This is the first time I have written about what is going on at home. Some of you may already know that Grace has been recently diagnosed with autism in the last couple of months. It definately was a challenging time as at first I felt that I was over analysing things and causing the problems, but when Steve mentioned what he was seeing I knew that there was something wrong.
It was also very difficult talking to the girls creche because they denied behaviours that happened in every place we went to and by miracle she wasnt doing it there.
We went through the process privately and it was a whirl wind process. But we also knew it could be a 12-18 month wait through the public system. We had appointments with our paeditrician, child psychologist who deals with autistic children and a speech therapist who also deals with autistic children.
Although we knew that we were on the right path, it was still extremely difficult to hear that our child is autistic. People also expect me to be on top of everything considering I have worked with numerous severe autistic children. But as a parent it was extremely difficult.
With all my work at PANDA it definately helped going through the grief cycle which is a natural response to all news. Over the last couple of weeks I have been quite depressed as it simply breaks my heart to watch these changes unfold.
To see her not really interacting with other children, she has a couple of close friends, anymore. She spends a lot of time walking around in circles. We are lucky she has a tight bond with Emma.
But the most important things I always need to keep reminding to myself is that she is Grace. My gorgeous four year old who I love with all my heart. We dont introduce her as Grace with autism. She is simply Grace.
As the Dalai Lama always says people should treat people as human beings and forget all the other characteristics that we label each other with. Everyone you meet is a human being.
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