Susan Senator

Nat’s anxiety has returned. Or should I say, Nat is anxious these days? With someone who doesn’t have autism, I would say the latter. With Nat I say that his anxiety has returned, which gives away my own anxiety about what I used to call Nat’s “cycles.” I used to think of Nat’s psychological statein terms of the famous seven years of feast, seven years of famine. We would have periods — of 3-6 months usually — where Nat would try new things, answer questions, keep calm (not in the cliched British sense) and go with the flow of our whitewater family. Then, inexplicably, there would be another phase. Nat would stare out the windows at the streetlights and ask repeatedly for them to go off if they were on too late into the morning. Or he would watch Ned’s feet to make sure his shoelaces were tied. Or he would walk quickly about the dining room until Ben finally came in to have his breakfast.  Screaming, repeating questions ad infinitum, trying to get something out of us that probably did not exist. We did not know what caused it and we would try all those things that people tell you to try when your life goes out of control: (supplements, diets, regimens, etc.). I would get articles from well-meaning relatives that would be about scientists’ new optimism about mitigating the symptoms of autism. It would always annoy me. There’s really nothing new under the sun that I’m going to try for Nat. I’m sorry. I tried so much when he was younger. Looking for — what? a cure? a change? How do you measure progress if you don’t have a baseline?

Well, for the first time in years, as I said, Nat’s anxiety is back. Unlike those other years, I know why. Maybe I even knew why then but it was all so scary to me — having a kid who simply could not communicate pain, discomfort, anger, desire. He would jump up and down, screaming, biting his arm, hitting us, clawing us. There was no place to be that felt safe. Put him in his room and pull the door shut and hold fast to the doorknob for — a minute? How long was this supposed to last? How do you gain control. It was so fucking scary. You just watch, cry, or duck.

Nat is anxious because they have not yet moved into their group home — the new house, that is. Yet they had been told months ago that it would be “soon.” But unfortunate event after unfortunate event has prevented this from occurring. Now there has been a problem with the plot plan, the permits not being pulled, and various other P-based pain.  There have been no tantrums, no arm-biting, no screaming. But he is clearly anxious. Wide-eyed, hand wringing nervous.

Poor Nat. Oh my God. I want to comfort him but he will take no comfort. If I look at him empathically he says, “Noooo.”  What he needs is predictability, Goddammit, haven’t we covered this already? How can it be that his service provider has messed this up this badly? Of course, now that the parents have yelled and screamed a lot, there has been progress. They will be moving “soon!” Yay, soon.

Meanwhile Nat is running around like a squirrel asking with his eyes when his nervous living situation is going to smooth out again. And of course he looks at me the most. I am still Mommy The Great and Powerful. That melts my heart and scares the shit out of me. I am still the main one in his universe who really truly has got to keep it together. And we all know how stable I am.

Plus, even if I knew what to say to him, he’d probably still say, “noooo.” So I guess we are going to have to wait until the cycle changes back.