I am always in a hurry. I have been rushing around since the day I was born. I will admit that I have a very busy lifestyle, with 3 kids who are in a bunch of different sports, a busy husband, and 2 jobs. I also have to be honest and say my "time issues" are not exclusively related to all that. I am one of those people that have to be at least 15 minutes early for everything, or I will start freaking out. My heart starts pounding, I start to sweat, and then my stomach will start to hurt. Everyone has their issues, everyone has their quirks, and this is mine. God knew this about me, and thought it would be really funny to send me Katie, the human turtle.
Katie is in no big hurry to do anything or go anywhere. Getting her out of bed in the morning is a chore in itself. She will literally sit in the bathroom for a half hour if I let her. I know alot of people are like this, especially teens, but she is to the extreme. There is no option of letting her get herself ready because it would never happen. Beyond being sleepy in the morning, she is just not motivated to do just about anything. If I tell her to do something, I have to tell her about 5 times before she actually does it. I am not sure how Autism plays into all of this, but I do know she is easily distracted and looses her train of thought. If the TV is on, she will stop whatever she is doing and watch it. If someone is talking, she will have to eavesdrop and find out what is going on. Sometimes I feel like a drill sergeant, barking orders at her.
Walking upstairs, going to bed at night, is like she is walking in slow motion. She puts her hands down straight at her sides like a soldier, and takes one slooowwww step at a time. I can stand behind her and yell, but that doesn't make her go any faster. When we are in a hurry to go somewhere, or it's the end of a long day, I just about go out of my mind with frustration. I don't think I can acurately paint a picture of how riduculously slow she can move. I know she isn't doing it to make me mad, I know in my heart that she wouldn't tourture me on purpose. I also know that 92% of this is MY problem, and I need to just chill out and take a deep breath. That does not make it any easier to handle. These are the times when I really don't like myself as a parent. Knowing that your child cannot help what they are doing but feeling angry and frustrated anyway, that is the hardest part. A parent is supposed to give their child unconditional love, right? It doesn't feel like unconditional love when I am seeing red. I feel like a monster, and looking back on the moment later on, I feel terrible.
So what can I do about this? What can I do to hurry Katie along, or more resonably learn to deal with her slowness? I have no idea what so ever. There are many aspects of Autism that I have faced. Many challenges that we have conquered together. Sometimes, however, our Adventures in Autism create issues that we just can't solve, and to me that is the hardest thing of all.
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