17 year old son and at my wits end

I'm confused about who the father is - is your husband his biological father? This is important because the Autistic-Analytic, easily driven toward resolution can be empathised with (relating and responding) by the parent who has autistic genes. As a mum of a 25 year old who's neurodivergent, with dyslexia, I hear you say he needs to wake up this early to clear his mind or it's gutters and my only response is, 'bless..." I feel this. This is a young man who is clearly driven to succeed and fighting his biology. An "against all odds" sort. 

It is unrealistic, but it's the only practical solution it seems, that he's been able to manage. So what other solutions exist? What does he feel the need to accomplish before school, which is similar to going to work.

I work with sound. I wake up and use the morning as if it were the evening and then start my job later depending on details like laundry and post or shopping. I'd rather have the mornings to sort things and clear up small loose threads so I can focus on work without distraction. The difference is I can set my own schedule. 

A few things appear to be happening. To start, we have a different internal understanding of time. The Autistic everything-is-connected, everything-all-at-once 'sense' of being creates difficulty separating elements, ideas, systems, and so on. There is Chronos and there is Aion. The Austist is typically 'stuck in the moment' or in this eternal continuum. That is the sense it seems we tend to have of Time. We won't have difficulty losing our selves in a moment or being present. But we can have excruciating difficulty with linear time and time management. In fact, there is no such thing as time management. The only thing many of us agree on is the prioritisation of things, the continual reminder that it's OK to get one small task done each day and allow it to add up to the full task. And then to visualise the future, if even tomorrow. It's taken decades for me to learn alone how to do this. It can help to learn to work with a yearly calendar. Block out the summer break. Examine each week on Sunday. have a Today list and a list for the week.

Next, there appears to be a great deal of disconnect. And when there's severed connexion between parent and child, there is severed trust. A child will trust a parent who they feel understood by, who they do not doubt has their best interest in mind and who is never offended by them. As parents we always have to mind that trust is something we seek to earn every day because once it's broken, it takes extra effort to regain. If you're walking on eggshells, you could appear as an equal rather than a mentor and unstable, even if you're confused and trying your best. And kids need us to contain our emotions, to be a source of grounding for them. What follows can be all kinds of reactionary chains, all of which create a little more of a mess. He's 17. You could afford to take a step back, maybe even just a week away to breathe - a yoga retreat or just a bit more time spent on walks. The tools to reconnect always involve grounding the self, finding wisdom and learning to be open to seeing with a fresh perspective. Our natural way of thinking is often discussed as "out of the box" or creative. But really, it's just using a critical reasoning process in a different way. Most of us will have great difficulty with language until mid-30s and even more difficulty interrogating our 'feelings' as we're more inclined to see how things are functioning rather than how they impact us or what they mean. Spend time with things he is interested in, ask him to tell you what he is learning and that may be a place to gain trust and reconnect.

I'm confused about who the father is - is your husband his biological father? This is important because the Autistic-Analytic, easily driven toward resolution can be empathised with (relating and responding) by the parent who has autistic genes. As a mum of a 25 year old who's neurodivergent, with dyslexia, I hear you say he needs to wake up this early to clear his mind or it's gutters and my only response is, 'bless..." I feel this. This is a young man who is clearly driven to succeed and fighting his biology. An "against all odds" sort. 

It is unrealistic, but it's the only practical solution it seems, that he's been able to manage. So what other solutions exist? What does he feel the need to accomplish before school, which is similar to going to work.

I work with sound. I wake up and use the morning as if it were the evening and then start my job later depending on details like laundry and post or shopping. I'd rather have the mornings to sort things and clear up small loose threads so I can focus on work without distraction. The difference is I can set my own schedule. 

A few things appear to be happening. To start, we have a different internal understanding of time. The Autistic everything-is-connected, everything-all-at-once 'sense' of being creates difficulty separating elements, ideas, systems, and so on. There is Chronos and there is Aion. The Austist is typically 'stuck in the moment' or in this eternal continuum. That is the sense it seems we tend to have of Time. We won't have difficulty losing our selves in a moment or being present. But we can have excruciating difficulty with linear time and time management. In fact, there is no such thing as time management. The only thing many of us agree on is the prioritisation of things, the continual reminder that it's OK to get one small task done each day and allow it to add up to the full task. And then to visualise the future, if even tomorrow. It's taken decades for me to learn alone how to do this. It can help to learn to work with a yearly calendar. Block out the summer break. Examine each week on Sunday. have a Today list and a list for the week.

Next, there appears to be a great deal of disconnect. And when there's severed connexion between parent and child, there is severed trust. A child will trust a parent who they feel understood by, who they do not doubt has their best interest in mind and who is never offended by them. As parents we always have to mind that trust is something we seek to earn every day because once it's broken, it takes extra effort to regain. If you're walking on eggshells, you could appear as an equal rather than a mentor and unstable, even if you're confused and trying your best. And kids need us to contain our emotions, to be a source of grounding for them. What follows can be all kinds of reactionary chains, all of which create a little more of a mess. He's 17. You could afford to take a step back, maybe even just a week away to breathe - a yoga retreat or just a bit more time spent on walks. The tools to reconnect always involve grounding the self, finding wisdom and learning to be open to seeing with a fresh perspective. Our natural way of thinking is often discussed as "out of the box" or creative. But really, it's just using a critical reasoning process in a different way. Most of us will have great difficulty with language until mid-30s and even more difficulty interrogating our 'feelings' as we're more inclined to see how things are functioning rather than how they impact us or what they mean. Spend time with things he is interested in, ask him to tell you what he is learning and that may be a place to gain trust and reconnect.