When we finally worked out our son had PDA I had so many emotions. Grief. Despair. Fear. Sadness. Relief. Guilt. Horror. And Love, the overwhelming, protective, Mumma-bear kind of love.
I felt such grief and despair that comes with being told that your child is different. That the hopes and dreams you had for them need to be adjusted. I felt fear about what the future holds and sadness that this life will not be easy for him. Others only get to catch little glimpses of the amazing boy we see when he feels safe and calm at home.
A part of me was relieved, for lack of a better word. An autism diagnosis had never quite sat right. My son hit all his developmental milestones. In familiar environments, his imaginative play skills, social skills and language skills were all on track. PDA made so much sense. Finally, we knew what we were dealing with and could put the right supports in place.
I felt guilty. I am a paediatric OT. Child development is my area of expertise. How did I not know about PDA! And for all those kids that I worked with who I can now so clearly see were PDAers, the ones I couldn’t work out why strategies that typically worked for other kids with Autism weren’t having the same impact. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Maya Angelou’s quote is quite fitting: “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it”.
I felt horrified. Horrified that I had never once received a letter across my desk from a Paediatrician mentioning PDA. I had never heard of PDA during my university degree. I had never seen any professional development courses on my radar (thankfully a few are now starting to come out). This is what we are up against. Even highly educated, well-meaning professionals just don’t know about PDA. There is so much advocacy work to be done.
And then of course Love. Overwhelming love for my child and the knowledge that I will do everything to protect him and guide him through this life. He isn’t broken. He doesn’t need fixing. He has the most incredible mind. We have to trust that he is exactly who he was meant to be. I get to be the person that knows him best, the person that he can be completely at rest with.
One of my latest mantras is “make your life an adventure” and I am certain that we will do just that as we carve out our own path. One that steers away from convention and focuses on the big picture. I know that my son will have a happy and meaningful life, it might look a little different from what we had imagined. Maybe it might be even better.
I have one more emotion to add to the list… hope.
