Is attending his graduation ceremony today, having got a 2.1 in games development.
He is my elder son and is now 24. He was diagnosed at two and a half with what was then called classic autism. We were told we needed to teach him makaton, that he wouldn't ever talk. When he was 7 he began to talk in small sentences. He was unable to potty train and we were told that this would not change, when he was 6 he came out of full time nappies, by the time he was 10 he was no longer having soiling incidents. He was explosively violent. We were told he needed to be in a special school. That we were unrealistic.
He drove to collect his gown in his own car and has no lectures this week for the master's he's currently doing.
I don't give a fuck that this is a boasty thread. He is amazing. He has worked so hard and defied expectations all his life and I want to shout it from the rooftops. I'd like to take his degree and his driving licence and wave it in the faces of the experts who constantly told us how delusional we were to even expect that one day he would look at us!