My kid's school trauma was harrowing but these things helped me through.

Motherwort helped but Mugwort didn't.

Three and a half years ago I quit my job to home educate my son, who was in autistic burnout after just a few months in school, age five.

Whilst we cocooned at home with him barely able to leave the house for a while, I had no choice but to give up paid work entirely. My kid needed virtually undivided one to one attention almost all the time (hello PDA profile) and it was taking more than my all.

With the loss of my job like many mums, I felt a loss of identity, especially as after a decade of self employment I was finally running an established and viable business. So any self esteem I got from my job went out the window.

My identity as a reliable friend, daughter, sister - forget it. I was no longer punctual or reliable. I couldn’t commit to anything.

My identity as an activist that protested against wars and pollution, turned up to demos, put on fundraising gigs -forget that too.

My identity as part of a group of mums, - well, I could no longer relate to their smiles and tales of dance class and brownies and family days out and farming the kids out to grandparents so they could have some “me time.” I felt like I lived on a different planet. They didn’t really have time for us anymore anyway with their busy highly scheduled lives.

I felt so much pressure to “do self care”, but how do you do that unless your child lets you leave the house for a walk or swim? In fact he was barely letting me leave the room. If I tried to do yoga with him around I became a human trampoline / jungle gym in seconds with him climbing all over me.

I felt I should go to therapy to become a less unhinged version of myself, maybe it was me that was subconsciously making my kid so anxious - but how?! When I had no child care? Even phone calls or zoom seemed impossible - my kid would panic if he heard me on the phone.

Make sure you see friends and “do things for you” - they say. Go out in the evenings sometimes.

Are you kidding?

The small one had his carefully constructed (by him) evening bath and toileting routine. I could go out and disrupt this, but the price might be that he stopped sleeping or eating properly for days afterwards. So it wouldn’t replenish me. Take my word for it, “he’ll just have to get used to it” is not useful advice for a child in the full blows of burnout.

It was flipping hard at times. So so hard. I’m not wanting to talk about that here. I’m not wanting to remember the harrowing. I want to share what helped me.

A paper from Newcastle University was published last week entitled “I felt shamed and blamed”: an exploration of the parental lived experience of school distress and it makes grim but relatable reading:

Findings revealed a devastating impact on the mental health of parents, with parents displaying significantly heightened daily anxiety and significantly lower mood during, but not before, their children’s school attendance difficulties.

Parents also reported overwhelmingly negative treatment from professionals, including being disbelieved or blamed for their child’s difficulties, threatened with fines and court action, and disempowered by the actions of professionals surrounding their child.

findings depict a system rife with parental blame; a system that appears to isolate parents through hostile, threatening, and punitive actions ¹

I had one of those children who masked at school but exploded at home afterwards, the ‘coke bottle effect.’ Consequently teachers and council portage team didn’t take me seriously when I told them how much he was struggling. They said he was good as gold and fine at school. They blamed my parenting and refused to let him eat anywhere quiet at lunchtime, or other simple requests I made to try and make school work.

If a child was exploding at school, the school would ask parents to come up with solutions. But if a child is exploding at home after school, and you ask school to problem solve, you get told it’s your fault. Even though he was never explosive before he started school. You also get massively pressurised to keep trying school. I so so regret not quitting earlier. I wish and wish for a magic wand to rewind time to ‘before’.

I was forced to dig really deep and looked for my agency, and searched for what I could do for me that was flexible. I had to stay agile. I had to somehow stay sane. I knew I needed to think outside the box.

Before being a mum I had non-child friendly hobbies. For example I used to make chairs requiring sharp tools, concentration and planning, or playing the fiddle and going to late night folk sessions with the pensioners. Stuff that’s hard to pick up and set down at a moment's notice. During burnout the kid hated the sound of the fiddle. He still does actually. We couldn't listen to the radio at the time. I mean he couldn’t even tolerate the sound of the kettle. I needed new hobbies.

I tried taking up knitting and crochet but my child, when himself, is basically a labrador puppy with a big dollop of climbing kitten, so it would be unravelled in less than a moment.

Ok. Well. I racked my brain for things that were flexible, small achievable tasks for myself.

A cup of tea on the doorstep, The challenge was a whole two minutes. I got myself a “listening partner” who is in a similar situation of home educating her autistic little one, at home a lot. We’d send each other a snap of the cuppa and cheer each other on. I got fresh air on my face. Phone calls were out the question, they would activate and escalate the small one. But a tea on the doorstep, whilst he played minecraft; a small, sometimes achievable act of self care and connection with another adult. Not as good as a walk or in person chat, frustrating that I couldn’t actually garden, but better than nothing. The doorstep became my ‘sit-spot’ and I watched the starlings for a minute or three between the almost constant words “mum!”. The photos of chipped mugs served to remind me that I have agency.

The first chair I made. Its a bit wobbly after all these years. Now it lives outside my front-door and I drink my teas on it. Sometimes I even get to finish the entire drink when it’s still hot.

My listening partner has been massive at helping to keep me sane-ish. I’ve never met this lovely woman, we crossed paths on a facebook group of home educators, she lives hundreds of miles away. But for years now we have exchanged texts and voice notes and photos. We’ve never actually spoken on the phone. But in those lonely moments when you are tearing your hair out, on the verge of tears, and you just need an adult to vent to, or when you need to share a win, however big or small, we’ve been there for each other and she’s been a bloody godsend. She gets it. Thank goodness for her. Also, cheaper than therapy.

Over time little one started to be able to handle some walks in quiet places, no cafes or anything like that, but woods and moorland. I’d pack the backpack with snacks and jumpers and have it next to me in the open doorstep as I sat with my tea. I couldn’t suggest it else it would be a “no”, but sometimes he would join me on the doorstep and then the front garden and then we would set off on foot without using words, just go. I took to foraging herbal teas. Just put it in a paper bag and hang it up to dry. I collected meadowsweet and hawthorn flowers, ribwort plantain and yarrow, motherwort and dog rose, ground Ivy and calendula.

I tried mugwort which made me feel amazing but also made me hear the electricity in the walls at night too clearly, so I had to give that one up. But now I had a selection of brews for my doorstep, snatched moments, treats that were for me. (I was also caning black coffee and strong black tea- just in case you thought I was too wholesome, and had a pretty enormous chocolate habit. I blame years of broken sleep.)

I used to be a bookworm before the sleep deprived whirlwind of motherhood. But I could no longer afford to compulsively stay up page turning until 3 am. I hate to be interrupted, the book always seems to be in the wrong room, I can never find the page after being constantly interrupted, I just don’t seem to be able to read books anymore.

People slag off Facebook, but through those long tired days of isolation and constantly being “on” as a parent, then with facebook I could pick up and put down without my monotropism getting distressed. It was bitesized enough to be interrupted. Also obviously you can curate your feed. I unfollowed a lot of “happy families” and my feed became full of content about my special interests instead and support groups of other parents in similar predicaments to me. Thank god for facebook. I could scroll and pretend to watch video games at the same time.

Audiobooks and podcasts were an absolute sanity saver. I could no longer read a book, but I could have an audiobook in one ear, stealthily without my kid knowing, whilst washing up or playing lego or watching video games. I bloody love my wireless earbuds. I mostly listened to very niche content, such as soil science and woodland management and sensory biology, or parenting podcasts. Brain food when my life was a sea of preparing snacks that would be rejected and sweeping up crumbs and trying to dodge meltdowns, both my kid’s and my own.

I tried to tend my allotment plot. It became increasingly overgrown. So that was another thing I couldn’t be proud of, shame threatens to creep in from all sides, but it got me out the house when I had a few moments to myself of an evening if he settled. It was somehow acceptable to my kid for me to go there, it’s not far I suppose, he knows where I am, whilst he gamed with his dad in the evening. I pray the allotment committee don’t kick me off the plot.

I volunteered to clean and empty the compost toilet at the allotment. Honestly, this was a lifeline for my self esteem. I know you shouldn’t measure your self-worth on external achievements, if you can call cleaning toilets and not being paid for it an achievement. I could do it when I had a few spare minutes when the going was good. I like taking care of shit. Turning shit into compost to put on apple trees. It’s tangibly useful. I honestly don't mind cleaning toilets, I like practical tasks. For five minutes a week I was useful and contributing to my community. Carrying loo rolls down the hill and taking the buckets of poo and sawdust to the special compost bins was important to me. It made me part of something beyond the nuclear family, which helped me to not implode.

That was pretty much it for a long time in terms of being part of the local community. Just cleaning a toilet.

We have a family friend and she was thirteen at the time of my son’s burnout. My kid, eight years younger than her, has always known her and always loved her. After a few months of staying home I started to pay her to come round after school once a week. She was one of the few people my kid still trusted. I used those two hours to fill out the forms for DLA and carers allowance (uk benefits.) My son so loved her coming, it was the highlight of his empty week. They would play video games together and I COULD LEAVE THE ROOM! (not the house.)

I then used the DLA to pay more helpers. I decided I would rather have three people doing two hours each, than one person doing six hours. So I put up a small ad locally. I got so lucky. Three years later, we have some fantastic helpers who my son has created long term relationships with. I still don’t leave the house when they’re here, and sometimes I still don't get to leave the room, but it has created a rhythm to our week, a routine and some structure to what felt like a massive empty chasm of time. It gives me chance to do some housework. One of the helpers is autistic himself, a mature student. He is such a fantastic mentor. We still have that 13 year old who is now an amazing 16 year old and I’m not sure what we would have done without her.

My partner, who works 9 to 5 from home, plus “out of hours overtime” (thank goodness he works from home) arranged to start work late on a Wednesday to give me some time. So I have had my precious precious Wednesday mornings. So if I needed to go to a doctors appointment, or physiotherapist, have a coffee with friends, go to the allotment etc, then I had my Wednesday and it truly made all the difference in the world. There’s been periods of times when my son hasn’t coped with me going out without him, but thankfully he has turned a corner for now and I can sometimes go out for an hour or two without him melting down. GAMECHANGER. I’m not sure I could have survived home education with some semblance of sanity without those Wednesday mornings.

For almost a year I have been doing driving lessons on Wednesday mornings. My son can no longer cope on crowded trains or buses. I have ptsd from a car crash I was in as a kid. It has taken me five instructors over the years and switching to automatic, but I’m getting there, my test is booked. It’s inspired my partner to learn, who also has his own very good reasons to be traumatised by cars, but he is getting there too and I’m proud of us both. Hopefully one of us will pass this summer. I’ve always hated cars as an environmentalist but now that public transport is no longer an option, I can’t wait to drive.

Like when getting those two hours of childcare with our teenage helper allowed me to bash out the DLA forms, that led to more help, I’m hoping the driving will open some options, for example making it possible to see extended family but with a getaway vehicle, or get to some home education options that might work such as the animal sanctuary. As I described in , since school my son can't handle anywhere indoors or anywhere busy. So we frequent the wild places away from humans.

We have an electric bike that my kid sits on the back of. It's so hilly round here. It has allowed us to get about. I’d take him to quiet parks, paddling spots, out of the way places. He’s suddenly getting too heavy for me this year, even with the motor my ageing hips are saying no. So I think this will be the last summer I can do that. However the boy can walk far now. We did seven steep miles the other day. I bet my son ran at least twice that, back and forth like a happy puppy. He is currently obsessed with botany, he was ecstatically hunting in peat bogs for carnivorous sundew plants. I’m so grateful to live semi-rurally, so that we can get to nooks and crannies on the hills and rivers and woods.

I tried to focus on my own nervous system. The Workout Witch offers online somatic exercise courses that can be done in bed in “the laziest way possible” in 5-10 mins a day. These have helped. Also Casey Ehrlich of At Peace Parents has great advice of putting your own nervous system back in the picture, taking a moment to notice where in your body you are getting distressed, and sending yourself some love so that you’re telling yourself frequently that your nervous system matters too, not just the kid’s. (She has a lot of free content such as her podcast which I have found really useful.)

This year my life has opened up since the clock changed in March. My partner knocks off work and then takes him out on the electric bike or I can gp out and have up to TWO HOURS TO MYSELF MOST EVENINGS! (When he’s not on out-of-hours call for work.) If I go out I have to be back before them else the kid will panic, so I can’t go too far. But that’s ok. My partner texts me a heads up when they're heading back. They are currently paddling in a stream a couple of miles away and I HAVE THE HOUSE TO MYSELF!

As I wrote in this piece , I took to going to sit in a bit of wasteland at the edge of our housing estate. Rather than being stressed about trying to make it to a yoga class or anything else that requires me to be on time,I could nip there as and when my son was settled. I could choose my moment. It was flexible. It’s saved me.

I try to see a friend on a weekend in the daytime. Or between 6 and 8 pm. I ask them to meet me locally, so I don't have to spend any travel time. I’ve learned to ask for things like that. These days I manage to see a friend something like once a week. Not many people come into our home, it needs to be a very predictable place for my son. A chosen and occasional one or two seem to make it in.

Last night my old friend drove us out to a wild swim spot and it was delicious, my first swim of the year. Last year my son couldn't handle me going out, but this year is okay again and so I’m not taking it for granted, making that swim even more special. That cold water gushing over my head was such a rush.

And so, incrementally over three and a half years, little bits of “me time” have started to stack up. What felt like an absolute impossibility has now become possible. Maybe I could even go to a regular yoga class or something?! That would be proper self care wouldn't it? Although I’ve gotten quite used to my flexible approach, and realised that I prefer not having to rush to an in person class and deal with a group. From what was a very very stuck situation, searching for agency makes me feel sort of agile. Prioritising my agency, however small it may be, has helped me to look out for little droplets of time for myself, that have added up to a fuller cup.

I’ve still no childcare other than my partner, but I’ve more time and more headspace and I will never take that for granted ever again. Those little lifelines for my sanity made all the difference. I appreciate that I have a partner who earns, we live in an inexpensive area and am privileged in lots of different ways.

This piece is not a “how to”. I know we all face different constraints and circumstances. I might have gone under mentally if it wasn’t for some of the privileges I have. I wasn’t thriving.

There was certainly no “support “ from the system. I asked for short breaks but got turned down. The “local offer” of disability support is a joke. CAHMS said they don’t help autistic kids. The council autism team said they don’t help home educated kids. Prior to this, “support” and “advice” from so-called professionals had been highly damaging to my child and I am still extremely angry about this. It’s been isolating to say the least. I no longer put professionals on pedestals. I have to become an expert myself instead.

Right now my son is happily attending to his collection of Venus Flytrap cuttings he's trying to propagate on his windowsill. He has had a lovely paddle in the stream and has seen lambs and come home happy and rosy cheeked from his bike ride with his dad. His eyes are sparkling like the stream. I am getting to read and write and think regularly for the first time in years and I hope I never take that for granted.

Those snatched two minutes of tea on the doorstep that sometimes felt impossible to find have slowly expanded and that feels so luxurious. Maybe one day I will get to go out for the evening without repercussions. Maybe go to a gig. I might even read a proper book soon. I am daring to dream again.

I say I had to do less and then even more less, but that’s because I’ve been non stop busy night and day. Co-regulating my son, lowering demands for him but increasing them for me. Constantly being “on call.” Mentally juggling every moment.

After doing less, and then even more less, I’m finally starting to think about adding things back in again. Things that aren’t housework or nervous system regulation for someone else. Things for my own nervous system. These cocooning years have rearranged me completely, I’ve been through the mill, and although I’m not a butterfly, more some kind of bedraggled, weary and thirsty-for-proper-respite creature, hopefully I’m emerging into the human world again anew. My life still often feels like a chaotic shitshow, but not all the time. My son still has many constraints and challenges and it can be frustrating to say the least, but things are incrementally getting better. Having fallen apart, I’m slowly putting myself back together transformed. Not sure what’s coming.

Were these little things I did for myself enough? No. I sank more than once. I wish society could have helped us. Instead the system was more hindrance than help, to put it mildly. But like a substandard buoyancy aid, the little things helped me resurface and keep just about afloat. I didn’t drown. And now I’m finally able to sit on the shore and cough up all these spluttering words in relief.

I’m sharing some of our story because I see so many parents out there looking for ‘support’ and I want them to trust their own judgement and not put up with any BS or be pressurised into stupid things. The only meaningful support I have found is from parents who have been through similar.

School ruined my child’s sleep, he started to need me to put an arm over him all night and if I moved he’d wake up. But about two months ago, my boy started (sometimes) sleeping through the night . After years of broken sleep, co regulating and co sleeping, I’m actually getting REM sleep again. I’m dreaming. sometimes I’m just woken once or twice instead of five times. Sometimes I get to sleep through in my own bed. With the return of REM dreams I’m finding my creativity returning. I’ve a backlog of things to process. I seem to have started writing again.

1. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1489316/full