“After putting the pizza in the oven, I checked my phone to see if the babysitter had texted me. No text, so I decided to scroll Facebook for a minute or two. There it was. A simple post. It couldn’t be true. My heart started beating. Immediately I called my dad, but no answer.”
“‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to control yourself. You’ve proved you can’t change to be a nice girl for me.’ Hours later, I found myself bleeding and alone, thrown from the car. Thankfully, a stranger happened upon me. She called the police. The man I had fallen for was gone. Finally, I broke. I was emerging from the nightmare.”
“We were getting ready for a nice picnic at the park. Suddenly, the right side of his body went stiff. His oxygen dropped. First firefighters, then paramedics. Our house was full of first responders. ‘Why is nothing working?!’ I wanted to wake up from this nightmare. I wanted him to live. I held my breath.”
“No one appreciates your half-arsery, my dear ones. Get it done right the first time, and I’ll look less like a crazy person with smoke coming out of my ears. Doesn’t that sound good? You can do this. I have faith in you.”
“I wrote the single hardest thing: ‘I don’t like being a parent.’ His meltdowns consist of screaming, hitting, throwing, breaking things, slamming doors, spitting, you name it. I have to restrain him. I poured my heart out, frustrated, at my wits end. Then I got a message. ‘I think your son has PANDAS/PANS. Have him tested.’ Then the warning came: Some people don’t believe in this diagnosis.”
“I don’t pick out school clothes anymore. There’s no one to nurse to sleep. I can’t remember the last time I cut up spaghetti, blew on soup because it was too hot. When they need socks now, they find them. And when they’re hungry? They grab their own snack. There were so many times I wished for these days. Now, I’m standing smack dab in the middle of them, grieving the past.”
“After I placed my muffin on the table, I noticed a pile of filthy, worn bags filled with her belongings. A large piece of folded cardboard peeked out from the top of the bag. Immediately after I sat down, she asked me a question. ‘Have you seen any phone books anywhere?’”
“5 hours after she was born, they needed life-flighted her to another hospital. ‘Your baby is breathing a hundred breaths per minute.’ I was numb. She stayed on oxygen for two months, but there was still no diagnosis. Her file read, ‘Unknown respiratory issues at birth.’ I felt hopeless for answers.”
“Immediately, the nurse midwife started asking me questions. ‘In the last 2 weeks, have you had thoughts of harming yourself or taking your own life most days, some days, or not at all?’ Me: ‘Most days.’ My throat became dry and tight. I couldn’t hide it anymore.”
“I’m seeing so many posts in groups saying, ‘My kid isn’t autistic, but we will carry the blue bucket too, so people won’t be rude to my child.’ And I want to admit something. My first initial reaction was: ‘Ok, so now people are taking an autism thing and making it about their non-autistic kid. WRONG.”
