Tag: parents
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Letting Go to Hold On
This week has been hard. Most weeks are hard lately, but this week was hard in a different sort of way as I painfully let go of something I loved, in order to hold on tighter to the people I love. I believe deeply that we all have an obligation to do as much as we…
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Between a Rock & a Hard Place
Parenting a child struggling with anxiety and panic is the personification of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Our days are marked not by hours, but by the spaces between anxiety fueled outbursts or shutdowns and panic attacks. We have very little control over the “rock” or “hard place” moments. But I’m beginning…
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Why Our Story, Isn’t Just “Our” Story
My intelligent, compassionate, musically gifted, goofy 10-year-old son has a level 1 autism spectrum disorder, and has recently been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and a panic disorder. As parents, we knew there was something wrong almost 2 years ago. We consulted various specialists, consented to a variety of tests and assessments, and our son has…
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It Might Be Time for a Dream Catcher
When I was 11, my grandfather had a brain aneurysm rupture. He was hospitalized for days before he died. The entire time he was in the hospital, I had a horrible dream each night that a masked man with a gun was threatening to shoot every person in my extended family. That dream was my adolescent brain’s…
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“You’re Okay. You’re Okay. You’re Okay.”
Mother’s Day 2016 I woke up this morning at the LA Zoo with my daughter, the 10 other girls in her Brownie troop, and 3 other mothers. We had a troop sleepover at the zoo on Saturday night. Not a traditional start to a Mother’s Day, but even with a body sore from sleeping on…
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The “Name” I Don’t Want to See on Caller ID
My cell phone rang a couple of hours ago. I glanced down to see who was calling, and felt a pit in my stomach when I saw the call was from my kids’ school. In the past the first thought would have been, “I wonder which one of them is sick.” Today my first thought…
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Ripping Off The Bandaid
These are the lessons I have learned since deciding rip off the bandaid to share both my son’s diagnoses, and our family’s journey, with the world. A “label” isn’t always a bad thing – We spent a long time not wanting to “label” our son, and therefore were not straightforward with him, ourselves or others. This came from a…
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Awkward Waiting Room Moments
The waiting room at my son’s psychologist was particularly full this afternoon. I don’t tend to feel like chatting (hello introvert) while I am waiting for his appointment to be over, so while I was aware that several people had come in while we sat there I didn’t actually make eye contact with any…
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The Lie I Told Today
This is the lie I told this morning at church… In response to the question “How are you today?” – my answer was “fine, thank you.” Or some version of that several dozen times as I greeted different people. I smiled and lied to each of them. The honest answer would have been… “I’m exhausted and…
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Gatorade and Nutella
I have always refrained from using food as a bribe or bargaining tool with my kids. Always. Always is a long time. And always ended today. Tuesday is the day my son has his weekly appointment with the psychologist. We go straight from school, and I keep a selection of snacks for both kids to choose from…
We're All A Little Broken 