Welcome to the first ever post on Sharks & Stims – a blog about raising disabled and neurodivergent children. I’ve been considering starting this blog for literally months now and it’s taken quite a bit of time to actually make it happen. But I’m making it happen and I’m so excited. But why am I starting this blog? Because I’m tired of people expecting my son to change to adapt to the world and I want the world to change for him.
Okay, that sounds dramatic and you’re probably wondering “how would a blog change the world?”
My blog alone obviously won’t.
But as parents, we can change the world for our children. We can make a difference. And I want to work towards making that difference.
Our Story
My name is Mae and I have an incredible little boy I call E. As of October 2022, E is a little over three years old and he is autistic. He was diagnosed with moderate autism at just 21 months old. He is nonverbal and developmentally delayed in pretty much every area of development. I wrote out E’s full story, which you can read here, so I won’t go into too much detail on this post. But my son is, of course, the inspiration behind this blog. He’s the inspiration behind the name! He’s a very shark obsessed kid and he often uses them when he stims. So that’s how I came up with “Sharks & Stims.” When our son first started showing signs of autism and was later diagnosed, our family was thrown into a world we were not expecting with little support. Both my husband and I have struggled with our mental health since our son’s diagnosis. We’ve both worried about him and his development and his future. And eventually we realized we weren’t alone. There are other parents out there who understand. And those parents are often really open about sharing their stories. So I thought, why can’t I share our stories?
Starting This Blog
You might be thinking “there are a million other ways to share your stories than a full-on blog” and you’re right. I actually started with an Instagram account
That became my anonymous little bubble surrounding special needs parenting and connecting with parents of kids like E. But I felt like there was a better way to share. Now, I’ve actually been blogging for nearly 5 years. And while my blog never blew up or anything, I really enjoyed sharing my own experiences. But, my blog was very closely tied to my legal name and I started feeling uncomfortable sharing things about my son on it. Because I never want to share information that he could one day be upset with me for sharing. But talking about our experiences is so important! So I decided that a separate blog, one that is separated from our actual names, would be a great opportunity to share our stories. And here we are. It’s taken me some time, but I’m making Sharks & Stims happen and I’m so excited about it.