Connection With Lenette Serlo

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees Podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Lynette, Lynette Serlo. Thank you for joining us today, Lynette. I'm really looking forward to, to our conversation. It's going to be a blast.

Thank you, Simon. I'm thrilled to be here with you today.

Yeah, thrilled, that's a great word, isn't it? Um, me too, thrilled. We could all do a little bit more thrill in our life, can we? So listeners, I've said this before, right? We already have people with huge hearts on this show, but huge hearts and so much modesty about the size of their hearts. So Lynette's got 4 kiddos through adoption, and she also— how she manages time to raise 4 kids and run a nonprofit that's growing at some incredible speed. So she's the founder and CEO of Generation O, which is a national organization in the States for opioid-exposed kids. So I don't know, how do you do it all?

How do you do it all?

I'll tell you one thing for nothing before she answers her own question. Perhaps I should be not interrupting. She does it by— she told me that she's been walking for the last couple of days, and that's the first time she'd been walking for a long, long time, I get the feeling. So I think she does, you know, some of it by maybe edging some of her own self-care stuff out, perhaps. Lynette, would that be about right?

Yes, I don't think that you can put raising 4 interesting children and birthing an organization and self-care in the same bucket.

Yeah.

I'd love to think that there's a rhythm to be able to do them all. And I try to do them all because I know without the self-care, everything else suffers. But it's a challenge. It's a challenge. My 4 children were all born with prenatal substance exposure. We adopted each of them individually and brought them home from the hospital, my husband and I. What a journey it's been. 3 of them are now teenagers. One's off on her own in college. She's 19. And then I've got 2 in 10th grade that are 16 and 17. And then we've got a little bonus guy who's 6. So he still keeps us grounded in all things 6-year-old boy.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yesterday I did an interview and it was called Grounded, right? So What grounds you, Lynette?

I think that everything that's constantly happening in my life keeps me grounded because I have to. I don't know that I prefer to stay grounded. I mean, my nervous system would have me keep busy, but when the 6-year-old walks in and Needs you to cook them an egg. You know, you got to stop and cook them an egg. So it's the interaction with with the children, and and that's a big part of it. You know, I've lived a lot of life, and I've understood that when I don't stay grounded, bad things happen. So I do my best to you know keep what's in front of me important, and you know. Stay busy with important things. The work I'm doing with Generation O is very grounding because I know it's such important work to help people understand what these opioid-exposed children are dealing with in their lives. And so it's, it's moment by moment.

Yeah. Yeah, our nervous systems Like nervous systems keeping us busy, like a high wire act. I don't know. How does it feel for you?

Well, my nervous system is all over the place. And but what I know, what I know more about perhaps than my own nervous system is the nervous system of these kids. Because what's happening to them is When opioids are part of their fetal development, there's some changes taking place. There's, there's changes in their brain. There's changes in the structure and function of what's going on in their brains and bodies. And when they're born, their nervous system may be different than a child who wasn't exposed to these substances. And a lot of people, you know, with the opioid epidemic in the US, a lot of people have heard about how these babies are born. And then when the umbilical cord is separated and those opioids are no longer flowing into these tiny bodies, they have to go through this withdrawal. And that's a heart-wrenching thing to watch. But when the withdrawal is done, They're still left with that miswired nervous system. And now we have the next 18 years of childhood that they need developmental surveillance and support. And that's this huge gap that the team that I'm working with sees and really wants to help fill in.

Yeah. And yet, With all that background, you'd think, you'd think a 19-year-old with that sort of start, um, wouldn't be at college, right?

Yep. And I can tell you there were many years when I never thought she was gonna launch. You know, I just, I didn't see it. And, um, this particular child and I, our personalities are so different and we've really struggled. And when I would, when I would see her as a 10-year-old or a 13-year-old and think, how in the heck is she ever going to get through school and get on with her life and launch? And, and I need her to launch because we need to be living in separate places. But it's happened. It's happened. And she launched. She fell flat on her face. Excuse me. She fell flat on her face and she got right back up. And she's doing amazing, Simon.

I—

we are so proud of what she's doing. And she's following her own path. And it's not a path that we could see clearly for quite a while. But she's— she's figured out for her what works and what she needs. And we're still supporting her. You know, this is a piece of the dysregulation.

Yeah.

But her maturity is not at 19. Her maturity is maybe at 13, 14. And I didn't realize this until it happened, but I've, I've started to say that it's like sending a, a middle school kid, which I don't know what you guys call middle school, the, the, the ages when you're like 8, 10, 12, like that age range. It's like sending someone that age range off to college. And not only off to college. But we live in Florida and her college is in Ohio. That's a significant distance. That's an airplane ride away. And we, and, and we did this and it's no, um, surprise that she fell flat on her face, but it's exactly what she needed. And now she's doing amazing.

So, you know, I didn't ask you the question, right? Thriving adoptees. That's what you're talking about, is it?

Is that, Yeah, I would say she is, um, she is currently thriving. And it's, it's a different picture than what, um, would be thriving to me. Thriving to her is, is very different. Um, but she's doing it. And, you know, a huge piece of that was understanding who she was and supporting that person. Not trying to support the person who I think that she should be.

Yeah. So I was, I was talking to an adopted mum a couple of weeks ago, and this was, I can't remember whether it was part of the interview or afterwards. And I've got this I've got this thing. I see this thing so, so clearly. And the, the thing that I see is our, our, our fundamental wholeness underneath our trauma. Nobody's denying the trauma. I'm just saying underneath the trauma, maybe behind the trauma, We're whole, right? This, this is what Richard Schwartz of Internal Family Systems would call the uppercase S self, what other people might call consciousness or, or awareness. It's what's not touched by the SH1T that we go through, and this This, this mum said, um, yeah, I, I, I, this is kind of new to me. I said, well, yeah, it's, it, it's new, you know, um, this wholeness. We've, we've been trauma aware and we should be, and trauma informed. We need, we need to be trauma informed, we need to be trauma aware, but we also need to be wholeness aware, in, in, in my opinion, because seeing my wholeness is what's changed the metaphor I live for, for life, right?

Right.

It's where the metaphor I live from, the way I live, seeing my wholeness and feeling my wholeness. And she said, well, my, my, my daughter's, uh, trauma was, uh, was pre-birth. And I said, yeah, yeah. And I said, she's— so she talked about behavior issues and stuff like that. And I said, so is she ever at peace then? And this lady said, Yeah. I said, well, that's who she is. And I went on to say, well, you know, if somebody that's born— if you're born blind, right, you're always blind. You don't have moments of sight and moments— it doesn't come and go. And so I'm thinking with this It's a very long and long way to wind up to a question, but how do you see all that? This how do you see the the the the the what the the peace and and and the moments of the moments of regulation and dysregulation and. How do you see the intermittency of that, and, and how does that play out for kids who are opioid exposed?

I like that question because it really, um, is important when we're talking about kids who were born with a certain challenge because of the exposure. But that doesn't identify them. What identifies them is what you're talking about, who they are and their wholeness. And I think the trauma-informed care is a really important piece of that because the trauma-informed teachings allow us to see that this behavior is not who they are. It's just a form of communication. And I can tell you, with my oldest opioid-exposed son, his name is Johnny. When he was born, the doctor— he went through his 10-day withdrawal at the hospital, and the doctor gave us our brand-new baby boy and said, here you go. He's through his withdrawal. There's nothing more to see here. Raise him up like a normal child. And we did. We didn't know any better. And it wasn't until he was 5, 6, 7 years old that we started to see things that made me think, hmm, maybe this kid needs a little bit more support than a typical child. And that's when I started to learn about trauma-informed care. And that's when I started to learn to parent differently. And until I was able to do that, all I saw when I was parenting like a typical parent, all I saw was that I gave an order, he didn't follow it. He must be bad. There must be something wrong with him. What are— you know, that's what we're taught, that the cause and effect. But once I was able to see that his own trauma had gotten in the way, And his own wiring and dysregulation had gotten in the way. And it wasn't that he didn't want to follow the command. He couldn't follow the command. He needed more skills. He needed more understanding. And that process of parenting him normally to understanding trauma-informed care and beginning to parent him differently took years. And if there's 2 parents, like in my husband and I's case, there was 2 parents, one of us is going to be catching on and refining their parenting a lot quicker than the other one. The fact that both of you would be doing it at the same time would just be a miracle. And so I'm starting to parent him different. I'm starting to see who he is underneath. And my husband is still trying to hammer him down with, this is— This is how my husband and I were both raised. You know, the authoritarian voice says something, the subordinate person follows it. And, and he still kept trying even when it wasn't working until he eventually saw the light. But having to go through this process, for me, is what it took to be able to see he's not going to be something— someone different. He's— he is who he is. His wholeness is underneath that dysregulation. And now that I can see it, man, this is the best dirt bike rider that I know. He's an amazing wrestler. He's a good driver. He is so generous and responsible. He's got this magnetic personality. Wherever we take him, whenever we go on vacation, everyone on at the resort. knows this kid and loves this kid. We look different than him. He's mixed race and we're white, and people will not realize we're his parents and start talking about this amazing kid. We're like, yeah, yeah, that's our Johnny. That's our kid. And he's got so much that is his wholeness. And now that I see that, I can support it. And his wholeness needs more educational supports, and his wholeness needs a place to release all that pent-up energy. But it's still, it's still his wholeness.

Yeah. And does he see it?

Not yet. I mean, I think he does to a certain extent because he's got that 16-year-old boy machado, you know, like, He, he can see some of it. Um, but, you know, in the school system, he's constantly presented with things that are very difficult for them. And even when he tries his hardest, he doesn't succeed. And so there's a lot of doubt that creeps in there. Um, I think we finally convinced him that he's intelligent, even though he may not be able to score well on a school test, you know, to try and explain that difference to him. And I hope that he will stay open to learning more as he grows. But, you know, he doesn't understand it in as broad of a sense that Dad and I do. Because he's going to have to follow his own path, just like you have, Simon, right? You know, he's going to have to follow his own path to, like, get— yeah.

Until, you know, like, until we see our own light.

Yeah, I mean, he luckily, he's got this internal light that other people can see, and that for him can buoy him for a little while. But my other opioid-exposed son, he doesn't have that same magnetic personality. You know, and so I think it might be a little bit different for him because he doesn't have people buoying him on in the same way. He doesn't walk into a room and light it up, whereas my older one does, and that's just part of his personality.

Yeah. How do we get? Because me and my wife haven't got any kids, right? So how how do we get kids to see their own strengths?

I don't know that I know the answer to that question. And, you know, I think I've struggled to see my own strengths. And so I'm thinking from a parenting perspective, you know, if you're someone who struggles with seeing your own strength, it might make it harder to help your children to see their strengths. Now, my husband doesn't struggle to see his strengths. He thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread, and he's been able to communicate to that to the kids.

So. Did you, 'cause I don't know whether this is a, a British thing or, you know, or it, you know, travels across the pond or what, you know, when, when I was growing up, um, the idea of loving yourself, was the pride that comes before the fall. You know, you, you, you love yourself. That, that's a criticism. Is, is, is loving yourself seen as a criticism in the States like it is in the UK?

I think it's, I think it's changed a bit because I remember growing up— I hope so.

Yeah, yeah, it needs to.

It needs to. I remember growing up that, um, I remember my mom in the '70s going through, like, trying to love herself and it being a new concept. You know, like, we had never thought about that before. Um, I think there's a lot in, in today's youth that allows them to love themselves, but that's a tough one because then, then you have the pride. There's a, there's a balance there.

I think they've got. Oh, I hear this. I hear this, and I and I see it. So we were we were on holiday, and a friend's. Child wouldn't go— 18, 19, at college, you know, like your eldest— um, couldn't go into a bar with us. And she said, I'd have to be, uh, off, off my head on booze to, to go into that. And this really kind of brought it home for me, this, um, the fragility, the fragility, the emotion, the emotional fragility of, uh, of, of kids that we read about.

Yeah.

all the time and the mental health stuff that we hear about all the time, the statistics, the social media and that. But that one example of that, and then it scared the bejesus out of me really.

It's It reminds me of the social anxiety that we hear about with these kids a lot. And, and all of my kids have some level in some type of anxiety. And the opioid-exposed children as a population deal with a high level of anxiety. And it might not always be social anxiety. Like, I don't think that my oldest son has social anxiety, but he has anxiety about other things at a level that's— it's just different than his peers. And I, you know, we've seen studies that anxiety in children has gotten higher.

Recently.

But I think within the population of opioid-exposed children, it's part of their makeup. It's part of the reprogramming that's happening when those opioids are combined with the fetus. And supporting that anxiety and understanding what it is makes all the difference between allowing these kids to thrive and making them feel even worse about themselves.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you seen the movie The French Connection?

I have not.

So it's, um, Gene Hackman movie from the '70s, and he's a, he's a cop in New York, uh, and he's investigating heroin, uh, and he finds himself in, in Marseille And they— the baddies, who are the drug dealers, capture him and make, you know, inject heroin. So he has to then come off it. You see him going through the cold turkey. It's incredible. It's an incredible film. And I also— so it's well worth a watch. I also read a book by a British author, a guy called Ben Timberlake. It's an incredible book. So the guy is an adrenaline junkie who becomes a junkie junkie. And he decides, he decides— it's just so nuts— he decides to try heroin for 2 weeks.

Okay.

To see what it's like coming off it. 5 years later, he's sunk off. He sunk further and further down And become, yeah, sunk down lower and lower and lower. And then he hits rock bottom. And then he hits rock bottom and he bounces, and he bounces back up. And his bounce back up is based on an insight that he has, and he shares it in one sentence. And he says, and then I realized that I was bigger than my addiction. That, that thought landed so profoundly for him, it was the start of his turnaround. And he doesn't explain anything more about, you know, so that's an epiphany. That, that's, you know, you talked about your husband seeing the light, right? That there we are, and it's in one sentence. But obviously, I can't convey the import of it to you. I can't. It was his epiphany, right? And secondhand epiphanies don't seem to make— they don't.

No.

Yeah.

No, there was—

yeah.

I've been talking to a group of women who are in their 30s and 40s, and they have all— they were all born And they were all exposed to opioids in utero and were born and had the withdrawal. And now they're in their 30s and 40s, and we're talking about what their experience has been like in life and what they're dealing with now. They have some unusual medical conditions and things. But one of them had said that she works in the foster care system, and she was with a guy, with a young, you know, teenager, and he had been addicted to some substance, and, you know, had gotten clean, and she was taking him back somewhere. And he's like, I always just want more. I can't imagine ever feeling fulfilled. I just always want more. And, you know, I think that's a similar feeling to an adrenaline junkie. And I notice with my sons, the sensory system, the sensory processing system is one of the things that we find is very different in these kids. It's just so dysregulated. You know, noises might seem louder or softer, or they, they have— it's called sensory seeking when they just want more. And it's because the normal amount of light or softness or whatever is not enough for them. They need more. And so it's very similar to an adrenaline junkie because my, my oldest You know, he always is wanting to ride faster or roll on the ground more times or jump off a higher platform or do 2 flips instead of 1 flip. Well, what's happened is that, you know, we're not letting him do wild, crazy, unsafe things. We're just giving him the opportunity to be a normal kid. Simon, he's already gotten 7 concussions in his life. Because he— his, his system needs so much more stimulation. And so he's always doing things that put him in situations where he was 3 years old and he was sitting on a fence and he fell off and hit his head. But he had climbed up on that fence over and over and over again because he needs that stimulation. And so that's one of my big worries about these kids is You know, they have that same thing in them, that intensity that needs to be filled. And how can we support that as their parents so that we can direct them into good ways to do that instead of deciding to try heroin for 2 weeks? Because that's what they're going to want, you know, if, if, if they can't— if they can't figure out how to fulfill that inner need that's part of them by I mentioned my son's a dirt bike rider, you know, participating in those races and those practices gives him that outlet. But if I didn't allow him to do that, then someone at some point in his life is going to offer him heroin or pot or whatever it is, and he's going to say, yeah, great, let me try it. And, and you know what? It's going to feel really good because his system is already set up to crave that.

I interviewed a, a young adoptee, probably in his early 20s, yesterday. Um, and he said, uh, the opposite of, of addiction is connection. Yes. It blew me away. Yeah, blew me away. I talked to an adoptee in Atlanta this morning, and he said he listens to the show and it's He was saying that it helped him a lot. And, um, he, uh, he was talking about his, his, he was talking about his birth mum. And, um, he said, uh, he was talking about anger and he'd listened to my, you know, a bit about my story and anger. And, and I said to him, well, he was talking about anger and I said, well, you're— you were— you, you were your— you meant the world. You were the world to your birth mother, right? Um, and now I can see it's even bigger than that, right? You were, you were her universe. Her universe. You are the universe to her. And so you're infinite, and how can the infinite be insufficient? And, and, and he just— it just, it just floored him in a really good way.

Yeah.

And I That, that infinite— how can the infinite be insufficient, right? So why do we go? Why do we go doom scrolling, getting addicted to dirt biking? I don't know. Why do we get— there's— why do we get addicted to anything? Why, why do we— you know, people, retail therapy, right? Oh, Oh, I need some retail therapy, right? Okay. Um, and, uh, you know, me and watches, I've got a bit of an addiction thing going on with watches. I've just got a new one as well today. It's really cool.

That's a pretty safe addiction.

That's a pretty cool one. Um, and I, from our, from our infinity, from our infinity, we're enough. We're not looking where we're, we're ex— we're expressing our infinity with the world. We're not, we're not seeking validity or an end to our boredom, or—

But do we feel that? And, and I think that's, that's the wholeness, the infinite Is the wholeness that's below all of this. But if we can't access it, then then we don't have the connection.

We are it.

We are. We are. But not all of us can feel it.

Well, we haven't seen it. Like we haven't. We haven't see. We have to see it first.

Yeah. And how do you see it through connection?

You see it. We see it through connection. We see it through sufficiency. We see it through peace. We see it like. You know, when you— I was asking you that question about how do we get Asperger's kids to see their strengths, I think where you were going with it before we got— I probably side-railed you into a different answer, um, is that, well, we have to, we have to see it for our— we have to see it for ourselves. And when I come— and I mentioned this recently on a podcast, sorry listeners, if I had I was talking to an adoptee who has adopted. Her name escapes me just at the moment. Maybe it'll come back to me. And she was talking about— she got 3 kids, I think, 2 bio kids and then adopted a daughter. Daughter was like 8 or 9. And she was talking about how to get her How to help her daughter, her adopted daughter, see her own self-worth. And we went back and forth on it for a time, and then I said something, and then the penny dropped for this adoptive mum that I was talking to, who was also an adoptee. And it was about Her, her seeing her own self-worth. So that, that's the first phase, I think, for me. We have to see it for ourselves first, and then we have to develop the skill of pointing. So it's a bit like, uh, learning to dirt bike ride, I would imagine, right? Or become a dirt bike, dirt bike ride trainer. Trainer. I can't, I'm not a dirt biker, I'm absolutely terrible on motorbikes, I'm not coordinated and I would just fall off. I rode on one as a 10-year-old and went straight through his mum's flower bed and knocked her, you know, chopped a bush in half and then went over the handlebars as I went over a 3-foot drop, right? So I'll go with the skiing one, right? So, you know, like, so to, to, to be a good skiing instructor, you've got to be a good skier, and then you've got to become a good instructor.

Mhm.

It's both.

Yep.

It's both. It's about being able to— we can't, we can't give what— we can't share what we haven't got ourselves. And we can't, and we can't point out to others what we haven't seen within our, within ourselves. So you, you're spot on with that, spot on with that. Um, you know, seeing our strengths for, for ourselves without falling into the pride trap.

Yeah.

So yeah, and so it's not just— it's not just— it's not just me that's the— in the, the, um, the infinite that can't be insufficient. It's not just you that's the infinite that can't be insufficient. It's not just Johnny that's the infinite that can't be insufficient. It's all of us. So it's not about specialness, it's not about difference, it's about everyone. I mean, how many infinities can there be? Yeah, mathematically there are loads, apparently, just to really fry your brain.

Don't bring math into the conversation. Yeah, for sure. I mean, um, I can see that in my own story, that, you know, my own struggle to see my own self-worth has impacted my ability to show my children their self-worth.

But you've got a language to it.

Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it. I'm getting better. And, and they got Dad, and, and Dad doesn't have that struggle. So between, between the two of us, um, you know, they are getting pointed in the right direction. They are, um, able to, you know, whether, whether they're will— whether they're at a point that they can hear it yet, that they can hear that they have these Amazing, wonderful strength. You know, going through it with the 6-year-old, you know, because we're kind of like second-time parents now. I feel like we're doing a little bit of grandparenting and parenting at the same time for this younger child. And, you know, he's getting a different, a different experience because we've done this before. We've both grown. Um, and, and I think that he's, um, a little bit more aware of his strengths.

The, the lady that I interviewed, uh, yesterday, Jamie, she's got 8 kids. Um, and I was thinking to myself, well, you've had plenty of times to— plenty of— you've had 8 chances to perfect, right? You know, I think they, they used to say that the average number of kids in the, in the UK, um, household is 1.6, right? And she— so she's on 8, so she's on more than 4 times that. You know, she's, she's, she's had the, the opportunity to, to, to learn and, um, to hone her pointing skills, I guess.

Well, and, and that, um, that's very, um, It's on point because Generation O is an organization of over 8,000 parents raising opioid-exposed kids. And, you know, it's, it's the, the knowledge of this worldwide group. They're mostly US, but I think we're about 9, 8, 9% outside of the US, um, in other English-speaking countries in our group. And we're all raising these children together. And since there's no guidance yet on what to do with, um, opioid-exposed children, like what will we see emerge long-term in their lifetimes and how do we support them, we're doing it together. And so it's not just 1 or 2 parents that have an experience raising 1 or 2 kids. It's 8,000 parents raising over 8,000 kids, pooling our resources together and, and trying to guide this whole new generation of children.

So that's back to the connection piece.

And, and so there's connection in all of us working together for this common goal. And there's what might be unique— well, another piece of the connection is us parents getting to do this together. Because parenting a child with a special need like this can be so isolating. And the fact that we have this group of us, even though it's virtual, It gives us that connection to do it together.

Yeah. So going back to the kind of idea of Thriving. Um, how do— what does thriving mean to, to you as a, as a human being? So as big as you like, right? So I'm not thriving to you as an adoptive mum, not thriving to you as a, as a wife, not, not about thriving to you as a, as a founder and a CEO of, uh, global Nonprofit, but you as a human being, what does, what does thriving mean to you?

I, it's something in the line of, you know, doing the best that you can with what you have kind of thing. You know, I have been blessed that I have this personality type where I'm always trying to uncover How can I improve? You know, I realize everyone doesn't have that, but I constantly want to improve who I am, how I do things, how I help the world, how I improve things. And so it's something that I'm continuously thinking at and working on. And so there's thriving in that. Because you can't always see all the things that, that need to get better. But when you can and you're able to do something about it, or you can find the supports to do something about it, then you're on that thriving path. And it— that, that would look different to everyone. But it's, it's, it's an awareness of Being able to see where improvement can happen and then being willing to look at that improvement and strive towards it.

Can be really tiring though, right?

Exhausting. Yes. I'm a, I'm a 9 hours a night sleep person. I can't, I don't do well with much less than that. And I know that that's not a luxury everyone gets. Um, but, uh, I'm early to bed, early to rise. Um, it's part of my formula.

Yeah. I, I, I had this, uh, I was on a personal development, personal acceptance, you know, Good stuff, Connie. Weekend. And, um, I, I, I'm a— I need my— I'm better with a lot of sleep too. Um, and I sleep a lot better in my own bed. And I, you know, if I, uh, sometimes if I have a, a few pints or some wine or whatever, then, um, it interrupts my sleep and And the combination of those 2 can be really tricky. So being in, not in my own bed, being in a hotel bed or an Airbnb bed and having a, you know, had a booze will both combine. But I, so I felt terrible in the morning. But then It was such great content, right? We were having such a great, great, great time with the, uh, with, with the, the fun stuff that we're doing on the Sunday morning. I kind of forgot I was tired. Hmm. And then it got to— then the next thing that occurred to me was sometimes fatigue isn't physical. I how I how can I forgotten my I've I've forgotten why why am I I'm I'm so involved and I've totally forgotten that I only got three hours kip last night and it wasn't very good good kip um a kip sleep sorry does that translate yeah okay um and I thought what what what if energy isn't physical, or isn't not just physical, right? Um, because this— so there's this idea, right? I, I used— so at that time I was running, doing a different thing, running a different business. And when I, when I wasn't sleeping, uh, when I was in my own bed and I hadn't had any drink and I was still waking up early and thinking about thinking about business and how I was gonna improve it, right? How I was gonna avoid disaster and improve it, both of those two things. Then I used to get really worried about my lack of sleep because I thought, well, no, I need my sleep to be able to do what I need to do. So then I, then I'd get kind of wor— I'd get worried about a lack of sleep, and then I'd get worried about worrying, and, and I would become what a mentor of mine, Michael Neal, says, I become a moron, right? I had a moron on my mind. How, how do you see that?

Um, you know, it, it's— I, I think you're absolutely right. I, I think that, um, You know, there's so many types of energy. You and I are, are in across the pond from each other on a Zoom call. We're exchanging energy, you know, and we're, we're beings of energy, right? And sometimes when my husband and I are going through a difficult time, And I can't quite figure out, like, what's the right conversation we can have to get us back on track, or, or what's something we can do? Because I don't like living with this, how it feels. Inevitably, something will happen. A child will need something. An email will come through. And we've all experienced that. You know, you, you're just opening up your email for the day, or you're looking at your texts for the day. And all of a sudden, you read something, your energy completely changes in that second. You're either filled with energy or your energy just sinks. And it's about something you've just seen or read. And so, yeah, I mean, we know scientifically that our bodies need to sleep. And each body might need a little bit less or more than each other. But that's not the only type of energy. You're right on there.

You know?

There's all of the other energies in the world that are combining to have us live out our day. And, and, you know, the sleep piece— I, I hate to mention sleep without coming back to these poor opioid— I shouldn't say poor. These specific opioid-exposed children and what they're tasked with, many of their bodies can't sleep. They really struggle to sleep. Their sleep-wake cycles are mixed up. And it just— if you can't get— if your body can't get the amount of sleep it needs, And you can't have that baseline energy to start with, it's going to affect everything. Um, and maybe there's nothing that can be done. Like, uh, back to Johnny, he hasn't slept well in 16 years of his life. But he's managing to grow and become taller than mom. And go out there and do all the things that he has to do in life. And, you know, he's getting energy from his friends. He's getting energy from the sun. You know, who knows how it all happens, but he's found a path. Yeah.

It's like, you know, one of the challenges you're talking— we're talking earlier on, we were talking earlier on about the fragility of teenagers' mental health. You know, to put it in in four words. And at the start of the conversation, you said, "Well, our kids aren't aren't aren't aren't. We're not our trauma. They're not their they're not their addiction. They're not their pre." They're not their labels, right? Like, there's a, there's a, there's kind of a relief at diagnosis. So for me, I'm talking personally, right? So there's a, a relief, a, a relief reading the primal wound, right? And then the relief morphed into doom. I'm stuck with this. So diagnosis became identity, and then I saw that that was wrong. And there's a, there's a danger with all these labels that, and, and making the labels wrong, that we can be really— that can debilitate us. You know, I like this, this thingification thing. So, uh, the making, making something dangerous, making something a thing, making a label as dangerous as an identity, it can become— I don't know the word— paralyzing. But it can it can detract. And I was thinking about social anxiety versus being shy.

Yes. All the time I think about that. I grew up shy and I was just a shy kid. I didn't get the label of social anxiety. What, what would it have been like if someone told me that?

And and shyness comes and goes.

The social anxiety come and go?

Well, yeah. Well, kind of. It's a thing. It's a thing. Well, it's not a thing. We call it a thing. So same guy, Michael O'Neill. Mike Michael O'Neill. The the the um. Uh, the moron guy, right? More in our mind, right? If you can't put it— if you can't put it into a wheelbarrow, it's not a thing. Shyness is a behavior, is a feeling. Behaviors change. Sometimes you're shy, sometimes you're not. Feelings change. Sometimes you feel shy, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you feel very outgoing. So maybe we, I, we just got to be a bit more careful about this thingification. He calls it Michael. Michael Neils made it a thing, right? So he calls it premature thingification. Oh, it's become a thing.

You're right, because when you, when you give when you give someone that label social anxiety, then, then what do you do with it? Do you medicate it? You know, it is, it's a whole thing. And I don't know that we're giving it the chance to dissipate.

Yeah, there are therapists in the States, there is a certain type of therapist that all they do is prescribe. That's all they are qualified to do. They are qualified to prescribe, and that's all they can do. They can't do, you know, we were talking about somatic therapy and stuff like that before we hit record. Obviously, there's talk therapy and these different modalities. They can't do any of that. All they can do is prescribe.

Yeah, I think you're thinking about a psychiatrist.

Sorry, psychiatrist. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, there's— but there's two, there's two sorts of psychiatrists. There's, there's, there's the ones that, uh, one, one type of them, that's all they can do is prescribe.

Yep.

Isn't that really dangerous?

I think so. I think so. I mean, it's— and, and especially with kids, right? You know, should we understand the child and, and what things are like from their perspective? Can we support them? I mean, sometimes medication is the right answer.

Yeah.

But I don't know that— I don't know that we always look at all the other options.

But we've got— we've got a— or you've got a— and we're talking about opioid stuff here, right?

Yeah.

We've seen that.

We have a prescription problem. Huge one, right? The US has a huge prescription problem. Because opioids being just one of them.

Because what one group within that system, all that, that's all they can do.

Yep. Yeah. It's, um, I see that.

Change the energy and bring us home with, bring, bring us home with something a bit more upbeat. We can't, we can't.

Yes, because, Simon, we can't solve all of the world's problems. There's so many. So, you know, I have been involved in the adoption world since adopting my first child almost 20 years ago. And I shouldn't say that. I was involved in the adoption world before that because all of my cousins are adopted. My aunts and uncles adopted kids. And so I grew up with Cousins who were adopted, and they were my cousins. You know, they weren't my adopted cousins; they were my cousins. And then we adopted our own family, and it's taken me down roads that I never expected to go down. But but what a journey it's been! And you know, at this point, by creating Generation O. Um, by being a voice for the caregivers who are raising these opioid-exposed children, we are inviting everyone into our community who is part of this, this journey of raising opioid-exposed children.

Mm-hmm.

Um, you know, we recognize that they, that they have, um, their own constellation of challenges and, You know, we want them to be on the journey with us because it's too hard to do alone. And we want to discover right along with everyone else what's best for these kids and how we can support them. You know, it just so happens that most of the people in our community are raising children who have been adopted or are in foster care or are in kinship care, family care. And so it ties right into the work that you're doing.

Yeah. And I think you told me last time, like, just over half of, of your, uh, of your 8,000 families are, uh, are kids, are adopted kids.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. Just over half.

Yep.

So it's huge. I don't often— I haven't asked this for a while. What do you think we should call this, uh, this interview, this episode? You know, I have a little— I give each episode a little, uh, title.

You know, I was actually— when we were talking about connection, I was thinking about connection. Um, you may have to go back and listen to the episode and, and see. Um, but I like the word connection. It's, you know, I also, I also like that for people specifically searching for resources for opioid-exposed children, you know, I like them to be able to find stuff like this. But hopefully this episode is, is good for your entire audience. You know, we talked a lot of things that, that are more global than just Yeah. Or bird-exposed children.

Yeah. Cool. Thank you, Lynette. Thank you, listeners. We'll speak to you again very soon.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.