Dawn Rix: Harmonizing the Melodies of Motherhood and Music Through the Autism Spectrum

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Not Me the World? Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor, Broadcasting
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Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding
for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantur. Welcome
to Why Not Me the World. Today's guest is don Rix.
She's a singer songwriter traveling back and forth from West
Virginia to Nashville, and she has a tremendous story about
how she deals with her twenty five year old autistic
son while pursuing a music career. Thanks and welcome to
the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
Oh it's my pleasure. So let's start off with what
age was your son? Diagnosed autistic?
On the I guess too about two years between two
and three years old. It was right after he had
it was right after his second MMR shot. Okay, he
had been babbling and talking, kind of talking a little bit,
saying a few little things.
Everything to me was normal because he was my first child.
He was a healthy pregnancy, the whole nine And it
wasn't until we went to a well baby check up
and they said, you know, we want to do some
text We want to check his hearing, and we want
to check a couple.
Other things because he should be talking more. Uh huh, Like, well,
he was, but it just kind of stopped. The eye
contact kind of stopped. And they sent us up to
WVU to Morgantown to be evaluated. Okay, we went in
this little room and they.
Watched him play. Of course, they asked them all kinds
of questions and that kind of thing. And when they
finished up, they came into the room and they said, well,
we've diagnosed him with autism.
It's a neurological brain disorder. There is no cure, and
we don't know the call.
Right, our best suggestion would be the reach out to
other parents who have children with special needs or them
for support. Here is a blue folder and in the
back there are some phone numbers on there that you
can call if we can help you in any way.
Let us know, and the earlier, the earlier interventionry, the
more likely he is to have a normal life and
send us on our way.
Wow. So this would be the late nineties, right.
That would have been let's see, he was born in
ninety seven. That would have been ninety eight, ninety nine.
Between ninety nine and two thousand.
About the time that autism really wasn't a well known
talked about situation, right, I.
Mean, it had just started getting some attention, and then,
of course, you know, a few years later it went
all out about as burgers and the whole spectrum thing
came to life.
And then then you had.
People saying, well, my kid's not autistic, he just has asper.
Everyone kind of made this fud gap between it, and
really it's all on.
The spectrum, it's just where are you on the spectrum?
Right?
And that was the longest trip problem of my life
because my thing was here, I have this beautiful, brown
eyed baby boy right right, and how are we going
to dive in? And how am I going to fix this?
Was my perspective. Okay, my husband's perspective at that time
was I need to go to work to make money
to fix the problem. And it was more like I
was mad at my husband because I felt like he's
something that my son was the problem, and as as well,
my son was not the problem. Like I wasn't in
denial that something was going on.
I was just in shock.
And my whole thing was, no one's gonna put a
label on this kid. We need to dive in and
study and do research and all of these things and
you know, it wasn't long after and and maybe maybe
meant maybe.
Many people have gone through the thing thing. I don't know, right.
You know, my husband, his way of dealing with it
was to go to work and not deal with it. Okay,
My way of dealing it was to die full speed
in and it became my life and we divorced. It
wasn't for the lack of love per se. It was
just we both had two different aspects. I realized that now,
you know, twenty years later we ended up having a
daughter together. But like all this time has passed and
I've basically been a single mom raising my son.
You know, it's been pretty pretty interesting.
So what you just said is is very very common.
You know, unfortunately it's very common. But when that happened
and you were kind of by yourself, so to speak,
trying to work with your son, what was your next steps?
What did you do to try and find out what
you could do to help him? And did some of
those things work?
Well, I'm going to tell you.
I just want to tell you something that happened to me.
So I took that blue folder that they gave me
and I flipped it over and I called I called
the local parents and as a neutlely diagnosed mom of
an autistic kid, like, the first parent I called, have
you tried this?
Have you tried that? Have you tried this? Have you
tried that?
And I mean, just blew me away with all of
these things.
And I was so overwhelmed, right, but also definancially had
access to all of those resources that I did not
financially have.
To be able to do those things.
Okay. Then the next parent I caddled was don't get
me wrong, I want to say, ninety percent of the people
you reach out to are very supportive. Right, every kid
is different, sure, and I don't in I mean, I researched.
Of course, you analyze everything.
I'm thinking, Okay, I never smoked, I never did drugs,
but I had a perfect pregnancy. I like, and of
course you're beating yourself up because there's some self guilt
to it, thinking is that has this been in my space?
Oh yeah, we didn't know it went on diagnosed like,
there's a lot of that.
Absolutely.
I was just really big one whatever connection and whatever
I had to do to help him be.
As independent as possible and to.
Learn, you know, to do whatever. And I was just
very creative and music saved me. Okay, you know when
he was young, when he was little, of course, and
we were trying to give him the book.
Again, that was back when karaoke was a big deal.
So, I mean I had fifty thousand songs in my
music equipment set up, you know, I'm singing all the time,
and music videos. The MP was always a favorite, right, Well,
he had his favorite. He had books and don and
all the country music were that was his favorite. So
I bought one of those little plastic play school recorders
with the microphone for him, right, And on my microphone,
I would start making sounds like hey, hey, and he
would get his attention, and then he would get curious,
and then I would use his microphone and say the
same thing, and then I'd hold it up to him.
Eventually he started going huhuh and he would mock me.
Okay, well, we would watch.
The words on the screen, right, and we would eventually,
before he would even communicate with us, he literally would.
Sing a song word so word better than the drunks
at a karaoke bar. I mean, it was like it
was like that good.
And the crazy part is that even to this day,
he's a walking.
Encyclopedia of music.
If he hears a song, he can tell you the year,
what's on the cover, the singer, all the above, and
country weekly magazine he could tell you.
Like every year for Christmas, that's he won. It was
a country music magazine, he'd say.
He'd say, nineteen ninety three. Okay, he'd tell you the artists.
He'd tell you he was in the review section and everything.
He wasn't bored from nineteen ninety seven. How did he
know all these things?
That's good.
Back to your question, I'm sorry, but I've got creative.
I dove in and I whatever.
We could come up with that worked for him. Through
the school system at a younger age, there are more
resources you can you can you know, work together with
their individualized you know, educational plan whatever, and you can
really really dive in and when you have some really
good features or aids that make a connection. I don't
care about their paperwork or certification. To be honest with you,
that means nothing to me. But boy, oh boy, if
you can connect with my kid and get something out
of them, you're saving great.
I just really walked a lot with them.
I've dedicated my life to trying to make it possible
for him to be as independent as possible. The behaviors
and stuff like that all came later. So when he
was younger than only three foot to if he yelled
or threw a fit, I could handle.
It as a single mom, okay, But as he got bigger,
and now he's six foot two and he's three hundred
and ninety pounds.
Wow, when he puts the TV to the door, or
kicks your windshield out.
Or cracks you in the back of the head, it's
not like a little kid anymore.
We've had some severe things happen being a single mom.
One of the other things is when they're transitioning from
like the teenage years onto adulthood. When you travel somewhere
and you need to go to the bathroom, go in
the men's bathroom with it. Yeah.
Yeah, But there's a lot of things that people don't
think about or need to unless they're in that situation.
I mean, I could talk for hours.
I would be on your podcast for fifteen, you know,
fifteen years talking about stuff.
Now, the early ages, you said that you had to
work with him through karaoke to get him to start talk,
and everything did. Eventually you get to the point now
where he's verbal and there's no problem communicating.
He can tell you what he wants through a drive
through as far as to eat. He can understand things,
and I think he could read even when he was little.
But he will not have a conversation like you and
I are having.
Okay, you might get one or two questions and answers
out of them, like that kind of exchange, right, But
but then that's it. So I'm still guessing because he
won't voice his wants. Your knees all the time, right,
You're still guessing.
Does he have a headache? Does the stomach hurt?
Like?
You can ask those questions, but sometimes you're not gonna
You're just gonna get no. Thank you. A lot of
times when he him to give him instructions, it's mainly
generalized instruction.
Right. If we give it to him directly, it's almost
as if he fears saying the wrong thing, like he
has a little bit anxiety about that. So if I, like,
if I wanted him to get a jet, take his
jacket off, rather than say Steven, it's hot, take your
jacket off, or do you want to take your jacket off?
I mean, he would yell.
But if I say, who, it's hot in here, he
will immediately take his jacket off and say, oh, it's hot,
and I'll take his jacket and he'll say thank you.
So it just comes down to a matter of knowing
how to approach him and suggest things, making him think
his own idea rather than it's yours.
Yes exactly, And again everyone's different. I have a friend
of mine whose son, you know. Years ago, she came
to me and she said, oh my gosh, and she
was crying and everything, and she said, I'm taking him
to get checked. I really think he might be autistic
and this, that and the other. And you know, I'm
very supportive of her. You know, he fill your son
no matter what they say.
And report why.
But parents out there who might be listening to this,
who are who are newly diagnosed, don't let the label
scare you.
As a matter of fact, it can work in your favor.
Because without that label, per se, you're not going to
be able to get your child all of the resources
and help and therapy is that they are going that
they're going to need to benefit.
Them without that label. Yes, on paperwork, you have to
have it.
It does not mean that your child's gonna wear that
label around their necks. It just means in paperwork, you're
going to have to have it. And that was something
that was really hard for me at first because I
didn't want to label my kid, you know, but when
it came down to fighting and advocating for him, I
had to have that label in order to be considered
for you know, the like the wave of program, or
for for the different things that you know, the speech therapy,
like those types of things.
What you just said about verification and all that is
so true. It helps people get things that are needed
more so than if they go undiagnosed. So there's two
things that people do. They put people in schools that
have good special need classes, or they do homeschooling. Which
one worked for you.
In West Virginia, Well, we started with regular kindergarten and
tried that, but then it went to the special needs classes.
We changed schools. He went to an elementary school and
they wanted to expel him illegally for making loud outbursts, okay,
and I had to fight the school system because initially
they said that was the very best school that they
had that they could offer him, And the only thing
they were offering for me was to kick him out
for me to find another school or change schools.
Right, And as his mom, I said, you all.
Just told me he's in the very best school you
have to offer. Why would I go to a different
one of your schools? Sure, if he's already at the
best and you're expelling him illegally, totally illegally for loud outbursts,
they knew they didn't have a leg to stand on.
After we went back and forth, they tried to hold
an emergency iepting okay.
Then what happened like called me.
In to talk.
But when I got there, there were like five or
six people I didn't know, and I'm like, what is
this right? They said, well, they're part of our plan
and we need you to agree to this. And I
ripped the paper up in front of him and I said,
I refuse to agree with this right, and any of
you that I've ever worked with my kids should refuse
it also because it's a cop out. And anyway, long
story short, I battled for my son and I made
the local board of education pay for him to go
out of state to a Grafton school which specializes in
all different types of special needs.
Wow, that's great.
They knew that.
If they didn't, I was gonna I was gonna sue them.
And I'm not too happy. I'm like the most I'm
the easiest mom to get along with until you're not
doing the right thing right, and then it's not about
that anymore.
It's about doing the right thing. Sure, I drove him.
They actually came to me and said, for an allowance
of X amount of dollars, would you be willing to
drive him to school because it's less expensive than for
us to put a buck and an aid out on
the road to take him.
Well, that makes sense.
And and I said, well, check your records, because you
also threw him off the bus because other kids, you said,
were scared of him making loud noises.
So yeah, of course I'm gonna drive them.
So he ended up going to Grafton, which was wonderful
in the state of Virginia, and I drove him for
a couple of years and he graduated from there. But
once that transition of no more school and you reach
twenty one or twenty two.
Years old, you opt out they're you're left.
Out in the wind exactly.
Not to complain too much about West Virginia, but as
it had been my hometown, I had been trying to
get to Tennessee full time for years. But with special
needs programs and things like that, they offer no transition time.
Right once you leave the state and you're whatever it
is that you're getting right, you know, whatever, insurance or whatever,
then you start over again. We were on the waiver program,
and I'm not sure if your listeners know about the
waiver programs, probably due well. We were on the the
ID waiver of West Virginia. We were on the waiting
list for seventeen years. Wow. We were number four hundred
and nineteen. Wow, waiting just to get some type of
not personal money.
This was just money that was being held by the.
State for disabled people who needed it for their respite
care and all of those things, and they were just
sitting on it. Right.
We had a fight for that.
We had to go through Congress and all this stuff. Anyway,
they released that right when COVID.
Happened, so we were not we didn't have any of
the resources.
We were granted the resources, and then COVID happened and
there weren't our resources.
It was like whoa, what just happened?
Wow? And so it's still here in our state. West
Virginia and I believe Michigan are the only two states
that actually will pay a parent a certain amount of
dollars per day at the daily care support system. Right.
That is ten dollars and ninety eight cents an hour.
Wow. One of the biggest things that you did say.
And I think that everyone really needs to get this
because it's hard to deal with the emotions you're going through.
So you have to learn how to calm yourself down,
not yell at people, be determined and advocate for your
son or daughter because that is who you're working for.
Yes, one of the best things I can say is
be prepared.
Don't feel intimidated.
You know your child better than any person sitting in
the room, right, But remember you're on the same team.
You all are working towards what's best for your child.
Right.
They're not against you. Now it may feel like it.
It may feel like it, yes, but you need to
keep battling and battling and battling.
And I don't say battling like in a mean way.
Cutting them out and all that. That's not going to work.
It means be prepared, do your homework, advocate, know to
the laws.
Yes, know the law.
They will be blown away when you say, oh no.
Uh uh, Section such and such of such and such
means blah blah blah.
They're going to be blown away by that. But know
what your.
Child's legal rights are and have access to someone who
legally could represent you if you needed them to. And
I haven't had to have that yet, which I'm glad,
but I've called.
I've had to call before because not everything's going to
be easy.
And even till this day here in West Virginia, there's
no residential placement that's available right at least not for
my when my son, when we put in for him,
he's denied, den I deny, deny, deny, deny, deny.
That's pretty much all across the country.
Yeah, And it went from it's either low staffing or
we can't offer the support, or we don't have the
funny there's always.
Something I talked with with some friends of mine that
run a place called Our Place here in Nashville. They
put together housing for special needs autistic people. That type
of thing I've read.
Up on them. I've actually emailed them before. But go ahead.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.
I got excited because I'm like, hey, I recognize that
nice people.
You couldn't ask for nicer people to deal with. That
is one thing that is a very similar story throughout
this country is finding places for your kids to be
able to have some housing to where they can graduate
into living by themselves and functioning and having some help
that way. It's a very very tough thing that needs
to be addressed.
You know. I always said that if I could hit
the lottery, that I would buy some property and I'd
make it like it's your own little village, you know,
to house kids. And I say kids, but you know
what I mean younger adults. They were transitioning so that
they can get out because you know, as parents were
not getting any younger obviously.
And the biggest fear is, you know, who's.
Going to take care of your kid right right and
right now while you're healthy or somewhat healthy and able.
You want to be able to advocate for them and
have find placement for them and have a state though
in their future and their outcome. Yes, and it's devastating
when your hands are tied. Yes, and you can't prepare
for that because there is nothing.
It's a common thing I hear all the time. So
many people are so fearful of what happens to their
kids if we aren't here. Everybody thinks about that. Oh yeah,
now he's out of school. Now he's transitioned into you know,
the living situation that you have now. But like you said,
he's six foot two, three hundred and ninety pounds, and
when he has a meltdown or he has some issues,
he doesn't realize his own strength. Probably have you had
situations like that where he's hurt you not meaning to,
or hurt somebody not meaning to and you've had to
get some help there.
Yes, Unfortunately, there have been times when we've when I've
ran to the basement and locked the door and he
had pushed the door and the frame down trying.
To get to me.
Yeah, was a few years ago, about seven months ago.
I guess it's been about seven or eight months ago.
He had never really hit me before.
He would hit the wall or you know, push the TV,
punch a hole with bache's head, self abuse, you know,
kick its feat bite his arms like that kind of thing,
but he actually gave me a concussion. Oh wow, And
we had to I had to go to the to
go to the emergency room. And while I was there,
of course, the crisis people come in and they're like, listen,
you're gonna have to so on two different times, which
I really haven't shared with anyone, but two different occasions,
we've literally had to do an emergency kind of hearing.
Luckily we had a judge that actually came to the
hospital rather than whatever. But it was the scariest thing ever.
They had to serve in paper. The police came and
they had to think shackled his ankles and his and
put the handcuffs on his wrist, and you know, to
transport him.
To the state hospital to be evaluated because there was
nothing close by.
And I mean it was it was devastating, of course,
to even have to think about or to do.
But it was a situation that your safety, you know, you've.
Been crying out for help, begging, begging for some type
of assistance or whatever, and you know they say document everything. Well,
I have a whole book of documentation of how many
nine to one one calls we would get when we
would have an episode.
But the problem was, by.
The time they would get there, he would be on
the meltdown part of it, right, And they'd get there
and they'd.
Look at me, thinking, I'm the crazy one. Right, Sometimes
I felt I was the crazy one.
And I don't mean crazy, but you know what I'm
saying is sure Like they'd get there and he would
be like yes and smiling at him, and they're like,
what's the problem, you know, And so they look at
the blinds knocked down, and the holes in the walls,
and the TV n you know, busted up, and you know,
the mirror busted and I've gone through I tell you what,
in two years time, I had to replace five automobile windshields. Wow.
And I say these things not to complain, but it's
real life.
Absolutely, it's real situations.
People on the outside are so quick to say, oh,
I would whip that kid blah blah blah, or I'd
put him away or maybe bust him in the head.
And I you know, I had someone that I was
seeing for a while who who always said, oh, the
best thing for him would be duct taping a hammer,
And I never would even introduce them to my kids
because of those comments.
And I know some people think, oh, that's funny and stuff.
It's not.
Well, they just don't get it.
They don't get it. And here's the thing. Then you
have Then you have those who want to say, did
you do this, did you do that? Did you do this?
Did you do that?
Did you and they mean well, But at the same time,
it's like, listen, if you can contact someone and you
can do those things, go right ahead, feel free. But
there is not a rock that has not been overturned
by me or better yet, someone will say, so what
triggered it? And you're just sitting there and staring back
at him right thinking if I knew, I'd be a
millionaire and famous because I would then find a cure
like I mean, like I and he can narrow it
down and you can kind of pinpoint. But it's just
very hard and it's very It's something that people don't
know what they don't know, and so it is important
to kind of just bite your lips sometimes and then
just try to educate people, yes, or just to try
to inform them, like I would love to go and
cross states and just talk to ems and police officers
and give them just any kind of little tidbit things
that are helpful in those scenarios because when they're walking
up on something, if I wasn't there at one time
my son had an incident, and if I had not
been there to explain to the officer that he was
autistic and it's this that's happening, they would have shot him, right,
And I can't say, I cannot say, even as his
mom that I would have blamed them for being precautious.
But thank goodness I was there, or the outcome would
have been different, right, you know.
But at the same time, when.
He had that episode, at that particular time, I mean,
it took six grown men and two shots from the
EMTs of stuff that they would usually tranquilize an elephant
with in order to calm him down, just to get
them halfway on a journey to get to the hospital.
Now that's not all the time, and I hate to
talk about the bad stuff, but I would be lying
if I said it didn't happen.
This podcast is about reality. This is things that you know,
people don't want to hear sometimes, but sometimes they need
to hear it. Because I had one person say to
me at one time they thought that they were the
only people that was going through the situation with their
son in the world. They weren't, and neither are you.
You know, So this story that you're telling, there's probably
so many people out there that have very similar situations
that need to hear this, you know, on what they
need to do or how they need to try and
compromise on things to try and work with police.
Just like you said, it's hard to watch, it's hard
to see. I mean, there's there's so much that pools
at my heartstrings, you know. And I say, like ninety
percent of the time, I have a happy, go lucky kid.
I say kids still, but you know, an adult and
he's waving at the rooms when they go by.
But I also I need to be careful when we
go into a store. I need to know where the
exits are. I need to know if there's.
A woman coming down the other aisle, because I don't
want him to be curious. I mean, he's never been
aggressive in a way that like he wanted to like
throw someone down and rate them right, But he has
been curious and reached out to touch their top or whatever.
And I'm frantic as a mom my nerves are on
edge because I have to prepare, I have to prethink,
pre plan, and I have to feel out his mood to.
Know whether or not today's a good day to.
Walk through TJ Max, or today's a good day for
him to go through.
Goodwill or whatever.
We have been at stores that a few I won't
take him back out of courtesy for the store because
of an outburst or because you know, a soda wants
flying or whatever. Yeah, yeah, And then I'll tell you this,
you know, as a mom who's trying to work and
then also be a singer and to do all the
other things. You know, the music part keeps me somewhat sane.
It's very therapeutic for me. But what people don't know
is trying to commit to even the phone conversation with you.
Everything is so unpredictable. It's so hard to commit to
something because you never know what's about to happen. And
as an entertainer, when I was playing every single weekend
with the band, there were times I literally would throw.
A bag in the car just he just had this
major outburst.
The holes in the wall, however, soda in my hair, whatever,
and I would.
Literally change clothes in the car twenty minutes prior to.
Walking on stage to do a four hour show, putting
my clothes one, throwing some makeup, one, literally sliding Pepsi
cola off the you know, the strand of my hair,
stepping up on stage, putting us well, my faith, and
entertaining for people for the night, praying that they can't
tell what exactly happened and they had no idea what
I went through to just make two hundred dollars.
Right, right, I get it. He's twenty six. Now, what
do you see in the next four or five years?
I mean, you've got a situation of where he can
be volatile and then he can be just like anybody else,
but you never know. What do you see his future being?
I mean, what do you see your future being? Because
there's such a balancing act that you have to do
in order to create something that can be hollerrable for
both of you and hopefully have a better ending than
what you're hoping it could be.
No, I don't know, and normally I would know, Normally
i'd have a plan, But everything we can only control
what we can control, and there are no there are
no openings residentially for him, right and when there are openings,
it tends to be that for some unforeseen reason he's
not accepted. Whether it's they don't have one on one
staffing is typically the answer, right, It just always ends
up being something, right, Right. I had thought about just
literally having to bite the bull and pack up and
moving to another state, which is exactly what our neurologists recommended.
Uh huh.
And of course my you know, my thing would be
to be a national full time obviously, but Tennessee was
not on the greatest list either.
Right, and then we'd have to start all over again.
So at this point, I don't know.
I mean, I've even had some health issues slightly that
have been very concerning and very scary, and I just
don't know. But my hands are tied.
Do you have any support, you know, family or anybody
that's helping you here so that you know it all
alone in this.
Sadly but realistically, my dad is eighty three and he
lives with us, and without him I would be lost.
But he also is eighty three and his health is
getting you know, he's you know, he's as strong, strong
as a bull, and hard headed. Okay, he said he's
going to live to one hundred and I hope so right, right, right,
But you know he's starting and he's starting that beginning
stages of dementia.
Oh that's tough, and I see it.
And we don't know what tomorrow brings. I know I
could be out of here before he's down here. But
right now he is my main resource and he lives
with me, and that's basically all I have.
Yeah, my daughter has co kids, she's busy now.
His dad lives ten minutes away, his dad is a pastor,
his dad has been remarried, he.
Has another you know, another son and stuff. And it
wasn't until this past year that if I.
Needed him for something, that he would come out and
actually spend a few hours with him or whatever.
Okay, but as far as hands the one even in
a crisis, like, it's just me.
Okay, most of my other families in Baltimore and and
stuff like that, but as far as here, it's us
that makes it difficult too. Sure, even in even in
your planning process, it's you know, I have a friend
or two that I could call in an emergency situation,
but most of the time you don't because when you're
in it, you're in it and most of the time,
you're pretty private about that kind of stuff.
You know, sure you have to be in that situation.
So you're standing in front of one hundred people right now,
and you're telling them a little bit about your life story,
but you're telling them about your son, but you're really
focusing on autism and what people can expect because they
are just finding out that their sons and daughters might
be autistic. Then new to the autistic community. What would
you tell them? What's your message?
My message would be, pray every day, dedicate yourself to
your child. Research is great, that it's not in the
present moment, okay, And I would say to dive in
to your child and try everything, count nothing out. Everything
that you're going to do from this day forward is
going to be trial and error. I would also say,
cut yourself some slack, because we tend to beat ourselves
up when we can't fix it. We tend to beat
ourselves up when we feel like we're not doing enough.
So cut your cut yourself loose black, and just be
prepared to be uninvited to thing. Be prepared that not
everyone's going to understand, but it's not meant for everyone
to understand and that in a lot of cases, you
are that kid's life preserver.
Sure, and they need you. And then in the end.
You find out that you can learn a lot to
them too, because sometimes sometimes their.
Their little world is a lot.
Nicer, it's a lot safer place to be than than
what we are dealing with as adults.
You know.
Yeah, sure, yeah, adelts can be harsh, and a lot
of adults don't know the difference between a meltdown and
a tantrum.
I think what you're doing is wonderful. It's it is,
it's wonderful, and it's.
Well needed, you know, And I'm glad that you did
mention like tantrums or meltdowns and things like that, because
when my when my son has an episode, I can
the best way to describe it would be like someone
going having having void rage, like going from zero to
one hundred like instantly, and then he would have, you know,
act out, you know, whether it be you know, hitting
or kicking yourself, if he is whatever, he would go
through that real high peak, and then afterwards he would
have a meltdown and then he is actually remorseful, and
then it's as if nothing ever happened again, and so
and it's like a little mini cycle and and but yeah,
for for most parents, I would say it's scary.
Don't get so caught up in the label part of it.
Just dive into what works for your child, and it's
gonna take a lot of adjusting. But your self care
is important and never lose sight of that. It's very
easy to get caught up caring caregiving be a child
or even an older older person that you have to
be one hundred percent right right in order to give
you one hundred percent.
So make sure you take care of yourself as well,
help wise.
Right.
Well, I really appreciate you coming on. I mean, it's
great to have you.
Great to have you too, And I'm apologized I was late,
and I tend to talk a lot about it, but
I you know, again, I'm an open book, and my
social media stuff is out there and I love to
connect with other parents and even one who are just
getting that new diagnosis and stuff. I'd be more than
willing to, you know, to share or help or advocate
or just answer questions.
Many times back home.
I've been at the er with other parents going through
and having a time and just kind of helping them along. So,
but God, bless you for having this podcast, and you
know it certainly should be a number one podcast all
the time. It's well needed and I'm new, I'm new
to learning about it. Thank you for having me.
It's been my pleasure. Thanks for taking the time out
of your busy schedule to listen to our show today.
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we
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