Welcome everyone to Unlimited Parenting. With us today is Brooke Garren She is a licensed
clinical social worker, but also proudly identifies as neurodiverse, autistic with ADHD and dyslexia.
She brings a deep knowledge of navigating complex systems paired with her personal insights
into neurodivergence. This makes her a powerhouse, helping foster environments with neurodiverse
children that can thrive without being seen through a deficit-based lens, which is what
every parent wants to hear. So I was hoping to start by asking you, can you tell us more
about what led you to focus on supporting others in their transition to adulthood?
Sure. So that really kind of starts with where I kind of came from. So growing up, things
were not overly easy. I grew up in poverty. My mom, with a single mom who had some significant
mental health challenges. And so kind of from that, I knew that I wanted to do something
in social work to work with other people. I kind of started off thinking that I wanted
to work in foster care, working with kiddos who had parents who were kind of similar to
mine. I did an internship early in my schooling in foster care and realized like, oh, that's
really heavy. I don't know if this is where I'm meant to land and kind of shifted gears
and was working in my undergrad and my grad program was supposed to focus on those in
the criminal justice system and in substance use. And by happenstance, I needed a summer
job in between undergrad and grad school. And I found a position as a teacher's aide
at the Bridge High School, which is a school for 15 to 21 year olds and absolutely fell
in love. I was really enamored with the population and looking back now, recognize that these
are kind of my people. I just didn't know it yet. And so really it had me shift gears
completely and had my graduate program focus on working with autistic people in the clinical
setting. And that really blossomed into what is now Uniquely You Behavioral Health, which
is a place where neurodivergent people, their families are truly accepted for who they are
and get to feel comfortable. There's no need to try and fit into any box or change anything
or apologize for anything that they're doing or not doing. And so that really was kind
of the impetus of starting all of this was really just recognizing that myself included,
but there's just too many people are not feeling accepted as who they are. And I'm really wanting
to make sure that during those pivotal years that we're able to accept ourselves.
That's a really good point. Not feeling like you can accept yourself impacts how people
can accept you. Absolutely. You mentioned that your mom faced significant or just mental
health struggles during pivotal years in your life. How do you think that influences your
approach to self-advocacy or independence or how you help your families right now?
I think for me, in my journey, I think my mom has mental health struggles, but she also
has physical disabilities that were ever present throughout my childhood. And so really being
able as a child and adolescent teen to see the struggles and understand what it looks
like to have chronic mental illness and chronic physical illness and pain impact your day
to day. I think it's one thing to know from a clinical perspective, from a book of, okay,
this is how I can support this person. It's another thing to have lived that and to know
that in theory, sometimes things work, right? But in practice, me being a therapist and
sitting across the couch from you and maybe telling you like, oh, you should try this
thing because in these studies that are really well controlled and these people have a lot
of support, it works versus the reality is that you're a person who is tired, who has
been dealing with this for a really long time. And these are some of the ways in which are
maybe more practical to be able to help the person or the family with what it is that
they're trying to accomplish and achieve. Yeah.
Do you notice that maybe you help families in different ways than other practitioners
or other professionals because you have not only the lived experience from a caregiver
who needed extra supports, but also being the child who needed extra supports. It's
almost like you exist in both worlds. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that is a big part
of what makes my practice uniquely you so different, right? Is that not only me, Brooke,
but the practice and the people that we intentionally hire are people who fit into one of those
categories because knowing what it feels like and having had the book training to be able
to take a lived experience of mine and one that a client may also share, but have a hard
time putting into words that their significant other or their parent could understand. And
then being able to essentially translate that. I think that that often is what I feel like
my role is most often is just translator is being able to take something from sometimes
like neurodivergent to neurotypical and people being able to kind of bridge that gap. But
then also, yeah, to be able to understand what the experience is as the person who was
in a situation where they needed extra support, but the person who is supposed to be giving
the support in the first place wasn't necessarily giving support that would have been adequate
for someone who didn't need extra. Right. And I think that that really created in many
ways I think I wouldn't change a thing. And I'm so grateful for who I am. And that has
allowed me to can do what we're doing now. But I think that it made someone who really
understood that like self advocacy was not it was a requirement for survival. Right.
And being able to advocate not only for my needs, but for my mom's needs. You know, when
she was not able to to do the things that she needed or we needed to be able to understand
how to you know, to get needs met very early became very important. What I mean over the
years, not only through your own life, but in facilitating other people's journeys, what
kind of maybe practical strategies have you found that are helpful in managing the unique
challenges of these kind of family dynamics? Not even outside of that, you know, 10 to
8, 10 to 21, where we're talking about transition to adulthood. Do you have any practical strategies
that you've found? Yeah, I mean, I think first and foremost, we have to understand ourselves.
Right. You know, I think probably most of the people listening to this podcast have
a diagnosis or maybe are, you know, walking down that path. But I think first being able
to know having that full picture, right, knowing that I'm autistic, knowing that I'm ADHD and
knowing that I'm dyslexic allows for an understanding of myself that I didn't have before I had
that diagnosis. When it was originally my only was diagnosed with ADHD. You know, there's
a lot of things that just weren't explained by that. And so being able to know, OK, this
is why I'm showing up in the world the way that I am. This is why things feel the way
that they do for me and why things are harder in certain ways. And, you know, I think first
and foremost, being able to understand that and know that that why isn't an excuse, but
that it is a true like it is a neuro type. Right. That is how our brains are. And knowing
those things allows us to be able to embrace those accommodations and know, you know, I
am not going to choose a workplace that requires, you know, me to dress up. I'm just not going
to be a good therapist there. Right. And knowing those things and being able to say, like,
OK, either I need to be able to do what I did and open a practice that's going to support
me in all of the ways that I need supported or know going into situations like, hey, I
am not the person that's going to be able to leave my door open and get notes done or
get something that needs concentration done and owning that. Right. It's. We don't have
to push ourselves and like ultimately it's a form of hurting ourselves if we're forcing
something that doesn't need forced. Right. And so I think that once we know, it becomes
easier to let us accommodate ourselves. Right. And I think there's there's also something
to be said about if you mask and mask all day long, you're just not wanting yourself
up for a meltdown later. I see that frequently. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, one
of our biggest things is. For. Kiddos, when they have been, you know, very much taught,
right, that masking and. They don't have an opportunity to ever unmask. That is when we
see honestly the most maladaptive coping skills come out. Right. We're going to see a higher
rate of substance use. We're going to see self injury. We're going to see social withdrawal.
We're going to see all these things because it's too much. It's it's painful. And so when
we're we're continually masking and, you know, maybe we're a high masking person who doesn't
find out until later in life. Right. They're so tired. Right. Like we use the word burnout,
but I don't think that like. We. Really capture because it's that word is used so often. What
that experience is of I, you know, I'm good in the morning. I'm good at school. I'm good
when I come home. And like, when does that stop? When do I get to when do I get to be
me? And when we don't allow for those that true sense of self, we see a lot of people
who don't have the skill set for choosing their own wants. We don't have people who
have the skill set for true future planning. Right. Which is what all parents want and
what, you know, that transition year really is about. Years are really about. Right. As
let's future plan, what are things look like are and when we are teaching people to mask
to continuously that part of their brain doesn't get to develop. And so that is, I think, one
of the biggest things when it comes to that transition period is we either are really
starting to kind of undo and teach like, OK, when is masking necessary for safety and things
like that versus when it's not and helping people to be able to get to that developmental
capacity of being able to future plan and, you know, engage in the world in the way that
they want to. I think that's a really powerful insight that if you are forced to be someone
other than yourself all day, how can you even how would you even begin to know how to adults?
Right. Those tasks that we ask of adults. Yeah. I guess my next question from that is
what? I mean, I hate to use the word advice. What what did you find that worked? What would
you give to a young adult who is neurodivergent, who feels overwhelmed and unsure about their
next steps? Would it just be to really go back to basics and embrace who they are? Yeah,
absolutely. You know, I think it's around like age seven, right? That between first
and third grade, where we really start to see some of that like assimilation, right,
where we start to see kids are maybe not talking about the thing that they like as much or
they're they're really starting to do all the things that the other kids on the playground
like to do. And, you know, just try to remember what are the things that you enjoy? Like,
what are the things that fill your cup up? Because at the end of the day, you're the
only person that you're stuck with all the time. That's yeah, I like that. Yeah. Right.
Like, it might make you know, my husband happy if I like, you know, show interest in this
thing. But at the end of the day, if I don't have a thing that I'm interested in, and he's
not there, what am I doing? Right. And so I think really being able to just explore
and what are the things that you like? What are the things that you have maybe been taught
to like, but maybe they're not actually of interest. And being able to kind of investigate
that and really approach yourself with wonder. And, you know, I think that word is really
important because when we approach something with wonder, we are curious, right? We want
to know more. And we we need to know more about ourselves. What are the things that
make me happy? Right. The things that interest me today are probably not going to be the
same things that interest me in two years from now. Right. But if I don't check in with
myself continuously, maybe I'm just going to do the same thing and then be like, oh,
why don't I have a level of satisfaction or why am I approaching burnout? Well, I'm not
doing anything that fills me up. Right. And, you know, I think as like a practical strategy
that kind of aligns with that is when you are thinking about your day and I think, you
know, when parents are thinking about their kids day, everybody wakes up with, you know,
a certain amount of energy. Right. Sometimes we're at 100 percent because we slept really
great. Sometimes we're at maybe 25 percent. Right. And we need to decide how are we going
to allocate those units of energy for the day? Am I going to allocate it on wearing
that fancy blouse because that's what I am supposed to do? Or am I going to allocate
it on being able to focus really well in economics because I have a test coming up and so I'm
going to wear the t-shirt instead. You know, where do we want to be allocating those units
of energy because using your coping skill to stay focused, that's units of energy. Using
your coping skill to keep that sock on that's annoying you today, units of energy. Right.
And so we have to be intentional about where are we spending those units of energy and
how are we getting units of energy back? What do you, again, I hate to use the word advised,
but what do you suggest or find that works when there's kind of that difference of opinion,
when a parent sees a child in a different way and almost like, you know, our family's
full of firefighters and we want you to be a firefighter and it's not their unique timeline.
How do you help kind of facilitate that conversation between the youth and the adult?
Yeah. So, you know, I really think that the work doesn't start at the kid, it starts with
the parent and then being, you know, understanding of their self, right? We're not only wanting
to understand the neurodivergent person, we want to understand everybody in the family.
And so, you know, if everybody wants that kiddo, they, you know, that was the dream
when, you know, Billy was born is that he's going to follow in the last five generations
of being a firefighter and that's just not in the cards for him. We have to look at ourselves
and see, well, what is that? How does that change the way that I understood my role as
a parent? How does this change my expectations, right? What does this look like now for conversations
that we might be having with extended family? And then how does that, how is that impacting
me, right? Because if I am the parent who is having this experience, I might be, you
know, upset or have some of my own stuff that I need to work through. But at the end of
the day, I think there has not been a parent that I have met, regardless of how they're
feeling about, you know, their child status that doesn't want them to be happy. And so
I think, you know, at the end of the day, the question needs to be, do I want my kiddo
to be happy? Right? And if ultimately he doesn't want to run into burning buildings, then,
you know, maybe that's not what that looks like. But I do want him to be happy, you know,
being a vet or whatever it is that they want to do, right? And whatever it is that they're
interested in and leaning into that and supporting them in being their happiest version of themselves.
We talk a lot about planning and getting prepared to be an adult or exploring what we want to
do and accepting who we are. And you really, you're really making that scene easy. Like
you, like, I don't know if it's just your experience or because you work with so many
families. I'm curious if you're using any kind of person centered planning tools, if
you've created your own or using established ones, because you're making it sound so easy.
Yeah, I would definitely say like it's a journey, right? It is definitely, I wish that it were
as easy as follow these three steps and then you'll be really happy. But, you know, it's
a process and it is, I think that it changes at every stage of our lives and being able
to understand, you know, what that looks like. In terms of like kind of what tools do we
use as a whole, like a practice, we really approach everyone from kind of the DIR lens,
which is the developmental individualized and relationship based approach to human development.
DIR lens just saying DIR. So we really, we look at people through that lens because that's
applicable regardless of diagnosis. And that looks at all the way from, you know, early,
we're just born trying to cope and get, you know, attention from our diaper being changed
and you know, things like that all the way through old age when we're reflecting back
on our life and how we feel about our relationships and decisions and things like that. And so
when we are looking at things like that, we need to, we use that framework to understand
that the coping skills that work today in this situation may not work in the coping
skills when, you know, you're 30 and your brain's fully developed, right? The coping
skills that work for an eight year old, unlikely to work at 30. And that's why it's a continuous
check-in. I think having a therapist or confidant or coach or what, however it is that you want
to access, you know, that kind of support, who is neurodivergent affirming and who is
knowledgeable, right? That affirming piece to me is non-negotiable. And I think that
that can be where the quote unquote ease can come in, right? If we are, we're not affirming
and we don't want this person to be supported and who they are and we're trying to fit them
into a box they don't fit into, it's going to be painful and it's going to be hard and
there's going to be fighting and discomfort the entire time. But I think that when we're
looking at the person holistically and ultimately understanding that helping someone to have
coping skills is what's going to help them be able to future plan, that I think is often
kind of a game changer for parents. It helps them to understand that like when your kiddo
starts to negotiate things with you, awesome, because that's showing that they have some
of those early stages of perspective taking, right? They're able to understand that there's
gray area to things, that it's not black and white, that it is like these are all of the
building blocks to independence. And if we are shutting that down and we don't have those
things as annoying as they can be, right? When we're in the midst of a negotiation,
right? What can be so helpful is to remember we're literally building neural pathways and
that's super cool. There's always a plus side to everything, right? Yeah.
I'm curious, if you could go back in time and give advice to your 14, 16 year old self,
someone who's really just trying to map out their life, what do you think you would have
wanted to have known then? I think that that aged Brooke, I really think
that she was more in a survival than she was any future planning. Wow.
But I think, you know, what I would want to know is that things will get better. And when
you get to know yourself, that is when things can really change and get a lot lighter. You
know, I think that being able to know, you know, at 14, 16 years old, I didn't know that
I was autistic. I didn't know that I was dyslexic. And so being able to know those things, I
think that would be a good piece of advice to have given myself. But yeah, I think that,
you know, knowing that like things are going to work out and also leaning into knowing
and trying to understand who I am and being comfortable with that is definitely, I think
something that I would, I want all teens to know teen years are so awkward and hard and
no one feels comfortable. You know, just knowing that it's uncomfortable now and it will, you
know, it's given the chance to get to know yourself. It will get better. And like you
said, that doesn't happen unless you are honest with yourself and you have those really frequent
check-ins, whether you do those in a facilitated setting with a family member or you just do
it introspectively with yourself. You have to really get to know yourself or you can't
better, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. How can people, our listeners here, how do they
connect with you to learn more or get involved? Yeah. So our website is uniquely youbehavioralhealth.com.
We also can be found on Facebook. I also own Affirming Minds Coaching and Consulting, which
is a kind of just what it sounds like. I consult with businesses and schools, provide trainings
on being neurodivergent affirming and being able to kind of have a faster track of sorts
into understanding neurodivergence that maybe one-on-one therapy doesn't allow. That's amazing.
Yeah. Well, I just want to say thank you so much for your time and your honesty here today
because some of what you said, I'm sure, takes a lot of courage. But I also just want to
say we're going to link every one of those businesses you mentioned. We'll link them
in the description and hopefully we can get everyone connected because I really want to
know more about that neurodiversity affirming work. Yeah, absolutely. We will be doing.
So thank you again so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Thank you so much, everyone out there for listening in and know that if you are in Idaho
or planning on moving to Idaho and have questions on systems or services for children with disabilities,
please consider reaching out to us on our website at iPullIdaho.org or by calling us
at 208-342-5884. Be sure to tune in next time. Until then, this has been Unlimited Parenting.
Thanks for listening.