March 4, 2025 • 60 mins
ADHD, PTSD, and Autism with Randi-Lee Bowslaugh
Randi-Lee Bowslaugh is a fellow warrior out there around the issue of mental health awareness fighting the inappropriate stigma we face as folks who live with mental health challenges. Randi-Lee is an author and outspoken advocate for mental health. She has lived with depression from the age of 14 years and was eventually diagnosed with autism and PTSD as an adult. She is the host of the Write or Die Show a podcast that you can find on You tube. And of course, like so many of us, as a well-rounded person she has other sides to her. One of them is kickboxing in 2015 she was a Canadian National Champion and in 2016 she won silver in Pan-Am games. Randi-Lee is also a mother and grandmother.
Music by Shari Ulrich and Brandi Carlisle
Randi-Lee Bowslaugh is a fellow warrior out there around the issue of mental health awareness fighting the inappropriate stigma we face as folks who live with mental health challenges. Randi-Lee is an author and outspoken advocate for mental health. She has lived with depression from the age of 14 years and was eventually diagnosed with autism and PTSD as an adult. She is the host of the Write or Die Show a podcast that you can find on You tube. And of course, like so many of us, as a well-rounded person she has other sides to her. One of them is kickboxing in 2015 she was a Canadian National Champion and in 2016 she won silver in Pan-Am games. Randi-Lee is also a mother and grandmother.
Music by Shari Ulrich and Brandi Carlisle
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Vancouver co Op Radio cfr OH one
hundred point five FM. We're coming to you from the
unseated traditional territories of the Squamish, muscream and sleighwy tooth
nations around Vancouver, BC. I'm your host, Bernardine Fox, and
this is this show that dares to change how we
think about mental health. Welcome to Rethreading Madness.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Ween, have ever been further.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
No? What the hell I'm gonna do when I can't
seem fine? Away under over too?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You're listening to Rethreading Madness on Vancouver co Op Radio
cfr OH one hundred point five FM. I'm Bernandine Fox
and today I have the distinct pleasure of speaking with
Randy Lee Boslaw, who's a fellow warrior out there around
the issue of mental health awareness, fighting the inappropriate stigma
we face as folks who live with mental health challengers.
(01:04):
And she is the host of The Write or Die Show,
a podcast that you can find on YouTube. And of course,
like so many of us, as a well rounded person
that she is, she has other sides to her. One
of them is kickboxing and into twenty fifteen, she was
a Canadian national champion and in twenty sixteen, she won
silver at the Panan Games. Randy Lee is also a
(01:27):
mother and a grandmother and and and Anne. Is there
anything else you want to add to that?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Randy, Well, I'm also a mom, says some fur babies?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
How many fur babies?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
That? Then seven?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I actually I heard that the first time, and I thought, no, no, no,
I must have not hurt that.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Right Wait, I'm lying, it's eight now.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So tell me about your fur babies. Let's start there.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Yeah, so we have three dogs. One of them is
my daughter's service dog. The other one was supposed to
be a service dog, but she kind of got kicked out.
She didn't work out, so she came to us. And
the third dog, actually it's his third birthday tomorrow, which
happens happens to fall on my daughter's eighteenth birthday tomorrow,
(02:21):
eighteen wild yeah, I know. And then we have five cats.
It was four for the longest time, and weren't planning
on getting another. But there was a cat that had
kittens on my boss's farm, and so she brought them
(02:43):
into work and we were taking care of them for
weeks and weeks, and this one last cat did not
have anybody adopt her, and I said, well, we're not
sending her to a humane society. She's coming on with me.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I understand that all too well, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, I
have a zoo, yes, but it is it is a
contained zoo. There's only dogs and cats, you know. I
know people who have dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, snakes
and birds, I think, and a horse, and they if I.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Could have a horse, I would love that.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yes, me too. I haven't been on a horse since
I was a child, and you know, I come from
horse breeders, so you know, every time I see somebody
riding a horse, it just I can feel it in
my bones coming forward that I need to get on
a horse. I'm not sure if I could even ride anymore,
quite frankly, but.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
I didn't come back to you. I didn't come back
because I used to ride when I was little for
years and years, and then last year I started riding again.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Really it comes back. Yeah, So it's all there, you know,
the feeling in your knees and your feet and you know,
sitting and that rhythm you have to get with them,
and yeah, cool, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
It's like riding bike. It's there. Somewhere.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, I don't ride bikes, although I did as a child.
I have chronic fatigue now, so riding a bike is
an unnecessary use of exercise and energy. Yeah, I don't
do it. So tell me about the Rider Die Show.
How did you come up with that title? Are you
a writer?
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I am so. I have written, oh like a whole
bunch of books. I can't even keep count of them.
And so it made sense to talk to other writers
as a writer, and of course talk about mental illness,
because that is that is my jam I love to
talk about. Actually, this morning I woke up to a
(04:41):
fantastic email. My book about my brother's death by a
drug overdose one won an award at the book Fest.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Wow, that's wonderful. Congratulations Randy Lee.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
It's a great way to start the morning.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So tell us about that book.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
So it's called.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Goodbye Too Soon. And so my brother died two and
a half years ago, and it was, like I said,
a drug overdose that he was doing whatever one but
laced with fentmol So that is the the big killer
these days, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
And so can I let me just stop you there,
because of course we want to talk about drugs and
fentanyl and overdoses. I live in Vancouver, so the first
thing that comes to my mind is the downtown east
Side where you're in Canada. Where are you in Canada?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
I am close to Niagaravaults.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Okay, all right, that's that's good.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Carry you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And fentanyl is a is a problem out there as well.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Big time problem. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And there was a new kind of fentanyl. I can't
remember the name of it, but it was like a
hundred times stronger than fentanyl that's been hitting the streets.
Is that happening out there as well?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I haven't heard about it. Doesn't mean it isn't, but
I haven't heard about it yet. So I think you
guys get all this stuff first and then makes its
way to Toronto. Anda.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Had your brother been
dealing with a drug addiction for a while or at all?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Or yeah, no, for most of his life. So he started,
I want to say, in his mid teens. So he
was he was my older brother by four years, So
he started in his mid teens. And he died thirty
eight I think it was. And so it was one
(06:31):
month before his thirty eighth birthday actually, And so I was.
I was actually in line at the pool store because
it was during COVID, so we all had to be
outside and I'm standing there and my aunt called and
told me that she saw it on Facebook, and I
was like, my god, are you yeah, Like, what are
(06:52):
you talking about? Yeah? I don't know, and it had
happened before, so I'm like, it's probably fake again. Come.
I get off the phone with her. My brother's ex
girlfriend was texting me trying to get a hold of
me because she knew what had happened. Because the police
couldn't get a hold of my mom, she was at work,
so they kind of went to his next contact, which
(07:15):
was her, so ran and about way I found out.
First I was the one that got to tell my mom.
It was so hard. So I call her as she's
leaving work and I say, Mom, as soon as you
get home. My mom lives with me. As soon as
you get home, don't go out, which obviously means I
(07:36):
have something bad to tell you, which I felt bad,
but I needed her to be home. So as soon
as she got home and I got home, she's washing
the dishes. I go, Mom, comesit down. I'm like tapping
the seat, Mom, sit down, and it felt like the
longest five steps ever. She goes, I don't want to
sit down because as soon as I do that, you're
going to tell me something bad, Like yeah, yeah, I am.
(07:59):
So she sat down and I just I was like
Brandon instead, and then we just cried a whole bunch.
But so the book goes through all of that, It
goes through how I found out, how to my mom,
helping to plan the funeral, all of that stuff, and
then it goes it dives deep into what addiction is
as mental illness. What does the DSM five actually tell
(08:22):
us what it is? Because so many people go, oh,
they're just a druggie, that's an addict, right, Like that's
a choice they're making. But it's it's so much more
than that.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
It's not a choice, No, it's not. So what does
the DSM tell us? I actually don't refer to the
DSM too much, But what does the DSM tell us
is a drug addiction?
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah? So there are off the top of my head,
I want to say, there's like ten points, but basically
it's if the person is is putting the addiction whatever
it is, whether it is a drug, shopping, gambling, alcohol, smoking,
whatever it is, if they are putting that above their
(09:04):
their own safety because they need to fill that void.
So that that's kind of the gist. Obviously it goes
into much more medical terminology, right, but that's the gist
of it. And so, yeah, my brother hit all of
those points. And then it also goes in the book
(09:26):
goes into risk factors of addictions, so things like past trauma, genetics,
it's just your environment around you, that kind of thing,
So it dives into all that. And then the biggest
message that that this book has would be the guilt
(09:47):
you feel as a family member having lost somewhat. What
could I have done something more right? And there's nothing
more that we could have done, because it is work
that they have to do, just like when you have
depression or PTSD, it's work that you have to do
for yourself. But there's a lot of survivor's guilt. So
(10:10):
that's a huge theme in the book.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Even if somebody has not died, but they're in an
active phase of a drug addiction and are not doing well,
and you see them clearly not doing well and can't
do anything to change that for them, there is a
lot of guilt in that because of course we've you know,
we're raised to say, you know, to be believe that
(10:34):
if you want something, go work for it, get it done,
do it. You know, you know, but there are times
in our lives where we are literally handicapped in making
change happen in someone else's life, and so the guilt
is there as well for those who are living with
somebody in their family who is in an active phase
of drug addiction. Well, let's talk a little bit more
(10:58):
about you. You what we talked about before. I have
dealt with depression from the time you were a teenager.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yes, what was that? So at the time, I just
thought it was normal because I didn't know anything about
mental illness at all. Back then, in the late nineties
in the early two thousands, we didn't really talk about
it much, which seems crazy to me because I was like, oh,
(11:26):
that was just like a couple of years ago, But
it was a lot of years ago, so I just
figured everybody was the same. Everybody thought that they were awful,
They hated themselves, they thought that they should just not
be here anymore. I didn't know it was abnormal to
(11:46):
have those feelings about yourself until I was an adult.
So it was pretty awful going through those teenage years
when you're trying to discover You're trying to discover who
you are as a person. You're trying to make friends,
finish high school, figure out what the heck relationships are,
and meanwhile I can't. I don't even have a healthy
relationship with myself.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, and it really does impact in a profoundly restrictive
way depression, you know, And you're right, those are very
formative years. They're very important years, and if you miss it,
you can spend the rest of your adult life trying
to figure it out. It really does hold you.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Back, exactly. So, once I was in college, I went
for pre community services and then Community and Justice Services,
which has a lot of psychology in it. And then
once I finished those, I did start my bachelor's degree
in psychology, and so I took a whole bunch of
classes and went, huh, well that makes a lot more sense.
(12:48):
I actually have a mental illness. Oh maybe I should
go to therapy. And I eventually did not right away,
but eventually, which made a huge.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Difference, and you found a good therapist to work with.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Yeah, Yeah, I was lucky. I liked the very first
one that I spoke with, but I know lots of
people that you know, it takes a few tries before
you get the right one.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yes, absolutely, And of course you're here on Rethreading Madness,
where we talk a lot about therapy, abuse and exploitation
into it can not just be not the right one,
it can be really not the right one. But we
won't go there. That's a whole other topic. So the therapy,
What did you learn in therapy about depression?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
So learned a lot about when those thoughts arise, what
they look like, why I don't need to believe them.
We spent a lot of time on just reversing those
thoughts and the biggest, biggest takeaway because this was probably
a therapy session from about ten years ago, but I
(14:02):
remember it clear as day, this one because I was
going through some issues ah Waistler, and I was having
trouble with too many hours at work because my daughter
was going through her own stuff, and I was really
worried to tell my supervisor and I had known her
(14:23):
for years, my supervisor, we were friends. It was should
not have been this big thing, you know, that's saying
making a mountain out of a mill hill yeah, that
was me. And my therapist looked at me and she goes, okay,
but where's your proof? What do you mean, where's my proof?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Where's your proof about? What?
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Sorry about thinking she would yell at me about thinking
that she would think I'm not a good person, I'm
not a good worker, just any any bad thought I
was going to be yelled at. And it was where
where's the proof? Has she ever yelled at you before? No?
Does she know the same situation that's happening. Yeah, does
(15:02):
she support you with having with dealing with your daughter? Yes,
anywhere's the proof? Where's the proof that she would be
upset with you? Right? And that where's the proof? Had
stayed with me for other situations, like anytime something comes
up in my brain, is trying to tell me, oh
no this is you know, this is not for you
(15:22):
or whatever. Okay, where's my proof? Where's my proof?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
And did it work out? Did you talk to your employer?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
And yeah, oh yeah, yes it worked out. Yeah, it
worked out fine. She was very empathetic. She did not
she wasn't upset with me at all, which, after working
through that whole where's my proof? I kind of was like, Okay, yes,
I don't think she will be now, but it was.
It was really weighing down on me at first.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Why do you think we do that? Like I like
knowing how people do these things, but I also like
knowing how did we end up in that place? To
begin with that we thought some catastrophe was going to happen,
we open our mouths.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
So I think, at least for those of us with depression,
we already struggle with our brains telling us that we're awful.
Our brains are already you know, Oh nobody likes you,
Oh they're talking about you. Whatever. So when you have
to have a conversation with somebody where you can't can't
(16:32):
be a people pleaser, it just plays into the See,
I told you you were a bad person. I told
you that you weren't good enough.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, you should have kept your mouth shut, You shouldn't
have said anything, YadA YadA, Yeah exactly. You were also
living with undiagnosed autism. How did that How do you
think that impacted on your depression or your your life
as a teenager?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Uh So, even even before being a teenager, I used
to I used to have meltdowns, which they look like
temper tantrums. They're not the same thing a melt A
meltdown is more of a sensory overload issue, where a
temper tantrum is being told no and you didn't get
(17:21):
your way. And so when I was when I was
much younger, and I would have these meltdowns and I
would yelling and screaming, and my mom didn't know what
to do. My mom knew nothing about any of this stuff.
So she would she get me and throw me into
my room right, not like throw me, but you know,
get me in my room, right, and she shut the
(17:45):
door and just you know, you're going to stay in
there until you calm down. And people would like my aunts.
I remember them telling her, oh, you spoil her, and
it was this whole you're spoiling her, not hey, maybe
there's something wrong and we need to figure that out.
Especially my brother used to always bring up this time
(18:06):
at McDonald's where they had the toys on display, right,
and I didn't get I wanted to change in the toy,
got in my happy nail for the one that was
on display, and they said I couldn't and I could
not understand why, and nobody was explaining to me why.
So I had a total meltdown because I didn't understand why. Right, Like,
(18:32):
I can see it right there, I've done it before,
why aren't you doing it now? Instead of explaining, no,
this is just a display piece, they were not allowed
to give it out. They were just no, no, right,
And I'm just like confused. So I had a melt
And my brother used to always bring that up all
the time. And now I look back on it, and
(18:53):
I go, see, it wasn't because I was being a
little brat. It was because I didn't understand why. It
didn't make sense to me. If I could do it before,
and I can clearly see the item, why can't I
do it again? Right?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, As I raise a child who has autism, and
I it's only something that's come out in the last
few years, and it's taken a while for me to
get that paradigm shift that happens for folks with autism,
where it's a literal interpretation of the world as opposed
(19:31):
to all the myriad implications and nonverbal cues and connotations
and you know things and historical things we bring to
everything we say. It's very literal. So for you, as
a child, you're looking at the toy, saying I want
that one, and they're saying, no, you can't have it,
And of course it doesn't make sense. And so the
(19:52):
other thing that's true about children with autism as opposed
to an adult with autism is that the thing that
I learned was that, uh, children who have autism, maybe
some who aren't as verbal as others might have. You
know that what looks like a temper tantrum, you know,
(20:12):
being on the ground kid streaming and yelling and biting,
and you know, you know, being uncontainable. But as an
adult with a high vocabulary, that meltdown turns into language
and and can be it can it can happen through
(20:36):
an argument. You know that that if you try and
follow you, you're not going anywhere, because of course it's
the meltdown. It's not the argument itself, it's the it's
a verbal meltdown. And it took me a long time
to get that, but when I did, it just made
all the difference in the world in terms of how
I could be in this person's life and and help
(20:59):
without making things worse. And that's, of course, a parent's
job is to help and not make things worse. For sure,
we just need to take a little break. I'm sorry,
I'm going to stop you there, but yeah, you have
to go and do the PSAs and everything. But we'll
be right back.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
Folks.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
Hi, folks, this is Steve ferguson your twenty first century
schitzoid Man, and I'm the host of prog Rock Alley,
inviting you to come down and listen to our show
every week at Monday one am the very end of
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(21:33):
If you want it, I got it. Just name it,
I'll play it. We'll see you again. That's here on
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one am.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
You're listening to read Threading Madness on Vancouver cop Radio
cfr O one hundred point five FM. I'm Bernardine Fox
speaking with Randy Lee Bosla. Randy, we just finished talking
a little bit about autism. But I heard you begin
to say something, So what was it you were going
to say?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
I was just gonna say that. It's funny you bring
that up, because just a couple of weeks ago, I
had a verbal meltdown at my husband and talking a
mile a minute and yelling about I don't even remember
what because I was so overwhelmed with everything that it
just came out in lots and lots of verbal diarrhea.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Right, how did you feel afterwards? I just want to
get a sense of, you know, were you aware that
that what you had done was autism? You know, impacted
or not in the moment.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
In the moment, it just sort of happened, right, But afterwards,
I was like, I just I just am so overwhelmed.
And he's like, I know, but you can't yell at me.
I'm like, I know, but I just couldn't help it, right, Right.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
So I'm getting it that you felt a little bad.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Yeah, a little bit, because I mean I yelled at
him and he did nothing wrong. But luckily we've been
together forever now, so he kind of knows.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
I like that. I like it when people say we've
been together forever because it really does imply that you
are comfortable in your relationship and feel safe in it.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Yeah. I'm glad I never had a date as an
adult because I listened to my sister in law she
just recently got married. But I used to listen to
her talk about dating as an adult and glad I
had to miss that.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Why I hope to ask why?
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Well, because she would just talk about how hard it
was to find somebody, and then the people that she
would meet were just very strange, and I'm like, huh, well,
I didn't have to worry about it. I've been with
my husband since I was nineteen, so we're good.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, no kidding, that's wonderful. I'm glad. So you also
have a child with autism? Did I get that right?
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Yeah? Yeah, the one that is turning eighteen tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Do you have just one child or you have more
than one child?
Speaker 4 (24:14):
So we have too. My stepdaughter is twenty, and then
my stepdaughter has my grandson who's about to meet five.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Oh my god, aren't grandkids the best? Really?
Speaker 7 (24:28):
Are?
Speaker 1 (24:28):
They are the best? I read somewhere recently that somebody said,
you know, watch your parent you with your child, and
know that that's how much love they gave you. And
I thought, Wow, you're not a grandparent, that's what you're saying,
because I swear to God, those grand babies get more
love out of me than I ever managed to muster
(24:50):
up for my children, not that they weren't lovable. And
I love them and I love them thoroughly, but there's
something about having a grandkid that just pulls it out
of the ups of you that you didn't even know
existed before.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
It's so true. Well, I feel like with your with
your grand babies, you don't have to be mean either.
I'm not trying to teach him a whole bunch of
life skills, like obviously I want him to have these
life skills, but I can be more flexible with him
than I was with my girls.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Yeah, I raised my grandchild, so I'm in a funny
position around h Yeah. Not only do I love from
the depths of my being, but I'm also responsible for
making sure they have all the skills that they're supposed
to have to get into adult And I don't know
about you, but there are times that I say something
and I go did I tell you? And they go yeah,
like five times okay, making sure I covered that base anyway,
(25:45):
So what was it? Did you always know your child
had autism? Or at what point did you know this?
When did that happen?
Speaker 4 (25:53):
So she was born in O six and at that
time I had no idea anything about autism, that even
the term autism was completely foreign to me. But as
she as she got older, we noticed that she was
she was different. She was a little quirky and where like,
(26:14):
something is wrong with this child. Again, love her to bits,
but something was wrong with this child and we didn't
know what it was.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
So what were you noticing. I'm sorry to interrupt you,
but what were you noticing that was quirky?
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Yeah, so she would just as they get older, they're
supposed to play more with others, where she was like, yeah,
we're playing together, but they actually weren't. She was just
sort of playing and her friends would be playing like
near her, but not actually together, right, And I'm like, ah,
(26:50):
that's a weird way to say you're playing together when
you're not actually playing together. So, just little things like that,
trying to get her attention, if you'd walk into her room,
you'd have to like really get her attention before you
would you could start talking to her.
Speaker 8 (27:06):
And then.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Going shopping, going to more than one store was just
so overwhelming that for a long time we didn't understand
that she's really sensitive to lights and sound and like
groups of people, but we didn't know what any of
that was. We thought she was just having big old
temper tantrums because she was mad about I don't know what,
(27:29):
And so it wasn't until she was diagnosed. She didn't
get diagnosed til she was eight. Right after, they went
through a ton of other diagnoses ADHD, sensory integration disorder.
Odd like, they just instead of saying autism, they went
through everything else first.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Is that what they're supposed to do? Or is this
because she's a girl and isn't displaying autism the way
boys do.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
I think it was more that that she just wasn't
you know, she wasn't hand flapping, she wasn't rocking back.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
And fourth, I was one of those people. I, you know,
when my child, who was an adult by the time
she came to me and said, I think I have autism,
I'm thinking, what are you talking about? Like, how is
that possible? You're not doing the hand flapping and you
know all that stuff, and and you know, I didn't
necessarily handle it well because I didn't understand. It took
(28:23):
a while for me to get it and understand. And
oddly enough, she was best friends with a boy in
elementary school whose mother was an expert was the school
expert on autism and had a child with autism, and
she never picked up on it either.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
So it's so much more difficult with girls. We tend to,
I guess, hide it better. But yeah, if you don't
have that the typical signs of it, then it's really
as much later diagnosed. But the more I learn about it,
the more I go, why is it later diagnosed if
(29:04):
we would look at these social skills a little closer.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Right, Yeah, And there's things that we did, like we
would we had a pajama day in my house for her,
like she would go to school Monday to Friday, and
Sunday was always the pajama day, which meant she stayed
in her pajamas all day long, even if we had
to go out, but we tried not to go out.
It was just a nothing day so that she just
had that whole day off. So that and I always
(29:29):
said it was so that she could make it through
the next five days at school, which now when I
look back, I realized that I was intuitively recognizing that's
what she needed without necessarily having a name for it.
And we had mental health days long before it was
okay to mental health days. I got so many people
(29:50):
being mad at me, and I'm you know, you can't
do the kids have to go to school every day,
la la la, And I'm thinking they're in elementary school.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Give me great, right, there is most of the school
day is wasted on not actually learning anything. Like the
amount of learning they do is like two hours.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah if that?
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
So I mean, do you find that her friends are
also people who have autism? Does she? Is she gravitating
towards people like her?
Speaker 6 (30:28):
So?
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yes? And no. She had a handful of friends when
she was in elementary school, not too many her core
group of friends. Now she's been friends with them, probably
all through high school. I would say, but they actually
none of them actually live in Canada, so they are
(30:49):
all online friends. I know two of them do have autism.
I don't know about the other three off the top
of my head, but all of them seemed to gravitate
towards those online relationships more so I would suspect they
do all have something.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Happening around that. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh, you know, during COVID,
it was COVID was an interesting time capsule of time.
That's not quite how you would say, but it was
like we all, you know, were thrown into some of
the same pot I eer homes, trying to figure out
how to live without actually being in contact. And you know,
(31:32):
people were having to cope with you know, have not
having well, I'll just talk about me. You know, I
didn't realize how much I got from going out into
the world and interacting with people, like even the person
at the teller, you know, like I would banter back
and forth, and I'd come out feeling good because I
did that bantering even though I don't know that person.
(31:54):
I'll never know that person. I don't know their name,
but it gave me something, you know, even smiling. We
had these masks on, and I don't you know, I
know that research has shown that when you smile at somebody,
it releases dopamine in that person, right, and it releases
dopamine in you, and it releases dopamine in anybody around
(32:16):
you who saw that you smiled at that person. So
there's a lot of dopamine being triggered by a smile.
And suddenly we were masked trying to figure out how
to represent a smile without anybody being able to see
your mouth. And so I don't know about you. But
I learned how to smile with my eyes because because
(32:38):
you know, that was our whole form of expression, was
our eyes. And there's so many ways that impacted on us.
And one of the things that I noticed with my
child as well was that she did a lot of
online socializing, and you know, I was constantly coming upon
her talking to a friend group where somebody was from
(32:59):
Japan and another person from East Pakistan or yeah, you know,
I mean all these people that I met, you know
that over time I would come in and they'd say, oh, hi, Nana,
I'm Nana, So hi Nana. You know. So it was
a very interesting time. And I've also noticed that as
we've come out of COVID that there are people who
(33:19):
are still lingering in that place of social isolation because
they were actually okay with it, and it was, you know,
they had the social acceptance to to you know, become
a hermit and trying to figure out how now to
come back into the world.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
So it was that's what I was going to say.
I was very much okay with COVID. I I am
a social hermit. I have like one really good friend
that comes over every so often and we hang out
but honestly, my my social is is my husband, my kids.
(34:00):
I don't care so much for being super social.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Right, and you have a podcast that goes out every week,
I think.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
I think, yes, it does. But social online is more
manageable because there's it's one on one and it's you know,
I can control the lights, I could control the volume,
So I think that has a lot to do with
it too, Whereas when you're out and there's just there's
so many people and so many noises and it gets
(34:32):
to be overwhelming. Like even I love going to musicals,
and I feel bad sometimes because everyone's clapping and I'm like,
I'm really enjoying it, but instead of clapping, I'm covering
my ears because it's so loud.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Right, Yes, and most people don't understand that some of
us here bigger, louder than other people do. And certainly
that's one of those things with autism. It's true. Do
you have those little loopy things that you can put
in your ears to tone it down?
Speaker 4 (35:09):
I haven't, but they've been coming up on my Facebook
a lot, so I'm kind of wondering.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
My kid uses them and swears by it, so just
so you know, it doesn't it doesn't block the sound,
It just it just tones it down so that you
can cope a little bit better with Really, I can't
imagine what it's like having the world blare at you
all day long. It would be too hard for me.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
So so I always wondered about those. So that's good
to know somebody.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yes, Yeah, they're they're easy to get, easy to find.
And I know they're important to her because she has
not lost them and she's had them. So wow, all right, Yeah, yeah,
my kid was you know the one you know when
you walk into a classroom and the teacher says, can
all the kids, you know, take all their clothing out
of this big pile of stuff that's been got right here?
(36:02):
You pick up your kids coats and shoes and whatever,
and the pile is reduced down to practically nothing. So
that was yeah kid. So yeah, So how else has
for you as a parent having autism raising a child
with autism? Does that give you a better understanding of them?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Or?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
I mean, and that seems obvious just to ask that question, but.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
It does, but it doesn't, right, Like, so it's an
obvious question. Had I known I had autism prior to
my child having it, but I wasn't diagnosed until after
she was, so there was all of this learning about it.
And then I would I would go, well, you know,
she's just like her mom. She's fine, She's just like
So that's what took me so long to kind of
(36:47):
recognize it. I had to do a lot of research
because it was just well, she's fine, she's normal, she's
just like her mom. But it turns out I'm not normal.
So I mean, normal is a little overrated. But you
know what I mean, like, I'm not tip what they're
saying is typical. But because she was just like me,
I thought nothing of it. But it wasn't until my
(37:08):
husband started pointing things out, like no, hun, you don't
need to wiggle your toes every second of every day.
And I'm like, like, but what are you talking about.
You're not doing it right now. He's like, no, I'm
just sitting still. I'm like, but that's not a thing.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
How can you handle sitting still? You feel like you're
going to die?
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Yeah, And so it was just little things like that
that I just accepted as that's just part of my life.
That's so everyone must be like that. And then it
was you know, he would be like, no, hun that
that's not a thing. And I'm like, oh, so when
when my daughter was diagnosed and it was a couple
of years after that, and I come out of my room,
(37:51):
be in my silly self, and she goes, Mom, FI
have autism, so do you? And she just went back
to watching TV, like just said that one thing. I'm like, uh,
you know what, guys, probably true?
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Right, all right, we just need to take a little break,
Randy Lee, but we'll be right back.
Speaker 9 (38:06):
Fox here, turn you up. Qui get yuons queen snah Hi, everybody.
My name is Quigate Yuwon's I'm a member of the
Squamish nation and the yagolanis klan of the Hyda nation.
You're listening to co Op Radio cfr O one hundred
point five FM. We live, work play and broadcast from
the traditional, ancestral and unseeded territories of the Musquiham, Squamish,
(38:29):
and slave Tooth nations.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
All of these lines it draws my fame.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Tell you the story of.
Speaker 6 (38:50):
Solomon is.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Then a so but this story stn'd mean and.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
They find when you've got no one to sell them.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
So it's true. I was made for you.
Speaker 8 (39:24):
I clumb, the CRN, the.
Speaker 7 (39:27):
Mountains and size.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
So I Chu.
Speaker 8 (39:33):
Said across of it the baby all.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
I was blood broch you may red Realia Tucks.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
He are following you.
Speaker 7 (40:06):
Oh you see the smile.
Speaker 6 (40:30):
It's all my mom.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
It's odd noor In Donong and all of my brands
things that I'm blessed. They don't know my it isn't
man No, don't know really own and they don't know.
Speaker 7 (40:59):
What one look you to.
Speaker 6 (41:05):
I was caught.
Speaker 8 (41:08):
You who are.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Dad star Smon Stock?
Speaker 7 (41:25):
Is at all this stock.
Speaker 6 (41:40):
You Solomon s s.
Speaker 8 (41:49):
I t you.
Speaker 7 (41:54):
All soon.
Speaker 6 (42:05):
Voy.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
You're listening to be Threading Madness on Vancouver called Radio
c FR one hundred point five f M. I'm Bernandine's
Fox talking with Randy Lee Bosla about all things from
a person who has their own podcast about Writer Die,
where she interviews writers about mental health challenges but comes
(42:32):
to life with her own challenges. And Randy Lee, we've
been talking about depression and autism, but you also mentioned
that you have PTSD, and so I was hoping we
could talk a little bit about that. What does PTSD
mean in your life? What is it for you?
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Yeah, So for those who don't know what it is.
It's post traumatic stress disorder, and I would be defined
as having the complex kind because it's a series of
incidents that led up to it, So it's not just
one thing that happened to bring it out. It was
a series of things. So it was about two years
(43:08):
ago that my therapist finally said, yeah, I think I
think this is what you have, and then we worked
through a pretty large trauma book that did a lot
of help. But it started as a teenager, as most
things do, so my mom had married somebody who ended
(43:29):
up being an alcoholic, and at that time, my brother
was also starting his drug addiction and he was in
and out of juvie and just being a terror all
on his own. And then with having my ex stepfather
be you didn't know what you were going to get.
(43:51):
You would get home and you wouldn't know what you
were walking into. So all of that for years just
kind of combined up and culminated in this complex PTSD
where I would get triggered by somebody just even raising
their voice a little bit. That that was probably the
(44:13):
biggest trigger, was the raised voice, because that always meant
that something bad was about to happen, that something might
something might get broken. That's you know, the worst things
were going to happen.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
When you say broken, I'm sorry, I just want to
broken is like you know you you you know you
drop a plate. There's a difference between broken and some
a plate being thrown. So how did those things get broken?
Speaker 4 (44:43):
So he yeah, he would he would break them, he
would throw.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So he would be angry and or frustrated or.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
Okay, yeah, And my mom would always show me upstairs,
so that was part of part of the the symptoms
as well. So she would always shoot me upstairs. But
I could still hear everything. I could hear all the screaming,
all the yelling, but I was trapped in my room basically.
So that always led me in the situations where I
(45:13):
would be triggered to then hide away and become as
small as I possibly could, as quiet as I possibly could,
and just do whatever I needed to do to survive
that situation, which, in say a work environment is not
good because your manager is not usually not trying to
(45:34):
get you to hide away. They're usually trying to solve
a problem. But being triggered in that way led me
to just shut up and be still and quiet and small,
and then say, with my husband, there would be times that,
I mean, we don't get into too big of fights,
but he would be upset at something. So for instance,
(45:57):
when we first got our puppy, he got downstairs and
broke my husband's brand new TV.
Speaker 7 (46:05):
Oh no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
How big puppy.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
He was, Well, the TV was not sturdy, it was
it was not in a good position. It's yeah, it
was a whole it was a whole bunch of different factors.
But he knocked it over, not being knocked it over,
from being rambunctious. So rightfully, so my husband was mad.
So he was yelling not at me, not at the puppy,
(46:34):
just at the situation, right, you know, when you get
so frustrated that you're just what the heck is going on?
Speaker 8 (46:39):
Why did it?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Ah? Right?
Speaker 6 (46:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (46:41):
Still of course me in back being triggered. I was quiet.
I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what
to say. I was I was scared, even though I'm
not scared of my husband. I'm always not gonna hurt me,
but I was scared. I was put back into that
into that place of being a teenager. And then he
(47:02):
would go, what are you scared of me? Like what's
going on? And I'm like and I couldn't answer him.
Now now I'm like, I'm shut It's fun. But yeah,
those moments, and then he would be like, I'm not
trying to scare you, like, what is going on? What
is happening because he didn't He didn't know either, So
it was just things like that that would trigger The
(47:25):
most would be that. And then if I was on
the phone with a customer or client at work, and
they would if they started getting upset about something. Again,
I took it to mean that you were upset at me,
not at the situation, but you're upset at me, and
then what can I do to get out of this situation.
It's a very very fight or flight came into play
(47:47):
a lot, and it just it wasn't good for.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Relationships, no, no, But it is a very clear example
of how you know, your mother was teaching you how
to stay safe child, which you incorporated in yourself, which
all children do when we you know, even when adults
teach us ridiculous things about how to how to cope,
(48:11):
we still incorporate them. But you know, kudos to your mom.
She was teaching you how to stay safe in that
situation and you you know, but when you take that
thing that you learned as a child to stay safe
and apply it to adult life, it rarely, rarely is
a good way of doing it when it comes out
(48:32):
of trauma, so exactly, and that's what you're talking about.
So what did you learn to do instead?
Speaker 4 (48:39):
So I learned to identify, identify the triggers, and then
we worked backwards so once we could identify the triggers
and identify the the like words that my brain would
tell me. So for instance, as I'm getting as somebody
is yelling and I'm going, okay, I did something, I
(49:00):
am to blame, and so breaking those down to the
very tiny parts of it. As people are allowed to
be upset, right, that doesn't mean you did something wrong.
Why could they maybe be upset? What could you do
if you do need to remove yourself from the situation
without blaming yourself, without taking in the guilt, and then
(49:23):
working through emotions and identifying various emotions Like it sounds
really silly, but I couldn't identify my emotions other than happy, sad, angry,
like the basis I.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Am basics, there's enough one I am wrong, and I
know we don't necessarily call that an emotion because it
never comes up on the feeling chart, but I would
call it that any emotion that I am wrong. So yeah, no,
I get it. Cool.
Speaker 4 (49:54):
Yeah, so we did a lot, a lot on that
and then just just taking it apart and placing this
sounds weird, but placing blame where it belonged. So in
a situation, maybe maybe I have only five percent of
the blame, but somebody else has fifty percent of the
blame and this other person has forty five percent of
the blame. So it's not that you need to feel
(50:15):
guilty or that you have no part in a situation.
Sometimes you have a part, it's a smaller part and
other and you need to recognize that every your actions
or somebody else's actions, everything has consequences, and it's not
as cut and dry as I did something.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
Wrong right exactly And are you able now to do
that in the moment that it's happening, or is this
something that you need to be able to remove yourself
from the situation and do it and then be able.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
To come back And yeah, it depends on the situation.
I definitely there are time I'm getting better at doing
it in the moment, because this was a few years
ago I learned it, so I'm definitely getting better. But
when it's a really big excuse me, when it's a
really big situation and I can't, and then, of course,
you know it overwhelmed is also in there. You know,
(51:07):
if there's too many people or there's too noisy, and
like there's just too much, right, then I definitely can't.
Then I have to kind of think over it later.
But if it's if it's like at home and it's
just you know, me and my kid, or me and
my husband, whatever, and it's a small kind of contained situation,
it is a lot easier to work through it in
(51:27):
the moment.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Do you think that having autism or depression how does
that impact on how you developed or experience PTSD? And
I don't is that a clear question.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
I think it's clear, but I don't think I have
a clear answer because since since I have nothing to
compare it to without having the depression or autism, I
can't give a clear answer. But what I will say
is that how I was just saying, the situation if
there's too many people, like the overwhelmed part is there, right,
(52:05):
So if I didn't have autism, that part might have
been been removed and then I could work through it
in those kind of more stressful situations. But because the
overwhelmed also starts in, the sensory overload starts in, it
does make it more difficult. And of course, if I
in that situation where I'm starting to blame myself, then
(52:30):
the depression kicks up and loves to say, yeah, that's right,
you are wrong, right you and you totally are any wrong.
So I definitely think they are very intermingled. But I
don't have you know, I don't have a control group
to really Yeah, I don't know, but.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
I don't know either. I don't know, and maybe it
doesn't matter. Maybe all that matters is that we understand
ourselves and that we move through and you know, as
we're moving through and learning skills, that our life gets better,
the quality of what we experience in our relationships gets better.
Maybe that's all that matters. Yeah, yeah, So tell me
(53:12):
about Write or Die.
Speaker 4 (53:14):
Yes, So I started at about three years ago. We
have over two hundred episodes. They do run about forty
five minutes an hour. I don't ever cut people off.
That's the joy of being on YouTube as opposed to
the radio, and I talked to people from all across
the world. I've gone as far as, you know, like Australia,
(53:35):
like literally the other side of the world. So it's
pretty cool, and they come on they talk about their
own mental health journey. Just last week, I talked to
somebody about anarexia, which was pretty cool because that one
doesn't come up as often. So depression, anxiety PTSD, those
are probably the three biggest and addiction. But I've had
(54:00):
I've had people come on and talk about schizophrenia, autism.
I know it doesn't follow mental health, but autism ADHD.
I'm not going to stay no to them, so we
talking about that and it's really it's so interesting that
even though we span the world the we're so common
(54:21):
in what we are sharing when it comes to mental
health and mental illness and what we're trying to do
and coping strategies are the same. Oh. So it's it's
really cool to hear all the different stories and share
different tips because there's things that I had never thought
of before, and so people are talking about I'm like, huh,
(54:43):
very interesting, all right, So it's really cool. We do
it every Wednesday, morning, and I started doing them live. Yes,
this year we started going live. So there are sometimes
it is still recorded if I have se the doctor's
appointment or something, so I have to I have to
do it prerecorded, but I do try to do them
(55:05):
live more often than not.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
And what do you find is the difference because we're
pre recorded here? What do you find is the difference
between being pre recorded and live other than the mistakes
and the you know, the hiccups right, coughing and and
saying the words wrong.
Speaker 4 (55:21):
Exactly, and then then I just make fun of myself
because it's usually me that does it, so he gets
a full personality of it.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I'm sure that's lovely because you have a lovely personality
round me.
Speaker 4 (55:34):
Thank you. Yeah, I think I think it just grants
the show a little bit more authenticity that way. But
it's also nice because well, I don't have to do
any edits after because it is what it is. You're
getting the whole thing. But people can now interact right away.
They can ask questions as we're going, Oh yes, that's
(55:55):
really cool.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Yeah, yeah, that is cool. That is that is very cool.
Have an actual interaction with your audience live. That's always wonderful.
You also have several books where can people find out
more information about you?
Speaker 4 (56:12):
So my website is RBI Writing dot c A. All
of my books are on Amazon, and of course the
show we were talking about, the Right or Die Show,
it's on YouTube, but it's also on on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
all those and then I'm on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, just
RB writing or Randy Leboslaw.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
So ours and Raymond Bias and Bobby Writing as in
writing a book dot com and they can find you there.
That's great. Thank you Randy for coming and chatting with us.
It's thank you for having me animated chat Yeah lots,
Thank you so much and we'll be right back, folks.
Speaker 10 (56:55):
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(57:18):
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Speaker 1 (57:39):
And that's our show. My thanks to Randy Lee Boselaw
for coming and chatting with me about her Rite or
Die show that you can find on YouTube, and about
autism and ADHD and PTSD. It was a lively conversation
I really enjoyed. My thanks also to Sherry Alrika and
Randy Carlisle for the gift of their music. As always,
(58:00):
our thanks goes out to you for joining us today.
Stay safe out there. You've just listened to Rethreading Madness,
where we dare to change how we think about mental health.
We air live on Vancouver co Op Radio CFRI one
hundred point five FM every Tuesday at five pm or
online at co Opradio dot org. If you have questions
(58:21):
or feedback about this program, I want to share your
story or have something to say to us, we want
to hear from you. You can reach us by email
Rethreading Madness at co Opradio dot org. This is Bernardine Fox.
We'll be back next week.
Speaker 3 (58:36):
Until then, we have ever been further Do what the
hell I'm gonna do when I can't see fine? My
way under over too, just when I'm ready give up
(59:01):
the they are when we turn out the lights and
it's sorry.
Speaker 7 (59:09):
It's all right. Don't you really be alright? Why don't
I always.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
Bel but when you're telling me everything's gonna be out right? Yeah,
Why don't I wonder how you know?
Speaker 7 (59:38):
Surely you don't have all of the facts. You could be.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Just making it up.
Speaker 3 (59:48):
Why don't I ever think of that? It's some kind
imagine in the words.
Speaker 7 (59:56):
That you read
Speaker 4 (59:58):
Saying me
You're listening to Vancouver co Op Radio cfr OH one
hundred point five FM. We're coming to you from the
unseated traditional territories of the Squamish, muscream and sleighwy tooth
nations around Vancouver, BC. I'm your host, Bernardine Fox, and
this is this show that dares to change how we
think about mental health. Welcome to Rethreading Madness.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Ween, have ever been further.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
No? What the hell I'm gonna do when I can't
seem fine? Away under over too?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You're listening to Rethreading Madness on Vancouver co Op Radio
cfr OH one hundred point five FM. I'm Bernandine Fox
and today I have the distinct pleasure of speaking with
Randy Lee Boslaw, who's a fellow warrior out there around
the issue of mental health awareness, fighting the inappropriate stigma
we face as folks who live with mental health challengers.
(01:04):
And she is the host of The Write or Die Show,
a podcast that you can find on YouTube. And of course,
like so many of us, as a well rounded person
that she is, she has other sides to her. One
of them is kickboxing and into twenty fifteen, she was
a Canadian national champion and in twenty sixteen, she won
silver at the Panan Games. Randy Lee is also a
(01:27):
mother and a grandmother and and and Anne. Is there
anything else you want to add to that?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Randy, Well, I'm also a mom, says some fur babies?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
How many fur babies?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
That? Then seven?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I actually I heard that the first time, and I thought, no, no, no,
I must have not hurt that.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Right Wait, I'm lying, it's eight now.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So tell me about your fur babies. Let's start there.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Yeah, so we have three dogs. One of them is
my daughter's service dog. The other one was supposed to
be a service dog, but she kind of got kicked out.
She didn't work out, so she came to us. And
the third dog, actually it's his third birthday tomorrow, which
happens happens to fall on my daughter's eighteenth birthday tomorrow,
(02:21):
eighteen wild yeah, I know. And then we have five cats.
It was four for the longest time, and weren't planning
on getting another. But there was a cat that had
kittens on my boss's farm, and so she brought them
(02:43):
into work and we were taking care of them for
weeks and weeks, and this one last cat did not
have anybody adopt her, and I said, well, we're not
sending her to a humane society. She's coming on with me.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I understand that all too well, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, I
have a zoo, yes, but it is it is a
contained zoo. There's only dogs and cats, you know. I
know people who have dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, snakes
and birds, I think, and a horse, and they if I.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Could have a horse, I would love that.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yes, me too. I haven't been on a horse since
I was a child, and you know, I come from
horse breeders, so you know, every time I see somebody
riding a horse, it just I can feel it in
my bones coming forward that I need to get on
a horse. I'm not sure if I could even ride anymore,
quite frankly, but.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
I didn't come back to you. I didn't come back
because I used to ride when I was little for
years and years, and then last year I started riding again.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Really it comes back. Yeah, So it's all there, you know,
the feeling in your knees and your feet and you know,
sitting and that rhythm you have to get with them,
and yeah, cool, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
It's like riding bike. It's there. Somewhere.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, I don't ride bikes, although I did as a child.
I have chronic fatigue now, so riding a bike is
an unnecessary use of exercise and energy. Yeah, I don't
do it. So tell me about the Rider Die Show.
How did you come up with that title? Are you
a writer?
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I am so. I have written, oh like a whole
bunch of books. I can't even keep count of them.
And so it made sense to talk to other writers
as a writer, and of course talk about mental illness,
because that is that is my jam I love to
talk about. Actually, this morning I woke up to a
(04:41):
fantastic email. My book about my brother's death by a
drug overdose one won an award at the book Fest.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Wow, that's wonderful. Congratulations Randy Lee.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
It's a great way to start the morning.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So tell us about that book.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
So it's called.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Goodbye Too Soon. And so my brother died two and
a half years ago, and it was, like I said,
a drug overdose that he was doing whatever one but
laced with fentmol So that is the the big killer
these days, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
And so can I let me just stop you there,
because of course we want to talk about drugs and
fentanyl and overdoses. I live in Vancouver, so the first
thing that comes to my mind is the downtown east
Side where you're in Canada. Where are you in Canada?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
I am close to Niagaravaults.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Okay, all right, that's that's good.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Carry you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And fentanyl is a is a problem out there as well.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Big time problem. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And there was a new kind of fentanyl. I can't
remember the name of it, but it was like a
hundred times stronger than fentanyl that's been hitting the streets.
Is that happening out there as well?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I haven't heard about it. Doesn't mean it isn't, but
I haven't heard about it yet. So I think you
guys get all this stuff first and then makes its
way to Toronto. Anda.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Had your brother been
dealing with a drug addiction for a while or at all?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Or yeah, no, for most of his life. So he started,
I want to say, in his mid teens. So he
was he was my older brother by four years, So
he started in his mid teens. And he died thirty
eight I think it was. And so it was one
(06:31):
month before his thirty eighth birthday actually, And so I was.
I was actually in line at the pool store because
it was during COVID, so we all had to be
outside and I'm standing there and my aunt called and
told me that she saw it on Facebook, and I
was like, my god, are you yeah, Like, what are
(06:52):
you talking about? Yeah? I don't know, and it had
happened before, so I'm like, it's probably fake again. Come.
I get off the phone with her. My brother's ex
girlfriend was texting me trying to get a hold of
me because she knew what had happened. Because the police
couldn't get a hold of my mom, she was at work,
so they kind of went to his next contact, which
(07:15):
was her, so ran and about way I found out.
First I was the one that got to tell my mom.
It was so hard. So I call her as she's
leaving work and I say, Mom, as soon as you
get home. My mom lives with me. As soon as
you get home, don't go out, which obviously means I
(07:36):
have something bad to tell you, which I felt bad,
but I needed her to be home. So as soon
as she got home and I got home, she's washing
the dishes. I go, Mom, comesit down. I'm like tapping
the seat, Mom, sit down, and it felt like the
longest five steps ever. She goes, I don't want to
sit down because as soon as I do that, you're
going to tell me something bad, Like yeah, yeah, I am.
(07:59):
So she sat down and I just I was like
Brandon instead, and then we just cried a whole bunch.
But so the book goes through all of that, It
goes through how I found out, how to my mom,
helping to plan the funeral, all of that stuff, and
then it goes it dives deep into what addiction is
as mental illness. What does the DSM five actually tell
(08:22):
us what it is? Because so many people go, oh,
they're just a druggie, that's an addict, right, Like that's
a choice they're making. But it's it's so much more
than that.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
It's not a choice, No, it's not. So what does
the DSM tell us? I actually don't refer to the
DSM too much, But what does the DSM tell us
is a drug addiction?
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah? So there are off the top of my head,
I want to say, there's like ten points, but basically
it's if the person is is putting the addiction whatever
it is, whether it is a drug, shopping, gambling, alcohol, smoking,
whatever it is, if they are putting that above their
(09:04):
their own safety because they need to fill that void.
So that that's kind of the gist. Obviously it goes
into much more medical terminology, right, but that's the gist
of it. And so, yeah, my brother hit all of
those points. And then it also goes in the book
(09:26):
goes into risk factors of addictions, so things like past trauma, genetics,
it's just your environment around you, that kind of thing,
So it dives into all that. And then the biggest
message that that this book has would be the guilt
(09:47):
you feel as a family member having lost somewhat. What
could I have done something more right? And there's nothing
more that we could have done, because it is work
that they have to do, just like when you have
depression or PTSD, it's work that you have to do
for yourself. But there's a lot of survivor's guilt. So
(10:10):
that's a huge theme in the book.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Even if somebody has not died, but they're in an
active phase of a drug addiction and are not doing well,
and you see them clearly not doing well and can't
do anything to change that for them, there is a
lot of guilt in that because of course we've you know,
we're raised to say, you know, to be believe that
(10:34):
if you want something, go work for it, get it done,
do it. You know, you know, but there are times
in our lives where we are literally handicapped in making
change happen in someone else's life, and so the guilt
is there as well for those who are living with
somebody in their family who is in an active phase
of drug addiction. Well, let's talk a little bit more
(10:58):
about you. You what we talked about before. I have
dealt with depression from the time you were a teenager.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yes, what was that? So at the time, I just
thought it was normal because I didn't know anything about
mental illness at all. Back then, in the late nineties
in the early two thousands, we didn't really talk about
it much, which seems crazy to me because I was like, oh,
(11:26):
that was just like a couple of years ago, But
it was a lot of years ago, so I just
figured everybody was the same. Everybody thought that they were awful,
They hated themselves, they thought that they should just not
be here anymore. I didn't know it was abnormal to
(11:46):
have those feelings about yourself until I was an adult.
So it was pretty awful going through those teenage years
when you're trying to discover You're trying to discover who
you are as a person. You're trying to make friends,
finish high school, figure out what the heck relationships are,
and meanwhile I can't. I don't even have a healthy
relationship with myself.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, and it really does impact in a profoundly restrictive
way depression, you know, And you're right, those are very
formative years. They're very important years, and if you miss it,
you can spend the rest of your adult life trying
to figure it out. It really does hold you.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Back, exactly. So, once I was in college, I went
for pre community services and then Community and Justice Services,
which has a lot of psychology in it. And then
once I finished those, I did start my bachelor's degree
in psychology, and so I took a whole bunch of
classes and went, huh, well that makes a lot more sense.
(12:48):
I actually have a mental illness. Oh maybe I should
go to therapy. And I eventually did not right away,
but eventually, which made a huge.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Difference, and you found a good therapist to work with.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Yeah, Yeah, I was lucky. I liked the very first
one that I spoke with, but I know lots of
people that you know, it takes a few tries before
you get the right one.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yes, absolutely, And of course you're here on Rethreading Madness,
where we talk a lot about therapy, abuse and exploitation
into it can not just be not the right one,
it can be really not the right one. But we
won't go there. That's a whole other topic. So the therapy,
What did you learn in therapy about depression?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
So learned a lot about when those thoughts arise, what
they look like, why I don't need to believe them.
We spent a lot of time on just reversing those
thoughts and the biggest, biggest takeaway because this was probably
a therapy session from about ten years ago, but I
(14:02):
remember it clear as day, this one because I was
going through some issues ah Waistler, and I was having
trouble with too many hours at work because my daughter
was going through her own stuff, and I was really
worried to tell my supervisor and I had known her
(14:23):
for years, my supervisor, we were friends. It was should
not have been this big thing, you know, that's saying
making a mountain out of a mill hill yeah, that
was me. And my therapist looked at me and she goes, okay,
but where's your proof? What do you mean, where's my proof?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Where's your proof about? What?
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Sorry about thinking she would yell at me about thinking
that she would think I'm not a good person, I'm
not a good worker, just any any bad thought I
was going to be yelled at. And it was where
where's the proof? Has she ever yelled at you before? No?
Does she know the same situation that's happening. Yeah, does
(15:02):
she support you with having with dealing with your daughter? Yes,
anywhere's the proof? Where's the proof that she would be
upset with you? Right? And that where's the proof? Had
stayed with me for other situations, like anytime something comes
up in my brain, is trying to tell me, oh
no this is you know, this is not for you
(15:22):
or whatever. Okay, where's my proof? Where's my proof?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
And did it work out? Did you talk to your employer?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
And yeah, oh yeah, yes it worked out. Yeah, it
worked out fine. She was very empathetic. She did not
she wasn't upset with me at all, which, after working
through that whole where's my proof? I kind of was like, Okay, yes,
I don't think she will be now, but it was.
It was really weighing down on me at first.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Why do you think we do that? Like I like
knowing how people do these things, but I also like
knowing how did we end up in that place? To
begin with that we thought some catastrophe was going to happen,
we open our mouths.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
So I think, at least for those of us with depression,
we already struggle with our brains telling us that we're awful.
Our brains are already you know, Oh nobody likes you,
Oh they're talking about you. Whatever. So when you have
to have a conversation with somebody where you can't can't
(16:32):
be a people pleaser, it just plays into the See,
I told you you were a bad person. I told
you that you weren't good enough.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, you should have kept your mouth shut, You shouldn't
have said anything, YadA YadA, Yeah exactly. You were also
living with undiagnosed autism. How did that How do you
think that impacted on your depression or your your life
as a teenager?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Uh So, even even before being a teenager, I used
to I used to have meltdowns, which they look like
temper tantrums. They're not the same thing a melt A
meltdown is more of a sensory overload issue, where a
temper tantrum is being told no and you didn't get
(17:21):
your way. And so when I was when I was
much younger, and I would have these meltdowns and I
would yelling and screaming, and my mom didn't know what
to do. My mom knew nothing about any of this stuff.
So she would she get me and throw me into
my room right, not like throw me, but you know,
get me in my room, right, and she shut the
(17:45):
door and just you know, you're going to stay in
there until you calm down. And people would like my aunts.
I remember them telling her, oh, you spoil her, and
it was this whole you're spoiling her, not hey, maybe
there's something wrong and we need to figure that out.
Especially my brother used to always bring up this time
(18:06):
at McDonald's where they had the toys on display, right,
and I didn't get I wanted to change in the toy,
got in my happy nail for the one that was
on display, and they said I couldn't and I could
not understand why, and nobody was explaining to me why.
So I had a total meltdown because I didn't understand why. Right, Like,
(18:32):
I can see it right there, I've done it before,
why aren't you doing it now? Instead of explaining, no,
this is just a display piece, they were not allowed
to give it out. They were just no, no, right,
And I'm just like confused. So I had a melt
And my brother used to always bring that up all
the time. And now I look back on it, and
(18:53):
I go, see, it wasn't because I was being a
little brat. It was because I didn't understand why. It
didn't make sense to me. If I could do it before,
and I can clearly see the item, why can't I
do it again? Right?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, As I raise a child who has autism, and
I it's only something that's come out in the last
few years, and it's taken a while for me to
get that paradigm shift that happens for folks with autism,
where it's a literal interpretation of the world as opposed
(19:31):
to all the myriad implications and nonverbal cues and connotations
and you know things and historical things we bring to
everything we say. It's very literal. So for you, as
a child, you're looking at the toy, saying I want
that one, and they're saying, no, you can't have it,
And of course it doesn't make sense. And so the
(19:52):
other thing that's true about children with autism as opposed
to an adult with autism is that the thing that
I learned was that, uh, children who have autism, maybe
some who aren't as verbal as others might have. You
know that what looks like a temper tantrum, you know,
(20:12):
being on the ground kid streaming and yelling and biting,
and you know, you know, being uncontainable. But as an
adult with a high vocabulary, that meltdown turns into language
and and can be it can it can happen through
(20:36):
an argument. You know that that if you try and
follow you, you're not going anywhere, because of course it's
the meltdown. It's not the argument itself, it's the it's
a verbal meltdown. And it took me a long time
to get that, but when I did, it just made
all the difference in the world in terms of how
I could be in this person's life and and help
(20:59):
without making things worse. And that's, of course, a parent's
job is to help and not make things worse. For sure,
we just need to take a little break. I'm sorry,
I'm going to stop you there, but yeah, you have
to go and do the PSAs and everything. But we'll
be right back.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
Folks.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
Hi, folks, this is Steve ferguson your twenty first century
schitzoid Man, and I'm the host of prog Rock Alley,
inviting you to come down and listen to our show
every week at Monday one am the very end of
the weekend. We will be looking at all forms of
progressive rock. I'm talking about space rock, art rock, math rock, fusion, jazz.
(21:33):
If you want it, I got it. Just name it,
I'll play it. We'll see you again. That's here on
CFRO one hundred point five co Op Radio Monday mornings
one am.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
You're listening to read Threading Madness on Vancouver cop Radio
cfr O one hundred point five FM. I'm Bernardine Fox
speaking with Randy Lee Bosla. Randy, we just finished talking
a little bit about autism. But I heard you begin
to say something, So what was it you were going
to say?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
I was just gonna say that. It's funny you bring
that up, because just a couple of weeks ago, I
had a verbal meltdown at my husband and talking a
mile a minute and yelling about I don't even remember
what because I was so overwhelmed with everything that it
just came out in lots and lots of verbal diarrhea.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Right, how did you feel afterwards? I just want to
get a sense of, you know, were you aware that
that what you had done was autism? You know, impacted
or not in the moment.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
In the moment, it just sort of happened, right, But afterwards,
I was like, I just I just am so overwhelmed.
And he's like, I know, but you can't yell at me.
I'm like, I know, but I just couldn't help it, right, Right.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
So I'm getting it that you felt a little bad.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Yeah, a little bit, because I mean I yelled at
him and he did nothing wrong. But luckily we've been
together forever now, so he kind of knows.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
I like that. I like it when people say we've
been together forever because it really does imply that you
are comfortable in your relationship and feel safe in it.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Yeah. I'm glad I never had a date as an
adult because I listened to my sister in law she
just recently got married. But I used to listen to
her talk about dating as an adult and glad I
had to miss that.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Why I hope to ask why?
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Well, because she would just talk about how hard it
was to find somebody, and then the people that she
would meet were just very strange, and I'm like, huh, well,
I didn't have to worry about it. I've been with
my husband since I was nineteen, so we're good.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, no kidding, that's wonderful. I'm glad. So you also
have a child with autism? Did I get that right?
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Yeah? Yeah, the one that is turning eighteen tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Do you have just one child or you have more
than one child?
Speaker 4 (24:14):
So we have too. My stepdaughter is twenty, and then
my stepdaughter has my grandson who's about to meet five.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Oh my god, aren't grandkids the best? Really?
Speaker 7 (24:28):
Are?
Speaker 1 (24:28):
They are the best? I read somewhere recently that somebody said,
you know, watch your parent you with your child, and
know that that's how much love they gave you. And
I thought, Wow, you're not a grandparent, that's what you're saying,
because I swear to God, those grand babies get more
love out of me than I ever managed to muster
(24:50):
up for my children, not that they weren't lovable. And
I love them and I love them thoroughly, but there's
something about having a grandkid that just pulls it out
of the ups of you that you didn't even know
existed before.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
It's so true. Well, I feel like with your with
your grand babies, you don't have to be mean either.
I'm not trying to teach him a whole bunch of
life skills, like obviously I want him to have these
life skills, but I can be more flexible with him
than I was with my girls.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Yeah, I raised my grandchild, so I'm in a funny
position around h Yeah. Not only do I love from
the depths of my being, but I'm also responsible for
making sure they have all the skills that they're supposed
to have to get into adult And I don't know
about you, but there are times that I say something
and I go did I tell you? And they go yeah,
like five times okay, making sure I covered that base anyway,
(25:45):
So what was it? Did you always know your child
had autism? Or at what point did you know this?
When did that happen?
Speaker 4 (25:53):
So she was born in O six and at that
time I had no idea anything about autism, that even
the term autism was completely foreign to me. But as
she as she got older, we noticed that she was
she was different. She was a little quirky and where like,
(26:14):
something is wrong with this child. Again, love her to bits,
but something was wrong with this child and we didn't
know what it was.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
So what were you noticing. I'm sorry to interrupt you,
but what were you noticing that was quirky?
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Yeah, so she would just as they get older, they're
supposed to play more with others, where she was like, yeah,
we're playing together, but they actually weren't. She was just
sort of playing and her friends would be playing like
near her, but not actually together, right, And I'm like, ah,
(26:50):
that's a weird way to say you're playing together when
you're not actually playing together. So, just little things like that,
trying to get her attention, if you'd walk into her room,
you'd have to like really get her attention before you
would you could start talking to her.
Speaker 8 (27:06):
And then.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Going shopping, going to more than one store was just
so overwhelming that for a long time we didn't understand
that she's really sensitive to lights and sound and like
groups of people, but we didn't know what any of
that was. We thought she was just having big old
temper tantrums because she was mad about I don't know what,
(27:29):
And so it wasn't until she was diagnosed. She didn't
get diagnosed til she was eight. Right after, they went
through a ton of other diagnoses ADHD, sensory integration disorder.
Odd like, they just instead of saying autism, they went
through everything else first.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Is that what they're supposed to do? Or is this
because she's a girl and isn't displaying autism the way
boys do.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
I think it was more that that she just wasn't
you know, she wasn't hand flapping, she wasn't rocking back.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
And fourth, I was one of those people. I, you know,
when my child, who was an adult by the time
she came to me and said, I think I have autism,
I'm thinking, what are you talking about? Like, how is
that possible? You're not doing the hand flapping and you
know all that stuff, and and you know, I didn't
necessarily handle it well because I didn't understand. It took
(28:23):
a while for me to get it and understand. And
oddly enough, she was best friends with a boy in
elementary school whose mother was an expert was the school
expert on autism and had a child with autism, and
she never picked up on it either.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
So it's so much more difficult with girls. We tend to,
I guess, hide it better. But yeah, if you don't
have that the typical signs of it, then it's really
as much later diagnosed. But the more I learn about it,
the more I go, why is it later diagnosed if
(29:04):
we would look at these social skills a little closer.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Right, Yeah, And there's things that we did, like we
would we had a pajama day in my house for her,
like she would go to school Monday to Friday, and
Sunday was always the pajama day, which meant she stayed
in her pajamas all day long, even if we had
to go out, but we tried not to go out.
It was just a nothing day so that she just
had that whole day off. So that and I always
(29:29):
said it was so that she could make it through
the next five days at school, which now when I
look back, I realized that I was intuitively recognizing that's
what she needed without necessarily having a name for it.
And we had mental health days long before it was
okay to mental health days. I got so many people
(29:50):
being mad at me, and I'm you know, you can't
do the kids have to go to school every day,
la la la, And I'm thinking they're in elementary school.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Give me great, right, there is most of the school
day is wasted on not actually learning anything. Like the
amount of learning they do is like two hours.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah if that?
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
So I mean, do you find that her friends are
also people who have autism? Does she? Is she gravitating
towards people like her?
Speaker 6 (30:28):
So?
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yes? And no. She had a handful of friends when
she was in elementary school, not too many her core
group of friends. Now she's been friends with them, probably
all through high school. I would say, but they actually
none of them actually live in Canada, so they are
(30:49):
all online friends. I know two of them do have autism.
I don't know about the other three off the top
of my head, but all of them seemed to gravitate
towards those online relationships more so I would suspect they
do all have something.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Happening around that. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh, you know, during COVID,
it was COVID was an interesting time capsule of time.
That's not quite how you would say, but it was
like we all, you know, were thrown into some of
the same pot I eer homes, trying to figure out
how to live without actually being in contact. And you know,
(31:32):
people were having to cope with you know, have not
having well, I'll just talk about me. You know, I
didn't realize how much I got from going out into
the world and interacting with people, like even the person
at the teller, you know, like I would banter back
and forth, and I'd come out feeling good because I
did that bantering even though I don't know that person.
(31:54):
I'll never know that person. I don't know their name,
but it gave me something, you know, even smiling. We
had these masks on, and I don't you know, I
know that research has shown that when you smile at somebody,
it releases dopamine in that person, right, and it releases
dopamine in you, and it releases dopamine in anybody around
(32:16):
you who saw that you smiled at that person. So
there's a lot of dopamine being triggered by a smile.
And suddenly we were masked trying to figure out how
to represent a smile without anybody being able to see
your mouth. And so I don't know about you. But
I learned how to smile with my eyes because because
(32:38):
you know, that was our whole form of expression, was
our eyes. And there's so many ways that impacted on us.
And one of the things that I noticed with my
child as well was that she did a lot of
online socializing, and you know, I was constantly coming upon
her talking to a friend group where somebody was from
(32:59):
Japan and another person from East Pakistan or yeah, you know,
I mean all these people that I met, you know
that over time I would come in and they'd say, oh, hi, Nana,
I'm Nana, So hi Nana. You know. So it was
a very interesting time. And I've also noticed that as
we've come out of COVID that there are people who
(33:19):
are still lingering in that place of social isolation because
they were actually okay with it, and it was, you know,
they had the social acceptance to to you know, become
a hermit and trying to figure out how now to
come back into the world.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
So it was that's what I was going to say.
I was very much okay with COVID. I I am
a social hermit. I have like one really good friend
that comes over every so often and we hang out
but honestly, my my social is is my husband, my kids.
(34:00):
I don't care so much for being super social.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Right, and you have a podcast that goes out every week,
I think.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
I think, yes, it does. But social online is more
manageable because there's it's one on one and it's you know,
I can control the lights, I could control the volume,
So I think that has a lot to do with
it too, Whereas when you're out and there's just there's
so many people and so many noises and it gets
(34:32):
to be overwhelming. Like even I love going to musicals,
and I feel bad sometimes because everyone's clapping and I'm like,
I'm really enjoying it, but instead of clapping, I'm covering
my ears because it's so loud.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Right, Yes, and most people don't understand that some of
us here bigger, louder than other people do. And certainly
that's one of those things with autism. It's true. Do
you have those little loopy things that you can put
in your ears to tone it down?
Speaker 4 (35:09):
I haven't, but they've been coming up on my Facebook
a lot, so I'm kind of wondering.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
My kid uses them and swears by it, so just
so you know, it doesn't it doesn't block the sound,
It just it just tones it down so that you
can cope a little bit better with Really, I can't
imagine what it's like having the world blare at you
all day long. It would be too hard for me.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
So so I always wondered about those. So that's good
to know somebody.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yes, Yeah, they're they're easy to get, easy to find.
And I know they're important to her because she has
not lost them and she's had them. So wow, all right, Yeah, yeah,
my kid was you know the one you know when
you walk into a classroom and the teacher says, can
all the kids, you know, take all their clothing out
of this big pile of stuff that's been got right here?
(36:02):
You pick up your kids coats and shoes and whatever,
and the pile is reduced down to practically nothing. So
that was yeah kid. So yeah, So how else has
for you as a parent having autism raising a child
with autism? Does that give you a better understanding of them?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Or?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
I mean, and that seems obvious just to ask that question, but.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
It does, but it doesn't, right, Like, so it's an
obvious question. Had I known I had autism prior to
my child having it, but I wasn't diagnosed until after
she was, so there was all of this learning about it.
And then I would I would go, well, you know,
she's just like her mom. She's fine, She's just like
So that's what took me so long to kind of
(36:47):
recognize it. I had to do a lot of research
because it was just well, she's fine, she's normal, she's
just like her mom. But it turns out I'm not normal.
So I mean, normal is a little overrated. But you
know what I mean, like, I'm not tip what they're
saying is typical. But because she was just like me,
I thought nothing of it. But it wasn't until my
(37:08):
husband started pointing things out, like no, hun, you don't
need to wiggle your toes every second of every day.
And I'm like, like, but what are you talking about.
You're not doing it right now. He's like, no, I'm
just sitting still. I'm like, but that's not a thing.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
How can you handle sitting still? You feel like you're
going to die?
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Yeah, And so it was just little things like that
that I just accepted as that's just part of my life.
That's so everyone must be like that. And then it
was you know, he would be like, no, hun that
that's not a thing. And I'm like, oh, so when
when my daughter was diagnosed and it was a couple
of years after that, and I come out of my room,
(37:51):
be in my silly self, and she goes, Mom, FI
have autism, so do you? And she just went back
to watching TV, like just said that one thing. I'm like, uh,
you know what, guys, probably true?
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Right, all right, we just need to take a little break,
Randy Lee, but we'll be right back.
Speaker 9 (38:06):
Fox here, turn you up. Qui get yuons queen snah Hi, everybody.
My name is Quigate Yuwon's I'm a member of the
Squamish nation and the yagolanis klan of the Hyda nation.
You're listening to co Op Radio cfr O one hundred
point five FM. We live, work play and broadcast from
the traditional, ancestral and unseeded territories of the Musquiham, Squamish,
(38:29):
and slave Tooth nations.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
All of these lines it draws my fame.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Tell you the story of.
Speaker 6 (38:50):
Solomon is.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Then a so but this story stn'd mean and.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
They find when you've got no one to sell them.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
So it's true. I was made for you.
Speaker 8 (39:24):
I clumb, the CRN, the.
Speaker 7 (39:27):
Mountains and size.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
So I Chu.
Speaker 8 (39:33):
Said across of it the baby all.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
I was blood broch you may red Realia Tucks.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
He are following you.
Speaker 7 (40:06):
Oh you see the smile.
Speaker 6 (40:30):
It's all my mom.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
It's odd noor In Donong and all of my brands
things that I'm blessed. They don't know my it isn't
man No, don't know really own and they don't know.
Speaker 7 (40:59):
What one look you to.
Speaker 6 (41:05):
I was caught.
Speaker 8 (41:08):
You who are.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Dad star Smon Stock?
Speaker 7 (41:25):
Is at all this stock.
Speaker 6 (41:40):
You Solomon s s.
Speaker 8 (41:49):
I t you.
Speaker 7 (41:54):
All soon.
Speaker 6 (42:05):
Voy.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
You're listening to be Threading Madness on Vancouver called Radio
c FR one hundred point five f M. I'm Bernandine's
Fox talking with Randy Lee Bosla about all things from
a person who has their own podcast about Writer Die,
where she interviews writers about mental health challenges but comes
(42:32):
to life with her own challenges. And Randy Lee, we've
been talking about depression and autism, but you also mentioned
that you have PTSD, and so I was hoping we
could talk a little bit about that. What does PTSD
mean in your life? What is it for you?
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Yeah, So for those who don't know what it is.
It's post traumatic stress disorder, and I would be defined
as having the complex kind because it's a series of
incidents that led up to it, So it's not just
one thing that happened to bring it out. It was
a series of things. So it was about two years
(43:08):
ago that my therapist finally said, yeah, I think I
think this is what you have, and then we worked
through a pretty large trauma book that did a lot
of help. But it started as a teenager, as most
things do, so my mom had married somebody who ended
(43:29):
up being an alcoholic, and at that time, my brother
was also starting his drug addiction and he was in
and out of juvie and just being a terror all
on his own. And then with having my ex stepfather
be you didn't know what you were going to get.
(43:51):
You would get home and you wouldn't know what you
were walking into. So all of that for years just
kind of combined up and culminated in this complex PTSD
where I would get triggered by somebody just even raising
their voice a little bit. That that was probably the
(44:13):
biggest trigger, was the raised voice, because that always meant
that something bad was about to happen, that something might
something might get broken. That's you know, the worst things
were going to happen.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
When you say broken, I'm sorry, I just want to
broken is like you know you you you know you
drop a plate. There's a difference between broken and some
a plate being thrown. So how did those things get broken?
Speaker 4 (44:43):
So he yeah, he would he would break them, he
would throw.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So he would be angry and or frustrated or.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
Okay, yeah, And my mom would always show me upstairs,
so that was part of part of the the symptoms
as well. So she would always shoot me upstairs. But
I could still hear everything. I could hear all the screaming,
all the yelling, but I was trapped in my room basically.
So that always led me in the situations where I
(45:13):
would be triggered to then hide away and become as
small as I possibly could, as quiet as I possibly could,
and just do whatever I needed to do to survive
that situation, which, in say a work environment is not
good because your manager is not usually not trying to
(45:34):
get you to hide away. They're usually trying to solve
a problem. But being triggered in that way led me
to just shut up and be still and quiet and small,
and then say, with my husband, there would be times that,
I mean, we don't get into too big of fights,
but he would be upset at something. So for instance,
(45:57):
when we first got our puppy, he got downstairs and
broke my husband's brand new TV.
Speaker 7 (46:05):
Oh no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
How big puppy.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
He was, Well, the TV was not sturdy, it was
it was not in a good position. It's yeah, it
was a whole it was a whole bunch of different factors.
But he knocked it over, not being knocked it over,
from being rambunctious. So rightfully, so my husband was mad.
So he was yelling not at me, not at the puppy,
(46:34):
just at the situation, right, you know, when you get
so frustrated that you're just what the heck is going on?
Speaker 8 (46:39):
Why did it?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Ah? Right?
Speaker 6 (46:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (46:41):
Still of course me in back being triggered. I was quiet.
I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what
to say. I was I was scared, even though I'm
not scared of my husband. I'm always not gonna hurt me,
but I was scared. I was put back into that
into that place of being a teenager. And then he
(47:02):
would go, what are you scared of me? Like what's
going on? And I'm like and I couldn't answer him.
Now now I'm like, I'm shut It's fun. But yeah,
those moments, and then he would be like, I'm not
trying to scare you, like, what is going on? What
is happening because he didn't He didn't know either, So
it was just things like that that would trigger The
(47:25):
most would be that. And then if I was on
the phone with a customer or client at work, and
they would if they started getting upset about something. Again,
I took it to mean that you were upset at me,
not at the situation, but you're upset at me, and
then what can I do to get out of this situation.
It's a very very fight or flight came into play
(47:47):
a lot, and it just it wasn't good for.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Relationships, no, no, But it is a very clear example
of how you know, your mother was teaching you how
to stay safe child, which you incorporated in yourself, which
all children do when we you know, even when adults
teach us ridiculous things about how to how to cope,
(48:11):
we still incorporate them. But you know, kudos to your mom.
She was teaching you how to stay safe in that
situation and you you know, but when you take that
thing that you learned as a child to stay safe
and apply it to adult life, it rarely, rarely is
a good way of doing it when it comes out
(48:32):
of trauma, so exactly, and that's what you're talking about.
So what did you learn to do instead?
Speaker 4 (48:39):
So I learned to identify, identify the triggers, and then
we worked backwards so once we could identify the triggers
and identify the the like words that my brain would
tell me. So for instance, as I'm getting as somebody
is yelling and I'm going, okay, I did something, I
(49:00):
am to blame, and so breaking those down to the
very tiny parts of it. As people are allowed to
be upset, right, that doesn't mean you did something wrong.
Why could they maybe be upset? What could you do
if you do need to remove yourself from the situation
without blaming yourself, without taking in the guilt, and then
(49:23):
working through emotions and identifying various emotions Like it sounds
really silly, but I couldn't identify my emotions other than happy, sad, angry,
like the basis I.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Am basics, there's enough one I am wrong, and I
know we don't necessarily call that an emotion because it
never comes up on the feeling chart, but I would
call it that any emotion that I am wrong. So yeah, no,
I get it. Cool.
Speaker 4 (49:54):
Yeah, so we did a lot, a lot on that
and then just just taking it apart and placing this
sounds weird, but placing blame where it belonged. So in
a situation, maybe maybe I have only five percent of
the blame, but somebody else has fifty percent of the
blame and this other person has forty five percent of
the blame. So it's not that you need to feel
(50:15):
guilty or that you have no part in a situation.
Sometimes you have a part, it's a smaller part and
other and you need to recognize that every your actions
or somebody else's actions, everything has consequences, and it's not
as cut and dry as I did something.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
Wrong right exactly And are you able now to do
that in the moment that it's happening, or is this
something that you need to be able to remove yourself
from the situation and do it and then be able.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
To come back And yeah, it depends on the situation.
I definitely there are time I'm getting better at doing
it in the moment, because this was a few years
ago I learned it, so I'm definitely getting better. But
when it's a really big excuse me, when it's a
really big situation and I can't, and then, of course,
you know it overwhelmed is also in there. You know,
(51:07):
if there's too many people or there's too noisy, and
like there's just too much, right, then I definitely can't.
Then I have to kind of think over it later.
But if it's if it's like at home and it's
just you know, me and my kid, or me and
my husband, whatever, and it's a small kind of contained situation,
it is a lot easier to work through it in
(51:27):
the moment.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Do you think that having autism or depression how does
that impact on how you developed or experience PTSD? And
I don't is that a clear question.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
I think it's clear, but I don't think I have
a clear answer because since since I have nothing to
compare it to without having the depression or autism, I
can't give a clear answer. But what I will say
is that how I was just saying, the situation if
there's too many people, like the overwhelmed part is there, right,
(52:05):
So if I didn't have autism, that part might have
been been removed and then I could work through it
in those kind of more stressful situations. But because the
overwhelmed also starts in, the sensory overload starts in, it
does make it more difficult. And of course, if I
in that situation where I'm starting to blame myself, then
(52:30):
the depression kicks up and loves to say, yeah, that's right,
you are wrong, right you and you totally are any wrong.
So I definitely think they are very intermingled. But I
don't have you know, I don't have a control group
to really Yeah, I don't know, but.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
I don't know either. I don't know, and maybe it
doesn't matter. Maybe all that matters is that we understand
ourselves and that we move through and you know, as
we're moving through and learning skills, that our life gets better,
the quality of what we experience in our relationships gets better.
Maybe that's all that matters. Yeah, yeah, So tell me
(53:12):
about Write or Die.
Speaker 4 (53:14):
Yes, So I started at about three years ago. We
have over two hundred episodes. They do run about forty
five minutes an hour. I don't ever cut people off.
That's the joy of being on YouTube as opposed to
the radio, and I talked to people from all across
the world. I've gone as far as, you know, like Australia,
(53:35):
like literally the other side of the world. So it's
pretty cool, and they come on they talk about their
own mental health journey. Just last week, I talked to
somebody about anarexia, which was pretty cool because that one
doesn't come up as often. So depression, anxiety PTSD, those
are probably the three biggest and addiction. But I've had
(54:00):
I've had people come on and talk about schizophrenia, autism.
I know it doesn't follow mental health, but autism ADHD.
I'm not going to stay no to them, so we
talking about that and it's really it's so interesting that
even though we span the world the we're so common
(54:21):
in what we are sharing when it comes to mental
health and mental illness and what we're trying to do
and coping strategies are the same. Oh. So it's it's
really cool to hear all the different stories and share
different tips because there's things that I had never thought
of before, and so people are talking about I'm like, huh,
(54:43):
very interesting, all right, So it's really cool. We do
it every Wednesday, morning, and I started doing them live. Yes,
this year we started going live. So there are sometimes
it is still recorded if I have se the doctor's
appointment or something, so I have to I have to
do it prerecorded, but I do try to do them
(55:05):
live more often than not.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
And what do you find is the difference because we're
pre recorded here? What do you find is the difference
between being pre recorded and live other than the mistakes
and the you know, the hiccups right, coughing and and
saying the words wrong.
Speaker 4 (55:21):
Exactly, and then then I just make fun of myself
because it's usually me that does it, so he gets
a full personality of it.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I'm sure that's lovely because you have a lovely personality
round me.
Speaker 4 (55:34):
Thank you. Yeah, I think I think it just grants
the show a little bit more authenticity that way. But
it's also nice because well, I don't have to do
any edits after because it is what it is. You're
getting the whole thing. But people can now interact right away.
They can ask questions as we're going, Oh yes, that's
(55:55):
really cool.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Yeah, yeah, that is cool. That is that is very cool.
Have an actual interaction with your audience live. That's always wonderful.
You also have several books where can people find out
more information about you?
Speaker 4 (56:12):
So my website is RBI Writing dot c A. All
of my books are on Amazon, and of course the
show we were talking about, the Right or Die Show,
it's on YouTube, but it's also on on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
all those and then I'm on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, just
RB writing or Randy Leboslaw.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
So ours and Raymond Bias and Bobby Writing as in
writing a book dot com and they can find you there.
That's great. Thank you Randy for coming and chatting with us.
It's thank you for having me animated chat Yeah lots,
Thank you so much and we'll be right back, folks.
Speaker 10 (56:55):
It's estimated that one in two Canadians will be diagnosed
with cancer in their lifetime. For many, the physical, emotional
and financial burdens are heavy. The Volunteer Cancer Driver Society
ensures they never have to worry about a ride too
and from treatment, offering safe, reliable and free transportation for
all patients. Now, they're expanding their service across the mainland
(57:18):
and they need more volunteer drivers to join their fleet.
If you have a vehicle, a valid driver's license with
at least five years of experience and a passion for
helping those in need. The Volunteer Cancer Driver Society would
love to have you visit Volunteer Cancer Drivers dot Ca
to learn more.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
And that's our show. My thanks to Randy Lee Boselaw
for coming and chatting with me about her Rite or
Die show that you can find on YouTube, and about
autism and ADHD and PTSD. It was a lively conversation
I really enjoyed. My thanks also to Sherry Alrika and
Randy Carlisle for the gift of their music. As always,
(58:00):
our thanks goes out to you for joining us today.
Stay safe out there. You've just listened to Rethreading Madness,
where we dare to change how we think about mental health.
We air live on Vancouver co Op Radio CFRI one
hundred point five FM every Tuesday at five pm or
online at co Opradio dot org. If you have questions
(58:21):
or feedback about this program, I want to share your
story or have something to say to us, we want
to hear from you. You can reach us by email
Rethreading Madness at co Opradio dot org. This is Bernardine Fox.
We'll be back next week.
Speaker 3 (58:36):
Until then, we have ever been further Do what the
hell I'm gonna do when I can't see fine? My
way under over too, just when I'm ready give up
(59:01):
the they are when we turn out the lights and
it's sorry.
Speaker 7 (59:09):
It's all right. Don't you really be alright? Why don't
I always.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
Bel but when you're telling me everything's gonna be out right? Yeah,
Why don't I wonder how you know?
Speaker 7 (59:38):
Surely you don't have all of the facts. You could be.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Just making it up.
Speaker 3 (59:48):
Why don't I ever think of that? It's some kind
imagine in the words.
Speaker 7 (59:56):
That you read
Speaker 4 (59:58):
Saying me
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