“Get real. You’re a mother now. Your child needs you. And you want to go away to work?”

“Arre, what are you trying to prove? Your son is autistic. This much will do for him.”

“You went off on a holiday, leaving your child? Your autistic child? How unfeeling!”

“You’re the mother! How come you don’t know what’s bothering your child? Your instinct should tell you!”

Sometimes the voices of others are deafening.

Many times, the things we nag ourselves about, the things we beat ourselves up over, are even worse.

And all of this thoroughly drowns out that soft, gentle, lone voice.

Our own truth.

Then, in the quiet of the night, or in the middle of a messy meltdown, you find yourself wondering:

What am I doing? Is this what I want? How did my life become this?

When Did You Last Listen to Yourself?

As an autism parent, you make decisions constantly.

About your child’s therapies, education, medical care, food, sleep, routines and future. About your work, finances, relationships and family responsibilities. About what must be done today, what can wait until tomorrow, and what may have to wait indefinitely.

Some decisions are enormous. Others are so small and frequent that you barely notice yourself making them.

And somewhere in all this, you may stop asking what you want.

Perhaps you once loved your career. Perhaps you enjoyed music, reading, travelling, painting, meeting friends or simply having an afternoon to yourself. Perhaps you still love these things, but they have slipped further and further down your list of priorities.

Or perhaps they no longer interest you.

And that distinction is important. It has consequences.

The point isn’t to reclaim every interest or ambition you had before becoming a parent. Nor is it to establish an identity separate from parenting, as though you are two different people.

You are one person. Parenthood is part of you. It changes you, sometimes in ways you welcome, sometimes in ways you don’t, and sometimes in ways you don’t even notice until much later.

The question isn’t necessarily Who was I before all this happened?

It is Who am I now? What matters to me now? And am I paying attention?

Your Truth Isn’t Set in Stone

In my previous essay, I wrote about self-awareness as the foundation of decision-making: noticing our responses, understanding what they tell us, and using that information to guide our choices.

Name. Face. Act. Adjust.

But self-awareness isn’t something you practise once, arrive at a definitive answer about yourself, and put away.

Your own truth isn’t set in stone. It can change as you change, as your life and circumstances change. And sometimes what changes isn’t your truth, but your understanding of it.

What you thought you wanted may turn out to be something you believed you should want. What once brought you enormous satisfaction may no longer do so. Something you never imagined wanting may become deeply important to you.

Perhaps you once measured professional success by promotions and recognition, and now you value work that leaves you with enough energy for the rest of your life.

Perhaps you once wanted to be surrounded by people, and now you cherish solitude.

Perhaps you once thought fitness meant reaching a particular weight, and now what matters is having the strength and flexibility to get through a demanding day.

Or perhaps none of these things has changed for you.

That’s equally possible.

The important thing is to keep listening, questioning and examining.

Because your inner voice deserves to be heard. And, more importantly, understood.

Is This What You Want, or What You Think You Should Want?

Imagine a mother who has the financial freedom to leave her job and care for her autistic child full-time.

She has access to competent caregiving support. Continuing her career is a genuine option.

But she chooses to leave because she believes that being personally involved in her child’s daily care is what matters most to her.

Another mother, in similar circumstances, chooses to continue working. Her career gives her satisfaction, intellectual stimulation, independence and a sense of achievement.

Both women may be making decisions that reflect their values. And both may occasionally miss what they have given up.

Because every choice involves giving something up.

The mother who leaves work may miss her income, career and intellectual stimulation. The mother who continues working has fewer hours in which to discover the everyday nuances of her child’s life.

No human being can give a hundred percent to every aspect of life. It simply isn’t possible.

And missing something doesn’t automatically mean you made the wrong choice.

But now imagine that, a year later, the first mother is miserable.

She is restless, irritable, resentful. She feels guilty for resenting the demands of caregiving, then angry at herself for feeling guilty.

What happened?

Perhaps she underestimated how much she needed professional engagement. Perhaps she loves being her child’s primary caregiver but doesn’t thrive when caregiving occupies every waking hour.

Or perhaps she never really wanted to leave her career.

Perhaps she believed that a good mother ought to.

And perhaps it took living with the decision to discover the difference.

Now consider the mother who chose to continue working.

One day, she takes time off to spend with her child. When something bothers him, she struggles to understand what he needs. The caregiver steps in and helps him. Later, when he needs something again, he looks to the caregiver rather than his mother.

And she feels a pang.

I’m his mother. Why doesn’t he look to me? Shouldn’t I know what he needs?

Perhaps she discovers that she wants to be more involved in his daily care. Perhaps she’s confronting an expectation that motherhood should somehow make her instinctively capable of everything.

Or perhaps it’s a little of both.

In either case, the feeling is real. But what it means isn’t immediately obvious.

Instead of condemning themselves or rushing to reverse their decisions, both mothers can examine what their experiences are telling them.

Does the first mother want to return to work? Or does she miss the stimulation, companionship and achievement that work provided? Could she meet those needs in other ways?

Does the second mother want to change her working arrangements? Or does she want to develop greater familiarity with certain aspects of her child’s care, without giving up the career she values?

Perhaps their original choices still suit them. Perhaps they need adjusting.

Self-awareness isn’t putting yourself on trial. It’s becoming curious about what your reactions are telling you.

And there is something else worth remembering: your wellbeing matters in its own right. In these examples, neither mother needs to prove that her unhappiness is harming her child before taking it seriously.

Your wellbeing is not important only because it affects your child’s wellbeing.

It matters because you matter.

When Choice Isn’t Really Choice

Of course, these examples assume something many autism parents simply don’t have: viable alternatives.

You may want to work but have no reliable caregiving support. You may desperately want to leave your job but need the income. You may long for a holiday, an evening out, or even an uninterrupted afternoon, but have nobody who can safely care for your child.

These are not necessarily choices you have freely made.

They are circumstances you are living with.

And calling every sacrifice a choice doesn’t make it one.

Self-awareness cannot manufacture money, time, physical strength or competent caregivers. It cannot remove the realities of your child’s support needs.

But it can help you distinguish between what you genuinely want, what you believe you ought to want, and what is currently possible.

Then you can ask a more useful question.

Given the life I am actually living, what can I do?

Perhaps you can change something now. Perhaps you can prepare for a change later. Perhaps you need to accept that a particular possibility isn’t available at present.

Acceptance doesn’t mean pretending you’re happy about it.

And it doesn’t mean deciding that things must remain this way forever.

Sometimes You Have to Bide Your Time

Krishna has been, is, and will remain my overwhelming priority.

That hasn’t changed. Not even on the days when I feel like screaming my head off!

But I’ve always known that there are parts of me that need things other than parenting to thrive. And I knew that, for a while, I would have to bide my time.

When Krishna was a baby, I was essentially a giant feeding bottle that could almost never be disconnected.

At four, he was constantly getting into mischief and demanded my physical presence and attention even more intensely.

Now, at twelve, he spends some time away at therapy. He can manage being with one parent while the other is physically absent.

Of course, the parent on duty is fervently praying that Krishna’s gut behaves itself for just a little while!

His care is still intensive, and will remain so. But the nature of his dependence on us has changed in certain respects, opening up little pockets of time.

There is another part to this, too.

Krishna is a high-support-needs child. Some of his physical care needs are difficult for us to manage even now. As we grow older, there will be more that we cannot do ourselves. And after we are gone, other people will need to care for him.

I can’t simply wake up one morning and announce, “Baby, you’re too strong for me to manage now. So-and-so will take over from today!”

That’s a recipe for disaster.

So we’re slowly helping him become comfortable receiving support from other trusted adults. Someone else serving him food. Someone accompanying him into the garden. Little things, introduced gradually.

All the while keeping in mind that adaptation is a two-way street.

The people caring for him need both affection and competence. A sudden meltdown is possible at any time. So is an attempt to run off. Just the other day, Krishna stuffed some hair into his mouth and tried to swallow it. Whoever is with him needs to notice immediately and know how to respond.

So while Krishna learns that other people can help him, those people must also learn how to care for Krishna.

We’re building this familiarity and trust slowly, over years. It’s part of preparing for his future.

And it also gives us parents a little more time for ourselves.

Not much. But a little.

Sometimes opportunities appear as circumstances change. Sometimes you have to do the work of creating them.

And sometimes, what you need isn’t an entirely different life. Just a little more room within the one you have.

A Day Away

Last week, I needed to travel.

I planned it as a single-day trip to balance what I needed to do with Krishna’s needs. I left home early in the morning and would be back by midnight.

By late morning, I was texting my husband.

Had Krishna woken up? Had he eaten? What about his medicines? His bath?

And then I caught myself.

Krishna’s father was perfectly capable of looking after him. He certainly didn’t need me additionally nagging him every few minutes for a livestream commentary!

So I made myself stop.

For a while, I let go of the need to know every little detail. Krishna was being cared for. I could attend to what I had travelled to do.

When I got home that night, Krishna was still awake.

He was clearly satisfied to see me. He whacked his hands a couple of times, but rather half-heartedly.

Almost as though he were saying, “Amma, you didn’t get to block me all day. And now you’re back so late. This is all I can manage for you!”

Then he went to his own bed, curled up and fell soundly asleep.

We were both delighted with each other.

The space of a day had given him time to miss me, and me time to miss him. It had also given me a day when I wasn’t worrying about the smallest details of his routine.

I hadn’t stopped being his mother for a day.

I’d simply allowed myself to be somewhere else, doing something else, while his father took care of him.

What Does Being Kind to Yourself Really Mean?

We often talk about self-care as though it is a little treat we give ourselves when everything else is done.

A break. A massage. A cup of coffee. A few hours away. All wonderful in themselves. But being kind to yourself goes much deeper.

It begins with knowing what you need.

Perhaps you need rest. Perhaps you need intellectual stimulation, creative expression, companionship, physical activity or professional fulfilment. Perhaps you need to let go of something that no longer matters to you.

And perhaps you need to stop trying to meet an expectation that was never truly yours.

Being kind to yourself may also require discipline.

The discipline to protect a little time for something that matters to you. To ask for help. To prepare someone else to take over a task. To revisit an arrangement that isn’t working. Or to resist filling every newly available hour with another responsibility.

This isn’t about demanding more effort from an already exhausted parent. It’s about remembering that your needs deserve consideration alongside the other demands on your life.

Sometimes you’ll be able to act on them immediately. Sometimes you’ll have to wait. And sometimes you’ll discover something entirely new.

Before Krishna, I was good at several things. I enjoyed several things. I was passionately committed to precisely none of them.

I didn’t have a dream.

People occasionally looked at me rather strangely when I said that and sometimes, I wondered about it myself. Was I supposed to have one? Was there some great ambition I hadn’t discovered?

And now, I do.

Krishna became my fundamental priority. Not an easy one, and an intensely personal one. Because my choices are just that: mine. Another parent may have an entirely different set of priorities.

And as my life with Krishna has unfolded, so has my understanding of myself. What began with caring for my child has grown into something more: a desire to help other parents navigate their own journeys with greater acceptance and agency.

I have found my why.

Keep Listening

You don’t have to recover the person you were before becoming an autism parent.

You don’t have to abandon that person, either.

You may find that your priorities have changed enormously. Or that they have remained remarkably steady while the possibilities within your life have changed.

You may discover that a decision you made freely no longer works for you. Or that a difficult decision continues to feel right, even when it comes with sacrifices.

You may be able to make a change today. Or you may need to begin preparing for something that will take years.

So what is it that you do?

You stay aware. You stay curious about yourself. Your truth. Your reality. Whether they change or remain the same.

You keep paying attention.

The voices around you may never grow quieter. Neither may the one inside your head telling you what you should be doing.

But somewhere among them is your own true voice, perhaps so soft and gentle that it is a challenge to hear.

And you deserve to let that voice be heard.