The Adapted Life
Welcome to The Adapted Life Podcast, a dedicated space for those who have faced profound challenges, particularly those who have navigated the journey of having a child born with severe disabilities. This podcast serves as a sanctuary for connection, offering support and strategies for building resilience when life unfolds differently than we envisioned.
In this series, I share my personal journey with my disabled son, detailing the ups and downs we experienced together. Our story is one of love, hardship, and ultimately, adaptation. But now, my focus has shifted to the complex and often lonely path of adapting to life after the loss of my son.
Grief is a powerful, consuming force that changes everything. It can feel isolating and overwhelming, reshaping how we perceive the world around us. Through this podcast, I hope to explore what it means to grieve, to honor the memory of my son, and to find ways to move forward while carrying his spirit with me.
We'll discuss practical approaches to adapting to loss, including how to find joy in small moments, the importance of community support, and strategies for navigating everyday life when the ground beneath you has shifted. This journey is deeply personal, yet universal in its themes of love, loss, and resilience.
Join me as we create a conversation around grief and adaptation, turning our experiences into pathways for healing and connection. Every story shared strengthens our community and reminds us that while loss is an inevitable part of life, we have the capacity to adapt and find new meanings, even amidst heartache.
The Adapted Life
Grief leaves me strange and stuck. Grief is not linear either.
254 days ago, from the day I recorded this talk, my beautiful son Daniel passed away at the age of 26.
The journey I am on now, is really bizarre. There is no linear progression as far as I am concerned. Having been my son's full time care giver for his entire 26 years of life, made an indelible mark on my soul. In the loss of my boy, and the beautiful life we had caring for him, I am mostly alone and sad. Talk about your loss of purpose. The struggle is real.
Sometimes I have hit days where I experience what I named "the stuck". Where I completely lose all focus and nothing I try to do feels possible. Like a numb dissociation. So strange to be "just me" and not "me and Daniel".
The adapted life, is still the adapted life. Adapting to loss of the son who fostered the reengineering of our entire life style and value system because he needed care 24/7. And then, blip... I stand in my home, listening to the sounds of the house. So quiet. Stuck in the unknowing.
Walk with me as I work through these days of grief. I have found such comfort in connecting to people who also know the pain of tragic loss. It remakes us into a new person. A stranger when we look in a mirror. That is very strange.
And the pain doesn't end. You grieve your person, and you also grieve the loss of yourself.
That is where I am now. Intuitively trying to navigate through a strange reality where I barely know myself now.
Please visit my art shop on ETSY.com called "Daniel's Special Art". It is the shop we created with our collaborative art pieces. And also is going to showcase the watercolors and other pieces that have been my way to channel my pain. A story. A journey. A life well lived. A life lost. The work of getting unstuck.
All of my heart to you,
Julie Hasselberger
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanielsSpecialArt?ref=seller-platform-mcnav
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr7Ot0J0o6_gRnG_fJvzDg
