Autism

You need to take the time to regulate. If you don't then it just ends up in a meltdown at best, and a total shutdown at worst.

And I'm sure everyone would rather you just swerved a social event that deal with that. I know for me, at least, I'm utterly done mentally and emotionally for a couple of days after a shutdown.

I will hopefully assume your wife knows that you're autistic and your needs. Just tell her that you've gone none-stop for two weeks and that you're at critical point for regulation. If you can, might be worth taking sick leave from work.

It's hard. Talk to your wife about getting time off and do the same for her.

It's easy to feel bad about getting "exhausted" from quality time with loved ones, but keep telling yourself not to feel bad. Needs are needs, and neglecting them is irresponsible.

If you let yourself fall for the trap or just "pushing through" all the time, you will burnout and you will contract depression. The type of depression that sucks your life out so bad you may even lose the ability to notice something is wrong.

Make room for yourself where possible. Some things to consider:

• 2-4 hours alone time every evening after kids are in bed for a week. Set a deadline for when you are done coordinating the next day, discussing car maintenance, stop housework, etc. The series you are watching with your wife will have to wait.

• It is not wrong to take a sick day from work when you are genuinely working to prevent breaking down.

• Vacation days if nothing else works.

We all get worked up and stressed from time to time. Life is all about finding that next rest spot to take some time for yourself.

I think the obvious answer is you need a nice 2-day weekend for yourself. Not necessarily alone, but just doing some stuff you want rather than only what you need.

I'm autistic, and one of my 4 kids is also autistic. Their mother died when they were 9, 11, 13, and 15 and I raised them after that by myself. All I can say is that it was hard. What I found to be most useful was writing down rules that we all had to follow and then sticking to it, including the way punishments worked, which basically ran on a sliding scale depending on issues met. There were also specific rewards for doing good things as well. Basically coming up with a plan, including the kids in that plan (they helped determine the rules) and then sticking to it. Those rules included who was responsible for what chores, etc.

It made things much easier, although of course kids will be kids and will always push the boundaries.

It left a lot more room for us to have fun together.

Investing in a nanny or babysitter to relieve you of duty periodically for even an hour or two is the only thing that keeps all of us sane.

I wish there were more resources for parents instead of the assumption that two people can handle the well being of a child

The struggle to get alone/special interest time is really hard as a parent and partner. Eventually my relationship suffered for that and various other reasons, and now I'm divorced. I was married to an NT. Now I'm a single father and it's still difficult, but I try to find me time after my son is asleep, if I'm not too exhausted.

Thanks for the responses and being here everyone. It really means a lot.

When I had kids, autism was still for boys. I think I'm in a minority though because I wanted kids a lot. So I see them as independent extensions of myself. I didn't get the socialization issues with them, and would make a point to bring at least one kid when they got older as my support person. They didn't know this though.

It was actually easier for me to be around other people when they were young because they gave me something to talk about.