My hometown was a wonderful the worst place to grow up place to grow up.

I grew up in a place where there was always thugs on the corners or always posted up in front of your doorway. Getting a sharp pain of nervousness in your chest and the five seconds of your heart sinking in outta fear when someone approaches you from behind not knowing if something bad is about to happen or maybe your anxiety getting the best of you.

Laci had a rather eccentric style.

Laci favorite color had to be black. She wore all black everything from clothing to make up even her nail polish was black. It matched the black streaks in her what use to be blond hair.

Mr. Brown is the worst teacher I’ve ever had.

I was never fond of going to Mr. Brown class he always found any and every reason to send you to the principles office.

The room seemed very institutional (or choose your own adjective).

My friend living room set looked like she went shopping at a nursing home for furniture. The flowers on her couch matches the flowers on the wall paper and the curtains.

 

 

Scene

I’m Sitting down on the couch with my son watching ‘Yo Gabba Gabba’,  When suddenly our favorite part of the show comes on. We jump up and get ready to do the dancey dance. We danced for what seemed like forever. Then finally it was over, we plop back on to the couch and laughed. I pulled my son closer to my chest, kissed him on the forehead and said I love you. (I love you too) he said. My heart stopped for a second as tears of joy rolled down my eyes, I was in total shock for a second. I was never sure when or If I was ever going to hear my son who is Autistic say those words. It was the most amazing feeling ever. After I cherished that moment I called everyone in my phone book and told them that my little amazing guy just told me he love me for the very first time ever.

One in every 88 children in the U.S is born with the autism spectrum disorder (Autism speaks). I never really knew much about it or had any interest in what the disorder was until one day my son became one of those numbers. I remember how painful it was to hear those words, “Jayden has the autism spectrum disorder.” Just like that, everything I imagine our life will be like when I carried him in my belly was not going to be. Or so I thought. I was confused, hurt and sad. There wasn’t anything I could have done to make it go away. Was I ashamed? of course not, but I did feel helpless. I think any parent would, as a parent you want what’s best for your child, no matter what. Me not being able to control Autism made me angry and not being educated in the moment made the feeling ten times worst.

I once read that there are levels you go through before you accept bad/unexpected news. Denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance are the cycle of acceptance. It didn’t take long for me to accept my son was autistic. I actually completed all five levels in the same day. Things happen in life whether its expected or unexpected, you just have to learn how to deal with it the best way you can. My first step was to educate myself, Google and You Tube had become my new best friends along with the two Facebook pages that I subscribed to which were “Autism Speaks” and “Autism for Moms.” Those sites provided helpful information in regards to the subject.
So what is Autism? Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism are both general terms for a group of complex disorders of brain development. These disorders are characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors. (Autism Speaks)

Nonverbal? That word stood out to me in bold letters. How was I going to communicate with my son? American sign language (ASL) was how, but first I had to teach myself before I introduced it to him. I purchased DVDs, books, flashcards, and, with the help of trained specialists, we were able to communicate with one another. I also was able to understand autism more and not feel so alone. It always amazed me how fast he picked up on new things. Every week he was overcoming obstacles and was always willing to participate. He had a specialist for every area such as music, sensory, behavioral, speech therapy and even ABA (applied behavior analysts). I sat through every session I got joy out of watching him make progress such as eye contact, imitation skills, expanding his ASL and learning how to comprehend things that were being asked for him to do. I also learned a lot new things like how to give him sensory input when he’s having a sensory overload and how music has a huge impact on getting autistic children to use words. I also had my own tricks though you see my son loved “Dora the Explorer” so I wasn’t to surprised when his first sentence was one of Dora favorite lines “Swiper No Swiping, ahhhh man”. Hearing him say those words brought tears of joy and warmth to my heart. I grabbed him held him tight and said “Your voice is beautiful baby”. Who would have thought out of all the shows on television. The one that drove me crazy the most, would help bring his words out. Until this day I am forever grateful.

I was always bad when it came to having patience. I would let the littlest things get to me. Autism teaches one patience, well at least it did for me. No matter what you have to have patience while dealing with a person with autism or anyone for that matter. Being patient always has a better outcome than being impatient. My son’s first meltdown tested how strong my patience could actually be. He was upset because his routine was interfered with. He has this thing with the doors at the Rite Aid store. The doors are automatic so they will open when he steps in front of them, but one summer day the doors were already open. The staff set it to stay open and boy did that make him upset. I tried to explain to him why the doors was already open to calm him down, but he did not care what I had to say. His main focus was on why the doors are not doing what he’s use to them doing. That’s when my patience kicked into gear along with my shutting out mode. Shutout mode is what I call blocking out all the judgemental faces that people gives us when my son is having a meltdown or when he’s acting like a typical toddler. I learned that people are always going to be judgemental no matter what. Having a shutout mode is a skill that I picked up due to my son. If you let people’s ignorance get to you it will make you angry and no matter what the situation you are in, it will fuel the fire. My only focus in that moment was helping my son overcome his meltdown (which finally happened an hour later) and his safety.

“Have patience, No matter what the difficulty,
No matter how dark the road ahead seems.
For truly with patience comes victory
with difficulty relief follows close behind” (Abdullah al-Qarni).

I am a strong, patient and understanding mom and it’s all thanks to my son. He showed me the beauty of autism. Autism fascinates me and I want to know everything there is to know about autism because its apart of me, through my son. People always talk about the changes you have to make when having a child with ASD and when you tell someone your child has autism they respond by saying “Oh my I’m so sorry to hear that”. But why? I never get why people are sorry that you have an amazing child in your life; Yes they have difficulties doing certain things but no one ever stops and says ‘lucky you’. They hear the word Autism and think the worst just like I did when I first heard it. The truth is autism is a blessing in disguise the life I imagined for us is not over like I thought it would be. It’s still happening and it’s even better than what I’d imagined. Together we are overcoming obstacles life throws at us. His devotion in life is my motivation, and together we will continue to grow.

1. https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/top-ten-lists/2012/cdc-revises-estimate-autism-prevalence-1-88 Autism speaks
2. http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/CycleOfAcceptance.htm cycles of acceptance
3. https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism What is autism
4. https://www.google.com/search?q=patience+quotes&biw=1366&bih=641&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sq =2&ved=0CCMQsARqFQoTCKSMqu2np8gCFcw-PgodI1oNew patience quote

The theme I chose was health and medicine. Its the closest to what I am currently in school for now. I want to work with people with disabilities. In order to do that there’re a lot of different disorders that I will have to learn about. I have a passion with working with people with disabilities. I love the challenge of helping someone gain confidence and help them accomplish certain goal and milestones in their lives. I want to educate myself more so that I can have a better understanding in different situations with certain disabilities. To help them reach their full potentials in life. I also want to understand how certain disabilities that is not genetic come about for example (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Learning about new things that will be helpful for me and my career as well as my personal life is what I love to do. I hope that some of the topics I write and learn about will be just as beneficial to you all as it will be for me.

Hello everyone Dessy here. Besides being a student at BCC I am also a single mother. I have a four year old son who also loves to read and learn new things. We spend our Friday after school at the library for story time. When he’s in school I am at work as a PCA worker. This is my first year in college and I’m working towards getting my associates degree in Human services. I been told by many people that I am an amazing writer but I think there’s always room for improvement. I love to write poetry, especially when something is stressing me out, I just put it in a poem. Putting my words into a poem is like saying it out loud for me and It always make me feel better afterwards. As a child I started off as a strong reader and still am till this day. Some of my favorite books are “The Coldest winter Ever’, “A Chance in The World”, and  “A Child Called It”. When it comes to writing depending on the essay I usually can come up with something pretty fast. Same with reading, if its a great book that interest me, its always so hard for me to put the book down. My last English class showed me a lot of things that I didn’t know before and I feel like there’s still so much I need to learn to become the amazing writing that everyone view me as. Like I said before I’m still a work in progress. I do wish to one day have my poems published or even write a novel or two.  This is my second semester here at BCC and so far I loving it. This is my first time taking online classes though, so I am a bit nervous and excited at the same time. I am looking forward to expanding my vocabulary,  punctuations and everything else this class has to offer me. I also look forward into working with every single last one of you. The idea of blogging is very new to me. I’ve never blogged a day in my life and so far I like it a lot its different but cool at the same time.