The Power of Perspective: Amy, Carrie, and Sara Share Their Stories

 The Power of Perspective:  Amy, Carrie, and Sara Share Their Stories

Summary:  Amy, Carrie and Sara look back at their early years of parenting. They share the stories from the days of early diagnosis and what they thought back then…noting with humor how ridiculous it seemed back then. But looking at the early days has helped them appreciate how far they’ve come, giving them perspective. They discuss the concept of advocating for their child, the desire for control (even though they didn’t have it!) and the worry that they carried. They have found that this life really does hold grief and gratitude at the same time. 

Key Moments:

[13:21] Not thinking through all the “what ifs”

[16:16] Advocating for our child 

[20:54] Looking back, need to give ourselves grace

[34:43 ] Grief and gratitude

Resources:
Holding Grief and Gratitude as a Special Needs Mom: An Interview With Dr. Lynne M. Baab

If you enjoyed the show:

• Have you purchased our new book, The Other Side of Special? 
• Subscribe to our newsletter on the Take Heart Website
• Get our free resource on finding Gratitude, Peace, and Hope
• Review and like us on Apple Podcasts 
• Share us with others from wherever you listen to podcasts
• Follow us on Instagram @takeheartspecialmoms
• Find Amy at www.amyjbrown.com/  or on Instagram @amyjbrown_writer
• Find Carrie at www.carriemholt.com or on Instagram @carriemholt
• Find Sara at www.saraclime.com or on Instagram @saraclime

Transcript

My daughter was in the third grade. I went into the parent-teacher conference, and I wasn't like skipping in, knowing she was a student of the week. I already knew that going in. But the teacher said to me the first thing she said was, every parent-teacher conference about your child, every parent has complained about your child. And when I look back, I just was engulfed with shame because of behavior that I can't control. But also the judgment aspect of that, right? Like I'm getting judged. 

Welcome to Take Heart, a podcast about creating space for connection, hope, and joy as a mom to a child with disabilities or special needs. We want you to feel connected and encouraged as we navigate this messy, emotional, and joy-filled life together. 

Welcome, I'm Amy Brown, and I'm here with Carrie and Sara. You're listening to episode 155. This month, we're talking about perspective and what we wish we had known.

AmyJ Brown: In preparation for this episode, I started reading old diaries. And I just want to say God love my precious little soul. I read from some entries I wrote before I got married. I read entries before I had kids. And I had no idea what was coming down the path. There's an innocence when we put down our hopes and dreams in a journal. And they're hilarious when you go back and read them. We have a story in our family. When my daughter Anna was seven, she wrote in her journal about her older brother, Davis.She wrote Davis told me a secret, and I can't tell anybody. He's going to make a miniature city with real-life people. Nobody believes Davis can do it, but I do. And I can't wait to talk to these little people. To this day, we crack up about that and our family because she believed something with all her heart. She's always been Davis's first fan. Looking at my old journals, I saw hopes and dreams before I got married, before I had my first baby, and before I adopted.

And sometimes it's hard to go back and look at those because I was really idealistic about what was going to happen. And let's just say now, thank the good Lord, I do not have my middle school journals.   Hindsight is not always 2020. Sometimes, when we look back at what we didn't know, we can feel embarrassed or ashamed. Like, why didn't we know that? But that's unfortunate because life is about learning. And it's really not what we didn't know. It's about perspective.

And you really can't have perspective till you experience something. So today, we're going to talk about some perspectives we may have gained in our years of experience, but I want to start with something kind of light. And that is is there something that you can go back to? And the beginning of your journey, whether that's parenting or special needs parenting, where you just crack up at how naive you were, like, like Anna, believing in the real life of little people. You got anything, Sara?

Sara Clime: So before my son's diagnosis, I'm not laughing because it's funny, but before my son's diagnosis, I didn't like to be vulnerable. That came from some childhood trauma, but vulnerability meant weakness for me. However, I wish I had known that, apparently, as soon as you get this diagnosis, at least for me, I would be more prone to emotional and verbal vomiting when in normal situations.

So my husband and I call it the deer in the headlights syndrome. Someone asks us a question, or they don't even ask us a question. All of a sudden, we go into this 20-minute dissertation about how stressful our life is, and we've gotten better over time, but I wish I had known that that's normal. And that's part of healing, and that's part of acceptance of where we are, too. And it's kind of a part of advocacy, too. They need to know. I'm not always an inspiration.

I can be a hot mess just like everybody else; we always say people are in the wrong place at the wrong time when they come up to us like, how are you? Oh boy, strap in. Here we go. So it's just that one thing that sends you over the edge. And so I have this story: after diagnosis, we were probably five years from paying our house off. We had this little small house, but we were like, we're gonna keep it. Anyway, we were just.

So excited, but it was this tri- level. And so we had to move out of it, which meant in that market, we had to spend a heck of a lot more money, which is fine. I could see vnow that God had us on that financial plan to pay off the house early. So we could actually afford something that TJ could, could walk our roll around in. So we had just moved into this new neighborhood, and I had taken my son to school. I will never forget it; I was in a red T-shirt and Capri sweatpants. I don't even know why. Who wears Capri sweatpants?

  Maybe they were actually kind of cute, but that's not the point. But I got pulled over, and this subdivision wasn't fully done, but we lived on the back part of it. I had to go like five streets to get even to our house. I got pulled over because my plates were expired. The poor guy was a sheriff's deputy, and he comes strutting up with his little hat, and he's all serious military-like, and he's like, license and registration, and I just was like, what? I didn't even know what to do. So I handed it over to him; he went back to the car, he ran it in, and then another cop showed up like another deputy showed up in another car. I'm like, well, that's weird. So I'm looking at all of this, and I'm not kidding; like five or 10 minutes go by. Then, all of a sudden, this sheriff's deputy Bronco comes whipping in, and he's parked sideways,up on the curb behind the second guy. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, what is going on? They have me confused with somebody. Then, a fourth car shows up. All these lights are going, brand new people in the neighborhood. And I had cut my hair short because, you know, when you are in the middle of a major meltdown, why not cut your hair? 

Amy: That's a good time to make a decision.

 Sara: Yeah, why not? So my hair is sticking up. There's no makeup. I'm in these ratty old sweatpants and everything. So the guy who pulled in sideways, he goes out into this yard, and he's probably like 30 yards away from me, makes eye contact, and he does this thing where he puts his hand up between his eyes, like watch me and he walks straight for me, and he motions for me to roll the passenger side window. He's on the passenger side. So I roll the passenger window down, and he goes, you look awfully nervous, and I lost it.I started crying, and I'm like, you don't say. I'm like, there's like 20 of you. I'm like; I'm just a middle-aged mom. I started going through the diagnosis and all of our financial problems. I mean, he knew everything by the time it was done. And the poor deputy that pulled me over comes out. So, by this time, I realized it was actually the sheriff, and he had his arms on my window. He's like, ma'am, it's okay. It's just his first day.

 And this is just something that we do just to make. He finally told me he goes; we're kind of messing with them, which is just a rite of passage. And I'm like, you know, 

You had to be the guinea pig.  Right. And I go, I said, well, it's your lucky day. Here I am, like, I was like, take me in, put me in a jail cell, feed me, and let me go to sleep. 

That's all I really want. I just was I was so upset. But I then texted my husband the whole time. I got pulled over for expired tags, and somehow, this was all my husband's fault. You know, and anyway, the sheriff's deputy comes back, he goes, well, here's your license plate, and he bends down and looks at the car. He goes, oh, my. The supervisor on the other side was like, um, she's a little stressed out. I'm like, I'm not a little stressed out. You all are playing games you shouldn't play.And he goes, well, you know what? I'm not going to give you a ticket. You just slow down. I grabbed the license, my license out of his hand, and I just left. And then I get to my house, and I'm like, Oh, I don't think I was dismissed. So I text my husband. I'm like, if I don't text you in five minutes because I was arrested, because I left. But all of that was just because I was trying to keep so much in. And I think I wish I would have known that it wasn't strength to keep it all in. And it wasn't a weakness to let it all out because it's gonna come out, and it came out in fabulous glory. And I sprayed it all over anyway. That would be what I would say.

Amy: I  cannot top that story. 

Carrie: Me neither.

Amy: I was thinking, I mean, this is really not; this is from the beginning of my parenting journey. The night before I went in to be induced to have my second child, I bawled my eyes out forever.I hope Davis is going to be okay with a sibling. So I was so worried. My husband's finally, like, get it together. People have siblings. They do great with siblings. And he went on to have five total siblings added to his life and he's fine. But it's just that idea that you just like make a mountain out of a molehill because you don't know what's on the other side of what you're about to do. Whether that's welcoming a child or not, you just take a little thing and make it a big thing.

And unfortunately, I've done that a lot of times. I haven't learned from that lesson. And I always laugh like, you know, like his whole life would be ruined because of Anna, who later on went to believe in his gig of a tiny village with real people. So it was really a blessing. What about you, Carrie? You got anything?

Carrie Holt: I do. So I was thinking about this, and part of it is that I look back at all of my journals.And I just want to tell myself back then, just chill. Just calm down and chill. You're so hard on yourself. One of the things that comes to mind is after Toby was diagnosed and I'm still pregnant, and then I look back at those early days of his birth, and he had surgery the day he was born and he was in the hospital eight days. So my son's birthday is three days after Christmas. And that year was the year that we planned to spend Christmas with my husband's family. We always switched off the holidays, but then my mom and dad came down, and my sisters were going to be around. So we decided to celebrate our Christmas with them, like on New Year's Eve. So, mind you, okay, just do the math. We had everything perfectly planned out. You know, Toby's birth was before the end of the year for the tax deduction. That's my husband's doing. I rented a hospital-grade pump because I was determined that I was going to nurse this baby. We weren't in the same hospital. So I'm in one hospital in town. He's in a different one. I had a C-section, which was my second C-section, by the way. And it was, it was just a rough, you know, it's just, it's a rough surgery to recover from. He was born on the 28th. I get released from the hospital on the 31st, New Year's Eve.

Toby's still in the hospital. He's in a different hospital. That night we go home and I mean my mom and my sisters are great. They made the food, they planned everything, but we're celebrating Christmas, and I'm like trying to stay up until midnight and finally, like I'm still drugged up. I'm in so much pain. So it's like 10 o'clock. I can't remember what time it was and I decide I'm going to go to bed and I feel guilty because I'm trying to go to bed. and you know, a few days later, my birthday is January 7th, and I just crashed like Toby got released from the hospital on the 4th. The day of my birthday, I just crashed, and I look back, and the reason why I laugh about it is because it's ridiculous, like why were we planning to celebrate Christmas and open presents?Part of it was already me trying to keep life as normal as possible for our boys because Connor was three and Garrett was 22 months old.

 Amy: And they would have totally known that it was Christmas. Right

Carrie:  Our oldest probably would have because he was always a step ahead of the gate. But you know what I mean? Like, it's just that whole idea of like, I have to do all the things. I have to check all the boxes and all of that. It's like, why couldn't you just let something go? Right, right. 

Amy: Yeah. Well, I would like to ask you guys if you can go back in memory and give us a specific moment early in the journey. Tell me what you were feeling, what you're experiencing, and what your older self would now tell the younger self. We've kind of talked about that already. But I want a really specific memory on this journey that sticks out to you that what would you go back and tell yourself ?

 Carrie: In 2008, my husband and I decided that by this time, our son was almost two, I guess. And we decided we're going to take a trip with some friends. There were really cheap flight tickets going out of Columbus to Fort Lauderdale. I'd never been to Florida  Mind you, my son was still on a ventilator full time, still very medically fragile.

But I've never been a super overprotective mom. We had nursing, and I thought, well, we can do this. We can go. So we go, and we get into Fort Lauderdale. I call my mom, and the power has gone out at home. But when you have a child on a ventilator, a heater, a  pulse ox, and a feeding pump, you need to have an emergency plan for the power going out.
And we did have a portable generator, but we had no gas. I had no emergency plan. The neighbor came over and tried to help. He flooded the generator. They ended up having to call the ambulance not, because Toby was having an emergency situation with his health, but because they needed power. And nobody really knew what to do. It was just really chaotic. And afterward, I was so angry with myself, just berating myself Again, it kind of goes back to my other story, just the control freak. It was like, how in the world could I not have planned for this worst-case scenario? I have failed miserably. I was mad because I had put my mom, she was staying with my kids. I had put her under so much stress. And I just remember thinking, you know, you idiot, like what, what were you thinking? Why, why would you even consider leaving with your husband? And. and doing this and all this stuff. And I think I would go back again and just tell myself, it's okay. In some ways, I think that caused me to overreact even further in the future. I mean, obviously, you learn lessons from that, right? You learn to have an emergency plan and things like that. And you learn, okay, you know, maybe it does make sense to have a whole house generator that just kicks on when the power goes out, those kinds of things. But it's just like.

I wish that I would just have more kindness really towards myself in understanding that I can't take care of everybody. It's okay that my mom had to go through that stress. Like, I can't prevent that from happening. , I always feel like I'm putting everyone else out. You know, and, and I just would show a lot more kindness to myself because I was really

really, really hard on myself after that happened and just,  I was horrible about it. 

Amy: I can relate to that. Totally. I would say I had an experience when my daughter was in the third grade. I went into the parent-teacher conference, and I wasn't like skipping in knowing she was a student of the week. I already knew that going in. But the teacher said to me, the first thing she said was that every parent-teacher conference was about your child.Every parent has complained about your child. When I look back, I was just engulfed with shame because of behavior that I can't control, but also the judgment aspect of that. I'm getting judged. And first of all, if I could go back and talk to younger Amy, I'd say, first of all, this is going to be a common occurrence in your life. You just have to learn to deal with it. And I would say, don't let shame shrink you.

 There were lots of times that shame made me be quiet because I didn't know what to say. And I wish I could go back and say, first of all, you need to tell that teacher, zip it. Like that was not what you should have said to me, number one. Number two, I could have advocated for my child. I could have leaned in and said, look, that's not my problem. My problem is my child has trauma. She has this going on. This is why her behavior, we've talked about this. I could have realized I was the expert, but I let the shame of other people's voices negate that in me a lot of times. when you have kids with behavioral and they're losing it in public. It's embarrassing, and when people you know well come up and go, I don't really think that's her diagnosis. I just think she needs more of your time. It's hurtful, but learning to come into my own voice and not let. The behavior is a reason for shame. That's a long journey I wish.I would have known earlier that hiding and shame only hurt me. I mean, people are going to, people still say things to me. So, you know, it's not like all of a sudden, behavior gets better because I speak out. It's, but it was my stance of feeling like I had to hide a lot. And I wish that I had known that earlier; that was not a helpful strategy at all.

 Sara: When you said every parent has complained about your child, I was like, oh, no, she didn't. 

Amy:See, I need Sara sitting next to me at all meetings because she's going to go all crazy on him. 

Sara: I've been more offended for you because, I mean, when you have a child who's terminal and in a wheelchair, nobody shames you for that. Nobody would ever say every parent has complained about your child. I mean, that's just not even; that isn't even my realm.

Carrie:  as a former teacher, that's so wrong.

Sara: Exactly. Um, I think on your point, Amy, I would say it's okay. And even in my situation, cause, um, people have said some really boneheaded things, and I think no matter the disability or special need, you will hear some really ignorant comments, and I think it's okay to make others uncomfortable in the truth. , if there's truth involved. It's okay to make others uncomfortable. Say your truth, and then be quiet and let them respond to their own stupidity. I mean, it's just, sometimes that's what's, sometimes I have to channel, okay, it's like, what was it in the eighties or nineties? What would Jesus do? Everybody had the bracelets or whatever. I'm like, what would Jesus do? He wouldn't say, listen, moron. I mean, he wouldn't be, but he would, Jesus flipped tables.

I always ask myself, is this a table-flipping moment? And sometimes I'm like, oh, yes, it is. Let the tables be flipped.  And that would be a flipping table moment, Amy. 

Amy: I needed; what would Sarah do in that moment? I needed my little Sarah on my shoulder. I didn't know you back then, but what would Sara do? Oh, Sara would not put up with this. 

Sara:  But you know what? Sara then would have.

Because I didn't know better. And I think that's what we're trying to say, too, is that we wish we would have gone back and told each other. But I think it's those uncomfortable moments where we're like, why didn't I say something? Right. It's not to beat yourself up. Like, I'm a horrible mother. I didn't even advocate for my child. Or I didn't say a word. I just let them do it. I think we have to become uncomfortable as caregivers and advocates in order to be like, well, that's not going to happen again because it's the uncomfortableness on our part, as long as we can be ready for it, but not put up guards, not expect it. 

Amy: And I think we can learn, like, you could really be hard on yourself, like you said, why didn't I advocate? But we can learn from that. And the next time, maybe we're a little bit more brave. It never ends the shame and the hurt of people talking about your child's behavior. I never feel woo-hoo, I'm so happy you told me this thing, but I've learned to be a lot more resilient with it. A lot tougher-skinned.

 Sara: I think for mine, I think it goes along with kind of what both of you said, um, when we received TJ's diagnosis, he has Duchenne muscular dystrophy. For those of you who might not know that, but when we first heard it could be Duchenne or Becker, I'm like, okay, I think I know how to spell Becker, but what the heck is Duchenne? And I couldn't, you couldn't even Google it. At least I didn't; I didn't know it's not phonetically spelled. SoNot even knowing how to spell the rare disease that my son had was so overwhelming. And I remember I'd be up to two or three o'clock in the morning, and so would my husband in another room trying to research, trying to know all the things. So not only did I want to be prepared for the present, but I wanted to be prepared for the future. Then I shamed myself for the past. Like he had this in his daycare, this daycare had two levels. And when he was four and five.

Before he went to kindergarten, there were like really tall steps to the upper floor where his classroom was. And it was an old building; we live in the state Capitol in Missouri. So it was one of the old state buildings that nobody was going to renovate because it looked pretty. So it, you know, we had to climb these real steep mountain stairs, and being a parent, I know now, looking back, he was like, I don't want to climb them. And I'm like, I'm not carrying you everywhere. And he was carried everywhere by his brother. He was carried everywhere by his older cousin. Like,He just was; he was the baby of the family at the time. And so I'm thinking I'm making him more independent. I'm making him walk because they don't wanna walk anywhere. And I remember when we got that diagnosis, this image of me making him walk up the stairs almost buckled me. I remember my husband coming in, and I was like hiccuping, sobbing. I'm like, how could I make a child with muscular dystrophy walk up the stairs? And...

He wanted to play soccer, but he could only play for a little bit, and then he'd get frustrated. Well, if you ever watched four-year-olds play soccer, it's like watching kittens play soccer. You know, it's like it was like herding kittens. But we're like, no, you're staying out there. You're not coming off. And so all of those little things that we didn't know at the time. And I remember my sister had told me she was like, you weren't making a child with muscular dystrophy climb those steps. You were a mommaking your child be independent with the knowledge that you had at the time. So I think I wish I had known at that time; I would have had the perspective that I didn't know what I knew. There's no point in shaming myself. And I think I wish I would have known how would I talk to a friend in this situation? Because there is no way another mom in that situation, I'd be like, that's crazy. You can't feel that way.

I wish I would have given myself a lot more grace just to not know everything, though. And I think that's why I periodically do an emotional check-in. If I start to feel shame bubble up within, I'm always like, okay, what, why am I shaming myself? And is this guilt to be a better person, or is this shaming because I can't control the situation? 

Amy: Right. Yeah. I think that's really why, Sarah, we even recognize what shame feels like in our bodies.and asking those critical questions of is a shame or guilt just naming them. Yeah. I think if you just took a step back and named the situation, if you would have taken a step back or any of us in these situations and said, instead of coming full bore at ourselves and blame, what would I say to a friend and even write the situation out as if it happened to a friend? I think that would be life-changing for a lot of situations that we've walked through. 

 Sara: As a mom, you want to fix it. But as a caregiver, we know deep down that it is caring for a child in the way that matters the most to them. Not once has TJ, and he's almost 20 now. Has he ever said, do you remember you made me walk those stairs? How dare you? And there might be moments when you have a child that does pull that on you. But then it's like, I was doing the best I could with the information I had at the time. I didn't know anymore.

Than you did at that time. because I do have, there are some parents that I know, especially with our diagnosis, that kids were like, well, how could you not know? I've had a couple of people say that their children are quite belligerent about it. And that usually comes from a point of anger. They don't know how to deal with their emotions either.

Amy:  So, yeah, well, thanks for sharing that. I, you know, we have a lot of combined years of parenting together here. But I want.those of you listening to know that we still struggle with getting the right perspective, we still are in situations where we don't know what to do, or we feel shame. We're not. We haven't mastered this, is what I'm saying. So, if you guys could just give me you can think of a situation you're in now, if you're willing to share a short snippet about something you're in now and maybe you don't feel like you know what to do. And

What have you learned from past experiences that may help you navigate where you are now?

 Carrie:  think for me, recently, it's been seeing my son in social situations where I'm more aware that other people could be judging him or they can see the obvious discrepancies and skill level for different things. And I want to jump in and protect him from, you know, bad judgment or being made fun of or being isolated or feeling like he's on the outside. And right now, I feel like I'm navigating, when do I step in, and when do I not step in? You know, when do I let him navigate it? And the truth is that at different points, there's just times that he's not as socially aware, you know, he doesn't see the adult side of, you know, the perspective that I can see. And one of the things that I think I've learned in the past that I'm learning now is just don't make assumptions on what other people could or could not be thinking about him in this situation. Certainly, there are a lot of them.

Kids his age don't always see him as a person; they just see the diagnosis; they don't know how to interact with someone in a wheelchair or someone with a disability, and that's definitely true. But for every person that is like that, there's still a lot of people who, I assume, are looking at him judging, but they're actually looking at him with kindness. And they want him to be a part of the community, wanting him to be a part of whatever it is that he wants to be involved in. And we've pulled out of situations in the past where I have felt really isolated or, and that's even among other people with similar diagnoses, that we have pulled out of activities because I just felt like I was really on the outside and he, you know, he was too. But I think I'm learning too. I always said I spoke at the hospital for years, and one of the biggest things that I would tellnew employees at the hospital is ask a question before making an assumption.. Ask a question. And sometimes that is necessary for me and, or it's just reminding myself that they're probably not judging him the way that I think they're judging him, you know

, and that's probably where I'm at right now. One of the big things. Right. 

 Amy: Thanks for sharing that. I think that's always the question.regardless of the diagnosis of what's happening, when do I step in? When do I not, especially as they approach these older years? I mean, it's a lot easier to make those decisions when they're young, but as the kids grow, I think that's really it's hard to know. That's really good to ask a question before making an assumption I would. I would say for me, it's the same thing I've dealt with all the years of parenting. It's fear of the future and what's going to happen.You know, we're at a totally different place than we were obviously 20 years ago. We have one child left at home. We're hoping that she's going to be able to launch. We don't know. And that whole, like, what if this happens? What if that happens? i First of all, it's all in the future. I can't control any of it. And I don't even know. Like sometimes, I'm so worried about the future that I fail to see the progression.of how she's maturing and how she's getting better. And I just, I think I've learned over the years that I'm quicker to catch myself when I'm doing that than I would have been 20 years ago. And learning to be in the present and that I don't have to try to figure it all out right now is, like I said, a lesson I'm continually learning, but I'm better at catching myself when I go down that.

David calls it the top of the bobsled where it just, you know, the sled goes down. I'm at the top of my brain just goes , thinking of every possibility that could happen. And so I think I will always struggle with that. I think we all will as people who love our kids and worry about them, but to learn that, I can't do anything about it today. So that fear of future is robbing me of the present is something I am learning and continuing to learn. 

Sara : I think for, for me right now, I'm navigating grief 

My son graduated high school this last May, and which means he's home full time now. And even though I started my own business, I left my career, started my own business in 2015. So eight years ago, I decided I wanted to be at home with my son, I wanted to be his full-time caregiver. I didn't know at what point that was gonna happen, but this specific season of life is exactly what I've been working hard for, for almost a decade. But I have this grief and then guilt over the feeling of being trapped. I don't have the freedom to go anywhere that I want. It's like when you have a baby, and you have to pack everything but the kitchen sink just to go get a gallon of milk. The difference is as that parent in that situation with the baby is, you know, this is only for a season. I will not be packing a diaper bag, but this is the reality. And I don't know when or if this will ever end, and it might only end when he's not with us anymore. So then the grief starts to roll through. But the guilt over it is the worst, honestly. And so I'm learning how to set that aside so I can properly deal with the grief, if that's possible. Because I know as a mom, I want nothing more than to be what he needs. That's his mom. But...

It's important in this situation, and I would have loved to have known at that time, at diagnosis, that you are gonna have two roles for the rest of your life. You're gonna be a mom and a caregiver, and they do overlap at times, but they are two totally different concepts. They are two totally different responsibilities. And it's okay to say I don't; this gig kind of sucks sometimes. I mean, it just does. There's no other way to say it.

And that doesn't mean that we think our family or our life or our children stink. You know, I'm so blessed to be a caregiver that is able to work from home. But that doesn't replace, and that doesn't negate me having clients that need my attention and being interrupted. And then whenever I'm interrupted, I get frustrated because then I have. I know I'm going to have to start that thought process all over again or get involved with whatever it is that I was involved with before.

 (33:27.234) just because he needs water. And then I'm like, he needs something basic life. These are things that he deserves to have. I mean, like, as a person, he deserves to get water. And I mean, to be able to go to the restroom and to take care of things that we take for granted. I've learned to let myself be frustrated in the moment because it isn't typical to parent a child at 19 who needs help using the restroom, or a parent of a child at 19 who needs help that can't carry a glass of water. As a parent, you can be frustrated about that. So I always tell myself, I'm not frustrated as a caregiver. Okay, switching roles, this is part of my role. And that helps me. And I don't know if that's even healthy because, quite frankly, I'm in the midst of it, and I'm still figuring it out.

Amy: And I'm so glad you named that because we can hold two emotions at the same time. We can be really mad and really grateful or frustrated. So I actually like your idea of split personality, mom, caregiver. Okay, not that. 

And you have a different hat, two hats. And my mom's side and my business owner's side is really annoyed right now but my caregiver's side is not..Take Heart (35:41.802) And I love that because I think that's really clarifying. So I appreciate you sharing that. Thank you, Sara. 

Sara: And I think it goes back to, I have to take, like I said, do that emotional check-in with myself. Okay, so I'm frustrated, and I feel the guilt. So check back with me in a month. I might be like that's a dumb idea I mean, but I think that that's part of it is I have tried so many things to try to get myself out of this And it goes back to what I was saying before  When the poor sheriff's department showed my neighborhood, I have a feeling that I can't feel the way that I feel Unless it is a certain way showed my neighborhood, I have a feeling that I can't feel the way that I feel Unless it is a certain way sometimes right even though I know that and even though we've recently wrote a book about navigating feelings

And I believe every word that I've ever written, I think for me, it's human nature for me to bring up those initial responses of, no, I can handle this myself. It's fine. This is basic. I knew the transition. It was like he had graduated high school, and I was surprised. I knew this was coming. I planned for it. I left my career for this. It doesn't negate the truth of what happens and the facts of being interrupted. And it's just...

I think human nature sometimes. Yeah.

Why am I feeling guilty? I'm not frustrated with him. I'm not frustrated that he needs these things. I'm frustrated with the situation that I'm in. It is...It is normal to want your child to be able at 20 to be able to, you know, flee the nest. he is in a situation that isn't typical for an almost 20-year-old. And so I do that emotional check-in, and I'm like, okay, I'm frustrated, but I do not love less. I'm not caring less. I'm not kicking butt less. You know, it's just, I have emotions that come with it and that's okay. And if unless you, I think that's really what our book is about. Unless you navigate them.

not ignore them, not eliminate them. But if you don't navigate them, you're stuck in one or the other. And like you said, you can hold them. And we did that interview with Dr. Lynn Baab, and I don't even know the episode, but we'll put it in the show notes. But she wrote a book of grief and gratitude, which is how you can hold grief and gratitude at the same time. And when right now, I have read her book several times, I keep going back to it. And I'll look at her blog and

And I, not just hers, but all of these resources. And I think it's like it just is validating that you don't have to pick one or the other.

Amy:  Right. That's a good. Those are good words. Those are good words to end on. Thank you, ladies, for sharing your thoughts today. Are there emotions that you're trying to navigate? We'd like to hear us talk more about it specifically. Was there something specific you will be taking away from this week's episode? As always, we love your feedback, and we'd love to hear from you.

Please find us on Instagram at Take Heart Special Moms, email us, or leave us a comment on our website. If you haven't had a chance to check out our book, you can find it at your favorite online retailers. You can also find the links to those retailers on our website. Thank you.