The Teeter Totter

I hate the damn teeter totter. The teeter totter we live on our lives on when we are on the journey of Autism. It's forever moving, bouncing up and down, sometimes higher then others and other times way lower. Us parents struggling to constantly keep it at a good height, it's beyond physically and mentally exhausting.

This time of year has never been our friend and as of recent years it's gotten worse. Something about the New Year, I used to love. It was one of my favorite holidays to celebrate. The New Year coming always seems so exciting, so promising and so fresh. I dread it now if I'm being honest. It scares me. It reminds me of all the things Alan hasn't done this past year. All of the money we have spent on therapies, doctor appointments, supplements and objects that we thought would appease Alan. It reminds me that we just went through 365 days of worry, 365 days of heaviness, it's hard to navigate. 365 days of riding the damn teeter totter trying to keep it just right so we don't go too low.

This week has been tough in our house if you couldn't tell. Alan always has such a hard time on Christmas Break, and I get it. We don't have the same routine as when school is in session. I am gone a lot more then I usually am because of basketball season. We all were sick for a while so that always throws him off. It's just been a very bumpy ride so far, and I hate that feeling of being here. He has done some great things like come to a lot of my games and navigate those successfully. My husband has taken him to the local indoor pool and he has swam for hours on a couple days and we finally started ABA back up last night. The biggest, most amazing part of Christmas Break is his verbal has started to emerge. We have heard "Mama" on demand about ten times. We have heard "Papa" quite a few times which is SO great to see him process and say it immediately. My heart could burst. But with all forward steps, we always take five backward. With all this verbal progression has come behaviors. Behaviors to himself and to others. Anger. Dysregulation. Ugliness. I hate it here. We did introduce a new mouth spray that is supposed to help with verbalization, which 100%, it has. But now we are in a trade off or riding that teeter totter where on one hand the verbal is coming, on the other so are behaviors. Just going up and down up and down.

So I reached out to one of his team members who is a holistic doctor and the one who gave him the spray. He got back to me right away and said hold off on sprays for 2-3 days and give him an update after. I am really hoping it is the sprays and things get better for us around here behaviorally while keeping the verbal progression but that's in a perfect world and our Autism world is anything but perfect. In my gut I am afraid of it not getting better and being stuck on this teeter totter bottoming out. Just like we did last year at this time. It's a constant balance, worry and struggle. I'm surprised I don't have an ulcer at this point in my life from the stress and worry. We will see where this goes.

New Year, same me, same US. Yes it has been 365 days of worry, 365 days of heaviness, 365 days riding the damn teeter totter, but it has also been 365 days of seeing Alley's sweet eyes, beautiful smile and embracing his ever loving bear hugs. I am SO looking forward to another 365 days of those. Happy New Year all, and I hope your teeter totter stays balanced this year.

With grace-

This Autism Mama