Temple Grandin saved the day!

               Yesterday was a difficult day for me. No one reason for it and it was just a day the positive forces inside me needed a rest. With that negativity had to room to break out. You see in the all my positive babble and constantly trying to create an understanding I really do have the days I question it all. Am I making a difference? Yes I believe I am but I am also human so life sometimes will jump up and bite me right on the backside.

                We have been attempting the potty training trials around here and I can say everyday feels like the first day we have started. This is an extremely difficult task in every way. We have made some sure progress as far as knowing we are wet and not liking it and we are finally helping with pants on and off but the sitting still on a potty seems like an impossible task. Trying to get my son to relax and be still for even a short time is much harder than I expected or maybe it’s what I expected and one reason we have waited to begin.

                I began to work on a project that I hope will help him to be still and not think so much about the process. This is also not easy because I have no idea if it will help or not. As much as I understand what autism brings my child I have my days wondering if I really know anything. He doesn’t tell me how he sees things or feels so I have to rely on my own observations and hope I am in tune with the autistic side of him. I could work on this project and it could totally fail at what I am trying to help him accomplish in fact I do have some serious doubts now that I am nearly done. I know his mind needs to be able to think about something else other than sitting still. If he has to focus on sitting in one place to long he isn’t going to relax to reach the goal. Or at least this is what I have been telling myself.

                I really felt yesterday like maybe I just have no idea what the heck I am talking about. Maybe I am just convincing myself I understand to feel like a productive mom. At the end of the day I truly doubted my own understanding in general even though I sit down every day and blog to help others understand.

                Temple Grandin the movie finally arrived in the mail and to be honest I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch it. I expected a movie about some poor autistic girl being broken by the world. I didn’t know if it was the best thing to watch on the day like I was having. I can say from the very beginning of this movie I was fighting tears. Not tears of being sad but just tears of being able to relate to the story. How her mother felt when the docs told her autism is caused by the old “refrigerator mother” syndrome. A cold heart was once to blame if you can imagine. What really brought tears to my eyes was the way the movie depicted Temple’s thoughts and immediately I realized I really did understand the difference! The questioning just went completely away with the visuals the movie gave me. A literal mind that never stopped trying to figure things out. My negative day turned right around and I was even a bit blown away by how well I understood. I have understood all along in a way that was just dead on and it didn’t come from books or research, it came simply from observing my son and knowing him as well as I do.

                This woman did amazing things and although her autism gave her abilities to figure things out easily, her accomplishments also came from the people her life that could see what she was capable of. They did not see autism as something that would hold her back but something that would take her places other people could never get to. In all her different ways the support she had allowed her to be different and be unstoppable at the same time. This is how everyone should embrace a difference and erase any doubt that a child can’t accomplish a life with meaning. Temple’s mother had to have days she wasn’t sure if she understood and days the negatives doubts took over but she pushed on and her reward was raising an unstoppable force. I am not saying my son is going to change the cattle industry but he will have a life of meaning if he is surrounded by people who allow him to. Last night when I went to bed I felt revived as a mother of an autistic child because knowing I understand is going to help him grow up understanding himself even when people just don’t get it.