Burn Out

I'm here to tell you that burn out is real.  It can be cruel and debilitating and very, very real.  It strips special needs parents down to tears and sleepless nights.  It stops you dead in your tracks.  Any momentum you had previously gained is now gone.  It's paralyzing.

I realized the other day that burn out had set in when I could hear the screams despite having my ear buds in while working from home.  My ear buds were almost to the loudest setting, yet I could still hear my boy screaming (from another floor and opposite end of the house) during a meltdown. Taking my ear buds out, I went to see if my husband and our summer helper needed a hand.  The screaming has been intense lately.  Daily, in fact.  My ears and my sanity can't take any more.  On top of the screaming is the every day hustle and bustle noises of a house with 3 growing boys.  To say the least, our house is loud... all the time.  But the screaming on top of it all is the cherry on top.

Burn out takes the most rock solid special needs parent and reduces them into one big ball of stress.  A ball of stress who cannot make the simplest decisions, lacks ambition, gets easily overwhelmed and can't even fathom doing an activity they love.  Everything seems like an uphill battle.

But this isn't something new.  We've been here before.  Many times actually. We are in survival mode right now, a familiar place to us.  We spent many years in survival mode after our twins were born after all.  And then a few more years after an autism diagnosis.  A lot of special needs parents are feeling the same right now with everything that's happening in this world with a pandemic going on.  With a pandemic comes tons of changes and a lot of uncertainty- both of which do not work well with autism.  On top of all that uncertainty and change is our daily "normal"- meltdowns, self injuring, anxiety, behaviors, and therapy schedules. Then there is working exclusively from home, furloughs and upside down schedules. It gets to be a lot.  Yes, we've been here before. We've walked this familiar road.  And I'm sure we'll walk it again.  One step at a time.