It’s 11:45 AM, and he’s been screaming for 90 minutes. It’s horror. That’s the only way I can describe it. Hands down, the hardest adjustment I have faced as a mother is the visceral panic and pain I feel when my child is in distress.

It reduces me down to instinct, and almost to action, even though I know I can’t. We have rules for a reason, we have a process.

Someone out there has a doctorate in behavioral therapy – plenty of someones – and this is the thing that we do with a kid on the spectrum.

But none of those someones are sitting in my living room, writhing in their skin while my toddler shrieks and trembles and lashes out. They write the manual, but they don’t have to be there in the trenches, impervious to the heartrending cry of their own young.

They don’t have to be stone.

But I have to be stone, and I have to be strong, even though I’m new to all this, even though it goes against every instinct I have and I’m not sure I agree with it and the only thing I want in the world is to hold him so we can fight back the rage and the confusion and the terror together.

Even though I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t work, either.

So I record the sound in the room, just a few seconds, as long as I can bear. And I send it to the therapist, asking Is this normal???

I don’t know if I want her to say yes, this is what I expected, stay strong or no, this is something else, intervene.

She doesn’t say either. She asks if he might have an ear infection.

And now I’m sitting here wondering if my child is screaming in physical pain while I bounce the baby on my lap and cheerily, chillingly ignore his cries.

Just stay the course, she tells me. And the second he calms down, praise him and reinforce the positive behavior.

Yeah, I finally text back. I can do that.

An hour later, he collapses in my arms, shuddering and and gasping. I cry into his hair and wonder what I’ve done, if it was right, if there’s another way, if I can do it again if I have to.

I don’t have the answers.

My brain is a twitching echo chamber of why him and why me and oh god i hate this.

* * * * *
I never knew how much pain it could cost you, to love someone so much. To take responsibility for their wellbeing, for their growth, for their happiness. To make the best decisions you could, and never know if you were right.

I talk to my mom about it sometimes, and my mother-in-law. They both tell me the same thing, again and again and again.

All you can do is love ‘em.

It’s the simplest, most natural thing in the world, but it’s still an act of will. It’s not just feeling love; it’s leading with it, even in the face of frustration, exhaustion, worry, or fear. And it’s knowing when love is all you have to offer – when there are no guarantees, no magic wands, no talisman that will protect them from ugliness and disappointment in the world. 

It’s all you can do, and it’s everything. And with any luck, it will be enough.