Overwhelm: When It Feels Like I’m Being Swept Out to Sea

I have had seasons like this before. I know them all too well. Seasons of uncertainty, loss, survival.

Truth be told, somewhere along the way I had this naïve thought that if I wasn’t alone, if I was married, somehow it gave me a get-out-of-jail pass from ever feeling that kind of aloneness again.

But no.

In fact, sometimes I think I feel it more than when I was actually surviving alone.

Today has resurfaced so much of what I have lived through, what I have endured, and I am observing my body’s response as if the water is sitting right there at the floodgates asking,

Will you let me out? and I need to sit here a while.

Not run from it.

Not fix it.

Not control it.

Just realise I know this feeling, this feeling of uncertainty and the feeling of overwhelm.

And underneath it, perhaps more than anything else, this feeling of grief.

There is so much spoken about through the lens of our children, what they need and what supports they need if they are on the spectrum. What supports they aren’t getting. What they need nutritionally, physically, emotionally, educationally and so much of it, even when well intended, seems to carry this underlying message of fix.

I don’t want that for her.

But I also know there comes a point where intervention and support are required. I know it will look different this time than it did before because I know more now. I see things differently now.

I don’t truly know yet if Raevyn is autistic, I have mentioned in previous blogs, I think sometimes we are far too quick to label without looking at the whole person. What this season has also highlighted for me is the impact of too much screen time, not enough sunlight, not enough outdoors, the way I have allowed her to sit rather than encouraging her to move her body and then there is her anaemia too.

It isn’t always one thing.

When you are pressed on every side with so many complexities within one household, sometimes it is incredibly difficult to see what takes precedence, what needs a little attention, and what may have quietly been overlooked because something else was louder.

So why then has allowing myself to acknowledge that she too may be autistic felt like the cherry on the cake?

I know children are not broken know the strengths, I know each of my children has their own incredible talents and ways of experiencing this world and that they do not need to be fixed.

But I am grieving.

And I think I need to be allowed to say that without it meaning I wish they were different, because I don’t. I think somewhere inside me I thought she was like me. There was us and them not in a bad way, but in the way that we speak different languages in this house and I thought maybe she spoke mine.

And now I am slowly realising perhaps it is only me.

Even writing those words, the wave feels heavy.

I feel it crashing hard against my chest, because no one really talks about the advocacy and being the decoder and the one who is the interpreter between worlds.

Trying to understand one child while helping another understand them. Explaining what someone meant rather than what was literally said. Helping someone see the intention underneath the words. Trying to soften misunderstandings before they become ruptures and knowing your children may not encounter friendships, relationships and the world in the same way you do. I look at my kids and see how much of it has been a challenge for them and there is a part of me that thinks:

Do I really want this complication for her too?

Of course I don’t, what parent would?, that doesn't mean I don't want her. It means I know something of the world she may have to navigate. As parents we want the best for our children, but schools, society and even the different views within the autism world itself can make that incredibly difficult.

We put people into categories and then somehow expect one size to fit all.

It doesn't.

Even within a group of autistic people there can still be the feeling of being completely different and then we have technology. I believe technology is crippling so many of our children in ways we are only beginning to understand. There is less need to sit in discomfort and repair something when we can simply scroll and move on. Less time outdoors because something on a screen is constantly calling our attention.

Shorter attention spans.

Constant stimulation.

Constant connection and yet somehow, at the same time, less real connection.

Raevyn is very different from her siblings and yet, she is alike in so many ways too.

Last night I knew the time had come. I sat her down and read her I Am an Aspie Girl.

She instantly grabbed the book from me and she read it.

Then read it again.

And again.

And again.

“This is me.”

“Mum, I’m autistic.”

But it was more than the words, for the first time in a long time, she didn't look quite so lost and alone and something lit up.

That little book gave her something I couldn't give her in that moment.

Recognition.

Someone else experiences the world like I do.

Someone understands me.

I'm not the only one.

And suddenly I remembered, we had bought that same book for Tuscany at almost exactly the same age and she had the same response. As I write this, I can feel it again in my chest.

Grief.

My kids are perfect as they are, but something inside me knows what living in a society outside the safety of this home may make them feel and believe about themselves. I wish love alone could protect them from that.

It is exhausting being the only non-autistic person in our house.

There. I said it, It takes its toll. Being the interpreter between worlds takes its toll and of late I have really struggled. I am there for them.

But who is there for me?

They love me. Please don't misunderstand that, but their capacity to be there for me in the way I sometimes need isn't always there.

Even with Matt and perhaps this brings me right back to where I started.

That younger version of me who thought being married meant I would never have to feel alone again.

Maybe what I am beginning to understand is that another person was never going to take that feeling away for me.

And maybe just maybe, there is something here I haven't seen yet.

Does God see something in me that I can't possibly see in myself yet?

This morning I woke to Raevyn reading the book again, then came one of those seemingly insignificant moments that somehow explains so much. I knocked on the wall to get Tuscany's attention.

Raevyn immediately reacted.

“Why don't you knock on my wall?”

“Because your wall isn't nearby,” I replied.

“Mum, you have legs. Get up and walk to the wall.”

I tried to explain.

“You come into my bed each morning. That's one of the ways we connect. This is another way Tuscany and I connect.”

But it wasn't enough.

She took it to heart.

Something so simple, interpreted completely differently, and I was left drained from trying to explain something I hadn't even considered would need explaining, meanwhile Tuscany looked on, there was something in her eyes.

She knew this all too well.

And perhaps this is another part we don't talk about enough. As parents, often we don't feel good enough.

We are measuring ourselves internally all the time.

Sometimes against our own patterns and beliefs around worth.

Sometimes because of our own lived experiences.

Sometimes because we desperately want to be that grounded person our children can come back to.

We want to be Mum.

Just Mum.

But when so much of parenting becomes advocacy, decoding, researching, appointments, explaining, regulating, fighting systems and trying to anticipate needs where does Mum go? and how do we receive appreciation in a household where appreciation may not always be communicated in the ways we naturally recognise?

How do we know our sacrifices are noticed, that the battles fought quietly behind the scenes are seen?

That we are seen?

It is different.

And those parenting children on the spectrum will understand the heart behind what I am saying.

I have struggled with some support spaces because I don't want to sit around discussing our children as though they are broken.

They aren't.

I have also watched mothers move so deeply into advocacy that somewhere along the way they stop being Mum and become carer, case manager, support worker, researcher and advocate — not only for their own children but sometimes for everyone else's too.

And there has to be space simply to be Mum.

But I think there also needs to be space for something else. For us to tell the truth.

To say:

I love my child exactly as they are, and sometimes this is incredibly hard.

I don't want to change them, and I am grieving.

I can see their strengths and still be frightened about what the world might ask of them.

I can advocate for acceptance while admitting that sometimes I am exhausted from being the interpreter between worlds.

Those things can exist together, grief does not mean rejection. Overwhelm does not mean we don't love our children enough.

And acknowledging what is difficult doesn't mean we see our children as broken. Maybe sometimes the wave just needs somewhere to go.

Today, mine needed words.

So rather than fix it, suppress it, make it sound prettier or tell myself I should know better because of all the work I do...

I'm sitting here for a while, letting the water reach the floodgates.

Acknowledging that this is hard.

Acknowledging that I feel alone.

Acknowledging that I am grieving something I haven't completely found words for yet.

Trusting that, like the seasons before this one, I don't have to know exactly where the water is taking me to know I can move through it and if you are a mum sitting somewhere quietly carrying this same contradiction — loving your child fiercely while grieving, advocating while exhausted, accepting while still uncertain, I hope you know there is room for your feelings too.

You don't have to make your child broken in order to admit that sometimes being their mum is hard.

Maybe we just need more spaces where both truths are allowed to exist.