When I first heard this line, and I can't even remember now where I heard it, but when I heard it, I was floored. It resonated deeply with me. I felt the words run right through my body. Nobody is coming. I felt the emotion flood my face and a prickly anxious feeling form in my chest. I felt very small and vulnerable. Like the little girl inside me was lost in the deep dark woods and nobody was coming.
But very quickly after registering that despair came a rising within me. I may have an anxious inner child in me, but I also have a warrior mother part to me that's been cultivated through loving my little people and protecting them fiercely in a system that didn't fit them.
And that mother within me is also available to soothe and comfort me. She's powerful and she's quite capable of being the thing she needs for herself. You've got that part in you too. All those skills and that loving compassion you have for your children, partner, family and friends when they need some support. They are also there when you need them.
The only person that is coming to save you, is you.
It’s us.
It’s actually a liberating concept once you lean in into it, I promise. You cannot change the way in which you or your child’s brain is wired. And you probably wouldn't want to. It's the best thing about them as well as a hard thing at times. But if you can reconnect with your sense of self, learn to soothe yourself, bring yourself back to life and start living creatively, then your life-balance will be restored (and in a way that the whole family benefits from.)
I've spent the last year creating a wellbeing journal for all of us. It contains anecdotes from my own experience of parenting a neurodiverse school-refuser, well-being suggestions and activities and questions that are first going to lead you back to yourself, show you how to stay balanced through all the difficult moments and then help you find your children beneath their behaviours. If you fill in the journal and begin to try out some of the ideas and see what works for you, you will start to become the thing for yourself, just as I have, to connect more easily with your kids and to shape each day into a life that’s fulfilling.
The wellbeing journal for parents of neurodiverse children will be available in Oct 2024. In the meantime if you are in the UK and local to Exeter I am running weekly sessions to help you manage the overwhelm. Get in touch at hello@louisefearn.co.uk for more info.