The intersection of grief and identity loss is my topic. It’s brought on by forced change.

That’s what my book MASTERS OF CHANGE is about—reinventing yourself after the rug’s pulled out from under you.

Ever since young adulthood I’m fascinated hearing stories from individuals overcoming adversity.

Truth be told, I was seeking guidance on doing it better myself.

I also wanted to understand how people with much fewer resources than I overcame situations much more dire.

This was late 70s - early 90s.

I’m not a historian AT ALL but these are a few basic truths. This was when:

— Central America was in turmoil with “civil” war.

— A genocide against indigenous communities of Guatemala was taking place, one village at a time.

— The School of the Americas (in the United States) was training Salvadoreans on torture techniques.

— The US government was supporting:

— paramilitaries conducting extrajudicial killings in Colombia and other countries,

— puppet and authoritarian regimes th...

Yesterday I read the saddest Facebook post ever.

A foster mom was ready to throw in the towel.

But she couldn’t.

Because she “knew too much” she HAD to keep helping kids, broken as she was.

Although The System broke her, she wasn’t going to let that keep her from helping kids.

My post yesterday was about this same problem:

—human service systems that don’t work as intended—

for clients, workers, or society.

• Systems that turn many workers into unempathic people just clocking in because of paychecks and benefits.

The most tragic part of the post?

A comment thread a MILE LONG with other foster parents in the same place.

Telling the EXACT same story.

I never worked for child protective services because it was such a broken system.

I got a masters degree in social welfare with an emphasis on planning to change inadequate and inefficient systems so agencies would actually fulfill their mission statements.

But then I became “just” a social worker.

I was reprimanded for “com...

And what does an empathy project for Ukrainian families have to do with special needs families?

A pilot project in Ukraine focused on shared pain, strength, and healing for individuals.

Then they trained municipal workers in:

— emotional regulation,

— conflict de-escalation, and

— trauma-informed communication.

The goal was for frontline staff to work better with people in crisis.

The result?

They expanded community-based trauma support to institutions, shifting culture not just one family at a time but one institution at a time.

How?

They brough humanity back into an institutional model by integrating empathy into daily interactions.

This topic is of great concern because when parents receive a catastrophic medical diagnosis for their child it’s a traumatic event.

It’s akin to entering a war zone.

• The loss of their child’s potential as they envisioned, on top of a demanding new lifestyle attending to special needs, is a form of psychological death and physical unfreedom
...

Dad reads all these posts.

He’s 97 (91 in the picture).

He does email and Zoom.

He’s on Facebook.

Went zip lining through a Panamanian rain forest last year.

He just got a motorized bike and was putting it together when I called yesterday. lol

Yesterday’s piece was about how our kids give us strength.

Dad wrote back saying he didn’t remember the part about my almost dying brother putting the surgeons in their place, and that “We really did struggle.”

Mom used to tell me whole swaths of her memory were missing.

…Supreme intelligence of the human species…

Trauma protection.

Activated survival instinct.

She thought it was a deficit.
Something was wrong with her.

She and Dad planned four funerals for my brother before he was ten, according to a family friend.

The way I understood the situation, as a little sister, was that his bones were going to disintegrate and he would die by the time he was seven.

My brother survived.

It was a roller coaster life of hope to acceptance t...

The world may look with pity at families with a child with visible disabilities.

And parents often get untold strength from this very child.

They do things they never thought they could because they must.

Much of the strength to carry on comes from the child’s own role modeling.

I’m not sure if this was the case with my parents when my brother was always dying, but there’s no way his never giving up didn’t give them strength each day.

He certainly put the doctors in their place one time.

He was anesthetized, awaiting surgery, and overheard the doctors saying—

“Yea, he DEFINITELY won’t make it through this one.”

My brother opened his eyes and told them something to the tune of —

“Like hell I won’t!”

Kids in general are often the inspiration keeping parents going, disabled or not.

What’s something your kid’s inspired you to do ?

Julie Browne, LCSW
NEW NORMAL COACHING
www.courage-ignite.com

1. Increase public awareness so more not less services are created and sustained for these families.

Here’s a thought provoking PBS video about caregivers and their adult children or siblings with disabilities.

Who will care for our loved one once we’re gone? is the perpetual terror gnawing at them from the moment the diagonals is understood.

None escape this torment.

—.—

Hundreds of thousands of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in America are living and receiving care at home.

But their aging caregivers, many of whom are parents or siblings, are worried about who will continue to care for their loved ones when they are gone.

Christopher Booker reports on some steps being taken to support families as part of our series, ‘Rethinking Lifespan.’

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oIKc4Vl6kO0&fbclid=IwQ0xDSwKmwGdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHgh-n0Fasoi_sl7EqGBxEWLLhgp70Pe8HNLgJwm3G4x4K_uQGQQanVm1P6qU_aem_r1rO-Bn5bDFhRz5l-vsaTQ

A colleague I’ve witnessed struggle for a few years shared the below Facebook post (sorry I can only figure out how to give link to post page, not actual post…)

She’s been on an exhausting and scary journey because professionals haven’t figured out what’s going on with her young daughter.

This means that basic needs, such as adaptations at school, have not yet been met.

AND she’s up against a new practice interfacing with anxious mothers like her—questionable and concerning professional behavior in the fields of medicine, education, and child protective services.

The mental health condition—Münchausen syndrome—also known as factitious disorder where a person imagines health problems, has been expanded and is being used, without academic or professional validation.

Some consider this expansion as an unethical, unhelpful, and even dangerous practice.

• The new (non)diagnosis is called Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII).

And parents are even losing custody of their children base...

What have you overcome that you previously thought you couldn’t?

What tools, memories, or beliefs made that possible?

Where can you apply that more in your life right now?

—.—

I made it through college, one term paper at a time, remembering that I made it over Millys Foot Pass.

Up that EXTREMELY steep, gravely mountain range.

In freezing weather.

Without a trail.

Carrying my own heavy backpack.

….

Whenever I had NO idea what to write in college but deadlines were imminent, I reminded myself of two things.

1. There’s no going back, only forward.

2. If I could accomplish that physically demanding feat I could sure as heck put words on a piece of paper.

What dormant personal agency from the past can YOU activate and leverage now?

—Julie 

In honor of veterans, here’s an incomplete exposé of the price of war on their children, in particular, major medical and psychological impacts.

These issues stem from factors associated with military life and deployment:

1. Indirect exposure to trauma.

2. Stress.

3. Environmental.

This in no way implies that a parent with physical or psychological challenges inherently cause children harm because of their own conditions.

It’s meant to connect dots and raise awareness of outcomes beyond the veteran themself.

It helps us:

• respond to underacknowledged post service needs,
• more accurately calculate the true cost of war,
• better allocate support resources for military families.

This cursory glance shows what children in families of some military veterans navigate:

— Attachment and relational needscan be disrupted. Attachment patterns, established in the first years of life, unconsciously impact the quality of relationships thereafter.

— Prenatal exposure to toxins (even in a...