Waves of Grief

For the past few weeks, I have been suffering from waves of grief.

Last Friday was when it all started to hit me again. Tyler's class was having a Halloween celebration/Pizza party at school. I went down to help out and bring some cookies in for the class. As the kids were eating their pizza and starting to decorate cookies, we were told to get ready for the monthly fire drill. We were getting the kids ready to exit the class when all of a sudden, comes the blaring sound of the alarm. Tyler lost it! Screaming, tears, just scared out of his mind! As we were making our way to the parking lot, I asked the paras if he is always like this and they said no. Maybe its because I was there and he was looking for reassurance from me. I don't know. Once we got the all clear to go back inside, he was still freaked out. I calmed him down to an extent and ended up taking him home early.

Monday morning things were fine getting the kids up and ready for school. Once I got Ty to school, the tears began to fall again. He was fine all weekend and I wasn't sure if he was getting sick. I left him and got a call from the teacher that he was still crying and not eating anything. She said he kept looking at the fire alarm box in the class and would cry and "wait" for it to go off again. My poor little man was still freaked out! Maybe he is more sensitive to the sounds around him now.

He was fine today. Every morning when I pull away, we wave goodbye and he waits till I'm out of sight to head to class. He was waving and smiling this morning, so maybe he's forgetting about it--until next month!

This is just another wave of grief that I have been experiencing on my journey with autism. My son has great days, months and then something like this sets him back.

Another thing that is bothering me is how people can just totally ignore the fact that my son exists. People need to realize that my son has feelings too and even though he can't express them, he still feels them. My son is so special to me and it hurts to see people just brush him off like a piece of gum on a shoe.

Its just been a bad few weeks and I want it all to be over!