Love
Does your autistic child love you? For the past several weeks I have wrestled with my childhood memories. Did I love my mom, dad, or siblings as a struggling child? I remember fiery anger filled me as a child. My Pop-Pop Franck wondered why I never hugged him goodbye. As an adult, when I reflect on this, I feel regret about many of my other childhood behaviors.
Did I show my mom and dad love as a child? I know my mom found it perplexing to know how to love me, struggling to understand me. At that time (1970s), there was no diagnosis of Aspergers. She wondered if I made myself weird. I responded to my mom that I was weird and there was no other way for me to be. She worked hard for my education. She stood up to the doctor who wanted to institutionalize me, even before she knew that her parenting journey would be extremely difficult.
My older sister is an amazing mathematician but a bit bossy. My younger brother is brilliant but likes the quiet road. After school, I would come home and physically throw them on the floor and beat them up. Why? Not because I hated them, but because school was a terrible place where I experienced bullying every day. Very little love was shown to me. Teachers, parents, and students, even the bullied students, bullied me.
Love is a very difficult emotion for autistics. Anger, sadness, sorrow, and euphoria are much easier for us to understand. Love is like being in the deep end of the ocean. The water pressure collapses all air out of my body. 1 Corinthians 13:4 defines love in a supernatural way. When reading this verse I see this love from my mom, my siblings, my dad, and others, but most importantly it is everlasting from Jesus (Verse 8).
As I grew up and learned how to work with my autism, I started to show love more. I learned love on mission trips. I saw how Jesus worked through me even with a disability to show love. Serving in Ukrainian nursing homes, God allowed me to tolerate hugging;the grannies just want to hug. Hugging for me is like a thousand nails piercing my body. God allowed them to hug me. They didn’t hug just a little but like a bear hug. Sometimes I thought they would not let go. Then I thought about how I would never hug my Pop-Pop Franck.
Your autistic child loves you, but they will show it in a very different way. They will come to understand the love in 1 Corinthians 13:4. I may have not felt the love of what my mom did for me as a child, but I do understand now, and I love her for it.