The following podcast is a deer media production.

Hey, this is Alexis Haines and welcome to Recovering from Reality,

where I illuminate the messy and magical path of coming home to yourself.

Whether you're on the road to recovery, seeking self-care techniques for surviving the

capitalist machine, or just need a moment to remember that you're not alone in your loneliness,

we're serving up the ultimate truth. Your challenges don't define you, how you deal with them does.

So are you ready to recover from reality?

We are so easy to extend grace to others, but not really to ourselves. And I feel like that's where

it's difficult as a parent of kids with disabilities that we have to allow ourselves to have that

grace too, whether we're having a bad day or whatever it may be, like none of us are perfect and

we're not always going to have these perfect freaking days that we somehow envision our minds

and then let ourselves down with these unrealistic expectations of children.

That was a quick clip from this week's episode with my friend Ashley. I love how social media

can bring us together. Ashley started following me a long time ago and then she eventually reached out

when I was talking about my struggles with getting Dakota diagnosed as autistic. Ashley has

two special needs kids and is just an incredible woman and has been an amazing support system

for me. As many of you guys know, I took me a long time to get Dakota properly diagnosed.

I think that that's pretty common with girls especially, but also my pediatrician just didn't

really listen to me. I had all of the like red flags, the sensory processing issues, the gross

motor delay issues, speech delay, all of these things that were coming up and while I was advocating

for her, I didn't really know what I needed you to get a proper diagnosis and Ashley was so sweet

and kind of like held my hand along the way. But being a special needs mom is certainly not easy

...