Discovery World 2010 January- For once and only once glad that Muffin broke the "no pictures of my back" rule With Precious, Butter and CocoaOne of the things that comes with an autism dx is the fact that you have a child that in many cases cannot process certain things, and it becomes your task to bypass that issue and essentially bridge the gap between your child and the rest of the world.
Emotions are a huge part of that disconnect.
Precious has a very hard time recognizing his emotions and even after finally getting the emotion identified, he then is lost as to how to express it.
Before he could speak- he was unable to speak for 2+ years, his emotions were a huge and constant source of frustration and mystery. He would put his hands on my mouth as I spoke, looking at me in awe for a few seconds, then his brow would crinkle and he would put one hand on my mouth, and one on his, he would move his lips up and down in mimic, but he could not do anything like I was, and he would get so angry, and I would feel so helpless. In his eyes, I could see him, waiting there for me to get to, he would look at me and I felt his voice rather than heard it, saying Mom, PLEASE FIND ME and bring me to where you are. . .to this day I can't explain it, but I knew he was in there. . .and I had to figure out a way to get him to where the rest of the world was. . .somehow.
He is so much more in this world now, but emotions are pretty tough. Now that he has figured out how he feels, he now has to learn to regulate it with those around him, meaning he has to understand that others around him may also need to have their emotions considered. Last night, he was having a really bad night, and I could not understand at first. His usual pattern is when I have not yet figured out what is wrong, he gets more and more angry and then lashes out at Cocoa and Butter- which he did last night. Hitting pushing, sitting on them. . .all the while saying "you need to settle down Precious" or "why are you sad Precious?" with me right there trying to redirect him. . .until I figured out that he was just way too over stimed and said the magic words "time for bed now" Full. Stop.
"I don't want to go to bed!!" I insisted. . .knowing a meltdown of this sort was almost certainly because he was tired.
He looked right at me and said "Mommy, I need to stay up"
OMG- OMG OMG
AN ACTUAL EXPRESSSION OF WANT FROM MY BABY!!!!!
Not his usual "not time for bed" or the third person distance between him and his wants I NEED my baby said I NEED. . .omg omg omg. . .and WOW.
I know many people would say what's the big deal? My kid says things like that all the time. To which I would say "lucky you" and don't rain under my umbrella, where the miracle of "Mommy I need" is truly Heaven sent. . .
Amazing, TOTALLY amazing. . .
Welcome to the world, my sweet Precious.
2 comments:
Although I don't *truly* know what it's like to raise a child with autism, I've definitely seen the mimicking before, and the difficulty expressing feelings/emotions in a way that's easily understood by others. My oldest (and one of my best) friends in the world has a son with autism, and for years, he didn't talk, and then when he did, it was mimicking everything back. It took him years to even say "mom" because she would call him "honey" and he would in turn call her "honey" instead of mom. It is not easy at all; no one should believe otherwise, but at the same time, it opens you up to a world of different forms of communication. Human emotion is a very powerful thing and I think that really hits home when you see a child who doesn't express things in "the regular" ways.
for sure! Just took it for granted that everyone "got" emotions but trying to explain to him why he has to do certain things to be polite has always caused me to pause. . .like why does he have to excuse himself for passing gas in any form? He says excuse me, but he really doesn't understand WHY- he just does it.
He used to get so frustrated that he would slam his head, just once, into something really hard, the wall or the entertainment center WHACK and he would slomehow reset his frustration. . .that was when he was about a year or so old. . .
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