Our life is not all sunshine and roses

I post a lot of fun, happy videos and pictures of Nathan. But our life is definitely not all sunshine and roses. There are days when autism wins and those days are extremely hard.

Nathan's autism comes with anxiety. It gets so bad if the slightest thing in his world changes. We are going on almost two weeks of dealing with meltdowns every single day. And these meltdowns can last hours. And we just have to push through with ignoring, hugs, time outs and anything else we can think of that might make him calm. And the hardest part is, he can't tell us what is bothering him.

He has been falling asleep later and later and either waking up in the middle of the night or super early in the morning and it's so exhausting.

Most nights I cry myself to sleep. And it's from exhaustion from lack of sleep.

Worry that I didn't do enough to help him that day.

Fear thinking about his future.

Grief because I feel like I lost the child who I gave birth to.

Guilt because I lost my cool for a minute during the screaming and yelling of his tantrum.

Anticipation of what tomorrow will bring...will we be doing this all over again?

And questions asking myself what I could have done wrong for him to have this disability.

I love my little guy with all of my heart and all of my being. He is my world and everything I do is for him. Even after he has had the meltdown from hell, I look into his big, beautiful, blue eyes and I see nothing but pure love!!! And then he gives me a huge hug where he melts into me and my world is at peace again.

Autism is a crazy journey but I know Nathan is going to overcome every obstacle thrown at him. And one day we will look back at this point in our lives and it will just be a memory.

Comments

Nothing Comes Easy

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Today while driving in the car we heard these lyrics: "He said I've been watching you dad, ain't that cool I'm your buckaroo, I wanna be like you And eat all my food and grow as tall as you are We like fixing things and holding mama's hand Yeah we're just alike, hey ain't we dad I wanna do everything you do So I've been watching you" I started to tear up. I got to thinking about our little boy. Nathan is 5 and is non-verbal with autism. He can say some words when prompted but cannot hold a conversation. When I heard the lyrics I started thinking that Nathan can't say these words to his dad. He can't tell him with his voice how much he wants to be like his dad. But with autism we have learned that words aren't the only way to show love. Nathan constantly tells his dad "I wanna do everything you do, so I've been watching you." He shows it every time he puts on his dad's hat. He shows it every time he grabs the hair cli

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Through Nathan's Eyes

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