Instinct Erosion: Why Moms of Neurodivergent Kids Stop Trusting Themselves
Trust Yourself Again: Cutting Through the Noise of Motherhood
Here’s How.
Stephanie Fluger opened up about something she calls instinct erosion, the slow loss of self-trust that happens when outside voices start to outweigh what you already know deep down. She shared her own story of raising a son with autism, ADHD, and a PDA profile, and how well-meaning advice, from family, from pediatricians, from therapists, often conflicted with what her gut was telling her. Time and again, she deferred to outside authority instead of her own instinct, especially in those early, uncertain years of motherhood. That erosion doesn't happen all at once. It happens gradually, one "wait and see" and one outside opinion at a time.
Stephanie also unpacked the role fear plays in all of this. Fear isn't the enemy, she explained, it can motivate you to prepare and advocate for your child. But when fear takes over the wheel entirely, it drowns out your instinct completely. Her practical fix is refreshingly simple: get it out of your head. Writing down every worry, big or small, turns an overwhelming cloud into something concrete and actionable. She also shared how she uses tools like AI to lighten her mental load, freeing up space so her intuition has room to actually be heard.
HERE ARE THE 3 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:
1️⃣ Instinct erosion happens gradually as outside voices outweigh your own knowing.
2️⃣ Fear can motivate you, but it shouldn't be the one driving your decisions.
3️⃣ Writing down your worries turns overwhelm into something you can actually act on.
THE 5-MINUTE SELF-CONNECTION PRACTICE
This free resource will help you interrupt the shame spiral after a hard parenting day and reconnect with yourself in just 5 minutes.
“I am a mature adult human with desires, with a life that is so robust and desires that are so multiplicitous that I feel the tension between them.”
Guest Appearing in this Episode
About Stephanie Fluger
Stephanie Fluger is the founder of Connection Therapy Clinic, where she supports families navigating neurodivergent parenting. As a mom to a son with autism, ADHD, and a PDA profile, she brings both professional expertise and lived experience to her work, helping other parents rebuild trust in their own instincts amid conflicting advice and information overload.
Full Transcript
Tia Graham (00:01.75)
Hi Stephanie, welcome to the Feel Good Club show.
Stephanie (00:05.912)
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and talk with you and talk with the moms that are out there and tell you guys all the things.
Tia Graham (00:13.68)
I'm personally so excited, you know, of applying this to my own life as a working mom of two neurodivergent kids. And yes, I know it's gonna help a lot of these beautiful listeners. So we'll get right into it. You talked to me before Hidden Record about this phenomenon, this thing called.
Instinct erosion. So what is it and why do you care about this? Why does this matter to you?
Stephanie (00:52.586)
Absolutely. So what I want to start with telling you a story. And think about it. And it applies to all of us, right? So we all like become moms and we all are in our careers. And now with this whole social media, we have our babies. We're like, my God, what am I going to feed my baby? And there's all of this information coming in, you know, nursing and breast milk and formula. And we're getting hit with so much stuff, right?
And when you are a first-time mom, when you are a new mom, you you take all of this information and you're trying to digest it all and you're trying to figure out what is beneficial, what is not beneficial, all of those different pieces. And then you start doing it, but then your gut is telling you, no, no, no, I can I can't nurse, I need to do formula, or all of the different components. And that in a nutshell is
Instinct erosion is that we are no longer listening to our instinct of we need to feed our child, we need to do what we think is right, but we're getting all of this information thrown at us from social media, from other people, that it's just really hard for us to weed through, that it's this complete disintegration of us trusting ourselves.
Tia Graham (02:15.511)
So powerful. I've never had this image before, but as you were talking, two women flashed in front of my eyes. Like a woman in rural Africa and a woman in like the mountains of Peru. Because I once led a retreat in Peru and you know, this shaman came down. Like women who are not bombarded with information and with social media.
Stephanie (02:30.059)
Mm-hmm.
Stephanie (02:38.765)
Amazing.
Stephanie (02:42.669)
Mm.
Tia Graham (02:45.535)
And how they are probably so much more in tune with just like what's happening and their body and like what's going on. And what a different experience than you know a high achieving working mom with a phone and internet, you know, in in Southern California or in the United States.
Stephanie (03:05.599)
It right. Right. Exactly. It and when you even apply it to like working moms where it's I feel like this social media, and I don't mean to like just harp on social media, because we get information from everywhere. We get it from our parents. We get it from people down the street. We get it from people at a restaurant that are like, you know, your children shouldn't be on a phone. You know, all of all of the things, you know.
Tia Graham (03:33.343)
Right.
Stephanie (03:34.519)
So it's it's all of those different components, but it's also this concept that I feel like not me, but all of us working moms that do have neurodivergent kids, that we have to be a working mom that works full-time. We have to be a full-time mom. We have to be the best of the best within whatever our industry is. We have to be making dinner at home. We have to have the house clean, you know, all of the things.
Tia Graham (04:01.856)
A lot of us also are like also a wife. Like there's all these different identities and titles and responsibilities.
Stephanie (04:05.215)
Exactly.
Ex exactly, and all of those components from what's getting thrown at us has not given us a place to listen to our own instincts, to listen to what our life is telling us, like our own personal like soul of what we need in order to thrive.
Tia Graham (04:27.702)
Right, right. And so how come, how come this matters so much to you personally?
Stephanie (04:37.934)
A lot of this has to do with how I raised my son. where my son, he is autistic, he has ADHD, PDA profile, RFID, all the things, right? And I will I will never forget when we were starting this journey, or I was starting my motherhood journey of him being in therapy and things like that, where
Tia Graham (04:53.954)
Right.
Stephanie (05:07.328)
I knew something was I needed support on something on how to support my son, if that makes sense. That was a lot of support in one phrase, but I needed the support. But I would get from my parents, he's so with it, or something like that. Or the pediatrician would be like, wait and see, it's totally fine. And I listened to them more so than I listened to myself, knowing that I needed support. Or you go further into our
Tia Graham (05:13.634)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stephanie (05:35.343)
personal life of my son and his own therapies. And it was a speech therapist telling me, we need to do we need to do X, Y, and Z. But then I realized my son has PDA. So as we've talked, like with PDA, you have to limit those demands. I can't be forcing him to sit at a desk and do flashcards or repeatedly do
words or sounds or things like that. It has to be his own autonomy in wanting to do something. And so all of those things go back to things that I experienced with my son, my own instinct of taking the information that I was getting for my own life and then applying it to my son. And that's exactly where this conversation really needs to happen is how can we weed out all of the input that comes into us.
Tia Graham (06:10.434)
Right. Right.
Stephanie (06:33.57)
to then apply it to our lives to then help better ourselves in our career as well as help grow our own children.
Tia Graham (06:41.462)
Yeah. Gosh, Stephanie, I can relate. And I wish I had this message 10 years ago when our 12 year old was two. I knew very early on, like my my instinct was giving me a lot of information, my soul, my gut, just knowing, right? And
Tia Graham (07:11.17)
Professional doctors at UCLA went against my instinct. What my mom and my sisters were telling me completely went against what I knew to be true. And I outsourced my knowing. I outsourced my trust for several years because I didn't feel confident and because.
Stephanie (07:30.84)
Yes.
Tia Graham (07:39.499)
I was a it was my first child, right? It's interesting because we're I felt so much more confident with my second. Yet I I actually knew a lot more than my first. So it's such an important information. And I think as it right going into the teenage years, like we might outsource teenage experts as opposed to like, yeah, get quiet and and listen. So you said also.
Stephanie (07:42.302)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Stephanie (07:47.566)
Right.
Stephanie (08:01.346)
Yeah.
Tia Graham (08:09.11)
Like trust yourself again. So by saying that it's like working moms with neurodivergent kids trusted themselves before, but then that trust, you wrote it, that trust was lost. And and how come you think that is? Because you use the word again. It wasn't like trust yourself for the first time. So tell me why you said trust yourself again.
Stephanie (08:12.47)
Mm-hmm.
Stephanie (08:35.17)
When you want to be a mother and you decide that you want to be a mother, and this could apply to motherhood, this could also apply to your professional career. You decide what you want to do. You know yourself. You know if you want to go into engineering, you go to school for engineering. And of course, that can always change and things like that. But you know what you want and you know those steps. When you want to be a mother.
you decide you want to be a mother, you know those steps and you trust yourself. But then when you get thrown a curveball of your kid isn't developing the same way as their peers around them. Or you have exactly all of those things and all of a sudden you're like, I did not like I didn't expect this. I didn't sign up for this. I didn't know that we'd be going to therapy. Then all of a sudden fear, like you said, fear takes
Tia Graham (09:16.172)
Behaviour.
Stephanie (09:31.189)
Over and you almost give up your instinct and like you said, your confidence to fear. And you now are outsourcing all of these different components, trying to gather the information. And now information is so readily available to us, whether it's correct information, misinformation, people's opinions, and all of those things, it's too much.
Tia Graham (09:32.013)
Yes.
Stephanie (10:00.684)
Because it's just this overwhelm of we need to know absolutely everything. And be once you start going down that rabbit hole of all of the information, it just quiets your own instinct more.
Tia Graham (10:07.062)
Yeah.
Tia Graham (10:18.122)
Yeah, yeah. I agree with you. looking back, I was so, and tell me if you relate to this, I was so focused on correct parenting, parenting the right way. And of course, we parent how we were raised, and a lot of times that backfires you know a lot with with having
Stephanie (10:38.221)
Yes.
Stephanie (10:45.304)
Yes. yeah.
Tia Graham (10:48.262)
neurodivergent kids. Also the this this thinking constantly thinking about like their future. How are they gonna be in their future? Whether that be like next year in school or high school or like as an adult. And so those two things like correct parenting and then their future like I think
Stephanie (11:03.736)
Yeah.
Tia Graham (11:14.269)
mm separated myself from my intuition. Would is that the same for you?
Stephanie (11:19.212)
Yeah, absolutely. Because it's always it's like it's a citrical cycle of all this information coming in and what do I do with this information? And it's what what was it like a couple of years ago, gentle parenting was like the hottest topic. Like you had to gentle parent. And there wasn't there almost wasn't this mix and this own creation of how how am I gonna take some of the things that actually worked well with me when I was getting raised.
Tia Graham (11:35.628)
Right.
Stephanie (11:48.793)
How do I weed out the things that didn't work well? How do I take in a little splash of gentle parenting? How do I put in a splash of all of this information that I've now learned about PDA and demands? And that's a whole nother, you know, umbrella. Now I want to also throw in there my own personal working life and wanting to grow myself in who I wanna be as an individual.
Tia Graham (12:14.018)
Right.
Stephanie (12:14.656)
And now you have all of these things that are thrown on top of you and you're like, wait, what did I want to do? And what was like what I thought was the right way to parent and the right way to do all of those different pieces.
Tia Graham (12:28.322)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it's a lot, right? And and when your when your child when your child isn't developing, is having challenges, you know, it is, it's it's it's it's testing you, right? And it's testing your self-trust because these like external markers aren't like, good job, good job, good job, that as a working professional.
Stephanie (12:48.141)
Yes.
Tia Graham (12:56.63)
Whether you like in school or work, you're used to getting this like external validation. Good job, good job, good job. And so having that trust and knowing despite external things that are not going, you know, typically, is a challenge. But it yes, it absolutely definitely can be done. So let's talk about fear because this is a very
Stephanie (12:59.746)
Mm-hmm. Right, right.
Stephanie (13:14.882)
Mm.
Stephanie (13:19.843)
Yeah.
Tia Graham (13:25.672)
Real emotion, a very real experience for a working mom with a neurodivergent child. how have you what has been your relationship with fear and how have you managed it? Have you befriended it? What's your advice around it? Talk talk to me about you living fear.
Stephanie (13:28.707)
Mm.
Yeah.
Stephanie (13:48.141)
Yeah. I I I would love to hear from someone who's befriended fear because that I think that is quite an accomplishment to be able to do that. I think it's always a little bit of a partnership with fear and how you're going to allow that to manage your life. Because fear obviously being such a powerful emotion can really be a driving force.
And that kind of pushes you into a fear of, well, how like you were talking about, what does the future of my child look like? What does my future look like? What am I gonna do? And it's always that fear that I need to learn more information, I need to better prepare myself for what happens into the teen years for my kid. I need to better prepare myself because I'm fearful of will my child be able to be s a self-sustaining adult.
In this world, so I need to make sure that I work hard enough now so I can not only provide for them now, but I can provide for them for the rest of their life. The fear of having a marriage and taking care of that marriage and making sure that that itself can like hold together. I feel like fear is such an essential part in this instinct erosion component because fear is one of those pieces that takes that instinct away.
Tia Graham (14:54.509)
Right.
Stephanie (15:16.15)
That you're no longer listening to that gut. You're no longer listening to what you intended from certain aspects of your life. That you just have to find a way to partner with fear so it continues to progress you to certain goals, but you don't let it take over your whole life that you stop listening to your own personal instincts.
Tia Graham (15:42.425)
Got it. So you make me you made me think of one of Liz Gilbert's books, Big Magic. And she talks about fear, and this is, you know, doing creative work. And for us, we need to do creative living with being a working mom with a neurodivided child, right? We're always having to think of different things. It's like fear is, she says, fear is in the car.
Stephanie (16:03.352)
Mm. Yeah.
Tia Graham (16:11.148)
Like there there isn't this experience where you're just, you know, there is no fear and you're going along, whether you are creative with your work or, you know, with how you have to live. And she said kind of the same thing you're saying is, but you're not letting it drive the car. It's there with you. And what I hear you're saying is that you're actually you're actually using it to listen.
Stephanie (16:21.643)
Mm.
Stephanie (16:28.204)
Yes, exactly.
Stephanie (16:41.036)
Mm.
Tia Graham (16:41.106)
Help you make decisions to help you progress towards your goals. But it's not like got it using it as a motivator. And so what advice do you have for when it's not that little motivator? It's actually this huge cloud, or you're in this like storm or you know, tornado of fear, you know, those those times when it's
Stephanie (16:45.548)
Right. It's almost like a little motivator. Yeah.
Stephanie (17:08.13)
Yes.
Tia Graham (17:09.26)
When it does take over and it's driving the car and you're like holding on for dear life, what advice do you have or for the woman listening?
Stephanie (17:13.89)
Yeah.
So for me, my big scaries are when it's just all in my head, when I have all of the pieces going on. And it always makes it easier to write it down. Get it out of your brain and onto a piece of paper. And that's always my advice for when there is just too much going on and you can't think of your own thoughts.
And I just start listing everything. And it doesn't matter how small it is, it doesn't matter how big it is. I just start listing. And being able to take it out of my brain and put it on pay on paper makes it almost an actionable item to remove part of that fear. For me to say, okay, here's one thing that I'm nervous about is how is my son going to be able to do his math test on Friday?
Okay, well, now that I have it written down, now I can put action plans together on what do I need to do to help support him in the best way. Another fear is trying to work through marketing with my business. And all right, I'm gonna write it down. And all right, now that I have it written down, and it's not just in my brain floating around, I'm gonna make actionable items to that so I can then listen to myself and apply my own instincts.
And my own thoughts to that fear, so I can take control back over the car.
Tia Graham (18:44.29)
Got it. So you basically make the invisible visible. And by getting it out of your head, it's like it stops that rumination, catastrophesizing, and it makes it seem more manageable when it's when it's out. I think that's such a great, great tool. I have a amazing
She's like a business slash life slash spiritual coach who I've worked with on and on, on and off, I should say, over the past nine years. And she said something to me recently that was really helpful, that maybe it'll be helpful for the listeners, because I was asking her about fear. And she said that when you're in a place of fear, that's a signal that you are in a place of disconnection.
Stephanie (19:15.768)
Mm-hmm.
Stephanie (19:39.894)
Mm.
Tia Graham (19:39.993)
Because fear is this like individual experience. And to use it as remembering that you are connected to every other, you're connected to your family, you're connected to friends, you're connected to everyone, right? Like we are all one. And also it's a sign that you're disconnected from the universe, or if you say God, or if you say source, or if you say mother nature, whatever, you know.
Stephanie (19:44.482)
Yes.
Tia Graham (20:08.844)
Whatever your religious, whatever your practice is, but it's also a signal that that there's a disconnection there. And that at any point you can pause and choose to reconnect with other humans, to reconnect with spirit, and to feel held. And she also said that there's no experience that will come to you that is above you.
Stephanie (20:11.341)
Right.
Stephanie (20:17.251)
Mm.
Tia Graham (20:36.236)
That is, that is, that's something you can't handle. She said, You are equal to all experiences that come to you. If if you weren't equal, if you weren't able to handle it, they wouldn't be coming to you. Which made me feel calmer and made me feel like more confident and capable of like, okay, a good reminder, whatever's coming at me that that I can do. But I and I love I love the writing it down piece too. and so
Stephanie (20:47.936)
Yeah.
Stephanie (20:55.8)
Yeah.
Stephanie (21:01.72)
Yeah.
Tia Graham (21:05.43)
Let's get really practical. Day to day, it's a busy Tuesday with kids and work, you know, a million things going on, a to-do list, so, so big. How do you in your daily life, how can people in their daily life not have instinct erosion? Talk about what we actually do behavior-wise.
Stephanie (21:07.37)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephanie (21:29.496)
So, like I mentioned, I'm a big list person. I get wrapped up in my brain and I kind of hyperfixate on some of those stressors and concerns throughout the day. So I truly do write down my whole day. So I am a big AI Claude user. And I use it exactly for these situations throughout my entire day because I get stuck in the cycle of all right.
I have to do drop the kids off. I gotta, or before I drop the kids off, I gotta make lunch. I gotta do drop the kids off. I gotta drive into the office. I've gotta set up the whole office. I got all of the things to do, right? Well, if you set up your AI systems, you can set it up so it is literally telling you all the different tasks that you have to do. So then you you take that off your mental load. And I think that also has a lot to do with instinct erosion, with us as being mothers and
working and all of the other things going on is how much of our mental load we have capacity for to think in through what our instinct is telling us. And so that is really how I'm able to get through that day. So we have our chat today and then it's what am I doing later this afternoon and I have my AI tell me, here's all the things going on.
Tia Graham (22:52.44)
Mm-hmm.
Stephanie (22:52.99)
and being able to automate certain things that I'm not necessarily needed for and that really helps me be able to apply my own thought and my own interpretation of certain situations to be able to come out with the best outcome.
Tia Graham (23:09.858)
So you are using AI, and I use it a lot too with my business and personal life to take things off your plate, decrease the invisible mental load so that there's more space and time for you to stay connected to your knowing, to your intuition. Because if you are so full and the list is so big and it's everything's up in your head,
you're gonna be disconnected from what your instinct is telling you. Is that right?
Stephanie (23:42.944)
E exactly. And let me give you a perfect example as far as mental load and something that we as moms have all the time. Meal planning, grocery shopping, and all of that. Well, on every Friday before the weekend, I have my AI send me a list of five dinner meals Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And I say yes, no, yes, no, all those things. Which ones I want. Now it's gonna take
Tia Graham (24:06.988)
Right.
Stephanie (24:09.471)
Each one of those meals that I like, and it's gonna put it in my calendar so I know what I'm having each night. And it doesn't just stop there. Then I have it put together the grocery list on what it is that I need, and then it's gonna automatically put it into my Apple notes or Apple reminders where my husband and I share.
the grocery list and it has it sectioned out for whether it's gonna be at Costco or Trader Joe's or a regular grocery store and all of that is automated that I am not required. It does it on its own every Friday. The only thing I have to tell it is whether or not that's what I want it to put on my calendar for next week.
Tia Graham (24:50.252)
Right. And so by delegating and automating this, you're not questioning, wondering, you know, am I doing a good job with the dinners? Is there variety? Like all these things that we might question or not feel good enough, you're having, yeah, you're having support there. I love that. I love it so much. Well, I know that.
Stephanie (25:12.737)
Exactly.
Tia Graham (25:19.626)
Every person listening can choose to stay connected to their intuition, can make the time to just slow down a little bit, get quiet a little bit. And yes, it's great that there's the books and there's information on social media and our friends and family are helping us, but this just the reminder that you actually have probably 99% of the answers inside of you.
And that just because someone has a doctor, you know, in front of their name and you don't, doesn't mean that they know more than their kid or about you than you, right? You could you could agree or not agree. but it's such a valuable, yeah, such a valuable message. So Stephanie, if people want to connect with you, learn more about your clinic, where should they go?
Stephanie (26:11.979)
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely find us on social media, Connection Therapy Clinic. we're on Instagram. You can also find our website. you can send me a DM from there. I have a bunch of resources that we can definitely send your way.
Tia Graham (26:27.39)
well, thank you for coming on the show.
Stephanie (26:29.483)
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you.