Shattering Myths – Part 4 of 4
The road ahead
Following years of intense medical and behavioral interventions Ryan is now employed as an engineer at a major aerospace company. But more importantly, he has friends and is happy. One of his bosses recently complimented him on his great people skills. Ryan and I had a good laugh over that one. My son is now the liaison between his company and their customers.
Before medical and behavioral interventions, he didn’t have friends and spoke in the same scripts over and over again, and had to be taught what other kids just “knew”. Who could have predicted that one day he would have a career that required advanced social skills?
His favorite thing to do is going surfing with friends. Surfing requires coordination. I used to have to hold Ryan’s hand to make sure he didn’t fall when he walked down the street. He was also very sensitive to sounds and touch. He had to have every tag cut out of his clothes and he covered his ears every time a bell rang at school. But all of that is gone now.
Ryan now does all the things the “experts” said could never happen. Recently, he vacationed in Bali with one of his best friends from college. He also went to Panama with another friend he stole from his sister. His life would have been very different if we had accepted his autism or embraced it. And I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t involve surfing in Bali or Panama.
The loneliness my son experienced was the hardest part. He was “with it” enough to realize he was not accepted by his peers, but not enough to know what to do socially. Sometimes Ryan was the only boy in his class not invited to a birthday party. We’d cry together about that. He had very few friends and was rarely invited anywhere until college.
I questioned if our family’s sacrifices and efforts were actually accomplishing anything. I worried about the impact of Ryan’s issues on my daughter. At times, I wasn’t sure if I had the strength to be more stubborn than my son. My fear for Ryan’s future continued past the awkward school years and into the beginning of college. It wasn’t until then that Ryan finally started to understand the social piece of the puzzle and could figure things out on his own. Yet, he wasn’t “fully cooked” until after he started working.
One question parents often ask me is, “When did you know Ryan would be okay?” It wasn’t until after his bosses and co-workers still liked him after a year at his job that I knew things were finally all right.
Helping my son recover was the hardest thing I have ever done! I made many mistakes along the way. But the one thing I did right was to never give up no matter how hard things got. We couldn’t give up because sometimes we got a glimpse of the kid that was in there.
Marcia Hinds wrote ‘I Know You’re In There: winning our war against autism’. This inspirational book is the story of her son’s recovery. Ryan is now an engineer at a major aerospace company. Marcia has degrees in sociology and psychology from UCLA and is a credentialed teacher. But Marcia’s most impressive credential for writing this book is that she is Ryan’s mother and their family survived the autism diagnosis.
Preview the book on Amazon or on her website.
All profits from Marcia’s book go to spread the word that AUTISM IS TREATABLE.
Marcia is available for speaking engagements, media appearances, and interviews.
Phone: 805 497-8202
Mobile: 805 796-8213
Email: marcia@autismandtreatment.com
Media Kit: http://www.autism-and-treatment.com/media-kit/
