Having Asperger’s Syndrome means you struggle to say the ‘right’ thing, misinterpret what other people are saying, fail to give due diligence to the feelings of others, and don’t appreciate that people have different needs. It also makes you rather self-centred. Mostly I can use my intellect to overcome my natural shortcomings in these areas, but the more tired I become, the harder it is to do that.

Having two tired new parents with Asperger’s in the same house with a five-month-old baby is a recipe for disaster.

This morning, for example – Lizzie is spending the day in Southampton shopping with a friend and she’s taking Izzie with her. Since I’m in desperate need of a break, I’ve been looking forward to today – for once there are no support workers, social workers or family members coming over, no urgent writing deadlines, no charity shop, no cooking, so it’s all mine, yes, all mine (he says, rubbing his hands together with a maniacal grin). I can soak in the bath with a book, make my model that has sat untouched for five months, go to the local coffee shop in the village and watch the world go by. Or I can mooch about in my underwear and watch rubbish TV. My day. Bliss.

And Lizzie would know that if she’d been listening and considering my needs.

So I’ve been up since five, fed the dog, the cat and the chickens – not to mention the baby – and I’m just waiting for Lizzie to hurry up and go when she says, ‘Oh, by the way, I want you to mow the lawn today.’

The lawn takes two hours to mow because we have a rubbish mower and a massive lawn. I have to empty the grass collecting box around twenty-six times during mowing. And it’s raining.

So I said, ‘No. Not a chance in hell. I’d rather poke out my eyeballs. You want me to do chores while you’re out on a jolly? How dare you even suggest that? This is my day.’

In hindsight, a simple, ‘No, I’d rather not,’ would probably have sufficed. Yes, I overreacted. And then she overreacted to my overreaction. And that’s how it tends to go at the moment. If we were less tired, we’d probably be able to rein ourselves in, realise the other person wasn’t being belligerent or deliberately insensitive, they just hadn’t realised their partner had been looking forward to a day off. But we flip out instead.

That is, unfortunately, part and parcel of having autism, and only to be expected.

What is not so obvious is why, as a result of my Asperger’s, I find it so difficult to entrust the care of my baby to others.

It would make life so much easier, and would have done over the past five months, to have babysitters. Lizzie has a remarkable ability to go out and then not think about home, or babies, or really much of anything (miaow!). I, however, find it nigh impossible to switch off.

The autistic brain is very susceptible to obsession – I’m using up my ‘day off’ writing about the baby! But this could also be the result of the fact that the autistic brain is also so structured that your thoughts can go round and round and round, growing bigger and more frantic with each circuit. Since Izzie was born, I haven’t rested, haven’t dropped my guard for even a moment – I am a dad, and that means constant vigilance, care and concern. After years of learning that people let you down, it’s very difficult to trust anyone else with the most precious thing in my life.

This goes for Lizzie too. As I have mentioned in previous posts, thanks to difficulties with Theory of Mind – that is, understanding how other people think – I struggle to comprehend why people would do things in a different way to me (because clearly my way is the best, which is why I’m President of Earth). I therefore find it very hard to step back – I want to take over, because Izzie is my baby and I know what she wants and I’m the best at doing it so back the hell away. This has inevitably led to friction between me and Lizzie and I realise now that I’m a total control freak.

But that’s because control keeps me safe. I’ve cleverly structured my life to avoid stressful situations and thus remain asymptomatic. If I go out to a social situation, I drive so I can leave any time it becomes too much. I sit on the end of tables so I can slip out unnoticed. I actively shun noisy and crowded environments. And so if I let others take over, I can’t ensure Izzie’s safety. I can’t be certain she’s getting what she needs, which is me, because I know best.

You see? Even I can see that I need to let go, step back, have a break, learn to trust others, and stop worrying so much when I’m not with her. But can I?

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to this is, again, my autism. I’ve always struggled to understand relationships – how to form then, how to keep them, what they mean – and I’ve only ever managed to have one friend/partner at a time. If I have a second friend, or a friend other than my partner, I feel as though I am somehow betraying the people I care about. If I have a friend, then it means Lizzie isn’t enough, and how can I say that? Of course, Lizzie has plenty of friends and I don’t feel she’s betraying me, but I resist any overtures of friendship because I don’t want to betray her.

The same is true of Izzie. If I let someone look after her, I feel I’m somehow betraying her, letting her down. I’m failing her as a dad. People tell me to stop trying to be perfect, because I’m only human, but that is like an admission of failure. Why can’t I be both?

That’s the biggest lesson I have to learn from five months of autistic parenting – I have to learn how to let go and relax. If I’m not careful, my ten-month review of autistic parenting will describe how I don’t let Izzie out of my sight and I haven’t left the house for weeks. Or it’ll just be gibberish.