When people look at me now with that she's such a bad mother look in their eye, I want so badly to become defensive. I want to explain to them that she isn't bad. She isn't throwing a tantrum in that spoiled way that kids do when they just don't get their way. She isn't behaving this way because she has always been coddled and gotten her way and I have always just let her walk all over me.
I want to be able to give them a look that explains everything. A look that says, she has real issues. I want to convey to them with a single look that she isn't a bad kid, she isn't doing this for attention and she isn't doing it because she knows she will get her way. She is doing this because she doesn't know how to react. And this is just one thing. It is just one thing she doesn't know how to deal with. There are more and they all add up to something, something that is real and valid and not me making excuses for my daughter's seemingly bad behavior.
There were always things, right from the beginning, that made her very different from her sisters and from other kids I had known over the years. She was always very solitary. She could play by herself for hours and be perfectly content. This was definitely one thing I had never seen a kid do before. She also liked picking out her own clothes.. and sometimes changing them several times until she had found the right outfit, which I found endearing. She liked for things to be put away and clean and she could always remember where she put things which I thought meant she was just neat. I never thought too much about how she'd rather stay home than leave because it meant that the errand I needed to run would be a little faster and easier to run. When she started to alter her voice so that she could have a conversation with you, without you, I just found it to be a little eccentric. When she started to freak out every time we left the house, even when she wanted to go, I just thought it was normal child apprehension.
It was this year when all of these little strange habits started to stand out.
It was this year that she stopped being able to make a decision and had to have one forced upon her.
It was this year that her little strange tendencies developed into things I had never seen in a child before.
And it was this year that she started to hurt herself.

I watched her for the last few years as a creature of interest. She intrigues me. Watching her little brain put things together is different than watching another child. I find her thoroughly fascinating. I've spent a lot of time wondering what kind of person she is going to grow into because I think that when she decides that, it is going to be so awesome to watch.
I knew when she started school she was going to adjust to it almost seamlessly because that is how she adjusts to everything. It's like she is driving down the road and when the little bumps come she just cruises over them without complaining. And I knew she would especially like school because she loves routines and schedules and organization. She is comfortable in habit, it doesn't scare her.
And I was right.
She does like school and she has adjusted well.
The problems haven't started because of school. And they aren't really "problems" per-se. They are differences. They are things she doesn't know how to deal with. They are things I don't know how to help her deal with because nothing I have tried has worked.
After several weeks of feeling like she was out of control and everything I was trying seemed to be in complete vain, I decided I wasn't crazy and that she really needed some help. So I called around and found a couple of child therapists. And I made some appointments.
You see, dear reader, I don't think that there is something "wrong" with her, I think that there is something very different. Something that needs special attention that I don't yet know how to provide for her. I needed someone who knew kids and was trained to look at all of these little things she does and tell me that they add up to something. And then I needed them to tell me how to help her work through them.
The thing is, I've always been good at this. I've always known how to be a good mom. I don't know how or why, but I have. And it is the thing that I take the most pride in. And I've never been faced with something I didn't know how to handle or couldn't read about or didn't have a friend who had been through. And I was walking around feeling like shit because I didn't know how to help her. Nothing I was trying was working. Everyone kept telling me it was ok, it was normal, kids act out sometimes and at first I tried to approach it like that but it just became more and more evident that this was not like other kids. I think I knew that anyway. She was just too anxious about everything. It was a real fear in there, not a bad little girl.

We sat in her doctor's office for two hours the first time. We talked about everything from my pregnancy to how she reacts with her peers. I told her everything, I didn't leave anything out. God forbid I neglect one clue, just one clue that ties it all together. And when I felt like I was going to break down and cry she looked at me and asked me if I blamed myself. Everyone had been asking me this. Everyone kept telling me it wasn't my fault. I know that. This isn't about blame anyway. What it is about is that I needed someone with answers. I felt helpless. I felt helpless to the point of complete and total desperation. This is my baby (regardless of age) and I will do anything and be anything I have to to help her when she needs me. But I needed someone who understood to tell me how and to help me understand why. I told the doctor this and we moved on.
She observed her playing and asked her things and my little girl was the most polite, well mannered, happy child you could have ever dreamt of. I felt like I had to explain to her that I wasn't this raving psycho crazy lady who can't handle being a mom, because I love being a mom more than anything, but my daughter was on her most stellar behavior and was in no way at all reflecting the things we had discussed.
And so she started to ask her about these outbursts she had been having and unleashed one. A tiny one, but enough to see what I meant. Enough to understand that I was serious.
When the time came to start putting all of these little things together to make a big thing, a preliminary big thing, but a big thing nonetheless, the most likely answer was: Asperger's.
So I googled when I got home...

GILLBERG'S CRITERIA FOR ASPERGER'S DISORDER
1.Severe impairment in reciprocal social interaction
(at least two of the following)
(a) inability to interact with peers [our main issues in school right now are with her not interacting with her peers normally]
(b) lack of desire to interact with peers [she's always preferred being alone]
(c) lack of appreciation of social cues [she doesn't get when you are serious]
(d) socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior [her social behavior is routine and her emotional behavior is very out of whack]

2.All-absorbing narrow interest
(at least one of the following)
(a) exclusion of other activities [she's always been focused]
(b) repetitive adherence [We do everything the same way, every day. And if we change it at all, we have to start over.]
(c) more rote than meaning [I had to look "rote" up: "by rote, from memory, without thought of the meaning; in a mechanical"

3.Imposition of routines and interests
(at least one of the following)
(a) on self, in aspects of life [This is, I think, one of the biggest things.]
(b) on others [And this one is becoming almost as big...]

4.Speech and language problems
(at least three of the following)
(a) delayed development [She didn't speak until almost three...]
(b) superficially perfect expressive language [Repeating everything over and over until it's right..]
(c) formal, pedantic language [Repeating everything over and over until it's right..]
(d) odd prosody, peculiar voice characteristics [The voices...]
(e) impairment of comprehension including misinterpretations of literal/implied meanings

5.Non-verbal communication problems
(at least one of the following)
(a) limited use of gestures [No use of gestures.]
(b) clumsy/gauche body language
(c) limited facial expression [Always smiles...]
(d) inappropriate expression [She always smiles... no matter what is going on.]
(e) peculiar, stiff gaze [I always thought it was funny how she just stared off into space...]

6.Motor clumsiness: poor performance on neurodevelopmental examination

Wow.
How can I be so excited and so sad at the same time.
I am grateful, so very very very grateful that there is a reason and a million websites and other people I can talk to.
But so sad for my little girl that she is going through all of this.
And it's that sadness that I feel when I get that look. When those other people look at her as she is clinging to the car because it is safe or because she is terrified of a bathroom she's never been in or because they have to wait for us to move out of their way in the parking lot because my daughter has had to open the car door and close it five times (until it's done just right) before she can get in. When they are rolling their eyes, I want to tell them everything I've just told you so that they will sympathize with her instead of thinking she is just a bad kid.
Because she isn't a bad kid at all.
She is one of the most amazing kids I have ever met in my whole life.