Tom Doheney is a healthcare professional. During his time on hospital wards, supporting patients with mental health difficulties, he has encountered many autistic people.
He has grown to appreciate the great importance of taking time to get to know each person as an individual, in order to understand and meet their unique needs in the best way possible.
Tom understands that many autistic people will have experienced situations, environments and people where they have felt unsafe and uncomfortable. He understands that these feelings can be reactivated by stays in hospital – and that it can be hard for these people to trust hospital staff.
This poem was written by Tom when he was working with an autistic person on a hospital ward. They were distressed and feeling unsafe. They were uncertain Tom was someone they could trust. They asked Tom to demonstrate his understanding of what it might feel like to be autistic by writing a poem about this for them.
Tom took the challenge. The poem he wrote was the key to this patient trusting him and to the building of the therapeutic relationship that this person needed to help set them on the path to recovery.
Tom has kindly agreed to share his poem here on Autism Space – and here it is:
See into my world
I
I am like a dandelion seed.
Scattering this world with many others like me.
While in the breaths of winds
I make a wish for someone to understand me
II
I am not grounded in this soil like you,
I am a dandelion seed craving for a firm grip.
Surfing in ever changing winds of emotions and fears.
I look for the place within me and within you,
Where this dandelion seed becomes accepted.
III
Our eyes do not meet; our hearts beat a different tune.
When I glance down as I float in life’s breeze
I feel a thousand emotions, perceiving my world differently to you.
I float on life’s breeze in my daily life
And the pace of the current is not mine to control.
IV
Stand by me while I get tossed in these turbulent winds of emotion.
Like a dandelion seed I am always floating ungrounded,
Waiting for the less turbulent weather
While it throws me in waves of despair.
But I remember on days of calm breezes,
This dandelion seed appears calm.
But still I am floating and ungrounded
After all I am a dandelion seed
To a special person who challenged me to write a poem explaining what it’s like to be autistic.