Is it my fault? Sun 20th March 2016 #ThisIsAutism

Oh, it’s dangerous when I have some thinking time! 

I start to think in a not so positively way, thinking from a glass half empty viewpoint, as opposed to glass half full.

I look at T, who is never without how headphones, who is oh-so-bright but cannot hold a conversation beyond a few words.  Who trudges off to the coach stop every day to catch his coach to school, but is very resistant to change and virtually impossible to get beyond the garden during the school holidays.

Turning this around, he’s thriving in school, in a smaller secondary school than he was originally allocated and, at least, when he sets off for the coach stop, I can be sure that that’s where he’s going, because it would not occur to him to do anything else.

D, our lovely D.  Our little girl in a body growing up too fast for her.  Who has matured in the last couple of years but is still emotionally and intellectually way behind her peers.

Sometimes when Hubbie is with me and we’re waiting in the car park for the end of school, I’ll see a girl of D’s age who I used to childmind.  She doesn’t see us and she walks past with her friends, laughing and joking with them, walking home, crossing roads etc.  

I can’t imagine D ever out by herself or with friends like that, ever.  She has zero road sense and gets so anxious about strangers in front/behind/going past/sometimes the other side of the road.  As opposed to bolting though, she’ll grip my arm or hand so tightly (she’s very strong) and twist my arm, then once we’re past, she’ll tell me off for us going that way.  

She finds writing a challenge.  Today, she was asked to write her name in a birthday card for her “boy friend”.  Instead she spent about an hour drawing on and colouring in the front of the card. It does look lovely but it’s distracted from what needed to be done and the writing has been put off.  Revisited another time, hopefully.

But then, (turning everything around), D’s strength means she gives the bestest cuddles and she’s always telling us she loves us.  Something we’re very grateful for, unfortunately something T hasn’t ever done, he dislikes cuddles or contact too.

Then I wonder, is it my fault? Is it that we had T and D 18 months apart? That I wasn’t 20-something when they were born? That we had the stress of moving house 6 weeks before D was born? That I fell over 6 days before she arrived? 

Who knows? 

But what I do know is that other people’s unwillingness to accept my children/willingness to lay the blame hurt.  That, to be told “well, nothing like that was never on our side of the family” cut into me and stayed there, coming out if I’m feeling a bit insecure.

Should anyone be to “blame”? After all, isn’t it thanks to individuals thought to be on the autistic spectrum like Einstein and Steve Jobs that society is where it is today? That if people hadn’t strived almost obsessively to perfect a theory/gadget that maybe we wouldn’t have the advantages we have today.  Who knows.

Another reason for today’s insecurity is that it’s blogging awards season, I never feel I “fit” anywhere.  I can’t share wonderfully funny antidotes of my children.  I don’t like to share my fears for their future.  I don’t know their future.  Will they form relationships? Marry? Have children? Will they be happy? And my biggest fear, will they be safe? Accepted for who they are? Will people look beyond the “label” that autism provides?

And we’re heading into April and Autism Awareness month.  I’ve been blogging four years, sharing our ups and downs, is it helping? Is awareness of an invisible life-long disability getting out there? I try to help in my own little way, in my own corner of the Internet, am I? Sometimes I wonder if I am.

But blogging helps me, a free bit of therapy if you like.  That’s why I started blogging, because other people’s experiences helped me.  I wanted to help too.

I’d like to revisit the #ThisIsAutism hashtag during April and share other people’s stories/experiences/thoughts around autism.  Positive and not so.  Let me know if you’d like to be featured.

You know, this has helped.  I’ve “blogged it out”.  I’m always told I have a calmness about me, maybe this is why.  Another question for myself, eh?!?

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