That Didn't Take Long by Michelle

My name is Michelle, and I'm a web professional.  And one of those Type A OCD overachiever nut jobs.  And a writer.  And mother of Bear, an amazing little boy with SPD.

I tell you this because if you put these things together, you get, in a nutshell, how I ended up with the honor of being a guest blogger on Hartley's site.

This really started for me in October of 2009, about 5 minutes after the OT evaluator told me my son had Sensory Processing Disorder and that I should start reading about sensory modulation.  Needless to say, I set Google on fire... and was sorely disappointed at the lack of information.  (I'm not saying it's not out there, I'm just saying at the time the SEO for SPD wasn't up to snuff.)

I searched for weeks on every imaginable combination of terms and came up with limited data (did I mention I also have a degree in biology, dreamed of being a doctor and have clinical experience? I wanted real. information.).  Then I stumbled across an SPD mom on Twitter who told me about a relevant site.  I looked... and was sorely disappointed.  This particular homemade SPD site was gushy and rambly and poorly designed. There was no way any reasonable parent would read it and feel like they were getting reliable information about their child's disorder.  I wanted something our pediatrician could take seriously.

I vented to my BFF about the lack of credible info. She told me she and her boss were already placing bets about how long it would take me to become some kind of internet SPD advocate, spreading awareness from a virtual soapbox.

I entertained brief fantasies about building the premier website for SPD education (seriously people, I am a Nut. Job. )  I even looked into purchasing a domain.  Thankfully, before that got out of hand someone finally told me about SPDFoundation.net and I breathed a sigh of relief: the credible resource I'd been looking for existed. (Oh, and the voices in my head totally made me check - they come up on the first SERP now).

Fast forward to summer 2010.  My Bear was making tremendous progress with his therapies, but it was wearing me down and I needed help of my own.  I resisted the whole "special needs community" thing at first.  I felt guilty - like he wasn't sick enough.  But I soon learned that those are the moms who get me.  They're the ones with whom you can swap a few acronyms and then relax.  No explanations or apologies necessary for your kid's atypical behavior.

Since writing is therapeutic for me, once I embraced our 'special needs' reality it was a short leap from there to launching a blog.  The proverbial ink was barely dry when I received Hartley's invitation to join the SPD Blogger Network... and here we are.

I just told my BFF about Hartley's blog and how excited I was for the opportunity to be writing about SPD in such a high profile forum.

She rolled her eyes and "that didn't take long."

I should find out how much she won in the bet.


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