Today, we're going to talk about the moment I realized I couldn't fix everything for my kiddo, that things weren't the same, that he wasn't neurotypical, and how I felt about that. And how that still affects me to this day. So go ahead and listen to the end if you want to know how it's a going, a longgoing journey. Um, we'll see you there. Welcome to the Autism Diagnosis to Confident Mom podcast with Kira from Kira Brown Coaching. I'm a mom of Neurospicy Kids and a life coach. I'm here to share real tips and support to help you feel confident as a parent. Today I want to start with a story, and I want you to tell me if you relate. We were sitting with our four children in a restaurant for lunch. Um, two of our children were playing on the floor under the table while we waited for food, and everything was fine. They were not being too noisy, they weren't being disrespectful, they just were wiggling a little, which was fine. We had been in the car for a little bit. Um and then I look over at the neighboring table, and there's another family, and their children are sitting politely in their chairs, their hands folded in their laps, waiting quietly for their food. And they might have even been conversing a little bit amongst themselves, and um, and I felt envy, and I the question that came to my mind was why can't I have a normal family like that? Why can't we just be normal? Um, and I was heartbroken, and I was sad and disappointed that my family didn't look like it did. That's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk about the times when we are sad and disappointed that life doesn't look like it does for others. Um, let's start off by talking about the expectations we have for our children. We find out we are pregnant, and whether that was a surprise or a planned pregnancy, we start to dream about the life that this little boy or girl is going to have and the relationship that we're gonna have with them. Um, all of the things, right? Some of mine were that they would we would go watch them at sports and we would be able to do play dates, and we could go to places like Disneyland where there's lots of people and have fun and wait in line, and um that they would grow up and have a job and get married, and I would have grandkids, and that we would have a good relationship together, right? All of these expectations that I had from the time I found out I was expecting, and they just continue on. Um and I think we sometimes don't realize the expectations we have until they're not being met. Like sitting at the table in the diner looking at the other family and being sad that my family isn't like that and will never be like that. Excuse me. Um we have these expectations, and then it hits us, it hits us that these are not how our parenting journey is going to look. Which I think in if we're realistic, I think every parent has these. Like we all think we're gonna have this great relationship with our child and it's gonna look fun, and we picture bed times being, you know, reading a story and snuggling in bed, and then we realize the chaos that ensues. I think some of that is normal, but those of us with neurodivergent kids, we experience it on a deeper level. There's more opportunities for those disappointments. Um for me, I started noticing them even before a diagnosis. Um, I talked briefly about it last week, but I remember vividly standing outside my laundry room door. My husband had come in from work for a minute and came down to see me for something. So I stepped outside the laundry room and he we were talking, and I I just was like, there's something, there's something off. It's either me or it's him or it's both of us. I don't know, but this can't be normal. Like this cannot be normal. And um, that was the beginning of realizing that my journey was gonna look like I thought it was gonna look like. Actually, if I step back farther, I he was a very fussy baby, and he didn't sleep very well, and those were signs that our parenting journey wasn't gonna be what I thought it was gonna be, right? I I had three other kids. I I didn't have them sleeping through the night from day one, but I had figured out how to deal with getting up in the night with them and how to get them on a sleep routine and all of the things, and we did really well, and then he came along and he rocked our boat. Um, so we just realize that things are gonna be different, and when we realize that things are gonna be different, um it for me at least, it breaks my heart. It just breaks my heart, and I could go over story after story after story of this, but um, I have some shame around it. Like maybe I'm not a good enough parent, maybe I'm not doing things right, maybe if I did things differently, maybe if I was more patient, maybe if I fill in the blank. Um, I also feel some anger that other people aren't doing it right, that other people don't see him for who he is. Um, I have some denial. I want to hide from it all. I want to go in my room and not deal with it. I don't want to go to the meeting because my child has been upset again. I don't um I don't want to deal with it, I want to hide, and I have that overwhelming grief. Um grief is hard because I think I dealt with this, I dealt with the grief when he was diagnosed, and then it comes back and it hits me hard again. Emotions are like waves in our lives, they come and go. I want you to picture the waves on the ocean coming and going, and sometimes they're big and they're hard and they knock you off your feet and you have a hard time, and sometimes they're just gentle, lapping, fun waves, the ones that are fun to play in, right? Emotions are like that, and you can have the big storm emotions come in life, and then you can have the little ones for a while, and then the big ones will come back. It all depends on what's going on in your life, right? So, for example, right now in my life, the big waves are coming back in again. We're getting calls from the bus barn saying that we're having problems on the bus. We're getting the calls from the after-school extracurricular activity where he goes between his bus ride home and school, and we are having meltdowns, and we're hitting people, and we're trying to tip furniture over, and I feel shame and denial and grief and anger about all of these situations, right? Like these big storms and emotions are coming in, and I have to learn to deal with those, um, but they're real, they're real. Like, I remember last year being like, we finally got this, like he's doing well at school, he's doing well at church, he's doing well at home. Like, we have finally figured this out. We are we are doing good, and right now I am back into this is hard, and I am sad that my life does not look like I thought it was gonna look like. Like, I thought I had a child that could go to children's Sunday school class, but I was wrong. I don't have a child that can. I thought I had a child that was handling the bus really well, but it turns out I don't have that child anymore, and so the grief comes back new and it comes in waves, and that's normal in life, that is totally normal. Um, if you lose a loved one, they will tell you that grief comes and goes. That that is part of the process. Um, and I think it comes and goes because there's always something new, there are always new developmental stages. I don't know once they're grown, maybe not. I don't know. I haven't reached that point, to be honest with you, but there's always a new developmental stage, and then you realize oh, we're not there, we we can't do that, and then your heart breaks again. So grief is normal, and I want you to realize that. Um, and you can feel grief and still love your child. Like, I feel grief that my child can't handle a meltdown, like his having meltdowns on the bus and at after school program, but I can also love him like crazy. I feel sad that he can't handle these things, I feel shame that we are suspended from activities because of behaviors. I feel anger because of the way people are handling it when it happens, but I also feel deep love for my child. Like when I stop and talk to him, he tried to voice what he needed, and people didn't listen. And after people didn't listen a couple of times, then he resorted to a meltdown, which involved some physical violence, and so like I have deep love and pride at the same time because he's trying to apply those skills that we've been learning. Do you see how you can feel all of the things at once? Like, I feel anger at the adults that aren't helping him when he states what he needs. I can feel disappointed that he hit or kicked somebody, and I can feel love for him because he's so misunderstood, and I can feel grief that I have to deal with this again. Um I just want you to know that grief is normal, it's part of the journey, it's not fun sometimes, a lot of the times, it's not fun. But if you will allow it, if you will just allow it to be part of your journey, it will get easier. I'm not saying because it doesn't hurt the next time grief comes around, but because you allow it to happen. When you allow your body to just process grief, which your body knows what to do with grief, if you don't resist it. I want you to think about when we talk about these emotions, when we resist it, when we try to reason out of them, when we try to not feel them, when we try to run away and hide from them, we're pushing a beach ball under the water, and you're pushing and you're pushing, and it's hard to push it under the water, right? It wants to come up, it wants to come up, and you're pushing and you're pushing and you're pushing. Well, eventually that beach ball is going to win and it's gonna come flying up in your face, and it's gonna make a huge splash, and it might hit you, and it's gonna be so much worse than if you had just allowed that beach ball to sit on top of the water and ride the waves, and that's the way emotions are. Plus, when we try to numb our negative emotions, you also numb the positive emotions, so you're gonna go numb. You're not gonna feel any emotion. Um, we have negative emotions, and because we know what the pain and the heart is, we also can experience the joy and the peace on the other side. Like we don't know one without the other. You wouldn't know what happiness is like if you haven't gone through sadness. So just remember it's okay. Um, I often will tell myself in the moment of grief, first of all, I'll allow myself to just feel grief. I I might go in my room for a couple minutes and let all chaos ensue in my house and cry or whatever I need to do. Um, and sometimes that's literally two minutes, that's all I can do, but I allow that, and then I just tell myself, it's because of sentences in my brain, it's because of my thoughts, my expectations that I feel this way, and it's okay that I feel this way, it's normal and it's human. Um, and then I get into my body. What does it feel like in your body? Do you feel it in your stomach? Do you feel it in your chest? Do you tense up? Do you relax? Do you how do you feel? But I just want you to know that grief is normal, that we can allow it, and that it will be easier to deal with if we allow it. And did you know that emotions usually run through our body for 60 to 90 seconds if we don't resist them? So when we have an emotion and just feel stuck and we can't get rid of it, that's because we're resisting it, and we just need to let it be. We can just say to ourselves, okay, I'm feeling grief right now, and that's okay. We're just gonna pack it around with us like a little suitcase, and we're gonna bring it everywhere with us, and we can still do the things we need to do, and that's okay. And a lot of times when we just allow it, then it actually ends up going away easier. But we can't allow it thinking that it's gonna go away because then we're still resisting it. So um, if you know somebody else who's dealing with grief because of their neurodividivergent child or just anybody dealing with grief, go ahead and share this with them. Let them know that they're it's okay and that they're not alone. Thanks so much for listening to Autism Diagnosis to Confident Mom. If this episode helped you feel a little more seen or supported, please take a moment to like, follow, or subscribe to the podcast. And if you know another parent who needs to hear this, share it with them too. We're all in this together. You're doing better than you think, mama. You've got this.