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Coping After The Diagnosis

© Sharon Gillson

Your child has been diagnosed with autism. For a parent, learning your child has a disability, especially one that few people understand, can be a very traumatic experience in itself, but you may be experiencing many emotions and reactions that you feel are confusing and upsetting for you.

As a parent of three children who have been diagnosed with autism, I found out through the help of a good support system that these reactions, and feelings are completely normal.

To help you through this difficult time, we can look at some of these common reactions and why we experience them.

First of all, you must remember you are not alone. Most parents react in the same way when they are faced with this enormous challenge. Finding out that your child has a handicap is very traumatic.

One of the first reactions that parents experience is that of denial. "This can't be happening to me, to my child." During this time of denial, we are giving ourselves the time to gather our strength. May we feel strong enough, we are then able to accept the diagnosis.

Denial can shift into anger. This is anger at ourselves, anger at relatives who seem to be insensitive, anger at the medical personnel who were the ones to give the diagnosis.

Fear then often takes a hold in us. The future for our child is an unknown, and we tend to fear the unknown. We don't know what will happen to our child as he grows older, especially when he becomes an adult. We ask ourselves if he will ever be able to learn, make friends, go to college, or do any of the things we had dreamt for him. More importantly, will he be happy? At the moment we hear the diagnosis, all we can think about is how hopeless it all seems.

One of the more overwhelming emotions you may feel is a sense of guilt. You may feel you can't get past the thought that you had somehow caused your child's disability. You ask: "Did I do something I shouldn't have while I was pregnant with him? Did something happen to him when he was a baby that I could have prevented?"

You may not experience these emotions at the same level of intensity as other parents, You may not experience every stage of this emotional roller coaster. It is important, though, for you to be aware of these emotions, and know that you are not alone in feeling them, and what you are experiencing is 'normal'.

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