There are days....

There are days.

Sometimes I just want to give up. Sometimes I just want someone else to do this. On days when he won't let me help and it's important that I do- sometimes I want to give up.

Unfortunately Booga doesn't understand that he has to listen to me sometimes. It's hard to be autistic and twenty because he wants to be independent and do things on his own, but he doesn't understand things like: what temperature the breaded shrimp need to be cooked at is it 450 or 540 or is it 54? And he doesn't get it when I make him wait or tell him that he can't play with the controls because if he tries to set the timer when the oven is heating up then it's not going to get warm enough to cook his shrimp. On top of that he doesn't know why the shrimp, chicken, or hamburger cannot be eaten unless it gets to a certain temperature. On television they put something in an oven and get it out in seconds. Why does it take so much longer when we make it?

 

Well, I can do nothing about the facts of life.

That's why they are the facts of life.

And we have to live with them and act on them because they are what they are-facts.

 

What makes it even harder is when he goes off and starts making sounds from movies like the sound of some monster screaming or something. These are sounds he makes because he doesn't know what to do with his frustration. Problem is that they are really annoying. And it makes me frustrated because I can't make him understand that I'm not trying to be mean to him, I am just trying to keep him from getting sick.

 

He doesn't want my help, he doesn't want me in the room watching him put food in the oven-in fact he doesn't want me watching him doing anything. He doesn't want me to watch him load the dishwasher (even though lately I've had to crack on him about getting water on the floor). He doesn't want me to watch him bring the laundry upstairs. Even though I know that it is a nothing job and doesn't require me to watch him. It's like anything else; there are times I am going to be doing something downstairs when he is down there. He doesn't want me to sit at the table while he is drawing. And I don't know why this is….Other than one time I didn't allow him to touch my water colors and I regret that I did that. I wish I could get him to sit with me and paint now. He's only painted with me one time and that was when he painted "The Nativity".

 

I got mad at him today, and I told him that if he didn't stop being loud and screaming that we were going to take the door off his room and his movies away. I also told him I was angry with him. That was probably a mistake because he probably is internalizing it right now and later he'll repeatedly tell me that he's sorry, when all that is required is that he stop doing the thing and say he's sorry -once.

There are days when it is harder than others. Days when you want to bang your head repeatedly against the wall. Days when you wonder what it would be like to have him be ordinary, so that you could get on with your life. Days when the loneliness that comes with being a primary caregiver to someone with such a disability becomes somewhat of an overwhelming thing and you want to crawl off to a quiet corner and write things to that will be sent off to the ether. Things that only you will read while the warm, wet, tears creep down your face.

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~ Est queadam fiere voluptas.There is a certain pleasure in weeping. (Ovid) ~