Jon's Story

When my son Jon was born he would cry and scream when I held him and talked to him. The nurses assured me that it was "probably just me being nervous" I knew that was just untrue, I had more experience with babies then even my mother had, I also knew with a mothers intuition that this child born from my body was different. I knew through my entire pregnancy that there was something different about the child I carried in my womb. I talked to my doctors and insisted they do more tests, they told me I was being paranoid and with this being my first pregnancy that I was just overreacting.

I brought him home and began our life together. He showed signs of advanced development, I thought wow, this baby is going to be really smart. Again, the doctors assured me that the development would "average out" through his years. He sat up at 4 months old, crawled at 6 months and walked at 9 months. He was easily agitated and would seem distant with his eyes. More times then I would care to count I would wake up in the middle of the night to find him sitting in his crib facing the wall and laughing hysterically almost sinister in its own way. I thought to myself that (reasoning with myself actually) all babies remain connected to the spirit world that they came from and he was probably being entertained by something he once lived in. The movie "Heart and Souls" comes to mind, lol.

He didn't really talk until he was around 3 years old. He would grunt and point, he would get lost in televsion (Little Mermaid was his favorite). He would be all consumed and wouldn't hear a thing or see anything but what was in front of him. I was worried. While he was growing well and developing at a rapid rate certain things just didn't "fit". He rarely played with the sibings, he rarely interacted with other children at all, but regularly could be found sitting alone playing with nothing.

When he started school he advanced quickly in many areas, but the teachers insisted that he was ADD and needed medication. I complied grudgingly. Then they said he was just immature and needed to be held back in school. I refused to hold him back. They did an IQ test on my son and found his scores to be FAR above average. I didn't agree with the diagnosis, I saw nothing that resembled ADD in my child.

In the 4th grade he told his teacher that his brain was "fuzzy". He said it was like trying to sort cotton balls from cotton candy. His teacher was concerned that the medication wasn't working. The principal insisted that we hold him back and try new meds. I refused again.

Junior high came and went without medication. He adapted to the role he was expected to play. He complied and worked hard. He managed to get scholorships for his academic achievments in the MEAP tests.

Highschool came and he was introduced to a special education teacher. She immediately called my mother, whom she was friends with and the conversation went something like this...

"Hi Rosie, has Jon ever been tested for Aspergers syndrome?"

"No. What's that?"

"Its a form of Autism where the child is rather high functioning. Would you mind if I ran a few tests on him?"

"What can it hurt? Go ahead, I will talk to his mom, but I am sure it will be ok, she has insisted all along he was misdiagnosed as being ADD."

"Ok, I will let you know."

My mother called me that night and told me about the conversation. I immediately started my search for understanding. The more I read the sicker I became in my stomach. I was in knots. I cried and nodded. I was devastated that I had done such a disservice to my child for not standing up for what I believe in the first place. I hated myself.

This is what I read "By definition, those with AS have a normal IQ and many individuals (although not all), exhibit exceptional skill or talent in a specific area. Because of their high degree of functionality and their naiveté, those with AS are often viewed as eccentric or odd and can easily become victims of teasing and bullying. While language development seems, on the surface, normal, individuals with AS often have deficits in pragmatics and prosody. Vocabularies may be extraordinarily rich and some children sound like "little professors." However, persons with AS can be extremely literal and have difficulty using language in a social context." (http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html)

I didn't need confirmation from the teacher, I knew. Finally, I had an answer and a name for what my son had endured all of those years. I now understood my sister saying "there is just something different about him, he's not like the other kids" or his teachers "he talks like he's an adult, his vocabulary is so far advanced" and finally "I just don't understand where some of the stuff he obsesses over comes from..." My son wasn't ADD, like I knew he wasn't, he was Autistic, what a huge pill to swallow.

My son graduated this from highschool in 2008. I cried as he walked across the stage, I was more proud of him in that moment then I have been about anything I have ever been in my life. I now understood how hard it was for him to achieve this goal, the struggle, the heartache, the pain and the fact that he did it alone and nobody really knew until it was to late to do anything to help him. I was humbled and crushed at the same time.

Jon learned coping skills without any help. He learned to adapt to the world around him that would have otherwise shunned him and often did for his "strangeness". I look at my son through different eyes today, he is a man now and he never ceases to amaze me. I am a proud mother of an Autistic son and nobody knew it but me.

I love you Jon, your an amazing man. I am so proud and humbled that God saw fit to give you to me. You have forever changed my life, my mind, my heart and my spirit. You are special, you are unique and you are simply perfectly you. We have made it this far alone, the rest of the way is full of love and support by being open and honest with ourselves and those around us. I am sorry for "outing" you in this way, but honey others need to hear and see you the way I do...one of my brightest shining stars!