I get a little confused when I hear these stories about people being sad and depressed when finding out that their child has been diagnosed. Now I understand where this thought process comes from, never thinking of a life like this for your child l, but still confused about the continuous sadness.

With my experience, my partner and I have just recently had our son diagnosed with severe autism as they put it. But being with him all the time and seeing how other kids his age acted, it was already kind of obvious that something was different about him.

So after going through all the processes to finally get him diagnosed (not a quick task in our instance) we were asked by the specialist if we were ok, to which we responded with, yes? She then said how common it was for people to respond so much more upset by the situation.

But what my partner and I found was that all the diagnosis really did was make our son so much more easy to understand and point us in the right direction to learn and understand his world more and more

I personally came across a book called The Reason Why I Jump, which is written by a 13 year old child with severe autism. The book is set out as a Q & A format in which the boy is asked about his day to day world and then he answers them. Simple but so so effective! That book changed my life because it was like my son was a answering the questions in a way. I just felt closer to him being able to understand what he goes through a lot more in depth

So don't be sad, look at this as a turning point with your relationship with your child. You now have ways to work with him and help him grow with autism as well as yourself. Early intervention is amazing and really does help so look at all your resources and all the help you can get now. The sooner you start the better quality of life your whole family will enjoy.