New phase

It’s been ten years this year since our daughter Madi’s official ASD diagnosis. Which feels like a major milestone. I’ve found myself reflecting on our journey and reassessing our priorities moving forward.

We’re in a better place and feel more at peace with our life now. We understand our children, respect how they feel and accept how they look at the world.

We know what they need and what it takes to achieve. We’re feeling confident, in control and in charge.

We’ve learnt to adapt and decipher what’s required for us to produce successful processes.

We’ve learnt to build up tolerance to situations. To observe how our kids feel, how they react and adjust accordingly. To know when to push boundaries or pull back. To seek assistance and ask for help. To put a support team in place consisting of family, friends and professionals and know when to have a rest and relax.

We genuinely all seem happier, more relaxed, and more carefree in life in general.

Transitions, change, travel and all occasions and obstacles that we once feared are not so daunting and nothing really feels unattainable as we previously thought.

We can all go out and have fun with or without each other.

We don’t worry about what other people think, especially now in public. We know where we’re at, where we’ve been and what it’s taken to get to this point and we’re extremely proud of that.

If we feel the need to leave early from an event for everyone’s benefit, so be it. We tried and did our best.

We’re all more comfortable in our own skin and surroundings.

We have a more positive mindset, can do attitude and are leading a less stressful life accordingly.

We make time for ourselves a priority on a regular basis without feeling guilty for it because we know the benefits it has for us all.

We’re maintaining balance and general happiness for the whole family and are being mindful of not over committing ourselves to too much of anything this year including therapies.

After ten years, we’ve taken a break from the majority of our therapy sessions and have been reassessing our priorities.

This year we decided to initially focus on transitions back to school and are planning on introducing more independent therapy surrounding learning and life skills with an experienced support worker.

We’re entering a new phase. We’re less stressed, more confident and more at peace.

We want to be more present and not so busy.

It’s time to take a breath and genuinely start to enjoy life again.

We’ve lived, learned, reflected, reevaluated, cried and conquered.

We obviously still have our moments, like everyone does, but we’ve gained the knowledge and tools to deal with our life more appropriately.

We’ve put in the hard work and are now reaping the rewards. Like seeing Madi speak on stage at her graduation with her peers, school transitions going smoothly and genuinely enjoying family days out drama free.

I look at how far we’ve come, how much we’ve learnt and how much we’ve shared of our journey and could not be prouder of all the progress we’ve made.

We’ll continue to follow our instincts and take each day as it comes.

We’re not looking too far ahead; we just want to feel happy.

I hope knowing that a better place is possible, can give hope to others.

It’s been ten years. Ten emotional and eventful years. It is a major milestone and we’re celebrating all our successes accordingly!