Fighting

I've never been in a fight. It may be because I'm a lover. It may be because I'm a coward. I love a good debate, but I do not like confrontation. At all.

In high school, a group of girls wanted to beat me up. To this day, I don't know why. Instead of hanging around to find out, I went to the office and called home. I stayed there until my overprotective stay-at-home mom could get there to rescue me.

As close as I ever got was during my late teens. One night I kicked a sorority girl out of my apartment for being too sociable with my boyfriend. I read her the riot act, but I'll bet if I thought there would be a fight I'd have let it go. Later that year, I jumped on that boyfriend's back in a bar parking lot and hit him in the arms and shoulders until a bouncer strongly suggested I stop. For as much as a jerk as he was that night, he did decline when the bouncer offered to call the police.

That's really as close as I've ever come to fighting. It really isn't in my nature, apart from a few malt liquor-induced tirades and tantrums. That boyfriend fathered my children and is my favorite partner in (non-violent) crime, by the way. I had no idea when I gave birth to our first son that he would grow up to teach me how to fight.

This is the part of the blog where you're expecting to be inspired as I wax poetic about Braden being the spark that lit a fire in me to fight Autism and the world. Sorry. I said I was going to be honest. I said I wasn't going to be polite or politically correct.

This IS the part of the blog where I say everything I know about fighting I learned from Braden. But it's not a metaphor. I'm writing this blog with a burning in my left thigh from repeated kicks with a men's size 9 heel. My back and ribs are aching from the same foot. My son has given me an experience that I have actively avoided my entire life. I'm pretty sure this is what the day after a bar fight feels like.

I've had basic physical intervention training to defend myself in these fights. I've learned "safe" methods of restraint. I've brainstormed with professionals to create a list of de-escalation techniques. And I started out as a pacifist!

For better or worse, growing up my mom always rushed to protect me. As a young adult, my now husband was always there to save me from myself when my judgement faltered. But in this fight, there's no one.

The police cannot intervene because Braden cannot be held responsible for his actions. Social service agencies can "help" as our income and insurance coverage allows (but don't get me started on respite again). Finance is only one condition for their assistance, though.

I've been asked to tally the abuse. Can you imagine asking a battered woman how many times her partner hit her? Kicked her? Was it open-handed or closed? What was the trigger? Did you attempt to de-escalate the situation? How intense were the hits, kicks, slaps? How long would you say the incident lasted for?

There was a time where spousal abuse was ignored. People, including the authorities, looked the other way. I'm sure that still happens, but progress has been made. If my husband even once did to me what our son does regularly, he would go to jail.

But in this fight, there's no one.