Personal Narrative: My Son's Disability

“Disability is an issue that affects every individual, community neighborhood, and family in the United States.” [IOM] The birth of a baby bought me joy, excitement and expectations of a future filled with happiness and success. But in years time the joy, excitement and expectation of a “normal” future was replaced with emotional crisis of shock, denial, and disbelief. Then a long moment of anger, guilt, depression, shame, lowered self-esteem, rejection of the child, and overprotectiveness. Eventually, I accepted my child, and his disability. My son was diagnosed with severe Autism at the age of 2 and half years old. I claim that my son 's disability effected my family and me in so many ways but in the end some of us finally found the joy in my son 's eyes. And yes there are a lot of “bad” days but when the “good” days come I can not express the happiness it gives me. I was in …show more content…
Even though many studies indicate that having a child with a serious health condition increases the likelihood that parents divorce [Corman; Mauldon; Swaminathan] or live apart [Reichman]. She kept our marriage together. My wife seemed to never waver and always kept her foot on the gas. She was always taking our son to appointments, attending every therapy we could acquire. I always wondered if she felt the way I did, and she did, but she got over it and pressed on. Her strength gave me better insight on my son. I saw her deal with the heartache and realized if she can do it, so could I. There are “bad” days, like the day she had to caught off all her hair or when she would have to cut her daily life short to cater to him. But she always seemed to keep her head above water, while the rest of the family seemed to be sinking under the weight of the disability. Her positive thinking, deep sense of empathy and passion got me out of my funk. But I could not say the same for our two older sons, they saw it