Maybe it's been within me all along and has taken me this long to accept it or maybe it has been the influence of my little butterfly muse to help me reach this moment, but here I go with my words.
All of my life, I have always been different. I never cared to socialize with my siblings or even form long-lasting friendships with others. It was always a challenge for me to keep friends, let alone make friends and those who have stayed by my side are the lucky few. I preferred to be a loner and do my own thing and not "conform" to social norms/rules. Yet, people who have met me would think opposite. I can be extremely social when the setting fits. I've learned this self-adaptive skill in order to make my way through life and it's worked.
Very much like Dexter (minus the serial killer aspect), I'm apathetic to a lot of things. I'm able to be a great therapist because I don't and never get attached to my families. It's a skill I've always had, yet I show empathy and understanding in the moment.
As a child, I would stim and rock and could memorize lyrics to a song after just hearing it for the first time. I read at a junior high school level by the time I was six years old. I was obsessed with school and learning and never needed parental guidance because I always knew more. A little Einstein was defintely something someone would've called me when I was in the second grade. I was going places and boy did I go...
So why am I sharing all of this? Because the more I become fluent in my daughter's language, the more connections I am making to my own life and childhood and why I am the way I am. How I've always struggled to get close to family and let my walls down. How I'm so honest, was/is horrible at lying, and wore my emotions on my face because I didn't know how to "fake it". After years of practice and a few psych degrees later, now I know, but it's still a struggle within.
So back to my daughter. I'm realizing that she is so much like me. Maybe not within her spoken language, but her personality mirrors mine and I worry for her. I worry about her future and being judged and ridiculed because she's an autistic female. Her male classmates already have the upper hand. They will have each other, but will they be there for my dear Autumn? I pray each day that she will have "her village" and sure online here she does. Right now at school she does, but will she when she's 13? Who will be there for her then? I sure as hell plan on being there, but I know that "mom" won't be enough...heck, it wasn't for me growing up and I'm blessed with the most loving and affectionate mother out there, which brings me to my next point.
When I started this journey, I wrote a lot about my own self-pity and had this "poor me" complex. I've grown immensely within the past year and no longer see Autumn's autism as the enemy, but the guiding light that will help navigate me into her world. I'm also not saying I'm autistic by any means, but it's connection does makes a lot of sense. It's taken me thirty plus years to embrace myself, to accept the things I cannot control, and to love unconditionally those who deserve my love in return. Luckily, I found someone similar to me who counter balances my "I'm a bird I want to fly far far away from here". I thank God every day for blessing me with him because he is my rock, the love of my life, and the fact that the two of us truly accept one another for all that we are and see the capabilities we have within, it's the best feeling in the world. I say to myself that if all of the struggles I had to endure during my childhood, the pain and rejections I faced was to lead me to not only my soulmate, but to our daughter, well it's been worth it times a million.
Thus, ladies and gentlemen, I've decided that I'm going to be taking a different approach to "Raising a Butterfly" by still sharing Autumn's journey, but more along the lines of acceptance and advocacy. I still have so much to learn about parenthood and autism in general and I'm sure I will continue to complain here and there about the trials of being a mom, but that's parenting overall.
I know that most have come here to relate to our story, to my words, as were in this journey together, but when I say this, I mean this: we ARE in this together and "this together" shouldn't be programmed as some sort of tragedy. It's not a bad thing that our kids are considered "different". We need to each learn to embrace our children for who they truly are and not how they should be. As I said the other week, why have our children and ourselves conform to a world that's full of "quiet hands" and "look at me's"? Why take away what makes each of us unique? I'm done promoting such a thing. I know that I've contributed to the negativity surrounding autism by some of my self-centered, poor me posts. I've promoted organizations like Autism Speaks that preaches for "a cure", when I know there's never going to be a "one-size-fits-all" cure. I've reached this point where I'm choosing to not focus so much on the milestones and getting my daughter to stop scripting or perseverating on words, or stressing anymore about her sensory input. I will help her regulate and support her voice, but I don't want nor plan on changing her. Frankly, I don't care anymore about what "society" wants from my daughter. She's perfect to me and I never want her to stop spinning, squeezing and loving me. I've officially embraced all of her and there's no turning back now.
Thus, in the coming weeks I will be asking questions and posting about "females and autism" as I want to learn all I can about the minority population within club spectrum (nothing against our males on the spectrum). I hope that this will help me better understand my daughter and how I can help promote a world best suited for her needs. Again, all about embracing as the more we accept, the more we love.
Xoxo,
Trish
PS, I leave with this sweet Vday card that I made my husband. We call ourselves "penguins" bc penguins are known to mate for life. We are huge Christina Perry fans. Autumn is as well. She freezes in her tracks when Christina come on and will sing along to the music. Thus, the lyrics below/included are to her song titled "Penguin", how appropriate. ❤️
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