Best Laid Plans.. – Sun 13th March 2016
By Jeannette | March 13, 2016
It happens, living with autism.
You can plan an outing to the “nth” degree, prepare your child, have them agree to the changes and then – bam! – those crippling anxieties flare up and it all goes to pot.
That was the case this afternoon. I had a volunteer meeting to go to and Hubbie wanted to come along too. All good so far, we’d chatted to D about it, explained when and where, she had her bag of goodies to keep her calm and occupied.
Bam! Came the first set back when she couldn’t go into the room, she was too scared. We compromised and she was outside the room, on a chair with us popping out every so often to see she was okay. That sounds horrible reading it back but she was totally secure, she couldn’t go anywhere, the doors were glass (so she see in, we could see her) and she was happier in the waiting area, singing along to music on her iPad (which kept wafting through into the meeting).
All sounds okay, doesn’t it? But then she got upset by the chatter from the meeting, got worried if someone came out of the doors who weren’t Hubbie or I and was in floods of tears when it was time to leave.
Those tears continued as we walked across a field and it took her a while to calm down at home.
At times like this, I really resent the way that anxieties and autism take over. I see children of D’s age walking with their friends, carefree, laughing and chatting and she wouldn’t experience that.
When I was her age, I had a 45 minute there and back walk to school; me and a friend would walk behind/in front of hoardes of pupils, chatting about Top of the Pops or whatever, sometimes buying a slush puppie (raspberry flavour, blue colour) and some Revels. At weekends we’d get the bus to town and spend our pocket money on records or make-up. Usual teenage- type activity.
Carefree. Aware of stranger-danger but walking through crowds without a second thought.
But – and this is where I’ll slap myself – we’ve learnt as parents that both T and D won’t be doing that (not the make-up aspect for T, the social aspect). We know the limitations, it’s just sometimes, I wish it was a bit easier, autism parenting.
Another day tomorrow.
1 Comment
Stephs Two Girls on 13th March 2016 at 9:54 pm.
Oh gosh yes. So get this. That whole not being able to do things which come so easily to other families – often like even leaving the house in the first place. And not even tha, as that’s the sadness for the ‘not happening’ in our own lives as we may have expected them to be, but the fact that our children are not able to enjoy life as we did, in such an easy and carefree way. We feel their difficulties for them, and it’s emotionally draining. xx