Mi casa es everybody’s casa

I am sometimes asked what it feels like to share so much personal information on this blog. After years of raising a child with special needs, I can honestly say that privacy is something I barely remember.

I know lots of special needs parents who probably feel the same way. It didn’t happen overnight. I was a private person once. But like a the proverbial frog in a pot of water who doesn’t realize that he’s slowly being boiled, my sense of privacy has slackened without much notice.

For me, it probably started with a Home Visit, the sine qua non of childhood intervention. A nurse, a social worker, or an intake coordinator, likely from Early Intervention or other state program, came to my home, sat next to me on my sofa to ask a few questions. For this visit, I probably picked up the house, or at least the living room, and maybe even put on a pot of coffee.

Fast forward a few months or years, and I find myself giving out a key to anyone who asks for it or simply yelling “come on in!” whenever I hear the door ring. After the 100th visit from the speech therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, developmental specialist, nurse, school psychologist, agency evaluator or personal care attendant, I realize I have stopped brewing coffee, stopped running around to pick up, stopped slapping on some lipstick because I just can’t keep up the facade, and frankly, I realize that they just don’t care. I tell myself that they’ve probably seen much, much worse than that pile of unfolded laundry on the dining room table, and anyway, it’s clean, so it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

It’s not only in my house that my sense of personal dignity gets “loosened up.”  The hospital stays are particularly challenging to maintaining a sense of dignity. I find myself woken up at 6:30am by an army of white-coated people from an uneasy sleep in a fold-out chair next to my child’s hospital bed. Wiping the drool from the side of my mouth, directing my comments off into a corner so as not to knock them unconscious with my morning breath, I curse myself for not sleeping with a bra on under my pajamas while I pat my head, trying to visualize how bad my case of bed head is. But at the same time, I just don’t care.

I have even gotten used to having people in my proverbial “space” or as my younger child would say, in my “business.” I answer questions about my son’s health and development, my pregnancy and delivery, my stress level, my income, my relationship status, my choices, my actions and my inactions. It feels like I am being judged, and in fact, I am. It is an invasion of privacy but I offer the info willingly. It is the price I pay in order to receive the services and resources that will help him thrive.

The details of my life, my story, becomes a currency that I offer willingly in the service social change and reform as well. In meetings with political staffers, on task forces and in board rooms, I share some personal details with no regret because I have learned that while data drives the discussion, it’s the personal stories that keep everyone at the table. I could talk about theory and percentages until I’m blue in the face, but it’s often a small anecdote that drives the point home.

Even out here in the blogosphere, it’s the stories that connect us even though we might have never met.

So this week, when I invite several personal care attendant candidates in for interviews and host two medical students to teach them about raising a child with complex needs, or even when I hit the “publish” button on this blog post—it won’t feel weird. I’m used to it. Come on in.