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The Not Quite Empty Nest: When You Have a Young Adult With Special Needs

November 20, 2015

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Caleb has had a great summer and is excited for school to start. So am I.

This week lots of my friends are posting about their oldest kid leaving for college. It’s a challenge for all parents. The little person you’ve known from birth is now flying off on their own, just as they should be, just as you raised them to do. It’s a phenomenal achievement for both kids and parents, but for parents it leaves a hole in the house. I often say about Sophie that when she leaves, she takes all the air and sunshine with her.

Sophie is a junior now and I should be used to her leaving, but when she left this week with her car heavy with almost everything she owns, I collapsed into a mess of tears. Sophie is smart, incisive, a great helper and one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. I miss everything about her.

Here’s where the not quite empty nest kicks in. For most of us parents with special needs kiddos, our kids will never leave the nest. I’ve talked with many older families over the years and in most of those cases, their special needs adult lives at home until a grave illness or death strikes one or more of the parents.

My goal is to let Caleb live with me for as long as he can. All the things I do to give him a happy life take a great toll on me, but I fully believe he deserves a happy life because he has been through so much. Life is incredibly challenging for him and it’s my duty to make his home life amazing. Plus, he’s a great and funny kid too.

Years ago, when Sophie and I first started talking about college, I realized that her leaving would hit me like an icy wind, reminding me that all is not normal in our family. As difficult as it is to say goodbye to your precious 18 year-old, when you have a dependent kid, it is a painful reminder that one will leave, but the other one never will.

It took me until Caleb was about four years old to fully understand just how challenging the world is for him. At any given time, he has at least 10 specialists who work to keep him healthy. Every visit with these wonderful providers serves to remind me that Caleb is not healthy. It took many more years to realize that Caleb would live with me forever.

As a parent, you work with your neurotypical child, helping to learn their letters, to complete mud replicas of Aztec villages, to practice whatever language they have chosen to study. You help them learn to swim and shuttle them all over the place for sports or music or debate clubs. All of these things, you hope, will prepare them for college. That’s the goal. It’s a natural expectation that your child will one day leave home and use all those skills to become a successful adult.

When your child has special needs, it’s a major upset to that expectation. Aside from missing Sophie, her leaving is also a stark reminder that the natural order has been disrupted. There are upsides to an empty nest, but we won’t experience them.

So, my fellow parents with a not quite empty nest, here’s what we need to do. First of all, it is vitally important that we grieve the loss of a normal transition to adulthood for our kids. You may not even realize that in the way-back of your mind you were still hoping your child might be able to be independent. For many people reading this, that is a reachable goal and I’m so, so happy for you. But for all the parents of amazing kids like Caleb, you have to acknowledge the grief so you can work through it.

I didn’t cry for so many years because I knew if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop. We need to cry. That grief needs to come out or it will become toxic. As Sophie will tell you, now I cry at almost anything. Songs on the car radio. Commercials. Amazing performances on So You Think You Can Dance. I will tell you that being a crier is so much healthier than holding it all in.

The second thing we need to do is seek out day programs for our kids to attend when high school ends. Caleb has three more years and I’ve already started investigating. If I had the energy, I would write congress and lobby for them to provide extended schooling for our kids, which would be much cheaper than government-funded group homes. My energy stores are bankrupt right now, so I won’t be doing that.

The third thing we need to do is find something that we love to do. This one is really challenging for me because, at least during summer, we are stuck in the house all day because of the heat. So when Caleb wants time to himself, I read, watch tons of HGTV, play Fleetwood Mac on Pandora while I’m cooking. I burn candles after dinner because they just make me happy.

I’ve also found adult coloring books with stress-relieving patterns (there are lots to choose from on Amazon). Caleb and I color together while I play Lindsey Stirling on Pandora. It’s the ultimate in parallel play for him and it’s a great bonding activity for us.

We need to nourish our souls with joyful things so they don’t atrophy. Caregiving is enormously stressful and we need to replenish ourselves. If this sounds selfish to you, then consider it as strengthening your entire self so you are better able to take care of your child with special needs.

I know this will cause lots of eye-rolling but we need to eat healthy and exercise to keep ourselves healthy so we can live long and take care of our kids. I know this isn’t always realistic—so often, I feed Caleb his breakfast, give him his meds for the day and then have to rush out the door with only coffee for me. Just do your best. It’s better than not trying.

We also need to reach out. I don’t accept help easily, like so many parents. When I reach out, it’s to God in prayer. I find saying the Rosary enormously comforting. Sometimes all I can do is chant, “Help me. Help me.” I was doing this yesterday while driving with Caleb. I was in tears and trying to hide them because they upset him. We came upon an empty playground, got out and played for a few minutes. When we left, I was laughing. I got the help I prayed for.

I am not a model of all that I advise. I fall short all the time. I collapse a lot. I am extremely fortunate to have a large network of other moms of kids with special needs. We talk on the phone. A lot.

I wish every parent with a not-quite empty nest the best of luck in this painful transition. I wish that even if you can’t follow all of the advice above, that you try at least one. I wish we could have a worldwide virtual coffee date. I am open to other suggestions of how to cope with this stressful time. We need to lean on each other and learn from each other. That’s why my blog is called Neverland Without a GPS—we are in unchartered territory with no clue how to navigate it. But we’re here together.

About Kate

HuffPostProfile-2Kate Welch, author of the blog “Neverland Without a GPS” shares her journey as a proud, single mother of two great children—her 20-year-old daughter who is a microbiology major in her third year of college and her 19-year-old son who has 22Q Deletion Syndrome.

Through her series here, she hopes to reach out to everyone who belongs within the rare community and ben an asset who can spread knowledge and understanding on the topic of caregiving to an adult child.

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