Back-To-School Spiraling

Summer break came to and end today, and with it came final preparations for Hudson and Finn to start a new school year tomorrow. This school year is particularly challenging in that Hudson will be moving up to a new school building in the district, making this the first year that they have been in separate buildings since Finn started school three years ago.

Hudson has been dreading going back to school for days. It started subtly, with his sharing memes about how school was a "prison" and the absolute WORST place to be on Earth. We know that going to a new building has triggered some pretty deep anxiety in him, and we've tried our best to mitigate that through summer school (which occurred in the new building) and by meeting with his team a couple of times during summer break. His teacher has a great history with him, having worked with him directly in the past.

His temper has been pretty short these past few days, a sign that his tension levels were rising. Things came to a boiling point this afternoon, and the downward spiral began.

Today was haircut day for the boys and I. And while Hudson typically doesn't enjoy getting his haircut, he usually doesn't put up much of a fight. The plan was to reward the boys with trips to Spirit Halloween and Target if they allowed me to work through the morning and behaved through their haircuts. Hudson became increasingly agitated enroute to the salon, complaining:

"Haircuts and school days take SOOOOOO long. What a waste of my time!"

Spiraling.

He wore a scowl through his haircut and insisted that I not take his picture. His mood improved somewhat as we made the drive to Spirit Halloween. Or so we thought.

When we got to the mall, Spirit Halloween was nowhere to be found. Maps and websites said that the store was open, and we wandered through all corners of the mall to try and find it. When it became apparent that the websites were wrong, and that there was no Spirit Halloween store in town, Hudson erupted into deafening screams and insults towards me that echoed through the walls of the mall. People stared.

More spiraling.

I took a deep breath and tried to re-focus him towards our next stop in the mall, Target. On the way we passed a soft pretzel stand, and I thought that a savory treat could help calm his nerves. But as we approached the counter, we saw that the shelves were bare. The cashier informed us that they needed "15 minutes or so" to prepare a new batch of pretzels, which sent Hudson further into a tailspin.

The spiraling continues.

Mall walks can feel like miles when you've got one kid in meltdown mode and another hopped up on lollipops from the hair salon. We finally reached the toy aisle of Target, and I decided to let the boys pick out toys of equal value in the hopes of providing Hudson some level of comfort. Right away, Finn found something that he had longed for. Hudson needed more time, and I could tell that narrowing down the options between dinosaurs, cars, and Legos was starting to agitate him more. After several minutes, he begrudingly made his choice and we were on our way home.

As we left the parking lot, Hudson continued to spiral further into sadness and anger. He had not gotten the Spirit Halloween experience that he had wanted. He had not gotten his favorite mall snack that he wanted. And he had to choose a toy that fit within a price range that he was not happy with.

Through the tears and angry outbursts, Hudson said something that I was not prepared to hear.

"WHY EVEN EXIST WHEN YOU HAVE AUTISM??"

I'm still tearing up replaying those words in my head several hours later. We have grown accustomed to Hudson's spiraling leading to rants that can last for several minutes to a few hours. In those rants, he expresses sadness and anger about how animals are treated, about dinosaurs being extinct, and about how his autism makes life harder for him. But this was the first time that he's said something about himself that cut me so deeply... questioning why he should be alive. No 8 year old child should ever have those kinds of thoughts enter their minds.

We have tried so hard to speak positively and openly about what autism is and how it impacts his life; the great gifts that it gives him and the things that are a bit harder for him than peers without autism. And the sad part is, there's absolutely no consoling him when he's spiraling. It just takes time and enough redirections for it to pass.

He is always shown unconditional love through the meltdowns, tantrums, and especially during the times when he crosses a line. We are his biggest champions and cheer him on through his victories.

We know that the first day at school will be challenging for him. The first day of summer school was horrendous. Add to it a new school building and a separation from his brother and all he's known during school, and the challenges increase exponentially.

I wish that we could find the right words to say, or the right things to do, when his world spirals out of control. For now, we have to do our best to hide our tears... to hide our own spiraling... from him.