Episode 81: The Frustration of Early Onset Alzheimer’s
Heather Jean
Heather Jean is the owner of attitudes training and Co pioneer of confidence through cabaret. On her personal journey she has been through incredible experiences and many bumpy roads. She has owned a successful global training and coaching consultancy for 25 plus years, specializing in developing leadership, communication, self-awareness and interpersonal skills. In her personal journey things haven't always been easy however the skills she shares in her work and life are completely transferable to personal life, making the Upson downs easier to flow with and learn from. When she discovered cabaret and learned amazing tools in this exciting arena she learned to take up her own space and own her voice and narrative in her personal life. Her mission is to inspire and illuminate the journeys of others and to help them find true self acceptance of themselves finding greater confidence through their lives.
Social media and contact information:
These are all my links: https://yourbodyyourworldyourstage.world/linktree/
All socials are Confidence Through Cabaret except twitter which is @ybywys and clubhouse which is @heatherybywys
Podcast Transcript:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where unidentified confused and alone people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume. 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about.
In my ongoing investigation of the damage self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience?
My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole. Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them, let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Heather Jean. She has many roles in her life, daughter, mother, grandmother, sister leader, and more. We'll talk about how she struggled in her marriage with her husband who turned out to have early age. Alzheimer's. And when he passed away how she found health and healing Let's talk
Welcome Heather Jean to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. I'm so glad you're here today
Heather Jean: [00:02:03] Oh, thank you. I'm so glad I'm here today as well. I love the theme of this podcast
Damaged Parents: [00:02:08] Thank you. We were just talking a bit about struggle and you had brought up judgment. Can you go a little bit into what your thoughts were on judgment for us?
Heather Jean: [00:02:17] Yeah, I think, I'm at a stage in my life and I don't mean because of age. I mean, because of, what's happened in this last year where, a lot of us had to get quiet. We were isolated, I'm in the UK. So we've been isolated for over a year now. and that's, purgatory for me being isolated, because I had to get quiet with things.
But what it did make me aware of is how much I judge the feelings because I've spent most of my adult life avoiding the feelings, which is a red flag in itself. So I would just get busier whenever I had feelings, I'd get even busier. So when I had to get quiet, I learned that I didn't accept feeling bad.
So I felt like I always had to be happy or appear happy and that I knew intellectually that wasn't true, but when you get right down to it, you, at least for me, I was judging that feeling bad is a bad thing. You know, feeling, emotions, feeling the nature, release, feeling the need to be angry or have space or, judging our own feelings is one thing.
And then the other thing that we tend to do is compare ourselves to other people. So, you know, I would always say it could always be worse and then, it's not really about comparing ourselves to other people's stories. So one of the things that I like the least is when people say I'm strong and I'm sure we'll get into this story and share that, but people will always say, Oh, you're so strong.
And I think I don't like that because I don't know what that means because you're hearing my story. And then you're deciding i.e. judging how difficult that would be for you without even having the experience.
And so I think sometimes when we compare ourselves and we judge our own feelings and then we compare us to others, then it takes us down kind of a red herring.
It takes us down the wrong road. So I've learned this last sort of year and probably two years now that, if we just get to feel what we feel and experience will be experienced and just. Enjoy the fact that we get to do that.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:25] Yeah. Without,
Heather Jean: [00:04:27] wish we could be raised without saying, Oh, there's a bad thing.
You would avoid that. Like, don't do that because it's going to feel bad you don't want to feel bad, you know, that's crazy. It makes no sense to me.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:37] yeah. Or like when people try to save someone from their own choices, because they think they know the answer for that person. That that would be a judgment too. Right. Because that answer is not right for, or the perception of it. Isn't right.
Heather Jean: [00:04:53] And then you're sort of saying, okay, well, so this is how I want to live my life. So let me project that onto you and suggest you live that way. Which is bad enough in itself. But then on top of it, like I have self limiting beliefs of what I think I can and can't do, which limit me because I believe them.
And you have self limiting beliefs for you. So if I take your advice, I'm taking on your self-limiting beliefs as my own.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:21] Ooh, that's very interesting. Yeah.
Heather Jean: [00:05:25] Right because if you say, Oh, you could, you couldn't possibly start a business because you can, that's your limiting belief. And then if you impose that and I accept it now, I'm limited by that too, that you layer on all that stuff from all the people that you accepted advice for. You just so easily give away power that,
Damaged Parents: [00:05:43] Yeah,
Heather Jean: [00:05:44] Really shocked that I said that.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:46] No. Using the word power. I thought last night, someone said to me, grace has power and it immediately took me to the thought of giving other people, grace to be who they are. And I thought how that gives them power. So that's the connection that happened in my brain. And I thought, okay, when she says power, what I think she's saying is, the same thing that my other friend meant by grace is to allow that person to be who they are in that moment and meet them right where they're at and give them the power.
Don't take it away.
Heather Jean: [00:06:22] And there is power in difficulties and struggles and feeling bad. And, you know, I didn't cry for almost my entire adult life. I it's not because I didn't let myself, I couldn't. I just, I mean, at some level I wasn't letting myself, but I just couldn't, It didn't want to come out and that's because I had a very deep well, and I was just shoving it all down.
And then, you know, my husband passed away two years ago and everything came up and now I can't stop crying, I cry all the time, but, it's interesting how we can, kind of use ourselves as a container and avoid things that we don't want to feel, or we don't want to experience, or we don't want to see, or we don't want to try or whatever it is.
Damaged Parents: [00:07:04] Yeah, I agree. 100% with that thought. And then how you were talking about putting that on other people without realizing it, just because I have that realization, I think, Oh, they've never had that realization and I need to share that realization. And the fact of the matter is that may not be true either.
Heather Jean: [00:07:22] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, families are really good at that. Right. You know, our, parents tell us what we should and shouldn't do, which is great when we're younger, because we need some guidance. We give them a lot of power that there. So my mother always used to say, I'm really impatient.
And she was saying it with a real tone of voice. I'm like, don't be so impatient, and she didn't mean it. It was a judgment, no question, but she wants to be to improve it or change it. But what it ended up doing was becoming a, one of my, characteristics or my identity, one of the things that informs who I am.
And it's only recently that I've gone, hang on a minute. First of all, you're not giving me any credit for growth and change throughout my life and my journey. And, actually you don't get to decide that that's who I am just because I was impatient when I was 10 and I did a thing,
Damaged Parents: [00:08:06] Yeah, and it was one moment. And I was just thinking about that this morning, the memories we choose to hang on to versus not. And I'm, I still don't totally understand it. And not certain that we will ever totally understand what makes us choose one negative event over another negative event, over a positive event or another positive event, or, what it is in those moments.
And I think that just goes into how human we all are. I don't know. It's just really interesting,
Heather Jean: [00:08:36] Yeah, so, I mean, first of all, we have a negativity bias anyway, that's just kind of built into us. So that negativity bias would highlight those points. Right. That would kind of cause us to see, you know, and then you add language patterns, within your family or, from when you're younger or whatever.
So my mom would say, well, you spoiled the day. It's like, well, this one bad thing didn't make the rest of the day. Not happen. That makes no sense. And I use that pattern for quite a while when my children were young and I thought, no, that's not true. It didn't ruin the whole day. But we tend to focus on those negativity things.
And then what, we do is we make associations between those and go, Oh, that was like the last time, every time we have a day out, you know, you ruin it or whatever the thing is. And then we make all these associations, we get into this big loop. So that small thing that happened where I dropped my ice cream or whatever, then becomes, this really big colossal thing.
And then you vividly remember that day, you dropped your ice cream, cause, we're, looping onto it all kinds of other negative associations. And then it gets stronger and stronger. And, if I had my time again with me, that my children are grown up now, my youngest is 20.
So if I had my time again, I would reinforce the positive. I did do that, but I don't think I did it enough to reinforce the positive moments and sort of say, so what was good about it? What did you enjoy about it? And I did, do that practice that I did, go back through, you know, what happened today?
All the things, no judgment, just the whole, the things that happened. And then I failed the math test and then I had a nice dinner and then I visited a friend and, then I got in trouble cause it was late. And then I did this and this and this without judgment. And so that's helped a little bit about them sort of internalizing the negative, you know, so far in it's early days, but so far that a lot more of their memories seem to be positive.
Whereas I think, the language patterns that my parents used were much, or certainly my mother used were much more about focusing on the negative and how she felt about that when I did the thing. And so I think, you were where you choose to focus is where that energy will go and you'll store that.
Damaged Parents: [00:10:32] Right, right. So I'm thinking maybe you could take us through your journey of your struggle in, and give us usually asked for tips and tools at the very end. And maybe we could just go over what those are at the end. But I would really like to hear the struggle and then how you worked into that positive, not positive, but maybe a more neutral mindset versus like the positive, because I'm thinking what I'm getting from you is that it's not necessarily positive.
It's not necessarily negative. It is. And how do you get there with so many challenges?
Heather Jean: [00:11:07] Yeah. So , I didn't have a, like a difficult childhood at all. I think I was a difficult child. I was certainly programmed to believe I was a difficult child. Cause I was, very free and I, I didn't have a lot of filters and, my mother didn't appreciate that.
And so she was raised by English parents. Right. So, and I now live in England ironically. So I kind of understand that culture more about let's don't make a fuss. Stiff upper lip, all that stuff is real, like, and it's true today as well. I'm just looking outside my window. So there was a lot of you know, you're not supposed to make a lot of fuss and don't embarrass me and all those kinds of things.
So then when I grew up and got married, I was in an abusive marriage. I don't know if I told you that before. But yeah, yeah, no surprise. Yeah. So I was at an event. I was in an abusive marriage. Mostly mentally and emotionally is what has stayed with me and what I continue to process.
And I was in the middle East as an ex-pat and it was, I was the ex-pat. And so, I was fortunate because I had, company housing and, there were a lot of sort of things in place that made it easier for me to be a single parent. Cause I, after my husband eventually left and my manager to get him to leave the middle East, then I found out I was pregnant, had my first child, on my own.
And of course when you're an ex-pat year, you're with people that you really close to, but you wouldn't have chosen in the outside world. You're kind of selection. Pool is fairly small, so you're just, you just form a community. And I had no family there. So then I met what became my second husband also in the middle East later.
And, I don't think that I was aware that I had a lot of trust issues. I don't think that I was aware that I had internalized a lot of the the abuse that I had gone through. , I knew like intellectually, I would say, Oh, yes, of course, of course these things have to affect you, but I don't think I really believed that it did affect me in a deeper level.
I don't think I really made that thing may think that, Oh, I don't, need to address these things and work through them.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:11] Right. And at that time that was with the abusive husband. Were you aware that you had been in an abusive relationship? I mean,
okay.
Heather Jean: [00:13:21] yeah, yeah, Oh yeah, no question. Yeah, no question. Well, I wasn't, until I was married, that started right after the honeymoon.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:27] Okay.
Heather Jean: [00:13:28] It was like, but like whole different person.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:30] Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. And then, so there was,
Heather Jean: [00:13:34] Yeah, he was a totally different person before we got married
fully. Yeah.
And then it was almost like, okay, well, your mind now.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:40] Ah okay. That's really interesting.
Heather Jean: [00:13:44] So, my, ex mother-in-law said the same thing happened to her when she got married, but I didn't know that nobody talks about that stuff. It's like, thanks. You could have, let me know that, you know? Yeah. She later disclosed to me that that same thing had happened to her, with her husband so that, you know, my ex-husband's father.
Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:00] So you have these behaviors that you kind of picked up to protect yourself if you will, and took them to the new relationship
Heather Jean: [00:14:08] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:09] what happened, there?
Heather Jean: [00:14:10] Well, that didn't go so well. He also had trust issues, my second husband, because he had been married before and, his wife had left him, when he was, when he had two very young children, like, 18 months and, about just over three. So he also had trust issues cause she just kind of left him with the children.
So, so the two of us get together and it, just felt like healing to have, this connection. And, so you can imagine two damage pieces come together. They don't make one whole healthy piece. And you can't heal each other. I mean, that's a myth anyway, you can't heal each other, you know, you can support one another through healing, but if you're incomplete yourself, if the self limiting beliefs thing, right.
So we're imposing each of our limiting beliefs and experiences onto each other and then almost kind of accusing each other of things that actually had happened in our past.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:58] Okay, so you're upset. So something happens in the relationship and there's an argument ensues if you will. And the blame is you, you, you didn't do this.
Heather Jean: [00:15:11] Yeah. Or you meant this, you did this, but you meant that. Those kinds of there would be like, projections of all I know, that's what you really meant. So there is a difference in a relationship between needing somebody because you want them and wanting somebody because you need them. And because his wife had left and taken off and left, him with children, he wanted, our relationship his and my relationship to be that I wanted him because I need him. So i.e., I can't leave. Okay..
So, rather than saying, well, I need you because I want to be with you. I want to be here. That's what makes me need you. I want to, you know, support one another and so on. It was more, I need that from you. That's what I want because I need it. I can't leave. That's ultimately what he wanted. This is my second husband now. So we had, a child together when he had his two children that were, had been very young. I had my child, so we raised four children together. he was an excellent father, but a terrible partner because he needed that control. And he needed to know that I couldn't leave.
So there was a lot of what I now see as very low key abuse with invalidating my emotions, instead of saying, no, that's not true. And you know, I'd say I feel this way. And he said, no, you don't. And he said, everybody knows that's not true. So then I started looking around like, Oh, wow. Like, okay, obviously the whole world thinks I'm a fraud.
There was a lot of that kind of game playing, which was deliberately intended to, well, not deliberate. That's not fair. Cause I hated he can't speak to that. But seemed to deliberately intended to control me to feel like I needed to stay here. Cause I have no other option. I don't think he realized that's what he was doing. . This is a huge amount of gaslighting. So what happened was we've met in the middle East and then we all moved back to the UK. And so he had his two parents, he was an only child.
He had no other family just as two parents. And I didn't have any family in the UK at all. We were very much each other's support and I started my business. I was very busy. My business took off, it was hugely successful. I was traveling all over the place. I kind of in a way didn't notice.
And I know that sounds really stupid, but I was a busy cause I was a very involved parent. I had my business, I was very social. My kids joined rugby on the weekend. I would be there, I'm in the club. I know every, you know, so I just went to my personality, default of let's get really, really busy.
And then I don't have to notice these things. So it was at some level quite deliberate to ignore those things. And then, and I don't know where this started, but in his forties he got Alzheimer's, he had early onset. And we just couldn't get a diagnosed. In fact, it's very difficult in the UK to get it diagnosed for under someone under 65, because it's not supposed to happen.
So, there was a lot of gaslighting that went on. There was a lot of that. he, asked me to do something or, tell me, he was doing something. And then later on, I'd say what happened? And he'd say, I didn't say that. So I'll never really know how much of that was him playing games and how much of that was his dementia.
I it's impossible to separate the two because we didn't know he had dementia at the time. And I think, the reality is that he had more dementia than he realized lot younger than he realized, and we just couldn't get it diagnosed. And in the end , he got to his school, I guess he was in his fifties before we had it diagnosed.
And I went to a private drugs company to a private trial because of the national health system in the UK, wouldn't diagnose it. And I got a diagnosed that way. And he was on a drug trial and we were able to do things to improve the quality of life, but I became a carer then.
And for a long time, we haven't had a relationship. We had a partnership in terms of raising our children, but we hadn't had a partnership in terms of he and I being, having a relationship together.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:00] What was that like caring for someone who you thought had gaslighted you and then come to find out there's Alzheimer's and then you're the primary giver. How did that feel? Like I, that sounds extremely difficult to me. .
Heather Jean: [00:19:15] The main reason we didn't have relationships cause I was angry. I felt like you know, bear in mind, I've been through my first marriage. I have a pretty good idea of what gaslighting feels like. So I'm, now accusing him of that, you know? Cause we keep projecting all these things.
And it just made us very, very distant and it's so difficult. And I know, I know a lot of people who live like this, but for me, it was so difficult to live in a relationship where there isn't really a relationship and existence. You're just physically sharing the same space. And in our case, we were sharing the raising of our children, which he was exceptional at as well.
So my children in a way benefited, the only problem is they didn't get to see the role model of how a healthy relationship should work. But the resentment going on of, believing that he's gaslighting me believing that, you know, he's lying to me believing all of these things and feeling deeply lonely while I'm not alone.
And everybody in the outside world thinks that everything appears normal.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:15] Because that's how you grew up, right?
Like you
Heather Jean: [00:20:17] you grow up.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:18] okay. Okay.
Heather Jean: [00:20:19] Parents are from the generation, you stay together for the kids. And although a lot of their friends were divorced, you know, they were kind of the first generation of, divorced parents and that we'd seen in a, in a relatively normative way you know, use it, they went down the road of, you know, you stayed together for the kids and, you know, and there were lots of research that supported that.
And of course now we have a lot of research to the opposite. I have since found out that a lot of people were, have been and are in relationships where they're together, they're there, they have children, the children kind of become I'm their whole focal point and they failed to have a relationship.
Because they work on their relationship and then the children grow up and they're kind of, they're not stuck together, but the perception is that they're stuck together, you know? And I keep saying, look, either open your marriage or get a divorce because you guys are both miserable and this is not that this seems like a difficult way.
I don't say it quite that way because that's judgemental. But that's, what's going on in my mind of why are you living like this? Because they'll say I don't want to live like this. And I think, okay, so what do you need to do? So I'm much more softly about that, but that's, I mean, just because we're talking about this in terms of time, that's kind of what it's going through my mind is what are you doing?
but it is, but to answer your question directly, it is deeply lonely to be, and I'm alone now, right? So it is deeply lonely to be with somebody and be alone. And I much prefer being alone, like literally alone.
Because then I choose what I'm alone when I'm not. But that pain of just kind of like wanting to have a relationship and being, I'm going to say stuck with somebody, particularly when he got sick.
So when he got sick, I chose to stay. I could have left before he got properly sick. When we got our diagnosis, I could have left. The reality is if I chose that my children would have been responsible for looking after him. Three of them were in university at the time.
One of them was still in school, like in high school at the time. It would have meant that my second oldest son would have had to drop out of university just the way it worked. And he would have had to care for him until one of the others could come along and take over. And I thought, why would I impose that on my children?
When I'm actually capable of doing this. So I made that choice. And just coming back to the whole not judging the feelings thing, I had to remind myself every day that this is happening. This is a choice that I have. I don't like any of the choices, but I am choosing to stay and choosing to be here. And that's not a bad thing or good thing. It's just a thing is what I've chosen.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:54] Once you acknowledged that to yourself, how did that impact your feelings throughout those days and weeks and months?
Heather Jean: [00:23:02] Yeah. I mean, there are some days when I used to sit in the driveway and go, particularly when he was getting sicker and it became a continent and then I'd sit in the driveway and think, Oh, I don't want to go in the house. Not because I didn't want to face the things. It was more of a, what am I going to face like this?
You know, the not knowing was brutal. And some days it would be nothing and some days it would be a disaster, is that, but I, I think for me it was just the whole kind of, ups and downs of it all and, and dealing with that, like not knowing and, you know, not having other family around that could, you could sort of say, could I go away for the weekend?
So, you know, you take a turn or, cause my children were all off in university, at this point and we're heading off to university. So they were all in North America. They were a long way. So there was no, respite I guess is the thing. But as long as you can kind of position it, feeling like this isn't being cause really easy to go into victim now, right at that
point, right?
The poor me, I have no family for me. I have this thing poor me. You know that doesn't get you anywhere. That's when people say, Oh, you're so strong, which really annoys me, but it's kind of like, why would I put myself into that place of a victim when that can't possibly help?
Damaged Parents: [00:24:08] So you knew you chose it in, and even though you chose it, it would be really easy to go to victim. And now you're saying, going to victim wouldn't help. Can you explain that so that I have a better understanding of what you mean by going to victim doesn't help.
Heather Jean: [00:24:27] Yeah, because, so at this point I've made my choice. That's already happened and I can choose, I can change my mind any day. But the other choices are not acceptable to me. So I could process it with this is really bad. This is really hard. This is, I don't have a choice. Don't like what's happening to me, you know, I can't go out with my friends.
I can't do all these things. I could talk to myself like that. Like I can't, I can't, I can't. Right. And it means that the whole world is kind of the, I have no control, right. The whole world is coming in and I'm becoming smaller, smaller, and that's right. Really different to sort of saying, okay, but I'm choosing this and I'm doing this and here's what I can do.
And I can go , with my friends, as long as it don't go on for too long and I actually took up cabaret during that as well, which was, respite going in and doing classes and finding a new community where I felt, empowered. And, and so what I can do is look for ways where I can feel empowered.
And what I can do is find communities where I can either have a break where I, don't, I didn't find it helpful to join the carers kind of groups. I know that gives a lot of comfort for a lot of people. So what I can do is look into that. What I can do is look into communities where I get to be anonymous and I don't have to be a carer.
I can just be me. And so when you start saying what I can do and what my, choices are, then you know that you have some power or control and that's when you can be more proactive. And there are things I can't do. I can't change the prognosis of the dementia. I can't change the situation that I'm in with my family.
You know, I can't, well, , no, I wasn't willing to. I can't change , where I'm living. I can't change the past. I catch it. So let them go. Right. So I live by control the controllables.
Damaged Parents: [00:26:25] So control what you could impact and not what you couldn't impact or what you weren't willing to impact. Right. Because I heard you say I can't leave the relationship and then you've re you restated and said, well, no, that's not true. I
Heather Jean: [00:26:38] Well I could, yeah, I can choose to leave the relationship.
Damaged Parents: [00:26:42] Right.
Heather Jean: [00:26:43] I can choose to let my children look after their father, but I chose not to. So that's a can, right. I don't like that choice. I don't like either one of those choices, but I can make that choice. And then what those choices are that have been presented to me, they're not within my control, so I need to let them go.
Damaged Parents: [00:26:59] right. Instead of hanging on desperately to but I really wanted to do this. So how did you do that? How did you let it go? Cause it sounds like it was more than one time of having to let it go.
Heather Jean: [00:27:14] I, it was a daily practice. It's been a daily practice for a long time. It was a daily practice in my first marriage. It was a daily practice with , raising a family. When I was pregnant with my youngest son, , who's now 20. My second husband, we were visiting Canada and we were transiting through Seattle and he got pancreatitis and it was, something, uh, I dunno, something genital, genital.
Uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Uh, genetic, thank you. I couldn't, I knew it was a G word. so there's something genetic and he, and so he had pancreatitis and he was stuck in the States for three months and I was pregnant. So he came home about. Four weeks before I gave birth. And he was in a very bad state.
He'd been in the hospital for months and he was very, very weak and close to dying. And, we had just moved house and I had been away working. So I didn't see the house other than pictures. So I didn't really know where I'd never been to it. I didn't, I knew roughly where it was, but I didn't know how to get there.
I didn't know the address. I didn't have keys. I didn't, we and the movers put our stuff into the new house. And then my husband met me at the airport and we drove off to Canada. And then on the way home, he took sick and he couldn't return with us. And I had to return because I was in the States, my medical insurance wouldn't cover me having my baby in the States.
So, and I couldn't go back to Canada because, Canadian healthcare works quite different as well. I wasn't living there, wasn't paying into that system. So that didn't cover me either. So I had to come back to the UK, but I didn't know where I lived.
So. yeah, so my husband's on morphine and he's trying to give me information about the house.
And, I brought the children and, we found the house and got into the house, but I couldn't assemble the furniture or anything. And all the movers they'd gotten in late. So they didn't, build the beds or anything. And so we just slept on the floor cause I couldn't build them cause I was heavily pregnant and I was still working very long hours.
So, and I didn't know where their new school was. I had to find that and all these things. And I had to set all that up on my own in very bizarre circumstances. And I can remember that control the controllables happening for me then because my clients are going, I don't know how you're doing this.
Like what was going on? How are you still at work? And I was self employed, right. So I had to show up for work or not get paid and actually lose clients because you don't just not show up. So I can remember that control the controllables all that time. And I was staying up late cause Seattle's eight hours behind the UK.
So I was, trying to speak to specialists and surgeons and things, and, you know, sort of insurance insurance company wanted to bring it back. Cause it was too expensive to keep them there. And there was a big fight about whether he would die on routes and all this. So this is all going on and I'm thinking, okay, so I can't do anything about that.
I can talk to the doctors. I can talk to the insurance company. I can, you know, make it as comfortable as possible. I can find a new midwife and where my doctor is. I can, I can, I can, I can. That's all I could do because there were so many things out of my control. And I think that's when I really learned that piece.
Because I couldn't shut down cause I'm pregnant and I couldn't shut down because I have young children.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:21] Well, I mean, you could have,
Heather Jean: [00:30:23] Well, and then what, but it seems like could've what would have happened.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:27] right.
Heather Jean: [00:30:28] I don't know. I can't, understand. And I wouldn't ever judge somebody else for shutting down. I just don't understand what that means.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:37] Right. Which we were kind of talking about that earlier a little bit before we started the podcast about the judgment and stating whether or not what I think you should do is what's right for you and vice versa. I
Heather Jean: [00:30:52] Yeah. And, uh, in a weird way, I quite enjoyed having no, I had no family, so I quite enjoyed having no advice. Nobody was kind of going no, cause this is really strange. And I happened to lots of different things. I had breast cancer, everybody kept saying, well, when I had breast cancer, here's what I did.
And here's what my mother did. Actually I quite enjoy not having any advice about being pregnant or settling in because I, nobody knew me. I was completely anonymous. It was kind of nice to not have all everybody else's stories and advice and imposed, you know?
Damaged Parents: [00:31:21] yeah. We don't really think about that at least. I think being aware that we're putting advice on other people is not something we just think we're being helpful and it may actually create more stress.
Heather Jean: [00:31:34] yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because there's the control, the controllables that I live by and there's the, if it's right for you, then it's right.
that's it
Damaged Parents: [00:31:41] I bet that gave so much freedom to the people around you too
too
Heather Jean: [00:31:46] I mean, when I was pregnant and all that scene happened, it was, I didn't know anybody. Like, I literally, we'd moved to a new city, hours away from where we lived before. I didn't know anybody at all. So it wasn't even freedom for people around me because they, I, except for the midwives, I didn't, I mean, I certainly wasn't going to go to work and talk to my clients.
I was charging them. That wasn't a thing. So there was no circumstances where anybody would have given me advice, even if I wanted it, but actually it was quite nice because later when my husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I found out I had breast cancer. I had all the advice and the intentions were good and they were kind, but it did not help.
It was like, really. I didn't ask you for this advice or your horror stories.
Damaged Parents: [00:32:34] Oh, wow. So you were not just getting advice. You were also getting horror stories.
Heather Jean: [00:32:38] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So you know that, so I'm very cautious about, inserting myself into other people's lives and then giving them advice. Because look if they want my advice to ask for it,
you know, in my work I'm a training consultant. So people ask me for my advice and they pay me for it.
And that's great. That's fine. You know, I'm not saying I have to get paid for advice, but what I'm saying is, I know when my advice is welcome, but I also know when it's unwelcome and we all know when it's, not welcome or certainly we know when it hasn't been asked for, but we ignore that and we still want to tell our story or, impose that.
Damaged Parents: [00:33:15] Yeah. It's an interesting Thoughts that I'm having about what, how you said, we all know when it's not welcome. And, I've really worked hard and I know I'm not 100% at it, asking if they want what they need from me, because I really don't know what they need from me, even when I think I know if I haven't checked in with them, I don't know.
Heather Jean: [00:33:40] no. And you're hallucinating if you think you do.
Damaged Parents: [00:33:43] Or I'm just guessing based off of what's happening inside of me. Right. And what I think I might want.
Heather Jean: [00:33:50] And what I think I would want if I was in your position. Well, first of all, you're not me. And second of all, you're not in my position and you know what I mean? And how many times have you been in a situation where you think, Oh, I've judged others for being in this situation and now I'm in it and it's not what I thought or it's different because it's this, or
the judgment thing is a big yeah,
yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:34:08] And I think we all do it. I don't think I'm alone in doing that. You
know, I don't
Heather Jean: [00:34:12] not,
let us know in the comments, if you think we're alone. No don't
but you know, it's
Damaged Parents: [00:34:18] oh, I, you know, and I think that's where we're learning that empathy and learning to let people be meeting them where they're at and letting them be who they are. And. For me as a parent, that is the harder way to parent, I think, cause it would be a lot easier to tell my children exactly what I think I'd want them to do or need them to do so that they can have a successful life.
And in reality, I don't know.
Heather Jean: [00:34:44] no, no, absolutely. And actually you're learning more from them than they're learning from you anyway.
Damaged Parents: [00:34:50] sure seems like it, right? Like,
Heather Jean: [00:34:53] Yeah. Especially the ones you don't get. You're like, Oh, you have things, you process things different to me. That's a cool thing for me to learn about.
Damaged Parents: [00:35:01] yeah. Yeah. And it's so easy though, as a parent, I don't know if this happened to you, but as a parent to think , and I know I haven't spent 100% of the time nor with them all day, every day. Right. Even during COVID they're off doing different things than me. And who am I to think that they would even think the same way I'm thinking
Heather Jean: [00:35:25] Yeah, you can't.
Damaged Parents: [00:35:26] For you, how do you remind yourself of that?
Heather Jean: [00:35:29] So I have my oldest and my youngest are they think quite similar to one another. And they seem to, they seem to understand one another, even though they're 15 years apart, that they're just have a similar kind of nature and way of processing things. My second youngest one is very much like me.
He always says we're basically the same person. And I can say to him, I know what you're thinking. I know why you're thinking it. And later on, you're going to see why that might not be your only choice. I can kind of preempt some of these thinking and actually I was, I've been doing this course and I was doing some homework on Monday night and I said, Oh, I've got to finish my homework on Monday night, it's due tomorrow.
And he went, of course it is just like, he just gets it, because that's how he, for instance, and my second oldest processes entirely different, he would have everything done and ready way in advance right after it was assigned. So I'm kind of, ah, that's a really cool thing to learn, you know, and th if you can really kind of see where people are, you don't have to be the expert, you know, you just get to kind of go, what's your thinking there.
Okay. What makes you say that? Okay. So, how did you re you know, if you could kind of unpack it, you can help them see it. So it's kind of like coaching, but, it's the coaching techniques, right. Of asking questions and helping them see, rather than you always having to be the authority or the person who knows better, you are the person who gets to make the decision when they're minors, right?
You are ultimately the person. And I, I never made my children make tough decisions about what school they'd go to, or, you know, those kinds of things. I let them decide a little bit as, you know, give me what they wanted, and I did lay a lot of, values based things. For example, if they joined a team, they saw that team out till the end of the season, even if they changed their mind after a month, because they joined a team and that's a commitment that they made to others.
And, you know, those kinds of principles, I think, will be valid. But I also, what I didn't realize with my children is how much they take on what you do or don't do. Like, if you're not modeling the way you can say what you like, they won't take that lesson. So I, didn't make time for self-care for example, ever, mostly because I didn't want to feel the feelings.
Right. So if I paused and sat in a hot bath, or if I pause and took some downtime for journaling or something, I don't know what would have happened, but I didn't want to feel that way. So I, just kept really, really busy and now no surprise. They don't love self care, you know? And I'm thinking, yeah, because I never did it.
I never showed you what that meant or how to do it.
Damaged Parents: [00:37:56] Which would be really hard. So they're going to have that struggle to figure out,
Heather Jean: [00:38:01] Yeah. Now they get to figure it out and then watching me go through it. Now they're watching me go through this whole thing. like asking for help. That's a big deal. I don't like to ask for help. I'm getting so much better at it. Since I've had this downtime of 2020 but I didn't like to ask for help and I never liked to accept, help even if it was offered. So I could be struggling. I could be like, carrying really heavy bag and somebody who said, do you want some help with that? And I go, no, no, that's fine. Even though I would love some help with it, I was still struggling. It's weird it's a part of , how imposter syndrome shows up for me.
But , so I am getting a lot better at that, but, we talk openly and my father didn't. Ever except helping still loans. You know, we always go there. He was a proud man, that kind of thing, you know, it's like actually, that doesn't really explain it. And especially here in the UK, cause we were all supposed to be fine.
That's just kind of how, how the culture works, hugely generalizing here, but that is the key. And I have more of a Canadian philosophy on these things in that way, but I've been in the UK a long time now and it still does inform that whole kind of I'm supposed to be. Okay. And so not asking for help is a big deal.
And we talk really openly about that, about how I didn't parent you to do that. I wasn't parented to do that. I didn't understand it. I get it. Now I've made a major mistake and the sooner you guys learn this and get over that the better off you'll be. You have to let people in, you have to let people help you.
You have to be able to say when you're struggling, you know, and my youngest is, has had a lot of anxiety and depression during COVID and he's in, he was in Canada. He was in, in a part of Canada where we don't have any family and we're from the West coast, he was entirely on the East coast, you know, in the Atlantic provinces.
So he was very isolated and you know, we talk openly about, you have to let people help you. You have to say, I'm not okay, I'm struggling. You have to look for resources. You know, this is the back to the can-do thing. What can you do those counselors on campus? And there's these things, talk to your friends and share these things and, you know, stop feeling like you have to hold them in and be just yourself.
It's not all on you
Damaged Parents: [00:39:55] And yeah. And it sounds like he was able to do that during that, time.
Heather Jean: [00:40:00] Yeah, he, well, he wasn't for most of 2020, he hid. And he just sort of lived in like denial and just kind Oh, well, I'll do that tomorrow. I'll do that tomorrow and this huge procrastination. And then of course the anxiety, especially if you're already prone to this and for any of us, the anxiety builds up, but if you're already prone to anxiety and then you've gone into a depression, you really just can't get out of bed in the morning, then, you know, I'll try tomorrow and tomorrow, and then the longer it goes on, the more failure you feel in that feeds it, so he, he came back at Christmas.
Very last minute. Like, you know, i.e. traveled on Christmas Eve because he wasn't planning on coming and he was uncomfortably thin where he just hadn't been eating. So , he's not through it. But he's working on it, you know, and that it's part of his journey.
And this is the thing is, you asked me earlier about that, you know, kind of not judging. I am good with boundaries. I am very good with boundaries. I can help you, but it's your journey. I wasn't the one who had Alzheimer's I didn't experience that. I experienced my own journey in relation to that, but I didn't need to, you know, and that's the thing, the difference between empathy and sympathy, isn't, it is just that, you don't need to go there.
You just need to allow others to express so that you can understand, and you can do what you can do.
So it's anxiety and depression. I'm a mother. I wanted to fix it for him. Of course I do. But the reality is I can't, I mean, I could keep him home and I could make him go to therapy, but that doesn't make you, absorb it or do the work.
Damaged Parents: [00:41:31] No. Yeah, it just doesn't for
Heather Jean: [00:41:34] no,
Damaged Parents: [00:41:34] know, I could,
Heather Jean: [00:41:35] your children do their homework, right. It doesn't mean they're going to learn it.
Because they switched off mentally and they're going through the motions and you're sitting there at the table with them, making them do it. That doesn't mean they're going to learn it.
That's their journey.
Damaged Parents: [00:41:47] it is. Okay. So three tips or tools, so that people support or otherwise can learn to do what you've done and yeah, I think it's really interesting what you've done. I love that I can versus the, I can't. So
Heather Jean: [00:42:01] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:42:02] three tips or tools on how to keep T to redirect back to that way of thinking maybe.
Heather Jean: [00:42:08] Yeah. So, you know, when you get into that, I can't, and I have to, when you start hearing yourself, use that kind of language, whether that's in your head or, actually out loud. Yeah. Then stop and say, okay, so what I know you can't, but if you could, what would you do? What can you do? What is possible?
What, you know, and just, just kind of interrupt some of those I can't. I have to, whatever your rules are in , and change those change, that language pattern too. So what can you do. So what is possible? I can't, I've still in this huge mess from when my husband passed away and that's two years ago, just over two years ago.
Now I still haven't figured out all of his passwords. I still haven't found all of the financial disaster that he left me in, which was, well over 150,000 pounds. So that's, significant in us dollars. I'm still working through that. I can't do it all in, two years. It's quite ridiculous if I judge it, but I, what I can do is a little bit, each day, what I can do is not judge myself.
I can choose not to judge myself on it. What I can do is look after myself and be kind to myself. So it's, that sort of switching that back and not judging yourself for the things you can't do, let them go.
Damaged Parents: [00:43:23] That's
Heather Jean: [00:43:24] Just like you wouldn't judge others. Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:43:26] Yeah, I've really enjoyed our conversation today.
Heather, it's just been so much fun.
Heather Jean: [00:43:32] Yeah. I mean, that's the thing, that's the thing. You can have a good time or you can do hard time. So if you're doing hard time, then you need to interrupt it and control the controllables. Stop judging, stop trying to control everything. I mean, that would, okay. That's my third thing.
Okay. Stop trying to control everything. I controlled everything and had all these really tight little, I was, you know, the perfect wife and the perfect mother and the perfect business woman and the perfect all these things. And then when it ended and your labels will end, they they will, it's just, just how life works.
Well, the things you think you are, if you're defining yourself by your labels, they're going to end. They're going to change. It's not a bad thing. It's just a thing. You're not going to be a full-time mother forever. Hopefully. I mean that's best case scenario, right? Is that your full-time motherhood ends that's best case, right.
Because this is what you want. Just, it will end. I, you know, my mother died in January this year and now we're in March or just 31st of March. So I'm just over two months and it really took me a while to kind of go, I'm not a, I'm not her daughter anymore. Like I had my birthday since then we had mother's day.
Cause we had mother's day March. I had a mother's day and I was like, Oh wow. And I had to, say to myself, okay, well, so, but I'm still a mother. I still get to celebrate mother's day, even though it's not the same, you know, but that ends it's that's the right order of things. Right?
Damaged Parents: [00:44:47] Right. And I think I hear you saying that losing mom doesn't take away from the fact that you still get to celebrate over here and that, that also doesn't take away the pain of the loss. And it also doesn't in that pain doesn't also take away the joy of this celebration over here.
That those two things can exist simultaneously.
Heather Jean: [00:45:08] They can they can.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:09] Yeah.
Fantastic.
Heather Jean: [00:45:12] Yeah. So I think, it's just, it's about perspective and that is a practice like that is a daily practice, but if you want to have a good time, if you want to enjoy, then you need to let go of some of the control.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:27] Yeah. And find the joy in the midst of the struggle.
Heather Jean: [00:45:31] Happiness is a choice.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:33] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of relatively damaged by damaged parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Heather Jean about how hard it is dealing with the challenges of a dysfunctional marriage and early onset Alzheimer's. We especially liked when she pointed out that struggles are just incomparable.
To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Tik TOK. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.
