Autism: From We to I

My son.

Autism connected us together in the complicated ways.

For eighteen years, we were a “we.”

I spoke when you couldn’t find the words.

My regulation was the barometer for your own.

I fought. I sat in stuffy conference rooms and made a case for inclusion and behavior therapy. I wrote emails. I made phone calls.

When a doctor tried to capture your language delay by telling us to imagine everyone is speaking French but you, I imagined unfamiliar vowels and consonants circling wildly in your mind. 

Through it all, I rooted for you.

Now, you are in a college program hundreds of miles away.

The first month you were gone, I could hardly breathe.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. All the everyday tasks and responsibilities just vanished into thin air.

Appointments.

Medication.

Schedule.

In many ways, I built my life around you. 

I didn’t choose this. It is simply life with a diagnosed child. 

You’ve been gone for six months now. I am starting to exhale just a bit.

I guess I never quite grasped how deeply my nervous system was intertwined with yours—how I rode the autism emotional rollercoaster every single day—until the ride stilled for a moment.

Still, we remain inexplicably bound.

Endless texts to share every thought you have. Questions about my mood, our day, the house, the dog.

I watch you attempt to navigate the higher-level concepts of this new life—friendship, boundaries, time-management—and I think of all the lessons we failed to cover.

So, you look to me. 

And the familiar rise and fall of the emotional roller coaster fills my ribcage.

It’s so easy to give in—to answer every text and try to solve your problems and help you stay calm. It is a familiar pattern.

But it won’t do you any favors. 

We were tempted to keep you here—in this town, this life, this house. Like a bird in a gilded cage, we longed to protect you.

Yet we opened the door and encouraged you to stretch your wings across the sky.

I want you to fly.

At the same time, I am conflicted about the separation. 

After all, nothing cuts quite as deep as autism’s two-sided sword. 

This is the stuff no one talks about. No one talks about the heartache of pulling back from your own vulnerable child.

Every once in a while, I fast-forward to different versions of you. 

You at forty, sixty-three, seventy-five.

I can’t quite see them. My mind’s eye draws a blank white space.

Who will order your birthday cake?

Who will have you over for Christmas dinner, Easter brunch?

It is this very white space that propels me forward. 

I have to push you into the world, even as I ache to keep you from it.

I have to disentangle myself from your story, even as I long to stay a main character. It is the only way to help you build a life full of richness and color.

We must move from “we,” to “I.”

I want to be there for you. I want you to feel loved and safe and understood. 

You are all of these things.

You are also strong, and capable, and hopeful.

This is where the work is.

It’s the only way to help you fully soar.

My son.

Please know, I will always be here. Even as the texts go quiet and the advice lessens. It is simply time for me to root from the sidelines.

From we to I.

We to I.

We.

I.

Je-taime.

It’s the one phrase I know in French.

Je’taime.

I love you

I love you, Jack-a-boo.