Everyone needs a safe person...

When I tell people Alice has autism it's usually met with "oh really - you can't tell" or "wow she's so normal/social/outgoing/happy" you know because children with autism aren't ever happy, normal, social or outgoing (that was sarcasm by the way). Alice, bless her, is actually too social, she says hello to random strangers in the shopping centre, she has no boundaries. Anyway it always gives me a little laugh that so many people don't see autism in Alice - even family who know her so well, who know the troubles she's been through. It gives me a little laugh and makes me feel a bit crazy.

You see no-one sees the Alice that I do. Not even Matt. At school Alice blends in quite well with her typically developing peers, for the most part she does what she is told, she still has the physical symptoms, walking on her tip toes, holding her fingers in a funny way, not really walking but kind of skip walking like energy needs to explode out of her - but those are easily overlooked by people who aren't looking for anything.

I get a different Alice. It's like a flick switches as soon as we get in the car and are alone. She will start telling me what I can and can't say. She will demand I do things in a certain order, she will hit me, scratch me and get violent with me if I don't do these things. From the moment she gets out of school and is with me she needs to be in control.

Last week was particularly bad. They had a relief teacher, which I can only imagine caused her some kind of stress. The thing you need to know about Alice is that she holds everything inside. Very rarely will she breakdown at school if something has happened...no she saves that breakdown for me. So I get her in the car last week after letting her balance on the seats outside the classroom, which she has to do every day otherwise she will lose the plot. She had hurt her sister multiple times already and I could see the stress on her face.

I actually stood outside the car for a minute before getting in looking for some saving grace, like a bottle of wine or a kilo of chocolate that would get me through the afternoon I knew I was in for. Unfortunately nothing came a long and I took a deep breath and reluctantly got in the car.

Cue screaming. And kicking. And hitting. And even reaching forward to pull my seatbelt around my neck. What could I do? I couldn't stop the car, I didn't even know what her problem really was. I just kept driving and prayed that she would calm down. She didn't. The rest of the afternoon was much of the same, screaming, violence.

To this day I still don't really know what the problem was. By the time she calmed down enough to talk she didn't want to talk about her day.

To be honest when she acts like that I want to get down on the floor and have a meltdown alongside her. Most of the time I don't feel angry - just devastated that she is so upset and stressed that she has to scream and hit it out, that nothing I can do will calm her down and she just has to work through the rage.

No one ever sees that side of her. Only me. Her early intervention teacher was the one that told me I was her safe person. She said that Alice only acts that way with me because she knows I love her, that I will never leave her, that she can hit me and kick me and scream at me and I will never leave her and never stop loving her.

I get it. I do. School is hard, she's been pretending and fitting in all day and when she hops in the car she knows its safe to be herself. I'm her safe person. We all have one don't we?

But geez...it really sucks some days.