Enlightenment (Part 3)

Suddenly things popped into my head.

PippaD when she has had a thought

Like, how a SEN teacher who knew Top Ender had said to me one day that when she first met Top's she assumed she was on the Spectrum.

Like, how one of the teachers at Top Ender's senior school had said to her one day that when she first met her, she assumed she was on the Spectrum.

Like, how I had painstakingly made face plates of different emotions when Top Ender was a toddler because somehow I had noticed she didn't seem to see the difference and I had to physically teach her what different faces looked like.

Like, how Top Ender couldn't seem to follow more than one conversation at a time and seemed baffled by those (me) who could.

All I managed to say however was, I thought you were going to say OCD.

Top Ender was sitting in the chair that she had picked, staring at something and feeling brave enough to explain she didn't know what ASD meant.

So the Nurse explained what Autism is and how it affects people. He explained that he thought Tops would be what's classed as High Functioning. That it seemed very clear to him from our history that she was following the exact path Teenage Girls diagnosed with Autism seemed to follow.

Two days ago, my beautiful, funny, loving, caring daughter took a breath and relaxed like she hadn't relaxed before because she suddenly realised that she was different and it wasn't all in her head. She doesn't think like other people, she doesn't react like other people, she doesn't cope the same way as other people and oh my gosh, doesn't it all make sense now.

Flyfour and I have been reading everything we can on ASD over the last two days and every time we do, we read something that makes us wonder, how did we not pick up on this before? How did we let this go on for so long?

The Nurse said though, that diagnosing girls, especially those classed as High Functioning is hard. They tend to mask their difficulties and those with high intelligence are often able to mask it for longer and better because they can see what is expected of them.

It's not our fault that it didn't get picked up on sooner. It is thanks to us that it was picked up at all, however.