My eldest son, who we’ll call Mark, was born with autism. It was a few months after his second birthday that we discovered something was not quite right with him. He stopped saying the few words he did know, was not able to sustain eye contact and was not able to play like other kids his age.

Hence began the journey of many years of frustration and pain. As described in previous posts. Mark had to be ‘trained’ to do pretty much everything. The things he could do on his own was walk, run, climb, swing and eat (preferred crunchy things.)

He was not potty trained until sometime after his fourth birthday. He could not say much except one syllable words, and even those had to be prompted and waited for. His first three syllable word was ‘applesauce.’ I was so thrilled that day, I gave him as much applesauce as he wanted.

Mark had extreme gross motor skills. He could run as fast, if not faster, than most adults. And he could climb higher than I was comfortable with. He had no fear of heights at all. He was physically amazing. But it was his lack of other attributes that tested our family’s sanity…well, at least mine.

Being a stay at home mom, I was the keeper of the house and children. Although my husband at the time did help out with some things, he was mostly out of the picture. I tried my best to keep a clean house and raise 3 children. But, it was not easy. Although I had the freedom to visit other stay at home moms, Mark was hardly ever cooperative. He never wanted to stay where we would go and would often times start yelling or at times became physical, hitting me, in order to get me to leave.

He did like going to McDonald’s. He loved their cheeseburger and fries. So, we were there more often than I would have liked. It was not only an outing for him, but for me as well. It was hard being cooped up in a house all day, every day. But, once Mark had finished his food, he would become restless and many times he would attempt to leave the McDonald’s and go out into the parking lot before I or my other two children had finished eating. It was always a hurried lunch.

It remained and continued to be a very tough road. Mark would improve in some things, but mostly his ability to talk and get along with others became increasingly worrisome. And as he got older he became stronger, physically, and often times he would scare me.

We had moved to a bigger house at the end of a road where it just dead-ended. Mark had finally figured out how to ride a bike at age 7 and he was riding up and down the street we lived on. I was standing in the middle of the street at the dead-end (our house was the last one on the street) when Mark came barreling down the road on his bike. Because I didn’t know which way he was going to go I just stood still so he could go around me. Well, his intentions were different and instead of going around me, he slammed right into me.

I was not only shocked, but hurt as well. I was left with several bruises. He had simply no fear of doing the wrong thing. There was no consequence I could possibly give him where he could learn a lesson. Naturally, I told him it was wrong and did all the correct parenting things, but it was impossible for me to know whether he understood what I was saying.

I was already depressed and became even worse. I was already on medication, but I was merely surviving. I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth. Being a Christian, I wondered where God was. I began poring myself into to Christian self help books. Why was God doing this to me? I am not a bad person. What was God trying to tell me or do to me? My entire foundation of faith was teetering on some very deep and dark questions about my God and I couldn’t understand why He was allowing this to happen.

Of course, I was not the only person who was suffering from these same situations. We hooked up with other moms (some single) who had children with these same problems. They were clearly dealing with their child in a similar fashion, but from my vantage point seemed to have better control of their own mental capacities. I was drowning in despair and so close to ending up in a loony bin somewhere.

Add to this other problems…my youngest, who we’ll call Kathy, was only 2 when we moved to our bigger house. One morning after I had gotten my 2 boys on the bus for school, I was in the kitchen waiting for Kathy to wake up. Soon I began to hear her crying, which was typical of her. I went upstairs and followed the cries, but couldn’t find her. I went into one room and found that not only was the window open, but the screen had been popped out. I ran to the window and looked outside and found that Kathy had somehow fallen out of the window and was outside on the ground.

I couldn’t run fast enough. I got to her and picked her up and ran back into the house. I called my husband and he told me to go to the emergency room with her and he would meet me there.

Kathy ended up having a few bruises, but there were no broken bones. Unbelievable. So, now my depression only got worse. My self-loathing increased. I thought I was a horrible mother who couldn’t take care of her children. Of coarse, that’s not the truth, but it’s what I began believing. It took years to work through all the problems.

And if things weren’t bad enough, they only got worse. I will continue this discussion on my next blog.

Until then, God bless you.