Anxiety and Autism

Tips from a teacher...

When Cooper was 3 and 4 and 5, I thought we hit the autism jackpot. While life was challenging because he couldn’t communicate, we were okay. Yes, we had struggles with sleep and lack of safety awareness and communication, but we didn’t have aggression or self-injuring, the darker parts that aren’t shared often. But age 8, everything changed.

Our home no longer felt safe. It was as if Cooper had created a list of unwritten rules that we had to live by, but we didn’t know what they were. And even worse, they changed sometimes by the minute.

We did everything we could not too upset autism. Which, as you can imagine, is incredibly challenging when you have a family, especially young children.

I navigated his world blindly trying to help him, researching, trying new things while keeping everything the same, analyzing everything, all while slowly losing my mind.  

I was taking a much-needed walk with a girlfriend, who also happened to have an autistic son, only he was much older than Cooper. I felt comfortable sharing with her how challenging life had become.