Living With Autism – Entry 1

I was going to start by saying “it all started on this day“. I was going to say it, however, looking back there were signs flashing for my little sister that we didn’t see or was even aware of. We ultimately drove past it and continued down the road of “She is just young“, “Why is she being so difficult?“, “She is different.” or “She is sensitive.” and the schools she went to did the same thing.

Breadcrumbs we used to dust under the carpet, turned into behaviour that was getting extremely strange and it was too big to not notice. When she was 11 years old she brought a knife to school, not your average butter knife but a steak knife. For the only purpose to cut her apple. Her apple. To this day, she still doesn’t see why she can’t bring a knife to school. She will resight the school rules and be sure to add the school never said you can’t bring a knife to school. That is how literal she is.

As the days leading up to her turning 12, we would get calls from the school saying that she went missing. She would run away within the school and hide. They would find her crying in the bathroom stale. I remember that her and would just argue about the simplest things when I would take care of my siblings. Everything was like pulling teeth with her and she is older than my two younger siblings who got what I said with ease.

March 1st, 2015, changed all of our lives in a huge way. My little sister who had just turned 12 a few days before and was rushed to the hospital because she wanted to run away and end her life. She was experiencing an extreme panic attack that we had never seen before. Talking about things that did not make sense and rocking back and forth glued to my mom’s leg. Panic attacks became more frequent and the twisty road to getting her diagnosed started.

Since then, we knew our lives would never be the same. My mom was not able to go to work because she had to take care of her since she is unable to take care of herself. Finding this diagnosis has been a real struggle and a ton of patience. We have two weeks to get the official diagnosis but through the assessment, we finally received it looks like that is what we are facing.

I thought I would share my story because it might be beneficial for someone out there to hear my story. I am going to continue to share and hope that I will gain some tips or even find more families who are going through similar situations.