Suddenly I See

Funny thing happened this week and it got me thinking back to when the bubble I was living in popped and allowed me to suddenly see things for what they were.  I am referring to when I finally accepted the fact that my boy had Autism.  See he was diagnosed a year before I even told my family and the reason for this is I truly did not allow this bit of information to form and take shape in my head.  I couldn't even say the word.  I referred to his situation as Sensory Processing Disorder which covered a lot of his sensory issues but wasn't truly his diagnosis.  I don't know how I allowed to live in my own world for so long.  When I told my family my grandma said "I thought he didn't have it"  because that is what I told her and I believed it.  The doctor was very clear about the diagnosis when he handed me copies from a book that I should read.  I read them, but my boy had Sensory Processing Disorder.  I think it was a year later when the doctor repeated some  tests on my boy to check his social skills and his response time to his name and how he would play.  Basically he only responded to his name half of the time and it was with great effort from the doctor and he did not have the skills to pretend play.  There were other signs and honestly they all worried me but he had his diagnosis of Down syndrome and I was sure that it had something to do with that.  After that test the doctor gave me a very detailed report of the behavior he was seeing and referred to it as Autism.  My boy was on the spectrum and with this report in my hand I slowly and cautiously asked him the question that was going to shake me from my safe place.  I asked, "He has Autism?"  The doctor did not look at me with shock it was more of a look of understanding, like maybe I wasn't the first person to be so slow at digesting this information.  Honestly we heard this from another doctor when he was three but he stated that we need to see how he matures because he was way behind at reaching all of his milestones and his maturity level was that of a 12 month old.  The doctor that diagnosed him stated the same thing until one day he didn't. 

So you are wondering what was the funny thing that triggered all this up for me, well I was talking with someone about my son and how the intercom in our store drives him crazy and she suddenly whispers, "he has autism right?"  I thought it was funny because there was no one else around us.  So why the whispering?  This is not the first time someone has whispered about Autism to me.  Now that I am in the place that I am I am not whispering about it anymore.  It needs to be talked about and shared.  I haven't been in this place very long as you may know from reading my blog.  But now I am ready to talk about it and I am not embarrassed by it.  The diagnosis gave us the understanding that my boy isn't going to get on an elevator that is full of people.  What do you do?  You wait for the next one.   I don't understand Autism, I just understand that we don't need to color inside of the lines to have a pretty picture.  Everything we do is outside of the lines and that is ok.