Growing Pains Part 2

I haven't written, since Tigers last assessment. The why being that I sometimes I just can't deal with it all. So I bury my head in the oven and bake until I've wrapped my head around it.

You know Tiger had an assessment recently, and you know if you read part one that it sucked. I am so glad my hubs was there to drive us after the circus act. I was doing a really good hamster wheel impression. I still am. My mind just keeps replaying the clip of my Tigerlily rocking her head and jumping and flapping and all the other behaviours that really autistic kids make.

Yeah I said that.

Tiger is a brilliant kid. I love her and maybe that love makes me a  bit blind to the truth of her disability.  I know that she is hiding her difficulties. I taught her how.  She has learned how to observe and copy other kids when doing a new task. She has learned to self advocate and tell the person in charge when she is having a problem, or when she doesn't want to do something and why, before she melts down.   She has learned to keep it together when we are in public, and her public  meltdowns have become less frequent as she has gotten older. The underlying difficulties are still there,  she is just better at hiding her difficulties from others and I've gotten better at reading her stim levels.  At home she still gives it to me, I  take the meltdowns, screaming, flailing and 7 o'clock crazies as the price of her public pretense.

Tigerlily is wearing social camo. It is a really handy outfit to have, goes with everything. Its my favorite outfit on her.  Her therapists, Tiger and myself are all working really hard at keeping it current and on trend but like any piece of clothing it can be outgrown, or get damaged or sometimes she just doesn't want to wear it.

Whenever she takes it off and shows us her autistic style, it comes as a bit of a shock to me.

It's kind of like watching a ballerina suddenly switch from doing bar work to freestyle hip hop or crazy Cirque moves of a clown.

I don't like clowns.

I want the precious ballerina to be the truth and not an act.

Crap here comes the goose impression, OK more coffee is required.

...... slurp.

The fact is I like to think Tiger is only mildly autistic, but all her assessments say otherwise, and now there are additional diagnoses in the process of being added. As if autism isn't enough. I'm not sure what good the additional diagnoses will do, but the specialist thinks the more we know, the more we'll grow, so I'm going with it.  So this assessment is still in progress, and we are still experiencing some autistic growing pains.


The High Functioning Life, it's my circus, she's my monkey.


HFL Mama