Eating frozen meals in my kitchen

 I remember a time when things were so chaotic in my home that:

• I had to eat frozen meals standing up in my kitchen because I had absolutely no ability to cook or prepare food with the level of one on one attention and supervision my PDA son, Cooper, needed.
• It felt debilitating to think about rinsing out the frozen food containers to recycle them instead of throwing them away, so I just never recycled.
• I started to dissociate from stress when my friend asked me how we dispose of plastic bags and whether there was a place we could take them for re-use. I told her my brain did not have space to care about that.
• My husband and I would take two cars to the same location, so that we could physically separate the kids and protect our younger son, William, from Cooper’s “equalizing” behavior (hitting, harassing, calling him names).
• I was buying a McDonald’s Happy Meal 2-3 times a week because it was one of the only things that my PDA son would eat. Plastic junk was piling up in our home, because Cooper wouldn’t play with the prizes, but he also wouldn’t let me throw them away or get him anything but a happy meal.
• We would constantly purchase cheap plastic objects from Amazon or the Dollar Store that my son would engage with once before discarding after the dopamine and novelty wore off.

All of these examples of how I was living my daily life while my PDA son was recovering from burnout were a constant source of shame and guilt for me because they were a reminder of how I wasn’t living according to my stated values.

I cared about the environment and our finances, and thought it was important not to add piles of plastic to my home and the earth, waste gas, and over-consume. And yet, many of the accommodations I was using to support my son’s nervous system suggested the opposite was true. 

The reality was I couldn’t live by those values for a season of my life because the cost to my son’s nervous system (and my own) was too high if I wasn’t making choices specifically and solely for his mental and physical well-being.

I had to realize that in order for me to eventually get back to those values, I had to first go deeper and recognize that my deepest value was supporting my son back to physical and mental health and stabilizing our family.

It was a time when he could barely leave the house, I was giving over my nervous system to his, and every step I took had to be focused on getting our family to a place of stability. This is true for many families, and it is an enormous tradeoff, but one that has big payoffs over the long-term.

It took years to get where we are now. I have finally had time to find the spot at our local library to recycle plastic bags each month and Cooper’s cumulative nervous system activation has come down enough for me to leave his side.

I now cook big pots of beans each week and have donated *most*of those discarded plastic toys.

That's not to say I live in a utopia these days. Things are far from perfect in my home and there are still many tradeoffs I face while raising a son with a nervous system disability.

But by taking things step-by-step, one day at a time with the skills I learned through trial and error and a lot of pain, I was able to create the stepping stones to a foundation of stability – for both my son and our family system.

It is from that stability that I could both return to my values and make a broader contribution: the work we do here at At Peace Parents with parents of PDA children and teens.

Here is what I have come to believe from this experience:

• You are the catalyst for transformational positive change in your home and with your PDA child or teen.
• You can’t fully and expansively live out your values and make the contributions you are meant to make (whether or not it has anything to do with PDA!) if you are living from a place of chaos, your own nervous system activation, and your child or teen in burnout.
• You are likely beating yourself up for not being able to do so as a character flaw, rather than trusting that NONE of us can build, expand, grow and share when we are not in a stable environment.

This knowledge is what makes me so passionate about our work at At Peace Parents. One of our missions is to equip parents like you with a new paradigm for parenting and caregiving that will stabilize your family, help your child thrive, and help you find peace in your identity as a parent. 

I know that only then will you be able to live out your own values - whatever they may be.

I believe in you and your child (or teen!).