Some 20 years ago, Donald Rumsfeld, President George W Bush’s defence secretary, famously talked about the difference between known-knowns, known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns.
While his word salad was intended to convey the fog of the Iraq War, I often think about how it relates to the mists surrounding what we know about my son Elliott.
Let’s start with what we know.
A doctor would say they know Elliott is non-verbal autistic, that he has learning disabilities and that he takes an ever-increasing barrage of medication to try to control his epilepsy.
His teachers would say Elliott loves his daily walks, detests arts and crafts, and enjoys baking cakes (although not as much as he enjoys eating them).
His family would tell you that he is extraordinarily cheeky, adores Mr Tumble and that he is loved without measure.
These things, in many ways, go without saying. They have been ours and Elliott’s lived experience for 21 years. Every day is structured around his needs and trying to ensure he is the best he can be.
But it only scratches the surface of Elliott. There is so much that we just don’t know.
Does Elliott understand the structure of his day? Or are breakfast, college and brushing your teeth just a sequence of random events?
This opacity was brought into focus recently at the local leisure centre.
I’d taken Elliott for his regular Sunday morning swim, a weekly appointment that we have kept for over 15 years. As we exited the changing rooms, Elliott suddenly turned and raced away.
Before I’d had time to react, he had sprinted over to a middle-aged man sat idly in the
coffee shop – a middle-aged man sat, crucially, with his legs crossed.
Nobody knows how it started but for three years now, Elliott has had a problem with people sitting cross legged. It has been an issue at home, in college and at hospital appointments.
Today, it was a problem at the swimming pool.
Elliott bounded up to the man, loomed over him, brought his face close to his, then grabbed his foot and deliberately uncrossed his legs for him.
Quite what this man thought was happening as his limbs were forcefully repositioned mid-latte is as unknown, as was why Elliott decided to sprint 10 metres across a room to uncross his legs.
What was absolutely plain though was his reaction – an immediate, instinctive turn to aggression and the start of a four-letter exclamation.
Fortunately, I’d arrived with hurried explanations. I explained what is known; that Elliott has learning disabilities and this is just something he does. The unknown “why-it-is-something-he-does” was left hanging as I ushered Elliott away, making my apologies.
The unknown-unknowns are just fathomless once you start to unpick them.
Does Elliott know I’m his dad in the same way his brother and sister do? Does he have any concept of what a parent is?
Does Elliott understand the structure of his day? Or are breakfast, college and brushing your teeth just a sequence of random events he experiences without ever knowing why?
Does Elliott know that day follows night follows day follows night? Does he know that he is a grown man and not the same age as the toddlers he still watches on the tummies of the Teletubbies? Does he know what the passage of time means as his grandparents, parents and, eventually, himself grow older?
All of Elliott’s theory of mind is held deep behind the wall of the unknown. His thought processes are mysterious even to us, his family who know and love him best.
And yet, Elliott is no different to any one of us.
None of us are purely the sum of what others know about us.
Each of us acts in ways we can’t truly explain. And nobody truly knows themselves completely.
Elliott’s fog is just a little thicker.
