Dear Addie,
We didn’t notice at first, it was slow and stealth-like to our everyday life, but your language seems to be taking a backseat, your stimming is in overdrive, your fine motor more challenged than ever, and your anxiety heightened causing extraordinary emotional/behavioral outburst. How did we get here, what’s going on?
It’s pretty safe to say we weren’t prepared for the whiplash of this next chapter. The chapter where hormones have taken the wheel and are driving us down what feels like a dark road of regression. But is it regression or a lack of progression or perhaps a combination of both? Is that possible? Whatever it is it’s a road we didn’t expect. A road rarely talked about or even research in-depth for that matter. But here we are.
Addie this year has held so much newness for us all. With my current position with you at school, I get a front row (quite literally) all-day glance at just about everything you do, from educational to behavioral and social – I see it all.
I remember when you were a young preschooler, at the time while you had your differences it still didn’t feel like you were that far off from your peers. I’d pick out your clothes, pack your lunch and send you on your way like the other kids – in a special classroom, yes, but it all felt the same. The older you got, the more the challenges seemed to stack, and you suddenly have a great opinion about your clothing (even if you consistently put your pants on backward) now add in hormone fluctuations that most adolescents and teens experience and it can all feel like we are in another country!
It’s true. With hormones running full force in one’s body it can cause an overstimulation of stimuli and sensory issues can begin to take the lead causing your day-to-day to be filled with just finding ways to cope with heightened sensory assaults, making little room for much of anything else. Does this mean you’re an angry mess of a human every day? No, absolutely not, but your reactions to certain situations can be more extraordinary and decompression can take longer and generally use more energy in your ever-changing body that is now taller and outweighs me for the record. It can be exhausting for all involved.
As a parent of a special needs child, we will question ourselves daily about decisions we’ve made or may not have made in our journeys. The past couple of weeks has been exceptionally hard for you with this next quarter in project learning being a school musical. Now Addie a school musical and hypersensitive auditory issues don’t exactly go together like peanut butter and jelly…it’s more like peanut butter and mayo. I mean how were we going to get you into the auditorium, let alone on stage, when you can’t stand the acoustics even with wearing headphones? It’s literally gotten to a point where you have anxiety about having anxiety about potentially being exposed to the acoustics auditory assault. Yikes! That's a mouthful! How on earth were we going to get through this one? The answer, is extremely dedicated teachers, aides, and even classmates. Insert the mama tears.
I will forever and always say the greatest advice anyone is given on this journey is “exposure is key” funny thing is it’s also the hardest – fact. But insert a loving group of people ready and willing to help and anything is possible.
This week we continued working towards coping with your increased auditory sensory issues. An issue that has taken over much of our day-to-day in this chapter of our lives. Our beloved Ms. Bridget got up on stage and with her insanely talented voice belted out show tunes as you worked through your outward reactions. Your peers came in and out running through their lines and one even took a shot at singing to you on stage as well. While you weren’t thrilled with any of this, you could visibly see there was progress being made and even cracked a smile here and there which meant to me that you really want to be part of this. With a great deal of hard work on your part, this exposure therapy is never easy, we went back a few days later to this scene again with a preferred activity/object this time and this is how I knew we were not only making great progress but were also exactly where we needed to be with this school.
*Side note: Your teachers aren't really gypsies - it was Halloween dress-up day ;)
You see Addie, the week before we tried the preferred object approach and we couldn’t even get you in the door, but now you were not only sitting in the auditorium but you didn’t seem to react negatively once to the music, lights, or talking that was going on. You sat quietly, sorting and organizing your letters for a solid hour. An outsider looking in might have seen you off as not with the group, but I witnessed firsthand teachers and aides taking turns coming over, sitting on the floor, and interacting with you – I even saw you look up at the stage to see what was going on a few times. Just because you weren’t ready to be part of where the rest of your peers were, didn’t mean you weren’t just as important as everyone else. You may be working through difficult challenges, but there are so many people ready and willing to put in the hard work with you.
Addie, this chapter took us a bit by surprise, but I see you baby girl, and all the hard work you are doing. Always remember you have a whole tribe of people supporting you – you got this!
Love you.
Mom
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