The Beginning

The day I found out my child had Asperger's Syndrome, I was devastated.... It felt like all my dreams and hopes for him were now crushed. I was in mourning for the child I thought I had. I felt guilty. How did I not know earlier? All the times I had been frustrated with him... All the times I had been mad at him.... And now it all made sense. He wasn't being disrespectful. He wasn't being difficult. He wasn't being lazy. He was suffering. He was struggling. He was doing the best he could. In some ways it felt good to actually have a name to what was going on with my child, but in other ways it just became scary. I again mourned for the "perfectly normal" child I thought I had given birth to. It was a very scary time.