Author: CJ Lutke

“Being a parent is a daily attitude, NOT a biological relation.” Angel Chernoff “We are all imperfect parents, and that’s perfectly okay. Tiny humans need connection, not perfection.” L.R. Knost I am not sure how many people at this point know, but in early 2020 I became a Mom through adoption. The adoption was completed…

“Shame should be reserved for the things we choose to do, not the circumstances life puts on us” Ann Patchett “Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself” Anais Nin “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change” Brene Brown If you trip and fall and skin your…

Last year, 2022, Kat Griffin (another member of the ALC of FASD Changemakers) and I did a plenary keynote at a conference on FASD and employment. We were asked to talk about what employers and job support people needed to understand about brain function in areas that affect/occur in employment situations. So, we spent quite…

When the Adult Leadership Collaborative (ALC) of FASD Changemakers did our second Lay of the Land Survey on Quality of Life for Adults with FASD, I was the one who did all the background research and definitions for quality of life because that was what we thought we were going to try to measure. The…

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce.” Thich Nhat Hanh I wrote this blog originally as the opening remarks for a pre-conference day on memory for the international FASD research conference in Vancouver that was to have occurred in 2020. That was before covid messed up the…

“Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: ‘Who has earned the right to hear my story?’ If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love…

“There’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours began.” Mitch Albom (from his book For One More…

I want to tell you all a story. Trust me, this story leads into my blog subject on memory, and things related to my memory, and that of everyone else with FASD that I know. Just before Christmas I was working (when I am not taking forever to write my next blog, I work part-time…

Note from CJ to those with FASD: If reading is hard for you, like it is for many of us, get someone you know to read this to you. Or do something like read it in bits and pieces because you don’t have to read it all at once. Do whatever works for you, not…

On May 30th of this year, I was asked, along with Kat Griffin, to give the annual Salzberg Memorial Ethics Lecture for the Provincial Health Services Association of British Columbia. I wrote the lecture that we both delivered, which we did on behalf of the Adult Leadership Committee of FASD Change Makers, so it is…