Autism & Insanity

I knew it was bad when I walked past a letter box and  it spoke to me.

Tbf, it had a big mouth, but it was a persuasive sign that sleep deprivation had got the better of me.  Maybe it had lots of clever things to say.  Who knows?  But at that point I knew my sanity was clinging to the edge of  Alice's rabbit hole by it's fingernails.  It was time to throw in the towel and day-sleep, no matter what the sleep hygienists say.  It was either that, or in an hour I might be sitting naked in the main street of Castleblayney having earnest conversations with a skip.  

No-one wants that.

Let me explain, by taking you back to the previous night.

I'm kinda tired so I go to bed early with my book.  My husband follows soon after.  He perplexes me by immediately lapsing into oblivion.  I wonder if I'm married to a lizard person.  In fairness, though, he's nice and cuddly so I soon get over my sleep envy.  After an hour of dancing my usual insomniac hornpipe around the bed, I doze off. 

I waken with a start sometime after midnight.  Am unsure what I heard, but I heard something.  I decide if I ignore it, it might go away.

It doesn't.

I hear the definite thud of feet hitting the floor.  Finian's feet.  

I have a complicated relationship with my son's feet.  I mean, I love them because they belong to my son.  But I also want to wrap them in (sound-proof) bubble wrap and express courier them far, far away.  Like, neighbouring galaxy far-away.  Finian has the loudest fucking feet in the known universe.  His feet and the floor are like tectonic plates colliding, creating seismic ruptures I can feel in my chest.  His feet intimidate earthquakes.  They wouldn't dare rival Finian's feet by erupting in County Monaghan. 

But as long as he stays in his room, I can cope with that.

Years ago we reached an unsatisfactory compromise about Finian's insomnia, and his need to pace (using said giant feet) around the house in the wee hours.  We spent actual years trying to implement behaviour support plans around sleep hygiene.  My husband and I took turns sitting outside his room as he screamed, smeared and self-harmed, doggedly hoping that one night it would actually work.

It didn't.

Eventually we decided that we quite liked being married, so we gave him back his gadgets with the condition that he stay in his room.  

That was all very well.  For a while.

Then he morphed into a teenager who graciously accepted our boundaries, and proceeded to stretch, melt, angle-grind, atomise and blow-torch them into a shape he found agreeable.  It's reassuring that he's reaching developmental milestones, but if he was a little less Stalinist about it, that'd be great.

So I allow myself to drift back to dreamland.  He can be as Stalinist as he likes in his own bedroom.

I bolt awake.  A face hovers inches from mine.  I stifle a scream.  But it's just Finian's face.

"The sheet is broken"

The sheet is not broken.  

A corner of his sheet needs to be replaced over the corner of the mattress.  I do this. 

"Stay in your room" I remind him.

"Hot chocolate" he says.

"No"

"Can I have hot chocolate please mammy Jean?"

"No"

Excellent use of pronouns combined with shameless begging do not move me at 3am.

I go back to sleep.

I jolt awake.  Was that a creak on the stairs?  Can't be sure.  I employ denial, my favourite defense mechanism.  I am almost back to sleep.  The TV blares on.  I am sceptical that a burglar would pause to watch a bit of Fireman Sam in Hungarian while relieving us of our valuables.  I chase Finian back to bed.  I warn him that I'll take his gadgets off him if he leaves his room.

I go back to bed.  He starts to sing.  I consider starting to sing too.  Instead, I make tea and play candy crush.  To give him his due, he doesn't leave his room.  He knows the consequences.  But this is his teenage version of a dirty protest.  He has mastered the art of passive aggression with honours.  I am almost proud.

As morning draws near I give my husband a loving kick in the middle of his back, so that he gets up with Finian while I go back to sleep (this is our arrangement, although James isn't too keen on the kicking part).

I fall into a dreamless sleep, and later enjoy a breakfast of coffee and pringles.  I regret nothing.  

I suppose the mystery of sanity is that you don't really know when you lose it.  Maybe that'd be a fun place to be.