“Thousands Have Lived Without Love, Not One Without Water.”

My child is autistic. He doesn’t do well with change. Even little things that would be meaningless to most people.

For example, his hairbrush was getting old and worn. He had chewed the end of it. The cats had chewed some bristles. It was dirty and dusty. But I didn’t say anything. Because it’s his hairbrush.

Finally, he said he thinks it’s time for a new brush. Ok, I say, we’ll put it on the shopping list, and get one next time we’re in town.

So we go to town and we go to the store. There are many hairbrushes to choose from. He picks one and they even have it in his favorite color. We buy it, take it home, and remove the packaging.

I go to put it on the shelf where the old hairbrush is. Can we throw out the old one, I ask.

That’s when he stops. That’s when he freezes and gets a momentary look of panic on his face. Throw out the old one? That hadn’t occurred to him.

Because here’s the thing. Hair brushing is a part of his morning routine. And not just hair brushing, but hair brushing with that particular brush. To most people, the act of hair brushing is the routine, but not the brush itself. The objects are interchangeable. But not to my child. Not to someone with autism. The brush itself is just as important as the act of brushing.

So I take a breath. I put the old brush down. Think about it, I say. Let me know tomorrow what you want to do with this brush.

He decides. He realizes keeping an old hairbrush is not necessary. But it’s still important to him. So he asks if I can cut off one bristle. To keep. As a memory of the old hairbrush.

I don’t laugh. I don’t tell him it’s silly. I respect his need. I cut off the bristle. He puts it in his treasure box, along side some smooth rocks, beads, sparkly decals, a Santa Claus charm from a classmate, a few other things meaningful to him.

He throws the old hairbrush away himself. He is able to move on, and accept the change.

‘lost’

‘abnormal’

hey fellow trauma blogs, usually I don’t directly reach out like this, but something has been on my mind recently and I wanna know if other people experience this.

do you ever... forget that you’re traumatized? I mean yeah it’s hard to forget the event that traumatized you, I know, but do you forget what you experienced ISNT normal? or maybe not even that, you forget that certain event affected you really badly, and when you notice your strange habits or behavior you link it back to that event and remember “oh yeah! it’s because that traumatized me”. do you ever have moment of thinking you’re normal suddenly come crashing down when you remember how badly you were once victimized?

these are things I experience often, and I feel it could put my heart at ease to know others feel like this. it may even help them a little to know that while it’s upsetting it’s happening to them, they aren’t alone in their experience with trauma.

𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 ☕️

Drake; Thank Me Now

“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.”