During today's Disability Minute, Sharita Patterson Rodriguez - a mother of an autistic child - describes her experiences and challenges.
TRANSCRIPT:
Mom, I don’t need to do homework because it’s not night yet. Son, that’s not what she meant,
your teacher meant after school, you need to do your homework. But it’s not dark yet and she said do your homework tonight. I know but you still need to do your homework....(heavy sigh)...okay, tell you what, let’s just forget about it for this time and go get some dinner. So this is just a tidbit of our days. Jeremiah, do you want to try on this shirt?...It’s really nice?... No Mom. I can’t. I just can’t, it doesn’t feel right. And, it has those buttons....all of those buttons. Son, its just a couple buttons buttons. Okay, I sigh again. So, we visit his pediatrician about a week later and "doc, what do I do?...what do I do? I mean, they are buttons...what's the big deal?" But it is a big deal to him...and it hurts him. So, doc says leave him alone.
All these things that I've learned about; the repetitive, obsessive behaviors...meltdowns...anxiety attacks are a part of autism, the “Invisible Disability.” He has autism, really? You can’t tell! Yeah, I know you can't...but it's there. My 11-year old son was diagnosed at around 2 and a half with autism. Specifically, developmentally delayed at first..but about two months later he was diagnosed with autism. And he was diagnosed as severe. He wasn’t talking much. We used sign language to communicate. And we aggressively got him enrolled into school....the Sunshine School. Got him therapies. We did everything we needed to do...and more. We even got genetic testing because, while I was trying to move forward and figure out "what did I do wrong", my husband was - you know - still in denial. But then I met a lady who kind of helped me 'get over' myself and realize that it was all about his life. So at that point on I focused on enhancing his life. Just making sure he was happy and healthy.
And, there are some really hard days. Like, I recently washed his iPhone...in the wash. He was traumatized. Literally traumatized. This led to 3 or 4 straight 'bad days' from that day. But, eventually we got through it...like we always do.
In learning more and more about autism, I have learned that the best thing I can do for him is to let him be who he is - continue to enhance his life. And I've had wonderful people who have helped me. It has sparked my advocacy in the community in different groups. And now, these 7, almost 8 years later from his diagnosis, I have an honor roll student, an obsessive game animation programmer, a student of DJ’ing, and lego enthusiast. And he's quite possibly my 'forever' baby. A life of schedules, timed events, meltdowns and laughs. But I'm okay with that.
He's happy.
