My family doesn’t just deal with autism on a daily basis. We also deal with alcoholism. So for the last couple years, I’ve been attending Al-anon and ACOA (adult children of alcoholics) meetings. I first sat in the rooms about a month or two after autism was floated as a possibility for G’s difficulties in preschool. My husband had also been in recovery for a month or two (come to think of it, I wonder if autism may have contributed to his recovery – thoughts for another day…) I was full of anger and resentment. All through my life, I was the ‘good girl’ who never broke a rule or stepped out of line. And now my life was completely out of control and I was incredibly pissed off about it. It took me quite awhile, but the first three steps slowly started sinking in.
I admitted I was powerless over alcohol, that my life had become unmanageable.
I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.
I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of my higher power.
This is not as easy as it sounds for me, note the use of ‘higher power’ in place of the more commonly used “god.” I’m an atheist who doesn’t believe in anything if it hasn’t been proven by science. But I was pretty desperate to get help, so I was able to cobble together a pantheistic type theory of a connected universe and the alanon group itself as a knowledge base with answers to common problems that works for me. When I need to ‘turn it over’ I have an image of a helium balloon with my worries tied to its ribbon, and I release it to the universe. (it’s ok, you can laugh. The important thing is I found a way to make it work with my cynicism.)
All my life, I had been a fixer. Control was incredibly important to my sense of well-being so when I ran into a problem, I set myself to fixing it with all my energy, so that my peace and ease could be restored. I fixed my problems, I fixed my husbands problems, I fixed my sibling’s problems. But I could not fix my son’s problems and this was cause for great distress. I did a lot of research into biomedical treatments, causes of autism, vaccines, and the like. I feel my cynical atheistic attitude actually helped me here because I could see that the science behind these aspects was sketchy at best, and nothing I, personally, could trust. But that left me without a way to fix things for G and that was incredibly upsetting to me.
Then, an incredible thing happened. While sitting in the rooms one evening after the holidays, when the transition back to school was particularly stressful and volatile for G, I substituted the word ‘autism’ for ‘alcoholism.’ I suddenly felt a great weight lift from my shoulders. I was powerless over autism. By trying to exert power over autism, I was causing my life to become unmanageable. Believing in a power greater than myself, and greater than autism, could restore me to sanity. I made a decision to turn my will over to my higher power instead of trying to exert my will on autism, and therefore my child.
This doesn’t mean I have given up on my son – I still try to help him in every reasonable way I can so that he may learn coping skills and life skills, and I advocate for him in the community until he is ready to take on the role of advocate for himself. The key word is reasonable. I recognize that I can’t make him be different because his autism is a part of him. I can’t make him learn faster than his own pace. I can’t force change, it has to evolve naturally. And the small steps we take each day toward independence will be more effective than the miracle concoctions, diet changes and assorted cures being sold to me on the internet.
I was able to put my new found theory into practice last month when G started school. It has been one of the most challenging transitions of his school career. (so far) When the parents of classmates started making complaints, I became overwhelmed by the stress of it all. So I consciously sat down and worked my first three steps with autism in mind. And it helped enormously. I was able to focus on doing what I could to help G and to effect change in the attitudes of the people around him. I recognized the things I couldn’t change – specifically that G was going to have to do the work of adjusting on his own. I could support him with checklists for his schedule, snacks to keep him energized and introductory letters to parents, but I couldn’t change G into some kind of model student.
Sometimes when I read other blogs and blog comments, I can hear the anger and frustration in the voice of the parent. I’ve been there. I recognize that feeling and I still struggle from time to time. Finding a mechanism to achieve serenity has made such an incredible difference in our family. Because I’m not as irritable, my family is not as on edge. We’re able to take things as they come and enjoy the good moments more fully.
I’ll close with this final nugget:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
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