Sometimes You Will Want to Craigslist Them

So, of course you may have noticed that some time has passed since my last post.  Well....quick rundown...our family has increased by one.  Yes, we had a baby, and she is beautiful.  She is well, we are all well, and that, in and of itself, is a blessing.  More on that later.

When I started this blog, it was with the intention of providing a completely unvarnished look at what life is like, raising an autistic child.  I've spoken with other parents, and the relief on their faces when we compare experiences is priceless and also heartbreaking:  Oh, your son does that too??  I thought it was just us!  It's almost as if they are saying, Oh, thank God, we thought we were strange and different.  We thought no one could possibly understand!


So, trying to stay true to that original intention of being honest and providing a snapshot of life with an autistic child, I will now talk about something that parents don't really want to mention:  Sometimes, it really is almost too much.  Sometimes, you feel like you've had enough and that you can't take it anymore.  You wonder, really, if your hair can turn any grayer, if perhaps, YOU need to go to the doctor and get a Xanax, and the question WILL enter your brain, Can we put him on Craigslist?

Seriously, I would never put my son on Craigslist.  I love my son. I've written at length about his sweet nature, his progress, the joy of discovering his blossoming personality.  But I would be lying if I didn't admit that we do have those days, when we forget all of that, because he is simply out of control.

Now, autistic children always do things for a reason. The seemingly random noises they make, the odd behaviors and actions that don't make sense in the "normal" world...there is a reason why that child is doing that.  My husband, just this morning (actually it may have been last night...I have no idea.  Days and nights kind of blur together when you have a new baby!) told me about an autistic girl who learned how to type on a keyboard.  In doing that, her parents discovered that A)she was not mentally retarded and B)she made loud noises to drown out all the other noise that was entering her head...in other words, it gave her just ONE noise to focus on instead of having a whole plethora of sound competing for her attention.  That being said, yes...there are some days when I want to look Logan in the eye and say, "For God's sake.  Please.  Please be quiet.  Please don't say anything.  Please don't yell.  Please STOP MAKING THAT NOISE/SAYING THAT PHRASE/BANGING THAT THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!!!"

It doesn't work, of course.  I've discovered, through painful trial and error, that trying to get Logan to stop that particular brand of stimming is counterproductive.  It agitates him, to have his "noise" taken away.  He thinks he is being punished, he screams that he will be good, he threatens to "get" his big sister...and it escalates into an episode of difficult behavior that takes forever to calm down.  In the end, it's easier to let him make noise, say the same phrases over and over and most of the time, bang whatever the heck he is banging on the floor.  And yes, there have been many times, when I wanted to pull out a suitcase and head for the hills just for a day or a weekend, and yes, there have been times when the noise has given me a migraine, and NO, it does NOT make me a bad mother that I feel this way!  Why?  Because,  good people..I am human.  I think for a  lot of parents, especially parents of special needs children...they feel like they can't talk about this issue or admit to these kinds of feelings.  Perhaps they feel it makes them less of a parent, or it reflects badly on them.  We're supposed to be ever-tolerant and patient with our special kiddos, right?  We're supposed to have a well-spring of goodness and love, a never ending supply of gentle good spirits, even in the face of such trying behavior...right?

Wrong.

I am here to dispel that myth...because it IS a myth.  I am sure that somewhere there are parents like that.  I am sure that they are a rare breed.  Where ever they are, I applaud them, and if I ever meet them, I want their autograph.  But I am not speaking to them right now.  I am speaking to the mom who picks up her kid from school every day, who watches her son try to hurt himself when he gets too agitated.  I am speaking to the dad who clenches his jaw shut tight to keep himself from screaming in frustration.  I am speaking to parents everywhere, who have endured the headaches that come from vocal stimming...who have installed a lock on every door and window and still worry that it's not enough to keep their autistic child from escaping into the street...I am speaking to those parents, who, exhausted and heartbroken from dealing with a particularly trying bout of frustrating behavior, break down in tears and question why the good Lord gave this child to them, because they don't feel adequate enough to rise to the challenge of raising such a child, who cry because this is not what they planned on, having this kind of child...but they keep going anyway, because nobody..and I mean nobody...will ever love or understand that child as well as them.  These are the parents I am talking to and I am telling them...you have a day where you want to run screaming into the night, you want to pack a bag and escape for a day, you want to give up and just stop because you feel like you just can't go anymore? I'm telling them, I'm telling you...it's okay.  It's not wrong to feel that way.  You're not the only one.  And I want to say I admire you, because I know that after you cry, or let those angry feelings burn through you...I admire you because I know that you will pick yourself up, and go forward, because that's what parents do.

So...how do I deal with all the noise?  Because with Logan, that has become the main thing that is the most trying in our lives.  The constant noise.  Sometimes, if it becomes too much or gets too loud, I send him to bed.  He doesn't stay in bed.  That's not the point. The point is that we took an action in response to a behavior that we viewed as negative.  More often than not, this will calm him down once he realizes, Crap, mom and dad are serious...I better tone it down.  A smidge.  Sometimes, I mimic him.  He hates  it.  If he's making a particular noise or saying a particular phrase...I say it back.  Depending on his mood, he thinks this is funny or it really pisses him off.  Either way, it distracts him from doing it.  And then there's always the old "redirecting" gambit...trying to distract him with something else so he'll forget about what he was doing.  We use that the least.  And then, when all else has failed and he just needs to make noise and we can't do anything about it...I ignore it.  It's hard to do.  Especially when he gets so loud I can't hear what my husband is saying to me when he's standing right in front of me...but I'm getting better at it.  We all have ways that we cope.  And my hair?  It's not completely gray.  Yet.