In order to reconcile with the reality, which is the diagnosis of the child, everyone chooses his own way. This choice is hardly conscious, especially at first, but still happens. Quite often, mom (maybe dad, but I haven’t seen anything like that in dads that doesn’t mean that this can’t be) after some time, she comes to the conclusion that the child was given to her by the universe so that she can accomplish something or change your life. Many mothers, having refused work, in favor of caring for a child, note that if their child were not special they would not be able to:
- Overcome your complexes
- Understand that the main thing in life is not work
- Generally redefine your life
- Understand that happiness is in the details
- Realize yourself with special children
- … and a bunch of options.
The phrase that a special child comes to the family for a reason, he has some kind of mission is also common. There is another phrase that often flickers: “God gives each person exactly as many tests as he is able to endure.” All this gives a person strength and, even, helps to determine the meaning of life. Of course, it is much more pleasant and productive to consider that your life is a test, a feat whose meaning is very deep, a bit mystical than trying to determine for what sins we were so punished.
Once, when we were passing the test in philosophy in the third year, the teacher told me that I have a too mechanistic view of life. He must have been right. I cannot believe in a higher destiny. I’m not saying that believing in it is bad or stupid, no, not at all. It’s like with religion, there are those who believe, and there are those who do not. I believe that there was a malfunction, which was complicated in childbirth and, perhaps, vaccinations also added a little. As a result of a number of reasons, my child has sensorimotor alalia, ADHD, mild mental retardation, and autistic traits. Unpleasant. Would I like these diagnoses not to be? Sure. From this I would become less happy, confident, perhaps, but hardly.
Alice’s diagnosis changed me very much, not the fact of the diagnosis itself, but her behavior, her skills and ineptitude, the attitude of others towards children and adults with disabilities, everything that has happened to me all these years. I have become much easier to relate to life, the whole family we learned to enjoy the little things and continue to learn and change every day. Naturally, if Alice were an ordinary child, I would be different now, my husband and eldest son would also be different, it could not be said better or worse, but different. And it is impossible to deny. Would we be happier? Maybe. Would we become less happy? It is also possible. There is no sense in guessing. We have what we have and it is necessary to work with this and live in this reality.
Any conditions in which we live open some doors for us and close others. If we cry at closed doors, we never enter the open. And it doesn’t matter whether we believe in a great destiny or not. It doesn’t matter how we explain the new conditions for ourselves, if it reconciles us with reality and gives hope and strength to live and be happy, then that’s good. There is no right answer that would suit us all. We ourselves choose to be happy or not.