Latest / Self-Schooled / Highly Sensitive Parenting: Overstimulation, Guilt & Getting the Support You Need with Amy Lajiness
Transcript
- Heather DiNino (she/they): Welcome to Self-Schooled, a podcast where we explore how to understand our children and ourselves more clearly. I'm Heather, parent, educator, and micro school founder. And every week we talk to someone who gives us a different lens for understanding what it means to be human and parent other humans. Because the more we understand, the more connected we feel to the people who matter most. And the more confidently we can parent and find our family's own path. This is the education that actually matters. Let's dive in together. Hi everyone. I am so excited to welcome Amy Ladjenes to the show today. Amy is a therapist and a coach whose focus is in supporting highly sensitive parents to reclaim their peace and their confidence. Super important. In addition to providing individual therapy at her California private practice, Amy offers coaching courses and resources. to support highly sensitive parents and parents of highly sensitive children through highly sensitive parenthood, which is worldwide. And Amy is a highly sensitive person herself. So she gets it personally and professionally, which is super, super important. She is also a mother of two highly energetic young children. So welcome to the show, Amy. We're so happy to have you here. Amy Lajiness: Thanks so much, Heather. I'm really excited to be here and to continue our conversation. Heather DiNino (she/they): So if you could just talk a little bit about How you found out that you yourself was a highly sensitive person was that before you started doing your HSP work or after? Amy Lajiness: Okay, great question. And I don't know that I can point to like a specific moment that I w I'm sure I did have a moment. I don't remember what it was. I think it was in my probably in my twenties, where I came across the term highly sensitive person, HSP, and thought, yeah, that's me, kind of the empathy piece, the the sensitivity to kind of sensory inputs, the loud noises or the bright light. Lights, kind of the depth of processing stuff. So there was a lot of that that resonated with me. But where it really showed up in a significant way was after I had kids, definitely after my my first child was born, and then even more so after my second child was born, because there was just like there was double the input. Heather DiNino (she/they): Hmm Amy Lajiness: and so I I had the experience that a lot of parents have where They may or may not be aware of being highly sensitive prior to having children, but there's things about Becoming a parent biologically and then even just in day-to-day life that amplify the trait, both in both the positive aspects of the trait, like like empathy and and connectedness and attunement and also some of the the challenges like sensory overstimulation. and so s so that's kind of a long answer to your question, which is I don't really know an exact moment, but there's been kind of an ever deepening awareness of being a highly sensitive person. And noticing parents that I was working with in my therapy practice having some of the same experiences or similar experiences to what I did. And so I got really curious about kind of this intersection of perinatal, postpartum, and parental mental health and how that dovetails with neurodiversity broadly, but also being highly sensitive more specifically. Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah, that's a really interesting point because being a parent does change you in so many ways. Like you said, biologically as well as your lifestyle, as well as potentially your support system. If you don't have the people to reach out to that understand what you're saying, right? So for example, I had my both of my kids needed to be held a lot. and I would feel really touched out. Like I just, by the time my husband got home, I was handing them off because I was like, I cannot be touched anymore. Like, please don't, don't touch me, don't look at me, don't talk to me. Like I need to go in a black hole. Amy Lajiness: Yeah. Heather DiNino (she/they): And I didn't have words for what that was. So I felt bad. You know, I felt Amy Lajiness: Yeah. Heather DiNino (she/they): like, should I? want to be holding my babies all the time, like everyone says it goes by quickly and everyone says, savor your time. Are those things that you hear often from? Yes, see, I didn't realize until after, right? That like, and Amy Lajiness: I Heather DiNino (she/they): I identified already as a, I've always identified as like a highly sensitive person, but I didn't connect the two. Amy Lajiness: Yes. yeah, and that was my own experience as well. I also had to kind of hand the kids off to my husband for depends on the day, but like ten to thirty minutes and just go like lay down in a dark room, especially during a s kind of a certain period of early parenthood. And that's a so it's just such a common experience and you're right to name like the guilt that can accompany that. It it basically it always accompanies that at least at first because we have all those narratives from social media. Or from even from like our own internal compass around how we want to parent. So that's another thing about being a highly sensitive parent was is we have often these sort of like deeply reflected upon values on how we want to show up as parents, and some of it might be reactions against how we were raised, or like that was amazing. I want to continue with that. A lot of highly sensitive parents are big researchers, so we'll like listen to podcasts. We'll read books, we'll we'll we'll really want to know like how do I just raise my kid? How do I how am I the best parent that I can be? How do I raise my kid the best that I can? And then when we run into things like this, often guilt shows up really quickly, and we have those narratives like only 18 summers, and like the what is it? Like the the mo the days are long, but the years are short, and it's just like I find really profoundly unhelpful because they invalidate the experience that that many highly sensitive parents have which is that that over stimulation the sensory overstimulation piece and that can show up in in infancy but i want to mention too that like for many sensitive parents the most challenging Point or period of parenthood is that sort of like toddler to preschool stage. Now, this is not universal, but I have come across a lot of parents that are like, well, I was fine, or I was like, I was managing those like first six months or however long, and now like all of a sudden I'm not managing. and it very much depends on the child, very much depends on the parent and their situation. But you know, you think about like a one and a half-year-old, a two-year-old, and they're mommy, daddy. Like pressing, you know, touching you, they're climbing on you, they're jumping off things, the parent hypervigilance is off the charts. Like it's just a different intensity than again, most infant experiences are. There are exceptions, of course, but I do come across some guilt around that too. Like, why am I finding this difficult all of a sudden? we're out of this like early stage. this doesn't even count as like a postpartum issue anymore because they're 18 months and I'm like, no, it's still it still does. Like, this is still very much like a a a mental health thing or or an adjustment thing that deserves support and deserves professional support or group support or community support or ideally all of the above. so Heather DiNino (she/they): could support also start with naming it and maybe we could talk a little bit about like if folks are listening and they have shared experiences that you and I have described and they're like, wait, that kind of sounds like me and I didn't even know that was a highly sensitive person thing. Like what might be the first place to start? Amy Lajiness: there's a website called Highly Sensitive Refuge Hsperson.com is sort of like the original website made by Dr. Elaine Aaron, who's like the the researcher around this trait. you can take some questionnaires there and kind of like get a sense of what what the trait means and how it looks specifically for you, uniquely for you. and then I'll briefly plug my own website as well because it's specifically for highly sensitive parents. It's highly sensitiveparenthood.com. And I have plenty of free stuff on there, YouTube and podcasts. So those are a few places to start. and and then I Heather DiNino (she/they): Thank you. Amy Lajiness: I do courses and coaching as well for kind of a deeper dive. Yeah. Heather DiNino (she/they): you said something that I think is really important. I wanna make sure that folks are queuing into, we're talking about how it's unique. to you. So being a highly sensitive person does not look or show up just one way, right? So like, Amy Lajiness: That's right. Heather DiNino (she/they): can you maybe talk about that a little? Different ways that Amy Lajiness: Yes. Heather DiNino (she/they): it could show up, maybe different like folks that you've worked with and how that Amy Lajiness: Huh? Heather DiNino (she/they): shows up differently for them. Amy Lajiness: Absolutely. Yeah. So like you know, I'll start with a caveat that like there are plenty of amazing positive ways that high sensitivity shows up in parenting. But most people aren't reaching out to me for coaching or therapy saying like, let's talk about how amazing I am as a parent. And I definitely work to try to to try to point those things out. again, it's sort of like that those the attunement you have to your kids, the deep connection, the empathy, the sort of emotional awareness of their needs or their physical needs, creating like a nice cozy physical environment, connection to nature. I could go on and on. But To name some of the some of the tough things that come up for people, I would say the overstimulation piece is is by far the biggest. There are a couple other things that can come up around like decision making, around things like schooling. I've talked with a lot of parents around whether they themselves are highly sensitive or they have highly sensitive kids or both, where again, that sort of intentionality and deep process. Around, I want to have this type of a family, or I want my house, my home, or my family, or my kids to feel like this. socially emotionally my kid isn't doing as well and then like there there's this and there's that and there's a lot of kind of decision paralysis that can happen or a lot of anxiety about making a decision So that that's one way it shows up. I I I want to name though, too, like I think that the the overstimulation part is so significant for people, and that shows up in very, very different ways. So I think I do have have a YouTube or or two about this in particular, and there's a graphic I'm thinking of that I made that has all of these different like expressions of of things that point back to overstimulation. so things like brain fog, fatigue, Rage, which is something that a lot of highly sensitive parents may not have had experience with before. But it can feel very scary. I think especially with the Clancy trial going on right now. There's more parents that are like, Am I going to just totally lose it? Am I gonna f fly off the deep end and and not be in control of myself? And again, that's a whole other conversation, but postpartum psychosis is its own very kind of distinct experience. I will I will say that and there is good information on that at postpartum support international website Let's see. So I named rage panic attacks was actually my experience of overstimulation. And so with my s after my second was born, I I don't I didn't have like a traditional postpartum anxiety challenge, thankfully. I wasn't cognitively really focused on you know, things that could go wrong or fixating on things. I wasn't necessarily experiencing a lot of fear, but the overstimulation actually caused my body to have some giant panic attacks. And they were so huge, I went to the ER a couple times thinking like I like I I was blacking out. My vision was blacking out. Like I it was it was really scary. And I was already already a therapist at that point, but I hadn't e I had to kind of put the pieces together for myself and and what I what I see it as. Now clinically is like, my nervous system was just like it had blown the roof off. Like having two young children around had absolutely blown the roof off my nervous system. And so my body uniquely responded with a panic attack. For other people, it could be intense brain fog or fatigue or depression. For other people, it's like fits of rage, which can again feel very scary and shaming for them. But if we can point it back to this root cause of Overstimulation and and as a kind of sidecar, like perhaps a lack of adequate support and a lack of validating your own experience of overstimulation and overwhelm so that you're able to access the support that that would actually help you to feel better. That is a huge roadblock for people too. You know, we can have a a number of different outcomes, but in my mind, f especially for the highly sensitive person, so much of it can come can be pointed back to that experience of sensory overstimulation as well as overwhelm with just with parenting in the modern society we have where Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah. Amy Lajiness: many people are working outside the home or have other pressures on them, a caring for aging parents, et cetera, et cetera, where adding a child or an a another child into the mix is just a an immense challenge and puts so much pressure on on our bodies and our minds and and and takes away some of that time that we might have had before to regulate and and really care for ourselves. So I see it show up in a lot of ways, but those are a couple of the the main ones that I can speak to right now. Heather DiNino (she/they): In general, do you feel that society is equipped to support highly sensitive people? Like, are people you know, are professionals equipped to know this is not just a panic attack that needs to be treated like here's an Ativan, take it Amy Lajiness: Mm-hmm. Heather DiNino (she/they): and good best of luck to you. Or is there, and maybe like, have you seen this change over the years of your, you've been doing this for a while. So like, do you see a change in people becoming more aware? And I guess it's not just even high sensitivity, but if you're You talked really beautifully about how it stems from overstimulation and it can show up as rage or panic attack or total shutdown. For me, was like, hide under a blanket and is my husband gonna call Amy Lajiness: brain fog, whatever. Yes. Withdrawal. Heather DiNino (she/they): the doctor and be like, I don't know what's happened to my wife. She is not the same person I married. Have things caught up in that way? Amy Lajiness: Think they are in the process of catching up. I do think that like the broader societal conversation around neurodiversity in the last like two or three years has helped significantly. and I in that same time, it really has been like I yeah, maybe the last three years or so, more conversation around postpartum mental health, parental mental health. Feel there's something else I was gonna say around that. But and even things like this is this is a little separate, but things like perimenopause and menopause like have been a much more talked about In medical and also in mental health environments. so I do think that over the last few years there are more more providers and more professionals who have an awareness of of things like neurodiversity, of things like what challenges might arise in postpartum mental health, particularly. That is my training, although I work mainly with parents, you know, across the the spectrum at this point of of parenthood. But there are more trainings. So to answer your question, Heather, kind of baby steps towards that. But I think it's really provider dependent. you know there are people that don't that aren't gonna be aware and they're just gonna, yeah, like give you a an Atavan or whatever and say, like, sorry, you're dealing with a panic attack, and that's that's the end of the conversation. And there's other providers that will say, you know, hey, what kind of support do you have? do you have can I help connect you to a therapist? what about going to a breastfeeding, chest feeding group close by? Here's a flyer for one. What about you know, getting additional support for through your child's school? Let me help you advocate for that. So I think if you're running and I'll just say to parents, like if you're running into not getting support, or not having someone listen to you, there are ways to find kind of kindred spirits. and you know, the some of the resources I mentioned earlier are good for that. I'll plug to the postpart Heather DiNino (she/they): And trust your gut. Amy Lajiness: of the PMHC. Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah, right. I mean, we have to really name that people are being taught not to listen to themselves and being taught not to listen to their bodies and what their bodies are telling them. And, you know, I'll share some of my own experience. Postpartum was very difficult. I definitely had postpartum depression on top of a very traumatic childbirth and long hospitalization stays on a lot of medical stuff. And I remember that not feeling like I could deal with the emotional part because I had to just like deal with the physical part, quite frankly. Like my focus was stay alive. Just let's just stay alive right now. Amy Lajiness: Mm. Heather DiNino (she/they): Like and I remember going to a pediatrician appointment because I would feel like a bad parent if I didn't take my baby. You know, of course my husband's like, I'll take them. I'm like, no, I have to like this is what a good parent would do. I'm gonna take them. I remember at the pediatrician, a social worker. Asking me if I was okay. And I had a hat on and sunglasses because I had a migraine, which is one of the ways that it will show up for me when my nervous system and I was overstimulated and all sorts of stuff. And I said, I just have a migraine, I'm fine. Right? Like I couldn't be like, actually I'm really depressed and overwhelmed and all these things. I could only name the physical symptoms because I think like Amy Lajiness: Mm-hmm. Heather DiNino (she/they): we are kind of conditioned that like physical pain we can maybe name more than emotional pain. So I was like, I have a migraine. And I remember she said to my husband something that the only part I could hear was she's not okay and I'm gonna help you. and the rest I couldn't hear. They they ended up talking kind of without me. The doctor was talking to me about my baby, probably knowing that I would focus on that. I will be forever grateful for her recognizing that. And not shaming me and not saying, It's not just a migraine, you idiot. Like she right, like she Amy Lajiness: Yeah. Heather DiNino (she/they): could tell clearly. And her and my husband may have made eyes at each other at some point. Other than that, to like have already connected, where he was probably like, Please help me, like I don't know what to do. Because he kept asking me if I was okay. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm Amy Lajiness: Mm-hmm. Heather DiNino (she/they): fine. Everything's fine. partly because it's hard to admit when we're not fine. Partly because I didn't know what not fine meant. And partly because having a baby is freaking hard. So I was kind of like, I mean, I guess I'm fine. I'm also not fine, but aren't I supposed to be not fine? Like, I just had a baby. So of course I'm not great. But like, that's normal, right? You know, Amy Lajiness: Mm. Heather DiNino (she/they): so I think it's it's hard to know the difference between What's a point that's kind of, yeah, this is rocky, but I can manage it, versus like reach out for Amy Lajiness: Uh-huh. Heather DiNino (she/they): support. And I guess my my hope would be like just reach out for support. Because Amy Lajiness: Yes. Heather DiNino (she/they): you can never not need it. Right? Like you can never not Amy Lajiness: Yeah. Right. Heather DiNino (she/they): need it. And like you said, people aren't coming to you being like, I just want to let you know I'm having the best time ever with my kid. I'm a highly Amy Lajiness: Right. Heather DiNino (she/they): sensitive parent and I love how in tune I am. Amy Lajiness: Yeah. Heather DiNino (she/they): And I just want you to work with me so I can feel really proud about that. Like, right? That's I hope so. I mean, I Amy Lajiness: Right, right. No, that's that's usually n sometimes towards the end of of therapy I'll get that or coaching I'll get that, but yeah. Heather DiNino (she/they): right, that's the goal is for everyone to realize both sides and all the in-betweens, right? But people are finding you because it's difficult. And if there's difficult, like I don't know, there's just no, there's no downside to getting more support. There's no downside. There's no harm. In getting more support. Amy Lajiness: Exactly. And and it doesn't it doesn't need to be competition of who needs it the most. And and that is something I hear almost universally from clients at some point is I know like I should just be grateful. I have a supportive partner. at least my baby is alive. At least I didn't have this slightly more traumatic experience than the traumatic experience that I had in birth. Or well like whatever Heather DiNino (she/they): Yes, yes. Amy Lajiness: whatever the thing is. And okay, you know, something to be said for gratitude and and And you know, naming what is working, but like that is not helpful in it up to the point where it prevents people from accessing support because they're like technically getting through the day in some way, shape, or form. Like they're still alive at the end of the day. And it for I think for many of us, like We trick ourselves that that's that is acceptable. And so you know, if something is is feeling off, if you're like I don't feel like myself, or like I feel alone, or I'm noticing I'm seeing things really negatively. even you know, partner relationship stuff, parenting, work adjustments, like all of that stuff I see so much. so there's not a bad time to reach out for support. and sometimes those like narratives that were established early in parenthood. just because of the immense pressure that that period involves for people. Again, whether whether you had your child biologically, whether you adopted at birth, whether you formed your family in some other way, that initial like touch-in with your child and adjustment to parenting with that that new person is is significant and it's can it's can be so beautiful and it can also bring up a whole bunch of stuff. that can resound for years, some of it lovely, some of it more challenging. And so I'll just say there's never a bad time to to reach out for support. what do you have to lose really? Heather DiNino (she/they): There's never there's never a bad time and there's never a bad reason. Right. And Amy Lajiness: That's right. Heather DiNino (she/they): and also I think really establishing a relationship with someone is important. So even if things are going great, but you know that, well, a couple years ago or a couple months ago, maybe it wasn't, and you're like, what if that comes back? Well, start a relationship now with someone, right? So they know the great and then they're also already there. Amy Lajiness: Uh-huh. Heather DiNino (she/they): To make that like up and down a little bit more smooth. We're not no one's trying to get rid of the ups and downs, but to help you through it, which is sometimes just holding your hand or holding space through a really tricky Amy Lajiness: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Heather DiNino (she/they): time. I mean, parenting is tough.