Worrying about the future.

One of the reasons I found "Autism and me" so tough to watch was because of the fear of the future I carry around. Some days I can bury it and convince myself to not even think about it. Those days I'm living one day at a time and focusing on the next hurdle ahead for us.

But other days... It's all I think about. What about when they are older? I haven't met an autism parent yet who doesn't worry about the same thing. I have questions that circle around my brain begging for answers.

1. Will they ever live independently ?
2. Will they be able to manage money or drive?
3. What happens when we are gone ?
4. Are we looking at residential care ? How will we afford it?
5. How do you explain periods or the stresses of puberty if they are still non verbal then ?

I could go on.
Aside from the concerns we have now with speech and school etc. there is a whole other world that comes with being a parent to a special needs adult. If Logan is hard to manage and restrain now at 3, what about when he is 23?
And yes it's cute and funny when Kirsty goes up to perfect strangers and smells them at 5 years old but what about when she's 12 or 13. Not so funny then. You are entering a different place with boundaries and rules, that as adults they need to follow. But how do you teach them ?

I know there is no answer. There is no way of knowing how they'll end up, what kind of adult they'll be. Watching the documentary gave me some hope, but it also felt like I was being shown a preview of years to come. As if someone was saying " prepare yourselves, here's what you can expect ".
I suppose because a lot of kids I've met with ASD are still young, the older kids are not what I'm used too. Seeing how they navigate the world when they aren't babies anymore was hard. There's a sense of innocence when they're young. They are oblivious to the fact that they're different.
The older those kids got, the more aware they seemed that they were different, they knew they stood out. It didn't seem to bother some of them, others it definitely did.

 As a parent you can't shelter them from that anymore. Their peers become their judges and they are open to hurt and upset from the whole world.
The catch 22 is that even though I worry about not being able to shield them from hurt, I also worry about them being so severe in their autism that they'll never feel it to begin with. How can you win when you want them to progress so desperately but you worry about what comes with that progression too?

And will it ever leave me? This constant worry and aching about their futures? Maybe not. I'm my own worst enemy. Worrying about things that may or may not happen.
Tonight is one of those nights I'm trying to reach far into the future to see what's ahead. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be back in 2017 and taking each day as it comes.

Xxx
Elaine