http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1116602/Why-face-truth-Having-autistic-child-wrecks-life-.html
She went on to detail the lives of Cath and John, who have an autistic child named Tom. She describes all the ways that Tom's condition has interrupted their lives, changed their plans, and in general, made life a living hell for his parents and grandparents, and concludes the article with this very jaded and cynical point of view:
"But looking on, as a relatively dispassionate observer; looking at the damage done, the absence of hope and the anguish of the poor child himself, do I think that everyone concerned would have been better off if Tom's had been a life unlived? Unequivocally, yes."
As I read through the article, many of Tom's behaviors reminded me of my own son, Logan, and some of the struggles we faced early on with him. We did feel despair. We did feel hopeless. Finding help for Logan was a challenge, and it still is. We have a tough time going out together because our babysitters are limited. Finances are in short supply...but I can't blame that entirely on Logan, because there are six people in my family, and two of them are tweens. I suppose I could write a whole article on how having two tweens has wrecked my life with worry and depleted my grocery budget, but why would I do that? I love them. And it wouldn't be an honest article, anyhow, because it would leave out too many facts and focus only on the negative aspects of raising those children.
I can't look at my life, or the life of my family, and say that it has been wrecked by Logan's autism. It's not the life I expected to have. As Logan grows, I am delighted by the changes I see in him: increased communication, increased affection, more willingness to learn, and great effort to communicate, just to name a few. I know that all parents are not so blessed. Buy saying that Tom's life would have been best unlived is like saying that any child that poses a struggle or a challenge to a family would have been better off as just a twinkle in their dad's eye and leave it at that.
No life ever goes the way anyone expects it to. Logan and his autism have not wrecked my life. It has changed my life. I have learned so much from him. There are so many things that I was unaware of before Logan. The other day I was speaking to my friend Caroline. Her son has cerebral palsy and a host of other behavioral and mental complications. At the age of almost twenty, he can finally go to the bathroom by himself. Speaking with her about our respective situations, we both agreed that we would not want to go back to the way we were before we had our sons. I cannot speak for Caroline, but for myself, I was very naive and judgmental towards other people. I had compassion and charity, but I can honestly say that Logan has instilled in me a greater sense of patience and empathy than I had before.
Sarler also mentioned the guilt that Cath struggled with...blaming herself for her son's autism, wondering if this thing or that thing she had done in pregnancy or when he was an infant had triggered his condition. I did this too. When Logan was first diagnosed with autism, I wondered if something I had done had caused it. I have since concluded that it doesn't matter. I do not blame myself for my son's condition, because there is no way to know what really caused it. Being a parent is all about guilt, sometimes, anyway. You do constantly question yourself, and sometimes berate yourself, because you feel you could have done better by your child. And you constantly worry. This is not exclusive to autism.
I'm not perfect. There are many days when he is not at his best and I'm not either. I wish for a normal day when I could take him somewhere and not worry about a meltdown. But this hasn't wrecked my life. If anything it has made me more passionate...about life, about grabbing onto opportunities when they present themselves, and about being a parent. Would I go back and do it all again? Unequivocally. Yes.
I can understand what you say about not wanting to go back to how you were before all this changed your life. I feel much the same way about how I was before my husband died. I am a different person now than I was before Skip died: stronger in many ways, more able to stand up for myself. If I could have him back only at the expense of my growth of the past few years, I wouldn't take it; I wouldn't want to be that person now, even if it meant I could still have my dear Skip. The things I have gone through, the losses, the struggles - they have shaped me and informed the way that I have grown. I might not have enjoyed my life experiences, nor the lessons I've learned from them, but I wouldn't trade them away for anything.
ReplyDeleteTammy, thanks for your reply. For myself, I don't think there is anything to be gained by looking backwards and wondering "what if". I used to be a dreamer when I was really young...over the last five years I've learned to deal with a lot of hard realities. Some of them haven't been pleasant, but I would rather have the things I learned than remain the way I was.
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