Anxiety rules our world – it really does. Sometimes it’s our youngest’s anxiety, and sometimes, bear with me here, it’s my anxiety about his anxiety. And sometimes it’s not the anxiety as such, it’s the need for his safe place (home) which means after almost a week of a two-week holiday in a wonderful part of Cornwall, he is homesick, or at least safe-place sick, and the next few days are going to be a bit of a roller coaster. Our eldest isn’t with us, and I worry about him too. He’s had a day trip to Amsterdam (lots of plane stalking yesterday to make sure he got there and got home OK), and now he’s back home, and I still worry! Hence the blog; my anxiety about our youngest’s potential anxiety has now kicked in, and the best thing for me to do right now is write about it.

We are staying in a different holiday cottage, but in the same little hamlet we have stayed in for the last 9 years. He wanted a change even though we were happy with the flat we stayed in before. He helped me choose this (there were others that he preferred, but this looked lovely, and it was in our budget), and it is a lovely cottage. But, he now misses the flat we used to stay in (even though last year he didn’t want to stay there any more). He misses home. He misses his bed. He misses the animals. He misses his safe place. He’s ok, a long way from a meltdown or shut down, but there is still an underlying tension today.

It’s not just today, though. The house has a double room, and a twin room. We arrived on Saturday, and I have been sleeping in the twin room with him, as he doesn’t want to sleep on his own. To be honest, we expected this. Somewhere new, somewhere strange….yep, it’s hard to be on your own. Last night, however, as the home sickness really kicked in, we played musical beds all night. I had to hug him til he fell asleep, a nightmare in the middle of the night meant he needed another hug and then at 6am he had another bad dream and came in to my tiny, uncomfortable bed that’s only just big enough for one.

This is what people looking in fail to understand or comprehend. Anxiety, autistic traits or whatever barrier is driving this current angst is there all the time. It doesn’t ever go away. Not completely. If the CBT works, we have been told it will just allow him to control his anxiety, rather than it controlling him. And it won’t really have much effect on the ASD traits. They will be there forever, but….. I was going to write that he will be able to control them. And then I stopped and paused. Should he have to control them? If he finds smelly crowded restaurants stressful, should he have to find a way to overcome this? If he finds some places overwhelming on a sensory basis, should he have to find a way to be in there anyway, controlling the head ache or whatever physical affect this causes?

Anyway, the purpose of this blog, this ramble, is to say to all you parents who are sharing rooms on holiday, or watching out for possible stressors or triggers, you’re not alone. Our normal may be different to many other people’s normal, but you are not the only one going through this. We live in a crazy world sometimes (all the time??) but the positives, the conversations, the amazing children and young adults who share our lives make all the craziness worthwhile.