I See Glass Children

For many adult glass children, forgiveness can feel dangerous. When you grew up minimizing your pain, suppressing your emotions, or putting the needs of a high-needs sibling and your family ahead of your own, forgiveness can sound less like freedom and more like being asked to disappear all over again.

In this episode of I See Glass Children, Alicia Meneses Maples sits down with social worker, somatic coach, author, artist, and facilitator Christine Gautreaux, MSW,  for a candid conversation about forgiveness, childhood trauma, emotional neglect, anger, grief, boundaries, and healing.

Together, they challenge some of the most damaging misconceptions about forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not mean what happened was okay.

It does not require reconciliation.

It does not require restoring a relationship with someone who hurt you.

And you are not a bad person if you are not ready to forgive.

Christine explains why forgiveness may be less about absolving another person and more about releasing the hold that an old wound continues to have on your life. She also explores the role of the body in trauma recovery and why healing may require more than intellectually understanding what happened.

Alicia also shares a deeply personal experience with forgiveness and the unexpected freedom she experienced when she finally confronted anger she had carried for years.

For adult glass children, survivors of childhood emotional neglect, and anyone trying to understand how family trauma continues into adulthood, this conversation offers a different way to think about forgiveness: not as something you owe the person who hurt you, but as a deeply personal process that you get to approach in your own time.

The question isn’t simply, “Should I forgive?”

It may be:

“What would I need in order to finally feel free?”

Christine Gautreaux, MSW, Consulting & Women Connected In Wisdom Podcast & Community

@womenconnectedinwisdompodcast

Christine (she/her) is dedicated to the pursuit of play, joy, art & social justice. Christine’s superpowers include connecting people, helping folks manifest their dreams, standing up against injustice and using art to make a difference in the world.

Christine Gautreaux (pronounced gō trō) , MSW holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Social Work and is a professional speaker, coach, author and entrepreneur.

Christine is the co-author of Stillpoint: A Caregivers Playbook to find ease and to take a deep breath and reclaim joy and Women Connected in Wisdom stories and resources rooted in the 8 dimensions of wellness volumes I & II. She believes in the power of body wisdom and somatic play to help heal trauma and live our best lives.

Christine coaches professional caregivers, activists and artists to maintain balance and self-care during these intense times we find ourselves living.

Christine is the Co-Host of the Women Connected in Wisdom Podcast (ranked in the top 5% globally) and the Co-Founder of the Women Connected in Wisdom Community. She is currently serving as the Integrity & Innovation coordinator of InterPlay.

You can connect with her at www.womenconnectedinwisdom.com or [email protected]

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Ready to join the movement? Here’s how you can help break the silence around glass children:

1. Subscribe to the I See Glass Children Podcast on YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | or wherever you get your podcasts

2. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and tell them, “You have to hear this.”

3. Visit https://iseeglasschildren.com and subscribe to “Behind the Glass” for exclusive updates, behind-the-scenes content, and a special PDF with tips for helping glass children Spread the Word Share this episode with your bestie, your therapist, your teachers, your minister, friends. Sharing is caring and hearing is healing.

REMEMBER: If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental health professional. You do not have to do this alone. Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast. I’m Alicia Meneses Maples and I see you.

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Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post Do I Have to Forgive to Heal? Childhood Trauma and Christine Gautreaux, MSW appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.

What happens when you are a teenager, your sibling starts to psychologically unravel, and no one explains what’s happening to you?

In this shocking episode of the I See Glass Children podcast, Alicia sits down with Todd Richardson, an adult Glass Child whose older brother developed schizoaffective disorder during adolescence. What followed were years of psychosis, violence, chaos, fear, and isolation that shaped Todd’s understanding of safety, relationships, emotions, and himself. 

While his parents focused on his brother’s illness, Todd was left trying to make sense of a world that no longer felt safe.

He learned to monitor everyone’s emotions.

He learned to make himself smaller.

He learned to anticipate disaster before it happened.

And like so many Glass Children, he learned that survival came before everything else.

Today, Todd gives us an unfiltered, raw peek into what it was like growing up beside severe mental illness, the hidden impact of sibling trauma, the complicated role of rage in healing, and why many Glass Children spend decades searching for the safety they never had as children.

Content Note: Violence, emotional neglect, substance use disorder (drugs and alcohol)

This is Todd’s story.

Welcome to the I See Glass Children podcast.

Connect & Engage

Ready to join the movement? Here’s how you can help break the silence around glass children:

REMEMBER:

If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental-health professional. You do not have to do this alone.

Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast.

I’m Alicia Meneses Maples, and I see you.

Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post Growing Up Beside Schizophrenia: Todd’s Story appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.

What happens to a child when severe mental illness consumes their family—but no one notices the healthy child is disappearing too?

In this deeply moving international episode of the I See Glass Children podcast, Alicia speaks with Rebekah, a 39-year-old adult glass child from Ireland who grew up alongside an older sister who experienced a severe psychotic break in her early teens and never fully recovered. 

Rebekah’s story is emblematic of the glass child experience and her sister’s illness became the center of family life. Doctors, hospitalizations, medications, psychiatric units, and crisis management consumed the household. Meanwhile, Rebekah became “the healthy child”—the one who was expected to cope, perform, succeed, and never need anything herself. 

But beneath the appearance of being okay was a child carrying grief, loneliness, emotional neglect, and the crushing belief that her needs didn’t matter.

This conversation explores the hidden impact of growing up with a sibling who has severe mental illness, the long-term effects of emotional neglect, and why so many adult glass children spend decades believing they are the lucky ones when they are anything but.

Connect & Engage

Ready to join the movement? Here’s how you can help break the silence around glass children:

REMEMBER:

If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental-health professional. You do not have to do this alone.

Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast.

I’m Alicia Meneses Maples, and I see you.

Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post The Link Between Childhood Trauma and Hidden Adult Dysfunction – Rebekah’s Story appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.

What if the very emotions you’ve spent your life trying to escape… are actually trying to help you?

In this powerful and surprisingly freeing conversation, Alicia sits down with confidence coach Ada Undis—a woman who boldly says something most people have never heard before:

“I love guilt and shame.”

Ada Undis is a certified Mastery Method Coach as well as a certified nutrition coach with expertise in emotional mastery, somatic work, breaking subconscious patterns and becoming unapologetically confident. You can reach Ada at: 

For adult glass children, guilt and shame are not abstract concepts. They are lived realities—shaping decisions, relationships, identity, and self-worth.

But what if they are not signs that something is wrong with you?

What if they are signals… invitations… even protectors?

This episode offers a completely different framework—one that does not shame your shame or fight your guilt, but instead teaches you how to understand, work with, and ultimately transform them.

This conversation will meet you right where you are—and softly challenge everything you thought you knew about healing.

Welcome to the I See Glass Children podcast.

Ready to join the movement? Here’s how you can help break the silence around glass children:

REMEMBER:

If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental-health professional. You do not have to do this alone.

Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast.

I’m Alicia Meneses Maples, and I see you.

Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post When Guilt & Shame Becomes Your Super Power with Ada Undis appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.

In today’s episode, you are going to hear from Abby, a 26-year-old adult glass child from the United States who has chosen to remain anonymous so she can share her story honestly and without restriction.

And this conversation is different. It is DIFFICULT.

We are taking an unflinching look at special needs sibling domestic violence. This is a topic most choose to avoid. We are presenting Abby’s story without filters because it is representative of what has happened and is happening in some high-needs families around the globe.

Abby grew up in a home where her younger brother struggled with bipolar disorder and intermittent explosive disorder. From a very young age, her childhood was marked not just by emotional neglect—but by ongoing, unpredictable violence.

And like so many glass children, what was happening inside her home was normalized.

Minimized.

Unspoken.

An important content note:

This episode contains discussions of childhood trauma, emotional neglect, emotional abuse, physical violence, and family instability. Please listen with care and seek support if needed.

What makes Abby’s story so powerful is not just what happened—but how she learned to survive it, which brace yourself, can feel almost as awful to the listener as hearing what she endured. She survived by:

Staying quiet.

Making herself small.

Walking on eggshells.

Believing that her needs, her pain, and even her safety were… irrelevant.

Now, as an adult, she is just beginning to untangle what this kind of childhood does to a person.

This is Abby’s story.

Welcome to the I See Glass Children podcast.

What You’ll Hear

Connect & Engage

Ready to join the movement? Here’s how you can help break the silence around glass children:

REMEMBER:

If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental-health professional. You do not have to do this alone.

Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast.

I’m Alicia Meneses Maples, and I see you.

Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post Special Needs Sibling Domestic Violence – Abby’s True Story appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.

In today’s episode, we travel to Santiago, Chile to meet Constanza Varas Kahler, a 24-year-old adult glass child who is not only living this reality, but also researching it for her university thesis. Children’s mental health is the focal point of Constanza’s story.

Constanza grew up as the youngest of three, with a middle sister who has Down syndrome and later developed epilepsy. From the outside, Constanza was the quiet, well-behaved, responsible one. On the inside, the weight of childhood trauma and parentification triggered exhaustion, hypervigilance, and caused her to slowly disappear under the weight of everyone else’s needs.

By age six, she was her sister’s translator. By ten, she was her mother’s emotional support, her sister’s comforter, and the family’s peacemaker—while her father’s yelling, her brother’s coldness, and her mother’s emotional absence left her with nowhere to put her own fear and grief.

Constanza describes learning to read danger from footsteps in the hallway, feeling guilty any time she tried to rest, and believing her worth depended on productivity and caretaking. She shares bravely about depression, suicidal thoughts, and the moment she chose therapy—and chose life—for herself, even when her father dismissed therapy as “a waste of time” for “crazy people.”

This episode is a raw, global snapshot of what it means to be the invisible child in a high-needs family—and what it looks like to slowly claim your right to exist as your own person.

A gentle trigger warning: This conversation includes references to childhood emotional neglect, parentification, verbal/emotional intensity in the home, depression and suicidal ideation. Please listen with care and seek support if needed.

This is Constanza’s story.

Welcome to the I See Glass Children podcast.

What You’ll Hear

Connect & Engage

Ready to join the movement? Here’s how you can help break the silence around glass children:

REMEMBER:

If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental-health professional. You do not have to do this alone.

Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast.

I’m Alicia Meneses Maples, and I see you.

Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post Hypervigilance, Guilt, and Childhood Trauma: Constanza Speaks appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.

How does Self-Compassion impact mental health? Especially in Glass Children?

Today I am interviewing Dr. Cynthia Phelps, one of the world’s leading experts in self-compassion. 

Dr. Phelps is a Stanford Ambassador of Compassion, International Speaker, Certified Mindfulness Instructor, and Founder of InnerAlly, a trauma-Informed company building tools, courses, and mobile apps to improve mental wellness rooted in the science of self-compassion. She has extensive experience in learning and behavior change and has been developing mental health technologies since 2009. Her expertise is in helping people to use their inner voice to be kind and support to transform their life. Her background in pharmacology and neuroscience helps her create programs for effective health behavior change. 

You may reach Dr. Phelps at https://cynthiaphelps.com

Welcome to the I See Glass Children podcast.

What You’ll Hear

Connect & Engage

Ready to join the movement? Here’s how you can help break the silence around glass children:

REMEMBER:

If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental-health professional. You do not have to do this alone.

Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast.

I’m Alicia Meneses Maples, and I see you.

Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post Healing Childhood Trauma Through Self-Compassion with Cynthia L. Phelps, PhD appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.

What happens to creators when they decide to dive into the dark and tell the hard stories about childhood trauma and mental health? In today’s episode, Alicia shares the deeply personal impact of creating this podcast and the ramifications it has had on her emotional well being, relationships, and mindset.

She reveals the surprising feedback she has received, both positive and controversial, and gives us a glimpse of what is still to come in upcoming episodes.

Welcome to the I See Glass Children podcast.

Ready to join the movement? Here’s how you can help break the silence around glass children:

REMEMBER:

If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental-health professional. You do not have to do this alone.

Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast.

I’m Alicia Meneses Maples, and I see you.

Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post Alicia: Real & Raw appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.

In this episode, we do something different and very important. This conversation is for parents.

Three adult glass children come together in-studio to read and reflect on a list of do’s and don’ts for parents of children with special needs and disabilities. Their answers and reactions are not theories. These are lived experiences from adults who grew up alongside siblings with serious mental illness, cancer, intellectual disabilities.

This episode is not about blaming parents.

It is not about shaming families.

It is about helping parents understand long term impact of growing up in a high needs household and what can be done differently.

If you are a parent of a child with disabilities, a mom of a special needs child, or a caregiver navigating constant medical, behavioral, or emotional demands, this episode offers honest guidance from the people who lived it.

Many parents have never heard the term: glass children. Glass children are siblings who often appear capable, responsible, and fine while quietly carrying fear, responsibility, and emotional neglect. This episode introduces that concept gently and translates it into practical advice parents can use right now.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of sibling violence, safety concerns, emotional neglect, parentification, trauma, and long term caregiving fears. Please listen with care.

Welcome to the I See Glass Children podcast.

Ready to learn more about supporting all children in high needs families?

REMEMBER:

If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental-health professional. You do not have to do this alone.

Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast.

I’m Alicia Meneses Maples, and I see you.

Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post What Every Parent of a Special Needs Child Needs to Hear appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.

Our interview with Emily Wyler, a 30-something adult glass child from the United States marks a turning point in Season 1. Emily gets raw and real about the cost of being the “good one.”

At 4 years old her teachers turned against her instead of understanding the trauma or nearly losing her baby sister to multiple surgeries and how her parents punished her.

As a teen you’ll hear how she finally found a safe haven, only to have it ripped from her by her parents. 

You’ll hear how her childhood trauma followed her into adulthood: perfectionism, dating people who mirrored chaos, a crushing fear of becoming a parent and the lifelong grief of never having been asked, “Emily, how are you?”

A gentle trigger warning: This episode includes discussions of medical trauma, childhood emotional neglect, physical punishment, bullying, perfectionism, grief, complex family loyalty, and fear about lifelong caregiving responsibility. Please listen with care and seek support if needed.

This is Emily’s story—and it’s a mirror for every glass child who was expected to be grateful, responsible, and fine while silently falling apart.

Welcome to the I See Glass Children podcast.

Ready to join the movement? Here’s how you can help break the silence around glass children:

REMEMBER:

If you’re struggling, reach out to a mental-health professional. You do not have to do this alone.

Thank you for listening to the I See Glass Children podcast.

I’m Alicia Meneses Maples, and I see you.

Produced by: Brewing.Media

Dedicated to: My Daddy. I love you with all my heart forevers.

Special thanks to: BlueHair

The post The Hidden Cost of Childhood Emotional Neglect with Emily Wyler appeared first on iseeglasschildren.com.