Autism is messy at our house. I mean literally messy. When there is a touch of ADHD in there, things happen quickly and get chaotic. Phoebe can wear up to 5 outfits a day. She’s not a clean person, so these need to be washed at the end of the day. When I say the laundry is piled high, I mean piled high like our washer and dryer have been broken for 6 months. I can’t keep up. Even if she “helps” with the laundry, I can’t keep up. It’s a losing battle. I never feel satisfaction that the laundry is done. Brendan brings his home from college at holiday time, does it on his own and puts it away. He can’t even believe the pile of laundry 2 people make.

Her room is another entity. I always imagined this cute room with mauve colored walls, and adorable furniture. The things you see on Pinterest. Her room is her safe space. She can eat, watch tv, and color with her 1000 markers. She can tune things out or be able to relax in her own space. However, she doesn’t consistently follow her rules for keeping things OFF the floor, and leaving the sheet on her bed. She consistently draws on her furniture with marker (and her walls). Thank god for good paint and magic eraser. Every day we clean the floor and make her bed. EVERY DAY. It’s so exhausting. I have tried every trick. Nothing works. I take things away, and take away her currency at the time. It still happens daily, and then she gets mean. She has her own vacuum in her room. If I take a day off and do nothing, you can’t believe what her room looks like.

At this stage in my life, I’m starting to want things a little more neat. I’ve cleaned out so many bins and art stuff, that I myself can’t even believe it. I got new furniture. This is NEW furniture that only a true grown up can envy. I don’t even let her sit on it. She consistently has marker on her clothes or food, and our last couch looked like it had been hit by a truck. I want things to stay nice. When she was young, these things didn’t bother me, but now it really does.

This is the part where you think I should take away most of her clothes, and get rid of 900 markers. You are absolutely right. I should also be more strict about things like her throwing the shampoo bottles out of the shower, because they “bother her.” (and subsequently not picking them back up) I should probably just take the sheets off her bed permanently and put one of those plastic things on it, and save my self some work. While we are on that, maybe I should buy a better lock for the fridge so she can’t sneak food all night long. I may even have to lock her brothers door now that he’s gone, so she stops taking his stuff and wrecking it (yearbooks, etc.). I should probably only have 1 or 2 cups and/or water bottles, so that I don’t have to ask her 600 times to bring the 20 cups out of her room. I need to also start locking the basement door because she has drawn all over the old furniture down there. She’s also taken out my good art supplies and wrecked them, even though I thought the back closet was locked. I remind Brendan to lock the freezer down there when he’s home because frozen pizzas have disappeared when she finds the door unlocked.

I’d be happy to put her in a home if I could find a decent one. A caring place with many staff that could help her with these things. Why does this seem to be so hard to find? We have an abundance of adults that need this, but nothing that really works for adults like Phoebe. In the meantime, I have to go. I just heard 700 markers hit the floor.