Every time our situation with our son Jack’s autism gets worse, I think we’ve hit rock bottom. It can’t possibly get any worse. And then sometime later it does. I think we’ve hit rock bottom. Again. It can’t possibly get any worse.
My wife Tiffany has been chasing Jack around non-stop since May. Real quick, in case you’ve never been here before, Jack is the Jack in Operation Jack, the only reason I bother with everything I’ve tried to do over the years. I love him to death. I sometimes just sit there and look at him and try to wonder what’s going on in his mind. He’s less than two weeks from turning 9 and really isn’t communicating and he’s still in diapers. He’s like a 1-year-old in a 9-year-old’s body. But he sure does break us down.
Long weekends, like this Labor Day Weekend we just had, are the kind of things young families love. I think. I mean, I wouldn’t know, but it sure seems that way when I see what my friends are up to on Facebook. We feel like we’re trapped in our own personal hell, though. We can’t go anywhere or do anything. He’s always a threat to have a meltdown and it’s gotten to the point that we don’t even bother trying to do anything. Tiff had to leave the grocery store on Monday. He’s good for 20 minutes at the local park. There’s a pretty good chance there’s going to be some kind of explosion on any car ride that lasts longer than 15 minutes.
I’m pretty high strung because of all of this. And I get to go to work every day. Tiff, on the other hand, has a miserable existence. She’s been Jack’s shadow for the past 3 1/2 months since school let out. We’re keeping him home until September 17 as he goes through some therapy. Our other kids, Ben and Ava, don’t know what a typical childhood is so I think they’ve accepted this as normal. [Read more…]