By Kim Norton
S
itting on the floor of the bathroom in utter despair, half naked, glass of wine in one hand, tissues in the other. How could this happen? What did I do wrong? It was not meant to happen this way. I was meant to have kids that would not go through this. My kids were meant to be happy, healthy and all things nice. My kids were going to have everything. My kids were going to have the âBrady Bunchâ family that my husband did. I did all this work on myself to make this happen: I broke the family chain, I did the hard work, I did all of those years of counselling and therapy and now this. Now he has Autism and I have been told he will never amount to anything, to not hold out âany hopeâ for a decent future, that âhe will be lucky to be packing supermarket shelves as an adultâ. The only chance he had was to be medicated and to go to a âSpecialâ school, you know the one that you go to on that blue bus and get heckled and bullied by all the ânormalâ kids in the street. Where did I go wrong? Where do I go from here? I allowed myself a week or two to cry and grieve what was supposed to be and then got on with the job. Looking at myself in the mirror, I said âF thatâ! This was not about me. This was about him. âThis was about himâ; that realisation hit me like a ton of bricks. This was about him. There were appointments to make, funds to raise and a family that needed me, a family that needed me to be strong, to be there and to âshow upâ. There was no more time for grieving. With no social media like there is today, Dr Google became my best friend as did my newly appointed Counsellor who led me down the path of anti-depressants and high blood pressure medications. I was happy to medicate myself at the time but not my son. I wanted to try everything else first. I wanted to leave medication for him for as long as possible. 44 Peninsula Kids â Winter 2020
Workshops, seminars, courses, training, endless phone calls, emails and petitioning pursued. This is something that only other Special Needs Parents/Carers can understand: That fight that you find in you, that drive and determination you did not know existed, it just rises from the depths of your soul, it is a knowing that you are here to advocate and to do a job that must be done. Friends drifted away (you can only turn down so many invitations before you stop getting invited) and family were either unavailable, did not understand or just did not want to. With no time to waste I left my job to devote all of my time to him. I was now a full time Autism Mum and not the high flying corporate chick I had thought I would be. I was lucky to