The Thought That Nearly Broke Me as an Autism & Special Needs Mom

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

Identity Alchemy: Why “I’m not enough” became the most important story I had to challenge

Transmute motherhood reshaped by autism & special needs into a life you genuinely LOVE inhabiting. A weaving together of a personal lifeline, honest letters, soulwork, & intimate community.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

We all tell ourselves various stories at a nearly constant cadence about the different elements of life in the world that we find ourselves in. And this is simply a neutral fact of our human nature to consider further. For example, we might can recall the countless number of times that we have had to “remind” ourselves of, “He didn’t mean anything by it…” in response to how our parent tends to speak critically to us during their more passionate talks about our own personal beliefs. Or, I’m CERTAIN that we all have at least looked onto another person within our orbit, one of our peers perhaps, and eventually arrived at the conclusion “They just have It All together…” while we experienced those words plunging themselves deeply and painfully into our bellies at the same moment.

However, sound FACTS (not our opinions) would have us alternatively recognize that we are showing our father too much grace whenever we placate ourselves with a trite blanket statement all to avoid the discomfort of addressing how he often treats us carelessly… And it is the MOST Universal and demonstrably false belief that someone else around us is out there living the “ideal life” when this assumption is built upon viewing someone’s outside while only having access to the inside of our own selves.

More of these stories to ourselves can resemble:

These types of convenient assumptions that we each have told to ourselves and often others at one point or another are ALL worth our examination… And examination not with self-criticism, but with our curiosity, because stories such as these that are looked at directly almost always turn out to be smaller and less factually accurate than they once seemed in the dark.

Our Identity Story

The story responsible for perhaps the greatest effect on the Self is: “This is just who I am…”

It sits idly by, ever-present and always ready to absorb every bit of conditioning, every pattern, habit, and “borrowed” belief handed down to us long before we were thoughtful enough to evaluate them for ourselves, and then seals them all up into a fixed feature of ourselves labeled as our “Identity”.

And it is the most convenient story of them all, because IF this is just who we are, then the soulwork required to becoming someone any different is not available to us. And if it is not available to us, then it logically follows that we simply do not have to DO ANY of it… 😅

BUT, I reassure you that IT IS available to us.

It is ALWAYS available.

And this is the entire point of ALL of our individual little alchemies performed that compound daily and work to shape our greater lives…

🌱 BUT, I reassure you that IT IS available to us…
It is ALWAYS available.

Cheniece patrick

Who I Was Allowed to Be

I recall the early days immediately following the first of two diagnoses for Autism Spectrum Disorder (among a couple of other things) that I would receive for my couple of very young children. There was not a physical step I took that did not literally induce the immediate sensations of vertigo, nausea, and the cold sweat of utter dread within me for quite a long time afterwards… I have shared before how I constantly felt flighty, overstimulated, and tense all at once, as if any additional trigger would have surely equated to my complete unraveling at the same moment… The daily onslaught of tumultuous emotions and mental instability left me staggeringly depleted and simply at a loss most of the time.

It pained me sorely to even for a moment consider the newly arrived implications on my future as a mother to my two “suddenly” disabled children and as a whole woman beyond that single role… It did not even feel safe to think about this topic; I was not at all secure in myself or the possibility of assuming an identity that could actually serve me well in this new reality that I did not choose. I existed while constantly frozen by my own fears and warped perceptions that eliminated most healthy versions of who I thought that I was allowed to be in this new season of my life that was busy threatening to swallow me up whole at every turn.

The all-new stories that I remember very well telling myself in those first weeks and months following the diagnosis of my eldest child looked just like this:

I could easily go on, of which I’m certain you’re aware…

On Irrefutable Evidence

The single story underpinning EACH of the above ones that I would often rehearse to myself over and over again was this: “I am not enough for this child…”

It is the deepest one. It is the one that each of my prior equally-hopeless thoughts ALL pointed back to… It was the story that the specific child that I had been given (after trying for well over a calendar year to conceive) required a “specific type” mother that I definitely was not, to any degree… His needs warranted someone much more capable, more resourced, more patient, more knowledgeable, and more “something” than I was able to become during that time.

It is one of the most persistent stories… And it is also the one most worth examining:

The fact that I found myself simply there with him within all of the discomfort ceaselessly: there reading the studies and resources, learning the new therapeutic techniques, advocating in clinic Waiting Rooms and on phone conversations, feeling the weight of it all with my WHOLE heart, and while refusing to give up looking for what my dear child needed from me for even a single second… Well, NONE of that defines the behavior of any type of mother who isn’t enough!.. In fact, it is THIS behavior that belongs to exactly the right kind of mother for her own child(ren)…

SO, the stories were false, then… And I had not been allowing myself the opportunity to really hear this fact clearly or often enough from the right voice (my OWN).

What I Encourage of You:

This is exactly why this special little lifestyle publication platform and intimate community of mine exists:

My efforts here are sustained for the kindred women out there quietly rebuilding themselves like I am…
This creative labor is carried out for those uncommon, arcane mothers learning to trust their own voices again…
I’m “building in public” right here among the others who are uncovering which of their stories were survival mechanisms… and which ones still deserve a place within them today.

And if that sounds like you, I hope that you accept my personal invitation to stay awhile…

Little Alchemies is an intimate lifestyle publication platform and emerging community for thoughtful women navigating identity, motherhood, healing, emotional growth, and the inner work of Becoming... Join us here again soon for future essays, reflections, and conversations.

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You are allowed to question the stories that once kept you alive,

 

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