autism is a journey: Wearing Down

Monday, January 7, 2008

Wearing Down

Thinking about the future for Jackson can be so depressing.
It's actually exhausting trying to stay ahead of the game with his needs.
A wonderful friend once said "autism isn't for wimps" and it's so very, very true. I think the same can be said for all parents with "special" kids. There are so many things to keep track of, so many "battles" to fight, I can totally understand those that throw in the towel. There are days we go moment to moment.

We really need school to start...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: ((Hugs)) Yes, thinking of the future can really bring you down! I have to constantly remind myself that nothing is written in stone.

Hope things are better now that school is back in!!; January 11, 2008 at 7:58 PM

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from "Metaphor-the puzzle piece symbol"

Ever had one of those "ah-ha" moments? I'm driving down the road today, pondering Jackson's recent successes--boyscout camp and football camp. It occurred to me that each experience gave me back a piece of Jackson. [I'm not doing a very good job explaining this...] When we learned about Jackson's diagnosis, so many dreams were snuffed out. We no longer thought about our son becoming an athlete, a scholar, or even a friend. We thought in much smaller terms:"how many words does he have?""did he learn a new sign""is he reaching out to us?""that's playing pretend, isn't it?"Our perspective as parents permanently changed. It's like we had this complete picture of our child and autism fractured it--into a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.Each day little by little, we get pieces of the puzzle back. It'll never be complete, never the same as we expected, but there will be parts that will come together.Like when he participated in the school music program, enjoyed boyscout camp, rode the roller coaster and attended football camp. Bit by bit, we get pieces of what we expected back.Of course, the flip side of this is all the joys we gain from Jackson that we never expected in spite of the autism, but that's another post my friends....