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.
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