On Letting People In

James at school

We are revising our son's IEP this week.  It's been five years now that I have been attending these meetings, ever since we wrote the very first one a week before James turned 3.  It's been a journey, to say the least, for our family, navigating the world of autism and special education, and it's made me aware that I am a wall-builder. I have barricades and closets and vaults to keep all of me in, and everyone else out.  But I've been learning these past few years about how amazing it can be to have a community, to have people that are inside the walls.

My initial response upon realizing that my son was different was my tried-and-true coping mechanism of shutting down and shutting out.  I took a lot of blame on myself, and spent long days wondering how I got it all so wrong, how I didn't adequately teach my child how to talk and dress himself, and how could I be trusted to continue raising him and the baby brother who was learning to walk at the time.  I researched speech therapists and attended meetings at school and read books and spent too many hours studying my children, expecting the answer to fix all this to appear.

What I learned is there is no answer or quick fix.  This life is one that requires more of me than I was expecting to give.  But I've learned how to do it.  A big part is sharing the load and letting others in.  The first person I needed to let in was my husband.  In many ways, I had kept him at bay with most of my sensitive areas, and our son became one of those sensitive spots.  I was the parent at home, so it made sense for me to be the one taking James to appointments and filling out paperwork and attending IEP meetings and conferences.  When James was in kindergarten, I came down with a bad case of strep throat the day before the IEP meeting, and my husband had to stay home to take care of us.  I whispered hoarsely to him that he needed to take my place at school, to sign the papers so James would be all set for the next school year.  He looked at me blankly and asked what was going to happen at the meeting and what the IEP was.  I realized I should have kept him in the loop better as I tried to explain with as few words as possible what he needed to do.  I wondered why we hadn't tried to get a sitter so we could both attend these kind of meetings together.  Until that day, I'd carried the burden of helping our son on my own shoulders, but it made me see how much better it would be to share the responsibility and decisions.

It was around this time that we were becoming involved with our Village at church, the people who hold our family so tenderly and support us so completely.  It took a huge leap of faith on my part to share my life with these new people, to trust that when I opened up, they would be able to handle all of our touchy areas with kindness and love.  These days, we have ample opportunity to let people in.  We don't even have to leave our house or get dressed to announce big news and start conversations.  But the problem with social media is that sometimes we don't guard the doors properly.  Some people shouldn't be inside the walls.  Some people aren't safe enough to handle our tender parts.

It reminds me of the book "Generation Ex" written by my friend Jen Abbas (now deJong).  In it, she describes different levels of friendship and trust.  She calls the groups Multitude of Acquaintances, Fellowship Friend, Comfortable Confidant, and Accountable Advisors.  These groups begin to shrink in size from the very large and impersonal (the "Multitude") to the very intimate few (the "Advisors").  This concept has always been a bit challenging for me, since I spent most of my life keeping everything important to myself.  As I've been opening up more, I still have to remind myself to keep certain trusted people inside the walls, and everyone else rightfully outside.  I want to be an honest person.  I want to be truthful and open.  So now I tend towards overshare versus secrecy.

I know I need to learn the balance in what is okay to share and what isn't, especially as a wife and mother who blogs.  I love looking through past years that I've written about; it's a chronicle of what our lives were like then, and an interesting comparison to what has changed.  But stories are mine to tell when my life intersects those of my children?  What will hurt or embarrass them in the future, since what is posted online lasts forever?  At what point does my need to discuss something that I'm feeling or experiencing get trumped by their need for privacy?  One step I've taken lately is to share funny or gross stories in person with people I see regularly rather than posting them on Facebook.  It's more likely these tales will be forgotten when they are only heard by a small group of friends.  I'm also trying to take the advice of Glennon Melton, of momastery.com.  I heard her speak in May, and she addressed this issue as it pertains to her family.  Glennon is a self-proclaimed "truth teller" and her own life is an open book on her blog and in her book "Carry On, Warrior".  Her advice was to stick to our own personal journey as much as possible and to use good judgement when crossing into another person's journey.  Of course, there's always the advice of St. Anne, "If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better."  (This one doesn't seem appropriate for kids, since they all behave terribly at one point or another, and that's just the nature of childhood.  Side note: I really hope at least one of my kids writes about his childhood.  I'm curious to see what role I'll have.)

I write frequently about how my son's autism diagnosis changed everything, in many cases for the better.  Finding the right balance of letting people in and keeping others at a distance definitely falls under the "for better" banner.  We are a work in progress, but work I'm glad to have each day.  Without these little people, I imagine my life would have been less colorful and open.

I'm including this video from Ted talks about "coming out of the closet" because it is a universal idea that is worth sharing in the context of opening up to the people who will help carry our burdens.