Text | Pippi Dad
Editor-in-chief of Rice and Xiaomi Gong
More than 6 years have passed, and I have never forgotten the father who cried outside Dr. Guo Yanqing's clinic.
He was in his early thirties, from Jilin, dressed as a migrant worker, and carrying a brand new backpack. His son, who was about five or six years old, was constantly writhing, trying from time to time to break free from his father's pull. His clothes are also new.
When the son had calmed down a little, the father took out the water cup in the side pocket of his backpack, took a sip or two, and then looked up at the sky and was silent, and the tears would soon run down his cheeks.
His son was diagnosed with autism at several hospitals in his hometown. He was not willing, and he had to come to the Sixth Hospital of Beijing Medical College to find Guo Yanqing and try his luck again. He had only grabbed this number after staying up for several nights.
And this day is Guo Yanqing's last visit before the "Eleventh" in 2015, missing today, the next time is ten days later.
Near noon, the father and son entered the examination room.
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I continued to sit paralyzed in the waiting area of the outpatient clinic on the first floor of the Sixth Hospital of Beijing Medical College, watching the adults and children who did not look normal, being pulled by their families, reprimanded, and shuttled through this busy hospital.
How many parents' tears were left inside and outside the courtyard of the Sixth Hospital of Beijing Medical College? Before I brought my child here, a former colleague of mine told her story: When the child was diagnosed with autism, she and the child's father cried on the side of the road outside the hospital.
I quickly joined this type of parent.
On that day, after Guo Yanqing showed it to my son, the result was expected. Walking out of the hospital, I didn't cry, I kind of wanted to die.
At that time, I had just quit my job in Beijing, and I was still more than a month away from the rent. In that rental house, built in 1980, I fell asleep in the morning, couldn't sleep at night, couldn't get up during the day, drank only water and didn't eat, and my dry eye disease seemed to be getting better. The slightest thought of my son, tears brushed and flowed.
In retrospect, that wasn't my hardest time.
When the child returned to Zhengzhou, I went to his private kindergarten for a refund, on the grounds that he wanted to treat the disease. At the door of their class, I saw the roster of the whole class, and I also saw the record of his grandmother giving him cough medicine, and the hot tears suddenly blurred his eyes.
I sat on the ground in the doorway and waited for the class teacher to sign the refund slip after class. There were dozens of kids listening to music, "Cute little frog, la-la-la-la-
"Farewell, students." I said to them in my heart for my son. My son stayed in that class for more than half a month, and I have not deleted the QQ album of that class, but I dare not look at it again.
Half a month later, we sent our son to an institution in Zhengzhou to intervene. Ten months later, he became the most capable of his classmates. We stuck him in a public kindergarten, he was the worst one, and neither the teacher nor his classmates liked him.
Almost every day, I have to be complained about by the teacher, or simply called to the garden, and I go around with one meaning: can you ask your son not to come again...
In the spring of 2015, the father and son of "Zheng Kai Marathon" took a group photo
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I began to enter the media industry after graduating from college, basically did not ask for anyone for more than ten years, more than 90% of the soft words and against the heart, are forced to say after my son was diagnosed with autism. For a social terrorist, this is worse than being beaten up by a few hooligans.
Then, there was the collapse of family and marriage. Autism is not so much a test for children as it is a stress test for adults, especially parents.
Parents' genes, habits, emotions, and abilities are kneaded together like dough, and then rolled over and over again with a dough press, all the way to the point where they are as thin as cicada wings, and any flaws and dirt can be seen clearly.
For autistic children, it's a double cruelty. I don't deny that I have some genetic problems, and I test myself for at least mild Asperger's disease. I will not comment on the situation of the child's mother.
However, after the child suffers from autism, parents need to pay much more love and care than ordinary children, and take on the heavy task of rehabilitation intervention. But parents of these children are more likely to have some autistic traits, and they lack empathy, attention, execution, and learning ability more than the average parent, and even a very small number of psychological and mental disorders.
There is no worse example than this.
The past is too detailed to describe, and I just want to say that in the most hopeless years, I have thought about suicide countless times. Here to introduce a cold knowledge, whether you are in Baidu, today's headlines or Zhihu, search for "which way of suicide is the best", this screenshot will appear.
I've never called the psychological assistance line in the picture. In fact, I also doubt that those who have all their thoughts will really call this hotline? Can this hotline solve our problems with just a few words?
I have written in previous manuscripts that I have countless times hoped that God or other gods, including the devil, will have a hotline that will allow me to negotiate a deal with them:
If you can make my son well right away, I'll die for you right away.
As it turns out, it was I who thought too much. When I closed the search box, I was confused for less than three or five hours, opened my eyes, and had to continue to worry about where my son was today, and conceive a draft to cope with the teacher's accusations.
I still have to feed this family of four.
The small supermarket and noodle shop at the door will not give you three yuan and five yuan because your son has autism. I make a living by writing, and my energy needs to be highly concentrated. Unable to deal with the innate attention deficit, I was tortured by my son to the point of being masterless, restless, dragging manuscripts and releasing pigeons repeatedly.
Finally, my friend recommended that I take Ritalin to relieve anxiety, and after taking the medicine, I can concentrate on 6 to 8 hours of attention, and I will finish the manuscript as much as possible before the effects of the medicine are exhausted.
I can't remember how many times, surrounded by my son's cries and the scolding of other adults, I hurriedly tapped the keyboard and raced against the efficacy of Ritalin.
Many times, suicidal thoughts were temporarily suppressed. I would encourage myself: If I had grown up a little better in the past few years, nothing else would have made me feel so bad.
Nietzsche had a cloud, "Those who cannot be killed will surely make you stronger." "I don't want to be strong, I just want to be able to live a few years of easy and peaceful days, to be able to catch my breath, to be a little more happy." I wanted to read books and write a few thoughts without distraction, like before I was married and had no children.
I haven't killed myself so far, I haven't even tried to test. The main reason is that I know very well that without me, the child's situation will be worse, and the probability is still the worst kind. When life deceives us, when everyone around us drops the chain and drives backwards, the only thing we should do is to bear the burden that only we can bear.
I stopped blaming other people. If you want to protect your children better, you can only learn to be strong on your own, and don't put too much hope in the weak, even if they are nominally your comrades-in-arms. Believe me, there are some adults who are weaker and out of control than our autistic children.
If we have to choose to die, it is also because of love, not for escape.
When the child has just been diagnosed, parents will ask the heavens: Why are we?
And those parents who do better will answer the heavens: What about us?
What if the child grows up, even if he can't support himself?
How many of the "normal" children can really support themselves as adults?
If our children can feel more love and be silly happy every day, then why not be an enviable life?
After years of confusion, I finally understood the old saying, "Do your best and obey the destiny." Don't give your life to heaven until you've exhausted your life. Your life is not your own.
In our bones, what surrounds us is not autism, but everything in our past, our own flaws and deficiencies, but part of these problems, if not handled well, it will only make the problem bigger and bigger. And our children are the ultimate victims.
I gradually understood the above principles and began to adjust my mentality and strategy. As a result, my son and I are getting better and better.
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My son is now in the third grade of elementary school, and although the culture class is very difficult, he has begun to make friends and can play the flute alone at the class meeting. He was happy every day and said that he "wanted to have a good time when he grew up." ”
I described myself as an incompetent father who hadn't given him enough help in "Golden Stem Expectations" that year.
After coming to Rice and Xiaomi in charge of the content section, I met many amazing parents and grandparents, grandparents and grandparents, with love and hard work, little by little, to smooth out these problems layer by layer.
One dad said it very well, "Every day after the sun rises, it is the child's golden expectation." ”
Do everything well today, waiting for tomorrow's bright sunrise. This is also the value that "Rice and Gonghao" has been transmitting and promoting in the past 7 years since its establishment. I believe that many parents, like me, have gradually realized epiphanies again and again on the darkest and helpless days of life, crossing from dark night to dawn.
Online and offline, I have met many parents who talk about the help of "rice and millet" for them, and many readers have also put forward opinions. Whether it is positive or negative, it makes us sincerely afraid.
We firmly believe that "Rice and Millet" is not only a public account with the company as the theme of operation, but also a beam of light, a pile of fire, illuminating the past and the way forward, warming tens of millions of autistic families in China and even more families with mental disorders.
As long as there is a glimmer of echo in the universe, we are no longer alone.
At the end of this year and the beginning of the year, we would like to do a solicitation to better serve everyone. Thank you.