May/June 2004

GROWING PLACES

Words of Annoyance

He sat there on the stage, slightly overweight, eyes working to focus in a head that seemed uncomfortable resting on his shoulders. His glasses were thick, and every clumsy movement required immense concentration. Yet, I was spell bound as his fingers painstakingly typed us a message. “I know I am a smart guy, but I want to be a cool guy.”
Sixteen-year-old Jamie Burke has autism—a neurological disease that profoundly affects communication and social interaction. His body doesn’t do what he wants it to do. His mouth struggles to form the words that float through his mind. His movements are erratic, and his emerging speech sounds like a bad digital voice-over.
Although Jamie has learned to communicate effectively by using a typewriter-like device to write out his thoughts, he still occasionally suffers from “echolalia.” That is, words will suddenly pop out of his mouth that are entirely out of context, maybe repeating a recently heard phrase or quoting an entire commercial jingle.
Once in English class, Jamie was typing an essay when he began repeating, “Mickey turns into Frankenstein” over and over again. The aide who was working with Jamie began to question him about Mickey and Frankenstein. Jamie, frustrated by the
irrelevant interruption, tried to explain that the recent motor motion of his mouth, lips and larynx had nothing to do with what was happening inside of his mind. The words popped out uncalled for and unwanted. Jamie calls his echolalia “words of annoyance.”
Jamie finds it irritating when someone focuses on his words of annoyance and not on what’s in his heart. I feel the same way.
Like people with autism, there’s not one of us who doesn’t have some sort of problem with communication and social interaction. We’ve all said something we later wish had never been uttered, something we didn’t really mean. Words of annoyance. Sometimes I am so hurt or offended by another’s angry words or hasty remarks that I fail to look past the words into the person.
But as I watched Jamie up there on the stage and allowed myself to see him for the cool guy he truly was, I realized that I could probably do the same for the “typically developing” people around me. I could look deeper than the spoken word to uncover the heart of the matter. I could offer a compassionate response rather than returning annoyance for annoyance.
As a therapist, my job is to move beyond a client’s words of annoyance to find out what they are protecting themselves from. I often discover that words of anger come out to hide tears, that detached, logic-riddled verbiage guards against terror over perceived or threatened abandonment. I find myself pondering the same question no matter who is in my office: “What is he/she really trying to tell me?”
I wonder if you could ask yourself that question the next time someone you love sheds words of annoyance over you. Is it possible for you to let grace fall freely over those words and look at the context of the person? Is she tired, is he stressed, have they been injured physically or emotionally?
I’m not suggesting that you lie down and get steamrolled. Self-protection can happen while still feeling compassion. I am suggesting that you imagine yourself at your worst point before harshly criticizing. We’ve all been there before, and we’ll all go there again, which is why I’m outrageously glad that I have a God who forgives me—that mercy falls each time words of annoyance fly. Not only pouring down from heaven, but also flowing out from one other. “Make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive
others” (Colossians 3:13, NLT).
— Susan Reedy

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