Alright yesterday I was sickly, I cried, I felt horrible for a while, and was drained. It happened later closer to noon. I spend most of the day in shutdown mode, so my flying high social movie event caused me to crash. Good news. At around 4pm I was able to sob it all out in the shower, I made dinner, and I told myself that I was going to a barn wedding and that was awesome. I was able to bounce back. I will add that it was a little stressful with the kids having their own anxiety issues about going. It was all new, and they didn’t know what to expect. I dwindled my day away by watching the History channel with the kids. We did learn things – no one was in any frame of mind for school so we took a sick day.

I was very slow going and had to rush to get myself ready.

I tend to do that a lot I think of other things to do besides getting ready to go somewhere. The next thing I know I am running late because I just HAD to organize my make-up at that moment. It HAD to be done right then and there before anything else could happen. I don’t even have a lot of make-up, but I managed to waste time to make me a little later. I chose a dress that has cool patterns on it that I like so if I got annoyed or bored with people, then I could stare at them. I also wore my pointy toe boots that I do not wear that often because they felt fun. I called mom and said that we would meet her at her house and head out since we were going in kind of the back woods.

Mom and I thought the wedding was at 6:30pm.

We got there with about ten minutes to spare. We walked in and thought that it had not started yet. A lady from our old church came up and talked to me, she is a very sweet person. She actually does not go to that old church anymore either. After a few minutes of talking, it was revealed that the ceremony was at 6pm. Aaaaahhhhh! What????? Oh, goodness. Mom and I sat looking at each other — we both shutdown. We both felt horrible. She started to tear up. I took over, and told her that there was nothing we could do and we needed to find our friend. I knew that would calm mom down. If she talked to our friend she could snap out of it even though the guilt and bad feelings would still be there. (It was our friend’s daughter getting married.) I am friends with the groom’s mom as well.

My guilt took away all fears, and anxieties.

I had to find them. I went straight to the bride’s mom and hugged her and then confessed. Of course she was very nice, but then was very concerned about mom. She has been friends with my mom for about 14 years. She knows what my mom will do to herself for making such a mistake. The woman is very much an NT, but she has four daughters with learning disabilities, sensory integration, and at one time her youngest was considered on the spectrum, but she refused to get a formal diagnosis and considers her completely healed. I am not sure that she was on the spectrum, there are other factors there. I am not going into it though. The woman is accepting of my mother’s AS and that is all I care about. I then went to the groom’s mom and confessed she was very nice and just happy that we made it.

Sigh of relief.

They both told me to go say: “Hi” to the bride and groom. I do not know them as well. I was a little anxious because I did not know what to say. My mind was blank, BUT I saw the cake it had an OWL on it. I squealed. I looked at them, congratulated them, and said something I cannot even remember, and then I said: “You have an owl on your cake! Owls are awesome!” After that I lost all of my words, and I was standing with Daniel and looking silly. There was an awkward silence, with them smiling at me and Daniel. I could finally hear the music and I got excited and blurted out: “Is this Explosions?” They looked at me funny. I blurted out: “Is this Explosions in the Sky?” They just continued to look at me funny. I scanned the bridesmaids looking for someone to confirm what I was hearing. The last one had a mouth full, but gave me a thumps up. I said: “Yes!”

At that point I could not recover and basically walked away to get a close up of the cake.

I had a feeling that I was going to see an owl. Ha ha I really did. I was hoping it was real though. I later took the kids up to see the cake because Ariel and Joshua had not seen it. We went up and I let them have a little punch. While we were walking down the stairs I heard another song that I love. It was Regina Spektor singing “Us”. I said: “Oh, it’s Regina Oh! It’s Us!” I was a little loud — I didn’t care and I was singing. It wasn’t that I didn’t care it was that I didn’t really notice until a guy turned around and looked at me. He smiled so I guess it was ok. The music threw me because the people that I am talking about were not listening to any music except Christian music the last time I was around them. I was not expecting it. I also was NOT expecting to hear Explosions, or Regina who I love both of which I have happy connections to. Bonus for me and it helped me be calm.

The barn was not a real barn.

I was hoping for animals and hay and stuff. It was on a nice lake and had fabulous huge trees that I would imagine great owls to be living in. I got some pictures. There were deer heads on the wall I got a picture of that. I was very social so I will probably crash at some point. I did enjoy myself. Here is the big accomplishment. I was not full of anxiety before, during or after. I did act spazzy, but I fooled everyone. I mean that I did not have the fearful anxiety. I had my normal dose, but I was not afraid for the sake of being afraid. I did not panic. I did not hyperventilate beforehand. I did not freak out when I found out that we missed the wedding ceremony.

This is huge because I did not know who to expect to be there.

I know these people from the church that was a negative experience. Most of them have left that church, but I knew that there would be a few who still attend that church. I did not know who or how many. There was one of the moms of an autistic boy there. The boy is now 18 I think. He is considered high functioning, but is unable to live on his own. When I met the woman she told me that she would not allow her son to hand flap, stim, fidget, or anything like that. As I watched her son he was very calm, sat still the whole time in his chair. She was sitting right next to him and I did not see her smile once. She looked at me several times which made me notice that I was finger twirling and swaying to the music.

I did not stop.

I also noticed her looking at Daniel as he swayed back and forth to the music, jumped up and down, I jumped with him. She glared at him as he ran back and forth looking at the lights and ceiling fans. She would not look me in the face. She kept her stone face as she watched Ariel, Joshua, Daniel and me twirl, dance, jump, rock, hand flap, and stare. (We were not being obnoxious, it was our subtle stims. Those who are familiar with autism would notice these things other people tend to not notice “most of the time” everyone has their own fidget or whatever. It was a wedding so no one really noticed at all.) The only reason I noticed her was because she was at the next table sitting with her family. At church she would sit next to me sometimes and point out things that Daniel was doing and would tell me that she did not allow her son to those things, but “That is just me” she would say. It always confused me.

We all stood there doing our thing with big smiles.

And guess what? Other people smiled too. I didn’t care what anyone thought, and she was the only one who seemed to be offended. We had fun, and went to the store afterwards for a treat because we couldn’t eat the wedding cake. The kids and I were in the front of the store and a woman from that same church we used to go to saw me. She came right up and hugged me and wished me a Happy Valentine’s Day. I wasn’t shaken at all. I was able to hug back and not get freaked out. All this hugging is probably going to make me itchy today.  It may all hit me later. That was a huge moment too though because she was one of them that said to me that Daniel was not the way God intended him to be and she was praying for the autism to go away.

It was good for me to see her.

I am working through anger about things like that and when I saw her I was not angry at all. I understood that she does not have a clear understanding of autism. And I know that she will not because she is in a system that will not allow it. It does not allow her to. She cannot leave that system because it is her group and if she goes against the group she will be rejected. She will be alone. She cannot handle that rejection. It has nothing to do with me or Daniel. It is her issue and her issue does not have to be mine. I am free — my kids are free and happy. As far as I am concerned she needs my compassion, I would like for her to understand our world. I would like for her to understand how hurtful it is for people to say things like that, but she won’t. I cannot control that I can control the self-confidence, the self-acceptance, and general acceptance of others in my life. I can raise my kids to be accepting of others.

That is all I can do, I wish I could change people’s minds.

The only way anything will change is through being myself no matter how people treat me or look at me, and to teach my kids the same thing. Either they accept it or they don’t. It is very hard, and I am sure I will have a good rant again about how people piss me off! I did understand it for a moment though. Possibly it had something to do with two posts I read recently that really got me thinking. Letting Go Of Pain From The Past With Compassion and When Another Person Makes You Suffer. They were very timely and I am feeling very good about working through these anger issues of mine. I am finding that I am not raging angry at all, I am changing. My anger is being rightfully felt, processed, and turned into compassion. The first step is to accept that it is ok to be angry. Anger is stirred for a reason, but I do not need to use my anger to attack or harm others.

That is not me anyway.

Side Note: Here is how my mom and I are different. After I told the moms that we missed the wedding ceremony I went and told my mom that I told them. She panicked, and said: “Why did you do you that? I was going to tell her on another day.” I told her I couldn’t handle the guilt, and I had to know that they were ok. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell them. My mom felt like it was worse to tell them on the wedding day. It turned out my way was better because mom was able to feel relief and comfort from our friend’s acceptance. My mom laughed at me though, she knew full well that I HAD to confess. I always do.

P.S. Those who received my panicked email about accidentally publishing my chaotic ramblings from last night in a completely unedited version using the WordPress App for the iPad that is a horrible grammar checker, and I cannot use a touch pad very well…deep breath. Sorry for all the typos and I am still not recovered so this post may be “all wacky tobaccy” too. HA! Thank you for not reading and deleting immediately. (Yes, I just created very long run-on sentence.)

Now for some Photos! Yee-Haw love me some barn weddings! (They did not turn out that great, but I got boot and shoe shots.)

[Show as slideshow]

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