Do not judge where I come from for I am a proud member of this autism house. Unless you live in one, you simply do not know.
If it means hiding my dish soap that he's recently become fixated on dumping into my sink, so be it.
It means a bed he loves to mess up the covers and yet never sleeps in. Couldn't ya leave it alone kid? Save me that chore? Well, that's how it will be.
My autism house is loud. So very loud. To the point several therapists and myself are now worried that voice we worked so hard on finding is in danger of permanent vocal cord damage. Constant prompting for a talking voice. Heck a singing voice is even better than the blood curdling brain melting screams. I will sing along with him in a show tune style if it means protecting his voice.
Then there is the irony of being loud versus avoiding places that are to loud. Sorry,we will be avoiding these places. I know you mean well when you say you understand but you don't. Not when you have to deal with the two hour meltdown aftermath. Thanks for including us but respect my desire to stay home. Sometimes I just don't have it in me to deal with certain places and situations. At the end of the day, he comes home with me to this autism house. So when I want to leave a place early, it's because I know what could happen if I stay. If you don't live in this autism house, even if you live in one of your own, respect the reason why we got to go.
This is the house where I try to keep a schedule for security in a routine but know no two days will be alike. Any tweaks to the schedule will require some military operation like planning. Sometimes it will go well. Sometimes we will just go all in and ride out the rage. That's what we have to do in this autism house.
In this house I will go through a range of emotions toward autism on any given day. I will marvel at it. Rage. Contemplate. Delight and sometimes even want to avoid it altogether. Those are the hardest days. When I no longer have the energy to either attack or accept it. I have to remind myself this is the house I live in and go forward. I will dust off my jeans, slap on some lip gloss and go about my business like I have before.
We will celebrate each milestone in a grand style in this autism house. For my kiddo has certainly earned every parade of praise we give him. I will smile and hide the tears at the same time. Savor each victory even if it's just that I got him to finally eat meat balls and meat loaf in the same week.
I will know when to step back. It may look to others like I am hiding in this autism house. I'm not. I'm recharging and reflecting. It's the only thing for sure I can do to keep going. Even when the well meaning cliche cheer of "I don't know how you do it" is uttered. Well guess what Buttercup, I don't how I do either. Care to trade? It's easy to get angry but it's more fun in this house to go with the flow and order another side of fries. So I'll tell that kiddo to hop in my car so we can hit the drive thru. We'll try again tomorrow if we're having a rough time today. It's all I can do. Then we'll drive back to our autism house.