Finding My Way

“He needs a good spanking!” said one woman as she observed my son having a really bad day. he wanted to go to Macdonald's and at the age of four and five, he could not grasp the meaning of “not today, we will be able to go on tomorrow.” I would try to calm him down, and often this would not work. autistic people are not able to understand abstract thinking. go figure. I wanted him to live a normal life as much as possible.

His appearance was normal. there was nothing about his physical appearance that led you to believe that there was something unusual with this child, except the way he played. he could spend hours unraveling a sock, or hammering away with some object on the furniture. (destructive of course.) then came the challenge that he needed to be potty trained, and I did not know where to begin. “sit him on the potty and make him stay there until he uses it.” my grandmother insisted that there was nothing wrong with him, he just needed some help getting it together as she put it. I decided that I had to trust my inner thoughts as to how to work with this special child.

Isuddenly realized that he seemed to learn by repetition of things. so we began to play a game called “gotta go.” for a period of seven to ten days, I repeatedly took him to the bathroom every thirty minutes. “gotta go, gotta go!” was the song, and if he was able to go I praised him, if he did not have to go, I praised this too. soon he was going on his own, and I felt like I had accomplished the greatest thing since sliced bread. I was so afraid that I would have to buy him diapers the rest of his life. when I saw that he could go to the potty, or to the actual bathroom, i realized that we had made a tremendous step. the process for him to learn to bathe himself and to brush his hair, and teeth, was simple. it was a repetitious act that he learned best under. many thoughts filled my head about the cause of this condition, autism. no one had the right answer or the clear response I needed. I turned to god.

I did not know what to expect from day to day. I did know that if I put my whole trust in my god, that I would find a way to cope with the stress. I was very much afraid to go to any support groups because I did not want to hear the rhetoric about how your child will never be able to attend harvard. I actually had a specialist say those dumb words to me. “well, you know he will never be able to attend harvard,” he said frankly. I looked into his sappy eyes and said: “I know, I don't care about that, I just want him to be able to care for himself.” he looked somewhat surprised. I don't know if it was because i did not respond with anger or frustration. I did not feel I needed to respond to his insensitive comment. I soon began to realize that most of the parents that I encountered were dealing with their own aggravations about their child. I gave some consideration to how they interacted with their child and realized that I pretty much had a good handle on my own situation.

I had learned that he learns best by repetition, and that if I listened to what he was doing or how his demeanor was I could almost intuitively know what was going on with out him saying a word. one night after crying for about a hour, I heard a small still voice say to me, “if you have been blessed with a special child, then that must mean that you are a special mother.” how sweet those words sounded to me. I realized that I am a fighter, and that I cannot become a hermit because he does not understand the world outside of himself. I set out to do what I had to do, and that was to not limit our experiences because of his mental illness.. we were going to see some of the world and I was going to and we were going to travel to some other cities. by the age of 7, we had gone to Florida Disney world and new york.

I also had began to attend parent meetings to help other parents deal with the grief of parenting an autistic child. I found that there were other parents there who did not know their rights and the right questions to ask to advocate for their child during eap staffing, so I gradually became a parent advocate. I found that I got so much joy out of telling someone else that no matter what don't give up. I was charging myself up every time I talked to another parent. but even though i was able to do this, I too spent long hours in depression because he was always into something.

I could take him to the park or to the zoo to wear him out. this of course would grant me maybe two to three hours of him napping and me taking a quick bubble bath to calm my nerves. the quiet moments spent with that child asleep was reward enough to my sanity. moments of despair when he would wake me at 3:00 am smiling and ready to play. so, his grandmother brought him a rocking horse. he would ride his rocking horse until he would literally fall off to sleep. he rode that rocking horse until the coiled springs were cut into. the sleepy nights turned into days and doubled because of his asthma. not only was I looking for ways to help him sleep, I found out that even though he would probably have been hyper without the asthma medication, the medication was making him super hyper.