25 May 2017

Forgive Me If I Do A Little Air-Punch When My Daughter's Behaviour Has Challenged You


If you have a child with Autism, and they are experts in masking their anxieties and are able to suppress their difficulties until a time they feel secure enough to release them, then only us as parents, or main caregivers get to truly experience the difficulties and anxieties that our little people are struggling with day in and day out.




Sometimes these kids can go their whole childhood undiagnosed because they have fooled everyone into believing that they are just like everyone else. These children often go on to having a really hard time when they make it into their teens, and by then they have missed out on the early intervention that they desperately needed. Many of these children are only “Caught Out” because they have suppressed to such an extent that other illnesses or disorders arise, such as Tourette’s, or eating disorders, depression and even suicidal thoughts.

So forgive me when I do a little air-punch when Lola’s brought back from her nans, and nanny looks exhausted, or I pick her up from her aunts house and she exclaims “I don’t know how you do it”

When Lola is her natural self, uninhibited, wildly carefree, and over excited or she’s anxious and hyperactive, controlling and difficult to manage it can leave you feeling utterly exhausted. These are Lola’s natural behaviours, these behaviours are her normal, her typical and when someone describes her as being ‘good as gold’ I inwardly groan.

When she is ‘good as gold’ she is NOT herself. That is not natural, this is Lola masking, copying, and mimicking others so that she can make it through. 

She’s like a beautiful little swan gliding gracefully through the beautiful sparkling waters, but underneath she’s using all her energy, all her grit and determination to paddle those little feet so that she fools you into thinking she’s mastered this skill to perfection.

By masking, Lola is suppressing and squashing down her troubles and that leaves only one result. An explosion. Double and triple the amount of her natural behaviors explode all at once - when she’s home, or when I pick her pick – resulting in the most violent and emotional meltdowns that we see. An example of this explosion is described in great detail in my Coke Bottle Analogy

So forgive me when I ask you how she’s been - and I can see the exhaustion in your face – but I look relived that she’s been challenging. I sometimes even let slip a whispered “phew” or outright say “thank god”

It isn’t because I condone bad behavior from children, or I think it is funny. It’s because I am so pleased that she has been able to be herself, she hasn’t suppressed those anxieties to release at a time that she feels safe, and it hasn’t resulted in our family feeling the full brunt of an almighty, violent and very emotional meltdown for hours and hours on end right after we have just had a tiny amount of respite that we have been waiting months for.

It is because I am thankful that she also sees you as her ‘safe place’ and that she trusts you enough to be able to mange her anxieties. She trusts that you will help and guide her and you have been given the privilege of knowing who she really and truly is.

So forgive me for doing that little air-punch because it also means that you are one extra person able to give me a break! 

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