My Life

Being an Autism Mom

Ok, I need to vent a little bit.

Back in December, my son and I went to a Christmas dinner at our friend's sister's house. My husband wasn't able to attend because of the hours he was working. Everybody loved my son and thought it was so cute when he would play with the toys they got him for Christmas.

Towards the end of the dinner, this one woman (who I don't really like) was there talking loudly as she usually does. My son kept hitting his butt a few times, so I checked his diaper to see if he needed changed on not (his diaper was clean). The woman had the nerve to say out loud, "Time to potty train him. In fact, he's 3 years old! He should be potty trained by now!" She was already irritating me, and that comment did nothing to ease it. Just made it worse. I looked at her and replied just as loudly "He's autistic and he is non-verbal! How the hell am I suppose to potty train him when he never shows signs that he needs to go!?" After that, I just blocked her out simply because I didn't want to cause a scene in front of everyone. Later on that night when coming home, my friend said to me how that woman said that I need to teach my son sign language so that maybe I would know that signs. Are you fucking kidding me!?! (Excuse my language too). Does she think that I haven't even tried that!? I tried for 5 almost 6 months teaching my son sign language. I know he understands it, but he refuses to reciprocate the signs.

I was talking to my next door neighbor a couple weeks later about it. Just talking, not venting or anything. She said how that woman called her after they got home from the dinner that night and was bitching about me, and about how my husband and I need to do this and that with my son. This coming from someone who doesn't even have kids! She treats kids like animals and animals like kids. I don't think she believes my son has autism at all and thinks I'm just using that as an excuse for being a lazy parent.

Yea I'm a lazy parent alright. That's why I've only been busting my ass trying to find that answers for why my son is the way he is and also trying to get him the help and intervention he needs to get better. People don't understand what it's like being an Autism mom. The challenges we face day in and day out can be overwhelming a lot of times. The meltdowns, the tantrums, in my case the guessing games of what my son wants or needs since he can't physically tell me. It is extremely difficult. There are days in which everything gets to be too much for me and I just end up crying after he goes to bed.

I still can't fully explain it because in a lot of ways, I'm still learning about it. But unless a person is going through it themselves, they won't have any clue on how difficult it is having an ASD child.