I Lied....

I have lied….lied to those who read this blog, lied to friends and family and lied to myself. Funny thing is I hate people who lie and yet as I sit here I am admitting that I have lied. I have allowed myself to sit in silence recently and to really think. If you haven’t done that for a while, I highly recommend it. It is amazing what you can find out about yourself when you are left alone with your thoughts. I wrote a while ago that I had accepted Cam’s differences and that I was riding a happy train. Well, when sitting in my complete silence with my own thoughts, I realized I had lied. Not intentionally but I had for sure been lying. I haven’t been on the happy train with Cam’s diagnosis….you know what train I have been on? The depressed train and I have been on a one-way ticket to Gloomville. To be honest it isn’t just Cam’s diagnosis that has had me on this train but all that has come with it. The fighting with schools, insurance companies, family members, you name it and I feel like I am constantly fighting for my son. But, do I always have to be fighting? I am definitely a different person today than I was prior to his diagnosis. I am not the happy person I used to be.

I am currently failing as a wife, though my husband will tell me differently because he is just that kind of man who I am so fortunate that he loves me beyond all my flaws and there are many days I question his sanity for doing so. But I am not currently the wife he deserves. I have failed or am failing some of my friendships. No, not all friendships that I have lost along this journey are my fault….but there are some that have been damaged or lost along the way. I am failing as a mom. Though I do my best to always be there for my children and love them more than they will ever know. I have allowed my own depression to not be in the moment fully with them. I have failed or am failing some family members because I have allowed my own depression or life problems to get in the way of being there for them. So, at the moment as I am writing this I am finally being honest. I am putting it out there because I hate people who lie and I, myself cannot continue to live this lie or continue to fail those most important to me.

My journey in life with Cam is so different than I ever imagined it would be. Not because he doesn’t play certain sports, though since I am being honest, it does pain me some days when I see children playing all of these different sports, having fun with their friends while doing so and then I see my son, who just can’t. It’s not because he isn’t the son I always wanted because he is and so much more. It’s also not because he isn’t amazing because my son is beyond amazing. You need to know anything about minerals, animals or dinosaurs he can tell you whatever it is you need to know. He can tell you the worst knock knock jokes and still make you laugh uncontrollably because of the way he tells them. My son’s memory amazes me every day. He will tell me how old he was when he received a gift and who it was from and it starts as young as the age of 2 and he’s always right or when and where we were doing something or he learned something and he is always right. I can’t remember where I left my glasses at and my son remembers things from the age of 2. But, my journey is different because I never imagined having this anger at the world for my son’s struggles. I never imagined being depressed because I was so angry and hurt by the people who don’t understand my son. I never imagined family turning their backs on my son or people telling me the doubts they have of my son’s capabilities. There are so many aspects of this life journey with Cam that I never imagined.

I didn’t realize how depressed I really was until all of these changes with Cam’s new school happened. The fights that I had to do for my son to get the help he needed and deserved with his old school were unbelievable. They saw a diagnosis, not a child. I was so angry but I allowed myself to pretend like I was riding on the happy train. I continued to live a lie, a lie that I was allowing to destroy my entire world. I gave a friend of mine advice the other night to just lock herself in the bathroom and do the ugly cry. I said the bathroom because lets be honest as mom’s that is pretty much the only place we can go that our children won’t follow us and if they do and the door is locked they will eventually go away out of pure boredom. I decided to take my own advice and I just let out the ugliest cry you could ever imagine. Sad thing is I probably could have gone on for days but I sat there for about an hour just letting it all out. I didn’t realize how much anger, depression or sadness I really had in me until I just let it all out. I told my friend it would make her feel better and I was right, it really does make you feel just a little better.

I am going to work on getting myself out of this depression. My son has Autism, it is not the end of the world and I realize that. But, his struggles some days feel like they are the end of the world. The fights that I fight some days feel like my world is going to end. But, first thing I am doing to start fighting against this depression is to put this out there to whoever reads this, I am not going to allow myself to live a lie. I want to go back to being the happy person….the truly happy person I once was. I want to stop failing the people in my life who mean the most to me and I can’t do that if I continue to live this lie. My son has Autism and I am going to stop feeling sorry for myself because of it. I don’t allow him to use it as a crutch to not succeed in his life and I am not going to allow myself to use it as a crutch in mine.

(On a complete side note Cam’s doing AMAZING in his new school and there will a blog post about that soon)