”If you have no choice but to live in the water, learn to swim”
Autism, autism, autism, autism, autism, autism…try and say that six times fast! Most people won’t, it’s a word people don’t like to use…it feels wrong on the lips. It’s an especially frightening word for parents of young children to use, almost as if daring to utter the word will somehow beckon the sickness to them…
I remember the feeling as clearly as if it were yesterday, though I barely remember who that person was. The past four years have molded me into such a person I never thought I would become. And yes, I said the sickness. Back then, when Austin was a baby, it was just a fear. Like fearing a car crash, or the death of a family member; it wasn’t something that could really happen to us.
Autism is a sickness. Autism is not natural. Your child was not born to be autistic.
I just used three very powerful statements, didn’t I? I one hundred percent meant them. My child was not meant to be autistic, yet he is, and it has shaped and controlled our entire world.
The cases of “autism” we are seeing growing rampantly today are not disorders, they are a collage of symptoms. Your child was not meant to be trapped inside the workings of his/her own mind, afraid and alone.
Just as your child is not meant to suffer, so your child does not have to suffer. There is hope on the other side of the despair. There is light at the end of the darkness. There is real love amidst the ocean of false claims to care for you and your child. There is a happy ending for you, and if you’re like me, one day you will be grateful and recognize the immense blessing that is disguised as autism.
The blessing is not in autism itself, which is a cruel thief of joy and of life, but in the journey out. No one emerges from the other side unchanged, and the change is always for the better. If you have the courage to face autism with truth and determination, you can face and overcome anything. The following sums up the truth, which is something your not going to hear or read in the news…
The past years of research, schooling and experience have all pointed me to one certain conclusion that I can live and practice by; people are born to thrive.
We aren’t on this planet to suffer! Our children aren’t here to be passed from social worker to social worker, or to be switched from medication to medication. We aren’t here to lay awake at night listening to our children scream, with the knowledge that we don’t have a prayer at comforting them. We are here to live, and if something is preventing you from living, I’d say it’s time to make a change.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results” – Rita Mae Brown
“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done” – Thomas Jefferson
“I can do all things through him who gives me strength” – Philippians 4:13
These three motivational quotes have been my favorite words to recite to myself in times of great need, which throughout our journey have been often. I have chosen to work with, rather than against the knowledge that my son was not born to live as he has (and sometimes still does), and this knowledge has pushed me to great failures and disappointments, but most importantly, to great successes.
So, as the previous quotes clearly state, you must change to get change. Your journey with autism will be, just like anything else, guided and decided by your choices. You can choose to let autism smother you, or you can full on tackle it to the ground.
You may have to live like that for a long while, pinning it to the ground. You may get uncomfortable and look to your friends across the way, standing freely with two hands open and seemingly able to take what they want from life, or you can look straight ahead with gratitude that you have the strength to hold it down another day.
Autism is symptomatic of the toxic world in which we live. Truly it comes at us from all sides, from the air we breath to the clothes we wear, and don’t get me started on what we eat. When you first realize how stiflingly toxic our world is, it is completely overwhelming, and naturally many hide behind the safe comfort of denial and oblivion.
For many, simply learning the bare minimum is an excellent way to live healthy and stress free, however as the parent of an autistic child, you do not have that luxury. Have you ever wondered why your child is autistic while your friends kids are not? Of coarse you have, as have we all. This even invariably crosses the minds of those parents committed to accepting and preserving their child’s special and unique “personality”.
I’ll be the first to admit that personality does indeed play a role in this equation, or puzzle as it’s been aptly compared to, as do genetics. The heaviest weights that tip the scale, however, are environmental factors. Your child is not genetically programed to be withdrawn and alone, they are genetically prone to collecting and unsuccessfully detoxifying the toxins of our modern world.
Once you have a better understanding of this, the next step is to gain a better understanding of how the body works, and how to begin chelation, the process in which heavy metals are removed. The most important thing for families to remember, however, is that this process is a long journey, and not to allow yourselves to be discouraged by the ups and downs. For more on our journey through autism click here
http://holisticgirls.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/the-power-of-prayer-for-a-child/.
Speaking about cures and so called “alternative” medicine is socially tabu and even frowned upon in the mainstream world of autism, and so you will have to become a relentless detective in order to find what really works. But, as you have found me, I can cut your search time in half as I have already ‘been there done that’. I am here to answer any questions you might have along the way.
Let me tell you, the rewards for perseverance are so great, and possibly made to feel even greater by the attempted thwarting of those…less optimistic than you;) My family has had to change our lifestyle drastically, and while it makes most people we know sort of cringe because it appears so complicated, I’m here to tell you that we’ve found it much easier to simply adapt to lifestyle changes, rather than to fight with/against/for Austin morning noon and night. That alone required extreme and much less fun/creative lifestyle adjustments already.
Moms and Dads, never give up! And don’t be afraid to reach out when you’re feeling helpless, there’s so much love out there for you <3
If you have no choice but to live in the water, learn to swim.
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P.S. My blog format is acting weird, Im not able to space the paragraphs here in the last half of the article. sorry
Thanks for letting me camp out in your blog for a little while today. I had a great time and tried to leave my campsite as good as when I arrived. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks!