Category Archives: Serious Stuff

GET QUIET AND LISTEN UP

Parenting, Serious Stuff

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I haven’t been to church in a really long time. A very long time. Years.

I live in the deep South, which makes this an unusual occurrence. I was raised both Catholic and strict Southern Baptist, with varying degrees of ideas of what made a good Christian. While in college, I settled into Episcopalian faith. It fit me. It didn’t judge me for not being a particularly religious person, but more of a spiritual one.

We moved, we had kids and I tried to go. But it just didn’t work. I became disenchanted with people that claimed to be a Christian, but only had harsh judgements for others for things they themselves did. I struggled with knowing that the people that hurt me as a child hid behind the teachings of Christ. I struggled when people told me that God only gave me what I could handle, because that’s not my God. I wondered where I belonged in that equation because I just struggled to understand. I had to stop asking to understand, because I know I will never get the answer that I want.

We are all works in progress, though, including myself. And with age comes this hard earned wisdom. This last year I have struggled with the demons from my childhood. As in, I am struggling.

I got hours and hours and years and years of help as a teenager/young adult. And I thought I was okay.

My therapists warned me that while I might feel okay, once I had children, I might feel differently.

I had two children. I did not feel any differently. I thought I was okay.

And then last spring, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was tucking my sleeping child in, covering his tiny body up with a blanket staring at his freckles and all of a sudden, I could not breath. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t inhale and this giant weight sat on my chest.

I was staring at an innocent child the same age that I was when all of the horrific things I worked through happened. The same things that my body is still paying for. The same things that cause me to pause daily.

The overwhelming shame, the anger, and the failure to understand flooded back, blindsiding me and no matter how hard I have tried to breathe, it gets harder. I get angrier and sadder at the same time. The more I try to understand, the less I understand how I share the same world and breathe the same air as these repugnant people.

I’ve gotten much quieter this year with these new emotions, grasping at the slivers of childhood joy I’m watching unfold in front of me, grieving the childhood I’m watching my children have, but that I’ll never know. They have, in all its glory, the innocent childhood I wanted for them. The more joyous I am about that, the more painful it is that it was stolen from me. I’ve gotten quieter because I can’t hear what the universe is trying to tell me because I’ve been drowning in this external noise of pain. I’ve gotten quieter because I need to hear what is being told to me.

Last night, I felt the urge to go to church for Ash Wednesday services. So, I got up today, got ready, and went to church.

I sat there, in a back pew, staring at the exquisite ceiling and the light streaming through the stained glass windows and wondered if I should be there. I thought just get quiet enough to hear. In this very moment, be silent and listen.

The rector started the sermon by referencing the AA meeting that was going on in the next building. He said he was always amazed how well it worked, but he knew why—- because we bond in our brokenness. That we are not perfect, especially not the strong ones of us, and we all need to know that we are not alone in our struggles. We are taught not to talk about our struggles, especially in the South, you just don’t discuss the hard things. He urged us to talk about the hard things, our brokenness, and in that, we heal together.

I started to cry in the back of the church. I’m not alone, and neither are you. My husband, family and closest friends have known I am struggling, but today I am sharing it with you in the hopes that if you need to read this, that you will, and know that it is okay and we are broken together. So you know that even the strongest struggle with being broken. Sometimes, the scars we thought were healed, are really partially still scabbed, and must be healed from the inside out. And that’s okay.

Because no matter how much therapy, no matter how much healing has happened, the pain and continuous striving to heal will never end. That, the acceptance of that, the never-ending pain, no matter how much less it will one day be, because it is already so much less than it once was, is the hardest part of this journey. This is the most surprising, almost startling realization to me, that it will never end. Because, I, like you, am a work in progress.

This Lenten season, my hope for you is to get quiet and listen. Take whatever your higher being/God/universe is trying to tell you and LISTEN UP. I hope that you acknowledge your brokenness and not regress with defeat. I hope your scabs heal and turn into hard earned scars. Lessons abound when you are humble enough to see them.

My EPIC New Year’s Resolution

Feminism, My Favorite Things, Serious Stuff

New Year's Resolutions

Have I ever told you about my first editor? I wrote a column in my early twenties for a local magazine where we used to live. It sort of fell into my lap after I had been named one of the town’s sexiest singles (I know, I know).

Anyhow, the editor of this magazine had a prolific career in publishing. He had lived and worked in all of the big markets, and moved/took this job to be near his ailing parents. He called me one day, out of the blue, and asked me to lunch. ‘I’m going to get fired’, I thought. But no, he wanted to tell me I needed to write, and in forty years of publishing, I was only the third person he had told that to.

No, I said. I believed that God and the Universe wanted me to do something with the abuse I had endured. What, I didn’t know, but at the time that was what I believed.

He stared at me intently. ‘I think you’re wrong,’ he said.

We would revisit this conversation on occasion, quite frequently, actually, and then I got married and had kids. And then we moved, our oldest was diagnosed with autism, and I chose not to go back to work to make his therapies a priority.

‘Have you thought maybe this is God or the Universe telling you to take this time to write that book?’ he asked. In truth, my old editor called me on my deepest dream that I thought impossible, that me, of all people, could actually write.

Hmmmmm….

So, I started writing. I cranked out a book. And then our second son was diagnosed with autism. Everything went to the back burner.

Then, a few years ago, in late 2013, I started writing again. And then I started blogging, to keep me in the habit of writing, and it was an easy way to document the lives of our children.

Then, on a whim, I signed up to go to a conference in June 2014.  And there, in all their glory, were my people, my weirdos, the misfits whose brains were just as odd as mine, and for the first time in my life, I was with my people.

That’s an unnerving experience if you’ve never had it.  You go through life, you make friends, fantastic best friends, but they don’t understand the storm of words and ideas that swirl inside your brain and keep you up at night, the ones you keep to yourself for fear that no one will understand.  To be in the presence of people that understand just that, is almost shattering to your core. It’s a shift in the paradigm of your universe, that there are other people like you, that maybe your ideas aren’t so crazy and far-fetched, and that maybe, just maybe, this is where you were meant to be all along.

And so, all of a sudden, you think okay, maybe I can do this.  I went viral two months later. Okay, I thought, maybe my words really can make a difference. I started meeting other creative people, people who had the same shit storm swirling inside their brain. And then, last spring, I met Harmony from Modern Mommy Madness. Meeting her has been life changing, and I hope for each and every single one of you, that you each have a working partner and friend like her. The craziest and epic-dumbshit that sits in my brain I can tell her, and guess what— she has the same crazy and epic dumbshit inside her brain. We’re working on some of that epic dumb shit and it’s AMAZING.

Shit started to happen last year, good things, fantastic, set-your-soul on fire things.  But then the naysayers also started.

‘No one really makes it as a writer.’
‘That’s a cute/fun hobby.’
‘Thank God your husband supports you.’
‘Is your husband okay with you writing?’
‘You don’t have a degree in English.’
‘Hardly anyone ever gets a book published.’

The list goes on and on and on and on. It tapped into my fear of failure.

So I shut out the noise, and kept telling myself that I finally accepted (and that’s the biggest part and challenge), that this is my purpose in life.  I finally accept it, 37 years in, that my words are the what I am supposed to contribute to this world. That maybe I didn’t have to do something with the horrors that happened to me, but yet use those feelings to be a better writer, and reach those that need it the most, that I can use those feelings to tap into your inner core and question your reality and perceptions, that is what I am meant to do.  Maybe five people will read my words, or maybe five million.  I don’t know, and that part doesn’t matter.  What does matter, is that I move forward with the intention of living my purpose.

That acceptance is powerful. That power also means that the naysayers will get louder, and I will have to work harder to shut out the noise, and I might have to buy stock in ear plugs.

But, big shit happens when you finally have the clarity of your goal.

So, that’s my resolution.  To work towards the goal of doing more creatively, and writing more.  Small and large steps everyday, resolute in shutting out the noise. To own who I am, and to no longer cower in my fear of failure.

I want this for you, too. What are we going to do, together? To fight fear in the face and accomplish epic fucking things?

I can’t wait to see what happens.

3 Things I Want to Tell My Friend Whose Child Was Just Diagnosed with Special Needs

As Seen on Other Websites/Blogs, Autism, Parenting, Serious Stuff,

3 Things I Want to Tell My Friend Whose Child Was Just Diagnosed With Special Needs

My husband and I have two boys, ages 8 and 10, both of whom are on the Autism spectrum. Every time a friend or acquaintance comes to me and tells me their child has been diagnosed with autism or another special need, my heart aches just a little bit more. Because I know things, and the path their new life will take will be rewarding, but exceptionally difficult at the same time. Here are three things I want them to know, things I learned the hard way:

  1. Advocacy is a nice by-product, but it’s not your job to make stupid people understand. Listen, some people are stupid, plain and simple. Either they intend to be mean, because they’re assholes, or they have no intention of understanding because it’s just not a priority to them.

Years ago, right after our oldest was diagnosed, I was in a fast food restaurant and I ran into an old friend of the family. She wanted to know how therapy was going, and was asking questions about the boys and their therapy. I walked into the play area, and a stranger followed behind me. It started off innocently enough:

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” she started, “but I heard you talking to that woman about your kid having autism.”

I smiled. “Yes.”

“I don’t mean to judge, but did you vaccinate your children?”

I should’ve stopped her right there, and told her to shove it, but I was naïve and believe in teaching opportunities.

“We did, yes.”

“You know that’s what caused their autism. Have you researched this? Is your husband OK with you abusing your children? He must not be educated.”

“My husband is a physician, actually, and we made the decision to vaccinate with our pediatrician,” I said, trying to remain calm.

“Oh, well that explains it. Your husband gets paid by the pharmaceutical companies.”

This lunatic had no intention of learning about what autism means to our family. She came in with the sole intention of making me feel bad about my mothering skills. People like this can suck the life out of you, but it is not your job to make them understand what you and your child are going through. It is your job to be your child’s mom.

  1. You are going to lose friends, and at times, you will feel lonely. This is an unfortunate by-product of this life you are embarking on. I’ve yet to know someone with a child with special needs who hasn’t lost a friend or two because of it. Maybe it’s because of their own insecurities. Maybe it holds a mirror up to their imperfect life. Who knows? But the less time you focus on the people who step back and more you focus on the people that step forward, the better off you’ll be.

Even the well-meaning friend will say insensitive things to you. Nothing makes me angrier than people telling me I needed to ‘grieve the child I wanted.’ I always hold back from responding, ‘no, you grieve the child you think I should have.’ We have the children we are supposed to have, regardless of what others may think.

While people will disappoint you with their behavior, the friends that step up and stick by you are the ones you will keep forever, because they get it. These are the golden ones; hold onto them tight.

  1. Everyone can and will Monday morning quarterback your decisions, but they’re not living this life, you are. Acceptance needs to be your new mantra for yourself. You are going to make mistakes. Accept this now, and it will be less painful when you screw up. There is no playbook for your life. Even with research, fabulous therapists, and brilliant doctors, straightforward solutions are usually not the first answer.

You will get angry and frustrated, but that is a waste of your precious time and energy. When our first child was diagnosed, I got into the tub and cried, because I didn’t know what I was up against or what the hell I was doing. When the second child was diagnosed, I crawled back into that tub and cried, because I knew what I was up against. I can’t change the way their brains are wired, just like I can’t change their eye or hair color. It’s what makes them them. While I dragged them to therapy multiple times a week, I used the rest of the time to focus on their gifts and strengths.

What you do need to do is throw all of your expectations out of the window while you drive towards a new destination. This is the life you are living. Embrace it.

© 2015 Audrey Hayworth, as first published on Scary Mommy.