SPD Support Charlotte

The Monday before my SPD Support group meeting, I woke up at 7am and my hands were shaking. I didn’t have a nightmare, my blood sugar wasn’t low, I was nervous… four days before. By the time Thursday came, I had it pushed out of my mind until the drive up to the meeting location, where the only thing I could do to distract myself was to grab the nearest unscratched CD and blast it as loud as it would go. I would like to interject here that no matter how good you look, what you are listening to, or where you are driving, it is impossible to be cool while driving a minivan. Once I arrived at our chosen venue, (local restaurant with backroom), people slowly started coming in. I was drinking a beer, praying that the liquid courage would work its magic.
Apparently it did.
I was really nervous when I first started talking to the group. Everything I had rehearsed in my head a million times was gone as the panic took my words away. We were sitting in bar stools at the end of the room so that everyone could see us and because I was holding a beverage, it made it possible to hold on tightly enough that you couldn’t see my hands shaking.
I told my story, which was much shorter and less poignant that I had hoped it would be, thanks to my nervousness but once I was finished talking, I relaxed and was able to speak to the group without feeling like my heart was going to leap through my chest.
I believe that this group is needed. I believe it so much, that I don’t give a shit if I get up there and uncontrollably shake each time I talk to them. What is one person’s embarrassment to the salvation of 20? Or 19, which is how many people we had at the first meeting. It was amazing.
When I was telling my story and talking about Connor rubbing poop all over everything for several weeks, there were people that were emphatically nodding. When I talked about how frustrating it is to have a child that’s out of control or to have people tell you that all you need to do is provide more discipline when you know that you are being as consistent and possible and might in fact, be more strict than a lot of parents that you know, people were nodding… not just smiling and nodding either, nodding because they understood. Because they too had been though the confusion, the judgment that comes with having an SPD kid. I had known them all for about 15 minutes and they understood me. And I understood them. And we were starving to talk to each other.
The group members passed around information about diets, doctors and books. They talked about their frustrations with the pediatricians not understanding and their families that didn’t think there was anything wrong with their child. They talked about how long it took to figure out there was a problem and no one has every heard of SPD. They talked. And talked. And talked.
My co-host, Susie and I were still sitting at the front of the room, more as spectators of the discussion than members of it, because we were running the show. Susie mentioned that next time she wanted to be sitting at the table and I couldn’t have agreed with her more.
So far I’ve had over 50 people contact me about the group. I don’t know that we’ll have that many people show up at each meeting, but I do think the group may get even larger than that as the news spreads that it’s out there. I’m just glad that we are able to offer support to so many parents who, like me are starving for connection. We are going to need to find a bigger meeting room.