Last night was a bad night.

Most of them are ok. But last night was like all the difficult things about parenting E rolled up together and stuffed into about 20 minutes that left me feeling like a shell, a washcloth with all the water wrung out and then sent over a cheese grater till it was shredded and full of holes.

I think it was a nightmare, maybe. Or maybe a stomachache. Or an earache, or intense over-tiredness, or the computer was too loud or the Spotify soothing playlist was too loud or maybe too quiet. That’s one of the hard things. He can’t tell me. I don’t know if he’s in pain, or sad, or frightened by a nightmare, or just had too much sugar after supper and can’t regulate his emotions.

I ask him, anyway, which is ridiculous when you think about it. ‘Do your ears hurt?’ I say, leaning over him, grabbing his hands so he can’t hit me. Like he might answer. Like after almost eight years of silence he might just pick this moment to start talking. But it’s a hard thing to break, asking, narrating things to yourself and to others. Especially when they’re in pain. ‘Do your ears hurt? It’s ok. Do you want mom to lie with you? Don’t hit mom, don’t hit mom honey.’

He hits, anyway. Slaps, claws, gouges. Goes for the eyes. I try to keep his fingernails short but they still hurt. Last night there were actual cuts.

I know he doesn’t hate me. I think he likes me, most of the time. I know that when he growls and screams and lunges at me and swipes his fingernails at my face, pinches the flesh of my upper arms till there’s little lines of ragged skin he doesn’t mean it. He’s sad (or in pain or afraid or angry or it’s too loud or too quiet or the lights from the window bother him or his skin feels too tight or who knows I don’t know) and he can’t tell me what’s wrong.

But it’s hard to remember that when you’re in a fetal position so he can’t get to your face or your neck and you’re crying, full-on crying into your hands and you hear yourself saying ‘it’s ok E it’s ok it’s ok it’s ok baby don’t hurt mommy don’t hurt me honey don’t hurt mommy it’s ok’. God it feels fucked up. Trying to comfort a little person you love while you beg them in words they don’t understand not to hurt you anymore.

I read somewhere that someone’s done a study showing that some parents of special needs kids can develop, over time, some of the signs of PTSD. The reflexes, the constant heightened vigilance. From always being on watch for their kids, since they can’t watch out for themselves; also, sometimes, from always being on watch against their kids.

If you asked me the hardest part about all of this, some days, at least, I’d tell you that it’s this: my autonomic reflex when my kid comes near me is often to flinch.

If you asked me the moment in all of this that I felt the most despair, most days I’d tell you that it wasn’t the diagnosis or the diapers or the frustrations of non-communication or the sleepless nights. Most days I’d say it was the day I flinched away from E, reflexively grabbed his arm, and realised that I recognised the movement.

There’s a scene in Love Actually where Laura Linney’s character goes to visit her brother in an assisted living facility. They’re in the visiting room, sitting across from each other. Laura is talking quietly to her brother, just small talk, and out of nowhere, her brother raises his arm, quick, like he’s going to hit her. She blocks it, grabs his forearm, but otherwise she doesn’t react, isn’t upset; like it’s so commonplace she doesn’t even think about it.

That was hard, recognising that gesture, that reflex, in myself. Recognising it felt like it put E in the category of Other, the people who live in institutions, the people who are 30 or 40 and still hitting other people without wanting or meaning to, just because they don’t have words and can’t express their feelings and pain and needs. It makes me think of visiting him someplace like that. It makes me think of him there after I’m gone and can’t visit anymore. Alone, cut off in yet another way.

So, I guess, that’s why I’m tired today. It sucks indescribably to be physically scared of your kid. But it also reminds me of all the things to come I don’t want to look at, that I’m afraid of. Him getting stronger. The cuts and bruises to come. The knowing that I yell too much and cry too much and the fear that I’ll become just another thing he’s afraid of.

Last night was hard. I love him. But I wish I did better for him.