Parenting a Severely Autistic Child: Finding Gratitude in the Chaos

This is the heartfelt story of a father navigating the challenges of raising a severely autistic son. One particularly overwhelming day—filled with work stress, a difficult morning, and no time for himself—he went for a run to clear his head and was struck by a car. Thankfully, he survived with minor injuries, but the experience left him reflecting on his life.
He shared how raising his son brings constant challenges: financial strain, sleepless nights, and missed plans. Yet, it’s the little moments—his son’s spontaneous hugs and pure affection—that make every sacrifice worthwhile. He encourages other parents to focus on these unique joys, as they can bring light even on the hardest days.

Transcript

Mike Carr (00:06):

Well, we're back again, and I wanted to talk about stress. I think we all face a lot of stress, and with the profoundly or severely autistic son or daughter, we've got stress coming out our ears. So a couple of years ago, it was that long ago, but it's an interesting story. I was really feeling overly stressed one morning, hadn't gotten to work out for a day or two. Work was not going well. My son, Michael, who's severely autistic, was having a bad morning. I needed to go run. And so I knew my wife was down there taking care of him, working with his colleagues, doing the grocery list, all the things that she does with her magic touch, and I didn't care. I needed to go run. So I hopped on my bike, went over to Shoal Creek Trail, rode down to Town Lake here in Austin, Texas, and over to the trail head on Veterans Drive underneath the MoPac Bridge.

(01:09):

And it was a glorious six and a half mile run. Felt great afterwards, had a long stretch. Took me about an hour and a half and I was ready to ride back knowing that Cade probably handled everything by now. So I was coming back at a good time. Michael was off with his colleague, and I wouldn't have to deal with any of that like the responsible dad that I am. So I hop on my bike and I glance to the left, there's a car waves back, and that's no big deal. I glance to the right and there's another truck coming the other way on Veteran Drive. And so I start riding down the street and there's a really well marked crosswalk right underneath a MoPac where the trail head begins, and I've crossed that many times. And so I'm on the side laying there and fixing to turn into the crosswalk ever so slightly.

(02:01):

And I glance back and wham, I have no idea what happened. The next thing I remember is I'm flat on my back daze, not really knowing what just happened. My left shoulder's, numb arms, numb leg, hips numb. I tried to get up and a couple of joggers came over to see if I could, could help me. They saw what happened and some guy was yelling, that car blew right through. The crosswalk didn't even stop. Well, it turned out it was high school or Austin High is just down the street. And he did stop his car a couple hundred feet past the crosswalk, but he finally stopped and he ran on up and all white and pale and shaking. Oh my God, I didn't see you all. I didn't know what was going on. And it turned out I wasn't really hurt. I was a little banged up and bruised, and my bike was still functional.

(02:58):

Believe it or not. I think it snapped a cable. But other than that, it was actually rideable. And so everybody calmed down. I decided to ride home slowly and on my way home, I thought about had I been half a second sooner or a second sooner, I might not be telling you this story right now. How lucky I was to survive that because it could have put an end to my life, quite frankly, as fast as he evidently was going, and I wouldn't have been all the way in the crosswalk. I probably could been stopped part of the way, but I would've been in enough to have certainly gotten a direct hit on a big chunk of my body. Anyway, I thought about, okay, I'm lucky to survive that. And I thought about everything else. One of those come to Jesus moments and my son and my wife and what it's like leading a life with a child that you never planned on having.

(03:59):

You were never really ready to take on all those challenges, right? Dads that are watching this right now, and moms too, how much work it is, how much effort, how much money, how so many of those plans change and vacations that you're planning, you can't have. I mean, there's just a lot, right? There's a lot of stress. There's a lot of things that sort of pile up. And I was thinking about this and I was also thinking about, but as an example, my son came up early this morning, got up a little bit early, and I was in the office. I have a home office, walked up the stairs, stinky because he wet his bed again. He wets his bed almost every night, 35 years old, still wears adult diapers, which he wets through. We've got a lot of things and we still haven all that problem.

(04:50):

Problem walks into my office, puts his arms around me, gives me a big hug, and I hugged him back. He's nonverbal, but he wanted to tell me, I love you, dad. And you think about all the problems your friends have with normal teens and normal adults. And yeah, there are challenges with your autistic son and daughter, but there's also that honesty and that just unbridled emotion, whether it's giving you that big hug or that goofy grin or taking you by the hand, which he does sometimes. And he leads me to his puzzle box because he wants a puzzle. Those moments are pretty darn special. And so one of the things I'm trying to do in 2025 to de-stress when I get overwrought is just take a few breaths and think about, yeah, my son isn't normal, or your daughter isn't normal. They're profoundly or severely autistic, but they're sort of better than normal, right?

(06:02):

They're better because they show you their raw emotion. They let it all on their short sleeve. And when they love you or when they need you, whether it's with that big hug, even though he is stinky or taking you by the hand, or that goofy grin or that crazy laugh, how much you're needed and how important you are in their life, and how their life has really changed yours for the better. So my recommendation, what I'm asking you to do, the next time you have that high stress moment, and you're maybe thinking how unfortunate it is that you've been saddled with a profoundly or severely autistic son or daughter, and step back and think about how special they are and how, even though it's a challenge, it's also a blessing. And hopefully that'll help you manage that stress a little better. Talk to you again next week. See you.