When the Petals Fall
For the parents on the floor
There’s a strange stillness that settles after a panic attack ends. Not the peaceful kind. The kind that feels like holding your breath underwater, wondering if it’s really over this time or if another wave is coming.
Tonight was one of those nights. And as I couldn’t rest, I came to write it all out.
What to expect
In this post, I’m sharing what it’s really like to witness your autistic PDA (pathological demand avoidance) child have a panic attack that feels like it will never end. I’m here sharing the hard, messy, heartbreaking parts of autism that often get left out of the “autism is having a moment” conversation. And listen, this is not a post reaching for sympathy, it’s one to help build empathy, compassion and solidarity with others moving through the same thing.
I’m also drawing an unexpected connection between these impossible moments and the wilted flowers I have come to love to photograph. Those fragile, beautiful things that refuse to be perfect, a metaphor for life that I have been deeply connecting with.
This isn’t a “woe is me” story. It’s a letter to all the parents sitting on bathroom floors at all times
of the day, wondering how to help when nothing seems to work.
Tl;DR
My autistic PDA son has been having panic attacks since he was five, honestly might have been been sooner, time is such a blur these days. These panic attacks can last minutes or hours, and watching him struggle to breathe while he screams in confusion and terror is one of the most helpless feelings I know.
Tonight, as I heard another attack starting in the other room, I was at my desk editing wilted flowers I’d photographed after coming home from the hospital, flowers that one of my dear clients sent me (thanks again Natasha & Alex!).
The timing wasn’t lost on me: here I was, working on images of wilting blooms while my son was in the next room, panicking, and don’t worry my husband was with him. But here’s the thing, and I can’t even make this up (why would I!) even before I heard the sounds of his panic starting, I was already feeling emotional looking at these particular flowers.
To some people they’re just dying carnations, but I saw so much more: complex beings, tattered and beautiful at the same time, resilient and wanting to keep going even when exhausted and ready for a nap, needing fresh water and sun on their faces to bring them joy. They reminded me of us, of my son and of me. Our relationship is complex these days, in fact it has been for a while now and it’s a silent torture on my heart daily.
I started photographing flowers because I’m often home with my son during days exactly like this one. days where I need a creative outlet that can exist within the chaos, something that’s mine when I can’t fix what’s happening for him. Getting lost between the petals is how I regulate my own nervous system, it’s how I remind myself I am human and am delicate and complex just as he is.
In the moments when I can’t help my child, when all I can do is pass an ice pack and walk away, these moments are hard and sad. This post is about the parts of autism no one talks about, the panic that comes from nowhere, the nervous system with no manual, and how we find ways to keep ourselves whole on really hard days.
I heard it before I saw it
The hyperventilating. The screams. That specific pitch of panic that many parents of an autistic PDA children know in their bones, the one that says this isn’t a tantrum, this is meltdown.
I was at my desk working on culling down some of my floral images, getting ready to bring them together as a collection. My husband was with our son in the other room. I heard the panic building, that familiar escalation that feels like watching a wave you can’t outrun.
I got up to see how I could help, already knowing the answer: not much.
Less is more, especially in these situations
I am a big fan of simplicity, I joke I am a wannabe minimalist, as my house proves otherwise.
Something I’ve learned the hard way when it comes to our son: in these situations, less is always more. Sure I know that as an ethos for a lot of my life, but for this, it’s been hard, but we are getting there.
My husband was already with him. Our son was safe. He was being offered love. I knew if I went into that space, I would say no words, I’d learned that lesson years ago. Instead, I became the quiet supply chain: ice pack, squishy fidgets, weighted stuffy. Items that might help, or might get launched back at me (spoiler: several were).
My husband sat on the floor, back against the wall, holding our son who had his weighted blanket wrapped around him. Our boy’s face was flooded with tears, and my husband kept repeating like a mantra: “You are safe. I love you. You are safe. I love you.”
Our son screamed in panic, struggling to breathe.
Ice cold water sometimes helps. It did, for a moment. He caught his breath. Then broke back into that confusing swirl of anger and sadness that panic attacks bring, the kind where you can’t tell which emotion is driving and which is just along for the ride.
I quietly walked away, back to my desk. Back to my flowers. Because that is all I could do.
The Flowers That Understand
These particular flowers had been sent to me while I was in the hospital, thanks Natasha and Alex! I’d photographed them shortly after I got home, wilted and all. There was something about their imperfection that felt honest. They’d been through something too.
Honestly, the reason I started photographing flowers and natural elements was twofold:
One: I’m often home with my son as he no longer can attend school, school is not a safe place for many kids like him. Many days look exactly like the one I’m describing here, and I desperately needed a creative outlet that could exist within these constraints. I missed picking up my camera several times a week, so I needed to find a new motivator to do that.
Two: The deep connection I find when I’m lost between the petals. It’s a place my mind gets quiet and my creative heart feels at ease.
As I sat there editing, I could still hear the aftermath in the other room. The shaky breathing. The exhausted whimpers. The slow return to something resembling calm.
And I looked at these wilted flowers on my screen and thought: This. This is exactly it.
What’s Missing from the Conversation
Autism is having a moment right now, and let’s just say it’s a bit of a confusing moment. What I do hope will come out of this moment is this: more understanding, more acceptance, more celebration of neurodivergent brilliance, it’s all necessary.
But (and this is a compassionate, loving but) there are parts of this experience that keep getting left out. The hard parts. The parts that feel unexplained even when you know logically there’s an explanation somewhere. The parts where parents like us are always researching, looking for support, hiring supporting, then looking for new supports as the last didn’t click. Can you feel the exhaustion, cause it’s there and it’s hella real.
The nervous system has no manual. Kids don’t come with instruction booklets. And autistic kids? They’re navigating a world that wasn’t built for them while also managing sensory and emotional experiences the rest of us can barely imagine.
My son has been having panic attacks since he was five years old. Five. He’s a child whose nervous system goes into full fight-or-flight mode and sometimes stays there for hours.
Hours.
And let me tell you with all my heart: saying we feel helpless and scared is an understatement. It’s heartbreaking to see your child suffer and not know how to help or what to say. We’ve learned that in the moment, less talking is best. But even knowing that doesn’t make it easier to stand there, mute, watching your baby drown in panic.
The Blame We – I – Carry
I can’t help but blame myself sometimes… ok often… I blame myself often. There I said it, don’t come for me, I need to say it. I am trying to break patterns I learned as a child, I am working to be more mindful with my words but I make endless ridiculous fuck ups, and am like shit did I really just say that?! UGH!
Oh and then there is the fact that I too am autistic and my nervous system is also on the fritz!
I know I’m struggling with how to connect, how to support him in ways he needs. It’s so hard for him to communicate at all, let alone when he can barely pause for a breath. And I don’t expect him to know how to communicate, heck some adults barely know how to express what they are feeling.
Yet I still wish he could, and I still the guilt I carry inside me, it is like it’s own kind of panic, a slower burn, but just as consuming.
Am I doing enough? Am I doing it wrong? Is there something obvious I’m missing? Would a better parent have prevented this somehow?
(Not to worry I do have a therapist and we are exploring all of my feelings around this, and I am sharing as I know I am not the only one that feels this way.)
Finding Connection in Unlikely Places
When I’m photographing these flowers, I’m not thinking about whether I’m a good enough parent. I’m not running through the list of therapies we haven’t tried yet or specialists we haven’t seen.
I’m just… present. With the petals. With the light. With the decay that somehow looks like art. And this presence is something I am trying to cultivate so I can offer it to him, so I can once again co-regulart with him.
There’s something about documenting beauty in things that are ‘imperfect’. These flowers were not fresh and perfect anymore. They’re wrinkled and wilted and honestly even starting to smell a little bit.
And to me they were still worth honouring, they were still breathtaking in their own way.
Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to them. They remind me that you can be falling apart and still be beautiful. You can be a little broken and still deserve to be nurtured with care and attention.
Sort of like how my son is, navigating this world that’s so overwhelming, doing his best, breaking down sometimes, and still so damn worthy of love and compassion.
This photo below of the two carnations together, it’s me an him, attempting closeless feeling weathered and drained, but trying. Carnations were also my late mother’s favourite flower, coincidence I think not.
The Practice of Showing Up
I don’t have answers tonight, I actually never do. I don’t have a neat bow to tie on this experience or a list of
“5 Things That Helped Us Through Panic Attacks” because honestly? Most things don’t help. We just endure.
We show up. We offer what we can. We sit on floors and hold weighted blankets and hand over ice packs.
We whisper “you are safe” even when their nervous system is screaming the opposite. We cry in the bathroom later when they finally fall asleep.
And then, if we’re lucky, we find something that helps us survive too. For me, it’s these flowers, it’s my camera. These moments of getting lost in the textures and shadows, finding beauty in things that society would throw away. My floral photography practice was born from necessity, from needing something to hold onto during days that feel impossible. It’s become my form of meditation, my therapy, my proof that I can still create something even when everything else feels like it’s crumbling. And hey if no one else likes my photos of wilting flowers I am more than ok with that, though I encourage you to take time to sit with them and see what you find within them.
Sometimes the wilted version is the most honest one.
I’ve started to realize that this practice, of photographing things that many would deem as not worth it, finding them beautiful, has changed how I see everything, including these panic attacks.
I’m not saying they’re beautiful. They’re awful and heartbreaking and I’d give anything for them to stop.
But I am saying that maybe there’s a way to witness the hard stuff without needing it to be something else. To see my son in his most difficult moments and still hold space for the fact that he’s doing his best. To see myself in my most difficult moments (like tonight, passing fidget toys that get thrown at me) and know I’m doing my best too.
The flowers have are teaching me (and I say teaching as I am still trying to fully embody the lesson) that falling apart doesn’t mean you’ve lost your worth. Sometimes falling apart is just what happens, and happens again and again and that is part of the cycle of life.
For the Parents on the Floor
If you’re reading this because you’ve also sat on a floor holding your child through a panic attack that felt like it would never end, I see you.
If you’re reading this because you’ve also wondered if you’re failing them somehow… how about we both pause to remind each there we are not failing our kids. We’re here. We’re trying. That’s not nothing – oooph that felt big, because it is.
If you’re reading this because you’re desperately looking for a creative outlet that can exist within the chaos of parenting a child with high support needs, I get it. Find your flowers. Find your thing. It doesn’t have to be profound or perfect. It just has to be yours and it can be small, it can only have a few minutes here and there, but it can happen.
And if you’re reading this because you needed to hear that someone else finds the autism conversation incomplete without talking about these really hard moments, yes. Me too. Let’s talk about it more. Not to complain (though sometimes we need to do that too), but to honour the full experience.
The joy AND the panic. The connection AND the confusion. The beauty AND the breakdown.
What’s next
I’m continuing to build this collection of images of florals and natural elements. They’ll be available soon as fine art prints soon and I am very excited to launch those (and also having some imposter syndrome but I dare not say that outloud or my twin is going to come over here and pinch me!), but honestly, they’re already serving their purpose: they’re keeping me afloat on days like today. Even though today I didn’t have a camera in my hand I was able to enjoy some solitude after things settled, just me, Jill Scott, my images and well I then came to share with you.
Every time I will look at these wilted petals, I will be reminded of this: you can be fragile and strong at the same time. You can be broken and whole. You can witness terrible things and still find beauty somewhere in the wreckage. I hope you bookmark this post or even share it with a friend that needs to be reminded of this too.
2 responses to “When the Petals Fall”
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Heartwrenching, real… and profoundly beautiful writing. I’m crying as I read … “We whisper “you are safe” even when their nervous system is screaming the opposite. We cry in the bathroom later when they finally fall asleep.” I can relate to this. It’s interesting to wonder whether not sharing stories like this is an attempt at protecting our autistic child, or ourself… from more suffering. But the fact that you sharing your story releases some held back emotions in me, demonstrates the opposite… it is liberating to acknowledge the difficult truth. I feel for you guys.
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Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and leave your thoughts Fiona. I have often wondered and still do when I write about our experience (I have a few other posts on this topic too) if it’s right for me to share and I always come back to this is how I am showing my son we have nothing to hide, while he does not read my blog nor know I wrote this I do I hope later in life when I speak to him about it that he will understand that this was my form of advocacy that I could do, and I hope he sees it just for that. It’s true, we try and protect both them and us, and then we often suffer in silence. May those who read what we share see us with compassion as you have offered us here. Thank you so much <3
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Thanks for Reading!
Hi, I’m Michele Mateus, award-winning photographer based in Vancouver, BC creating bold, evocative, portraits and personal brand photography with an editorial flair for people who want anything but ordinary.
If something here hit the right note, let’s talk!
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