Overcoming Adversity

This is my contribution to Nick Wilford's bloghop benefiting his son. (GPM will be back next week.) These 500-word-or-less posts will be compiled into an anthology. If you'd like to know more, click here. For Nick's entry and a linked list to all the others, go here.

True Colors

I’ve faced my share of adversity, but I wasn’t sure what to write. Then I looked up the word in the dictionary. The sample sentence it gave went something like this:

A person will show his or her true colors in times of adversity.

I literally sucked in a breath. Boy, had I ever failed that one. Not completely, of course, but my kids sure have me beat. They’re the real overcomers, not me.

My twins were only a few months old when I found out my daughter had autism. Those were dark days, and I cried. But they were darker for her.

She had no functional language. She couldn’t even express hunger or thirst. And she’d had an extreme stranger phobia from the age of five months, making simple interactions torture. She’d scream in terror if the grocery sacker got too close.

It considerably hindered my life, but it made hers hell.

Then I found out one of my sons had it, too. The second diagnosis was actually the harder one to take. Lightning isn’t supposed to strike the same place twice.

My children have managed to navigate a society better suited to the neurotypical. They’ve endured the pain of heightened senses in a busy, noisy world. They’ve managed to learn in an educational system geared for normal. They have withstood teasing from ‘friends’ because the way their minds work makes them different.

And they have blessed me. I’m lucky. My autistic kids are verbal. They can tell me they love me—such simple words I never thought I’d be so glad to hear. Simple words other parents never will.

Each year, I’m amazed by how far they’ve come. My son, the boy who used to crouch and cover his ears, now plays in band. And my daughter, the shy one who seemed scared of her own shadow? She stood up in front of an auditorium full of people, just last year, and sang a solo. I was crying then, too, but those were tears of joy.

I’m sure most people never knew the full extent of what we went through all those years. It was lurking in slumped shoulders and defeated eyes, but it wasn't stamped across our foreheads. So . . . be kind. Everyone has trials, and you never know what those might be.

 

###

Postscript...

Thank you to all who have left comments. It warms my heart.

The first and best thing a parent can do when they suspect something isn't right with their child's development is to get help and get them assessed. (Here in Houston, that is done for free through ECI - Early Childhood Intervention.)

The next thing is: Don't let denial keep you from getting your child the help they need.

I firmly believe my kids are doing as well as they are because we intervened early and did what was needed. Waiting isn't going to make it go away. Worse, waiting is going to squander that early window for making a real difference.

Use a coping mechanism if you must, but don't waste time on denial. Suck it up and deal. Acceptance is the only way to help your child.