Jeff and Lauren Harrison are proud of the way in which they’ve raised their physically disabled son, Tim.
“Ever since Tim was born, we’ve tried to instill in him that he was a perfectly normal and typical person – who just happened to be physically disabled! He’s totally fine! Totally normal mind! It’s fine!” said Jeff.
“He’s fine, got it?!” asked Lauren, threateningly.
Tim has cerebral palsy, and Squeaky Wheel reporters realized after a little over a half hour conversation with the family, that he also has ADHD. For that matter, so does his mother.
Tim had just recently informed his parents that people with disabilities can, in fact, have more than one diagnosis. They were very reluctant to accept this – even in theory, and still aren’t convinced that includes Tim.
“He’s always been so normal!” Lauren insisted. “I mean, sure, his conversational rhythm has never been great, but that’s a natural part of being socially isolated, right?! Isn’t it?!” she asked, increasingly desperate.
While giving a house tour and showing off his comic book collection, Jeff continued to gush about how oh-so-normal and typical and smart his son has always been.
“He loves to analyze comic books and superhero media, always has,” Jeff said, fondly. “He gets really into it! His favorite superhero is Peter Parker’s Spiderman, just like me!”
Tim then showed the Squeaky Wheel team footage of a video essay he was working on about Spiderman.
He then whispered, “Please don’t tell my parents I’m also autistic! They couldn’t handle it!”
“And there’s definitely no way my dad could handle the fact that he’s autistic too.”