-With Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, M.D.-
Parenting is a journey full of joys and challenges, but raising a child with a chronic illness presents unique hurdles that can feel overwhelming. In this episode of The Mental Health Toolbox podcast, host Patrick Martin, LCSW, sits down with Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD, a pediatrician, allergist, life coach, and author who specializes in supporting parents of chronically ill children. Dr. Peterson, herself a parent of a pediatric neuroblastoma survivor and a child with type 1 diabetes, shares her personal and professional insights on building resilience, navigating overwhelm, and advocating for your child’s needs.
This episode is for you if:
- You are a parent of a child with a chronic illness feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or isolated.
- You want to learn practical strategies for managing your emotions and building resilience.
- You are looking for guidance on advocating for your child’s medical and educational needs.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways and Learning Objectives
Embrace the 4 C’s of Resilience: Dr. Peterson introduces her powerful framework for building resilience, emphasizing:
- Consciousness: Become aware of your thoughts and how they impact your emotions and actions.
- Curiosity: Question your thoughts and beliefs, challenging those that don’t serve you.
- Courage: Have the strength to change unhelpful thoughts and adopt new, empowering beliefs.
- Commitment: Dedicate yourself to practicing these resilience-building skills consistently.
Harness the Power of Journaling: Dr. Peterson shares her personal journey with journaling and explains how it can:
- Process emotions: Provide a safe space to express and work through challenging feelings.
- Gain objectivity: See your thoughts and patterns more clearly, helping you identify areas for growth.
- Promote healing: Reframe experiences and find closure through reflection and writing.
Find Strength in Support: Dr. Peterson emphasizes the importance of community and connection, urging parents to:
- Overcome the fear of asking for help: Recognize that asking for support is a sign of strength, not weakness.
- Seek out support groups: Connect with others who understand the unique challenges of parenting a child with a chronic illness.
- Build a strong support network: Surround yourself with people who can offer emotional and practical assistance.
Become an Effective Advocate: Dr. Peterson offers practical advice on how to be your child’s best advocate:
- Be organized: Prepare for appointments with a list of questions and concerns.
- Be curious: Approach conversations with an open mind, seeking to understand different perspectives.
- Be courageous: Don’t be afraid to ask questions and speak up for your child’s needs.
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BIO: Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, M.D.
Dr. Maureen is a pediatrician, allergist/immunologist, life coach, and author who specializes in supporting parents of chronically ill children. She is a mother of three amazing children and has first-hand experience with being a parent of a child with long-term health issues (her daughter is a pediatric neuroblastoma survivor and a Type 1 diabetic).
Website: maureenmichelemd.com
Learn More About How to Parent a Child with a Chronic Illness
CONTACT AND SOCIALS:
- BOOK: Reclaiming Life: A Guide For Parents of Chronically Ill Children: https://amzn.to/3KwSqd3
- Website: maureenmichelemd.com
- Instagram: @maureenmichelemd
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TRANSCRIPT:
Parenting a Child with Chronic Illness: Finding Strength and Support
A Conversation with Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Being a parent is one of the most amazing blessings life has to offer. Well, at least I feel that way. I’m sure you do too. But we have to agree this also comes with its ups and downs and can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster at times, especially when the unexpected happens, when our children get sick and suffer from illness. Anything from the flu to cancer and everything in between. It can really throw us for a loop and lead to things like anxiety, depression, and overwhelm. And that’s why I’m excited to have our special guest on today, Dr. Maureen Michelle Peterson.
She is a pediatrician, allergist, immunologist, life coach, and author who specializes in supporting parents of chronically ill children. She is a mother of three amazing children and has firsthand experience with being a parent of a child with long-term health issues. Her daughter is a pediatric neuroblastoma survivor and a type one diabetic.
Dr. Peterson will be sharing with us tips to be more resilient as parents, how to navigate and overcome feelings of overwhelm, and also access peer support to navigate these rough waters of parenthood. And she’s also the author of the book Reclaiming Life: A Guide for Parents of Chronically Ill Children. So without further ado, let’s meet Dr. Peterson.
Hello, Dr. Maureen Peterson. Thank you so much for making time to be on The Mental Health Toolbox Podcast today. It’s such an honor and a privilege to have a pediatrician on to share words of wisdom and how we can support parents – how parents can get the support they need to prevent overwhelm, manage stress and all the anxiety that already comes from being a parent, but especially when dealing with children and chronic illness, and cancer and everything in between. It’s just a rollercoaster of emotions and trials and tribulations when you’re trying to navigate the waters of medical care, health, intrusive thoughts, worry, self-care, all of that.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right. No, that was a very kind and warm welcome, and I appreciate you having me on your show and allowing me the opportunity to chat with you and share my story and tips with your audience. Thank you.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: It’s an honor. Can’t wait to deep dive in here. Perhaps you could start us off with sharing a little bit about your background. What got you into the medical field, specifically being a pediatrician, immunologist, or what’s it called – allergy specialist? Allergist?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Allergist immunologist. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was good. No, so the story of getting into medicine is honestly like not very exciting. I, as a young kid, always wanted two things out of life: I wanted to be a doctor, and I wanted to be a mom. And I can’t even remember you know playing doctor with the neighborhood kids and dishing out little candy medicine to treat their illnesses. And I was very fortunate in life and got to achieve both of those dreams that I had as a kid.
It was when I was in my pediatric residency that my second child, who was my daughter, was six months old at the time, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, which is a type of pediatric cancer. They found it from feeling a lump in her belly and when that happened, my world kind of came crashing in. I thought, you know what, like my childhood dream is going to get snatched away from me. I knew what it meant to have neuroblastoma because I had taken care of kids who had that same type of cancer.
And I went into kind of a dark place – very, very focused on her health journey and forgot about myself, forgot about anything else that wasn’t her. And I was really led during that period of my life by fear and overwhelm and guilt and all the emotions that really made it so I wasn’t living with purpose. I was living solely to be this caregiver of my daughter.
Things got better with time because she did well with surgery and chemotherapy. And you know, as time went on and we got farther away from that diagnosis, I could finally feel like I could breathe again. Then when she was 12, I got to be the physician to diagnose her with type one diabetes. And yeah, in, you know, that moment…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Oh, double whammy.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: I couldn’t believe what was happening because I had felt like going through cancer was like enough. Like, we checked that box. That you can’t be that unlucky to have these two bad things happen in the same lifetime.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: That’s…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: There is a correlation there, there is. I’m positive of it. What that correlation is, I’m not 100% sure. Neuroblastoma in and of itself is kind of a funky type of cancer that has some immune properties to it. So the type one diabetes is definitely either, uh, related to the cancer or a result of the chemotherapy that she got, but…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Hmm.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: It’s tough to say which. I firmly believe she’s not that unlucky in life to have it be unrelated, but you know that her diagnosis of her having type one diabetes, it made me pause and realize I needed to do something for my own emotional health because I didn’t want to go back to that place that I was in years earlier when she had cancer.
So I was like on a mission to proactively take care of myself. I listened to podcasts, I read books, I got a coach. I really benefited from all of those things. It wasn’t until a few years later that I was in a leadership position at the hospital and wanted to learn more about mentorship, that I decided, you know what, I’m going to become a certified coach to mentor program directors and residents and fellows better.
I became a certified coach and in the clinic realized the power of now being able to teach coaching tools to my patients and their families and really saw the benefit of blending those two, um, kind of roles that I had. And so that has led me to the work that I’m doing today and being incredibly passionate about helping families who have a chronically ill child, because just like you and I were chatting about before the show, parenthood is hard, but then you drop a chronic illness on top of it and it becomes devastating. And trying to make it so that others have that journey a little bit easier than I did is what drives me.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Wow, thank you so much for sharing your back story. Yeah, having a roadmap to…the the waters of the unimaginable, right? We see this, you know – this is so powerful across the spectrum of tragedies, right? Whether that be assault, whether that be any kind of trauma, whether that be cancer, your own health issues, grief, loss… And certainly, parenthood is no exception.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: When it comes to these worst-case scenarios, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah. And you know, you bring up a great point that the things that I’m talking about today don’t just apply to parents who have chronically ill kids. They do apply to them, but they also apply to…to everyone.
Because any challenge that we face in life, we really have two choices, whether that challenge be a health issue, a health issue in our kid, a financial problem, a career issue. The…the real choice we have when we face the challenge is, do we want to curl up in a ball and allow life to happen to us? Or is our choice to really take that challenge and turn it into a gift and allow life to happen for us?
So the, you know, the story that I said, of…of my life, I look at it and now look back on my daughter’s cancer journey and realize that that journey, yeah, it was hard, but it really prepared me to be a great mom to a child who has a health issue that has no cure. And so being able to really see and embrace the belief that that challenge can be turned into a gift is so rewarding and allows us to move forward in life with purpose.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Wow, that’s a very eloquent way to put it. Absolutely, that we have two choices, right? And ultimately, really it’s one choice is how we react to things, right? We can’t control circumstances. A lot of times things happen to us.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: We’ve had our own doing, be that somebody else is doing, be that…just…the…the way the world, the universe, the cosmos, right? We cannot control how we react, how we respond. AKA, cope, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yep.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: And so what you’re saying is a lot of it’s mindset. It’s like, how am I going to use this situation to learn, to grow, to make the most of, right, to find the silver lining? But that’s a lot easier said than…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Done, right? Oh, especially in the moment, right? And you know, I absolutely don’t want your listeners to…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Sure.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Think, “Who’s this person that is saying that, you know, her kid has cancer, her kid has diabetes, and like, boom, it turned into a gift?” Well, in the moment, it’s really hard to do that. And I would worry about someone that wasn’t feeling all of these emotions like fear and guilt and overwhelm in the moment.
What I want your listeners to hear, though, is, with time, those emotions don’t need to be the emotions that lead our life. If when we’re, you know, driving our car down the journey of life, they don’t need to be in the driver’s seat holding onto the steering wheel. That’s our job.
We can take those emotions and learn to put them into the trunk so that they’re coming along for the ride, but they’re not leading us in what we do, and that is an important shift that we make. Not easily. And you know from all the stuff that you do that it takes practice just like anything else in life. But the very first step is really wanting it to change and having the courage to say, “Yes, I do need something to change,” and starting that practice on shifting that mindset.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Thank you so much for…for touching on that because it is a…it is a great analogy, right? That we can make contain our emotions, and that’s what mindfulness really is, right? It’s about acknowledging – not…not repressing, not containing our emotions, not pushing them away, but acknowledging them. Kind of holding them here, right? At the same time, we’re focused on being present. Where with a lot of grief, loss, stress, people get very stuck in their emotions, right? Very lost in their emotions.
I’m…I’m wondering, based on your experience and the coaching you’ve done…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Hmm.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Why? What does that look like? How does one go through the process of learning to hold their emotions without being controlled by their emotions?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah, so the…I mean, the very first thing is really understanding and labeling how you feel, because, you know, you had said about that they’re really trying to kind of sort out and figure out how to manage these emotions. I would say even so, sometimes they…they get repressed to the point where it’s similar to like holding a beach ball underwater. And you hold that beach ball and then at some point in time you’re going to have to let go of that beach ball. And that beach ball is going to come flying up out of the water.
And the same thing happens with emotions, that repressing them…them can lead to them coming out in unexpected ways, and the easiest way to describe that is when someone’s stressed, and they start yelling at somebody for something totally off-subject. That…that stress is that emotion that they’re feeling, but the stress is not being processed, it’s being repressed, and they’re trying to keep it under control, but their beach ball comes zinging up out of the water, and they’re yelling about the TV being too loud.
And it…so the real first step is describing and labeling what you’re feeling. And that can be done through things like journaling as an opportunity to take a blank sheet of paper and just write down, like, “My heart is beating fast right now. My face feels hot and flushed. My head is pounding.” All of those things are symptoms of an emotion that we’re feeling at the time. And until we get in touch with those types of feelings and being able to label it, we’re not going to be able to really truly process emotions.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: And processing these emotions is crucial, right? Because as caregivers, if we’re taken down by our emotions, if we can’t be present, that has a direct impact on how we…and show up, right, for those we’re taking care of.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Oh, yeah. You know, and I have parents who I work with and we talk about, you know, fear. And their…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Right.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …They want to be strong for their child and they want to show their child that everything’s going to be OK. So what they’re missing in that is, not only is it not healthy for them, but their lack of vulnerability at the time with their child is missing the opportunity to teach their child about emotions and how to process emotions. That if you’re stoic all the time, then a kid grows up thinking it’s not OK to be afraid and that it’s not OK to be sad. And so you raise an adult who then is going to face a challenge in their life and not know how to begin with processing emotion, because you were trying to protect them. And protecting is actually doing just the…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: That’s it.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Opposite.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: So really, even in the depths of unfortunate circumstances, we can still find teachable moments.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Oh my goodness. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And yeah. And you know, our job as parents is really to teach our children. And when we talk about that, people think it’s through…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Right, through our actions, yeah. Model.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Our words, and that’s how we teach them, but really it is more through our actions. Functions as a teacher that how we act…our kids are always watching us, and having those actions that are healthy, to where it’s showing processing of emotions or growing and taking care of your own emotional health or showing how to advocate for…teaches a child. So don’t miss those teaching opportunities that you have as a parent.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Absolutely. Reminds me of Rachel Cruze, Dave Ramsey’s daughter. I know she’s put out some parenting books, and I always remember what she said was, “More is caught than taught.”
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah, absolutely.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Right? More is caught than taught. But as parents, caregivers, our job is to catch when we…when we see ourselves spiraling or becoming like stoic as a means, you know, coping as a means to cope. But also, that what kind of message is that sending to our children, right? As you know, if we’re…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Hmm.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Acting like, yeah, we just don’t talk about our feelings, we don’t worry, we’re not afraid of anything, we just power through… And there’s that processing doesn’t happen, right, where we are processing that our children have no idea that we’re processing, so…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: And…and you know, the…the…the other thing that I would say is, if I can’t convince them to be vulnerable in front of their child and they would rather be stoic, the…and kind of repress those emotions, because they think in their mind, “Well, I can teach them about that later.” OK, fine.
The reason you really should do it is to be the best parent for your kid, because in the process of being vulnerable, you’re taking care of yourself. And we’re never going to be 100% as a parent if we don’t take care of ourselves first.
We hear this all the time when we’re flying on airplanes, right? The flight attendant tells everybody, like, “Put your oxygen mask on before you help somebody else.” So taking that advice about oxygen masks and prioritize taking care of…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: What?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Yourself makes you a better parent. So do what we’re talking about in terms of vulnerability and emotion processing. Do that because you want to be an amazing parent to your kid because you’re taking care of yourself, so you’re giving 100% of what you can offer.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Absolutely. Fill your cup first, right, so we can give and, like you said, sustain for the next thing, right, because we don’t always know what that’s going to be. We don’t know, especially when it comes to health outcomes. We never know, right, what…what the next monster under the bed is going to be, what, you know, what we’re dealing with, so gotta make sure that we’re equipped, we’re ready…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …We’re rested for the next fight. And imagine in your case, I mean, your daughter, after having had chemo – and I’m assuming made…made a large recovery – then hit with type one diabetes, and that’s…that’s a whole other fight, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: And you know, I can say I am grateful that she was an infant during the cancer journey, so doesn’t really remember going through all of that poking and prodding as an infant. The…I’m sure it…it had an impact on her, and when I look at her personality, I, you know, kind of guess at what sort of impact it had on her personality because she, of my kids, like, as someone who will tell you what’s on her…her mind and, right? And some of that I believe is because she was poked and prodded at a time when she couldn’t talk. But the…the…her not remembering that was kind of a blessing…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: The silver…yeah.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Because when she got diabetes, it wasn’t this kind of, uh, reinvigoration of this past kind of medical trauma of what occurred previously. I, as her mom, knew what, you know, had been on both of these journeys and remembered it. You know, I still remember it like it’s yesterday. So her experience as a patient was much different than my experience getting that news as a…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Parent, yeah.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Parent. But, you know, the other thing I’ve had folks ask me about or…or comment on, they have said, “Well, you’re a doctor, so getting those diagnoses, I bet you it was easier because you’re a doctor.” And I always tell them, you know, “It wasn’t easier. It wasn’t harder. It was just different,” because you know, when I told you about kind of what had happened in the past, I had taken care of kids with neuroblastoma and taking care of lots of kids with diabetes. So when that diagnosis came, I knew in that moment exactly what it meant, which meant my brain was off to the races on anticipating every bad thing that could happen during that journey.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Like worse than Dr. Google, right? You already have a…a frame of reference for all because you’ve…you’ve treated the worst-case…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Oh, way worse. Way…yeah, yeah, scenarios. Yeah, and…and, unlike Google that’s sometimes wrong, I knew what all the bad outcomes could be from this journey. So being naïve is sometimes helpful because it can control all of those thoughts when that are creating this emotion of anxiety about the future, but being naïve also brings with it this concern because there’s not enough knowledge to really understand what is happening next. So it, like I said, it’s not easier, it’s not harder, it’s just different.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: And yeah, it’s funny you brought that up because as you were talking I…was about to ask you as a doctor, as a pediatrician – not…not like a bone doctor, even like – but like a pediatrician like you, you’re already like on that level to a large degree, and I’m just wondering when you get these types of news, you know what? Do you…what was maybe in terms of, like, your plan? Like, what was going through your head in terms of… Did you feel more equipped to kind of be like, “Cut through the fluff, these are the things that I know I need to focus on,” even with the diabetes, right? Because diabetes, you know, is a huge problem in society, right? But even as a therapist, when I’m working with clients, a lot of them have not… Work with mostly adults, but like type one diabetes and stuff, and…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …I’ll ask them, you know, “What’s your understanding of how to manage this?” And even though I’ve been to their doctor, even though they’ve, you know, been somewhat educated on it, a lot of them still have a lot of gaps in terms of, “How do I control this thing?” And a lot of misinformation. So do you feel like you were well equipped at that point in terms of… Because childhood diabetes is a whole kind of different beast. I imagine they don’t…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: So type one diabetes is much different than type two. Type one can occur in kids and adults, and now more and more adults are getting diagnosed with it. And we understand and really those two different types of diabetes are very different diseases.
Type one is an autoimmune disease, so it’s essentially your body, you know, attacking itself, whereas type two is an insulin resistance. Type one you cannot treat with diet and exercise. You can only survive if you have insulin dosed correctly. Type two diabetes, there’s oral medicines. Yeah, some need insulin, but diet and exercise play a…an important role in controlling type two.
The…the thing, to your question about, “Was I equipped?” I don’t think I was fully equipped because I don’t think you can ever be fully equipped. I had, yes, the medical knowledge, but I didn’t have the…the day-to-day skills that I never knew I really needed as a mom of a type one diabetic.
And so it gave me perspective, which then kind of changed how I interacted with patients, especially patients who have type one diabetes. Because I was that now, like, living this kind of life of understanding blood sugars and understanding how insulin needed to be dosed and how, you know, when you see a high blood sugar on one day, it may be the result of 100 different things and you’re never going to be able to figure out what that one thing is that caused that high blood sugar on that one day.
So it gave me perspective. And again, it goes back to how we can take a challenge and turn it into a gift. Like, I’m grateful for her diabetes because it has made me a better mom. It’s made me a better physician.
But the…the thing that no one could ever really be fully equipped to have when their child gets diagnosed with something is this grieving process that goes on. Because…it will grieve this life that they thought they were going to have with their child and need to move through all of the stages of grief to get to this point of acceptance and that they’re then able to realize that this new life that they have can be joyful and purposeful and have meaning. But it’s a process to…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: … Right there. Yeah.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Get there.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Thank you for bringing that up, right? No, nobody’s ever prepared. I…we all want our…when we are having children, when we have children, anticipating having children, you know, we imagine in our head, like you said, we have this storybook, you know, picture-perfect life. That’s what we want to provide for our children.
We want them to be in the best health they can. You know, when they’re born, or they have 10 fingers, 10 toes, you know, you’re doing, checking the boxes. You want to make sure that everything, you know, as it should be, or as…as you expect it to be. But then life gets messy.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: You know? And so you have to re-…calibrate, automatically to some extent, kind of your expectations, what your role is, what you have control over, what you don’t. And like you said, the…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yes.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Coming to terms, right, with your vision now…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Not…not matching up to what reality has presented you. Yeah. Right? How can parents go through that process of transitioning from their…their expectation to reality, that grief process? What does that…what are some…some maybe coping skills, some…some processes that you’ve learned that maybe you coach parents on today? Like, what…what is that healing process look like?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: So I will say the very first thing that I recommend for parents to do is to sit down with an empty sheet of paper and a pen or pencil and just start writing what’s on your mind. And allow yourself to do that on a regular basis. It doesn’t need to be for long periods of time.
Give yourself, you know, 10-minute blocks of journaling on a daily basis. This…and by doing that, it serves a couple of purposes. One, it allows your brain to know that, “OK, for these 10 minutes every day, that I am going to have this brain dump.” And that your…you…we’ll see me…thoughts will flow onto the paper much easier when you carve out that time and you’re consistent with it.
The…the second thing that…that journaling really does though, is allows the individual to become much more objective about the things that are on their mind. When you sit there and you write it on a sheet of paper, you can actually look at the thoughts that are floating through your head. And that objectivity allows you to see patterns, like if a thought continues to come up over and over again, or see thoughts that maybe you realize aren’t serving you because they’re a belief that is leading to a…an action that keeps you stuck. Or maybe the thoughts tell you that you need to process emotions. But that act of journaling can be incredibly powerful.
I…I…I’ll also tell you a quick story on why I really believe in journaling. You know, I’ve believed in it for years, and it’s part of my daily practice, and I…they also write three things I’m grateful for in my journal every single day, which has been scientifically shown to be able to change the filter that you approach life through when you write three things of gratitude every day.
But I became a real believer in journaling when I was writing my book. I had this idea years ago to write down the stories of my daughter as an infant and stories of her having type one diabetes, because my kids would ask me, “Hey, Mom, what happened when you were in the school bathroom diagnosing Kylie with diabetes?”
And so I wanted these stories written down so that nobody would ever forget them. Well, I then realized that stories are a way we can teach and help other people, so that the focus of the book changed. And I knew our stories could help other people on the same…journey.
The…I thought, “OK, I will write a story of when my daughter had neuroblastoma, write a story of diabetes, and write a story of a patient that I took care of,” all around a chapter theme like fear, overwhelm, guilt. I thought I could crank this out in a weekend because these stories, like, lived, you know? I lived them. Like this is easy to write. I quickly realized it was going to take me much longer to do, because retelling all of these stories in…detail so that the readers could understand what I was thinking and feeling at the time was emotionally exhausting. So it took much longer.
But when I wrote the very last sentence of the book, I closed my laptop and I just started to cry and knew in that moment that writing all of this down – similar to what I’ve always taught about journaling – really allowed me to heal some wounds that I had not healed. And so the emotional healing that went on in the process of writing this book, for me personally, was incredibly rewarding. And I’m very glad that I took on this project.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Wow, thank you so much for sharing that, doctor, about… We all…we all know that journaling is recommended, right? For personal development, for processing emotions, but it really can be transformative…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Oh, for sure, yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …The way…and changing our thought process. And I keep hearing this over and over again by different disciplines that I have on the podcast about how journaling helps us address and challenge our thoughts or limiting thoughts, or gives us a shift in perspective. And so it is…it is very powerful. And it also provides, like you said, a framework, history to…to share with others too, right? You know about…about that…that journey. Yeah, right. And so… Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That’s…that’s very powerful. Like you said, though, it’s not as… You might think it’s…you know, even if you’re sharing an experience…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …That was emotionally charged, you might think it’s simple to whip out, but once you start opening those cans, you know, it’s kind of, you know, it gets deeper. It’s a deep, deep journey of unpacking everything. Sometimes I think we…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Cognitively, we understand, “OK, that was a hard situation. Yeah. Now I have closure on it,” whatever. But once you start unpacking it again, you can surprise ourselves, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …About maybe things we had forgotten about, the intensity of what we experienced, lessons learned, right? And so, yeah, I’ll let you say, “Journaling is a powerful tool.”
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: It is. And you know, people get caught up in having to journal perfectly, like they need the perfect prompt in order to do it. And because of that, they don’t ever start. I always tell them, “It doesn’t need to be perfect. You don’t even need a prompt. Just allow yourself time to write what’s on your mind that day. Allow it to be this kind of word dump on a sheet of paper.” And it doesn’t even need to make sense. It doesn’t need to be a story. Like, don’t edit yourself when you’re doing it. Just write.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Right. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It can be said blank sheet of paper, it can be a notebook, it can be typed out. Whatever. You know, absolutely. Good stuff. Yeah. I…I want to do more journaling this year. You know, I know it’s powerful. That’s why I actually created a…a gratitude journal, right? Digital, kind of thing. You can type on it or print out, right on. Just because I know I like to give it to my…time, my listeners and stuff, because I know it’s a powerful tool.
So you know, everybody needs, I think, sometimes, a jumping off point, but it’s…sometimes, if you’re not in the habit, like you said, it…it does feel like it needs to be perfect. Like, “Oh, I…I…I’m going to start a journal. I don’t know whether I should journal with prompts or I don’t know if I should journal with specific intention, or if it’s more like a diary,” but I think…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …It doesn’t really…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …It doesn’t really…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Matter, right? It doesn’t matter. And…and you may even change over time…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Does.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …But carving out that time to spend just a few minutes doing it will allow you to start somewhere and change the process over time. But carving out that time goes back to what we were talking about earlier, that it goes back to self-care and really prioritizing taking care of your own emotional health as a parent so that you can be 100% for your kid.
That’s really what it comes down to, is knowing that journaling is one of those things that makes you a more resilient person, then do it as therapy for yourself on a regular basis to…to be able to accomplish your parenting role with ease. And it doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to be your best effort.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Wonderful. And it sounds like… I don’t want to drive by that…by that too fast, because you just touched on something really important, since we are talking about supporting parents. Making time, carving out time, protecting time for self-care, reflection, time to decompress, right, it’s so important. And it’s amazing what 10 minutes a day…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Will do.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah. And you know, it’s so funny that anytime folks hear people talk about “self-care,” there are, like, “I don’t have time to go to the spa.” Well, and don’t get me wrong, like, a good spa day is great, but…so that is not, um…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …In our case…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …I…I’m referring to when I talk about self-care, like self-care just needs to be a few minutes out of your day, whether it be to journal, which your audience already heard my rant about how awesome journaling is, to do some exercise, like just walking around the block and getting sunshine, to take some deep breaths and just pause and be in the present moment and focus on hearing the birds outside. All of those things, that’s what self-care is. Yeah, a good spa…is great, but that’s… A spa day every now and again…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Hmm. Absolutely.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Isn’t going to help as much as a few minutes out of every day to take care of me.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: And that’s exactly what I try and practice when I’m filling…tiring. I…I, you know, your body knows when you’ve been neglecting to take a break and…and decompress. And so what I’ll do is, if I don’t have a lot of time, yeah, I mean, the gym’s great, but stepping outside in the sun for 5 minutes and listening to the birds, watching the butterflies, you know, pet the dog… Yeah, goes a long way. Absolutely.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: It goes a long way, yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: And you were talking about how that fosters resilience, or is actually part of the equation for resilience. Could you talk a little bit more about that? I know you have a…a formula, “Seeds of Resilience.”
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: All right. So I teach parents about what I refer to as the “Four C’s of Resilience.” And this kind of goes back to what we’ve been alluding to. It’s the understanding that circumstances that we have in our lives are neither positive nor negative. It’s really the thoughts that float around in our brain that label those circumstances as positive or negative.
Those thoughts then lead to emotions. The emotions that we feel lead us to act a certain way, and those actions give us the results that we have in our lives. So if we want to be resilient, the thing we can truly influence is our thoughts.
And the 4 C’s are…the first one being consciousness. So we need to do what we were talking about with journaling and really be conscious of the thoughts that our brain is offering us.
The second C is curiosity. So once we get those thoughts down on paper, really objectively looking at them and figuring out, “Does that thought serve me? Is it truly creating the emotions that are going to lead to the actions that are going to lead to the results that I want in my life?” “Why do I have that thought? Where’s that thought coming from? Is that thought true? Is it not true? Like, why did I create this story?”
All that curiosity is the second C of resilient… -ence. The third and fourth C is courage and commitment. And that’s the courage to change a thought and the commitment to believe a new belief.
And so taking that first step and saying, “You know what? I want to believe something different. I am going to change that…my thought about that.” That is an important step because we’re never going to change if we don’t have the courage to take that first step, but it’s really the commitment to change that brings on the positive effects of that.
Because just like anything else that…we need to practice something that is new and different. So having the commitment to practicing it is the final C that is really the foundation to becoming resilient.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Wow. That’s a…it’s a great framework, right, because we need to…we need to…to commit the time. We need to do the exploration, the self-work. And then once we’ve identified what that…shift is, then we find something – a touchpoint, as I like to say – or something… Some actionable, some behavior that we can then, you know, real-life application to that concept or that shift, right? That new…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Belief. Right? How do we act this out now in our lives and…and…and work that muscle, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: And…and you know it…it, I’ve said this earlier, like, it’s not quick. Like, it takes work. But with time, you get quicker and better about it. So if you’re…if you’ve decided to…to change that thought because it wasn’t serving you in the way that you wanted a thought to, that… You may catch yourself when you’re thinking that thought again that’s not serving you in the moment, but it takes the realization and the commitment to really wanting to change it, to really being able to catch yourself in the…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Moment. Thank you. So that’s definitely part of…firming up our foundation as parents: resilience, right? Because life is hard. Parenting is very difficult. Wonderful. Parenting is wonderful, but it doesn’t come without its challenges, right? And so, resilience is a must, right? If we…if we want to kind of weather the storms, you know, we need to kind of know the process of that deep work in order to firm up. So that’s kind of the…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Absolutely.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …The one vertical, right, is the…the work we can do on ourselves. But what about advocating, right, as parents? How do…how do we advocate for ourselves and our children when it comes to health issues with our children? Any tips on that?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Hmm. Yeah. Well, you know, anytime someone says the word “advocate,” immediately, people think about arguing. And I just want folks to understand that being a great advocate doesn’t mean that you’re arguing with people, it…it means that you are organized and curious and have courage to voice an opinion. So let me kind of break that down just a little bit.
Being organized: I teach parents that before a health appointment or before a school appointment, write down everything that they want to discuss or questions that they want resolved. And that list serves two purposes.
One, it serves the purpose of making sure you get everything you need to get out of that appointment, but the second purpose is, if emotions are making it so that our mind isn’t focusing on the conversation at hand, we have that paper to refer to so that we know, “OK, this is also what I’m…what I was thinking about.” And so it can make the parent…that kind of objective and distance themselves from the…their concerns and worries, which then allows them to present that concern in a very non-emotional way.
So being organized is super important, first step to…to add…advocating. The…the second thing is, I said, being curious.
So this is going into an appointment, whether it be medical or educational, and realizing that everyone participating is human. That means a doctor is not on a pedestal; that they’re human, just like you and I. Going into an appointment thinking somebody is on a pedestal can be dangerous because it…it impacts somebody’s courageousness or somebody’s ability to voice a differing opinion.
So understanding they’re all human, and with being human, that means they can have good days and bad days. They can be right some of the time. They can be wrong some of the time.
But the curiosity comes into, where if the individual you’re having the appointment with is presenting a different treatment plan that you didn’t really think of, or agree with, don’t attack them back with, “You know what, I don’t think that should be the right plan.” That…approach it with curiosity, and you can even play a game with your mind and say, “OK. I know this person isn’t 100% wrong. Let me find that 10% that’s right that I was unaware of before.”
And by playing that game with your brain, it focuses your brain in a way that is helpful when you’re trying to advocate for yourself or for somebody else.
And then the final thing is courage, that having…and speaking a voice can be challenging sometimes when we feel like we’re not on equal terms with someone. So really doing the work to know that as a parent, you…do have great self-worth, that you are the best parent to your child, which means that you know your kid, and that can help with bringing courage to the table when you’re talking about advocating.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Wow. All…wonderful, wonderful tips, advice, right? Being organized, meaning that if we put our questions on paper, bullet point some things we would definitely want to bounce off of the…the professional, right? The doctor, etcetera, the educator, because we get into our emotions, right? We’re parents, and nothing gets more personal than our children.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: And it’s hard to be objective sometimes, and it’s…it would be expected that we’re going to sometimes lose our train of thought or forget something we wanted to check up on. So having a list of questions, Q&A, stuff that… Uh…can come in really handy, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Yeah, when you’re in those appointments, definitely. And then being courageous and, like you said, not having them on a pedestal. Like, so addressing them as human to human, right? With respect, but human to human, and being like, you know, “Don’t necessarily want to shy away from asking questions because of the power differential…”
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: “…In our perspective,” or anything like that. But also, being courageous to ask some of the questions, right? And I understand there’s no such thing as a silly…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Question, right?
Patrick Martin, LCSW: … Yeah. The only silly questions are those that aren’t…are never asked. Yeah.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right. So we always say…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Right.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …But you know, the other thing that I like to remind people of is that sometimes a diagnosis can’t be made during one visit…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Yeah.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …And that can be very frustrating to parents sometimes. So in those moments, I always teach parents, “You know what? It’s OK if a diagnosis isn’t made, but when you leave that office, if the doctor’s saying, you know, ‘I’m not sure what’s wrong,’ then say, ‘OK, I get it, you’re not sure. In my gut, as a parent, I feel like something’s not right. Can you tell me, what are things that I should be looking for that will help you, as a doctor, with making this diagnosis? What are things that you want to know about quickly? Or when should I make the next appointment to tell you how things are going?’” So all of those types of guidance can be very helpful for parents as they’re maneuvering through a frustrating situation where a diagnosis hasn’t…hasn’t been made yet.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Thank you for that. That’s very good. I think, too, like, getting the follow…up, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Right. Showing…showing investment, but also expectation, you know, being…having to be part of a mutual kind of agreement kind of cause, right, that you’re…you have skin in the game, and you…you know you want…commitment on both sides about what…what our role as parents…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Mm-hmm.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …How can I follow up? When I should follow up? What should I be looking…or what are your key performance indicators, so to speak? What are you, as a doctor, looking for in terms of symptoms? And when should I call you? And because this…parents, as to get home, it’s like, “Oh, I wish I’d asked that. Oh, I…you know, should I call the doctor? Should I call her answering service? Or is this…is this silly of me?” And we start…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right, right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Having all this stuff… I don’t know about you, but I have a list of something in my head.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …And like, “Oh…do I bother?” When…when…when is… You start…jump on Google, you know, “When should I call the doctor when my 9-year-old has…”
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …So it’s…it’s always good to kind of, you have the opportunity to ask those things upfront if you spend a few minutes to…to plan ahead, the best we can. Some of these things will…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Save us anxiety later. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then I was also wondering, and you already kind of touched on this, but how can parents maybe get ahead of feeling overwhelmed, or when they are feeling overwhelmed, how do we kind of reel it back in?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah, so you know, it goes to what we were talking about before…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …France.
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …With being able to manage our mind and really seeing, in those moments of overwhelm, first, realizing we’re overwhelmed, labeling it as such, and then trying to figure out what thought is leading us to feeling overwhelmed? And thinking, “Well, do I really need to believe that thought, or is it something I can let go or change?” So, really work on understanding thoughts and…and mindset, and really help with feeling overwhelmed.
But, you know, the thing we didn’t touch on that also helps with overwhelm is finding your people and creating a good support network is absolutely important, for… Because overwhelm can oftentimes, in the parenting world, lead to isolation, and then your overwhelmed gets worse and then you become more isolated, so it becomes this vicious cycle.
But finding your people and being able to have…of…friends or family that you can depend on, but also finding groups where you can vent to or who understand what you’re going through as a mom or a dad is pretty important. There’s been lots of work about the power of community, and how our… Lots of our health problems are due to loneliness, and the importance of finding community when you’re struggling with challenges is critical in learning and growing from these challenges we’re faced with.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Oh, thank you so much for saying that because we…we know that peer support is important, we know that community is important, and we see this in all the research. Not just as parents, but as people, right? I mean, there’s a whole…there’s a whole tick on Blue Zones right now, which I’m a little obsessed with, but Blue Zones, you know…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …The centenarian…centenarians, people who live to be 100 and longer, you know, what are the…what’s the throughline between these communities? There’s, like, five populations in the world. And one of the big pillars there is community and peer support and socialization. And how much more important is that than when we’re going through some trying times? But it’s like that same…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …You know, “Dig the well before you’re thirsty.” Yeah, right? “When is the best time to plant a tree? 30 years ago. When’s the next best time? Now.” Right? All of those…those catchphrases about the importance… And so it’s not always as easy as, you know, Googling, you know…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …”Support groups for such and such, for parents.” And…and there’s, you know, finding something within striking distance of your house, right? But one of the beautiful things we have gained from the tragedy of the pandemic is access to online support groups, Zoom, whatever. And…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yes, yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …So that’s definitely been…been a catalyst…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right. Yeah. You know, the…the other thing, though, that…that I will say about that is, parents oftentimes have a lot of trouble asking for help. And I…I use myself as an example: I stunk at asking for help when my daughter had cancer. I stunk at it because I, throughout my childhood, wanted and dreamt about being a mom. And I felt like if I was going to ask for help, it mean it meant I was failing at this job that I dreamt about forever. So…
I have learned that, you know, asking for help is not failure. Like, that…strength. Because you’re evaluating what is on your plate. And by being able to have the courage to say, “I need help,” that is a sign of strength, not weakness.
But you know, the other big thing that I always remind people: asking for help…you’re giving somebody else a gift. That we all want to serve each other, sir. And offering them the opportunity to be able to reap the benefits and feelings and emotions that go along with serving you is the gift that you can give somebody else.
So when you reframe it as it’s a sign of strength, and you’re giving somebody a gift, it becomes much easier to ask for help.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Thank you so much for pointing that out, right? Because I’m sure so many parents feel that way. Like, “I should have this all figured out. I ask for help; that means I’m weak, or it means I don’t know what I’m doing,” or “How will… I be received? Will I be judged? I’m not used to talk…you know, we don’t… I’m not used to talking about things, you know, behind closed doors.”
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: OK. All that stuff. So it’s a sign of strength, going back to what you’re talking about earlier in terms of one of the…the…the aspects of resilience is courage, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Right? And fear is kind of a prerequisite for courage. So that just makes us human. But asking for help, finding, like you said, the right people is important. There’s something I think of as the “proximity…”
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: “…Pitfall,” right? I talk to my clients a lot about, is there’s a…a propensity to reach out to people who are in closest proximity to us for support. The problem with that alone is that the people who are in the closest proximity are not necessarily the most…prepared people or adequate people to provide the…the level of support that we…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Need. Because they may not have the frame of reference, they may not have the shared experience, and so…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Find our people, find our tribe. And you can find those people for specific problems, yeah, right, as we know. Hence, the support group, right? Or educational group, or whatever…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: …Problem.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Or coaching, right? And so you’ve been on the…the podcast, right? You started off…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right, yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …It sounds like looking to support other doctors and teaching them about the nuances of this population and supporting parents. And then you kind of altered course a little bit to focus more on helping parents directly, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Right.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: And so, there…there’s a need there, and you’re doing…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Hmm.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Wonderful work, you know, be that support for parents, be that support for other doctors, and…and putting your resources out there. So I want to thank you for that. And you’re…you’re a living example that there are…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Oh, thank…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Resources, you know, for parents, it’s…it’s…there are. So that being said, I want to direct our audience to the wonderful work you’re doing via your website. Your…the books, for anyone who’s…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Yeah, there are.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Not sure where to find you. They can go over to maureenmichellemd.com. And I’ll make sure I tie up all of those links in the show notes for you. And your website here is very well laid out. This is your book, Reclaiming Life: A Guide for Parents of Chronically Ill Children. Is…that…you said that’s on…Amazon, right?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: It is on Amazon. Yep, yep.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: It’s OK, easy to find. Alright, easy to find. I’m an audiobook fan. You don’t have an audiobook, by chance?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Do you…I do have an audiobook. Yeah, you can listen to it now if you’re…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: What, perfect?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: It’s…it’s audible, or Spotify, or whatever your platform of choice is. Yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Thank you for that. I know it’s an extra box to track and a big one at that, but thank you, because I’m…I’m a fan of audiobooks. Yes. So thank you so much. And you’ve been featured on many podcasts if people want to check you out there. And of course, there’s a way to get in touch with you through the website. And you’re on social as well, right? Yep. Instagram is… So I will be sure to tie up all of that in the show notes.
Anything I’m missing?
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: I don’t think so. I appreciate being here. Would love to hear from anyone in your audience that wants to chat more about the things that we discussed today or just needs a little bit of help, and I promise the courage to take that step to chat with me is not scary. It’s just…
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Ah, I really appreciate you being on. And you are very approachable, and you are very human, right? And like you said, it’s easy to put doctors on a pedestal because you do great…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: That’s right, yeah.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Work, and you invest an incredible amount of time and energy to get into that field in the first place, and so mad respect. Thank you. But…having done pre-med myself, I know just…just…just that barrier of entry is so high, you know? It’s one of…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: OK.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …The reasons I pivoted, not just…it’s, uh… You know, it’s a lot of investment on your part. And so I really appreciate the work you’re doing, and then to even expand beyond, right? The…the clinical setting, and to…to helping the parents in the trenches. That’s just…wonderful work you’re doing. So, thank you for that. And you’re always welcome back on, doctor. If you’re…unsure how things are going…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Thank you. Oh, thanks.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: …Do you want to promote any other books? You know it’s always an open door, so appreciate…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: That. Thank you. This has been a super fun conversation.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Likewise. And with that, you have a great…
Dr. Maureen Michele Peterson, MD: Week. OK. Thank you.
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Alright, thank you.
[Outro Music]
Patrick Martin, LCSW: Hey, if you’re getting value from this content and you haven’t done so already, be sure to like and subscribe to the YouTube channel and podcast, and be sure to subscribe to the MHT newsletter. That way you don’t miss out on any new content as it’s released. Links in the description.
Thanks for listening to The Mental Health Toolbox Podcast. Learn more at www.thementalhealthtoolbox.com.
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