Outrunning The Storm To "I wish I didn't have Aspergers" #autismpositivity2012

A few weeks ago you entered a Google search of  “I wish I didn’t have Aspergers”.

You found my blog.

I don’t know what you read while you were here.

I do know it wasn’t what I want to say to you.

What you deserve to hear.

I want you to know I haven’t stopped thinking about you.

Wondering about you.

Was it just a hard night? Do you live with that feeling?

I Googled it too. “I wish I didn’t have Aspergers” I wanted to know what else you found.

It wasn’t enough. I want more for you.

My blog here, it’s about my son.

He has Aspergers.

I don’t. So, I can’t tell you it will get better. I can’t tell you I know how you feel. That would be patronizing on my part.

What I can say is I care about you.

I see you for who you are and I think you are wonderful.

I don’t need to meet you to say I know I would feel that way.

I want you to know I will spend my life making sure that the world sees people like you and my son for all that you are, as well.

It matters to me.

You matter to me.

I want to tell you now about something I’ve never really spoken about on this blog before. I want to tell you that fourteen years ago I fell in love with someone. We eventually married and started a family together.

But, fourteen years ago, I was just a girl with a long string of failed relationships because I had learned growing up that people said whatever they needed to get what they wanted. I expected insincerity and manipulation from people and I found it at every turn, until the day that I didn’t.

Until the day some friends introduced me to the love of my life.

We took a walk through a field and he seemed to have an infinite amount of knowledge about everything we saw; which plants were native to the area and which weren’t, the average temperature ranges for the area and how changes might effect vegetation for the year.

I walked and listened. He never initiated asking me a single question about myself. At first it felt strange, I had no idea what to make of it. But, I noticed I could volunteer any information I wanted and it would be met with the same eager fascination as all the stories he had been telling.

So, we walked and we talked and I learned about the origins of saw grass and native rock formations and I shared things with this stranger I’d never told anyone and for the first time felt I was being heard by someone with no further agenda.

We parted that day regrettably without making plans to meet again and it would be several days before we saw each other again at a mutual friends. I felt my heart quicken a little when I saw him that night but greeted him with a casual ‘o hey what’ve you been up to’ greeting because I had learned to never act like I cared too much.

Then he looked at me with that earnest, bemused look he still uses with me and replied, “Looking for you, of course.”

I can’t describe my feelings in that moment any way other than for the first time in my life I felt like I’d found “home”.

I’d met someone who never lies to me. Someone I can trust to be by my side through every up and down, no matter what. Someone who is the most brilliant person I’ve ever known. Someone who continues to reinterpret the world for me in ways I never envisioned.

So why do I tell you this?

Because like so many parents of autistic children, when my son was diagnosed with Aspergers I also realized that my beloved soul mate falls somewhere on the spectrum, as well.

I need you to hear this next part.

I have come to understand we did not fall in love and build a life together in spite of his autism but, rather because of it.

All the qualities that likely place him on the autism spectrum are the same qualities I love so dearly in him.

I don’t know what your circumstances are. I don’t know who is in your life or who you wish was in your life.

But, I can’t let you come to my blog again without knowing everything about how I feel.

If you found a post here that was about my struggles with my son, know that yes, that has been part of my life with my son with Aspergers.

But, it’s not all of it, not even close. I am a better person because of what autism has brought to my life.

I am more open. I am more loving. I am more accepting. I am more grounded.

This is what you have to offer the world and there are people out there like me that want to share all you have to offer.

I promise you that.

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I am not the only one who has thoughts to share with you. Please click this button to find an entire blog devoted to supporting you, set up by a bunch of really amazing friends of mine, you have to get to know.

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