Plan B

Every time I sit down to write I always hope something witty and ingenious will make the journey from my brain to my fingertips. Right now though, the only thoughts that I can seem to formulate are about the paper cut on my finger, my desire to go to zumba class, and my need to escape the blurting autistic teenager in the living room (I say autistic teenager because right now, the autism is overcoming the child. Right now, in this moment, all I can see is the autism, and not the child. In other moments, all I see is the child. It is a constant give and take of identities.). I am constantly looking for escape. Where is my plan B? Sometimes, most times, there is no plan B. I am stuck in the moment and cannot escape it.
Waking up at 2am to a blurting autistic teenager is one of those moments. Some nights, like anyone, the autism barely shows and the autism just manifests from the need to go to the bathroom. He can express his need to go but at 2am it is difficult for even the most typical of people to function cognitively. In that respect he’s just a kid with autism. But other nights, when 2am rolls around the autism takes over. Blurting loudly in two second intervals, running up and down the hallway, jumping up and down, and banging on my door are not things that any normal person does, hence the autism. Sometimes all I have to do is pretend I am still sleeping, other times it becomes a full out battle. Those are the nights where my anxiety gets brought to its weekly, uncomfortable high point. The point in which I can’t find a comfortable position in which to lay, where my fingers grab onto the pillow to prevent lashing out, where taking the deepest of breaths is interrupted by a loud “BAH!” coming from across the hall. It is by far the most delirious, wretched feeling I have ever experienced. It comes with the territory though.
Some things are expected in life. When confronted with the idea of having kids I am conflicted. Currently I enjoy living the single life, mostly because of the independence it brings fourth. Doing what I want, when I want, with no one to answer to. Getting married and having kids means I am no longer my own person. I answer to the call of my children and husband. I am too young for that. Yet here I am, twenty years old, and caring for a kid with autism. Devoting my early mornings to waking up with him and getting him back to bed. Sacrificing my Saturdays to watch and take care of him. Allowing my evenings to be filled with numerous glances at the clock, hoping for his bedtime to roll around. Wait, last time I checked I was not thirty, married, with pregnancy stretch marks. Why do I do it? Why do I stay?
I honestly do not know the answers to those questions. I have countless reasons to leave, but I feel committed to being here… like I signed this contract, though no such thing exists. Maybe I just like to make life hard. There are people in existence who do that, make their life harder than it needs to be. Perhaps I have crossed the line into their territory. There is the thought that I could just be a good person, but do good people harness anger within their souls toward a poor autistic kid? How could you not? Even his mom snaps at him with anger. In a perfect world we can handle his negative, annoying behavior with little emotion, but guess what, in a perfect world there would be no autism. So we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people and all we can ever do is the best we can. Perfection is not part of the job requirement.
So those questions will remain unanswered along with any lingering doubts about the loch ness monster and Santa Claus. I can say that living with autism makes the crummy things crummier and the good things better. Take my paper cut. It is just a paper cut, and a paper cut, though annoying, is small. But a paper that coexists with an autistic child is enormous. Now there are two negative forces in life. Plus add the fact that the laundry is still wet and I have no clean clothes. Then there is remnant, unfinished homework that needs to be done, the bank account that is overdrawn, and the empty bottle of shampoo in the shower needs to be replaced. Any of these, or the combination of these (with the exception of the autism) are completely bearable. But combine these things with the mounting anxiety that comes with living with autism, the frustration, the annoyance, the sheer volume of autism itself… life becomes unbearable, to the maximum extent. So what is there to do? I put on my wet clothes (after trying to dry them with a hair drier) and go to zumba. Or yoga. Or spin. Or just to the gym in general. I find a place where I can escape to, literally escape. The second I walk out the door and get into my car its like finally finding a place to hide from the people, thoughts, and circumstances that are chasing you. Like an animal being hunted in the forest, it does not know why it is being hunted, chased after with guns. It just knows it needs to hide. Finally it finds a place under some brush and listens as the footsteps of hunters grows distant. That’s what its like when I leave the house. I can breathe in a big sigh of relief. I can breathe period!I have my hiding place. It may only be for an hour or two until I must return to the battle field, but its what I have, its my plan B.