Moving Forward and How Many Thoughts Can I Have In My Head

Our autism journey

Lynn Browder
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

The waves crash in my head, I try not to worry, but worry sits and stress moves forward. I thought we were having a good day. I worried about too much, didn’t concentrate on moving forward and letting things be as they should. Instead I stressed.

Today was going good. Good reports on my fur babies, good appointment at the dentist, and then it hits. Weeks went by, I think it was weeks, I try to put it out of my mind, because it makes my head spin, but here it is again, the poop smearing. Oh to use the technical term, but there it is poop. No matter what term I use it is still a thousand steps forward only to have poop move us back a million. Truly it makes no sense to me, but it is a sensory need for him. Three times, three times I dealt with this. All I want to do is sit.

My mind thinks back through the day. Tons of words, great interactions, but maybe Owen had too much going on and now it brought back the poop. The tears sit welling in my eyes. I should be doing the laundry and cleaning my house, taking out the trash, working on my yard, my car, my life, but I sit. I can’t move.

My thoughts are jumbled with what happened today, why he is asleep so early, and all the other families that are going through some of the same things. I can’t tell you how many families I’ve talked to in the last month struggling with the school systems and how they aren’t helping their children. My heart aches about this. The process for so many of these things is daunting. You feel isolated and alone. We don’t talk enough about the issues at hand and so much of this feels embarrassing, for no reason, because this is all every day real life for us.

I long for the day when families don’t have to stress about their children in school and how they are doing. I feel very fortunate that Owen had such great teachers and support teams at his previous school and summer program. And now I am thankful for his new teacher and I see how much she cares about these kids.

I think about our day and how one “little” thing like going to the dentist, even though he did amazing threw us off completely for the night. I hope that he sleeps well tonight, we both need it.

I tell you our story, share our life with you, not because I want you to feel sorry for us, but because there are so many other families that are just like ours. I would be surprised if Owen is the only person you know that has autism. The numbers suggest he is not and if he is it won’t be long until you do know someone else. There needs to be more autism research done, but what helps most for everyone is love, compassion, and understanding. Autism wasn’t important to me, until autism was important to me.

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Lynn Browder

Written by

I am on a mission to spread autism awareness, compassion, love and understanding. I have a five year old son, Owen who has autism. Love music and comedy.

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