The Helpless Mother

They say that when your Soldier deploys, things start to happen in your life. As a mother you notice things in your children that no one else would notice. All of our daughter's life I had noticed that something wasn't quite right and that we needed to have her evaluated. I had mentioned this to people earlier in her life and they would say, "no that is normal behavior" but as her mother, I knew something wasn't right. Some of the things I noticed: 1) She wouldn't look at people in the eye when they were speaking with her. 2) She was easier provoked to fight and had extreame odd behavior that wasn't normal for children her age. 3) She would get frustrated and self inflict or punish herself if she didn't get things correct the first time. 4) I was constantly called into her school to talk with her teacher because she wasn't listening in class 5) I was also called into school because she was correcting the teacher A LOT. 6) Normal discipline wasn't working I took her to the Psychologist and it turns out that our daughter was diagnosed with Autism. I didn't know what to do with my husband who was deployed to Afghanistan. I felt hopeless and afraid that I was being judged by others who didn't know that my child had autism. The Psychologist and went over with with me the different treatment options for our child, and told me that I was not the only one. It was reassuring that other parents are going through this also, and that some other parents also have a child who's autism is deeper on the scale than our's. I attended a Autism conference in Salt Lake City with my mother and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with other families that were going through the same thing. I was also able to attend a meeting with Dr. Temple Grandin (Yes, the one from the movie) and she shared a slide show on how the Autistic brain is different from a "normal"brain. It helped to visually see how people with autism think differently than anyone else. I felt like I finally could understand a small particle of what my daughter was going through. One thing that I learned from the conference is that children with autism can do amazing things. I always knew this, however; it was great to meet with a board members who were autistic but have learned to cope in normal society. One was a Doctor who recently graduated from Johns Hopkins University, who informed us that when he was first diagnosed, he was rocking in the corner and wouldn't come out of his room. I always knew that our daughter was special and could do amazing things, but I wasn't sure how to help her find her stride. At the conference I discovered Horse Back Riding Therapy and that is for another post later on.