Something to hold on to - family, especially grandparents, would rather believe you're a bad parent than accept that something could be wrong with the darling child. We went through this with difficult child 1, and then with difficult child 3. With difficult child 1 it was my in-laws who really didn't want to know there were problems. They also belonged to the generation that says psychiatry and psychology (same thing in their eyes) was all mumbo-jumbo trickery and fraud; never go to one or by definition they will tell you you're crazy and you'll never get out of their clutches.
When I took myself off to see any in that category I had to keep quiet about it - at a time when I really needed to be able to talk to people about how I felt. At least I could talk to my mother about it. But she died not long before difficult child 3 was diagnosed, so not only was I trying to cope with my increasing concerns, but I couldn't even tell family that I was taking him to a psychologist (part of the multi-disciplinary assessment process needed in Australia) because that would have caused a huge fight.
By the time we were getting difficult child 3's second opinion, father in law had died and mother in law HAD to be brought on board - I invited her to come along to the assessment. She was highly critical of the process (I was too, but for different reasons) and very angry when they said he was autistic and they were so pessimistic.
Meanwhile we had friends in the same age bracket who were insistent that the boys were fine when she minded them one-on-one. She insisted there was nothing wrong with difficult child 3, who at that point was sitting on my lap, having just been collected from pre-school. So I said to her, "Ask him about his day."
She leaned over and said, "Darling, how was pre-school today?"
difficult child 3 looked out the window. "Bird," he said. "Water." No eye contact. No further response. She tried again. No response.
I looked at her and said, "This is not normal. This is not bad parenting. We need to get help."
Unfortunately for me at the time, there was a renegade GP who had recently left our GP's practice and stolen half the patients (including files). This renegade was also regularly having coffee with my 'stalker' who told him I was a nut case. Our friend (who was asking difficult child 3 how his day had been) was totally in thrall to the renegade, telling everyone how wonderful he was and how the regular GP should be thrown in jail (words from the renegade).
Just before his defection the renegade had publicly attacked me, when I asked him in a consultation to check difficult child 3's ears and throat because he had a fever and I wanted to exclude tonsillitis and middle ear infection. The doctor said, "If he's got tonsillitis or middle ear, he will be in pain and will let you know."
I replied, "He doesn't though. The pediatrician you referred us to diagnosed autism and difficult child 3 doesn't seem to respond to pain the same way."
At this point the renegade threw me out of the room into the (occupied) waiting room, following me with, "There's nothing wrong with him! Stop trying to find things wrong with your children!"
About the same time my 'stalker' and renegade's coffee buddy wrote to an organisation I'd been head of, to tell them that I was Munchhausen's by proxy.
So as a result, it took a long time for our friend (and other sycophants of the renegade) to finally accept that autism was definitely an issue we were dealing with.
But over time, people have come round. In the meantime I just got on with what I had to do and kept my mouth shut around people who were only going to give me a hard time about things. If they brought up a subject I knew was going to be contentious, I said, "You know the direction we have been following in trying to get answers. If you are going to get annoyed with me because I don't give you the answers you want to hear, then please don't ask the questions. Let's just leave it as untouched topics, unless you're really wanting to know without adding any value judgements of your own."
A sort of "Let's not go there today" response. I found that if people are changing their views then they will often persist and make it clear that they are now beginning to recognise that the child needs help. It is at that point that I begin to co-opt their help in managing the child.
You often can't take them fully on board. All you can do is let them in as far as they can handle.
It's part of a grieving process - as parents right at the coal face, we're the first to have to accept the reality and to grieve for the perfect child we thought we had and which we now know we never did. Other relatives take longer to get to that point; they will still be stuck in the denial phase of grief while we're working our way through anger. It's not a good mix.
Or they will get to the anger phase while we've reached acceptance. Again, not a good mix.
All you can do is try to be the strong one, the hero, and hold things together for everybody. You need to be the one to set the boundary conditions and make sure the boat doesn't get rocked by fruitless argument.
It takes time. And the more someone loves you (or the child) the worse they will be about it. They may be wrong, it will be hurtful, but they are generally speaking out of love for the child. You do have that in common.
Hold that thought.
Marg
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