#7 - Lived Experience - Connecting with passion to overcome burnout with Emma Gilmour

In this episode,  host Leisa Reichelt interviews Emma Gilmour, mum to two neurodivergent teens. Emma shares her experience supporting her younger daughter through her journey through discovering her neurodivergence, her School Can’t experience and autistic burnout, and how connecting with passion while reducing demands has helped her daughter to find her way back. 

Content warning: includes discussion of self harm and suicidal thoughts, though not discussed in detail. Take care when listening and please reach out for support if you need it. 

Emma’s recommended resources:

• Kristy Forbes - In Tune with PDA - https://www.kristyforbes.com.au/pda
• Eliza Fricker’s books - https://missingthemark.co.uk
• Dr Naomi Fisher (books, webinars, courses) - https://naomifisher.co.uk/
• Viv Dawes - Autistic Burnout resources - https://www.autisticadvocate.co.uk/autistic-burnout

Transcript

Leisa Reichelt: 0:05

Hello and welcome to the School Can't Experience podcast. I'm Leisa Reichelt, and this podcast is brought to you by the School Can't Australia community. Caring for a young person who is struggling to attend school can be a stressful and isolating experience, but you are not alone. Thousands of parents across Australia and many more around the world face similar challenges and experiences every day. Today we have another of our Lived Experience episodes and we are going to meet Emma Gilmour. Emma is mum to two neurodivergent young people who have each had very individual School Can't experiences that have required very different kinds of support from Emma. In this episode, we're going to focus on Emma's experience supporting her younger daughter, Ushi through her School Can't journey. Before we start, just a quick content warning. In this episode, we do mention self-harm and suicidal thoughts, though we don't discuss them in any detail. Please take care while listening and do reach out for support if you need it. Alright, Emma, I would love for you to get us started by just telling us a little bit about you and your family and any context that you think might be helpful.

Emma: 1:10

Yeah. So, we are a family of late diagnosed autistic, ADHD human beings, with the exception of my husband, who is undiagnosed but identifies as ADHD/Autistic. We came over from England in 2011 and we both worked in corporate world, I worked in corporate marketing and he worked in IT. And we brought our babies over from the UK, 10 months old, my youngest was, and my oldest was two and a half. We had no idea that we were neurodivergent. My littlie, who we're going to focus on mainly for this discussion. She was an interesting, baby in that she kind of didn't obey any of the rules of babying. When she was born, she was stuck to me and she didn't sleep. I mean, this is normal stories, isn't it? I also didn't sleep as a child. I mean, these are all the things that are like your tingle bells, aren't they? And I remember she was breastfed. She wouldn't stop breastfeeding. I was like, no, no, we are only doing this for six weeks. She was like, oh, no, we are not. I remember when she was very little, I had to carry her in a sling all the time, like a wraparound sling And she was constantly breastfeeding. So like breastfeeding was stimming. Like, she was literally comforting herself by sucking my boob. It was just my normal, I just had the baby on my boob the whole time. And I remember as well when she was developmentally like she tiptoed for ages when she first walked, and nobody said anything. And we went to sleep school and I was like, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with my children? Why does all this stuff that works for everybody else not work for us? And you know, it's heartbreaking looking back on it now because I believed the people knew what they were doing, who I was listening to and going to for advice So my youngest child is now being diagnosed with PDA autistic. She also has chronic fatigue. For her, everything is a safety thing. She goes through her world on high alert She was a hugely high masker. Everyone's like, oh, they're perfect. What are you talking about? And they'd moan about my other kid and I'd be like, what do you mean? He's fantastic at home because he's more of a fawner, more compliant, whereas, my younger one at home, she'd come home and the wheels would fall off thinking back on it. And again, I had no frame of reference, so these were just the things we used to do. they were our normal, I knew my kids couldn't sleep, so that was a really big issue for us. So, and of course there's all this, you know, kids shouldn't sleep in your room with you, all that nonsense and, and eventually you're so tired, you've got no... you just have to do what feels like the right thing to do. Even now, at 16 and 14, I have both my kids in bed with me every night because it means they can go to sleep. You do what you have to do to get you through.

Leisa Reichelt: 4:04

I think that's actually much, much more common than what people would think, isn't it?

Emma: 4:09

And people are so judgy,

Leisa Reichelt: 4:10

Yeah.

Emma: 4:10

But I look at back my childhood and I think, God, I would've loved to. I used to walk around the rooms in my house, try and see if somebody would let me in their bedroom, and no one would,

Leisa Reichelt: 4:18

Let's go back then. What are we going to call your youngest?

Emma: 4:23

Her nickname at home is Ush

Leisa Reichelt: 4:26

That's very cute. Let's call her Ushi. Okay, let's go back in time to Ushi's earliest experiences of formal education. Talk us through what that journey was like.'cause you were still working full-time?

Emma: 4:41

Yeah, so I was, you know, my upbringing was that I was going to go into a career. I was going to be able to have kids. I was going to have, the moon on a stick. It was only really when I had children, I think it all started to crumble a bit because all those masking things that I put into place as a single person or as a person in a partnership fell apart. Which I think is very common, isn't it? But I know when, she went to daycare first. Daycare was okay. They were very caring in there. She went to a community daycare. It was very scruffy and lovely, not at all what I would've wanted. I imagine at the time I would've been like, oh no. but that's what we could get into. And they were actually very loving and very nice. Even school they were actually completely fine with going to school and everything seemed normal. There was odd little things but generally Ush flew under the radar. Very, very high masking. We felt like a normal family, except for everything was really hard, like getting people out of the house. We had to go through these rituals of, know, like shower had to happen in a certain way and things had to happen in certain orders for us to move forward. Otherwise we had to go back to the beginning and I'd just be like, why can't we do this? What is wrong with me? Why am I such a bad parent? Why could everybody else make this look so easy? And I can't get mine to school without, I mean, we get there, but it would just be a lot of stuff to get there. And I remember trying to, get the train and get into work for half past eight in the morning and just being like, I'd get into work and I'd just be like.....

Leisa Reichelt: 6:08

You've already done a day's work, really haven't you?

Emma: 6:10

And I know everyone feels like that, but it just felt incredibly intense. Primary school for them was pretty good. They had, they seemed to have friends. Ushi changed friends she changed friends regularly, so she'd be, they'd tell me that she was a popular kid. So again, this is part of this high masking, like appearing to be like everybody else. Conforming. And very high perfectionism tendencies and very good at like reading what other kids are doing and what they look like and how to be like them. But she used to swap friends. She had one really good friend all the way from Kinder that they were like best friends until quite recently. But other than that, she'd just changed friends with her years. And then COVID happened and that for us was the sort of beginning of the end, I suppose. Particularly in Ushi's case. The COVID itself actually for our family was a massive relief and we were all just absolutely stunned by how much happier and less stressed we were again, signals. Um, But, the big problem for us happened, and this is something that I know it's, it's very common, but it's also something I find unusual in our School Can't community I don't often hear of so many kids for whom Distance Ed or Home Ed isn't an option. For us, one of the biggest traumas of COVID, particularly for my youngest, Ushi. Was that school came home into safe place. And so home had been safe. School had been high masking where we could be what we were supposed to be. It had its toll on us. But when we got home, we closed the door. Mom was a safe place. We were safe. And then all of a sudden, mum was a teacher and classroom was in my room,in my house

Leisa Reichelt: 8:02

Wow.

Emma: 8:04

And then that was, that was kind of it. And it took a long time for the wheels to fall off. We kind of of gave up on the teacher and homeschooling pretty early on. I think what then happened is I mean, there's so many different things that could be involved in it, like hormones and age as well. But when we had to go back to school in real life, that was when stuff started to get really difficult.

Leisa Reichelt: 8:32

So what year was Ushi in during COVID?

Emma: 8:35

She would've been in grade five, I think.

Leisa Reichelt: 8:38

So like late, late primary.

Emma: 8:40

It's all a bit of a blur to me.

Leisa Reichelt: 8:43

Oh yeah, I hear you. Same.

Emma: 8:45

Things started to go really badly wrong with her mental health. Because she was getting more and more isolated, we'd given her a mobile phone and we hadn't put the right security guards on it. We had security on everything else, but we'd given her this one thing and we were just like, we'd give it to her early before high school because she's not got seeing any friends. She started to get really isolated. I'm not one to chastise online at all because I actually think it has a lot of benefits but in this particular circumstances I was really concerned'cause she, she'd started to self-harm and I was scared. I was worried about the people she was talking to because I also know that these type of things can be influenced by people. And I know for myself, and you know, very commonly as well, I, had eating disorders as a younger person and it was definitely a team sport in a certain extent in my school. So I, there was all these things going on and I decided that I was going to have to put the boundary in of, taking the phone away, really putting all the security safety things and it, it, it really broke her, that betrayal of trust and that boundary and that, um, whatever happened there, broke her for a bit. She no longer was talking to me, and she, um, she must have been so alone. Poor baby. Because she lost me. And the people that she was connecting with online, whether or not they were the right people they were a connection and suddenly it was all gone.

Leisa Reichelt: 10:14

Yeah.

Emma: 10:14

And so things got really serious and she was having suicidal thoughts and I was really scared and I didn't know what to do. It's one of these like, how has this happened to us? How did we get here? I don't know how we got there. You know, that's sort of like incredulous. And, and that desire that we have, don't we as parents? I must be able to fix this. Where's the book?

Leisa Reichelt: 10:35

I've gotta find the thing and then it'll all be okay.

Emma: 10:38

right? And the worst thing about it for, Ushi is, I think the biggest piece was the rift between us. And that was really heartbreaking, I think, for both of us, and really left her really isolated. But the worst thing about it, I think, was that all the professionals that we were going to, in retrospect, were giving us really bad information.

Leisa Reichelt: 10:58

Talk a little bit about that.

Emma: 10:59

So basically the first place we went was Royal Children's, and I was really scared. I thought, I've got no other option. I remember thinking to myself, I know you're frightened, but we've still got to do this. it was almost that comforting myself in my fear, and we've still got to do this. That was very helpful. And then we met the people at the Royal Children's, and that was fine. In the emergency piece. It was kind of fine, but then we got referred to their counselor. We were trying so hard to get somebody to see us. We got referred there and there was just some really unhelpful things happened. There's a lot of parent blaming and there was a lot of not believing our experience and even our pediatrician who we ended up getting referred to, who was absolutely brilliant, very old school, and thank God we had her because she at least got us diagnosed with ADHD and referred us to get diagnosed with autism. But at the time, it was either that we weren't doing something right at home, or that she was being naughty.

Leisa Reichelt: 11:52

So that kind of real behaviorist viewpoint.

Emma: 11:55

Yeah. And

Leisa Reichelt: 11:55

my gut

Emma: 11:56

was telling me this is not,

Leisa Reichelt: 11:58

Because by this stage probably you've tried so many different things.

Emma: 12:02

absolutely. Well, we did all the reward charts and all that nonsense. And none of it worked. And what we were doing was damaging our relationship with our kids. We are feeling awful about ourselves. So it's like, no, we're not doing this anymore. So again, you have to do these things that people tell you to do and you're trying and you're trying and, and even like far down the line as we are now, you still get that little am I really doing this right or am I.

Leisa Reichelt: 12:23

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Every day.

Emma: 12:26

She really started to deteriorate in 22 to the point where she became bedbound. So everyone's like, oh, she's depressed. And they were trying to you know, tell us oh, you need to get her out and you need to get her to do more. Um, and you believe people'cause you think, well these are the professionals. They know what they're doing. I mean, this is people in places that call themselves neuro affirming, diagnosing PDA kids. What we now know is autistic burnout, chronic fatigue, and saying that they need to push through, do more, get out and get some exercise and some fresh air. We went to high school like Ushi was really full of hope. Like, I'm going to go to high school, it's going to be a different environment, it's going to be great. And so we get there and we get all the uniform, we're all ready to go. She gets there and the first week's, okay. And then as it deteriorates, deteriorates, deteriorates

Leisa Reichelt: 13:09

Yeah.

Emma: 13:09

going and she's back in bed. And then we are seeing people at the Royal Children's. We're seeing OTs, we're seeing all sorts of people. And we get referred to this place has been very helpful for a lot of autistic kids, in getting them back to school. But my understanding is that it's a university funded project and it's a research project. And the research project, the paradigm that it's trying to prove is that, if you do certain things, attendance will increase. And the problem that we have when we have a PDA autistic kid who is in burnout, Is that yes, anxiety's involved in it, but physically, someday she couldn't lift her head off the pillow because she'd go one day and then have to recover. She really wanted to do well. But it actually set us back because what

Leisa Reichelt: 13:55

Yeah.

Emma: 13:56

the end as, as it was a six week program. I was 13 week program, I can't remember, but we couldn't make it through each week we got less and there was this, we'd get calls, you know, if you don't complete the program, it's not going to work. You know, if you don't attend, it's not going to work. Making us the problem, if it was a trying issue. I'm like, this is where we are. She's not sat at home like dancing around she's bedridden., and they just couldn't. And I was giving them all these books by Eliza Flicker and they were lapping them up. They were like, this is so interesting. And I'm thinking, am I the first person to be here with this? Maybe I was, I don't know. But, it seems strange. The people were good, but they were working on the wrong paradigm. The paradigm that they're working under is different to the paradigm that our children are living.

Leisa Reichelt: 14:42

This is it though, isn't it? I think the parents who have dealt with this for a long period of time have done so much investigation. In a lot of cases it feels as though we know so much more than the professionals that we have to interact with.

Emma: 14:53

Yeah. And then they, Unfortunately, don't mean to, but they do harm.

Leisa Reichelt: 14:58

yeah, they do.

Emma: 14:58

And this is what I keep saying to Ushi's secondary school at the moment, and they're really trying, but they keep saying, well, let us speak to Ushi I'm like, no, I'm not going to let you speak to Ushi not until I

Leisa Reichelt: 15:07

Yeah.

Emma: 15:08

that what you are going to say to her is not going to cause her harm. Because you coming in and pushing attendance when she has chronic fatigue and can't get out of bed, that's going to cause her harm because she's going to think, they think I'm bad'cause I can't do this.

Leisa Reichelt: 15:23

Yeah. So let's talk about Ushi and her progress through this kind of chronic fatigue, burnout sort of phase. At what point did she get her autism diagnosis?

Emma: 15:34

22, July 22, which kind of around when we went into burnout, it was

Leisa Reichelt: 15:39

Yeah.

Emma: 15:40

in and out of burnout for a bit, what would happen is you'd come into the bedroom and you'd say something to her and she'd goes, stop shouting at me. And you could see like all her senses were completely, everything was unsafe. Including us. The world was unsafe for her.

Leisa Reichelt: 15:57

And did she get a burnout diagnosis?

Emma: 15:59

I had to work really hard to get a diagnosis and I had to make lots of complaints I was very lucky that I managed to get a pediatrician eventually who was willing to put it, because they're so scared to put these things because these things aren't in the DSM, like PDA, I still think half the psychiatrists working in neurodiverse don't actually believe in autistic burnout. Chronic fatigue everyone can understand and that's why we got the chronic fatigue diagnosis. Everything got easier for us when we got the chronic fatigue diagnosis, school doctors, allied health professionals, everybody just backed off a bit.

Leisa Reichelt: 16:36

Okay, so Ushi was kind of in bed sleeping a lot.

Emma: 16:39

And

Leisa Reichelt: 16:40

Very, very kind of sensory overload.

Emma: 16:44

sensory overload and her passions were she used to be a big dancer. She loved dancing, she loved gymnastics, she loved performing. She just got really passionate about ice skating and gymnastics, which was her thing. What I learned from listening to people like Viv Dawes and Eliza Fricker, was that look, follow their passion, low demand, and follow the passion and let the passion lead. And what Viv talks about a lot in her work and her, her books have been really helpful to me, was this idea of, you know, letting that passion lead and what that's led us to- and it's been absolutely the right strategy, and even when I convince myself sometimes that it's not. You know, she is managing to do so much. Like last year she was doing, team aerobics, which she really liked at school. That was the thing she managed to do. And she picked back up gymnastics. So she did gymnastics on a Friday and one hour of team aerobics. It was in school, so she was part of the school, she was part of the team, it's just like keeping them engaged with like the friendship side of things, but not, have to do the other stuff. This year she started ice skating, and she started studying Russian because she loves ice skating. So she's going to Victorian Languages, School on Saturday morning to study Russian from nine til 12.20, which to me is an incredibly long time, but she comes out of it absolutely buzzing'cause relational safety. The teachers are really nice. She's passionate about the subject.That relational safety gives her energy, whereas not feeling relationally safe to teachers. You can see like literally if she submits a piece of work at school and the teacher doesn't come back to her or doesn't mark or doesn't say anything, she'll go and be checking. She'll be checking on her Google classrooms and you can see her slowly deflate. And so again, it's this relational safety. It's being valued, being seen as good, people caring about you, you know, you matter. What I've been working with the high school with mainly is like trying to build relational safety and trying to educate them in the things that we need in order for her to be okay at school. Like, knowing what's going to happen beforehand. If you're going to change rooms, let us know. At the moment we're doing dance, which is lovely.

Leisa Reichelt: 18:50

Yeah.

Emma: 18:51

subject of dance, she's doing her aerobics still. And then she's also doing English, but English at home. So we've got some support from an advocate person who's been helping us with that sort of, just'cause she's missed so much. So things are looking up. Ushi's really happy, she admits she's really lonely, she's missing friends. She wants to make friends and I'm sure she will'cause she's a beautiful human. But the whole experience kind of is not conducive for teenage relationships to keep going. You know, having two years where you're bedbound, is not, um. You know, teenagers don't tend to wait around.

Leisa Reichelt: 19:29

So what year is Ushi in now?

Emma: 19:30

Yeah, she's in nine.

Leisa Reichelt: 19:32

Year nine. And so looking forward then. Do you, I mean, sometimes there's no point making plans'cause you just never know. But have you got any thoughts of what the future might look like, what the next couple of years might look like?

Emma: 19:45

I was writing her disability inclusion profile forms over the weekend. That's one of the questions, and I was thinking because this is the difficulty as well, a lot of the special schools that are out there, don't, necessarily do the subjects that my kids are interested in. My kids are interested in arts subjects. We've been talking a little bit about, maybe looking to become a coach for other kids, like, you know, within gymnastics and skating as you know, who also might have similar PDA and maybe becoming a mentor in that way. She's very interested in potentially doing VCE or going to university, and I think she has the potential to do that. It's just whether or not she can do it in the timeframe that this world works too. But I don't think, when I look at the, it's such a shame'cause there's so many beautiful schools out there that I would love her to go to. But the subjects they do, I know she'd be bored

Leisa Reichelt: 20:34

Emma, for anyone who's listening, who has a child who is in that sort of burnout, stuck in bed, stuck in their room, can't really engage with the world, hearing the story of where Ushi is now, fills us with hope.

Emma: 20:49

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 20:50

What did you guys do in that difficult time that you think has helped to get you to where you are now?

Emma: 20:58

We trusted our guts and we talked to each other. But I think trusting my gut more,'cause I still feel shame and guilt when I ask for more. I hate going to the school meetings. I always feel awful afterwards. I've had some bad ones, a really bad one. But I still hate the fact that I'm asking to give us more than what other people get. Because often people don't want to give it, so then they'll try to make you the problem because then it's, you know what I mean? So I think just trying to lose that worrying about what other people think of you. Trying to lose that and just trusting her, backing her, she's the number one and lots of other things have had to drop by the wayside, but to me that's okay now. Uh, trust in my gut standing up for us, not, not letting her be in unsafe spaces. Some teachers don't mean to be, but they can cause terrible harm in a sensitive child. And so I won't let her be in that situation unless I've vetted them and made sure they know what the expectation is when they're dealing with my child.'cause she's been too hurt and I just can't., I don't want her to think that because of her disability and because of her illness that makes her any less value in the world. People used to say, oh, did you have a good day or a bad day? Meaning were you able to get out of bed or were you not able to get out of bed? It's like, don't make it good or bad. Because then it's suddenly like I have to perform for others in order to be good. Whereas I think that was probably the biggest thing for me taking this sort of moral judgment out of all of this stuff is, is like you are, you are valuable for you.

Leisa Reichelt: 22:39

So when you're engaging with adults who are going to deal with her, what are some of the key messages that you are having to convey to them so that you can feel that they're going to be safe for her to deal with?

Emma: 22:49

Really explaining nervous system and relational safety and that relationship is everything. And that, I have a full ban on anyone talking to my child about attendance because they will try and please those people and then they will push themselves back into harm. It's a massive education project for us as parents because people don't know. The teachers don't know, and if they got trained on this stuff, if we weren't focusing on academics and whether people were wearing the right colored socks. And we started focusing more on, you know, how can we be kind to children in our care. Then their brains could open so that they weren't in distress, and then they could learn.

Leisa Reichelt: 23:28

We have the advantage too, don't we, that we get to learn it in a very intensive way. I know for myself, sometimes my son will have a good week, that was me doing my quoting fingers too around a good week. And then it, me recognizing that then puts pressure on him to keep that up and then that pushes him into burnout as well. And so like, it's so hard just to like

Emma: 23:50

It's so

Leisa Reichelt: 23:50

not get excited and go, oh, maybe we're on the way out now.'cause as soon as you start thinking that you're

Emma: 23:54

we

Leisa Reichelt: 23:55

I know you. Yeah. Like it takes a long time for us to learn, doesn't it? So it's not, surprising that the rest of the world

Emma: 24:00

No

Leisa Reichelt: 24:01

struggles

Emma: 24:02

not. It's

Leisa Reichelt: 24:03

yeah, it is tough.

Emma: 24:04

cause it can be very lonely, can't it? We feel very alone in this situation. It's very hard.

Leisa Reichelt: 24:08

That's why we need to have these chats. On that note, I know we don't have tons of time left, but I would love you to talk about the impact of this journey of supporting Ushi, how's that impacted you, your life, your relationship? What's that been like for you?

Emma: 24:26

Yeah, relationship wise, it's really tough. I think everybody has that, don't they? At the moment, me and my husband are still together and sometimes I'm like, wow, how's that happen? Because it I. tends to be, very common that people are not, because, you know, at the end of the day, my care and my energies are going into my kids and I don't have any space to look after anybody else. So that has an impact. You know, and I, I, you know, we, we've, we've muddled along in the sort of views that this will, at some point things will get easier, but who knows? For me personally, I left my career anyways. I'm very glad I did that and I retrained as a counselor and psychotherapist and I work from home. Work-wise, I can, I mean, I'm in and out. Of course I've got both of them in, they're both on reduced time table and they're both at different campuses. So I'm literally like,

Leisa Reichelt: 25:10

Like an Uber driver.

Emma: 25:11

I'm like that. And I need to be,'cause they get so tired. It's not like they can't do these things by themselves. So it's not like people are like, oh, why don't you just, it's like, because then that will have a knock on effect,

Leisa Reichelt: 25:20

Yeah.

Emma: 25:21

be able to go for two days. They won't be able to go for weeks. So back off with all your, why don't you.

Leisa Reichelt: 25:26

I remember getting a, a call from my son at the end of a school day and he was plunked down in front of his locker and he's just like, I just can't move.

Emma: 25:33

Yeah,

Leisa Reichelt: 25:33

I can't walk through the bus. I can't, like, I, I'm stuck here. We lived a long way from the school at the time. I had to get in the car and drive and fetch him. And I was a real moment for me where I'm just like, wow, this is actually, it's properly serious.

Emma: 25:45

Yeah. They can't even, I mean, I had the other day, Ushi. Bless her. She's doing so well. But you know, there are days where she's really burnt out and she's burnt out over more than one day. And one day she really wanted to go, it was her favorite. It was like Russian or something like that. And she's just looks, and she's like, I can't speak(lisping). It was like literally I can't, I don't have the energy to move my mouth, and that's what people don't get. It's it's never a trying thing,

Leisa Reichelt: 26:14

Yeah,

Emma: 26:15

Hmm.

Leisa Reichelt: 26:16

yeah, yeah. I've got my three closing questions. If you could go back in time, Emma, and tell yourself something, when would you go back to and what would you say?

Emma: 26:27

my God. Oh my goodness. I think I would go back to when I was 11 and I'd just split up with my best friend and I changed myself. Like I started drinking and smoking and trying to fit in I basically was masking, started to mask and I wish I'd said to that little girl, you don't have to do that. Whew. Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 26:52

I think a lot of late diagnosed autistic women will feel that very close to their own hearts.

Emma: 26:57

You don't have to do that. You're good.

Leisa Reichelt: 27:00

Yeah.

Emma: 27:00

Mm.

Leisa Reichelt: 27:01

That's beautiful.

Emma: 27:02

That's what we can do for our kids though,

Leisa Reichelt: 27:04

I. So good, so good that we can do that. What is one thing that you would like to say to everybody who's listening to this, who's on their own School Can't journey at the moment? What would you like them to know?

Emma: 27:17

Oh, just that you are not on your own and it's really bloody hard and you're doing an amazing job, and your kids are going to be so happy they had you as their parent. Oh, I'm going go...

Leisa Reichelt: 27:32

One more.

Emma: 27:32

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 27:33

What's a resource that's been really helpful for you along the way that you would like everybody who's dealing with School Can't to know about? I.

Emma: 27:40

many. Like obviously the School Can't website and the School Can't group is amazing. For me, Kristy Forbes was life changing. Doing her Tuning into PDA course completely changed how I parented and thought about everything and that was incredible. People like Eliza Fricker books were amazing. Naomi, Naomi Fisher. Oh my God. Viv Doors, autistic burnout, She is brilliant

Leisa Reichelt: 28:04

Fantastic.

Emma: 28:05

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 28:05

Those are all incredibly useful resources. We'll put links to those in the notes so that people can go take a look at them for themselves.

Emma: 28:12

Thank you.

Leisa Reichelt: 28:13

Emma, thank you so much. This has been such a wonderful journey into sort of understanding what you've learned and, what you've experienced along the way, and I know it'll be really helpful for others to hear and listen to as well. Thank you.

Emma: 28:25

having me. I really do. Even though I've had a good cry, I do enjoy. It's nice to talk about it, isn't it? You know?

Leisa Reichelt: 28:31

Thank you so much.

Emma: 28:32

much. I better run and pick him up.

Leisa Reichelt: 28:35

Well, I'm sure there are so many of us who can relate to what Emma's been through over the past few years, and hopefully some of her insights and resources have resonated with you today. Identifying and understanding burnout can be so tricky, and it's something that lots of us are going through and it's great to hear stories of people who have seen and experienced it firsthand and also gotten to some light at the end of what can sometimes feel like a pretty dark tunnel. We would love to share many more School Can't lived experience stories with the community. So if you have a School Can't story that you would like to share, please email us at schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com. That's one word schoolcantpodcast and no apostrophe obviously. You can also send any feedback you have for us to that address as well. I am going to put a link to the resources Emma recommended in the episode notes and also a link to donate to School Can't Australia. Your tax deductible donations assist us to raise community awareness, to partner with researchers, to produce resources like webinars and this podcast, which all assist people who are supporting children and young people experiencing School Can't. If you are a parent or carer in Australia and you are feeling distressed, please remember you can always call the Parent Helpline in your state. A link with the number to call is in the episode notes. Thank you again for listening, and we will talk again soon. Take care.