Cold Hard Truths: Acceptance

Hosts Julianna Scott and Kelley Jensen explore the concept of "speed to acceptance" when parenting autistic children. Drawing from the five stages of grief, they discuss how quickly moving through denial, anger, bargaining, and depression to reach acceptance can free parents emotionally and help them recognize their child's progress realistically. The hosts share personal stories, including Julianna's pink room painting project, and critique the well-meaning but often unhelpful "Welcome to Holland" poem. They emphasize that acceptance isn't a one-time destination but an ongoing journey requiring boundaries, self-care, community support, and realistic expectations.

Key Takeaways

1. Speed through the five stages of grief to reach acceptance faster
2. Acceptance isn't permanent—you'll cycle back through stages
3. Stuck in denial or anger? You can't make good decisions
4. Set boundaries: ignore miracle cures and judgmental people
5. Self-care must include therapy, respite, and personal time
6. Find parents you genuinely like, not just autism parents
7. "Welcome to Holland" creates false equivalencies about parenting
8. Professionals: skip the platitudes, validate grief instead
9. Grieve expectations, ask questions, make flexible plans
10. Acceptance lets you see progress realistically

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Creators and Guests

Guest

Julianna Scott

Guest

Kelley Jensen

What is Refrigerator Moms?

Born from 20 years of friendship, during which they navigated the trenches of autism parenting and advocacy, the Refrigerator Moms is Kelley Jensen and Julianna Scott’s way of reaching out to parents waging the same battles they were.  Their purpose with this podcast is to clear the fog, silence the noise, and find a path through neurodivergence for parents that are stuck between bad choices. They tackle parenting topics such as mom guilt, tantrums, pathological demand avoidance, siblings, medication, comorbidities, social media, and much more. 

[Kelley Jensen] (0:09 - 1:25)
Welcome to the Refrigerator Moms. I'm Kelley Jensen and I'm here with my friend Julianna Scott. And today we're going to talk a little bit about acceptance.

Recently I had a conversation with a lovely young woman who's got a young child with autism and she confessed that she's in fix-it mode. You know how you do, you're gonna fix it, you're gonna cure it, you are gonna, you know, exercise it right out of your child. And I mentioned that there's value in speeding to acceptance and she asked me how to do that.

And it was lovely and I challenge accepted, right? And so it reminded me of our speed to acceptance term that we, you and I, have used. It is our code for each other and it originated from a time, a very funny story that you told me about trying to organize a kind of a private space for your son to have a place to go and just, you know, decompress and regulate himself.

And he wanted it all pink, I believe. And you were gonna have it painted, you were a mom on a mission and you told your husband and he was reticent to say the least. And you said, look, speed to acceptance because I have the painters coming.

[Julianna Scott] (1:26 - 1:26)
This is happening.

[Kelley Jensen] (1:27 - 1:40)
I know. And we laughed and laughed and laughed and speed to acceptance has sort of become a mantra and a marching order for us for so many things, not related to autism and related to autism, of course. But tell us that it's a real thing.

[Julianna Scott] (1:40 - 2:15)
It comes from the five stages of grief. This episode of the Refrigerator Moms is brought to you by Brain Performance Technologies. Brain Performance Technologies is a specialty mental health clinic that offers magnetic e-residence therapy or MERT for autistic people aged three or older.

MERT is a transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol that utilizes an EEG diagnostic to deliver personalized magnetic pulses to stimulate the brain and build neural pathways effective in managing autistic symptoms. Yes, it does. And, and that, I mean, you told the story pretty accurately, although I did paint through myself.

[Kelley Jensen] (2:17 - 2:18)
Supermom.

[Julianna Scott] (2:18 - 3:41)
So we've talked about, my husband and I would take our neurotypical kid on vacation separately because because our autistic son did not like to travel. So yes, so my husband was, it was like two days, a day before he was ready to leave.

And I said, we're going to paint while you're gone. And my, and our son wanted pink. He was his favorite color.

Everything was pink. He loved my little pony. He liked, you know, everything, everything pink and sparkly.

And I was all for it because why not? Yeah. And he loved it.

I wanted it to be, yeah, like, just like you said, a little cocoon, a little safe space. And I remember this seeing the look on my husband's face, like, you know, and then all those feelings of, you know, going through the stages of grief, kind of like the denial, the, you know, all of that stuff, like, you know, what does this mean? Right.

And I don't know. I mean, to me, it's, I don't, yes, it wasn't a typical boy room, but, you know, of all the things going on, I so didn't care. Of course, again.

And neither did he. And he did speed to acceptance, but the look on his face was like, oh, and I just said, come on, we got to, speed it up. We got to speed when it speed to acceptance meant speed through those stages of grief.

[Kelley Jensen] (3:41 - 3:42)
So what are they?

[Julianna Scott] (3:42 - 4:44)
What are the stages of grief? As most of us know, are the Elizabeth Kubler Ross, five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But they're often not followed in a strict order.

I mean, we typically think as acceptance as the final stage, and it often is, but it doesn't mean you stay there. You, you go back and forth. And that's where he needed to kind of speed, speed along through all of those other ones.

I'm like, come on, you got to speed to acceptance. So yes, we've used it often. Whenever either, you know, we are there or whether our husbands are there or anyone, it's just like, when there's that little pause of like, Oh, what is autism doing to me today?

And I'm like, all right. Because being in that space of acceptance really frees you up. Because you're not thinking about, I need to fix it or fix it in a way that's not rational or reasonable.

It's just like, okay, I'm in it. This is the situation. What can I do?

And it does lighten that emotional load.

[Kelley Jensen] (4:45 - 5:22)
And it also makes you realistic about progress, right? Because people and autistic children do make progress. But if your standard is that they're going to be cured, then you don't recognize the progress that they're making, right?

So right, speed to acceptance is for my child's ability. Here is what he's doing. And I'm proud and happy.

And we're getting there, right? So and it doesn't just happen once. No, you fall back into it.

And I think a lot of times they'll have a great day. They'll have a great week. They might even have a great couple of months.

And then it rears its ugly head again, right?

[Julianna Scott] (5:22 - 5:31)
Right. Something changes in your life, their lives. And you take a few steps back, right?

And then you're like, Oh, what is I thought it was we were done with this.

[Kelley Jensen] (5:31 - 5:36)
I thought so you're back in denial angle bargaining and exactly you're speed through it again.

[Julianna Scott] (5:36 - 6:50)
And so at the time, I had also been seeing a therapist who used a great analogy. And it was the acceptance train. And she'd said, you know, you need to get on that train.

She's like, right now, you're not even in the station. And I'm just like, Oh, man, like, I thought I was doing so well. But like, whatever I was telling her, clearly, I was stuck in.

And it does it does, you know, get you stuck, right? Like, if you haven't accepted the situation, you know, you aren't able to make some of those decisions, I think you're just you're focused on, like, like, yeah, the denial or the anger or bargaining, you know, trying to others might be a bargain. You know, yes.

And so when you're stuck in that, it is really hard. So eventually, I got into the station, eventually, I bought a ticket. Eventually, eventually, I got on the acceptance train.

Now, again, like you said, sometimes I was in the station again, you know, and I had my ticket, but I wasn't ready to board. But eventually, it was a really helpful analogy for me. And often I would use that too.

It's like you got to get on the acceptance train. And so how to so how to that was a very profound question.

[Kelley Jensen] (6:51 - 7:15)
You just develop positive coping skills. And they come from setting some boundaries. They do they come from boundaries being that you're going to set a different parameter for judging your child's progress boundaries that maybe you are going to not pay attention to people who have given you miracle, miracle cures, boundaries, maybe you're going to cut some people off that think it's all your fault.

[Julianna Scott] (7:15 - 7:15)
Right.

[Kelley Jensen] (7:17 - 7:19)
And they grow about those boundaries grow and they change as your child changes.

[Julianna Scott] (7:20 - 7:31)
And you change self care, you know, we are all about getting proper help and taking care of yourself and self care can include, you know, time to yourself, some respite, it could mean going to the therapist.

[Kelley Jensen] (7:32 - 7:33)
Probably shouldn't.

[Julianna Scott] (7:33 - 7:34)
Yes. Right.

[Kelley Jensen] (7:34 - 7:34)
It's a lot.

[Julianna Scott] (7:34 - 7:37)
Obviously, that helped me a lot with dealing with this.

[Kelley Jensen] (7:38 - 8:06)
But and community finding finding your tribe finding the, you know, that's another thing about autism that can be very challenging is that you kind of throw yourself in a room with people who you might not choose to associate with. And then you you oddly feel more isolated because you you don't enjoy their company. Right.

And so we gratefully found each other. But keep looking for the the people that you like to spend time with independent of autism. Right.

[Julianna Scott] (8:06 - 8:55)
Yeah. Who also are struggling with this. Yeah.

And that can be, you know, again, that's why we used it so much with each other, saying speed to acceptance or get on the acceptance train is because, you know, more often than not, you know, one of us was in maybe another one of those stages. Right. And again, it's a reminder.

It's just like, OK, and then it's just it's a little reset. And then it's like, all right, OK, I understand. I see the situation for what it is.

I accept it. And now I can move forward. But one of the things I know we wanted to talk about was something that is unhelpful in getting to the acceptance train, which is often put forth by well-meaning people to help with the acceptance.

And that is the famous in our world poem. Welcome to Holland.

[Kelley Jensen] (8:55 - 9:47)
This episode of The Refrigerator Moms is brought to you by Brain Performance Technologies. Brain Performance Technologies is a specialty mental health clinic that offers neuromodulation treatments, including their latest protocol. Saint Saint or Stanford accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy was developed at the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab to provide rapid and lasting relief for patients struggling with treatment-resistant depression and major depressive disorder.

Saint delivers amazing results after only five days of treatment, including a 79% remission rate. The team at Brain Performance Technologies is licensed and trained to offer this protocol to qualifying patients. You know, the person that I spoke with that was asking me for suggestions on how to speed to acceptance.

Oh, no. She told me she got the Holland story and I just couldn't believe it. I can't believe it.

[Julianna Scott] (9:48 - 9:57)
Because all these years later, all these years later, all these years later, we're still still stuck with Holland bashing poor Holland. I know. Yeah, there's a lot of things.

[Kelley Jensen] (9:58 - 9:58)
All equivalents.

[Julianna Scott] (9:59 - 10:35)
Yes. Toxic positivity, right? All of it.

So for people who don't know the Welcome to Holland story. So it's a poem that was written by Emily Pearl Kingsley in 1987. Now, she had a child with Down syndrome.

And so again, she wrote this poem, you know, for those in her community. And again, this is all well meaning. But is it a blanket, you know, sal salve for this?

No. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a little, little, a little poetry reading, please.

[Kelley Jensen] (10:35 - 10:40)
Do you like to hear this? Well, we have sped to acceptance so much that we think it's funny now.

[Julianna Scott] (10:40 - 10:40)
Yeah, we do.

[Kelley Jensen] (10:40 - 10:43)
But at the time, you just wanted to bash in the head of the person.

[Julianna Scott] (10:43 - 10:44)
Yes. Yes.

[Kelley Jensen] (10:45 - 10:45)
Welcome. Welcome to Holland.

[Julianna Scott] (10:46 - 12:34)
So here it is. Welcome to Holland. I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel, it's like this.

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and you make your wonderful plans, the Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice, you may learn some handy phrases in Italian, it's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives, you pack your bags and off you go.

Several hours later, the plane lands, the flight attendant comes in and says, welcome to Holland. Holland, you say? What do you mean, Holland?

I signed up for Italy. I'm supposed to be in Italy all my life. I've dreamed of going to Italy.

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is they haven't taken to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease.

It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guidebooks and you must learn a whole new language and you will meet with a whole new group of people you never would have met. It's just a different place.

It's a slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath and look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandt's.

Everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned.

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special and very lovely things about Holland.

[Kelley Jensen] (12:35 - 13:05)
Okay. Well, first of all, in my version of that, it was Paris. So they have changed it.

Oh, yes. Yes. I've heard different versions.

Yes. So it was Paris and abbreviated and it was told to me by a therapist. No, I'm sorry.

It was told to me by a doctor, one of the first doctors that I consulted with about my son. And I wanted to bash him in the head because I, what is, what is it? It is, you know, what are you saying to me?

Did you have that story told to you?

[Julianna Scott] (13:05 - 13:12)
Right. Right. I I've never had another autism parent offer this.

[Kelley Jensen] (13:12 - 13:13)
Okay.

[Julianna Scott] (13:13 - 14:05)
By the way, probably not going to nobody has offered it was always like to me, I don't remember the first time I heard it, but I remember the most memorable time was the back to school night at my son's special day class. And the special day class teacher gave all of the moms little windmill charms, which I immediately threw away. And she recited welcome to Holland.

And I there was another mom next to me. And it was funny, because she leaned over to me and said, sometimes my Italy's aren't so great either. And that really points out the fact that it's just like, it's not it's a false equivalency.

Like, you can't you can't just say this about hair, like special needs parenting, parenting in general, on the most basic level. Yeah, poor Holland.

[Kelley Jensen] (14:06 - 14:06)
Yeah, right.

[Julianna Scott] (14:06 - 14:29)
I mean, but but Amsterdam shaming, right? Oh, yeah. Can we not?

Right. But yeah, it's it's not about having expectations and having just your expectations changed. Because I think that that happens to a lot of parents with their neurotypical kids that parenting isn't exactly what you expected it to be.

Right.

[Kelley Jensen] (14:29 - 14:41)
You thought it was going to be just a walk in the park and you have a colicky child that will not settle down and go to sleep or your husband is not as much of a your partner is not as much of a team player as you were expecting.

[Julianna Scott] (14:42 - 14:52)
Right, right. And just saying that the pain of that, that of that will never ever go away. I think that's that's not fair either, because it does.

[Kelley Jensen] (14:53 - 14:56)
I mean, it's just right. You get used to it, you get over it.

[Julianna Scott] (14:56 - 15:10)
Right. You get over it. I mean, that's the thing.

It's just like, again, it's the the acceptance isn't like, Oh, I guess I'm in Holland. It's just like, Oh, I'm just in my in this. This is my specific world.

It's not a Holland or in Italy.

[Kelley Jensen] (15:10 - 15:43)
Well, and maybe now 20 years later, I have appreciation for that poem. And certainly, I always have appreciation for parents that are in a situation that I've been in and that this is the way she articulates it. It's quite beautiful.

But when you first get that diagnosis, the first couple years, stop, if you're a professional and you listen to this, don't start with this with the false equivalent. It's not what parents need to hear. They need to hear that they can do this, that they'll get there.

They need to be told to go ahead and grieve.

[Julianna Scott] (15:43 - 16:07)
They know they're in a different place. And again, I don't want to experience her experience. And that, of course, is is valid.

And I mean, and this was the way she expressed it. And that's great. And there are people that, you know, say it's it's beautiful.

But I also found just people all over the internet saying, Oh, my God, I hate that story so much.

[Kelley Jensen] (16:08 - 16:18)
It's just a speed to acceptance. I claim that the Refrigerator Moms have given a better analogy for what you need when you hear that diagnosis speed to acceptance.

[Julianna Scott] (16:18 - 16:26)
So what would we say? Yes. So we would say to a new person in the throws who would normally get welcome to Holland.

[Kelley Jensen] (16:26 - 16:55)
Right. I would I suggest is take some time to grieve what you thought it could be. Right.

Ask questions, talk to other moms, develop a plan that's malleable, that you can change if and when you need to and get help. And just take a deep breath. You're going into the unknown.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just it is what it is. Yes, speed to acceptance, speed to acceptance.

Thanks for listening.

[Julianna Scott] (16:56 - 18:08)
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Refrigerator Moms . We have a free download that includes a full list of practical to do's we shared in this episode on our website, our refrigerator paper, our version of the white paper includes additional what would we do and background information on everything we talked about today. Find it on our website Refrigerator Moms .com, where you can also sign up for our newsletter. We'd also love to hear your questions. Send them in along with future podcast topics by connecting with us on your favorite social media. Thanks for listening.

Please note that the information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and it is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast.

The opinions and views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the hosts and guests. Any recommendations or suggestions made are based on personal experiences and beliefs and should not be taken as definitive advice. It's important to consult with appropriate professionals for personalized guidance.

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