Adoption from a children's home: "Even as an autistic person I'm still human"
Dear friends, when Florin Müller's therapist Hanne Kloth contacted us to introduce us to this very special young man, we pricked our ears. Because Florin wrote a children's book as an autistic child: " The Brave Little Fireman ". It's a book about his own story. And that's pretty moving.
" The Brave Little Fireman ".
In 1998 he was adopted by a German couple after living in dire circumstances in a Romanian children's home for four years. Florin uses sign language and uses assisted communication to write things he cannot express with them. He only needs a touch on his knee to be able to write.
In 2014 he graduated from a distance learning school. In the same year his first book was published, followed by two more. He took part in poetry competitions, where he was repeatedly among the prizewinners. Today, Florin is also a frequent speaker at training courses, readings and congresses because he loves to discuss his problems with people.
Florin, you were adopted by a German couple in 1998...
Yes, that was like a light in my loneliness. They had come to feed me—not a real mad boy—and make me their child. They had a heart for a boy inexperienced in love... and bought him. I deliberately say "buy" because today I know that it cost 20,000 German marks. A terrible thought that loved ones had to pay so much money to get and love me.
Before that you were in a Romanian children's home for four years - do you still have memories from that?
My memory of this useless, restless time that kept all love away is only faint. Only fragments, scraps of memories, appear before my inner eye, memories that often come at night and deprive me of any sleep.
I remember some things well, others not so much. Something like this: Before people came and bought me, eating leftovers saved my oppressive life: leftovers for the morning, for lunch, for the evening, mixed together to make a porridge. Guards hurriedly poured the liquid food from tin bowls into childish gorges. Slow swallowing or crying meant the food went back to the guards and we continued to starve. So we had to be quick.
I found out from my adoptive parents that after they had me with them in Germany, the first thing I had to do was learn to chew and swallow. I couldn't because I was used to the porridge going down without swallowing. I still find it difficult to swallow and despite intensive occupational therapy with chewing and swallowing training, I still only eat pureed food. The smallest bits make me choke and threaten to suffocate. It's horrible and it bothers me a lot.
Today I also believe that back then I not only longed for food and love, but also for exercise. We couldn't explore our surroundings, couldn't play, just lay freezing in our beds. My parents told me that when they first visited me in Romania, I was outside with them and I cried terribly because I was terrified by the chirping of the birds and everything in nature. Without the help of the dear buyers, without their deep selfless care, getting to know life anew, a great life, would never have been possible.
Florin, you are autistic and communicate using gestures and a method of supported communication. How exactly are you answering this interview for us right now?
I write on the computer. Any support on my arm or back is too much support for me. It makes me feel dependent. Therefore, I will only accept a touch on the knee. But this touch is very important to me, because it gives me a lot of support and strength.
Despite your difficult early years and your autism, you never let yourself get down, did your high school diploma at a distance learning school, are a speaker at training courses and congresses, and finally you have also written books. What drove and drives you? What makes you look forward so positively?
What drives me are the people who let people like me live their lives by giving them peace and trust. I look ahead positively because I'm lucky enough to be able to live among warm-hearted people.
A brand new children's book by you has now been published. What is it about? what is so special about that? What do you want to do?
The book aims to give parents, teachers and educators the opportunity to use a story and examples to help children understand autism through the problems of little Marians, who would love to be a firefighter hero. However, because of his autism , this never seems to become realistic until one day the dream becomes a reality.
In order to make the problems of little Marian easier to understand for the children, I thought of something special. I designed the book to be interactive, so the children can work in the book at several points, for example coloring in a picture. Then, at the end of the book, they can see how I colored the picture and learn why it looks that way on me. In order to better understand my passions and difficulties, which may spontaneously seem very strange and incomprehensible to the children, I offer them small tasks that may help them to empathize with my problems or better understand my odd-looking hobbies.
Another special feature is that it is an autobiographical children's book, since little Marian reflects my life. My full name is Florin Marian. With the book, I want children to learn at an early age that every human being is different and that even if they seem strange and incomprehensible, they are human like any other human being, a human being with dreams, desires and preferences, a human who loves to be loved.
The book is published in German and Romanian, why was that so important to you?
Because I decided to look for my biological family in Romania, the children's book was published bilingually, in German and in Romanian. This means that children from my home country can also read the book, as can my nephews and nieces, to whom I dedicated the book. And when I visit my home country, I want to present my book there in the local language. It would be great if it works.
This year there is also a very special shoot for you with SWR: tell us a bit – also, if you like, what feelings you have about these projects.
There are two projects for this year that I am particularly concerned with: a chamber concert and filming with the SWR.
Regarding the concert: I am proud because really famous people appreciate my works. It is the Hanover Chamber Choir and the composer David Reichelt who, although he composes music for television films such as Tatort, turned four of my poems into sound. This is like a dream for me, a dream I never dared to dream.
Regarding the SWR shoot: Yes, it's going to Romania, where I would finally like to see my biological family. Children long for their parents, even if they are very happy with their new parents and never want to be without them. Nevertheless, many would like to know their origins. I hope it will give me a little more peace of mind. I hope to find all of my biological family there.
But I also have feelings of fear, afraid of how my family will react when they see me, because they don't see a real person. My actions and my behavior are incomprehensible to them and I don't think they can be explained either. But I hope with all my heart that they will filter between anger and disappointment at my annoying behavior and pride and happiness to be able to meet and hug me after 26 years apart.
Maybe they don't even want to see me, maybe they reject me. Even if I try to come to terms with it before the trip, the confrontation with the truth will hurt a lot. I'm going to need strength, and since I find it easier to express feelings in poetry, I want to do the same here.
strength
Heavy
effort required
being serving judging
naming courage
fear inhibiting
bending of the weak
Reinforcement of the id to the ego
No to missing courage
gate with passage
passage to recognition
then
only courage against bending
courage never to forget
only to allow any hope
are
strength
What advice would you like to give to other people with difficult childhoods and autism ?
With my books, I want to achieve that cloudy, joyless thoughts that are essentially directed against oneself give way and that people want, achieve and also accept a hopeful breakthrough.
I would like to encourage and urge people to engage in living together, to respond to real help and to allow it. Everyone should remember that even if they seem/are obviously weaker and more powerless than others, they too can help and offer support to others, and not just the other way around.
Everyone is valuable, you should consider this and be proud of yourself and not despair of disregard for yourself. Likewise, every able-bodied person should remember that every person is important and worthy of respect, regardless of where they come from, whether they have an impairment or appear different in any way.
Especially for disabled people or people with difficult childhoods it is important never to give up hope and courage because, as I put it in one of my first poems, they are two difficult but great friends. Hope is stronger than despair and guardian of the chaos of self-destructive thoughts. Thus, hope and courage are givers of life.
I would like to end this question with a poem that I wrote for a poetry competition on the subject of migration/diversity and which, to my delight, was named one of the winning poems.
live for life
It should be difficult for people
life without life
as simple as life
to declare
then
rather it is just a state of being
the essentials of an orderly life
withdrawn
Happiness, Faithfulness, Hope, Confidence
Acceptance, allowing the strange:
Food for being worth living
for
Life
Far from greed, hatred, hatred
have the human too
peace-seeking being
Life
to allow
so that from being
can grow up
Creature
e