Having a teenage son on the autism spectrum has given me pause to re-evaluate a lot of interactions that I've had with other people throughout my life. One example is someone I worked with for a month who I blogged about years ago who didn't understand who would be interested in a certain type of movie.
I remember a specific person who frequently visited someone in my dorm in college who I now believe was on the spectrum was generally kind, but also made me uncomfortable because of some of the very black and white statements and positions he took. I prefer nuance, and this individual did not.
As a parent who is neurotypical I feel like I'm equipped to parent a neurodiverse child, but that all of my instincts are wrong for parenting a neurodiverse child, and soon young adult. His logic frequently runs counter to mine, and we're frequently blind to what's important to the other or what the other is trying to communicate.
While things are definitely better now, our problems communicating and managing new hormones had us in a bad spot a year ago. We had almost daily meltdowns--true meltdowns--and it took a lot of time and effort to get to where that doesn't happen so regularly. That experience has really driven home to me how much I don't understand about the neurodiverse brain.
So much of what I learn now about people who were considered eclectic makes more sense now, and what drove things like the popularity of electroshock therapy and lobotomies in the past.
We've been working with therapists for a while, and they have always been optimistic about the future. However, the most frustrating thing is that we don't know what a realistic future for us and for NJ holds, and so it's hard to put together a plan to meet specific goals.
There really isn't a way to wrap this post up because we're in a very open-ended state at the moment. I'm hoping for the best, though.
