by Beth Ayers, Family Support Lead

August 6, 2024

The word boundaries can bring to mind a variety of images and feelings. Boundaries can have a negative connotation or conjure feelings of safety. Boundaries can be a hard concept for many. Often, setting boundaries feels uncaring. I personally have a love/hate relationship with boundaries. I find the concept confusing when trying to apply it to my life and relationships. Setting boundaries can cause conflict with others whose boundaries are different. Essentially, boundaries protect the important things in life. In order to set effective boundaries, you have to know your priorities. And to know your priorities, you first have to know your values.

Values are the “gut level” qualities that guide you. Values are those things most important to you. Your non-negotiables. There are over 50 common core values. Most people have 6 or so. What are yours? Priorities tend to be relationships. Most of us have good priorities but many struggle to live them out in the right order. List your priorities in order of most important. A good but hard question to ask ourselves is “Does my life reflect the order of my priorities?” Stephen Covey said, “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” How do we do this? One way is to jot down your regular routine and identify if there is a value & priority at play with each item. Does your highest priority show up in your routine and if so, how often? What shows up most often in your routine? Where do you see your other priorities in your schedule? Which of your priorities are not in your schedule? The years after Covid have shown us that we need social interaction and face-to-face connection. How do you refill your cup? How do you feed yourself physically? Mentally? Emotionally? Where do you have fun? Research says it takes 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain unless it’s done while having fun/playing. Then it only takes 10-20 repetitions! (Source Oak Tree Development Center)

Raising a child with a behavioral health challenge and/or special healthcare need is a marathon, not a sprint. As parents to children with complex needs, we do not have the luxury to say yes to everything. When my child began school, I was bombarded with volunteer opportunities and wanted to do them all- home room mom, reading helper, PTA member, book group leader, field trip chaperone, and so on. And don’t forget about snacks and lunches and birthday treats. I wanted them to be homemade, delicious, and perfect. My motivation to say “yes” varied. Sometimes I really wanted to participate, other times I felt like I had to if I wanted to be a “good” mom. Sometimes I wanted to participate because these were all new experiences for me and my child and I wanted to be involved in all of them. And sometimes it is just really hard to say “no.” Not only did I want to do most of these, I thought I “should” be able to do all of them. I saw other moms doing it all. I had dreams of doing it all with and for my child. As a mom to a child with extra needs, my expectations and dreams had to change. There is a grieving process when our life doesn’t turn out exactly as we thought it would. It’s important to grieve and find acceptance. It opens space for new dreams and hopes. It allows gratitude to grow in us for what we have. It can help to look at how many hours you spend taking care of your child. Time spent at appointments, driving to and from appointments, researching illnesses and therapies and resources and services. And don’t forget about the mental, emotional, and physical toll caring for a child with complex needs can have on us as caregivers. Added all up, how many hours is that in a school week? Sally Super Mom’s child doesn’t require the extra care, giving her extra hours in the week. Let her be home room mom, PTA president, reading buddy. I have found a good question to ask myself is, “Can someone else take this role?” No one else is going to be my child’s mom, but all the other parents can be home room mom. My child is also more likely to remember the time I spend with them than whether their treats were homemade. Give yourself permission to say yes or no based on your values and priorities. The stage of life you are in now will change. Your values and priorities might change. “No” doesn’t have to be forever, sometimes it’s just “not now.”

Now that we have identified our values, boundaries, and routine, how do we protect them? Boundaries! Boundaries are not our values and priorities. We put boundaries around our values and priorities to protect them. Like a fence. Having clear boundaries will help you make decisions about your time and will help others know what to expect from you. Boundaries are a form of self-care. They can protect from caregiver burnout and chronic stress. Boundaries are important to our health and wellness. And our wellness is important to our child.

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by Beth Ayers
February 27, 2024

Maintaining friendships while raising children with mental health challenges has been hard for me. I have narrowed down my list of “friends,” keeping those who could support me without judgement through extremely challenging times. I have also come to appreciate friends who are willing to say the hard things out of love that I need to hear. I deeply appreciate others who share in my lived experience and just “get it.” My own comparison and self-pity have caused me to keep some friends at a distance. The stigma associated with mental illness kept me silent about what my family was going through. And the stress of caring for my child, seeking out services, attending multiple appointments weekly, and emotional exhaustion left me little time to devote to my friendships.

In the early years of raising children, my friends were moms at playgroup, moms whose kids were in the same grade and school as mine, or moms of the friends my child played with. Additionally, I became closer with my friends who were also having and raising children. We would talk about our kids, share parenting advice, and encourage each other that this stage we were in wouldn’t last forever. My biggest frustration was taking home parenting techniques that others swore by and have them not work for my child. It was also easy to compare milestones and worry when my child didn’t do what all the other kids were doing. I put pressure on myself to have the child that listened and didn’t get into trouble, or at least not have the one that misbehaved the worst! I still have a few friends from this time in my life. Our kids are now 19 years old, and it seems impossible they were ever little.

I never felt very close to my child’s classmates’ parents. The ones I chatted with when dropping off my child at their house to play or picking them up from school. The ones I sat with during all the seasons of soccer practice and games. Soccer, which by the way, has a fall season AND a spring season and there is usually snow on the ground for both. I would suggest choosing a sport for your Kindergartner that is offered only once a year or is played indoors. These friendships rarely moved past our kids and when the sport season or school year was over, I didn’t keep in touch with them.

My child maintained some close friends throughout school, and I developed friendships with some of their parents. It was always awkward when a mom and I were close and our kids quit liking each other. This seemed to happen quite often in middle school. During my child’s 8^th grade graduation ceremony, I sat next to a mom I was close friends with while our children ignored each other or shot glaring looks at each other and us. We decided that just because our children weren’t friends didn’t mean we had to stop being friends. As our kids grew, though, these parent friendships became hard for me. The conversations about updates on our kids or questions they would ask were hard for me. I didn’t know how to answer truthfully and still honor my child’s privacy. I also didn’t realize how simple questions about the usual course of life our kids take can be hurtful for parents whose kids’ lives didn’t take that course. Questions about prom or driver’s licenses, graduation or work or college, reminded me that my child wasn’t experiencing these things. Instead of joy, I felt sad that my dreams for my child weren’t being realized. I wished my biggest worry was prom dresses or college options. I was just trying to keep my child alive and decide on what sort of treatment to try next. It was hard for me to maintain these friendships without comparing my life with theirs and feeling sorry for myself. I have come to realize that there are more families whose lives don’t follow the norm than do. Often times we don’t see behind the curtains of social media posts or polite conversations. I have had to let go of the friendships, through no fault of the other parent, that keep me stuck in self-pity and jealousy.

Mental illness is a tricky subject. We don’t talk openly about it whether out of stigma, fear of judgement, trying to keep the other person’s privacy, or not wanting to explain that mental illness isn’t bad parenting. (And yes, I put my child in enough social activities, and yes, I have tried whatever parenting program you’re suggesting, thanks for asking.) I know everyone means well and I know that until you have or know someone who has a mental illness, it is hard to understand. Our “fix” reflex comes from love and wanting to help, and our society has a low tolerance for sitting with others in their pain. I didn’t feel like I could share my story because it involved so many details of my child’s story and my child was very private. Not sharing with my church family was particularly hard. I would have loved to ask for prayer or receive a casserole when my child was in the hospital. At one point, my child and the child of a couple in my Sunday School class were actually in the same hospital unit at the same time. And we didn’t know because mental illness wasn’t talked about. Here was a missed opportunity to walk with other parents who knew exactly what we were going through and support each other. That seemed so ridiculous to me. In fact, a fellow parent and I began a Mental Health Friends Network at our church to spread awareness and stop the stigma of mental illness. Our campaign slogan was, “Mental illness is a casserole illness, too!”

I had a few close friends I confided in, knowing they would keep things confidential. After all, I needed support too. These close friends walked with me down dark roads, held my hand and cried with me, listened without fixing or judging, and were there for me and my family through the hard years. I could be honest about my feelings of failure, frustration, self-pity, fear, grief, and resentment. I could also celebrate with them when things were going well at home or when my child was feeling healthy, knowing my friends were sincerely happy for me. And I could also be happy for them when they had great things happen in their lives or with their children. And I could support them when their lives were hard. These friends loved me enough to express their worries or offer altering points of view or tell me when my thinking was off. Whether I agreed or not, I trusted they had my best interest at heart and was able to hear them without getting defensive. They also loved my child and were there for everyone in my family. These are the real friendships I continue to be grateful for and cherish to this day.

by Lea Wetzel, Drop-in Center Coordinator

September 19, 2023

Recovery is the beginning of positive change and development of the spirit and who the human being is, as an individual. It is the bond and balance of body, mind, and soul. It is the discovery of who Creator really made someone to be.

Recovery has been the lifestyle, workforce, and individual I represent. It is acceptance of who I am as a woman in recovery. It has shown me what I am to be, and how I am supposed show up in spaces of all areas I am in. Recovery is why I can be who I am as a woman, a mom, a leader, a voice, and an individual who is okay with making mistakes. It has taught me how to navigate through mistakes and where and why I need to be who Creator made me to be, flaws and all.

Recovery is the love for myself, my family, my community, and all cross-cultural nationalities. It is humanizing my interactions and being able to use the natural gifts we have. It is showing love for Creator through the actions of cultural humility.

Recovery is the life I chose and continue to choose today, no matter the storm, and the rainbow after the storm. It is being able to dance in the storm and embracing the need for voice and positive change. It is being able to show humility when times are tough and setting an example for others to come to be the next generations of leaders to come.

Recovery is not always the easiest life to live. We still feel all the hurt, pain, and prosperities that life gives, here on Earth. It is about how we journey through this Red Road, called recovery. It is being teachable, respectable, and it is honoring another’s journey by equal balance and humanness, we can offer one another. It is bringing another up and not down, and it can be our gift back to Creator, for giving us the gift of today, the present.

Our gift is life and choosing to live in recovery and being an individual that stands for hope, mindfulness, compassion, and respect, can make us in our recovery. It is life that gifts us the knowledge we need to endure the difficulties of life. Recovery is possible and EVERYONE can succeed. If you can dream it up, it can be the life Creator meant for you to have, here today, in recovery.