Things We Aren't Supposed To Talk About

Cadre, good morning. Hello. Welcome. It is Shannon from Cadre. m. central Standard Time. I am nine minutes late to my live today because I had car problems this morning, which happens to all of us. So welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Okay, for those of you who have not met before, again, my name is Shannon. I am part of the Cadre team. I am not a mental health professional. I'm not a clinician. I'm a human being who is the caregiver of a child with autism. And I am a person who lives with anxiety myself.

And I also have CPTSD. So a lot of stuff, right? So, like many of you out there, I'm a person who lives with stuff in my life that I manage. And today you are joining me on caregiver day. And so, caregiver day is a day dedicated to people who are unpaid caregivers, caregivers of people they love. Myself. I am the caregiver of a child with autism, like I said. And actually, today, what I'm going to talk about for my live is giving a shout out to the great Jamie Larry, who just joined from Minnesota Autism center, our clinical partner.

So good morning, Jamie. But today I'm going to talk about a live Q and A that we have coming up tonight on Cadre. And I'm going to talk about it because this Q and A is with Minnesota Autism center. It is a Q and a talking to people who may have multiple diagnoses themselves, autism, ADHD, you know, anything else that is qualified as neurodivergent, it is for folks who are caring for people who may be multiple, who might. I can't talk this morning. Who also may have, have multiple diagnoses. So why is this cool?

Because, you know, as caregivers, we deal with professionals. Right? So whether we're taking care of someone with dementia, whether we're taking care of, again, anyone that we're taking care of, there's likely a professional involved, a clinical clinician involved in some capacity. And so when that's the case, that brings sort of a new peace to our lives because we work with clinical people and we're not clinicians. Like I just said, I'm a peer. Right. So tonight what we're doing is we're talking about when people may have multiple diagnoses.

I know. I already. I said that. So good morning. Speak wonder. But what I think is really cool about it is yesterday, as we were preparing for this time together, tonight, and again, it's going to be Jamie Larry of Minnesota Autism center, as well as Kelsey. She's also joined by Kelsey, another mental health professional. What we're talking about is the idea of a diagnosis and how, yes, it brings clarity, and it brings information, because to get to a diagnosis, you have to check certain numbers of boxes.

But what we're also talking about is the importance of experience. And so Jamie, Larry brought that point up today, or, I'm sorry, yesterday in a call that we had. And the idea that experience is truth for us folks, that we're caring for and honestly, for ourselves. The experiences we have are just as real as any symptom, as any part of our diagnosis, because we live them. And so I think that's super important, obviously, for the people we take care of, but I think for ourselves as well. And in our conversation that I had with Jamie and Kelsey yesterday, we talked about that, like, caregivers can experience significant things in the process of caring for others.

It's hard. It's hard. And so validating. And knowing that that challenge is real and is impactful on us as caregivers, I think it's just really important because we're naming something as happening. And so I really appreciated that part of my conversation with Jamie last night. m. central standard time, we will be talking. We will have an open conversation about multiple diagnoses, about the trauma that's associated, associated with that. It's a really beautiful conversation. I know it will be. It's our second in a series of Q and A's, and it's for people who have questions, and they don't know where to go.

So maybe you need a safe place. Maybe you want to be anonymous. Maybe you had this thing that's been in your head, and you're like, is this normal? I don't know. This is the beautiful and most perfect place to ask that question. m. you just join the live stream via Cadre like you would any other live stream. Speak wonder says, today I'll be showing how to fold a paper boat that floats in less than an hour. A little playtime seems in order. Yes. Speak wonder. I love it. I love it. So speak wonder is another one of our contributors on Caregiver day.

She's amazing. She's our friend from, I'm gonna get this wrong. I think it's Pennsylvania. I'm pretty positive, actually. We have a whole host of folks here on caregiver day, including Colleen Lindstrom. Who's in the sandwich generation, JC Lippold, who cares for his aging parents. We have Miss Shannon Paul, who also has a son on the spectrum. So we've got a whole host of people here to let you know that you're not alone in this journey. So thank you. Thank you for being here. As always, great to see you, Jamie.

Great to see you. Speak wonder. We'll see you all tonight. m. central Standard time. And we can't wait to spend time with you and hear from our friends at Minnesota Autism center. So we'll talk to you soon. Have a beautiful day in the Cadre sphere. You're doing a fantastic job.