Things We Aren't Supposed To Talk About

Cadre, good morning. Hello, friends. It's Shannon. Oh, my gosh, you guys. I have allergies, and I think I'm losing my voice. Good morning. Good morning. Happy caregiver day on Cadre. My name is Shanna Sta. For those of you who don't know me, I am not a clinician. I am not a mental health professional. I am a human with a lived experience as a caregiver for a son with autism. I also, myself, live with CPTSD and anxiety, and so that's the cocktail of my life. But good morning, everybody. So today is caregiver day.

You already probably spent time this morning with Steph Irwin. If you didn't, please go back and do it. She's amazing. So today, I'm gonna keep it pretty short and sweet, and I think I'm gonna keep it pretty real. So one of the things about Cadre and about me as a human is that authenticity is, like, one of my core values. I'm very much like, being authentic is everything to me. Good morning, Jules. Good morning, steph. Hi, guys. Good morning. Speak, wonder. And so today, my authenticity is this.

We all spend so much time doing all of this hard work for being a caregiver. Right. I actually. Right after this, I'm going to therapy to talk about all the things so that I can continue to be strong and carry the load and authentically. Sometimes I want to just say, it's not fair. It's not fair. It is not fair. And so my. It's not fair this morning comes from the fact that I. You know, my son is 15, and he has autism, right. And that's a bunch of things. But one of the things that it means in my life is that there's a lot of stuff that I have to do in my life that most people don't have to do anymore once your kids hit a certain age.

And so, for me, that is because of some of the stuff that goes along with my son's autism. I have to wash his sheets basically every night. Like, he'll go to bed. There's behaviors that happen trying to solve for him, and then. Yet every day, I'm washing his sheets. So I'm stripping the bed, and I'm talking down to the thing. The COVID right? The COVID The comfort of the sheet, the top sheets, whatever. You get it. All the things. Sometimes I'm angry when I'm doing that, and I say, oh, my God, are you serious?

My son is this many years old, and I'm going to wash his sheets every day. And that was something that, like, is normal ish when you have a young child. My child is older now. And p's none of this is his fault. P's we're all working on it. And sometimes I just want to, like, pound my fists on the floor and kick my feet and just be like, this isn't fair. I'm tired. I'm tired. And I know you all understand this, and so I'm saying it to you today because again, like, I started with this, authenticity is everything to me as a human.

And while we are always going to come with good intentions, and like I said, I'm headed to therapy right after this to work on myself, work on him, work on supporting him. I just want to raise my hand and say, hey, sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I'm p*****. Colleen says the why me? Is real. Yes. And actually this moment is coming out of a conversation Colleen and I had this week where sometimes you're just like, this sucks. So this morning, as we all are in this together, you get it. Steph, Jules, Colleen, speak wonder.

Anyone who takes care of anyone, sometimes you're going to say, this isn't fair. Why me? Why do I have to do this? I'm tired. And then you're going to pick up and you're going to move on from that moment and you're going to continue to do all the things you do. But I just wanted to, honestly, maybe this is a selfish life. This morning, I just wanted to say it to you guys because, you know, you get it. And so I just want to offer that to you. If you have that moment, lean in. It's okay. We're all there.

We all know what it means. Okay? Friends. Caregiver friends. The rest of this day is a fantastic lineup. If you have not watched staff Irwin, go back and watch her this morning, she's an amazing human. She is someone that came out of the cadres fear. She's one of us. And I say that like she's a caregiver. She is living this in real time after this. Colleen Lindstrom is coming up soon. She's taking care of a mother with dementia and a child with autism. And then we have speak wonder coming up. Speak wonder has been amazing.

She's talking about, well, last week, I think it was seaglass last week or the week before. She's just got this beautiful perspective that I offer to you and I welcome, or I encourage you to check it out. We've got our Mac clinicians, our Minnesota autism clinicians coming up talking about clinical points of view, but with a human, human edge. We've got miss Shannon Paul, who is always amazing comedy through the chaos. So we are here for you. We see this. You are our people. It is hard, friends, and that's okay.

But I love you all. I'm so glad to see you. Have a fantastic day, and we'll see you again soon here in the quadrosphere. Bye, guys. Have a beautiful day. You're doing a great job.