Your Child Isn't the Only One Dysregulated: Special Needs Parenting with Stacey Uhrig

Special needs parenting can keep a caregiver's nervous system on high alert long after the immediate crisis has passed. In this episode of the INCHSTONES Podcast, Sarah Kernion talks with Stacey Uhrig, founder of Flip Your Mindset, about caregiver burnout, nervous system regulation, chronic stress, and what happens to parents after years of caring for children with significant support needs. Autism families spend enormous amounts of time learning about their children. Communication. Behavior. Sensory needs. Therapies. Education. Regulation. But Sarah and Stacey turn the lens around and ask a different question: What happens to the parent? Stacey explains why parenthood can expose coping strategies and patterns that may have been operating quietly for decades. Perfectionism. People pleasing. Conflict avoidance. Caretaking. Deprioritizing yourself to meet everyone else's needs. Those adaptations may once have served a purpose. But combine them with the demands of special needs parenting, nonverbal autism, intensive caregiving, and chronic uncertainty, and caregivers can eventually feel like a shell of who they once were. Stacey introduces the idea of the “invisible backpack” we each carry: our lived experiences, the meaning we've assigned to them, what we've learned to believe about ourselves and others, and the coping strategies we've developed along the way. Sometimes we're still carrying things that no longer belong in the backpack. Sarah and Stacey explore what happens when those old patterns collide with the extraordinary demands of raising a child with disabilities—and why caregiver wellness isn't another responsibility parents should feel guilty about failing to accomplish. It's part of sustaining yourself for the long haul. They also explore parts work and polyvagal theory, including how Stacey uses these frameworks with clients to understand stress responses, anxiety, overwhelm, shutdown, perfectionism, people pleasing, and the feeling so many adults describe as: “I don't even know who I am anymore.” And then there's co-regulation. Sarah shares how raising children with profound support needs has forced her to recognize something uncomfortable but powerful: her children experience her regulation, too. The morning routine still happens. The pull-up still needs changing. Teeth still need brushing. Transitions still need navigating. A parent's internal state doesn't erase the child's disability, but it can influence the environment in which both parent and child are trying to function. Stacey describes this as an invitation to stop believing the only solution is changing the child. Sometimes the environment changes when we change how we enter it. This is not another conversation telling exhausted special needs parents to meditate, take a bath, or add one more item to their self-care checklist. It's a conversation about understanding what's happening inside you. Because caregiver burnout isn't always evidence that you're incapable of carrying your life. Sometimes it's information about how long your body has been carrying it. Learn more about Stacey Uhrig and Flip Your Mindset, including her work around nervous system regulation, parts work, trauma, and personal transformation. WEBSITE: www.flipyourmindset.com ● PODCAST: www.flipyourmindset.com/podcast ● INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/staceyuhrig ● LINKED IN: www.linkedin.com/in/staceyuhrig ● YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/@flipyourmindset ● BRAINZ MAG ARTICLES - www.brainzmagazine.com/executive-contributor/stacey-uhrig Stacey Uhrig is a Certified Trauma Care Practitioner and Rapid Transformational Therapy Practitioner, as well as the host of the Flip Your Mindset podcast. She is the creator of The Calm CodeTM, an 8-week program to help individuals heal anxiety from within, and the HURRTTM Survey, a tool to assess hidden stress and res... Chapters (00:00:00) - What Happens to the Parent's nervous system when their child has (00:01:26) - Why Do You Think You're Not Broken? (00:09:35) - How to Regulate a Special Needs Parent's Life (00:12:29) - How to Help Your Child With Autism (00:16:07) - Polyvagal Theory and Parts Work (00:22:22) - Polyvagal Theory: The Power of Anxiety (00:28:27) - On polyvagal theory