelled to insert ourselves into the scenario. What would we do? How would we cope if we found out David was autistic? How would it impact the family? How would it impact our marriage? This fictional narrative was revealing transformative answers about our future reality every single week because - and only because - Jason Katims dared to bare his soul and family struggles on television. He taught us that life raising a child on the autism spectrum could be joyous, difficult, romantic, character-building, misunderstood, and above all, worth it. For years, it is the one thing that Kaysie and I held onto as a life preserver.
When David was diagnosed with autism at the age of four, our first response was to be bewildered with all of the questions: what does this mean? What will it mean for our other children? How will we learn at 40 to parent in an entirely different way? How will we afford all of his needs? What will it mean for our marriage. But, just as quickly as those questions came hailing down, an umbrella shot up - a thought ringing in my mind: Thank God for Jason Katims. Thank God for one very real and tangible example of someone else who tried to make sense of all of this and raise a happy family.
We had attempted to have David diagnosed earlier - at the age of two - because he was not verbal and was stimming all the time, but the prognosis came back that he was not on the spectrum. This prognosis was incorrect. We should have known. He didn’t want to play. He would get very angry if you would try to play. He couldn’t be around any real stimuli. Even peripheral noise of a minute level would bother him, so he would wear noise-cancelling headphones anywhere we went. He would grit his teeth - all the time. He wanted to run. In a circle. All the time. And he wanted to run in a circle to Coldplay. Precisely Coldplay. Understand this, please. The boy did not have any awareness of which songs were actually Coldplay and which songs were bands who really wanted to be Coldplay, and yet, he would only get happy and run in those circles if it was actually Coldplay. Any wannabe band would get a grunt, a scream, and a loud “KOPAY” (David’s term for the band, not an insistence from the insurance company). Somehow, he just knew. He would run in circles (counter-clockwise, only counter-clockwise) for hours, and his pace would depend on the tempo of the song. This was in 2011, when Mylo Xyloto was just released. I know, because my Apple Year-In-Review tells me I played the song “Paradise” over 5000 times in under two years. I probably bought Chris Martin a boat. To give a sense of the breadth of his love, here is a sample Facebook post from a few years later:
We also should have known David was on the spectrum because the only other media that would console him was Baby Einstein - but not just any Baby Einstein. Specifically, Baby Mozart. Now, I don’t know about you, but as much as there are bands who sound like Coldplay, there is a LOT of Classical music that sounds like Mozart. Nope. We would try it, and if it wasn’t Mozart, David would give a grunt, a scream, and “KOPAY,” which is British rock-speak for Mozart. But, put on Wolfgang Amadeus and suddenly, David is running counter-clockwise circles with a smile on his face.
Again, David couldn’t speak — but one day, I went in to where he was taking a bath, and the two year old had put six adhesive letters on the wall: M O Z A R T - in that order!
Guess who was autistic. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Right? Somehow, with only a handful of notes on the piano to choose from, a man on the autistic spectrum who lived almost 250 years ago put them in the exact order that appeals to a two-year-old on the autistic spectrum centuries later. That tether between them is real.
You know who else was autistic? Einstein. And also Edison, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Nicola Tesla, Carl Jung and Darwin. In art, DaVinci and Van Gogh and Michelangelo and even Andy Warhol. In literature, Mark Twain, George Orwell, Jane Austen, and Lewis Carroll. Charles M. Schulz was. Dan Aykroyd, Bobby Fischer, Greta Thunberg. Beethoven and Bob Dylan. Tim Burton and Alfred Hitchcock. Of our great modern tech minds Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk, guess which one is on the autistic spectrum. Correct. All three. This is why it is called a spectrum. One out of every 100 people you know is somewhere on it, silently struggling inside if there is no outward evidence. People desperately hoping that culture will realize that the autistic mind is a gift to be embraced and welcomed when allowed to breathe. I cannot help but wonder if Chris Martin of Coldplay is on the spectrum. Are you, Chris? You do run in circles a lot - and you like puppets. You even have a song called “Colour Spectrum.” Please advise.
David was diagnosed with PDD-NOS at the age of four. This stands for autism: pervasive development disorder - not otherwise specified, which basically means he’s about a half spectrum away from Asperger’s. But, it also means that any peripheral stimuli is chaos to his brain. To you and I, a chat in the aisle of a grocery store might be peaceful. To David, it was a bombardment of fluorescent lights, echoed conversation, squeaking wheels, interruptive music on faint speakers, and a myriad of other things attacking his brain like lightning. No wonder he needed the noise cancelling headphones. This diagnosis was hard — very hard — but, where it could have torn our family apart, instead, it split our empathy wide open. It bonded us and our three tween kids closer together as everyone leaned in to learn just when they were reaching the age to spread their wings. And this was the key. That everyone in the family leaned in. I’m not praising us. I’m just stating the facts of what happened - and we were lucky it did. As Kaysie and I have grown more and more in our understanding of the autism spectrum, we have seen it as an exponential gift. First, in how it brought our own family unit together - but ultimately, in that it allows us to counsel and help other families, moms, and dads going through the same thing. Just like Jason Katims did for us. When David was diagnosed, Kaysie and I both leaned in fully, getting educated, attending family therapies, gleaning the best tools and options for our son. In so doing, it bonded us together. This is key. A high percentage of marriages who have children on the autism spectrum end in divorce - and the cause is almost always the father. You see, fathers have a need to fix things, and autism cannot be fixed. It is, rather, a new reality that one has to be willing to change and adapt toward. Yes, the child needs helps in order to grow, but none of those can come until after both parents accept the reality - that they are in this for the long haul, and that they will see it through indefinitely. When a father can see this, realize this, and accept this, I can tell you firsthand that you are on the road to something incredibly rewarding. But, when the father refuses to accept this reality, it is almost always too much weight for the marriage to bear.
After the shock of the diagnosis wore off, we were able to dig in deep as a married couple and as an entire family. Though we were still going to experience years of sleepless nights, snide side-eyes at grocery stores, and explosive hours-long emotional reactions, Kaysie and I were surprised with much for which to be grateful. As I said, the older three leaned in and made it their mission to understand, love, and be there for David - so we grew as a family unit. Kaysie and I were in a battle, yes - but in it together - so we grew in our marriage. Our family therapies exposed the minutia and thinking of someone on the spectrum, leading Nora to be open with us about her struggles - so she was diagnosed and given the helps she needed to thrive. In fact, for her sixteenth birthday, I took her to New York City and we saw the incredible Alex Sharp play the lead on Broadway in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a production that celebrated autistic thinking. Nora told me that some day, she would play that role - and three years later, in college - as an autistic young person herself - she did.
In the process of so many things progressing and advancing for young David, one thing remained very sad. Our family loved going to the movies, and between the loud noise and the bright screen and the large crowds and the strange burnt popcorn smells, it didn’t seem like a trip to the theater would ever be possible with David, certainly not for years. That may not sound like a big deal, but in a family who loves and thrives on those things? To not be able to enjoy them with David felt like an enormous chasm. And then there was my love for music. I mean, I like Coldplay fine, but for that and that alone to be all we listen to for the next few decades felt a bit like prison - and even then, never being able to enjoy it like a fan. Every single night, David would want us to sing to him - exactly the same songs - for years: Coldplay’s “Paradise,” Coldplay’s “Charlie Brown,” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
Limiting our music love to a handful of tracks and never being able to discuss a song’s meaning or go to a live show? That level of noise and lights and crowd? Forget it. It all felt impossible.
Until - Frozen. You will find that a person on the autism spectrum is willing to take enormous risks and attempts beyond what they normally feel capable when the desire is strong enough in them to risk the experience. This is what happened when David started listening to the soundtrack to Disney’s 2013 animated opus Frozen. It helped that David had a personal connection. My brother Matt, worked for Disney as an animator back then and was one of the many animators who brought Elsa and family to life (Matt is also likely on the autism spectrum). David used that as a bragging point with his friends. But, when the music for Frozen became a phenomenon, David did not want to wait until the movie was available on his phone and he begged me to take him to the theater.
This is where education is everything. David and I “rehearsed” what the experience would be like. We walked into his room like it was the theater and sat down. I put little extra ear plugs in his ears and then his noise-cancelling headphones over those (“It will be the loudest thing you’ve ever heard”). I finally prepped him by saying that if it was too much, we would leave - but that once we left, we couldn’t go back in. We gave it a try and, against all odds, with every single stimuli working against us - all five senses fighting against David’s affection for the experience — David fell in love with the movies. His siblings were overjoyed. We went to see Frozen in theaters five more times. And every single Disney film that ever existed.
Then, a unique thing happened. Just as films and narratives are my family’s language of choice when it comes to processing the bigger issues of life, so David began to find the means to grow rapidly through the movies we attended. Individuals on the autism spectrum have a terrible struggle with emotions. Not only telling them apart, but knowing how they themselves feel - and, on top of that, it is hard for them to identify how YOU feel based simply on your expression. So, along came Pixar’s genius 2015 animated feature Inside Out, arriving precisely when David, as a six-year-old was needing a way to personify emotions. Now, we had story to lend in the explanation and action figures that he could use to illustrate how he was feeling inside. Absolute brilliance.
David continued to grow and continued to realize that the films and shows he watched and the music he listened to could be a shorthand for things he was trying to understand, questions he was trying to ask, and explanations that he didn’t know he needed. But, above all, they were teaching him to be empathetic to others just by allowing him to fall in love with stories that didn’t belong to him.
But even that is not the end of the beauty of it all. Because learning so deeply about autism allowed me to see the symptoms in myself, to realize that as much as I had grown and changed, I didn’t have much empathy or kindness toward my pre-teen self, and that it was time to love that version of me. Becoming some of the first in our community to raise a child on the autism spectrum well and take a deep-dive into the therapies and helps, my wife has become a prominent parent coach, and student tutor in the special needs space - especially for families with autism. I have been on a school board fundraising for special needs as well as helping fathers of children on the spectrum whenever they come asking questions.
David Asher Steele is now almost fifteen. And the truth is, if you hadn’t just read a lengthy essay about his being on the autism spectrum, you would never believe it. Because David is ultimately capable in every way. Thanks to too many counselors, doctors, therapists, and educators to mention. Thanks to a mother who fought for his well-being every second of every day. Thanks to three siblings who fought for him to feel loved and embraced and enjoyed. Thanks to a father who stayed and worked and connected. Thanks to HIMSELF for fighting and working so hard, facing one difficulty and tragedy after another on his road to maturity - David is now comfortable in his own skin. He loves that he bears the adjective of autistic. He empathizes and understands others going through hardships. He champions the underdog and uses his own vicious humor when the bullies deserve it. The boy is so naturally funny, we call him “Hot Take David”.
All this to say, David is clearly a product of a life of hardship - but in all the best ways. He is an absolute joy to be around, and he doesn’t take anything for granted.
And that love of music? The only thing that would bring David’s emotions down to a circle-running smile? That only thing that would calm me as a tween. Well, now we share it - and it is a thorough and vast love. His tastes range from newer artists like Olivia Rodrigo and AJR and Benson Boone through the popular kids like Taylor Swift and Harry Styles to bands like OneRepublic and Imagine Dragons. He loves the classics - especially anything from the 80’s, but will frequently go on deep dives of the entire discography of bands like U2 and The Police. We will sit on the office floor with my record collection for hours and hours poring over liner notes and great photography and brilliant art direction while listening to the songs for which all of those things were crafted. Yeah, the two of us get along pretty well.
And, Coldplay? Still his favorite. When he turned thirteen, they were playing Washington D.C. on his actual birthday, so we flew him in to the nation’s Capitol to experience Americana for the first time - and to see his favorite band live. As we sat there at Fedex Field, the sun just falling below the horizon - the lights exploded on our Coldplay wristbands. David reached over and bear-hugged us both. Then, without noise-cancelling headphones - without any aides at all, the boy belted “Paradise” at the top of his lungs.
Thank you for sharing your story. I was at that Coldplay concert at FedEx Field!