The Tug and Pull of Giving Up
I’ve been struck recently by how frustrated I’ve gotten with my son. I’m not entirely sure why. The phrases, questions, and requests I’ve heard from him lately echo in almost the exact wording phrases, questions, and requests I’ve heard from him for years, decades even. So why now? Why is my tolerance meter quivering, not wanting to respond, demanding new questions, not old ones, new requests — please god, a new request — not the same old ones?
What is this in concrete terms? “Can I hit my sister?” “I pulled the threads and tore up the shirt and threw it in the garbage. And now I need a new one.” “What’s for dinner?” “What are we doing next summer?” “What’s for dinner tomorrow?” “Can I use a hammer on the glass table?” “In Florida, I was angry at my sister. I didn’t want to share my chicken nuggets.” “What if I use a bugle to wake up my brother when he’s sleeping?”
It is no exaggeration to say that I’ve heard and answered these questions many thousands of times through the years. In a week, easily hundreds, if you assume 10–20+ asks per day, every day. I have tried to maintain my composure, to answer sometimes, to redirect at other times. But my son will not be easily dissuaded. There is no ignoring his questions. Ever.
The best I can do is to try to get him to ask me a new question. Typically, when he tells me he has a question, I ask if it’s real or ridiculous. Very recently I’ve added, when he asks me a question I’ve heard 10,000 times, like “How far is Australia?” that I want to hear a new question, that I’ve answered that one many times. He’ll tell me that he doesn’t want my brain to explode. And he’ll think on it and come up with a new question, which is great.
But the mental and emotional toll of this never-ending verbal dance between my son and me is starting to fray something. I’m not sure what, exactly. It’s part growing impatience. It’s certainly the fatigue of repeating this dance on a never-ending loop. It’s also sadness, and fear, and even a bit of anger. It’s despair and more fatigue. And more sadness.
I have this visceral sense that this is just going to be my life, until my life is no longer. It’s not that I cannot find joy with my son. He is a deeply loving and lovable human being, and I’ve seen how he brings so much joy to others. All of that is real, and true. But the loop of my life with him is wound around the insanity of replaying the same words, requests, phrases, and inquiries — over and over and over and over and over again.
I cannot discount the impact of the state of the world, both domestic and foreign, on my state of mind and being. Maybe my struggles over my son are harder now because the outside world seems so awful, and I just feel disappointed that our intimate, inside world can’t be the sanity-saving refuge I want and need it to be. I know that sameness and predictability can be salves in a chaotic world, but those qualities can also be the thread of your undoing if they trap you inside a bubble of craziness, leaving you caught between two realms, neither of which offers relief.
They say that the brains of mothers of autistic children mimic those of combat veterans, that we scan showing heightened vigilance. When I first read of this, years ago, I thought it was exaggerated. Then I realized it was spot on. It’s exactly how I live. All the receptors are on. All the time. It’s not a normal way to live. It’s not the calm one craves when the world is all storm. It’s a special kind of abnormal that has you seeming to function like everyone else, if superficial appearance were the measure of normal. But it shreds parts of you bit by bit, with each repeat question, with each increasingly resented reply, knowing that the man-child asking is just trying to connect, while your instinct is to search for some kind of switch that at least lets you hit pause, once in a while.
