#13 | Too Anxious To Leave Home
Dec 21, 2021Watch the webclass, "4-Part Roadmap to Encourage Adulting Actions."
RESOURCES
Download, "The Quick Start Guide to STEAR Mapping"
Bill Mason, The Autism discussion page
Tina Payne Bryson & Dan Siegel, The Power of showing up
Hi, it's Lynn your adulting coach. Today I want to help a mom whose son is so anxious that he cannot leave home. I see this and in fact her post had 15 comments from other parents whose kids are struggling significantly with anxiety and fear and I see that a lot in my home too. It seems like our kids are born with an overactive or, or hyper wired amygdala, which takes them right into that fear zone really quickly. I mean, one thought is their brain shuts down and because you know, we really don't learn or solve problems well, when we're in fear. So I see this as a common problem with my kids and with my clients. Just telling you that I know doesn't make you feel better other than just to know that we are all in this struggle together.
So one of the things that has really helped me is to continue to learn more about how the brain works and how we can manage it better. Several of the suggestions in the discussion were medications or different protocols that can be tried and combinations. And I believe that those are viable options. It's really kind of cool, frankly, that we have the pharmaceutical Cornucopia that we have, they didn't have this 100 years ago. I also want to be sure that we are using every tool in our tool cabinet that we can use.
I want to introduce you to another tool today that I think will help just so you know again, that we're not alone. Bill Mason, in his book, The Autism Discussion Page. It really nails the types of issues that we face. He actually has three books. Then if you go to his Facebook page, the Autism Discussion Page, you'll see so many answers to so many questions that we have a really appreciated the work that he's done. Bill is a mental health professional with a master's degree in clinical psychology. He has more than 30 years of experience treating people with developmental disabilities and he specialized in autism spectrum disorders. So he has a really good handle on what the challenges are that we face. What I love about his book is that it's written in such plain language that it finally makes its way into my brain and stays there. So it's very comprehensive and worthwhile to get this series of books. I have them on my Kindle. And the lovely thing about Kindle is I can just search on any given term, and I can find where Phil has explained things and it just finds it. Its a tremendous resource. In the beginning of this book, he finally says what I have felt for so many years, but he says it so well. And here's what he says “in all of my years in the helping professional profession, I have never seen emotions as intense as those I experienced when helping children and families on the spectrum.”
Finally someone has written down the part of this journey in our lives of becoming the very best parents that we can be for our autistic young adults is that it is very intensely emotional. So do you notice the parallel our kids are getting very emotional because they can't do things they want? And we're getting very emotional because they can't do things that they want. So you know, it's a dual problem. It's two sides of the same coin where we need to figure out what's happening in our own minds. It's creating such fear and anxiety so that we can’t help our children with their fear and anxiety.
And I think I've figured out some tools that are very helpful, because all that fear and anxiety I believe is all around our uncertain future. We generate a lot of worry when our brain can't figure something out because it doesn't have enough information to figure things out. Especially about the future. There's just not enough information to solve a problem in the future. It generates a ton of fear and worry, and it pretends that worry is useful. It isn't useful.
So what we need to do is as Bill says in his books, slow it down. Not just for our autistic young adult, we have to slow it down for ourselves too. We have to slow down and figure out what our brains are offering us and decide if that's how we want to think that way. So here's what we do first. Oh, and I'm sorry, before we go to that, watching our children's suffer as a result of having autism is heart rendering. It's tough. It's very sad. It makes us very emotional. I mean, if we could wave a magic wand, we'd probably rewire their brain given that option. But that's just a fantasy thought and we know we can't do that. So now what do we do?
Well, I suggest that we spend time actually feeling that sadness and mourning. What we had hoped would happen for our kids, that the things in life that they want to get would be just a little bit easier. I just think it's really important and what I wish I could do for them is to make their lives just a little less challenging, but I can't. So what I do when I get to the point where it's just difficult to not cry, is I'll just take myself somewhere and I'll go cry. And I think it's really important to do whether we do it together with our parenting partner or if it's just by ourselves, I think it's really important that we let ourselves feel the honest to god pain that comes from wishing that our children could have an easier time of it. I think that's certainly natural, totally understandable, makes perfect sense, that we would mourn for what makes their life hard.
And then,if we really do feel that pain, like when you're mourning somebody that you've lost or a pet that's died or whatever, at the end of that mourning period, we do feel kind of cleansed like maybe okay, I've done that. That's good. So I want you to take the time to really feel those emotions and let them happen and let your body process them. Our bodies are meant to feel those emotions. And then what I want you to do next is notice that the meds might be a solution, right? Because we've been told that and we see that they do help. I think there's another tool. It's the metacognition piece, and the metacognition is just as a fancy word for our mind, seeing what our brain is offering us. It's that, you know, that observer of our thoughts. That's what medical cognition is, and in many cases, our kids' brains are just now maturing to the point where they can see their own thoughts and separate themselves from their thoughts. Just beginning. So now's the perfect time to teach them the metacognition skills that can help them deal with this anxiety as well.
So, yes, the meds are helpful, and I think they are even more powerful when we pair it with metacognition tools. Those are the things you hope you're going to get in therapy or with another mental health professional. And I believe because it has worked for me that I can also teach my kids about metacognition, that I can not only use it as a tool for myself, but also show them how much it has helped me that they might be willing then to consider using these metacognition tools.
So the first metacognition tool that I want to suggest but before we get there is that when they're feeling anxious, that they are safe with us. They feel secure with us. That's Tina Payne Bryson and Dan Siegel say in their book The Power of Showing Up. Those are the three things that create the three S's that create the fourth S, which is feeling secure, and I believe that the best way to do this is to make sure that we reflect what they are saying to us. So we not only reflect what they're saying to us, but also the emotion that we're noticing. So if we say to them, it seems like you're really upset because you're not making the progress you want to make in your life.
Listen, we keep reflectively listening, meaning, giving them the emotion and the thought in a nutshell so that they can know that we really do hear them. We really do see them. Hopefully that will help soothe them and they will feel safe in our presence. So that right there, just being heard will help them take down the anxiety. That's happening in their brain if they feel safe.
Then I want to just add one thing here and that is we want to help them breathe. We want them to breathe in through their nose and out through their nose. Like an ocean wave crashing on the beach. That breathing process is going to signal to their amygdala that they're safe, but using their bodies so using their body, they want to regulate that anxiety. So I really want that to be.
The next thing that we do is that we breathe. And then if we can we want to soften our eyes too so that we're not focused. And then the last thing we want to do is to make a small Mona Lisa smile. That tells our brain that all is well using our physical body. So we're both using our thoughts of Oh Look, Mom gets me and our physical body to tell our amygdala, our primitive brain that we're safe, and that will help to decrease the anxiety as well.
And then the last tool I want to suggest and this one has made such a huge difference. Not just for my kids, but also for me is that we ask them to do a thought download. A thought download is just telling me what you're thinking. And we can be their scribe or we can just walk side by side with them. That was the key for me and like my son and I was walking side by side he would tell me I would reflect what he said he would tell me some more would reflect what he said he would tell me some more I would reflect both the thought and the emotion and together it helped us to get things out of his brain and bring things down to a level where we could actually talk. He tells me he feels so much better. I know the walking helps too. You're kind of looking around. It's not a focus like when we're in danger. Well, that tells our amygdala we're in danger. It's sort of a gentle focus and we're talking and chatting and breathing as we talk and chat. And you know, smiling as we make jokes. Those are the things that helped him regulate his brain and get his head back down to the point where he could then do some problem solving with me and we could talk about his whole life and each of the parts of his life and what he wanted in each of the parts of his life. But before we could do any of that, being able to walk with him, use his body to regulate and reflectively listen with him made all the difference in the world. And I think that if we pair that with the meds, then now we've got a winning combination and perhaps even over time, because I took meds for, I don't know, 15 years, something like that. And I had to wean off of them because they were causing my heart to race. And I was worried that I wasn't gonna be able to handle things but as with these tools, these metacognition tools I've been able to get off of medicine and stay out of depression. That's what I want for you to see if maybe you could try to practice this whole process of really seeing yourself so that in soothing yourself and noticing your thoughts and the emotions that they create, that process in and of itself will help you and then you can share how that has helped you with your young adult and perhaps suggest could we do an experiment and try this thought download process together with me being the best listener I have ever been for you and see if those things together?
Will you and your autistic young adult systemize Self Reliance together? So thanks for watching this and if you want to know more please visit my website. LynnCDavison.com/welcome, and I can tell you all about the course, coaching and community that I offer. Bye for now.
