What happens when life defies all your expectations and forces you to navigate one impossible challenge after another? Karen Dittman knows this reality all too well. Karen's extraordinary parenting journey spans over 25 years, bookended by infertility struggles and a shocking pregnancy at age 46. In between, she's navigated what she calls "the five A's" with her children: adoption, anxiety, ADHD, autism, and addiction. Perhaps most heartbreaking was the period when her daughter disappeared i...

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Season 8

What happens when life defies all your expectations and forces you to navigate one impossible challenge after another? Karen Dittman knows this reality all too well.

Karen's extraordinary parenting journey spans over 25 years, bookended by infertility struggles and a shocking pregnancy at age 46. In between, she's navigated what she calls "the five A's" with her children: adoption, anxiety, ADHD, autism, and addiction. Perhaps most heartbreaking was the period when her daughter disappeared into addiction, leaving behind a three-year-old child and Karen wondering if she was alive or dead.

With remarkable vulnerability, Karen shares the painful lessons she learned during these dark days. "I was going to help her, fix her, fight this battle," she recalls thinking about her daughter's addiction, "but that was my mistake. It wasn't ever my battle to fight." This profound realization – that we cannot fight others' battles for them – serves as a beacon for anyone loving someone through addiction or mental health challenges.

Karen's story isn't just about surviving difficulty but finding ways to thrive through it. She offers practical wisdom for those in similar situations: find your community of people who truly understand without judgment, and make time for spiritual renewal daily, even if it's just "seven minutes with Jesus." These practices sustained her when hope seemed impossible.

The beauty of Karen's testimony lies in its resolution – her daughter has now been sober for nearly two years, is working, has her own place, and is rebuilding her relationship with her child. It's living proof that even our most desperate situations can transform.

Karen and her husband Michael have channeled their experiences into their book "Thriving in Grace: Unleashing Wellness from a Biblical Perspective," written during the very trials they were enduring. Visit karenadittman.com to connect with Karen and discover more about finding peace amid your own chaos.

Let me know what you think of this episode?

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Thank You for Listening, I hope you enjoyed this episode and that it encouraged you.  Please like, share, and leave a review.  

00:30 - Introduction to Karen Dittman

03:33 - Faith Journey and Spiritual Transformation

07:06 - Facing the Addiction Crisis

12:44 - Navigating the Five A's

16:38 - Finding Support and Self-Care

21:45 - Unexpected Pregnancy and God's Plan

23:29 - Recovery and Redemption

26:02 - Final Wisdom and Resources

WEBVTT

00:00:01.320 --> 00:00:07.514
Hello everyone, thank you again for joining me on another episode of the Dorseros show.

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Today we have a special guest with us.

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Her name is Karen Dittman and her journey as a mom.

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Karen has supported her kids through the five big A's Adoption, anxiety, adhd, autism and addiction.

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More than 25 years of parenting has been bookended by infertility on one side and conceiving a surprise bio-child in her mid-40s.

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She has also been raising one of her grandchildren.

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You might say she has seen it all and not so survived.

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To tell this story, karen has learned to thrive, not just in spite of it all, but because of it all.

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Karen and her husband Michael have co-authored Thriving, angry, unrelenting Wellness from a Biblical Perspective and the Fruit of Gratitude.

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Together they hope to live long enough to experience having an empty nest.

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Karen brings hope for you to find you can thrive and be at peace in the midst of your own chaotic life.

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Karen, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

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Thank you so much for having me today.

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Dorsey, Definitely.

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I'd like to open up with an icebreaker question.

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Today's icebreaker question is what's a fun fact about you that most people don't know?

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Hmm, a fun fact about me that most people don't know.

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I was on a swim team when I was a kid and like really young.

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I learned when I was probably five years old to swim the length of the pool and so I did swim team from when I was like five to about seven years old.

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Not too many people know that about me, Okay.

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What has had the most profound impact in your life?

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Impact in your life.

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Oh goodness.

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Well, I mean meeting Jesus and having Jesus in my life, of course, is huge, but I would say that a really profound impact in my life was I got involved with a ministry called Women at the Cross and a friend of mine invited me to attend a weekend going on 11, 12 years ago now, and that weekend just like you can point to a before and after of who I was and how I showed up in life with that Women at the Cross weekend, that was a profound turning point for me.

00:03:02.817 --> 00:03:05.519
With that Women at the Cross weekend, that was a profound turning point for me.

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Did you grow up in a church and, you know, did you meet Jesus later in life.

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What was that experience?

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like.

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I grew up in a church-going family.

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It was just what we did.

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My parents had grown up going to church all their lives and they got married and so we went to church every Sunday.

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But it was just what we did.

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So we were part of the Catholic Church at the time, and in the 1970s the charismatic movement swept through the Catholic Church and my mom also, at the same time, had a co-worker who came to Christ and shared with her about salvation, about Jesus, about having Him in her life personally, and so she trusted in Jesus as her Savior at that point.

00:03:59.848 --> 00:04:08.272
And then she started telling—I was the oldest in our family, oldest of three kids—and so she started telling our family you need to invite Jesus into your heart.

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And it's so funny because at that point I felt, you know, my perspective was what I call the cosmic scales If my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds, then God will be happy and I'll get into heaven at the end of my life.

00:04:21.752 --> 00:04:30.571
And so when she started talking about invite Jesus into your life, my reaction was why do I need to do that other thing?

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But then I saw God changed her.

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He gave her a new capacity for love that she didn't have before, and I was 10, 11 years old at the time, and so it was so powerful and so real.

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I watched her and after about a month I went oh this is a real thing.

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I went, I want in.

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And so I trusted Jesus.

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My dad also trusted Jesus about the same time as I did my younger brother and sister.

00:05:04.961 --> 00:05:17.617
They both accepted the Lord also, but for them it was kind of like growing up in a Christian family in a different way than I did.

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What is your favorite Bible verse or quote and why Okay.

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I could answer that either way, and what comes to my mind is actually a favorite movie quote that I feel like defines my life.

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In the movie Evan Almighty it's the one where Evan is a senator and it kind of parallels Noah and his ark and God tells him to build an ark and he looks at God and says but God, building an ark doesn't fit in my plans.

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And God just laughs Just your plans, your plans.

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And that I feel like like reflects my life, because there have been so many times I've been going through life.

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I made my plans, I set what I wanted to do and God goes your plans?

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Huh, all right, so this is how we're really going to do it.

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Now we can talk more in the next question and get more into your story.

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But what's the most significant challenge you've faced and how do you overcome it?

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family.

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But I've really been through a lot of challenges as a mom.

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Our older two kids, as you mentioned earlier, are adopted and our older daughter, as she got older, really wrestled with her identity and also had gotten into when she was a young teen, so had gotten into when she was a young teen, into some very well, honestly, abusive relationships with young men, and so she began from a pretty young age numbing her emotions.

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She didn't want to feel what she was feeling, so she started using marijuana and alcohol and then, as she got older and into high school, it was harder drugs and so by the time she was in her very late teens, she also she had a baby when she was 17.

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And then by the time she was 20-ish, she had been in a really difficult relationship abusive relationship, honestly and her boyfriend had broken her nose and then we didn't know that he was responsible for the broken nose.

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There was a whole story around that and she needed surgery to repair it and as she was recovering and she was in a lot of pain, he said, oh, I've got something I can give you for that pain.

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She didn't know he had given her fentanyl, so she became addicted to one of the worst drugs imaginable these days and I didn't know this.

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So all of this time I was helping care for her daughter and then one day she asked me if my husband and I could just watch her daughter who was just over three at the time if we could watch her daughter overnight while she went out with some friends.

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And so we said yes, and so she left.

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And then she didn't come back, and every few days, and then it started stretching out to every few weeks, she would text and say oh, I'm okay, I'll be coming back.

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But then she didn't come back and it was a couple of months before she returned, and during that time we had to file for guardianship of our granddaughter and the hardest thing about that for me was just the anxiety of you know, she just left and said she was going to go spend the night in a hotel.

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I didn't know what was going on, I didn't know the backstory, I didn't know about the addiction and the boyfriend and that she was following him.

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So I started making up all of these stories in my own head.

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There was so much anxiety I was dealing with.

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I imagined that you know, she must have been trafficked.

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And how could we help and rescue her out of that.

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And then I was like, oh, you know, she was able to reach out to me and send me messages.

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So I was like, okay, so it can't be all that, it can't be as bad as that.

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But maybe, you know, she's been forced into some situation where she's with people who are making drugs in a lab and you know she's in a meth lab and she's being forced and she's being held against her will and she still can't get out.

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And then eventually there was a long period where I just didn't hear from her at all and I thought she's dead.

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She's dead and somebody's you know, we live in Colorado near the mountains I thought somebody's probably dumped her body in the mountains and we'll never know.

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And by God's grace that wasn't what had happened.

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And she, despite everything she went through, she managed to survive it all.

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But for me it was so hard as a mom.

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And then, when she did come home and told us what was going on and asked for help with the addiction, we helped her get into a recovery program.

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But then there's a very typical recovery and relapse cycle, or rehab and relapse cycle, that she fell into.

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And so for me I was just like I'm going to help her, I'm going to fix her, I'm going to help her fight this battle, and that was my mistake, because it wasn't ever my battle to fight, it was always her battle to fight and I could never do anything about it until she was ready to fight that battle on her own.

00:11:03.394 --> 00:11:19.405
So that was a really, really hard, hard season for me, and, of course, it was all 2020, 2021, the whole COVID pandemic and life was already stressful and out of the ordinary to begin with.

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So I think that answered your question about one of the hardest seasons I've been through.

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Yeah, I can imagine.

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Did you, you know, file any police reports?

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Did you alert the authorities?

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What was that background?

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Did you alert the authorities?

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What was that background?

00:11:39.942 --> 00:11:48.428
We did get in touch with the police at one point and they were like I think they kind of had a clue that I didn't of what must have been going on.

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They were like well, so you kind of have an idea of what city she's in, Okay, so we'll just notify the police there.

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If she has any encounter with the police there, then they'll let her know to get in touch with you.

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That was about it.

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So we couldn't really file a missing persons report, even though I was just like we have to find her, we have to bring her home, we have to rescue her.

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But again, that wasn't what.

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God wanted and that wasn't what she needed at that time.

00:12:20.684 --> 00:12:26.167
You mentioned about the five A's that you deal with.

00:12:26.167 --> 00:12:27.629
Can you tell us about the five A's that your kids have?

00:12:27.649 --> 00:12:27.749
faced.

00:12:27.749 --> 00:12:28.549
Yeah, yeah.

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So I mentioned that my oldest two are adopted and so we've had to walk with them through their lives, some hard questions about identity and who they are and their story of adoption, and then anxiety.

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My older daughter anxiety was part of her story and one of the things that she felt like she needed to numb and one of the things that she felt like she needed to numb Also just even in the beginning of the COVID pandemic her anxiety kind of went through the roof with all of the what-ifs and all of the stories of what was going on in the outside world was really triggered a lot of anxiety for her.

00:13:10.054 --> 00:13:29.907
Also, my younger daughter in my story that I had a baby in my mid-40s, so she is dealing with significant anxiety and a lot that she and her generation have been through in the last 10 years has been really hard.

00:13:30.927 --> 00:13:34.974
My older son was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 19.

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And it was a if I only knew then what I knew now kind of moment for me, because I didn't realize a lot of his difficult behaviors when he was a child were related to ADHD and I thought this is just, you know, a kid who's got a lot of energy or he just has a lot of anger and didn't know what to do with it.

00:14:00.293 --> 00:14:17.866
So I was sad when I realized he had ADHD, grateful at that time he could get some help and support, but also wished that I had known when he was younger that we could have supported him maybe a little bit differently and had different expectations.

00:14:17.866 --> 00:14:23.846
And then our granddaughter, who we've been raising, has been diagnosed with autism.

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So we've dealt with a whole range, all of these neurodivergent issues and struggles, and they're still very live and very real right now too.

00:14:38.684 --> 00:14:44.735
What advice would you give to someone that is dealing with similarities like yours?

00:14:46.099 --> 00:14:49.532
Yeah, A couple of things.

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To somebody who's dealing with a lot of family stress and a lot of the things that I've been dealing with, I would say one you are not alone and there are other people who are going through it.

00:15:05.957 --> 00:15:12.638
So it's so important to find support and find your community, find your people who understand.

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There are a lot of people you can talk to and they'll be, and they don't understand it.

00:15:16.984 --> 00:15:20.091
They're like oh, okay, it'll be okay, you're going to be okay.

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But the people who are really in it, who have got children, who are dealing with neurological issues, they understand.

00:15:29.594 --> 00:15:42.931
And so I would say find the people who get it and who understand you and who are willing to support you and just even listen to you, without dismissing, without judging your response or your kids.

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Just listen and accept that this is where you are.

00:15:45.486 --> 00:15:47.451
So the first thing I would say is find support.

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The second thing I would say is find ways to take care of your own heart, even if it is as simple as taking five, seven minutes.

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Hide in your bedroom and just be quiet and be still and find the presence of Jesus with you.

00:16:13.832 --> 00:16:35.167
I've been really kind of preaching this thing a little bit lately to just I'm calling it seven minutes with Jesus, and it doesn't matter if you are praying, if you are crying, if you are just quiet and doing nothing and saying nothing, or if you are reading your Bible or just like.

00:16:35.167 --> 00:16:40.573
I'm just sitting here and feeling him holding me in his arms.

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That seven minutes a day can be really, really restorative to our souls and to our minds, because our brains will just keep spinning.

00:16:50.693 --> 00:16:54.607
So that would be the two things that I would recommend.

00:16:56.711 --> 00:17:00.495
Has your church helped you at all with either?

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You know what you went through with your daughter and now you know having to.

00:17:06.247 --> 00:17:16.490
You know having to deal to take care of your granddaughter and also what you've been through with your other children.

00:17:16.490 --> 00:17:19.017
Has the church helped you with that at?

00:17:19.156 --> 00:17:19.258
all.

00:17:19.258 --> 00:17:37.170
So the answer is kind of no and yes, the church we were part of when our older kids were growing up, as they got older, there was a very strong expectation of a certain level of behavior, a certain type of behavior from kids.

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So youth group leaders actually pushed our daughter away because she was offending the other kids in the youth group with some of her behaviors and so they kind of pushed her away and the kids were offended.

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The youth group leaders didn't know what to do but they're like no, we can't have this kind of behavior here.

00:18:00.407 --> 00:18:12.515
And then, as she was older, in her late teens and early 20s and the more active addiction, we just weren't in a church situation.

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And again, I'm not sure if we were even going to church at the time because 2020, 2021.

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So actually I was part of a Bible study at that time and I found that and it was an online Bible study, so we were meeting on Zoom, but there were some of the women in that Bible study who were incredibly supportive to me and so that was helpful.

00:18:36.834 --> 00:18:50.615
Where we are now, we're part of a very small house church and everybody is super supportive and loving and we're like a big, extended family.

00:18:50.615 --> 00:19:05.439
So when we show up with our daughter and our granddaughter, everybody's like I love you, hi, you're here, and they just love our kids as much as we do, and it's such a beautiful situation for us.

00:19:05.439 --> 00:19:14.250
So we're getting a ton of support from our church right now, had some support when we were going through the roughest season with my daughter, I had some support.

00:19:14.250 --> 00:19:17.046
I'm not sure that my husband had any support at that time, though.

00:19:18.547 --> 00:19:24.113
It sounds like when you had your biological child in your mid-40s.

00:19:24.113 --> 00:19:28.798
It sounds like that was a surprise and maybe a little shock as well.

00:19:28.798 --> 00:19:30.079
What was that?

00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:33.612
like oh my goodness, that was a huge shock.

00:19:33.612 --> 00:19:43.819
I had no idea that I was pregnant because I thought that in my life not expecting to get pregnant, thinking other changes are happening in my body.

00:19:43.819 --> 00:19:49.876
But our family had been on vacation and we came home and I just wasn't feeling great.

00:19:49.876 --> 00:19:56.376
And my husband one day said do you think maybe you should take a pregnancy test?

00:19:56.376 --> 00:20:02.354
I was like no, no, I just need to get back on my normal styles of eating.

00:20:02.354 --> 00:20:03.938
I've been eating ice cream all the time.

00:20:03.938 --> 00:20:06.650
I just need to kind of get back to more healthy stuff.

00:20:06.670 --> 00:20:08.213
He's like are you sure?

00:20:08.213 --> 00:20:12.192
I was like okay, fine, just to set your mind at ease, I'll go ahead and take this test.

00:20:12.192 --> 00:20:14.605
Why don't you run down to the drugstore and get one?

00:20:14.605 --> 00:20:17.088
And so, of course, it came back positive.

00:20:17.088 --> 00:20:22.615
I was just like in such shock, how could I be pregnant now, at 46?

00:20:22.615 --> 00:20:23.517
But here I am.

00:20:23.517 --> 00:20:31.156
After you know, we had a very, very clear infertility diagnosis 20 plus years earlier.

00:20:31.156 --> 00:20:39.750
So, like I said, god has a sense of humor and I thought I had the rest of you know, my family life figured out.

00:20:39.750 --> 00:20:41.653
But he had a different plan.

00:20:42.714 --> 00:20:50.248
My mom was 41 when she found out that she was pregnant with me and you know the same thing.

00:20:50.248 --> 00:20:51.853
You know like you're saying there.

00:20:51.853 --> 00:20:59.263
You know she was probably thinking a similar situation oh, it's a tumor, it's this, it's that, you know, yeah.

00:20:59.263 --> 00:21:05.512
And she went to the doctor and the doctor said well, it's not a tumor, but you are expecting.

00:21:07.066 --> 00:21:09.173
There's something going on in there Exactly.

00:21:09.173 --> 00:21:10.529
It's a good thing.

00:21:12.865 --> 00:21:16.035
If you could start a rumor about yourself, what?

00:21:16.075 --> 00:21:19.593
would it be If I could start a rumor about myself?

00:21:19.593 --> 00:21:21.257
That is a great question.

00:21:21.257 --> 00:21:25.337
That is a great question.

00:21:25.337 --> 00:21:33.380
I would almost want to give everybody a laugh by starting a rumor that I was having another baby.

00:21:33.380 --> 00:21:37.060
People were already shocked enough.

00:21:37.060 --> 00:21:40.602
It was right before our 25th anniversary and we announced we were having a baby.

00:21:42.962 --> 00:21:50.154
How do you cope and this can go back to your story as well how do you cope with the uncertainties of life?

00:21:52.246 --> 00:22:02.528
That is something that God has taught me, and I talk about this idea of just spending seven minutes with Jesus when life is uncertain.

00:22:02.528 --> 00:22:56.226
I just have to trust that and I've learned this that God has got it, he's in control, he's got a plan and I don't see the end, but I know that he's working it out and he's doing something good, and I always I'm at a point in my life now where I can look back and say, okay, we've been through the hard stuff and we've seen God come through, and again we're in another hard season because my Father is looking out for me, and then I just really am making a point of spending time just knowing that Jesus is with me, very intentionally, being in His presence every day.

00:22:56.226 --> 00:23:00.269
Amen, how's your daughter doing now?

00:23:00.269 --> 00:23:02.673
She's doing really well.

00:23:02.673 --> 00:23:15.696
Her story took some interesting turns, but she was able to really reconnect with God, had some people who were able to assure her you're not too far gone.

00:23:15.696 --> 00:23:18.250
Jesus loves you.

00:23:18.250 --> 00:23:19.828
He never let go of you.

00:23:19.828 --> 00:23:23.594
God still loves you, and so she returned to her faith.

00:23:26.144 --> 00:23:28.630
She has been sober for well over a year and a half.

00:23:28.630 --> 00:23:30.794
It'll be two years come May.

00:23:30.794 --> 00:23:35.027
So she's been sober for it'll be two years in May.

00:23:35.027 --> 00:23:37.211
She has a job.

00:23:37.211 --> 00:23:41.218
She is working, actually as a manager at a gas station.

00:23:41.218 --> 00:23:44.131
So she's working, she has her own place.

00:23:44.131 --> 00:23:46.885
She is re-engaging with her daughter.

00:23:46.885 --> 00:23:54.113
Her daughter doesn't live with her because right now, with going to school and all of that, that's just within our neighborhood and our world.

00:23:54.113 --> 00:24:08.930
But they're spending time together, they're re-engaging, they are enjoying each other's company and it's just amazing to see how God has turned things around.

00:24:08.930 --> 00:24:20.595
There was a time when I couldn't even pray because I couldn't bear to hold on to hope, but plenty of other people were praying for her and praying for us and God has answered those prayers.

00:24:20.595 --> 00:24:21.884
It is a beautiful thing and God has answered those prayers.

00:24:24.255 --> 00:24:25.239
It is a beautiful thing.

00:24:25.239 --> 00:24:32.753
What one question you with.

00:24:32.753 --> 00:24:34.782
I asked you and how you have answered that question, Hmm, Hmm.

00:24:37.148 --> 00:24:38.490
I suppose I might.

00:24:38.490 --> 00:24:40.253
I don't know.

00:24:40.253 --> 00:24:55.457
I suppose I might like to talk a tiny bit about the book that I just put out in November, if that's okay, because it's called Thriving in Grace Unleashing Wellness from a Biblical Perspective, and it is a book that I started.

00:24:55.457 --> 00:24:59.230
My husband and I actually started working on Together in 2020.

00:24:59.230 --> 00:25:04.019
And it took me three and a half years to write the book.

00:25:04.019 --> 00:25:24.713
As I was writing it, we were going through all of these really, really hard things in our lives, and I learned that, as I'm writing something that I want others to understand, god's going to call me to live it too.

00:25:24.713 --> 00:25:46.445
So, as I encourage other people to rely on God's grace to overcome the impossible in my life and their lives, god showed me he was able to do the same thing in my life in my life, amen.

00:25:46.465 --> 00:26:03.317
As we get ready to end here, can you give my listeners a word of knowledge, or word of wisdom and encouragement to those who are listening and maybe you know there's a parent out there that you know dealing with the same thing that you dealt with, or even maybe someone that's struggling with their addiction that's hearing your story.

00:26:09.027 --> 00:26:24.267
I would just leave your listeners with the reality and the truth that even when life is hard, even when it feels utterly impossible, that does not mean that God has given up on you.

00:26:24.267 --> 00:26:33.748
It does not mean he doesn't love you, because he does love you desperately and more than anything.

00:26:33.748 --> 00:26:40.519
He longs for you to just fall into His arms and let Him show you His love.

00:26:40.519 --> 00:27:00.933
And no matter how things work out, whether they work out beautifully, like my story seems to have, or if they don't work out with a bow and a happy ending, god still loves you and that is the most important thing you can ever hold on to.

00:27:00.933 --> 00:27:02.076
Amen.

00:27:04.746 --> 00:27:08.056
Well, Karen, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

00:27:08.056 --> 00:27:10.292
We greatly appreciate having you.

00:27:11.606 --> 00:27:15.153
Thank you, dorsey, I so appreciate the opportunity to chat with you today.

00:27:15.153 --> 00:27:16.115
Thanks, Definitely.

00:27:16.685 --> 00:27:24.174
Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for coming on the show and listening, and where can we get your book?

00:27:24.174 --> 00:27:28.800
And, you know, do you have a website that people can check out?

00:27:43.786 --> 00:27:46.744
Find all my resources and links directly to my books is my website, karenadittmancom.

00:27:48.114 --> 00:27:49.265
And so you can get in touch with me that way.

00:27:49.265 --> 00:28:05.590
Thank you so much and, guys and girls, until next time, please go and like Karen's information and go and check out my website and my past and future episodes on there as well, and please like and share this episode.

00:28:05.590 --> 00:28:07.571
God bless, bye-bye.