On suppressed emotions, neuroplastic symptoms, and why self-compassion might be the most therapeutic thing you can do
There’s a version of parenting I imagined before I had children. It involved connection, warmth, small hands in mine. It did not involve sitting in a school parking lot after a parent teacher conference, trying to remember how to breathe.
I have an adult son who is neurodivergent. He is brilliant, funny, kind, and, for many years, genuinely difficult. Hard at school, where the structure and overstimulation chafed him in ways nobody quite had words for. Hard with his siblings, where his temperament caused more conflict and chaos than would have been ideal. Hard for me to reach on the days when I was already running on fumes, and the gap between the parent I wanted to be and the one I actually was felt like a canyon.