You’ve probably heard someone say “behavior is communication” before. Have you ever used your own behavior as a clue to listen to yourself? When you’re struggling to make sense of your own feelings, needs, or wants, your own behavior might give you messages that you can interpret more easily than your body sensations or your … Read more
Do you understand the difference between wishes, limits, and boundaries? If you find yourself saying the word “want” or “need”, a lot of times you are expressing a value, a wish, or a feeling. Same with the word “let”, as in “they won’t let me…” Limits are a decision that you are enforcing about the … Read more
We have been through some wild things as a family in our lives, but none of them have strained us as thoroughly as these past few weeks. They’ve been the hardest for our family’s well-being, the most difficult to parent, and the worst my mental health has been in a long time. I’ve been struggling … Read more
(Content warning: This post contains discussion of physical child abuse.) *** When I was nine or so, my family went on a road trip. I read all the books I’d brought with me. Bored, I picked up some parenting books someone else had brought, and read them too. I read about the best way to … Read more
One skill that has been really helping me in these past few weeks has been the skill of being able to describe to myself in my head, in detail, what feels bodily wrong when things feel wrong. This is a relatively new skill for me. For the majority of my life, if I felt bad, … Read more
The sensory weight of disability. It’s the way it feels like I had barely learned how to take care of myself without self invalidation. It’s the way that all of my feel-good strategies involve making myself feel worse first, and immediately after. So what’s the point? It’s asking someone if they could hand me a … Read more
A weird component of running a page like this while my kids are 5 and 6, not grown, is that I’m still in the middle of this. It’s not theoretical and it’s not like I’m reflecting on years ago. Trying to find the balance between not oversharing about my personal life and my kids’ stories, … Read more
There have been quite a lot of times in my adult life when I’ve needed to talk to my husband about something but been unable to speak about it. Some of those times, the words have just lived inside of me. I think about them over and over, or maybe even make plans to say … Read more
I became a parent on about 24 hours’ notice. We flew from the state where we lived to the state where my son was born in time to take him home from the hospital. Legalities mandated we couldn’t leave the state until one set of paperwork was done, so we had to stay in a … Read more
In adulthood, I am actively working on increasing my own interoception (sense of my inner body)…on listening to my body and what it needs. More often than not, I used to ignore my body telling me that it is hungry. Or telling me that it needs to go to the bathroom. Or telling me that … Read more