Can I Be Your Wild Dragonfly Mama?

Let me explain. I am the mother of a beautiful, talented, sweet, kind, warm-hearted, smart, loving, and creative daughter who happens to have special needs. However, often these special needs make our life feel anything but special because she can also be angry, unkind, unpredictable, intensely emotional, hyperactive, hypersensitive, rude, irrational, self-sabotaging, erratic, selfish, violent, and beyond disrespectful.

Earlier this year, I received some second-hand feedback about my parenting skills, or lack thereof. I also heard through the proverbial grapevine, that some people I know had serious concerns about my relationship with my daughter. That was it! It took me the better part of 10 years, but I finally realized I could no longer hide the fact that my daughter does in fact have special needs. Specifically, she lives with symptoms of multiple Neurodevelopmental Disorders. She may not look or act like a stereotypical special needs child, but she is. And the truth is, raising a child with special needs comes with ongoing physical and emotional challenges I never could have imagined.

My desire not to burden others with the day-to-day struggles inadvertently set a target on my daughter and me. As a result, it was becoming harder and harder to hide the challenges we face daily. My days of putting on a happy face to present myself as a "normal mom", with a "normal child", experiencing "normal mom" challenges, was over. I was doing us both more harm than good. I only wish I had realized this sooner. I like to think I could have saved some friendships, but that's not likely. In my experience, few friendships can survive the constant turmoil surrounding the life of a mom with a special needs child. Many of my friendships died in the wake of my life.

After spending entirely too much time overanalyzing these failed friendships, I have concluded there are three reasons these friendships didn't last or won't survive in the future.

First, as parenting experiences were becoming vastly different, many of my friends were finding it difficult to enjoy our relationship. Instead of going deep enough to understand my life as it became more challenging to parent my daughter, I was offered judgement, gossiped about, and even ghosted. Rather than receiving grace and compassion, I was abandoned.

Second, I have gotten really good at hiding the fact that my daughter has any special needs at all. But then one day, I accidentally let something slip. Maybe I yelled at my daughter, or worse, I "let" her yell at me. Maybe I was enjoying myself and stayed too long at someone's house. It was past the point of no return with my daughter and all hell broke loose. If you have a child with special needs, especially one who is neurodivergent, you know exactly what I am talking about. But, instead of reaching out with concern and compassion to at least try to understand what had happened, some friends were more inclined to criticize me and/or my daughter, although rarely to my face, and just let our friendship fall by the wayside. No more play dates with that family!

Finally, as difficult as it is for me to admit, my new and aspiring friendships are dying because I am actively killing them off, sometimes before they even get started. Although this was a lot easier for me to accomplish during COVID, I am still avoiding some relationships like it's my job. I just can't hide the madness anymore! Most days I am too overwhelmed and exhausted to even try, and rarely am I even organized enough to hide anything if I wanted to. And, since I am quite certain no woman in her right mind is willingly going to stay with me on the train to crazy town, I kill these budding friendships...DEAD!

So, what do dragonflies have to do with raising a special needs child? Stay with me here...

Dragonflies have long been associated with good fortune in Chinese tradition. Some say that if a dragonfly lands on you, it means that better times are ahead. Dragonflies are also associated with change and rebirth, similar to butterflies.

I have no idea why this speaks to me, but for years I have wanted to launch a website or blog or something using the title Wild Dragonfly Mama. I even purchased the domain 3 years ago, but that was it. Nothing else came to me, but I couldn't convince myself to give it up. Now I am so glad I held onto it. You see, if you are living a parallel life to mine, raising a child with special needs, there's a decent chance we share some similar experiences making and keeping mom friends, but I want you to know that better times are ahead. With the right friends, you can get through this life, parenting your special needs child. I want to be your friend who gets it, but more than that, I want to teach other moms how to be a better friend to the mom who is struggling to parent one or more special needs children. Friendships don't have to be all or nothing and they don't have to be so damn hard. But just like IYKYK, IYDKYDN. (If you don't know, you don't know!)

I would love to create a community of special needs moms who come together to share their personal journeys with the goal of helping each other feel less alone and less crazy. I also want to create a space for their friends who are willing to learn more instead of just tossing the friendship aside. Maybe this life that we never asked for will get better if we can do it together and without judgement.

If you are raising a special needs child, or you want to be a better friend to someone who is, please follow my journey. Together we can create a better life.