Another day, another family meltdown

WE HAVE a trait in our family whereby when someone is feeling bad about themselves they direct it outwards. I picture it as a light-saber, a slicing ray of criticism and anger used as a deadly weapon. It’s a simple redistribution of the pain from inside to outside and it can hit just about anybody else in the room; or in the case of teaching a teenager to drive, anyone else in the car.

To be fair, the right-hand turn from Colborne Road to Havilland Road is a toughie for a learner driver. It’s on a hill, it’s on a bend and it’s where I sat, diagonally across both lanes for four or five stalls as my increasingly frustrated Asperger’s daughter tried to find the right balance between clutch and accelerator.

As the traffic built up both in front and behind, so did her anxiety. Despite putting on my best ‘stay cool, it’s OK’ voice and sending soothing words of encouragement (‘you can do this, don’t worry, everybody understands’) the situation heated up pretty quickly. And as we finally made it across the junction it all came pouring out. All of it. A cigarette in the petrol tank would have been less explosive.

After what seemed like an eternity of shouting and swearing (her, not me) I made her pull over and I told her to get out so I could take over. But at that exact moment I also decided a new tactic was in order and before she could get back in the car I drove off (we were only half a mile from home).

‘Yep,’ I thought to myself as I watched her in the rear-view mirror, ‘this will give you a few minutes’ walk home to cool off and think about how you speak to your co-driver.’

I had made it clear that I needed to be treated with a bit more respect and a bit less aggression. Ten minutes later she walks in the door and says, ‘well, THAT’S something we can talk about in family therapy.’

Click. Whirr. The board of shame resets to zero.

The board of shame is one of those signs that says ‘zero days since last incident’. Except instead of reporting industrial accidents in a cock-up-prone workplace, it exists solely in my head and keeps track of the time since our last big family meltdown. I’m not sure if we have more meltdowns than other families (sometimes it sure feels that way) or if I’m just more rubbish at putting on a smiley face and pretending we live in constant familial harmony, but each time it resets to zero it’s hard not to feel like a colossal idiot. I go back over all the things I should have said and done and regret all the things I maybe shouldn’t have said and done… like drowning the laptop in the bath (but that’s a story for another day).

After the regret come the twin emotional hot pokers of guilt and shame. Neither being conducive to the effective parenting of a child with autism, or as is now the case, an adult with autism.

This stuff is hard. It’s hard for my daughter because she sometimes struggles to make sense of a world that can feel alien to her. It’s hard for me because I am exhausted from fighting for her and fighting with her. And she is so good at the fighting. She’s a debating champion and the smartest person in just about any room. Her knowledge is astounding (I call her my Georgiepedia) and I am so proud of her ability just to get through each day on this crazy planet. But for the most part I’ve been doing this parenting thing by myself (while fighting my own demons – another story for another day) and oh my god, it has been so bloody hard.

This is not a fluffy story of a gin-swilling unmumsy mum. This is hard-core, full-scale, Defcon 1, nuclear meltdown, laptop-in-the-bath type stuff. This is the coal-face of single parenting a special needs child. These are the tales from our family therapy, both in and out of the therapist’s office. Some of them are not pretty; who am I kidding, none of them are pretty, but I tell them with the full blessings of those involved and with good faith that they will inform and entertain. For among the tears there is much laughter and among the darkness there is light and growth and understanding and hope. And with any luck, no more laptops have to die.

Leaving my daughter by the side of the road is probably not even in my top 10 of parenting fails, and I suppose I risk being painted as a crap mum in telling these truths. But a writer needs to write their own truth. It’s what happened to Anne of Green Gables and Jo in Little Women and John-Boy in the Waltons (yes, I know they are all fictional). What I write here is what I know; what it has taken me years of struggle and an ocean of tears to understand. That waving around that lightsaber of pain is not the answer. That instead it’s OK to say, ‘I’m hurting here and this is how I’ve learned to deal with my inner critic’.

Understanding why it happens is the start to unlearning this learned behaviour. My goal is that both my children recognise and address this character trait sooner than I did.