Sorry Mr. Ed!

I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I came apon this on the NAA site, and  thought it was VERY interesting. I am going to break it down for all.

The major characteristics include slowness in understanding messages; problems of the sensory system (touch, taste, and smell), hearing and language disorders, inappropriate social responses (screaming, unprovoked tantrums, laughing, crying, and resisting touch, cuddling, and eye contact); sleep disturbances, and in severe forms the child may injure themselves, constantly move various body parts, show an apparent insensitivity to pain and/or constantly isolate themselves from their parents and all others.

Problems of the sensory system:  We already know Goob has this. She is constantly hurting herself on purpose, doing dangerous things, and has a SERIOUS texture issue with food. 

Hearing and Language Disorders: Not so sure if she has any disorder (HENCE her going to the speech therapist) but she has had problems with speech since day one. It has been impossible to test her hearing, as she doesn't understand the test for it. Or her eye test. Not sure why they even did it. She just said "Blue" when they asked her to name the pictures. Which, I suppose could tie in with the first thing they mentioned on the list there.

Inappropriate Social Responses: OMFG YES! If Lovah sits within a foot of me on the couch, she reacts as though you just killed a kitten in front of her. The doctor said the severe tantrums are supposed to be going away, they get worse and worse. No one can do ANYTHING for her except me 90% of the time. If I sit on the wrong spot on the couch, she throws a fit. If I give her the wrong cup, she throws a fit. If I give her the wrong thing to eat/drink, she throws a fit. If she wears the wrong thing, she throws a fit. If you look at her while she's dancing/singing, she throws a fit. I'm not talking about a little fit. I'm talking about she's hoarse afterwards, I worry about her safety, and my eardrums nearly bleed. She's over 3 years old now. This shit needs to stop. Resisting touch? FUCK yes! It's only lately that she'll cuddle me. BUT it is on HER terms. And only certain types of cuddling and not for long. If I nap with her, I cannot touch her. She'll hug and kiss me (to the point of making my nose bleed/splitting my lip -sensory issue-) but that's it. It's brief.

Sleep Disturbances: YES YES YES!!! I can't believe that it's been a while, but for the most part, she wakes up at night. She had night terrors as a baby. Nightmares with occasional night terrors as a toddler. The nightmares/wakeful periods at night have slowed lately, but it usually comes in spurts. She'll be good for a while then it'll get bad again. No telling when or why. It's not from moving here either. When Goob and I moved in, she slept GREAT for about a month, then didn't for about a month, now she's on a good streak again. She's also been getting super tired out since it's summer, so that helps.

Injure themselves: Which is the #1 main reason I ever brought her to the doctor or ever became concerned in the first place. When she was younger, she'd rip out her hair. Not in a fit, not in anger or frustration. I'd go to get her out of the car and she'd have a handful of hair on her lap. I caught her doing it once, it was scary. She just sat there, grabbing handfuls of hair out of her head. Giggling, even. Then she'd bang her head. Not normal head-banging (FOR THE MILLIONTH FUCKING TIME I KNOW THAT IT CAN BE NORMAL). She wasn't angry or upset at all. She'd bang... no, SLAM, her head against the wall or floor or crib or whatever hard surface was near and, again, giggle. She'd have bruises/bumps. Both of those behaviors went away and were replaced by biting herself (she's broken her own skin a few times), hitting herself (HARD), pinching herself, picking her skin to bleeding (without a scab their first, though she's a notorious scab-picker which I deem to be normal), and then finally her running across the room and running into furniture on purpose. To the point of bruises on her abdomen. She has one right now by her hips. Just literally running across a room at top speed to ON PURPOSELY run into a coffee table/chair/couch/anything and fall down, laughing. This goes hand-in hand with my final worry:

Insensitivity to Pain: This was my closely followed #2 worry at the start of it all. She feels pain. She falls, she cries. She knows pain. I don't think that she feels it the same way the rest of us do. Sharp pain (pinching fingers and toes, scraped skin, cuts, etc.) she feels pretty normally, as far as I can see. Blunt pain, not so much. She's gotten bumps/bruises and I have no clue where ANY of them are from because she doesn't let anyone know when she runs into things. This is where my worry of Child Protective Services comes in. As I said, she has numerous bruises right now, including one across her lower abdomen by her hip bone. I wasn't told anything by her daycare, and I never noticed her running into anything. I don't know where it's from. If someone sees it and decides to call CPS.... how is that going to look for me? "I dunno officer, it's been there awhile". Yep, makes me sound like a real great mom. On the other hand "My child has developmental problems and she has an insensitivity to pain, we are working with OT to help her better express her need for physical stimulation without hurting herself" sounds a LOT better! And it's true! I want her to be able to get the sensory stimulation she needs without her risking her saftey for it.

So, I feel I have made my case. I don't need to explain myself any further, I don't think. I will not argue my case to anyone else. If you don't support me then I obviously need to re-evaluate who I allow into my life. On the other hand, if you want to be supportive, I would GREATLY appreciate it! Because no one in my family is! And, so far, none of my friends seem to be either. NOTE: "seem to be" isn't an accusation of not caring. It is me stating that I have received one, 1, uno, un, ONE supportive message from a girl who really isn't all that close to me, except of late. I am not saying my daughter IS autistic, again. I'm not saying I want her to be. I just want everyone to know that this isn't some shot in the dark thing. It's not like I'm going in blind. If I didn't think there was even a slight chance of her having autism, I would have told the doctor so. But we talked at length and I trust her judgement. From the points I have made, you can see that I have every reason for at least SOME concern, and maybe it enlightened some people to some things they didn't know about my daughter. I'm pretty private about it because I am, to be honest, embarassed of her. I don't bring her to anyone's house because she is just wild (as you can see from above). It has cost my some close friendships, being so withdrawn. I refuse to hire a babysitter for fear of someone telling me I'm an awful parent because my child is an uncontrollable brat (term courtesy of my own GRANDMOTHER). I don't bring her to playdates because she doesn't play well with other children. I look forward to Wednesday because she's ALWAYS good on Wednesday because she's the only child. We can't separate the girls because Izzy wants to play with Lexi, she loves her, she's her best friend. She doesn't know HOW. And before I hear this one more fucking time:

MY DAUGHTER IS FUCKING "SOCIALIZED"!!!!!!! I hate that term, it refers to dogs. She's gone to daycare since she was 14 months old at a minimum of 3 days a week. She has 3 older cousins at her dads she plays with every other weekend, we used to do playdates at least once a week from the time she was A WEEK FUCKING OLD!!! For an only child, I feel that is QUITE socialized, more so than a lot of other only children, so if I hear I need to have her socialize with children one more fucking time I'm going to snap. Seriously, if I were to have her around other kids any fucking more I'D HAVE TO FUCKING TIE HER TO ANOTHER KID!!! She's in daycare 5:30 am to 3:30 pm Monday through Friday, then she has Lexi to play with until 7:30 pm Mon, Tue, and Thur every week and then every other weekend Fri-Sun, plus the aforementioned weekends she's with her dad Fri-Sun with her 3 other cousins. So, other than sleep.... that is every Wednesday for about 4.5 hours. Yeah, she's not around other kids enough AT FUCKING ALL. If anything I need to start doing things with JUST her! FUCK! Okay I am done I am done I promise.