Breaking Generational & Cultural Cycles as a Neurodivergent Parent with Marcela Collier

Speaker 1 0:00 And I had parents who wanted to give me everything, the best of them, but at the same time because they didn’t have the understanding of my needs, the information, the tools, the resources, then I will I did not get what I need it. So neurodiverse little girl growing up, and now that I am a mother, my mission is to learn everything I know about myself, so I can support my needs and be the best parent I can be for my kids. Laura Petix 0:40 Welcome to the sensory wise solutions podcast for parents, where parents can get real actionable strategies to support kids with sensory processing disorder. I’m Laura, OT and mom to Lilyana a sensory sensitive kid who inherited my anxiety and my love for all things Disney. Consider me your new ot mom, bestie. I know my stuff. But I also know what it’s really like in the trenches of parenting a child with sensory processing disorder. Okay, Speaker 2 1:10 mom, enough about me. Let’s try the podcast. Laura Petix 1:14 Hey, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today we are talking about breaking cycles, breaking cultural cycles, breaking generational cycles, specifically as late diagnosed neurodivergent adults. So most of us millennial or Gen X parents grew up in a culture of tough love our parents meant well. And they did the best they could with the tools that they had. But now, as adults raising neurodivergent children, many of us are reflecting on childhood. And a lot of us notice a lot of similarities between our kids who are clearly neurodivergent and ourselves. But many of us were never assessed, because neuro divergence wasn’t even a term back when we were kids. And the view of neuro divergence was so narrow and limited back then. So so many of us slipped through the cracks. And now many of us are self diagnosing or being diagnosed with some form of neuro divergence, and trying to learn about our brain, trying to learn about our kids brains trying to heal our childhood trauma from the lack of information we had, and also try to break the cycles. That is a lot and that’s what Marcella and I talk about in this episode, and I’m so excited for you to hear it. I was also invited on Marcela is parenting with understanding podcast in which I talked about some ways to support neurodivergent kids and the link for that is in the show notes. If you don’t know who Marcela is. Marcella Collier is a certified parenting coach and former therapeutic care provider TFC, who specializes in helping parents break free from angry reactions become secure parents and raise emotionally healthy children. She is the founder of H IC parenting education agency, who has supported over 14,000 parents to date in becoming secure parents through courses and coaching programs. She is a neurodivergent mom of twins with sensory processing needs. Alright, let’s get into the episode. Hello, Marcella. It’s so good to have you here on the podcast. I am so excited to connect with you. Speaker 1 3:35 Nora when I saw your account, I’m like, wow, I need to connect with Laura. I was stalking you down for a few weeks until finally, I got your response because what I saw on your Instagram account was just amazing. Just to see how you sporting parents understand their neurodiverse kids a lot more. I wish like you put out the content that I wish my parents saw when they were raising me. Laura Petix 4:07 Say it’s a big it’s one big re parenting game that we’re playing and I have to say too, I first saw you on Tik Tok, I think and your videos about where you would talk to is it your grandma or your mom? And your show? Speaker 2 4:23 Our LISA OKAY. YES, I love your video. Okay, I Speaker 1 4:30 meet our grandma but she’s not my grandma. She raised everybody. Okay. So everybody calls her grandma Aleta. Laura Petix 4:40 I love those videos where you’re showing and you’re actually explaining the differences and your parenting style. And I think that’s something that my audience and people that I serve in my community. It’s a constant question that gets brought up as you know, we feel very strongly about the way that we choose to parent our kids but we are getting judgment and shame from our own parents, from aunts, uncles from friends, thinking that we are being permissive. And we’re not disciplining or punishing enough. So I’m sure you hear the same, but I love how you share how you explain that. Speaker 1 5:25 Yeah, I think thinking about the way I grew up in traditional parenting, I had loving parents when they were calm. And, yeah, scary parents when they were angry. And I had parents who wanted to give me everything, the best of them, but at the same time, because they didn’t have the understanding of my needs, the information, the tools, the resources, then I will, I did not get what I needed as a neuro diverse little girl growing up. And now that I am a mother, my mission is to learn everything I know about myself, so I can support my needs, and be the best parent I can be for my kids, and everything I know, everything I can know about my children’s needs, that’s why I want to connect with you. So I can, I can meet them where they’re at, and give them Why didn’t have growing up. Yeah, that’s Laura Petix 6:33 so beautiful, I feel the same I often share about my own. Growing up, my parents were Filipino, I always say the best thing about my childhood was that my parents always made sure I was happy. The worst thing about my childhood is that my parents always made sure I was happy, where like I grew up and I, I now looking back know that I was neurodivergent, that I had a lot of anxiety and sensory needs. And as an as a now a neurodivergent. Adult, I did not have the skills and I do not have the skills. And now I’m in therapy and trying to catch up. Because my parents just didn’t like to see me unhappy. So they gave me everything and never said no, and shielded me from all of the things I didn’t want to do without really giving me the tools on how to regulate. And I say this all the time. My parents are fabulous parents, there’s nothing they did wrong, it’s just I am learning, it’s just they did the best with what with the knowledge that they had at the time. It Speaker 1 7:34 reminds me a curriculum that I created for Yale University, they hire me because parents of children with anxiety disorders, who go to cognitive behavior therapy, the therapy was not being that effective, because of parents shielding their kids from confronting was making them anxious. So this is what CBT or cognitive behavior therapy called as negative reinforcement. So negative reinforcement paths, while you’re telling me is what it is, when, as parents feel, I want not my child to be in discomfort, we fear their own discomfort. So we may avoid places such as I won’t go to a restaurant with my neurodiverse kid because I fear their their dysregulation, or I just hate seeing them in their dysregulation. So that very action of helping them avoid what makes them anxious, creates a bigger cycle of anxiety. And that’s negative reinforcement. So on that curriculum that I was telling you about, I was basically making parents aware of what that was, and how to provide experiences braam their parenting. So their children start slowly feel more comfortable encountering those scary or anxious situations. And what we found is that nine times out of 10, the level of discomfort that the parent has is directly correlated to the level of discomfort the child has, the more confident the parent felt, have. I got it. I can go to the restaurant with my neurodiverse kid and I have the tools to handle it that show to decrease the child’s anxiety. So yes, it is. It is very fascinating to see how the way we parent either either helps our children or exacerbates their symptoms, then neurodiverse symptoms or their anxiety on Sunday. because we do it in a subconscious way, in our way, we nobody wants their kid to be more anxious, you know, but sometimes we do it in a subconscious way, doing those kinds of things. Negative reinforcement, or even trying to add a positive reinforcement element positive reinforcement is when we tell, tell them, Okay, we’re going to the restaurant and if you’re good, then you can have these ABC and then the child is anxious about the sensory experience, they’re gonna hire the restaurant, but they don’t want to lose the the reward or whatever thing that were offered, and increases anxiety. So they are really good at the restaurant, they get the treat, and then they get home and they have the biggest meltdown of their lives. And then the parents are like, what’s happening? Like, how come? We weren’t good at the restaurant, but then the rest of the afternoon was hell, it was because of the bribe, it was because of the reward. So Laura Petix 11:03 I completely agree with what you’re saying. And just like I always tell, I was say is that, you know, you don’t want to do all or nothing, you don’t want to completely like flood your child into the scary thing. You also don’t want to completely avoid it, there is an art, there is a dance to what we in the OT field call is the just right challenge. And we use that we play that for a lot of sensory things, and social emotional stuff, which we could talk on part two, when we head over to your podcast. Yeah. Okay, so yeah, so that’s really interesting that, that you mentioned this, because this is where I feel like neurodiversity, as a parent comes into play, right? Because we are now asking and saying, parents, you need to be more comfortable around your child’s discomfort, right? We don’t need to shield them. But the point is, parents, I don’t want to go to the restaurant, I don’t want to go there. Because my child has a meltdown. It’s so uncomfortable. I don’t like seeing them, though, that or maybe their meltdowns stress me out which fair it does for many parents, but when the parents themselves are also neurodivergent, especially undiagnosed, or they don’t know yet that they’re neurodivergent, then these triggers from their own kids is bringing up things from their childhood, it’s triggering their nervous system, they’re unable to regulate through that. And so they want to just make it stop. And so they avoid it as well. And it is really coming to them. So I know you and I can resonate with this a lot, both of us being neurodivergent. I share all the time with my people they know my flavor of neurodivergent is anxiety and sensory sensitivity. And I’ve got some executive functioning challenges that come with that. But so being in noisy and overwhelming environments, and when I can’t, when I have to also then co regulate for my child that really stresses me out, and I find myself needing to control her. And that it took my therapist pointing that out to me, for me to really be like, Yeah, that’s right. Like when I can’t control her or her behavior or her emotions. It really, really takes a lot for me. Is that the same experience for you? Or can you share more about your neuro divergence? Speaker 1 13:19 Yes. So by the way, diagnosed with autism and ADHD, and generalized anxiety. So the general license side it came because I was undiagnosed until age 37. And then how to summon ADHD. What I found, with my, my experience, being on neurodivergent, brain racing neurodivergent brains was that usually when my sons are triggered, like, let’s just say that we are at Olive Garden and it’s too loud, then I find it that that environment is triggering for me as well. So if they’re having noise sensitivity, I’m having usually the same noise sensitivity. So it’s not necessarily them and their behaviors is what’s triggering to them is triggering for me as well. There is something that I worked with my coaching clients in HVAC parenting, and is looking at separating the triggers was really triggering me because a lot of the times we think is our children we think is their crying we think is their this regulation. And it’s really the things that are making them anxious and trigger is what’s triggering us so it’s not them it is the environment. So just imagine you are at Olive Garden, and you go from why can I use Stop crying and you thinking that that’s the source of your trigger to I get it it’s loud Yeah, it’s triggering, like us show up differently when you’re able to fully understand the source of your triggers. And then you can plan ahead. It was Mother’s Day. I know, I knew Olive Garden was going to be packed. I knew it was going to be loud. I’ve been there before. So um, we’re going anyway, because that that’s one of the only restaurants that my children can can eat. That’s one thing that when you have an neurodiverse family, your restaurant options are not that, that that a lot. So I prepare in advance. I say, as I said, my salah is going to be noisy, is going to be crowded noise and crowds. I know I know, you and I know your son. How can we prepare? I took noise cancelling headphones, I to Lille noise reduction earplugs, I took fidget tools. What else did I take? I took, I took sunglasses, everything that I could take to reduce sensory overwhelm I did. Wet and very surely. But slowly, my son started racing, racing up, he’s in xiety. And then that’s when I knew Okay, environment, let’s use our tools. He ended up under the table and I was under the table with him. But from the awareness of what’s overwhelming here is not the virus is not my child is the environment. And number two, we are safe. Because that’s one thing that when it comes to as neurodivergent parents who were raised in punishment, who were raised in chocolate culture, that’s how we call him Latinos. Yes, yes, who were raised in pain, every time we had needs, we connect how he needs with lack of safety, because we experience lack of safety growing up when we express our needs. Yeah. So that’s the second thing that I work with my coaching clients, for them to see their needs, as just needs that make her nervous system uncomfortable. But that does not mean it is unsafe, if I feel a little overwhelmed, because it’s too loud, you know, or if I felt a little overwhelmed, because my children yesterday, my children when were kind of play fighting, and they were loud, and it was getting too much for me that the noise, the loudness. So it is safe. When we connect our subordinates with lack of safety, that’s when we enter into reactivity and trying to try to control our kids into trying to make it stop and go away as soon as possible. Because we are connecting it to the emotional memory that we have, from when we were growing up. And we’ve have sensory overwhelm. We were punished, we were hurt, we were spanked, or we Laura Petix 18:18 were told it’s not that loud. It’s not a big deal. Like they would, you know, try to convince us that my perception and my experience was wrong. They would say you know, not a big deal. It’s not that scary. It’s not that hot. It’s not that cold. It’s not that spicy. It’s not that it’s Speaker 1 18:36 like and then we ended up gaslighting our own selves. Exactly. We gaslight our own selves. And come try to convince ourselves like Marcella Get it together like you’re 37 Come on, come to his environment is triggering for you. You’re not I mean, if you were five, okay, I will have more empathy for you, but your 37 Get it together. And that creates even more of these regulation and more the urge of trying to control our kids who are one of the pieces that we cannot control. If you think about it, we don’t have control over our kids bodies Laura Petix 19:13 over anybody on Speaker 1 19:15 our anybody’s bodies. Yeah. Right. The lady next door or the restaurant control your kid we I can’t. Yeah, nobody can control and like another person unless you are hurting that person. But you cannot control other people. Exactly. Laura Petix 19:35 It takes it took me a lot of therapy and I’m still it’s still a work in progress to. It took me a while to get on board with trying medication. So I just started Zoloft for anxiety. But for the longest time I was second guessing me Do I really need it? I’ve gotten this whole time without it. I grew up without it like I’m pretty fun. should all live a successful business like, aren’t all parents anxious? Don’t all moms get overstimulated. And it took me a long time to break those things down and realize where that was coming from, of my own being of like being gaslit as a child, and then just the noise from everybody in my environment, and no one really understanding neurodiversity. And it took me a while, and now I’m at least giving medication a try. I’m still trying to figure it out. But what you were saying about how we grew up being punished out of our experience, and like I said, being distracted out of it, like, then we grow up and think like, I should be able to handle this. And so my kid should be able to handle this. And I’m just gonna do the same thing that my parents did, because I grew up pretty fine. But it’s such a, it’s such a liberating feeling, and refreshing feeling, to be able to learn about my own neuro divergence, and give and give myself the support that I deserve now, and it doesn’t matter how old we are. And I think it’s just great to be able to connect with our kids in that way, honestly. Speaker 1 21:12 Yeah. And you know, we are literally softening our cycle, we are breaking our cycle. Because when we show up in safety during their needs, they’re going to learn that their needs are safe. And that is highly is not going to be as as much for them. When I was when my son went under the table at Olive Garden. I went under the table as well. And I told him, Hey, it’s very, it’s getting very crowded and loud, right? And he’d say, Yeah, I’m like, Okay, again, what can help What Can mommy do to help you feel better, so we can be on the on the bench instead of under the table because the waiter is not going to bring us food under the table. She’s gonna put the food on the table. So those interactions that in those Leo encounters are what break our cycle, but our children feeling, hey, my mom is safe when I have needs my um, scene. I Mater. She gets me she validates me. And when children feel seen, validated, validated that they matter that their needs are safe. Then their anxiety decreases. He sat down. And then he said, Okay, so I think I won. He knew I show him the things that I have. So he put my sunglasses on. And he put his, his noise cancelling headphones. And that said, we did a really quick lunch. It wasn’t long, because we knew his window of tolerance. But that’s what helped them. Whereas when I grew up, I remember the restaurant experience. I didn’t get yelled at or anything at the restaurant, but I got home and I got spanked for having needs. Laura Petix 23:19 Oh, so Marcella, I’m curious. So you recently went through the process of getting evaluated to find out to find your autism diagnosis? Yes. Did you share that with your kids? Or have you not yet and can you explain if you did share how what you shared with them and what that experience was like? Speaker 1 23:39 I basically told them that I was diagnosed with autism and Autism means that my brain sees the world differently. And I have many great strengths. And I have super needs and I describe what they were. So they were aware of it. Remember when we are at the car, and then it started raining really loud? And it was it was loud on the windshield wiper. Mommy started crying? Well that loudness feels her love to me. And as part of my support needs of my autism mommy feels safe. Mommy’s safe mom is just very uncomfortable. So they connect my autism with like, this is not something there is something wrong with mommy. This is how mommy’s makeup. Laura Petix 24:32 Did they connect with that right away? Like, Oh, I feel that way around sounds too like was that kind of a moment of you guys connecting and sharing experience? So Speaker 1 24:41 one of them is neurodiverse. The other one is neurotypical. The neurodiverse one with the days he told me, I have your same needs. I’m like, you have your own needs. I noticed your needs are yours. Because I don’t want him to feel and think that he is me? Or do you kind of have all my needs? But yeah, they’re similar something they’re similar. Yeah. Laura Petix 25:06 What about your parents? Did you share your diagnosis with them? And what was their? Speaker 1 25:13 That was hard. That was really hard because my dad is obviously autistic. And I noticed, and I know he sees a lot of him in me. And for him, it was really hard to even accept that I was autistic, possibly because it would mean something about him. Um, because my my brother he is diagnosed with autism, and Down syndrome. Okay, but he’s high needs. I mean, he’s nonverbal and all. How people say it’s obvious for Yeah, for sure hockey stick. So it was hard for them to process like, both of our kids are autistic. Laura Petix 26:02 And probably comparing your needs to him it and it just goes with that misunderstanding of how autism can show up differently. And it is a spectrum for a reason. There’s high needs, there’s low needs support needs in certain areas in different areas. Right. So yeah, that must I imagine. Speaker 1 26:22 So my dad got my that was more like, don’t like, don’t talk to me more about it. You already told me about don’t tell me more. Don’t talk about it don’t. And my mom was, what was my mom’s response? I can talk about it with my mom. But I would say she started. How would I say this? Putting a lot of guilt on herself. Like I should have seen it as? Oh, this should have been mom guilt. Yeah. Laura Petix 26:56 So she was already like rethinking and hindsight that maybe some of your meltdowns and your needs and things that happened as a child and now piecing it together. Yeah, yes. Wow. So I always encourage parents to seek more answers for themselves to if they’re curious. For me, it wasn’t that easy. Because of my insurance. I’ve so limited, it’s not the best experience. So I was really discouraged that by all the red tape, and then it’s expensive. But yeah. I hear a lot of parents saying they’re having a hard time finding practitioners who are well versed in diagnosing autism and in adults. So did you just go through your primary care first? Or how did you can Speaker 1 27:45 take that. So before I tell you my story, if you know that, you know that you know that you’re autistic, you don’t need any confirmation. Even before I was diagnosed, I knew I just didn’t want to pursue the clinical diagnosis. For some reason. I don’t know why. But I knew I was at a stick my head knew everybody knew except my parents that were either like benign, in denial, when it came to their clinical diagnosis. My son got evaluated. And then I was like, okay, he does the same things I do. Sometimes I do more things than why he does. So I just went to the same place I didn’t even go to my primary to psychiatry is nothing I went to the same place. And then it happened that they evaluated adults as well. Okay, and then they ran it through the insurance it went through. Oh, wow, I did the evaluation. It was very easy. Okay. That’s Laura Petix 28:52 great that you had it was in the same place. So you already had a resource to go to? Speaker 1 28:58 I think why help was that my son was? Yeah, so they were like okay, usually runs in families. Okay, we take you will take Laura Petix 29:07 even so my daughter is neurodivergent. She same as me anxiety, sensory, she’s a little bit more impacted than I am in terms of the sensory. But also same issue. We have Kaiser I say this all the time, I really don’t love this system that’s within Kaiser. There’s a lot of gatekeeping there’s a lot of like people before people before people, and they ask a lot of surface level questions. And then if you don’t say the right things, then it’s like, Oh, you don’t need that and then they’ll redirect you to like these parenting handouts. So all that to say is it’s not for lack of trying, we’ve got two developmental pediatrician and then she was like, Oh, she’s making eye contact and she’s talking and she does Speaker 1 29:48 so weird that about eye contact because my psychiatrist the one who diagnosed me to say, she says you make great eye contact. That’s not your there again, because you Make eye contact, that does not mean you’re not. Laura Petix 30:02 Exactly. So I just think that there are still some providers who are not keeping up with the new wave, like the different ways that we can see that we have learned how autistic people can communicate and show up, especially in girls. So I think the ones that were like screening her and then screening me or just like immediately, like stopping us. And I think we can go through like a private one. But that’s just so out of our budget that we can’t and so after a while, I just was like, for at least for my daughter, specifically, I was like, is it worth the pain and stress for me, which triggered me because I’m the person who does all of the evaluation to the calling and all of that? Is it worth it for me, if I’m not going to do anything different with my parenting, I’m going to parent her the same. I parent her as a neurodivergent child anyway, I support her sensory needs, I support her anxiety needs, I’m not going to put her in ABA, this having this diagnosis would not guarantee OT and a clinic that I would want because you’d have to go through Kaiser, which is not the OT that she needs. So after a certain point, I stopped pursuing that. So then when I tried for myself, I didn’t try very hard because I was like, if they wouldn’t give me an evaluation for my daughter, there’s no way they’re gonna give it for me. So I tried once and they were like, they basically laughed in my face was like, Are you kidding? Like you’re not autistic. So just they’re so I can’t really access it really, for me. And I know there’s a lot of parents in the same boat as me. You Yeah, it’s not as clear cut for us. But that I imagined that that was very healing for you just to have that validation. Is that was that was that probably your first emotion when you got the report? Or when they said, No, Speaker 1 31:44 I feel that the grief. Oh, you did? Yes. I felt like, even Laura Petix 31:49 knew you were autistic the whole time. Yeah, Speaker 1 31:53 but it wasn’t grief about how come I’m not neurodivergent it was more grief of me going back to childhood and see these little neurodiverse girl trying to make sense of her world with all these needs. And she she got what she got, you know? Yeah. Laura Petix 32:13 So what do you do differently now that you have a clinical diagnosis of autism versus before? Is there anything that you do differently for yourself? Speaker 1 32:24 Yes, I think now I I feel relaxed or more calmer when it comes to living my super needs. Remember that you said that you gaslight yourself and then you try to control her daughter. And I used to do all that. And now I’m like, No, I have support needs. And then I anticipate my support needs. And I voice it more. I had a Leo IUD procedure last week. And then the first thing that I did when the doctor entered the room was hey, I have these needs. I have autism. I know this is going to be hard sensory experience for me, helped me with this, this and that I gave her like three things. And then I didn’t do that before. And I felt good about it. I before if if I ever said that. I felt like Marcella, you’re soft. How come like You’re not a kid? Yeah, or you? Don’t deal. Yeah, you’re making a big deal out of these IUD. Women get IUD procedures every day. And you’re these are so painful. Laura Petix 33:35 Those are really painful. Oh my gosh, almost almost harder than childbirth. Or like, right. Speaker 1 33:41 Do you have one? I had one Laura Petix 33:44 in the past and had it removed. And then I considered putting it back in but I remember how painful rific that experience was that it’s just no no more for me. That was That was terrible. Yes. It’s very, it’s I hear it a lot from late diagnosed adults who hear from their family members and friends. It’s like, well, how come you see more? Like how come you see more autistic now than before? Like you’re playing into it, you’re leaning into the artist and you’re playing it up. And it’s like, why it’s it’s not playing it up. It’s Speaker 2 34:18 now I feel like I’m not masking as much exactly like now I know my Laura Petix 34:24 brain works this way and I’m proud of it. And I deserve to feel comfortable and safe in these environments like you do and I shouldn’t have to hold it in anymore. But that’s something that I think is so that the neurotypical and ableist people out there misunderstand about what it looks like to have invisible needs and to have different support needs. And you know, we hear it all the time like Oh, everyone’s getting diagnosed like they’re they’re saying that but I’m like, that’s a great thing that people are being able to identify because for years they were missed like how was is a bad thing? Speaker 1 35:01 Yeah. So the fact that there are more diagnosed Autistics is not that the more children are being born cystic is that we there are tools to find out and not ugly. Yes. Before more kids were growing up undiagnosed like me. Laura Petix 35:20 Exactly. There’s just more awareness of it doesn’t mean that there’s more debt, more autistic people, it’s just that we are able to better identify them. There’s more resources for that. Parents are more knowledgeable of the science. Like there’s, there’s nothing I don’t understand. Like there’s no quota, with how many people can have accommodations or needs. So yeah, yeah. Um, Marcella, I would love if you could tell everyone, your services that you provide for parents, I know you’re a parent coach, where can parents find you and learn more from you and potentially work with you? Speaker 1 35:56 Okay, so I’m a certified parenting coach and owner of HJC parenting education agency. The last four years we’ve served 14,151 clients. Laura Petix 36:09 Oh, man, bringing Speaker 1 36:11 peace to their parenting, calm down their reactivity so they can raise emotionally healthy children. And we help parents who are autistic with ADHD, neurodiverse and neurotypical as well feel a lot calmer in their parenting. Where can you find me? Well, we are on our podcast, go to my podcasts, the parenting with understanding podcast, or you can find me on my website hmic parenting.com. Or my Instagram tictac socials everywhere. I’m high impact club high impact club. Laura Petix 36:48 And I’ll put a link to those in the show notes. Okay, thank you so much for your time today. Marcella, I can’t wait to hop on your podcast. So everyone listening make sure you check out her podcast because we are doing a podcast swap and we are going to be talking all about parenting neurodivergent kids on ourselves. Speaker 1 37:06 Yeah, so we this episode was about us. Yes. On the parenting and understanding podcast it is gonna be Nora giving us light on how to parent and neurodiversity. Laura Petix 37:18 Yes, I love it. All right. Thank you so much for your time Marcela. Transcribed by https://otter.ai