Digging Out

It snowed here last night. Not the kind of snow that is beautiful and fluffy, but the kind of snow that is icy and dangerous. A good metaphor for what we've been dealing with these past few days.

There are so many beautiful parts to K. Some things that probably wouldn't exist if she wasn't autistic, and that I am loathe to wish away. I have never said that autism comes without it's challenges, or that there weren't times I screamed at the universe to just take it away. But, as K's grown older, and I've grown as her mother, I've learned love and acceptance are the only true paths to happiness, for K and myself.

But there is one thing I just cannot accept, and that is the anxiety.  Whether it's part of the autism, or something unto itself, if I could "cure" anything that's what I'd choose. Anxiety seems to be the one thing that I cannot accommodate. No matter what I do, the ways in which I try to make sure K is comfortable in her world, it is relentless.

It makes my child scared to decorate the Christmas tree, because what if an ornament breaks (even though we say it's not a big deal if one does.) It makes my child not want to leave the house, because what if something bad happens? It makes my child cry for hours on end, most of the time unable to tell me what is making her feel so awful. She just doesn't know.

"I don't know, mommy" are the words I hear most often. There is her feverishly rubbing her belly, up and down, crying that she doesn't know what is wrong. Why she is nervous. What I can do to help. Anxiety isn't a "behavior". It isn't something that seems to have a cause and effect.

For the past several days, things have been getting worse. To the point that we cannot leave the house. Even thinking about taking a shower, the first step to going anywhere, leaves her frozen. Sobbing. My verbal child has began scripting a lot of what she says, unable to find words for what is happening to her. Unable to put together sentences of her own, because she is under such attack. There are no moments of rest for my girl. No hours in the day when she isn't ravaged by something so unforgiving. Watching her slide down this rabbit hole, and feeling helpless to stop it, is not something I'd wish on anyone.

Mostly, I don't wish it on K.

We've tried so many medications. Some work for a while, some not at all. We have a doctor who is unwilling to try two meds at a time, so we are now on a quest for someone who will. She's been weaned off her meds to get a baseline, and now we are under the wire to find something new that works, and someone new who will work with us.

When we saw K's anxiety being made worse by school, we fought to change her placement. When I've seen her anxiety made worse by a certain therapy, we've stopped it. But right now, I have no clue what is making it so terrible. A storm has come, and we are trying our hardest to dig out. I want to see more of my beautiful K, and less of the dark cloud that has taken over.