De-Stress with Strategies from Tamara Hubbard - Part 1

How often do you worry about your kiddo who has food allergy? And have you ever wondered if that amount of worry is "normal" ?

Tune in to this episode of the Food Allergy and Your Kiddo Podcast with me, Dr. Alice Hoyt, and my good friend Pam Lestage as we interview food allergy counselor Tamara Hubbard, LCPC.

Tamara is one of the most knowledgeable food allergy-focused counselors in the country. She herself has a kiddo with food allergy and recognized the dearth of mental health support available for families managing food allergies.

In this episode, Pam and I talk with Tamara about the social-emotional challenges that come with loving a kiddo with food allergy and strategies to keep the worries at bay.


Check out Tamara's podcast Exploring Food Allergy Families Podcast here or where ever you listen to podcasts: https://www.foodallergycounselor.com/podcast.html

Check out Tamara's counseling site Tamara Hubbard, LCPC here: https://www.tamarahubbardlcpc.com

Learn more about food allergy and YOUR kiddo through the Food Allergy and Your Kiddo website: https://foodallergyandyourkiddo.com

Are you in need of an allergist in your area? Check out these allergist finder tools from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology:
AAAAI Allergist Finder: https://allergist.aaaai.org/find/
ACAAI Allergist Finder: https://acaai.org/locate-an-allergist

Does your kiddo's school need help with medical emergency response planning? Check out Code Ana, the non-profit program that is equipping schools for medical emergencies like anaphylaxis.
www.CodeAna.org

Visit Dr. Hoyt on Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/foodallergyandyourkiddo

Listen to the Food Allergy and Your Kiddo Podcast where ever you listen to podcasts, such as:

What's your food allergy question? Subscribe to our newsletter to ask your questions!

Looking for one-on-one time with a food allergist to finally get your food allergy questions answered? Sign up for Food Allergy Office Hours for Parents!

Engage with us on Instagram!

Are you in need of an allergist in your area?
AAAAI Allergist Finder
ACAAI Allergist Finder
OIT Allergist Finder

Would like to become a patient? Reach out to the Institute!

Does your kiddo's school need help with medical emergency response planning? Check out the non-profit Code Ana.

This podcast is the official podcast of the Hoyt Institute of Food Allergy. Information on, within, and associated with this site and Food Allergy and Your Kiddo is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.

Transcript

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 0:00

Self-compassion- versus self-judgment - is definitely a tip and tool that can help parents particularly disengage from these very, very unhelpful thinking patterns.

Announcer: 0:13

Welcome to Food Allergy and Your Diddo with Dr. Alice Hoyt, the podcast about demystifying food allergies, diminishing allergy anxiety, and taking back control. Let's navigate this challenge together with evidence based information, scientific research and tried and proven practices. And now here's your host, board-certified allergist and immunologist specializing in food allergy, Dr. Alice Hoyt.

Dr. Alice Hoyt: 0:41

Hello and welcome to the Food Allergy and Your Kiddo Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Alice Hoyt, joined today by my amazing co host, Miss Pam.

Pam Lestage: 0:49

Hey, everyone.

Alice Hoyt: 0:52

And we have a very special guest today. Her name is Tamara Hubbard, and she is an amazing expert when it comes to managing families who have food allergies and seeing on the mental health aspects of this which is so important. If you are tuning into the podcast for the first time today. Check out some of the other episodes we've been doing leading up to this episode, be focusing on parenting kiddos with food allergies, and how important it is to think the mental health aspect of that. If you're worrying, "You know, I'm kind of anxious about this, but I'm sure other parents deal with it perfectly fine, and you push it away." Don't do that anymore. After this episode, or probably two episodes, then you're gonna walk away, really having a better understanding of what you're feeling, how to manage what you're feeling, what your kiddos feeling, and how to help your kiddo manage that, too.

Dr. Alice Hoyt: 1:55

So Tamara, welcome to the show.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 1:58

Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm honored to be a guest

Pam Lestage: 2:01

We are so excited to have you.

Dr. Alice Hoyt: 2:04

Yes, yes. And we'll also put a link on foodallergyandyourkiddo.com to Tamara's podcast, which is amazing. So, y'all, like if you're listening for the first time, I'm so excited, you're here. If you're a, you know, multi episode listener, you're going to love this. So I want to first dive in Tamara with how and why do you focus your mental health career on food allergy and tell us your your credentials, because I know a lot of us are not necessarily familiar with the credentials that go along with mental health.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 2:43

Yep, there are a few different credentials. So I am a licensed clinical professional counselor. So what you'll see after my name are the letters LCPC, I actually got my master's in marriage and family therapy, but decided not to pursue it pursue that licensure, that was a whole big thing. My college advisor, it was an insurance thing. So in any case, I have the background training for family therapy. But I choose I chose to be an LCPC, which is just a general licensure for counseling. So I did not start off in this space. I have been in the field for 16 years now. And I actually started off you doing substance abuse counseling with adolescence, which is pretty intense. I worked in inpatient and outpatient and what led me to the food allergy space was I became the mother of a child with a peanut allergy. So I, you know, first was just the mom like everybody else, oh my gosh, what is this, we don't have anyone in our family. I don't know how to handle this went through all of these, you know, normal emotional transitions myself. And then, you know, became more of an advocate both locally and in social media groups, and then decided, I think I need to make part of my practice focused on this. And so my practice is I work a lot with women and moms just sort of the through the journey of motherhood and what all that looks like, and, you know, marriages and all these transitions we go through and so I do a lot of work with parents on how to focus on being the parent they want to be, while also being an allergy parent, because that is possible.

Pam Lestage: 4:28

And that's so hard.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 4:29

Yes.

Pam Lestage: 4:30

It's so hard if you don't have help. I mean, our listeners know, I've been a food allergy mama for about 10 years now. And it took me a while to get to where I am and, and part of what got me to where I am, was through counseling and through working on my mental health, both by myself, with help, with my daughter, as a family, and it just you know, it's kind of one of those hidden diseases. And I say that kind of in quotes, but but so many people are scared to speak up and to say,"hey, this doesn't feel right, like I'm overwhelmed." And what you do is, it's such a needed thing for, for so many things, but especially for food allergy, kids and parents and families, and especially in that, you know, those first few years where you're still trying to figure it out, because who there's so much to kind of unpack there. And it's hard to do it without help.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 5:36

Yeah, no, I would agree. You know, and here's the thing, here's the reality of it. And we'll get into this more as we talk that it's okay, that there's anxiety throughout this entire journey. So like you said, when you're first diagnosed, that's the initial sort of like wave tsunami, if we will have anxiety, right, there's, especially if you don't have another child that has allergies, or you don't have them or no one in your family has them. This is brand new, and it's life changing.

Pam Lestage: 6:03

Yeah.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 6:03

And so if you're going to receive a life changing diagnosis, I would expect somebody to be anxious and overwhelmed. And then, you know, perhaps maybe you get your groove going. And then when the transitions come to preschool, to the bigger schools, to adolescence, where they need more autonomy and independence towards young adulthood in college or careers, those anxiety feelings may peak again, because it's sort of like starting new again, right, you've got some experience, but you're starting new in this phase. So I like to normalize these feelings of anxiety and overwhelm, because they are going to happen.

Pam Lestage: 6:41

Yeah, and I think that's part of it, too, is is what I was reading your background and in your website, and listening to some of your podcasts is normalizing it, because we're not getting rid of it, you know. I say all the time because sometimes I get on here, and I feel like, you know, I sound like I have it all together. And it's not that I have it all together, it's that I've learned that I live sort of in this state of, you know, worry and anxiety, but I've learned how to manage it. And it's become a normal for me to feel those ways. And when I start to feel myself kind of getting out of control, I'm able to use the tools that I learned to kind of bring myself back in. And because of that, when my daughter starts to feel a little anxious, you know, she has a situation at school, I know how to help her better, you know, she's also gotten the tools. And we'll talk about you know, how you work with parents and kids, but she's also gotten the tools through therapy, to kind of Zen herself and realize that it's okay to feel worried, but it's how she allows it to not overtake her or overtake her. And it has completely changed the way that I parent, not just her but my other child as well. It's helped, you know, with that, and dealing with whatever he's dealing with, and he's he's got a food allergy, kiddo. But it's so true, I think, normalizing anxiety and saying,"hey, look, it's not weird to feel anxious," just, let's be okay, with the fact that we're going to feel anxious, and let's just learn how to deal with it.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 8:19

That's an acceptance piece that I really focus on. And sometimes I don't even like to use the word"acceptance," because it implies that we have to like it. Right? I sometimes will use the word"acknowledge" instead, because we are we have to acknowledge and be aware other words, than acceptance. Right. Right. What it is going to be a part of it. And it's not always a bad thing. And we'll get into that, too.

Pam Lestage: 8:42

Yeah, yeah. It's just so good.

Dr. Alice Hoyt: 8:46

When I'm kind of hearing is almost like, Tamara, you have sort of a roadmap for families. And Pam knows how much I love maps and thinking like algorithmically. And If This Then That. And I I want to just to sort of start with how, how does a family like how do they start their journey with a mental health expert like yourself? And what like, what, what would that first meeting kind of look like?

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 9:15

Yeah, so here's the hook here. And this is part of the reason why I started the Food Allergy Counselor Directory in 2018. There are there are other allergy, allergy informed therapists or psychologists out there, but they're not as many as just a general psychologist or therapist out there yet. And I always like to say it's not as if you know, a general psychologist or therapist who doesn't know allergy things as well as like those of us that are informed do it's not like they can't help people through this they can. I have heard examples and feedback from those who have had not so great experiences, getting labeled as OCD, exposure therapy that's not done correctly, you can imagine how that would could go wrong. So, it is hard to find an allergy-informed therapist at this point. And that's why I created the Food Allergy Counselor Directory to help people connect with somebody that understands this space. So that would be one place where where people could find them is the Food Allergy Counselor Directory, which is just a segment of my website. The other tips that I give people is ask your allergist, they might have a list of referrals. If they don't, if you have a food allergy clinic at a hospital nearby, give them a call, or even the pediatric psychology department at hospitals, they may know a lot of times with those professionals, you have to be a patient of that medical system. So if you're not and you're looking for somebody outside in a private practice, that's unfortunately, you know, not you can't go see the person who's at the hospital, asking local support groups, right, the mom groups, even if it's not a food allergy mom group, there's a lot of mom groups on social media on Facebook, in general, like for towns or neighborhoods, just ask, "has anybody's child gone and seen a therapist or psychologist who understands food allergies?" So there are different ways to find somebody. As far as how people find me: I have a Psychology Today profile. So I have that information out there. Sometimes it comes through Google searches. I also have created relationships with area allergists. So they would refer them to me if they feel, you know, they could use support. A lot of times, it's the allergist who are doing it, who would refer because you know, they see them that the patients more frequently, there's more opportunities for anxiety to peak during it. And then I think as to what happens in the first session, or like in when we initially start working together. So really, my goal is, as a therapist, the way that I practice is that I want to understand what is going on in their in their world that is not workable, I like to language to me is really important. So I talked about things in terms of like not even healthy versus unhealthy. Because for every family that's going to look different, but what's workable and not workable for you guys. And if somebody comes to me and says I'm feeling really anxious, or my child is feeling anxious, or as a family unit, we're feeling anxious. And this anxiety level is interfering with our ability to do the things we want to do in life, or focus on the things that are important, then that feels unworkable. And so then we create the goals throughout that and figure out how do we make the shifts? How do we help you guys still potentially having anxiety, learn how to manage it, learn how to walk with it, and learn how to still focus on the things that are important to you in life.

Dr. Alice Hoyt: 13:43

That's awesome. I also want to kind of get into you've already alluded to some of it, but you've talked a little bit about acceptance or acknowledgement and commitment. And then we talked a little bit offline about cognitive behavioral therapy. Could you sort of differentiate those for us? And then we'll kind of dive into helping parents helping parents help their kiddos Yeah. Yeah. So um, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is called CBT, is evidence based and ACT, which is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is also evidence based, right? And ACT as sort of an offshoot of CBT. But it approaches, it approaches the same things just differently. So cognitive behavioral therapy really, really focuses on identifying negative thought patterns and behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and actions that are problematic or negatively impacting your life, and then finding ways to either adjust them or reality test distract, kind of disengaged from those or adjust them so that you can move forward. So Acceptance and Commitment Therapy also focuses on these thought patterns and identifying your thoughts feelings, or what we would call internal experiences, right? What is your mind telling you? What are you feeling physically, when your mind tells you that? How does that help you react or not react to something? But instead of disengaging from it or what I say getting into a struggle with you know, the fact that you're even having those thoughts, if the goal is to just learn to allow them to be there or have space at the table? All feelings. So the the hallmark of Acceptance Commitment Therapy is that all feelings are part of the human experience, even the painful ones, right? And so in order for us to live a full meaningful life, doing things that are important or what it calls values based, committed actions, or doing things that are in alignment with our values, and and even when It's tough to do. So we have to work on how do we allow ourselves to feel these feelings, let them be there, decrease the intensity, unhook from them, and then move forward. So it's they're, they're similar in that they want to help people move forward with these negative thoughts that are keeping them holding them back. It's just how they approach it is a little different. And I find, I mean, I do use CBT. As sometimes with kiddos, I'll use that more or with certain different cases, I'll feel like CBT is probably a better fit. So I don't want to, you know, downplay CBT. But I find when I work with parents, especially moms, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy really resonates because, like we were talking about before, there is going to be an anxiety for your peace of this journey as a parent. So let's learn to work with that rather than against it.

Pam Lestage: 16:36

So good. Good.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 16:40

And by the way, because we're normalizing this, I said, I'm a mom of a child with a food allergy. I practice this myself, not just as a mom of a child with a food allergy, but I try to practice Acceptance and Commitment Therapy strategies in life in general, because they're really, they're really life skills. It's not the therapy part, there's a debate in our field, like it could be acceptance, acceptance and commitment training, it doesn't even need to be therapy, right? So it's just a set of life skills. Really.

Pam Lestage: 17:08

It is really because you know, how many times you know, is your child scared? And you say, Oh, no, no, no, there's no reason to be scared, you know, but there is a reason to be scared, and they are scared. So they do need to touch into those feelings. And let's just figure out, you know, how to work around them. And to not allow that fear to, you know, stop you from being happy - be scared, but you can still be happy while you're being scared. And in that moment, it's just so good.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 17:38

Yeah. And when love and when you're loving a child, there's going to be pain. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's just part of this parenting love journey. allergies are not. And so what I will say to people is, okay, if I gave you an opportunity to delete all the painful feelings in life, right, if I gave you a button that you could press that said, "you get to delete all the painful feelings in life. However, in order to do that, you have to delete all the love feelings too." Would you do that? That would mean you wouldn't love and care for your children. I wouldn't. So okay, now what we have to learn to deal with both feelings.

Pam Lestage: 18:17

Yes. You know what that reminds me of? That Joy and Sadness. What movie is that?

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 18:22

Oh, is that Inside Out?

Pam Lestage: 18:24

Inside Out. You know, there's, there's a part in it, where she's trying to make sure that maybe this is just me going off on a tangent, but she's trying to make sure Joy doesn't want Sadness, to show her sadness. And she's helping the little, little stuffed animal toy and he becomes happy because he realizes that it's okay to be sad. And the reason he's sad is why he's happy. And it's just us. So good.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 18:51

That comes up a lot. I bring up that it really? I do. And then I end up saying, there's another movie with Kevin Kline. I'm totally dating myself here. But it's a similar name. And sometimes I actually say that one and it's like a whole. I don't mean the Kevin Kline movie. Sorry. Yeah.

Pam Lestage: 19:07

But it's good. Yeah,

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 19:09

Yeah.

Dr. Alice Hoyt: 19:10

So as the allergist in the room, I want to say that there is no food allergy, whether it's a type of food allergy or a degree of severity, allegedly a food allergy because as we know, if you have IgE-mediated food allergy, having hives one time, doesn't mean you'll just have hives next time, but are other food allergies - food protein induced enterocolitis syndrome, eosinophilic esophagitis, food-induced flaring of atopic dermatitis - all of these are different types of food allergy disorders, and they all carry with them the weight of being a chronic disease that can potentially go acute, become acute have acute manifestations. Just having a chronic disease can cause anxiety. Having your kiddo have a chronic disease can cause anxiety. The potential that they're going acute, can cause anxiety. So I don't want any of our listeners thinking,"Oh, well, my kiddo just has this or just has that so he or she really shouldn't be anxious, or I shouldn't be anxious." No, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you are having those feelings, it is completely normal because you love your child.

Unknown: 20:19

That's actually one of the tips that I will share with parents is to use self self-compassion or self-love, self-kindness, whatever you want to call it versus self-judgment. And so what you were saying is, you know, when parents say to themselves, "I shouldn't be anxious about this, or I shouldn't feel this way about that," that's self judgment. Right and self judgment can lead to shame and grief and other difficult feelings that we get stuck in that lead us again, away from being the parent We want to be even with allergies. So yeah, I think and we can talk a little bit more about that. But self-compassion is really helpful. I know it's kind of a buzzword like self-care. But it really is self-compassion really just means that you are able to acknowledge your own pain and suffering, and that you're able to do what you need to help yourself and support yourself during that time, right. And so rather than saying, "By now, I should have this down and not be feeling anxious every time we go to a party or when my child goes to kindergarten, I've already done preschool." That's not helpful, right? We want to just acknowledge, okay, so maybe you're still feeling nervous about this, that doesn't mean that A) you have an anxiety disorder, I'd like to put that out there too. I know, we keep using the word anxiety, but everybody has anxious thoughts, it's just part of the human experience, and we're going to have them more and it's more appropriate to have them in certain times, like you said, those more acute times, right does not mean you or your child will have an anxiety disorder. It can lead to that, which you know, is basically just your anxiety has gotten to a point where it's, it's impacting daily life. But in any case, self-compassion versus self-judgment is definitely a tip and tool that can help parents particularly disengage from these very, very unhelpful thinking patterns.

Pam Lestage: 22:13

And since you're talking about parenting tips, let's go ahead and get into that. Because I think that's, that's definitely something that, you know, I wish I would have known in the beginning to kind of help me wrap my range of my wrap my brain around all of it, so that I could help her instead of, you know, in the beginning, there was a first of all, in the beginning, there was a lot of guilt, you know, guilt?"What did I do wrong? Why can't I help her? Why can I get this to go away?" And that is just not a healthy way to live? Anyway, I can't, I can't rewind things, you know, it is what it is, we have to move forward. And then there was also, you know, once she got her diagnosis, at every, anytime I had to go to the doctor again, you know,"What else was he going to tell me?" When I had to register for preschool, and no one knew you have an allergy. But what does that mean? What do we do, and kind of like all the steps that go with it. So I think the fact that you have these tips that you're going to talk about is just so important to kind of start off that food allergy journey for sure.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 23:22

What you're talking about is navigating the unknown, the unpredictability, and that is something that really triggers anxiety, just in general, it's not allergy related, right. So if we think about adding that layer of food allergies, that adds more unpredictability, more ambiguity, more uncertainty. And so that is by by just by looking at that, that's going to naturally increase the potential for anxiety. Now, one of the things that's important, and I think, you know, parents can can look at this a little bit easier than when they can recognize it in their children, how everybody handles anxiety is going to be different. And it's based on a lot of factors, right? It's based on your personality. It's based on past experiences of how you've handled anxiety before or worries, it's based on your coping, your coping strategies and your coping preferences. It's based on perception, right? So like, we were saying, the first tip, I'd say for parents is, is not to so is to understand anxiety as the basics of anxiety, right? So anxiety gets labeled as a negative emotion. And I like to take that negative piece out of it, because it's literally just an emotion. And it's, it's actually a helpful emotion a lot of the times, right, so what how is anxiety helpful or anxious thoughts? It can help us prepare that can motivate us to do something that makes us safer, right? It helps us identify danger and respond to it differently or threats. And I think that's where the shift happens, right? So as an allergy parent, we really connect with what we would call the caveman brain, right. So if you think back to the cavemen, they literally had to be alert all the time, because everything was a danger. And you would think that by now, our brains would have evolved a lot more so that maybe we weren't just triggered for danger so quickly. But some of us are triggered for looking out for danger much more than others. And as we said, you add the anxiety or the allergy piece to it, and we are hyper vigilant much of the time. So now we're completely trained to look for danger. And so even the slightest perceived thought of danger could make us super anxious, right? It might go into what's called fight or flight or freeze mode, and you will, you'll see that in our kids, right. So the goal is to understand that anxiety is there to help Help us assess for safety. However, having an anxious feeling or thought whether it's just a thought, or we feel the sensations in our body, right, the upset stomach, the rapid breathing, the shallow breathing, the rapid heart rate, that does not mean that something is dangerous. That does not mean that something is going to be wrong, that is not mean that it's worst case scenario, which is called catastrophizing, right? That's a cognitive thinking trap that we get into, "Oh, I feel anxious. Therefore, this must be really dangerous, therefore, I must avoid. Therefore, I robbed myself the ability to learn how to navigate, talk things." So, number one, the first tip is understanding the purpose and role of anxiety in our lives, that it can be helpful. But we have to develop a different relationship with it, and one that allows us to recognize anxiety. Be curious why it's here. Hey, what you know, I will say the clients, ask your mind, hey, mind, think you know, and this is all internal work."Mind, why are you?" I mean, if you want to, it's all internal work, say to yourself, "I noticed," (again, language is very important to me in the work that I do), "I noticed that my mind is telling me to worry, I noticed that I my body is feeling very anxious. Why am I feeling anxious? What is that about?" So usually, we will just act on that right? "I feel anxious, therefore I avoid" or"I am anxious," right? We instead of even saying creating that space, my mind is telling me to feel anxious, it's I am anxious. And we respond, right. And those responses are usually you know, trigger responses to anxiety, right? We want to keep ourselves safe, we want to get rid of the discomfort of the anxiety, that is our number one goal. And sometimes that's an appropriate response. If you're in the woods, and a bear is coming out. That is an appropriate response. Right? But if you are overestimating the level of risk in a situation like at a party or somewhere else, because we're just afraid, that is not going to help you live in alignment with your parenting goals, which would be probably, "how do I help my child learn to navigate this? How do I help myself navigate this? And how do I learn how to navigate that anxiety in the future? So it doesn't limit me even more?"

Pam Lestage: 28:16

That's so good. Because it's basically you're basically saying you can either let your anxiety be you. Or you can say, "No, no, no, no anxiety, I'm the one that decides if you're going to mess with me or not. So let's have a chit chat. You and I, and we're going to decide the path we need to take." And that I mean, that's just so good. It seems so simple, but it's so it's it's hard to to get there. You know, I mean, I've I've never looked at it that way. And again, you know, I've I feel like I've done a lot of good work with myself to get to where I am and I never have once thought of it that way. And that is so good.

Tamara Hubbard, LCPC: 28:57

Anxious parents can be fully engaged living parents too. We do not have to completely extinguish anxiety. And that's not always a realistic or helpful goal.

Pam Lestage: 29:10

Yeah, yeah, I definitely found that in myself. I'm, I'm very open with the fact that you know, I deal with anxiety and dealt with anxiety in a very not positive way for a while. And I saw help and and probably sought help a little bit too late. And if anybody if I ever see anybody here, anybody, or if I just feel, you know, called to share what I've been through because so many other people, whether it's because of food allergies, or being a new mom or going through a death in the family, whatever it may be, people just need to know that we don't have to live in this like fog of fear. It just it's not the way to live. I mean, that's started I'm sure you have other great tips, but that one right there, star tip.

Dr. Alice Hoyt: 30:11

That wraps this episode of Food Allergy and Your Kiddo, the Podcast. Visit me on foodallergyandyourkiddo.com, and let me know what you thought about this episode. And of course, I'm an allergist, but I'm not your allergist. So talk with your allergist about what you learned on the podcast and what questions you have about food allergy. Have a wonderful rest of your day. God bless you and God bless your family.