Day 3 Parenting Autism Real and Raw with Siobhan Wilcox

Hey everybody, Good morning, it's Siobhan Wilcox with Parenting Autism. Read on Raw Day three of the vlog or my video blog. Hope you're doing super. You know, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about my day yesterday again, another very intense day. I had to talk to a lot of therapists yesterday about different aspects of my son's treatment. The physical therapist called me and had a long discussion with me. His counsellor called me, his other counsellor at school spoke to me. And then I also needed to bring him for a medical examination at the regional centre. Now it was interesting, you know, because I was very grateful to have that medical examination. But I realized afterwards there was also a part of me that was exceptionally concerned about going to that. And the concern was coming from my son's previous behavior at such events. You know, he has totally, totally gone into a place of high anxiety when he sees a white coat and he's in a place where they may stick a needle in him or prod him or there is any sort of examination that goes on. So this was out of his routine, out of his normal day to day pattern. So he was really anxious when I picked him up from school. I could see him. I mean, he had a wonderful day at school, which I was so, so blessed for, because last week had been so rough, you know, I'd had to pick him up, I think it was three days out of the five days. And I went to school with him on the fourth one of those days, on the last day of the week, Friday, so that I could try and obviously not pick him up, but be there to support him. And I'd done that. And the week before I'd had to pick him up a number of times as well because he just overwhelmed at such a high level and was basically just completely out of control. And so it was very challenging week for me. But you know, as I said, I think in the first vlog, I didn't let that stop me in that I brought my laptop around with me and I started just to write my book because I had been letting all this overwhelm, stop me from moving forward. And it felt really refreshing and releasing for me as a parent to do that, you know, so I wasn't feeling blocked, I was feeling much more in the flow. But one of the things, you know, so he did a super day yesterday at school and I was like, yay. And then I pick him up and. And he starts to go into this heightened state of agitation because he knows he has to go to A medical exam. He banged his head getting in the car. He was just really, really, really getting upset. He was trying to, like, you know, bite at himself and flapping his arms. And he was just really agitated. So I was. I could feel my own nervousness coming in. And what I've realized, of course, you can probably hear the kids are screaming in the back room. They're just getting up. What I realized is my son is super, super sensitive, bless him. And he says this himself. He said, mommy, I feel everybody's pain when I walk in a room. I feel everybody's stress, and then I take it on. It kind of comes in. He says, it comes in on top of me. So I knew that if I'm feeling stressed about something, then he starts feeling more stressed about it. So what I tried to do in that moment was not feed into his energy. And I just kept setting him his boundaries and giving him his reminders of, you know, to breathe deeply, everything's going to be okay, you know, Remember that yesterday when your body felt so good? Let's go back to that energy. And then at the same time, I was bringing myself back to that energy because I was feeling tense and stressed. And some of that tension and stress had come from my earlier interactions during the day with other therapists, you know, where again, I felt that their agendas were pushing in on me. And it was interesting. The medical exam went pretty well. I mean, he got into some very stressed situations. He really did. You know, he was biting at himself and doing the arms and, you know, and running in, walking into the corner of the room, trying to get some impact and pushing himself against walls. You know, this is just his behavior. And I constantly redirected him and constantly redirected him. And it was a successful medical exam from the point of view that she was very happy and I was very happy. And at the end of it, he was okay. You know, he was relaxed enough to feel successful. But then I went home, and I was. I felt I was processing a lot of the conversations I had that day. And I don't know if you realize you even do this, because until I studied as a stress management consultant and really went in depth into my own patterns and my own processes, I didn't realize I took all the conversations I'd had that day that I hadn't felt had gone well, you don't do it to the ones you think have gone wonderful, by the way. It doesn't seem to go that way in our brains. And all the ones I felt had gone not so well, where I'd rather have said no. Oh, I wish I'd said that. I wish I thought of that at the time. Oh, why didn't I think of that? In that situation, we take all those pieces and then we run them, and it's like it's on a loop, and it goes around and around and around and around in our head. And what I've discovered with myself is if I don't catch that loop early enough, it's starts to impact my stress levels. I start to feel my jaw tighten. I'll start to notice my shoulders get tight. I'll start to notice my stomach starts to churn. Because I had stress burn out when I was 25. And one of the things that really got affected by that was my stomach. It created a lot of irritable bowel. It affected my adrenal glands very badly. So I was in chronic fatigue. You thought I may have Ms. Or me. Thankfully, I didn't, but it really, really affected me. And it took me nearly a year to recover from that before I could actually start working again. So that's what drove me to look at my patterns, to look at how I am in the world and what creates my own stress. And that, I believe, is why I became so successful as a stress management consultant in Ireland. Because I had done a lot of my own work on this, and I figured it out, and I was able to help other people figure it out. And I know when I work with my clients, it's very easy for me to help them find their patterns. You know, because I found all my own ones doesn't mean I always catch them straight away, but eventually I catch them. So by the time I got to my bed last night, I could feel irritation in my. In my body, in my mind. I felt like I was chunked up with stuff. You know, teeth were starting to grind. And I was like. And I said, why am I irritated? Why do I feel so irritated? You know, my son had a super day. My other son had an okay day, you know, again, much more conversations with teachers. And when I go to his school and sometimes the therapist and all that, it's usually a daily event at his school, too. So for me, I realized, okay, I'm processing something here. I'm running something in my mind. What the heck is it? And I found it. Once I found the story I had created, it was really interesting to watch it, to see how it ran, and then I was able to stop it. I may need to go. They're getting loud in the background. There's something going on. But it was really interesting to see how that pattern ran to catch the words I was used. The I can'ts the judgment words I was putting on myself. I'm not good enough in that situation and I caught them and I changed them and I shifted them and I wherever I was using and I cant I looked at what that really was about. Was it a self esteem piece? Was it a self worth piece, was it a judgment piece? Where was it coming from? Was it a nice shirt piece? And I started to shift it and I used different language to myself and I had a bath with epsom salts which I feel really helps me de chunk myself because it's so relaxing. But the epsom salts also help on an energetic level to ease out other people's stuff that may have got stuck in my field because I'm such an empath. I lit some candles, I did a face pack so my skin beautiful this morning and I just soaked in the bath for a half an hour as I did my process and by the time I got out of bed I felt so much different. I was just so much more relaxed and calmer and I'd figured out the patterns I'd run, I figured out the stories I was creating and it felt really good to go to bed in a place of gratitude again, in a place of centeredness, in a place of alignment. And I had one of the best sleeps I'd had in around a week and a half. I just slept so peacefully. I woke up this morning feeling much more refreshed. So I just want to put that out there to you as a way of just trying to catch those thoughts. Those thoughts create that flight and flight response in our body. It's the first way of creating them is these thought passions. Our brain just goes into this hyperdrive and so I hope that's helpful for you. Have a wonderful day again. If you want to find out more about the teleseries I'll be creating interviewing lots of different autism experts and some self care programs as well. It's going to be autism expertsalliance.com and you can email me@siobhanautismexpertsalliance.com to get a longer video I've created on how I processed when my son was diagnosed and how I I call it dream shifting. So how I shifted from one frequency of grief into a different frequency of hope. So anyway, I hope that serves thank you so much for watching. I feel honored. Please pass pass it on to other parents if you know special needs kids that can be served by this and leave your comments and your inspirations to others. Thank you. Goodbye.