Her mood came out of the blue, took me SO by surprise. It had been a great two weeks, Bree seemed so peaceful, less jittery. She was sleeping through the night, which means I was sleeping through the night. I remember thinking to myself one night after the kids were asleep, THIS I can handle.
It’s the other side of Cybil that makes me question my sanity, my ability to do this job I was given. This week, that personality came back. Bree was jittery, cranky. One morning she was up before 5 a.m. And then came the next night, when she woke up at 2 a.m. and wanted no part of going back to sleep. The rest of the night/morning became an exhausting nightmare game — me telling her to go back to sleep, her listening for all of 5-10 minutes, then opening her door and wanting to go downstairs, or upstairs.
By 4 a.m. I was trying to get her to lie down in my bed with me, but she had had enough. She wanted OUT. and I didn’t want her to wake my son. I kept bringing her back into my bed, and finally she just started screaming loud enough to wake the dead. I would put my hand over her mouth to try to muffle the loudness. that would piss her off, so she’d fight me, scratch me, scream louder. she’d finally stop, I’d take my hand away, she’d try to get out of my room, I’d block her, she’d start screaming again. this happened over and over, until my door opened and my son poked his head in around 5:15 a.m., announcing that Bree had ruined his `beauty sleep’. Bree saw freedom, jumped up, ran downstairs. My day had officially begun.
The strangest part of it all, is I thought for sure Bree would be angry. But not at all. The autistic brain mystifies me. Because downstairs, not 15 minutes later, I was logging onto my computer, and she was sitting across from me, smiling, singing, swaying. Ten minutes later I was standing at the sink, washing dishes, and I felt her arms go around me, her hugging me from behind. I turned around, got down to her eye level, and looked at her. “I’m sorry, baby,” I said. And she rubbed her cheeks against mine. Was she telling me she was sorry, too? That she didn’t mean to get up in the middle of the night? That she wished she could go back to sleep? That she knew I was doing the best I could? Was she telling me she knew how much I loved her, and she loved me back?
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