Loneliness

I am so lonely.  Reading books on Asperger's, reflecting on my child's behavior and his future, and finally mourning the loss of the child I expected to have... it's all just exhausting.  And doing it alone seems cruel.  My best friend in the world is so incredibly supportive, but I don't want to abuse our friendship by talking about nothing else.  I cannot expect or ask her to shoulder this burden; it's enough that she cares and will talk about it, but I don't want to make her cringe with "more of this???" thoughts, so I've got to hold back.

I guess I just didn't expect it to be so painful.  Maybe I'm grief cycling.  I've known since E was 3 months old that he wasn't like other kids.  No one understood my struggles with him. No one's advice helped.  I pretty much only survived because time passed, not because I had any solutions.  And months rolled into years, and more oddities surfaced and even the most loving people called it "weird," and I just held on, held on with the belief that in time, it would get better.  That he'd grow out of the sensitivities, the tantrums, the obsessions. 

It's true that he's made great strides.  As much as possible, I've trained him to respond appropriately to things that once freaked him out, and I hope that the coping has gone deep enough in his heart, that he's not just obeying rightly, but that his heart truly does have less anxiety.

But as much as we've overcome (I say "we" because I've born the brunt of almost all of his rage), I'm realizing that the journey is just beginning.  Asperger's manifests itself most notably in normal social settings, and at four, he is just now *really* entering into that world.  Tantrums in his 2-year-old class at church?  People just think he's strong-willed and disobedient.  At 4, when he screams "I WANT THAT KID TO LEAAAAVE!!!" about a perfectly nice kid in the waiting area at therapy, it looks more like I haven't taught him any sort of manners.  But my heart just about stops in my chest when I think about what this might look like at 8.

I don't want him to be a freak.  I don't want him to isolated.  I don't want him to be bullied.  I don't want him to flip out in a room full of his peers. I don't want to *have* to homeschool him because he can't function in a classroom.

I am terrified that the worst is just beginning.  After all we've been through, all the hitting and screaming, hurt and confusion we've walked through together, there's more??  I really, really thought that somehow we'd emerge at 6 with a brilliant, "normal" child, that the clouds would lift and we could, I don't know, get on with life as planned.   That when most kids stop having fits, he would be there, too.

My heart mourns.  I love him just as he is, but I mourn what I thought would be.  The thought of him longing for friendship but not being able to find it because of his inability to take interest in other kids' interests breaks my heart. 

I feel like I'm standing at the base of a 100 foot brick wall with a toothpick in my hand. What the hell is this? Why am I here?  Why in the world am I holding a toothpick? 

And why, why am I all alone when I'm discovering all of this?