[Autism] Charlie, I love you

Autism and motherhood

I’ve been (over)thinking a lot the past few days. More so than usual. The fact that some people could think that I don’t love my son specifically because he’s autistic is beyond me. I know, they’re just assholes. I do love him. But still, it got me thinking, is my love for Charlie not obvious from my posts?

So I went back and I read all of my old posts. Every single one of them. How’s that for self-reflection? This one that I wrote two years ago really grabbed my attention. I remember this day so vividly. It was a tough day. I was sad but guess what? You can be sad about something affecting your son’s life – and by extension yours as the mother – and still love your child unconditionally.

This is what I wrote, unchanged:

Charlie, 

Today was one of those days. We got the results back from your PPCD speech assessment. They evaluated your ability to communicate. If your delays in speech and communication were significant enough, you’d be eligible to attend the special-needs classroom. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that you would qualify. Still it hit me kinda hard when the speech therapist called back with the results. You scored in the 1st and 2nd percentiles for the two speech and communication tests. The bottom of the scale. “The gap is quite severe”, she said.

You know what Charlie? Those tests are stupid. Albert Einstein said, “If you judge a fish by its inability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid”.

I wish they would have evaluated your amazing ability to sort objects by size and color! I wish they’d evaluate your creativity when playing with blocks and the shapes you make. I wish they would evaluate your ability to make high towers and be so delicate when doing so. I wish they would evaluate your great taste in music.

Your inability to communicate and speak doesn’t define you. Autism doesn’t define you. You are unique, and you can do so much more than they saw at first glance. Let’s just forget about the numbers and focus on what you can do. I have a feeling that one day you will show them – one day you will tell them what you can really do.

I love you,

Mom

[su_box title=”Please read”]Thank you so much to all of you who reached out to me in response to my last post. Unfortunately along with the kind messages, I received some backlash as well. With the support of my family and friends I have decided to take legal action against those people who continue to bully me online. To the #actuallyautistic community members who harass me, I’d say my love for my autistic child is and has always been pretty clear on my, as you say, martyr mom blog. You fight for acceptance of autistic people yet you harass me, an autistic adult. This has to stop. Stop with your insulting emails, Instagram, Facebook, and blog comments. For your own sake and mine, and for the sake of your reputation, stop.[/su_box]

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