Let’s talk about a little something called debilitating anxiety.
And let’s sprinkle that generously on top of a 19-year-old with an autism diagnosis, throw in significant intellectual disabilities, ADHD, and an autoimmune disorder for flavour, and you’ve got yourself a gourmet parenting experience that Gordon Ramsay wouldn’t touch with a ten-food spatula.
I’m the proud, exhausted, sarcasm-fueled mother of a boy who is as loveable as he is relentless. He’s 19. He’s autistic. He’s brilliant in his own way. He’s also got anxiety that could power a small country.
Here’s the thing no one really prepares you for when your child is diagnosed with autism:
There are layers.
And bonus features.
And sometimes those include crippling, obsessive, constant, soul-draining anxiety. The kind of anxiety that doesn’t just worry-it perseverates. On everything. All day. Every day.
“When are we leaving?”
“Why haven’t you answered my text?”
“You said 4:00. It’s 4:01. Are we still going?”
“You said chicken fingers. It isn’t chicken fingers. Why isn’t it chicken fingers?!”
And let me be clear: if you don’t respond immediately, and I mean IMMEDIATELY, you’re not just a little late-you have betrayed the very fabric of trust, reality, and the space-time continuum.
You may as well have said, “There is no Santa and time is a lie.”
And because I’m a well-meaning, hopeful human being who clearly had a head injury, I thought: “You know what might help him feel more secure? A cellphone.”
Hahahhahahahhaha
NO.
Wrong.
That tiny rectangle of doom because the Anxiety Batphone, a direct line from his every thought to my nervous system.
If I don’t reply to a text within seconds, it triggers DEFCON-1 level meltdowns.
It’s not a message. It’s a countdown.
From “Where you are?” to “Reply to my txt” to “WHERE ARE YOU?” to “I’M GOING TO LOSE IT” in a matter of seconds.
Honestly, I’ve seen more urgency in emergency room triage.
Navigating this kind of anxiety, especially inside the already complex world of autism, is like playing a game where the rules change every five minutes, but you’re still expected to win or at least not completely unravel.
It’s isolating.
It’s exhausting.
It’s endless.
And before you say, “You need a break”-yes, I do. I need 300 of them. Preferably on a beach. In a place with no WIFI. But the reality is: there are no off-switches. No backup teams. No “pause” button for his brain or mine. This is a full-time, all-consuming job, and the benefits package is mostly emotional whiplash and lukewarm coffee.
But here’s the thing that keeps me going. He tries.
Every single day, my son wakes up and faces a world that often makes no sense to him, that feels too loud, too fast, and too unpredictable.
And somehow, he still tries.
He texts, because that’s his way of reaching out.
He asks the same questions again and again, because his anxiety demands certainty in a world that rarely offers it. He melts down not to ruin the day-but because he’s terrified he can’t control what’s coming next.
And as much as I want to scream into a pillow some days (okay, most days), I love him with the kind of ferocity that only parents of kids like mine can understand.
To the other parents navigating autism + anxiety + the hellscape of iPhone notifications, I see you. You’re not alone. You’re doing more than anyone even realizes. You’re interpreting, buffering, translating, comforting, explaining, defusing-and surviving. Barely, but still.
So here’s to us: the tired, the tapped out, the text responders, the human comfort objects.
We are warriors. We are WI-FI support.
We are everything our kids need-and somehow, some way, we keep showing up.
With love, sarcasm, and 152 unread texts from my son,
Just Another Mom Who Accidentally Gave Anxiety a Data Plan
