Reflections on the year
I know it’s a bit early for the traditional ‘looking back over the year’ post, but I’m in a reflective sort of mood this evening, after randomly deciding to re-read this post which I wrote just after Christmas last year.
Something strange and unprecedented happened this week in our therapy session; the therapist asked us to consider whether we could stop sessions for the moment, because we seem to be - touch wood - doing alright. Unfortunately Tickle hasn’t managed therapy for some weeks now, and it seems that he really isn’t ready for it at the moment, but as his behaviour at home is more or less OK our therapist seems to think that we should just get on with life for a bit, and then maybe come back later when he’s ready. It’s a strange idea, having fought SO hard to get in to therapy, and particularly because we both know that without it our family would have broken apart in a rather spectacular fashion... could we let go of this security blanket?
And do you know, I think we probably can. Life is still messy and difficult, but we’ve got in to a groove and we’re managing OK. Not brilliant, but definitely OK. Tickle still has meltdowns, but not on the same scale as this time last year, and he is now much more able to say that he wants a squeeze or a cuddle, and sometimes even to take some deep breaths himself to calm down. It’s not like life is easy; Fairy is not coping with school at all so we’re about to withdraw her and look in to home education options, Husband is still signed off work, and I’ve been going through the diagnostic process for autism myself, which has been challenging in more ways than one - but we’re OK. I feel like we’re fairly precariously balanced, and it wouldn’t take an awful lot to throw us off course again, but we are actually balanced, for the first time in a very long time.
It still feels like we are dealing with a lot, compared to other families we know. When I talk to other people they are often amazed at the level of what we are dealing with in our family life at the moment - but for us this is a breeze compared to what came before! That’s not to say things are never difficult, because they are, but we are coping.
The downside of all this is that it makes for quite boring blog posts, but after everything we’ve been through I think I’ll take that!!
Something strange and unprecedented happened this week in our therapy session; the therapist asked us to consider whether we could stop sessions for the moment, because we seem to be - touch wood - doing alright. Unfortunately Tickle hasn’t managed therapy for some weeks now, and it seems that he really isn’t ready for it at the moment, but as his behaviour at home is more or less OK our therapist seems to think that we should just get on with life for a bit, and then maybe come back later when he’s ready. It’s a strange idea, having fought SO hard to get in to therapy, and particularly because we both know that without it our family would have broken apart in a rather spectacular fashion... could we let go of this security blanket?
And do you know, I think we probably can. Life is still messy and difficult, but we’ve got in to a groove and we’re managing OK. Not brilliant, but definitely OK. Tickle still has meltdowns, but not on the same scale as this time last year, and he is now much more able to say that he wants a squeeze or a cuddle, and sometimes even to take some deep breaths himself to calm down. It’s not like life is easy; Fairy is not coping with school at all so we’re about to withdraw her and look in to home education options, Husband is still signed off work, and I’ve been going through the diagnostic process for autism myself, which has been challenging in more ways than one - but we’re OK. I feel like we’re fairly precariously balanced, and it wouldn’t take an awful lot to throw us off course again, but we are actually balanced, for the first time in a very long time.
It still feels like we are dealing with a lot, compared to other families we know. When I talk to other people they are often amazed at the level of what we are dealing with in our family life at the moment - but for us this is a breeze compared to what came before! That’s not to say things are never difficult, because they are, but we are coping.
The downside of all this is that it makes for quite boring blog posts, but after everything we’ve been through I think I’ll take that!!
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