Metaphorically Speaking, We Are In Paris.

My son Phillip is five years old now and was diagnosed with autism at just under 3 years old.  Why the title?  What does Paris have to do with Autism?  Absolutely nothing in the physical sense but just after his diagnosis we had one of many visits from a person who came to our home and helped us create a plan for our son.  An advocate with all good intentions but during the visit he referenced a book to me. He wrote the title on a slip of paper and gave it to me recommending I read it to cope with the diagnosis.

He said to me, discovering your child has autism is like getting on a plane to Paris, but all of a sudden you discover your plane has landed in Holland. You are wondering what happened, how did you end up in Holland and what happened to Paris?  Holland is nice, he said, but Paris is better. Then he went on to explain the grieving process to us and how the book would help. The problem that day was I wasn't grieving and I wasn't feeling like our plane landed in the wrong place. I wasn't feeling like the autism diagnosis was like getting off a plane and being disappointed with our surroundings at all. What I was feeling was a bit offended by that theory.

That piece of paper with the book title, Road Map To Holland, sat on my coffee table for two days. A book I never read but I have heard it's good. The more I looked at it, the more confused I was and a bit angry at the same time. Angry that the people I encountered to help us were trained to treat us as a family who was coping with a loss without ever asking how I actually felt about it to begin with. Those people were never invited back to our home because they landed in Holland and we were in Paris.  Our tour guide wasn't going to be able to speak to us and if we forced our tour guide to show us typical landmarks our guide would meltdown. So, we would need to expect an off the beaten path non typical tour with no map and although it would be far more challenging it was still, metaphorically speaking, Paris,  

    Phillip is autistic but in no way do I feel surprised or let down by that.  I have three children and he is my youngest.  As a mother of three I know all too well you can't expect each child to fall in line, so to speak.  Each is blessed with strengths and challenges like every human being on earth.  He didn't ask for autism and I didn't feel I had any right to be disappointed in him and surely didn't feel anyone else had a right to assume I was. When we received his diagnosis, it was an answer as to why he was so different and it was a piece of paper telling me as a parent I would need to learn to be very different from what I knew as a parent up to that point.  I would never recommend anyone stop letting advocates into their home or go against an advocates plan as I did but I would always recommend paying attention to what fits into the life given to you.  Autism is a change of plan (if you had one to begin with) and it's okay to carefully choose who fits that plan and who might not.

Three years later have always felt like we are in Paris?  No way.  I have had many moments of feeling like we were as far away from Paris as you can get.  In fact moments even Holland sounded pretty good.  Moments of complete defeat and no idea how to push forward. I would lying if I said I never watched a typical child his age and felt some sadness that he struggles but I shove that back as fast as I can because It's not okay to do to him. He's just flat out not typical and comparing him, even silently in my head is not fair. After all, I am positive he has never watched other moms and felt sadness because he was given me, or at least I hope not.

Most of the time we are in metaphorically in Paris, wandering around avoiding loud and busy places that kill the fun. Finding people who get it, staying away from those who don't, and appreciating those who may not get it but accept it knowing our path is just different but regardless we appreciate the little miracles that we encounter along the way. Something I learned from a 5 year old who didn't ask for a different path.