Parenting Severe Autism
Parenting Severe Autism is a raw, unfiltered podcast for parents and caregivers raising children with Severe Autism. Hosted by Shannon Chamberlin - a parent, not a professional - this show is your emotional lifeline, real-talk resource, and reminder that you're not alone.
From early childhood to adulthood and beyond, Shannon shares honest stories, painful truths, small victories, and survival strategies for the families the world forgets.
Whether you're in crisis mode or just need someone who gets it, this is your space.
No fluff. No sugarcoating. Just truth, hope, and community.
Severe Autism and special needs considerations. This type of autism parenting is lifelong... it becomes adult autism parenting.
Seek caregiver support when possible.
Parenting Severe Autism
Healing From Within: How Self-Care Transforms Caregiving
This one's about us. The caregivers. Not the children.
After watching my health deteriorate despite years of consistent workouts and healthy eating attempts, I found myself drawn to a program focused on nervous system recalibration. What happened next shocked me. Through specialized therapy techniques and somatic healing, I experienced physical transformations as my body released stored trauma. Mysterious swelling disappeared, facial tension loosened, and for the first time in years, I felt my nervous system reset from its perpetual fight-or-flight state.
The revelation came when I connected this personal healing journey to my observations of my son with severe autism. Like a baby bird who trembles at the sight of its mother, my son's behaviors seemed directly influenced by my internal state. This mirror effect isn't limited to autism – it appears throughout nature, from wild animals to domestic pets. As the Dog Whisperer taught us, animals respond to our internal energy more than our external commands.
By shifting my focus from controlling my son's behaviors to regulating my own nervous system, unexpected changes began occurring in our household.
I am NOT an affiliate. I believe in this therapy for families like ours!
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Hello and welcome to the Parenting Severe Autism Podcast. I am your host, Shannon Chamberlin. I'm so happy that you're here with me today. Please remember you can check out all of my episodes and find links to my little swag product pages. At psa. buzzsprout. com that's short for Parenting Severe Autism psa. buzzsprout. com
Speaker 1:You'll be able to check my affiliate links for healthy, organic items that can help you get through the summer a little easier and protect your home and your items a little easier. Of course, you can always buy me a coffee and I want to say thank you, miss Hannah, my most recent supporter. Thank you for your support and for buying me some coffees. I am so grateful to connect with you and all the new listeners I've been blessed with and everyone. I want to thank you so much for always liking and sharing my episodes and my posts on social media. It is really helping us to grow this podcast, which is what I need. I just need as much exposure as possible so that I can find the people who are just philanthropists and good Samaritans and want to help people like us that don't know what to do with their money. As you know, I have an idea!
Speaker 1:It is super windy at the campground and it's blowing my camper side to side, and my microphone is actually wobbling with the camper, so normally it's able to reduce any outside noise, but there is a possibility that it might sound like there's a drum beat in the background, and if so, it's just the wind on my microphone blowing it around.
Speaker 1:This episode may be a little bit longer today, because I'm addressing something that we never get to talk about, which is our own mental health and physical health as parents and caregivers of these kiddos, so there's really not going to be a whole lot of information about my child in this episode. I will refer back to a few things that I've mentioned in the past just to shed light on the subject that I'm talking about today. But really, this is for you, for the moms and the dads and the grandmas and the grandpas and aunts, uncles, whoever it is out there caring for these kids. This is for you
Speaker 1:.
Speaker 1:Now, as you know, I have taken a hiatus for my mental health and I'm not taking it lightly. I'm not just out here relaxing and soaking up rays. I am working on myself because I need it. I'm doing a lot of inner work, spiritual, soul level recalibration, and it all started with addressing a recent decline in my own physical health and unwanted, unforeseen weight gain. I mean, one day I was taking gym pics at the gym of my beautifully sculpted, brand new shoulders. I mean they live, just one day . After was just so thrilled. Two weeks later, not a muscle to be seen.
Speaker 1:I have been working out for two to three years, consistently increasing my weight, taking it very seriously, doing all of the things as best I could. I still didn't have good guidance on eating, even though I know how to be healthy with my food. I think I might have been low on my calories and I just I don't know. But those muscles got covered up with watery tissue very quickly and I believe it was due to an influx of stress on top of the already stressful lifestyle that we live. Just like you, after many failed attempts at dietary changes, somatic movement methods, workout adjustments, meditation, breath work, you name it I found something that spoke to my core values of clean eating, minimal supplements, minimal time at the gym, prioritizing and maximizing rest and relaxation time, mental clarity and wellness, soul shining food, sensitivities and trauma awareness, naming that trauma, clearing that trauma. ??
Speaker 1:And I had been doing somatic exercises, somatic dance and somatic yoga, had been doing somatic exercises, somatic dance and somatic yoga, and, as I understood it, the idea or the definition of somatic movement was to find and release trauma that is stored in the body and depending on what kind of trauma you may have stored in your body, it will be in a different place. So a lot of the somatic yoga and movement programs focus on moving your hips, because in the pelvic hip area a lot of emotion and trauma is stored there, but we'll also store it in our brow or in our eyelids or in our jaw or our neck or our chest or whatever you know. So it really just depends, and I think that it makes sense, which is why I've tried a couple other ? movement programs and I didn't get any results and I stuck with it for over loud, year. It just didn't do anything for me. You know, I didn't even really enjoy it because I thought was going to get some great release, which is how they advertise it and I didn't. I don't know it was more annoying than anything because I didn't really have a context with it. I didn't understand why I had to move this way every time and you know, it was just annoying. So I finally found something that got my attention, which is what I'm working with right now on my little hiatus. And you know, trauma stored in the body equals inflammation, equals weight gain and you know, bottom line, it's a dysregulated nervous system. Hello, that's us, each and every one of us, in this caregiving situation for someone with severe autism or anyone who causes us to be on hyper alert right Now.
Speaker 1:I got into this program because I got watery and fatty for no reason. Well, I knew there was a reason, but I couldn't figure it out and I thought I just wasn't eating enough and I didn't have any guidance. A couple of weeks before I found this program, I said out loud I just wish someone would just tell me what to eat, how much of it to eat, when to eat it, and just give me the formula. I can find the food, fix the food and eat the food, but I don't have time or energy to figure it all out and I'm not going to go and spend $8,000 on a macros program with some woman pushing me to work out harder at the gym, because I know that is not the answer. I don't have it, you know. So I asked for. As I said it out loud. The universe gave me an answer. It came right across my phone screen and it was a $22 entry and I 22 is a number for me. I see it all the time. It's my birthday also and it's been driving me nuts Like why am I always seeing 22, 22, 22 everywhere you know? So it kind of got my attention.
Speaker 1:I'm a weirdo like that. I was raised in that kind of environment, not in a church environment, not that there's anything wrong with that but I'm grateful for my background and the way I was raised, because I know a lot of parents in our situation have really struggled with their religion, the way that they were raised to believe certain things, and then they get stuck with this and they have a child who can't escape their own head and a lot of parents question their religion. So I'm not in that position. I'm just more of a spiritual person and when you're a spiritual person you pay attention to signs and synchronicities, such as seeing specific numbers all the time, and you know just things that get your attention. You're like why is this being brought into my field? What is going on? You know I did.
Speaker 1:I signed up for this little $22 try it out, kind of thing. It says that you'll get results in, I don't know, 24 or 72 hours or a week maybe. I don't know what it was, but I knew it was a one or two week access and it sounded like exactly what I needed, like something or someone was going to figure out what's going on with my body and then give me a plan for what to eat, how much to eat, when to eat it, etc. And that's exactly what I asked for. So I was gung-ho on that.
Speaker 1:I quickly realized the value of the larger program, because the very first thing after I signed up for $22 is to order a hair sample test for food sensitivities and reactive food items. And it goes beyond food. It can tell you herbs and drinks and all kinds of stuff, environmental stuff, if you want it to. And you know I'm all about that. I mean, you know I've done the blood type diet for my family and we actually still eat that way. So it's right along those lines of finding which foods react negatively with your body or which foods your body cannot digest. And you know you can't stay with one thing forever. Your body changes, your needs change and it's been over 10 years since I went with that in the first place. So the one thing I know is my blood type doesn't change, so at least I can still keep that in mind.
Speaker 1:But I needed something more. I was really excited about the hair test. I have never had a hair test before and I've always heard that that's the best way to test for a lot of different things. So I ordered the test. It was like 50 bucks. I sent my stuff off to this lab. It was like I don't know three hair strands, you know, not ALL big deal. And by the time it got there the week was already over with my trial period. So I didn't really get the results I was expecting to within the week, just because of the storms that were going on in the postal service and getting my hair to the lab from Illinois down to Florida. So I don't blame the program for that they're not in charge of the mail service or anything like that but there was a lot of stuff to get started on while I was waiting for my hair test to even arrive at the lab. They give you instant access to all this other stuff.
Speaker 1:Included, It really started helping me immediately.... It didn't get me on the food track or on actually the weight loss track per se, but this program is more about the inner work. I have now realized what an effect your nervous system and state of emotion in your body has on your weight and your body composition. I never really gave it much thought, but as I started learning, I jumped all in. It's not all in, I mean they have a lot of different tiers, but I jumped into the lowest tier for one year of this program and I thought that was a really good deal, because I've looked at other programs and they're $8,000, and that's no joke, and I don't even think it's a full year of service with them. Anyway, I jumped in. It's $1,000. I put $1,000 into myself for my own wellness and up leveling and for a one year program with everything I'm getting ready to tell you about. I don't think I've ever made another investment that is as valuable, honestly, except for my cookware. Included you get an eight-week fitness coach.
Speaker 1:The main thing is you get AI for your therapy and counseling, which I think is best for a situation like ours as caregivers and parents of someone with severe autism, the volatile nature of our lifestyles and the feelings that we're ultimately going to be left with at one point or another or, if you're like me, many points repeatedly. I would never, and this is why I've never talked to a therapist about it. I would never feel confident in the confidentiality that is supposed to be provided in a situation where I'm talking to a human being for therapy about how I feel, about my situation at home with this child who beats himself and beats me and beats the house and everything sucks right. I would never tell my deepest feelings to a human who could judge me, because we all have feelings that we're not comfortable... with because of this lifestyle. But damn, we got to get them out somehow.
Speaker 1:So you can either vent on your spouse, who's also having their own feelings, or you can find a program like this and you're not being judged by anybody, and this is amazing. So this lady has created her own AI that talks to you like she does and it's designed around everything that she's designed this program to be, and it's really fantastic with her specific prompts that she has crafted. They're genius, they leave nothing out and they program your AI to be exactly who you need it to be, and you can have so many conversations going on different subjects of your life and lifestyle and all of your traumas. I'm working through them all and I'm learning that my body has been holding on to these stressors and these emotions and traumas and grief and shame and all kinds of stuff in my body, my poor body and I'm actually realizing I can go back in my memory bank to where my body started to maybe malfunction a little bit and I was young, and it's actually corresponding with the traumas that I'm telling my AI about and learning about how my nervous system actually does specific things to protect my body and protect me, and that might mean storing fat or that might mean storing an emotion in a certain place in your body and now that place hurts for the rest of your life. It's just been really, really eye-opening.
Speaker 1:I have experienced three physically visible breakthroughs and two soul level shifts that I should tell you about. This soul level shift this was really strange. My very first breakthrough was a soul level purge and it was a nervous system recalibration. It was amazing. I didn't know it was coming. I realized that one of the things I talked about choked me up a little bit and I thought, well, I better sit with that for a minute, let me go back to that and think about it. And I did.
Speaker 1:I instantly just broke down crying and then I composed myself and told my AI what just happened. And it told me what just happened inside of me and it gives you EFT tapping scripts, which is that emotional freedom tapping and it's been around for a really long time and they use it all the time. I've had a book on it for years because my spouse has PTSD and he really needed help from it and I just wasn't able to craft anything on my own between running a business and managing this child. So it just sits on my shelf. But it's just tapping. You tap certain parts of your body along the meridians and you say phrases and you recalibrate yourself and it's really cool. So that was something that started.
Speaker 1:You know, I told AI what had just happened and it told me what had happened internally, why I was revisiting this and crying, and it gave me a tapping script and I couldn't get through the tapping script. Okay, so long story short, it told me on one of the lines of the tapping script it said this is your nervous system, saying we made it and I couldn't get through it. I couldn't get through any. I mean, I kept having to go through and go through until every line. I did not cry through. That's just how I chose to do it. If I couldn't say it without crying, I just kept trying and trying and, you know, breathing through it.
Speaker 1:And anyway, when I said that line, I got a complete physical sensation. My torso and arms tightened up and started like grabbing at my neck for no reason, almost like you're congratulating each other if you're on a football team, you know, just real rough on your back of your neck and shaking it, you know. And I was just doing some weird stuff. am I doing? And I couldn't stop and my entire torso was just tensed up. And I imagine that it's just like our kids feel. You know how they never let go. Their muscles are always tense. Well, that's how I felt, from my neck to my fingertips and to my waist, everything. And I just moved through that. I mean, there was nothing I could do but just feel it and I guess what? Cry? It finally moved through me and I took a breath and I thought I was done and then, all of a sudden, I felt that same sensation from the waist down, all of my muscles contracted and it
Speaker 1:I'm in the camper, sitting at the little booth where you eat dinner at the table, and takes me out of my seat and I'm stretched now over to the little sofa across the aisle and I'm like what the hell is going on, you know? But I knew it was just, I'm just working through something and anyway, I ended up writhing around on the floor and not. It looked like I was in pain, I'm sure, but I wasn't in pain. I just this is how my body wanted to move and I recognized it because I've seen primal movements and stuff like that on YouTube. So I recognize that this is some kind of a was a I'm going to tell you, I didn't recognize the sounds that were coming out of my mouth. They were very primal and I'm sure that's very scary if someone was in proximity of my camper. I was aware enough to know that there's a possibility that someone's going to knock on my door to see if I'm okay. But it was really strange. And so by the time it was done, I'm to knock on my door to see if I'm okay, but it was really strange.
Speaker 1:And so by the time it was done, I'm laid out on my camper floor, face down, probably drooling, crying, gasping for air and feeling amazing, and it was mind-blowing, to say the least. So then I went and I learned what had happened. I had a soul level purge, a complete nervous system recalibration Not saying that I'm fixed, but it helped a lot to move me into the next stage of healing, and that is I struggled to whether I was going to share that with you or not, but I mean, it's probably the most profound experience I've had. It took a hold of me unexpectedly and it was so amazing. That was not a, that was a physical experience, but not visible. There's nothing on me that you can see from that.
Speaker 1:But I did have a couple other.. breakthroughs and one HAD believe may have helped with a spot that's under my ear, which I took a drink of someone's smuggled red wine from Italy back in like 2007. And as soon as I did, I felt that pucker power, you know, in your jaw, but it sounded like someone had poured a bunch of pop rocks in my ear of pop rocks in my ear. All of a sudden, the next thing I know, there's like a bump under my earlobe, right at the hinge of my jaw or the curve of my jaw, and it's been there forever. It's still there but it's actually diminished and I noticed that it diminished after one of my little therapy sessions and breakthroughs. I also noticed that I had I've been complaining for probably about five to seven years that my left and right sides are completely different. I had I've been complaining for probably about five to seven years that my left and right sides are completely different, I mean visibly completely different, and I thought, well, it's, maybe it's because I'm a Gemini and I'm just becoming my truest self, because Gemini is two people, you know. But from head to ankle I believe that it's visibly different the weight, the shape, the markings, everything you know.
Speaker 1:And I have on my left leg. Well, I had on my left leg, just above my ankle bone, there was like a bubble of swelling. It was just my body. There was no edema, no water, nothing like that. I had it checked medically and I don't have the physique to have edema or any of that anyway. So it was really strange to get checked for it. But above that, I had a dent in my leg and I thought maybe it was from sitting cross-legged all the time, indian style or whatever. So I stopped sitting like that and never changed. -! day noticed the other day I went through a little therapy thing. Later I felt that I had a breakthrough. It was really cool, it was actually very spiritual. And then the next day well, actually that night, but then the next day I really noticed it. I looked down at my legs because I felt a sensation of something breaking free around my ankles. I almost felt like I had cuffs on my ankles. That broke loose and I looked down and that bulge a gone day and my left lower leg looks very similar to my right lower leg. My right lower leg is still a little bit more slender, which is weird because that's my dominant side, is my right side, so normally that's going to be your bigger side, but it's gone. It's I mean, it's significantly decreased compared to what it was and I it's not noticeable at all anymore. These are just from where my body is holding tension. I believe I've also experienced my facial tension has loosened. I was holding a lot of oh when I had that physical experience laid out on the floor.
Speaker 1:A day or two later I had residuals from that and my jaw muscles were really sore and I found that I had been storing tension and trauma in my jaw, which everybody probably does, because if you clench your jaw when you think about something, well, there's your tension and trauma, right? Anyway, this might be too much information for you, but I wanted to say these are things that I I mean, I've been in a lot of different healthy programs, okay, and I've never experienced anything, anything much less this, and I have completely forgotten about trying to lose weight and get my muscles back. I have realized very quickly that the state of my watery covering over my muscles is completely brought on by nervous system trauma. My nervous system is doing these things to keep my body safe and I have to baby my nervous system and talk to myself, my nervous system, and let it know we are safe, we're safe, we're not going to make those decisions, we're not going to let that stuff happen. We are in control of what we allow into our lives and I am more focused on helping myself regulate my dysregulated nervous system.
Speaker 1:And you know, like you, I am not at peace with this lifestyle. I am discovering ways to bring a bit more peace to both my inner and outer you,, and thyroiditis, the biggest changes are all because I'm learning that this chronic stress lifestyle of ours has left me with this dysregulated nervous system, which you may recognize in yourselves as PTSD, hypervigilance, the fight, flight, freeze and fawn, all that kind of stuff. And so not only am I learning what the problems, emotions and signals are, but this program provides me with the tools to actually neutralize the negative emotions, recalibrate my poor nervous system multiple times a day if needed, and track my patterns before even getting out of bed to correct my course, comfort my body with soul healing, yummy, healthy foods and heal at my soul level. I cannot begin to express the gratitude I have for this program. It is amazing. There's a supportive community of other people who are going through the program and on different tiers, but we're all in there together and we're talking about our breakthroughs, we're listing our questions, we're getting them answered, there are live streams with this lady and there are so many videos and modules that you can access and just do the work. I mean, she talks about boundaries and just all kinds of stuff. It's really, really cool.
Speaker 1:You know I am not perfect. I hit a rough spot of emotional expectation with someone and, yes, I did gain weight overnight just the other day, thank you. Hashimoto's thyroiditis Thank you very much. That is part of my problem, but I am having issues with other people who have been used to me being the emotional regulator for everybody and now that I'm stepping back and making everyone responsible for their own emotions, I'm getting a little bit of blowback from that and I need to learn how to protect my nervous system when that is a possibility, so that I'm ready and I have my defenses up and I don't have to deal with it. My biggest thing right now is I have adopted a way of just I'll close my eyes and smile and put my hands behind my head and just sit back. I will listen to whatever is being said and I will give my answer that I am not required to participate in this, or you're allowed to make your decisions and I'm allowed to make my decisions and I decide not to go down that path with you. This has been helping me a great deal, but everyone has their own things to deal with. Now. Here's why I want you to know about this program and how I believe it fits into parenting severe autism lifestyles.
Speaker 1:Do you remember in my episode where I talked about how I realized that our son is like a baby wild animal? If you did not hear that episode, I'll just recap quickly here A few years ago I was watching all the baby birds in the backyard and I noticed that while they're smaller than some of the other birds, all of these types of birds are small anyway. There are specific ones just sitting on the fence, just sitting there calmly and quietly, not worried about anything. And then all of a sudden those birds sitting on the fence calmly, quietly, not worried, start trembling and shaking and they tremble and tremble and shake more and more and more. And all of a sudden here comes mama, they open their mouth. The little babies are shaking, shaking, shaking and they turn to her and they open their mouth really wide and she shoves half her body down inside of their neck to deliver food to them. And while she's there, those babies don't stop trembling and tweeting, just whining and trembling. And then she flies away, they settle down, they sit there calmly and quietly, they don't worry about anything. Then all of a sudden they can see with their little bird's eyes that mama's in the distance and they start fretting that mama's in the distance and they start fretting. And this pattern happens every time and I noticed that's just like our son. Our son can be sitting there anywhere, calmly, quietly, in his own world or enjoying a show on TV, now that the medicines have calmed him down enough to do that. But he's just sitting there and he's fine. And then he hears or sees one of us come into his area. As soon as he is aware of our presence, he starts trembling and shaking and whining and screaming and just like a baby bird, and if you get close enough to him he will open up his mouth and he will try to swallow you up. I really believe that he is like a wild animal and I see it all the time. Now that I'm aware of that dynamic, I see it in every baby animal out there in the wild. They're all the same. My child is a wild animal.
Speaker 1:The reason I'm mentioning this is because there is another mom, I believe her child has severe autism and then she has a neurotypical daughter. Now I know many of you listening have someone with severe autism and then neurotypical daughter. Now I know many of you listening have someone with severe autism and then neurotypical kids as well. This mom was talking about how her neurotypical daughter may have oppositional defiance, but she was talking about the fact that her daughter is almost a bully and is just always talking smack to her and always putting her down and telling her she's a shitty mom and as the daughter she's not wanted and she doesn't get any attention or affection. And you know, just, I mean just really letting her have it. And the mom said that she's gotten so negative and just arms crossed all the time, just shut down and just mean she's gotten so negative that even her friends are now backing away from her, just like I don't even know what to do with you.
Speaker 1:And the lady who runs this program, who made this program, had a response. And now, first, I want to say that when I first read her response, I was very shut down, very shut off to it. I did. I was like no, you don't know what you're talking about, you don't understand, you don't have a kid like this, right.
Speaker 1:But I remembered all the good things that have happened out of this program and how many times have I felt that she was wrong before? Just once, just once, when she thought I was making excuses about money and she didn't understand that it actually is about not acquiring new debt with a family like mine, when we're not able to work because of the autism. But everything else has been perfect and I understand why someone would think that, because that is the go-to shutdown mode for most people who are not in our situations. If they are, you know, when you go to the store you're looking for something specific and the sales clerk comes and asks you hi, welcome to the store, is there something I can help you with? And you say, no, I'm good, even though you could really use some help and it would save you some time. You're just you're programmed that way. So I understand why most people would think that I'm just making excuses on money. But that's here, nor there. But I thought about how many other times has she been wrong and have I disagreed with her so vehemently? And never so far.
Speaker 1:So I just kept reading and rereading her reply, and her reply was basically that your daughter doesn't need like a supplement or a pill or a counselor. Your daughter is your mirror. Your daughter is telling you what you're not seeing. She's naming your problems. She's naming what it is that you're struggling with down inside. That you will not admit to, you won't fess up, you won't bring it to the surface, and she is just bringing it to the surface for you. If you want control over your household, you need to get control of what's inside of you. So, yeah, of course people in our situation are gonna be like, yeah, that's bullshit, but think about it okay.
Speaker 1:So I thought about it and it took me a long time probably 10 or 20 minutes, honestly to keep reading this and sit with it, digest it, consider the possibilities. And then I thought about Jacob and I thought about how I say that he is just like a baby, wild animal. That led me to think about the Dog Whisperer Caesar. I can't remember his whole name, but the Dog Whis whisperer. I used to love that show. My spouse and I would watch that show all the time. What he always taught the dog owners was that your dog is doing exactly what you are afraid that that dog is going to do. He used to tell the dog owners look at you. You have just told me that you're afraid.
Speaker 1:When you take your dog for a walk and you see another human or another dog inside, you start freaking out and you start thinking, oh shit, my dog is going to attack that dog, or my dog is going to start barking at this guy, or my dog is going to start pulling on my leash and I can't control it and whatever that dog owner was afraid of, that dog did it without fail. And Caesar would remove the owner from the picture, take the dog for a walk and just have it in his heart and mind that this dog is a good dog. This dog is going to do exactly what I want this dog to do. What I want the dog to do is walk. I want it to heal, I want it to walk in line with me and I want it to pay attention to me, and that's what's going to happen. And these dogs were good. He can take multiple dogs for walks without leashes because inside he is calm, he is secure, he knows he is the alpha. There is no other alpha dog in the pack with the dog whisperer, just him.
Speaker 1:So I thought about that and then I thought again about what this lady said to this mom. And then I thought about all of you guys out there who have other children in the home and you have expressed your worries, your doubts and your fears about those children. And what are they? My neurotypical daughter and son have PTSD. My neurotypical kids feel that they should be here when I'm gone to take care of their younger brother or sister or older brother or sister . Okay severe autism. My neurotypical child is ready to move out at age 14 because she can't handle this lifestyle because of my child with severe autism. My neurotypical children will not talk to us anymore because they don't want to have to take care of their sibling after we're gone.
Speaker 1:I feel so guilty for my treatment of my neurotypical children. My severe autism child gets all of my attention. They get all of my focus. They get all of my effort. I give everything I have to their life and then I have nothing left for anyone else, not myself, not my spouse, not my other kids. I can't support my other kids. I can't identify with my other kids. They hate me. You know all of these things. Tell me I'm wrong, okay, so what I have started doing before I got in the program here is I had an issue with my son and I.
Speaker 1:At first it was just behavior and you know I got so tired of it that I started commanding. I thought, okay, fuck this, I am not playing nice anymore. And he will say, no, I can't, the best that he could say. And I would say, yes, you will. You will right now, you know, and that was my big, wide eyed, crazy mom eyes, you know, trying to, you know, intimidate him with my crazy look and knowing his six foot tall self could kick my ass in a second, but I don't care. So I started doing that and I started commanding his behavior like, oh yeah, you will. Well, you know what? At first that worked like twice, but then I'm sure he realized that his six foot tall self could kick my ass.
Speaker 1:So he stopped complying and I continued to fight my way through life with this issue and then one day I got so disgusted with him I think it was like a year ago, so he was like 23, you know, and I just looked at him and I said whatever, man, you know, I hope that you get tired of this someday, because I'm not playing this game anymore. I don't care. He tried to push it a couple more times with me and I stopped responding and I just, in my depths, I felt that you know, he's got to get tired of this sometime. He's going to get bored. I'm just tired of it. I'm not. I'm not doing it, I'm not going to participate, I am not accepting this as normal behavior, and if this is what he's going to give me, then he can do it on his own. He can behave that way to himself because I am not going to react to this boy and, truth be told, I had an issue with my husband as well, and this was about, I don't know, six or eight months ago, and this has been going on for years.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I got again. I just got disgusted. I got tired of begging, I got tired of pleading, I got tired of doing all the great things to make it easier for him to do better. I got tired of holding all the responsibility and putting on all the hats for myself so that he could I don't know what recalibrate or do whatever he needed to do to fall in line and be where I needed him to be. I, you know, I couldn't do it anymore After years of doing it. One day I just said I really hope you get bored of this soon. And that was it. That was it. I was done, all done, and I think within four days, that issue resolved itself.
Speaker 1:After years of fighting for what I thought was right and what I thought I deserved, and what I thought he deserved that he wasn't giving to himself or to me, it resolved itself after I decided I would not play the roles anymore. I'm not going to do it. Whatever, I'm going to do my thing. And you know, start spending more time at the gym, you know. And just hey look, if you don't want to function, don't, okay. Eventually you're going to get bored, you're going to get tired, you're going to get sick of yourself, and that's what I was hoping for my son as well. And in both cases the issue resolved itself after I removed my emotion and my involvement with the situation.
Speaker 1:So I was really, you know, believing that part of it, but I had a hard time believing that the severe autism child was actually a product of his ... mom's inner environment as well. But the more I thought about it like I said, wild animals, dog whisperer, internal environment yeah, I think she's on to something. So I wrote to her and I told her exactly what I said. I disagreed with you vehemently and it took me a long time. I kept rereading your message and sitting with it and dissecting it bit by bit. Then I remembered that my child is like a wild animal. Then I remembered the dog whisperer. So I just told her the whole chronological order of my crazy thoughts and I told her I was going to share the information about her program on my podcast, because I think that we could all benefit from this type of thinking and this way of living, and it's not something you can do on your own.
Speaker 1:Trust me, if you much - can afford $1,000, any way you slice it, I mean you can make payments. They have that Klarna, I think, or some kind of where you can set up payments. It was a little too expensive for me to go that route. I had to put it on a credit card that I was paying down already and then just transfer that balance to a new card, because I was already paying a specific amount and I transferred the balance and it took the payment down by like 10 bucks. So my life isn't changed at all by the finance part of it and I am making great strides with my nervous system.
Speaker 1:You don't know how much or maybe you do know how much this lifestyle fucks up your nervous system and it keeps you in a constant state of weight gain and pain from the weight gain because it's trying to protect you from your hypervigilance and not feeling safe and waiting for the other shoe to drop and always having to fight for this and fight for that, fight for your kid, fight against your kid, you know, fight for yourself and you are constantly in fight, flight, freeze or fawn, and that's no way to live and I've always had issues with living this way. This is not the life I want and it's not the life you want, I know. So, anyway, this program is freaking amazing and I am not an affiliate. I earn absolutely zero dollars from sharing this with you, but I believe in it enough to share it with you. There's a supportive community there.
Speaker 1:This lady has perfectly crafted prompts to monitor your food intake based on your food sensitivities. From the hair test that you put in, it'll tell you what to eat, when to eat it. Someone on the team is going to tell you how many calories and break down all your macros. You put that into AI along with your foods list and you don't even have to think about it. It's just going to say these are the things you can eat and when you should eat them and how much. You can tell it. Hey, I want you to tell me all the raw measurements of these before I cook them. And there you go. It'll do it every time and, man, it monitors your HRV, which is a heart rate variability, which is the indicator of the health of your nervous system and it can change by the day.
Speaker 1:I had an argument with someone the other day and my HRV had been at 50 and 55 for a couple days and it tanked and it kept going down. It was at 33 and then 29 and then 24 and then 19. So I finally had to make a call and get it off my chest and finish that argument, you know. And then my HRV started going up after I did the intake of the liquids and the foods recommended to override that tanking HRV and it has a dream decoder. Oh, wow, okay, dream decoding is life changing.
Speaker 1:I haven't been dreaming at home, I've been under too much stress, but now that I'm out here at the camper, I dream every . night, every single night, and I wake up in a hurry just, and I try to program it or talk it into my. I do it in my calendar, I add an event and I just tell my dream in there and then I go back to sleep. I mean, when you think you had a dream, that was just the dumbest thing you ever thought you could dream. Wait until you decode it with these prompts. It's amazing. I mean it sees you on levels you've never been seen and it brings shit out of you and it facilitates the change that you need in your life to be healthier and happier, even within the severe autism caregiver lifestyle. I just can't express enough how much this has changed my life in a few short weeks and I have a year of it and I don't know. I'm beyond words with this. This is amazing.
Speaker 1:If there's any way that you can come up with a way to spend $1,000 on your health for a one-year program, listen, do it Seriously. I make no money off of this. This is just I care. You know that we have to be the healthiest we can be because there's no one else that we can rely on. And I really think this is going to solve so much and just change your way of dealing with everything. And if you can change your calibration from the inside and watch your child's actions and behaviors change because you have changed your resolve, think of the possibilities. I'm not saying it's going to cure the kid, okay.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying wow, we're going to have a lot better understanding of ourselves. I mean, you know when your kid beats up everything, destroys the whole house for an hour and then all of a sudden decides that they're cuddly and happy and they want to be loved and cuddled and kissed. And you're still picking up the pieces, cleaning up blood and puke and everything else and broken bones and windows and TVs and walls and shit. Imagine if there were another way to deal with all of that and to center yourself. I'm working through that right now. I don't have a specific on it, but I just started addressing it the other day and I'm really optimistic that the way I think it, wake up if it's better, it's going to change my child. Have you ever heard of the telepathy tapes? I've heard that they've been debunked as well. I haven't listened to them, but I do want to say that my spouse and I are continually surprised and freaked out at the way our son can be two flights upstairs from us and know exactly what we are getting ready to talk about before we talk about it and come downstairs at the exact right time for us to be having that conversation. He knows and they say that kids like ours, who are nonverbal or just not able to communicate, they hear our thoughts or somehow they absorb what we're thinking and they know what we're getting ready to talk about. So you know if you wake up and your first thought is oh shit, here we go.
Speaker 1:Another day, my son is going to ruin my entire day and all the activities I have planned because he's going to obsess over this piece of fabric that he cannot let go of every single day. Okay, well, guess what? I think you've just set the tone for your day, haven't you? What if you wake up and you say damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, screw that rag. You know, or don't even think about that rag. Think about how I'm just going to move through my day and I'm going to let him do his thing and when? You know, when he does it?
Speaker 1:Here are my programmed responses, and maybe one caseyshipp. com of one day you're is called Hotmomz (with this Z) and I'm not going to help him look for it. I'm not going to get bored of this behavior and I'm not going to help him look for it. I'm not going to fold, I'm not going to bow to his needs and demands. I'm going to own my energy. I'm calling my energy my own energy. You know, I mean just what. If, what? If? I mean that could be a really extreme example, or maybe not, but my spouse has been learning a little bit from me.
Speaker 1:I give him little bits and pieces of this and he is actually recalibrating some things at home and our son is getting bored. He's getting bored with the I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, because the response that he's getting from his dad now is not as much fun as it was before. We used to either say I love you or say I'm done with that or say new words, but he has developed a way to even if we say I'm done with that or use new words, our son. That gives him something to hang on to, it gives him something to mess with us about and it gives him just something else to obsess with. Now my spouse is just not responding. I'm not going to respond, and that's the attitude I've taken. I'm not going to respond to anything that lowers my energetic vibration. I'm not going to respond, and that's the attitude I've taken. I'm not going to respond to anything that lowers my energetic vibration. I'm not going to respond. I don't have to say yes to anything. I don't have to go to that birthday party. I don't have to give this person a reason why I don't or do want to do something. I don't have to meet up with anybody. They say they're coming to my area, so what? I don't want to. I'm done with obligation, I'm done with managing the emotions of others and I feel that that's what freedom feels like. Even though I'm still in the caregiver role, when I go home I'm still going to be the wife and mother. I'm still going to be the severe autism mom. I'm just going to be different.
Speaker 1:Anyway, this lady's name is Casey Ship, so it's C-A-S-E-Y-S-H-I-P-P dot com and her program is called Hot Moms with a Z Lifestyle and it's amazing. So it's all about recalibrating your nervous system and fixing the way that you eat and contact. parentingsevereautism@ and sculpting your body with exercises that coffee, easy on your nervous system, not too taxing. Yes, you can increase the intensity and the load as you improve, but it starts at the bare bones, basics and believing that you have adrenal fatigue and that your nervous system is tanked psa. buzzsprout. com zero and we just build from there. I have hardly exercised at all because my nervous system is not happy a lot of the time it's still fluctuating wildly. But the more progress I make, the more I'm able to do.
Speaker 1:Just this week, today's Saturday so this past week, I have been able to start doing body weight workouts and some resistance bands and my dumbbells. It has been probably three or four weeks and I started off working at the gym through this program with barbells and dumbbells. But we realized very quickly that I wasn't as healthy as I felt I was, and that was because of my food results and my check-ins all the time. I just can't say enough about it. So I think right now she may have a special going on where you can start for $7, where I started for $22. But I look, you're gonna immediately purchase a hair test, so that's about 50 bucks and then you're going to immediately see how valuable this stuff is and you're going to want to invest for a one year program. I mean there's really no point in not doing that because you're not even going to get your hair test results back in time to make a difference. I don't, I didn't anyway, but I mean it took me a day longer to figure it out. So there's that, but it's so worth it $1,000 for a one-year life-changing program.
Speaker 1:I hope this was well-received. I hope you enjoyed it very much and if you have any questions about my breakthroughs or my journey on this program, please feel free to contact me. As you know, you can use the email as contactparentingsevereautism at gmailcom. You can also buy me a coffee. Leave me a note there. I think you can leave me a message on Facebook but, like I said, that's a little spotty for me. Oh, you can leave me a fan mail message at psa, short for Parenting Severe Autism psabuzzsproutcom.
Speaker 1:I'm almost an open book. I'll be happy to share a lot with you, and in my next episode I'm going to start talking about when my son's autism really became not cute to everyone else and when society started to block my son from being a part of anything. So we're going to get into the real shit. That actually brought me to tears and made me want to start my YouTube channel. As I told you, I didn't want to be on camera crying all the time, so I started this podcast. Yeah, we're going to start with that and it's going to go back to the non-profit autism therapy to start. In the meantime, you hang in there. You're a superhero.