Coming up for air: Rejection Sensitivity Dysmorphia and the transformational magic of amphibians.

A Common Toad, Bufo Bufo.

My kid, he’s eight, he’s autistic. He is currently fascinated by amphibians.

We have a tiny pond in our garden with palmate newts in. (He’s taught me how to differentiate them from common or crested newts.) Our pond also has frogs.

There is a common toad Bufo Bufo that lives at the allotment down the hill. She lives in the compost heap. We’ve visited her a few times. We made laminated signs for people to be careful when digging that they don’t hurt the toads as my boy was so concerned about them. We’ve spent weeks watching endless documentaries about amphibians, at his request. We have researched how to make a Hibernaculum (somewhere for amphibians to hibernate.)

He handles the newts and frogs in our pond gently and carefully and no more than once a day so as not to disturb them too much. He washes his hands before and after so as not to spread any amphibious diseases. He's so diligent towards them.

I almost cried when he asked if we could set up a “toad club” at the allotments where we have a plot. This is the first time in almost four years, since autistic burnout and school trauma, that he has entertained any kind of group. Whether this happens or not, the mere suggestion of it is Progress.

He’s turning into a little Chris Packham. He spots plants and enters them into Inaturalist app. Thanks to my boy this week I have learned Common Cow Wheat and Dotted Thyme Moss. I’ve never even noticed them before. He’s teaching me.

Dotted Thyme Moss

He doesn’t often “look autistic”. He’s hyper-verbal and if he takes a liking to you, can seem very friendly. He does eye contact one to one. He has a hidden disability. He has a PDA profile of autism that can seem “sociable” on a surface level.

A couple of weeks ago he wanted to take his support worker to the allotment to show her the toad. I have to come too. It’s quite a big deal for him to want to take her out somewhere. To be sociable and to be out at once.

We looked at the toad and our amazing and funny support worker held a toad for the first time in her life, giggling. Then he and she looked at tadpoles on the boardwalk of the pond at the allotment. It’s a bigger pond than ours, but it’s still only about 2 feet deep and 6 feet wide. I try not to hover too close so that I’m “there” but not there so to speak, so he can have some time to himself with his support worker but I’m a hundred yards away if he wants me.

A couple of women enter the allotment and to my horror walk right up to my son on the boardwalk that juts out into the middle of the pond and lean over his bucket of tadpoles and cheerily and loudly start asking him questions. I’m just too far away to have intercepted them. I just know he's going to feel hemmed in there on the boardwalk. He starts screaming “Leave me! Leave me!” at them in a terrified, panicked voice. The women persist in trying to chat to him about tadpoles. I run over and say “please can you give him some space. He's autistic and struggling just now.”

They get the message and walk on but by now the child is really dysregulated. Damn, I should have sat at the end of the boardwalk to intercept anyone who may be drawn to tadpoles.

It’s unusual that he gets spooked by adults, it's usually children taking him by surprise that bothers him, but I think because his head was down in the tadpole bucket he didn’t see them coming, so was taken aback, and being on the boardwalk he had nowhere to go - he felt trapped. Prior to the pandemic and then school trauma, my son loved to talk to anyone, but now he’s scared sometimes. Really scared.

He starts chasing the women around the allotment yelling at them to stay away from him. Oh God.

And then he runs and jumps in the pond.

I apologise to the women and they are ever so good about it. They apologise to my son for startling him and one of them says “my eldest is autistic, I get it.”

Thank goodness. Phew. Phew. Phew.

I’m so relieved that he’s not chasing strangers around or yelling anymore. And that they have been so graceful about it.

Jumping in the pond immediately regulates him. Water calms him. I mean I wouldn't normally let him in a stinky stagnant pond. He knows it’s out of bounds. He jumped in in a dysregulated panic.

But now it’s soothed him and he’s suddenly joyful crouched in the middle of the pond. He sees a newt swim to the surface to take a breath.

“I’ve always wanted to swim with newts!” He exclaims in pure delight. He starts to tell us all about how their gills change. Newtlets have gills and can breath underwater but mature newts have to come up for air. How this is different from Axalotls who keep their gills for life.

His support worker and I look at each other, relieved that we have the joyful version of him back.

We ham up how much he stinks of pond water, laughing, and let him be in the pond for a few minutes. A bit of respite for us all and a chance to recover.

A couple of people are about, watering things, but after briefly smiling, we ignore them and they ignore us.

I take home a smelly happy boy stinking of pond weed. I’m pretty mortified about the incident. But no one was hurt.

A few days later, it’s late and I check my emails. There’s a message from the directors of the allotment to all allotment members entitled “Supervision of children” and reminding all members that it is inappropriate to allow children to play in the pond, that it may harm the wildlife.

My face flashes crimson hot. I feel so embarrassed. I wonder who has complained to the directors. Maybe those ladies who were watering, they didn’t witness what had happened minutes prior to him climbing in. They probably just saw a joyful child in the pond.

My son didn’t cope in school and since then he doesn't cope in shops or cafes or softplay or busy parks. Since school trauma he no longer copes on public transport or main roads or groups of any kind. He plays with children one family at a time, or with the children on our street where he has the safety of home nearby . But he can’t access scouts or swimming lessons or birthday parties. We can’t go and sit in a pub on a Sunday afternoon with chips. We have the home library service deliver books to our house.

(We do try fairly regularly to take him in shops and offer groups etc so he can practice being around more people. We don’t keep him in a box.)

The allotments is the one and only community space where he is happy to go. We roam the hills and woods and see the odd dog walker, but the allotments really is the only community space that we access. It’s really precious to me. It’s been a haven.0

I feel devastated. I shouldn't let the email get to me but it does.

I vow to give up my allotment plot and quit my volunteering role of cleaning and emptying the compost loo. I want to flounce off. Retreat even further from humans. Just stick to the woods and hills. Community is too hard. Flight response is go.

In the few days following I make myself go to the allotment several times. I’m not allowing myself to run away. I go and plant my pea seedlings out, but I’m extremely socially anxious. I thought I was long over this level of social anxiety that was a constant in my teen years but it’s come back with a vengeance. I don’t know who’s dobbed me in to the allotment directors. I don’t want to talk to anybody or smile at anybody. I wear my sunglasses and try to avoid people. I just about manage to speak when someone comes up and asks me if they can borrow my watering cans.

Every evening my partner has been taking my son out to the river to paddle. Getting in cold water is his happy place. I’m finally getting regular time to myself.

Last night I needed to go water the peas at the allotment plot. The boys had gone off to the river and I packed up my bean seedlings and put on my shades.

But I got stuck. I just couldn't persuade myself to go. There will be people at the plot. How will I know which one of them thinks I have no respect for wildlife and casually allow my child to harm newts by climbing in ponds?

So I stayed home and found myself writing this instead.

I hate to be judged, but people judge. Jeez it stings and I need a thicker skin.

I do generally have a much thicker skin these days. But right now it’s evaporated.

There’s shame in having a non compliant child. Victorian values still grip our culture.

Being a good mum means having kids that do-what-they-are-told, right? I should have told him to get out the pond immediately, right?

Wrong. It’s more complicated than that isn’t it?

This morning I nip down to the allotment to water. Since I didn’t water last night, then I need to water this morning.

I’m in the allotment walking towards my plot. I hear the metal clang of the gates, someone else is coming in, and I swerve and take a different route so I won’t have to cross paths with them.

But someone yells me from 100 yards away. The person who has come in is a dear old friend. I’d almost missed out on seeing her because of my daft avoidance behaviour.

I explain I’m in a bit of a rush and take my leave. But then after quickly watering my peas I go over to her plot and say “can I offload on you about something ridiculous to do with the allotment?”

Before I know it all this story is gushing out.

She’s absolutely amazing and says all the right things. She says she thinks that there should be public invitations to bring Neurodivergent children to the allotment. It’s a fenced site. It’s safe and beautiful and spacious. There’s a swing and a slide. She’s really supportive and kind and reminds me that no one died or got hurt. She says my little Chris Packham is an asset to the allotments with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the natural world and plans to build hibernaculums. She tells me to keep bringing him.

After this, walking home, I fell apart. A deep painful wound got touched.

I’m hoping now that it’s surfaced, I can move past it. It’s come up for air like that newt. I no longer feel like I’m suffocating.

It was an old feeling of being excluded and rejected, like I’m not welcome anywhere no matter how hard I try.

I went to seven different schools so I was often the “new girl” and bullied for being new. Or for having unruly untameable thick curly hair, in the age of hair straighteners. Or for being bookish and a “swot”. Or for having the wrong accent, having moved around. Or for having the wrong type of school bag. Or, for something, they usually found something.

I became expert at making myself invisible. I became expert at being the good girl and perfect. But quietly perfect so as not to be seen.

And then I buried these feelings for decades. A painful seam of rejection deep down that I thought I was “over”. I’m still unpicking what is rational survival response and what is Rejection Sensitivity Dismorphia. (RSD). This post from

Divergent Dialogues

by explains RSD well.

Understanding Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD): Causes, Effects, and Coping Strategies

Masking and blending in and being bland doesn’t work when you have an incredible firecracker of a child who is loud and vibrant and unbiddable and larger than life.

If he’s being joyful and enthusiastic he has big loud expansive energy. He’s like a bouncy excited Labrador puppy. (I love dogs, this isn’t an insult.) His glee is off the charts.

If he’s having a meltdown or panic attack or gone into fight or flight he has big loud explosive energy. He's like a guard dog barking loudly.

Sometimes I think he might have been sent to fix my fawning, people pleasing, masking ways. Sometimes I think he's been sent to say a big F.U. to the parts of me that care too much about other people’s opinions of me.

It’s such a hard but amazing lesson. I have been learning to speak up and be seen, to take up space instead of shrink. Learning to speak my truth and be proud instead of secretive. Learning to let people judge all they want as they don’t know the whole picture.

I’ve been doing well with these lessons for several years but this week it felt too hard.

My son cares about animals with all his heart. I’m sure he won’t climb in the pond again because he would be devastated to hurt a newt.

Fight flight freeze is outside of the “thinking brain” and he just wasn’t thinking in that moment.

I’m sorry he yelled at the women to go away, but I apologised to them. I don’t think it was them that complained to the directors, I think it was some retired people doing the watering.

I don’t know why I’m telling you all the whole story. Except maybe it’s an autistic thing, the need to explain everything. And I can’t tell whoever complained the story because I don’t know who it was. And writing helps me process things.

I do know that since realising my own neurodivergences (another lesson I can thank my son for), that I have much more grace towards myself and my social anxiety than I had in the past. Instead of beating myself up for being so socially useless that I can’t even go and water my plants, these days I’m giving myself alot of love and grace. I’m routing for myself keeping on going to water my plot. I love it and I’m not letting myself give it up because of pesky social anxiety.

I’m going to keep showing up at the allotment and keep on showing up for myself and my son.

And I shall keep trying to learn the lesson of not judging people too easily because you never really know the whole story.

Perhaps the person who complained about us has a deep love of amphibians. Who knows. I shouldn’t judge them for judging me. It’s a very reasonable request to remind people not to let children play in the pond. Maybe they were just having a bad day too. They certainly didn’t know the full story.

Praise be to the newts who’ve saved the day more than once. This morning we spotted four frogs in our back garden pond and five baby newts. They somehow metamorphosize my kid from dysregulated to joyful every single time. A magical transformation.