Raising Autism in an RV

My son is eight years old and when he was younger we moved quite a bit between houses and apartments. Sometimes, we lived in multiple apartments or houses in one year up until he was five. The we moved to Arizona where in three years, we lived in three places, one of them was for two years.

Personally, I never really had an urge to live in one place. Even before I had my son, I had joined the Army just to get out of my hometown. When we got to Arizona is when we really started to get stable. My son was in and out of the hospital. My son lives with some severe mental health problems being as young as he is. He is Autistic, has DMDD, and a few years ago he started experiencing hallucinations.

When in Arizona, they put him on medication and in multiple therapies. He went through "meet me where I am at" behavior therapy and that did wonders for him but none of the medications really did everything that he needed and others made him worse. When apartment prices started to rise in Arizona, our $1200.00 two bedroom apartment went up to almost $3000.00 for rent alone and we had a decision to make.

We chose to move back to Texas. I was going to find a cheaper place to live and spend more time focusing on doing what was best for Everett. I always had my own struggles with mental health as I am schizoaffective but the priority now was my son. We moved back to Texas last March and after many conversations, I started leasing the RV that my parents and youngest brother lived in when they were fixing their house after flood damage.

In July, we moved the RV to our own spot in the next town over. Since we have moved here, I am writing full time, Everett is fully off medication and in an amazing Therapy Education Program. Life has changed in so many ways but small living in the RV has taught us so much.

Everett is less anxious because he can see me from everywhere in the RV. He is slowly becoming more independent, learning to cook basic things and some of his snacks. We take more walks and spend more time playing board games and taking walks.

I do not stress about paying thousands in bills every month and we have plans to start a garden outside. I get to do what I love for work. Life may be smaller and slower now but the biggest and most amazing things have happened to us by making this choice.

I do not know what the next few years will bring or how things may change with Everett's mental health or mine. I have to learn how to manage my own mental health while prioritizing his. Working on my own mental health is a journey that I never really took seriously. I have so many things that I need to break down from my past that triggered my disorder while making sure that I never take my eye off of focusing on my sons mental health.

I am not saying that our life is perfect now but my urge to travel is subsided by the fact that I know with the RV we can move around in the summer if we want to. I get to spend more time journaling and working on healing my past. I get to take my time with my son to help him heal as well. I don't know if we will always be full time RV living but right now I could not imagine living any other way.