Each and every time I hear this statement, a part of me cringes inside while the other part of me wants to jump up and give this perplexed parent the biggest hug of their lives.
I also want to shout right back to them the answer that maybe they’re not ready to hear:
“No, you DID NOT first-hand cause your child to have xyz... Maybe you gave birth or helped create your child and brought them into this world, but there is nothing and I mean NOTHING personal you did to cause their developmental diagnosis and/or disabilities!!!”
Hearing parents put such pressure and blame on themselves and believing they possess supernatural powers to cause life-altering diagnoses is heartbreaking folks. I wish special needs parents would stop looking for reasons as to why their child has xyz diagnosis or this disability and just focus on the here and now, but I get it. We’ve been programmed to believe that if we have the answers and understand the “whys” in life, we will learn from them and do better next time. I know this viewpoint all too well because I’ve been there myself.
You see, my beautiful, 7 year old daughter Autumn was diagnosed with autism right after her second birthday. I will never forget her neurologist reconfirming my inner thoughts and reassuring me that with early intervention and behavioral therapies, she would be okay. My daughter’s autism diagnosis came in like a tsunami filled with an abundance of raw emotions with the main ones being guilt and blame. “Did I use the microwave too much?”, “Was it all of my traveling back and forth to grad school while I was pregnant?”, “Was it those prenatal vitamins or the wine I had two weeks prior to knowing I was pregnant?”.
I mean the list went on and on.
The worst part, I thought that because I worked with children as a counselor and people considered me an expert within the field, what kind of mother must I be if my own biological child had developmental delays and an autism diagnosis? What did I do wrong to cause this? “Did I let her watch too much TV! I didn’t read enough to her! I didn’t hold her enough or I held her too much So it MUST OF been BECAUSE of ME that she’s autistic!”
Wrong!
Sure, I gave birth to my sweet girl and she shares half of my DNA, but I didn’t intentionally cause her to have a life-altering diagnosis. It wasn’t any action that I did or didn’t do to cause her to be autistic. Yet, at the beginning of this journey, I felt those words, which made me feel less of a mother because I spent too much time worrying, comparing, and feeling inadequate because I allowed myself to take the heat and put full blame onto myself regarding a trait that just so happens to be a part of my daughter just as much as her spitfire personality or her curly strawberry blonde hair.
It’s taken me several years of intense professional therapy sessions, a plethora of self-help books, doctors, and other special needs parents, bloggers, family and friends alike, for me to realize that there was nothing that I did wrong to cause my daughter to be born with autism and that autism in itself is not a life sentence full of disaster.
In the beginning of her autism diagnosis, I was extremely hard on myself. I was pro-all of the therapy in the world hoping that they would somehow make a difference. I was obsessed with milestones and with trying to help her get to another level on the autism scale or dare I say, help her become not-autistic anymore because I was so afraid of embracing her autism diagnosis. I sacrificed life experiences, friendships, vacations, and my social encounters because I was afraid of allowing my daughter to just be. I spent too much time worrying that I was being judged by others that I allowed the fear of those thoughts overtake my entire life.
In the beginning, I wanted answers. I wanted a why and how come my beautiful and loving sweet Autumn had to have this wild card of a diagnosis. Why her? Why God why? I was so mad at God for a long time, but realized his plans for her and for my family were much greater than autism.
I’ve learned that I could either allow her autism diagnosis define her capabilities or just accept things for what they are and embrace all of who she truly is while making sure she receives the help and accommodations she needed to thrive in this world. Blaming myself for causing or not causing her autism wasn’t helping anyone. If anything, it only made things worse by causing unnecessary resentment and anger.
Once I was able to accept that there was nothing bad that I did to cause my daughter to be autistic and to learn that some things are outside of my control, I was able to fall in love with every core piece of my daughter, including her autism. I learned to leave the fears of judgment behind and became more active in creating those memories and experiences that she deserved. I also learned to see her for all that she is and to not see her as someone who is flawed because that’s what society may have us believing as truth due to an autism diagnosis.
When I changed my perspective on what autism meant to me and what it was for my girl, a shift from within challenged me entirely. It taught me to look at autism from a different angle as something uniquely hers. Just because I’ve been able to see her autism from a different lens, the view doesn’t take away our struggles associated with the challenges we face daily because of autism. We still have our moments and life isn’t perfect, but I no longer blame myself or my actions/lack of actions for her autism diagnosis. I am able to navigate through the difficult times without resorting to internalizing or any negative self-talk, irrational thoughts.
My hope for each and every one of you parents who may be struggling with your child’s diagnosis, especially those of you who are new to the special needs parenting community, is to please stop playing the blame game! Don’t even go there or buy into it! Again, there is NOTHING that you did wrong to cause “xyz diagnosis.”
Now if you’ve ignored your child’s struggles and didn’t get them the interventions they require to better help them navigate this chaotic world, then yes, you may be in denial or have a problem, but that’s not you! The fact that you care so much about your child and that you’ve gone to great lengths of reflection goes to show how incredible of a parent you are.
Yet, the one wish I would bestow upon you is for you to please stop wasting your precious time and energy on the what if’s or the what could’ve beens (again, looking for blame) and to start focusing on what’s right in front of you right now: your beautiful child who loves and needs you and who wants you to be a part of their lives regardless of their disabilities or diagnosis.
So please stop blaming yourselves for things you truthfully cannot control. Stop putting so much pressure onto your shoulders. And please, for the love of all things, STOP thinking you or your child is anything less because of a diagnosis! It’s just a word. You have the power to give that word meaning and control over every aspect of your life if you choose to allow it.
Trust me when I say that you are enough and that your child is enough and that their disabilities, their diagnoses (in our case autism), isn’t a life sentence filled with sorrow. Once you allow yourself to let go of the blame and those fears and view their disabilities from a different perspective, everything else will fall into place and you will truly be able to see your child for what they are: a perfectly made image uniquely yours to love forever.
Xoxo,
Trish
