Latest / Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories / Autism, Marriage, and Surviving Caregiver Burnout | Tash Dillmon

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Autism, Marriage, and Surviving Caregiver Burnout | Tash Dillmon · Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Yes. You guys, I feel like every time I start these conversations with these mom Talk autism ladies, I'm laughing before I press record and it rolls into this intro. Welcome to the Incidence podcast. I have Tash Dillman here, another one of the MTA Mom Talk Autism Moms about to share and give witness to her journey as an autism mom. And the laughter that you just heard is because there is such a beautiful polarity in this journey that you have to be able to laugh through it, you have to be able to cry through it, you have to be able to have foundational support and however that looks like and works best for your family. And Tash is here to give a more clear, clear expression of her journey as Jack's mom and an autism parent, and really what foundation that looks like to her. Tash Dillman, thank you so much for being here today on Inch Zones.
• 0:48
  Speaker B: Thanks for having me. I love this. I love. I love how you say my name. It's so. No east coast dash. Tash, I feel like you're like, my.
• 0:56
  Speaker A: I've never heard that about myself, my people.
• 0:59
  Speaker B: Right. Like, I. I'm on the west coast, but I should have been on the. I should have been raised on the east coast, I'm pretty sure.
• 1:05
  Speaker A: Oh, that's so funny. Yes.
• 1:06
  Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.
• 1:07
  Speaker A: Yes. I'm firmly planted in that.
• 1:10
  Speaker B: All right.
• 1:11
  Speaker A: It's. It's day one.
• 1:13
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:13
  Speaker A: You just got a diagnosis for Jack.
• 1:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:16
  Speaker A: Tell me what you're feeling as an autism mom. Newly minted autism mom.
• 1:20
  Speaker B: I was feeling relief. I'm not your. I'm not your. Not your typical. I knew that Jack was. That there was something. I knew that, you know, I didn't know for sure that it was autism because autism wasn't, like, a huge part part of my life. I didn't have. I didn't have any friends who had autistic kids, but I knew that there was something different, and that word had been floated around a little bit. And so I. It came as no surprise to me. Very different story for my husband. So for me, it was, you know, there. There was some sadness. There was some grief around it, but also there was some relief. And just like, okay, we have. We have a name. We have an answer now what. What do we do? You know, like, let's, you know, get to work or whatever.
• 2:04
  Speaker A: So you didn't have a. There wasn't like, a stop gap for you like, this gave you. No, that diagnosis went. Now we've got a path.
• 2:11
  Speaker B: Right, Right. And, you know, my. My journey is a little bit different in the sense that, you know, Jack was a twin. They were, they were born early, they were born with twin to twin transfusion syndrome. Jameson ended up passing away. So we had a rough go from, from essentially finding out that we were pregnant with twins. Right. And that they were identical, et cetera. So. Yeah, so, so my path's different in that way where I was a lot more accepting because I was already in grief.
• 2:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 2:36
  Speaker B: I was already in grief from the loss of Jack's brother. Twin brother, you know. Yeah.
• 2:41
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 2:42
  Speaker B: So, yeah, I, I, again, it doesn't take away, definitely doesn't take away that it, that it wasn't still hard and it was, it was sad. And I was like, okay, there's going to be the struggles, but I was ready to, to dig in. And we were already digging in, kind of.
• 2:58
  Speaker A: You were already digging in in so many different ways. Like in an, on an emotional bucket standpoint, those realities that you were facing head on, like, like you said, you, you felt relief that there was a path forward. What were those, what were those realities that continued to just reveal itself even as that path you were on and you were conscious and moving forward. What did that feel like for you, you know, physically, emotionally, when things like the therapies began, the constant observations and evaluations that you didn't know what you didn't know but were happening, you know, what did that feel like to you, aside from relief?
• 3:29
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it was hard. My husband's a first responder. He's a fire captain in a local department. And so there was a lot on me. I had already left my career, my massage career, 15 years to stay home because before we had the diagnosis, we were already in therapies and had, you know, speech delay, all of that. So I was kind of seeing what the writing on the wall was going to be. You know, I wasn't going to be going back to work anytime soon. I was toting around, you know, a toddler and baby, essentially my, my typical kid. And then, and then Jack are only 21 months apart. So we were in it in that sense. Yeah. This was like, okay, this is my, this is my new it. I am a, I'm a chauffeur to therapies. And this.
• 4:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, you were like the hat that you wear sometimes, like it's so immediate that you don't even realize that you've switched hats.
• 4:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 4:34
  Speaker A: And you just go, right. And then you realize that that is becoming baked into your identity and you don't even realize that you, you did consciously choose it but there's a lot of, like, morphing that goes on, right?
• 4:45
  Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Because I was also, you know, trying to find my identity through I was doing an mlm, you know, I was selling skincare and. Which I'm, like, so grateful for. That's what provided me to be able to stay home, which, you know, does not happen for a lot of. A lot of people in. In their child's diagnosis journey. But at the same time, I was like, how do I. How do I. How do I navigate, you know, keeping who I am as this person and, like, bringing something to the table, but then also, like, I'm. I'm have this new hat of I'm an autism mom, and I'm going, you know, in and out of therapies and, you know, getting him into the school district on an iep, Just all of the things. It was. Again, you're just in go mode.
• 5:31
  Speaker A: I feel like, yeah, you know, I'm
• 5:34
  Speaker B: not gonna sink, so I'm just gonna.
• 5:36
  Speaker A: I'm gonna keep moving.
• 5:37
  Speaker B: I'm gonna keep moving. I'm keep treading water, you know, Right.
• 5:40
  Speaker A: Then that put it. Being on that road so solidly and navigating it alongside of a typically developing sibling I think is something that a lot of women, mothers, caregivers, and parents are. Are doing. They're already doing it, and I think that it becomes this, like. Unfortunately, fortunately, whatever the case is, there's then these extra silos that added to the plates or to. To. To the foundation of your life, and you don't realize how much energy each of those silos then takes up. I have tons of typically typical parents of only typical children who. They're. They're exhausted too, and they're wiped. And parenthood is. Is. Is wild and exhausting. Yet there's these added silos that. That you realize that not for anything more than what the needs of your child deserve, become an expenditure that you don't realize that your body can do. Now, I'm not saying it's right, but it. It. You realize that the capacity that you have can grow, right?
• 6:36
  Speaker B: Yes. Oh, my gosh. It's. It's kind of like that. Like, oh, I've never been a runner. Trust me, girl, anybody can become a runner. You know what I mean? We just. We. We open up those. Those. Those silos, and we do it, you know, and we. Then we go for it.
• 6:49
  Speaker A: I can tell just from, you know, the way that you express yourself and how you present that the autism mom hat that you put on my Read on. This is that you were like, yep, this is it. I'm adding it to my, to my bag of tricks and we're gonna go. I think that that's not the norm. I think there's a lot of identity shifting that happens to mothers. That, and I 100% am one of them. You know, Sarah at when was diagnosed, let's say I was 30, 33 at the time. Like, I want to look at her and go, buckle up, buttercup. Like, everything that you built around this, this version of Sarah, you know, the white picket fence, life outside of New York City. You better sit the f down because it's gonna you down. I wish so much that I could have implanted your brain and mindset back onto me then, because. And I think that a lot of women do go through what I went through, which is this massive transformation, you know? What do you think? What do you think that by just sort of living it, did it free you? Did it feel like it freed you because you just kept moving through that identity?
• 7:53
  Speaker B: It did for two years. And then I hit rock bottom.
• 7:59
  Speaker A: Wow. Okay.
• 8:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm like riding high.
• 8:03
  Speaker A: Woo.
• 8:04
  Speaker B: Let's go.
• 8:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 8:07
  Speaker B: And then hit, and then I hit my, my rock bottom. It was probably just, just shy of two years into the diagnosis, and I think it all just came crashing down for me. I think, I think I had never fully dealt with the loss of Jameson. I was going through the motions of it, but I wasn't really processing it. Right. And then, and then Jack's diagnosis with it, just all of it together, and I didn't want to live. I didn't, I honest, you know, just, yeah, raw truth. I, I didn't want to live. I looked at my husband and I said, I, I, I am feeling like I want to commit suicide. Yep. Yep. And, and it's so hard to even, like, think about that. Like, it makes me want to cry a little bit because I, I, Those val. Those emotions were valid, right? They, they were, they, they were it. But also, too, I had this really great life. You know, I had this great husband. I have this, these great children. I have this area that we live in. You know, Jack's having the supports, you know, everything was good, but it just wasn't. It just wasn't good.
• 9:12
  Speaker A: Well, I think you think that, you know, the one thing that you can't outrun is being human, like, in all of these processes. Like, I'm, I'm a huge fan of that Matthew McConaughey book Green Light. Right. And one of the Parts in the book. He says, he said, and I quote this all the time. He literally said he looked in the mirror and went, mcconaughey, the only person you can't run away from is yourself. And I think that all the time is that you can't outrun being human. And even as adaptive and as evolutionary conscious, we can be in a role as a mother to neurodiverse kids. You can't outrun your fricking brain.
• 9:46
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:46
  Speaker A: And that isn't that. I have a really hard time with that.
• 9:49
  Speaker B: I don't sit well in that either.
• 9:51
  Speaker A: I don't. Because I, I too, I too have had moments where I'm like, it might, I need a one way ticket out of here.
• 9:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:58
  Speaker A: I need one way to get outta here. And everyone will be okay if I'm not here. Yes. And that was. I, you know, obviously that, that pulls you back in, but that is the human side to the capacity issue that I think is actually one of the most, one of the greatest thing about social media is that we can talk with this and amplify that reality because you can't outrun fricking hard. This is on your psyche. Yeah, Right.
• 10:20
  Speaker B: Yeah. And, and you know, it's like that was the funny thing to me too is that I, I, I've been dealing with that psyche my whole life. I've had, I' I've had, I've struggled with depression my whole life. I have in my early, you know, youth, tried to commit suicide and had suicidal ideal idolizations and all of that. And so it was like, what did I think? I'm a big girl now and I've got my, I've got it all together so I can just like, I can just muster through this and everything will be fine. And it's like, no, you can't outrun.
• 10:49
  Speaker A: Do you think, though? I've been doing like a deep dive on this and Jean and I actually talked about this. I said, I wish I could just clone myself and one of me can go back and get a PhD in evolutionary biology to learn about why it is, how I am. Right. Like I want to study myself. Like I want myself to learn and study myself so that I can help myself from a PhD level. Go, Sarah. This is what's happening. This is your, this is a boy and a girl, both have the same diagnosis and like do that. Right. What do you think? Because I think this is part of that. What do you think that you experienced or that I experienced or any person, but specifically autism. Moms and caregivers that we forget how conditioned we became to expectations on things that never were real? Like, what did I learn from being born in 1983 till now that made me so convinced that if I just lived and worked hard that it would just all work out? Like, what did that?
• 11:46
  Speaker B: Nothing. Cause we're all still living through our trauma from our childhood.
• 11:50
  Speaker A: But why is that, like, like. Cause you sit in this place too, where you're self reflective and you've had attack tackle things as they come, and it feels like all of that should just then broaden the path of, like, everything's gonna work out. But why? What is this conscious conditioning that we. Or unconscious conditioning that we all seem to think we're better then?
• 12:12
  Speaker B: Yes. You know, and that's just it. I think. I think we, you know, we sit in this like, oh, I've got this. You know what I mean?
• 12:19
  Speaker A: We're, we're.
• 12:20
  Speaker B: We are a generation of we've got this.
• 12:22
  Speaker A: You know what I mean?
• 12:22
  Speaker B: Because that was the only option we had, right? We didn't get to start our period at school and mom came and picked us up, right? No, you just dealt with it. Right. Or like, if you were sick, you didn't get to stay home from school because generally both your parents worked, right. So you had to be like having diarrhea and vomiting everywhere, I guess, you know, so it is just behind you
• 12:42
  Speaker A: in class that you knew that she had a tampon in her. She knew her mom packed it or something and you.
• 12:47
  Speaker B: And you tied somebody's sweater around your waist, you know. But I think that, that being so good also, it has taught us to not really sit deep in those, in those emotions, you know, like to really, really digest them and to be okay with the icky feelings, you know, and not just say we're okay.
• 13:10
  Speaker A: Well, that's like the polarity. That's what, like, I love, like, you know, Glennon Doyle's line, like the just or the we can do hard things and, you know, the next right thing.
• 13:19
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:19
  Speaker A: Unfortunately, the complexity in that is that by, by constantly moving, there isn't the ability to sit still. And I don't, I, I don't know what the right answer is. I don't. I think that nuance and complexity in all of our individual unique lives takes form how it takes form. So it's almost like in some capacity, it is keep moving and do the next right thing. And sometimes the hard thing is actually just to slow down.
• 13:42
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, gosh. I mean, every day I, I think. And slowing down too. Is, you know, then. Then doing that check of like, to other people. My relationship to Jack, how. How am I. How am I handling him? My relationship to Sloan, his typical sister, how am I handling her? My. My relationship to their dad, Tyler, you know, and then. And then how are we communicating that? Then we are showing, you know, are we connected as this, as this team and are we really. Are we really in this together or are we just, you know, just floating?
• 14:14
  Speaker A: Just floating?
• 14:15
  Speaker B: Are we just parts moving together? You know, simultaneous, simultaneously? Yeah.
• 14:19
  Speaker A: Before we pressed record, I said, what's the one thing you really want to get across? And you said, I want to talk about how we got through this together.
• 14:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing like losing a death of a child to make your marriage either break
• 14:31
  Speaker A: or you hit on me. Like, you're such a dark humor. I'm sorry you have to laugh about this. I'm like, like, I.
• 14:37
  Speaker B: You know what? If you want your marriage to stay together, then just lose a kid. Then everything will be fine.
• 14:43
  Speaker A: Like, nothing like wiping your 11 year old desk to really get the day going and smelling shit in the morning like that. Like. Yeah, like, it's just.
• 14:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:51
  Speaker A: So. So when did you realize that that might have been your superpower or continues to be in all of us?
• 14:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think, you know, Tyler and I, My husband and I have. We had rocky beginning, right? Like, we were like, oh, we're all kinds of effed up, like, maybe we shouldn't get married, you know, and, And. But we worked through it. You know, we were doing marriage counseling before we even got married because we were that, like, you know, aware. Crazy and aware and aware. So I think just. I think that. I think having that foundation and knowing how much we loved each other and, and then, and then truly, honestly, dark humor side. Losing Jameson was. It rocked both of us to our core, you know, in. In a very similar way and in a very different way. Right. Um, he's the dad, I'm the mom. And. And then the fact that, you know, we still have this living child, the. The twin brother, you know, we still have Jack. And so like forcing us to push forward for him, it's just a very different dynamic. And again, this probably would have broke a lot of people. You see it happen all the time, but for Tyler and I, it was just like, okay, you know, this. This is. We are in this for life. You know what I mean? We have this bond that is. Is unbreakable, unshakable, because we have such a love, such a depth for this human that we created that, that this is not where our story ends, you know, and we go our separate ways. So that. That was that. That first little, I guess, catalyst, and then Jack, and then Jack, you know, going through his first year and us realizing something was different. And then, you know, and then definitely into those. That 18 month mark and it was like, okay, you know, pediatrician was like, yeah, I. I wanted to wait a little bit, you know, and then that was what was really hard for Tyler. So he was my strength during, you know, the be in the beginning with Jameson, and then I was able to turn that for him, you know, with Jack. And although we were, again, we were both in it and we both had our different feelings and whatever, we. We were each other's rocks at different time. Right.
• 16:53
  Speaker A: And that's. I mean, that's the beautiful polarity of men and women, I think, in a truly loving relationship is that there is the dynamic of like the yin and the yang through it all. And it's not. It doesn't take away the pain at all.
• 17:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:07
  Speaker A: But what it does is there's like a. I. I firmly believe there's like, there's a. There's like a divine sacred component to it that, that, it. That you actually can't run away from if you lean so deeply into it. And it sounds like you and Tyler did that.
• 17:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And we did. And we did. You know, and we. And then. And then again, fast forward to that, you know, two years into Jack's diagnosis, and I just, you know, I hit rock bottom. And he just was like, no, this is not. This is not it. This is not the end of our story. This is not the end of you. You know, we are. We are strong, you know, and. And then we. And we got through that and. Yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker A: What about now? So, I mean, you know, you hit on the feelings of relief. You've talked about, like, the transformative nature of obviously losing a child through this. So there's a lot of the grief alongside movement and personal, you know, motherly advocacy. Where do you feel like you are now? Like, when you think about yourself and do you. Do you give yourself the same credit now or do you feel like that, that. That even your own sense of self is so different that you don't need that validation anymore? You're like, yeah, this is actually who I am. Has that changed?
• 18:10
  Speaker B: I think so. Yeah. You know, I do. I do. I think that will pat myself on the back. I've. I've done a lot of work and, you know, for me, like a big pivotal point of, like, finding Christ and coming to Christ and all of that changed who I was as a person. You want to talk about going deep and changing a level of how you see yourself and than how you see yourself react to others, et cetera. Like that. That was a huge change for me. And I think that was that. That pivot where I realized, you know what? This is all gonna be okay. It's all gonna be okay. We are all just this work in process. Each one of us is, like, perfectly and wonderfully made, you know, even with all of our cracks and whatever.
• 18:58
  Speaker A: But.
• 18:58
  Speaker B: But we're all supposed to be who. Who we each are in ourselves. Whether that's neurotypical, neurodivergent, you know, you who has a neurodivergent kid, or parents who got their child got a cancer diagnosis, whatever it might be. This is all just our story, and we get to choose how we're going to live it. Are we going to sit in, you know, sadness? There's always going to be the sadness. We all. We have. We have sad days, we have happy days. We have everything in between. But, like, what are we ultimately going to choose as our. As our anthem, Right? As our. As our. What's our. You know, what. What are we going to.
• 19:37
  Speaker A: Pulses through in every moment, Whether it's hard, joyful, beautiful. What is the. What is the pulse? What is the line? What is the thread? Did you ever wake up? Because I. I admit that I did. Did you ever wake up or have you ever woken up going, this is really unfair.
• 19:55
  Speaker B: It was really unfair that I lost a child when I was sitting in a NICU with women that should not have had babies. Their babies should not have. You know that. This sounds horrible, but their baby should not have made it. Mine should have. They are. Had.
• 20:06
  Speaker A: Were.
• 20:07
  Speaker B: No, you know, had no right being a mother.
• 20:09
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 20:10
  Speaker B: You know, so the fair. The unfair was right away, you know, and. And yes, there. There still are the. The moments of the. Of the. You know, watching other people have. God, even watching my own life with Sloan, you know, and her having things be so much easier, you know, And I'm like, this is just not fair for, you know, why does she get this? But Jack doesn't, you know, and my
• 20:34
  Speaker A: typical oldest, I'm like, I'm in Jersey. I'm like, do you realize how lucky you are? You beach growing up. I grew up in landlocked Pittsburgh, okay? This whole idea where you just like, I'm gonna go onto the beach for the day. I'm like, who the F. Are you? Yes. So. Yes.
• 20:47
  Speaker B: Entitled generations, don't we.
• 20:49
  Speaker A: That's your point. About, like Sloan do. You're like, it really is funny. You're like, wait a second. Like, yeah, yeah.
• 20:54
  Speaker B: And, you know, and so I. I still sit in that. Very much so. But I don't sit in it to a detriment. I don't sit in it to a degree of poor me or like, we're victims. I'm just. I'm not that person. You know, I still have that 82 mentality. Right. I'm gonna pull myself up by my bootstraps and just deal with it, you know? So when it comes to that, I try to pause and say, what. What is. But what does Jack have that's so great, you know? Yes, he has this diagnosis and it causes him to have a. An intellectual disability. You know, he is, you know, a sixth grader at a second grade level. He still speaks in scripting. I mean, he implements the right things, but he, you know, everything that comes out of his brain is scripted from some sort of a movie or something. You know, like, wish there. I wish he had it where he could easily make and meet friends. You know, I wish he didn't have. Whatever. I can go down the list. It's. It's unfair. It's unfair. But, you know, at the end of the day, there's lots of things that are unfair in this life, and we all realize that. We. We sit in that every day with just the world around us and what's going on, and it absolutely is unfair. And so I'm. I'm gonna choose. We are gonna choose the dillies. We're gonna choose to just find the good and focus on the. The positive and then deal with the hard when it comes.
• 22:14
  Speaker A: What is the best thing? What has been the most expansive thing for you about being Jack's mom and living in. As an autism mom? The best thing. Not the hard, hardest best, but, like,
• 22:26
  Speaker B: really the best thing, I think just like, who he is. He is. He is just. He has changed me so much as a person.
• 22:34
  Speaker A: Right.
• 22:34
  Speaker B: You know, like. And he's just so happy. He's just so happy, you know? Yeah, he has struggles and he has hard days and all of that, but, like, he's just honestly happy and he just really loves other people. He has a, you know, a. He even calls me out. You know, he calls me out when I'm. When I say something sideways about somebody, you know, and he was like, mom, that's not very nice. You know, they. What that probably would Hurt that. You know, And I'm like, he's. He's just so pure, you know, And. And I'm like. And then it cracks me up when I think about all the things that, like, oh, they don't know how to show emotion, and they don't.
• 23:15
  Speaker A: And I'm like, no.
• 23:15
  Speaker B: Oh, my God. He's like the most emotional person.
• 23:17
  Speaker A: Oh, I know. I. You know, that's one of the things I hope to see changed in our lifetime. On the larger scale is this whole idea of, like, they're not. They're. They're not emotional or they're lacking emotion. I actually think it's the complete opposite. Like, actually to the extreme. I mean, my son Mac, he cries so deeply over a couple cartoons like Super Y or Daniel Tiger that. Or Elmo or something. It is like a full body. He. His lip quivers when, you know, Prince Tuesday falls off the slide or something like that. And he feels so deeply. And I wish I. I've never been able to catch it. Cause it's on film or anything to. To share, but the depth with which these kids feel is so damn powerful that it actually, I think it's like empathy in the most raw form like you can.
• 24:03
  Speaker B: The most raw form and the most, like. You know, again, for me, like, I'm a. I'm a godly person. I love Jesus, you know, so he, to me is like. Like, he is like a form of, like, Jesus. Like that. Like, I love these people unconditionally. I don't care who they are, what they've done, where, you know, whatever. Like. You know, it's like it taps in.
• 24:23
  Speaker A: It's. It's such a. Yeah. I think it's aligned so much too, with. Because they are like that, because they have the ability, as their. Our children or our child to just be that. They don't know. They don't know how to be anything else but themselves. Right, right. So that. That. And that requires such a powerful presence as us as. As their mom because of their. How their lives are expressed through their bodies and minds. It forces us into the present so that we actually notice the things that we're talking about. I don't know if I can actually. No, I cannot say I can. I cannot say this with my oldest. My first. My first daughter's typical. The other two came second and third. I don't think I noticed my oldest daughter's empathy, which she likely had and she likely showed me as a two and a half year old. Like, I do my. Do my. Her siblings. Yeah. I didn't because I probably wasn't sitting in enough noticing and being in the now. I wasn't, I know I wasn't. Like, I, I could never describe her empathy in the same way because it, there was such a cacophony of other things she was doing that sadly, I probably missed some of those bigger ones.
• 25:31
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And that's okay, though, you know?
• 25:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's totally okay, you know, because,
• 25:35
  Speaker B: like, look at who she is now and, and who she is to, you know, her siblings and, and all of that. But.
• 25:40
  Speaker A: Right.
• 25:41
  Speaker B: I hear that. I see that. You know, I, I, I feel that on a deep.
• 25:45
  Speaker A: Yeah. And you, and when you get to witness it and like you said, there's a moment where they say something or they exhibit something or they, they even behaviorally show something. That power of, that, our ability to stay present to that is what I think fuels me to even do this work, is that I do believe that these kids all have that power in them because they, they know, they don't know another way.
• 26:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:07
  Speaker A: Like, they genuinely don't know another way to be.
• 26:10
  Speaker B: And see. And that's what, to me is the greatest thing, right, that, that they have changed who we are as people. Who. And, and they are continuing to change who we are as people and how we see things and how we navigate life and how we deal and interact with other humans, whether they're typical or divergent or whatever they are, you know, just to, just to simply be and know that everybody is maybe going through something, you know, or they have something that we just don't know. Yeah. So good.
• 26:36
  Speaker A: Well, Tasha, I'm just so thankful for you to share all this on the podcast. And also these deep dives, one on one, as I said before, we press record are so important for my mission because I really, genuinely, I can't help but that's my soul's purpose, is to share the actual lived experience of what mothers are possible, what we are living, what the reality is, and what transformation can happen. As you live through this, it's going to be hard and it's going to be beautiful, and it's going to be guttural and joyful and all the things. And I think this conversation illuminates that so beautifully. So thank you for your time today.
• 27:11
  Speaker B: Thank you for having me on, and thank you for what you do. Oh, my gosh, girl, we are just like people like you, the fighters, people
• 27:18
  Speaker A: like all of us, man. Do it.
• 27:21
  Speaker B: Feisty East Coasters.
• 27:23
  Speaker A: Feisty, feisty Xennials. Right? That's right, listen, I don't know. God must have sprinkled something special on those years. My mom actually last week and said it, she goes, I knew that you were always like this, but it's really apparent as you become, Gosh, every time
• 27:39
  Speaker B: I see a reel come through, I'm like, that's right.
• 27:42
  Speaker A: Yep. Yep. Anyways. All right, Tash Dillman, thank you again for being here today on the instance. Everyone will be linking Tash's work through the momstalk autism podcast as well on the episode summary. And thank you for being here today on Inch Duns.
• 27:56
  Speaker B: Thank you.