Not Yet a Believer

The daycare felt positive after the IEP meeting last week. They had a game plan, albeit small and simple, but they ran with it and declared it was working after just a day. It was a positive because they could see my Love Bug in a different light. It was an a-ha moment for them. Predictably, I was feeling less-positive after the pronouncement and possible impending diagnosis. I was certain Love Bug would be diagnosed with ADHD like his sister. He seemed to exhibit similar characteristics and behavioral issues. He did seem less social than his sister, but he was gregarious and loving and his delay just meant he needed a boost to get back on track.

 

The intervention therapist asked me during the meeting if I had an suspicions or worries that Love Bug might be on the spectrum. Before he started early intervention for speech therapy I thought it might be a possibility. But, his primary care physician didn’t think he had the markers and when the early interventionists evaluated him, they made no mention of the possibility. Even at his recent evaluation for TSS therapy just a few weeks ago, autism was not suggested. I did fill out the autism form and many of the markers didn’t fit for Love Bug. I knew he struggled socially in group settings, but it seemed when he was one-on-one with other kids he was fine. I blamed myself for his unwillingness to play with other kids and choose to spend time with me instead because I babied him. So what if he liked being with his momma? He struggled playing with his sister but I chalked that up to the age gap and their stubbornness to have things go their own ways.

 

A week ago, a month ago, if you had asked me if there was a diagnosis I felt I was not capable of handling I would have told you autism. I think it’s the unknown about it that scared me. And, what I perceived, as life-long difficulties made me feel unequipped to handle a child on the spectrum. It was the instant vaporization of Love Bug’s future as I envisioned it that brought hot, angry tears to my eyes and gut-wrenching sobs to the back of my throat. No one will understand my Love Bug, was my fear. They will see his diagnosis and not him and his potential.

 

I understand, getting a bead on a diagnosis is crucial to getting help for the things that are making his life hard. I know a label is just a word. I also know, how it can trigger undesirable things, like it did with Chica Marie. If this thought becomes an official diagnosis, I will need to learn how to not see it as something being taken from Love Bug, rather as a tool to help him be his best self.