Tzippora Price MSC

Grief seems to be a taboo emotion these days. We mourn. We move on. Or at least we claim to. “I’m over it.” Is a common cultural expression, and it’s one we usually receive at face value. When someone tells us “I’m over it.”, as a listener nothing more is expected of us.

“Sometimes I feel that you do not want to be part of the family”, Jennie says, crouching down beside her fourteen year old son David, who is sitting on the floor behind the couch immersed with his Playmobile.

“No, he is not the reason I came. Since his diagnosis, I have learned a lot about autism, and the different forms it can take. I’ve come to talk about my husband. I believe he is also on the autistic spectrum. I believe he has Asperger syndrome.”

It’s not uncommon after a child receives a diagnosis for a parent to begin to see some of the same signs in themselves. They might think “Hey, maybe that’s why I am always losing things” or “I also have a problem with tight itchy clothing,” or “I’ve never realized that its bright overhead lights that give me migraines.” Perhaps the parent realizes that they also become flooded with emotion and take longer to calm down than other people around them. Perhaps they realize that they are more than just shy and may suffer from a genuine social phobia. Perhaps the parent now acknowledges their own difficulties with sitting still, managing their anxiety, or tuning out background noise in order to follow a conversation in a noisy room.

Dear Tzippora,
I have a child on the autistic spectrum whose behavior can be strange and confusing for people who are not familiar with this disorder. Yet I enjoy having guests in my home both for Shabbos meals, and as sleepover guests. I don’t want to give up hosting others in my home because of my daughter’s diagnosis, yet I don’t know how to balance the desire to have guests with the reality of my daughter’s embarrassing and unpredictable emotional outbursts.

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