Parental Guilt and Autism

🫂 Your child has or is suspected to have Autism and you have guilt and questions. ⁉️

❤️ Whether you're new to this journey or have been traveling the Autism trail for a while, it's normal to have uncontrollable emotions. Emotions like guilt, sorrow, remorse, hatred towards Autism, anger, all of these feelings.. completely understandable and normal. It's ok. It's important to acknowledge these feelings and then accept that your life is different from what you may have invisioned. Different is not bad. It will take some adjustment and open-mindedness. But you can do this!! We are here to help you.

💙 It's common to question "why?" and "what if?". The questions like; if I didn’t eat right, threw up too much, smoked, baby came early, or had Tylenol or other medications. There are a thousand different reasons why that comes to mind. The more we look for the why, the more reasons we start to buy into it: vaccines, baby food, folic acid, etc. We can’t help ourselves but to question.

🧡 It's normal to feel guilt, but we did not cause this disability. We have done our best to support our child. We need to remember to give ourselves grace on hard days, appreciation on easy days, and not to allow the guilt or the questions to rob us of our joys of parenthood.

💚 Even though it's normal to wonder and question, we need to remember that it is what it is. There's no changing it. We can not take the autism away. There's no miracle cure. Even if you find out exactly why, it still is a part of your life. All of this energy spent on guilt could be put to more productive use. Use that time and energy to study your child. Document what you know about them, what they like, dislike, triggers, what are their stims, how to they self regulate. Use that energy to figure out what services, therapies, and/or activities would best help you help your child. Shift your focus from guilt and wondering to dedication and determination. You got this!! ℹ️ Please see the bottom of the post for some Helpful Links!

🌞🌞 Please comment below with your thoughts on this post, anything you want to add, or maybe just some encouragement to others. 🌞🌞

🌷🌷🌷 This is something every parent or caregiver should read and keep in mind.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND by Emily Perl Kingsley "I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...... When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy." But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland."