Anyone with a special needs child?

Ok, so my unofficial fiance has a 13yr old son with autism and an 8yr old with major adhd. I'd been in a long distance relationship with him for awhile, but moved in with them last yr, a few mths after their mom passed from cancer. The transition was easy, because they'd known about me before she'd found out she was sick, and they don't think of me as a "replacement" mom.

The reason I'm posting this is because I don't know what to do!! Now that school is done, the boys are home all day and Jake, the older, needs almost constant supervision, and has a fit almost daily ( picture a 6ft, 200-250 lb toddler having the biggest tantrum you can imagine), and I'm completely exhausted. I can't leave him alone for long, cause he'll do things like putting duct tape all over his face, or going outside and smashing various things with a hammer. And you can never predict what he'll get in his head to do. I need at least 4hrs to get out of my intense "watch" mode before I can sleep, which has me falling asleep around 1-2am and waking up around 6 am to start it all over. While trying to keep a too big house clean, and 2 growing boys fed. We haven't enrolled them in a summer program, because as soon as bf gets offered a decent job down south (home for both of us), we're gone. And we can't find anyone who is capable and willing to babysit for a day to get a break.

If anyone has a similar experience, how do you keep going? I've been getting bad flares from the stress, and it's hard to have time to just relax and have time to just be. It's been a real struggle. I've never taken care of kids before now, and I'm having trouble adjusting to the change. I went from living by myself with only my cats to worry about, to this chaos. I always feel like I've been beat all over with a sack of potatoes, I'm always tired, and my patience is wearing thin.

I don't even know if I'm doing good as a mom!! Everyone says I'm so good with them, but I KNOW I have to be handling things badly or else Jake wouldn't be having a fit every day!! And I've been getting lots of "you aren't my mother, so I don't have to listen to you". Or is it just because of his autism and puberty? I don't know, and I'm lost. How can I figure out a way to take care of them the way they need, while also taking care of myself? I'm no good for them when my fibro is going haywire, but I can never find the time to do anything to change that.

My bf does what he can, but he has to work a lot since I'm not working, and the boys have a lot of medical expenses. And once we're back down south by both of our families, we'll have more help. But I don't know if I can make it till then without having my own melt down.

If anyone has any advice, please share!!

That's what I've been thinking. It's going to be difficult tho, since we only have 1 car. Bf works an hr drive away, so I can't exactly drop him off then the boys. We might be able to send them early and pay extra for that. I'll talk to bf about it.

As far as boredom, every day I take away their electronics for several hours, which makes them go play outside and exhaust themselves. And on the weekends when bf is off of work, so I have him as backup, they can not touch any electronics till they've picked up all toys and put them away, and cleaned their rooms. Otherwise they'd spend all day every day parked in front of the pc.