My Special Needs Son Left The House Today

My son left the house today. With all of the things we have in place to keep him safe, we failed. We have toddler doorknob covers on all of the interior doors. We have a refrigerator lock. We have a playpen, which we call the apartment, where he spends his safe time. Come to think of it, I need to buy another one, because I bought it for his infant niece.

My son is six years old, special needs, low functioning. But definitely mobile.

I decided to go for a walk today, to do some of that self care we are always being told we should do. I was gone an hour. We live in the country, so I went around the lake to a far point and back. I was coming up the hill and around the curve, when I heard him. My son was making his noises and I heard him about 1/2 a block away. I thought, how nice, his Daddy took him outside to play on the trampoline. But when I walked up the driveway, my son was on the trampoline by himself. The side door was open. And no one else was in sight.

I yelled for his dad. No answer. I swept into the house, screaming his name. No answer. Until I got to the living room. And found his dad taking off his headphones, sitting with his computer asking what was wrong. I kind of flipped out.

We finally figured out that his sister had come in the door earlier and shut it but didn’t lock it. And Dad, thinking everything was locked up tight and our son could safely wander about the areas he was allowed to wander in the house, decided to watch a show on his computer.

We live up a hill from a lake. It would have taken my son two minutes to go down the hill and into the water. It would have taken him mere seconds to walk out to the road in front of our house. Instead, thank God, he was just sitting inside the trampoline netting, babbling contentedly to himself.

This is living the special needs life. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, it throws you another curve ball. Now there is a flip lock on the side door as an extra precaution. But my neurotypical daughter, who left the door unlocked, is eight. She made a mistake. And, the reality is, any one of us could make a mistake again.

The flip lock doesn’t lock itself.

My son, after being allowed to jump on the trampoline for a long time, came back in with me. But for the next two hours he kept trying to drag me to the door to go again, even though we’ve already gone twice today and I need to take care of some other things. He yanks my body, pulls me, tantrums when I refuse. While I bake a holiday cake, he is stuck to my legs. While I stir, I am off balance.

Most days are not like this for us. But I know, for so many special needs families, EVERY day is like this and worse.

I am exhausted and yet need to be MORE. More hypervigilant, 24/7. More patient. More willing to spend hour upon hour sitting out by the trampoline, which makes my son so happy.

Don’t get me wrong, I want my son to be happy. But I also need to use the bathroom.

They say that a special needs caregiver experiences stress on the level of someone who has been in combat. I don’t know. I have never been in combat. But my stress level is through the roof right now. I need to do some self care. But, earlier today, when I tried to take care of me, my son left the house.

I recently saw in the news that a young autistic man is lost at sea, having gone overboard while on a cruise. His family thinks that he saw the water and probably wanted to go swimming. My heart aches.

I wait for the day when my son decides to go swimming with dread. Or decides to do anything outside what we usually do, by himself.

I hope we are hypervigilant enough.

Want to know what we did after the dust settled? Check out part two of this article here:

My Special Needs Son Eloped For The First Time – Now What? (Part 2)