There is nothing, NOTHING more frustrating than not knowing what is wrong with your child when he’s not able to communicate it. You can’t fix it if you don’t know what’s wrong. It’s frustrating! It’s annoying! It’s challenging! It’s draining! It’s just, it’s my reality.

Last night Bryce went to bed around 9:30pm. At around 11:30pm my husband and I were woken up by Bryce screaming in terror. Daniel jumped out of bed to check on Bryce. I can’t even describe the scream and if I could I wouldn’t even want to because it just sends chills down my spine thinking about it. We’ve heard this scream before though, usually associated when he’s scared, but it’s not very common at all.

Something was wrong.

Being paranoid and/or overprotective, I got Daniel to check the window to make sure it was locked and to check under the bed. Nothing.

“What’s wrong?” “Are you ok?” “Why did you scream?” “Did something scare you?” “What scared you?”

We kept drilling Bryce and asking over and over and over again. He either kept parroting back what we said or didn’t say anything at all. This went on for 20 minutes.

I felt completely helpless.

I just kept thinking to myself, ‘Just tell me what’s wrong already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

Helplessness soon turned into complete frustration which then turned to unimaginable anger. I freaked out and screamed, “*@$&%ing autism!”

I love someone with autism, but I hate autism! It doesn’t define who my son is, but it can limit what he can be capable of.

I just kept thinking to myself, ‘If he didn’t have autism, we’d be able to know what’s wrong and we could fix it. I could fix it. That’s my job. I’m mom. I fix things. And this, I can’t fix.’

He asked to come sleep in our bed and wiggled his way in-between Daniel and me.

We still don’t know what made Bryce scream and probably never will. We assumed he had a nightmare.

Thanks for reading (and understanding and listening),
Tanaya