This particular day I had managed to get my sons into the store and even into a cart. This was a major deal at the time. My elder son, Jacob was 5 and my younger, autistic son, Gene was almost 3. I had not yet gotten onto the Medicaid Waiver, so I had no help and no training, yet, on how to cope with Gene.
Gene found the world so confusing and overwhelming. All he wanted to do was to be at home in an environment where he was comfortable. And home was not that comfortable either, my husband's company had just been sold and his commission structure had been "adjusted" to the point where we had to downsize our home. Gene was still not comfortable with the new house and he did not, in any way, want to go to the grocery store.
I had gotten my children into the cart when Gene decided that he was not going to have anything to do with this grocery run. He began to throw a fit, a very loud fit. Arching his back in the cart and screaming at the top of his lungs, oh boy, did he have a fit! People began to stare at me.
I began to try to soothe my poor Gene. I sang lullaby's, I tried to stroke him and my elder son tried to explain that there was no milk in the house and that we had to go shopping. The cashier nearest me got on her phone.
I tried to pick Gene up out of the cart to hold him and rock him, but he was fully into his fit and I could not pry his legs out of the metal seat. All my attempts to soothe only increased the rate of his screaming. The store manager came to me and with stiff politeness asked if he could help. He clearly wanted me and my family out of his store.
I explained that my son was autistic and that if we could all be patient, Gene would eventually get past his discomfort and I could get my shopping done. The manager attempted to explain to Gene - really to me - that the noise level was making the other customers uncomfortable. Gene looked at the manager with huge, tear-filled brown eyes and screamed into his face. After a few more moments of fruitless explaining, the manager walked away.
A grandmotherly type trundled up to me. She looked over my situation with an experienced eye and said to me frigidly, "You should be ashamed of yourself!" Then she walked away.
The tears began to slide down my face. Jacob, 5-year-old Jacob with his cherubic blond curls and huge blue eyes, Jacob who had never known any adult to be deliberately unkind, asked me, "Why was that lady so mean to you, Mommy?"
My voice breaking, I answered, "I don't know, honey. Some people would rather be mean than offer kindness or help. I wish it were different."
I gave up and wheeled my cart out to the parking lot. Gene, seeing the familiar car, unclenched from the shopping cart and allowed me to move his screaming self into his car seat and buckle him in. Jacob, independent from far too early an age, buckled himself in and asked me over his brother's crying, what we were going to do next.
I got my tears under some kind of control and tried to think. I told him that we were going to take a long drive out of the city onto farm roads until Gene fell asleep. Then I was going to drive to the gas station near our house that had a little market, leave the two boys in the car, and quickly slip into the convenience store to least get some milk.
And so we did.
Oh honey!
ReplyDeleteYou brave thing! doing much of this alone is the worst feeling, like you are the only one and how could you have been so wrong and other such useless but never the less uncharitable self flagellations. they run in your head like a mouse in it's wheel until all you feel is bad and how can you go on?
But you do and you have, brilliantly!
Gene is a lovely child, with a rare intelligence behind bright eyes.
You can do this.
To hell with the rude woman, she is a empty pest who wouldn't help even if it benefit her.
Their type would tell you "it's all you fault" or that you must have done something "wrong". You did not.
It is, what it is.
there will always be those who are negative, surround yourself with the positive, do the best you can, mistakes will be made, learn from them, get over them and move on.
you are stronger than you know and more capable than you ever thought possible.
Thanks for your support! It means a lot to me. I am writing down these old incidents as a way of working through them. I am also hoping that other parents of autistic children who read this will realize that they are not alone in having these difficult experiences.
ReplyDeleteIn talking to various parents of autistic children, I found that the supermarket run was something that we all had in common, that's why I wrote it first. I know one mother who was asked to leave a store, with her grocery shopping incomplete!
I really was amazed at how much better I felt after I wrote this. Thanks again for reading!
keep writing, I'll keep reading. I don't know that Xavier is actually autistic or not. when he was 5 we had him tested by the University of illinois medical school, for everything, three days of testing including a neurology exam and they found inconclusive results of 5 different things it "could" be nothing definitive.
ReplyDeletethe advice they gave me was also an infinitive "do your best"
great.
thanks.
the more I read up on aspergers the more convinced I am that he has a mild version.
and with my ex being the intuitive understanding type(heavy sarcasm)Xavier became not just "broken " to his father but stupid. *sigh*
the things he missed were huge. the boys heart and compassion and capacity for love are beyond what I could have hoped for in the beginning.
believe me when I say, the sweat, tears, blood, time, energy, sacrifice and love you put into this child are so very worth it!
the rewards are small and not always appreciated but they are worth it!