Proof of Life

After an unexpected eight-week silence, Dr. Jeanette Benigas returns to the Fix SLP Podcast to explain where she’s been, what’s been happening behind the scenes, and why stepping away was necessary.

In this episode, Jeanette addresses burnout in speech-language pathology, advocacy fatigue, care partner strain, and the pressure of being constantly accessible while leading a clinician-driven movement. She speaks directly to listeners, supporters, and sustaining partners who felt confused or unsettled by the silence, offering transparency without dramatization.

You’ll also hear how Fix SLP is moving forward with clearer boundaries, better planning, and a more sustainable approach to podcasting and advocacy, so the work can continue without burning out the people doing it.

If you’re an SLP navigating burnout or invested in clinician-led advocacy, this episode offers clarity, accountability, and a path forward.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Jeanette Benigas, PhD/SLP

Host of Fix SLP

What is Fix SLP: Advocacy & Accountability in Speech-Language Pathology?

Fix SLP is an SLP Podcast by Jeanette Benigas, PhD, about advocacy, autonomy, and reform in Speech-Language Pathology. This show exposes credentialing gatekeeping, dismantles CCC requirements, and helps SLPs advocate for change. Each episode equips SLPs with tools to reclaim their profession. Subscribe now and join the movement transforming speech-language pathology. Follow @fix.slp on Instagram and TikTok. Visit fixslp.com.

Fix SLP (00:01.292)
Hey Fixers, welcome back. It's Jeanette.

Fix SLP (00:07.554)
Hey, Fixers. Well, this is awkward. This is normally where I say, back, but perhaps you should be saying, welcome back to me. This episode is called Proof of Life. It's not because I disappeared forever, but it's because I disappeared without explanation for about eight weeks. So if you're a listener, a supporter, a sponsor,

or a partner who has felt confused or frustrated or even angry, this episode is for you. I want to be clear, direct, and grounded today. This is not a crisis episode. It is a reset episode for me. This has been a planned episode for a few weeks as I have jumped back into work, full-time fixing.

and a very planned and sustainable schedule with really firm boundaries surrounding everything that I do. So I'm here, I'm okay. Fix SLP is alive. We're moving forward, but we are gonna be moving forward extremely intentionally. So for the last eight weeks, I went dark. There hasn't been any podcast episodes. I have been off social media.

Almost completely for that amount of time. I have not signed into Instagram at all not personally not for Fix SLP For the bulk of it. I wasn't also not on Facebook there have been a few times where I needed to jump on for other things and then I could feel myself starting to get sucked in So I had to back off and like just exit out, but that was personally

not professionally. This was a very deliberate decision and it wasn't because I stopped caring. It wasn't because Fix SLP was ending or on the verge of ending. It's not because something blew up publicly or or like privately behind the scenes. I stepped away because my mental and physical health required a full stop. I didn't step back. I didn't slow down. I stopped.

Fix SLP (02:27.808)
I stopped everything for a hot minute. And I didn't communicate that well or really at all to my folks on social media. That part is on me. I take full responsibility for that. I could have done better there. But here's what I want everyone to understand about the last eight weeks. Fix SLP has continued to exist.

There are a ton of things that are happening behind the scenes that continue to happen with or without my presence. Fix SLP operates entirely to this point on unpaid labor. Mine, the team, our volunteers. And we're doing advocacy, all of us, at a level that is not passive. Especially for me behind the scenes, it involves conflict, pressure, hundreds of emails, legal language,

meetings, public criticism, constant decision making, and that has been fine. However, I never set out for Fix SLP to be all of those things. I set out to post and educate, and I personally have chosen to take all of that on. Again, that's on me. This isn't a complaint. But as those things were happening,

I was scrambling to set up systems to sustain this movement that weren't necessarily sustainable. I hope that makes sense. That what we were doing was going to end in me crashing out. And that's exactly what happened. Because at the same time, I was carrying my PRN and clinical work. I have a business, so I had business responsibilities.

Family responsibilities, I think, are what have taken the biggest toll here. And if you've been around for a while, you might know some of this. I've shared some of this, but I have really struggled to share all of it publicly because some of it's not my story to tell. However, as a care partner...

Fix SLP (04:41.09)
Some of it is my story to tell. And I do, I wanna share some of that with you and how it has weighed on my mental health again, not as a complaint, but I think because it's stuff that we all go through. There are, think a lot of listeners listening to this who might find themselves in very similar types of situations. The circumstances might not be the same, but I want...

people to hear about what's been happening. Especially as a speech language pathologist, a lot of this has been directly tied to one of my areas of specialization, which has been adult neurology. So last January, my brother had a seizure on New Year's Eve when he came home from work. He lived almost two hours away from me with his partner.

Who we learned very quickly was not going to be supportive of his medical care. So she was not willing to drive him to appointments and at times not even to the pharmacy to get his medications. So I became the care partner finding myself all winter, January, February, March, driving through snowstorms and varying weather conditions to pick him up.

drive him 45 minutes to the Cleveland Clinic, 45 minutes back, and then the two hour drive home. All while still doing all of those other responsibilities, all while fixing. At the same time, in December of 2023, so not long after Fix SLP started, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She made it through surgery great. And a couple weeks later, actually right around the time ASHA announced that they were

increasing their rates, she had a pretty serious setback that landed her in the ICU at the Cleveland Clinic for almost a week and then another three weeks on the floor. So she was in the hospital for almost a month. She then lived with us for a month. And then for the rest of 2024, we had that ongoing breast cancer treatment. So she's in remission. Thank goodness breast cancer treatment is done. However,

Fix SLP (06:57.752)
During that time, I noticed that my mother had changed. Very specifically, and I'm talking to all my SLPs out there who know about brain function, she could not stay in a lane on the road, always going left of center. We had some scary calls on the road, back and forth to the Cleveland Clinic for her cancer treatments.

there was a time she pulled right out in front of a semi. So by spring of last year, I was starting to pursue figuring out what was going on with her. I was thinking she had a left-sided neglect, but that didn't make sense because there were no other signs of a stroke. We do have a diagnosis now.

She has been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, very specifically with deficits in language and executive functioning. I do think that it was the chemo that advanced probably a pre-existing condition. But with that, she is also no longer allowed to drive. So for the better part of this past year, I have been the sole care partner for two people in my family because my dad is gone.

who can't drive because my brother was not able to drive for six months. He was driving and helping it was such a relief by July. He was driving and helping for about two weeks And then he had another seizure. It got really tough and I don't again These aren't my stories to tell about what they've been going through because they have their own journeys. But as a daughter

and a sister who loves her family very much, it has been very difficult for me to draw boundaries with my family. And I found myself at times at their beck and call. My mom was making appointments and scheduling things without really doing a good job of consulting me first.

Fix SLP (09:13.454)
And so then I had to meet the pressures of getting her somewhere when I had something else scheduled. That has been very difficult for me. So as 2025 progressed, I noticed some pretty early warning signs. I was getting really irritable. I ended up with some cognitive overload. And I started to dread the things I usually care deeply about, namely, Fix SLP, because I love doing this.

And so that was my cue by the fall. By the time ASHA was over with Thanksgiving coming up, I had to stop. I could not push through anymore. I was starting to have physical symptoms from the stress that were weird and concerning. I didn't collapse. didn't implode.

but I made a preventative decision and I stepped away before I started to resent Fix SLP, before I started to resent being a Girl Scout leader because that's something that takes up a lot of my private time that I really enjoy. Before I was completely burnt out and before poor leadership showed up publicly, although I think that it has shown up publicly, again, I'm taking responsibility for this.

but I needed to take care of myself. So something that I did is I'm, you've heard me say before, I go to therapy. I am a huge advocate for therapy. had been going, I've been going for years when I first started every week and then it went to every other and occasionally once a month or every other week, just depending on what I had going on. But I very quickly got myself back into therapy once a week.

where we started talking about the things that I care about, the things that I enjoy, where I was failing in life, how I could function in a better capacity to be a better mother, wife, daughter, leader, all of the things. right? And so I really pulled away, including Girl Scouts, really pulled away from everything and started adding those things back in.

Fix SLP (11:34.42)
starting with my family, my direct family in this house, my kids and husband that I had not been showing up for either. I started being more purposeful. And so that's what I've personally been doing behind the scenes is taking care of myself. And I hope that I can inspire some of you to recognize what has been happening to me to say, you know what?

We've talked about this a lot on the Fix SLP podcast, but I'm burnout. Like burnout culture is real. If I can inspire you to recognize that and step away and start saying no, that would go a long way. And I'm glad then that I shared.

Fix SLP (12:24.876)
I want to speak directly to the frustration that has shown up online. I have not been reading comments. I have not been reading the Reddit threads that have been sent to me because I did what I had to do to stay married, to stay employed, to for sure continue to lead this movement in a way that it deserved. So I'm not going to let those things pull me down.

but we've had followers who have messaged me. I've had friends who have messaged me. And it sounds like some of what's being said is fair. It also sounds like some of what's being said has crossed the line, but also both can be true. I understand why paying partners and supporters have felt unsettled. When someone you invest in goes silent, your brain fills in the gaps, right?

What I won't accept and what I won't normalize is hostility or intimidation. Fix SLP is not a product someone has purchased. It is a movement that someone is choosing to support. Support does not equal control. Advocacy does not require me to constantly be accessible at the expense of my health.

That said, communication matters, right? Communication matters. I should have said something. I have learned my lesson. I am saying it publicly to the thousands. I've learned my lesson. I apologize. And that boundary that you have been putting up has been noted. I also take responsibility for teaching our followers what to expect, for teaching my team what to expect from me.

I have been 100 % accessible to the SLP community at the cost of everything else for two years. You didn't ask for that. It is pressure that I put on myself. Again, I'm taking full responsibility. I can put a pin in the moment it happened. And the moment it started happening was the day that ASHA raised their rates. I was sitting

Fix SLP (14:48.18)
in my living room, my kids were down for bed, my husband was on the couch and I was in our armchair and I opened social media and there were hundreds of messages. And I felt the weight of it at that moment and I looked at my husband and I said, I have to answer these people. They're reaching out to us for help as a resource, as a place to turn and I have to answer.

every single one of them. I said this is probably going to take a lot of time. Are you okay picking up the slack while I try to get through all of these? And God bless that man. He said yes. Except I never stopped. And he has been picking up the slack in this house more and more and more and more. And I have been throwing myself into Fix SLP more and more and more and more. And again,

I do it because I love it, right? And no one is asking me to do this. I did this to myself. But I also think, again, there's a lesson to be learned here. How many of us are doing this in life with something else, with our job, with a hobby, with something?

What I ended up doing is teaching everyone, when you message me, I'm gonna respond to you sometimes in the middle of the night because I don't sleep well. So sometimes I am online in the middle of the night. And what it came to was me holding my phone in my hand in every free second, in line at the bank, in line at the grocery store, sitting instead of watching my kids play their sports, sitting online for numerous holidays

bringing my computer to work on content during family holidays or to answer emails or messages during family holidays and that is not healthy. Again, I did that to myself, but it had to stop and it is why I had to completely pull out to reset.

Fix SLP (16:57.216)
So the pause that I took gave me clarity, not distance. I looked hard at what is sustainable about the things that we have done as a team, about the things we have done as a profession, and about the things that I have personally done, and what is not sustainable. I asked, what work has actually moved the needle as part of this movement? What drains my energy without any impact at all in the field?

And what am I uniquely positioned to do as the leader of this movement? And what am I not? And in those nots, is it something we still need? Number one. And number two, is it something I can pay someone to do? What do we need? And can I hire someone to do it if it doesn't take me? So I didn't abandon Fix SLP.

At the end of the day, in my head, I was protecting it because burned out leadership doesn't serve anyone. And I think movements don't fail because people rest. They fail because leaders ignore their limits. So here's what's next. Here's what's coming. For the foreseeable future, next month or so, there might be fewer episodes. We already have some clear seasons. However,

I may start to plan some breaks that we will communicate in advance unless there is an emergency. And part of that is going to be me doing some front end work. Most people don't know this, but we really, we always say we're spur of the moment. But the way that we were working behind the scenes is that we would come up with a podcast episode.

and like a content theme the week of recording, sometimes hours before recording. We would record the podcast typically on a Thursday or Friday. I would spend hours Friday or through my weekend editing the podcast to get it out on a Tuesday. Our content coordinator would listen to the episode when it came out and start making content on her lunch.

Fix SLP (19:18.262)
and then continue to make the content through the week. Y'all can say, that is not sustainable. So we need to work to get some episodes in the can so we can be scheduling things, so things can be ready to go. And this is important too, because if someone on the team goes down, we are still working, right? There's still things to put out. There's like a safety net, basically, because...

We didn't have a safety net and I burnt out and it was hard for me to have the team move forward without me. And one of those things is also we didn't have standard operating procedures for who did what, what happens if X, Y or Z happens. So something that I've also been working on for behind the scenes is developing standard operating procedures. So each role has its own description with

this is how we operate, which any business has. They just weren't developed at the beginning of this because we didn't start out with the intention of being where we stand today. advocacy will remain the core mission. State level work, employer education, policy pressure where it matters. I will probably be putting something out there to see what topics you

as the followers and listeners are most interested in us taking on because we cannot do everything. I personally cannot do everything. We need to have one or two things that we focus on very, very, very, very specifically and anything outside of that, we can't touch it. If there are other SLPs who want to take those on and we come along beside them to support them and help them, yes.

Let's do that. But Fix SLP, we've been saying this. Fix SLP can't do it all. Like, this time, we really won't. And we will probably, in some way, announce what those very specific things are. Also, what we won't be is a 24-7 content machine. We put out a ton of content. It takes a lot of time to make content.

Fix SLP (21:38.254)
One, two, three posts a week is probably what you can expect as we get back into the rhythm of putting out and addressing the things that we need to say. As part of that for myself, I am going to have very set hours during the week where I work. I don't know yet if that's 10 hours or 15 hours, but it will no longer be me working

Fix SLP as a full-time job plus everything else It is going to fit within the scope of my week and if it gets done it gets done and if it doesn't it moves on to the next week so as Projects are happening if I'm working with people there will be clear transparency about who's doing what with clear boundaries and honest timelines and You know if it doesn't fit into the hours that we set

we have to keep moving because if we keep doing this on a volunteer basis or for very little money, we have to treat it like that. I would love for this to be a full-time job for multiple people. We just aren't there yet. And so the mission isn't going to change. Our values aren't going to change. And I'm not going to exploit myself or volunteers for optics. We're going to move forward.

with the same foundation, just much clearer boundaries. And this has been set in other parts of my life too, boundaries with my family, as in my mom and my brother and the caretaking piece. I'm gonna stay in therapy for the foreseeable future once a week for some accountability to make sure that I am sticking to what my plan is and taking care of myself because I can't be physically getting sick

all of the time because that puts me behind. So taking care of myself, being here for my kids and my husband, and building everything around that, I think, is the most important. So this episode is not an apology tour. Again, it's proof of life, proof that I am still here, proof that Fix SLP is still standing, proof that...

Fix SLP (23:59.35)
leadership can look like rest, recalibration and return, but also with the admittance that there should probably be some communication with that. So if you're still here, thank you. If you needed this explanation, I hear that. And if you're uncomfortable with the boundaries I've set, that might mean that this space isn't for you. But hopefully you understand that we do this for free.

we are still figuring out what this looks like and the inner workings of all of this to make it sustainable. So we're just gonna move forward from here with clarity. And I hope that excites you. There are a lot of things that have happened that I was like, I wanna get on and talk about this. People still send things.

I have approximately 1200 emails to get through that I started going through this week. I answer all of them. So if you have emailed me about something, you will get a response. Just know if you're a sustaining partner, you do have the ability to log in and control that on your own. However, if you need help from me, if I've missed something by the time I get to you, I always make it right. I always have, I always will. And the other thing you can look forward to.

is in November, our legal team finally got a quote and some direction that SLPs might want to pursue. We did not meet in December. I have to get an email out in the next day or two about getting a meeting scheduled so we can talk about where we left off and how to best move forward with what we have in front of us.

I think it will be very exciting for some of you, but also being realistic. I don't know if we can do it. presenting that, I did speak to our lawyer that I said, hey, you've got to come on the podcast and give a little chat about what's been going on. So that is upcoming. I don't know how soon, but sooner than later on my timeline, because it's time that you heard from him.

Fix SLP (26:14.566)
and moving forward with the decisions that we have in front of us can't be my decision alone. So with that, thank you for listening. Thanks for staying with me to the end and I will see you again soon. Thanks for fixing it.