Pitch Black

Readers Note:

The inspiration and strength to write this blog came to me while Finn was preparing for his upcoming black belt testing. In martial arts, progress is marked by belts. Each one marks a stage of growth — lessons learned, struggles faced, skills slowly built over time.

Looking back now, Finn’s story unfolded the same way.

But the darkness didn’t begin at that moment.

It didn’t begin in the hospital either.

Finn’s story — and mine — had been unfolding long before that night.

His emotional intensity started showing up when he was barely three years old. At first it just felt like big emotions. The kind people brush off as “strong-willed” or “spirited.” At the time, I honestly thought Everett would be the child who challenged me the most. His autism had shown itself early, and I had already started learning how to navigate the world of neurodivergence. I thought I already “knew” what advocacy looked like.

But Finn had other plans.

Somewhere along the way, my easygoing second child quietly looked at the universe and said, “Challenge accepted… hold my beer.”

For years we tried to understand how Finn’s brain experienced the world.

Therapy. Diagnoses. Medication trials.

Some things helped. Some things didn’t.

The week before Finn turned five, we were given the official names for what we had been experiencing: DMDD, ADHD, and anxiety.

But by Christmas 2023, it was clear something had shifted. The cracks had widened so much they no longer looked like cracks at all — they looked like canyons.

A few weeks later, in early January, we had an incident that made it painfully clear things had reached a critical point — and that I was in over my head.

With absolute terror sitting heavy in my chest, I emailed every professional in Finn’s support network.

Therapists.
Psychologists.
Psychiatrists.

Anyone who might know how to reach him.

Because at that point, it felt like we were losing him.

And for a moment there, it felt like we had.
I didn’t know how to reach him anymore.

When I made that desperate plea to the members of his support team, his psychiatrist told us to discontinue the Strattera he had been taking — the last medication in his regimen that had any mood-regulating effect.
She said she was “curious to see what would happen” and that she would see us at our next scheduled appointment — in a little over three weeks.

Stopping that medication abruptly took an already volatile situation and turned it thermonuclear.

His sleep started falling apart.
His anger escalated.
Outbursts became more frequent.
More intense.
More unpredictable.

Our house stopped feeling like a home and started feeling like an emotional battlefield.

But the worst part wasn’t just how hard things had become for me.

It was watching Finn start to believe that nothing was ever going to get better. This was just his life.

When he was calm, he would try to explain it.

He told me the anger felt like it lived inside him all the time, just waiting to explode.

He said ADHD was “too hard.”

That he felt like he couldn’t control anything anymore.

That sometimes he didn’t think he could do this at all.

At six years old.

It was during one of those moments, I realized just how much he was suffering.

He looked at me and said:

“You made me feel like a bad person and like you weren’t my mom anymore. And that made me hate you and made me feel like you weren’t a safe person, and want to kill you. This is too hard. ADHD is too hard. I can’t do this anymore.”

Hope that the medication would help.

Hope that the constant anger and emotional chaos he had been living inside might finally quiet down.

And as the doctor spoke, a single thought kept running through my mind.

Shit… it really is this bad.

Because hearing it said out loud — hearing someone else confirm what I had been slowly realizing for weeks — made everything feel painfully real.

Relief.

Fear.

Guilt.

Devastation.

All of it hit at once.

Parenting manuals never cover the moment when you have to decide whether your child needs a psychiatric hospital.

And at the time, I wasn’t sure if I was making the right decision.

But deep down, I also knew something else.

I couldn’t keep pretending everything was okay.

He was right.

Finn needed help that I couldn’t give him on my own.

THE SELF-HARM CHANGED  EVERYTHING...

I don’t remember the drive home that night.

Not really.

I mostly just remember small vivid details.

The sound of the sliding doors as I exited the hospital.

The way the valet attendants smile quickly crumbled into sympathy as he scanned my face while handing me my keys.

The surreal feeling that this wasn’t my life — almost like an out-of-body experience.

How I was amazed that I still had tears left to cry.

And hollow. 

So hollow.

Like something essential had been scooped out of me.

All I wanted was some way to numb the pain.

Instead, I called my friend Jami.

And I cried.

Again.

Hard.

At the time she felt like the only person who truly understood what I was going through. She had walked a similar road with her own child, and somehow, she knew exactly what to say — and when to simply sit in the silence with me.

I still don’t think I would have left the hospital that first night if Jami hadn’t reminded me of something important.

Everett still needed me too.

And she was right.

Because sitting in that hallway forever wouldn’t help either of my boys.

Navigating The Pitch Black

I honestly don’t know how I would have navigated that week without Jami.

The next day she showed up without hesitation.

When I felt like I could barely function, Jami stepped right into the trenches beside me.

She helped me sort through the paperwork.

She helped me shop for the things Finn was allowed to have.

There were rules about everything:

• No strings.
• No hoods.
• Slip-on shoes only.
• Nothing sentimental in case items got mixed up.

Information was coming at me faster than my brain could process it.

But Jami kept me moving forward.

She even simplified the paperwork into one list with the most important details highlighted.

We gathered everything Finn needed from the checklist she created — and a few extra things we hoped might make his stay a little easier.

It wasn’t just Jami.

Other people stepped in too.

My mom made sure she could call Finn and be there for his first visitation.

Friends sent encouragement and offered to watch Everett while we visited Finn.

Kids made drawings for him.

Little reminders that we weren’t completely alone in this.

Even though everything still felt heavy.

Overwhelming.

Blurry.

Eventually Finn was discharged and allowed to come home.
Exactly seven days after he had been admitted.

But leaving the hospital didn’t mean the hard part was over.

In many ways, it was just the beginning.

Because healing a nervous system that had been living in constant chaos doesn’t happen overnight.

The next year would be filled with medication changes, endless therapy appointments, school meetings, and more moments of uncertainty than I can count.

Progress came slowly.

Sometimes painfully slowly.

But little by little, we started to see something we hadn’t seen in a long time.

Hope

By the time the next district tournament rolled around, a lot had changed.

Finn had spent a full year rebuilding himself.
Therapy.
Medication adjustments.
Learning how to recognize the early warning signs inside his own brain.

Moments when you could see him trying.
Trying to slow himself down.
Trying to breathe — eyes closed, fists clenched..
Trying to stop the tidal wave before the anger took over.

Little by little, the explosions became less frequent.

The recovery wasn’t perfect.

But it was real.

And honestly… I don’t think I realized just how far he had come until that night.

After the tournament, the team gathered at a Mexican restaurant to celebrate and announce the final placements.

The rings that Finn had competed in were some of the hardest ones at the tournament.

They were also huge.

Despite that, he had actually done incredibly well.
He placed third in several of the individual rings.

But because of how the brackets were structured, he didn’t advance to compete for an overall title.

It wasn’t until our team dinner later that night, that the cracks started to show.

And they didn’t show where you would have expected it.

During dinner they were announcing the results from the day-who won what title and medaled.

I glanced over at him.

And the second I saw his face…

My stomach dropped.

He looked devastated.

In an instant my brain time-traveled straight back to Children’s.

That same cold panic flooded my chest.

The same thought slammed into my head.

This is it.

This is where the dam breaks.

Before anyone noticed, I quietly stood up and slipped away to the bathroom.

And the second the door closed behind me, I lost it.

There I was — a grown adult sobbing in the bathroom of a random Mexican restaurant in Georgia — while a large group of people at the table were probably wondering where I had disappeared to.

My phone started buzzing.

Friends checking on me.

Making sure I was okay.

Because they knew.

Being a parent in those moments is complicated.

I truly was happy for the other kids. I love them. I’m proud of them.

But I also knew the storm Finn had lived through the year before.

And I was bracing myself for the fallout.

Part of the reason my brain went straight to panic was because I had seen this moment before.

Last Districts in June 2024 — Finn had taken the loss hard. 

Really hard.

At the time his nervous system was still raw from everything we had been through.

Disappointment didn’t just feel like disappointment.

It felt like failure.
Like proof that something inside him was still broken.

So when I saw that same look cross his face in 2025, my brain assumed we were about to relive that moment all over again.

I didn’t know if he could survive a second year of crushing disappointment.

What I didn’t realize yet was that Finn had spent an entire year learning how to carry those feelings differently. He had medication that was truly working.

It took me almost fifteen minutes before I could pull myself together enough to go back out.

Mask back on.

Game face in place.

Because sometimes that’s just part of the job.

Being a mom means holding yourself together long enough to help your kid hold it together too.

I left the bathroom and my eyes immediately found Finn.

Except, the Finn I found wasn’t crying.

He was laughing.

And while I knew he was bummed about not getting a title, you could tell he was mostly just happy for his friends.

Well his friends and cheese dip that is.

And that’s when I realized — in the wise words of my bestie, Taylor Swift:

It’s me, hi
I’m the problem, it’s me

I had spent so long taking care of Finn’s mental health that I had forgotten about mine.

Finn wasn’t nearly as traumatized by his stay at Children’s as I was.

Children are more adaptable and resilient than we give them credit for.

Adults on the other hand, aren’t.

I realized then that the light-hearted jokes I made about having PTSD weren’t really jokes.

I was actually struggling with it.

And I knew then that I also needed to find a way to heal myself.

Looking back now, I realize that healing rarely happens the way we expect it — in easily identified dramatic moments. It shows up quietly, when you least expect it.

I had spent so much time watching Finn, waiting for the next crack in the dam, that I didn’t realize the water had already started to recede.

He had been quietly learning how to carry his emotions differently.

Learning how to pause.
Learning how to breathe.
Learning how to “levitate.”

And somewhere along the way, while he was rebuilding himself… I forgot that I might need to rebuild a few pieces of myself too.

Somewhere in the middle of helping Finn prepare for his black belt test — reviewing the knowledge he’d be quizzed on, timing his 5K, and running through his forms — I found myself pausing to take in the journey we have been on over the last few years.

Something in me shifted, and I knew it was time.

Time to share his story.

I had finally healed enough to do it.

To show his strength.
To show his growth.
To show that even when life feels pitch black — when the darkness feels endless — there is always light somewhere ahead.

But also to show that no matter how much better Finn and I are right now, this path is still rocky sometimes.

And that’s okay.

Life is going to throw you curveballs.

Sometimes those curveballs look like the familiar buzz of another message from your child’s teacher.

Sometimes those curveballs look like unexpected mental health reality checks.

Just a few weeks ago, at his last psychiatry appointment, the doctor asked a question I wasn’t expecting.

“Have you ever seen or heard things you knew weren’t real?”

Finn said yes.

And my heart immediately fell out of my chest.

In an instant I was transported right back to that moment at Children’s when I learned he had been self-harming.

Then he clarified that it hadn’t happened since around the time he was hospitalized.

I took a deep breath as my heart slowly settled back into my chest.

This path we are on will probably never be easy.

But there is light.

Joy.

Hope.

As I stood there Saturday watching Finn work through each part of his black belt test, something dawned on me:

When most people think about earning a black belt, they think about strength and techniques.

Kicks.
Forms.
Breaking boards.

As I watched “Mr. Dorothy” have his newly earned black belt tied around his waist, I felt a rush of pride and relief.

Pride in seeing just how much his hard work had paid off.

Relief that he had passed — several of his friends hadn’t.

Because, for Finn, the hardest thing he had to learn wasn’t how to spar.

It wasn’t learning a perfect back stance.

It wasn’t mastering a 360 bo staff toss or memorizing the names of every Grand Master.

It was learning how to breathe.

How to pause.

How to sit inside big emotions without letting them take over.

That’s the kind of strength you can’t earn in a dojang.

But somehow, Finn managed to do both.

The same kid who once asked if the doctors were there to “fix his brain” was now standing on a mat, earning his black belt.

When Finn walked off the mat after testing ended, I expected him to come straight toward us.
But for a moment I couldn’t find him.

When I finally spotted him, he had his arm around a friend who hadn’t passed.
While everyone else was celebrating, Finn was quietly walking beside him, comforting him.

Watching him walk beside his friend that day, something became clear:

The belt wasn’t the most important thing he earned that day.

It was never even about his belt.

It was about his journey.

In Songahm Taekwondo, the belt system is represented by the life of a pine tree.

A seed is planted.

It reaches for the sun.

It becomes a sapling, fighting for space among the taller pines.

Its path becomes steeper as it grows stronger roots.

Eventually the tree reaches maturity — standing tall and strong.

And when it does, it begins planting seeds of its own.

Finn’s journey followed that same path.

My little seed did grow.
He found the sun.

He became a sapling and fought his way among the taller pines, bending through storms no child should have to face so young.

His path became steeper than anyone could have predicted, but he kept reaching upward, deepening his roots along the way.

And somewhere along the way, the pitch black that once surrounded us slowly gave way to morning.

I got to witness that sunrise after Districts in 2025.

Now his tree stands strong.

Ready to weather storms.

Ready to plant seeds of hope for others who may still be standing in their own darkness.

Watching him walk beside his friend that day, I realized something I hadn’t understood before.

The storm we survived didn’t just teach Finn how to endure the dark.

It taught him how to recognize it in others.

And in that moment, the darkness no longer felt endless.

He didn’t just survive the pitch black.

He learned how to be light for someone else still standing in it.

If you’re a parent walking through your own version of Pitch Black right now— I see you. Your dawn will come too.

The post Pitch Black appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

Leaving the therapists office Monday, tears still in my eyes, I was left feeling raw and vulnerable while experiencing an overwhelming amount of mom guilt. Her words crashing through my head on repeat:

“You need to ask his psychologist when enough is enough and he needs committed to the children’s psych ward. It also sounds like it’s time for him to be on medication…”

I feel unprepared to face my reality. The reality that it might be time to consider putting Finn on medication. The reality that after describing the amount of abuse Finn has put me through this week, my own therapist mentioned committing him. Though she wasn’t talking about him being committed today, she did say she noticed that the amount of virtirol and violence towards me was increasing at an alarming rate, so knowing the signs of when a child needs psychiatric intervention is important.

Really though, it feels like the reality is that I’m not enough. That I’ve somehow failed some magic parenting test. I sit in my car and just break down. Huge heaving sobs as the mom guilt cripples me. Oh the mom guilt. Then there is the guilt that I said my deepest fear out loud: “I worry that we’re going to lose Finn like we lost Fredric’s father.”

So I sit in my car, torturing myself. Repeating my fears and self-perceived shortcomings. Allowing the waves of grief and guilt to drown me, before I muster up the courage to call the pediatrician and let them know we need a consult.

I barely hold it together as I describe what I’m calling about. As I hang up, my voice cracking, I muster up the energy to call my best friend Ellie. And I breakdown again. Not even her soothing voice and wise words break all the way through my misery.

I turn to Facebook support groups, but before I can even post, all I see are my fears coming true in others experiences. “I had to call the police on my child and lock myself in my room for safety” “I just had them committed into the children’s psych ward for the 3rd time” and so on. I start sobbing again, terrified that this is my future with Finn. That we are fighting a losing battle, no matter how much therapy and interventions we use.

I know I need more help, so I reach out to a group of local girlfriends to see whose shoulder I can cry on. Amanda invites me over, and I sit on her bed and release all my fears and worries in a torrent of tears and grief. She listens patiently and firmly puts me in my place, telling me everything I need to hear, even though I feel unworthy of the compliments and reassurances.

I leave Amanda’s, eyes swollen and sore, to pick up Finn. He’s in great spirits and I immediately feel better… until we go to the park. At the park, when I tell Finn it’s time to leave he starts berating me and then starts kicking me. I can feel the stares and judgement. I head to yet another girlfriends house, because it’s obvious that I still need support pulling myself out of the black hole of grief that has sucked me in.

She reiterates what both Amanda and Ellie have said, except this time it starts to sink in past my grief. It’s almost as if they talked about me before arriving and decided on a script. I lament “I just thought I had MORE TIME…” Her response is finally what started snapping me out of it:

As a parent we always think we have more time”

It just resonated with me… it was so simple, but so true. Still somewhat doubtful, I decide to let her comforting words be the truth, despite still feeling unworthy of them. I slowly try to let myself heal some, feeling thankful for my tribe.

This. This right here is the struggle of a parent with a child with DMDD. This is what it looks like when we break. I’m slowly picking up the pieces that my emotional rollercoaster left in its wake, but today I feel stronger. I have a plan. I’ve only cried once, when I told his OT that it looked like we were going down the medicinal path. Yet, as I write this, I know I’ll get through it, just like I get through everything else, one day, one hour, one minute at a time.

The post Raw appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

“I hate you. I hate everyone. I want you to kill me. Someone needs to kill me. I don’t want to be alive anymore. Kill me now. What does blood taste like. I’m going to drink all my blood. You hate me you hate me you hate me. You don’t love me. Everyone hates me. I want to die”

Finn, Age 4 

Everything written above, was said by Finn, to me, in the span of 5 minutes this morning. This morning is our first back at OT and school since break. He’s been becoming more and more dysregulated through this holiday season. It makes sense, after all, we’ve been off schedule, off therapy, and really just off.

What is dysregulation? It is defined as the following:

“Dysregulation, also known as emotional dysregulation, refers to a poor ability to manage emotional responses or to keep them within an acceptable range of typical emotional reactions. This can refer to a wide range of emotions including sadness, anger, irritability, and frustration.”

The effects of dysregulation can be mild or severe, but in our case, as the holidays have come to a end, and as our normal schedule is supposed to resume, calling it severe is an understatement. In general, emotional dysregulation involves having emotions that are overly intense in comparison to the situation that triggered them. This can mean not being able to calm down, avoiding difficult emotions, or focusing your attention on the negative. Most people with emotional dysregulation also behave in an impulsive manner when their emotions (fear, sadness, or anger) are out of control.

As I sit here and write this, I begin to feel the guilt creep in. I know I handled this mornings outbursts poorly. I feel like I’ve  been stuck in a hurricane of my children’s volatile emotions, and that has slowly chipped at my patience. I struggled this morning, as I’ve been struggling the past 2 weeks. Struggled with screaming at the kids “why don’t you have shoes on yet? I’ve asked 48 times!” “We’ve got to go! We are running late!” “Can you please for the love of all things, just put on your dang coat?!? GUYS WE ARE RUNNING LATE!”

I know this sounds like a typical parents morning, but the majority of them don’t have 2 dysregulated children,  one of whom is taking turns playing dead on the ground with screaming back at you they want to die and hate everyone, while the other tries to hit you and screams “this is the worst day of their life” and slams doors/hits the walls.

I know when the adult is dysregulated, the chances of the kids getting regulated are slim to none. Typically my children rely on me to be their emotional regulator, so when I’m not regulated, utter chaos breaks out. We are all left drained. Empty. Sad. Disappointed.

I know it won’t be long until we are snuggling again, but it definitely takes longer for the pain from these moments to fade. However, I live for the good moments in between. I try to keep the memories of the happy and fun times in my head, as a balm to ease the tougher days.

I’m not sharing this for sympathy, but rather insight. To show those of you who struggle with mood disorders, either with yourself, child, spouse, etc, that you’re not alone. For those of you who don’t have this struggle, but who could use a reminder to give a little extra patience to the woman or kid who is a little short with you today.

The post “I Hate Everyone. Kill Me Now” appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

What Is Endometriosis?

Endometriosis is a disorder in which tissue that normally lines the uterus grows outside the uterus causing chronic, debilitating pain and menstrual irregularities. It affects around 1 in 10 individuals during their reproductive years. That is about 176 million people worldwide and counting. Because endometriosis is a full body disease, it has the potential to spread to other places in the body outside of the reproductive organs such as the chest cavity, lungs, liver, kidneys, bladder and bowels. It has been found everywhere except the spleen.

Despite symptoms like crippling pain, fainting, vomiting, pain with sex, severe bloating/”endo belly”, bladder spasms, etc, the only way to officially diagnose endometriosis or adenomyosis is surgery. And no, surgery is not a cure. Many sufferers go on to have multiple surgeries because the disease often comes back. Even a hysterectomy doesn’t guarantee that endometrial tissue won’t start growing in places it’s not supposed to again.

To top that off, there is also a possibility of developing adenomyosis, the sister disease to endometriosis, which is when endometrial cells exist or grow into the uterine wall. Both physically AND mentally debilitating diseases, endometriosis and adenomyosis are listed in the top 10 most painful illnesses to have. Both diseases are still being researched and examined to find a definite cause. And while there are various treatments and ways to alleviate pain and symptoms, there is no cure.

Many people are unaware that there are three different types of endometriosis and there are four different stages (I-minimal, II-mild, III-moderate, and IV-severe). Although this is good information to know, no particular stage determines the amount of pain or symptoms an individual may experience at any given time. Women can go years undiagnosed, and still be a stage I or have milder symptoms and be a stage IV. The main issue with stages III & IV is how it impacts your fertility.

And this is where my journey begins.

My Endometriosis Saga

I was 31 when I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I had been suffering for almost 3 years by the time of my diagnosis. This is my story of how endometriosis has impacted my life.

Prior to my issues starting, my periods were eerily predictable. Every 28-30 days lasting 5-7 days like clockwork. Then something changed. I feel like that change was triggered by using birth control. I remember my first incident- I had a period that lasted from April 27th until July 6th. Yes, you read that right- just over 2 months. At the beginning of July I decided to stop using my birth control and BOOM, my period stopped.

I made the decision to just try to track my periods and use the “natural planning” method for birth control to hopefully fix the issue. I started tracking my ovulation in August, buying a ovulation monitoring kit. I wanted to test daily over the next couple of months to figure out if I had a pattern or if it was going to still be as weird as it was when I was on birth control. My August period was barely there- basically 2-ish days of spotting then nothing. I figured I had already had such a long period that it was going to take some time to even out.

Toward the end of the month my LH numbers (what ovulation kits measure) slowly increased. I figured this was a “spike” and kept testing daily to see how long it would last. Imagine my surprise when after a week it still showed I was ovulating. Typically a surge only lasts 36-ish hours. On a whim I took a pregnancy test and walla! It was positive.

Quite frankly, I was shocked. Apparently my August “period” was implantation bleeding. I was scared, nervous, and cautiously excited. Sadly, before the end of September, I lost the baby.

To say I was devastated would be an understatement. I won’t go into details, but I ended up having to switch doctors and go through 3 procedures before my medical issues were fully resolved. We also had announced to family & friends, so having to reiterate the loss multiple times and be the recipient of sad looks felt like a punch in the gut each time. However awful those looks made me feel, it was worse when they didn’t “get” it. I still am haunted by a colleague who said “I don’t get why you’re still so upset. I mean you were barely pregnant, so really there wasn’t much to get attached to. Why not just move on and try again?”

That December, my husband & I decided to relocate to Atlanta. This ended up being one of the worst decisions we could have made. With no job, no support network, and unknowingly facing months of infertility, I started slipping into a deep depression-a depression I’m still fighting to overcome. I desperately wanted to become pregnant again, but my periods were becoming increasingly painful and unpredictable. I tried supplements, working out, etc- nothing worked. Each cycle yielded the same results: a negative pregnancy test. I became so bitter and haunted by the pain of those negative tests, that when a sweet friend told me about her pregnancy that following summer, all I said was “that’s nice” and walked away seething. I still feel guilty about how I responded years later.

I started working with an doctor in May, and by fall 2013 it was determined that I had endometriosis. We started the treatment/diagnosis process with a laparoscopic surgery. It was scary and unclear if this would solve my issues or if they would even find anything wrong. I remember being terrified that they wouldn’t find anything, meaning it was all in my head, or that they would find something that was even worse than endometriosis.

After surgery, I was diagnosed with stage III endometriosis. He went on to tell me that this is likely why I had been unable to get pregnant again and it could have even been the cause of my miscarriage. He also cautioned that if I was to get pregnant, that my chances of having a c-section or pregnancy complications would be higher.

Still, I pressed on. After a few weeks of recovery, I went back to the doctor. My hormone levels still weren’t ideal for conception, so I was given fertility treatments. The treatments had some miserable side effects, but I was determined to see it through.

The first round was a dud, however, the 2nd round looked much more promising- I had several follicles that were healthy looking and ready. I was visiting my mom that Christmas and came down with a nasty cold. It was still pretty early to find out if I was pregnant or not, but I decided to try a test *just in case*. There was the faintest barely there line. I wasn’t even sure it wasn’t my eyes playing a trick on me. We went to the doctor to get medicine and they gave me another test. It was still faint, but they confirmed it was an early positive. I was so excited I didn’t even care that I was sick. Sadly, Fredric wasn’t with me, (he had already gone back due to work), so for the second time, I had to tell him I was pregnant long distance!

I was nervous wreck after finding out this time. I didn’t want to wait until I was back with Fredric to do an ultrasound-I NEEDED to know immediately if this was a viable pregnancy. I made an appointment at a local office and went with my mother. Hearing Everett’s heartbeat for the first time was one of the most magical experiences I’ve ever had. Though hearing his heartbeat gave me reassurance, I still worried constantly. I kept thinking I would somehow lose him or he wasn’t going to develop correctly. This time I refused to share or post about the pregnancy until I was almost to my 2nd trimester. I insisted on extra/early testing, just to make sure he was healthy and that he was growing normally. It wasn’t an easy pregnancy by any means, and I’m pretty sure the anxiety I had developed over the last 2 years of loss & infertility has never completely gone away.

Moving Forward

During this journey the worry about endometriosis always hung over my head. It was like this horrible nagging voice that would rear it’s ugly head any time I thought about trying to have a baby again. Thankfully, pregnancy & breastfeeding usually reduces the symptoms and spread of endometriosis due to your lack of period and the increase in progesterone, so I had a nice break from dealing with it.

Despite waiting until the day the pain would come back and start tormenting me again, I was happy with Everett and decided that being “one and done” actually worked out perfectly for us.

In January 2017, I took a pregnancy test in solidarity with a friend who was worried she was pregnant. Apparently the fates decided that they weren’t done throwing us curveballs, so while her test was negative, mine was a resounding positive. This time I wasn’t “joyous.” I was unprepared and shocked with just how simple it was to get pregnant with Finn. I was scared- my pregnancy with Everett was hard. Everett was also starting to really show signs that something unusual was going on with him. I essentially spent the whole first and part of the second trimester not really acknowledging my pregnancy. Don’t get me wrong, I went to appointments and didn’t “deny” my pregnancy, but rather, I didn’t “celebrate” it. I pushed forward full steam and eventually got my self to the point where I started spotting from overdoing myself. That spotting made me realize just how much I wanted another baby and how lucky I was that I didn’t have to suffer through another infertility cycle.

So What Now?

As of this morning, I was inspired to write this blog because my endometriosis is back. I had almost 6 years with “normal” periods thanks to pregnancy and breastfeeding, but unfortunately, the excruciating pain and ridiculously heavy period is back. I would venture to say that my period is actually worse now than it was.

Oddly, my periods are following a more “regular” cycle length, though they can still vary from 27-40 days, they are typically around 31 days. However, the last few months I’m seeing an increase of what is best described as a “mini” period in between my “regular” periods. My bleeding gets so severe that I suffer from vertigo, iron issues, cold-like symptoms, and don’t get me started on the pain.

Oddly, or maybe thankfully, some of my periods are manageable, and I’m able to continue being a mom with the use of NSAIDs over the course of the first few days of my cycle. Some are much harder than that. All I’m able to do is get from the bed to the couch. These are the days that I’m especially thankful for Fredric. I know that I’ll likely need another one to two surgeries in the near future, which now that I’m a mother is even more scary.

I never wanted to be a woman with chronic pain. I certainly never wanted to be a mother with chronic pain. But I truly believe we’re all shaped by our experiences. The bad days help me appreciate the good days. My boys are learning how to be gentle with me when I’m feeling down-and seeing them learn to be nurturing is a reward on it’s own.

I’m just thankful that my good days still far outweigh the bad.

The post Motherhood Uncensored: Coping With Endometriosis appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

If you would have asked me prior to this morning if I was racist, I would have responded with a resounding and slightly affronted “No.” I’ve been consistently educating myself and my children about the underlying racism in our country for years. I’ve gone to protests and donated my photography services to document them. I’ve read books, picked businesses that supported anti-racist agendas and black creators. I’ve been a keyboard warrior. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do, there was no way I could still be racist, right?

This morning I was confronted with just how far I still have to come. As I was sitting in the drop off line for Everett’s school, I was behind what looked to be a shiny brand new yellow jeep- dealer plates and all that jazz. In my mind, the driver I pictured in the car was a 30-40 something white dude on his way to work. When the driver stepped out to grab something for their child I was shocked. It was a younger black woman, dressed in a business casual outfit, and long purple colored hair, (which was gorgeous fyi).

My first thought wasn’t “good for her, she must have just gotten a new car,” it was “I wonder if she works at the dealership or if they gave her a loaner. There is no way that could be hers.” Within seconds of thinking that I immediately felt guilty and shouted internally at myself “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!”

I started to dissect why I felt the way I initially had. It came down to a life-long ingrained sense that the black community is some how “less” than the white. In addition to that, there was also a deep-seated feeling that it shouldn’t have been a woman driving that car, it should’ve been a man.

I called a close friend and recounted my experience. To my surprise, she immediately said “I am so glad you said something. This happens to me all the time and I thought I was the only one.” It made me realize that as a society, just how indoctrinated these concepts have become.

By the time children start school, they are already taught these types of stereotypes. They ask questions and mentally learn to sort everyone into categories, women are “caring and nurturing,” men are “tough” and hold “important” jobs. Acting “white” is “smart” and more socially acceptable. Using AAVE make you look “uneducated.” I could go on, but I’m pretty sure you get the point. We’re so inundated with these stereotyped messages, and they are so well learned they’ve become firmly ingrained in our minds, so that they get activated and we use them without even being aware of it or realizing it.

I have come a long way from my early 20’s something persona who jokingly said “nigga please” to one of my black girlfriends, (don’t worry she promptly educated my idiotic ass), but I still have a long way to go. We may never be able to unlearn these unconscious biases, but we can learn to recognize and address them. It’s going to take time, patience, and dedication. It’s also going to take ACTUAL EFFORT from us. It’s also not the black communities job to educate you on how to be less racist.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that we need to make a distinction between what people commit to in terms of their values. And I think when you think about people’s values and whether they’re committed to equality and trying to create opportunities for others, most Americans would say yes. Unfortunately, however, we also are prone to making snap judgments about other people, sort of spontaneous, default, quick assessments of others, and those tend not to coincide with our values all the time. Though they tend to look more biased than our values do, recognizing our bias when it happens is the only way we can start to combat these negative stereotypes.

We can also educate our children to be better than us. We can teach them that the assumptions that they make can diminish the experience of others, or constrain their opportunities if they’re not thinking that others are capable of doing a wide range of activities. We can teach them that we reject notions of racial and gender biases, and yet still be very well aware of the stereotypes that are attached to these groups.

You’ll need to become aware of when it is that you display those types of responses, sort of tuning in to when it is you’re most vulnerable to showing bias. You have to have some strategies, some alternative responses, that you could enact, instead of the stereotypic bias. And then you have to work at it. You have to put some effort into it. But with the combination of motivation, awareness, strategies and effort, I feel like we can learn to regulate the expression of these stereotypic biases. We need to look in the mirror and face the ugly truth and make a commitment to stop running from it.

Will I ever unlearn these behaviors? Most likely not, but I do have faith that I’m getting better and that I’m teaching my children better. And that’s enough for me.

I encourage you to also take time this week and think about your own biases and how they have shaped your life. Do you like what you see? If the answer is no, I challenge you to take the steps needed to confront those biases and see how life changes for the better.

The post Overcoming Ingrained Racism appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

When most people think of skateboarding, their first thoughts are usually something along the lines of misfit teens, punk rock, or maybe even guys like Tony Hawk. What they don’t think about, is just how amazing skateboarding is for kids who need occupational therapy. Kids like Everett, who are on the autism spectrum. Kids like Finn, who need help with impulse control. So today I’m going to highlight the awesome benefits of skateboarding for kids with special needs.

Surprising Benefits of Skateboarding

From the time children with autism are toddlers, they are placed into Occupational Therapy which is needed to develop motor, proprioceptive, vestibular skills and more. Skateboarding offers nearly every component of Occupational Therapy, which is why many of these children “crave” to skateboard. It stimulates parts of their brain that trigger focus, hand-eye coordination, and more. Here are just a few of the health benefits:

• Coordination – Skateboarding improves hand, eye, leg and feet coordination. When skateboarding, you need to alter your movements so you skate smoothly and accurately.
• Pain Tolerance – Other sports improve your pain tolerance, but learning how to skateboard includes constantly falling, tripping, cutting your knees and elbows, etc. Believe it or not, this helps to improve your tolerance and build up resilience.
• Stress Relief – Stresses consume people, even kids, all the time. Skateboarding is an avenue to relieve some of those stresses or frustrations.
• Precision – Skateboarding takes a lot of precision to master. You are constantly adjusting weight from one direction to another, switching your speed, and, when good enough, perfecting tricks.
• Reflexes – This one ties together with coordination. When falling or stopping quickly, you need to have quick reflexes to brace yourself or prevent a collision from happening. You learn quickly that running into a railing is not ideal.
• Patience/Behavior Management– Skateboarding, like other sports, requires an immense amount of patience. You will not be the next Tony Hawk after your first time on the board. Falling countless times, missing that tricky bend, and hitting that awesome trick will test your patience time after time. When a skateboarder is having a bad day, annoyed with the world, feels like he could punch through a brick wall what does he do? He skateboards. Same as kids with autism, when their impulse control is almost lost, their anxiety is through the roof, and the screaming and crying is about to begin, break out the skateboard and you’ll find that it helps them work through their current behaviors.
• Social Development- skateboarding allows those who struggle with normal social interaction interact with peers on the level the individual feels most comfortable with.

Skateboarding offers many components similar to occupational therapy such as focusing on motor, vestibular and proprioceptive skills. Saturday skateboarding lessons are quickly becoming one of the boys favorite things to do. Both boys have a weak core and crave high impact activities. Everett has poor motor planning and balance issues, while Finn has poor impulse control and anger issues. Skateboarding is helping tremendously with both. Learning self/impulse control and behavior management is a huge part in why I decided to start the boys with lessons. And perhaps, most importantly, it’s also pretty freaking fun!

Skateboarding has had such a amazing impact on kids with autism that there are several nonprofits that have been created to help connect and introduce skateboarding to those the spectrum. There are even studies that have popped up specifically to research the correlation of brain activity and heart rate between autism and skateboarding. It’s even been approved as an acceptable form of occupational therapy in several states.

Hopefully, with these studies and nonprofits, skateboarding will no longer be looked at as a rebellious pasttime by those who don’t understand it and more funding would be available for using skateboarding as a therapy rather that funding just another information autism organization out there.

I know that right now, the boys have found an outlet they both love and I couldn’t be happier with their awesome teacher and their continued progress. I hope they continue to find joy in skateboarding and that the benefits continue to carryover into other aspects of their lives.

The post Skateboarding On The Spectrum appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

“I want to die. I don’t love you anymore and you’re not my friend anymore. I hate you.” These are about the last things you’d ever want to hear your child say to you, though you might expect it from an overly emotional teen. Unfortunately, I don’t have a teen and these words were screamed at me by my three year old, Finn.

Finn was recently diagnosed with ODD. ODD or Oppositional Defiant Disorder might be a term you’re not so familiar with. A quick Google search defines ODD as:  an ongoing pattern of behavior that is characterized by anger, irritability, as well as argumentative and defiant behavior towards those in authoritative positions. I’m guessing that sounds like every 3, 4 and maybe 5 year old out there to you, right?  Well, not so much.

If you go on to read further, this behavior can be something that kids only exhibit at home or at school, maybe not both. Also, it lasts for a long time, and happens quite frequently. More so than your typical child, even toddlers, as crazy as they are. And this is where I’d like share my story of being a mother to a child with ODD.

Donning My Armor

We’ve been dealing with the “I hate you’s” for a couple months now, but the “I want to die” is new, and it HURTS. Quite frankly,, living with and loving Finn is painful and hard. You have to develop a thick skin, or you’ll quickly devolve into tears. It feels akin to being in an abusive relationship- you never know what will trigger the next explosion, so you’re constantly walking on eggshells.

Before you rush to judgments and try to tell me that Finn “seems normal” or that he’s just “high spirted” so it clearly must be my parenting, I ask that you try to put yourself in my shoes. Raising Everett is tricky, but it’s nothing compared to Finn. Everett had clear issues that I was able to work with at home and therapy. He thrived once he started getting therapy, and unless you spend significant time with Everett, you may not even realize he’s on the autism spectrum. Finn is, for lack of better words, utterly chaotic.

I find myself dreading the simplest tasks with him. Taking him to a playground or friends house is a constant struggle. He manages to make EVERY SINGLE THING into a weapon. Sticks, blocks, trains, etc. I’m constantly waiting to see which child will be his next target. When he’s corrected, he frequently screams “I hate you” and I feel the eyes of other parents staring at me, silently judging.

Don’t get me wrong, he can be the sweetest and cutest child. He loves being snuggled by me and tells me the sweetest things about how much he loves me, but the second I say or do anything that upsets him, boom, the Finn bomb explodes with vitriol. I’m dodging toys while he screams insults at me, all because I asked him to do something simple, like pick up a toy.  And this goes on all day.  Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

No matter how well I put together my emotional armor, he still finds a way to get through my cracks. I’m to the point where I’ve officially been emotionally beat down. The thought of doing anything with him fills me with anxiety. I dread the thought of him getting older and even more potentially violent. I worry constantly about his future and if we will get lucky and he’ll “grow out” of it.

Don’t get me started on the mom guilt side either…You think to yourself, “Gosh, I’m such a horrible mom, I dread the park because I can’t just let him play, what’s WRONG with me”? And then things are bad, and you cry.  And you feel so angry, and sad, and resentful.  And hurt. You’re so hurt, that the next time your child wants to be with you, hug you, love you, it’s hard.  Because you’re a human being with feelings, and it’s hard to let go.  So then, you feel guilty. You feel guilty that you resent this child that you do love SO much, but that you don’t feel like “liking.” And then you find yourself pulling away. Because you’re scared of those feelings. So, somewhere, in the back of your psyche, subconsciously, you pull away.  Shut down. Try not to feel because it’s too much. You feel alone.  Isolated.  People don’t understand.

You’re even at the point that when someone says, “I bet you love being a stay at home mom,” you feel angry. They’ve said nothing wrong, but in the back of your mind, you’re thinking, “HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT I’M GOING THROUGH”?  But, they don’t really know, do they?

“He Looks Normal”

The rub of all of this? He presents so typical for short periods of time that I am already having issues getting him help through our school system. From the outside, things look OK. Here’s this beautiful, thoughtful, highly intelligent little boy, who can act like an angel for strangers. Can charm and be friends with any child around him. At home, that same child can be verbally mean, physically abusive, manipulative, and so defiant that asking anything of them is almost pointless. So, people think you’re overreacting. That you’re just overly sensitive to normal childhood behavior.  And you start to think that maybe you are crazy.  Not good enough. Inadequate. That it’s your fault. 

There’s a Jekyll and Hyde situation going on. And nobody sees. And you can convince yourself that nobody cares and that you’re not going to make it. And if I’m being honest, I’m feeling like that most days.

Moving Forward

Right now, we’re in the trenches. Fighting every day, living our truth, being honest, getting help, and doing what we need to do to survive. That means getting him even more therapy and better methods for interacting with him.

We just had him screened and he didn’t meet the qualifications for general special needs, so we are having to get him tested for other issues his pediatrician thinks he may have.  It’s so frustrating to know that he’s suffering from an invisible diagnosis and we can’t seem to get him the help that we so clearly need.

However, our story with Finn is just starting. I’m hoping it has a happy ending, but the harsh reality is that around 40% of children diagnosed with ODD don’t grow out of it and out of that 40%, half of them eventually develop antisocial personality disorder. So I’m going to fight like hell to try to avoid that path. I’m going to do what needs to be done to try to give him every tool he can use to battle this, and, I’m going to tell his story.

Why tell his story? People deserve to know it. Right now, I’m treading water, and sometimes find it overwhelming to do anything more, so I hope this reaches some people that are maybe struggling like I am. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Hearing the words, “I know what you’re going through” have such enormous power.

Welcome to our journey with Finn.

The post I Want To Die appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

It’s nice to have another mom to talk to, especially a local one, who has a child with similar issues the same age. The thing is, even though our boys have similar issues, they deal with them different ways. Hence why Autism is called a spectrum.

This year, while I decided Everett actually needed to be in school to thrive, Marjorie made the opposite decision. I felt like it’s a decision a lot of Autism Moms are faced with, even when there isn’t a global pandemic, and I loved her reasoning behind it. I invited her to write a post for the NSSM blog to help out other mothers in a similar situation. I hope you love it as much as I did!

Buckling In: Why I Chose to
Homeschool My Neurodivergent Child

It started with a preschool teacher’s accusatory finger pointed toward my face and ended with me in tears so heavy I could barely catch my breath. Was it all my fault? I felt like an amateur and a failure as a parent.

We moved from Ohio to Alabama only two months prior. This wasn’t our first cross-country move, but it was certainly the hardest on our 5-year-old son, Connor. Connor is on the autism spectrum, and while he has low-support needs, changes as big as moving to a new state can be incredibly difficult for him. He has “invisible” struggles that are, as I’ve learned, hard for others—even educators—to understand.

We were able to get him a last-minute spot in a public preschool program here in our current nook of greater Birmingham. Connor did very well during his 4-hour per day program—just as he did in Ohio, just as I expected. But likewise, just like in Ohio, he was becoming overloaded due to the complicated expectations of school (this isn’t something we were fully able to grasp at the time, however).

Each afternoon when I would pick him up from preschool, he fell apart. He would hold it together in school, and then when I arrived at pick-up, he would immediately let that composure go. It would, on some days, be a momentous struggle to get him buckled in his car seat. He would kick and run around. He would sometimes throw fits and yell. By this point, I was normally sweating with rising anxiety.

When we would arrive at home a short one-minute drive later, he would let it all go. And I mean all of it. He was back in his safe space. At this time, after school each day, he was having legitimate meltdowns—the kind that depleted all of the energy he had and all of the energy I had. While the meltdowns eventually ended each day, he was often left in a very irritable state for nearly the rest of each evening. He would continuously grab and pull things at home and in public in order to gain input to calm himself. He was easily triggered by seemingly small occurrences. My husband and I were both struggling to handle these behaviors and struggling to find an answer. We weren’t perfect, but we were absolutely trying.

On that day the teacher put her finger in my face, I was already close to my mental breaking point. I politely asked her if she had noticed Connor’s struggles to get into his car seat and I asked her if she had any suggestions to help. To my surprise, she said to me, finger pointed toward my face: “I’m probably going to say this the wrong way, but that’s on you.” I was told that I simply needed “clearer boundaries” for him. She did not see him as struggling because she was blinded by his ability to mask in school.

That might not sound like the most terrible thing to hear, but in that moment, it felt like a huge slap in the face. I was a struggling parent and simply asked for advice. Even after I tried explaining during an IEP meeting what I saw happening (no, clear instructions and a social story were NOT working, per her suggestions), she seemed to completely disregard those thoughts.

The consideration that maybe there was something more going on that she couldn’t see was obviously not something that would be entertained during this meeting. I started to question if I could continue to participate in IEP meetings and continue to have teachers misunderstand me and my child.

Unfortunately, kids like Connor are often misunderstood. Behaving in school and academically advanced? Clearly his after-school behavior is simply a result of a lack of parental boundaries.

Oddly enough, we saw a psychologist during this time period and he was able to witness the meltdowns and behaviors I was seeing. Maybe teachers didn’t believe me, but he saw it. He said, “Marjorie, I need you to know that this is not parenting related. He is struggling with anxiety and impulsivity and overload. This is nothing you are responsible for. I’m glad I got to see it so I can get the full picture.”

“Marjorie, I need you to know that this is not parenting related. He is struggling with anxiety and impulsivity and overload. This is nothing you are responsible for. I’m glad I got to see it so I can get the full picture.”

THIS.

THIS lifted me away from anger. I think I called everyone I knew that day to tell them how validated I felt. I wasn’t a failure. I had a kid who was struggling and now it was time to “buckle in” and figure out how to drive all over again.

Shortly after, to the shock of everyone around the world, covid-19 happened. And our worlds changed drastically. While many others were struggling, we were, for the first time in years, finding peace and calm and happiness.

This is not to say everything was immediately perfect. But once school abruptly ended, we were able to study our son more closely. We started to figure out his triggers, his limits, and what was overstimulating for him. We noticed that his moods were getting better. He wasn’t as irritable or as easily frustrated. I can’t say it was all due to school, but that was certainly a huge part of his life that had been taken away completely. It only made sense.

We’re now starting to see and understand that Connor “masks” in some situations like school and then lets go of that mask when he’s no longer forced in that situation, or when he just can’t take it anymore. We have since witnessed this in other circumstances (after long outings or especially overwhelming environments like restaurants or chaotic playgrounds, for instance).

As the weeks went by, I was able to create the type of peaceful routines I noticed that he needed. I utilized some strategies taught to me in OT. When I noticed him becoming overloaded, I pumped the brakes and allowed him to do things like use his iPad, draw, use materials like play-doh, and just generally unwind. It was starting to work. My husband and I were in true disbelief. He hadn’t had a single meltdown in weeks. He was listening better. He was behaving better. He was connecting more than ever before with his sister and with us.

When it came time to make a decision about homeschooling, we decided it was worth giving a shot. After all, at the time it didn’t seem like schools would be a safe place anyway, and I knew the addition of wearing masks would be even more overwhelming for Connor. Not to mention going from a 4-hour preschool day to a 7-hour Kindergarten day.

I consider myself to be a very quietly stubborn person—as in you might not realize how much I will fight or push or work to make something I care about happen. And that’s exactly what I did when it came to homeschooling. I researched and learned along the way. I ended up switching curriculums just two months in, because I found one that better met my son’s needs. I fiddled around with schedules and observed how much time my son could spend learning each subject before needing a sensory break. I was able to fully advance him a grade level (and sometimes more depending on the subject). As a child who is academically strong, he was both struggling in school and not working at his ability levels.

Talk about a less-than-ideal situation.

Now, he gets to work exactly where he’s at and even pursue topics of interest that are not covered in kindergarten—he loves studying countries, cells, computer animation, you name it! He also has more time to participate in wonderful social skills groups, martial arts (which is proving to be an awesome outlet for him), and I am able to help guide and process social interactions with him. For the first time in years, I can take deep breaths again.

I can honestly say that, right now, I rarely have moments where I sit and cry because I’m so overwhelmed and feeling hopeless. And goodness, my child really seems like a happy child, which is all I’ve ever wanted for him. He really isn’t having meltdowns anymore, like, at all. Sure, he certainly doesn’t always behave or listen, he still gets overloaded and irritable sometimes. Life isn’t perfect, and I’m still learning as we go.) But, it’s been five months since schools shut down in March and we’ve only had a few meltdowns here and there. He used to have them everyday, sometimes multiple times a day. His general mood is so much calmer and happier. He follows directions well and even volunteers to help around the house. He does really kind things for everyone in his family, and because he’s happy, we can see how that impacts our entire family. We are all happier. There is a sense of peacefulness in our home that we’ve never experienced. And I’m no longer as anxious when I take him to parks or around other kids. He’s making a lot of progress. I think because we are now in this calmer place, we’ve been able to actually focus on skills like socializing and good behavior.

Before, it just felt like getting through the day was all we could do. I know new challenges may arise (actually, undoubtedly, they will), but I’m ready for them. And through this experience and transition to homeschooling, I’ve learned that I have the tools and ability to figure it out. I have more trust and confidence in myself as a parent. Even on days I feel discouraged, I remind myself that I love my child more than anyone on this planet, and that has to be enough. I will always do what’s best for him and tweak our situation and environment as needed.

Homeschooling was never something I thought I’d do. But I was given a child who is a little “different” and is honestly more amazing than I can put into words. The way his brain works astonishes me. That may mean that he doesn’t fit neatly into the box others expect him to fit into, but that’s the beauty of homeschooling—he doesn’t have to be in a box. Actually, his space and capacity to learn is now wide open. I cannot say with certainty that we will homeschool forever. I have no idea what the future holds.

I do know that this is absolutely working for now. Even on days we have setbacks, it’s still so much better. Homeschooling I’m sure will not or does not work for all neurodivergent children, but I do know that it works for some. (Sidenote: there are numerous Facebook groups just for autism and homeschooling!)

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Connor now gets in his car seat for me with no issues. He buckles himself in and it’s no longer a stressful experience. I think it’s safe to say it took a whole lot more than clearer boundaries and a social story attached to the back of my seat.

Daily schedule (times vary by the day, but this is a “typical day”)
7-8 am: get dressed (we get dressed even on days we stay home!), breakfast, free play
8-930 am: our typical “school hours” where we cover core subjects, including ELA, math, and handwriting (we use “The Good & The Beautiful” curriculums, primarily). I also have activities from “The Peaceful Preschool” for my 3-year-old daughter.
9:30-10 am: snack time
10-12 pm: active time – we like (have to!) to get out of the house, so usually this means a playground, a visit to the science center, a playdate with friends, etc.
12 pm: lunch out or at home
1 pm: usually our “down time,” which can mean anything from a little bit of iPad time, sensory bin play, doodling with art supplies, etc.
2 pm: This is when we often do other subjects, like science and social studies. We do science experiments (a favorite!), read books on social studies topics, art projects, etc.
3-4 pm: I try to cook most days and include the kids! So we are typically getting things prepped and cooked for dinner at this time.
4-5 pm: Connor just started taking martial arts classes, so usually this is the time we are heading there or participating in martial arts

The post Living Life On The Spectrum, Homeschool Edition appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

As I jokingly call myself a “Recovering Catholic,” I struggle to put into words the question that was just asked of me:

What exactly do you believe in, if it’s not God?

The truth is, I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t exactly fit into any religion. I don’t really think there is some all powerful man staring down from the heavens watching all of us, but I’m not above believing in so called “miracles” or forces that are beyond my comprehension. I’ve thought a lot about this since realizing that I could no longer be Catholic. For those of you who are curious, my realization came after admitting to myself that I honestly didn’t believe in transubstantiation. Transubstantiation is the process during communion when the wafers and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ- a major tenet of Catholicism. I already had some issues with the church that I was struggling with- from the treatment of those in the LGBTQ community to only men being allowed to be priests, but that one realization made it clear I was no longer in the right community. Since then, I’ve explored other religions and haven’t found anything that I can get behind 100%.

While I personally find most organized religion to be somewhat unappealing, I don’t necessarily feel religion itself is a bad thing. I do however struggle with the hypocrisy. I’ve met a significant amount of people who say they believe in certain religious values, yet they don’t actually practice said values in their every day lives. It feels like for most individuals, church is either a place for socializing, what they’ve always done without questioning, or a way for them to feel like they have some kind of “moral licensing” over others. That’s not to say that there aren’t true believers who live up to their religious beliefs out there, but I’ve seen enough people that don’t to make me leery.

Raising Secular Children

Personal experiences aside, I don’t want my children to treat other humans with compassion because some mysterious higher power told them to, or because they are afraid of the fiery depths of hell. I want them to be good humans simply because it’s the right thing to do. This is how we should treat all humans, regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual preference, size, religion, etc.

Granted, many individuals learn selflessness, generosity, and gratitude through religion — because religion does instill these values — countless others do not. Forgiveness isn’t exclusive to religion. Thankfulness isn’t exclusive to religion. Empathy and understanding are not exclusive to religion. Religion and morality are not inextricably linked — because religion doesn’t make good people. People make good people.

Dealing With The Big Questions

I won’t lie, sometimes it would be nice to have religion as a backup for those “big” questions, about things like death, life, differences, and morals. There is a certain comfort that comes from having a God like figure in your life, knowing that he is taking care of you and loved ones as well as feeling like there is some greater plan to your life. So how do we handle these types of questions?

I’ve found that just being as honest and compassionate as possible is usually the best path. Children can handle the truth as long as it’s presented in a way thats suitable to their age level. I have a few great examples of this:

Over the summer, Everett finally started getting interested in why girls had a “fahchina” aka vagina. My first explanation involved the most basic details. I explained that it was essentially the female version of a penis and that it just looked and acted a little differently.

This explanation held him over for a couple weeks, then he came up to me and asked again. The simple explanation didn’t work. He wanted to know how they worked and why I was bleeding. So I explained it in very basic scientific terms and showed him a kids anatomy book so he could see a woman’s reproductive system. He thought it was super neat and hasn’t asked a question about it since.

My other example deals with death. Last fall when Everett’s pet rabbit, Snowball unexpectedly passed away, I really struggled with how to best comfort him. It would have been so easy to tell him that his rabbit went to live in bunny heaven and was having the time of his (after)life. The scientific approach, ie explaining the life cycle, also didn’t work with Everett. He didn’t believe the bunny was truly gone until he saw the dead bunny, then insisted that after the bunny went into the earth it would come back, (side note: how terrifying would that be ?‍?), and kept  asking us to dig the rabbit up to make sure (we didn’t).

Obviously, only time really heals a broken heart, but what really helped Everett the most was writing the bunny a letter that we buried beside his grave (so Snowball would know how much he was loved). We also planted some flowers on top of the grave, so Everett had a visual representation of how Snowballs memory could be kept alive.

Given that I feel that everyone should be treated equally, I don’t feel right forcing a religion onto the boys- it should be their choice. My husband and I may identify as nonreligious, but we both believe our children deserve the right to make their own choice on the matter. We plan on exposing them to various options once they start having questions. We hope to do this as unbiased as possible, but we will be honest with them about why we chose to be secular.
Living in the Bible Belt and being secular can be isolating, so I can understand if they want to join in with their peers when they are older. Our goal is to simply make sure that they understand what their choices are and to let them pave their own path.

The post Why I’m Raising Secular Children appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

“Let people help”. “Rely on friends and family”. “Don’t be shy to ask family members to help around the house”. This is the advice touted on every baby blog, in all of the pregnancy books and shouted from the rooftops by experienced moms. But what if you can’t?  

The end of my pregnancy and beginning of my daughter’s life hasn’t looked at all how I expected it to. Breastfeeding classes? Canceled. Mommy-and-me play groups? Nonexistent. Friends and family coming over to meet the baby and help around the house? Nothing but a fantasy. As thankful as I am to have had a healthy baby girl and an amazingly supportive partner, I still feel like COVID-19 stole this time from me. I’m still processing and mourning the loss of a time in my life that was supposed to be happy and exciting.

My stepmom planned a wonderful baby shower for me, with friends and family flying in from all over the country, that I never got to go to. I bought a dress for the pregnancy photoshoot that never got to happen. Gazing at our bundle of joy via ultrasound with my husband by my side ended up being me alone in a room with the technician, wearing a protective mask, trying to record a video of that dark screen on my iPhone to show my husband later. My mother-in-law hasn’t even met her grandchild for fear that she would bring the virus up with her from Florida.

Being pregnant and giving birth during a global pandemic has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. The social isolation alone was challenging, but to experience that with pregnancy and postpartum hormones on top of caring for a newborn for the first time seemed almost insurmountable. When hospitals started restricting visitors, I read story after story of women who were forced to give birth completely alone because the visitor policy didn’t allow their child’s other parent.

Whether I would elect to have a homebirth or have my husband unable to attend the birth of his first child was not a decision I ever envisioned having to make. Thankfully, I didn’t have to. What I did end up having to do was arrive in the hospital, after 24+ hours in labor, breathing through a piece of fabric.

Before I could get inside, I had to stop and get my temperature checked, knowing that if I “failed”, they would try to isolate my baby from me immediately after birth. The fear that they would try to take my baby from me and prevent skin-to-skin, breastfeeding and general motherhood immediately after birth brought me to tears on more than one occasion. Had I tested positive, I was prepared to insist they leave her with me or I would have to leave the hospital and birth somewhere else.

Again, I’m thankful it didn’t come to that.

Once inside, I couldn’t be taken to L&D until I had my COVID test results back. After having my upper nasal cavity assaulted by a lengthy Q-tip, I continued to labor in an emergency department hospital room with no access to pain medication. We were told that I could remove my mask after getting the all clear from the test, but that as soon as the baby came out of me, I had to put my mask back on. At the time, I remember feeling SO grateful that I didn’t have to push with the mask on my face, which isn’t something most mothers have to incorporate into their birth plan. My husband was told to wear a mask the entire time (though to be honest, we both kept forgetting to put it back on when people came in the room with everything we had going on). All of the nurses wore masks at all times. In fact, I saw a nurse in the hallway without a mask on and asked her if she had seen my nurse who had been helping me for days. It turns out she actually WAS my nurse (embarrassing), but I had no idea what she looked like because of the masks.

As if giving birth during a global pandemic wasn’t enough weight on my shoulders, our country simultaneously (finally) began stepping up against systemic racism. While we were in the hospital after birth, our plan was for my husband to run home to tend to our dog on the second day. However, rioting around the globe and within our city resulted in a curfew during my hospitalization, and if my husband left, he wouldn’t be permitted to come back into the hospital until the next morning when curfew was lifted.

Coming home from the hospital was more emotional than I envisioned. I was leaving the safety of on call lactation support and endlessly being able to ask the nurses “is this normal?”. I knew these resources, normally available to new moms after they leave via support groups and meetups, would not be available to me.

When I did find a lactation group still meeting in person, my husband and I debated if it was safe for me to go get some much-needed help getting my baby to latch. My internal monologue debated if I was a horrible mother for risking exposing my child or if I was a horrible mother for not getting the nursing help that I knew I needed to feed her well. It felt so lose-lose. Ultimately, I made the decision that I thought would best set up my daughter for lifelong success and got the help that I needed to nourish her little body.

After a few weeks of settling in and things starting to get easier, I started reading some more baby books again now that I had the time. When the first chapter of a new book started with an emphasis on accepting help from friends and family, I literally threw the book across the room and cried to myself. When my family tried to guilt me into traveling with the new baby or letting people come see her that hadn’t quarantined, I sobbed in the shower. I wasn’t having to choose which daycare to put my daughter in when returning to work, I had to choose whether I was a horrible parent for even considering putting her in daycare during this time or if I should give up my career that I love. If I didn’t have the support of my husband, I don’t know how I would have emotionally made it for this long (shout out to all the single parents – I cannot even fathom how awesome you are for surviving!).

But hey, it’s not all bad – at least I didn’t have a ton of strangers touching my stomach for the last 4 months of pregnancy! In all seriousness, living through this situation has taught me that I can handle a lot more than I thought I could. It also taught me that there are more ways than one to lean on my support system.

I sought out others going through what I was going through. I found a lot of solace in two reddit groups – one private group specifically for mothers due at the same time as me (every birth month has a private reddit bumpers group – I highly recommend you find yours!) as well as an open group for pregnant people during this time called CoronaBumpers. My husband and I may not have hands on help, but I know we have support day and night through a network of amazing friends and family, even if it is virtual.

Two months after she was born, I still don’t know if I’m doing things right. I have no idea if I would be learning tips and tricks from other mothers that would make raising her easier. I’m still feeling isolated and lonely, but when I’m feeling really overwhelmed, I take a whiff of that amazing new baby smell and I know we will get through it together.

-Abbi Hernandez, Ph.D.

7/24/2020

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