When you get in a car accident, if you see it coming, your body tenses and waits for the impact. It is a natural reaction, an instinct that is built into your body. It is also not that great because you can get a more serious injury from holding your body so rigid when the impact hits. I only say this because sometimes we can do this with our emotions too. You can be anxious and afraid and brace yourself for the even about to happen. If there wasn’t all that tension the event itself wouldn’t be that awful. Like me when I go to the dentist. I tense up, I sweat buckets and I cry. This is just for a cleaning. I am so scared about the scraping and the metal tools in my mouth that I steel myself the whole time for something that never happens. I don’t die from having my teeth cleaned. I am still here writing this because I survived it. I really just wasted precious time and energy holding myself so rigid because of my anxiety.
This is what happened yesterday with max’s IEP meeting. I wasn’t as stressed about it as last the, I would say more resigned to the upcoming fight we were going to have. I talked it out with
Jen and we had a battle strategy going in. Since in our previous meetings trying to give examples of our struggles outside the class was met with skepticism and faint disbelief, our approach was to just let them talk. See what they had to say, see what they thought would be good goals for the future. In my head I had it that they would say since he met the goal they had for him this was it, game over. No more IEP and no more support. Despite being told a few times that this wasn’t how this stuff goes down, I braced myself for it. I put up my shields. I told myself that I know my child and not to let anything that sounded like criticism wound me too deep. We talked about not trying to explain anything too much like being on trial, not to get upset and maybe not crying this time. I walked into that meeting not as anxious as all the other times I have been to them. Just profoundly tired of the process and exhausted before the fight even started. Braced for it though. I had fully prepared for anything that was thrown at me.
Except for one thing.
I wasn’t prepared for kindness and understanding. I was not prepared for it to go smoothly and for all my suggestions to be taken to heart, turned into goals and genuinely listened to. I wasn’t prepared for them to see some things that needed to be worked on and suggest them, things I hadn’t brought to their attention. It was really humbling. The listened to what I had to say and we all worked on goals for next year. There wasn’t a thing that I asked for that they said no to. He doesn’t 100% qualify for summer school but all it took was for me to say that I thought it would be good for him socially and they added it too. We shared some funny stories about max on the playground.
What I am realizing now is that I have been a little unfair to these women. Don’t get me wrong, there were reasons why I dreaded seeing them. There were some things that were said in our first few interactions that were very cutting and filled me with self doubt. I also think that I villainised them in my heart as people who wouldn’t help me. People who thought I was crazy. They may very well, actually. I haven’t asked them. This whole process is so personal to me because I am sending my heart to school with them every day in the form of my little boy. I felt like they didn’t want to help me because we had formed this grudge against each other. After the meeting yesterday I though about this a lot and I think I may just need to get over myself. I am not that important to them. What they demonstrated yesterday was that max was important to them. They care about seeing him succeed enough to continue to work with him and help him even more than they have been doing previously. As his mom, I couldn’t ask them for more than that.
So really, it’s not about me or my feelings. How is that for a reality check.
Autism Squared 