Being a parent of a 15 year old boy has its own set of challenges......

But add those challenges to a mother(me) with AS and a son who doesn't, and you get deep sadness.....or that is how it is for me.

My isolation has never been more poignant as it feels now. My beautiful son terrifies me. Even though his personality remains the same, his body language is different, he is propelled by outbursts of emotion, reason has left the room and I feel like I am standing on very uneven ground......a slight shifting of tectonic plates......the pain of growing up.

He smells like my son, he looks like my son, but he is a stranger and I often find myself looking sideways suspiciously at him through slitted eyes, thinking "Who is this person? I do not understand them......How can I ask him to talk to me in a way that I understand? What is this great divide? HOW on earth do I process this?

I could not look my son in the eye when he was a child and struggle still to this day.......as I do with most people. I often glance at them, but my eyes automatically glance away, feeling just a little exposed and frightened. I can force myself to do it but it is exhausting. I did not hug my son enough, I did not play as I don't know how, I have made fundamental mistakes.......even when pushing myself, seemingly beyond my cognitive endurance, to be a better parent.

I cannot be both friend and teacher, mother and nurturer, carer and freedom giver.........I cannot be polarised depending on the situation, I cannot be one and the other. I am deeply flawed and I am frightened.

I love my son more than life itself, and today, after an argument with him last night that confused me to the core and distressed me beyond measure, I hate this brain that cannot reach out, that cannot accommodate, that runs away at the slightest miscalculation. I hate this brain that refuses to cooperate, that exists on logic and outcomes and process, that is so internal and downright plastic-wrapped.

I am sick to the stomach of watching people dissolve in front of me into states of fury, screaming "This is how I feel! There is no logic, there is no right and wrong, there is no MEANING! It just is! All I want is a bleeding hug!!! Can't you SEE that?"

And I am left in great sadness and trauma wondering what I missed and how did I go so wrong? What have I done? How could I be so cruel? and more importantly, how could I be so cruel and not know it?

I hate this missing part of me.......this disfunction......for today it is a tragedy and I cannot find one iota of positivity for this mind of mine. No matter my hard work, no matter my knowledge. Not one ounce of that makes up for a moment of genuine, intimate connectedness and understanding.......that has always eluded me.

This is a sad day indeed and I absolutely cannot stand myself.

Michah