My son was born in the middle of the night, the nurses wrapped him up warmly in a blanket, placed him in the nursery and wheeled me to my room to rest. A couple of hours later a nurse awoke me gently with a little bundle in her arms, "This little fellow really needs his mother. He has been crying non-stop." I took him from her and placed him in the hospital bed with me and he was quiet for the rest of the night. Little did I know how prophetic, "This little fellow needs his mother." would be. While my son is in the Autism Spectrum, he says he is in the "Awe-tism" Spectrum, however, it took us both awhile to get to this point. I did not know when he was born that he was autistic, in fact, I didn't know until he was diagnosed at 20! The reason we found out so late is because he could not pass Alegbra at junior college to be able to move on to a 4 year university. There were some signs but I was ignorant of them. I thought autism was Dustin Hoffman in Rainman and my son was not like that at all. I will start at the beginning and describe how we came to the place we are today, a mother with a 27 year old son who over came many hurdles to be the succcess he is today, looking towards a bright future.
The first night home from the hospital I placed the baby monitor in his room and the companion monitor in my room. He woke up in 2 hours. He continued to wake up every 2 hours for the entire first year of his life, literally, he did not sleep for longer than 2 hours at a time for a whole year. His father and I were walking, sleep deprived, zombies who desperately tried every suggestion, every trick, every idea we heard of, read about or thought of to get him to sleep longer. Nothing worked. I got to the point where I could literally get up, change him, feed him or whatever it was he needed, go back to bed and pick up my dream where I left off. I was working fulltime with an hour commute- I barely remember the whole year. Finally we did the 'let him cry himself to sleep' thing. It took 2 nights but after that he slept through the night, phew! I had mentioned this to his pediatrician whose answer was, "Some babies are high need babies." Things calmed down a bit except for the odd fussing during any diaper removal or clothing change. He did not like to have his clothing removed and he would cry during the event until he was completely clothed again, on/off. He did not like things that were new or different. He preferred the same toys, the same clothes, the same food (heaven forbid we cut his sandwich across instead of diagonally!), the same bed, the same routines all day, every day. We thought it odd and mentioned it to the pediatrician, still no flags or concerns were raised. One day a friend of mine visited who had a child the same age as my son, she picked him up because she wanted to give him a hug and she said, "He's so stiff." Stiff? I hadn't noticed until she said that, but he was stiff, he didn't really like to cuddle, he wanted to be close to me but he didn't enjoy snuggling like most babies, he just wanted to be close, without actually touching.
When he started to walk on his first birthday, he walked on his tippy toes. We did not know this was a sign of autism until 19 years later, we just thought it was kind of cute. He seemed happy. He also would slightly stomp one foot when he talked, again, we pointed it out to doctors but no one expressed concerned. At his regular 3 year old checkup the pediatrician was talking to him and asking him questions to which he did not respond. I told her that he didn't talk and not to expect an answer from him. She looked at me quizzically, "He doesn't talk? At all?" I told her he had a few words but usually pointed to what he wanted. She sent us off to a hearing specialist to make sure he could hear, and he could, that wasn't the problem. The doctor scratched her head and said, "Let's try speech therapy." This worked, however, we discovered that he was a stutterer which meant we were looking at years of speech therapy, he was in therapy from the age of 3 until 8th grade when he walked in to his therapist's room and told her, "Thank you for your help but I am done with speech therapy." He still stuttered a bit until he was about 17 but now he does not at all.
He entered kindergarden and seemed to adapt, he stuttered every word of every sentence, every time, but the other children did not seem to be picking on him and he went to speech therapy. He was very creative in the classroom and at home. His favorite toy was Legos and he could build elaborate creations with little to no instruction, not bothering to utilize the instruction booklet contained in the package. He was excellent at inventing stories. His spelling was terrible, he would have to study his vocabulary several times a day, every day to even hope to get a passing grade on the test each week. I have two daughters in addition to my son and I would frequently describe to teachers and to doctors how my son seemed to have more challenges than my daughters but the answer I always got was, "Boys are different." I really was trying to determine if there was something wrong, I oftened had a sense that something was different about him but the 'authorities' and 'specialists' assured me things were fine.
In California every student must pass Algebra to graduate (that's a whole other article for another time) but my son could not pass Algebra. He tried every year, I hired tutors, I brought him to school early to get extra help with it, I picked him up late so the teacher could help with his assignements, finally in his Senior he passed with a D+, enough to graduate. All along I questioned his teachers and his counselor, "Does it not seem odd that he cannot grasp Algebraic concepts?" I was told repeatedly, "He just needs to apply himself." He was great in English, Writing and History classes so I knew that he could and did apply himself to school work. Recently, he explained to me, "In my world numbers are for math and letters are for reading. Putting numbers and letters together?! That's crazy to me. I can't relate, it just doesn't make sense to me." Too bad we did not understand that difficulty when he was in high school, in the world of Autism surprises, changes and unexpected results are not handled well. He attended junior college and did very well in the Arts but could not understand or pass the required Algebra class requirement. That is when his counselor suggested that we have him evaluated for a learning disability. During this evaluation was when we both learned about Pervasive Developmental Disorder, an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
He tries to explain how he thinks to us, his family, and describes it this way: "I see the world differently than others. It's hard to explain but it's like I can see things for what they are instead of what it claims to be. Does that make sense? Example. I don't see cars. I see a Toyota Prius or a Honda Accord or a Chevy Silverado, that is how I store the information." He also sees the world as either/or, black/white, on/off- he does not see nuance or shade. This seems like it may be easy to deal with but in most relationships one needs the ability to understand the middle road, that not all teachers are good or bad, that not all doctors are helpful vs unhelpful. For my son, his need to catergorize things into simple catergories can complicate discussions, for example if his iphone malfunctions then all iphones will malfunction. This leads to challenges in relationships. As an adult he does have "difficulty regulating behaviors and emotions, which may result in temper tantrums, anxiety, and aggression" but he continues to work on and develop better coping mechanisms. He does take meds that help smooth out the high and the low and the quick to get upset reflex he has. Despite this, he lives independently, has a successful career in health care, is about to be married and has written 3 fictional novels.
I do not, personally, believe there is an autism/vaccine link there is too much scientific evidence against this. I think autism has always been with us but our hectic, fast paced life style in which most children are educated, unlike historically when only the children of well to do people were educated, makes the diagnosis seem more prevalent because we are compelled to live in large cities and work in places with heavy interaction. History has several cases of autism described long before autism was named. One as far back as 1566 in Table Talk by Martin Luther, compiled by his note taker, Mathesius, contains the story of a 12-year-old boy who may have been severely autistic. Another in a 1747 court case in which Hugh Blair of Borgue’s brother successfully petitioned to annul Blair's marriage. claiming autism, to gain Blair's inheritance
This brings me to the message of my article: There are many people who are in the autism spectrum and often you will not be aware of their diagnosis. Often a person in the autism spectrum may seem to have quirks and idiosyncrasies and it isn't until you develop a close reationship with them that it will become more apparent that something is unique about them. I cannot decide if it was a blessing or a curse that my son was not diagnosed when he was a child, that we did not know he had a disability until he was a young man. Would I have treated him differently? Would I have over-protected him (quite likely I would have). Would I have lowered my expectations of what he could achieve? Maybe it is better that I didn't know, because I treated him equal to his sisters and held him to the same standards. It really comes to treating people fairly and compassionatly because we never know what challenges they may face. My son is in good company, there are many famous people who are autistic, Temple Grandin, Albert Einstein, Mozart and Darryl Hannah are a few. Today he is a wonderful, intelligent, caring, handsome young man that I am very proud to call my son and I wouldn't change a thing.
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