Our Shared Autism

I promise this is not a commercial for Brain Highways. I just wanted to post something I wrote in June about how BH had changed our lives. ----------- On our first day at BH the director talked about all of us being inside a circle but my son being on the outside and we needed to bring him in. What I realized was that I have been experiencing my own kind of autism. I have been outside the circle, and I am being invited in. Before BH I had two lives, the one when my son was with me and the one when my son was at school. When he was at school I did church service, got together with friends, and did creative projects. But once he was home we never did play dates or played outside with other kids like we did yesterday. He was content to stare at his favorite bush and walk back and forth next to it, for a long time, while I chatted with a friend. Kids his age would say hi to him but there was no interaction. To pass the time I would take him on long car drives or for walks in his stroller, or to therapy appointments.  When he was with me he was living the life of an infant. I can't begin to thank BH for drawing Sam and me out of our shared autism, into the world with everybody else.