Asking For Help Doesn't Make You Weak

See this picture here?  This is a teary-eyed, tired, stressed out mom hiding in the bathroom to get a hot second to herself to regroup and refocus during a hard moment.  I'm sure some of you can relate.  Arriving at this moment didn't happen overnight.  No, it's a culmination of many hard moments built up until a breaking point.  

Let me set the scene; It was May of 2012 and my husband and I were bringing our premature twins home after being in the NICU for three months.  We had these tiny babies who needed a lot of care and attention and our 16 month old son who needed just as much care and interaction with us.  To say it was busy would be an understatement.  After being home for some time I started experiencing frequent bouts of anxiety and symptoms of PTSD.  I felt like I was a bad mother because I should be able to easily take care of my babies, right?  I quickly learned that asking for help does not mean you are weak, or less than, or a bad parent.  My husband and I are not always good at asking for help, yet we recognized that we could not do this alone.  As hard as it was, I knew I needed help for myself and found a doctor to work with.  Family and friends answered our calls for help and we couldn't have been more grateful in that time of need.  

Fast forward a couple years and you'd see a couple of parents who were down right burned out.  We had three boys ages three and under; one who hadn't slept through the night since being born, who co-slept with us (despite our adamancy that we would "not be those parents"), who needed to be held constantly and started showing some very concerning behaviors.  We had no clue what to do, where to go or who to talk to.  But we knew we needed help.  As we started talking to our pediatrician about our concerns we started on the road to help our son, which lead to an autism diagnosis at the age of 4 and eventually, we found an amazing team of people to work with who truly made a difference in our lives. 

Skip ahead another year or two and we were living life.  Not the life we had imagined, but it was our life.  My husband and I agreed that we had family support, we had a team of people who worked closely with our son and family, and we had made some great gains.  But there was still something missing.  We didn't have any friends or acquaintances who truly understood autism and the struggles we face every day.  We didn't know any other autism families.  We didn't have people we could hang out with where we didn't need to apologize for a behavior or explain why our son was doing something a little odd, or having to duck out early to avoid a meltdown.  We had friends we could vent to if needed, but they truly didn't understand what we were venting about.  Most times we'd get the brush off which made us feel worse.  Until one day we found a video of a fellow autism mom online who talked about things we knew and lived every day.  Finally, we had found someone like us!  And that one video opened up a whole new world of support for us.  We didn't feel so alone any more.  We had found our people. 

May is mental health awareness month and raising awareness of mental health needs among special needs parents is important.  Studies indicate that parents of a child with special needs reported poorer self-rated mental health and greater depressive symptoms than those of parents with typically developing children.  More importantly, parents of special needs could tell you this without looking at a study.  Because chances are, they've lived it.

Don't be afraid to reach out for help.  Whether that's asking friends, neighbors or family for an extra hand, finding help for your child, seeking out a doctor or therapist for yourself, or leaning on someone who completely understands.  

Asking for help does not make you weak, it makes you strong.  Asking for help highlights your deepest strength. 

The Impact is Real

Service dogs make a huge impact in their person's life.  We know that now more than we ever have before.

This last week has been challenging in so many ways.  We've had a handful of outings outside of our home that Sunny was unable to accompany Charlie to since she is still healing.  Even at home, Sunny has not been able or up to doing tasks for Charlie. 

The biggest challenge has been the increase in behaviors and disregulation with Charlie.  We've seen meltdowns of epic proportion this week at a level of intensity that we haven't seen in awhile. We feel this is largely due to the stress of seeing Sunny hurt and the fact that Sunny has not been able to do tasks for Charlie this week.  It's been a little eye opening to see just how big of an impact Sunny has on Charlie's day to day life.  Without her, things have been tough this week.  It's a little heartbreaking to see the backward slide.  Just when you take two steps forward you get pushed three steps back.  

Sunny continues to heal from her injuries.  It's been slow going, but today she seemed more like herself.  She got to go on a short walk today to help her stretch her legs, but not long enough to over do it. She did well and seemed happy to be out of the house for a bit. Hopefully we'll see more improvements in the coming days.  

From One Dog Owner To Another

From one dog owner to another, if you know your dog is aggressive, please keep it on a leash and under your control.  Letting it roam your yard in a busy neighborhood is unacceptable.  The risk you run of your dog injuring a person or another dog is not a risk to take.  The problems those injuries make are long lasting and sometimes very expensive.  When the injuries happen to a service dog, we've got big problems.  

Sunny was attacked by another dog a couple days ago while on a walk in our neighborhood.  This attack was unprompted as we walked by on the sidewalk.  Sunny ended up with bites to her front leg and a small wound that quickly became infected.  These injuries required vet care and resulted in her being put on an antibiotic as well as pain and anti inflammatory medications.  The swelling and deep bruising has made it difficult for her to walk. 

And worse, she is now laid up until her injuries are completely healed which could be a week or more.  This means that she is unable to do her job with Charlie.  This means she is focused on resting and healing and is not able to be with Charlie when we leave the house.  This also means it's highly likely she will need re-training to make sure she isn't reactive to other dogs.  Re-training isn't cheap.  

All of this means that Charlie is unable to use his service dog out in the community while Sunny is recovering.  Sunny is critical in Charlie accessing the community.  She helps him ride safely in vehicles, helps with deep pressure therapy, assists with transitions and being safe while in public.  And this is just the tip of the iceberg on what she does for him.  Of course Charlie will be using other skills to be successful in the community without Sunny, but you must understand she is a large part of Charlie's life and staying regulated.  

For now, we help Sunny heal.  She is being pampered and spoiled and loved on constantly.  And we wait.  We wait to see if Sunny can successfully return to being a service dog unscathed.  Chances are she will need re-training.  Luckily we have an amazing trainer who can guide us through this terrible experience.