SALT LAKE CITY — One of the great ironies of parenting a special-needs child is the pervasive sense of isolation. Despite the fact that one in 47 children in Utah has autism, and myriad other disabilities abound, if your child gets a diagnosis, you feel completely alone.

For my husband and me, suddenly having a child with autism and a rare syndrome was like an earthquake had leveled our previous life to the ground. It literally felt like a natural disaster had wiped out life as we knew it.

We struggled to accept the lifestyle changes that inevitably accompanied the diagnoses (plural, in the case of two of our boys). We began to realize that having a special-needs child wasn't something that we could neatly compartmentalize inside our home life. Our sons' diagnoses were like bottles of ink that had overturned and were seeping a deep, permanent blue into every aspect of our days. The ink spill permeated the borders between home, work, church, family and friends. Our lives were saturated with this new challenge.

There was the recurring sadness when our son played near children his same age; their abilities far surpassed his, and the side-by-side comparison was a stark reminder of all the things he could not do.

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There was the undercurrent of guilt and inadequacy — the feeling that if we could only find the right treatments or parenting strategies, then the issues might resolve.

There were the people who didn't understand our situation, like the police officer who saw us struggling to handle our screaming toddler in a restaurant and told us we needed to learn how to be parents.

There was an inability to go anywhere as a family without epic meltdowns.

There was a new reality of rigid routines with the daily constraints of therapy, special diets and doctor appointments.

There was the slow realization that we could no longer "keep up" with the rest of the world outside our doors. We were different now. Things were harder. We had to adjust.

But as a parent who has survived the continental shift of learning to parent my kids with special needs, I can truthfully say that there are things that eased my transition into the new normal. With the clarity of hindsight, I claim these as the things that saved my life:

1. My support group friends. While our children don't have the exact same challenges and our treatment approaches run the gamut, we understand the isolation, the guilt, the exhaustion and the chastisement of people who simply don't understand. They are friends who get it because they have lived it.
2. Friends who haven't lived it, but who genuinely want to understand. These friends are people with typically developing children, or grown children, or no children, who listen and ask honest questions. They withhold judgment. They celebrate the tiny victories and they weep with me during the heartbreaks.
3. People who, in the face of public tantrums or strange behaviors, can just be cool. It means a lot to a mom like me when random strangers avoid staring during a meltdown and just go about their business, not making us feel like a freak show.
4. Date nights with my husband. We call date nights our "weekly therapy," because they keep us sane. Nights out make us stronger and more resilient as parents; we return happier and more determined.
5. My faith. My belief that my sons' disabilities, while so difficult, define only a small portion of their eternal spiritual existence is unequivocally my greatest hope and comfort.

Entering the realm of special-needs parenting is hard, make no mistake. But it is survivable. In my experience, it helps to have faith, a supportive network of people who care, and lots of trips to the cinema.

Megan Goates is a Westminster College and USU alumnus, a mother, and a blogger at http://herestooursurvival.blogspot.com.

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