I’ve tended to talk about my son when things are going well, or when he does something I find adorable. I prefer to keep my focus there. But sometimes I am forcibly reminded that while yes, he has made a lot of progress, my kid is still autistic.
Most of the time the reminders are, if not subtle, at least not horrible to deal with. He is as likely to tumble small objects in his hands as play with them, or line things up with finicky symmetry or spin in place or hum a monotone while he does any of the other things. Disruptions in his routine and expectations are met with vociferous protest at any time. These days, it’s usually verbal.
But today it was not. Today I started to take a different route home from visiting my parents because I spotted a pair of cars with whirly red and blue lights blocking the end of the street I usually take out of the subdivision. Moreover, since they were parked on the road out of that part of town, I turned south instead of my usual north. We have gone home that way before. He knows it. He just wasn’t expecting it tonight, and he was already overtired.
The result was a complete total meltdown. He was screaming, crying, hitting me, throwing things around the car, hitting himself, biting himself: the whole range of behaviors that started us on the quest that ended with the diagnosis of “autism spectrum disorder”. Since that is most often the result of over-stimulation – and because I was worried that he would throw something that would make me lose control of the car – I pulled off the road into the synagogue parking lot no more than 3 blocks from our starting point. There we sat until he had calmed himself. I have learned the hard way that anything I say will only make things worse: the simple sound of a voice or a pat or the motion of the car is too much for him at such a time, no matter whose voice or what it is saying. So I sat silently in the unmoving car until a shaky little voice from behind me said “I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m ready to go now.”
And we went. We came straight home, through another meltdown over my refusal to stop anywhere for any reason. When we got into our own driveway, he curled up in the footwell of the car and sobbed and screamed for Mommy, but when Mommy reached for him he clawed. (No, he did me no injury. I stepped back and he didn’t try to follow. That much improvement we have achieved. He used to chase me to pinch or bite me.) Daddy came home at last and carried Joseph upstairs and got his glasses clawed off his face when he tried to remove Joseph’s shoes. That used to be a favorite trick, along with biting and pinching. It had disappeared from the repertoire a couple of years ago. I hadn’t missed it.
So here I am. I’m tired, and heartsick, and worn out from fighting a five year old. A mommy is supposed to be able to ease a child’s distress, but all I can do is increase it. I’m dreading the night, because usually when it starts out like this the kidling wakes up screaming about 2:00 a.m. and it’s all to do over again, with him refusing or violently rejecting all comfort.
Tomorrow we start over, as we do every day. With any luck, I won’t take tonight’s feelings with me. With any luck, neither will my son.