R U OK?????

Today I am linking up with the amazing Gemma from My Big Nutshell  for the Bloggers Collective for R U OK? Day intiative.

I haven't had a chance to write on my blog for a couple of weeks. I've been a bit run down and a little 'out of it'. But I knew I had to get my blogging energy back just for today as this is an important issue.

Recently a speech therapist from the CP Alliance came by for a home visit for my eldest son Liam. And after going through all the formalities of our goals for Liam, the speechy turned to me and asked "Are you ok? How are you coping?". I almost cried. I have been putting on a brave front for so long, as us Aussies usually do and this moment, a person asked me with sincerity how I am. Of course I am ok as compared to what I have felt in my past. But the fact someone took the time to ask me and was prepared to listen... well that made a huge difference. 

When I posted about my eating disorder battles/depression, I had feed back from friends who knew me from 'back in the day' and they had said "I knew something was up. I would've said something if it was the me of today". Yes indeed, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Luckily I didn't tip over the edge of that precipice and I am here today to talk about it. But as a society we need to know how important it is to ask these three words: R U OK? And not just to those who we can see going through a self destructive streak. It could be anyone. Anyone with a smile on their face and jovial words passing their lips could be in need of an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on.

And when you do ask... really mean it. Be ready to listen. It's not a conversation to offer solutions. It will be a conversation to offer a non-judgemental ear and a huge bear hug.

Good friends... of the opposite sex...

I have a very good friend, that I'm close to of the opposite sex, and it's not my husband (although my husband is my BESTEST friend) and I trust him with my life. I have known 'J' for over 10 years and he is like a brother to me, so much so I feel comfortable enough to whinge at him, yell at him, tell him how he infuriates me and then we laugh and it's all good again. We are proof that you can be friends with the opposite sex and there is nothing 'going on'.
The funny thing is that on this discovery of my son Jack's 'Autism' I have been researching every ASD, and that includes the very hard to diagnose 'Aspergers Syndrome'. Now I did in the past joke about my friend 'J' having AS, but now that I have read extensively on it I can pretty much diagnose him with it (he ticks ALL the boxes and he even agrees with me on this). It explains so much about him and it makes those things that use to infuriate me about him become much less infuriating. 'J' only has 2 good friends, me and a mutual friend 'V'.  All our old mutual friends ask me when I bump into them: "What happened to J? I don't hear from him anymore" and I never really knew how to respond other than he's a bit of a hermit and likes it that way. But he always was the Black Sheep.... I guess it wasn't until I came along that somebody 'got him'.
And I guess that's why we clicked... I think of myself as a bit of a Black Sheep. I'm a little left field but in a different way to J. He has always been 'monotone' whereas I have always been 'colourful', he is level headed, whereas I am very hot headed, we basically balance eachother out. But at the sametime we are very much alike, we both deal with depression and back in the day we were big 'party animals'... we would spend our whole week organising our weekend. And our weekends would be huge. I seriously don't know how we did it! But I know why we did it... we were depressed in our lives. We were lost and were trying to find meaning.
I did find meaning when I met my husband, but I never left J behind. A lot of people tend to drop their friends when they're no longer single. I wasn't going to do that to J. He is part of our family.
The true meaning of a good friend or best friend: they never bail on you, no matter what the circumstance. I feel so lucky to have J and he comes through everytime. I have a vivid memory of when I was in labour with my baby Dylan who I knew wasn't going to live (I was 20 weeks along) and my husband was asleep in the chair beside me at the hospital (he was exhausted as he does long days at work). I was high on pethidine and I felt so alone. I thought J would find the somewhat funny side of me calling him up at 1am high as a kite going through labour. He answered and chatted with me for an hour. Now that is a friend for life!
I am very lucky to have a number of amazing males in my life: my husband, my dad, my J and my 2 beautiful special boys Liam and Jack.
Oh and moral to this post is... find yourself a male friend with Aspergers and you have a friend for life *insert winky face*