It Wasn’t Always This Way: A Journey of Autism and Triumph

Sometimes something small will remind me how far we both have come on this journey.

My autistic daughter loves getting a mani/pedi. She comes with me to every appointment. She looks forward to it and she loves going on IG looking at nail colours for her upcoming visit.

In fact, my daughter used to struggle with outings. There were stretches of time we didn’t/couldn’t leave our home.

Salons are loud. They are always full of people with music playing tools running and all of that can be a recipe for disaster.

Helen has been doing my nails since Kya was a baby. She did Kya’s first polish at age four. And just yesterday she commented on how fun Kya was to do and couldn’t believe how she was just chilling while her hands and toes dried. We were there for almost two hours.

She nailed it. No pun intended.

There were many times in the early years I had to carry her out of the salon kicking screaming and crying. Helen remembers that so to see Kya sitting in a pedi chair on her iPad is a sight! Helen also has a child on the spectrum. She knows how hard we worked to get here.

While in the pedi chair, she was stimming away happy as could be. Sometimes when her body is stimming hard, she will also vocal stim.

Most people saw a little girl making strange movements and noises. I saw a happy and calm little girl.

There were two ladies directly across from us that were staring. And whispering.

I understand. It was probably hard not to notice her. But maybe even two short years ago I wouldn’t have understood. I would have become defensive.

In years past I probably would have said something along the lines of what are you looking at or abruptly said she is autistic! Instead, I smiled at them and went back to surfing the net on my phone.

Every time I glanced up, they were staring. Almost fascinated by her movement. We would exchange smiles and carry on.

It’s moments like those that carry me through. They seem to always come right when I need it.

I snapped this picture when we arrived. Little miss grabbed a magazine casually said salon (which was the name on the cover of the magazine) and started flipping through it.

On We Go.

Written by Jenn Dunn of Keeping Up With Kya