I once was blind, but now I see

How does one become able to recognise Autism? How does a parent recognise, and realise there's something not right about their 'odd' child? How does a friend recognise it? A stranger? A professional?

As a parent of an Autistic child there was a time I thought I had failed. Failed as a parent because I could not recognise the signs of Autism in my child, while professional after professional would spend as little as 30-45 minutes with my child and see it almost instantly. Was I really so bad at being a parent that I had failed to see something so obvious? The only answer to this is 'no'. I did not fail, and most responsible parents who didn't recognise it didn't fail either. Most new parents suffer from 'new parent anxiety,' and study the baby development charts. When will they roll? When will they crawl? When will they sit? And so it goes. I guess for parents of non-verbal Autistic kids, the signs would have been a bit more obvious than in our experience, but with comments such as "You know, Einstein didn't talk until he was 3!" it's easily possible that even they may have quashed any doubts from their mind.

We quickly realised we were far from the only ones who hadn't noticed that Alex is Autistic. Like a pregnancy, we only wanted to tell family at first, especially since we'd only seen the pediatrician once and it was still a case of *may be Autistic*. Comments of disbelief came one after the other, after the other. We ourselves didn't believe the pediatrician. "Are you insane?" was my first thought as our world seemed to shatter into a million pieces.

Now I believe I truly understand why Autism has adopted the puzzle piece as their 'symbol'. We both had a picture in our heads of what Autism was, but none of that matched our son. As we began to learn what Autism really is, like some gut wrenching horror story we began to see every sign, every symptom come together and make a perfect picture of our son. I clearly remember 'Googling' for an Autism checklist and stumbling across one that psychologists use for diagnosing. It required "A total of six (or more) items from (1), (2), and (3), with at least two from (1), and one each from (2) and (3)" as I browsed the list Alex had a tick in nearly every box.


I think one of my big "Ah Ha!" moments (Thank You Oprah!) happened the first time my husband's parents admitted they struggled while caring for my son for a day. That was the day I realised I wasn't a bad parent for not noting my son's Autism after all. Alex was having a hyper episode it seemed. Our son does not have an additional diagnosis of ADHD, but I can imagine it's fairly similar to one of Alex's hyper episodes, except ongoing. I can't recall what happened in detail; whether we were asked to pick him up early, or whether they said they had thought about asking us to get him early. But with a clear look of exhaustion on their faces they admitted they struggled, and now they "got what we go through" at home on a daily basis. After having four children of their own, they were utterly exhausted after one day of our son on a hyper.