It's Not Always Pretty

I always try to keep my posts upbeat. I don't like to talk about the difficult things, like the meltdowns, the screaming, and the crying. They're hard to deal with, hard to write about and hard to read. But I guess  I wouldn't be a good teacher if I didn't educate about the bad as well the good.

This evening served as a painful reminder of the realities of autism. We decided to take the kiddos out for ice cream as a treat. Everyone went to the bathroom before we left, then we buckled into the car and were on our way. We had to circle around a couple of times for a parking space, but we finally found one and made our way over to the ice cream shop. No sooner did we enter, then Jordan announced that she really had to go to the bathroom and it couldn't wait. So it was off to the public restroom.

And into disaster.

She went to the bathroom no problem. But when she was done, she absolutely,positively refused to clean herself. I tried to get her to go back in, but she clamped her hands on the sides of the stall, threw the brakes on and started shrieking like I was sending her to her death. She threw her entire 70 lbs into me and knock me into the wall. Fed up, I told her that when we got home, she was going straight to bed with no turn on the Wii. Usually that will cue her to stop, because she doesn't want to lose her turn playing Mario. Needless to say that wasn't the case tonight.  Still weepy, we walked back to the ice cream parlor, where she continued to carry on until we sat down outside. That's when she started shrieking all over again. We sat for all of 2 minutes before we had to get up and leave because the meltdown was in full swing. She screamed, yelled, cried, and kicked the entire ride home, with Daddy Ceda trying desperately to keep Johnny from antagonizing her and me white knuckling it on the steering wheel. She was sent straight to bed, where she screamed for another 20 minutes before finally giving up. It was an absolutely excruciating two hours.

It's in these instances that I really hate autism. I hate that it sends my kiddos spiraling out of control because they don't understand how to control their emotions. I hate that it causes them to get overwhelmed by the simplest situations. And sometimes, I hate that I have to think twice about where we plan to take them because the surroundings might be too much for them to handle.

I don't want to change my kiddos. I love them just the way they are. But I am also human, and it is okay for me to have dark moments where I really just want to kick a puppy because the whole situation pisses me off and there's nothing I can do about it.

Today's Lesson: It's not always pretty, and it's not always going to be easy. But remember: you're still human, and it's perfectly normal to get angry when things are beyond your control.

Peace and Love

Mrs Ceda.