Blind Eyes: Repost

What they see: A child throwing a tantrum in a store.  He screams, throws his toy, and runs from his mother.  His mother chases him, scoops him up, and attempts to stop the flailing arms and legs.  He screams yet again, and wiggles out of her hold.  He runs to the front of the store, knocks several toys on the floor, and finally falls to the ground.  His mother looks into his eyes and “yells” at him to “pick it up,” over and over again.  After screaming, crying, and kicking for several minutes, he finally collapses in his mother’s tight embrace, and the two walk out hand in hand.  Wow, that mother really needs to learn how to discipline and control her child. 

What I see: I see my sweet son enter a loud, overcrowded store.  His auditory system is immediately overwhelmed by the beeps on the register, the announcement over the loudspeaker, and the greeting from the worker near the entrance. His hands immediately cover his ears.  His vestibular system and intolerance for movement cause him to overrespond to the carts that are in the pathway and the group of three children coming towards him.  He wants to run as far as he can from the commotion.  His visual system is affected from the one row of blinking halogen lights on the left that need to be changed.  He grinds his teeth and squints his eyes to escape the flicker.  His tactile system is irritated from my tight grasp to his hand as I anticipate the breakdown that is about to occur.  I also know that the socks I put on him in a hurry that morning were a little too small and the seam hit in the wrong place.  I know that he was awake at 5:20 AM because the tag in his jammies was irritating him.  I know that he had a hard day at school because his schedule had been different and the fire drill had sent him into a tailspin. 

You see, through my eyes, this looks like an ordinary day.  We rehearse, we make a schedule, we adhere to the sensory diet- and we still have breakdowns.  The only thing different about today is that I have dozens of pairs of eyes staring, pointing, judging, and assuming.  I so loudly want to scream, “My son has a disability!” But I know deep down that the eyes that judge may always be blind to the truth that lies beneath the outward appearance.  I will continue to bite my tongue and walk proudly out of the door, hand-in-hand with my son.