Give acceptance, not pity

Hi everyone :) Welcome back. I have been extremely busy lately and haven't been able to write but it feels good to be back at it.

So today I worked at the local hospital. I am a CNA/Unit Clerk as needed there. I was talking with coworkers about Eli and this upcoming school year ahead of us(a whole other anxiety post to come later). While speaking with them, one of my closer friends asked how long Eli has been diagnosed and as I began to talk about it. While I was describing our story, another coworkers who I am acquainted with but do not know well walked up and asked what we were talking about. When I told her we were discussing my youngest having autism, she looked at me with pity and said "Awe, your son has autism?" I said "Yeah" while shaking my head.

Now that I've sat and thought about the conversation, I wish I would've said something more than Yeah. I wish I would've said "yes but it's not a sad thing. He's one of the happiest boys I know." Because it's not something to pity. But then I think back to when I used to react to people's statements about children with autism. And I remember having that pity she displayed today.

Here's the thing I can tell you folks who have little experience with autism. The last thing parents of ASD kids want is your pity. I am not mad at the girl who I referred to today because I know she did what she thought was the right thing. I understand that people display pity as a sign of empathy. The thing with ASD is that we don't need empathy or pity, we need acceptance and understanding. We want you all to be happy that were moving forward and that were overcoming our struggles. We want you all to respond with smiles instead of frowns. The positive reinforcements from understanding and acceptance is much more influential than the negative of pity.

"Be humble and gentle in every way. Be patience with each other and lovingly accept each other. "

-Taylor

About Eli: Inside and Out :)

Welcome back :)

I would like to say thank you to each and everyone for their support of my first post. I am so blessed to have even one person read it, and it continues to grow in views. Thanks so much! 

This morning I decided that I wanted to write about Eli and his life as of right now. I know that he is only 3 years old and that (God willing) he has a full life ahead of him. He has so much potential to overcome his struggles. But I think it's important to give a background about him. I have tried to make it as brief and understandable as I could so please bare with me.

 

So this cutie above is Eli :) 

I absolutely love this picture of him because I feel like it captures his happiness. His smile is brightening and his laugh is contagious. Although autism doesn't allow Eli to communicate with us or share experiences with us, it doesn't keep him from being a (mostly) happy little boy. 

When Eli was diagnosed, the physician described autism in a way that really clicked with me. To paraphrase what she said, normal brain cells connect to each other to send messages without trouble. Each cell reports to the correct receiving cell to display the message being sent (i.e. making eye contact). For a person who has autism, their brain cells do not connect the same. Instead, the cells are either sent to other receiving cells or not connected at all to create abnormal messages (i.e. not making eye contact). Because the cells don't connect correctly, it causes the symptoms we are able to identify like difficulty with communication and social interactions, obsessive interests, and repetitive behaviors. For Eli, he displays difficulty in social interaction and communicating needs. He also has obsessive interests in wheels of his toy cars and displays repetitive vocal sounds (a.k.a. echolalia).  

Autism also affects a person's senses. Every person on the spectrum is affected differently and experience custom sensory difficulties. For Eli, he has hypersensitivity(fancy word for oversensitive) to light, taste, some touch, and some sound. As I previously stated, Eli's sensitivity to light is his hardest struggle. He remains indoors a lot because the sun is sometimes too much. A way to describe how uncomfortable it is to him is to imagine the sun was much much closer to the Earth. He receives that much more light from the sun than we do. Eli is also a picky eater. He is basically surviving off of chicken strips and fries because he has so much discomfort of squishy foods like mashed potatoes. He eats a lot of fruit because it's crunchy also. 

Eli also has hyposensitivity(undersensitive) to touch, sound, balance, and fear. Because he is not able to recieve stimulation from these senses the same, he requires much more to satisfy his needs. For a balance example, if you and I were on the merry-go-round at the park and we had rode it for only 5 minutes we would become very dizzy. We would have a hard time standing, and may even fall. If Eli was to ride the merry-go-round, it would take him probably 15 minutes before becoming dizzy like us. His senses don't recieve the same amount of stimulation that ours do. A fear example would be that while you and I can perceive a fearful situation like jumping off something at a great height, Eli would find it to be enjoyable. He is unable to understand situations that may cause harm because he doesn't recieve it the same as we do. 

To clarify, this is just a non-educated paraphrased description of my understanding. I am in no shape claiming that this is how autism is specifically or that it is completely correct. I am only sharing this to maybe help people better understand autism and how it is for people who have it. Using Eli as an example, it's a description of why some of the things autistic people do seemy strange or different. It's because their brains work much differently than ours. 

Grocery store fiasco

Hi there and welcome to our story!! My name is Taylor and this is my very first blog so please be patient with me! I am a mother to two beautiful boys who are my world! My oldest is named Braxton and he is the smartest, funniest almost 5 year old you've ever met! He truly is growing up way too fast for me to keep up with. My youngest is named Eli and he is my little handful. Eli is a mischievous but sweet 3 year old. He loves to sing and watch TV! Welcome to our family :)

To begin, I want you to know why I am writing about our story. Eli has Moderate Autism Spectrum Disorder. He was diagnosed April 24th of this year. I'm excited to start this blog of our experiences because I want to help create awareness for autism acceptance. There is so much about autism that I am still learning about and I'm as much of a student as the audience of this blog. But I feel that I should share our experiences so that maybe another family can feel comfort knowing they are not alone. Or maybe this can help people who have zero experience with autism get a sense of what it's truly like, despite the terrible rumors many people hear and believe.

This post is titled Grocery Store Fiasco because we went to the grocery store today and had a rough time. Let me throw out that taking two kids to the grocery store alone is a terrible idea to begin with, autistic or not. But when you've put off the dreaded chore for so long that the house is basically empty, I had no other choice (lol!).
There is a misconception that autistic people cannot handle loud noises and while this is true for some, it is not for all, including my baby boy. Eli has more sensitivity to light so we can't be in bright lighting for a long period of time or he becomes very uncomfortable. And apparently the lights in the store today were a little more bothersome to him than usual. Eli began to become loud and somewhat disruptive to other customers in the store. Braxton was very good and patient. He remained calm and tried to help me soothe Eli with songs or chants. But it wasn't working. Everytime we attempted a tune, Eli would scream because it was not what he wanted. Eli is considered nonverbal because he cannot communicate needs or concerns with words or signs. He screams to communicate likes and dislikes. Eli had became so upset that his noise was drawing attention from other shoppers. As I was trying to find something satisfying for him to watch on my phone, I hear whispering. After I got Eli's favorite video playing, I turn around to see several shoppers in a group looking at us, pointing, and whispering. About us. About my son. I can imagine the judgement being passed about how I am not "making my child mind".
Look, I was raised in a home where you got a spanking as a punishment. It's not passed me to whoop my kids, trust me. But our time at the grocery was not Eli acting out and misbehaving. He was talking to me without using words. I find it very hard to teach my kids about treating others with patience and respect when they witness grown adults doing such things. I strive to teach the boys that God made each of us different on purpose. God does not want us passing judgement on others. Only He can judge us.
Im not here to preach. This is just a friendly reminder from the mom who you thought didn't discipline her kids and was creating little demons for future society, patience is a virtue and kindness can take you much further than meanness can.

Thanks for reading! :)

-Taylor