My Biggest Fear

Since day one of even thinking that Zoey might have Autism, the same thought has dominated my mind ... What will her life be like from a social standpoint. Honestly, I think to some extent I worried about that even before she was born. I know it was one of the things that crossed my mind when we found out she was a girl. I've obviously never been a boy, but I think in general things are harder socially for a girl than they are for a boy.

I think this whole Autism thing would be a little bit easier for me emotionally if the social component wasn't there (of course I might feel differently about that if the other ASD symptoms were more pronounced than they currently are). I can handle the tantrums. I don't like them, but they are short lived and manageable most of the time. Her rigidity is frustrating at times, but we find ways around it. Her speech is a work in progress. It's the social pieces that I find myself focused on the most.  Hell, the first thing that went through my mind when they told me she needed glasses was "Great. Here's one more thing that will make her standout even more".

Some events in the news over the past few months have made me even more anxious about what life will be like for Zoey as she gets older. There was the incident where a Autistic man (I think he was 18) was lured to a party by a girl and then another man beat him up and videotaped it. I'm sure that most people are aware of the most recent incident in Cleveland where a teenage boy with Autism was told he was doing the ASL ice bucket challenge and then had a bucket full of urine and feces dumped on his head. Who does these sorts of things? It so hard for me to even imagine someone being able to treat another person that way, let alone someone with special needs. I think there is a special place in Hell for those individuals (It's right next to the place reserved for child molesters).

I don't know if I was just naive growing up or what, but I don't remember people being THAT cruel to other people. Now don't get me wrong, I know that bullying took place and a lot of people said a lot of very hurtful things to other people. I know that childhood and the teenage years were Hell for a lot of people I went to school with. I realized years later that I was a pretty big bully to one of the people I actually considered to be a close friend (at the time I just thought it was in good fun and didn't really consider how unfun it probably was for this person), but I never ever would have thought of taking things to that level. So has society really changed that much?

So up until now my biggest fear has been that Zoey would have to deal with an increased amount of teasing and girl cattiness just because she is different. Maybe she'll say things funny. Maybe she'll have interests that are considered not cool. Maybe she will not know how to talk to other kids and carry on conversations. Maybe she will dance to beat of her own drum and everyone else will be dancing in a different direction. Maybe because of those things we would have to deal with an increased number of days where she came home crying because the other girls were mean to her or didn't want to be her friend. Maybe we would have to work really hard to build self-esteem and self-worth. The thought of how I'm going to deal with those types of things is overwhelming at times. But now I have this added fear that Zoey will be subjected to physical forms of bullying and embarrassment (I also fear what Scott would do if that were to occur because then Zoey would also have to deal with having a dad in prison. I'm not joking). I can't even fathom what I would do in that situation. I try and tell myself that people are inherently good and we just hear about the bad things. I also try to tell myself that she will be less likely to endure that level of treatment because she is a girl (I don't know if that is true or not, but it makes me feel a little bit better). The fact of the matter is I don't know what life will look like for her and that scares the shit out of me.

I hope I am able to encourage her to always be herself