Bridging the Denial Gap

Another blog written by my talented husband.


    Being married to what some would call an ‘emotional woman’, or what others would call a ‘typical woman’, I tend to follow the intent of someone’s words rather than the actual language used. For instance, “I hate the lines at Wal-Mart. I will never come back here again” really is more of a declaration of frustration as the both of us know that saving sixteen cents on a gallon of milk will be bringing us both back at a twice a week minimum.

            I take this into consideration whenever having that difficult talk with someone who just won’t take ‘autism’ as an answer. Before delving into a thirty minute dialogue about how all politicians are criminals (not really sure how we got there), my mother and I had just such a conversation. By saying, “I don’t know. He doesn’t really appear to be autistic to me” or “I’d probably get a second or third opinion on that”, they’re trying to tell me that they love Lukas and that he’s totally fine. Their words, however, are saying that if he were autistic, he would not be fine. The equation being: Lukas-autism=satisfactory or Autism > Lukas. I’m not a mathematician, but I’m pretty sure the fundamental basis for the problem has to be scrapped.

           
    I don’t say any of this condescendingly. I know that it’s the ones who love me and my family the most who have the hardest time coming to terms with Lukas’ autism. I know that my mother loves Lukas. I know that the other people in my life, most of whom have stated the above mentioned statements at different times, love Lukas and are only saying so to offer their support. And the truth is that I was just as much in denial the first month or so after I found out than the people around me are now. I’ve had time to wrestle with the five stages of grief and I’ve spent more hours than I would’ve liked to on the subject, so it only makes sense that I’ve arrived at acceptance sooner than those around me. I feel like Lukas is the first person to walk on the moon and my wife and I are running behind him trying to keep him from falling into the craters. While, no, even on the moon I cannot see everything, I can still see everyone else out in the distance