Latest / Beautifully Complex / 286: When an Anxious, Empathetic Nervous System is Confronted with Natural Disaster, Penny Williams

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286: When an Anxious, Empathetic Nervous System is Confronted with Natural Disaster, Penny Williams · Beautifully Complex

0:03
Speaker 1: Just down the road from us, like literally a quarter
0:07
Speaker 1: of a mile down the road from me. That house
0:09
Speaker 1: was picked up, moved, flipped all the way around, spun
0:12
Speaker 1: all the way around backwards. Their shed is up in
0:16
Speaker 1: a tree, and the boy Scout camp has gone. I
0:19
Speaker 1: can walk there from here. I drive by it almost
0:22
Speaker 1: every time I leave my home to do anything, and
0:26
Speaker 1: so that devastation was close, and yet we were so
0:31
Speaker 1: so lucky. Welcome to the Beautifully Complex Podcast, where I
0:38
Speaker 1: share insights and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from
0:43
Speaker 1: the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach,
0:47
Speaker 1: author and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the
0:50
Speaker 1: journey of raising your atypical kid. Let's get started. Hey there, friends,
0:59
Speaker 1: I am really happy to be talking to you right now,
1:04
Speaker 1: which sounds a little bit crazy, but I live in Asheville,
1:08
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and I think if you have taken in
1:14
Speaker 1: any news whatsoever over the last two and a half weeks,
1:18
Speaker 1: you know that Hurricane Helene came through here as a
1:22
Speaker 1: tropical storm and really quite literally destroyed our town and
1:29
Speaker 1: a lot of the small towns around us. Our infrastructure
1:35
Speaker 1: is very compromised in ways that are truly unimaginable. Even now,
1:42
Speaker 1: even living here, it is hard for me to sort
1:48
Speaker 1: of absorb the fact that so many things are damaged,
1:57
Speaker 1: so many people are struggling, So much has changed here.
2:04
Speaker 1: And what I wanted to talk to you about is
2:07
Speaker 1: not just to give you an update about what's going
2:10
Speaker 1: on with me, why the podcast is going to maybe
2:15
Speaker 1: skip a week here and there, and I've been flowing
2:18
Speaker 1: a little different ways for a while, but also talk
2:21
Speaker 1: about what I have learned through experience. Now I've added
2:26
Speaker 1: this layer of experience to my understanding of the autonomic
2:30
Speaker 1: nervous system and what happens in our bodies, our biological
2:36
Speaker 1: responses to stress and anxiety and uncertainty, and what that
2:45
Speaker 1: actually feels like. You know, I don't know that I
2:50
Speaker 1: have ever experienced being in the red zone of my
2:55
Speaker 1: nervous system before, which is that shut down freeze mode.
3:01
Speaker 1: Probably I have a time or two and I just
3:04
Speaker 1: don't really recall it. But I've spent a lot of
3:07
Speaker 1: my life in the yellow activated zone of my nervous system,
3:12
Speaker 1: that activated state because I have anxiety, because also just
3:17
Speaker 1: you know, different life circumstances sometimes will put us in
3:22
Speaker 1: that activated zone. But what happened here and in the
3:27
Speaker 1: immediate aftermath of it, I have slipped in and out
3:33
Speaker 1: of that red zone. I find myself trying to work,
3:39
Speaker 1: or even trying to shop and pick up some food
3:42
Speaker 1: in the grocery store, and my mind just goes blank,
3:45
Speaker 1: and I just sort of stand there for a minute,
3:48
Speaker 1: and it feels really bizarre to me because it hasn't
3:53
Speaker 1: happened to me before. It's not my usual experience in
3:59
Speaker 1: the world, if that makes sense. And so I have
4:03
Speaker 1: experienced a lot of what I teach about the autonomic
4:08
Speaker 1: nervous system, and it wasn't that I hadn't experienced any
4:10
Speaker 1: of it before. As I said, I have anxiety. I've
4:13
Speaker 1: clearly been in a dysregulated state a lot of the
4:18
Speaker 1: time in my life. But I have experienced it in
4:21
Speaker 1: a completely different way and from a completely different trigger.
4:27
Speaker 1: And I really wanted to share that experience with you
4:30
Speaker 1: all because I think that it really shines a light
4:33
Speaker 1: on what a lot of our kids are going through,
4:35
Speaker 1: what a lot of us go through. Right, this isn't
4:38
Speaker 1: just about neurodivergence. This is about all human beings. We
4:42
Speaker 1: all have this autonomic nervous system and it gets triggered
4:47
Speaker 1: in different ways for each of us, but a lot
4:51
Speaker 1: of the outcomes are the same. We have those same
4:53
Speaker 1: three states of the nervous system. We're either settled, things
4:57
Speaker 1: feel doable, we're connected, we're in that green or we're activated.
5:02
Speaker 1: What we often talk about is fight or flight and
5:05
Speaker 1: we just need to move, we need to do something
5:07
Speaker 1: because we're dysregulated, we've been triggered, and we're in that
5:10
Speaker 1: yellow zone. And then, as I was talking about earlier,
5:14
Speaker 1: that red zone, that red state of just shut down, freeze,
5:19
Speaker 1: things are not at all doable, and it feels like
5:25
Speaker 1: life threat. Red state feels like life threat. Yellow state
5:31
Speaker 1: feels like threat, but not necessarily this full like life threat,
5:39
Speaker 1: that sort of things might come to an end for
5:43
Speaker 1: me right now, right that's the red and it's really interesting.
5:48
Speaker 1: I'm just going to kind of share some of the
5:51
Speaker 1: timeline and what has gone on for us since September
5:55
Speaker 1: twenty sixth in our area, and then I'm going to
5:59
Speaker 1: over lay as I tell the story, some of my
6:03
Speaker 1: nervous system experience, some of my mental and emotional experience,
6:07
Speaker 1: because again it's not about me. I'm not sharing it
6:10
Speaker 1: about me. I'm safe. My family is safe, our home
6:14
Speaker 1: is safe, my sister's home was safe, my parents' home
6:17
Speaker 1: was safe. We're all doing okay. A lot of people
6:21
Speaker 1: in Asheville are not doing okay. There are still a
6:24
Speaker 1: lot of people as I record this on October fifteenth,
6:27
Speaker 1: I think it's day nineteen, maybe day twenty, that still
6:30
Speaker 1: don't have running water, still don't have power, still can't
6:35
Speaker 1: drive out of their homes. There are I think, still
6:40
Speaker 1: hundreds of missing people in western North Carolina. There are
6:45
Speaker 1: even many people here in the morgue who haven't been identified,
6:50
Speaker 1: like here in Bunkham County. In Asheville, we had the
6:53
Speaker 1: most deaths from this storm because it came in in
6:59
Speaker 1: a way that is unimaginable. There is a map floating
7:03
Speaker 1: around on the Internet that shows the different levels of
7:09
Speaker 1: flood from like a fifty year flood, one hundred year flood,
7:12
Speaker 1: five hundred year flood, and at the very bottom of it,
7:17
Speaker 1: as far as it counts, is a thousand year flood,
7:21
Speaker 1: So it's a thousand years or more year's flood. This
7:24
Speaker 1: flood here was in that thousand years plus flood. It
7:29
Speaker 1: had never been recorded here, It had never happened anywhere
7:34
Speaker 1: near this extent, in this location as long as people
7:38
Speaker 1: have been telling stories and writing things down, and so
7:42
Speaker 1: the magnitude and that unimaginable part of it creates an
7:48
Speaker 1: even bigger layer of uncertainty and a bigger impact for
7:52
Speaker 1: everyone here. As I said, we are safe. We have utilities.
7:57
Speaker 1: We have to boil water that's going to be for
7:59
Speaker 1: a long long time. But I have water coming out
8:02
Speaker 1: of my pipes to boil. I have water coming out
8:05
Speaker 1: of my pipes that's safe to shower in. I can
8:07
Speaker 1: do laundry in my home. People around me are standing
8:12
Speaker 1: in hours long lines to get a shower in a
8:15
Speaker 1: shower trailer or at the YMCA. People around me are
8:19
Speaker 1: standing in hours long lines to do laundry. People are
8:23
Speaker 1: standing in hours long lines to get a hot meal,
8:27
Speaker 1: to come in and out of shelters. It's really there
8:32
Speaker 1: are places here that look like a bomb has gone off.
8:35
Speaker 1: And I feel like saying these things is an exaggeration,
8:39
Speaker 1: because usually that's an exaggeration when we say something looks
8:43
Speaker 1: like a bomb went off in the United States or
8:46
Speaker 1: in more developed countries, where you know, we're using colorful,
8:51
Speaker 1: exaggerated language to try to get our point across. When
8:55
Speaker 1: I say that about Asheville right now, it literally looks
8:59
Speaker 1: like bombs went off here and you're gonna hear me
9:05
Speaker 1: like just sort of lose my train of thought like that.
9:08
Speaker 1: And normally I would edit these things out, but I'm
9:12
Speaker 1: not editing them out here because I really want you
9:15
Speaker 1: to get the full experience of what it's like in
9:20
Speaker 1: the aftermath of a trauma, because this is what your
9:25
Speaker 1: kids experience so often, because being a marginalized individual in
9:32
Speaker 1: society is traumatic. So if you are neurodivergent, your experience
9:39
Speaker 1: in some ways, at some times at least is trauma.
9:44
Speaker 1: It's trauma, and so our kids have experienced trauma. Many
9:50
Speaker 1: of them continue to experience it by having to go
9:53
Speaker 1: to school when they don't feel safe for things like that.
9:56
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I just want you guys to
9:59
Speaker 1: really feel the aftermath in the difference of how I'm
10:05
Speaker 1: talking to you or if I blank out, or you know,
10:08
Speaker 1: if I start crying, which may happen in this conversation
10:13
Speaker 1: and rarely happens on the podcast in general, you kind
10:17
Speaker 1: of have this basis of comparison so that you can
10:20
Speaker 1: really internalize what might be happening for your kid and
10:24
Speaker 1: how to give them grace, and how to recognize when
10:29
Speaker 1: they need lower demands, when they need less pressure, when
10:33
Speaker 1: they need time to avoid even and I'll talk a
10:38
Speaker 1: little bit about avoidance as a coping mechanism here as well.
10:42
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go back again and try again
10:45
Speaker 1: to start at the beginning of this story and kind
10:48
Speaker 1: of outline what my experience has been like. On September
10:53
Speaker 1: twenty sixth, which happens to be my sister's birthday, Helene
10:58
Speaker 1: came to Ashville through Ashville, through western North Carolina over
11:03
Speaker 1: the state line in Tennessee. They have experienced a very
11:08
Speaker 1: similar impact. The town of Irwin, Tennessee, I think is
11:12
Speaker 1: mostly rubble as it seems to be here, and there's
11:17
Speaker 1: loss of life there and so forth. So it's not
11:20
Speaker 1: just Ashville, it's not just western North Carolina, but this
11:23
Speaker 1: region had kind of a similar impact. And so leading
11:28
Speaker 1: up to September twenty sixth, we had a ton of
11:32
Speaker 1: rain here, a ton of rain, more rain in a
11:37
Speaker 1: couple weeks than we had had in many, many months combined.
11:41
Speaker 1: Before that. Our ground was already saturated, our rivers were
11:47
Speaker 1: already high. And then Helene came through and dumped an
11:53
Speaker 1: enormous amount of rain really fast on top of that,
11:59
Speaker 1: and so everything flooded. The center of Asheville is Builtmore Village.
12:05
Speaker 1: It's where the Biltmore Estate is. It's where all of
12:10
Speaker 1: or many of they're not all existing anymore, but many
12:12
Speaker 1: of the buildings that were created for the workers to
12:16
Speaker 1: build the Biltmore State Mansion are there. And it's all
12:21
Speaker 1: on the Swana Noah River. It runs right through the
12:25
Speaker 1: heart of Biltmore Village. And back in two thousand and four,
12:30
Speaker 1: I had lived here for about a year and two
12:35
Speaker 1: hurricanes came through back to back and again they come
12:38
Speaker 1: through as tropical storms because we are hours from the coast,
12:42
Speaker 1: but the rainfall and a lot of rainfall in a
12:47
Speaker 1: short period of time is really bad here, and so
12:51
Speaker 1: Billmore Village flooded. Back then, we were actually renting a
12:54
Speaker 1: home that flooded at the time and had to move
12:58
Speaker 1: because the landlord did want to cut out the drywall
13:01
Speaker 1: in the carpet. He just wanted to leave it all
13:02
Speaker 1: to mold, and the smell was horrendous and we were
13:05
Speaker 1: getting sick and we had to move. And my husband's
13:07
Speaker 1: work got flooded and they had to move permanently. So
13:11
Speaker 1: we were impacted. My daughter had been in kindergarten for
13:14
Speaker 1: like a month. We had to move to a different
13:16
Speaker 1: school district, she had to start again, and she had
13:19
Speaker 1: a really hard time with rain. Every time it rained
13:21
Speaker 1: for years after that. It was very upsetting to her.
13:24
Speaker 1: And so, you know, we knew that there were impacts,
13:27
Speaker 1: we knew that it was going to flood in that way,
13:30
Speaker 1: we had no idea that it could be worse and
13:33
Speaker 1: how much worse it could actually be. And so on
13:36
Speaker 1: September twenty sixth, I was starting to like see news alerts,
13:41
Speaker 1: weather alerts coming through and saying, you know, flood watch,
13:44
Speaker 1: which we have here all the time, like all the time.
13:47
Speaker 1: Not only does this want to know, a river run
13:49
Speaker 1: through Asheville, but the French Broad River runs through Ashville also,
13:53
Speaker 1: so we have two main rivers that cut through a
13:58
Speaker 1: huge portion of town. And so I started seeing these
14:05
Speaker 1: weather alerts, these articles or social media posts from meteorologists
14:10
Speaker 1: who would say, like, this might be worse than twenty
14:12
Speaker 1: four in nineteen sixteen, but that's all they would say.
14:15
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, what was it like in nineteen sixteen?
14:18
Speaker 1: Because I didn't live here, because I didn't you know,
14:20
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen as well before my time, before my parents' time,
14:24
Speaker 1: even before my grandparents time. And so I started googling
14:28
Speaker 1: trying to find photographs of Ashville during the nineteen sixteen flood,
14:31
Speaker 1: and I only found a couple and they were right
14:33
Speaker 1: along our river district, on the French Broad River, and
14:37
Speaker 1: I was like, well, you know, we know that's going
14:39
Speaker 1: to flood. And we were trying to sort of get
14:42
Speaker 1: an idea of what that looked like, but it was
14:44
Speaker 1: really hard, and nobody was saying, like, this means that
14:47
Speaker 1: these areas will be underwater, this means that roads might
14:51
Speaker 1: wash out, this means that our entire water system might
14:54
Speaker 1: be destroyed. None of that. We had no idea. Like
15:00
Speaker 1: it literally looks like here something that only someone writing
15:05
Speaker 1: or creating a sci fi movie could think up. And
15:10
Speaker 1: again I'm not exaggerating. This is literally life right now here.
15:16
Speaker 1: My home and my area of town is not like that,
15:20
Speaker 1: but the majority of our county is. We were very,
15:24
Speaker 1: very fortunate here, and I'm going to talk about all
15:26
Speaker 1: the feelings that come with that too in a minute,
15:29
Speaker 1: but I want to get back to that timeline. So
15:32
Speaker 1: we knew that it was going to flood. We knew
15:33
Speaker 1: that we would probably have power outages, we'd probably lose internet.
15:37
Speaker 1: You know, things would be uncomfortable for a few days maybe,
15:42
Speaker 1: And that was about the extent of what we expected,
15:45
Speaker 1: especially in our home, because we are not close enough
15:48
Speaker 1: to the river to flood. Now, I'll tell you a
15:50
Speaker 1: quarter mile down the road, the river flooded and it
15:54
Speaker 1: picked up a house off its foundation, floated it down
15:56
Speaker 1: the street and flipped it backwards. The boy Scout can
16:00
Speaker 1: where my son went to Boy Scouts, right next door
16:03
Speaker 1: to that house, is gone. The only thing that's standing
16:06
Speaker 1: as a chimney, and a whole lot of debris from
16:09
Speaker 1: all over the region. So you know, there are impacts
16:12
Speaker 1: very close. But we knew that our house could not flood,
16:17
Speaker 1: and so we knew we were safe in that respect.
16:20
Speaker 1: When we woke up on the morning of the twenty sixth,
16:24
Speaker 1: it was a Friday, I mean the twenty seventh. I'm
16:27
Speaker 1: sorry that Friday morning the storm had come through. I
16:31
Speaker 1: had kind of had a hard time sleeping because I
16:34
Speaker 1: was worried about the wind. And I remember something like
16:37
Speaker 1: four or five am, probably five am, because I think
16:39
Speaker 1: the sun was just barely starting to lighten up the
16:42
Speaker 1: sky a little bit. And we have a row of
16:45
Speaker 1: cypress trees lining the back of our house. It's a
16:49
Speaker 1: barrier for our road noise out in the front of
16:52
Speaker 1: our neighborhood. And I was really worried about those trees
16:55
Speaker 1: coming over and coming over on the house. And I
16:58
Speaker 1: remember looking out waking up and peeking through the blinds
17:02
Speaker 1: and seeing these trees like just bent over, horizontal, and
17:06
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, you know, there's gonna be some trees down,
17:08
Speaker 1: there's gonna be probably some trees on houses, and it
17:13
Speaker 1: doesn't look great, but you know, it'll be okay. And
17:17
Speaker 1: when we got up, we realized we didn't have power,
17:22
Speaker 1: and okay, we expected that we'll be okay for a
17:25
Speaker 1: few days without power, no big deal. We didn't have phones.
17:30
Speaker 1: We had no cell service, no calling, no texting, no internet.
17:36
Speaker 1: Our phone, where it would typically say LTE or five G,
17:40
Speaker 1: it said SOS, and sometimes we didn't even have SOS.
17:44
Speaker 1: So we had no information outside of our house. And
17:50
Speaker 1: my husband had gotten not been gone to work that
17:52
Speaker 1: morning because he says things needed to be done and
17:56
Speaker 1: it didn't look so bad, and so he went to work.
17:59
Speaker 1: There was power in our house when he left, and
18:03
Speaker 1: he could not get home. He got stuck where trees
18:08
Speaker 1: were starting to fall across the road. He literally had
18:12
Speaker 1: a tree fall in front and behind him at the
18:14
Speaker 1: same time, and nearly. I mean, I can't even think
18:18
Speaker 1: about what would have happened if it had fallen on him,
18:20
Speaker 1: he would not be alive. Somehow, he was right in
18:26
Speaker 1: between them and he was able to drive through a
18:28
Speaker 1: yard and get to the other side, but he had
18:30
Speaker 1: to do that on the side away from our house,
18:33
Speaker 1: the opposite side from the tree of where we live.
18:36
Speaker 1: And he just kept driving to the grocery store and
18:40
Speaker 1: spending like an hour, and then he'd come back and
18:41
Speaker 1: see if anybody got in the trees out of the road.
18:43
Speaker 1: Yet not realizing because we had no communication with the
18:47
Speaker 1: outside world that our town was being destroyed. And it
18:53
Speaker 1: was actually got worse where it was flooding on Friday
18:56
Speaker 1: because we're in the mountains, so all of the rain
18:58
Speaker 1: that falls not only falls, but it also rolls down
19:02
Speaker 1: the mountain and accumulates in the valleys, and so people's
19:08
Speaker 1: houses were still flooding and washing away with them on
19:11
Speaker 1: their roofs, you know, roads were washing away, trees were falling,
19:18
Speaker 1: most of the trees falling were uprooted because the ground
19:21
Speaker 1: was so saturated that it could not hold the trees
19:25
Speaker 1: upright anymore. There are thousands of not tens of thousands
19:31
Speaker 1: of trees uprooted in our region. It is unbelievable. And so,
19:38
Speaker 1: you know, my husband's not here. I have no idea
19:41
Speaker 1: that he's like, you know, can't get home. He didn't
19:44
Speaker 1: have any gas in his car, so he couldn't try
19:45
Speaker 1: to find the long way around and the other road
19:48
Speaker 1: that we would typically take home. We knew the river
19:51
Speaker 1: was over, and so like, I'm like, well, there's one
19:56
Speaker 1: other way, but there's no gas because there's no power,
20:00
Speaker 1: and he has no gas in his car. And so
20:04
Speaker 1: he was out there and he just kept coming back
20:06
Speaker 1: every now and then trying to check and see if
20:08
Speaker 1: the tree was removed, and nobody was showing up to
20:11
Speaker 1: do anything about the trees. And my daughter and I
20:15
Speaker 1: started to get kind of antsy in the house, and
20:17
Speaker 1: so we took off on foot with our phones, trying
20:21
Speaker 1: to see if we could walk to a place where
20:22
Speaker 1: we could get a little bit of phone service. And
20:25
Speaker 1: so we were walking down the road in our neighborhood
20:28
Speaker 1: aways and starting to see like pieces of gutter wrapped
20:33
Speaker 1: around trees and you know, little things. Again, because our neighborhood,
20:38
Speaker 1: especially at the bottom where we are, we don't have
20:40
Speaker 1: a lot of trees, and so it wasn't nearly as impacted.
20:43
Speaker 1: It was giving us a really false sense of what
20:47
Speaker 1: was happening in our community. But I was able to
20:52
Speaker 1: get to a place where a text came through and
20:55
Speaker 1: it was my husband and it said trees down, can't
20:58
Speaker 1: get home. And I was like, oh, okay, Well I
21:03
Speaker 1: tried to call him. The call just kept breaking up
21:06
Speaker 1: and dropping, but I basically got the gist that he,
21:09
Speaker 1: you know, just kept checking as he as he could,
21:13
Speaker 1: and that he felt like eventually somebody's go clear out,
21:17
Speaker 1: trains can get home, and you know, every couple hours
21:20
Speaker 1: we would walk down again and try to get some communication.
21:23
Speaker 1: I was trying to call my parents and check on them,
21:26
Speaker 1: and my sister and check on them, and I wasn't
21:27
Speaker 1: able to at the time. And I finally said to
21:35
Speaker 1: my husband, I'm like, I think you might have to
21:37
Speaker 1: walk And he did not like that idea because the
21:42
Speaker 1: grocery store, he was saying, was about three three and
21:44
Speaker 1: a half miles probably, I mean it's not a short walk,
21:46
Speaker 1: but it's not across town, and he, you know, he
21:52
Speaker 1: really scoffed at it, and so I hung up and
21:54
Speaker 1: walked back home and figured, you know, he was just
21:56
Speaker 1: going to keep doing that. And then I finally was like, man,
21:59
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how long, Like, if nobody's come in
22:03
Speaker 1: six hours to remove this massive tree from one of
22:06
Speaker 1: our somewhat main roads, I'm not sure that it's going
22:10
Speaker 1: to happen today. So my daughter and I got in
22:13
Speaker 1: the car to drive what we felt like with a
22:16
Speaker 1: long route around to see if we could go around
22:19
Speaker 1: and get him, and we actually got about a mile
22:24
Speaker 1: down the road and there he was walking and picked
22:27
Speaker 1: him up. He realized that I was right after hanging up,
22:30
Speaker 1: and he started walking home and just left his car
22:33
Speaker 1: on the side of the road by where that tree was.
22:35
Speaker 1: There were a few other people that had done that
22:38
Speaker 1: at that point as well. They had stopped there and
22:39
Speaker 1: just walked the rest of the way. And it turns
22:42
Speaker 1: out that there were many many trees down and the
22:45
Speaker 1: river was completely over the road by the airport. We
22:48
Speaker 1: never would have been able to get around to him
22:51
Speaker 1: that day or a couple of days after that, so
22:55
Speaker 1: it was good that he had walked and we were
22:58
Speaker 1: finally here together. But we had no power, We had
23:02
Speaker 1: very little food. We did not prep for the storm.
23:06
Speaker 1: That will never happen again. In this house. We will
23:08
Speaker 1: be very prepped. We will be the people buying the
23:11
Speaker 1: water and the bread and the non perishable food. And
23:15
Speaker 1: so starting on that Saturday, we had to start going
23:19
Speaker 1: out and trying to find food, like we didn't have
23:24
Speaker 1: much here. We couldn't cook. Our stove, while it is gas,
23:28
Speaker 1: does not work without electricity, which is dumb. And I
23:32
Speaker 1: promise you will never buy a gas stove that doesn't
23:34
Speaker 1: work without electricity again either. And we didn't have a grill,
23:38
Speaker 1: so we were, you know, just trying to eat whatever
23:42
Speaker 1: was still good in the refrigerator, like lunch meat and
23:44
Speaker 1: bread and crackers. But there just wasn't a lot. And
23:46
Speaker 1: so I knew that we were going to have to
23:49
Speaker 1: find some food, some water, some ice, you know, things
23:55
Speaker 1: to get by until things got better. And so we
24:02
Speaker 1: took off into cars trying to figure out, you know,
24:06
Speaker 1: divide and conquer, because we had no idea where we
24:09
Speaker 1: could get anything. Power was out everywhere. Every traffic light
24:13
Speaker 1: was dark in this town. So many roads were blocked
24:17
Speaker 1: by trees that you kept having to go and turn
24:21
Speaker 1: around and try a different route, and turn around and
24:24
Speaker 1: try a different route. And we were able to find
24:27
Speaker 1: a work around to get down to one of our
24:30
Speaker 1: regional grocery stores, and there were people there in line.
24:35
Speaker 1: There was a long line across the front of the building,
24:40
Speaker 1: and they were without power, without water. They were just
24:46
Speaker 1: literally pulling the electronic doors open and closed to let
24:51
Speaker 1: people in and out and offering the bottled water the
24:55
Speaker 1: ice that they had, and you could grab a few
24:57
Speaker 1: other things, and so I grabbed like peanut butter and crackers,
25:01
Speaker 1: and like anything, I bought the world's most giant jarpein
25:05
Speaker 1: about here. There's probably bigger ones at Sam's and Costco,
25:07
Speaker 1: but it's literally the biggest jarb I've ever seen in
25:09
Speaker 1: a regular grocery store. Because I thought that might be
25:12
Speaker 1: what we had to live on for a while. And
25:16
Speaker 1: there's four of us, four adults in here, who needed
25:20
Speaker 1: to survive, and so we stood in line there about
25:25
Speaker 1: two and a half hours. We were able to get
25:27
Speaker 1: a pack of bottled water and some non perishable foods,
25:31
Speaker 1: a couple of like fruits, like a pack of oranges,
25:35
Speaker 1: and things like that that I knew would be okay
25:38
Speaker 1: without refrigeration for a while. And as we stood in line,
25:42
Speaker 1: we just started hearing all these stories from the people
25:44
Speaker 1: around us and how a lot of people don't have water,
25:48
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are wondering how they're gonna,
25:51
Speaker 1: you know, have enough water for their animals and for themselves,
25:55
Speaker 1: and not being able to communicate with their loved ones,
25:58
Speaker 1: feeling so cut off. And again we were in still
26:02
Speaker 1: this bubble, not understanding that homes had washed away, roads
26:07
Speaker 1: had washed away, the water system had been destroyed. We
26:11
Speaker 1: had no idea about this stuff still because we had
26:15
Speaker 1: no real connection. As we stood in line there, we
26:20
Speaker 1: did have some internet cell service, so I was starting
26:25
Speaker 1: to see just a little bit, but it was very
26:28
Speaker 1: little bits because our communication system was down. So it's
26:34
Speaker 1: not like everybody could post on Facebook what was going
26:36
Speaker 1: on for them and everybody else would see it. Right,
26:39
Speaker 1: we were all pretty cut off. We were seeing a
26:41
Speaker 1: little bit of local news stuff posting, and at that
26:47
Speaker 1: point they still had no idea the gravity and the
26:51
Speaker 1: enormity of the damage and the situation here. This episode
26:58
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Speaker 1: using able now to secure a brighter future for their
28:03
Speaker 1: loved ones. So we got you know, the water, We
28:15
Speaker 1: got some non perishables. We didn't get a lot. And
28:18
Speaker 1: so my daughter was with me, and I said, we
28:20
Speaker 1: just need to like drive down this road toward this
28:25
Speaker 1: town called Brevard, because I knew that there was at
28:29
Speaker 1: least one farm stand on that main road that was
28:35
Speaker 1: where the people who run it also live, and I thought,
28:38
Speaker 1: if they have food, they're probably going to be out
28:42
Speaker 1: there selling it because all they have to do is
28:43
Speaker 1: walk out the front door and open up the stand
28:47
Speaker 1: and at least take cash for it. And it's turning
28:51
Speaker 1: into a very long story, which I did not intend
28:54
Speaker 1: for it to do. So I'm going to try to
28:56
Speaker 1: really get more succinct here. There's just so much to say.
29:00
Speaker 1: As you can imagine. We did find the farm stand.
29:04
Speaker 1: It was open, and the woman basically had apples and tomatoes.
29:08
Speaker 1: And I looked at my poor daughter, who doesn't eat
29:11
Speaker 1: a lot of different things because of texture, and I said,
29:14
Speaker 1: you might have to eat stuff you don't like, and
29:17
Speaker 1: she was like, that's okay. There were no tears. There
29:21
Speaker 1: was just this resolve that we were going to figure
29:24
Speaker 1: this out. I was not panicked. I was very focused
29:31
Speaker 1: and very driven. You would think in the situation that,
29:36
Speaker 1: you know, my anxiety would get the best of me
29:38
Speaker 1: and I would be really freaked out, and my you know,
29:42
Speaker 1: other family members would be really freaked out and crying
29:45
Speaker 1: and panicking, and you know, there's someone in my household
29:49
Speaker 1: who I'm not allowed to talk about but has panic
29:52
Speaker 1: disorder and even got through without panic attacks. There's just
29:57
Speaker 1: in our system, our nervous system says, hey, there's a
30:01
Speaker 1: threat here, and it sends information to our adrenal glands,
30:07
Speaker 1: and our adrenal glands go, oh, here you go. Here's
30:11
Speaker 1: a big old dose of adrenaline so that you can
30:14
Speaker 1: move through this threat and that you can be okay.
30:17
Speaker 1: And that's what happened. For like four or five days.
30:20
Speaker 1: I was just running on pure adrenaline and I didn't
30:23
Speaker 1: realize it until it wore off, and then I was
30:27
Speaker 1: just crying, and then I was just completely overwhelmed and
30:34
Speaker 1: kind of numb. As we got more information, you know,
30:40
Speaker 1: there was a lot of grief, but there was still
30:44
Speaker 1: this adrenaline that was pushing us forward to deal with
30:48
Speaker 1: what was going on that moment. That day. You know,
30:51
Speaker 1: we were able to get food and water. Obviously, as
30:54
Speaker 1: I've said, grocery stores started opening as power started coming
30:58
Speaker 1: back in some of the main areas with very limited supply.
31:03
Speaker 1: You know, everything that was perishable and the stores perished.
31:06
Speaker 1: It was many days without refrigeration and power, and so
31:11
Speaker 1: what you could get was pretty limited, but you could
31:13
Speaker 1: get it. It was available after we sat in a
31:18
Speaker 1: gas line a couple of times. The first one was
31:20
Speaker 1: about almost three hours. A couple of days later, the
31:22
Speaker 1: next one was about forty five minutes. A couple of
31:25
Speaker 1: days after that, you could get gas without a line.
31:29
Speaker 1: But in the beginning, people don't know when there's going
31:32
Speaker 1: to be more. And so you know, two of our
31:35
Speaker 1: main interstate routes in and out of North Carolina have
31:39
Speaker 1: been destroyed. There were landslides, the road's gone. So you know,
31:43
Speaker 1: we're getting messages that we can't leave even if we
31:46
Speaker 1: want to, and so it creates this frenzy for supplies.
31:52
Speaker 1: But it did get better slowly, but surely our power
31:55
Speaker 1: came back on I think on the fifth or sixth day,
32:00
Speaker 1: and that was amazing. Then we could shower, we could,
32:05
Speaker 1: you know, do laundry if we wanted to. We could cook,
32:08
Speaker 1: and now we knew that we could find some food
32:11
Speaker 1: that we could refrigerate and cook. And that was big.
32:14
Speaker 1: And so I was going to my sister's house every
32:17
Speaker 1: day because she had five G phone service. She didn't
32:20
Speaker 1: have power, she didn't have running water, but she had
32:23
Speaker 1: some internet that I could hot spot and do that
32:27
Speaker 1: anxiety summit from and then you know, things slowly, rich
32:32
Speaker 1: surely came online. We learned once we were able to
32:35
Speaker 1: get some information when we were leaving the house that
32:39
Speaker 1: we needed to be boiling the water. And we're still
32:41
Speaker 1: doing that and I think it's going to be a
32:43
Speaker 1: very long time. But we were so lucky to be
32:47
Speaker 1: on the one water treatment plant that didn't get destroyed
32:53
Speaker 1: and didn't go down, and you know, there's so much,
32:58
Speaker 1: so much guilt around them. I can't even tell you
33:02
Speaker 1: the amount of overwhelming, really heavy guilt that comes with
33:08
Speaker 1: being in this little bubble of fortunate area where our
33:14
Speaker 1: power was restored pretty quickly. We didn't lose running water.
33:18
Speaker 1: You know, our streets were cleared to you know, grocery
33:23
Speaker 1: stores and things like that within a few days. Internet
33:27
Speaker 1: came back on on the eighth of Octobers. I've had
33:32
Speaker 1: internet now for a week. As I record, this not
33:36
Speaker 1: so stable at first, and it got better. We can
33:40
Speaker 1: do calls and texts from our phones at home now,
33:44
Speaker 1: and so you know, we have connection again. We have
33:47
Speaker 1: the ability, I have the ability to work. We have
33:49
Speaker 1: the ability to see our therapists who are trying to
33:52
Speaker 1: do telehealth, even though like my therapist a couple of
33:56
Speaker 1: days ago when I talked to her, still had no power,
33:58
Speaker 1: no running water. It is so hard to live like that.
34:02
Speaker 1: I don't think people recognize, and I certainly even didn't.
34:06
Speaker 1: It's not like roughing it or camping, because when you
34:09
Speaker 1: do that, you're prepared. In this situation, you don't have
34:15
Speaker 1: the ability to flush a toilet like that's something people
34:20
Speaker 1: really take for granted. When there's no running water, there's
34:23
Speaker 1: no flushing a toilet like, you go way way back
34:27
Speaker 1: as far as modern conveniences are concerned, as far as
34:30
Speaker 1: hygiene is concerned. But again, we're so so fortunate in
34:35
Speaker 1: this spot that we're in in the county, and the
34:39
Speaker 1: guilt from that is enormous, especially because we moved from
34:43
Speaker 1: across town. We lived in Swannanoa in the first like
34:46
Speaker 1: eight years when my kids were little, and that area
34:49
Speaker 1: is completely destroyed. The road going to our neighborhood was
34:54
Speaker 1: completely destroyed. It also goes to one of the water reservoirs,
34:58
Speaker 1: and it did get least temporarily fixed and passable pretty
35:02
Speaker 1: quick because of that. But the whole area of Swanna
35:06
Speaker 1: know Ah main five lane roads washed out, like it's
35:10
Speaker 1: really really bad there and just thinking about, you know,
35:14
Speaker 1: what it would have been like if we still lived
35:16
Speaker 1: in that house, and the fact that all those people
35:18
Speaker 1: are going through that and that area where you know,
35:22
Speaker 1: my kids played and did all of these things, and
35:27
Speaker 1: it's just washed away and it's rubble, and it's really heartbreaking.
35:32
Speaker 1: But what I started finding was that the guilt and
35:37
Speaker 1: the grief was very very heavy, very heavy to carry.
35:42
Speaker 1: And you know, my nervous system had done me a
35:45
Speaker 1: great service and feeding me tons of adrenaline and helping
35:49
Speaker 1: me get things done, to be safe, to be okay.
35:53
Speaker 1: But when all of that wore off, then I just
35:57
Speaker 1: had this red zone numbness and shut down. The first
36:03
Speaker 1: time I went to Target, we just took a break
36:06
Speaker 1: and we went to like we were trying to find
36:09
Speaker 1: some CBD oil for anxiety that we had run out of,
36:12
Speaker 1: and we heard that Target was open and at least
36:15
Speaker 1: was giving out water, and so we just went down
36:18
Speaker 1: there just to like have some normalcy, almost, but just
36:23
Speaker 1: to get a break because I was trying to work
36:25
Speaker 1: and at the summit done. It was super stressful, and
36:27
Speaker 1: every day about midday I just had to get up
36:31
Speaker 1: and walk away for a little bit and do something,
36:33
Speaker 1: and so this day, we just went for a target
36:35
Speaker 1: run and we walk in and I'm like, okay, this
36:40
Speaker 1: feels a little normal. Like they had power back, they
36:44
Speaker 1: did not have water. You know, the Starbucks and there
36:47
Speaker 1: was closed, the bathrooms were closed, all these things. There
36:50
Speaker 1: were tons and tons of trucks. Half of the parking
36:53
Speaker 1: lot was cordoned off for disaster relief organizations of waters,
37:01
Speaker 1: trailers of supplies. There were gas tankers there that were
37:07
Speaker 1: helping all of the power crews refuel trucks. That was
37:13
Speaker 1: crazy to see. And as we pull in the parking
37:16
Speaker 1: lots right by the airport and we're just seeing these
37:19
Speaker 1: giant military helicopters come in and out, in and out,
37:24
Speaker 1: and that's all. That's all that was going in and
37:26
Speaker 1: out of the airport. I remember reading a couple of
37:29
Speaker 1: weeks ago in the Washington Post they said that the
37:31
Speaker 1: sound of the is a chinook. I'm not sure, I'm
37:34
Speaker 1: probably saying it wrong, but those big military helicopters with
37:37
Speaker 1: two propellers had become the soundtrack of life in Nashville.
37:41
Speaker 1: And it's so true. We are next to the flight
37:44
Speaker 1: path here and so we hear them. And it used
37:47
Speaker 1: to be when big helicopters came in. It annoyed me
37:50
Speaker 1: because they're loud, And now I'm just so grateful. I'm
37:54
Speaker 1: so grateful that that is the soundtrack here, that there
37:57
Speaker 1: is help coming in for all the people who need it.
38:01
Speaker 1: I noticed this week that I'm not hearing as many helicopters,
38:05
Speaker 1: and I know that it's because it's not as needed.
38:08
Speaker 1: We have a lot of connection to the outside world now,
38:12
Speaker 1: and that there are people in other areas now with
38:14
Speaker 1: Hurricane Milton in Florida who need that help as well.
38:18
Speaker 1: But you know, even going to Target, I thought was
38:23
Speaker 1: going to feel normal, and there were little blips that
38:25
Speaker 1: felt normal, but for the most part, it was just
38:28
Speaker 1: a reminder of what has happened here and the suffering
38:33
Speaker 1: that is happening around me. And so I walk into
38:39
Speaker 1: Target and we'd make a turn down that first main aisle.
38:42
Speaker 1: We were going to look for some snacks and some chocolate,
38:44
Speaker 1: because oh boy, did I need some chocolate right I
38:48
Speaker 1: didn't have any chocolate in the house. That will definitely
38:50
Speaker 1: be part of my storm preparation kit chocolate, because that's
38:54
Speaker 1: who I am. But anyhow, we start walking down that
38:57
Speaker 1: main aisle and they're justllets and palettes and palettes of
39:02
Speaker 1: cases of bottled water, and palettes of cases of Ramen noodles,
39:08
Speaker 1: and you know, empty shelves of sort of supply things,
39:16
Speaker 1: and all at once, the whole thing just came crushing
39:22
Speaker 1: down on me. And as I'm walking through Target, I'm
39:25
Speaker 1: having a little bit of trouble breathing and I'm trying
39:29
Speaker 1: to hold it together because my kid is with me,
39:32
Speaker 1: who doesn't do well with like any sort of maybe
39:36
Speaker 1: medical emergency, and so I'm like, this is gotch just
39:41
Speaker 1: be the stress or the chaos or whatever, like maybe
39:44
Speaker 1: the adrenaline's wearing off. And as we kept walking through
39:48
Speaker 1: the aisles and seeing like people with carts with just
39:53
Speaker 1: water and ice and you know, peanut butter and bread
39:56
Speaker 1: and there's the basic basic staples they really need to
40:01
Speaker 1: get by right now, it just kept getting heavier and heavier,
40:06
Speaker 1: and I started to feel weak. I honestly thought I
40:10
Speaker 1: was going to potentially faint in Target, and I was
40:14
Speaker 1: crying and I was trying to hold it in, and
40:16
Speaker 1: it was just crying. It was the first time I
40:18
Speaker 1: had cried through the whole ordeal, because again, that adrenaline,
40:22
Speaker 1: that yellow state of active working on finding a solution
40:27
Speaker 1: and becoming safe. Had been in control, but now it wasn't.
40:31
Speaker 1: And now everything was so heavy that it was shutting down.
40:38
Speaker 1: I looked overt my kid and I said, I might
40:40
Speaker 1: have to find like a little spot in the corner
40:42
Speaker 1: to sit down. I'm feeling really weak. I don't know
40:45
Speaker 1: what's happening. I think it's emotion. It's just overwhelmed. But
40:49
Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep going. But you know, you need
40:53
Speaker 1: to know that this is what's happening. Because they could
40:55
Speaker 1: tell at that point that something was going on with me.
40:58
Speaker 1: I was able to do some of those wonderful breathing
41:02
Speaker 1: exercises that we talk about so much when we talk
41:06
Speaker 1: about our nervous system and anxiety and disregulation and calm
41:12
Speaker 1: my heart rate a little bit and start to not
41:15
Speaker 1: feel so faint and dizzy and get on with it
41:17
Speaker 1: and get through it. And then when we got out
41:20
Speaker 1: to the car, you know, tears again. I mean the
41:22
Speaker 1: whole time and target, I was in tears, and I
41:25
Speaker 1: kept trying to hide it because I was like, I'm okay,
41:28
Speaker 1: why is this happening? You know, But there was a reason.
41:31
Speaker 1: It's because my biology had shifted from survival mode to
41:38
Speaker 1: shutdown mode to this is too much and I can't
41:42
Speaker 1: do anymore right now, right, And you know, think about
41:47
Speaker 1: our kids in these and not in this situation, not
41:50
Speaker 1: in a natural disaster because it doesn't happen all the time,
41:53
Speaker 1: but think of your kids in daily things that do
41:55
Speaker 1: happen that are hard for them, and how easy it
41:59
Speaker 1: is when things get overwhelming to just shut down or
42:02
Speaker 1: to just avoid. And you know, there's kind of two
42:07
Speaker 1: camps here. There's a bunch of people who are out
42:11
Speaker 1: there helping. There are people volunteering who've lost everything and
42:14
Speaker 1: they're just helping others. They're volunteering with a World Central
42:18
Speaker 1: kitchen to prepare hot meals, they're volunteering to hand out water,
42:22
Speaker 1: they're doing anything and everything they can. And then there's
42:26
Speaker 1: another camp of people who are just like I don't
42:30
Speaker 1: want to go to that part of town. I don't
42:31
Speaker 1: want to see it. I can't see it. It's too hard,
42:32
Speaker 1: it's too bad. And that's not who I am, which
42:38
Speaker 1: is part of the reason that this experience has been
42:41
Speaker 1: so monumentally emotionally and mentally difficult for me. I am
42:48
Speaker 1: wired with way too much empathy. I have empathy for
42:54
Speaker 1: every human being in one way or another. I not
43:00
Speaker 1: have empathy for the circumstances that they find themselves in,
43:03
Speaker 1: but I have empathy for every human I have empathy
43:07
Speaker 1: for every struggle. I watch, like all the documentaries about
43:13
Speaker 1: all the bad things, because one, I'm interested in human behavior, right,
43:18
Speaker 1: I'm a student of human behavior. It's always interested me.
43:22
Speaker 1: I majored in sociology and minored in criminology in college
43:27
Speaker 1: and have just always been really really interested in that
43:31
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And so I have always been interested
43:36
Speaker 1: in hearing people's stories and understanding what's happened to them
43:40
Speaker 1: and how they got through it, and why things happen
43:43
Speaker 1: and why people do certain things. And you know, my
43:46
Speaker 1: kid will say to me, I don't know why you
43:48
Speaker 1: do that to yourself. That stuff so hard. But I
43:52
Speaker 1: am just wired to bear witness. I just am literally
43:57
Speaker 1: compelled to bear witness. I need to see people, right,
44:06
Speaker 1: I just need to provide that even if they don't
44:09
Speaker 1: know that I'm doing it, Like watching a documentary about
44:12
Speaker 1: you know, Hurricane Katrina, for instance, those people don't know
44:16
Speaker 1: that I saw them right, that I made sure that
44:19
Speaker 1: I knew what they went through. But to me, it
44:23
Speaker 1: still matters, and it matters a great deal. And so,
44:27
Speaker 1: you know, I have just had this enormous amount of
44:33
Speaker 1: empathy and grief for the people in my community and
44:38
Speaker 1: the people outside of my community in greater western North
44:41
Speaker 1: Carolina and Irwin, Tennessee, and you know South Carolina just
44:44
Speaker 1: over the border from us, in Greenville, South Carolina, they
44:47
Speaker 1: had a lot of flooding. They had a lot of
44:49
Speaker 1: storm damage too, And I just feel such an enormous
44:56
Speaker 1: grief for the loss here, for the devastation, here, for
45:02
Speaker 1: the fact that no person in my community will ever
45:08
Speaker 1: be will ever be the same again. It's a big thing.
45:17
Speaker 1: It's a really big thing that has happened, and we're
45:22
Speaker 1: not even close to getting through it. These roads will
45:26
Speaker 1: take a year or more. The water system to get
45:31
Speaker 1: back to normal where everybody has water and nobody has
45:34
Speaker 1: to boil it and we all sort of take it
45:36
Speaker 1: for granted again is going to be potentially months. And
45:42
Speaker 1: then you see things like the economic tool, like we're
45:47
Speaker 1: not just talking about people who you know, lost all
45:51
Speaker 1: the food in the refrigerator freezer and had to rough
45:54
Speaker 1: it without power and water for a few weeks. We're
45:57
Speaker 1: talking about loss of business loss of employment, loss of
46:03
Speaker 1: our economy. Asheville is a tourist town. Our economy is
46:09
Speaker 1: based one hundred percent on tourism. The biggest time of
46:15
Speaker 1: the year, the biggest influx of tourists is October because
46:21
Speaker 1: everyone comes to see the fall colors, to see the
46:24
Speaker 1: leaves change. And even the Biltmore estate is still closed.
46:29
Speaker 1: Right now, there's no tourism to be had in Ashville's
46:33
Speaker 1: immediate area, and so businesses are starting to fold already.
46:39
Speaker 1: Businesses are saying, we can't come back from this, We're done.
46:44
Speaker 1: Those businesses employ people, those people need to work. The
46:49
Speaker 1: entire arts area of Asheville washed away. It was completely
46:56
Speaker 1: and utterly destroyed. It was one of my favorite places,
47:00
Speaker 1: my daughter, who's an artist, her favorite places. My husband
47:04
Speaker 1: the bar that he volunteers at, that he plays at,
47:09
Speaker 1: that the people who run it and the people who
47:12
Speaker 1: frequent there are like family to him. All of that
47:16
Speaker 1: was destroyed. Every place that we went for self care,
47:20
Speaker 1: that we went for joy is gone, and not just
47:25
Speaker 1: gone like it's not like, you know, they just decided
47:28
Speaker 1: that they needed to close their business. These people were devastated.
47:32
Speaker 1: These artists lost everything, these business owners lost everything. We're
47:38
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, fifty to five hundred thousand dollars
47:44
Speaker 1: to get back right, and if you're a small business,
47:48
Speaker 1: there's no free help. Like if your home was damaged,
47:51
Speaker 1: you have to get a loan for that, so you
47:54
Speaker 1: have to add insult to injury to come back. Not
47:57
Speaker 1: every business can do that. So there's grief for all
48:02
Speaker 1: the people who can't work right now and what's going
48:04
Speaker 1: to happen to them. I had that fear myself in
48:07
Speaker 1: the beginning, and it was really tough, but it was
48:10
Speaker 1: resolved quickly. For a lot of people, it's not going
48:13
Speaker 1: to resolve quickly. The economy here is going to take
48:18
Speaker 1: a massive hit, which means the people here are taking
48:24
Speaker 1: a massive hit. And just knowing that and thinking about
48:27
Speaker 1: that and worrying about those people. Like it's so funny
48:31
Speaker 1: that I tell coaching clients all the time when I
48:34
Speaker 1: hang up with them, especially if I don't know if
48:36
Speaker 1: they're going to be kind of a frequent or continued
48:40
Speaker 1: coaching client. Sometimes people just went my input for a
48:43
Speaker 1: meeting or two to get some direction, and I always say,
48:48
Speaker 1: please please email me and tell me how you're doing,
48:51
Speaker 1: how your kid's doing, because I am going to worry
48:53
Speaker 1: about you. It is my nature, it is the way
48:57
Speaker 1: I'm wired. I cannot help it. And in a situation
49:02
Speaker 1: like this, with devastation all around me, with hardship and
49:07
Speaker 1: struggle all around me, the grief is enormous. The survivor's guilt.
49:14
Speaker 1: I never thought about using survivor's guilt to talk about
49:22
Speaker 1: not near death experience, Like I get survivor's guilt when
49:27
Speaker 1: the boat sinks and two people live and the rest die,
49:30
Speaker 1: or something like that. Right, that's what we would consider
49:35
Speaker 1: a typical survivor's guilt kind of situation that I can
49:40
Speaker 1: tell you, myself and many many people I know, here
49:44
Speaker 1: we are experiencing enormous survivor's guilt, not that we just
49:51
Speaker 1: lived when people died, but that we weren't as impacted.
49:59
Speaker 1: We weren't a devastated as other people just down the
50:04
Speaker 1: road from us, Like literally a quarter of a mile
50:07
Speaker 1: down the road from me, that house was picked up, moved,
50:10
Speaker 1: flipped all the way around, spun all the way around backwards.
50:14
Speaker 1: Their shed is up in a tree, and the boy
50:17
Speaker 1: Scout camp is gone. I can walk there from here.
50:20
Speaker 1: I drive by it almost every time I leave my
50:23
Speaker 1: home to do anything and so that devastation was close,
50:29
Speaker 1: and yet we were so so lucky. I saw a
50:34
Speaker 1: local reverend post on Facebook just a couple of days ago,
50:37
Speaker 1: and I think it's gone viral at this point. A
50:40
Speaker 1: new term called guiltitude, where we smush the enormous gratitude
50:45
Speaker 1: we have for being fortunate with the enormous guilt that
50:52
Speaker 1: comes right along next to it. The guilt and the
50:56
Speaker 1: gratitude are like besties right now. And again, it's not
51:01
Speaker 1: as hard as what a lot of people are dealing with,
51:04
Speaker 1: but it is hard. It's really hard. It's so heavy
51:09
Speaker 1: to carry this amount of empathy and this amount of
51:15
Speaker 1: grief and guilt. It's super tough. So you know, I'm
51:22
Speaker 1: going to end here. I'm going to wrap things up.
51:24
Speaker 1: I went on way too long, and there were a
51:26
Speaker 1: million more things I could have told you, Like the
51:29
Speaker 1: amount of time that it would take to explain the
51:32
Speaker 1: last eighteen or nineteen days is you know, I keep
51:37
Speaker 1: using the word unbelievable, unimaginable. But we're okay, and I'm
51:42
Speaker 1: getting back to podcasting and I'm thinking about having more
51:48
Speaker 1: guests here to talk about grief, to talk about how
51:53
Speaker 1: trauma impacts us, how we get back to thriving after
51:57
Speaker 1: something so traumatic, So keep your eyes and ears open
52:02
Speaker 1: for some episodes on that in the near future. If
52:06
Speaker 1: you do want to help, there are so many funds
52:11
Speaker 1: available for people outside of town to donate to and help.
52:17
Speaker 1: The United Way of Asheville is one. Red Cross is
52:21
Speaker 1: another good one World Central Kitchen. You can always donate
52:25
Speaker 1: to them. They are here providing hot meals. There's so
52:29
Speaker 1: many restaurants that couldn't open and would just get gorills
52:33
Speaker 1: out in the parking lot and cook whatever they had
52:36
Speaker 1: and give it away so that people could eat. There's
52:40
Speaker 1: so much good going on here, but it is going
52:44
Speaker 1: to take a long long time, and we're already seeing
52:48
Speaker 1: the outside interest in helping start to dim, start to fade.
52:54
Speaker 1: So anything that you can find, if you're open to
52:59
Speaker 1: it and you're able, you know, if you can spare something,
53:04
Speaker 1: it would be great. It doesn't have to be the
53:06
Speaker 1: Asheville community, it can be anywhere. Just be a helper
53:11
Speaker 1: in the world. You know, I talk all the time
53:13
Speaker 1: about how much gratitude I have forgetting to be a
53:16
Speaker 1: helper in the world, in the parenting space and in
53:19
Speaker 1: a divergent space, and it really brings such joy for me.
53:26
Speaker 1: And even if you can only do something tiny, maybe
53:29
Speaker 1: this episode can inspire you to just be a helper
53:34
Speaker 1: in your world just a little bit. That's all it takes.
53:38
Speaker 1: If we all just do a little bit, think about
53:41
Speaker 1: how much better we would feel, and how much better
53:43
Speaker 1: our communities would feel, and how much better the world
53:47
Speaker 1: would feel. Honestly, so, I appreciate all of the well
53:51
Speaker 1: wishes I've been emailing those of you who are subscribers
53:55
Speaker 1: as I was trying to navigate whether or not the
53:57
Speaker 1: anxiety SOS and it would happen, and what that new
54:00
Speaker 1: timing would look like and so forth, and so I
54:03
Speaker 1: have shared via email, and I just wanted to share
54:06
Speaker 1: here too, because I felt like the internal experiences that
54:11
Speaker 1: I was having, that my nervous system was in charge of,
54:16
Speaker 1: were really valuable experiences for you as the parent or
54:21
Speaker 1: educator or a professional who cares for a neurodivergent kid
54:26
Speaker 1: or teen or young adult. And so I hope that
54:29
Speaker 1: it's giving you a little additional sort of perspective or
54:32
Speaker 1: insight on that that's going to help you with either
54:36
Speaker 1: your kid or yourself or both. As I said at
54:39
Speaker 1: the beginning, we all have the same structure of a
54:43
Speaker 1: nervous system, and everything is true for all of us
54:49
Speaker 1: in regards to how our nervous system operates and what
54:53
Speaker 1: it sort of triggers or what it means for us,
54:56
Speaker 1: and feeling safe and unsafe, and all of those things
54:59
Speaker 1: that I talk about often. You can go to the
55:03
Speaker 1: show notes page for this episode. I may not have
55:08
Speaker 1: much there, it might just be a description and a
55:10
Speaker 1: link to other resources there, but it will be there nonetheless,
55:14
Speaker 1: and it will be at PARENTINGADHD and Autism dot com
55:18
Speaker 1: Slash two eight six or episode two hundred and eighty six,
55:24
Speaker 1: and I will see all of you on the next episode.
55:29
Speaker 1: Please take good care. Thanks for joining me on the
55:33
Speaker 1: Beautifully Complex podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe
55:37
Speaker 1: and share, and don't forget to check out my online
55:40
Speaker 1: courses and parent coaching at PARENTINGADHD and Autism dot com
55:45
Speaker 1: and at the Behavior Revolution dot com.