Solitary Confinement

I'm in a frustrated funk.

My situation hasn't changed much, really. But, my attitude has.

I go through these times of frustrated funk, occasionally. They're normal, I think, for an autism mom.

Doesn't make them any easier.

A recent event ripped a scab from a wound that I thought had healed better, followed by other events that have rubbed salt in the fresh-again wound.

Too many reminders too close together of what autism stole sends me into a frustrated funk.

The absolute worst part of all of it is the "solitary confinement" of autism. Sitting with does not equal being a part of. Conversations around me are so much in another world that they may as well be in another language. In every social arena, from little boy baseball games to VBS to neighborhood fun, I am on the periphery, an outsider, with a priority different from the other adults, not actively participating with the adults, because my priority, my ministry, is a child on the autism spectrum. It's a priority that brings an isolation that other autism parents understand, but few others even recognize.

Lately, the "solitary confinement" has become too heavy, too loud, too much. It overshadows the huge progress we have made. And I am in a frustrated funk.

PS: I know where I need to go. I am listening to Steven Curtis Chapman's song, "Hiding Place" as I type.