A Label Lurks Around The Corner
Had to organise an appointment with a private paedeatrician for Aidan - possible autism spectrum disorder or “something of that nature” in the equation. Found the list of identifying signs & symptoms of Autism confronting - because i have done a lot of research over the years and haven’t ever seen a list that had so many of my son’s quirks living in one spot - not even my readings upon things like Aspergers had a list like that one. Learnt about Hyperlexia today - the precocious reading & comprehension component that my son has sounds very much like it - things have been improving for us because my son’s vocabulary has been expanding over the years. erg. The non-verbal ??? unresponsiveness to his name thing, the limited eye-contact, my life of having a son who couldn’t stand being hugged - but has slowly begun to warm up to it over the years - but he still has that “push away” thing in his body that’s been there since birth. When my son says,
“I love you mum!” or gives me one of his,Â
“Love, love-love!” squish with two arms held out straight like the mouth of a crocodile jamming it’s mouth open and shut - …Â
Of course it means the world to me. A moment in my life where my heart can take a moment to pause - to gain a small window of something like that. Something which most mother’s had lashings of when their kids were born, unlike me – who has had to wait, find other channels of ‘love’ outside of the standard hug. A 2 second hug means a lot over here!
My son’s a high-functioning kid, we’re not quite dealing with a complete Rain Man over here and i think he’s likely to fair well with the extra-help for transition into school, though erg - it’s been covertly overhwelming. Enough for a clear signal of,Â
“Ok - he’s not quite the same as most other kids in some departments and far beyond his age in others.”
We’re not shocked, we’ve had a lot of non-judgemental support - it’s just like a gentle under-towing of some kind that’s really subtle. I’ve had my sporadic weeping moments today - memories of pregnancy/birth & the early challenges seeking to resurface - the mind going through that backwards roll of connecting the dots that lead towards an lbm It does have intense things attached - perhaps Mitch & I are just good at remaining calm/focussed with,Â
“Ok - so let’s get a clear picture of what needs to be done now, work towards developing strategies, get going on with it to help our son move forward!”Â
It’s like there’s a cloudy gas of some things that are intangible right now. I guess it is intense - perhaps Mitch’s day has been not too far off fom my own. We’ve been able to touch it briefly together, though we’ve both got an aura of,Â
“I need some time to sleep on it before i can entertain any further discussion!”
…and have firmly shook hands together on that. Our son is like an amplified version of the two of us put together. We have some reflecting to do.
So we need to get the ball rolling with getting on with “form filling” & “form signing” proceedures to gain assistance. Having a Phone Phobia disorder has not made it a comfortable ride for me today, though i’ve been lucky that the people on the other end of the phone have not been reckless assholes.Â
…except for perhaps that flacid sounding human i had to talk to at Integral Energy today, to enquire about how to protect my computers from the frequent brown-outs we’ve been having lately! cccÂ
“There’s no mention of there being a problem in that region on my computer.”Â
This is after going through the process of listening to an automated computer voice telling me there was an outage in the Katoomba & Leura areas at the precise time that it happened just a few minutes before i called them. ccc Oh you know, one of those…Â
“I can’t talk coherent english, my voice is going to make it very difficult for you to understand me without prompting me with requests to repeat myself, and when you do that - I’m going to make it difficult for you because you’re making a covert judgement that i’m not talking clearly enough. Your ears are going to strain extra hard against the phone so that you don’t put yourself in the position of offending me. I seriously don’t like my job and i don’t feel very enthusiastic about receiving this call, which is why the inflexions in my voice are rather monotonous, low in volume & have a notable downward depressing tilt. Expect difficulty in communication with me, expect resistance.”
… kind of voices. You can hear all of that on the basis of how they greet you at the beginning!Â
Don’t know how i would’ve coped if the important points of contact over the phone today didn’t transpire with nice & understanding people on the other end, who could decipher my st-st-st-st-st-st-stutter-rap, because i have trouble processing spoken speech without facial cues, am hypersensitive to “tone” without a face, and become disabled by the phone because i can’t use two hands to help me draw illustrative pictures for myself (and to the people i’m talking to who can’t see them). My brain needs to “see” the pictures with my hands before another part of my brain can “see” the sequence of words that i need to string together. It feels so horrible because i can see my brain struggling to try and dip into a virtual thesauraus which is a black hole of (My GOD! I can’t SEE the WORDS! I can’t “see” ANY of the words! Who hit the delete button on that visual book which houses my vocabulary?! The pages have all gone blank! It’s empty! I have been rendered vocally illiterate!)
So - trying to send a message to Lisa - and there’s this really cheerful seeming person on the other line. I struggle so hard to find the smooth words.
“Hi, i’m having?? Lisa has been coming to us for assistance…We ??? were.. able to..?? we organised a..an appointment with the pediatrician for our son /??? for screening…and i need to leave her a message about who the doctor is and what time the appointment is.”
I didn’t know how to approach/what to ask/speak. If confronting the phone stresses me so much, i sometimes need to think and string the words together on a piece of paper before i call! The lady was amazingly helpful. Lisa had left specific instructions for her – so that she knew a call from me would be coming. The instructions were so detailed, outlining exactly what this woman was supposed to expect from me – so despite my own struggle in trying to get the message across – the process of getting the message through was successful & relatively easy despite my own stress. Yes, I struggled – it pained me because my mouth was having so much difficulty in trying to explain my situation – and Lisa was thankfully so considerate to know that such a call would have been very difficult to handle had this woman not been armed with the ability to expect it. Phew!
That’s my tackle done for the week – I’ve had no time for the house - have had to focus on this fun & greatly talented little guy over here…
My kitchen is still looking really fantastic for 42 days tho!
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