Take Your Head Out of the Sand

When Riley was three, I was attending a weekly meeting to discuss A Course in Miracles. I’d found the book a couple of years prior, and dabbled. I felt better every time I picked it up and read a little. It was at this challenging point in my life that I began studying it in earnest, and it got me through a very rough time and truly informed my spirituality. It still does.

There were anywhere from a dozen to two dozen who showed up at those meetings, and at least three of us (all women) had a kid on the spectrum, though I had not faced it yet. Two men had challenging sons. I don’t know if they were diagnosed with anything or not.

I would share my troubles, week after week, about this kid that screamed and cried for no reason, and finally one day, one of the women whose own son had already been through it said to me,

“Your doctor has not helped her. You need to take your head out of the sand. This kid sounds exactly like mine did, and she is hurting.  You might want to see the doctor we see.”

Blunt.

Her son is a few years older than Riley and one for whom removing dairy and wheat had a transformative effect. He oozed pus out of his nose until his system cleared of it. He “woke up” from a foggy haze just getting those foods out of his system. They’d also done chelation and a bunch of other interventions that helped him even more. He was getting better, and she was transforming herself spiritually, working on deep forgiveness in every area of her life.

Our regular pediatrician had advised us to simply, “Tell Riley she’s making a big deal out of nothing.”

And, “Kids have tantrums, and it is up to you to set limits.”

He was clueless as to what we were really dealing with, what that little girl was living.

“She’s fine. She has advanced speech.”

At three and a half she was having panic attacks and had the self-care skills of an 18 month old, but whatever. She could talk.

“You need to take your head out of the sand.”

If it had been anyone else to tell me to “take my head out of the sand,” I would have been offended and might have turned in the opposite direction. It was shocking. It stung.

“You need to take your head out of the sand.”

But it opened a door.

I knew she was coming from a place of love. I knew she cared about me and my child. I knew her kid had gotten better. I knew he used to be “just like Riley.”

Take

your

head

out

of

the

sand.

Sometimes, it’s just the thing we need to hear.