Walking on bubble wrap or walking on egg shells?

Have you ever worked or lived somewhere were the mood of just one person affects everyone else? The boss is having a bad day so the atmosphere in the office is awful? The baby won’t stop crying and so everyone in the family is stressed?

I am a full-time parent carer and more and more I am realising the effect that one of my children can have on my entire family.

My beautiful son has classic autism and neurofibromatosis type 1. He is on the verge of turning seven-year-old and as yet is not speaking, or toilet trained, is dependent on me for all his care and very much lives in his own world.

Some days looking after him is like walking on bubble wrap. We are all cushioned by the fact he lives very much in his own world. People can call him anything but he doesn’t care. We can spend hours watching lifts or listening to the noise of hand dryers in bathrooms oblivious to the fact the world is passing us by. People neither hear us nor see us as we walk on our bubble wrap and only the tiniest of ‘pops’ make us heard in our community. We are isolated, invisible almost at times, but very secure in our own protected world of routine. Provided all is going according to the world of ”Isaac’ the world can be a happy, settled and loving place. He can be the happiest, flappiest, most content child in the world. There is no ‘mummy can I have’ or peer pressure for the latest trends. There is no social pressure to join in the best football team, or streams of birthday parties to go to. I have no costs for computer games as he can’t play them and he is as happy as a pig in mud surrounded simply by plastic food or a few baby books. Some days walking on bubble wrap is the most beautiful, most peaceful and wonderful place to be.

But other days he wakes up at hours only night shift workers ought to see; bedding, child and room covered in your worst nightmare that you smell before you see. Or you hear that high pitch scream for hours on end. The bubble wrap we once walked on once again replaced by a harder, more dangerous and very precarious road known to many as walking on egg shells.

This is the side of autism people don’t feel comfortable talking about. The days when nothing goes right and my child goes from one meltdown right into another. Like the morning this week he freaked out simply because our car was covered in condensation due to the colder weather. Or the fact his breakfast was not exactly what he wanted or expected. Or the taxi came too early, too late, or reversed into the driveway when he wasn’t watching! The days when everything we touch cracks those shells and impacts on everyone in the entire family. There are days, sometimes many on the trot, when we have to look out for the safety of his twin sister as he would bite, attack, throw things, pinch or push her without any prior warning. There are days when I wonder if my back, or hair, or glasses can cope with much more aggression and attacks from a child fast approaching my own height and weight.

It isn’t easy to say but some days we are afraid for our safety and that of our other child. The older he gets the more egg shell days we seem to have. Reversing the car, stopping at traffic lights, road diversions, coming in the house from a different door, not going to lifts or hand dryers, not having mash potato for every meal, you tube layout changing, Google street maps not looking like he expects it too, no internet, presenters coming on the television instead of the programme….and so on. Endless broken egg shells and meltdowns we can not control.

I have never really been a fan of eggs and I detest walking on egg shells. School see the bubble wrap boy mostly, which is good. And sometimes we get to see that boy too.

It is the start of half term here and tomorrow I have no idea if I will wake to walking on bubble wrap or walking on eggs shells and it won’t be me deciding how my own days goes.

Autism: it affects entire families and the way they walk so much.