An Open Letter to Society!

Dear Society,

Why won’t you listen when I tell you how it really is…I tell you of the little girl behind closed doors who is crawling out of her skin and you make me feel like I am lying. You make me feel that I am fabricating the truth or at least that I am exaggerating it. You make me feel like it is my fault my child CAN NOT sleep, you suggest another parenting course as a way of deflecting your responsibility….it must be my parenting that is to blame not you.

I tell you that I am not coping as a parent that I need more strategies, that I need more support, and you listen to me and nod…you listen to me and sympathise about how hard it must be…and then you sadly explain to me that there are no services to support people like us. You send me away worse than when you found me because now I am without hope of support…without support for my children…. without support for me.

Society you left me no choice. I had to learn to armour up. I had to stop believing that what you say as truth and take side doors. I had to learn the law and the rules and always see if there was another way in to the help we need because the front doors to services are padlocked so tight that nobody can access them directly. I had to learn to outsmart you. I learnt to document our journey and to write everything in emails AND SAVE THEM AS EVIDENCE. I learnt the contact names and emails for head of services in my borough and the complaint procedures that underpin our system and I had to find the courage to use them. You made me stronger Society…. not the type of stronger that I would have ever chosen to be, but the type of stronger that any mother would be when they see their child drowning in your lack of care.

I choose to fight you because I was once my daughter. I was also lost in the system, ignored and dismissed. My family was blamed for the behaviour you saw from me, I was blamed for not trying hard enough, not listening or doing as I was told. Unlike my mother I did not accept that this is the way it always is. I looked at my daughter and she was scared, her anger fuelled by anxiety and desperate cries for help. My anger fuelled by anxiety and desperate cries for help. You have perpetuated a cycle of societal neglect and for that I will never forgive you. That is why I will always be here in my fight…the very simple fight that holds a very simple message.

Society you need to stop asking us to change as people and instead YOU ARE THE ONE THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE!

I hope you take time to read this and I look forward to your reply.

Regards,

A neurodivergent parent of two neurodivergent children.