S3E19: The Guilt Trap - Navigating Emotions and Expectations with Dyslexia

Does the guilt of not catching dyslexia earlier weigh heavy on your mind? Have you been told to simply accept the status quo and carry on? The frustration and guilt of not taking effective action to support your child's dyslexia can be overwhelming. It's time to break free from this cycle of guilt and find a path that truly supports your child's needs. Let's explore how to navigate through this together.

The key moments in this episode are:

00:00:13 - Guilt and Society Expectations 

00:01:04 - Self-awareness and Advocacy 

00:04:24 - Choosing the Right Path 

00:08:12 - The Butterfly Effect of Decision-making 

00:11:29 - Understanding Learning Differences 

00:13:25 - Finding the Right Path in Life 

00:14:41 - Trauma and Addiction 

00:17:25 - Advocating for Your Child 

00:20:35 - Trade School vs. College 

00:24:57 - Embracing Self-Awareness and Passion 

00:25:32 - Changing Paths and Self-Awareness 

00:26:10 - Sharing Personal Experiences and Financial Considerations 

00:27:18 - Avoiding Missteps and Trauma 

00:28:12 - Supporting the Sopel Foundation

Transcript:

00:00:02
Welcome back to Word Blindness, Dyslexia Exposed. This is Juliet Hahn here with my co host, Brent Sopal. How are you? It's Monday, right? It is a Monday.

00:00:13
And I. What we talked about because, you know, as. As the listeners know, we talk, and we have so many different things that come up, and we're like, okay, this can be a podcast episode, like, after we get into the kind of the. The weeds of it. And then it's like, what.

00:00:29
We can pause it, but one of the things we talk our holidays because we're recording the day after Mother's Day and kind of the guilt that certain holidays bring on and how certain people react to it, and it's not what they really want to do, but it's out of guilt that they act on it. Do you want to. Yeah, you know, and the. The guilt that, you know, with the dyslexic side of stuff is, you know, why didn't I find it earlier? Why didn't I catch it earlier?

00:01:04
Why didn't I, you know, or why am I doing it this way? Or why. Why did this happen this way? And, you know, everybody's path is their own, specifically. And who.

00:01:19
Who wrote the book of right and wrong in this world, and this is how it's supposed to go. Mm. And. And guilt is a huge. I mean, I think guilt as an emotion, you know, raising kids, being a kid at one point, Catholic guilt.

00:01:41
Don't even get me. New Pope's from Chicago. I know he went to Villanova. Do you think he is?

00:01:49
I did not think about that. So that's interesting that. That's for a whole nother thing. That was the first thing I said to Elizabeth, like, how corrupt do you think this guy is? That's so interesting.

00:02:01
Illinois, they're building the Bally's casino just got shut down because the construction company's connected to the mob. Like 250 or $2 billion project. You got shut down because they're connected to the mob, and it's in the waste management business. Welcome to Chicago. Right.

00:02:24
I mean, that just. There's. There's so many octopus arms. There's so many rabbit holes. We could jump down in all of this.

00:02:31
But I think one of the things that we want to really focus on is the. The. The guilt and how. And. And so many things how.

00:02:42
And we really went down this being like, so many people don't do what they actually internally want because of guilt, or they think, okay, this is what society wants me to do, or this is what I'm supposed to do, or this is what parents want me to do, or this is what the teachers told me to do, or this is what, you know, X, Y and Z. My grandmother told me to do. And I think there's such a. I've gotten to this conversation with a couple of my girlfriends also where they think that the society is so selfish in, in, in some aspects. And I always turn it and I'm like, okay, is it that people are self.

00:03:15
I think people are generally, you're born caring more than others. Right. There's, there's people. We talk about this with dyslexia, you know. Right.

00:03:22
Dyslexics have that empathy chip. We've seen it time and time again. There are. That are just made to care more about people. There's other people that are not made to care about, you know, people.

00:03:33
There's people that stomp it down because they don't want to care as much as they, you know, we could go into so many different directions with this, but I think one of the things that's really important and that is overlooked is that as a human race, a lot of people work on doing things because they think they're supposed to do it and then they don't lead the life that they're really supposed to do and then they're miserable people. And that's not helping anyone. Well, that's. That we talk about. You always talk about, you know, trying to advocate for yourself or, you know, kids advocating, you know, leads back to your point is you got to completely understand what you have, you know, so go back to why we always say get tested.

00:04:24
So there's understanding of what you know you have or your child has. It's. Is it Asperger's? It, what is it? Right.

00:04:30
You can't advocate correctly for yourself. You don't have that understanding. And the world says, again, who, who wrote the book, you're supposed to do it this way. That's, that's, that's not how, you know, that's not how it works. You know, for us.

00:04:46
We're not going to go down the same path as, you know, somebody who doesn't have what we have. It's, you know, it's impossible to. But you want us to, to go down that path and feel guilty about it? No. Right.

00:05:01
It's your path, is your path and you have to learn and understand yourself completely, you know, of. So you can advocate for yourself what you need and what you want in the correct, you know, the correct ways and, and, and Right. Not just with education. Right. It's not everything.

00:05:20
It's everything. And that's if you're not living kind of your true self. And, and this is where the self awareness and we talked about, we know, we all know that I love self awareness and I've become, I mean, I'm self Jesus. I don't want to be any more self aware. I feel like I've unturned everything.

00:05:37
I, I, I've unturned everything. I feel like that is something that, it's hard, right? It does, it doesn't feel good to be like, oh, O did this this way or I always thought I should be doing this because again, when you're in education, when you're in school, what is the goal of school? It's to get you to go to college, right? I mean that's everyone.

00:05:59
And now I think that, that some of that narrative has changed a little bit. But then it keeps it, there's like a big fight and tug, right? I think it depends on where you live, where you. Because we've also just passed around a couple different Instagram clips that have been really interesting to me because it's like there is that whole movement of vocations, right. It's really, I think Gary Vee actually just put something out and it's like, if you want to, if you want to be a millionaire or whatever, be a plumber, be an electrician, like you're going to be in debt, you go to school.

00:06:28
And I don't know if it was Gary Vee, but it was someone that I was like, this is so interesting. I have a couple different views on that, but go ahead, I'm going to let you jump in. No, and it's, it's working with our hands as we, as we always talk about, right. Obviously the trades is, is for us is kind of the avenue that we end up, you know, end up going down. But there's no pat like if somebody goes to a community college or somebody goes to a college or somebody goes to a trade school or somebody goes and starts a company, none of those four are wrong.

00:07:05
If that's what is right for you, you know. Exactly. And why the narrative of college, it's the biggest business, the biggest scam business. Yo. So don't, you know, we're not falling into it.

00:07:24
Nobody, you know, Harvard, look at all the stuff going on with them. They got like 50 billion in the dominance, right? It's, it's egos, you know, you got all these big donors back to my school. You know, there's so Much more that could be done to help people and help. Help the world.

00:07:43
But it starts with understanding yourself, you know, understanding what you have, and goes back to the further point of getting tested. Get tested, get the understanding of what it is. Then you can, you know, then you can create that. That path for your kid or yourself. If you don't have the understanding of yourself, of what is going on.

00:08:07
And how can you. How can you create that? Mm. And it's. It's this whole.

00:08:12
And you. You'll laugh because you always will say, I'm like unicorn. But it's that kind of butterfly effect. Like, one decision can really butterfly into a different. Like a number of different things.

00:08:22
And I think I'm using that correctly. As I said, it didn't sound correctly. But it's like the domino effect. Butterfly effect, domino effect, right? One decision could lead you down, you know, the road to the left.

00:08:32
One decision can lead you down to the road to the right. But the more you have understanding of yourself and truly know what makes you happy, because I think that's. A lot of times people also don't. They think, okay, is this going to make me the most money? Is this going to be what my parents want me to do?

00:08:47
Is this what is going to look the coolest on a resume? Or I can go to a dinner party and say, oh, yes, I did this. But what people are missing, in my opinion, so much is about what actually truly makes them happy. And if, you know, you talk about the domino effect, so everybody that you just mentioned there is on domino, like two or three domino. One, you know, is, you know, obviously you want to understand yourself, but, you know, getting tested, you know, when I talk about testing, obviously people that don't have learning disorders, you don't need, you know, you're not getting tested, but if you're struggling, you know, we can't.

00:09:26
That's part of, number one, understanding yourself. Right. You know, if you don't have the understanding of how you learn or why you learn this way or whatever, you're on Domino 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever that is. And you're never going to have one. So you're never going to have the complete understanding and the right emotions and everything that goes with it, because you still haven't done one.

00:09:50
They're all. All of them could have fallen, but you got number one. That's still standing there. And that's, you know, that's the root of it all. You know, if you don't find that route, you know, that's why we talk about, understand dyslexia or ADHD or what it is, but you can't understand something you don't know.

00:10:06
You have it or you didn't go and tested, or Asperger's. It's not a label. It's, as I always say, a road map to your life. And that's the number one. And the roadmap is important on so many things, not just how you learn in school.

00:10:23
Because I just did a seminar and I said to you, I know I've said to you, I know I'm probably dysgraphic, right? But then I listened to this and I was like, damn it. I think I used to say I'm just three. I'm three Ds out of the five. But I actually now think I'm.

00:10:40
But it's a different dysgraphia than what my. Like, what. How my brain comprehended it, right? It was always just the handwriting portion. Like, you know, where you either can't read the handwriting or it's like chicken scratch.

00:10:53
And then I look at my handwriting and I'm like, well, I guess my handwriting has really never been that good. But I can write and I can read it. It's. It's eligible, right? But then the more I was learning about it, I said, this is so interesting to me.

00:11:04
I actually think, like, my dyscalcula or dyscalculia, however you want to say it, and my dysgraphia are actually more of my. My weaknesses. Yes, I definitely am dyslexic, but I think that those two are actually what really hindered my schooling more than my dyslexia. And it's. And it was like a really interesting thing.

00:11:29
As I was thinking about it, I was like, oh, my God, this is so interesting. So interesting to me because I never would have thought those, but. And you kind of laughed. You're like, yeah, no, I. You said like three things.

00:11:40
I knew you were dysgraphic. And I was like, I know, but it's. You know, back in the day, there was not the diagnosis of those. That umbrella didn't go as far. They don't have the understanding because they still.

00:11:48
With dysgraphia and dyscalculia, there's, okay, you have it. But there's nothing that the school really does other than saying, okay, you need to use technology. But the thing that was really interesting in this was, was the technology. Because you talk about this all the time, the technology. And this woman said it, and it was the first time I've heard someone else Verbalize it.

00:12:10
Like you verbalized that. The technology actually for some dysgraphic kids and some kids in general is hindering their learning because they need to put the pen to the paper, they need to write it down to be able to comprehend it and learn. And you know, we talked about this with Penelope, how she studies and it's like I actually used to study like that in college too. When I really needed to know something, I had to write literally the textbook down on, you know, on piece of paper. And you do this all the time.

00:12:37
And so it's that roadmap to not only know, okay, these are the things that I'm good at, these are the things that I struggle in, but also it, it makes things click in our brains. And as a kid, when you can click things in their brains earlier than later, it's like they can kind of just live that roadmap and not start, you know, getting that self awareness when they're like, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, it's, it's a really interesting thing to think about as a very simple domino, the number one domino. It's like, okay, you have an understanding of this now let's just see where it can go. And then a kid's going to be so much more self aware of themselves, then they're able to make those decisions because they have the confidence. They're able to say, okay, well this actually does make me happy and this actually does not feel good.

00:13:25
And now I can go kind of down this route and that I'm meant to live. It's the, it's the, the way I'm supposed to be living life. And then you see Domino 1, you get tested, right? You know, Domino 2 is going to the school and then I'm telling you what you need. Oh, so now you're on Domino 3.

00:13:45
They all fall now dominant two standing there because they're telling you what you need and they have no clue, right? Oh, you know, I need that. Oh, you don't have it. Oh, that's what the textbooks tells you to say I need. You know, the neuropsych, is this a real neuropsych or is this a, you know, a psychological psychologist, Master's degree.

00:14:07
How many page report comes back, right? So that lone domino standing in anywhere of your life, you know, when you look back or you know, you die and look back, if there's a domo standing somewhere, you have, especially at the beginning early on Domino 1, 2 or 3 or 4, you know, those are standing yet you haven't been able to live, you know, completely. And a lot of it's trauma, right? Trauma based, addiction based. No leads.

00:14:41
Leads back from there. And if you think about this, everything that we talk about really is also just about life. It's. It's not just in the education world, even though we do focus a lot on education. But it is, as Brent just said, it helps kind of that whole rap road map for your entire life.

00:15:03
So where people say, I don't want to put labels on things, I don't want to do this. It is overwhelming. Like everything we just said is overwhelming. I know. Like, I just went through the 504 with Truman, right?

00:15:12
And I said to you, oh my God, like they're saying they're not going to take. Oh, he can get spelling taken off. He's just graphic. So he should not be tested for spelling at all. Right.

00:15:21
But it's like we, we're not going to, we're not going to take any spelling off unless the test is testing for spelling. And I was like, well, yeah, no, okay. No, you're not testing for spelling at all. Like part of you're not testing for spelling. Didn't you get first, middle or last?

00:15:39
And because I am the annoying one. Right? And we're not going to say, I know, I know what you're going to say. But this is as. It's exhausting.

00:15:47
It's exhausting to be like, oh my God, I have to double check you. I have to send the email again. I have to say this is what I want. There was four things in there and it was like, the 504 is way different than the IEP and my, like, I was like, oh, I haven't dealt with a 504 before. I've dealt with, you know, an IEP and that's much more in depth.

00:16:05
And, and, and just for a little context for the listeners, I did not do an IEP for Truman because he does do pretty well in school. He's got better grades. So it was going to be a fight that was not worth it. And if I could get some stuff in there that can then go with him to college. That was the whole, the whole.

00:16:23
Because he does, he's figured it out, but he does, you know, whether you want to say he's working harder, he's working. He's a very efficient. He knows what he needs to get done and he gets it done. He's not the kid that's staying up until five in the morning to get it done. But he's like, I know what I need to do and this is what I need to do.

00:16:39
So that's one of the things that the school psychologist came back twice and I was like, oh my God. It was almost like that the movie Call me one more time. That's. And that's what everybody can say, oh, you know, our state's the best state or this stat or that whatever. They just tried to screw you without you knowing it.

00:17:02
That's the school sky told you know, you and that's what this all, you know, you know, always comes back, you know, back to it. Our state is this or you know, they just tried to come back at you. What part of that didn't you understand? And that again, as somebody who has zero clue about us right to come. Oh, except for spell what part of this?

00:17:25
What it doesn't. A lot of parents don't catch that. Right. Because they don't have it either. Right.

00:17:30
So there they are telling me. Yeah, telling you or telling whoever that parent is what we need when they have absolutely no, no clue. And that's why, you know, I'm always coming back out. No. Right.

00:17:40
Because again they're trying to tell us. Right. You know, a 504 obviously isn't as in depth as an IEP, but you're now you're fighting even on a 504 or something. Four things. Four things.

00:17:52
Pretty simple, pretty basic that they still tried to get away with. Right. And then when I said it like first of all, I think I said in the email very nicely I use a little chat GPT to tone my tone down. And I was like saying that he does well and that these accommodations are just going to help. First of all, you don't know how hard he's working.

00:18:15
You don't know what he's going behind the scenes. So please do not say that again. And, and I forget how exactly I said it but then, okay, here are the four, four statements that you put in. This one needs to be changed. This one needs to be changed.

00:18:29
This one needs to be changed and this one needs to be changed. And it's. There's. We're going to go back to that word semantics that you've made fun of me over, over the years of using. But it was literally they them just changing and, and it changed the entire way he was going to be use the accommodations.

00:18:48
And so it was like eliminated the long and it basically eliminated the accommodations by turning about those couple words. Exactly. Right. It was like null and void. Right.

00:18:57
And I was like no. And so for the parent that's Listening that's like, ah, this just seems so hard. I'm just going to like give in and do it. Trust me, it is, it is. It's hard.

00:19:09
It is hard and it is a fight. And a lot people's personalities are not like that because they also are like, I don't understand. I mean, we've talked about this so many times and if you're like a long time listener, you're like, oh my God, here they go again. But it really is true. You're sitting in an IEP meeting, they're talking about things you don't know.

00:19:26
You're not going to ask questions because you don't want to feel dumb. And then it goes on this whole thing, but you have to fight. And so listening to these kind of things and putting it in your notes, being like, okay, that doesn't make sense. I need to ask someone because it seems like it's null and void. Well, and again, a lot of times these things, you don't get caught because you don't have it either.

00:19:44
Right? So it's very easy to look over when you don't have it. You know, we catch things that people that don't have it would never understand. So that's why everyone's like, oh, you know, you, you want to control. No, you don't understand what, you know, our day to day life.

00:19:59
So a lot of times it doesn't, it doesn't caught. Get caught, you know, and there they are again. They're finding the easiest way. They're finding this is what they're supposed to do. This is.

00:20:11
No, that's why you got to go back into the school and go, you get, you don't tell them, you don't ask them, you tell them. Yeah, and that's so important. But I do want to go back also to like kind of the, the discussion we're having on college versus not college. And it's a really interesting thing for me because there are.

00:20:35
I obviously went to college because I played sports, but I also didn't want to go into the real world. So it was like, yeah, no, I don't want to go into the real world yet. I want to go, I want to still have fun. And you know, I can use my sports to do that. Right.

00:20:48
But then I had, I had tons of loans. I don't think I've ever said this publicly. I did have tons of loans. There was five of us kids. My mom was a, you know, kindergarten teacher, my dad was a realtor.

00:20:59
But we had to pay for Our own college. So I had tons of loans. And I think Hahn Hahn, God bless his soul, when we got married, I still had my loans. And the financial person was like, okay, you need to pay these off. You guys making plenty of money.

00:21:14
And I was like, no, no, this is mine. I don't want this to be his burden. And it was like. Then I stopped working, and it was like, okay, well, let me just take this off. You're talking about trades, right?

00:21:23
They say your trades make more money than a doctor, you know, because, you know, you go to school, you know, how much money do, you know, student loans, you quote, you know, you accumulate over that, you know, over that time. Right. And now you're paying that off. So what are you making? What, that.

00:21:36
What, you know, what's that difference? Or. I'm going to go to Harvard to be a school teacher. Okay, what do you. What's.

00:21:43
What's Harvard charging you? Right? What are you paying here? Then what, you know, what do you make coming out? Where's that difference is.

00:21:49
So that's why they always say, you know, trades are obviously making, you know, making more money than most people because you're not accumulating all of that debt, that student loan debt. And they're paying a lot of money right now because college is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And the biggest business, you know, in the world, you know, obviously cost. Turn on the tv.

00:22:12
And the fights, everything going on. And. Because look, you know, the money. Look, you know, Harvard, I think, is $50 billion or something. In Dolman, they got $50 billion.

00:22:23
So just imagine what the interest they're getting every day on that. Like, why is this, like, so again, what's the right path? Can't tell you whatever the right path is for you. But you'll go in trades, they say plumbers, yo. There's barely any of them around anymore.

00:22:44
Right. Yo, it's because the schools aren't making money off you. But, you know, it's. There's no right or wrong. What works for you.

00:22:52
Yeah. You know what's good? Don't. Don't be. Be okay with whatever that path is.

00:22:57
And obviously, you can make money quicker going that way. Yeah. Because you're not paying off. You're not. You're going to work right away, right?

00:23:03
You got an apprenticeship. You're going. You're. You're starting to make money right away. I think trade school might be only two years to be Trish, I think, I don't know, could be wrong on that.

00:23:13
But, you know, going to be a doctor here, what, 12 years. I know. And, and we've talked about this, that there is a program in West Hampton which is great. It's boces, which is a trade school. But here's the other thing is, is that Montgomery and his dyslexia, he is like, we're not handy because.

00:23:31
And that is an interesting thing. So that's why it's so important to know what you, what you want and out of life and what you're good at and whatnot. Because when he first went in, I'll never forget the guiHahnce counselor was like, okay, so he's going to go the boces route. And I was like, why is he going the boces route? And they're like, oh, he doesn't do well in school.

00:23:50
So he thought that. And I was like, no. So just because you think because he's dyslexic that that means he's good with his hands and good with these things. Like again, it's these generalizations, but I remember fighting with them and then getting really pissed because I was like, well, wait a second. Now you're just like labeling and putting in a box, but not a good label.

00:24:09
It's like, okay, we're just gonna write this kid off and he's going this route. We're not going to sit here and give him the accommodations that he wants. And I remember really getting angry at them. And they're in New York, there's a couple different diplomas that you can get. A Regents diploma.

00:24:24
Yeah. And I'm not gonna even get down there. But they were like, okay. And I'm like, no, he's going to go. Just because he, just because he has like struggles in school doesn't mean that you're gonna now say, oh, this is what he's not capable of.

00:24:36
Right. You're, you're putting, you're putting him in a box because of it. And so that is like, I know a lot of parents that don't want the labels because they're afraid of that box. Right? And this is where it's like, you can have a label because then it's the roadmap and you can be the person that doesn't allow or you, you know, self advocating for yourself, allowed to be put in that box.

00:24:57
So you could be, do really well in school and say, I don't want to go to college because I want to go into trades because this is important to me and this is what I love and this is what I want to do. There's again that self awareness when you have that self awareness and you're able to kind of really tap into what gets you up out of bed, right. What makes you excited to get up out of bed and what makes you excited to do. That's what you should. And it's not because the school's telling you this.

00:25:20
It's not because this is what you're assuming. My husband, I think I told you this. Hahn's dad was. He worked for Otis Elevator forever. And Hahn in college, worked there I think in high school.

00:25:32
And his dad was like, you're going to college. But this is because this was his. That's what his dad was like, I don't want you this path. Right. And again, so Hahn was like, you know, and times have changed, right?

00:25:41
Totally back then. That's how you're going to follow my path. You're going to do, you know, so do as I do not, you know, as I, you know, do as I say I do. Right. You know, those paths change, but it comes back to, you know, that roadmap.

00:25:54
Yep. You're, you know, square peg in a round hole. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. And so the more self awareness that you can have, the more self awareness that you can share with others to help others, like if you're someone that is really self aware and that you're like, okay, this is how I got there.

00:26:10
I think it's also like important to be like to talk about your experiences. These are the things that I thought I never. My dad didn't go to college and I, he went to like a junior college and then went into the Marines. And so I remember, remember in our house it was like, if you want to go to college, we want, you know, my mom really wanted us all to go to college, but I wanted, as I said, I wanted to go to college because I wanted to continue playing sports, but because that's what I was good at. And I was like, I don't know what in the world I would do if I didn't have that.

00:26:39
And you know, you know, my kids, you know, a couple of them went to community college for a couple years, right. That transition in, obviously you found it and the cost, the first two years of college, it's just no matter if you go to Harvard, you go to Yale or you go to community college, just it's the same classes. So, you know, maybe there's, you know, final financial aspect of, of doing that. Right. You know, saving money.

00:26:59
But it's, you know, so doesn't matter what it is, you know, but you gotta be okay and you gotta understand yourself in that roadmap before you're doing the round pole and the squirrel. Right? It's. And that was me my whole life. Right.

00:27:18
And every time you put that peg in the wrong hole, you know, that's like another notch on the trauma. Right. You know, the least amount of notches, obviously, the better it is for your kid or yourself or, you know, anything more you go and keep pounding away more, it adds up. I'm gonna leave it at that. That's great.

00:27:41
So the moral of the story is be self aware and don't just follow because that's what you're told to do. Be okay with it. Yep. Well, thanks. Thanks for that.

00:27:53
Thank you guys for joining another episode of Word Blindness. Dyslexia exposed. You know what I say every single time, like rate, review and share. And also go to the sopalfoundation.org Golf event is up and you can get involved. It's going to be another, an amazing event.

00:28:12
There's an event happening this weekend. We'll, we'll talk about next week probably since we're, we are, we're recording weekly now as we are getting crazier and crazier. And then there's going to be information about the black tie event. And I shouldn't say black tie, the gala. The gala, whatever we're calling it the dinner.

00:28:32
So definitely go check that out. And you can also go and support the foundation in those kind of ways. And we will have plenty of opportunities for volunteers. All of you that have reached out. We appreciate it.

00:28:44
And again, like rate, review and share.