off the hook
Out of all the things that have sucked with L. getting an ASD diagnosis, there have been some unexpectedly pleasant aspects to the whole situation. One thing that I keep noticing is that we are all a lot easier on each other -- me and her dad, and both of us with her. I guess that we run the risk of spoiling her and becoming complete pushovers with no limits whatsoever, but it's such a relief to stop forcing ourselves to go through the motions of normal parenting and watch it backfire over and over again.
In a lot of ways, getting the diagnosis has been like getting the key to some kind of puzzle or brain teaser -- once you know the solution, you can go back and look at all the problems and now you understand the language for the first time and it starts making sense.
Example one: potty training. For sure, we have made a huge mess of it. But from what her occupational therapist tells us, her nervous system isn't giving her the message yet when she needs to go, and because she's under-responsive to a lot of different kinds of stimuli, it doesn't really bother her to sit in a wet diaper. She's not going to be potty-trained until we can help her sort out her basic neuroligical issues, no matter how many packets of M&M's we dangle in front of her for sitting on the potty. And "they" promise me that it will happen. Soon. Of course, I almost shot the OT when she gave me the line about how she's not going to start college wearing diapers. Is it some kind of law that you have to use that line whenever the subject of potty training comes up?
That's just one small area where I'm letting us all off the hook. The bigger, more important thing is that in some ways knowing she is on the spectrum lets us all be a little kinder to each other, to hold back from sniping except when we are super duper extra sleep-deprived, to not force ourselves to hold her to some standard she can't meet and then hate ourselves for punishing her in the name of creating boundaries.
She can't help it that she's literally bouncing off the walls, and we're all a lot happier just putting her on a trampoline for a little while when she's driving us insane instead of trying to reprimand the autism out of her.
In a lot of ways, getting the diagnosis has been like getting the key to some kind of puzzle or brain teaser -- once you know the solution, you can go back and look at all the problems and now you understand the language for the first time and it starts making sense.
Example one: potty training. For sure, we have made a huge mess of it. But from what her occupational therapist tells us, her nervous system isn't giving her the message yet when she needs to go, and because she's under-responsive to a lot of different kinds of stimuli, it doesn't really bother her to sit in a wet diaper. She's not going to be potty-trained until we can help her sort out her basic neuroligical issues, no matter how many packets of M&M's we dangle in front of her for sitting on the potty. And "they" promise me that it will happen. Soon. Of course, I almost shot the OT when she gave me the line about how she's not going to start college wearing diapers. Is it some kind of law that you have to use that line whenever the subject of potty training comes up?
That's just one small area where I'm letting us all off the hook. The bigger, more important thing is that in some ways knowing she is on the spectrum lets us all be a little kinder to each other, to hold back from sniping except when we are super duper extra sleep-deprived, to not force ourselves to hold her to some standard she can't meet and then hate ourselves for punishing her in the name of creating boundaries.
She can't help it that she's literally bouncing off the walls, and we're all a lot happier just putting her on a trampoline for a little while when she's driving us insane instead of trying to reprimand the autism out of her.
I'm glad to hear you're giving yourselves a break.
Potty training was a humongous disaster over here, too, by the way. I strongly recommend just forgetting about it until she's ready. After I wept buckets of tears and screamed myself hoarse and discovered a very ugly side of myself that I wish I'd never seen, I gave up...and then it happened.
Life is hard enough without beating yourself up about everything.
that is a reat reason not to be afraid of a diagnosis.
Can i admit I call GG "autism light"?
Because of you and your writing about this, I wont be afraid to speak up about her to the dr.
another confession, i use that lame college adage for everything.