How I Keep Calm and Carry On With Autism

After something like a five-year-hiatus from writing here, I’m baccck & changing tact slightly to talk about a new topic that’s important to me.

I thought about making a new account just to talk about autism awareness but decided that you all know that behind my personal brand is ME, a human, who happens to have multiple interests and experiences to talk about!

So, when it comes to talking about our journey with autism now, it’ll just be added into the mix like the other things I write about. Specifically, my medium account is a place I talk about mental health, running a business as a freelance creative, motherhood and now, autism.

To see my life in videos, we can connect on Instagram. *Say hi if you love hanging out there too — this is my handle: @Thatachellesgirl.

So, to catch you up to speed on the last five years in one paragraph -

I got married, and was swept away by the busyness of planning a wedding and extravagant honeymoon — so I began to write less. While away on said honeymoon I fell pregnant. We found out we were expecting twins. At 26 I gave birth (or maybe I’d just turned 27?), seven weeks prematurely. My sweet boys had tongue ties, reflux and were terrible sleepers. There was always someone crying! It took me (quite a few) months to get used to being a mother and I had to pause absolutely everything else for the first nine months in order to survive and find my ‘new normal’.

So, that’s where I’ve been — catapulted into motherhood, aggressively. And now that I’ve learned to tread water instead of drown, I can come back here and blog all about it

Even have a chuckle or two

If I’m honest, I felt like all the hard work I’d done to practice mindfulness and implement self-development strategies during my early twenties went right out the window. I struggled with post-partum depression and had severe anxiety, requiring medication and therapy for several months. Once we sleep trained the twins and we caught up on some much needed sleep, things started to get better. We all became better acquainted and I found my rhythm.

Fast forward to today, our twins (they’re non-identical boys) Heath and Quinn are five years old. Quinn was formally diagnosed with autism last month and while it wasn’t a total surprise, he was graded higher than we initially thought. It took some time to grieve the life we had envisioned for not only us as a family but for him as well.

And then I decided we would all have a beautiful life regardless and that I would make a conscious decision to to see the good in it, adapt and remain optimistic.

Having a diagnosis for him doesnt really change anything — because he’s still the hilarious, creative, loving & quirky little person he always was. But it allows Nathan (husband) and I to have a lot more grace both for his behaviour and ourselves. Because, there have been times where I’ve wondered out loud:

‘Why does this feel so hard? Am I weak? Not cut out to be a mother?

Receiving his diagnosis allowed me to gift myself some empathy, finally; instead of constantly berating myself as a mother. It felt hard all this time because it IS hard, I reflected. And he doesnt do things to be difficult, he needs things a certain way in order to feel okay. And now that we know, we learn strategies to help us all cope better and we move on as gracefully as we can.

As gracefully as we can, considering the world is not set up in favour of our little sparkly-brained-darlings.

The first thing I am learning is that each day I MUST be as calm and emotionally regulated, myself, in order to support him with his foreign and fluctuating emotions. If I’m hungover, I’m not at my best and therefore I can’t give him (& his twin) 100% of me. If I’m wired on too much coffee, I become snappy and irritable and have less tolerance for the deluge of complaints from my tiny people:

“You peeled my banana, I said I wanted to do itttttttt!” *howls

So, I’m learning to prioritise my self-care and implement multiple daily habits to keep myself interally calm, amidst the chaos of parenting not only twins, but a child with autism. I figure that If I can do all of that AND make sure he’s getting the therapy and support he needs, we will all be okay.

So, here’s the absolute BEST things I do, *to try to* keep myself centred. I hope some of these help you too:

CALMING PRACTICES TO INCREASE MY EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE

• Making time to do art — this isnt actually a daily practice but I make time for scrapbooking, mixed media and collage art a few times a week. I really zone out, get lost in the flow and love this ‘pause’ it creates for my brain. Art may not be your ‘thing’ but just think of something else you like to do that puts you in a flow state, so your mind stops thinking.
• EFT Tapping. EFT stands for emotional freedom technique. I especially love Gala Darling’s youtube videos on this but there’s lots to choose from on youtube if it’s new to you. You can tap on ‘money’, ‘abundance’, ‘limiting beliefs’ etc. At first you might feel a little silly — I did — but once you get past that, you might find it really works.
• Guided sleep meditations before bed (& Reiki) or when I’m extremely stressed throughout the day (if the boys aren’t home, obviously). My favourite channels are Reiki Rachel and Dynasty Electrik to name a few.
• Walks, alone, at the beach or in nature
• Talking difficult meltdowns through with Nath (Husband) — afterwards, to see what we can do better and make sure we’re both on the same page
• Keeping my business workload low so I don’t get stressed
• Taking mini time outs (3 to 10 minutes even) to deep breath and calm myself during any difficult episodes. I’ve learned that if I meet him on his level (frustrated, irate) things escalate very quickly, but if I talk to him very calm and gently and remain super patient, I am able to defuse the situation and redirect him without it leading to a complete meltdown. Sometimes this means having to tell him I’m walking out of the room for a moment and coming back when I feel calmer.
• Getting some type of exercise in, three times a week. I like reformer pilates because the concentration required to balance on those little spring board beds, shuts my brain off from worrying momentarily.

At the end of the day, the way we show up for our children each day is literally EVERYTHING to them. So, if by implementing some whacky or seemingly time-consuming self-care rituals into your day helps you show up as the best version of yourself, I say start experimenting.

If you’re reading this and you have any other suggestions, I’d love to hear them

Love, Bec xo