Comedy Through The Chaos

Hey, Cadresphere. Happy Thursday to you. I'm miss Shannon and I was going to use my fancy microphones. Oh, I'm getting a package. That's nice. I was going to use my fancy microphones, but I don't believe I charge them. No little blinky lights for putting on there. So we will see what I'm getting delivered right now. Thank you. And thank you to all of you who are part of our Cadre community. As I said, I am Michannan, hanging out here in the great state of Minnesota. I'm calling, dialing in right now from my living room.

Hello, Colleen. Hello, Colleen. Colleen, I was going to talk to you about some radio drama because you're one of the few people who would appreciate it, so we'll have to cover that later. If you wonder where I'm at, like I said, I'm upstairs in my living room. So if you wonder, my living room is as fully Miss Shannon stamped as my studio downstairs. That's my bookcase and my baby dragons are on the top of it. I will introduce you to the baby dragon soon. Will you hear in there? That is my adorable six year old son who happens to also be on the.

Thank you very much, Luke. Appreciate you popping in. My adorable six year old son who also happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. We did have some wins this week. Before we get into our caregiver connection, I do want to tell you about this particular win. Summers are usually a challenge for us here in the household, but here's the thing. He has been doing very well this summer. We are going into extended school here in a couple of weeks. Hello. Hello. And we are doing a much better job of self regulating with slightly less medication.

Good job. And a little pat on the back for my kiddo in there. So it is not perfect, but it is a step in a direction that I would like us to be able to continue to do. So hopefully you are having some baby steps in your life. I thought I would talk today at our comedy through the chaos. Something interesting. Mini epiphany. A mini epiphany. Not a giant epiphany. A mini epiphany. I had recently about some of us might be in the boat of being continual and forever caregivers. Like maybe you were one of those people that, yes, you're in a particular caregiving situation right now.

Oh, my gosh, his iPad is so loud. Maybe you've been in a particular caregiving situation right now, but maybe this is something that has been recurring throughout your life. Cycle. Like, if I look back through my history and I was talking to a physical therapist lately about this, and you just get talking about your history. I've basically been a caregiver since I was twelve, because twelve was the age I was when my mom had my younger sister, who I adore. My sister Casey. I love her to pieces. I am very glad she is here.

0 and caregiving for them and our other sister, you know, through all of my teenage years and then as a young adult, and then I felt like I finally had a mini break there. And about the time I settled into that mini break is when I found out I was having my son. And we've been off to the races since then. So if you look at my particular emotional footprint, I've been this caregiver for a really long time. And I think that might be something that might resonate with some of you, too. Because if in a particular caregiving situation right now, maybe it was something new and it was thrust on you, but it might also be that you were kind of already that person in your family or your circle.

So when this most recent caregiving adventure was presented, you were like, well, yeah, of course I'm a step up to this challenge. That's what I always do. It's what I've always done. And not remembering to give yourself credit for all of the other caregiving you did before, like now, maybe it might be something where you have official paperwork that says that you are the person doing it now, but you might have been just doing it anyway, you do have to wait. Imma come help you in a minute. You do have to wait.

Yes, you do have to wait. I don't know what we're waiting for. You have to wait. So I will figure out what we're going to wait on in a minute. But if you're to that point where you're feeling like maybe it's your version of caregiver burnout, maybe you're feeling your version of. Yes, gator, yellow gay, eight or eight. I'm coming. Maybe it's your version of, like, adrenal exhaustion, wherever you are. It really, like, sunk into me yesterday because you see that he is continually making requests and that is not gonna stop.

And what I realized yesterday is that there are so many, like, audible tells that just have that pavlovian response for me in my house. And here's one of you don't even know. Like, I'm always like, you saw just now he asked me for another beverage because I'm his private short order cook, because that's what mom is, is that I can hear from two rooms away when he has drunk down to the bottom of his cup. Because you can hear that. That's our ASMR for today, that noise, like, I can hear the bottom, the empty cup and know that the fact that the cup is empty.

I'm glad you're laughing. That's very funny. I could tell when the cup is empty, and that means that another short order cook request is going to be happening. I'm going to be asked to come get some new Gatorade or some more tea or something else, because God forbid he go get it himself, he's going to ask mom to do it. And so maybe you have those pavlovian responses that you hear where you're just like, oh, my gosh, if I hear another thing, it's just triggering. So I encourage us to try and get in front of some of those things so that we can get back to that suggestion that we make quite often here on caregiver Thursdays, finding that time for yourself, all those things.

Thank you, colleague. Yeah. You see? Yeah. The footsteps in the morning. Right. You know that it's going to start. And so I have so many of those audible cues where I could just feel myself yesterday do that caregiver sigh where it's like, I'm going to have to do something. And so what I, you know, Colleen, I see what you're saying, because Colleen's talking about, this is why I wake up early. I tried that, and my kid could feel a disturbance in the first. And no matter where I set my clock, he can figure out how to wake up, like, at the same time.

So I'm just like, okay, it's fine. I've tried going to bed late. It doesn't work. So my kid is a Jedi. It's amazing. And so what I've done is just figured out ways to try and just build in time other places, because it is, I have to be as fluid as he has to be fluid. And so maybe that's something you have to do in your life, but reminding yourself that those few minutes that you set away from your set aside for yourself and maybe it's only a few minutes. Like, really? I started with five minute buffer and five minute buffer and then giving myself just that five minute to effectively go and pee by shutting the door and being alone.

And then you pry open some more time. Then you pry open some more time, and then you can train yourself to go you know what? Everybody that I'm caregiving for will be okay as you continue to pry more time open. So it's something that may take a really long time, because, like me, maybe you've been doing this since you were a kid. You know, maybe you were that adult version of a little kid that was still somehow emotionally caregiving for the people in your circle. It happens all the time. And so giving yourself credit for it, you've been doing this.

That's why you're great at it. That's why you are a professional caregiver. Whether it's on your resume right now or your cv or not, that's probably what you've been doing, and you're great at it, but you're also gonna burn yourself out like the rest of us. So spend some time, go wash your face. I found out through one of my anesthetician friends, I'm about to blow your mind. You're supposed to double cleanse at night. I thought I was a champion just because I managed to most of nights wash my face once.

You need to double cleanse. If double cleansing is not on your regimen, email me. I'll fill you in. But you could also email me if there's anything in particular, anything else that resonates with you, anything you want us to make sure that we cover here in the Cadre sphere. If there's something that you're like, hey, I could use help with this, or I need help building community, or I just want to be able to connect with somebody and go, oh, my gosh, that's what it's about. And it's amazing how much that happens just in your day to day life.

I ran into somebody yesterday who's a death doula, and being able to talk to her about some things and go, oh, well, I've been discussing with some people in my circle some end of life planning and some things so that my sisters and my family won't have to deal with it. That's a lot of the things that we do here is that intersectionality. Tomorrow is going to be our grief day. So whatever you're grieving, if you need some support in that as well, that's great. We work through all the emotions here in the cadres here.

So hopefully wherever you are at, we can help meet you there. So, ha ha ha. Pepsi, you heard you've gone through Pepsi Gatorade. What else do you want? Purple tea? Okay. Pepsi, Gatorade, purple tea are all on the agenda here in our house. So my agenda is full your might be as well. But hopefully, if nothing else, you got time to pop on, see one of our quick live streams. Talk. Talk to one of us. Yes, buddy. I'm gonna come give you tickles. Let's see now. Tickles. That's fair. I'll get off the. I'll get off the stream for tickles.

You want some tickles? Tickles? I would have given some tickles. Give yourself some tickles. You know, like spoon wonder said, give yourself some tickles because you deserve. And we will be back here. I know we got some other folks that are popping in for the rest of caregiver Thursday. I believe my friend JC is gonna be rounding out today. And as I said, we pop back in tomorrow for our grief. All of our grief contributors words are hard sometimes. Our grief contributors here on Friday. So we appreciate all of you, we appreciate growing with you, for you and around you.

So everyone, the dragons and Cyclone kid and I, we'll see you next week.