NELIA BALARES
“The Proud Mom”
A 56 years old mother of Tomas Morato, Brgy. Obrero Quezon City, Mrs. Nelia Balares, strongly faced the problem of having a child with special needs. Among her 7 child, only one has been diagnosed to have the signs and symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder.
At an early age of 3, Patrick Troy, the special child of Mrs. Balares was discovered to have an autism. Since birth, the family noticed that Patrick doesn’t have an eye to eye contact with anyone. And it comes to the point that when he was getting older, he doesn’t interact with any people. Unlike those ordinary and normal child who get along and play with other child, Patrick loves to be alone in his own world.
Mrs. Balares, find it hard to accept the truth that one of her sons has an autism. Among her 7 child, she can’t accept that the youngest of her child were the one who will have this disability. She doesn’t know anything about autism that’s why it’s very hard for her and the whole family to deal with this. When we ask her what’s her initial reaction upon knowing that, she honestly says to us that she can’t stop herself crying. It’s almost a week before she overcome that fear.
She admitted that they come to the denial stage, that anyone in the family don’t know what to do to save their youngest siblings. But as one of the head of the family, being the mother of 7 child, she needs to be strong for the whole family. She needs to be positive and spread it to the whole family. Because if she’s going to be the one who’ll be weak through this challenge, there’s no one that her other child can count on to.
Little by little they come to accept the reality. And the whole family started to be strong to help their little one to cope up with his disability. It also come to the point that they confront almost all of the people who discriminate their child. They started to be brave to face those people who doesn’t understand their son’s situation.
Mrs. Balares strongly...