A Positive Moment in my Sad World of Asperger's Syndrome

February 12, 2007

I just watched "Autism Every Day" at AutismSpeaks.org and while the entire video touches my heart, the part that made me cry the most was the mom who said it was only because of her other daughter (her NT daughter if you will) that she hasn't driven off a bridge with her autistic child and I have to honestly say that our daughter is the only reason I haven't driven off a bridge with our son.

I love them both so much but I struggle to see any kind of a positive future for our son, or us for that matter, but our daughter (who has tendencies of PDD-NOS but only minor now) has the world at her fingertips if only we can hang on financially to help pay for college.

She's smart, funny, beautiful, compassionate and just such a sweetheart and I couldn't ever remove myself from her life, she just means too much to me and I couldn't do that to her.

But that's not to say I haven't considered more than once when we were in California driving to the Golden Gate Bridge and even here on Whidbey Island, we've only been here two months and already I've been so low that I've considered driving or jumping off of Deception Pass Bridge with our son, to save both of them.

Save our daughter from a life of heartache over missed opportunities due to our son's difficulties and save our son from his own heartache over his own missed opportunities.

Asperger's Syndrome and Autism and PDD-NOS are such cruel, cruel "afflictions" so much of the time. He's sharp enough to realize that he's missing out on friendships and so much in life yet he can't figure out how to not miss out. We can see him hurting so much but we can't fix it. Our daughter has an emotional moment and I'm so embroiled in emails, phone calls, etc. for our son that I can't comfort her when she needs it. Or I end up crying in her arms when I'm supposed to be comforting her and letting her cry in my arms.

I'm so embroiled in being his mom that my husband (his dad) loses out, I forget to be his wife or am just so tired or demoralized for want of a better word that I can't be a wife, I can't shut everything else out and be just his wife no matter how much he deserves it. I'm often amazed that he's still with us, it's a testament to his love for me and us that he is still with us, especially when SO MANY families are torn apart by Autism and Asperger's Syndrome.

It is SO HARD to be positive about things, I am amazed at the parents that I see that manage to find positive in every day. Sometimes my ONLY positive is that I get to climb into bed come night. But then I remember that there are days that I'm positive and there are no doubt days when these parents that I see as being so positive are as down as I get.

I'd never heard any other parent talk about their other child being the only reason they haven't driven off of a bridge and to hear that mom say it just really had an effect on me because I've said and felt it so often myself.

And then our daughter comes along and decides that she's going to center her next required art project around Autism and I think oh my gosh she's wonderful and there's my positive moment for the day. Once again the positive moment comes from her. What would I do without her? Would we even still be here on this earth if it wasn't for her?