Storms

Dear Addie,

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain.”

This quote has always made sense to me carrying a tone of not letting tough times get the best of you. That was until that rainstorm resembled something more like a hurricane and as a former dancer myself, I didn’t recognize the steps or the music that was even playing in this storm. I think it’s safe to say at this point in our journey it’s been less learning to dance and more sheltering in place. But I digress...

We’ve had a storm cloud looming over us for sometime now. With it brought every imaginable emotion and feeling I could think of, but nothing resembled the feeling of wanting to dance that’s for sure. Honestly, we try our very best as a family to find the bright side of every crappy situation, autism journey or not, but I personally was really struggling here. I just couldn’t find joy in the mess we were in. There was so much confusion around us and we needed answers. We needed help. We needed to restore joy like yesterday!

This week helped arrived.

Now I say this all the time but with autism being a spectrum disorder there is no one size fits all approach to care and it’s not uncommon for autism to be only one of a handful of things going on. EVERYONES JOURNEY IS DIFFERENT. I’ll give you a second if you want to read that again, because that’s wildly accurate for neurotypical people as well. We are all different and what works for one may have a wildly different outcome for someone else. Which brings me to our reinstating of joy.

Our method of care consists of a lot of patience, love, & Jesus, mixed with therapy, doctors, meds and more patience. Did I say patience?

You were diagnosed with a severe type of anxiety disorder this past week.

As I was listening to the doctor utter those words, weeks and months of your questionable behavior flashed before me and somehow it all made sense and somehow, I felt like I should’ve known. Ask anyone that gets an autism diagnosis after realizing something seems off about some mannerisms or behavior in their precious child (or themselves if it’s someone’s personal diagnosis’ later in life) and that same flashback happens. Like we should’ve seen it all along.

That “would of, should of, could of” game is dangerous and should never be played. Addie if you need more mama advice to file away, I would tell you - you cannot dwell on the past, you need to take a deep breath and always try to just move forward on where you are currently standing. One foot in front of the other.

As someone who has dealt with anxiety and depression in my life, I felt a connection to it all and not in a good way. I was sad this was what was actually going on with you, but relieved to know all in the same breath. There is a lot of stigma about mental illness (specifically anxiety & depression), and I will tell you right now this is not something you brush off or pack away and I know now your outbursts that often ended in deep sadness and showing remorse was your cry for help. You couldn’t express this feeling nor would I have expected you too. You learn about feelings of being happy, sad, or angry at school, but what happens when you feel them all at once in uncontrollable waves. How do you describe the feeling of being an emotional mess ready to burst at any time over the smallest of things? Is there an emotion picture card for that?

Addie, we found some answers and help this week from our trusty cocktail of care. And I’m happy to say that a sense of calm has already returned to us and we are all grateful for that.

The good thing about storms Addie is they eventually pass.

So happy to see you smiling again sweet girl.

Love,

Mom