Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
I am a single mum and I raise my two kids alone with very little help or support. My kids have high needs. They both have disabilities, are both ASD (Autistic), are affected in different ways and I need to parent my kids differently. This is not all of who I am, and it’s not all of who my kids are, but sometimes it can feel that that is all that is seen.
It can feel like my own individual identity gets eaten by my special needs parenting identity. People’s perception of what that means can be exhausting. Their pity so strong it stinks. Some days are hard. Some days are hard for everyone. Parenting in general can be hard and sometimes in our house, the days are endless and excruciating. The pressure relentless, the loneliness overwhelming, my fear, stress and knowledge of my own inadequacy grows until it steals all the air in the room.
And I can’t breathe.
I can’t see.
I can’t speak.
The space from where I am, and where I want to be, it grows too.
Grows into a thing with power and life, and takes up a space it doesn’t deserve. A small part of me speaks the truth, that I am only one person, and what I am dealing with was never designed for only one person. But the sharper truth is that I am the only person left. Inadequate and all.
That is the truth.
It is the truth, that I wish was a lie.