How to Handle More Than You Can Handle

A guide to navigating the emotional experience of caring for and raising disabled children with high-support needs, from a therapist and parent of a disabled child.

Amanda Griffith-Atkins, a therapist who is also one of the millions of people raising a disabled child with high-support needs, knows firsthand about the dark places parents go-the grief, the anger, the frustration-and the shame these feelings can bring up. In her practice, and now her book, she gives parents an invaluable set of tools to find the strength, acceptance, and self-compassion to face these hard emotions to become a more forgiving and healthier version of themselves and better caretakers for their children. She takes readers through the different emotions of this unique parenting journey: the shock of diagnosis, the fight for resources, the anxiety of navigating your child's growing independence, the uncertainty of how best to prepare for their future without you.

Then she turns her lens to the parent's world and how to navigate the fraught territory of marriage, identity, expectations, guilt, managing non-disabled siblings, and more. She shows us that bringing your darkest feelings into the light and showing up as your full self is the best way to get out of survival mode. Because you-and your child-deserve it.

About the Author

Amanda Griffith Atkins, MS, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of the Amanda Atkins Counseling Group in Chicago. Amanda earned a Master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Northwestern University, but it wasn't until her son was born that she discovered her life's purpose: to help parents of disabled children find their stride. Through the process of embracing disability parenting, Amanda has become an in-demand therapist and gets daily inquiries from people all over the world.

She is a former contributor to Liberating Working Moms and has contributed to articles in the Chicago Tribune, Bustle, POPSUGAR, Better, Chicago Parent magazine, and Crain's Chicago. She is also a lecturer at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and Adler University. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three sons.