Inside Out-Autism Style

There are posts, and memes, blogs and inspirational quotes, all over the place you see things telling you about Autism. Explaining what sensory stems are, and asking others to be patient and mindful before judging. You can take classes  that help you understand the concept of Autism, read books, become fluent in all the lingo and therapy terms. But no where in any of this will you find a "How To" on how to navigate the emotional roller coaster you experience when your child is diagnosed. It's actually quite similar to the grieving process. You go through denial, guilt, anger, and acceptance. There isn't an exact order with the first 3, it's personalized to each person, but you will experience them all, even if only in a slight form.

When my first child was diagnosed, he was 2 years old. I didn't even know what Autism was. I felt helpless, angry, sad, scared, anxious....it was like I didn't even know what to feel first. I hit the books immediately and started learning all I could. What was autism? What does my child feel? How could I help him? I read every book I could find and soaked up as much as possible. I was determined to become an expert in all things Autism. 

The more I read, the more I learned about everyone's theory's of what caused Autism...for one mother she thought it was Vaccines, for another it was a certain food she ate while pregnant, for another it was a prescription she took, etc. Naturally, I now wanted to do my own research and investigating. My need to find someone or something to blame quickly overtook my quest to become the Autism Expert. Or rather, my need to stop feeling guilty and thinking it was somehow my fault, that I had done something wrong and it caused my child to develop Autism. The guilt was starting to take over, I felt like I had hurt my child, that because I didn't do enough research before, I didn't eat the right foods, I took the wrong prescriptions, that I was the problem, I did this. 

The guilt got so bad, that I would sit outside his door during therapy sessions and cry. Overwhelming thoughts regarding his future were constantly racking my mind. Lets just say, I was a bit of a mess. 

I woke up one morning with a new resolve....if I couldn't go back and change things, I was going to do everything possible to make his future as wonderful as possible. The fact of the matter was, no one could pin point what the cause was, how or why it happens. So punishing myself with that amount of guilt was silly. Instead, I was going to rally around my son. If he couldn't speak, I would be his voice. If he was breaking down, I would calm him and allow him to do so in a safe environment. I would be his cheerleader, his advocate, his mom. I had finally hit the acceptance stage. But it was more than that, I wasn't just going to accept that my son had Autism, I was going to do everything I could to help him through it and other parents along the way. 

Things were going great, Brenden was progressing and doing so well. All was right again in the world....or at least in my world. And then I had Cali and things suddenly changed again.

*Follow up post will go into the Inside Outs of Cali