Jillana is a foster, adoptive mom, and special needs mom. She shares how her life has been stretched by love and how she has learned to look for signs of hope in her life.
June 7, 2022; Ep. 88
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If you enjoyed our podcast, please...
Jillana is a foster, adoptive mom, and special needs mom. She shares how her life has been stretched by love and how she has learned to look for signs of hope in her life.
June 7, 2022; Ep. 88
Timestamps & Key Topics:
Episode Links & Resources:
If you enjoyed our podcast, please...
Amy J. Brown 0:00
Welcome to Take Heart where our goal is to offer encouragement, and give hope, and insight so you can flourish in your journey as a special needs mom. As we explore monthly themes, share inspiring stories and practical tips our desire is to continue to serve you and your listeners. Thank you for joining us today.
Hi, this is Amy J. Brown and I am so excited for you to be here today. We are interviewing Jillana Goble. Jillana Goble is a speaker, author, and advocate. Together with her husband Luke, she parents five children ranging in age from preteen to young adult. Jillana is the founder of an unprecedented initiative that has turned into a statewide movement called Every Child Oregon, which encourages the community to link arms with the state's overburdened child welfare system to uplift vulnerable children in foster care, and those who serve them. She's also the author of A Love Stretched Life. Jillana, thank you so much for being with us today. I'm so excited to talk to you and have our listeners get to know you. Could you just start out by giving us a little bit of information about who you are and your story and your kids? That's a big question, but I'll let you share a little bit about who you are.
Jillana Goble 2:11
Totally. Well, thanks so much for having me, Amy. I appreciate the opportunity to connect. My name is Jillana Gopal, and I have five children who call me Mom. The young man and the two boys that call me mom have all come to me via foster care. Two of those I have formally adopted, the oldest one calls me mom after a long period of being separated in foster care. I can circle back around to that for a second if that's interesting. I have two biological daughters, so I have five children ranging from 10 to 24. Our youngest, our 10-year-old is our kiddo that has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I helped to found a nonprofit here in Oregon called Every Child Oregon, which works to uplift all those impacted by foster care: caseworkers, families, kids, and bio families on the cusp of reunification. That has been a big part of my professional world has been operating in this kind of community partner, child welfare space. Then, of course, so much of just personal world is going with the flow, as you know, well, with all the many things that get thrown our way with just having this sheer number of children, let alone some of the needs and some of the complex needs that have been brought to our family via trauma, abandonment, and neglect, combined with in-utero substance exposure.
Amy J. Brown 3:46
Yeah, and you're the author of two books.
Jillana Goble 3:49
I am yeah. In 2019, I wrote a book called No Sugar Coating: The Coffee Talk You Need About Foster Parenting. I wrote that book, Amy, because our organization offers these monthly, what we call explore fostering coffee houses. In the pandemic, we had to go virtual with that. Essentially, it's like 90 minutes where we invite folks that are considering foster care to hear about what it's like from those living in it because I think with foster care, and with adoption, there's kind of this idea of what it's like. Then there's the lived reality. Oftentimes, there's like a canyon in between, right. So the hope is not that in 90 minutes we can clear everything up and people will be well on their way. It's really just an offering for people to discern before you go into foster care or adoption with just an idea and never having really spoken to anyone that's living it. We invite you to come and listen. But you and I both know, that 90-minutes isn't adequate to talk about really any topic pertaining to children, let alone children with complex needs. That's really why I wrote No Sugarcoating because I felt like this was the book that I wish somebody had handed me almost 20 years ago when I first became a foster parent here are the practical things. Here are some of the ways that the emotional landscape of your life will change, while walking this journey, whether it's temporarily welcoming kids through your front door, or saying forever. Really, A Love Stretched Life, my second book is kind of filling in the details. No Sugar Coating is like this very short read, you can probably read it cover to cover in 90 minutes. It's kind of like boom, boom, boom, the bullet points of things to consider. A Love Stretched Life is really the narrative version of how I've been changed by walking this unique mothering road. Really the storyline, Amy follows three main narratives, although there's much to the book, but it talks about fostering our first foster son and losing connection with him for 13 years and then circling back around when he was a 19-year-old young man. He's now 25. The second narrative is walking alongside our 13-year-old who is adopted from foster care. His biological mother, we've been walking together for 13 years, it has been a wild and whirly journey. Some highlights include adopting her third child and fostering and returning not once, but twice, her fourth child, which is the full biological brother of the child that I've adopted. I adore her. We do state caseworker training together, and she's over at my house, often. It's just been this relationship, Amy, that, honestly, if I could have gotten a glimpse, I would have totally sprinted the other way in fear. I just count that as such grace that I just had to put one foot in front of the other and not get glimpses because I wouldn't have really understood the ways that love can multiply and not divide. It has not been an easy road. I don't mean to sugarcoat the road, and it has also been one of the greatest gifts in my life. Then that third narrative is talking about my precious Charlie, who we said yes to. It was a 48-hour, yes, initially. Can you pick up this baby from the hospital for the weekend? I barely spoke to my husband about it because I mean, he did say yes, but it was. I mean, it was a distracted, yes, at best. It was, well, you can do anything for two days. He is now my 10 and a half years old, who never left, and we had the privilege of adopting him. A few years after his adoption, we have the diagnosis with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
Amy J. Brown 7:40
I had the privilege of reading your book early. Thank you for letting me do that. It is lovely, and it's honest, and it's hopeful. I felt like you were sitting across the table from me. There's this part of me that when I read it that is so affirming to me to think oh, somebody else has a life like us. We're not foster parents but have a really packed full life with challenges in it. In that way, you feel seen when you read the book, so I'm really excited for our listeners to listen to it. I want to start with just a little bit about trauma because you mentioned that. This is a broad question. I will say that. You said something in the book about...I love this quote. I underlined it. It's the perfect sentence. "Trauma is the beast whose ugly roar can reverberate over a lifetime." I think in your other book, The No Sugarcoating, we have this idea, we have misconceptions about trauma. We have these ideas about love's gonna fix everything. People tell us that too. I'm a mom to six, three are adopted. I remember before I adopted my girls, I have been doing this for 18 years thinking I would get slightly annoyed as a new adoptive mom when people would comment about adoptive or foster kids that had issues and say well they're adopted. I'd be like, well, bio kids have issues too, not recognizing trauma, the effect of trauma. I have kids with fetal alcohol, I had a kid that was in an orphanage for 10 years. Even as experienced as I am with trauma, this past year, our youngest child our adopted child that's had no issues just went off the rails with puberty. Even though I have a lot of experience with trauma. She came as a baby like I just had to reorient my brain again to this whole thing of trauma. My very broad question, I'll let you answer this how you want was just like, What do you think are some of the misconceptions about trauma? What would you want to tell people about trauma because it's so misunderstood?
Jillana Goble 9:54
It is and I can relate to some of that, Amy. Charlie came to us at 40 hours old. He's been raised in this loving, nurturing household that is desired to pour goodness and light, and all the good things into him. He's been held, he's been rocked and all the things, and yet if you got a glimpse of how he speaks when he's dysregulated, you likely would say, "Oh, this poor, sweet baby, imagine this household that he's been raised in to be talking like that." I think the inverted gift of this all is that I think every kind of internal monologue that I may have had in my brain before walking this road myself, has been erased, honestly, because I feel so well aware that we are only seeing a sliver of the picture. Honestly, I didn't know much about invisible brain-based disabilities. You and I both know if somebody looks different, or talks different we have a tendency to engage people at the level that they're seemingly at. When you have a child like ours that looks very typically developing and is very verbal and can be funny and chatty and has these gifts, it can be very disorienting, almost like whiplash to do the back and forth. What do you mean, you can get dressed yesterday, but you can't today? You could take a shower last night, but you can't tonight? All the things that are just so far beyond "kids will be kids." I've had friends say to me, "oh, all kids do that." Well, we're on a very different track here. I think to answer your question, I think like you said, about the notion of love is enough. I think, not only love, but I think especially oftentimes in the Christian context, it's not just love, but it's also discipline, and it's also faith, or Jesus, somehow equal love, discipline, faith, equal clean slate. We want that to be true, but it's simply not true. Our kids' lives did not start the moment that we first held them, or the moment that they first walked through our front door. I think that we all love a story about overcoming. We just want we want to be that. I think parenting Charlie has really invited me to celebrate things that I didn't even notice, to be perfectly honest with my other, more typically developing kids, even the ones that have come from trauma, even the ones that have struggled. We're at such a different level of struggle, that I feel like, it's allowed me to, dare I say, celebrate and to also recognize at the moment, being thankful for things that I would not have even been thankful. For example, a child staying buckled, on their way to Target. Is that something to be high-fiving and getting a prize over? I think not, I would have never done anything like that with my other kids. They just didn't need it. I just feel like, this is our parenting on a totally different track. Our son is about half his chronological age developmentally, and that is very challenging and can be a very lonely road.
Amy J. Brown 13:25
Right. I love what you said because I feel like sometimes I've had moms say to me, I go to church, my child acts out. People come alongside and say, "Have you tried?" They're not understanding that this child is not going to respond to different levels of intervention like a child with a typical brain. It just makes the mom of a child with this kind of issue, feel more lonely, and also feel like they're in the wrong. What am I doing wrong? I have three bio kids first, I think you do too. I'm bonded to them. We have great relationships, but I still was like, I'm doing something wrong with this one. My parents would say, "No, Amy, this is brain-based trauma. This is not your parenting." Not that I did everything. Right. I'm not saying that. I just couldn't get my mind around the trauma for the longest time.
Jillana Goble 14:16
Totally. I think part of that, don't you think some of that stems from this notion that we're raising kids in a society where how our kids do is a direct reflection on us? That is so hard to disengage from. So hard. I had to send a note to a school director, bless her heart. I mean, she was well-intentioned. I can receive the fact that she was well-intentioned, but my son was just losing it in class. She says, "Next week before he walks in, could you just remind him? (He was like, four at the time) Could you just remind them not to swear?" I was mortified that I had this preschooler that was like sounding like a drunken sailor in Sunday school. I just remember feeling like oh, if it were so simple as, "Hey, sweetie, could you not say the F-word today? That would be great." If it were that easy, we wouldn't be here. I think I can totally hold the tension too. I'm not naive. I know other families aren't bringing their kids to Sunday school to be exposed to "language" for the first time, right? I totally get that. My husband and I have just had to navigate how much do we push for him to be included knowing that sometimes that it's just beyond someone's even well-intentioned capacity. I feel like it's constant discernment of when to push and when to say, Okay, people, like your boundaries are a little too small. We can expand, and then other times to be, I think this is something that we need to not push or find a different solution, a different place for him to be or for us to be with him during that time. It's been kind of a teeter-totter. It feels like as soon as we have something down it pivots and changes. It's hard to think, oh, well, that was hard, and now we're here and we're smooth sailing. It just feels like now we're here and the waters get choppy again, in a new and different way. It's a constant, pivoting and evaluating what does this child need, and what is our family's capacity to engage the very best for him? When is good enough, just good enough for the sake of the rest of us so that we are not drowning as a family trying to uplift this one child? I think that's the real dance for families, like ours: that notion that as much as we love and are so committed and devoted to our children, there's no such thing as evenly sliced, attention pie in our family. To keep an eye on holding that tension we want to do the best for our youngest, and we also have many other kids under our roof that also have needs, even if they're quieter needs. We all know about the squeaky wheel. I think that's challenging to take a good hard look like a parent to say, "It is how it is, and not every choice I make has to have this child's best scenario on the highest pillar." Sometimes we have to take that down a few notches to do what's sustainable.
Amy J. Brown 17:34
I love the word sustainable. Because I think sometimes as special needs moms and moms, we get these voices in our heads or these narratives. Once we did this whole do's and don'ts of advocacy on the podcast. We talked about, I'm not the kind of person that's gonna go in and throw the towel. I'm not wired that way. So when, when people are saying go in there and fight for every little inch, you think wait, I'm not wired that way. We don't need to fight for every inch. Figuring out when do we elevate this child, when do we step back, and what can our family handle is huge because I think a lot of moms, and parents will just wear themselves out trying to do every single possible thing. Sometimes you have to step out and go, I'm not going to make this if I don't step back, and what is sustainable for our family. I love that because I think we don't get permission to say that very often, to ourselves.
Jillana Goble 18:29
Absolutely. I think a way that that is looking in my life currently is without going into all the details. Our youngest behavioral needs were just so extreme that unfortunately, the school district seemed to only have physical restraint as the only tool in their toolbox belt. When we were like, hey, what else? How can we support it? How can we uplift? How can we come alongside? But we do not want our child physically restrained as like a first go to the school district? Well, I do believe that there were some well-intentioned people who also got a little snarky and just said, "Well, fine, come and pick him up." So we were getting a call at 9:00 to 9:15 every day to come and pick up our child, so he was really not in school at the time like he should have been, which is illegal, but that's a whole other matter. We just decided for his own good, that balance between emotional well-being right, that we needed to bring him home. What does that looks like for us right now, as we try to figure out the throws of do we need to move to a different district? What does this look like for other kids that are in high school? How do we do the best for everybody in this situation? My husband got a different job, so he's working from home. I work from home, but we homeschool him. We switch off who homeschools him, but we just homeschool school him until 10:30 every day. I sometimes feel guilty about that thinking if we could only go until whatever time, name a time, but I have to remember it is so much more because he's regulated for the most part, at home. It's so much more than what he was receiving before when his little body was so riddled with anxiety and in constant fight or flight and constant behaviors, being in constant trouble. I can totally relate to that. This isn't what we wanted in the first place. We're here. Now we're going to pivot, we're going to do this. I have in my mind, what a dynamite hit-it-out-of-the-park, A-plus home schedule would look like. I've given myself like a solid B minus, right? I have to say it's good enough. It's good enough for right now. Maybe at one point, we'll add to it, but this is what we have the capacity to do. For the rest of the day, he is with a very loving aide who we need to have to just keep him physically safe, in our home or out in the community. I can totally relate to that kind of pivot and swerve and good enough versus perfection.
Amy J. Brown 21:07
One of the things you write in the book, which really, really goes into this is. You talk about, and I'm gonna paraphrase you a bit here, that sometimes we so focus on the end of the story. I could see in this situation thinking, okay, how long are we gonna have to do this? If we do it this long, this is the end. You talk about how being shaped by love or having a love stretched life, how sometimes when we focus on the end of the story, we miss the tender moments where our hearts can grow. I'm paraphrasing you there. I was so struck by that because I think we are in problem-solving mode all the time. We miss those moments when our hearts will be stretched. We miss tender moments, we miss other things, because we're putting out fires all the time. I would love for you to talk a little bit about how you've learned to kind of lean into the unknown. How have you learned to deal with those kinds of moments? I'm sure this is not your plan for him to come home?
Jillana Goble 22:10
No, certainly not. This is a very recent example, in a long line and many as I think most special needs parents have, right? I'm like, well we didn't anticipate this, so we're doing this. First of all, I am so far from arriving. I think that was the one thing in the book that I really wanted people to feel like no, no, I'm still in the midst. I am still figuring this out. I don't know if there's ever a time when we ever perfectly get it right. I do feel like our tendency, especially as Christians is to wait to share the harder parts of the story until we're on the other side when we can kind of neatly wrap a bow called God's faithfulness around it. I think it's more palatable to other people, honestly. I think it's easier for us in some ways to just want it to make it packaged and a little bit more neat and tidy than perhaps it really is. I feel like what I've been learning is just that concept of today. God, what do I need for today? How can I depend on you to sustain me for today? To realize that when life has some big rainbow moments, of course, we celebrate that, but oftentimes hope looks like a pebble in the path, honestly. What does it look like to reach down and pick up that pebble? What does it look like to borrow hope? I feel like I can't see it because I'm in the messy middle, and I'm walking the suspension bridge between reality and hope and it just feels like it's this wobbly thing, and am I going to make it to the other side? I really feel like storytelling and story sharing, like you do is honestly what allows us to kind of borrow hope sometimes when hope seems so distant when that pebble seems so small when we can't even believe that there's ever going to be a rainbow in the story. I think it also takes discernment, right? We're not going to share our very real lives with anyone and everyone. Of course, we need to think about the emotional energy it takes to truly real deal share. I do think it's so important that we have people that we can be our full selves with, that we can be fully vulnerable with and not have to have a grin and bear it face. I'll be fine or look at your situation. It could be so much worse for me. I think we have a tendency to minimize when we see other people going through a really hard time. Those are some of the things I'm learning honestly along the way.
Amy J. Brown 24:56
One of the things that I am convicted of. I feel like God keeps showing me is how much my first tendency is to circle my wagons and just get my head down and get through the crisis. We are so wired for community. I know that moms will think well... You and I have similar lives to some degree, but we think nobody understands what this is like. I think we limit people. I have friends who aren't special needs moms, but man they are, they will listen. I think we're just afraid to, like you said, tell the truth. I mean, obviously, we have to have discernment, but just tell the truth of what's going on right now because that really is like a sip of oxygen that kind of gets you through to the next thing. That somebody's heard you. I just think we don't do that, because we're so afraid of not appearing perfect, of being judged by people, of burden. I will think sometimes, oh, I'm going to burden them. I'm always the train wreck at the table with everyone.
Jillana Goble 26:02
I completely understand when I've been sitting around at a lunch table with friends, and someone asks, "What's going on?" You think, do I say the same thing I said four months ago because it's actually gotten worse. Nobody wants to be the person that we're like, cue the wuh, wuh (negative sound). One of the things I talked about in the book was just a few passing sentences, but discerning when our level of daily engagement is at such a high level. It really invites me to discern how much looking at my audience do I share? You want to be authentic, and you want to be vulnerable. And also, I feel like you want to share enough in certain circumstances so that you feel like, you're not sugarcoating it, especially for those that don't share the same daily realities. Also, when our lives have such a certain level of chaos to it, quite frankly, there's an appropriate time for the conversation to stop and to say, "Let's just focus on you right now because this is so intense." Everybody has that in their own right. I feel sensitive about that. I'm sitting around the table with folks that can't totally relate, and yet, I love what you said about let's not write people off either. Just because they're not living the same life. Sometimes those that have no special needs in their lives, if we give them the chance can be very steadfast, faithful friends to us. I've certainly found that with two friends that I've had for 20 years that have no relatability to my daily life, I just so appreciate the ability to share and for them to listen. And for me to be able to listen about their lives. We all have kids that are the same age, our youngest kids and so sometimes it can be a little challenging for me to be like, oh, wow, they're the same age, and look it, they're riding a bike, they're playing on the soccer team and they're doing all the things. I think that sometimes there can be that wave of grief or realization of how things look different since our little one with fetal alcohol is the youngest. I think sometimes even though I've raised kids through this before I forget, just because developmentally he is half his chronological age. It can sting a little bit sometimes hearing 10-year-olds usually are doing X, Y, and Z, and we have none of that. I know that. I think it just hits me differently when it's right in my face at another time that's the exact same chronological age. Yet there's such a gift, I think, in being surrounded by both those who can relate and those who can't.
Amy J. Brown 29:10
I think because we've had moms say, well, we just don't know anybody. You just have to try. Unfortunately, I think sometimes we have to be the inviters because people look at our lives and... I just had a friend say to me. She's been my friend for years. She just said to me the other day, that she had a really kind of traumatic thing in her life, and she says, "I was gonna call you, but I just assumed you'd be too busy because of what's going on in your life." I said, "No, you should have called me." I think people don't want to reach out to us, so we have to be the inviter sometimes and find friends and say things to our friends like, "I don't want to talk about this today, or I do want to talk about it." I've had to say friends, don't give me solutions, I just need you to hear my heart right now. As we journey with our friends, they learn those things about us.
Jillana Goble 29:57
I just love that phrase. I just want you to hear my heart right now. I think it also invites people to just really like to open up to listen and to be relieved from some invisible responsibility that they're supposed to impart this pearl of wisdom to you that's going to somehow be a game-changer. The reality is, that there's nothing that can be spoken into the air, and it's going to change the reality. Yet, it's still, so life-giving, to be able to bring our real deal selves to the table and be listened to.
Amy J. Brown 30:33
It's so important. I think, for me, the times I felt like somebody understands or at least is listening, I felt like I can go away from that encounter, and go to the next thing, and it kind of gives me this boost. Not everybody's gonna get it, obviously. You have to have that discernment. This person is not going to get it, and they're not the person I'm going to share this with. It really does help you, like you said, with all the unknowns, we don't know what's next. We don't know the next hard thing that's going to happen. It kind of helps you get through those days as we parent, these children. I love that. I also love what you said about the whole thought of talking about hope. You say something in the book, like first we have to hope even if we're tired and overwhelmed and all these things. I think hope is slippery, sometimes we don't know how to define it. We don't know what it really is. Sometimes I think hope is like a buck up and tear up kind of situation. I know you talked a little bit about that little pebble in the road. What thoughts do you have on hope? I would love to hear.
Jillana Goble 31:43
One of the stories I tell in A Love-Stretched Life is the story of driving to my...her name is Jennifer, and she's okay with me using her name. She's the biological mom of my now 13-year-old. As I said at the beginning of the podcast, we had the opportunity not once but twice to foster and return my 13-year-olds, full biological brother. This is like my first invitation to really walk alongside somebody in the throes of addiction. I remember going to the treatment facility where I was dropping off her baby, and I passed this church, that had this kiosk with like these wonky letters that were kind of off-center. It said, as long as there's breath, there's hope. I just remember seeing that and closing my eyes. If this baby is going to remain with this woman, she's going to need to quadruple her longest clean and sober time in order to raise him until he's 18. That doesn't seem too hopeful. We've just been around the block and just adopted one of her children, right? Where's the hope? As long as there's breath, there's hope. I had to really think, do I believe that? Is this some nice thing to say? Does this apply to addiction? Does this apply to mental health? Does this apply to in utero alcohol exposure? As long as there's breath, there's hope. Yet, at the end of the day, I think if we are not people of hope, I think it just makes the journey that much more dark. It's a really, really hard journey. I'm not saying that to say let's have this like Disney version of, like, it's somewhere out there. Follow your shining star. That's not what I'm saying at all. I think if we lose, we've really lost a lot on this journey. I think sometimes it is harder to find than others. I wish that there was like some magic formula of like, 123, ABC, and here's how you restore hope to your life. I think it's so many of the things that you, Sara, and Carrie talk about, which is like connection. Connection with other moms brings hope. Being vulnerable with others brings hope. Having the ability to take a 30-minute walk and notice like shoots coming out of the ground for springtime. There can be signs around us. I think so often we are so justifiably weary, that we can miss those little signs of hope that are around us to cling to.
Amy J. Brown 34:29
I think it's hard. Like you said, we're so weary, but it's so important to pay attention. I've said this before that when we were in the thick of some really hard stuff at our house, I was worried about my other kids. I am a writer, but I journal. I wouldn't write today I did this. I would write in the margin, went on a hike with this kid or got ice cream with this kid or whatever. When I went back and read it later, I was okay, life was happening. Life is always happening. If you would ask me a few weeks after this crisis, when was life happening, I would say, "I don't know, I'm too tired." When I went back and looked at my journal like, oh, yeah. I was laughing. I was seeing beauty. I think one of the things that have helped me with hope is knowing the things that make me tick. I know that if I go outside, I immediately feel hopeful. If I look at the moon at night, it can be literally 20 seconds of me looking at the moon. I'm just paying attention to those small things. It makes me think of that verse in Lamentations about how God's mercies are new every morning. Doesn't mean it's all gonna be, like you said, tied up in a nice tiny little package. I can't believe he would bring us here and not give us those drops of grace and help on the way. That doesn't even jive with who he is. Right?
Jillana Goble 35:51
I agree. I think also, we have to give ourselves grace. We don't have infinite capacity, right? We are finite beings to take in and take in and take in. Sometimes like, yes, we can know, cognitively that there are new mercies every morning, but we can still wake up with this lingering dark cloud of the trauma of the night before. I think it's just kind of that dance that sometimes. Sometimes our heads and our heart are not going to be aligned with where we're seeing hope. I couldn't agree more with paying attention to like, what makes you tick? What are the things that are for you? I love your suggestions like going out and looking at the moon. I think it can be so centering. I know for me, standing near the side of the ocean and realizing it's okay. I'm not minimizing the fact that life can be really, really challenging. But, look at me in comparison to this vastness of life that's out there. That can feel inspiring to me.
Amy J. Brown 36:57
I feel like I can talk to you forever. But I do have a couple things I really want to talk about in relationship to having kids with behavioral issues. We are called to love, and that's not easy. I really want to talk to the mom, who's out there saying, "It's really hard to love this kid with these really severe behavioral issues. It's hard to love a raging child, and I don't I don't know what to do with how I'm feeling. I don't have the warm fuzzies about this child at all right now." Moms don't like to say that out loud. I've had to whisper it before to people. I'm not feeling I don't know how to feel about this person who was wanting to hurt me, and wreaking havoc because of trauma, not their fault. What would you say to that mom? Because I know she listens, and I know she feels very lonely.
Jillana Goble 37:53
First, I would say I am in that place with you. Where there's a lot that goes down under the roof of our home that I would have never said, "Wow, someday when I have a family, I really hope x, y, and z go down under the roof of my home." No, I wanted to be baking cookies around the kitchen table. So much of kind of that daily reality. Because there's a ripple effect, right? We all know, it's not just that child and that child's behaviors unquantifiable ripple effects of how that affects every single other thing for all the other people under the roof of our home. I have certainly experienced that. I think like you said, whispering it to someone you know. I love this child cognitively, but I don't like them right now. There's not very much that's likable, quite frankly. I think also realizing, we can give cognitive assent to the why behind our children. We can say they suffered this in-utero alcohol exposure or what have you, it's not their fault. That is something that I've been learning along the way. That does not negate the fact that I still have a response in my body, in my nervous system to my child. Even though I can say, "He's not meaning to be x, y, and z." It's still X, Y, and Z, and we have to name the x, Y and z. There's still a toll, a accumulative toll on family dynamics and attention and all those things, but it can be like a physical tool. I feel like I've kind of been on the slow train learning that fact. It has to go somewhere. We are storing in our bodies what we are taking in. All the more reason to know how we tick to know what we need to rejuvenate and refresh. I bet a lot of moms listening can say, "Yeah, but that 30 minute walk, looking at the moon or whatever is so far beyond." It's hard to get to the level where you don't still feel like you're drowning. I know, there have been many, many times in my life where I feel like I'm doing all the things, right. I feel like it's just keeping my head above water. I'm never kind of swimming to shore. It's just enough to not drown today, which is not a sexy soundbite, right? Not drowning today. Nobody's saying, "Wow, inspirational!" On that note, I feel like social media can be really challenging. Right? I think the reality is people don't have perfect lives within little squares, but it can certainly seem like that. I think for special needs parents, it can be very challenging to even know what to say. I mean, I sometimes wonder, do I take a picture of like, the hole that was just put in my right hand? No, I've chosen not to do that. I don't want to share that dailiness, which is part of why it was very therapeutic for me honestly, to sit down and to write A Love-Stretched Life, because so much of that is like the feelings and the thoughts over the long haul. Every parent's going to decide how they do that differently. That's certainly not commentary on moms who do choose to post the dailiness I just know for my own mental well-being, that's not something that's life giving to me. I think just standing in the fact that that is normal, and to not feel super self-critical on the days that we feel, or the seasons or the months or what have you, where it's like I feel like I can't do this. I love my child, but I don't like them. That is really hard. Because it doesn't match up with how we wanted things to be. I think so much on this journey has been grappling with the unnamed expectations. I thought I didn't have expectations, of what my family would look like. I thought I was so open to whatever is in store for us. It wasn't until this child kind of came along and flicked down all the dominoes of the things I had in my mind, which I didn't even think were there. Then I know I had some expectations of how things would look, but this is markedly different from that. There's acknowledgement, and there's grief, and there can be anger. I feel like all the things that we talked about, are the remedies, the connection, the vulnerability they kind of swirl around each other. Sometimes it's going to feel inadequate. It just is, and I don't think that there's a way around it. Yet to know, it's going to come around again. Hopefully it won't be the exact same thing. We're evolving as our children are too, the capacity that we have to engage it might be different for us, even if it is the exact same thing.
Amy J. Brown 43:11
I mean, I have an example of that. The first time one of my children got expelled, I cried, I felt terrible. The last time I was at breakfast with a friend, a kind of an acquaintance friend. I saw it was the school. Picked up. Expelled. I went right back to my breakfast. She goes, "Do you need to leave?" I said, "No, I got about 20 minutes.
Jillana Goble 43:30
It's still going to be there when I finish my breakfast. Yeah, exactly. No, I love that. I think that that's such a richer example actually, I've got to run. There are those unavoidable gotta run, but I love that. No, I'm gonna just enjoy 20 minutes of being able to sit here and eat and look across from another person.
Amy J. Brown 43:54
Before I have to go deal with the repercussions of suspension. I like what you said too, about keeping track. Like, I think of that book, The Body Keeps Score. Our bodies hold trauma. If somebody came into your home and was kicking the door down, cursing you out, and trying to hurt you, your body would have a stress reaction, obviously. You would make them leave or call the police. Well, we can't really do that with our little ones, but we still have that same stress reaction, even if they are children that are smaller. It took me a long time to figure that out, too.
Jillana Goble 44:28
Yeah, me too. I think because it's just so tingly, right? It's just it's so tingly. We don't love the person that's coming to kick down the door in the middle of the night, but we love this child that we have committed to, and that just feels like whiplash in the worst of ways and yet it's tangly for sure. There's like no easy, there's no easy way.
Amy J. Brown 44:52
Before we got on, I said our moms don't have time to listen to long interviews. but I could talk to you forever. I guess we can't do this six-hour documentary series. I have so many more questions, but I really want to tell the listeners that her book is wonderful. I think you will feel seen and hopeful, even if you're a mom who doesn't have kids with FASD, or those kinds of things. Even if you're not a foster mom, it's so relatable. I can't recommend it highly enough. I just loved it. I can't wait for it to be in the hands of other people.
Jillana Goble 45:35
Thank you so much for being able to read it. I feel like I could have talked to you forever as well. But thanks for having me on. It's been a joy to connect with you.
Amy J. Brown 45:44
Well, we will link both your books in our show notes. But where can people find you?
Jillana Goble 45:51
I'm Jillana Goble. I'm on Instagram and jillanagoble.com are the two primary ways. A Love-Stretched Life is available wherever books are sold.
Amy J. Brown 46:04
Great. Well, thank you so much for being on today.
Jillana Goble 46:07
Thank you, Amy.
Amy J. Brown 46:25
Thank you for joining us this week on Take Heart. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Jillana, and we will link in our show notes where you can find her books and where you can find her on social media. Our prayer each week is that your heart to be encouraged, and we're grateful that you're walking this journey with us. Make sure you listen next week as we continue our summer interview series