Pre-Dawn Panic

I'm so worried about Grace this week. She goes through these times when she appears less 'with it', less engaged, doesn't want to participate in anything or leave the house or see the few 'friends' she has. She will wake up looking sad and withdrawn and stay that way for days on end. I used to think it was hormonal, but after keeping track of that, it doesn't seem to be. Then I thought it might be linked to when we forget her 'brain oil' (Omegas) but it isn't.

We can ask, 'What's wrong, Grace?' and she just shrugs her shoulders, looking blank. I'm not even sure anything IS wrong. It's just as though an internal switch hasn't been turned on. She appears, to all intents and purposes, depressed, but she doesn't cry or refuse food. I don't think that's it. She just isn't... there.

Yet, a few days previously, she could have been happy and bubbly and chatty (as much as Grace can be chatty) and coping really well with social interaction with others.

It's possibly adolescence, but I really think, that physically, she's over that. That all happened several years ago. These lengthy 'absences' have been going on all her life.

I MADE her go out with Jack and two of their friends yesterday, swimming, which she loves, thinking it might break the mood, if that's what it was. But when I picked them up she was still looking...switched off. And she had left her handbag (containing her purse and phone) in a public place the whole time she was swimming, because she couldn't quite figure out how to use the locker and couldn't find the courage to ask her friend. That's pretty typical Grace behaviour. I shouldn't be surprised, but I told her off about that when she got home and she looked even more crushed and disappeared upstairs to draw (self-soothing 'abnormal intensity' behaviour.) I don't know how to teach her these common sense things without making her feel incompetent.

This autism thing is so hard.

This morning, I woke at about 4.00. It was still dark. My nose was blocked and my mouth dry and even though I've taken to sleeping sitting up, propped up with cushions these days, I couldn't get my airways cleared, so I remained awake, praying, pleading with the Lord, asking for an easier path for my daughter to follow. 'Don't you care about her Lord? Can't you see how hard her life is going to be?' I tried to remember the promises of the Bible. I tried to picture Jesus sitting by her bed, holding her hand. I tried to think about an angel standing, arms outstretched, protecting her.

But I couldn't. All I kept thinking was, 'What will happen to Grace after her Dad and I are gone?'

Obviously, I wasn't going to be able to sleep, so I got up and walked around in the pre-Dawn light. I wish I could say that I'm feeling better now that dawn is here and I've read my Bible and prayed. But I'm not. Because she still has Autism.