Man, I didn’t sleep well last night. Emmett ended up in my room pretty early on. He tried for hours to fall asleep in his bed but couldn’t. As soon as his head hit the pillow, after returning to my room, ahe was out like a light.

He’s really struggling with feeling safe and there’s a fine line between enabling that fear and helping him to work through it.

I don’t feel comfortable banning him from my room at night. He’s been traumatized twice now and is terrified that I’m going to leave him too. How do I turn him away and force him to sleep in fear? At the same time, this obviously can’t go on forever and I personally need him back in his own bed at night.

At this point, it’s going to be a process and one that will not be perfect. I feel that his willingness to even try sleeping in his own bed shows that he’s making a concerted effort to move forward.

As much as I need my room to myself, I will continue to do what’s best for him. In my opinion, that’s continuing to work on getting him back into his own bed at night. There will be nights where he just can’t do it and that needs to be okay.

There’s no instruction manual here and Autism makes an already complicated and difficult situation, even more so.

I know there are those who won’t agree with my approach here and frankly, I don’t fucking care. I’m doing the best I can in a situation that is fluid and I’m doing so on my own. None of this is easy and none of this can easily be resolved. Life is messy and imperfect. All we can do is the best we can, in the situation we find ourselves in.