It is hard for people to understand why a parent cannot just
leave a child with autism in the care of someone else and go have some fun. It
is possible of course but there are times things take a complicated twist and
lately we have a complicated twist that has developed.
It is
impossible to predict a new behavior and often impossible to know how or why it
came to be. It can feel even more impossible when it comes to easing out of the
behavior because much of the time it’s just a waiting game. The behavior could
vanish as quickly as it appeared. Lately we have something going on that even
big sister and brother are having a hard time grasping because it truly does
not make any sense…to any of us. To Phillip it seems to make perfect sense, he
just can’t explain it.
It’s a
tiny detail problem and if someone walked into the house and messed with the
tiny details without knowing all hell would break loose. My son has decided
certain things are to stay in place and he has always kind of been this way
meaning if he put a toy down, he might have a reason for it being there. He can’t
say what that reason is and someone takes the toy and puts it away. He would retrieve
the toy and put it back in the designated location and not just for the day,
sometimes weeks. This has never really been a problem or caused any anxiety for
him, he just puts it back. Now we have moved into an intense level of this
issue.
An
example of just how intense this has become for him would be placing his juice
on the counter. Someone moves the juice just slightly and he panics but moving
it back does not ease the panic right away. If he has a toy in a certain place
and it is moved just slightly or sometimes even touched which could potentially
mean it has been moved anxiety kicks in. No one knows what items around the
house this behavior is connected to until it’s moved or touched. On top of that
his independence is spiking which is good thing, until I pick up a snack he has
placed on the table and ask him if he wants it. He wants to get it himself and
I moved it so the independence and tiny details are working together as a
concentrated force that has the rest of us walking on egg shells.
We have
avoided meltdowns since this issue has moved in on us in the past week or so
but I am also with him every day and I understand this is happening. I will say
we have narrowly avoided meltdowns because many times I have stood there
thinking to myself, please come out of it before you are too far in. He has
been able to do that thankfully and for now but if this sticks around and grows
any more intense we are going to have some serious chaos around here. There
have also been many times this has confronted his big brother or sister and
they are left looking like a deer in the headlights. If I was not in the room
to see what might have moved, no one knows what happened. It’s a behavior the
three people in his life who know him better than anyone nearly can’t keep up
with.
This is
autism and it’s not nearly as severe as a challenge as many families are facing
every day. It’s confusing, impossible to know why, and we wait for it to ease
off. Along with some praying it will actually ease off because it might not. It
is exhausting and confusing to everyone and when I say everyone I include my
son because the anxiety he feels he didn’t ask for. Having to take that anxiety
that hits and push it back to avoid total meltdown at three years old takes an enormous
amount of self control. That is not autism, that is my son fighting back.
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