Hope

The other night, I was watching some reality television when "True Life: I'm Autistic" came on MTV. Now I'm a junkie for those True Life shows, but I pretty much jumped up and announced that I couldn't watch this one.

As my long time readers know, Middle Child is autistic, and it's a sensitive subject to say the least. I have a hard time watching older autistic individuals on TV and in the community because it forces me to think about my son's future, and what kinds of struggles he's going to face...but after a few minutes, I forced myself to go back into the room. Lately I've been working on not running from things that upset me, and I figured it to be an exercise in self control.

I pretty much cried through the whole thing. Each of the three individuals profiled had a little piece of my son woven into his personality. The lack of eye contact, the odd hand movements, strange verbal outbursts, temper tantrums...thinking of him retaining those behaviors into adulthood is almost too much to bear. We'd always assumed that he'd be ok, that he'd grow out of it, but we've realized that this just isn't going to be the case. We take joy in what he can do, and try not to dwell on what he can't.

The worst part of the show was when the non-verbal boy wrote about how hard it was to not be able to communicate with his peers and to interact with the world around him. As a parent, it's almost easier to assume that your autistic child doesn't know any better, that he's happy in his own little world...sadly, this isn't the case. More likely than not, my son is of normal intelligence, and knows exactly what he's missing out on. I can't think of many things that are more heartbreaking than that.

I've been struggling with it for a couple of days, watching my son closely, trying to get a sense of what he's thinking...all to no avail. He's got these beautiful sea-blue eyes, and almost always have that same far-away look in them. So much for windows into the soul. My son keeps his secrets well hidden.

For all we know, he can read, write, recognize words, do math...it's all a matter of finding a way to unlock his potential. For now, we watch, and wait.

Today, as I walked down the hallway to the kitchen, I noticed him sitting on the floor playing with a Magna Doodle; not an unusual sight, but for some reason, I knelt down and took a closer look.


I think that this is the first time since he was diagnosed that I have felt so much joy. I've been crying since it happened, and I'm still shaking as I type this. My baby wrote his name.

I grabbed the board, I showed my husband, I made the poor kid pose for about a half dozen shots, and then I gave him free reign of the snack cabinet. He sat with his favorite snack, Cheetos, and looked at me like I was out of my mind. For the first time, I knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Jesus Christ Mom, I just wrote my name, take a pill."