As a professional writer, sometimes I take for granted the way that words just come naturally to my mind. I've always loved writing since I was very young and even to this day it's something I do daily. One thing that I learned very early on in our autism journey was that expressive language is very difficult for people on the spectrum. They have the feelings and the thoughts but the words to express those things aren't easy to communicate to others. I can only imagine how that must feel because it's hard enough feeling stressed or upset, but not being able to explain those feelings to others adds an additional element of stress. Because of this issue, I think a lot of people on the autism spectrum just learn to bottle up their feelings - it's too hard for them to try to share them.
For the most part, JD is quite a happy kid. He's very social and funny. But we're moving into those fun pre-teen years and I know that he's feeling a lot of changes in his moods. Some days he's very grumpy or angry. I've always encouraged him to write down his feelings when he's upset because it seems to help him get those feeling across. Sometimes he'll go to his room and write and then bring it to me to read. I love that he practices this skill. I'll read it and then we'll talk about it and I can tell he feels much better in the end, like we all normally do once we talk about our feelings.
The other night he wrote me this letter to explain some of the anger inside that he feels. It can be hard to see that he struggles with such intense feelings, but as an emotional person myself, I completely understand. I know he doesn't always feel this way, but when he does I'm glad that he has found a way to share it with me. After he read it, he asked if I could share it on Facebook for all of my friends to read which I thought was really sweet. He wants people to understand him and what his autism feels like and he knows I have friends who read my stories about him online. I explain to him that sharing our stories about autism helps people understand it better so they can appreciate people who aren't considered "neurotypical" (whatever that means!). It also helps other families of children with autism think of ways to help their kids with the same issues.
So he's my post sharing his letter to me about his anger. Don't worry - it has passed and he's back to his happy JD self again, talking about his favorite subjects like video games. I love this boy with all of my heart and I am so proud of him and the strong and talented young man he's becoming. The autism journey is not easy by any means, no matter where someone lands on the spectrum, but living or befriending someone with autism will change your life in a positive way. It helps you to look for the good in even the hardest moments. Without the challenges there wouldn't be the successes. JD reminds me of that daily and I'm thankful for that.
