Bring Her On and Let Her Scream

A close friend asked me this morning "So how much of the day do your twins scream?" and I was surprised by the question. I guess it's a great question though, and it wasn't meant meanly or rudely at all. The question was actually based in a concern for how we as parents handle it, how's the family handling this disability?

I guess that's when it struck me how lately I've been venting my frustrations in this space, my emotions driven by tears and anger and often just me looking for a way to cope. Just like HoneyBooBoo, it makes better entertainment when shit is off the rails but let's face it, even THAT family couldn't eat those huge bags of potato chips as individual servings EVERY day.

Sometimes it's not screaming and carrying on. Sometimes it's holding a baby doll and surfing YouTube for videos of people making food out of Play-Doh (that's a thing) or watching hotel commercials. A major difference is that I don't know when this peace and calm will erupt into hellfire and damnation. His love of doing what you see above can literally run hours. Those are good hours. SO VERY GOOD.

It's when the eruptions occur that I am driven into writing some days when my other options are nil. 12 year old boys are big, their tantrums are bigger.

But that's not who they are completely. They're also little boys, somewhere between 2 and 12 in great big bodies that don't match what's going on inside of their heads.

They love and snuggle. They're very affectionate. They laugh, they howl with laughter when something is funny. They love Snoopy and Elmo and lots of shows.

They're people. They're just people with brains that don't work right and because of it sometimes their world is wrong, and they don't know how to tell you what they need.

Sometimes, just sometimes, they are assholes.

They're selfish because they don't understand boundaries and social norms. That might not "technically" make them assholes but I can promise you their receptive language skills are strong, and they know when I say no and they start screaming that they are trying to FORCE the issue with bad behavior. They are like a two year old pushing your boundary.

Two year olds can be total assholes. So I stand by my previous statement.

Right now behind me is Miles (pictured above) humming Jingle Bells in a frantic hum that is too fast, as though the bells themselves were being chased by something scary. Charlie is twirling a string, his chi as we call it, and seeking his inner peace.

It's been like that most of today except a bit earlier when I asked Miles to please stop playing the Barney theme song slowed down to sound like some demonic dirge.

It's not always hell. It's really not.

But as an autism parent you can't ever stand down. I can't have a beer right now because they would literally stand behind me and scream until they got a drink of it, which they wouldn't, then that would make MORE screaming. OR I would have a drink, feel nice and  relaxed and chill and they'd crap all over the house - thus killing all my calm joy and in my opinion wasting a lovely drink.

Maybe they would just start screaming for reasons undefined. That happens. Something happened. You never know what. And then there is running and screaming. It's not a toddler it's a 12 year old boy running and screaming and flailing LIKE a toddler. But he's not, he's 12.

I guess my point is this - we can go whole days without screaming. No they don't scream all the time. They can say words and frequently do. "Poop" is one of the tops lately. Charming right?

I think the one who needs to scream most days is me. It's not a luxury that's well regarded sadly.