Playing a mum role

[londonsquirrel]

I am autistic, DS 9 is diagnosed with ASD and ADHD.
I feel that I'm heavily masking as a mum. I'm playing a role every day. I am constantly walking on eggshells, managing my child, so that we avoid a meltdown or any other big reaction. I cannot even relax while he is at school - I know that 3pm will come, I will pick him up from school and it would be me managing my son again. Putting up a mask and playing a role. Not being myself, not being able to relax. He is like a bomb - sometimes it explodes. Sometimes it does not. I cannot control it. But I still need to do my best to manage it. And it is tiring. Just exhausting... Day-to-day life is exhausting and I don't have energy for anything else!
Any tips how to change the situation?..

Am afraid that my own experience won’t help much.

I was in the same position as you, felt like I was having to plot a course through an ever shifting mine field every day. But learning that my kid is autistic and that I am and DH very probably is too (we just assume he is and it fits) was what we all needed in order to finally understand that the minefield can be anticipated (to a degree), surveyed and mapped out, albeit not without accidents and injury, but it’s not mysterious and hopeless anymore.

All I’d say is not to mask too much, you’re not a typical mum so you don’t need to act like one in a typical way. Don’t swallow and hide all your frustrations, communicate some of them, see what he can accept and sympathise with. He’s getting older, he may not reject you/grow distant from you the way other teenagers tend to, it is possible you might get closer.
Communicating your frustrations in between accepting his might not achieve much for now, but you’re in this for the long game. My hope for you is that he will accept you more and more as a person by the time he is 12/13.