The Confusing Thing About Permission

It’s mere weeks before Christmas and we’re sitting in the child psychiatrist’s office, my youngest and I. It feels like it’s taken a lifetime to get here, even though we’ve only been on this journey since the middle of first grade year. We’re just in the middle of third now. So essentially just two school years worth of time.

I know my children. I know them well. And I don’t say that with an ego or some idea of self importance. I know them well enough to recognize and acknowledge they each three have their own unique mysteries. I know them well enough to know that there comes a time when the knowing shifts into an unknowing that stems entirely from them blossoming into their individual autonomy. But I also know that there is a season, from womb to early tweenhood when I really and truly KNOW them like no one else can or ever will.

And that means I know… down in my bones know… when something isn’t quite right.

Now, I want to establish here in this moment that something being “not quite right” doesn’t make that something intrinsically “wrong”.

This is how I knew… have known for some time now… that my mancub’s unique little quirks and sparks may mean he was more than “just” quirky.

Even still, it caught me off guard just a smidge when the psychiatrist said things post evaluation like sensory integration… anxiety… autism. Things I already sensed and had tried to prepare for. It caught me off guard that each of those was punctuated by the word “disorder”. Like my wonderful, fantastic son simply being who he was… was somehow out of order. I halfway listened as the psychiatrist discussed starting occupational therapy, discussed sibling similarities, discussed resources and avenues to pursue. She was really quite lovely and encouraging and we look forward to working with her.

But I was officially disassociated externally in that moment. I was stuck in my head and those very technical terms were on repeat. On my own little hamster wheel. And as that mantra chanted over and over in my head - sensory… anxiety… autism - I felt it. Relief. It flooded every corner of my brain. It all made sense now. I’d successfully put my finger on it. All of the quirks and the noises and the sensitivities and the aversions and the preferences. All the peculiarity. And now the rest of the people in our world would get it too. Or they wouldn’t. Either way, it wouldn’t matter what they did, because… autism. Because of autism, I don’t have to care what they think anymore. Right?

It’s like the confirmation of any diagnosable “difference” came with a permission of sorts. Permission to give my child… and myself… more grace. Because we had a legitimate “reason” for more grace now? Because my child “has autism”. So I guess we get a pass? As if my personal choices in the parenting of my particular child that I know better than the rest of the world hadn’t given me all of the grace and passes I needed already? As if his being a child… just a child… didn’t already afford him all the grace and patience he needs and deserves? As if the possibility of “accommodations” magically equates to others being more tolerable of peculiar behavior?

As if we needed a “problem”… for something to be “wrong”… to “excuse” our unique differences or challenges.

I’ve sat with this for weeks. For weeks I’ve picked through my feelings with a fine tooth comb, separating my true feelings from societal expectations. Gave myself for the first time a chance to unpack all of the hurt and frustrations of working through the front end of this in an unkind school setting with uninformed and/or unwilling administrators and overworked educators in a system that does not make it easy to acquire resources. (That’s a different post for a different day).

I’m still sitting. Still unpacking. Still kind of confused. But certain of one thing: access to grace is granted upon existence. Nothing makes you more… or less… worthy or deserving. It’s yours. Mine. His. No permission necessary.