Peeling Bananas and Radical Acceptance

Tomorrow morning, we leave on our first family vacation with both parents in three years! 

We are heading “up north” (driving to the northern part of Michigan) for the week of the fourth of July, and renting an Air BnB within walking distance of one of my oldest friend’s homes.

This morning, as I opened the computer to show my sons images of the small town where we are staying – the fishing spots we would find and the sand dunes we would slide down – Cooper began stimming with excitement, and doing noisy loops around the kitchen island, hands flapping in the air, happiness on his face as he accelerated with each pass.

Our au pair looked at me with confusion as Cooper sped past him and I simply explained, He is expressing his excitement physically!  Like many PDA children and teens, this is how my son expresses his internal state, feelings and emotions. Not through words, but rather through his body, his movements, his facial expressions, and his behavior.

I thought back to the time when the loud loops around the kitchen would have bothered me. When I would have looked at his hands flapping and felt a clench around my heart because of how “autistic” it looked. It would have reminded me of his burnout when he stopped making eye contact and speaking.

Of that time when I tried to force him to look at me, in a panic, pulling his chin toward mine but only seeing a faraway look in his eyes, like he wasn’t there. I had no idea that he was disassociating and in a “freeze” state from the degree of nervous system activation in his body.

This morning’s loops around the kitchen island not only reminded me of how far he has come, but more importantly, how far I have come as a parent.

I reflected on the fact that I am completely unattached and unbothered that we are bringing two cars and likely splitting the kids most of the time while we are on our vacation – Cooper on fishing adventures with his dad and me and William exploring lakes and beaches together.

That I know that there will be dysregulation, panic attacks, equalizing, and yet I also know we will de-escalate, make decisions, and steward our son through it.  Because we have practiced it 100s of times.

While it doesn’t make it easy, I have radically accepted that this too belongs as part of my human experience, as well as his. That I don’t need to fight against it.  That I can relax into some of the discomfort.

This radical acceptance has also taught me to appreciate the smallest things and to notice how much more freedom I have from when I couldn’t eat or use the bathroom without my son melting down. From when my life felt like I was hanging on the edge of a cliff, me holding on with white knuckles, just trying to survive in the midst of chaos.

Now sometimes I do things like unpeel bananas before they go bad, and put them in the freezer to use for an ingedient for a green smoothie later. And then I marvel with gratitude that I can finally do that again. That my executive functioning has come back enough to take that step, and that I now have three minutes of space in my life to peel things up, cut them, and put them into zip lock bags. That there are even zip lock bags because someone bought them.

I can also walk down the street and recognize the tightness in my chest that is no longer a dagger or a cement block, it’s just tightness that comes and go. That I can notice that and not identify with the thoughts, emotions, or fears that provoked the tightness.

I can notice how the leaves rustle and they seem louder now, after all the nervous system healing and meditation I have done. I can finally look at other families and not hate them, and to know in my gut and bones that I am a good mom too, in my own way, living on a totally separate dimension of experience but also deeply connected.

It has been a long and painful journey, and one that continues to unfold and deepen. This is what I hope for you, and I know you can get there if you are not there yet. I have trust and faith in you.