Putting Them First

God gives me signs.

As eager as I am to get things rolling with my pending graduation (September 15), I think I need to slow down. I had planned to get another job to complement the aftercare position at my son's school (where I can spend time with both of my children instead of getting a "real" job and missing them the entire time) when Eli is gone in the mornings to preschool. Moving on with my goals, I've been relentlessly stalking the local library system for any job with 20 or less hours per week so that I could get my foot in the door. Once I graduate I don't want to waste my time sitting idle.

However, Friday I got called into Eli's summer camp at the YMCA to come get him because they couldn't calm him down. They said he kept saying "I want my mama".

Want or need? Who should judge if it is a want or a need, and if it is only a want is it that horrible to give him what he wants just in case it was what he really needed the whole time?

As it stands, plans for fall include 5 days a week in a preschool class for autistic children in Lansing, and that's a lot for a four-year old. He attended this class for four months of the school year this last year, most days. If he wants to stay home, I will let him-just like I did last Spring. But If he comes back with one bruise on him (as often happens with special needs children), he's out. I have zero tolerance for that bull#@$% and I get emotional when I read stories involving murder, rape and abuse of autistic children. I need the freedom to be able to support him how he needs to be supported and be vigilant to prevent any of this from happening.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not sure what to do, that I'm making too many excuses and not doing enough. But then I get that sign. And I know that it's God's will, and not my indecision or haste getting in the way.

The Scapegoat...

Parents get so angry about the disorder their children cannot help having and reacting to. Do you know what it feels like to be a teenager or adult with autism? I do. I’ll tell you all about it. I am autism. It is in my genetic code, in my blood. When someone is angry at autism for the inconvenience it places on their life, and it does, in fact, place a huge inconvenience, how do you think the person with autism feels? Well, you are angry at them. They are the problem. They feel guilty and lonely and sad. They are the living embodiment of a scapegoat. It isn’t vaccines, hormones, or the economic condition. It is in the DNA. You are angry at something they cannot help being. It’s like being angry at the color of your skin, or at a tic. And yes, I have tics. I kick and flail my arm. Haven’t seen it? I’m too busy hiding what inconveniences everyone else….busy wrapping my life around others to be convenient. Do you want autism to rule your child’s life? Stop forcing them to accommodate you. Accept them, let go of the anger, and do what you do with love. I’m not advocating for no treatment. Everyone needs therapy. I have flourished and with various therapies both structured and unstructured of my own rendering. Some people cannot even tell at times that I am autistic. But is that to appease them or myself I now wonder?