The Pure Living Family Intro
We give a detailed history of Theo's background before autism and lead up to his diagnosis of Autism and PANDAS.
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Listen to the podcast episode here.
Shawn Blymiller:
If you haven't heard about Anchor, it's the easiest way to make a podcast. I was super stressed about recording, but it's super simple. Let me explain. Number one, it's free. Number two, there are creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or your computer. Number three, Anchor will distribute your podcast for you, so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and many more. And finally, number four, you can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place. Download the free Anchor app or go to Anchor.fm to get started.
Eva Blymiller:
Hi, this is The Pure Living Family Podcast. I'm Eva. My little brother's Theo, and my mom and dad are Shawn and Angela.
Shawn Blymiller:
Hi. We're the Blymillers. We are the owners of The Pure Living Family, and this is our first podcast.
Angela Blymiller:
This podcast we're just going to give you a quick intro into what this space is going to look like for us. Bear with us though because it's our first time ever doing something like this, so we're learning. We're newbies here.
Angela Blymiller:
Our next episode, we're going to dive in deep into Theo's diagnosis. So this episode might leave you hanging a little bit, but don't worry. Next episode, we're going to dive in to how Theo got his diagnosis and a lot more into his journey and our journey.
Angela Blymiller:
Hi, I'm Angela.
Shawn Blymiller:
I'm Shawn.
Angela Blymiller:
We are recording our first podcast. We have been talking about doing this for how long now?
Shawn Blymiller:
Like a year plus.
Angela Blymiller:
Probably a few years. And we just feel like we have a story to tell, and where should we start?
Shawn Blymiller:
Well, I think just to get an intro of what we're trying to accomplish, our son Theo has special needs. He was diagnosed with autism and PANDAS. For those that don't know what PANDAS is, it's Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcal infection. Basically overgrowth of strep in his body.
Angela Blymiller:
That causes brain inflammation.
Shawn Blymiller:
But this is our story of our own self-awareness journey through those diagnosis. And we feel like it's kind of been a spiritual awakening for ourselves, right?
Angela Blymiller:
For sure. For us personally and also for our family. And we've just really had to learn how to surrender. Daily surrendering of things we can't control, of the struggles our son goes through, which also in turn our family goes through.
Shawn Blymiller:
Theo for me has been a doorway to my own personal growth and development. And it's been hard to choose as a category, because we'll cover a lot of things here; parenting, personal growth, self development, some alternative medicine, holistic medicine.
Angela Blymiller:
Yeah. We don't want to only talk about special needs because yes, our son's diagnosis has made us more aware of all these things, but I mean, our life is so much more and Theo's life is so much more than a diagnosis, so we really just want to dig in and really help parents understand that there's so much to life and there's so much joy in the now and being present. And we just wanted to share our journey and hope that you guys follow along.
Shawn Blymiller:
When I feel like the diagnosis is so heavy, when Theo was first diagnosed with autism from the University of Utah it was overwhelming and it can seem daunting and hopeless a lot of times. And I feel like from our experience, we've learned so much throughout the journey that you don't have to believe the doctors when they say that your kid will never talk or that they won't ever develop to a certain stage. There's other theories, there's other modes of living, there's hope out there to help you, help your kid reach their potential. But what we've learned is that if you want your kid to reach their full potential and fully self-actualize, you have to be willing to self-actualize yourself.
Angela Blymiller:
And there's no right way, one way to do all of this. And there's no specific therapy or specific thing that's going to help your child or help your family. And I feel like when we first got the diagnosis, that's what we were looking for. We were looking to other people's stories on Instagram or other books that we have read and trying to exactly replicate that into our lives. And once we stopped doing that, once we realized like, let's check in with ourselves, what am I feeling, what is the universe and God leading me to do right now in this moment? Instead of being hyper-focused on the future and oh, we have to do this before he hits a certain age or we need... we have to get him into this therapy because it worked for so and so.
Angela Blymiller:
Once we realized that it has changed our lives so much, and we really want... I wish that someone would've told us these things when we first got the diagnosis and Shaun and I have talked about creating a course for parents of newly diagnosed children, just to present all these things in a way that's not so overwhelming, but maybe we'll get there at some point.
Shawn Blymiller:
I think the biggest thing we, the biggest story we want to tell is what we've learned along the way from Theo's diagnosis and how Theo's diagnosis has been a blessing in our lives to really learn so much, not so much for our kids, but for ourselves as well and follow that journey. And I think Angela touched on how can you refine in your intuition? How can you turn internally instead of externally, because when you're first receiving these diagnosis, just getting started-
Angela Blymiller:
It's so overwhelming.
Shawn Blymiller:
It's a flood of information.
Angela Blymiller:
It is crippling. Like you just want to crawl in a hole and die. Like it is so overwhelming, you don't know where to start. And I think that so many parents feel this way.
Shawn Blymiller:
Well in our systems, our society is set up on being taught externally from authority. And it's kind of hard to break away from that mode of thinking of, okay, I can't go externally searching answers anymore. I've got to go internally to find my own answers. And whether that's you speaking through prayer, God, however you define-
Angela Blymiller:
Meditation, anything. And I think that it's hard for people to break away from that because we're taught, oh, you go to the doctor and they give you this diagnosis and you do what they tell you to do because they have all this schooling, they have all this education, and you have to go blindly follow them and trust what they're saying. But what we've learned is that you have to trust yourself. These doctors, these therapists, they can do great things and we're not saying they're all bad, but they are not your child's parent. They were... We've been entrusted with this child. You've been entrusted with this child because you are supposed to be there for them and to guide them and no one else has that except for you.
Shawn Blymiller:
Well, and I feel like this intro music that we have from Ian Post called Breathe, we identify really well with that terminology because right here, right now you need to focus on breathing, taking a deep breath all the way down to your lower abdomen. In the nostril, all the way down to your gut and out. And that's been, what we've learned, is how you get in the now and what can you focus on today instead of trying to think about, okay, what's next in a year or when you're thinking about school and when you're thinking about therapy and it's time to settle into the now and what can you do today for yourself and for your family and that's what you need to focus on.
Angela Blymiller:
And that's what we really want to stress to parents and just get out there. And this is going to be therapeutic for us as well. Talking through all of this, what we've learned, what we want to learn, it's going to be a process and a journey. And we hope that you enjoy it and give us feedback and share with your friends and family.
Shawn Blymiller:
And we're not experts of any kind, so take our experience, our thoughts for what they are, but we've walked this path and Angela has connected with people all over the world with special needs kids. And we want to continue to share our story and then the stories of those people that we come in contact with that they don't feel comfortable enough to share for themselves. And a lot of times people ask us to be their voice. And you feel like if there's a story you want told, and you want us to be your voice, we're opening ourselves up to do that because we want to help those kids out there that are getting the autism diagnosis and PANDAS diagnosis because there's so many stories to be told.
Eva Blymiller:
Hi, this is the Pure Living Family Podcast. I'm Eva, my little brother's Theo, and my mom and dad are Shawn and Angela.