I don't know about you, but it can feel really lonely walking this path as a neurodivergent mom raising neurodivergent kids in a neuronormative world.
As a child, I grew up in a system without the support and identification that I needed.
Maybe you can relate and are now in this position too? In a space where you need to advocate for your child, to be a leader in your family, perhaps be that executive function coach for your child, even though it's exactly what you still struggle with yourself.
I feel like us neurodivergent adults are lost in the shuffle
I know for me, being a young girl who was not diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia until I was older, my grade school years were really tough because I wasn't that outwardly hyperactive or disruptive child. And so I just sort of slipped through the cracks, went through the motions, and knew how to conform. I was the classic “good girl.” And so being neurodivergent really became my own personal internal battle, that developed into things like perfectionism and people pleasing and anxiety. But on the outside, I don't think anyone really knew a whole lot was going on with me other than that they underestimated my capabilities.
Then you fast forward and I'm a mom and I'm put in this position to advocate for my children and lead them. And so many of these things that I really needed help with, I never received scaffolding and strategies and tools around.
It's just sort of expected that we know how to do this now because we're grown up, right?
But so many of us didn't receive any of that information or support or even a diagnosis until we were much older. And what we know about ADHD is when we have more demands, more things on our plate, our symptoms just increase. So then we're even more symptomatic and more challenged with our executive function.
Which leads to feeling badly about ourselves a lot.
Even after I went into education I didn't have the tools. It's really what brought me back to this work- to gain those tools and better understand why. Why didn't I know what to do as a teacher? Why didn't the teachers know what to do for me? As educators, as professionals, why didn't we know?
It's hard to step up and be that leader for our kids.
I think back to my early years in advocacy and things happening with my own children. I would sit down and I'd write out a whole email or I'd want to schedule that meeting with the teacher and then I would second guess myself because I didn't want to:
appear difficult
or overbearing
or be like a helicopter mom
or single my child out
And I look back now and can see how so much of that was poking at my own wounding around how I felt as a kid and things I hadn't resolved within myself around feeling like, I wasn't smart, I wasn't good enough, or I somehow wasn't as capable as the other kids. That messaging was just so devastating for me and it was like I was put back in that position to feel all of those messages that I'd wanted to tuck away in a little box.
It wasn't until I was really willing to look at those wounds and see how that was impacting the way I was showing up that I've been able to move through the way I advocate and support for not just my own family, but other people too.
Because it's triggering….
And with those triggers, we either retreat- like, “okay, I'm not going to send that email or I'm not going to call that meeting or I'm just going to smile and nod and not say the thing I want to say.” Or we go the other way where we overreact and get angry and then maybe then we have remorse and regret about the way we showed up.
It's hard to regulate those triggers until we've really gone back and done the work within ourselves (which is a lifelong journey) but I just think it's such an important thing to talk about that's not being talked about.
As parents, there are so many expectations on us now to know how to lead this group of young people and maybe we were those young people who got lost in the shuffle, that slipped through the cracks and internalized all these messages. And now we're trying to reparent ourselves and show up for our kids in the way we want…. And it's just a lot. It's a lot for us.
So let's open the dialogue around this.
I want to reduce the stigma around neurodiversity because the more we talk about these things, the more we open it up and normalize it, the less power this messaging has. This negative messaging that something's wrong with us, that we need to be ashamed, that we need to hide our differences comes from us all. And buying into its truth and then hiding it- that's where our perfectionism and our people pleasing and the masking and all of that comes from.
What if we could normalize that there's nothing wrong with this?
That there's nothing wrong with being neurodivergent. There's nothing wrong with struggling with our executive function or with our emotional regulation. And that needing tools and support and wanting to have a community who gets it is great.
I think the more we talk about it and share openly and vulnerably and authentically- the more it gives more and more people the courage and inspiration to do the same.
That's really why I created this community.
I think there's a need. And I want to hear from you. I want us to feel supported by one another and our experiences validated by one another. And I want to share the resources here that I didn’t have back then that I believe will help you and your child thrive now.
I'm just so grateful you're here with me and excited that we're taking this next step together. I can't wait to get to know you all a bit better. I'd love it if you'd leave your experience below so we can all relate with you and support you. Feel free to comment any questions you may have too.
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