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| Keep climbing! |
Um... well OBVIOUSLY that one, but also all the other ones too.. Anger, Alienation, Affliction, Agony are all A-words that pop onto your radar once you fall off the cliff everyone else is so nicely perched on with their "normal", or "typical" children.
Initially we went through a state of insulated denial. We would spend hours just watching Hudson, staring at him like some sort of science experiment waiting to see signs of normalcy, or of a mistake that may have been made when he was diagnosed. As a mother I felt myself falling inwards in a nose-dive of emotions.. How could someone who had pretty much done everything right (except get pregnant out of wedlock in Africa while on birth control) end up with a child that had so many issues? I had always been a strong student, a fast thinker, an avid reader.. To me my brain worked so well, especially compared to some people I know! SO how in the world was it that I could produce a child whose brain wasn't a smaller version of my own?
I became really Angry. A lot of the anger was with myself, things I maybe could have done differently, not seeing the signs earlier, not knowing enough about what I was facing and what Hudson was actually feeling. I let my anger slowly begin to build a wall around me and my heart, and when you are being irrational sometimes it feels so good to run with the things that will hurt you the most in the long run.. By allowing myself to get more and more angry it felt productive, but to what end? None. Every time I went to a party, or had Hudson around family I would see children his age and YOUNGER doing and saying the most simple things that I would have literally cut off my hand to see and hear from him. Each interaction stacked on another brick. After a while the walls were high enough in my mind that I began to feel Alienated. Of course I never was! I have an amazing, loving, and supportive family, but when you are being irrational in your mind things tend to all blur to your train of thought. I felt like I needed to stay away from get together's because it was going to be too hard for Hudson to have to interact with the other children and become frustrated, or for them to understand he wasn't like them.. What I was really doing was being totally selfish.. I was too afraid to admit to myself that it was ME. It was too painful for me to be there and see my son with other kids and realize how truly enormous the mountains were that separated him from them.
These feelings segued into more subdued states as I slowly processed things, and began to learn more about exactly what we were dealing with. I think a lot of the panic I was initially feeling started to calm also when I was able to get Hudson out of the house and into a center-based treatment program. I loved having him with me during the day but it was intensely unhealthy for him and for me to spend that much time together. Hudson needed socialization and other children to model after, as well as the benefit of other teachers and I needed to force myself to occupy my time with things other than staring at and analyzing Hudson. Win-Win. This was also around the time I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, talk about a full plate. A daughter! A little girl with bows and dresses and curls, and pink and polka-dots and....oh.my.God..Will she be okay? How absolutely exciting and absolutely terrifying.
Sending Hudson to school has by far been the best thing that has happened to him and to us, the progress and changes he has made are astonishing, and we are so proud. Triumph's like this are really important to note because the whole arena of autism can be such a black cloud. Which brings me to the next A...I want to just touch briefly upon the Agony of autism. I am not a particularly negative person, despite how I just painted myself in this entry, but I am actually extremely empathic and deeply affected emotionally by things I feel strongly about, which is why this journey has taught me to grow a much thicker skin, and to stop leap-frogging so far ahead. What I mean by leap frogging is that there have been times where I have completely broken down and freaked out because it has hit me; there is a chance I wont be taking Hudson to the DMV on his 16th birthday for his learners permit.. Or sprouting grey hairs waiting for him to come home at night.. Or adjusting his bow-ties before a prom.. Meeting and liking (or not liking) his first love.. Sending him off to College.. Or meeting the wonderful children he could have brought into this world as a parent himself someday... and on and on.. Can you feel it? One shred of it..? Its like a hot knife in your heart, only instead of killing you (which you think it might) it only makes you crazy. That's the sick-cycle you can get caught up in if you let yourself agonize. Its sad, and dark and awful, and when you are there you are locking yourself up and cheating yourself of all the small achievements and accomplishments that child will make in spite of your losses.
I refuse. I will NOT trade the opportunity to witness the things he WILL accomplish for the things I might not be sure about yet. I have chosen to trade all of the above mentioned A's for better ones. I've tried them all and they just don't work for me. I'm trading up. Customer Service better get on the ball because I am EXCHANGING Anger, Alienation, Affliction, and Agony for Achievement, Ambition, Anticipation and Aspiration. I will take cheering on Hudson for stringing a bead or doing a wooden puzzle one million times over the hollow and unproductive resignation of thinking that I may never see him drive out of my driveway in a new car, or get to see him play high school football. Maybe, just maybe if I am focused and excited enough to spend that time watching him and supporting him to string that bead, instead of sitting there blankly mourning something 10 years away it could shift things just a little.. And if i do it over and over and over... You get the idea. I am not saying that Hudson is going to string himself cured, but its all about the NOW. The support now, the focus now, and the direction now. Why worry about what may or may not happen later if you can make positive changes or impacts now. I will celebrate every achievement NOW.
Ambition... ooooohh yes. A lot of people who are very close to our nucleus know just how ambitious I am. I wont take no for an answer, and I refuse to settle or let Hudson settle for Less than. Without ambition and HOPE there is no reason to move forward. I am forever hopeful that Hudson will exceed my expectations, and so far every time I set a goal for him he blows me away. In some way its almost like he enjoys showing me up, or proving that the more I believe in him the more he has to unveil. Its awesome. I sent him to school hoping and praying that he would come home one day and be able to actually address me as "mom". I got a song "Mommy, Mommy, I L-O-V-E YOU!" screamed as he came downstairs one morning. Talk about your knees buckling. That's what I am choosing to live for.. Because if I didn't have to walk through the fire and heartache I could get "I love yous" whenever I wanted, but having to want them makes them like the little power boosters in video games that restore your life-force as you are about to die or fall off a cliff.
I am so excited and nervous and anxious for Hudson to keep going to school, keep learning, keep seeing and modeling, the anticipation is crushing. Everyday I pick him up and cant wait to hear what is going to come out of his mouth. Some days he is so tired he whips his sneakers at me while we are driving, and other days he sings these awesome songs he retains in his head like an ipod. I get so excited I try and learn them all as he sings them to me so I can sing them later on to him. Its hilarious. I think I will make it my goal to tape one and post it. I Anticipate and Aspire to see him progress. I know he will. What I am getting at here is that going through all of the dark emotions and eventually reaching the crossroads where you can choose to move into the light is a necessary and important step for all parents of autistic and disabled children. Once you realize you can trade the fuel you used to get from being angry all the time for the fuel of love and joy you will get when your child does the littlest things they couldn't do before, you can actually begin to move forward with your life and theirs.
As parents we all have the responsibility to teach our children to be Good people, to be Happy people and to be Hopeful people, but what is more difficult than just understanding these things and explaining them, is being an example of them ourselves.
