Stacie Sherman

Happy April.

Here we are again.  Kicking off Autism Awareness Month with the first of hopefully daily blog posts. Maybe you will read them. Maybe someone will learn something. Or I help someone.

Brielle’s still autistic. Just in case you were wondering. These things don’t go away. As much as I pray. Each year they get more real. Each year it becomes more clear that all that hope I had way back then is still that, hope. All that hope I had back when Bree was a toddler and I was a desperate mom searching for a cause and a cure. It’s there, but too many years have passed, and  I have accepted that no medicine, no treatment, no oxygen therapy, no music therapy, no nothing is going to make Brielle un-autistic.

I have also accepted that Brielle is a blessing.  A strong, frustrated, beautiful, cranky exhausting blessing who makes me a better person every single day.

She turned 17 in February, and I thought to myself: Holy shit. Adulthood is really close. I have so many things to do to prepare for her becoming an adult. I don’t even know where to start. Guardianship, will changes, special needs trusts, a lot of planning. Will she live with me? Should she be in a home? Is there a home for her? Will she be safe in a home? What happens if I die? Did I save enough? Did I do enough to provide for her once I’m gone? It’s mentally draining.

Day by day, is what I try to do. Between her, and my son and his college, my career, my husband, my house, my dog and everything else, there’s no other way to handle it. I try to get it all done, and I never do. But I get some done, and then I try to get more done. I don’t sit or relax much, every time I do I hear Bree call for me from her DVD player or the bathroom, or remember something I need to do. I feel like I am always doing laundry or cleaning something up.

I can see already this post is gonna be a rambling one. It’s been a while. I have a bunch of random thoughts and my A.D.D. has gotten worse in the past year.  I have a month to be more organized. Today I ramble.

So, what’s new since last year? Bree’s picked up some new habits. Some interesting, others not so much. She’s developed a bit of a compulsive disorder. More about that later. I’m going to call that blog: The Case of the Missing Bananas.

I attached a video of her Sunday night, listening to her beloved Dixie Chicks. They’re still her favorite. Dixie Chicks and Taylor Swift. And she’s picked up a few new favorites: Lady Antebellum and Carly Rae Jepsen (Carly Rae and Brielle Rae share the same middle name, spelling and all.) Bree loves that Call Me Maybe song. It’s pretty catchy, catchier than Barney. She finds these new videos on her iPad, how she finds it is a mystery to me.

In the video you’ll see her dear yellow My Little Pony. that’s still her favorite one, she carries it around the house wherever she goes. She’ll bring it into the car if she’s not going to school. She knows she’s not allowed to bring it to school or into stores or restaurants. But she likes it in the car. When I pick her up from school it’s the first thing she looks for. Next thing is gum.

You’ll see she is in her PJs in that video,, which I took at like, 6pm. She came home about 4 pm from her dad’s house exhausted, he said she didn’t sleep well.

She looks exhausted, the purple under her eyes, the glazy look. I tried hard to keep her awake till 8 but she would have none of it.

Bree is in bed now. I’m typing away. My son is at work. My husband and stepdaughter are watching TV in the next room. I have a story I wanted to write for work but I’m just not going to get it done today.

In a minute I will climb upstairs to catch up on my shows and fold the laundry that is never done. I do so much laundry that I literally broke the washing machine this weekend. My husband is picking up a new one tomorrow morning. If we were without a washing machine for more than a few days they would find me trapped under a huge pile of laundry.

In a little while I will wake Bree and lead her to the bathroom to make her pee. Then hopefully she will go back to sleep for the rest of the night. and I will be able to fall asleep.

Stay tuned. This is our life.