Why is autism so hard?

Being a blogger, I like to check my "stats" now and then.  See where in the world this blog is being read. (It tends to travel to farther and more exotic destinations than I do.) It also lets me see the search terms and phrases that somehow lead folks to finding me.  I don't think there's a week that goes by without someone looking for a french fry recipe stumbling upon this blog.  Boy, they must be really confused when they discover I'm not The Food Network.

But then this happened.

The question jumped off my screen.  I wasn't expecting to see it but at the same time I was not surprised by the statement.  Five words asking a question so simple and yet it has the power to give you an emotional gut punch.  Depending on who you are and what kind of day you are having, where that hit lands is different.

I wanted to write about this. I wanted to talk to this person about autism.  I wanted to pour them the drink of their choice, offer them a snack and give them a good old fashioned pep talk.  But then the Kiddo came home and we had to run to speech therapy.  Autism is sure hard on ya to keep a schedule.  It doesn't want to hear about your muse telling you to write some fluffy bunny inspirational bullshite that will make folks embrace and accept the #TeamQuirky lifestyle.  So off we went.  I promised myself I'd write something after the Kiddo went to bed.

Then life happened or more to the fact, autism life happened.  Despite a pretty decent day at school and a pretty kicking session with the magic speech therapist who graduated from Hogwarts, something shifted with the Kiddo right around dinner time.  All the sudden our night became very loud, very upsetting and very, very, hard.

And it was in the middle of this screamfest meltdown as I was desperately trying to keep my own shit together that I thought about the mystery stranger's question "Why is autism so hard?"  Good question, my unknown friend and reader. Why is it so fecking hard?  Why is it that my son cannot even tell me what was upsetting him? We suspect it was a YouTube clip that was setting him off. Even still if it did, why is it that he simply couldn't just close the clip and STOP watching it?  He had to keep watching it even though it was causing him to scream so loud I'm surprised the cops weren't called.  (Our neighbors are really understanding but I suspect one day they will have their "Enough" moment.  I should go bring them some cookies and possibly a few sets of noise cancelling headphones.)

And it's just hard on EVERYTHING.  Our house, our sanity, our marriage, our pets, our relationships with others and most importantly on my Kiddo.  Why does it have to be so hard on him? That's the part that really gets me.  I almost want to Google search the question "Why is autism so hard?" just to see what anyone else says to just make some sense of it.  Hey stranger, if you found something else online that answered that let me know!

This Kiddo gets dealt autism and a set of parents that don't have it.  Think about how freaking hard that has to be on him.  An 11 year old kid shouldn't have so much anxiety and frustration over something as simple as a YouTube clip that bugged him.

I guess the only comfort I can take in this is realizing that at least he and I are going through this hard stuff together.  That's something.

To that stranger that asked "Why is autism so hard?" and to any of you that ever thought it, I don't know.  I don't have an answer.  Just know I'm right there next to you wondering the same thing.  At least we all have each other.

Just hold on Kiddo. We'll figure it out.