This is my first diary entry since I was 14 years old and keeping a dream journal. I was never much for writing in a journal as a kid. I had a mostly unhappy childhood and I just didn’t want to write all of those things down into memories. I would like to think I have forgotten a lot of it now that I am in my mid-40s. I don’t know if that is true or not. I am going to give this another go and see if this helps any other severe autism mom’s out there feel less alone.

I worked from home today like I do every other Friday. Buster doesn’t have daycare on Fridays and my husband is off every other Friday so we rotate on who stays with Buster.

It was a good day overall. Buster was happy I was home. He smiled at me a lot, and came over while I was working to get hugs, squeezes, and kisses throughout the day. He was able to come get my hand and lead me when he wanted something and I was able to understand what he wanted most of the time. I am learning to remember to narrate everything from his point of view as we do it. Like if he wants an apple, I say out loud, “I want an apple, apples taste good!” stuff like that. I am getting better at doing it.

Buster has started with self-injuring behaviors when he is frustrated or mad. Today wasn’t bad, just a couple of times he was mad about something and hit his block into his knee. I was able to catch him doing it immediately and stop it and tell him “no, we don’t hurt ourself when mad,” and then I redirect. I am very careful here not to give increased attention or a preferred snack or anything that can be perceived as a reward when I redirect from this behavior. That is hard because I just want him to stop doing it quickly, but I do not want to make it seem to him like I am reinforcing the behavior with increased attention and a preferred treat.

So it’s a bit rough to distract when he is mad, but I am trying to do it in a way that shows him the consequences are undesirable. His knees are a bit bruised and scratched up. He has a cold and his throat is sore. He pinched his throat last night and left red marks so I gave some Motrin and cut his nails.

The self-injury almost always improves after a dose of Motrin so I think this cold with a snotty nose and sore throat is really a catalyst for the self-injury. I am sick too and so are Buster’s middle brother and sister so we know how bad he’s feeling. I am hoping after this illness passes, the self-injury calms back down to almost nothing. I am praying about it.

Someone on Instagram said that Buster should be taken away from me and put in an institution. It really upset me even though I tried not to let it. Such is the consequences of posting publicly on social media so I have to learn to deal with it properly without being a baby.

Institutions were horrible and people often suffered, were abused, and died in them. Especially those that are non-verbal and can’t communicate what is being done to them. Buster and all individuals like him belong at home with their families. They are simply too vulnerable to be institutionalized with people that don’t love them.

Nobody can take care of Buster better than me and no one will love him as much as I do.

I got a lot of work done today. One of the many things I have been working on is a method to compare a snapshot of data in an excel sheet table on an hourly basis for changes while ignoring autosaves and other metadata so it literally compares cells hourly and if there is a change, it sends a notification with the change in a Microsoft Teams channel and if there is no change, then it skips the notification. I was originally using javascript and I couldn’t get it to ignore the autosaves so using Power Automate and some well placed JSON, I have almost gotten this beat. I will test it out next week. I am proud of myself for still learning new things and helping to make my co-workers lives easier.

I worry constantly about Buster. Buster is just 4 and this is so hard. The school will not allow full days for early Childhood IEP students so I pay for full-time daycare even though he only goes 4 half-days per week. He will have 1 more year of that before he can go to school full-time.

The main issue is daycare. They call me a lot to come and get him and they don’t meet his needs very well. He is always hungry and thirsty when I pick him up so I bring a drink and snack at pickup every day. There are usually rocks or dirt in or around his mouth where they weren’t watching him properly. Often I come in and he is sitting on the floor, pulling the sticky gum off the walls (the kind that teachers use) and eating it. I have to dig it out of his mouth. I worry about it all the time.

I want to quit my job but we just cant afford it. With poor life choices compounded by student loans, we can’t afford for me to leave. I have been looking for remote work for 2 years so that I can have a home care person here with him during the day and I can be down the hall in my office working but still be nearby with a camera observing if something is needed.

My husband bought a coffee trailer but after 6 months it’s still not right out of the dealer and he can’t start building that side hustle. It’s so frustrating and sometimes it feels like life is unraveling. It’s like nothing works out the way it has been planned.

Today is 6/25/2026 even though I wrote this post almost a week ago. I got pulled away from it so I am posting it now. Better late than never, I guess.