#45 - What I Wish I Knew Earlier - Lived Experience Panel

This week we bring you a special live recording of the Lived Experience panel from the launch of the 'Understanding School Can’t' ebook. Featuring previous podcast guests Diana, Mark, Simone, and Yani, the discussion ranges draws from their personal journeys and explores the challenges they faced with School Can’t, and the wisdom they wish they had known earlier.

The panel offers powerful reflections on the importance of community, dealing with isolation and stress, and practical advice on navigating educational systems. They also touch on the significance of self-care and finding hope during difficult times.

Download the free ebook from the School Can’t Australia website (https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/minibook) and join us in this candid conversation about overcoming barriers and supporting young people through their unique educational challenges.

00:00 Welcome and introduction to the Lived Experience Panel

02:30 Meet the Panelists: Personal Journeys

09:15 Early Signs of School Can't

12:49 Bad Advice and Missteps

18:43 What Actually Helped: Breakthroughs and Support

24:05 Hope and Optimism in the Journey

27:18 The Importance of Self-Care

28:57 Final Thoughts and Resources

People & resources mentioned in this episode:

• Download the ebook; Understanding School Can’t - https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/minibook
• Diana’s Lived Experience Episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2447546/episodes/17687736
• Mark’s Lived Experience Episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2447546/episodes/17343389
• Simone & Yani’s Lived Experience Episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2447546/episodes/17807153
• Naomi Fisher on Parental Burnout (and self compassion) episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2447546/episodes/17727352

Transcript

Leisa Reichelt 0:05

Hello and welcome to the School Cart 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't 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 than experiences every day. We have a very special treat today. It's the live recording of the Lived Experience panel who came together For the recent launch of the Understanding School Can't ebook, which you can download for free from the School Can't Australia website right now. You are going to hear voices of four of our previous lived experience podcast guests, Diana, mark, Simone, and Yani, and they are gonna be sharing some of their hard earned wisdom and insights on all things School Can't, and the things they wish they had known much earlier in their School Can't journey. Now this was a live panel on Zoom, so the audio quality can get a little bit sketchy at times. My apologies for that, but I think the quality of the discussion more than makes up for it. I hope you enjoy this live panel conversation. Shall we move on to our lived experience panel now and share a little bit of real life talk. This is kind of like examples really, isn't it, of where the material for the ebook came from. Real lived experiences of folk who have trod this pathway, and we've had to make our own way through it. And want to be able to share some of the things that we all wish that we knew a little bit earlier on in the journey, Before I start, I do want to acknowledge the lived experience of all the members of our School Can't Australia parent and carer peer community, and the value of our voices and our experience. We thank the members of our community who have volunteered to share their lived experience today. If you have been a listener to the School Can't Experience podcast, these may be some familiar faces or voices because all of these wonderful people have shared their lived experience on the podcast. Many thanks to you all for doing that. I. Don't want us to go into big, deep stories of, what we've all been through, because that's available on your respective podcast episodes. And we'll make sure links to those are available. But what I would like to do is just get you to maybe introduce yourself individually. Who are you, how's things going in your life these days? Would you like to kick us off, Diana?

Diana 2:43

Sure. And thanks Lisa. I really appreciate the opportunity to share. I'm actually feeling quite emotional, to be honest. I think it just reminds us of what an incredibly emotional journey this is. I'm actually out the other end of it now because, my son is now 19. We're based in Sydney and. He actually just finished his first year of university, which, feels absolutely amazing. So where we are now is good. I think still processing a lot of what we went through because it was a really difficult challenge some of the things that you struggle with at school you then struggle with in other parts of life as well. So it's, it's kind of ongoing.

Leisa Reichelt 3:23

Yeah. That's understandable. Mark, let's hear from you.

Mark 3:27

Hello everyone, and congratulations on such an awesome resource, it's one of those things where you kind of go, oh yeah, I wish I'd had that 10 years ago. That would've been great. Our journey is my eldest is 11, and it's been ongoing since we started school. having been through lots of services, lots of situations, lots of schools, lots of options, we now homeschool and we found that the, the whole thing is. It very much is. it's a, it's a family wide, situation and that's the approach we had to take to get to what worked for all of us, not just my eldest. I'm based on the sunny South coast,

Leisa Reichelt 4:00

Thank you so much Simone and Yani. Welcome. how are things going with you guys?

Simone 4:05

Hi. Well, hi, we're Simone and Yani and I'm grateful to be here. And a little bit like Diana. I think I find, seeing that resource a bit emotional still. Yeah. but very glad it's here. And we live in southwest Victoria. and now Yani can talk,

Yani 4:23

what do you want me to say?

Simone 4:24

where we're at or where you are at? And then I'll talk about that,

Yani 4:28

I turned 18 this year, so I would have graduated high school this year if I had kept going, but I didn't. I decided to go to TAFE and get an education that worked in the right way for me

Simone 4:45

so What have you done? What are you doing?

Yani 4:47

I studied art last year, at TAFE and it was very good. I'm going to do year 11 this year.

Leisa Reichelt 4:56

Fantastic. That's so cool. And Yani, you are our very first young person on the podcast So yeah, huge thanks to you for being willing to share your story with us all and come here and do this as well today, which is super brave. On that note. I'm interested to ask you guys why, like, why put yourself through this? Why did you volunteer to share your story on our podcast and come here and do this again today.

Simone 5:23

From my perspective, I think, there's some learnings that are really helpful to have gathered along the way. I think they're useful for other people to hear, Not only that though, I think part of the experience of sharing your story helps you learn and grow yourself. Even since, doing the podcast, Yani and I have had a lot of conversations about various aspects of our journey. So we're still learning and growing from it. It was a good opportunity for us to learn and grow too.

Leisa Reichelt 5:52

Diana, why did you share your story?

Diana 5:54

I think because it's an incredibly lonely experience and you feel like you're Robinson Crusoe and you are the worst parent on earth and there are not a lot of resources out there and you put your hands in and I need to be careful about how I say it and, you know, professionals and that sort of thing without lived experience and some of the advice was less than helpful. And so I, I think it's like if I can help others avoid some of the pitfalls and, pain then if sharing helps it's well worth it.

Leisa Reichelt 6:32

Yeah, I know plenty of people have talked about how valuable listening to your story has been Diana. And Mark, you work in peer support, right? So this is probably your bread and butter?

Mark 6:41

Yeah, pretty much So professionally, I'm a peer worker, which means, I have a lived experience of mental health issues. And so, I've been working in peer support for best part of 15 years. So a big part of peer support is safe storytelling and connecting with people in What can I learn from you? What can you learn from me? And encouraging people with new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing. And so I've always felt that kind of learning from other people who have been going through similar to me is a great way of building my own toolkit. If I can put something out there into the world that someone else may resonate with, that's a really great opportunity.

Leisa Reichelt 7:18

Yeah,

Mark 7:19

it is for me.

Leisa Reichelt 7:19

thank you all again. go Simone?

Simone 7:21

Can I add something? I just wanted to, maybe say something about Yani's participation in it. And I know in preparing for today, we had a bit of a talk about that and maybe, I don't know whether you wanted to say something Yani or I can just about being a young person, having, the lived experience as a young person as opposed to a parent or carer. Did you have anything to say about that in terms of having your voice heard?

Yani 7:50

I think it's important that there's a focus for the young ones because a lot of people is they only know what it's like to be the parent and the kids, they don't really know much about their own experience or what is happening with them either. Mm-hmm. I think it's good that. Like when I went to TAFE there was a lot of young people there, that had School Can't experiences and stuff and we all talked about it together. I think it's important for young people to have their own community that can support each other with it too. Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt 8:25

I was talking about this yesterday and saying, it often feels as though, schools go out of their way to keep us all separate from each other. Like, if you're having School Can't issues at school, nobody says, You know what? There's some other families that are struggling with this as well. Maybe you should connect with them and support each other through this. Like, I, maybe that's happened somewhere else that, that I haven't heard of, but that certainly hasn't been my experience and it does feel as though there's a fear about creating that network. But to your point, Yani, it could be such a powerful thing. My son recently met somebody who's had a really sort of similar story to him and it's been so validating for him to realize that he's not the only one.

Yani 9:03

Hmm.

Leisa Reichelt 9:03

and that he's met someone he really likes, who has got similar experiences as well. They're a good person, so maybe he is as well. I think it would be super powerful. Let's share some of the stuff we learned years ago that maybe we wish we knew a little bit sooner. And I'd love to start with, in retrospect, looking back, now that you know what you know, what do you think were the earliest signals that you were gonna go on a School Can't pathway? What were the signs that you didn't realize were signs at the time? Diana?

Diana 9:31

Yeah, it was separation anxiety. My son's kinder year, he had to be peeled off me every day for the whole 12 months. We just treated it as separation anxiety. thankfully after that first year, because he was in a very small school and it was one class per year, he, he settled in. So, you know, so kind of, sort of lay there as a sleeper issue to come back and bite really hard in high school. but yeah, definitely separation anxiety.

Leisa Reichelt 10:02

Yeah. And that's something that's so often just brushed off as being, oh, it's fine. It's nothing. I think amongst all of us, we've had that same experience, haven't we? Mark, what were the early signals for you?

Mark 10:13

Yeah, pretty much the same. Separating was always difficult or in the mornings getting ready was a really slow process, and then there was sensory overload, My 11-year-old calls them big feelings and it was always big feelings. In the end they actually found the words where they could say, I don't feel safe. And so it, it was really, when we got to that point, it was nice to be able to have conversations around that. And I agree so much with Yani that, listening to our young people is kind of the key to getting this thing right. That was very much it for us. It was, there was just so many kind of signs and like Diana, you try and push through and think to yourself, We need to build resilience, we need to do this, we need to do that. and you go through everything, in the resource and go, yeah, we tried that, we tried that, we tried that. Like all the things that you, you know, hurt now. Um, and then after that you kind of disappear into your own little shame well, for a while and go, I'm the worst parent in the world. And then you find the School Can't community and you go, oh, there's other terrible parents out there too. I'm joking by the way. There's other people out there too who have had a similar experience It's nothing like you can explain to people. It's amazing'cause you find people who can almost finish your sentences before you say them because their experience mirrors your own so much.

Leisa Reichelt 11:19

I'm just watching the comments and I see Isabella has a 16-year-old son who thinks it's too late for him. Well, I think Yani is living proof that's not the case. That once you find the right environment and the right supports and people listen to you and treat you like you need to be treated, there's always hope and people will do well when they can. Yani, what do you think were the earliest signs that school was not gonna work out for you?

Yani 11:42

My birth.

Leisa Reichelt 11:43

Bless you. You just kind of always knew.

Yani 11:47

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt 11:48

Yeah. You were never really keen from separating from mum.

Yani 11:51

I think, I was just never made for the school system. At all. so yeah, probably just like everything.

Leisa Reichelt 11:58

Yeah. And Simone, when you look back and, think about Yani's early days of trying to do school, what do you think were the first things that now you're like, oh, okay, that was a sign of what was to come.

Simone 12:09

I don't know quite how to articulate it, but in a way I'm a bit offended by the question almost because, it's like the school system, wasn't designed for us.

Yani 12:19

Mm.

Simone 12:19

So I would say that, it started the moment we walked in the door, There was stuff already around separation anxiety, but it didn't start from Yani's birth, it started from a system that isn't inclusive or warm or always kind or, emotionally connected and as Mark said, one that feels safe, I suppose.

Leisa Reichelt 12:44

Yeah, that's a very good reframing. Thank you for saying that. Let's talk about. Bad advice. We saw in the ebook that sort of things that don't help and the bullet list of things and, you know, probably all of us could get a over 80% pass mark on how many of those things we've tried at some point or another, not knowing that they were harmful. If you look back on your journey, what do you think were some examples of really bad advice that you were given by people who were supposedly trying to help? Mark, do you wanna kick us off?

Mark 13:18

Yep. Sure. I, I think about this, I think about, well-meaning, friends, family members, you know, who they would kind of downplay it and say, oh yeah, we went through similar, but they'll settle down. You know, it's, and it, it's that kinda stuff and it's the, and inherently in here, you, you are hearing this, but you're going, no, this doesn't feel like that to me, this feels like so much more and so much bigger, and my intuition is saying. Don't listen to that and do what feels right to you. But then you've got professionals, you've got friends, family, you've got the school system saying, no, just get through this. It'll be fine. It'll settle down. And then after you've been trying for so long, you then turn around and go, do you know what? I'm just gonna do what we think is right. when you go to the School Can't community and you hear the wisdom from people who've been there before and the wisdom from people who have heard the same advice. It's really validating. If you wanna get specifically bad advice, take away their stuff, make home not fun. Just leave them. let the people at school, tear them off you, and just, even if they're scream in the place down, just, just walk away. They'll be fine. You know, like all of that stuff, which we now know is just the worst advice.

Leisa Reichelt 14:23

Diana, you got some cracking advice along the way too, didn't you?

Diana 14:26

Yes. I think you know it, it must be taught in. Psychology 1 0 1 or something, this whole make home unpleasant. And, you know, we, we really took that on board. I talk about that in my podcast where we got my son to a point where he's like, well, I've gotta exit the planet basically. So It becomes dangerous at some point where they just feel utterly cornered. And I think there's a lack of understanding that it's a discipline issue and if you can discipline them out of it. We eventually did get an autism diagnosis for my son, but I realized that professionals who sort of gave off the cuff diagnosis, like, oh, he's a cluster B personality, which is basically like a sociopath. So I, I really, really think it's very important that people think about what they're saying because, I think that the main issue was absolutely treat it like a discipline issue. I hope we're all past that. but yeah, the coercive of sort of, behaviors are, are, are really just counterproductive

Leisa Reichelt 15:29

Yeah. I think we maybe amongst this group might be past that, but in the last 12 months I've heard that from a school environment, so it's still definitely advice that is circulating. Unfortunately. I think a lot of these things are just such tropes of what does parenting look like? How do you get kids to go to school? Simone and Yani. What's some of the terrible advice that you were given

Yani 15:51

I didn't have anything to do with advice

Simone 15:53

I think for me sometimes it was the not- advice. Or the, we'll just wait and see how it goes. When I knew that I needed things and I would ask, the answer was, we'll just wait and see how it goes. And then I'm sort of like, well, I'm telling you this is what my kid needs and I know it with everything in my body. You're just completely dismissing me.

Leisa Reichelt 16:20

it's like you have to wait for a catastrophe to happen before you can get the support that you need. You need something really bad to happen. And I knew, yeah,

Simone 16:26

Specific things that could be done that would've been helpful and I was asking for them, but, I guess the school wasn't resourced enough. It was a big school, And also, I can get Yani to school. Why can't you? It must be something to do with you.

Leisa Reichelt 16:43

So this is in a separated parent sort of situation. Dad can get them to go to school. Mom can't. So mom must be the weak link in the system.

Simone 16:50

Yeah. just make them go like I do.

Leisa Reichelt 16:53

Yeah. Yani, I think you had quite a good way of explaining why that was problematic logic, didn't you?

Yani 16:59

The way that I explained it was that my dad, I didn't trust him to do anything other than what he exactly told me to do. So if I really didn't wanna go to school, that was my problem. And he would be like, well, you know, just go, I don't care. There was no room to struggle with anything with him and I trusted mom more to let her actually know how I felt about stuff.

Leisa Reichelt 17:25

Yani, I've got a question actually that's come from somebody who's listening that's specifically for you. It's a question about if you've had a period where you haven't really been at school and then you go to TAFE, what's that like? Like is that really hard to go from being at home, not doing a lot of formal academic stuff and then going to tafe, is that really overwhelming then to have to handle like the learning and curriculum how was that for you?

Yani 17:53

It really depends on the person and the environment and the other people in the environment. For me, I was 17 and I was very much ready to. Go somewhere and do something. I was doing something that I really liked and wanted to be doing. Everyone around me was very like-minded. And you know, I think if you really want to do it, you can, but you have to want to do it, otherwise it's not gonna feel right.

Simone 18:23

Yeah. I think there was also some grief for Yani at that time of, oh, I've missed out on so many things. How did we miss all those things? How am I gonna catch up? Like, a bit of comparison to others in the class or hearing what other people have been doing You just have to sort of get past that

Yani 18:42

Yeah.

Simone 18:42

Mm

Leisa Reichelt 18:43

Let's talk about what helped, what were the actual helpful things that were like breakthroughs for you in the journey and that, helped make things work better and, be easier to manage. Diana?

Diana 18:56

Well, finding my way to the School Can't community was amazing because I learned about the PDA profile, the PDA autism profile, and that was when I really pursued a proper diagnosis with a proper neuropsychologist and not someone who was giving me off the cuff advice. Learning about deschooling, which is so radical and so counterintuitive, and so the opposite of any advice that you will ever get from school.

Leisa Reichelt 19:28

Mm-hmm.

Diana 19:28

We kind of had no point because it just literally shut down. So deschooling was forced upon us. So that helped. And then we left face-to-face. And, again, radical acceptance. Let's do distance ed. We did get into that. We could have looked at homeschooling as well, but just realizing that you can try and push a square peg in a round hole, and you will break that peg eventually. We just have to do something else. So just letting go of mainstream and just doing what was not gonna break my beautiful peg was the most helpful.

Leisa Reichelt 20:02

Yeah. What about for you, Mark, what's been helpful for you along the journey?

Mark 20:07

Like Diana says, you find the right community. you find your tribe and the people who can give words to your experiences. When you connect with those people, you begin to find the questions to ask, and what you want to know and what you need to know. And so, you know, finding things about what questions to ask when you go into meetings with schools or advocating for changes or reasonable adjustment or all of those things really, really helped. On a practical level, for me, when I learned as a parent that I could take, control and do things like reduce demands and keep the screen time when they need it and, change the furniture in our house, for example. Our house now looks very cluttered, but we have an inside hammock and an outside hammock. My 11-year-old will tell me now, well, I just need hammock time. I need everyone to leave me alone. I need headphones, I need my hammock time. Making our life what worked for us. Giving ourselves permission to do that was what helped more than anything. And now we have that capacity for learning. I don't think it's ever gonna be, mainstream education, but there are things now where we can, where I think we can, you know, there's things they wanna learn. And, and that's a beautiful thing to, to be able to facilitate.

Leisa Reichelt 21:13

Yeah. Mark, as you were talking, it made me really think about how for families who go through this experience, it can often completely upend what life looks like for you. Diana, you've managed to keep your job on the way through. Not without an enormous amount of stress, but a lot of us, we changed our working situation, our financial situation, our home situation. Like so much of our lives have to completely change in order to support our kids because of the lack of options that are available in education. Simone, in retrospect, what worked for you? We hear TAFEs working, which is great. If you look back and go, what worked? What's the kind of things that you think about?

Yani 22:00

Well, when I stopped going to school, I think that was, now sometimes I'll look back on it and I'll be like, Ew, why did I do that? I wish I got to have the experience of going to school and getting an education that fitted in with what everybody else seems to be doing. But, at the same time, having that much time to sort of process everything and, be at home and just like get to have a life instead of being pushed into doing stuff all the time and having like so many expectations put on you when you were a literal child. It was good to have that time, and to go back to learning when I was ready to,

Leisa Reichelt 22:38

Yeah. There's a question in the chat for you, Yani, which I think is an interesting one. What worked or didn't work? when you were trying to get to school, what worked or didn't work for you? I think your answer there was like, actually not going was what worked right?

Yani 22:52

Yeah. Nothing really worked until I was ready to go for my own, because I wanted to,

Simone 22:59

and also being resourced enough, like being relaxed enough and rested enough and, settled enough. Being in a position where we're not experiencing quite so much change as a family, so having a consistent enough, family situation, probably, Getting a cat. I remember a family support worker saying, you need to get a cat. Like Yoni really wants a cat. And I was like, I'm so sick and tired of looking after things. I don't want a cat. No. but we did it. And, he's been a really helpful member of our family too. And for me, I think probably like not only taking the pressure off Yani, but learning to take the pressure off myself. So almost like deschooling myself.

Leisa Reichelt 23:46

Yeah. I think it, for folks who haven't heard, Yani and Simone's episode, there's a key moment in there which we refer to as Beach Day, which I think was, for Simone to go, actually, I don't, I don't have to do this the way that I'm being told that I have to do it. We can say, no, we can do things differently. That felt like a really important moment. Let's talk about hope and optimism, because when you are in the thick of this, hope can feel a long way away, and optimism can feel like a distant memory. How did you think about this as part of your journey? I don't necessarily wanna say, how did you keep hope, because I don't necessarily think that you did all of the time, did you? Mark, do you wanna kick us off with this? What are your thoughts on hope and optimism, in the course of this journey?

Mark 24:30

I'm a born optimist and tend to look at most things with an optimistic lens. Not toxically positive, but if there's an upside, I'll try and find it. At times during this, everyone was just so empty that none of us had it. And as a family, we were all going through this experience and we were all kind of doing the things that you're supposed to do, but we could all tell that none of it was working. And so therefore, in those moments, if someone had genuinely said, like, have you got any hope? I'm not sure the answer would've been yes. but that was for all of us. That was for a complete family. One of the things I think is that hearing from people like Yani people, Simone and Diana, that where your young people are at now, that there is hope beyond where you're at, was just so incredibly helpful. Like it was so incredibly useful. When you see other people, You kind of go. Yep. Okay. And it's almost like we're talking peer support about holding the hope for someone else. When you hear those positive stories and you see those amazing things, it's almost like those people are holding hope for you, and they don't even realize it. So, so Yani, when I hear you talk, so beautifully, you have no idea that you are holding the hope for, what might be for other people, which cannot be underestimated. So a huge thank you to you.

Leisa Reichelt 25:37

Simone, you had a lovely term of borrowing hope, I think, didn't you? Which sounds similar.

Simone 25:43

Yeah. I feel like I, have borrowed hope and I'm happy to share hope, which, can be the tiniest moments of inspiration received or given, unknowingly often. I think finding in our small area in southwest Victoria one person actually who was homeschooling that I knew was doing it not by choice. Because there was no other option like that was really good. And to see that they just lived with the imperfection of everything and it was okay, that was really good. And I think underneath everything, I had an inherent belief in Yani's self-worth and in my own. So aside from everything. I knew that I was okay and that Yani was because we are.

Leisa Reichelt 26:36

What about for you, Yani? When you were in the midst of this journey, what was your relationship with hope,

Yani 26:42

I don't know. You just exist and you keep existing until something goes right, I guess. When I first went into high school and everything was so overwhelming I was like, oh my God, I can't do this. There was too much going on at once. I didn't know what to think the whole time really, but I just knew that it had to end up getting better at some point. And it did. I suppose I'm quite a persistent person, so I just was like, well, it's gonna get better at some point.

Leisa Reichelt 27:14

I feel like we need that on a t-shirt. Just keep existing until something goes right. I love it. I wanna just switch tack quickly to self-care and I know that self-care is, is, really important because we all go through the absolute wringer on this journey. But it can be a very difficult topic as well, self-care. Mark, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the challenges of self-care as somebody who's caring for a child on a School Can't journey.

Mark 27:41

I think one of the things I love about self-care is, the importance of it, right? you've got to take care of yourself and do things that fill your cup and bring you joy and happiness and make you feel human in your own right. Before any of that can happen, we all have to find self-compassion. So you have to almost go through this process of forgiving yourself for the, mistakes and realizing that you're not a terrible person. And once you kind of get back that and you kind of go from this point forward, I'm gonna do this, this, and this in a different way. You find that self-compassion. For me anyway, once I found that self-compassion, it was very much about. I could prioritize myself in doing the things that filled my cup and helped me be a happier and better person. it was fine to meet friends, to go for a drink. to play the Xbox game for an hour too long, or, whatever it is that brings you joy. And so self-care became. Part of lexicon, for lack of a better term, when I learned self-compassion. So I would strongly say to anyone on the School Can't journey, especially if you're on the beginning, please try and find some self-compassion if you can.

Leisa Reichelt 28:39

If you didn't listen to Naomi Fisher's episode on parental burnout, you should go listen to that because she does an amazing, like free therapy on the importance of self, compassion and getting rid of that nasty voice in your own head. talk to yourself like you would to a friend, I think is the takeaway from that. We are getting very close to time, so I wanted to switch over and ask Diana, if you had an ebook, like the one that's being launched today at the beginning of your School Can't journey, how do you think that might have changed your trajectory?

Diana 29:10

Wow. Yeah. I think significantly, There were really no resources at all when we started. And I think, just understanding that there are different options, there are different ways to talk about it. it's really taking the time to stand back and rather than push through, push through, we must, make this right. I think just having the language to talk about it and think about it, just would've been super helpful.

Leisa Reichelt 29:35

What about for you, Simone and Yani? If a resource like this existed, much earlier in your journey, what do you think would've been different?

Yani 29:41

Not much really. Maybe just to know that there was other people that went through it and it wasn't just an individual experience would've made me feel less like it was just us. Mm-hmm.

Simone 29:54

And for me, I think, I would've used it as an advocacy tool. So I would've used it to back myself up when I spoke to schools. Because I knew most of that stuff in one way or another, but to have that, to say I wasn't just a weirdo or, difficult or tricky but to be backed by that would've been good.

Leisa Reichelt 30:13

That's amazing. So it's like a legitimization of that gut feel that we all have and often don't listen to as much as we wish that we did. Fantastic. Well, that feels like an amazing place to wrap. Thank you so much, Diana, Mark, Yani, Simone, for coming back and sharing with us again. I love hearing from you and the way that you think about things and the way that you share your experiences. I really, really appreciate it. And thank you again to everybody who's been involved in the creation of this amazing ebook resource, available now. Please make sure that you take a good look through your copy. Feel free to share it widely. Encourage you to, if you can, make a donation to School Can't, to help us to create more hard copies and get this physical copy in the hands of as many people as we possibly can who need it. And thank you to all of you for joining us today and for all of your chat. Tiffany, anything that you wanted to say before we close?

Tiffany Westphal 31:08

Thank you, Lisa, and thank you panel members for, bravely sharing your stories. It's a very vulnerable thing to share these stories with people. So we appreciate you doing that. If this discussion has brought up issues for you, you feel like you're in crisis, please do make use of one of the crisis support lines, Lifeline, Kids Helpline or Parent Line in your state. Don't forget, you can go to our website to get a copy. You can pre-order hard copies. You can share this booklet with other people, and that's all I've got to say.

Leisa Reichelt 31:46

Well have a lovely rest of your day. Everyone. Thank you very much for your involvement and participation and we will hopefully see or hear from you very soon. Take care.