In my 10 years as a parent of a child with significant medical and developmental challenges, I had significant “a-ha” change in my level of consciousness just a couple of years ago. So significant that it almost deserves a personal equivalent to the B.C. and A.D. of our Western calendar. That’s how big a deal it feels, even now.
Before this shift, I was naïve, in denial and passive. After this shift, I was empowered and engaged. It was as if after years of being a passenger in my son’s care, when doctors, early intervention professionals and teachers had been driving, I decided to take the wheel.
So what happened? Health care workers would say that I got activated. Educational experts would say I got engaged. Family leaders might say I became an advocate.
I would say that I finally understood that when it came to my son’s life, the buck stopped with me. I understood that no matter how respectful or knowledgeable the experts were, they couldn’t connect all the dots of my son’s needs. They didn’t have the knowledge or resources to. To ask them to was unrealistic and even unfair. And the healthcare and education systems that I assumed were always looking out for the best for us…well, if feels almost foolish now to say that I did think things worked that way.
Suddenly, I got it. And that realization pushed me to gain so many new skills, so much knowledge and confidence. Some might call it grace. It sure feels like it.
I don’t have any answers as to why I was lucky enough to want to get behind the wheel. I do have a lot of empathy for those who don’t. It probably depends on many things—in my own case, my own personal and cultural views on both authority and expertise, a lack of access to a peer who had been through it before, challenges coping with fear and anxiety, anger at feeling that life had dealt me a bad hand, but to name a few. Mostly, I think, it was a bone-deep sense of overwhelm, a false assumption that there were too many questions, too few answers, too much bad news and not enough me to go around.
Since then, I’ve become passionate and curious about what makes one person “wake up” to the idea that they are in the driver’s seat of their own and their child’s well-being, and another person assume that the professionals caring for them can know what they need better than they know themselves. If I could wish for one single miraculous insight for others, it would probably be this acceptance of the absolute need for personal responsibility. Without this, nothing else will get done.
In the health care world, professionals talk about family or patient “readiness,” or our openness and ability to make a change. Before we “wake up” or become what they call an activated, engaged patient, we must spend time getting ready for that change. Maybe it’s not a switch that gets flipped, but a series of awakenings, of small changes that slowly builds our confidence in our own ability to lead.
Yesterday I got the chance to observe an intervention at a waiting room in a health clinic designed by an organization called the Right Question Institute. A medical student, armed with a simple pamphlet and a friendly way about her, approached patients waiting to see their doctors and coached them through a brief activity that helped them prepare three well worded questions for their doctor.
Is this the grace I have been wishing for others? Perhaps so. After so many years of trying to support others to get in the driver’s seat by enthusiastically telling them they could do it, I watched a few folks learn how.
When did you figure out that you needed to be in the driver’s seat? Did you always know? How to you encourage others to take charge?
See you out there on the highway…zoom zoom!
My a-ha was when I finally realized that the mythical bureau that could tell me about all the therapies, services, and support groups I would need, and where to find them—a service the government had made sure was in place—didn’t exist. I was it. I had to become the expert on my son’s needs and care.
There’s no bureau? Darn it. For a while I was determined to start one. Now I’m trying to convince health care that they need to build the system so that they continuously enable families and youth to get in the driver’s seat–not by withholding information from us and shrugging their shoulders, expecting someone else to teach us, but by partnering with us so that we can build our knowledge, skills and confidence so that we can do it for ourselves. There’s a lot of push back around that as being culturally difficult for some folks, but I do think that it’s the only way families will realize their own dreams, not be a case in someone else’s file.
As a nurse and also mother of a special needs child, I could not agree more. People need to take charge of their own health care!
Christa,
My friends and family would tell you that I am always in the drivers seat. It may look that way but I didn’t know where I was going. I was scared and angry.
I have had a few big aha moments. Each one pointing me to place I didn’t know was there. The first one was when a another seasoned parent told me ” you have been to all the experts and there is no one answer as to what expect or what to do, no plan, no manual. ” As said earlier “no mythical bureau”. So I had to know the issues and create the plan. Years later the second huge moment, I was sitting on the floor in my hallway crying and exhausted. I had come to the realization that I could not “fix” this that my son hurt so deeply and I couldn’t make the pain go away. My son came out and sat next to me and said “mom I love you, I don’t want to be this way anymore.” We had to find a way together. The newest aha was with a unbelievable group of parents. I realized that I could effect change together with them. That I could use my voice and direct it in a way that would make a difference. Now I am still driving but my son is now learning to take the wheel from time to time. Soon I will be in the passenger seat and eventually each of us will be in our on car.
Your comment moves me to tears. Your insight that we will get out of the drivers seat at some point and hand it over is so profound. What better way can we prepare our children for the need to take responsibility as adults than by modeling that behavior for them. So good to hear from you.