In life and I am only scratching the surface here, but my point is this:

We all must have our basic needs fulfilled for our very survival. We all know this so I am not stating anything new here. Only our parents or caretakers can do this as God intended and they do it lovingly. We have no control over our care as babies but by the miracle of life and love of family if we are so blessed to have we do thrive and are nurtured as we should be as our very survival depends on it.

If we are lucky enough to come into the world and our parents or caretakers take on the responsibilities of raising us and provide us a name, a sense of who we are, safety, shelter, nourishment, unconditional love and a sense of strength to learn from and be inspired by then we techwear black pants should thrive. As we grow we also must realize that our parents for the most part are trying their best to teach us self acceptance and provide us love and nurturing so we can one day find out that we are special and deserving of our own friendships, finding our inner peace, finding our true happiness, finding the joy we deserve, finding the confidence we need so we can believe in ourselves to prosper and find the recognition we all hope and long for so our lives mean something to us, to our family, to our friends and to all who come into our life circle. We also must realize that our parents also have weakness of their own and can’t be held to a higher standard. They can only do what they can do and if they know they tried their best then that is really all they can do realistically.

We also need to find our spirituality through religion, the bible and our Sunday school classes to live with the love we need in our heart and the faith to live our life no matter what comes our way and our parents lead us in that direction as does our teachers but the rest is up to us once we are old enough to make our own decisions.

This is one of the most difficult to deal with because we all have different observances of our faith but the most common component of faith must ring true for each and every one of us for if we lose our spirituality what hope will we ever truly have in our life? We all must believe and have a faith and we all must respect one another and not judge them if their beliefs differ from ours. That is the whole point of life. We all do not conform to the same things or should we be expected to. We just have to understand that we will have differences of opinion whether it has to do with religion, politics, sex, gender or choice in our careers or decisions we make based on our individual philosophies.

The meaning or purpose of our life is one of the hardest things we all must face and one of the most troubling because what it means is that we are now coming of age and must now take responsibility for ourselves. It does not happen overnight but gradually and we all must find our middle ground as we seek patience, love, guidance and trust. We must be attentive to our parents, respectful, loving, caring and always striving to be the best we can be whether it is in the classroom, at a dance recital, in a play acted on stage in front of an audience, on a baseball diamond, on a math or spelling test or at home when we are asked to do something by our parents.

If we as parents struggle with our children because of their difficult behaviors and we are looked on as to blame or our children don’t respect us or just in the heat of the moment act out at us and if it is in a public setting then how will we handle the situation without it becoming a scene. We always have to maintain a sense of calm and always keep our guard up always being on the defensive it seems when in reality we are just trying to diffuse a bad situation when our autistic child has a meltdown in front of us and strangers. To me that’s one of my biggest struggles because I do want to take my son out and not lock him in the house just to protect him from harming himself, us or anyone in his reach when he loses his composure. It just isn’t fair to see my son beset with such struggle. I know struggle, believe me as I truly do speak from experience. Autistic children and transgender children although different suffer in many of the same ways.

Trust me on this. I know from two perspectives, as a child knowing I was indeed a girl though I was born a boy and I still live with this which is obvious as I am finally transitioning to become a woman. I also know from the perspective of a parent in raising an autistic child who like myself has always struggled with his confidence and self esteem. The only way I survived was by over compensating to fool others into believing I was someone who in reality was the furthest thing from the truth. In my heart I was a delicate feminine girl who fancied pretty dresses and girly shoes but on the surface I was a rough and tumble boy who excelled in baseball and in math. The reality was that technically I was a girly girl who would be labeled a tomboy because I had to pretend I was a boy who was really a girl inside. Sounds confusing?

I am still trying to figure it out. Anyone out there have an answer for this I would gladly welcome your interpretation of my take on being born a boy with a girl mindset. I also would love an answer to how I help an autistic boy feel better about himself and start to enjoy his life. That really is my main concern and the answer I am truly seeking. The reality it seems there is no common denominator type answer because all autistic children are unique in their own way. I already lived my whole life being transgender and I am finally doing something about it but I am 52. My son is only 14 so he is the one who truly needs the help. I survived and now I am doing what I knew I always had to do. The hardest part is I really liked Ed and thought he is a very kind and caring guy. I also have a wife I love who thought I was a guy and I have a son who wants to believe I’m his father but now he sees me as a girl and I just feel so guilty for all this pain I inflicted on others when in reality all I ever wanted was my happiness, to be expressive of my femininity and still have a family, a career, a house and to share in the joy of raising a happy, successful and well adjusted child to become a wonderful person as I tried to be in my own life without feeling pain, guilt or sorrow. That is not so easy but that is why we dream. We want our special needs child to not be in pain, to not suffer, to not hate life.