The Summer Series: Why Friendships Change When Raising an Autistic Child

It's interesting something I've noticed how friendships shift when I was going to say after the diagnosis of autism, but in my life, I can go back to the playground where my son was at first school and he was really struggling to go in in the mornings.

And me being in the playground, outside, late, trying to persuade him to go in and realizing that I wasn't alone and that there were other parents in the same position.

And it was really lovely from that point of view, as I know we've talked on the podcast before about how you make new relationships, make new friends.

I think it's also important to talk about what happens with existing friendships and situations.

It's something that I've been thinking about quite a lot recently.

I think that it's a common struggle because your life goes in a very different direction and certainly I find my priorities changed and I wouldn't have had the understanding that I do now and it could just cause me to reflect really.

Our journey has now been about three years.

In that three years, I would say that I'm quite a different person than who I was before.

Yeah, definitely.

I think it makes you a lot more resilient.

I certainly fight harder.

I used to find it hard to speak up in meetings and things like that.

But when you're put in the position of you need to get your child the support they need, then you're going to do whatever it takes.

And you're armed with more knowledge.

So I didn't know anything about autism before this was even raised as a possibility.

So yeah.

You know, you go on this journey, don't you, of gaining all this knowledge, speaking to other people that are going through similar things.

And your life kind of becomes consumed by it for a time.

Yeah, that's really true.

And there's a point.

I remember the point.

I was driving in the car back from school and I was at this crossroads mentally with what direction did I go in.

And I really didn't feel like I wanted to fight.

I really didn't feel like I had the strength to.

fight the local authority and part of me was thinking I may just deregister him I'm just going to deregister him keep him at home at that point we didn't have a diagnosis but autism had been mentioned but I didn't feel like it was the right thing to do for this child what he needed was actually the appropriate support the appropriate setting And before I knew it, I had fallen into the fight, the EHCP journey, the pathway for diagnosis, the fighting for, at that time, a reduced timetable, all the things that go with it.