Self-Care for Autistic Parents

There must be other autistic adults who put their kids first, and in my case, it’s very clearly to compensate for the support and love I did not have growing up. My family had too many kids and not enough money, so niceties were rare. And as the oldest sibling of a single-parent family, I had to assume too much responsibility at too young an age, robbing me of my childhood and preventing me from exploring my mental health challenges as I grew up.

I know I have already posted commitments to my kids on this very blog, promising to give them the opportunities I didn’t have. What isn’t as clear is the personal sacrifices those promises take. As a child, I promised to take care of my siblings, and as an adult, I’ve now promised to take care of my boys. But who takes care of me?

I have to take care of me.

And that’s what I’ve begun to do. It started with open communication with my kids about my needs and the impact on my mental health when my needs aren’t met. One example of that is getting time to “shut off” and just do what I want to do—and that typically comes when they go to bed, but before I go to bed. This time should be uninterrupted, and the most common interruption seems to often be trips to get water after bedtime.

I have Sunday and Monday off from work, so on Monday when they go back to school, that is my one day of the week to have a few hours to myself. Whether I’m productive or having multiple, back-to-back meltdowns, that time is critically important to my week. I can’t control things like kids getting sick or emergency calls from work on that day, so I need to remember to keep my expectations in check, but there is an immediate and measurable impact on my mental health when that day is interrupted. Luckily, stat holidays on a Monday do not cause an interruption, as having Monday scheduled off means I get Tuesday off instead—so that becomes my solo day.

Growing up, there were times when food was scarce. My understanding of my childhood is that it was a money thing—and luckily that is not a concern for my family now. What is a concern is my ability to go shopping and pick up the groceries. If I’m having a bad time, I don’t have the mental energy to get up and go to the store, even if the kids go with me. Shortly after my diagnosis, this need was one of the things we talked about: that sometimes I was going to struggle with going shopping and I was going to need the boys to help me by coming with me without complaining. I promised to not to take advantage of this accommodation, and ultimately ended up relying on Instacart as a better option. When we do have to go shopping, I try to give them notice. This past weekend, for example, I needed to go the mall and exchange a phone. Going to the mall is about the worst environment there is, and I made sure the kids knew by Thursday what the plan and schedule were—we were going to go at 11 AM on Sunday, I was going to wake them up early so they could play video games before we left, and we would be out for approximately two hours. We would get a treat after the phone store, and they could pick their own treat (within reason). We stuck to the schedule. We didn’t deviate, and I didn’t add any surprise stops along the way. We were home at just two hours, and for the rest of the day they were free to do what they wanted to do.

At home, our front door opens into the kitchen/dining area, so front and centre is our dining table. I have found that coming home to a cluttered, messy dining table sets a negative tone. The rest of the apartment could be spotless, but a messy dining table will send me spiralling. The kids and I built a system wherein they must have that table cleared and cleaned when I get home. The first piece of that is to not use the dining table as a dumping ground for their stuff. We had to make sure we had dedicated places for everything—so backpacks go on the backpack hooks, lunch kits go on the lunch kit shelf, dirty dishes go into the sink or dishwasher, depending on the dishwasher’s status. Homework they need help with goes on my desk, leaving no clutter for the dining table—everything in its place. If they want to go a little extra, unpacking or packing the dishwasher is greatly appreciated. On Saturday, or days where there is no school, they get to play extra video games during the day, but that means the expectations are a bit higher for cleaning.

I actually enjoy cleaning the kitchen—it’s one of the few pieces of cleaning I enjoy. I have worked at it for years, building a system of identification and a priority list of tasks that are constantly under refinement. I have three levels—basic, standard, and deep. I can do a basic clean on a weekday after work, I do standard cleans on the weekend, and I do a deep clean every three to four weeks, as needed. I have a deep clean scheduled for most long weekends, as that extra day off affords me the time to do the extra work involved in a deep clean. I’ve spent a lot of time here talking about cleaning the kitchen, but it is really enjoyable to me.

We all have our dedicated gaming space—the kids are in their bedroom, and I am in the living room. But since our living room is next to our kitchen, and kids need things like food and water, there is a lot of walking past my space. While this isn’t exactly problematic, it is distracting when I’m working from home or trying to focus on my project work. I picked up some inexpensive room dividers so the frequent back-and-forth for water and snacks won’t interrupt me. They know they can always talk to me, headphones or no, if they need anything—even when I’m streaming. But it stops my eyes from constantly losing focus on my tasks. I can handle one or two interruptions, but too many starts to be a problem.

I’ve worked really hard to build a stream schedule that works for me without giving up any important time with the kids, and while I haven’t stuck to it perfectly, I’ve refined it over the weeks and sorted out the times and durations that do work for me while balancing everything else. There have been times where I cancelled a stream because I wasn’t feeling it, but there is nothing worse than cancelling a stream that I am excited to do because of something happening at home. If you need help with your homework, which you left in your bag and only just now realized, don’t ask me for help 15 minutes before my stream. I’ve set my times in such a way that there is time before and after to do homework—without feeling rushed. So let me have my time, and then we can sit together at the clean dining table and work through your division homework.

My final piece of self-care work for this article is meal prep. I’ve done an entire article on meal prep, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it here, but the time saved by preparing two or three weeks of food at once has been amazing. What’s more, it causes me to spend less money eating out because there is always something to take for lunch at work. I used to buy food three to four times per week, and I am down to one to two times per month. It helps that I can eat the same food every day without ever getting sick of it. From 2008 to 2009, I had the same two meals every day: spicy potato noodle soup and pork dumplings with chicken curry.

For October and November, I meal prepped sausage & egg breakfast wraps and butter chicken with rice. My freezer is running low, but I still have two weeks of food left. It’s very likely that when the food runs out, I’ll just make more of the same.. maybe bacon instead of sausage, maybe a different blend of vegetables in the butter chicken, but the same meals because they’re good.

Self-care is going to look different for everyone—just like autism looks different for everyone. I’ve presented the things that work for me, and I hope that in reading this, I’ve helped you on the journey to find what works for you. If you have any techniques that aren’t listed here, please share them in the comments below.