Coping With Autism

Coping with Autism can be difficult and at times feel like a roller

coaster ride. You have good days, and bad days, times of

progression and periods of regression.

No parent is ready when the doctor tells you those words.

 Even if you knew that was what he was going to say how

would you prepare for that? After leaving the doctors

appointment  from getting an

Autism Diagnosis, we are all lost.

We as parents have to start our own pursuit of educating ourselves

on how we are going to cope with  Autism for the sake of not just

our child but for our entire family. Autism is a journey like no other,

the inability to communicate with your own child can be devastating,

  the odd behaviors in public can be embarrassing not just for you

but your other children, and the lack of awareness your child has

for their own safety can be terrifying.

Coping with Autism is about management. You have to joggle all

the treatments, doctors appointments, and therapies. In order to

know which direction to focus on  you need to make a plan. Set goals

to eliminate bad behaviors, work on diet issues, or focus on a task

to teach your child. If your child is acting out with self injurious 

behaviors than there's a high priority problem to solve.

Find out which treatment is better suited to meet your needs.

Set goals, not just for the benefits to your child but for your

own sake to give you something to look forward to.

Autism is easier to cope with when you start seeing

progress. Progress comes with a lot of hard work and dedication.

Work towards longer times without an episode of self injurious

behaviors, head banging, or hand flapping by trying a new

treatment, or approach.

Parents of Autistic children are at higher risks for divorce, and

stress related illnesses. We are sleep deprived, mentally and

physically exhausted, and living in a constant state of fear.

Autism will test your mental endurance and physical strength,

 twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. I cope with autism

by my attitude! I know there is no sense crying over spilled milk,

the mess is not going to get cleaned up with me sitting there crying

about it, nor is a new jug going to appear in my refrigerator!

To get over the spilled milk you have to jump into action immediately.

 Autism is the same way, if you knew what store to get the cure from

 you would drive down there and pick it up with your new gallon of milk.

 But unfortunately Autism is not that easy, but it can get easier when

you spring into action and get a plan together to make it more

manageable to cope with. I started with little things, challenges

 such as, just getting my son to sit and have dinner with us, but

this has made a huge difference in our home.

Our family is extremely close, I made sure that dinner time was

spent together around the table. When my son came along family

dinners got to be harder and harder to accomplish.   He would

not stay sited at the table, or even in the same room for more

than a couple of moments, he was loud and disruptive.

My husband and I had to start taking turns eating and

 watching him. Over time you could feel the drift of our family

from missing this special time together. It made it hard to live

with autism not just on us parents but for the siblings of these

children. As my other kids would say, we don't get enough sit

down and talk time anymore. We were always up running after

my son, But what can you do?

An Autism Diagnosis can hold you and your family prisoner in your

own home if you are not coping with Autism and living in denial.

You can give in and stay trapped by locks, safety gates and latches,

or you can come up with a positive attitude and a  plan on coping with

autism and make it more manageable. There is never going to

be a magic pill that in fifteen minutes is going to make this go away

but you can  make it livable.

It takes a lot of hard work, long days, and longer  nights, and a

big enough  attitude to not just want it to change,

but to make it change. 

Its the small things you get to do that make you feel normal again.

The last few years have been a lot of work, but I know that we

are working towards his recovery and making coping with Autism

more manageable and keeping our stress levels down in the long

run vs short term. We used to not take our son to a lot of public

places because of the issues and unpredictability of his behaviors

but when will he ever learn to go to the grocery store, library, or a store.

I would rather teach a small child than a grown adult how to

act in these places!

If it takes you three to six months of patience, dedication, and

embarrassment to teach them appropriate behaviors at these public

place than think about what that could mean for their future. Having

a plan and a positive attitude to deal with Autism, keeps you focused

on where to go from here instead of feeling lost about

an uncertain future.

Use all your energy on the  development of your child and

know that one day the reward will be one step closer to your

child's recovery.

Think about whatever activities you used to do and find a way to

keep these activities a part of your life. Managing your own stress

can be difficult when coping with Autism and the with the

unpredictably of it, but find ways to plan time for yourself.

For me I am a coffee drinker, I remember the days when my kids

were in elementary school and I would get up early in the mornings

and drink coffee and watch the news. Something so simple

that I took for granted was gone by the time I realized my child

has Autism. I stay exhausted by so it was to hard to wake up early

and watch the news anymore.

For a couple of years it feels like I had no idea what was going on

in the rest of the word! I was surviving my child

 and nothing more.

I started fighting with my son to go to bed earlier and earlier each

night. It took forever to get  him to go to bed before midnight,

but several months down the road, even with his bedtime protests he

was going to bed earlier and earlier which allowed me to go to bed to!

I was able to start getting up earlier in the mornings and watch the news,

which gave more things to talk about other than Autism and kept me

from being consumed by it! You will be amazed at how much easier

Coping with Autism can get when you start being able to do the simplest

normal  things again, and always remember it takes a positive

attitude to raise autism!

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