In November of 1999, I submitted my first post to the FML. I was ecstatic in my post because, after years of being unable to own the very animals I grew up with and loved, they had entered my life again. I had gifted my husband two tiny deaf kits that he had fallen in love with at a pet store. Ferrets were absent from our lives because my son was autistic. He was impulsive, compulsive, and very explosive making him a danger to animals. When I brought home the two kits, I was taking a great leap of faith out of desperation to give my husband something he wanted so badly in his life again. He worked 5-7 days a week and came home to a wife who was hardly functioning at times and a volatile, chaotic little boy. We were very relieved and pleasantly surprised to see that Sean adjusted to the new pets easily, naturally, and most importantly safely. Later, we were shocked at the miracle that was to come to my family. Sean began to turn away from his lines of cars, cards, blocks and cookies as well as his beloved can opener to watch the ferrets as we played with them. The ferrets gently invited Sean into their world with dooks and the occasional checking in with the touches of wet noses. When Sean didn't engage, the ferrets were all too happy to take the party a few feet away from him always keeping in touch with some sort of parallel play. We watched Sean progress very slowly from that point to playing with them. That led to him beginning to help care for the babies. The thing we knew, he played with us through the ferrets. His social and communicative skills soared. We told Sean that if he gave the babies water, played with them, and helped clean the cage every day for three months, he could be a ferret daddy. And so with the special help from a nearby shelter to match Sean up with the perfect ferret, Sean was able to adopt his own baby ... Rocky. Rocky ended up serving Sean as a service animal of sorts. When Sean took Rocky with him out in public, Sean's anxiety, fears and anger melted away. The beauty of that was this led to Sean being extremely verbal with Rocky around and led him to socialize with people more. The confidence Rocky brought to Sean gave him the freedom to go shoping with us more, go to events he normally would not have been able to go to, and even for him to take part in normal little league baseball among other things. Eventually, with conventional therapy, a dedicated family, Sean's own stubbornness, Rocky and a little luck ... helped Sean emerge from the grips of autism to being extremely high functioning. Rocky aged gracefully over the years. They grew up together. And at the end of middle school Rocky succumbed to cancer at age 6 1/2. We were blessed in that he never suffered and Sean was given a year to accept what was to come. After that the end of middle school went badly for Sean. But the entrance to high school went fabulously. And Sean invited another little soul into his life to help make that transition to adulthood. He named his dark eyed white ferret, Pharos, meaning point or originator of "light". The relationship was not the miraculous love story that he had with Rocky. It was what Rocky would have wanted, something just as important ... a normal relationship. Very normal and very wonderful. The two grew up into adults together. Life with and for Sean was quite "bad" when he was a toddler throughout the time before he adopted Rocky. Our family had a reprieve through much of his childhood. Then Sean faced another bad time from being severely bullied at the end of the eighth grade. He was lucky to enter into a high school with a wonderfully accepting student body shortly there after. And it was roses from there. By age 16 however, we saw a few ... red flags. The transient depression brought on by the events in middle school returned, but this time for no apparent reason. He pulled far away from us like any other teen boy might, but this was much more exaggerated. And it just didn't feel "right". Yet he ticked on through school very successfully. Keep in mind we were and still are on the frontier of the autistic population explosion that is now entering adulthood ... and society. We are flying blind. Despite what some experts say, they are flying blind in this situation as well. So who knew what signs that we were seeing were nothing and what ones were something. We had to stand by helpless as we watched new issues emerge. Most of them were and still are very unclear and intangible to us, and even to Sean. I think back to when we thought he'd never be able to attend a normal school. Then we thought he'd never be mainstreamed or included. Things just kept improving. Even so, we later thought he'd never be able to take part in normal things in any sort of normal and independent way. Things such as track, band, or getting a job. He did everything we thought he'd never do. I used to tell myself each day, okay if all progress stops here, this is still far beyond our expectations. We win. Today I tell myself, so what if wakes up flapping his hands and mute again. It would not take away the positive miracles that we saw over the years. We are still ahead of the game no matter what happens from this day on. And that is what I still tell myself We are now entering the third "bad" phase in Sean's life. Transition out of high school and into adulthood. [Posted in FML 6687]