When They Function Better Without You: The Parental Paradox

Severe autism presents unique challenges during summer months, particularly increased elopement risk and the need for constant vigilance. 

• Summer heat and reduced structure may trigger more elopement behaviors in autistic children
• AngelSense GPS tracking device provides location tracking and two-way communication during elopement incidents
• Children with severe autism sometimes function better when parents are not present
• Schools often lack understanding of severe autism needs and may blame parents rather than providing appropriate support
• Medication effectiveness can fluctuate dramatically, requiring specialized testing to understand metabolism issues
• Vision for creating specialized respite communities designed specifically for severe autism families
• These communities would include trusted respite, parent-trained staff, and wellness opportunities
• Parents of severely autistic children must be "everything" to their child - advocate, therapist, and protector

Check out the AngelSense GPS device link at the bottom of this episode to help protect your eloping child.

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Chapters

• 0:18 Introduction and Summer Eloping
• 2:42 AngelSense: A Lifesaving GPS Solution
• 8:02 Functioning Better Without Parents Present
• 16:51 First Day Back at School Challenges
• 24:06 Medication Struggles and Testing
• 28:43 Vision for Safer Respite Communities

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Hello and welcome to the Parenting Severe Autism podcast. I'm your host, Shannon Chamberlin. I'm so happy that you're here with me today. This episode may seem a little bit off track from what I promised I would talk about last week, but you know how it goes. I will get to his first day of school in this episode, but I want to start off with this first because this is super important.

Speaker 1: 0:40

It's summer and eloping, in our experience, seems to increase in the summer. For our son, I'm not sure if it's because he's programmed to know he should wear more clothes in the winter, like he knows he has to go through more effort before he escapes, or what. Maybe sometimes I wonder if you know he's just more easily pissed off and irritated from the hot temperatures, because if he gets hot he is very angry. That's why I give him a buzz cut and I always make sure we have some kind of a water activity nearby, you know, just because I want him to be happy so he doesn't run and he doesn't hurt himself and whatever. But maybe it's the barometric pressure, the storm systems coming through with the heat, I don't know, maybe it's even barometric pressure, the storm systems coming through with the heat, I don't know. Maybe it's even something to do with him seeing us outside more often, I don't know. Remember, you can always help support this podcast by hitting that little buy me a coffee button, and if you need links to some of the products that work for our family, you should be able to find them at the bottom of every episode. Products that work for our family you should be able to find them at the bottom of every episode. You can always check out my hosting site, which is psabuzzsproutcom, and you can check some of my links there.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Angelsense is the biggest one right now on my mind, because this is when we realized that we needed something like AngelSense and we didn't know it existed. So before I get into the details of our son's first day back at school, I do want to talk about eloping. This is really important to me. It's very close to my heart. It's been mentioned in one episode, but it definitely deserves to be mentioned more often because it's one of the biggest risks to our children's safety. There is something about summer that just is very dangerous and volatile, for whatever's going on, our son's inner world is just bursting all the time. You can check my link at the bottom of most episodes for the AngelSense monitoring device. It's really awesome.

Speaker 1: 2:45

I'll try to make a post on my socials soon to share the features that helped us on one of the scariest days of our lives, a day that our son disappeared and we didn't see him bolt. It's one thing. It's terrifying actually to see your son bolt away from you off the property into the middle of a busy highway with his head straight down, not looking out for his own safety and not being able to catch up with him. It's another thing completely to go to the bathroom and know that your son is there in the house and then to come out of the bathroom 30 seconds later and your child is nowhere to be found. That is a completely different kind of scared, because now you don't know which way he went. You know it's different. It's a completely different thing. First and foremost, in your mind, the whole time is keeping him alive. So it's really hard to do that when you don't know which direction he might have even gone in and in our case he could have gone in five different directions. Actually it was really scary.

Speaker 1: 3:46

We kind of had an idea where he might go, because we know his interests and see he used to be very good at remembering. When we would take him on demonstrations with us, when we would cook for people in their homes, he would instantly figure out what games and movies they had and then, depending on what he was in the mood for, he would tell us at some other point when we're out in the world. He would say turn right, turn left, here, here, there, and he would actually be trying to direct us to the house of the person who has the game or the movie that he has a hankering for at that moment. So we figured that he would have gone in a specific direction, because that's where the food is, there's a grocery store and there are fast food restaurants and he knows where stuff is. That would make him happy if he wanted to leave. So the only thing was which route did he take? Did he take the main road or did he go through the woods? So that's what really scared us. But we had angel sense at the time when he escaped and we didn't see him escape the first time he escaped. We didn't have angel sense, but we could see him and we just couldn't stop him.

Speaker 1: 4:56

So if this is happening with your family and you haven't yet figured out anything to help stop or track your child, I think you should maybe check my episode two, part three. It's about eloping and it's part of the let's Beat the Severe Autism Summer Blues series, and at the bottom of that and at the bottom of every episode I believe, there is a link for AngelSense and it is awesome. I'm going to show the map that we were provided with on our phones through the app when our child ran away and it helped us know exactly where to go, what route to take and other points to put other people at to catch him. It's really helpful. There are a lot of features on this thing that are beneficial for our family If you can find a way to get your child to tolerate it being either on their clothes or on their belongings that are close to them a lot. That's the only thing about it, but it is lightweight and it is small and we managed to get it and have him not really pay attention to it.

Speaker 1: 5:58

One great feature is that it has an intercom. I think that's the right word. I hope I'm not just showing my age. I don't really think I've heard anyone say intercom in many years. But it does have an intercom on it. Intercom normally is not great for many of our kids. Sometimes it'll just piss them off more and I wonder if that's because they're just trying to have a sense of autonomy. But in an eloping or runner situation I think the intercom can be like an extension of ourselves, especially if you can see where they are, like the street or the highway, and you can't keep up with them. You can press your button and say watch out for cars, be careful, wait for me. Things like that Wait for me gets our son's attention. But it does tend to put him in playful mode and he kind of runs away as a joke. So I don't know if that would be a good one.

Speaker 1: 6:51

But this feature can also help in schools. You can listen to what's going on on the bus in the classroom and, if necessary, you can use it to let your mom voice or your dad voice be heard, whether your child is audibly overstimulated, being bullied, pushed too hard at school, mistreated, having their needs ignored. You know my friend's young boy recently, in just the last couple months of school, there was a time when he was actually given the opportunity to cut his hand on a glass dish that dropped and broke in his classroom. What, why, why would there be a glass dish in a classroom like this for a child with severe autism? See, that's why we need eyes and ears. When we can't be there, we can't go to school with them.

Speaker 1: 7:46

For many reasons that would not be great, but we're always halfway in the dark, aren't we? We're left wondering about this shit, the events around leading up to and after what's actually reported to us. That drives me absolutely nuts, because how can you just contact me and tell me my child is being psychotic and I have to come and get him after he's been in school for an hour and a half, but you can't tell me why. Why is he being psychotic? I didn't send him to you being psychotic.

Speaker 1: 8:21

Did he arrive acting psychotic? No, okay, what triggered him? What happened? You never get that damn story. No one ever seems to know. They don't have the answers, do they Not? In our case, they don't. Oh, I don't know. Everything was going just fine and then he just starts slamming his head on the wall. Well, there's something. There's something. You may not realize it because you don't know this child like I know this child, but he's not going to be standing there just hunky-dory and then, for no reason at all, go over and start injuring himself.

Speaker 1: 8:58

So you know we don't get the actual report. So now we've got meltdowns, sibs eloping, attacking, and they're just reports of our kids just doing their autism thing unprovoked. And I just don't believe that. To be fair, probably 87% of the time I don't believe that he is unprovoked. It's just it could be the littlest things.

Speaker 1: 9:24

But if we have ears, if we have an intercom on his person in the same room as him and we can hear his own noises, you know, you can recognize your child's flapping and humming, you can recognize that stuff if you have the opportunity, and then we would know before we even got the phone call. We would probably be able to call them up. Hey, I can hear this going on. Let me tell you what is just happening to my child right now. He's gonna freak out, or he's probably freaking out right now, and I heard it. This is why Maybe you didn't notice it, but something silly happened and it set him off. If there is a weird rumble on this episode, there is some kind of car with a big muffler issue. I don't know.

Speaker 1: 10:08

You know everyone thinks it's really cool, but when you're in a school, we would have been better informed, because what triggers our kids can be easily overlooked by everyone else. It's considered normal, maybe, and not worth remembering or reporting, and it means everything to our kids. That's how it usually happens. What most people consider nothing is a big deal to our kids and then not only are they confronted with. This makes me very uncomfortable. I don't like this, but the person here who I know is in charge or supposed to be helping me doesn't even care. They don't even recognize my discomfort, they're making it worse. Or you know, I mean there's all kinds of stuff that goes on with a nonverbal child and you have to be tuned into that, and these people who take care of the environments around our children are often not able to be tuned into that. So that's why we get the half-assed reports and missing information. When we get reports, that stuff means everything to our kids. It means everything to us.

Speaker 1: 11:17

There's one thing I want to mention before I get into Jacob's return to school. After he said yes, we kept asking him. Hopefully you remember that's where we left off in the last episode. I can't remember the events around this realization that I had, and I think there are a few reasons for that. I think it's because, first of all, it freaked me out to even consider it. You know, you have one of those realizations and you're like, oh shit, no, I don't want to think about that. And also, because it freaked me out, I didn't talk about it right away. Instead, I purposely observed over a short period of time just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, make sure I'm not seeing things incorrectly, jumping to conclusions. And then you know, when I did mention it privately to my spouse, he kind of scoffed and blew it off and we didn't discuss it much further, even though I brought it up repeatedly. I realized that you know, that could be a way of deflecting, possibly because it's too painful to consider. But I do remember where we were. We were at our home in Wisconsin.

Speaker 1: 12:21

I had been observing his actions, expressions, speech and interactions with others, because I had him going to the different therapies. I would see him with family members as well, basically just some of the uncles once in a while and the grandfather. But I always did get an opportunity to remove myself from the situation so that he was just interacting with other people and not me. I think I mentioned to you when I would take him to the autism swim night. I would go and hide upstairs behind some plants and this is why I would watch him with all of those people and the other kids, but mostly the adults. You know he doesn't really do peers.

Speaker 1: 13:06

So anyway, I'm observing all of these actions, expressions, speech and interactions with others and sadly I noticed immediate decline in all areas as soon as he knew that I or my spouse or both of us were anywhere within earshot. I just got this whisper in my ear that made my heart drop. We are hindering his progress. It's obvious he seems to default to this less developed, less intelligent, more needy version of himself. I noticed all of this before. He lost all of his words and skills when he turned 15. I just kept observing it. He would act like a completely different dude with all of the therapists, except for the lady at the CP center, because he was going through that screaming and crying phase where he just would not stop. That was really hard for me to deal with, because why, why are you? Why is he doing that? I don't like baby him, you know.

Speaker 1: 14:05

I noticed when he was about eight or nine that I was babying him too much. I got to where I could tell by where his eyes looked what he needed and I would give it to him. I could read the kid's needs and he didn't have to communicate. And I realized one day whoa, this isn't good. So I deliberately took steps to make sure that he had to communicate what he wanted, what he needed, the best that he could, and I would still be tasked with deciphering everything, but he had to at least make the effort. So I wasn't babying him, I wasn't coddling him, I was trying to make him function to the best of his ability and I don't understand why he does so much better with other people. Maybe it's just because he knows we have expectations of him and he thinks other people don't. I don't understand it.

Speaker 1: 14:56

Well, the lady at the autism nonprofit place said that he is seeking negative attention. I don't understand it. Well, the lady at the autism non-profit place said that he is seeking negative attention. I don't know if I actually told you that All of the behaviors that I've mentioned so far, and that I will continue mentioning everything negative is that he was doing something called negative attention seeking behaviors. I said we give him all the love in the world. We give him everything that he needs. He's well protected, he's safe, he's loved. We try to have fun with him, we groom him, we give him spa nights, we, you know like why would you need more attention and why would you seek negative attention? But she said it's because he likes living on the edge of danger and disaster and that's where he is happy and that's where he is happy and that's where he'll keep everyone else and for us it's stress and for him it's fun. He feels alive. It's not very fair at all, but anyway, I just felt for many years that we were hindering his progress.

Speaker 1: 15:50

But just the other day I went to visit him because I'm still at the camper and his grandpa told me again that when my spouse and I are not there, or he thinks we're not there, he will not wrap his lips around his teeth to talk to his grandpa and if he does, his grandpa reminds him that he can't understand him and then he stops and he does not do any of the behaviors that we constantly have to tell him to stop doing, and he only does that with us, and Tweedledum confirms that all the time. This is not a new development. He is always pulling me aside and saying when you're not here he is good. When you're not here, I don't have any trouble with him at all, and I know he does have a little, because that's what the cannabis medicine exists for. But he's always telling me all the stuff that you have to get on him about and tell him to leave you alone and stop. Stop, stop all that stuff. He doesn't do that when you're not here, it's only when you guys are here, and that's the only confirmation I have is from him. But I know it's true and it's been true, for I think, going on 10 years and it is getting really old.

Speaker 1: 16:56

So anyway, I believe that he agreed to go back to school just before he turned 16, and the first day back, his very first day back at school, the teachers were already scorning us and blaming us instantly for quote-unquote making him worse. You made him worse by homeschooling him. You made him worse and, looking back, I think that was their way of trying to make us feel that we needed them to help our son, and that helps them sweep the previous abuse under the rug. That's what I think I mean. My spouse went in personally again and addressed our child's homeroom classmates again and explained that our son is awesome and fun but he definitely has high needs. He explained the traits of our son's autism and he motivated the kids to kind of mentor him in a way. And this is because the school forced our son into mainstream classrooms. They just completely ignored our son's disabilities.

Speaker 1: 18:00

We had IEPs galore from the start this time, but this time we had the help of the Autism Whisperer lady as an advocate, so she would get copied the emails and she would show up to every meeting. She told us how often we can call emergency IEPs and she recommended that we do it and do it and do it because our son was being disrespected and mishandled For sure. The situation was wrong when they accused us instantly of making him worse by pulling him out of school. I asked them to show me what you're talking about. Let me see the school records of what you did for him before.

Speaker 1: 18:38

Now see, I knew that he lost his words and stuff, but I also knew that wasn't my fault and I educated him as much as he would allow me to, but I didn't force it on him. I'm not. I mean, what's he going to learn if you force him to sit there, you know. So we tried to teach him real life stuff too, that he also didn't want to learn. But other than that, like okay, it wasn't our fault and I know that because there's what is her name? Mary oh, I've got it. Mary Barbara or Mary Barbera, I don't know how you say it she's on YouTube. She's the one. I have recently started seeing her on social media again, probably on Instagram, and I first found her on YouTube nine or 10 years ago when he started changing and acting out and I was looking for guidance. She's the one who has a video talking about how, when these kids turn 15, there's a really good chance that they're going to lose their skills. I found that video already.

Speaker 1: 19:35

I knew it wasn't my fault and I knew I didn't make him worse. I didn't, first of all, I didn't make him worse. I didn't, first of all, I didn't abuse him while he was at home. He got abused while he was at school. So what the hell? How Really I made him worse.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Okay, that was really irresponsible of them, I thought, and I asked them to produce some records from the previous years at school and they couldn't. He had. I believe he was in school for a year and a half before we pulled him out, I'm pretty sure, because they should have had the transcripts from his other school. I mean, there was just no reason for them to tell me that they don't have the records. They don't have any of his records at all and it's because we pulled him out. I don't, I don't know. That doesn't seem right to me. I don't think so. I just don't. I asked them and they said that they're supposed to keep the records until he's aged out. And he definitely wasn't aged out, he was 15.

Speaker 1: 20:29

I don't know, we kind of got screwed on that whole school thing, but they did tell us their very first day that we screwed him up and made him worse. So, with these IEPs and everything, they did start making changes and we had some really interesting things happen while he was in school. That girl was still there and they still made him sit next to her in the classroom. I didn't, I don't even know, I don't have the words of how disrespectful that is to my son's needs and we just they would not budge on this. I mean, you know what do? You have 20, 30 kids in a classroom and you can't move this girl or put my son next to somebody else who's not overbearing and a bully, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 21:13

I just I hated that school. They totally disrespected our family, our son. I just don't understand why they would put him through traumatic situations every day, consciously. It's like the grandparents who pump the kids full of sugar and then send them back home to the parents, except it's much worse him through traumatic situations every day, consciously. It's like the grandparents who pump the kids full of sugar and then send them back home to the parents. Except it's much worse when it's just you're disrespecting a child who can't speak up for himself. It was really a terrible experience, even though there were some cool things that were happening. Overall, it was demeaning and degrading to our son to have to be in that situation and for them to insist that he, because of his age, get filtered into mainstream classrooms just so he could have to leave the mainstream classroom periodically to go and get his therapies, to go and get his therapies and of course, now there's a 40 minute adjustment for that. You know it was just a waste of resources and there were so many appalling things which are going to be coming up in future episodes.

Speaker 1: 22:15

Now that we're on this subject, lots of bullshit going on at that school, but the Autism Whisperer never actually suggested that we do anything drastic. But you know, the more I talk about it I feel like we should have and I suppose when you have this situation like you do and like we do, you're always going to beat yourself up and should have, would have, could have and all that stuff. And the fact is we're doing the best we can. All of us are uncharted territory here and it doesn't matter what any other parent says about their experience in schools with severe autism. You're going to go through your own stuff. You know it might help to get backstories and ideas of how to respond and stuff like that. But we're all going to be faced with separate challenges and we're all going to get down on ourselves about it because we are tasked with being everything to this child. Everything, every single function that has to take place for this child to have a comfortable life and to have rights and freedoms, therapies, supplies. We have to do all of that. We're not just mom and dad, we're therapists and doctors and nurses. We're everything. So don't get down on yourself when you run into people mistreating your kid. You're doing the best that you can, you cannot possibly foresee everything that the world is going to throw at your kid. One thing you can do, which I wish I could have done back then, is have an intercom type thing on your child. I mean, if you're trying to catch some people up in some bullshit, you know they're mistreating your child, that is definitely the way to go. But the biggest thing about that angel sense thing for us is just knowing where he's at if he runs and being able to contact neighbors and people who may be available in the local area to go and block his path.

Speaker 1: 24:00

In my next episode I'm going to reveal some of the cool things and some of the messed up things that started happening at the school for our son. If you haven't heard my episode about the severe autism summer blues and you are having a tough time this summer, it might help you to go listen to at least the first episode. Well, they're all good. One is about ways that you can fill in for the loss of the routine once school lets out, and the next one, I believe, is about taking care of yourself as the caregiver during this time. And then the third one is about solutions for eloping and about my story personally experiencing loping. That might help you.

Speaker 1: 24:42

But 4th of July is a completely different story, obviously, with the threat of the fireworks and everything. But the Mother's Day and the Father's Day and the Memorial Day have all passed and those are the holidays when a lot of us get shunned and our kid doesn't get to go to the pool or get to go to the pool party or get to go to some get-together. You know they say we can come, but you know, can you leave your kid with someone else? We don't want your child over here. All of that really emotionally damaging stuff for us parents is over, so that's a plus. You know you only have a few more events to go and then it'll be fall in no time. It really is laborious in the summer trying to keep these kids happy and keep them from running and sometimes, no matter what you do, even if it's their favorite thing on earth, they will not be happy and all you can do is leave them alone and hope to God they don't run. And although ours is pretty sedated right now with his cannabis medicine, we have not forgotten we actually have an appointment for our son.

Speaker 1: 25:41

I wanted to mention this because I didn't know it was a thing. I feel like I should have known it was a thing, but I didn't know it was a thing. I have been complaining to his doctor about the medicine. He just doesn't seem to be phased by his medicine. I mean, he's obviously way better than he was before he got on it. But she has changed his medicine and he's still not cool. It's like it's not making a difference for him at all. He almost seems more agitated and he needs cannabis more often, and I think that is just a load of crap. I don't think that he should need cannabis that often. These drugs, they should work. The cannabis is supposed to stay in your system for six to eight hours and you know there are days where he is just behavior wise. He's demanding that he get his cannabis medicine every two hours. It sometimes it takes three hours for it to work and it's just ridiculous. You can tell that he's medicated with cannabis, you can tell, but then it instantly wears off or I don't know. It just seems like he fights it sometimes and he just wants more and more and more. I don't know what's going on. So anyway, I've been complaining to the doctor about that and we're going in in August and she's going to do I believe it's a saliva test to see how he is metabolizing his medicines. I feel like they said it's a gene test. I don't, I don't remember, though I'll have to let you know. But I am very curious about that because he does have a pretty high metabolism and maybe some of it's, you know, inherited from his dad, but some of it is because of all his flapping and stimming and everything, and he is starting to get a little bit of a pot belly. Now he's getting his 24 year old pot belly. We're going to find out, we'll see what's happening and, you know, maybe it's a food thing, maybe it's a metabolism thing, I'm not sure. But soon as we get answers in August about that, I will definitely fill you in.

Speaker 1: 27:30

I think about all of you guys, even though I don't know you. I talked to a couple of you and I just am always thinking of our severe autism tribe members in the world, because we're all so isolated and I just feel like we could do better. I feel like these safer respite communities that I'm talking about building are just absolutely necessary for us, just for our health alone, for the kids and the parents the health benefits alone of having a community like that, with designated areas for forest, bathing and outdoor wellness and other wellness programs, and the educational aspects of the community with the Montessori principles mixed with therapy, and I really think our kids could thrive if people cared enough to tailor experiences to them. I don't really expect that my son would ever be able to actually have a job, and I get a lot of flack for that from other people out in the world who don't have a kid like mine. Oh, you shouldn't limit him and all that stuff. Whatever I you know he can't even wash his hands, come on. But I do think that he enjoys learning if it's tailored to his unique learning style and it doesn't have to be long blocks of time, just little experiences. That's what he needs. He doesn't need to actually be educated, he needs to experience things that give him the education and you know that blueprint that I laid out in my episode about it. I really don't think I'm missing anything. But I would love to hear from you as the parents. Your kids are different, your needs are different.

Speaker 1: 29:11

What would make a perfect respite community for you Other than actually getting respite from parents you can trust, because you guys are bonded and you understand each other's kids and all of that, and you get to train the therapists and educators who come into the community. Other than that great shit, what do you think would make your life so much better? I mean, we've already talked about the opportunity for the parents to get back to work or to work within the community that we create by providing their own services, because all of our kids will be better cared for and watched over and will have access to health and wellness opportunities and modalities and no loud vehicles. I don't know if I told you that part, but there's a place where you park your vehicle and then you take a golf cart to your little community. I mean, I pretty much.

Speaker 1: 30:02

I think we've thought of everything really, just because of what would make our lives in our family the three of us what would be perfect? Trusted respite would make a huge difference. Trusted therapists and educators who are trained about my kid by me and my husband would be perfect. Would be perfect Someone to take care of healthy food options being made available for us easily, without having to drive an hour in a circle to hit four different stores and maybe get what my son needs and the opportunity to work some land, grow some food, hit the sauna, hit the gym, maybe learn yoga or teach yoga if that's your thing. You know just some hobbies.

Speaker 1: 30:45

And hey, with everything that you've lost so far, what would make it worth it to promote an idea like that for you? I would love to hear your ideas. I would work it into my blueprint I'm still working on the topography of it and everything to get into the video that goes along with the audio that you heard. But I am not kidding about this. I've got my eye on a campground. Get into the video that goes along with the audio that you heard. But I am not kidding about this. I've got my eye on a campground. It's been available for a while and they're family oriented anyway, family owned and everything I just need.

Speaker 1: 31:13

I don't want investors because I don't want to have to promise them something in return. I would love philanthropists, donations, to help me reach my goal to get this campground and to develop the community, the respite community, within that campground. Why a campground? Because it's already there. The land is already there for a reason. It's obviously going to be in a beautiful, fun, serene place in nature and it's already turning a profit and the extra land is for me to work with and offer a different type of community living opportunity for marginalized families like ours who are dealing with severe autism. The recreation is already there. We just have to expand upon it and then provide all of the things that are missing out of our lives. Your life is pretty freaking drab, right, and it's scary because people mistreat your kid. Look, I don't have to go on and on, you already know.

Speaker 1: 32:11

But if you're not familiar with the Safer Lifestyles Blueprint for Respite Communities that I have come up with, please go listen to that episode. It's possibly episode 57. I'm sorry, I don't know which one it is. I really should know that, but I thought it was 58. But you can't miss it. If you go and get a list of my episodes, it says Safer Lifestyles. Anyway, please go check that out and please drop me a line if you have any suggestions that I can include in the blueprint for this community idea. I really, really, really want to get the flagship one done and opened and prove that this is the way to go for us. We deserve it, we need it, our kids, you know. This allows for long-term planning. There's a huge benefit to this Hang in there, you're a superhero.