It’s been a hard few days. I’m hanging out to see what the paediatrician has to say about depression. After speaking with friends it seems that I am the last person to realise that it’s quite common for autists to have depression. I guess I had heard it before at talks but I had linked it to older teenagers or adults, not to kids still in primary school. Interesting enough I have also googled regarding the link between getting periods and depression and it seems fairly common also. I was curious after thinking about my own depression. I had believed that it has all started when my mum died when I was 13. I can however remember sitting in our backyard crying and not knowing what was wrong with me. Mum was still alive then. I have memories of that time and had believed until my diagnosis of depression that I must have had dreadful PMT even then. Now though I believe it was probably depression. I’ve felt lost for so many years and it wasn’t until I finally went on medication that I realised that this is what it’s like to feel normal. I wish I had known before. I’m so grateful to our school for picking it up in Beth, life’s confusing enough for her without the added anxieties of depression. Rod from Sensational Kids sent me a document about depression. It talks about the correlation between parents with depression and kids with autism and depression. It makes me wonder if my other kids will be more likely to have depression too.
I’ll end on a funny note, there’s been far to much serious talk! On Saturday we bought a cubby for the kids and needed some help getting it off the trailer at our soon to be new block. I called my friend Amanda to see if her husband Geoff could pop around for a few minutes. My dad and nephew were also coming so it was just to get all the pieces off and in the yard. Amanda and Geoff have three boys, their oldest one Lachlan is on the spectrum. When I called, Lachlan answered the phone. I called while Paul was still taking the cubby apart with it’s previous owner, about 3pm. It went like this :
Me : hi Lachlan, it’s Sarah here.
L : Mummy can’t come to the phone, she’s in the backyard.
M: What about Dad, is he there?
L: No he’s in the backyard too.
M: Could you please go and get one of them?
L: No, you’ll have to call back later.
M: Could you ask one of them to call me?
L: No, call back later.
The phone went dead. I called back later and was not only told that he couldn’t get his mum and dad but that I would have to wait until 6pm to call back! Luckily Amanda walked past the window outside and Lachlan knocked on the window so that she could speak to me. Geoff did come and help (thanks very much) and said to me that Lachlan was more than likely watching tely and didn’t want to stop for anything. Sounds like Beth! I saw Amanda today and she told me that Geoff had had a talk with Lachlan since, letting him know that it was ok to take messages and that under no circumstances was he to tell people to call back later. Still, he’d come in handy when market research people called! I wonder how Beth would handle the situation? I don’t think she’d even bother answering the phone so I think Lachlan did well!
