The Truths We’re Not Supposed to Say (But I Will)

By: A Single Mom Doing Her Damned Best

Confession a win, a breakdown, and a chocolate-laced Benadryl

After a day of fighting school administrators, talking to lawyers, interviewing for jobs, searching high and low for a para for my daughter for the summer (and failing yet again), then jumping on a trampoline for 4 hours because my daughter wouldn't stop screaming, here I am writing this because my daughter is finally asleep. My confession: I made a chocolate mold with Benadryl in it because I was at my breaking point.

Am I sorry? No. It’s survival. She needs me sane far more than she needs to stay up late. Mom’s are just that: MOMS. We’re not immortal or superheroes, we’re people, and we get tired like everyone else.

These are things moms aren’t supposed to say. Especially moms of kids with autism. But I’m

saying them. Because it might save someone out there—like it’s saving me.

Rage, Guilt, and Real Life

I hate that I feel judged by parents whose kids don’t have disabilities. I hate the unsolicited

advice, the assumptions, the pity. I hate that I sometimes resent my daughter. And that she

reminds me of my abusive ex. That she doesn’t look like me. That I lost everything for her. And sometimes—sometimes—I wonder if I even wanted to be a mom in the first place.

And then the guilt takes over. Crushing, suffocating guilt.

But Also This…

There are women who keep me grounded—Marcy – my partner, my dear friend Sage, my

publicist and dear friend Katrina. They don’t try to fix it. They just show up. They’ve helped me rediscover my faith, my community, even my own inner strength.

I’m learning to live in the contradiction: rage and gratitude. Love and despair. Fight and

surrender.

To the Moms Like Me

You are not evil for thinking the things you do. You are not broken. You are surviving the hardest thing any human can survive—and still finding a way to love through it.

Say the unspeakable. It might just save your life.