The Emergency Contact

You know that sinking feeling?

The one that starts in your stomach, trickles into your lungs, and finally sets up camp somewhere behind your left eye?

Yeah. That one.

It’s the sound of my phone buzzing at 10:43am with the words:

School Calling.

Nothing good ever follows that.

They don’t call to tell you your child made a friend or painted a really moving interpretation of grief using finger paint.

They call when someone’s bitten, bolted, thrown a chair, or broken down entirely.

And they always open with the same sentence:

“Hi there! Nothing to worry about…”

And instantly, I’m worried.

Because the only reason you don’t think it’s something to worry about is because you aren’t the one who has to pick up the pieces.

This time it’s the seven-year-old.

Apparently she “got overwhelmed” in music, refused to participate, and then cried under a desk.

Didn’t lash out. Didn’t shout. Just folded inward.

“She’s fine now,” they say. “But maybe a bit emotional.”

No shit.

I don’t say that, of course.

I say, “Thanks for letting me know.”

I say, “Was she able to use her communication card?”

I say, “Is someone with her now?”

Because I’m that mum.

The one who knows which staff members she trusts, which classrooms have beanbags, which situations are likely to lead to overstimulation, and which days are already stacked against us because of the lunar cycle or a weird sock seam.

I hang up and sit very still.

It’s not a full crisis. Not yet.

But I know how quickly it can slide.

The toddler’s watching TV, some overstimulating animated chaos involving dancing numbers, and I’m just sitting there, phone still in my hand, trying not to spiral.

Because this isn’t rare.

This is normal.

This is life on a loop.

I can’t remember the last time I went a full week without something.

A call. A meeting. A meltdown in the cloakroom or a quiet refusal to come back inside after break.

And it chips away at you. Not in big dramatic chunks, but tiny daily scrapes.

You start measuring time in incident reports.

You start planning your day around what might go wrong.

And when nothing does?

You feel like you’ve forgotten something.

Like calm is suspicious.

And the thing is - I don’t blame the school. Not really.

They’re doing what they can.

They’ve tried.

But trying doesn’t change the fact that my child is surviving a world that expects her to mask, regulate, and “participate” when just getting there took all her energy for the day.

And now she’s sitting in a corner of a classroom, emotionally concussed, because someone tried to make her clap to a beat she couldn’t feel.

There are no medals for this.

No badges.

No applause.

Just another note in her file and another grey thread in my hair.

Sometimes I want to shout into the void:

“SHE’S NOT A BEHAVIOUR TO MANAGE. SHE’S A PERSON WHO’S DROWNING.”

But I don’t shout.

I turn down the TV.

I peel the toddler off the cat.

And I keep going.

Because unless they tell me to come get her, I don’t get to stop.

Because someone has to be the safe one.

The soft place to land.

The one who never rolls their eyes and says, “She’s just being dramatic.”

And most days, I can do that.

I can be that.

But some days, like today, I really wish someone would call me and say,

“You seem a bit overwhelmed.

Would you like to come and sit under a desk for a while?”

Because yeah.

Yeah, I would.