PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

     The lives of Donna Williams and Helen Keller show that barriers to communication and self expression have to be broken down before people can lead a full and meaningful life.  These women, even though they are afflicted by different problems, are two examples of how they both find ways to cope with their difficulties in communication, and with dealing with either the difficulties or fears they have in expressing their true selves.  

     Even though the cause of inability to communicate in both people was different, the both still had the same types of difficulties with communication.  People with autism have a many number of difficulties in communicating with other people.  They have two main types of problems.  One: they don't have any desire to, and two: when they do want to, they don't know how.  In Donna's case, at the time of writing her book, she wants, and feels the need to communicate with other people.  "My defenses could go to hell," she states.  "This [is] my life."   Her problem is that she doesn't know where to begin.  The things that other people do in social interactions puzzle her, and she doesn't know how to react, or even if she should react in certain situations.  The whole idea of autistics living "in their own world" is true, whether it's obvious or not.  Donna was terrified from expressing who she was.  Perhaps many people have this fear, but Donna's was made so much more intense because of her autism.  She even created two "characters", which she would use instead of her real self, and handled the world with those; that is how frightened she was.  She spent so long hiding from others that she hid from herself, too.  Her autism prevents her not only from learning, and storing the subtle rules of social encounters, but also from processing sensory stimulus and learning how to classify her own emotions.  All of these factors create a chaos of things to deal with, so that it is impossible to even deal with the how's and why's of communication.

     Being either deaf or blind is a very difficult thing to deal with.  Being both deaf and blind is many times more difficult.  Helen lost both her sight and her hearing at a very young age.  She lived most all her life in darkness, with a very limited idea of what was going on around her.  Unlike Donna, she had a desperate desire to communicate her wants and needs to other people, but she was unable to for the first few years of her life.  "I felt as if invisible hands were holding me."  As Helen grew older, the need, not only for expressing basic needs and wants grew, but her desire for expressing her feelings grew as well.  Her frustration was almost too much at times.  She didn't have Donna's problem with trying to find out who she was coupled with getting her self out to the rest of the world.  Helen had a self, intact, that was struggling to come out - she just didn't know how to go about doing it.

     Autism is a very complex thing to learn to deal with.  There are so many barriers to be broken down, and many autistics don't even have the desire to.  But Donna decided that she wanted to leave behind "her world," the one of autistic aloneness.  



My fingers ran through the grass as the summers-night wind ran its fingers through my hair.  My hair was full of the wild, free smell of the ocean wind and it streamed out to the side as I turned my face into the breeze.  I was an albatross on the mainland.  I was alone but whole.



Donna wanted to learn how to live in "the world", the world of society and "normal" people.  To accomplish this, she attacks her defenses one by one and "goes forth nakedly as Donna alone."  She already had speech; what she had to do was learn how to use it in the way that she wanted.  Up until the time of writing this book, she used words without being aware of what they meant.  What she is struggling to overcome is this feeling of disconnectedness.  She wants to learn how to make her words have meaning for her.  Most importantly, she wants to be able to feel their meaning.   She would talk about her difficulties with people that she trusted, and they would help her realize why she was having trouble establishing meaningful contact with other people.  Since autism makes it difficult to use the information in one situation and transfer it to another instinctively, as most people do, Donna had to learn everything by rote.

     Helen didn't have this problem.  Once she learned the "secret" to communication, the doors were open for her to begin learning.



Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten - a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.  I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant that wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.  That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!



In her case Helen also needed someone to help her.  Everything she learned about the world was spelled into her hand by her dedicated teacher.  Once she learned something, thought, it stuck with her.  She was able to apply it to similar situations.  Not only was Helen able to express her needs and wants to those around her, she was also able to express herself, her feelings, her beliefs, etc.  Learning the words for these things was sometimes frustrating and time consuming, but she drank in everything around her and everything she was presented with.  "I fall, I stand still, I run against the edges of hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it again and keep it better."

     Both Donna and Helen manage to "come out into the world" successfully, despite their problems.  Even though she still has many difficulties to overcome, Donna is able to leave behind the world of autism that prevents her from communicating with others, and she learns how to come out into "the world".  What is [great] about it is that even thought she no longer lives in the silent world that autism can sometimes be, she does learn how to balance the two worlds out, so that she can still enjoy the best of both - the simple "beingness" of the world of autism and the beautiful world of sharing herself with other people.  

     Helen also manages to be able to communicate herself to the world, with much success.  She learns how to put her thoughts into words (albeit they be hand signs) to show others what is going on in her mind.  She breaks free from a world of darkness and is immersed in light, the light of communication and understanding.  Her self breaks free from the prison of deafness and blindness and it is able to shine through.  Unlike Donna, she isn't frightened of who she is at all.  Almost everything she writes shows how her self comes through naturally, unafraid. "Few know what joy it is to feel the roses pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful motion of the lilies as they sway in the morning breeze."  Her essence shines through her words as clear as day.

     Despite the differences the both Donna and Helen have in both the cause and the way they try and overcome their difficulties, one thing is similar throughout.  They both have a fierce determination to overcome their handicaps and they do everything they can think of to rise above them.  Their end outcome is essentially the same; they both accomplish what they had set out to do, and that was learn to communicate in a meaningful way with other people and from this, learn how to express themselves and their true desires and feelings so that they could form meaningful relationships with the people in their lives.