We Owe Our Children Happiness

Raising Autistic children can be very different than raising typical children. We speak a different language, we have different concerns, we have different goals, and we have a different grief. I totally understand the grief over the loss of our dream of a typical child. I understand that it's hard, it's hard to have a child that has so many unique needs and challenges. Our heart breaks for the burdens and grief they face.

However our children are still children. They pick up on our attitudes and emotions. I have no idea how much my girls understand or comprehend about what goes on but every Autistic person who communicates say that they understood far more than people knew.

Then I began to think about how awful it must be to feel like you are a disappointment to your family. How soul crushing it must be to know you are the reason your mom cries. Then I came to a simple epiphany. WE OWE IT TO OUR CHILDREN TO BE HAPPY AND DELIGHT IN THEM.  Our children need us to have joy in them and their accomplishments, they need us to take pride in the fact that they are our children. Comparing them to the child they aren't is cruel and hurtful.

My kids need to know that I am excited that they learned a new skill. It doesn't matter if other children mastered it at 8 months my kid mastered it now and I could not be more proud. They need to see me smiling over their interests (even if it is watching the same Youtube video for the 123,753 time). 

I'm not saying it's easy and I find myself sinking into grief but I know it's my responsibility to be happy. I do that through medication, self care and a spirit of being grateful. Self care isn't easy but it's a huge part of care for our children.

I came to the realization that even if nothing ever changes, even if my girls never talk again, never use the potty or never learn another skill I will be completely happy with the children I was lucky to have. 

The Day of Acceptance

When Gracie was first diagnosed I thought my world was going to end. I thought it was a life as I knew it would be over and in many ways life as I knew it WAS over. I couldn't comprehend what the next week would look like much less what next year would look like. To me it was bleek and depressing. I saw my sweet baby who had just been given a life sentence of Autism.

The diagnosis was so big it blocked everything out. There is no cure, Youtube was filled with videos of violent meltdowns, co morbid seizure disorders, and adults who made weird noises and couldn't speak.  Previously my knowledge of Autism was limited to Rain Man and PSAs about the early signs of Autism (which my daughter had none until around her 3rd birthday).

It hurt that my sweet baby girl might be different that she might be *GULP* disabled. In some ways it was like grieving a death, the death of the child I thought I would have. The child that I would read Anne of Green Gables to, the child that would watch movies and have slumber parties with her friends. It stung that my daughter struggled to do things that other children had mastered years ago. I fell into a deep depression and gained 80 pounds, as Gracie's Autism progressed I imagined a horrible future full of the things she would never do. I sobbed when she stopped calling me Mommy, and I wondered if I would ever hear her sweet voice again. 

However there came a point when my greif over her Autism was over shadowing my joy of being her mother. There came a point when I decided that the daughter I have is better than the daughter I had hoped for. I realized that I knew my little girl so well that I would not know her any better if she could speak. She expressed her love in her sparkling blue eyes, her smile and she radiates joy in her countenance.

Autism is not what we planned and it's not a journey I would wish on anyone but it is our life. I finally realized that it's not a horrible life, perhaps different challenges than other people face but it was not the nightmare that I had imagined.

I have no idea if things will ever change, for us change is slow and sometimes not at all but even if my life is the same in 10 years that's okay. Where we are isn't so bad.