Storms

Sometimes you can see it coming in the distance. Big, dark grey and deep blue clouds slowly approach in the distance. They roll in slowly, appearing off in the distance and then creeping closer and closer until the drops of rain begin to fall.


If you’re paying attention, and watching the skies you’ll prepare yourself. You’ll take cover you’ll do what you need to do to protect yourself and ride it out. You know eventually it will end, but you’re not thinking about that when you’re in midst of the whirlwind. You’re paying attention to the severity, to the potential danger and to the damage.


Some storms are sudden and severe but they pass quickly. Others start slowly and build predictably, and then roll into the next town, spanning as much territory as possible. Then there are others - the real scary storms that come on suddenly – as if out of nowhere. Maybe they seem sudden because we aren’t paying attention. Maybe there were warning signs, flashes of lightening off in the distance that you didn’t notice because you were distracted or focused on other things.


No matter how it approaches or finds it ways into your life – storms happen. When it comes to the weather – we can be deliberate and try to plan accordingly, but in the reality and the infrequencies of life often times there’s no preparing. They take us by surprise. Sometimes they’ve been building over time and we didn’t even realize it. Sometimes there’s a storm approaching from a county away, and the sun is shining where we are so we have no idea of the impending danger. In any case –when we find ourselves in the midst of it – ready or not, it can change who we are and how we see our lives.


What do you do? Run for cover? Brace yourself and boldly ride it out? Try to hide? I guess it depends.


I recently went through one of the worst storms of my life. Some of you never even knew it. You saw that familiar smile, you heard me talk like I actually know what I’m talking about…and you laughed at my often feeble attempts at humor. Those of you who know me very well, however – know that I’m a performer. It’s what I do for a living. While often the life of the party, what many people don’t know is that performer personalities feel the pressure to always be “on.” Anything less would be showing weakness and vulnerability and there’s nothing worse.



Only a few of you saw the tears, the pain and the fear.


It began when my son Ben started to rapidly regress. Near the end of August he finished a very intense neurological “brain gym” program. When the therapy was finished my son disappeared. It was like watching someone slowly walking backwards into a black hole. I felt so helpless. He began doing things to himself that were causing injury. My baby was beating himself up – with his fists! He developed huge bruises on his joints, and was hitting himself in the head with fists, almost constantly. He also stopped talking conversationally and would only repeat a few very loud phrases.


He got up each night in the middle of the night and would run into my room – than up for the day by 4 or 4:30 in the morning. This went on for a month.


When I would try to stop him from yelling, hitting himself or anything else…it would get worse. He’d go after the other kids – even the dog! When I would hold him back, he’d try to bite anything within distance. Even on our car rides to doctors, therapy etc. he’d bite the arm of the chair!


I went into a tail spin, which resembled the one that I sunk into shortly after Ben was diagnosed. I searched the internet during the night time and called around during the day trying to find answers.


Personality types like mine do not “accept” things that “are” very easily. To us that’s an absurd concept. To us, you get up – and you do something about it! You quickly start researching to collect all the possible causes, treatments and cures. You just "get er done!" You internalize you angst for a while, while driving forward toward a solution to the “problem.”
This time I simply felt helpless. I was helpless. Nothing I was doing was working to help my baby. One morning after another sleepless night I picked up the phone and demanded that he be seen at his doc’s office right away. We had other assessments and evaluations that we needed to go through to try to figure things out.


Watching my son in this place pushed me to different place. This one was a dark one. Full of self doubt, and wondering where I went wrong and what on earth I am doing with my life. It became strikingly obvious that my plan for Ben didn’t work. My 5 year plan for getting my son mainstreamed just didn’t work. I failed. Not only is he not mainstreamed and having lost his diagnosis yet – but now I’m supposed to try to pull him out of a massive stim/SIB regression! Too much. I hated autism and the way it imprisons perfect little creatures.


My old anxiety and panic came back like a flood. All the fear, the pain and the doubt on the inside of that storm literally drowns out everything else. No amount of exercise or happy stories stops the misfired flood of adrenalin that surges at times like this.


It’s times like this when God (who promises never to leave us nor forsake us) feels very distant. “Where are YOU!” “Help my son!” “Help me!” I always want a fail swoop to decend like a wing to sweep me up and carry me to the place where my mind had before hand created all the things that are supposed to be going right and well. But, God works in his own ways. Sometimes he doesn’t swoop down, scoop us down and carry us away. I even though of that beautiful piece of art called “Footprints” where there are 2 pairs of feed imprints in the sand for a distance and then only one. The caption reads, “When you were strong I walked with you, when you were weak…I carried you.” Why was I still walkig, and carrying Ben on my back?!


It occurs to me that he could of course come on down to earth and do this in the flesh. Or does he? He promises to send an ever present help in our time of trouble. I’m going to call them Angels.


Angels began showing up appearing in my life…and then the real close ones – rushed in. Some of my angels were the ones that stayed in my home with me trying to offset Ben in those early hours so I could try to get some sleep. Some you are the ones that came and helped take care of the kids and do laundry while I went to the doctor to be tested for thyroid and Adrenal fatigue! Or paced the floor waiting to give Ben a medication – or helping me try the things the doctors prescribed. There were those of you angels that literally held me. You just held me. Some of you let me sob in your arms knowing that I needed to be weak/almost childlike in that moment. When you weren’t there, you called me every day. You know who you are.


For the other angels that didn’t understand the depth of what I was going through but still showed up as an angel. Those of you who allowed me to deligate my work reponsibilities onto you while you encouraged me.



Thank you.



You’re the ones that gave me something interesting and beautiful to focus on – and that was very healing. You allowed me to be myself minus the all the chaos.The walks, the talks, you brought me back to a place of normalcy outside of the storm that was still brewing in my home and with my kids.


Thank you for being my angels! You’ve inspired me to do the very same thing for others around me. We all hear our friends and/or acquaintances say that they’re going through something hard and we sort of make this “ah” pouty lip face, stick a hand on their shoulder and act as if that small action should suffice.


My new challenge to myself will be to reach out to those that really is in pain or in need that are in close proximity and try to comfort them in a real way that would add to their lives. That’s what it takes to help someone through a storm I think. There are times when you’ve got the hand of someone and you’re on solid ground, but you’re holding on for dear life because they’re dangling in the wind!


At this point – it’s time to jump into the storm with them, get dirty and let them be weak if you have the ability to be strong. No judgment involved…just a quiet ear, a soft encouraging word, a hot meal, a load of laundry, mowing the lawn – or even just that hug.


My goal now is to try to be as sensitive as possible to someone who’s got the painted smile, while the pain seeps out every nook and cranny. It’s OK to get real with each other. Even those of us with ridiculous expectations of ourselves or others. It’s OK to be vulnerable – and the moist IMPORTANT thing I learned is that it’s important to be honest and ask for help without feeling bad about it!“Supermom” shouldn’t need help – right? That’s what I would have loved for you to think. It’s just not possible to be all things to all people at all times. No one really expects us to – but us!


I’ve resolved to take off that ridiculous expectation, and move in what I know to be true and right to pursue for my kids and I. I will not me in guilt because I haven’t healed Ben. That's not my job - it's Gods. I'm going to continue to do the very best I can do with the knowledge and information I have for my son. And you know what? It will be fabulous!


Thanks for all your thoughts, prayers and help for our little family. God Bless you – MY ANGELS!