The Autism post

For a while now I've been wanting to put up an extended post on autism. So, here goes. First let me start by posting a few pictures from the Autism Walk in Atlanta this past weekend.

The Walk:


My wife Staci (2nd from left) and three of her friends. All these ladies have someone in their family affected by autism. For those of us who couldn't make it, I'd like to say a big thank you to these ladies for participating. Thanks also to everyone who sponsored them. Staci was able to exceed her goal much quicker and easier than she believed she could. It was truly a God thing.



Here's a shot of participants. I think Staci said there were about ten thousand people there.



Celebrating crossing the finish line. Great job, ladies. Way to go.

*******

For the next sections of this post, I'm going to write about autism as it relates to our family. Specifically, how I came to accept my son's diagnosis.


Facing Autism:

Our oldest son was a late talker. Verbally he just wasn't hitting the milestones. Then there were some behavior issues.

Of course it took his mama to step up and get the boy some help. I was content to keep my head in the sand, hopeful that, by denying whatever this was, I would force it to just go away. Ridiculous, I know.

But there was a spiritual reason for this as well. I know that the words we speak have power. I did not want to speak anything negative over my son. I didn't want to give place to this 'thing' whatever it was, that was holding my son back. He'll grow out of it, I kept thinking. He's just moving at his own pace. I knew all about that--never been in much of a hurry myself. So I professed health and wholeness over him. Nothing wrong with that, of course. And I still do it, for both my boys. But whatever this problem was, it persisted, even in the face of my denial, rebukes, and prayers.

Yet even when it looked like my prayers were powerless, God was beginning to answer them.

Thank You Lord, that You gave me a persistent wife. Because of her, Caleb got speech therapy and other services. And then we decided to take him to Emory to see if the autism suspicions were true.

We were really not expecting to get an autism diagnosis. But that's what we came away with. I still wasn't 100% on board. But I was no longer insisting that nothing was wrong either. I just didn't like the label that I felt was being put on my son.


Labels:

Here's how I came to be okay with the whole label thing. Someone (I don't remember who) pointed out that a label is not something to define my child. It is a way to define the problem. It is also a way to get him the help he needs. If you want special services, therapy, and the like, then you have to have a reason.

I realized how much sense this made. After all, if my child had cancer, I would expect to talk to the doctors in those terms, using that word. It would not mean that my child was cancer, only that my child had cancer. It also would not mean that cancer had my child. My child might have autism (might, I still insisted), but it would not have him.

So, slowly, I turned a corner. If it would get Caleb the help he needed, then I would use whatever label was necessary.


Overcoming denial:

My wife began to read all kinds of books on autism. Probably she had already started reading, I can't exactly remember. What I do remember is my reluctance to read any of them. What was a book going to tell me about my child that I didn't already know? The author of the book didn't live with my kid, I did. This was some PhD that dealt with extreme cases and made money off of them by publishing his research in the guise of a parenting book.

I don't remember which book it was, but as my wife kept reading different ones, I finally cracked open the cover on one and started reading. I guess if my child was going to have an autism diagnosis, then I should probably start to learn a little about it.

First there was this term 'spectrum disorder'. I'd heard it but hadn't paid that much attention. Now I was finding out that it meant that autism can look very different depending on where one happened to be on the spectrum. Just like light is a spectrum and can be many different colors depending on the wavelength. Okay, I thought, so now Mr. PhD has an out and can slap the label on just about anything. Not quite, but it's what I thought at the time, and I suspect it's what a lot of people think.

But I kept reading. And then I started stumbling across things that sounded very familiar. I mean eerily familiar.

Now, it's not what you might think. I wasn't recognizing traits in my son. I was remembering my own childhood. 'I use to do that,' I'd realize. I was also seeing things that persist even now. 'You mean everyone doesn't think that way?' And the recurring, 'So that's what that was.'

The more I read, the more I recognized the signs that had dogged my footsteps for most of my life. The rules I made up for myself (can't walk around that tree and come back a different way - have to retrace my steps). Numbers being 'good' or 'bad' (5 is evil, and I swear it still looks like it is laughing at me). Places where I forbid myself to talk and words that I could not bring myself to say (not because they were swear words, but because something else made them 'bad'). The indescribable difficulty of making eye contact. Selective mutism. Emotional detachment. Fixating on things. Wondering when someone was going to give me the book on all the social rules that everyone else seemed to know, but that I couldn't figure out.

I accepted my son's autism at the moment that I recognized my own.


From there to here ... and beyond:

I'd like to say I've become as diligent a warrior as my wife. I haven't. She is still the driving force behind getting Caleb what he needs. I thank God for her again and again.

For those who might still insist that he is okay, there is nothing wrong with him, he doesn't have autism, then I would agree with only part of that. He is okay; he's glorious and wonderfully made as a matter of fact. But as for the autism part, if I said anything it would be this:

He looks and behaves so normal only because his mama has made sure that he's gotten therapy. A lot of hours and effort have been put into making sure he gets the tools he needs to succeed, thrive, and overcome.

And he will overcome. His name is Caleb. It's the first prophecy I spoke over his life. He will have a different heart. He'll take possession of the land and stand apart from the crowd. And these things that we might regard as weaknesses now, will strengthen him. God will use even Caleb's obstacles to draw him close and equip him to do his Father's work.

Amen.