I was doing pretty good with my son’s autism for the first two years. It was hard, but we got him into therapy as early as 10 months and he’s always been a crazy happy baby. Lots of smiles and laughs. At age three things started to get more complicated for him and scary for me.
When they’re babies to toddlers, they aren’t much different than the children around them. They just aren’t moving ahead as fast. At three, they are officially behind. The biggest heartbreak was when I knew my son had noticed. All children get a little insecure about certain things, but this was something I knew he wouldn’t grow out of.
Then the doors start to close. I had my son in a very good daycare a few days a week. It’s a national franchise and my daughter is still in it now. My son is no longer there, because they highly recommended that he not attend their preschool. He could have stayed if I hired a private aid just for him, but they were concerned about the class size. The age of three is also when your child is evaluated by your local school system and receives his IEP – Individual Education Plan. I hope your local school system is WAY better than mine. I lucked out and got my son into an amazing private integrated preschool, but now I’m terrified of elementary school.
I’ve watched my son try and fail at things other children can do. I’ve heard from his school that he will locate the other “non-talking” children in the playground to play next to them. There were a few months last year where he picked up a new behavior. He was shoving his hand in his mouth. Usually his behaviors are a result of frustration, but this one I would see him do in my rear view mirror with no cause. It took two months and a few doctors to figure out that he had thick fluid in his ears that was causing pressure. I guess traditional children will try to relieve that pressure by reaching to the back of the throat. To some of the doctors I was taking my son to, they just wrote the behavior off as autism. He now has ear tubes and that behavior is gone.
After each experience I found it harder to bounce back, shake it off and get back to normal. I was slipping into a dark place. One day, I was laying on the floor after failing another attempt to get my son to appropriately play with a doll house, and I said out loud to my husband, “I just want a laser beam to take me out.” I couldn’t see another way to make the pain stop. Not the best thing for your spouse to hear. He’d been watching me decline for over a year, so it didn’t shock him. A few months later I saw the movie, “Moonrise Kingdom.” To my surprise, the Bill Murray character said almost the same line. Although, I think his was a tornado. My laser beam isn’t as poetic. I watched his character suffer my despair and forgive his wife for cheating, because he knew he was to blame. I knew I was declining. I knew I was putting my marriage in jeopardy and I just couldn’t bring myself to care.
The movie is really the thing that turned it around for me and one of the main reasons I started this blog. To know I wasn’t alone, helped. That at least one person out there understood how lost you can become helped a lot. I now step make an effort to step out of that dark place into an activity that makes me happy. I can’t help my son to the light if I forget where it is. I have to be healthy and happy, or no one in my family will be. It can be hard some days. These children are close to completely alone, so taking time for yourself can feel like abandonment.
To be a good parent and spouse, you have to be good to yourself. The safety video on an airplane will always show the adult, sitting next to a child, putting their air-mask on first. It seems counterintuitive, but you understand the truth behind it. You have to live for you, too. You have to put your air-mask on first.