Maybe he's born with it...maybe it's Maybeline

One of the greatest anomalies as an autism parent is being in the throes of autistic parenting - pause, let me explain what being in the throes means to me:

• Insomnia (on his end and forced insomnia on mine)

• Extreme demand avoidance

• Meltdowns lasting from 5 minutes to 2 hours

• Sensory processing issues

• Violent outbursts for seemingly no reason

• Speech regression (sometimes to the point of only making sounds or only choosing to sign)

• Hyper fixation on the most mundane (to me) topics

Unpause - is hearing people talk about their opinion of my son's diagnosis.

When everything was new and he wasn't sleeping (I was averaging 1-3 hours a night) and I knew something was wrong, I would ask for help and advice and people would say, "he'll grow out of it", "he's just a boy and boys are difficult", etc. and then through many appointments and several providers they all came to the same diagnosis. Autism - level 2. I was given hope that despite my son not having the ability to talk AT ALL at the time and our average meltdown lasting roughly 1.5 hours - guys...it was a lot - there was help.

From there we did 5+ hours of a therapy a week for 18 months, and that was just the clinical therapies and then on top of that we had other appointments of different modalities that were "the autism miracle cure" and some that actually worked; and on top of all of that we had our "homework" that we would do at home.

Ezra worked HARD.

I worked HARD.

My other children have worked hard to adapt to what it means to be siblings to Ezra, because it is hard and it is different and it takes a lot of patience. We are not perfect in the least bit, but we do try our best.

I have had people tout their disbelief in Ezra's diagnosis since it happened. Family, friends, strangers. At first I would get hurt, because unless you live this life, you don't understand. I would feel like maybe I just needed to be stronger, or a better mom, or more patient....maybe this was all normal. I was gaslighting myself HARD. Maybe I was making this out to be more than what it was.

I also hear a lot of "If you wouldn't have told me, I never would have known". Which anymore, makes me laugh really hard on the insides. Most diseases you cannot look at someone and know what's going on. That's why we have doctors and specialists, etc. If it showed up on our foreheads it would be so much easier!

One of the most validating and beautiful experiences has been with Ezra's Occupational Therapist. In any special needs diagnostic, you essentially sit in a room with any number of professionals and tell them all of the things that you see as "wrong" with your child. Then they evaluate and look for all the "wrong" things you said plus their own list of "wrong" things and come up with a conclusion on how fucked everything is.

With this professional we have absolutely loved the fact that she will tell us on a weekly basis how amazing he is and the hard work he is doing. Which is great and makes me feel amazing, but when the doubt of other's creeps in I wonder if he needs these therapies at all or maybe he is "just a boy". So, in October 2025 I had to go to court, and this saint of a woman came to testify and sat there and talked in depth about Ezra and what she sees as a professional that is "wrong" with Ezra. I cried. Things I hadn't even seen, but just knowing that someone else sees him where he is right now is a beautiful, validating thing. And then we went back to talking about how amazing he is.

These days, when people tell me that they don't think that Ezra is autistic or that he was misdiagnosed, while I still feel the rumble of laughter and want to say "yeah? You take him for a few hours and see if that doesn't change your mind?". I smile and say "you know! You're not the first person to say that" and carry on.

I guess in my summation I have a call to action those not in the in the trenches, - and I can absolutely say that my load is FAR LESS than a lot of families out there - unless it is your child, maybe we just choose to support the families with professional diagnoses.

When you see the hard work that a family has done and you're seeing a child on the spectrum on a good day, applaud the family for the hard work.

When you see a kid having a meltdown, just applaud the family for doing the hard fucking work.

Because when you choose to state that our children aren't autistic it completely undermines the utter hell that we have walked through for and with our children. The sleepless nights, the bruises, the dislocated ribs, the meltdowns (on BOTH sides), the hours and hours of therapies and working on phobias, the late night learning of whatever fixation they have this year, new ways to help our children, comforting siblings etc.

Maybe those are inside thoughts. Maybe he has autism, maybe he was born with it, maybe it was carbon monoxide (ruled out) and maybe its Maybeline.