...when you can only eat out in cafes where the food takes less than two minutes to arrive (so that'll be an eat in chippy then), in order to avoid meltdowns and you ram for the food down your neck at lightening speed, risking extreme indigestion because you know that if your SN child finishes before you there'll be trouble anyway
..when you suddenly realise you haven't been invited to anyone's house as a family for over a year
..when the only jewellery you wear is a weddding ring (if you've still managed to stay married! ) because everything else has been ripped off you and broken
..when the cupboard under the sink never stores less than 3 tubs of Shake n Vac at a time, in preparation for the next smearing episode
..when you set aside an hour one night to reply to your email backlog, and end up surfing the entire WWW for high rise garments like dungarees and all-in-ones for bedtime in sizes that are not routinely available. And the ones that are, (specially for SN people), you need to re-mortgage your house to afford
..when you promise your NT child that next time SN child is at respite daycare, you'll do Hama beads with her all afternoon.. and then you let her down, because you were so exhausted you spent the whole six hours asleep on the sofa, and your DH in an armchair, and DD couldn't wake either of you up so she goes to her room to play on her own. Again.
..When you are always the mother who forgets to do your NT child's spelling with them and they routinely get 2/10 even though they are rather bright in general..
..When you don't bat an eyelid at the news that your DS flipped the birdie at visiting Ofsted inspectors at school last Monday.. a hand gesture he learned from Mr. Bean's Holiday, which so amused his siblings that he now does it at every possible opportunity
..when your dog gates are held together by combination padlocks. And you don't actually own a dog.
..When you have bed sheets on the line at least every other day, even in Winter
..When you know there is never ever going to be any escape from the god damn Wonderpets, Dora or Underground Ernie because your child is unlikely ever to grow out of it.
..When you stop getting overnight respite because your respite carer couldn't cope with the lack of sleep and you are too tired to even verbalise to social services "what about us?? We get this every sodding night without fail???!!"