Join Patty Kikos as she delves into the inspiring journey of Louise, who stepped into the role of a young carer at just 13, navigating the challenges of her mother's grief and her brother's sorrow. Louise's story doesn't end there; she later became a devoted carer to her two wonderfully unique neurodivergent children. Now, as a compassionate counselor, Louise empowers other carers, sharing invaluable techniques to help them self-regulate and heal from their own traumas. This interview is a testament to resilience, love, and the power of support. GUEST: Louise Davis - www.carergateway.gov.au SOCIAL MEDIA: Follow The Benevolent Society on Instagram Follow Carer Gateway on Facebook Follow The Benevolent Society on Facebook CREDITS: Host – Patty Kikos Producers – Patty Kikos and John Hresc Sound Engineer – John Hresc GET IN TOUCH: Carer Gateway is proud to offer emotional and practical services and support for carers with the aim of making your life easier. You can call us on 1800 422 737 to find out more about peer support groups, counselling, coaching, online skills courses, tailored support packages, emergency respite, other government supports, as well as tips and information, or visit our online home at www.carergateway.gov.au Got some questions or thoughts? Email us at cgconnections@benevolent.org.au and put ‘Carer Conversations Podcast’ in the subject line. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The Benevolent Society acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Join Patty Kikos as she delves into the inspiring journey of Louise, who stepped into the role of a young carer at just 13, navigating the challenges of her mother's grief and her brother's sorrow. Louise's story doesn't end there; she later became a devoted carer to her two wonderfully unique neurodivergent children. Now, as a compassionate counselor, Louise empowers other carers, sharing invaluable techniques to help them self-regulate and heal from their own traumas. This interview is a testament to resilience, love, and the power of support.
GUEST:
Louise Davis - www.carergateway.gov.au
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Follow The Benevolent Society on Instagram
Follow Carer Gateway on Facebook
Follow The Benevolent Society on Facebook
CREDITS:
Host – Patty Kikos
Producers – Patty Kikos and John Hresc
Sound Engineer – John Hresc
GET IN TOUCH:
Carer Gateway is proud to offer emotional and practical services and support for carers with the aim of making your life easier.
You can call us on 1800 422 737 to find out more about peer support groups, counselling, coaching, online skills courses, tailored support packages, emergency respite, other government supports, as well as tips and information, or visit our online home at www.carergateway.gov.au
Got some questions or thoughts? Email us at cgconnections@benevolent.org.au and put ‘Carer Conversations Podcast’ in the subject line.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
The Benevolent Society acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Louise
Yeah, I mean, I had seen how my brother's life had played out and how it had ended, and I made a very strong, heartfelt commitment that the most important thing in my life was to commit to doing whatever it took to give my children a good life and reduce the struggle for them. So, I surrendered my career, we moved several times. I investigated every type of education system there was, until finally by year three, and my son was in year one, I overnight made the decision to home school.
And as I always say with clients, home schooling, I came to learn is not school at home. It's a very different way, a very different approach to education, and it provides a safe and secure environment for the social engagement system of the brain to be able to develop. And so that's what I focused on through the home-schooling period of time. And then they both went back into school later on.
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Billy:
From the Benevolent Society, we welcome you to the Carer Gateway podcast, with your host Patty Kikos.
Carer Gateway is the Australian Government national care hub and provides reliable services, support and advice specifically for carers.
This is where we share interviews with guests that have specialised knowledge that will help support carers to look after their emotional, mental and physical well-being.
We are recording on Aboriginal country, on lands which were never ceded. We acknowledge the traditional custodians and cultural knowledge holders of these lands and waters. We pay our respects to Aboriginal elders, past and present.
Always was, always will be.
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Patty
Hello my lovely carers and listeners. I have a very special conversation to share with you today. We're going to chat about navigating trauma, learning about self-regulation, and raising nuerodivergent children. Now before I introduce you to Louise, I do want to share a trigger warning, as Louise will be sharing about some traumatic aspects of her life. So, if you’re in a sensitive space right now, please do listen with caution, or take a beat and do come back when you’re ready. She has made a very mindful choice not to share every traumatic experience she had had, as some of those events are very private and not appropriate to share in this context, and other experiences connect to people who are entitled to their privacy. But also, because we wanted the space for Louise to talk about the triumphs in her life. Did you know there are three main types of trauma. There's acute, chronic or complex.
Acute trauma results from a single incident.
Chronic trauma is repeated and prolonged such as domestic violence or abuse.
Complex trauma is exposure to varied and multiple traumatic events, often of an invasive, interpersonal nature.
Today, we get to meet Louise Davis, who not only became a young carer at 13 when her mum struggled to cope with her dad’s death and her elder son’s grief, but became a carer again when she looked after her two fabulously different neurodivergent children.
Louise now supports other carers through her counselling practice, and teaches them techniques to help support them to navigate through their own traumatic experiences.
Louise is a counsellor, social worker, meditation teacher, and trauma informed yoga therapist. She has extensive knowledge in the fields of trauma care, neurodivergence, and dementia as this has been the focus of her post graduate studies.
Now we weren’t able to record together in the studio, and while the internet’s mostly compliant, we did hit a few glitches, but we just kinda rolled with it.
Hello, Louise.
Louise
Hi Patty. Thanks for having me along.
Patty
Ohh, it's a pleasure. It's an honour actually. And I'm so pleased that you get to share your journey. Louise, what is an interesting thing that happened to you right after your birth?
Lousie
I was adopted at birth, Patty, and I was adopted by my parents, who raised both myself and my elder brother, and that adoption happened when I was 3 months old. So, I had been living in royal North Shore Hospital essentially until I was 3 months old.
Patty
Do you think that this was your 1st traumatic experience?
Louise
It may well have been. What we understand of trauma and early life development. At 3, I also became acutely ill, I was in hospital at the time and almost died, and I was separated from my parents for a long time. Being in the Children's Hospital at that time, you couldn't have a lot of visitation time. So yeah, that would have also been a traumatic experience for a small child.
And then at 9, I went on to lose my best friend in a car accident. At 10, probably the person I was closest to in my life. My grandpa died. And then when I was almost 13, my father died very suddenly.
Patty
That's a lot. I also understand that you looked after your brother.
Louise
Well, I did. My brother had a significant displacement with my father's death, he couldn't comprehend it at all. At the time of the sudden death, I was present, so was my mother, and my brother wasn't. His mind led him to believe that my father actually wasn't dead and that my mother was lying to him. This was very traumatic for her because he ceased talking to her and pretty much myself as well. For a 12 month period.
Patty
And this was his coping mechanism at the time?
Louise
Yes, it was. And as time went by, I did come to understand that my brother had significant differences in how he viewed the world around him, how he interacted with the world around him.
Patty
And there wasn't necessarily a formal diagnosis at the time was there, Louise? It seemed you had learned a lot about neurodivergence when it came to your brother, and he was also adopted.
Louise
Yes, that’s right. So experientially, I reflect and I can see all the signs there now, all the signposts and all the traits. Yeah. So that would have made all of this much more difficult for him.
Patty
In hindsight, do you now understand that Garry had autism?
Louise
I do, yes, most definitely. And you know autism is a brain organisation that can show up in many different ways, and it's as individual as the individual.
My brother learned how to shine in life. He was academically extremely strong. He was strong in sports and in the arts. He held captaincies in primary school and high school, all the sorts of things you wouldn't expect from someone with an autistic diagnosis. But he was very, very, very clever. And he worked out how to navigate life. At the same time, that took an extraordinary toll on his true nature.
Patty
What do you mean?
Louise
Well, I understand now that most of the time my brother was masking, what we call masking his distress and his dysregulation, and he also self-medicated to be able to manage that as he started to emerge into adulthood.
Patty
And when you say he self-medicated when he was an adult, are you referring to specific aspects of life such as drugs and alcohol?
Louise
Yes. Yeah, yeah. My brother had other considerations, significant considerations as well. He really didn't understand why people admired him significantly and why his attributes were seen by others as strengths. He just thought that that was just himself being himself.
I also now know he was struggling with his gender identity and his sexuality as well. So he had a lot going on in his internal world that was never addressed. Never well supported. And lots of expectations placed upon him that he really didn't want to be there.
Patty
You say that when he was younger, it was difficult for him to self regulate. How did that show up for you as his sister?
Louise
Well, what we know as meltdowns. So, in supporting people who are neurodivergent, specifically autism, I've had it explained to me that it can feel like the front of their brain is burning up. And that's what I now know I was watching in my brother. And so he would become highly distressed, sometimes damaged things as well.
He was never physically violent towards myself or my mother. But he was highly manipulative and he did abuse me, quite significantly psychologically, and that was his way of controlling his world.
Patty
I can understand that after your father's death, Garry's reaction, your mother's grief. I understand that you also became a carer for your mother, but that also included some abuse and some psychological abuse, didn't it?
Louise
Yes, it did. My mum wasn't well regulated in herself. My father's presence in her life was her very strong guide and support. Very much an anchor point, and he was very suddenly gone. My mum really needed me to be him.
And so that's who I became. I became her surrogate husband. Now I know what a carer is, I now know I was actually a young carer. But I essentially did everything for my mum, for her to be able to cope in life. She was still a very good mother to me in some ways, but I very much was her partner in life and I very much had to help her with my brother as well to let me out.
Patty
Not to put on a what 13 year old at the time?
Louise
I look back on it now and it certainly was! But, I really at the time just thought I was being my father and I suppose in a way that was something that I could do to honour his life as well and his legacy. He had modelled how to run a household, how to support my mother and my brother. Well, so yeah, I felt like I was stepping into his shoes very much so.
Patty
That in itself is incredibly traumatic, and I understand that your mum couldn't accept that you had also met someone as you became older. several years had passed, Garry had estranged himself from you and eventually, both of them disconnected from you and your husband at the time.
So, we're talking about several years later. I understand that your husband had also pointed out to you that you were perhaps being mistreated by both your mum and your brother, and he'd also asked you to be disconnected from them. Was this another form of trauma that you would have had to navigate at that time?
Louise
Ohh significantly yeah, I've had to give that a lot of good attention as the years have gone by and received support with that again with my mum. You know when someone is still alive and you love them very much, but they're no longer in your life, that is also a type of grief, a traumatic grief. And my brother actually went on to die during that time as well, and I was not present at the time. And so that's a whole other level and a whole other way to experience significant loss and grief, which was very dysregulating to my body. It played out physically.
Patty
How so?
Louise
Well, when I received the news that he was no longer alive and that he'd actually already had his funeral…
Patty
That you weren't invited to.
Louise
That I was not invited to. That's correct. It was a very painful experience, deeply painful experience for me. I actually lost feeling from the waist down and I couldn't walk for 2 weeks.
Yeah, my body was really, yeah, really yelling that pain. And that's how it presented itself, yeah.
Patty
And then you were navigating a journey with your partner, who then became your husband. What was that time like for you?
Louise
So, bringing a child into the world and a husband who appeared, you know, to be an extraordinarily bright and brilliant man, very charismatic. I'd fallen deeply in love with bringing a beautiful child into the world and not knowing everything that I do now about autism. And my child actually is autistic, and I didn't know that at birth, and I had no family around and no support. We'd left our community as well, so, I was isolated, separated. I was very unwell after the birth.
My husband showed his first signs of significant dysregulation. Things went wrong with the birth and the way that that impacted him was quite shocking. It was very, very, very dramatic and I had not experienced anything like that. And being unwell at the same time and having no support with my child, who didn't actually sleep longer than 30 minutes for 4 times in 2 years.
Patty
Oh wow
Louise
It was way beyond, I don't even know if I was in my body, to be honest. Yeah, way beyond what we might call exhaustion and just doing it all for my little baby. And yeah, while my husband took on this significant fight and battle in his life. And that's what stimulated his brain. But I had started to realise as well that this is what I had been seeing in my brother's growing years as well.
Patty
I like the way you phrase it when you say it's a different brain organisation. I think it's a very empowering way to refer to autism or any form of neurodivergence.
Louise
Yeah, that's what it is. It's a difference. And I've always, I suppose, predominantly focused on the shininess of that difference, the strengths of that difference. I was always in awe of my brother growing up with all of his extraordinary capacity. However, our world is not necessarily designed for that different brain organisation. It's not designed well.
Patty
So after you gave birth to your daughter and your healing and your recovery sounds like it was a long process as well. At what point did you realise that she might be neurodivergent or autistic?
Louise
Well, by the time she was a toddler, I had started to notice traits and of course didn't have anywhere near the amount of significant knowledge that I carry now. But on reflection, I really sensed a difference, and I wouldn't be able to give language or names or explanations to that difference. But I flowed with it. Yeah, and I just tried to support her the best way that I could as she emerged out into her little world and onto into education, that's when I really noticed that we had something that we needed to give much more attention to for her well-being. School was just such a shock for her little body and mind. And it didn't go well. In the beginning.
Patty
And then what did you do after that? How did your life change? Were there choices that you had to make that influenced certain decisions that you had to come to, such as perhaps sending her to a different school or altering your life in order to support her?
Louise
Yeah, I mean, I had seen how my brother's life had played out and how it had ended, and I made a very strong, heartfelt commitment that the most important thing in my life was to commit to doing whatever it took to give my children a good life and reduce the struggle for them. So, I surrendered my career, and we moved several times. I investigated every type of education system there was, until finally by year 3, and my son was in year 1, I overnight made the decision to home school.
And as I always say with clients, home schooling, I came to learn is not school at home. It's a very different way, a very different approach to education, and it provides a safe and secure environment for the social engagement system of the brain to be able to develop. And so that's what I focused on through the home-schooling period of time. And then they both went back into school later on.
Patty
Louise, at this point in your life, did you have any level of awareness of what trauma was and how it might have already impacted you?
Louise
No, I didn't. I have probably learnt significantly and academically about trauma in more recent years, as the research has started to emerge, and there's been a surge of our access to that information, and that's where I've been able to identify my own story really well as well. In all of that knowledge.
Patty
You mentioned your son, and he's also neurodivergent, and while my parents reflect on how different their offspring are. I know that this was the case with your children. What are the qualities that make your son very different to your daughter?
Louise
Yeah. So, formally, the diagnosis is autism for my first child, but there would definitely, I mean as we know now through the research that if you have one diagnosis, there's a very high percentile that you'll have the 2nd diagnosis. If you have a 2nd diagnosis, quite a high rate of 3rd diagnosis. So there's probably other things there as well.
For my son, it started as dyspraxia, ideational appropriations, or dyspraxia. And there's definitely ADHD, and he's seeking diagnosis for that. And autism now in his early adult life to support him with his tertiary studies.
Patty
I know that you say that you're no longer a carer because your children are both living independently, but you certainly have been one.
Louise
Yes
Patty
Currently you work as a counsellor supporting carers. Do you have advice or words of wisdom that you might like to share with our audience?
Louise
Umm, yes. And this is both evidence based as well as lived experience. I would say first and foremost and last, gather a team of support. Isolation as a career is not a good place to be. It can be lonely, and it can also progressively affect your health. And that was the case for me. It significantly impacted my health and took me a long time to recover.
Patty
Over the years, you've never stopped studying, and among your myriad of qualifications, you're a yoga therapist, which is a very different thing to be a yoga teacher as well as a trauma informed practitioner. So, first of all, let's define trauma because many of our carers won't necessarily know that this is something they, along with their family, might be navigating.
Louise
Hmm, look, it's a very common term, so people will have different experiences with trauma and will relate to the word trauma differently, but trauma and traumatic stress is how your nervous system adapts and survives repeat or unpredictable and dysregulating distress.
So, as you mentioned at the start of our talk today, it can be a single catastrophic event. But also, if the nervous system perceives this experience as a threat to safety, it may not be able to return to its healthy state of tolerating ongoing distress in life, because obviously, as a human being, you are going to experience some distress.
But these are the elements important about being able to restore and heal again and to be able to regulate yourself. So that might appear in different ways. It might be in changes of perception about life, in sensing how you sense your environment.
Somatically in the body for example, feeling nauseous, experiencing repeat flashbacks, pain in the body, brain fog, the list is quite varied, how your body might speak to you with trauma. Trauma changes us though, and this requires further good attention really, and to learn about self-regulation and self-soothing when we're experiencing this level of distress.
Patty
What are some examples you can share with us?
Louise
Well, the approaches in self-regulation are all about building tolerance to distress because we know that if distress has been happening, there's a likelihood it's going to continue in varying degrees or at a later date.
So, no one gets out of this life is what I was saying earlier without experiencing distress to varying degrees. But when we experience traumatic stress, our bodies and our minds lose that capacity to tolerate the distress. So, some of the things we can do just very briefly, are to check your breath. So, are you holding your breath, or are you shallow breathing?
And our breath can effectively and efficiently change our brain function and what it's signaling to our body. So, if your “out” breath is slightly longer than your “in” breath so slightly longer than your “in” breath, the Fear Centre in the brain is hijacked.
So, keep the breath soft and long with no force, and a natural “in” breath, and then twice as long on the “out” breath and just keep repeating that gently with yourself. Maybe try adding a count of “in for 2 and out for 4”.
And then seek more breath learning around things like full diaphragmatic breathing and other methods to strengthen the brain responses to stress. This breath rhythm is also visually matched.
But one of the wonderful things about breath as well is how it's matched and mirrored by our care recipient. So if we are really breath retentive, holding our breath and in a fear state, the mirror neurons in their brain are matching that. And so the contagion can work both ways and they can start to match and mirror us in our breath regulation and our mind regulation.
Patty
So when we're calm, we're reflecting an element of calmness that's going to be ideally reflected back to us, if not immediately, eventually.
Louise
That's right. Yeah. Calm contagion, contagious with calm.
Patty
And what else can you share with us?
Louise
Checking in with your 5 senses. So, notice several things in your environment. Notice your feet touching the ground and your body connected to the chair, if sitting. Notice the sounds in and out of the room, notice the residual taste in your mouth. Just gently lick your lips and inside of your cheeks.
This sense checking in is a very common practice that's easy to access at any time throughout the day and helps to self regulate as well.
Another great one is using up all those stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline that's pulling in the body post a stressful event, signaling back to the brain to remain in a state of alarm. We want to reduce that, so dancing, shaking, bouncing, twisting, flicking with your favourite music even for one minute, ideally longer, but even for one minute is very, very helpful.
Patty
Animals do this in the wild all the time, don't they Louise?
Louise
Yeah, they do. Yeah. Shaking. And it's a reset for the nervous system. So, we've learned it from the animal Kingdom, and we're animals, so we can apply the same principles to resetting our nervous system. Other ways you might take a brisk walk. Go for a swim, do some yoga, play your favourite sport. Just exercising regularly, of course, we know it's very good as well.
Patty
And for our carers that say, look, I can't leave my care recipient, I don't have time for this, even resetting yourself like, I call it a circuit breaker, go to another room. Even if you make a bed. Even if you shake for a minute, if you go to the balcony or out putting the clothes on the line. It’s a reset.
Louise
Yeah, moving your body in a safe way is what you need to be doing.
Patty
Cold water is also a really good thing, isn't it?
Louise
It is, yeah. We have a practice called a dive reflex where we're co regulating our heart rate variability, blood pressure and our respiration rate. It's another way to reset. So just washing the face, splashing the face with cold water while you hold your breath. So, hold that breath in while you're splashing the face. And then after you've splashed it a few times, just let the breath out fully and full.
So, yeah, really long out breath is a great release. If you enjoy the sensation, start splashing again with the cold water or hold a cold compress onto your face like a face washer that you've soaked in cold water. Some people that in the summer months even like to keep that in the fridge so that it's really cold. Hold it onto the face, hold the breath, and then let the breath out.
Patty
Louise, I've got one last question to ask you that our carers have asked me to ask you and that is when someone is yelling at you, perhaps using awful words and verbally abusing you, and you are finding it difficult not to react to that. What advice can you give our carers caring for a care recipient that can be verbally abusive or difficult to manage?
Louise
Yeah, let's give it a frame, let's give it a name. So, let's call it “facing the tiger” Facing the tiger is perceived in our brain as a threat, a real threat. But in actual fact it's a perceived threat, because this person is standing in front of us, and we want to help them get to a state of self-regulation.
So, first of all we have to find that in ourselves. Check our breath just to ensure that out breath is longer and use simple words, no adverbs or adjectives, acknowledge and validate that the person is being noticed, is being heard.
“I've noticed that you're distressed at this time. I'm going to give you a moment. I imagine it's very difficult for you and I'll be back. I'm just over here. I will be back in just a minute”.
Go away. Reset yourself. Do those lovely activations, have a sip of water and come back and see if the persons been able to down regulate a little bit in that moment. Of course, if there's violence, we want to remove ourselves further from the scene. That's not controllable. That person has to learn their own self-regulating skills.
And you can do that outside of the event. Is when you need to be doing that, not while the event is occurring. That's important to think about that you don't want to try and regulate that person while they're in an upregulated state while they're angry, distressed, or violent, you need to take safety of yourself first, seriously, and then come back and have that good conversation and learn those skills together.
Or develop a strategy in between those events of how you will manage that experience together. When it's happening and you might use signals for example, that are learned by your child or your loved one, “this is what we're going to do now, we're going to put our action plan into place now.”
When you're both in a calm state, you have those good conversations. When you're seeing the person in an up regulated state, the main aim is you stay in a self-regulated state, move away, come back if it's possible, allow that person to down regulate, they will downregulate, and certainly the more skills they learn to do that, they'll do that more efficiently.
Patty
Louise, this is wonderful. I'm gonna wrap it up with some rapid fire wrap up questions with you. Would you prefer to be invisible, or have a superpower? And if it is a superpower, what would it be?
Louise
Yeah, I'd prefer the superpower Patty. I'd really love to remove power over vulnerable people and insert active compassion into every single human being on the planet.
Patty
Oh yeah, I hope you get to have that. The world would be a much better place if you did.
Louise
Hope is an imperative in life. So yeah, always planting seeds of hope.
Patty
That’s right, yeah. What do you think a person needs to be happy?
Louise
It’s connection. Connection with the natural world, with hope as I just said, and love. In whatever form that brings as long as its safe and secure, connection is key to being happy.
Patty
Is it grammatically proper to capitalise the names of seasons?
Louise
No, it's not, I definitely learned that at school, it’s not, but I do it myself because I think seasons are important so they're important nouns, and that’s what we capitalise.
Patty
I do the same thing. I actually put that question in selfishly because I wanted validation that someone else does it, other than me.
{Louise giggles}
Patty
Louise, you are wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you for sharing your wonderful pearls of wisdom with us.
Louise
Thank you, Patty. Yeah, it's been wonderful to talk today. Thank you so much.
Patty
You’re so welcome.
If this chat with Louise was helpful for you, please like and subscribe to our podcast, but if you really want to help us ensure we get to the right listeners who need to hear our episodes most, leaving us a 5 star review ensures that the podcast algorithm a helping hand.
Louise describes herself as a lifelong learner and is excited by the consistently emerging research in her fields of study. While always learning in the present Louise believes her lived experience is equally valuable in supporting others to live their best lives.
Louise loves to be in nature, reading a book, watching a play or film, listening to her favourite music, or sharing time with her friends. Her pup Mojo is a light in her life and her absolute favourite thing in her world is time with her two adult children. If you are a carer who is listening, I urge you to ensure that you also spend a little time each day doing the things you love most, that bring you the greatest joy. Until we meet again, take good care of yourself.
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Billy:
If you are caring for a relative or a friend who has a disability, a mental health condition, a life limiting health or medical condition.
Or they are frail because they're getting older. Please contact us at Carer Gateway on 1800 422 737, or look us up on www.carergateway.gov.au
And if you are a carer, you're allowed to take time to look after yourself. You are just as important as the person you take care of.