Yes, We Get Tired of It

For all of our optimism and our explanations of our son, our urging people to understand him and his unique difficulties, there is a flip side.

Yes, we get tired of it.

Like I said in an earlier blog, no one plans to have an autistic child.  No one does this on purpose, unless you are one of those people who adopts a special needs child (and you, whoever you are, deserve a special place in heaven, in my opinion!).

You get over the initial heartbreak...watching your young child slip away from you and become less and less responsive, giving up the future you had envisioned for your son or daughter...the conversations, the play dates, the football games, the marriage, the grandchildren...He or she is on a different path now, it's a different future.  You learn to accept it.  You learn to not grieve.

So, but yes, we get tired of the challenges.  There are some days when Logan's yelling at the top of his lungs is almost a constant.  And yes, it has, literally, given me a headache.  There are many days when I wish I could go out to the movies or to dinner with my husband without it being an ordeal.  There are a lot of days when we get tired of the throwing, the mood swings, the odd behaviors. We get tired of never being able to get through a full session of church or go to class together because one of us is always running interference with Logan.

It sounds horrible to say all of this.  But it's true.  We love our son.  We would not trade him.  We would not send him back.  But his challenges are our challenges, and we would be lying if we pretended it was all roses and that it was no big deal.  And if it's not that great for us, if it's an ordeal for us that becomes too much sometimes, imagine what it must be for our son.  The thing about Logan is that he knows that he's different.  I have watched him, when no one thought I was looking, copy his brother and sister, trying to be like them.  I have seen him come and sit down next to them while they were playing computer or watching TV, because he wanted to be included.  For someone so brilliant, someone so smart and active in his mind and body, being unable to communicate, to convey emotion and opinion, to express himself or understand others' expressions, must be sheer hell.

So, what do we do when we get tired of it?  Well, it's not something you can just stop doing.  We wait it out. Sometimes, if Logan has had a particularly rough day, I take him, and we drive.  We drive all over town, through my favorite neighborhoods, down by the lake, until he feels more in control and I do too.  I once drove around town for half an hour while he threw a screaming fit in the back of the car.  I don't remember what he was upset about.  I just remember that the longer we drove, the calmer he got, until he finally just let it go. It gets better.  Everything gets better if you just wait.