3 minute read
A Moment of Inspiration – When You Feel Like You're the Only One with a Special Needs Child
By Rebecca Wood
I have a friend who battled infertility. In the midst of this challenging time, she visited her local Target. Minutes into her shopping trip, she gave me a call.
Advertisement
“Hi, friend,” I chirped into the phone. “How are you?”
In response, I only heard sobs.
“What’s wrong?” I asked in a voice drenched with concern.
She sniffled, “When I got to the store, everywhere I looked were pregnant women. Like every single aisle.”
I spent the next hour comforting my friend. I hated that the excursion caused her so much distress. However, I was pretty sure that the Target store wasn’t crawling with pregnant women. I believed that my friend’s focus lasered in on expectant moms. And with that narrowed vision, she gazed at a store filled only with fertile women.
Over the years, I noticed that my friend isn’t the only person who struggles with tunnel vision.
At the tender age of 6, my son was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. We weren’t surprised by the diagnosis as our son displayed many of the classic symptoms of a high-functioning child on the autism spectrum: he struggled with social connections, intently focused on his interests and objects, and clung to a rigid sense of routine and structure.
While we weren’t caught off guard, we still wrestled with our acceptance of the situation: we were parents of a child who looked and acted differently from his peers.
Like my friend who only saw pregnant women, I began to only observe “normal” looking children.
At the stores, all the children displayed good behavior.
In the parks, every kid appeared socially savvy and emotionally appropriate.
In conversations with my friends, their sons and daughters seemed to be thriving in sports, school, and home life.
I walked away from all of these situations in tears thinking I was the only one in the world with a child who functioned differently. I felt totally alone in my struggles and wallowed in sorrow and pity.
One day, I connected with an acquaintance at the park. We started with chit-chat and then slowly dove into more candid conversations. sheepishly announced as if she were testing the waters to gauge what was a safe conversation.
I swiveled in her direction and with tears in my eyes exclaimed, “My son has the same diagnosis.”
From there, the conversation flowed, and our relationship deepened. We found a common connection that brought us both such encouragement. We realized that we shared many of the same feelings including the perception that our child was the only one on the autism spectrum in a seemingly endless sea of “regular” children.
“If we’ve found each other, there have to be others,” I suggested.
“I have another friend with a son on the autism spectrum,” she announced. “How about we all get together?”
Soon thereafter the three of us met at the park. From there, our circle grew with the addition of friends of friends, neighbors, and parents of classmates.
As we continued to get larger, we decided to make the group more organized and accessible to our community. So, we created a support group that met monthly at different homes. We sat in a circle on couches and folding chairs and poured out our hearts. Those meetings were equal parts life-changing and life-giving. We shared our joys, challenges, and frustrations. We gleaned wisdom from those who faced similar situations. We felt a sense of camaraderie and support that could only be given by those in the same situations.
As our kids have grown and become busier, it became more difficult to meet in person. We transferred our group onto Facebook. Via the web, moms have continued to seek and find encouragement from other parents of children on the spectrum.
Readers, I don’t know where you are in your journey with a special needs child. Do you also feel alone and like the only one with a son or daughter that functions differently in the world? If so, I implore you to look for others in the same situation. Those mothers are out there also looking for you. You need each other. And when you finally connect, don’t stop there. Look for more mothers you can come alongside and encourage, too.
