Alone in The Snow At 6 a.m.

One morning last winter, around 6:00 a.m., my husband woke me as he hurried up the steps toward our bedroom. It’s as though I could feel his fear arrive before he got to the doorway.

Our daughter, Seeley, will be eight soon. She is autistic, endured significant prenatal alcohol exposure, has ADHD, is riddled with anxiety, and she has been diagnosed with  BiPolar2 with Rapid Cycling.

As soon as he reached the door, I met his eyes and knew my hunch was right. When he shouted, “I need you, she is outside!” I understood I had only a few seconds to bundle up and help him in wrangling her to safety.

With all of the diagnosis listed above there are some issues that Seeley faces that come to her, and through her to us to help manage, many times over.

Sleep is an example. Many people on the autism spectrum as well as folks with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, and mental health issues, see sleep as a hard skill to get under control.

For her, balancing this has been almost impossible.

Another lane of our life that seems to come with all of her diagnoses is her lack of understanding with regard to safety, especially her ability to control her impulses.

Eloping is something that I have written about occasionally, but the truth is, she runs in two ways, many days, each and every week.

By my observation, she seems to have a wild hare that kicks up. This type of running is more like darting from one line to another.

Think of the way you want to drive when you are stuck in traffic… if your car was slightly smaller, if you were just a tich more frustrated and irrational.

I think her inability to transition in general brings this wild hare style running. This variety can become scary quickly, but in large part, it is predictable and somewhat manageable.

The type of elopement, at just after six that morning, was far from that.

She had an expectation.

She had an inability to be flexible.

She had a goal, and she saw no reason to consider anything but her plan.

She didn’t know it was dark, she didn’t care that nobody was out. She certainly didn’t care that their windows were dark, signifying that slumber, coziness, calm and peaceful rest were just inside those dark windows.

Her scream was a shrill that many autism parents know. The sound comes without warning and it’s like her lungs turn to giant bagpipe bladders.

Her pace, even with 20 inches of fresh snow, was remarkable.

She claimed she knew it was dangerous and that’s why she bundled up. She was wearing rubber rain boots from a pile of too small shoes. She had a long, thin rain coat on.

Bless her heart, you know. I guess, as a calm parent, nine or so hours later, I can see progress.

But, she was outside. She went out without permission. She was absolutely unreachable.

When she can’t be reasoned with, it’s like negotiating a situation filled with explosives and you can’t see the timer. You can only hear the ticking.

You can only stand back, try to keep her from the thin ice covering the pond behind our home, and pray it’s over soon.

Within an hour, our family was inside, having a family meeting, then we bundled properly, held each other in a family hug and got to having fun before the arrival of the sun.

We cleared the driveway, laughed at how our dog hops like a rabbit, planned sledding and shoveled some more.

By 9:00 a.m., we were inside again. She was warming by the fireplace enjoying her phone. Billy and I sat on the kitchen floor, in a usual place for a snuggle and some recovery.

We have learned to just hold each other, try not to talk much, and just be grateful we got her back.

Sometimes, the days are hard.  But, that morning last year, we got her back.

We have tightly laced winter boots on again this season, but we have made some progress too.