I would pay you an amount of money that would make any financial advisor gag if you could babysit max without us both needing to call our therapists afterwards. But you can’t.

It doesn’t matter if you’re my mother, his SLP/OT therapist, a relative, or Ms.Rachel in the flesh herself. He doesn’t want you and you cannot change his mind.

It wasn’t always like this, I think. But, I can’t be sure because I don’t remember a time where thinking of any event that involved mom and dad away from Max, didn’t involve me having heart palpitations.

There was a time where I could drop Max off at relatives and drive away and he would cry for 10 minutes and be fine. Many, many, moons ago there was a time where my relatives watched him overnight. That ship has sailed and set on fire.

One day some little switch in his brain went off and being left with loving grandparents and a roomful of toys became the catalyst for unregulated terror.

One of Max’s grandmas volunteered to try and watch him during the day, so I could leave on a girls trip while John was at work. I had come up with a fool proof plan. I would buy new toys for his Grandma to get out as soon as I left and I would wait around the corner out of sight for 15 minutes to see if he could regulate.

He couldn’t and I came back and put my pajamas back on.

I realize that some of you are reading this and probably unaware of what true dysregulation looks like and might even be ignorant enough to give me the advice of “he will eventually stop crying”.

Dysregulation in a toddler who cannot speak looks like hives from crying, gagging from screaming, biting the door knob and clawing the door, biting their arm and yours and not being able to be wrestled out of the fight-or-flight response.

I worry that people think I caused this by not having him enrolled in pre-k (even though it wasn’t a fit). I worry that people think I am not working on this in therapy (I am). I worry that my decisions have caused his separation anxiety (who could know but I did my best?)

Sometimes I flip the channel from worry to anger and grief. I am angry that Max’s anxiety limits my freedom, my fun, my wanderlust. I end up grieving the life I had before Max where I was backpacking across Eastern Europe and just looking out for myself. I am angry that I can’t call a sitter and go have dinner with my husband. I grieve the times when I was excited for vacation instead of the dread that it may never come back the same.

I can’t let my mind keep going down the “what If things were different” rabbit holes. Instead, I have choose to practice gratitude even when it feels cheesy or like pulling teeth.

I am so blessed to have a child with autism who has the ability to show affection and connection. There are parents who have to find the sustenance for parenting who are not afforded the gifts of affection and connection, like I am. I pray for them and grieve for them.

In the long run, he will learn to trust that I will always come back.