Well, here we are, already winding down our first little series! I thought I’d give y’all a little break after our last post, since it was a double whammy two-parter. If you’re looking for links to the other posts from this series, you’ll find them here:
-Service Animals -Part 1--Service Dog, Therapy Dog, & ESA.... -Part 2--What Service Dog Handlers Wish You Knew
-Family….and how they’re affected by all of the above. (You’re in the right place for this post!)
Before we begin, lease keep in mind that this is not a picture of what every household with these issues is like. Each and every one is different. This is just a glimpse into ours and the lives of some we know with some of the same issues. Now, for the down-low on what it’s
like to live in a household where chronic illness, autism, and service animals are just part of everyday life….or, a brief version, at least. It’s….normal, I guess. It may not be everyone’s normal, but, it’s ours. Being patient and adapting are parts of parenting for anyone, but, I think they take on a lot more of a prominent role in a household that is anything like ours. Why? Because:
Adapting for a special needs household doesn’t mean pushing nap time a few minutes later to squeeze in lunch with friends or going through the drive-thru when your day out was too long to make it home to cook. It means carrying noise-cancelling headphones and sensory toys in your purse to keep your child calm in the grocery store long enough to get a jug of milk and a carton of eggs while you pray the whole time there is a short line with no one wearing strong smells and reading every label to see if there’s an ingredient that will make your child’s condition worse. Being patient in a special needs household doesn’t just mean putting up with a tantrum here and there; it means holding your child as carefully as you can while they scream a flail, just to keep them from hurting themselves or others during a meltdown.
Adapting for chronic illness doesn’t mean staying up an extra hour or two to go out for dinner or drinks with friends or knock out some projects around the house; it means that staying up an extra hour or two may take you a week to recover, since, your body is already fighting you at every turn. Patience with chronic illness doesn’t mean taking a nap when you
get hit with a flu bug; it means knowing your limits and realizing that folding a load of laundry AND washing an overflowing sink full of dishes could land you in bed for the next three days, because, you used more "spoons" than you had to spare.
Adapting with service animals doesn’t mean taking Fido out for a walk to wear off some energy; it means training day in and day out to keep their skills sharp and their training fresh. Patience with service animals doesn’t mean waiting for your pet to bring back the ball during a game of fetch; it means putting up with endless and, often, incredibly personal (and often rude) questions about your service animal, health, livelihood, and more from strangers when you’re just trying to run into the store to buy a gift bag for a friend’s birthday present.
In short, it’s overwhelming to deal with any one of those things. Having all three be the norm makes “normal” very stressful. It means you don’t leave your house very often, especially not as a family. It means that taking a service animal on an outing to help your family can
often mean a child with autism ends up having more meltdowns, because, strangers make the outing take longer, overstimulate the child, and keep interrupting their expected course of events (and, despite every coping mechanism they have, they can only adapt so much before it’s just….too…much.).
Before you think I’m telling you all of this for your pity, please, PLEASE know that I’m not. I’m really, really not. I’m telling you all this so that you can be aware. What does awareness do? It encourages empathy and sympathy and, in our culture today where everyone is so quick to judge and make their opinion, no matter how irrelevant or unhelpful it may be, those are some incredibly valuable, much-needed traits that will go a long way toward making our world a better place.
What can you do for those in your life dealing with any of these issues? A lot. Your friend with a special needs child or two who’s always “fine?” They’re 100% NOT fine. Even “fine” isn’t “fine.” Just because they’re keeping it together doesn’t mean they are okay….and
that’s okay. It also doesn’t mean they want you to come over and sit on their couch and hold them while they cry, or, maybe they do. I don’t know. Ask them. Everyone copes differently. What it does mean is that, whether that friend is a special needs parent, a spoonie, both, or fighting a battle that is completely different, they need YOU to adapt and exercise patience, too. When you ask to grab coffee with them and they can’t make it, don’t assume they don’t want to spend time with you. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself what you can do to make their day better. Send a text and ask if they’d like a latte dropped off on their front porch….and don’t expect to be invited in to enjoy it with them. They may have just cleaned up who knows what kind of bodily fluids or been too tired to even shower this week or had a stranger distract their service animal at the grocery store and caused their dog to miss an alert that would have saved them a seizure or a blood glucose drop or a painful fall when they passed out. They may be struggling to get out of bed in the morning because depression is a nasty beast that strikes when you’re already dealing with other hard things. Be there for them, even when you don’t think they need it.
Are you going through one of these fights? You’re not alone, no matter how lonely it may feel. Do the hard thing anyway. I’m not talking about fighting your battle alone. Ask for help! That may be one of the hardest things. What I’m really talking about, though, is stepping off your battlefield and onto someone else’s. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to help someone else. Can’t physically go to them? Thank goodness for technology. Send
a text, an email, a meme, a GIF, a private message….anything! On your worst days, make someone else’s day better. A wise person once said, “Be nice to everybody, because, everybody is having a hard day,” and I’ve rarely heard truer words. You never know what battle another warrior is fighting and, when we become so focused on our own fight, we often leave behind our brothers and sisters to fight on their own. No warrior should be left behind. No warrior should fight alone. Your fight may be too big for you to handle on your own. Ask for help and, when someone else asks you for help, give it when you’re able. If someone doesn’t ask for help, make sure they actually don’t need help. Too often the one others view as the strongest is carrying a burden to heavy for them to bear alone. Don’t let anyone go it alone. You are a warrior. Warriors don’t fight alone. Don’t let anyone fight alone. Don’t you fight alone.
Life is a battle. No one fights alone.
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