I don’t need Eli to blend into the world. I need him to understand it well enough to be safe in it. For our family, ABA isn’t about making him less autistic. It’s about giving him the tools to better understand himself, the people around him, and the situations he encounters every day.
If I had a nickel for every time someone said, “But he looks normal.”
I know people mean well.
But that sentence carries more weight than most realize.
Nickel from the Jar 🪙
A diagnosis is a lot like a weather forecast.
It tells you the conditions —
not the limits of the sky.
The Zoom call ended.
I opened Google.
And everything in me went hot.
This is the diagnosis I wasn’t ready for — and the truth I had to learn the hard way.
Nobody tells you that becoming a special needs parent also means earning an unofficial PhD in Googling.
Because now that we understand how everything collides, we can finally talk about what actually helped — at home, at school, and in moments of crisis — and what absolutely didn’t.
If something doesn’t sit right, trust that feeling — and put it in writing. Keep the notes. Save the emails. Document everything. One day, what feels like overkill will become your lifeline. Advocacy isn’t about being difficult; it’s about being prepared.
We were promised a seamless transition. Instead, everything unraveled — and Eli unraveled with it.
A tiny school. A big diagnosis. And the years that taught us both how to fight.
E made his first real friend, found some confidence, and finally began closing the reading gap — all because someone taught him the way his brain learns.
Eli’s dyslexia journey continues… and so does mine.
We moved states, changed schools, and crossed our fingers that this “big change” would actually help.
And then—boom. Eli made more progress in one semester than he had in years.
But don’t get too excited… the next chapter wasn’t nearly as smooth. 👀
