How The Walking Dead Healed Me

I make a daily "Napkin Note for our son, TsukiMoon's lunchbox.  He is in third grade so this napkin isn't appropriate for him.  I made it for myself.

When TsukiMoon was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) a year and half ago I discovered The Walking Dead.  I watched hours repeatedly.  Bingeing for hours, walling myself in the back room, stuck in a dark place.  The show touched me deep inside and healed my heart.  It has taken awhile to figure out why it talked to me.

When we got the diagnosis about TsukiMoon, we quickly adapted.  We knew we were running against a clock of brain flexibility.  We instantly put lots of interventions in place.  They all paid off.  TsukiMoon went from an evaluation by the speech and language pathologist of: a 4/5 year old in understanding and use of language to neurotypical, at age level-- 8/9 year old.  In one year.  The pathologist said she has never had a child progress so quickly and said it was thanks to us, his parents.

While I was doing all the things the pathologist wanted of us, I felt like Rick Grimes.  I woke up in a new world that had no correspondence to the pervious one.  All I had was the person I once was.  How did that person fit this new creation?  It became an off-script life, a long-departed reality from once was.

All the ways I once related to others didn't apply anymore.  What seemed important disappeared and my life and that of my husband's was repositioned with new dedication.

This life is better.  Not lower in stress, but we live closer to the bone; colors are brighter, the sun is stronger.  TsukiMoon's life is undeniably better.  We have gotten off his back where it was detrimental.  There is a push in our area, living in the shadow of Stanford University, to get the most out of our children.  Tiger Mother style if need be.  Now we help him in all the area's that are needed; lots of touch, hugs and kisses.  Big smiles to meet a gaze that doesn't always fall on our faces yet we show love with napkin notes and games.  What we call interventions, are plain engagement to Tsukimoon.  We shine a bright lights on his moon-lit world.

I still keep up with The Walking Dead, but it doesn't speak to me in the same way because it has already cleared the murk that was once my life.