Brick by brick

I went to the option institute to learn how to recover my son and in doing so I opened a door on how to heal myself. The two are intertwined…inseparable. Dealing with autism can boggle your mind; the complexity of it, the different systems of the body malfunctioning from the same or completely separate stimuli. You have to become a keen observer and detective to discover what the triggers are and how the different systems not only interact with each other but how they interact with the world both together and separately. One of our goals from the start was to create an environment that our son could first survive in and then once we wrapped our minds around it all…how he could thrive and heal. The latter we are still striving to learn.
My week at Start Up has shifted my perspective from seeing everything rushing towards me at once to having the ability to see it all floating like some science fiction hologram…hovering in front of me and being able to see how it is all connected. No longer is it all a blur speeding past with me trying to catch up. It’s as if I was able to hit a slow motion button on my life. I knew everything was connected…the systems in his body, how they each linked to the environment and to us…the food he eats. The world was taking a sledge hammer to my boy every day and I was struggling to learn things that were way beyond me all the while dealing with the emotional devastation of it all.
But now I am learning so much and instead of feeling over whelmed I can just reach out and interact with it all whenever I want. It gives me a chance to process it and make the connections I need to make in order to get to the next step of recovery. Before there was a disconnect between our actions and the result it was hard to know what worked and what didn’t. Now since we shifted our perspective the response to our actions is almost immediate allowing more opportunities to build on and giving us a clarity that we lacked before. For me it’s all about building on what comes before. That sounds simple enough but with out the ability to process it all I was missing steps. I was so focused on the end result I was missing what was happening right now. And this is the beauty of it. I can link that to how I have thought my whole life. I focus on the end result…as if keeping that image will automatically propel me to achieving it. But what would happen is I would not pay attention on how I was to get there, I was not living in the moment, but solely in a dream and eventually I would lose my way…get discouraged and give up. I was so focused on having my son heal I was losing sight of how I actually needed to get that done. We would have a string of good days and possibly weeks and then it would all come crashing down and I would see my dream of recovery take a beating. Instead of thinking we were moving towards it I felt that it was slipping away. I was only positive when my son was doing ok but as soon as his systems would crash I would see the distance between his recovery, and our happiness, become even more distant. I was setting us up to fail. I was not focusing on building on what was happening at that moment. I was missing opportunities to heal for both of us.
What I could not see then that I can see now is that we are constantly moving towards recovery…even on our worst days and our happiness is there everyday if we choose to see it. I now look at every interaction with my son as a chance to build ….even if it is holding him while he sobs in my arms and telling him I love him when the world gets too much for him. I can now see that I need to allow myself the time to build on what I know so I can better serve my son. I don’t have to run full speed towards recovery…I can take a moment to look around me and enjoy, yes I said enjoy the journey! My son has so much too teach me about myself and that is exciting. Everyday we are building a bond and that will serve us everyday and get us through those rough days ahead. As I reach out to him to help him build on a skill he in turn helps me build something with in my self. We are like two Lego structures that have fused together, his blocks interlacing with mine to build a very strong bond. I know recovery can take years but now instead of my happiness waiting for me at the end I can have it right now and enjoy the ride…and for that I am truly grateful.