I have been a parent for 10 years. A whole decade!? And as any parent of a child more than weeks old can likely relate to, I am somehow equally confounded that it feels like it couldn’t have been more than a few years, and because it also feels like the pre-kids version of my life happened to someone else in an entirely different lifetime. Because my brain was already scrambly about how I could possibly have a 10-year-old, it seemed entirely rational when my gorgeous firstborn suggested that we invite a few friends and spend the day at Elitch Gardens Amusement Park to ring in his 2nd decade of life.

Back to the pre-kids version of me for just sec: I like the wild rides. The rollercoasters and spinny rides are my favorite. The wilder, the better. So ya, I was ready to dust off my fun hat and get the party started.

This is how I found myself on a ride called the Boomerang. If you’ve never had the hellish experience of riding it, let me pat you on the back for your fine life choices and fill you in. Once strapped into a ride that smells, at best, like a very well-worn shoe, you are dramatically pulled backward up a steep incline so that all your achy-but-soon-to-be-achier neck can see is the metal track below you. You are held there for just long enough that you begin to hyperventilate because you think the ride might be broken and you’ll likely perish in this position. With your heart already racing, the brake releases and you are sent zooming forward, up, down, around, upside down, around, up, down, up again, and then SLAM. The brakes hold you hanging backward now, staring up at the sky where your stomach now lives, way up in the clouds. Your brain frantically tries to figure out how you got there. Your heart pounds so loudly, you finally remember to breathe again. And you wonder when the ride will live up to its name and your guts will return to the body from which they were so violently catapulted skyward. You gasp because despite the terror, it feels good to feel this alive. Of course, before you’re too overcome with pleasure, you’re tossed violently in reverse to do the whole thing again, only backward this time. This time, when the brakes slam your head back, the restraints release and they toss you out on your sea legs to stumble toward your next adventure — shaky, slightly battered, and high on life, and still very eagerly waiting for your stomach to boomerang back to your body (which it does not soon do).

This is the part of the story in which I own up to the obvious fact that the pre-kids version that liked wild rides…well, she was, in fact, someone else in an entirely different lifetime. So after surviving the Boomerang and then doubling down on a real charmer called the MindEraser, I spent a solid hour hiding in a sliver of shade watching the kids do lap after lap of thrill riding, gingerly sipping water while hoping and praying that both my stomach and my mind would find their way back to me at their earliest convenience.

As I sat there trying to get my bearings — buzzing with energy, reeling in the queasiness, breathing through the racing heart — I pulled out my phone and typed “what happens to your body on a roller coaster?” and I read “These brain chemicals, including adrenaline, dopamine and cortisol, stimulate a natural high and give you a boost of energy that makes you feel more alert, alive and able to scream your lungs out.”

And I thought to myself, I think that’s where I’ve been living for these last ten years: a flood of adrenaline and cortisol, with an occasional splash of dopamine mixed in. That sounds like childbirth. That sounds like months (and then years) of not sleeping and working so hard and wading through parenting a differently-wired child with a highly reactive nervous system. It sounds like rounds of evaluations, doctor’s appointments, therapies, parenting books and classes, and IEP meetings. It sounds like parenting a second child through a different crisis, and feeling the compounding strain in every part of life — mental health, physical health, work, family, friendships — wondering why we were failing so catastrophically…again.

Adrenaline. Dopamine. Cortisol. They’re designed to be felt as a rush, a wave, a flood. An influential Instagrammer I know just had her first baby. According to her online persona, the early weeks of parenting are going exactly perfectly. She posted a story with a photo of her holding her precious weeks-old baby, followed immediately by another photo with the words “Mommy and Daddy are THRIVING.” (The rush, the wave, the flood.)

Good on them. But I admit, I felt my stomach boomerang out of my body all over again. My first baby just turned 10, and on the really good days and months, I feel relieved that we’re surviving. I’m on year 2 of an informal social media freeze because, frankly, I’m just too damn tired to figure out how to edit the adventure ride that is my life into something neat enough for any degree of public consumption. Even before my social media went dark actual years ago, the only hope I had was using lots and lots of humor to tell my stories (of which there is PLENTY).

I knew my story wasn’t for everyone, and I understood which parents were riding the rollercoaster with me. I felt like we were in it together. We weren’t thriving, but by golly, we were doing the hard things and getting our chuckles where we could. And then, suddenly, I hit a wall, and I was just too tired to find any joy in it. It wasn’t funny anymore. It was just really, really hard, and I was so very exhausted. It’s hard to admit that reality, still now, even emerging from the darkest of it *I think/I hope/I pray, fingers crossed*.

But a 10-year rush of adrenaline? A decade long flood of cortisol? That can’t happen. The “natural high” and “boost of energy” last minutes. The years that follow those minutes…well, they leave you feeling a whole lot less alive and your voice has long gone hoarse from the screaming. I’ve been gradually trying to find my way back into community, humor, and joy. Rest, social media cleanses, so many (healthy and unhealthy) distractions, burying my feelings, lots of therapy, pharmaceutical trials galore, hiding out, getting honest, feeling my feelings. It has mostly not been fun. I have missed my people and the ability to laugh and joke through the hard stuff. I am excavating the version of me that felt alive, even if a little beat up from an unexpectedly tumultuous journey. I am learning that my own nervous system needs the same careful tending that I fiercely advocate for in my children. I am learning that not all parents are on the same ride. There’s a whole dang amusement park, and thriving looks wildly different if you’ve been coasting along on the carousel.

There’s no coasting when parenting high-intensity children. We’re living on the rollercoaster together, gasping for breath in that moment before the bottom falls out and you’re back in freefall. It’s heeding that warning to rest your head in the headrest, if only for a moment, just before you’re slingshotted in a new direction. You’re all so very alive, moving through this wild experience of life together, and your nervous system has not more than a second to note a still-beating heart before preparing for what’s next — fight; flight; freeze. Blessed are the rollercoaster parents, swerving through life on their sea legs as they steady and steer their loves onto the next adventure. There’s no shame in resting in the sliver of shade, letting your stomach and mind return to your body, when you’re living on a thrill ride. That is thriving, too. We are thriving, too.