When Living With Your Autistic Child Becomes ‘Unsustainable’

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I went with my daughter to see a mental health advisor. Her anxiety is out of control, her sleeping is poor and her eating almost non-existent. It is obvious my daughter is struggling and is on the cusp of being diagnosed with a mental health condition. The more my daughter talks and the more the advisor hears about home life, the more she shakes her head.

“This cannot continue,” she says with a sigh. “This level of anxiety is unsustainable.”

“Until the root cause of the difficulties is addressed,” she says looking right at me, “your daughter is never going to get well.”

“You already seem to know this. Will you help your daughter?”

She is asking me to put one child above another.

My son with severe autism is destroying his sister mentally and keeping them together is now “unsustainable.”

I had a long chat with the social worker. The hours of screaming, the self harming, the level of control that rules the entire house: it is killing my family. The smearing, the lack of sleep, the isolation: it is destroying my marriage. The violence and anger is damaging both physically and mentally to us all.

She gives me a stark choice: either one child will end up in a mental hospital or the other will need residential care.

Continuing as we are is not an option.

Then there are the parents. Both already on antidepressants, both exhausted and drained and barely functioning.

Love is not the question here: living is.

What do you do when caring for your autistic child becomes “unsustainable” for the rest of the family?

What if his unrelenting need for sameness means others are denied change too? What if his lack of sleep is physically exhausting everybody else? What if his meltdowns are so severe they are putting others at risk? What if his care needs mean siblings are denied having friends over and can never be part of the community they live in? What if his rigidity is so severe that nobody can have a haircut or even a new pair of glasses? What sort of effect does that have on a family?

Is love enough when damage is being done daily to everyone, both mentally and physically, by keeping the child with autism at home with his family?

He is my child, my heartbeat, my every breath, my all.

I can’t let go of him, but I am not sure I should keep him either.

This is not bad parenting; this is life with severe autism. 

I am doing my best with insufficient support. So many families are in the same place.

Love is not the question, living is.

Can I actually admit to myself that living with my own autistic son is “unsustainable”?

Anonymous

This article was written anonymously for AutismAwareness.com by a special needs parent.

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