Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Midlife A F. This week we are going to have a conversation about the slightly terrifying awareness that comes when we realise that the people who are supposed to be in charge don't know what they're doing. Over to me!
if you're a woman in midlife, whose intuition is telling you that giving booze the elbow might be the next right move, then Midlife AF is the podcast for you. Join counsellor psychotherapist this naked mind and grey area drinking alcohol coach Emma Gilmour for a weekly natter about parenting quirky teens, menopause relationships and navigating this thing called midlife, alcohol free. If you're feeling that life could be so much more that you're sick and tired of doing all the things for everyone else. If your intuition is waving her arms, manically at you saying it could all be so much easier if we didn't have to keep drinking. Come with me. Together, we'll find our groove without booze.
Hello, everybody, I'm really glad you're here. Welcome to this week's episode of midlife A F.
We’re focusing on what happens and the feeling of a potential chaos that comes with the understanding that the people who are supposed to be in charge, don't know what they're doing. And this can apply to so much. I'm going to talk about being a child and making the decision that there's something wrong with us, rather than facing the reality that the people in charge, don't know what they're doing, and are getting it wrong. And aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. A good talk about that, and the impact that that has on us as adults. And I'm also going to talk about my experience of that as a child, and how that's playing out for me in adult life right now, around the real connection between trying to find appropriate care for my kid in a neurotypical oriented world. And the impact that that has on all of us. I do want to talk about the word resilience as well. And the weaponizing of resilience for women and children. And I might leave that for another podcast because talking about pushing through, I need to try and help my baby get into her school programme today. So I don't have too much time. So that might be a subject for another day.
It's so interesting, the interconnectedness, the synchronicity of everything in this space, and just how interesting it is, from my perspective. So just to take us back a little bit. There's a few principles of childhood development that are important to understand in order for this to make sense to us. And I again am here owning the fact that I'm going through a bit of burnout at the moment. And my brain isn't functioning quite as well as it should be. ADHD and menopause and a few other things. But just basically my brain is a wee bit slow so looking for words is often where I'm at and also my memory is not that great. My short term memory at the moment and I know that's when I am a bit burnt out. That's my ADHD symptoms and my menopause symptoms. So that's my call to rest which is good right that we had Jane on the podcast last week, right.
So, back to the subject at hand. So you know, guys know that I am studying under Gabor Mate. And I'm doing his compassionate inquiry training course. And as part of that course, I do a triad or a dyad, with other students who are learning to use the compassionate inquiry model in their work. And so what that means is that every week, we do an inquiry on ourselves on what's triggering us and what's going on. For us. It's very much rooted in how we feel in the body, learning to feel our feelings. And this is one of the reasons why I really wanted to do Gabor Mate’s course, because it really aligns with the work that I do with women and around alcohol, which is very much about how do we train our precious selves, often maybe neurodiverse, often had trauma, and just being a woman who has suppressed or feeling been made to feel like our emotions are bad, not being allowed to focus on our wants and needs.
And so we've had to suppress them in many ways, not including not eating sufficient amounts of food, to nourish our bodies, because of the whole diet culture thing. But also in so many other ways of putting everybody else's needs first and putting our needs last, which is why it makes it so hard for us to start changing that as well, because of the patterns that we get into with the with our significant others and everybody else who it's very, very, very, you know, it works very well for them that we put our needs last, and so can be a bit of a transition, moving that around. But what ends up happening for us is we end up burnt out exhausted and unable to push through. And the only way that we can push through is by using alcohol. And that is the problem that we're facing at the moment. So taking us back to the subject matter at hand, I was doing my Compassionate inquiry dyad work and I was feeling really burnt out. I was really, really burnt out because I've just finished my launch. And I worked really hard on my launches, and I don't mind that it's a high energy time for me. And I know that afterwards, I need to take some time out to relax and to, to sort of recalibrate, to refill my cup. And for me that involves taking some time to myself, maybe going on a bit of a retreat, getting back into my walking, getting back into my swimming, going to ecstatic dance, doing some Qoia doing some yoga, that kind of thing, right? And I start very slowly - I don't make it a thing I HAVE to do. It's for me, everything's about how do I make this easy? How do I make this lovely? How do I make this restful? For myself? How do I make this not a punishment, not something I'm trying to fix myself with.
And so I'm talking to my group in this inquiry, and I'm saying I'm feeling really, really burnt out at the moment, particularly around advocating for my kid in a medical and school system that assumes that it knows best when I because I've had to kind of really fight to understand what is going on for my kid, find out what it particular type of autism it is, understand how to care for that, in a way that means that she is able to achieve the best that she can at the time. By providing a very safe place at home, a low demand environment, lots of self regulation and trying to find the right supports. And because of the particular type of autism that my kid has, it's very unknown. It's very new. And what she's actually suffering from is autistic burnout right now because of school trauma. And masking is also very unknown about people who don't know about it. It presents like chronic fatigue, it presents that she is completely and utterly exhausted and sleeping most of the time. It's also presents that she's highly dysregulated a lot of the time and feels things very strongly like many of us neurodivergent highly sensitive people, very attuned to the environment that she's in, very attuned to people's motivations and behaviours. Like a lot of autistic people, she’s very sensitive to the world and you know, on high alert, so the nervous system is on high alert like many of us feel Now, females in the world for lots of lots of different reasons as well.
So I'm in this group, and I'm saying, I'm feeling really tired, because we were doing really well. And I was feeling really, she was feeling really good about herself, I was feeling really good about myself. And then we started to get some criticism from the programme that we are partaking in which I was nervous about doing in the first place anyway. But we started to get that because you're as the ideal is, you're not going to succeed, you are bad, you are wrong, you, you're not trying hard enough, you should be doing this, if we keep pushing, there's this sort of very much about pushing very, very much about pushing, which brings me into resilience, which again, is another subject matter for another day.
But I keep saying, look, here's all the evidence to show that pushing is the last thing an exhausted chronic fatigue person needs, they need encouragement to be where they're at. They need support, celebration, they need low demands, they need to know that they're safe, they need to know that their mum's not bringing unsafe people into their world, they need to know that they're listened to, they need to know all the things that we don't know as adults, right? Which stops us in being able to feel our feelings, being able to identify how we feel, they need to be able to start having some interoceptive awareness, they need to be able to have agency, they need to be able to say put boundaries in and say I can't do this today and recognise that.
But what the system is built to do is about attendance, not about health and well being. And it's a big change. Because, you know, when you're dealing with a kid who is not able to attend school, or struggling with school, of course, all our conditioning comes out. And might you know, the first reaction is and everybody's reaction around you is oh my god, you must get them to school. If you panic, everyone's in panic, go and home school. And, you know, you can see your child's decline. You can see it's not working, but we just have been conditioned that it's all about we're gonna get into school. And slowly, your connection with your child starts to go because you're trying to force them to do something they can't do. Because they're in burnout. And it's literally when you're in autistic burnout, like my kid is chronic. And this is so common. It's not rare. So just be warned about this, if you don't know anything about it, if you keep pushing kids to do stuff and keep pushing kids to mask when their nervous systems dysregulated they go into shutdown. And what shutdown is, is basically it's like the body says no. The body says no.
And I was feeling fatigued by just people not getting it, people saying they're getting it, people saying they're reading the books that I'm sending them, saying they're reading the research papers, saying they're attending the conferences, and then still not getting it. Still coming up with the same systems that led us as women in midlife drinking, in order to push through, in order to keep doing in order to be resilient, again, another word or as another better word for how we use resilience in our community is to be compliant. And we've done this and so this is the whole narrative about resilience. There's this whole narrative about what it was good enough for me. And my question is, was it? Was it really good enough for our generation? Or have we ended up with a group of middle aged women who can't feel our feelings, who can't advocate for ourselves who don't know who we are? Because we've been so busy trying to be all the things to keep us safe for very good reasons. In this world, that doesn't allow us to say, we can't do something, it's too much for whom we've created this narrative of rest is being selfish looking after ourselves as being selfish. And all this stuff. I mean, it's systemic. It's generational, you know.
So anyway, back to the story. So I'm sitting there, and I'm feeling really burnt out by this and feeling really just like, I keep telling them, and so I tell them on Friday, and then on Monday, we go in Tuesday, we can't get in, I get the call. What can we do? Can we speak to you okay, Here's how we're gonna get her to school. And I'm like, we're doing so much better than we've ever done. And you're putting pressure on us, and implying that we're not good enough, it's not good enough. And so what I'm seeing now is that my kid’s declining. And I'm fucked off, to be honest. Because she's starting to feel the pressure, she started to feel that she's not good enough, she was so excited about going here. She was so excited about doing this programme. But I am at the point of pulling her out of it. Because I can't have her decline or think that there's something wrong with her when there isn't, there isn't. She's recovering from a physical condition.
And going back to this idea that when we're little, and this happens to pretty much every woman I work with, at some point, we did not see our value reflected back to us, in the eyes of our caretakers, our parents, our teachers, whoever it was. And so what happens is a child instead of believing that there is something wrong with the world, that caregivers might have their own trauma might have their own experience of life that leads them to behave in ways that are not acceptable to us to shout at us, they've got their own fear, they want that no one's coming from a bad place in all of this, right? None of this is deliberate. But it's really important that we're aware of it. So parents are shouting at us, husbands are shouting at the kids, people are worrying about things. Everything's escalating, and people are being forced to push through. I had it last night with my husband, at 10 o'clock at night. I've said, Right, I'm not doing any more tonight, I'm tired, he comes in, I need to do this, I need to do this. It's like this expectation that will push through. And it's funny actually, I had some feedback that I talked too much about myself. And my work. And I just again, this is for me to storytelling, talking about my world is a way for me to connect with people. And so again, if me talking about my experience and talking about my learnings around the nervous system pushing through all this stuff, isn't your bag, that's totally fine. Turn off. But if it is, and it speaks to you, then great because I'm pretty sure that there are other people experiencing similar things or who can connect with what I'm talking about in some way or other. The exhaustion comes from just keep partitioning, partitioning, trying to find care. And it's really hard. And I actually haven't found one set yet. I found people who are willing to learn, I've found the odd person who, but they're generally not people who are available to be full time to work with my kid over more than, say, a six week period. They're more like emergency people. And I find people in the culture are great. But again, they won't recommend anybody because they're worried about that coming back on them, which is understandable.
So taking me back. So as a child, we are still narcissistic people. And that doesn't mean we have a narcissistic personality disorder. What that means is a development stage where everything revolves around us. And this is often when we stop drinking, we are often in that place as well because emotionally we are stunted and drinking stance or something our emotional development. And it makes us very self orientated. So everything's about our separate bodies being mean to us. That's all you know.
I had a great childhood. My parents were amazing. Yes, they were great. But at some point, most people didn't have their value reflected back in their eyes of their caregivers, because their caregivers were busy doing something else. They had their own issues, they had their own trauma. They were looking after another kid, whatever it might be. We don't always get what we know, also that could be you know, the culture at the time. What we need and so what happens with a child is we then internalise that, and rather than accept the terrifying chaotic idea that the people in charge don't want to be people in charge. And then start that cycle of control, the cycle of anxiety, if I can control everything, like if I can fix everything, if I can make everything better, eventually I will be okay. And as I always say, we're trying to fix ourselves, we would not need fixing, we do not need fixing. We are not a problem that needs solving. We need to connect to ourselves, we need to learn a different way. We need to learn to move away from disconnecting and towards connecting. We need to stop thinking that alcohol is connecting us, because the whole thing is we're born and we're born and we seek the truth. But our personality comes in and the world comes in and it doesn't want the truth. It's trying to avoid the truth. It's trying to construct an armour so that we fit in because we're worried again. It's like this anxiety. This is scarcity, this holding on to this clinging on to controlling and fixing the constant fear. It's all coming from a place of fear. The fear that we won't be loved, the fear that we won't be okay. The fear that we'll lose our security. All of these are very relevant fears, right there's nothing wrong with these fears. But what we do in escaping these fears instead of addressing them and being a soft place for ourselves to land is we keep ourselves in a perpetuating pattern of fear because the most terrifying thing is letting go and saying I don't have to hold on to this anymore I don't have to hold this also tightly because I am not wrong. I am not bad, my essence is good. I don't need to be fixed, none of this needs fixing.
I saw a post with Glenn and Doyle and she said “What if it's easier? How do I make this easy? Can I make this easy today? What do I need to stop? How can I feel better right now?” For me yesterday putting on The Greatest Showmen. My latest hyper fixation, I love it.
So taking you back to the diet so we were going through why was I feeling so burnt out and why was I feeling so you know, the feeling I had was it's like sadness isn't anger, but it's like a it's like a deep anger and sadness. I feel it in my tummy. My shoulders drop, but it's like a resignation, like hopelessness. And it doesn't stick around for long because I'm a very upbeat person. But it's that whole oh my god, it's me against the world. And I'm just little. I'm just so little and I'm trying to teach them all these things. And they're like, you're not an expert. We're the experts. But I'll tell you what, it reminded me I went back and this is why I love compassionate inquiry so much and why I do it with my clients that will do it in my groups.
I was talking to them about this feeling. And they said "What does it remind you of?” And I said it reminded me of going on holiday with my grandparents. When I was a kid me and my sister used to go and have a half term with my grandparents. Because my parents lived in Africa. We went to boarding school which we loved. Well, I loved it. I don't think my sister did, but I loved but we used to go and stay with my grandparents. And my grandparents were no good hearted people, but they had their own trauma. Particularly my grandmother, I imagine she was very neurodivergent. She was highly anxious. Very, very obsessed with, you know, cleaning and tidying. I imagine that she felt that if her house was clean and tidy and she appeared perfect to the outside world, then it would be okay. And she could be loved I imagine. And again, probably formed from her childhood too. But she was always busy. She was always cleaning and she was quite nasty to our internal family. But it appeared to be a pillar of society outside. And she was always very nice to me but she was not nice to my sister. And like it broke my sister's heart but it broke my heart as well. It didn't break my heart as much. I'm sure it broke my sister's heart and it really damaged her. We've not really talked about it properly. And I hope she doesn't mind me saying this that I probably ought to check with her. But anyway my analogy I'll talk about my experience.
So my experience isn't about her experience. But so we were staying with my grandparents in Wales. And and I noticed that sometimes when I stay in there, the family environment is so like smiles and happiness, to begin with, and then very quickly, you realise people don't really like you being in their house, because you don’t do things their way you make a mess, and everything has to be just so right. And everyone has to follow the rules, but often the rules aren't, we don't know what the rules are. So as a child it is very confusing. And also, you know, adults are a bit scary, it's hard to ask them things. Anyway, I think for some reason, my memory might not be clear on this, but my sister was blowing her nose with toilet paper. And if she had obviously had a cold, or she was crying, I don't know. But we were only little, or I remember 10 or 11, we were little. And, you know, I have a firm belief that both me and my sister are neurodivergent. And emotionally and our executive function of a ADHD kid neurodivergent kid is quite well known to be about 30% behind. So you know, if we're 10 or 11, take us as being about seven, eight, right?
So my grandma comes in for some reason, I think we're eating or something. And she starts being awful to my sister, about her blowing her nose on the tissue. But I know I stood up for my sister. I probably didn't do it very well. I probably used the wrong words, it probably wasn't helpful. It probably made things worse. But I stood up for my sister and I said, Look, you know, you need to stop being mean to her about this. It doesn't matter or something like that. I can't even remember. But I remember it was just this feeling of powerlessness, that these people who were supposed to be our grandparents, were causing my sister harm over shit, that didn't matter. And we had no way of getting away from that. You had nowhere to go. And my little voice didn't matter. Didn't matter. And look, I know, it's a tiny thing. But it came up for me. And then it made me realise this is how I'm feeling that hopelessness, that powerlessness that we can't go anywhere.
And you know, what I've been reading about the guy who did the drug dogs drooling thing. So annoying, my brain is not working properly. Um, you guys will know who it is. But it's basically he used to be very well known for being a preferred behaviour realist. And he proved this, he had this theory. And he proved it by saying, you know, it's not about you know, the dog will drool at the ring of a bell, rather, because first of all, they start ringing the bell, then they give the dog food. And so they'd ring the bell, the dog would drool, then it would get food. And then they stopped giving the dog's food. I'm sorry, it sounds really awful and barbaric. I'm sure they gave them food later, but they stopped rewarding them with food, but the dogs still were conditioned to drool. So that's what he's famous for. And I can't remember his name. But he also did a whole load of other research around trauma and what he found and what people say about a lot of the people who didn't end up very traumatised by 9/11, was because they were able to run away. Though of course, loads of people were very traumatised by it. But people were less traumatised, and they could have been because one of the things in trauma is not just the situation, it's how we take it into our body is how we process it. A lot of it's about having somebody to talk to about it at the time. But the other part of it is , you know, being able to run away and not being able to run away it's very traumatising, not being able to escape.
And often we find when people are going through their own version of trauma, you know, they're wanting to run they want to you know, their feet are moving, they want to escape and we just want to get away and I get that a lot when I'm going through something and it feels big. Especially when it's something that brings me shame or makes me feel really bad about myself. So anyway, I'm going to finish up pretty quickly here. But it's just really, really interesting.
And I really, you know, recommend that you all look at this idea of fixing ourselves, this idea of this being something wrong with us, if we can control everything if we can keep this really tight scarcity grip on everything. And we often make our way about that as well. Alcohol, if we're not drinking, we're being good. We're holding on, we're in control. And of course, scarcity is willpower. It brings us into resistance. When we're in resistance, we're resisting what is.
So instead of feeling the feeling and saying, I'm feeling powerless, and hopeless, and a bit scared, because I'm going to have to try and do this education thing, and work this through myself, and there's a possibility, but my biggest concern is keeping my kids safe. And I know through all the research that I've done, that trying to push them through, isn't going to help, it's not going to help her in future life, she has so many connections between autoimmune disease, and suppression.
There's so many connections with you know, that you know, outcomes, your future outcomes, diseases and suppression, there's eating disorders, you know, and I just only have to look at all the women I work with myself, my generation, all the adaptations that we have to keep us safe, all the stuff we're clinging on to so fucking tightly as if it really matters because the idea of it not mattering means that there's chaos, it means that we can't fix it, it means that it just is, and to our ego to our thinking brain, that's terrifying.
