MOTFL 016 ATA 003: Raising Children with Both Visible and Invisible Disabilities

In this episode, we listen to an advocate with MomBiz Boss and a mother of children who experience developmental and mental health challenges. She speaks about being a mother of color and the experiences of raising children with both visible and invisible disabilities. Advocacy organizations discussed in the Podcast: National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health – A national family-run organization linking more than 120 chapters and state organizations focused on the issues of children and youth with emotional, behavioral, or mental health needs and their families. It was conceived in Arlington, Virginia in February, 1989 by a group of 18 people determined to make a difference in the way the system works. https://www.ffcmh.org/ Younger Years and Beyond – A local chapter of National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health that focuses on mental health and behavioral health challenges for children starting at pre-school through beyond. https://www.facebook.com/theyoungeryearsandbeyond/ Zaria’s Song – We Provide Support & Resources to Parents and Caregivers with Children Experiencing Physical, Cognitive, Behavioral and Mental Health Challenge https://ateducational.wixsite.com/zariassong   Transcription [music background] Women’s Voice: Welcome to “Ask the Advocate” where mental health advocates share their journeys to advocacy and what it has meant for their lives. “Ask the Advocate” is a Mothers on the Frontline production. Today, we will hear from Shanta, a mother of three, a clinician, and an advocate. This interview was recorded at the 2017 National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health Conference in Orlando, Florida. During this recording, you can hear noise in the background from another event in the hotel. Please don’t let these noises distract you from Shanta’s story. Dionne: Hello. Thank you very much for agreeing to do this. Would you like to introduce yourself? Teresa: Sure. Thank you very much for having me. I’m Teresa Wright Johnson, and I will say that I’m a mother first and then an advocate. I believe motherhood is very challenging as a business, so I’m kind of known as an advocate and a MOMBiz Boss, and we’ll talk about that later. But I’m a mom of children that were born with developmental challenges as well as physical challenges and children that have mental health challenges, learning disabilities, and more. And I advocate for them. Dionne: And you advocate for them. So Teresa, tell us a little bit about your advocacy journey. Teresa: So my journey began– I’m the mother of four children. I bore four children. Unfortunately– but still, fortunately, have one living child. So I had several children that died very early on when they were born. And then my other two children were also preemies. In coming– you know this is November. This is National Pre-maturity Birth Month– Awareness Month. A lot of people don’t know that. And with premature children, sometimes you have greater risk factors. And some of the risk factors that happened and that were indicated with my first child who was Zaria– and I have do so much for Zaria in her name. She was born with various disabilities, more physical and cognitive. She had cerebral palsy as well as metabolic disorders like mitochondrial syndrome. She also had seizures, low-birth weight, feeding issues, mobility issues, just so many different issues. But guess what? That did not sway me. I wanted to be a mother. And once I found out I was going to be a mother to Zaria, I started to getting training at the hospital– Dionne: Oh, wow, Teresa: — so that I could be the best advocate for her. So over the years with Zaria, I started my own support group for mothers of color called Special Treasures, because I feel that our children are not just special-needs children. They are special treasures. They are treasures that open us up, expand us, push us way beyond our comfort zones, and stuff. And so I did that with Zaria. Zaria, unfortunately, passed away. Dionne: I’m sorry. Teresa: She had a seizure at school and passed away some years ago. However, the journey of her from birth to seven years old has got me to help hundreds of thousands of women and families to different organizations: speaking, training, coaching, learning, and advocating. And I would have never done that without that journey of Zaria. So, Zaria had all those special needs. And she also opened me up to stuff that I never knew of. I knew about special needs a little bit because my Mom when I was little worked in group homes. And I didn’t even know that was a group home I was going to because back in the day, I ended up having a single-Mom that was divorced. You could go about with your Mom. But that compassion that was instilled to me as a child, it really helped me with my child with special needs. Then the special needs group and different organizations– I’ve worked with Mocha Moms, which is a national organization for women of color that put their children and their families first with children with special needs. That was my goal when I was doing things for there. But then, Zaria had a little sister named Jade that was born. And Jade was a few years younger. But when Jade was born, again, she was another premature birth. So, I have to be on bed rest, all these different things to have children. And when Jade was born, she was typical. She was just a low-weight, birth-weight baby. But then, as she started getting older, she wasn’t crawling. She took a long time to walk. I learned about a lot of different things with Zaria that helped me with Jade. And so Jade ended up being very physically functioning. But emotionally, she was the baby that never stopped crying that I took to the hospital, and she didn’t have colic. She was the baby when I would leave with people – her godmother or whatever – they would say, “Um, call me. She’s still crying.” “Ah, okay.” She was the baby banging her crib up against the wall. Not just crying to get out. She was banging it. So, this led me from the journey with Zaria ended up getting all these certifications for special needs– being a Special Needs Trainor for the Department of Development and Disabilities or Babies Can’t Wait, The Early Intervention for Georgia for Zaria. But then, transitioning to Jade was solely different, because she didn’t have developmental disabilities. I wasn’t working with IEPs anymore. That’s when I learned about the 504 Plans and all that stuff. So, me getting educated to help my children, starting off with Zaria, helped me to educate other people, but they helped me even more for Jade. And so now I have Jade, and she doesn’t mind. Jade says– you know what I can always say is that Jade experiences ADHD and some behavioral challenges but highly functioning. Has been placed in AP classes, a very smart girl. But if I wouldn’t never had the experience of Zaria and all these training and support that we get from other mothers and organizations we just don’t know, I would never know how to function or help Jade. And that’s why I’m here today at the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health Yearly Conference is because of Jade. She’s my ‘why’ for this. And so I’ve been able to advocate now for parents that have children with dual-diagnosis whether it’s developmentally or mental health. I definitely don’t want to be a therapist or anything of that nature. But I have so much training that I know that God, and whomever you want to call it, gave it to me to help my children and other people. And I just can’t imagine not sharing that. And I can’t imagine parents not understanding, once they learned how to advocate for their children, they are their child’s number one advocate, because nobody’s going to advocate for your baby – that part of you, like you. Dionne: Yes. So as a Mom advocate, what would you say if you had to talk to– and you can fill in this blank with whoever you were addressing one group– and I know you’ve addressed a lot of groups. What would you want them to know about your experience as a mother of children with mental health challenges? Teresa: Wow, so many things you want them to know. The one is that Mom– that guilt you might have, the, “So why is my child like this?” Or, “How are people going to look at my child,” and all those things. I want them to know that find the treasure in your child, because those hard days when– maybe you have a child that experiences some behaviors or disabilities and is a little bit slower, if you can have that treasure kind of in your head, those days when they don’t seem like a treasure [laughter], when they don’t seem like a treasure, you have something to refer back to because even though it may be hard the way that you have to deal with them, how they deal with you, as society looks at them, they’re your gift. And you have to find the gift that they are for you and the treasure in them. Dionne: You talked about this because– and the days that they seem like that you are just questioning the universe. Can you tell us about one of those days? And then– Teresa: Oh, I definitely can. Dionne: — what and how you worked through? Teresa: I definitely can. One, I worked through it because I have a great support system. I engaged with other mothers that may experience some of the same things, so that I have someone to vent to one that understands me. Learned that very early on with Zaria. When my friends with typical two-year-olds would talk to me about their two-year old but my two-y...