In this episode Mental Health News Radio Co-Host Matt Pappas interviews Kelli Gettel. Kelli is an entrepreneur living in the central Pennsylvania area, and a parent of 3 children, including a 4 yr old who also was diagnosed with autism. As you'll hear on the podcast, Kelli has overcome tremendous odds in her life, as so many survivors do, and wants to help others understand life with the challenges she faces. By doing so she wants to educate others that these are not reasons to stay silent, isolated, and living in fear or shame. Rather, by utilizing the power of research and learning about your situation, you can find ways to adapt and overcome, and reach others with a positive, stigma fighting message. Some of her challenges we discuss on the show include:

Life as a female, living on the autism spectrum; including when she was diagnosed, the struggles of non-verbal communication with others.

How Narcolepsy affects her relationships, and how Narcolepsy can be a form of Dissociation.

Sensory Struggles; the challenges of not being able to filter out surrounding sounds and distractions to be able to focus on a single event or conversation.

Social Rules & Protocols - how she had to, and continues to learn how to interact in a social setting. Things that come natural to others have to be learned and adjusted too, which can cause struggles in relationships of all types.

Her ability to think in pictures; in her mind she sees life in the form of pictures and moving images, so trying to translate that into words and communicate her thoughts can be a huge challenge.

We also touch a bit on her life growing up with a parent who had narcissistic tendencies, and how she's learning more about understanding her alters and using the IFS model to help.

Matt Pappas is the host of Beyond Your Past Podcast and is a Certified Life Coach, NLP Master Practitioner, and Mental Health Advocate, Matthew Pappas. He is also the founder of SurvivingMyPast.net, a blog in support of all who have survived the Trauma of Abuse.