There’s a moment, when you turn around and realise your child is gone that I firmly believe your heart actually stops. Just for a second. But I swear, it stops.

When it starts again, the adrenaline kicks in and it races ahead. All the images for all the possible outcomes pass through your mind, as you try to remember to breath and stay calm. Wondering how long until you have call the police. Call your husband.

Over the years we have had this happen time and time again with Poss. Each time, we’ve been lucky. There is no other word for it. It’s not a sign of good parenting, nor through any planning or skill. Simply lucky.

For whatever reason, each time, we have found her; running down the middle of a busy road in the pre-dawn darkness, at a busy market, a shopping centre, next to a river, at a neighbours house, at another school, walking the streets.

She never seems to notice she’s been missed, nor does she seem to care when we try to explain it to her. That makes it even worse. She doesn’t understand the consequences, so there is no fear. No worry. No instinct to make her turn around and look for us.

There has been reports this week coming out of the US of not one, not two, but three young children with Autism and Aspergers who have lost their lives in the last few days through wandering. I am not fully across the details, as I just can’t bring myself the read the articles, but I believe all three drowned.

It’s a familiar tale. The parents take their eyes off them for a second, and the children are gone. It’s like a puff of smoke, disappearing into thin air. One minute they are there, the next they are gone. Conjurers. Magicians. Escapees.

You think you have done all the right things. Explained it to your child, done social stories, explained it again. Assessed the risks. Added labels to their clothes, arranged extra sets of adult eyes, taken them out on a leash (despite the looks), locked the gates, had audible alarms fitted to the inside of the doors, written on their arms in permanent marker.

Yet it still happens. They still find a way.

In the past two weeks we’ve had three scares. Three times when she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Each time my heart stopped. But each time we’ve been lucky. Simply lucky.

I can’t help but worry that, one day, our luck will run out.

I had a conversation a little while ago with a friend about how sometimes it’s like we bring things onto ourselves. Actually no, it wasn’t that negative. Our conversation wasn’t about negative things, although we acknowledged it could work that way too, but it was more about how sometimes things happen for a reason.

Sometimes we look back at a series of things that, at the time, seemed completely random, completely unconnected, but from a distance they form a perfect picture.

We chatted about how the different twists and turns, the small decisions and little choices we make along the way, all added up to take us places we never expected to be. Pushed us into corners and forced us to be stronger than we imagined. Bought wonderful new people into our lives and fabulous new experiences. Made us better people.

As a serial planner, this is a concept that’s pretty foreign to me. I have a plan. I don’t like it when my plans are disrupted. Even if they might be for good. I am stubborn like that. Yet of course, that’s not the way life works. Even the best laid plans, as they say.

When I look back, I sometimes I wonder why I didn’t see it at the time. Those decisions that I agonised and lost sleep over; all ended up ok in the end. Of course they did. Each one of those decisions take us a step further towards where we are supposed to be. Where we were probably meant to be all along.

I guess it’s a bit like that old saying about ‘putting it out to the universe’. Or maybe I am thinking of the one about ‘if it’s not ok, it’s not the end’. Or maybe it’s the “just keep swimming, just keep swimming” one. Or maybe I just know too many cliches.

We spoke about how at some level, maybe it’s a conscious thing. Maybe we somehow know what is the best thing for us. Maybe not. Either way, trusting that it will all work out in the end, even if the path is unclear and the end is a bit hard to see, there’s no doubt it’s a big leap, a leap of trust, to just trust it will be ok.

And really, who knows what fabulous, amazing places we may go?

When I saw this flying around the interwebs today (via Kerri Sackville’s Facebook page), I couldn’t help but have a giggle of recognition. I know that girl. I am that girl.

Of course, anxiety is much more than jumping to the worst conclusion, but anyone who lives with the condition will probably relate to the fact that it’s often the first sign that things aren’t going well. Maybe you aren’t coping. Maybe it’s starting to get out of hand.

For me, it’s a familiar tale. I’ve been there before; spiralling into an ever tighter bundle of anxiety. My mind filling with dense cotton wool as all rational thought seems to slip through my fingers like sand. Wrapping myself tighter and tighter in self doubt. Thinking the worst and leaping to conclusions higher than the tallest buildings, heights that only a caped superhero could match.

Earlier this month, I was honoured to be asked to attend the launch of beyondblue’s ‘Get to Know Anxiety’ campaign.

At the centre of the campaign is a powerful video, in which the central character taunts the viewer. The voice that tells says you aren’t good enough, you aren’t worthy, that you can’t do it.

Those taunts rang in my ears long after I left that day, rolling around and looking for a place to settle. Of course the video didn’t put them there, they’re always there. Sometimes quiet, sometimes louder. I know them well.

I found familiarity of the video oddly comforting. As a child I was a worrier; always the one to be concerned about the random, the large and the insignificant. I assumed I was the only one. I always thought it was just me and my crazy mind. Something I had to live with. Endure.

The idea that this feeling of overwhelming, heart racing panic was something I could get help for, something I didn’t have to live with, honestly didn’t even occur to me until I was well into my twenties. I went to the doctors, worried I was finally being tipped over the edge and left her office with a prescription and a referral.

All those years spent crippled by anxiety. All those opportunities missed.

I took the drugs and met with the psychologist. I looked after myself and I got better.

Of course, it’s still there and at times the voices taunt louder and the cotton wool of my mind becomes thicker. But I feel more in control now. I know I can go back on the drugs if I feel myself donning the cape and start leaping to conclusions. I know I am not alone.

I know what anxiety looks like for me and I now know there is help.

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If you need help with anxiety, or know someone who does, you can visit the beyondblue website here, which is filled with resources. You can watch the video here. 

Way back at the start of the year there was a lot of talk about picking a single word; a theme, if you will, to help guide the year. As if we really have any control over the twists and turns that life throws at us. It was in those early January days, where optimism for a new year is high, and reality is temporarily suspended in the post Christmas glow. Or maybe it’s just lost in the food coma. Either way.

For me, I seem to remember saying that my word would be balance.

Balance. It seems like an eternal search; sometimes I think I have found it before it slips quickly away again.

We had plans. I was going to scale back, I wasn’t going to be working as much. Husband was hoping to delegate more and be home before dark a few days a week.

Yet five short months later, here we are again. Both working longer hours than we initially anticipated, but both thankfully in jobs we truly enjoy.

When I reflect on this time last year, some things have changed. We have built on the good. For me, the most important change is that I am now fortunate to be in a role that allows me to be with Poss when I need to be. I am there for every school pick up and there to do the homework, the after school activities and the therapies. I am there. I can’t put a price tag on that freedom. That balance.

But other things have been sacrificed. House cleaning is probably the biggest one. And the one causing the biggest issues.

Bit by bit it’s been creeping. The floors aren’t getting clean every week. The fridge is grubby. The showers are soap scummed.

I know they say that the sign of a wasted life is a clean house, or something like that, but it depresses me. It depresses husband. Neither of us are clean freaks, but we do love a clean house.

It’s a bit like food; we both enjoy a good meal and appreciate the time that it takes to prepare and the freshness of quality ingredients, but neither of loves to cook. However, solving that problem is easy – we sometimes eat out.

But the house? It just causes bickering. Who did what and when. Who’s turn it is. Point scoring on both sides.

So, this week I outsourced. Just like ordering in, I ordered a cleaner.

They came today. And while I struggled with the guilt of having another person clean up our mess, I can’t tell you how amazing it was to come home to a clean house.

So the search for balance continues. But now with clean floors.

Religion isn’t a big part of our lives. If life was a play, it would be a background player. A cast member that hangs around, pops up in most scenes, but doesn’t really have any lines. It contributes to the story, but it’s not the story. We are religious with a ‘small r’, as one of my friends would say.

However, Poss attends a Catholic school. Catholic with a big C.

We chose her school for the values, for the community, for the results and the ‘feel’ of the school. The religion part, the history it brings and the values it enforces, no doubt contributes to all of the things we love about it, but it’s never been front and centre for us.

But as she gets older and moves through the rituals, it’s clear that we really don’t know what we are doing. Google has been my friend on more than one occasion as she brings home questions that I have no idea how to answer.

However, she seems to have taken to it like a duck to water. Or a catholic to a church. Or whatever.

She is due to make her first reconciliation next month. Apart from the fun of lighting candles, which our little fire lover volunteers for at every opportunity, it seems to involve a lot of discussion of forgiveness and sin. Taking love into your heart. Thinking of others and ‘hitting the mark’. What religion is; what it means to be Catholic instead of Muslim or Anglican or Buddhist. Big topics for an eight year old, but she seems to be taking in her stride.

At home we try to play it down a bit; to even out the rhetoric, and talk about how the important things in life are to be kind, to love and to do our best.

After a particularly heated discussion about the different types of religion, she retorted with “no Mummy, what’s actually important is that I accept Jesus into my heart”.

As I tried not to laugh, I asked her where she heard that, fully expecting her to tell me it came from school, already mentally composing the email to her teacher.

Instead she responded “from Toddlers and Tiaras. All the winning pageant girls have accepted Jesus into their hearts”.

Right. Maybe we still have a way to go yet.

Mother’s Day is one that invokes mixed feelings in our house.

Most of the reasons are here. But it’s compounded with Husband’s mum being interstate, maybe my sister being overseas, maybe it’s just that my expectation are too high. Maybe I just don’t like the focus being on me.

One part of me wants to bask in the glow of being a mum, shiny happy family style, but I am not sure that Poss ever got the memo. But on the other hand, I want time alone, time to not be a mum, just for a moment. Time to recharge before heading back into the front line that motherhood sometimes feels like.

I know I’m lucky. I have my mum and I am a mum, to a gorgeous little girl. It’s more than many have. So instead of wallowing in my mixed feelings; I am going to be thankful. Grateful for the little things today.

• I am grateful for my mum, who bought a whole Mother’s Day lamb roast dinner to our house last night to celebrate, as our oven isn’t working properly.
• She also delivered her weekly delivery of milk. Organic milk, as she believes that it’s the only milk we should be drinking. Along with a massive organic box of fruit and veg for the rabbit. You read that right. For the rabbit. And some for her grand daughter. But mostly for the rabbit.
• I love that Poss told me I am pretty and that she loves me at lunch today, even though she only said it so I would buy her the latest Total Girl magazine.
• I love that Husband wrangled Poss for most of today, making me breakfast and organising an outing. There was a nice drive, coffee, minimal whining and fruit toast. He also made dinner; toasted sandwiches, which couldn’t have been more perfect.
• I love my new boots. I have been eyeing off black ankle boots for a while, and sure enough, they were delivered.
• Mostly though* I am thankful for the blueberry pie that we had for dinner last night. And that there is enough for leftovers tonight.

*Ok I lie. I am so grateful and blessed to be a mummy to Poss, daughter to Mama and a wife to husband. I just need to get over myself. And eat more pie.

(Pie is not sponsored or gifted, I paid full price – but it’s from here. Just in case you wanted to get your own pie.)

Poss has been waking early again.

A while ago she was waking at about 1am, maybe 2 and get up for the day. She would insist the six-odd hours sleep that she would have notched up by then would be enough to get her through the day. Of course it wasn’t and she would be wrecked by midday.

Some mornings we would be woken by the muted sounds of the TV and we could sometimes get her back to sleep. Sometimes she would permit us to hold her for a while and encourage her to just rest. Other mornings we wouldn’t notice until we got up for the day, only to find her curled up on the couch, or in some kind of pillow fort on the lounge room floor.

Those mornings are hard. School was low on her priority list. In fact it would be the lowest of the low. Those are the mornings are filled with tears; tears of tiredness, tears of frustration. She has mastered the art of being a dead weight, simply throwing herself on the floor; too heavy for me to pick up, too awkward for me to dress.

We changed her medications, we worked through some things and the slowly the sleep returned.

But this week it seems the early mornings are back.

It doesn’t help that Husband is working crazy hours; sneaking out of the house somewhere a little after 4am. He is practised at being quiet, in fact he is quite stealthy. He knows those extra few hours can make all the difference to how her day will go.

We have never had him home in the mornings, it’s always been just her and I, so I know she’s not waking to see him. But waking she is. Some mornings it’s early enough for her to be already up when he is sneaking past her bedroom door.

This morning I caught her and bought her into bed with me. She still curls into me, just like she did as a toddler. Her breathing slowly settled, but she didn’t go back to sleep. Her legs were twitchy, her was still body stiff, and every now and then, she would complain about having to stay. But she didn’t pull away.

So we laid there, watching as the light peaking around the edges of the curtain slowly brightened and the day could begin. The time came to get up and thankfully she calmly got dressed and conceded that school would be happening. Small mercies.

The sun did it’s thing and moved across the sky and the clock ticked on. She went to school. I sighed a sigh of relief, then went to work. Coffee was had. Ok, inhaled. But she didn’t make it through the whole day.

A call came in the early afternoon to collect her.

‘Why?’ they ask. What’s going on? Why isn’t she coping?

I think to myself, it’s one of those circular problems; what came first? The not sleeping, or the not coping?

‘Poss has been waking early again’, I say.

It comes in waves. Sweeping over you, pulling back again, just long enough to catch your breath, before knocking you down again.

It’s been one of those weeks.

Dragging myself up above the water line, before seemingly being sucked down. Treading water.

Mum took Poss for the night on Saturday. She arrived not long after we had finally gotten up. The day was filled with videos and books, under the doona. Husband was out, and we indulged in the safe and cosy island that was our king size bed. It was 4pm in the afternoon.

We got dressed in fancy clothes and hit the town. Plans were made for a restaurant, the kind where you can’t take kids and the items are unrecognisable as food to the untrained eye, followed by maybe a visit to a bar. Cocktails. Maybe a fancy straw or an umbrella in my drink.

Instead a migraine hit. Piercing the side of my head, making my vision blurred.

Husband drove me home to bed. A cold compress on my head, some pain killers and I slept 12 hours straight.

I woke up with a migraine hangover. Checking my head, like a tongue moves around your mouth after a filling. Checking to see I was ok, checking if it was back, before slowly lifting my head from the pillow.

This doesn’t happen often. It’s usually a sign of something more. But I couldn’t work out what.

Then Mum called today to cancel on our Mother’s day outing. She wanted to visit Nan’s grave.

And then I remembered.

Three years ago, three short years ago and a life time ago, Nan died and Poss was given a provisional diagnosis of Aspergers all within a few short days. A few short hours. Mothers day is inextricably linked, as that was the day Nan slipped away.

The week before and the week after  filled with juggling hospitals, lawyers, doctors, schools and family. Night blurring into mornings. Days passing with daylight unseen, as hospital lights, became the artificial sun.

Trying to catch my breath before being dragged under again. Barely treading water.

Yet I forgot.

But I didn’t. Or my body didn’t. Three years, and a lifetime ago.

The NDIS isn’t about tax hikes, levies or shopping. It isn’t about political debates, or the methods of how it happens. It isn’t about the politicians involved, nor about personal agendas. It isn’t about CEO’s or their profit margins.

It isn’t even about Myer, or the PR and social media case study they are creating as I type with their thoughtless comments and actions.

It’s about empathy.

It’s about understanding that a life changing disability can happen to you at any time. Maybe a car accident, maybe a violent attack, maybe giving birth to a child with a genetic disorder, or one who contracts a life altering illness. You might not have one now, you might not know anyone with one, but it could happen. At any time.

Empathy is being able to put yourself in their shoes and understand how hard that would be. How incredibly gut wrenchingly exhausting and debilitating. How when you start looking into what support is out there, your heart breaks as you find nothing.

I can’t comment on the cost of a wheelchair, but I know it costs a stupid amount of money. I am not a position to comment on physical disabilities, or acquired injuries, but I can’t even imagine the toll, both mentally and financial they would bring.

But I can tell you from first hand experience that occupational therapists, speech pathologists, psychologists, specialist doctors, aides (both physical and teacher types) and carers are expensive. Fucking expensive.

I can tell you how hard it is to know that a therapy that you need for your child, you may not be able to afford. To know that you need to scale back, because there is no help. To know that they didn’t choose this, you didn’t choose this, you just want the most support to help them be the best member of society they can be.

That’s the thing, common sense, common decency suggests the more support we give members of our community with disabilities, the more they can participate.  The less likely they are to be relying on disability support pensions and charity. The less likely we are to see them living on the streets, or below the poverty line. The more likely they are to become wage earner and tax payers themselves.

Who knows, they, or their families might even have more slightly disposable income to spend to keep our economy ticking over, instead of spending every single cent on therapy and basic supports.

But somehow I don’t think anyone will be going out of their way to shop at Myer.

Over the past couple of weeks, Poss has been showing an interest in cooking. As a woman who has very little interest in cooking, other than to eat the results, this is new for me. But I am running with it.

There are life skills that need to be taught, it’s probably our responsibility and who knows, one day she might cook me dinner. Worth a shot anyway.

She is funny to watch while she cooks. We have started with the basics, chopping vegetables, lining up the ingredients, following recipes. I really have no idea; I moved out of home young and honestly was lucky to be able to cook toast. I hope I am starting at the start.

But Poss is, as always, leaps ahead of me and seems to have learned some skills via YouTube. Or that’s where I assume she learned them. She is great at commentating each step, exactly like a cooking show; “you’ll need three mushrooms. I like to look for this colour when I select my mushrooms, and I find that this is the easiest way to chop them”.

Tonight as she chopped away, she asked me why girls don’t have good knife skills. “I don’t know,” I answered. “Where would you hear such a thing?” I asked. “On the TV” she replied. “On the ads, where they say men are better cooks than girls”.

I asked her what she thought about that. Were men really better cooks than women? Really? I asked her about the only chef she knows, and she answered with the name of a good friend of mine; a chef at one of our favourite restaurants, who also happens to be a woman.

We talked about knife skills for a bit longer and decided that a girl should be just as good with a knife as a man if she wants to be. In fact, girls should be able to do all the same things that a man can do. And men should be able to do all the things a woman can do.

Although we both agreed that maybe Daddy shouldn’t try to wear a bikini, because that would be silly and he should probably avoid high heels, as his balance isn’t great.

Then we talked about advertising and how sometimes it lies. She asked me why and I couldn’t really answer, other than to tell her that people wanted to sell things, so sometimes lying about it was how they did it. She then wisely threw a barrage of advertisements featuring everything from lollies through to cars at me that she thought were full of lies. She was right about all of them.

By that stage, we were browning onions. The scent was enough to make our eyes water. She asked if we were done, she’d had enough, her concentration span was spent. She thanked me for teaching her how to chop mushrooms.

I thanked her for just being her.