Speaker 1 0:00
Off, or we can keep them on, but in the background with the no volume, hello everybody. Lovely to be here. It's lovely. So Oh, Alison, you've come. How beautiful you little cutie, right? I'm just going to invite Tanya to join. So give me a second, uh, request to join there? No, I have to request. So let me invite Daniel. There you go.
Unknown Speaker 0:35
From me, are you in? If you're in the live i
Unknown Speaker 0:43
Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 0:49
okay, so cool. Welcome Tanya. There we go. Look at us
Speaker 1 0:55
doing an Instagram live so
Speaker 2 1:04
hello to see you. Thank you so much for having me, Emma.
Speaker 1 1:08
Love to see you as well. I was so excited to have Tanya here, because I've been listening to Tanya talking and posting for, I don't know how long, quite a long time. And everything that you post, I'm like, she gets it. She's on the same wave as me on this. And even though we work in quite different fields, your methodology and my methodology feel really aligned. And I think there's such a correlation between working with adults who are in most of most times struggling with being with difficult emotions or difficult emotional experience, which for which the coping mechanism, in this case, might be Drinking and working with our own kids and our own our own upbringings, our own conditioning around how we, you know, how we define what's an acceptable experience of life to have and what isn't and and how we model that for our kids. And I think one of the things that I've loved just watching recently Tanya talking about is she's been talking about, really this, you know, the stuff that I really love talking about as well, which is kind of the unspoken stuff, you know, the things that we're a little bit too afraid to talk about because we're worried that we're going to be judged, or we're going to, you know, think people are going to think, which is, You know, so much part of parenting neurodivergent children anyway, so I thought it would be lovely to have Tanya, and I thought that her work would be very useful for people who follow me, because of the alignment, and also because I know that a lot of the people who I work with. And I was going to tell a little story, because I went to, I went to a cafe recently for with a bunch of other mums of neurodivergent children, and within a few minutes, the conversation went to alcohol, and it was almost it wasn't even a Can we talk about something? It was like this was a very normal conversation, because everybody was struggling with alcohol because of, you know, a lot of the meaning that we make about ourselves as a parent of neurodivergent children. So I just like, again, it's it like that kind of that conversation and the things that are unspoken, and things we're allowed to talk about, and what we're not allowed to talk about, emotions we're allowed to feel, and we're not allowed to feel. That's why I wanted Tanya to come. So, Tanya, would you be kind enough to introduce yourself and tell the people here, you know what you do, who you are, and why?
Speaker 2 3:51
Sure. Thanks, Emma. Yeah. And you know, Emma and I have been sort of following each other for probably over a year now, I would think, and yep, so my name is Tanya. I am a parenting coach. I live in New Zealand, and I support parents of neurodivergent children with with parenting. But my main topic of of interest is helping parents support their children through burnout. And the reason why I focus primarily on that is that three, well, actually five years ago, my one of my children, went into burnout back then, there was hardly any resources, any support, anything even written about burnout, and I had to really find my own way through it, and I always just at the back of my mind, because I have an education back. Background and a coaching background. I knew that I wanted to be able to support other parents and share my story once I was able to do that, once I felt safe enough within myself to do that, and yet, because even just burnout, you know, and all the things that like happen for us in burnout as parents, or happen for our children? A lot of that stuff, up until a few years ago, wasn't even things that we could talk about, right? And so there is a lot more coming out, but there's still so much judgment. There's still so much things that parents struggle with, and so I just really want to make that more normalize that, and make support more accessible to parents.
Speaker 1 5:52
Yeah, thank you, Tanya, and you do a great job of it, because I think the way that you speak in your social media is very like, whenever I read something of Tanya's, I always think, Oh, she gets me. And that to me, I think is really beautiful. Storytelling is like understanding the stuff that's really hard, you know, and and bringing it to light, and letting other people see that they're not the only ones who are going through these. What you know, it's such an isolating experience. Having a child in often just having a neurodivergent child is an isolating experience, but a nice a neurodivergent child in burnout, which I also have had two children, one in very, very chronic burnout, as in, not able to kind of lift their head off the pillow for two years. And one, who is goes in and out of really quite
Unknown Speaker 6:53
difficult burnout, and had two years of school.
Speaker 1 6:58
And so for me, it's, I think it's really important that we start having these conversations. Because I feel like, from my perspective, I'm kind of seeing things at both ends. I'm seeing kids at the beginning, and then I'm seeing adults at the end, and and what's happening all the time is that we're being asked to push through and pretend that things aren't the way that they are. And the market, the impact of that on our children, because we're modeling it also, and then on ourselves, is quite catastrophic. So for me, that's kind of one of the reasons why I, why I one of the reasons I do the work I do, and one of the reasons I think it's so important that we know as parents, we're allowed to have our experience. And I wondered if, for you, Tanya, you've mothered children in burnout. What was your experience of mothering your children in relation to how society treated you as a parent of a child in burnout.
Unknown Speaker 8:09
Yes, such, such a powerful question. Emma.
Speaker 2 8:14
So first of all, the reason why I think my posts are relatable to others is because everything I post, I've personally been through that experience, or thought, those thoughts, or, you know, felt that stuff so and I think that that is something that's kind of universal for me. The when you talk about isolating, it just felt like overnight, my world just shrunk into this really, really small space, like I I couldn't and there was, it was so like even the people in my family, like my mum, my sister, my immediate family, There was a lot of shame initially, because I thought, like, I should be able to do this. I should be able to be raising a healthy, happy kid. What's wrong with me that my child is struggling this much? So that was, like, the first experience, and then I was afraid to even just tell, like, pick up the phone and tell my mum, hey, this is what's happened. And it was very difficult for me to even put things into words, because I was still trying to process things. So if people said to me, Well, how can I help? I honestly didn't know how they could, because I was still trying to figure this out, there is no, there was no sort of roadmap for, like, you know, the steps that you're supposed to take, or this is what the experience is like, and this is the stage, and that's that stage, and you're going to get through it. It just felt really, really over. Overwhelming. But the other thing that kind of felt like I remember just so vividly was, even though was like a small like, you know, like my space or my world got smaller, it felt like really illuminating on the inside, it felt like there were lots of little things that I had been ignoring, or like truths that I had been sort of just shoving aside, or part of myself that I was masking and saying, Oh yeah, that's okay, or it's okay that somebody said that, or that somebody had that opinion, and just kind of like swallowing everything Yeah, and then when I was in the space where my child was so unwell, and a lot of what of it was because of all the masking and all the social being trying to be socially acceptable, like it felt like there was just all these like spaces in the corners that I hadn't I knew they were there, but I hadn't, like addressed them. I hadn't had the courage to address them. And now all of a sudden, like it was, like everything was coming at me at once, needing my attention. Yeah, so that's sort of what my experience was like. And then, you know, just the the feeling of other people judging me and and through that whole process as well, figuring out that I was neurodivergent too. So, yeah, just, just a lot,
Speaker 1 11:38
yeah, yeah, I really relate to what you're saying about that suppression of self, you know, that kind of like where I'm swallowing things and I've been, you know, for me as well, I it's really interesting reflecting back. I don't think I would never have thought of myself as a people pleaser, but it was fascinating. It is fascinating how I continue to discover how much suppression of self, and I think this is really important point as well, because with regards to masking, with regards to suppression of self, pushing self down, this is 100% as well why women drink, right? We women drink for exactly these reasons. And so there's so much correlation between this work. And I think for me, like I swallowing down things that, you know, having difficult conversations beings, kind of like, really, I was reflecting recently, and kind of some changes I've made in my friendship group and how I used to finish every text with, you know, almost like, you know, get back to me when you get second rush. Don't worry about me. And actually, you know, I did want them to come back to me. But what I was putting out there was, you know, you don't need to prioritize my friendship. It's just so interesting, isn't it? I think these, these, these learnings that we get as we go along this path with our children. And for me, in this case, it was also to do with alcohol, but really the children part, you know, even asking for help. So for example, it's still at the moment when I ask for help from systems, I feel guilty and ashamed afterwards, even though I know I've done nothing wrong, my gut reaction I shouldn't be asking. And often you're treated when you're asking for things from these systems, you're treated like you shouldn't be asking because, you know, the systems aren't built to, you know, the systems don't actually really want to help, and so you feel shipped. And so it's just, it's just such an interesting there's so much involved in it all, I think. And this is what I found so interesting when you started talking to these, these, these feelings that we have as parents around, you know, and what we're allowed to you know, what we're allowed to verbalize and how you know a certainly, for me, when you're talking about isolation and this idea that you know, when you go and meet people and they ask how you are, they don't really actually want to know, as a neurodivergent person speaking to another neurodivergent person. Generally, we do want to know, but when you come across other people, they don't actually want to know because some sort of shame about complaining. And I, I've been working with people in my in my in my groups. It's so ingrained, this idea of, you know what we're actually talking about when we call that complaining, is advocating, but it calls it complaining, and it's fascinating. So for your journey, Tanya, how did you manage to get from a place where, how did you build that emotion? Emotional safety. How long did it take for you to feel safe enough to talk about your experience and then to go on and work and create the business that you have helping people the way you do, how? How was that experience for you?
Speaker 2 15:17
Um, so first of all, before I start, I just want to say, you know about, like, the how, how are you? Question? I remember having to unlearn that question. Yeah. I think you know when my when my daughter, went into burnout, I would like before that, I would say to my kids all the time, like, how are you or are you okay? And it was just like an automatic thing that flew out of my mouth, and then I had to stop myself and go, of course, you're not okay. Why am I asking if you're okay? So there was something, you know, I had to catch myself and not to say to them, because, like, in that moment when we were going through crisis, there was like, there was no okay, but it was just like, my hyper vigilance, almost of like, are you okay? Are we okay? So I think it's a very interesting thing about building emotional safety. It doesn't happen overnight. You know, trust is built, and even trust in ourselves is built through micro moments at the time when the burnout happened, I felt totally blindsided, and I felt in that moment like I couldn't trust myself. I couldn't trust anything or any decisions that I was making at that time. And so it took the journey of the of her recovery, and lots of backwards and forwards, because the healing process is not linear. It's not like, you know, oh, we're getting through this stage, this one, you know, be better now. You know, it's a long process, yeah. But you know, it's, it's, it's kind of like your trust in yourself is done, is built through the doing, you know, like just showing up, doing the things, and slowly over time, noticing little, I like to call them like little green shoots of like recovery or hope and, yeah, and holding on to those rather than the gap of like, your expectation versus reality, and then noticing, oh, okay, I do actually know what I'm doing here. I do actually know my child. We are getting through this slowly, even though it isn't taking as long as I would like, and at first, when I started talking on my platform, it wasn't about burnout, it was just about neurodivergence In general, yeah, because that felt like a safe place for me to sort of start the conversation. When I started talking about it, there were, there wasn't a lot of information out there about autistic AFAB
Unknown Speaker 18:27
and female birth,
Speaker 2 18:29
and so that was quite a new thing. So I sort of started there, and it's sort of a more like external, sort of safer, safer place, and then slowly started talking a little bit about it. But I remember, and I think I did a reel about this recently where I spoke about green beef, I spoke about my experience, and I was just totally shut down by the people in the comments, you know. And I remember, like just removing it, because I wasn't that strong in myself at that time, and thinking, Oh, I shouldn't talk about this. I should this is a taboo subject. And I know when I spoken to other people in the space as well. You know, in some communities, like online communities, the talk about grief, the talk about, you know, parents experience is still something that is shut
Speaker 1 19:26
down. I've seen it myself too, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2 19:31
and yeah. So I started posting a few more things about burnout, and I noticed just how people were just relating to it. And, you know, we're able to feel seen and understood, because there is very much this, this feeling of like I am the only one. I'm the only one going through this and and as I started seeing that, as I started seeing people relate. Relating to that and needing that. That's when I started to focus more on that, because that's where I saw the greatest need. And from my own experience and my professional background and coaching, I thought this is this is the thing that I really want to be able to help parents with and focus on so that's kind of where we ended up, where where we are now, yeah,
Speaker 1 20:25
because it's such a I mean, I was the same when I when Daisy went into burnout, there was nothing, and in fact, everything that I was being told by professionals, in retrospect, the opposite was true, like everything that I was being told to do actually caused more harm, and it was only once I started to find my own resources and trust my gut a bit more, but I really didn't Have and thinking about it now as a neurodivergent woman, trusting our gut. When our gut has been pushed down and suppressed and we barely have a gut, it's like, what is this thing that people call guts? You know what? What is this? And some of us find a little spark of it somewhere every now and again, but it takes a while to develop, doesn't it? Because it's like so much of the neurodivergent experience is masking and ignoring your gut
Speaker 2 21:31
absolutely and fawning. Because, you know, we that that was, that was my, my coping mechanism, my survival response, was just, you know, going with every, going along with everybody, agreeing to everything and and then beating myself up afterwards because I wasn't being true to myself. I wasn't being authentic to myself. But in thinking, Oh, I don't have a backbone. I've got my spineless. Look at me. I can't, I can't stand up to this I, you know, or telling myself a story of, like, I don't do confrontation or and all it was once I started understanding this work, was like, well, actually, no, that's your body's survival mechanism, and you can, you can support yourself in a different way, rather than just beating yourself up about it and telling yourself What a lousy person you are.
Speaker 1 22:31
And this is what I love about the fact that this is why I feel like we're so in tune. Because it's a similar sort of thing with people who are struggling with alcohol. For me is, it's not about, you know, because we drank, because we couldn't bear to tell somebody No, or that we needed to go home, or that, you know, that is not something we should and we say, Oh, I'm so weak. I'm so pathetic. I can't believe I did that again. I should know better. It's not that, you know, this is this, is this. It's like this is where we need to learn, how do we make it safe for us to how does it become safe for us to say to that person, actually, I'm not enjoying your company anymore. I don't really want to be on this date, or I don't really want to go to this party, or because all of the you know, all of that you know, our safety parts are all coming out going, well, if I do that, then I'm going to upset that person, and that's going to mean that this is going to happen, and then that's going to happen and and all of that kind of like internal chatter leads us to these catastrophic black and white ideas of, you know that, you know we're going to end up lonely, alone, and and then. And so that's why these parts of us are getting us to drink because it's the only way they know how to keep us safe. And it's similar to what you're talking about there. I think
Speaker 2 23:48
absolutely, you know, and I see this as well, you know, like when we are advocating for our children, you know, sometimes it's been so unsafe for us as parents, as neurodivergent people, to advocate for ourselves, and then we're needing to go into these spaces and advocate for our children and and sometimes it takes, it takes a lot of work on yourself to actually feel safe in order to do that, and then you can still sometimes walk, walk away and go, Why did I say that? Why didn't I say this? Why? Why did I agree to that? So, yeah, I definitely see those parallels. And, you know? And, yeah, it does take work, but I think, you know, that's one of the reasons why in the work that I do, and like in my membership, as well with my the parents I work with, we do focus a lot on nervous system safety for parents, because the safer we feel in our nervous system, the you know, the more we can. Do, the more we can advocate, the more we can adapt our parenting approach to meet the needs of our children, because we feel so unsafe about it. You know, we're fighting our own nervous system and our body trying to protect us.
Speaker 1 25:17
That's right, that's right, exactly. It's so interesting as well, because often those spaces that we're in are really unsafe. So the only place that we can they are actually genuinely unsafe, like we're not in safe environments, advocating
Unknown Speaker 25:30
for us. And so it's,
Speaker 1 25:32
it's about, how do we how do we keep because that's one of the things people say to me quite a lot, and this you, you might relate to this too, is this idea, there's so much in this individualistic culture that we have, which is about self, self self reliance, you know, love yourself harder, all this kind of stuff. And you know, you shouldn't need other people and, and, and, you know, just change the way you think, and, and then, you know, and and actually, it really and it frustrates me because it ignores the fact that often women find themselves in very unsafe situations, and we're expected to use our thinking brain when we're actually, you know, our safety isn't secure. You know, we're not actually safe like you know, we might be at risk of losing our home. We might be talking to intimidating people. We might be in a place which doesn't, you know, it's actually not there to help us. And so often people, you know, people, it's kind of this whole idea of, how do we, how do we keep ourselves emotionally safe, and how do we how do we create that environment so at least inside of us, we're not in battle, because, again, a lot of the reason why people drink is because the the internal environment that we create is so hostile that the idea of staying with ourselves in it is like being in a battlefield, quite literally,
Speaker 2 27:08
yeah, yeah. And in our society, we are. We're so afraid of our emotions as well. You know, we're afraid of things like anger or feeling sadness or, you know, frustration or disappointment, and a lot of that is because we just haven't been taught to be able to manage those emotions,
Speaker 1 27:37
that's right, and we've been shamed for having them. And this reasons, I think the work that you do is so important because I speak to women who are my age, mainly, you know, around my age, in our groups, and sort of 10 years either side, usually, and shape for Having needs, for because of, you know, societal conditioning children should be seen or not heard. And also, you know, parents saying to children, you know, when they have a meltdown, when they're unhappy, when they don't want to do something, making them feel ashamed for that, and that's so much a part of our culture now, like I've I was just saw somebody who had really respected writing about something to do with this. And I was just thinking, Oh, mate, that's so disappointing to me, because I was, I, I followed you, and I thought you were really like a person who got it. And then was she was writing about, you know, how children are, you know, children are brats nowadays, and how, you know, people need to be more authoritarian with their approaches. And I just thought, well, that's disappointing. Yeah, yeah, you know,
Unknown Speaker 28:52
it's, it's really,
Speaker 2 28:55
it really astounds me. I was actually having a conversation with somebody this this weekend, actually another parent. And how, you know, children are parent for compliance and obedience, and then they get to sort of be a young adult, and we automatically expect them to stand up for themselves and advocate for themselves in environments or in relationships, and they have absolutely no experience of feeling safe standing up for themselves or advocating for themselves, because the whole time they've been we've been parenting them to comply,
Speaker 1 29:38
correct, correct. It's very dangerous. I mean, I was talking in my group, and most of us have experiences where we have gone along with, and I'm going to be really specific, this offends you. I'm sorry, but you know, gone along with kind of sex or things like that, because we didn't know how you. To get out. You know, we literally were like, Okay, so this is the situation we're in. I don't want to upset the other person, so I'm just going to go along with it. And I was like, that's a team. And I know so many people in my group who've said same thing. Why don't we know how to do that? We don't know how to do that for exactly the reasons that you're talking about, because we were never allowed to say no,
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
