Autism? How can that be?
This is my story of how it happens to be.
My Definition of “Autism”
When one day you wake up and find your baby is gone. Almost like a monster took your baby in the night. When they won’t look at you. When you can’t hold them. When they don’t want to be near you. When they stop playing with you. When they stop talking. When it seems they don’t hear you. They’re now picky eaters. They just won’t sleep. They twirl things constantly. They walk on tippy toes. They flap their arms. They don’t care what you want. They seem to ignore you but they aren’t really there. Laughing so hard you swear granny is there. Screaming themselves to sleep. Never social. It sometimes seems they have no soul.
These things could happen as your baby grows up and you may hear the words “AUTISM” right from the DOC. The craziest thing you will ever hear. What the bleep does that mean? I never heard of Autism except for the movie “Rainman”. Where did it come from? How did it get here? What does it mean?
The are stories of random thoughts and memories of Raising Autism by me.
Here are my boys. Aren’t they sweet? This is the last time they would look at each other that way again. How Hayden loved his brother but as they grew up Parker started changing. Now they rarely see each other. However, we live in the same house. Autism is hard to understand and deal with. And for a brother it is devastating. You imagine hanging out with your brother and teach him everything you know. But when you find out your brother don’t care about playing anymore and mostly just sits and rocks in the corner it is a hard life for sure.
Although Parker loved his brother and still does it is hard for them to connect with each other. Fist bumps as they walk by each other and some high fives is the relationship that they share. Parker is annoying to his brother because he is always wrecking his stuff.
Parker wrecks everything hence his nickname Bam Bam. He gets over stimulated and frustrated and doesn’t know how to deal with it so he turns to wrecking things. He hurts people too which makes it hard to go places. This upset his brother because most of the time he didn’t get to go places. However, he did love skipping the lines at Disney World. We have to do this when we go out because Parker will just lash out on strangers if he has to wait a minute longer.
One time at the grocery store he pinched a man walking down the isle. I was so nervous about how he would react but he said no need to apologize it is absolutely fine. Phew, another day of not getting sued. A big fear of ours that one day we will not find an understanding person.
I entered this photo in a contest and it was published in a book called Spirits In The Night. A coffee table book with nothing but photographs that were entered in the contest. All with stories about their photos. I named mine Hayden and Parker Forever. I said that they will never look at each other like that again. This photo was time stood still. A time when Hayden and Parker played with each other.
December 1, 2016
Visit again soon to see more about Hayden and Parker and our lives living with Autism. Check out my blog section to see more stories I have posted about Autism.
Author of RaisingAutism.me
Dawn Meyers
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