Ted is back on medication. He hasn’t taken a prescription drug since July 2004 when I weaned him off of Zoloft after being told by one practitioner that the dosage of Zoloft another practitioner had Ted on was not only NOT helping his anxiety but quite possibly, because the dosage was so high, intensifying his anxiety. That was the final blow, the moment I said “no more.” No more guessing about the drugs we were putting into my son’s body. Continue reading
Tag Archives: special education
I’m So Glad I Raised My Autistic Child Before The Internet
As I read this article on Slate this morning, I found myself at times unable to read the words. My reading comprehension problems weren’t due so much to the content which I was reading, but because of this persistent thought that kept going through my mind over and over again, as persistent thoughts do…
“I think I am glad I raised Teddy before there was much on the internet.”
Sure, without the internet and its blogs and forums we were isolated.
There just might be something to isolation.
Sure, without the internet there might have been less information available.
There just might be something to less information.
Because, oh my, we were spared the politics, the camps, the us v. them, the spreading of hatred, the spreading of lies. My goodness, I don’t think we lacked information, I think we were kept from misinformation. Continue reading
But I Don’t Want To Play In Your Reindeer Game, And It’s Okay, Really
Charlotte doesn’t do groups.
That’s my rule.
I have been working my rule for almost two years now and it is going remarkably well.
And I applied my rule at last night’s Christmas party.
See my husband Neal is a competitive runner and loves his running club. So, when it was time to go to their party, of course I wanted to go because, well, it makes him happy, and making him happy makes me happy.
And it’s not that I don’t mind being around groups, on occasion. I just don’t like being heavily involved with them because it seems to me, whenever you get more than one person together there always seems to be some kind of problem. And who wants to invite problems into their lives, there are enough problems without invitation.
But that’s just me and I digress. Continue reading
The Outing Of Aspergers
As I look at this photo taken 21 years ago, I not only see a young me, and an even younger Ted, I wonder what was on my mind as I stood smiling at my camera wielding husband and holding our infant son.
Looking back at that wrinkle free face, I imagine I was enraptured by the newness of everything in my life. Married just two years, living in our first house, 1,300 miles from where I grew up and just eight, very sleep deprived weeks into my role of a lifetime.
And I imagine also it was the beauty of the falling leaves that got me to coax Neal into this photo shoot. Autumn was still so unique to me back then, having grown up in South Florida where the only thing I saw fall from trees were coconuts.
What also entered my mind as I gazed at this photo was how several autumns after it was taken life found us in a very different place, a place I could never have imagined that October day in 1991. In addition to two moves, my husband’s Ph.D. and a brand-new little sister for Teddy, in the autumn of 1995 we welcomed into our expanding family an unplanned addition named Aspergers Syndrome. Continue reading
The Dawning Of A New Day: A Happy Post About Teddy’s 4th Grade IEP
4th grade.
Deep exhale. Ah.
Big smile.
Teddy was away from the emotionally conflicted self-contained classroom.
He was back at his original school and in a mainstream classroom with his own aide.
Gone was the classroom teacher that said, “He is just going to have to learn…”
The above sentence was often finished with such things as… “to not work ahead.” (Because he was excited about the subject matter and could already do the work.) Or, “to not hit kids.” (Who called him “sick boy” and weren’t ever reprimanded for doing so.) Continue reading
