Not An Island Podcast
Not An Island Podcast
Ep 11. Life As An Autism Sibling
Join us as we paint a vivid picture of the beautiful chaos that is our daily life, from the heart-melting sweetness of Ezra's innocence to the hilarious escapades of Justice's "terrible twos." We peel back the layers of sibling relationships in a household where autism is a part of the family narrative, sharing insights on how we tailor our connections to meet each child where they are. The stories we share not only shed light on the lesser-discussed experiences of siblings in similar situations but also serve as a beacon of joy and a testament to the unspoken strength that comes from facing life's unplanned adventures head-on.
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Hi and welcome to yet another episode of Not an Island podcast. This is Little Corner where autism, family and faith meet, and we're your hosts. I'm Todd.
Speaker 2:I'm Amanda.
Speaker 1:And we are the Johnsons, and so today we have a really cool episode for you. It's actually talking about siblings to children with autism, and we got this idea from a really good friend of ours, who I actually traveled the world with, brandy White. Shout out, brandy, we're going to put your tag down here. Go and check out her stuff on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Definitely she writes. She's an amazing writer.
Speaker 1:Yes, she is.
Speaker 2:I went to school with Brandy and I just want to say thank you, Brandy, so much for all your love and support through all the years. You've just been steadfast and constant. I know you're like that for so many people. You're amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So this episode, thanks to Brandy, is about Ezra's brother and not just Ezra's brother, but what it's like to be a sibling to a child with autism, from our perspective at least, from a parent's perspective. Ezra or justice might have a completely different opinion, but hey, we'll roll with it.
Speaker 2:I think her exact comment was like we've heard so much of Ezra's journey, but I'm interested to hear about justice and how he plays into the whole dynamic. And it's honestly a little wild because I think in person, one-on-one with our family and everything else, ezra can't so much speak for himself. But let me tell you, justice is only two years old and he is full of life you can speak for all of us.
Speaker 2:So we've spent all this time sharing Ezra's story online, but justice just shares his story in every room he walks into. It's so easy for him to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just a matter of time until he's YouTube famous by himself. This kid is something else. He is a mess.
Speaker 2:He's so funny, yeah. But yeah, if I'm being 100% honest, I struggled and maybe you as well have been in the same boat. Our first child, ezra, had autism and was diagnosed with autism, and we were walking through that denial phase and all the fear and all the things that came with that diagnosis for us and the unknown, and for me it was like, oh my goodness, I can't imagine if we had another child going through the same thing. And so for a little while it was like man, I don't know if we should have another kid, but God said otherwise and actually it was back in, I think, 2018. So Ezra would have been two maybe They've been before his diagnosis and before we fully knew what we were dealing with, I got justice's name. In the middle of the night, I woke up with God and spent some time with him and I just heard him tell me the name Justice Samuel. And then I would have another boy and I was so convinced of it in that moment that I was like I'm going to have another child.
Speaker 1:But that moment was fleeting.
Speaker 2:Yes, but, as many of you know, I dealt with infertility for years before having Ezra, and so when that promise from the Lord didn't come to pass right away, I think a lot of kind of doubt honestly came in and I was like, well, maybe I was just hearing things like maybe that was wrong, you know, maybe I'm not going to have another child and because I didn't get pregnant, you know. And so I was like, ok, I just went through, walking through life and kind of put that behind me. I told a couple close people to me and let me tell you they never, ever, let me forget it.
Speaker 1:No, they your, your real friends. Won't let you forget that.
Speaker 2:No, but wildly enough, almost everywhere we went, I would say those few years where, between Ezra and justice, anybody who would pray for me they'd say I see another baby and it was like the Lord really giving me. But yes, like you are gonna have another child and you shouldn't be afraid. As a matter of fact, I think one of the people who prayed closest to when justice was conceived said you can't be afraid anymore, like no fear.
Speaker 2:And I really took that to heart and I was like, okay, we can't be afraid, and so we weren't.
Speaker 1:And then we found out we were pregnant and we were, and then we became very afraid, didn't we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a different feeling than when we got positive pregnancy tests with Ezra for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, one good thing about it I would say I think it's important to mention is your health problems you had during that time. Yes, and how having justice really reset your body. Also, if you hear the kids in the background or one of the. Disney movies they're watching.
Speaker 2:For this recording.
Speaker 1:Hopefully they don't interrupt this, we'll see, we'll see. We'll see. If the video just jump cuts, you know what happens.
Speaker 2:You know exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, towards the end of my pregnancy with Ezra, I developed preeclampsia. He was an emergency cesarean birth. There was a lot of trauma for me and for him, and so I was also scared of that, and I can say now with full confidence that it was even harder of a pregnancy with justice than it ever was with Ezra. But God was faithful to me and he I mean he kept us through that time for sure.
Speaker 1:He really was. Yeah, that was a crazy time.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think we also were a little bit like how will Ezra respond? Because it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were worried about if he would have the capacity at that younger age to be the brother he needed to be, that we wouldn't have to be worried about justice's physical safety, because Ezra can be a whirlwind at times and he doesn't mean any harm or anything, but you know he was very innocent, but he just didn't have the understanding of a lot of things Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And we still had very limited communication with him and we just didn't know, like how, how would he, how is he gonna feel, you know? But throughout my pregnancy he really surprised me. He was very intrigued about a baby in my belly.
Speaker 2:He even was lifting his shirt up and pointing like I got one too, that's his baby in his belly, yes, and he began to take his little stuffed animals and he'd care for them. And we talked a lot about baby brother coming into his life. And when I tell you that Justice Samuel Johnson was such a blessing and is such a blessing to our family.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're gonna stop here the first 30 minutes of him being home. I'm gonna share a video right here and you're going to see in this video how excited Ezra really was, oh my goodness. So we're gonna jump to the video right here. Justice. Where's baby brother Justice?
Speaker 2:Hi, hi, brother, I did this. Is that your brother?
Speaker 1:No, Buddy, that's your brother. Look, look, is that your brother? Say hi brother Justice.
Speaker 2:Easy, easy Brother. Now Come on, you're a big brother. Oh my goodness, oh my God, I can't laugh and cough and cry. I'm so excited. So, please laugh and cry. Brother to Justice oh my gosh, he fell. Ezra fell so in love with Justice immediately and there were things like he tried to pick him up very early on and that was the kind of scary situation, but he was so enthralled and so in love so in love, I remember you know before you have a baby, you're getting all the things that they need.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I can just remember him like being intrigued by his swing and oh, that's his crib and these are his blankets and like it was such a cool time to see his responses.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:And then to see the connection and the bond that he formed so quickly with Justice. You didn't, he didn't need words for that.
Speaker 1:No. That's one of the biggest things we learned is that love. You know, love doesn't need words, really.
Speaker 2:No, he didn't need to be able to communicate verbally to be able just to connect in that way, like they're just brothers, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:From day one and I think we always say like Justice is like a built-in best buddy for Ezra.
Speaker 1:Yes, a lot of times.
Speaker 2:A lot of times, yeah, also a built-in worst enemy, if you know what I'm saying. Yeah, sometimes, yeah, parents.
Speaker 1:No, but and here we are, two and a half, almost three years later, and they're still trucking on like best friends. And you know, that's one of our biggest prayers is that that never changes, that they don't grow apart from each other when they get older and that they are always there for each other, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I mean they spend every waking moment that Ezra's not at school. They're together, and even though Ezra sometimes is playing kind of to himself, justice is right there with him. And I mean they do everything. They play outside together, they take a bath together, it's just there would be. I can't imagine a world where we didn't have Ezra and a justice Like they are our whole world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. They're each other's world too, and it's just priceless Well that's something we are very adamant about is not allowing Ezra's condition to change anything about the dynamics of our family, especially how we treat justice, how we treat Ezra and how we allow them to treat each other, how we treat them. We want them to see fairness. So there is this phenomenon out there called the glass child phenomenon.
Speaker 2:Have you ever heard of that?
Speaker 1:No, it's natively the glass child or the glass children. It's a phenomenon that when a child has a disability or in terminal illness, where the family is constantly focused on that one child, that the sibling becomes see-through.
Speaker 2:And I was definitely scared of that, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's something we guard against every day is that justice? We don't ever allow justice to be see-through. We want him to shine just as brightly as Ezra and we want him to be the center of our world, just like Ezra is. And so, yeah, if you are having a child, or I'm slightly afraid that, if you have a child with autism and you are on the fence about having another child, or maybe you're pregnant with another child, or maybe you're in the process of raising another young one, like we are, know this that, like, as long as you love them with all your heart and as long as you show them the passion that you show your first child, if you had them in the order that we had them, everything's gonna be fine. There's not gonna be any glass children in that case.
Speaker 2:I think any parent, whether you have a child on the spectrum or not, it's like how can I feel the same way over again and I can tell you from firsthand experience. It's just, and anybody who has multiple children they'll tell you the same thing you definitely love them differently, but you love them exactly the same at the same time. Like does that make sense? Like you love them equally, like there's-.
Speaker 1:Not really, but we'll go with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you mean?
Speaker 1:The same and different at the same time. Yeah, like Does that make sense to you.
Speaker 2:They're required different love, but they-.
Speaker 1:Different, but the same amount.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the same amount, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just teasing her. But yeah, like having two kids, one has autism and the other one we don't know if he does or not. He's young.
Speaker 2:Right, I wanted to say I was gonna add that in there he has. As far as we know, he's neuro-typically developing at this point.
Speaker 1:So let's get into some stuff. How are they the same?
Speaker 2:Oh, how are they the same? Well, I'll say this I one of my biggest concerns was you know, I hear them. I don't know if you guys can, but they're fighting over something right now the brotherly love.
Speaker 1:I think it's so classic that they're here for this episode.
Speaker 2:The thing that I would say like I was the most concerned about was Ezra's meltdowns and how hard it was for him to go certain places and do certain things and I thought, oh, that might hold Justice back. You know what I mean. It might keep him from experiencing things and I would say honestly, I think a lot of Ezra's meltdowns have resolved, like we still see a lot of them.
Speaker 2:I would say more delayed, still struggles with transitions, he still gets overwhelmed in crowded places, but Justice is two years old and so does he, you know. So we haven't really fully experienced Justice being held back from anything because, of what Ezra's experiencing.
Speaker 2:They experience everything together and I would say, for the most part, justice holds Ezra back a little bit right now, more than the other way around, just because he's two and sometimes he hasn't napped, and sometimes he's hungry and he is a little fireball, you know, and he gets very upset when he doesn't get his way and he's in the terrible tooth. You know what can I say? But yeah, I was concerned about that. I've heard so many siblings say oh, there's so many things that I couldn't do, or there's so much attention mom and dad had to put on the sibling and they couldn't give me that same attention, and I don't feel like that's the case at all.
Speaker 2:You know you feel different.
Speaker 1:No, I feel the same. I feel the same way. I feel like that they are. They're both equally adventurous. Yeah, they're both equally rambunctious. They're both equally challenging in different ways. And they're both equally sweet. They are very sweet children, so we wouldn't. I know that those are ways that they're the same, you know. Yeah, what about? What about ways they're different? What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we've covered somewhat like justice is very easy to connect to and I've seen the difference in that dynamic with our family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Our family and us included. We had to work to connect to Ezra. We had to get into his world, we had to be super intentional to connect with him, whereas justice, just like, lays it on everyone. It's like, I think, from the womb, without before he even had words, his little eyes and his smile. He could just connect in that way. So that's been definitely different for the both of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're very different. In that way, I would say they're also different in their I don't know their temperament Like Ezra, ezra is an extremely he has an extremely innocent heart and justice does too, don't get me wrong. But Ezra has a very innocent demeanor. I guess you could say justice, he's sweet and innocent, but that kid is mischievous, he is mischievous and it's just funny. It's funny how you see your own attributes in the kids, different, different children. Ezra was very innocent and sweet and she was very mischievous.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, I'm sure they all believe that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's how they're the same and that's how they're different. Come here, bubba, you sleeping, you sleepy, yeah yeah, you watching the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. Yeah, I knew one of you was going to escape. You're not scared.
Speaker 1:Introducing the star of the show Krusty, krusty boy Johnson with this messy hair, who we've been talking about.
Speaker 2:Mr Personality, can you say hi, hi? Oh, that was loud.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good job, buddy. You're so sweet, bubba, you and your little night shirt.
Speaker 2:They had their movie going on. Hi, hi. Hi and then again.
Speaker 1:No, no more, bubba.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But they are both very good children and we're very blessed to have them both.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, don't touch that and make a loud noise. Don't touch it. We're talking about you. We're talking about how much joy you've brought to our life. Yeah, yeah, the big one.
Speaker 1:And trauma and trauma, yeah, and trauma yeah and trauma. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So good, it's trauma, mommy, it is trauma, say save the drama for your mama. It's trauma for your mama. Yeah, save it. Yeah, save it for them.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, oh my goodness, oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Well, guys, I guess it's going to wrap it up. This is the episode of our kids really about justice. We wanted to give a little snippet about him. You know, without justice our family wouldn't be what it is.
Speaker 2:He better quit laughing. He's such a blessing from the Lord.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you silly.
Speaker 2:We have the dynamic duo, that's for sure. So silly You're not silly. Hey justice, can you tell everyone like and subscribe Say.
Speaker 1:Like and subscribe Say like and subscribe, and subscribe, yeah, awesome. Well, we are Not an Island podcast. I'm Todd, I'm Amanda and that's justice.
Speaker 2:Hi, say hi.
Speaker 1:And until next time, we love you guys. Bye Say, bye, hi.
