I'm not having the best day. My anxiety is through the roof and I'm internally freaking out. I don't really have a specific reason why but it's making me more easily frustrated and/or overwhelmed.
Unfortunately, that weakness is making some things harder for me to cope with right now, especially in regards to Gavin's behaviors.
He's asking the same question, over and over. This is just one example of this.
Since I told him on Friday that his infusion meds were on backorder, he keeps asking me where they are. Every time I tell him that they are on backorder, he's says *oh, okay.*
Ten minutes later, he's asks me the same question again. It's insanely frustrating but I honestly don't think he remember ever asking the question before. I may have heard the question a dozen times today but everytime he asks it, he thinks he's asking me for the first time.
I get to the point where I want to put a sticky note on my forehead that simply says, *it's on backorder. *
I try very hard not to allow this frustration to turn into anger because it's not his fault but that's easier said than done. I feel insane amounts of guilt.
For every behavior that Gavin has little or no control over, there's a dozen more that seem to be choices. It's really difficult to react to everything in a vacuum. In other words, it's hard to be patient with the repeated questions when I've spent the last hour brokering a peace treaty between three Autistic kids because Gavin insists on trying to parent them, causing World War III.
It's tough to not to be frustrated with his repeated questions when he keeps saying things to Elliott that he knows are going to set him off. Elliott is a very difficult bomb to defuse and it rarely ends well for anyone.
It's not like I can erase all the build-up of frustration throughout the day, so when he asks me the same goddamn questions, over and over again, I can just deal with it. Life doesn't work that way. All of these things have a cumulative effect.
The fricking guilt I feel when I get frustrated with him is unbelievable.
Anyway, this is especially true when I'm not in a good place to begin with. Depression has been a life long companion but not my friend. I know there's always a chance that depression will stop by for an unplanned visit, and I have no way of knowing how long it will take to kick her to the curb. I'm not sure why I say *her *but I've always thought of depression as a *her.*
I don't know. I'm just not in a good place and these things are really getting under my skin.
Autism parenting is not an easy job and sometimes I wonder if I'm harder on myself than life ever could be?
