Rude Awakening

When I got into my car this morning, it was as if depression also climbed in and sat on my lap.  It seemed to materialize from the collection of realities that appear every Monday when I must head back to work to two jobs that I feel unfilled by.  My schedule leaves me with only Sundays off, so each Monday morning I am particularly resentful.  I want so badly to stay in the comfort and safety of my house, cuddled up on my couch.

When I arrived at work and headed towards the building, I saw my coworker Gina exiting her car.  Immediately, I could tell that something was wrong.  Gina was always cheery and personable, never seeming to be weighed down by Mondays.  She loved our work and did her job well.  Today she seemed to be hiding behind sunglasses. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I approached.  “Are you alright?” 

“Rough morning----rough weekend,” she huffed.

“Oh no!  What happened?” I gently prodded.

“Aidan…” she trailed off.

Aidan is her 13-year-old son who is on the Autism Spectrum. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if I have to pick him up today,” she went on, anticipating a call from his specialized school. 

She had left work several times in the past because Aidan had to be picked up from school for throwing furniture and breaking windows.  The school only calls parents as a last resort, typically employing special restraints and isolation to de-escalate children who become unstable.  I had found this alarming when Gina had been called in the past.  It seemed unsafe for the school, unable to contain an aggressive child, to send that child off with a solitary parent.

 At 13, Aidan is close to 6 feet tall and weighs 250 pounds.  His size is imposing in itself, without the additional threat of psychosis fueling his rage.  Multiple aides would have to work to restrain him when he “went off the rails.”  How could Gina possibly accomplish what they could not?

I sat with Gina in her office for a while, as she unloaded her bag and her thoughts.  She told me that she had woken to Aidan standing over her bed.

“Sometimes I just want to kill you, Mom,” he said.

This was not the first time Aidan had made such a threat.  It wasn’t even the first time that weekend.

“On Saturday he told me that he was going to kill me and his brother and then himself.”

She looked at her hands as she explained that she had sent Aidan’s brother to his father’s house, just in case.  She said that she had done this because she wanted to be able to focus all her attention on Aidan.  I suspected that, though she did not voice it, her decision was also to protect her other son from the potential horror that Aidan was capable of.

I thought about the times that I had been fearful as I slept alone in my home.  Recently, I had installed a slide lock on my antique bedroom door.  I was afraid a stranger would break in and attack me.  Though this threat was not impossible, it was highly unlikely.  My fear was mainly precipitated by binge-watching Law & Order and listening to countless hours of true crime podcasts. 

As Gina lay sleeping each night, the threat of violence was real.  On any given night she might face a horrifying encounter, not at the hands of a stranger, but her own child. 

I felt my stomach clench with anxiety and briefly imagined coming to work one day and hearing that Gina was dead, murdered by her child.  At that moment it was as if some part of me actually began to prepare for that day.  I wondered how many times Gina had imagined this as well.

“This morning when he made his cereal, he poured the entire carton of milk over the bowl, threw it at me, and said ‘Clean it up, bitch,’” she sighed.

I pictured my children and tried to imagine them treating me that way.  My daughter, just a year younger than Aidan, often still slept beside me.  I struggled to picture her waking me in the night with threats of murder.

These thoughts traveled down my spine in a chill and I felt overwhelmed by pity for Gina and shame in myself.  Gina’s reality made my complaints about life feel bratty and self-indulgent.

That night, I held my daughter close…unafraid and thankful.