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A lot of us have goals and dreams that we want to achieve. We have a vision of our higher selves which we want to attain. We want to be successful, we want to live our dream lives, we want more money, we want more fulfillment, we want a higher paying job, our own business, a bigger car, a nicer house and the list goes on.

But in the pursuit of these goals or dreams, what happened when you hit a brick wall, what will you do? Will you give up, settle for a smaller goal, lie to yourself that things as they are now are not too bad or convince yourself that your present life situation is just fine. Or are you able to turn these brick walls into stepping stones and become unstoppable.

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Jonathan’s Autism Prognosis

I was in that situation when my son Jonathan was first diagnosed with autism in the mid-1990s. My wife Roselind and I knew nothing about autism. I had watched the movie “Rainman” and all I could remembered was that Dustin Hoffman’s character had odd and routine behavior but had fantastic memory.

With the diagnosis, came the prognosis from the doctor which was mostly about what Jonathan would not be able to do. Autism is a lifelong disability and Jonathan would be in a world of his own, he would not be able to talk, he would not be able to have eye contact, he would not establish meaningful relationships, etc. Roselind and I were in a state of utter despair. We looked at the brick wall in front of us, it looked like a dead end and we felt that we were powerless to help our own son. We are in that state of helplessness for quite a few months. Driven by our desire to help Jonathan reach his full potential, Roselind and I came to the realization that we were young, educated and resourceful. That was in the mid-1990s and we decided then to buy our first home computer (which was a desktop with floppy disk). And when we made connection on the internet with other parents of autistic children and get to know what they were doing for their children, we became empowered to help Jonathan.

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Zero Services And Facilities For Treatment Of Autism

Through the internet we learn of the many interventions and treatments that can be used to help autistic children. That was when we hit our next brick wall. We are from Kuching and even for Jonathan diagnosis we had to fly to Kuala Lumpur. Those wonderful facilities, services, interventions and treatments that we learnt about in the internet were not available in Kuching. At that time there are zero facilities for autism in Kuching (even the Sarawak General Hospital did not a speech therapist) and there were even doctors that we met here that had not heard about autism and we had to educate them. Roselind and I knew that if we want to bring these services and facilities for Jonathan, we had to be the ones to bring these facilities to Kuching.

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Formation of Sarawak Autistic Association

Around that time, we also made contact with other parents of autistic children. Together, we decided that we should formed an association that would look into the needs of autistic children in Kuching first and then Sarawak. Forming an association was something that was new to us, and we were not sure what to do next. Therefore we decided to ask for advice and the feedback that we received were mostly very negative. Forming an association is a very complicated exercise, even to register the association would take at least 2 years. Where would you find the financing to set up the facilities for the autistic children? Where can you find qualified staff to run these facilities? These were valid concerns and to start any association from scratch with zero resources was very difficult.

Roselind and I, together with 2 other husband and wife teams were the founding members of the Sarawak Autistic Association. Roselind was the founding President, I was the founding Vice-President, one couple was the founding Secretary and Assistant Secretary with the last couple the founding Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer respectively. We had to rely on our resourcefulness to turn these brick walls into stepping stones. We managed to register the association within 6 months, the Registrar of Association was then very sympathetic towards our cause and facilitated our registration. We recruited our first teacher Mina, who used to be Jonathan’s kindergarten teacher. Jonathan was kicked out of a number of kindergarten but at the last kindergarten under Mina’s care, Jonathan was able to remain there for about 1 year. The six founding members then contributed our own money to send Mina to training with the National Autistic Society Of Malaysia (NASOM) which was located at Kuala Lumpur. Mina started teaching our 3 autistic children initially at one of the parents’ house. We then shared Mina’s salary and other expenses between the three families. From this humble beginning, the Association (which was later renamed Kuching Autistic Association) overcame various obstacles and problems and now it has its own buildings and offers therapies, intervention programs and other services to more than 80 autistic children and adults.

So whatever difficulties or issues that you are facing right now, do not let these difficulties become your brick walls. Let them become your stepping stones. Turn your struggles into success and you will be unstoppable.

Follow me and stay positive.

Do check out my previous posts.

Living The Life Of My Dreams
The Steemit Website Is Down But If You Looked Hard Enough There Can Be Some Opportunities
Positive Reflections: Continue To Dream And Dream Big
Newbie Nuggets: How To Profit From Commenting On Other Peoples’s Posts
Positive Reflections: The Day I Walked On Hot Coals

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Charles

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