When I first met Joan five years ago, she and a few other women had already formed a support group for moms of challenging kids. She explained to me that they met monthly to offer each other encouragement during these frustrating and often painful times.
In the few short years since Nicholas' birth, I could not recall a day that was not difficult. At that time, his baby book had a few snapshots of him as a smiling child, but most photos were images of a worried child, a painfully shy child, one who was clearly troubled by everything around him.
Joan shared with me that she too had a son, Neil, who tested her every waking moment. But he sounded like the exact opposite of Nicholas. Neil was aggressive toward other people; Nicholas withdrew into himself. Neil needed many friends; Nicholas wanted limited social interaction - the fewer people the better. Neil had been labeled socially deviant and expelled from pre-school; Nicholas didn't even want to start pre-school.
As we talked, I realized that although our boys were dissimilar in many ways, they both fit somewhere between normal and institutional. I also realized that Joan and I shared common feelings of worry, embarrassment, shame, and guilt.
Joan told me that each mother in her group was parenting an extremely challenging child. Several of the children shared some similar emotional difficulties or problem behaviors. Some even had a professional diagnosis. The glue that held the group together was the moms' need for support and resources for dealing with their children.
At first I resisted attending. My son's issues and how our family dealt with them were our business - no one else's. I didn't want to talk about these troubles with strangers. Exposing Nicholas's personal problems felt like gossiping and violating his privacy.
If these women knew the truth about my son, how would they judge him or me? We already had a good support system and a few professionals who were helping us understand Nicholas. Our search for solutions had taken us from our family doctor to a pediatric neurologist and finally to a psychiatrist. Together they determined that Nicholas suffers from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and obsessive-compulsive traits. They also suspect that he suffers from depression, but at his young age it remains hard to diagnosis.
During the next year, I would see Joan around town, and each time, she asked about Nicholas with sincere concern and interest. I would roll my eyes and give her a brief update of our constant day-to-day struggles. "Come meet the other moms, Sarah," Joan would say. "You don't have to go through this alone."
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