Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones...

 (the following is something that I wrote some time ago. I've spent a large amount of time going back over it and adding pertinent things or taking away things that did not matter. I've not felt right publishing it prior to this. However, since today is April 1 and that marks Autism Awareness Month I have decided it was time. I apologize for the lack of funny in this one, but it's very important to me)

Sticks and stones will break my bones....but words will never hurt me...

Whoever coined that phrase was full of shit. Pardon my french. The reality is that words, when spoken by specific people, have the power to truly cause emotion. They can lift a person up and make them smile. They can pull them down and cause them pain. It's very obvious that the phrase was created before the mass effect of Facebook and the ability to read what people truly feel and believe.

Yes I have a reason for feeling this way today. And yes I am going to share it. Because I think that anyone who reads this....both of you....might gather something from understanding the true power of the words you use.

 Drama Queen has Asperger's Syndrome. If you don't know much about that, well that is not uncommon. It is a form of Autism, but unlike some forms it is considered high functioning. In other words, it doesn't cause the marked delays that one might see in a child with more severe Autism.

The fact is many people do not understand Autism and those that know a little about it do not understand the many forms of Autism that are on the spectrum. April is Autism Awareness Month and for me this is a time when you help bring that awareness. It's a time to open the eyes of the world to what makes my child different. What makes her who she is. A time to understand that she is not some freak that deserves to be ostracized because she is unique.

I love my daughter the way she is. I will shout that from the rooftops. There are many things about her personality that are brought on from having Autism. And yes I love those things. I should NOT have to be ashamed of that.

That does NOT mean that we have not struggled. Just because she is high functioning does not mean I have not faced the battles other moms have faced. Some of them are the same. Some are different. Even now as a teen we face battles EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And at least twice a week she cries and wishes she did not have Autism. I should not have to sit and give proof that yes we struggle. But for the sake of this post I will. Here are just a few things we have struggled with over the years thanks to Autism.

1. She didn't speak to ANYONE except me until she was 8 years old
2. She couldn't stand loud noises as a child even toilets flushing, so going to a public bathroom required two people. One to take her outside after she was finished so the other could flush.
3. Overstimulation would cause her to melt down. This often resulted in throwing herself into the floor and screaming wherever we were at and she would have to physically be carried out.
4. She would often run when frustrated and this included into streets. She ALWAYS had to have her hand held and you had to be cautious not to upset her.
5. She would bang her head repeatedly on the ground, even concrete, when upset.
6. She pulled her hair out by clumps
7. She couldn't tolerate some clothes and she screamed when her hair was brushed
8. As she got older she lagged behind socially
9. She lacks empathy and the ability to understand how to say the right thing...instead she blurts out whatever is on her mind and this often leads to upsetting people.
10. She has a very hard time maintaining any social relationships.
11. Personal hygiene is a DAILY struggle.We actually have a checklist to go through every morning so that we are sure she has done things every teen needs to do, like putting on deodorant.
12. She is ostracized and picked on a lot and she doesn't understand that it is happening.
13. She struggled in school to the point that we had no choice but to pull her out and homeschool her for several years. We put her back in, at her own request, this year and thank the Lord she is doing well.
14. She smeared her waste on walls for a good year.
15. She used a pacifier until she was 7 years old (only at night during 6,7 because she didn't want anyone to know)
16. She wasn't potty trained until she was almost 5 and about to start kindergarten
17. She still to this day has many sensory issues such as not being able to stand anything near her eyes. I have to do her makeup and it takes a long time and a lot of patience because as much as she wants to wear it, she still can't stand anything near her eyes.
18. For many years when she was younger the meltdowns were extreme. There were days when it took two of us to hold her still while she raged about something.
19. 75% of what she does is emulation. She sees what she is supposed to do and copies it. If a situation comes up that she does not understand, she has absolutely no clue what to do or how to react.
20. She has and has always had a hard time being away from us. She's just recently began to go on overnight trips with the youth group and still only rarely stays the night with a friend.
21. The vast majority of people think that she is just strange because of her naivety and the way she reacts. A fact that she handles well at times and cries about at other times. 


These are only a few of the struggles we have or are facing with Drama Queen. All of these are the result of Autism. So YES. I have faced many of the same issues that others have faced. And every day is still a struggle. Even as a 'high functioning' person she faces a world that is foreign to many.

Just because I treasure my daughter and love her quirkiness, does not mean I am celebrating Autism. Just because I do not spend my life taking on battles that I do not have the time or energy to take on does not mean I am somehow making light of those who have done so. Yes I have raised Drama Queen to believe that this is something she has and that it does not define her. She can be anyone she wants to be. I will not apologize for believing that. I will not apologize for raising her to believe that. She has embraced that and now strives to do better. My once struggling student is now making As and Bs and the girl who could barely keep a friendship alive has not only friends, but a boyfriend (2nd one in 2 months ha). She can also stand on a stage, sing in front of hundreds of people and totally shock anyone who hasn't seen it before. Would it be better if I raised her to believe that she were doomed for life because of this? That her dreams could never come true? That she would somehow always be less than?

I am tired of being made to feel like I am less than because I don't subscribe to the doom and gloom theory. That does not mean I celebrate being Autistic. It does not mean that I would choose this for Drama Queen. It does not mean that I wouldn't take her struggles away if I could. I HATE what she goes through.

But the fact is, there is no way to take it away from her. So I'd rather she accept it, own it and love herself in spite of it. I'd rather she believe in the ability to chase her dreams than feel like she were doomed to a life of misery. And I'm tired of people acting like I am somehow not a good mom for feeling that way. Or like I only feel that way because my daughter is high functioning and so I just don't understand. Believe me, I understand it all. More than I ever wanted to understand.

Visiting My Happy Place...

When you are little bit crazy with a side of opinionated it can be difficult to avoid confrontation. It's amazing that I've spent so many years working with kids considering how very much their parents piss me off. Fortunately for us all I was raised in the south and we did learn a little bit more than how to install a gun rack in the window of a pick-up. Those who still reside in the south would tell you that we learned how to have manners. They would shout from the rooftops that we learned to say please and thank you and be happy about it. Let me set you straight. They are full of shit. We did not learn manners. We learned how to lie.

Those of us 'ladies'  that grew up in the south learned that we don't tell someone when they are a moron. We learned that we are to bite our tongues rather than respond to insults and innuendos. Most of all, we learned that we simply do not say what we feel or what we are going through regardless of how true it might be. Instead we plaster on a pretty little smile and tell everyone that asks how happy we are.

I'm guessing at this point you get a pretty good idea of why I'm happier in the Midwest. Don't mistake that for being ashamed of where I came from. I just happen to be the person that spits out whatever crosses my mind at the time and deal with the consequences later. It does me well up there. There, well let's just say I embarrassed my family a few too many times.

That being said, I would not say that I thrive on arguing. I don't feel some intense pleasure from telling someone what a jackass they are. Well, okay, maybe Grumpy. But otherwise it's just the way it is. Neither good nor bad. Unless it invades my happy place.

Facebook is my happy place. I spend far too much of my life trying to work and pay bills. I enjoy getting together with friends here and people from church, but Facebook is where I can let loose and just be myself. If I ever ran for office, Facebook would be at the center of the scandal. Oh yes, there would be a scandal.

So yesterday I commented to a perfectly innocent conversation about dessert. It was never intended to be a political debate. It was never intended to result in my insistence that the other party was small minded, ignorant and not worth the time it takes me to debate. Yet somehow that is what happened. It was a friend of a friend and they felt the need to use condescending terms to demean people hoping to piss me off because of my political views. Hell, I was raised in the south. I am accustomed to those around me having a lot of crap to say about my political views. I do not fit the mold in which I was raised.

What pissed me off was the comment. The word that was used. The fact that I find it degrading to an entirely innocent group of people. So I said so. After which I was repeatedly insulted to the point where I used the block feature for the first time. I refuse to allow someone to encroach upon my happy place.

Considering the amount of times in life that I manage to blurt out the sheer stupidity of someone, I am thinking that it might be wise to revisit the Xanax idea. I am certain that a couple of those puppies and a mug of vodka would do the trick. Perhaps the world would be a much better place if I just opted to stay away from people altogether.  I'm not sure what would be the best idea.  With 80% of my friends list having polar opposite political opinions than I do, maybe I should just delete my account until after the election.