The Loneliness Issue: Feeling like home

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Lee Shervheim

You know, loneliness is sometimes a byproduct of of not being a part of a community. And I think, one of the things that we need to continue to advocate for and to push for and to work towards is creating those communities.

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Jannet Stewart

Welcome to Impact the Conversation, a podcast of the University of Minnesota's Institute on Community Integration. It brings you strategies and stories advancing the inclusion of people with disabilities. Our guests are the authors of impact, our long running magazine that bridges the research to practice gap with professional and personal reflections on what matters most in disability equity today. I'm your host, Janet Stewart.

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Jannet Stewart

What we're here today to do is chat a little bit about how you've dealt with loneliness in the past, maybe put some ideas together about how maybe we could help others in different situations in their life, to feel a little less lonely and talk a little bit about maybe what we need to do as a community to, make sure that we address some of these issues, maybe.

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Jannet Stewart

And let's start with you. Can you again tell us your name and where you go to school?

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Ann Shervheim

Yes. My name is Annie, Amelia Sophia Shervheim. But I also changed my name to my stage name because I want to be an actress. So my name is Andres Winter. I am twenty.

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Jannet Stewart

And Emmie and Katie are your sisters, right?

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Ann Shervheim

Yeah. I always put them first because they were important to me.

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Jannet Stewart

What's the earliest memory you can think of when you were little? Where you. You've been talking about putting them first and everything. Do you guys stick together pretty well?

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Ann Shervheim

Yes. But when they were little, they were slightly annoying. And I actually was a quiet one. I always joke with mom and Dad the most, so.

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Jannet Stewart

So how did you come out of your shell and get interested in acting?

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Ann Shervheim

I just, I don't know, that's a good question.

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Jannet Stewart

Just kind of happened over time.

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Ann Shervheim

Just happened. I just, I because I put my family first, but then I also put my acting second in. I also really want to tell she's my third actress and my favorite singer is, you know, Taylor Swift. But actually my favorite is Lana Del Rey. And she is. I love her so much.

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Jannet Stewart

Why?

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Ann Shervheim

Because she has a gothic, you know, dark side to her. And that's kind of my style of music a little bit. And I really like that a lot.

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Jannet Stewart

You like something with a little edge, right?

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Ann Shervheim

Yeah. Like something like really, really dark gothic like.

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Jannet Stewart

Well, let's let's talk about some of that darkness, because that might be a good entry point to start working on our little project here. When you when you hear the word loneliness and you think about times in your life when you felt a little loneliness, can you can you tell me what that was like? Can you think about a time in your life when you dealt with that?

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Ann Shervheim

I felt the loneliness when my brother left for California. I was hollow. I was lonely, and he's been my home for many years. And I miss him so much.

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Jannet Stewart

You guys were pretty close.

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Ann Shervheim

Yeah, we were really close together here. And my whole family got Covid. And then we were lonely together.

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Jannet Stewart

And did you. When he was getting ready to leave, did you know for a long time that he was going to leave?

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Ann Shervheim

No, I didn't know he was going to leave. And then both of us immediately shut down. We just started crying. But both he and I were after he left. I didn't want to come out of my womb for hours because he's just been always been there for me.

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Jannet Stewart

So your first response was to kind of shut down and shut, like shut the door and, yeah, come out of your room. And did you. How did you kind of work through that?

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Ann Shervheim

Was a little bit of time, in a way, with my family is just being I get a lot of encouraging words out of me because. Not that, when he's gone, the person I'm close with now is amicus. Is really important to me.

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Jannet Stewart

And so did she start just, hanging out a little bit more with you, or what were those first early days like, when you were really feeling lonely? What do you think? Do you remember, like, something that she did or something that another person in your family did that kind of really felt like, yeah, that was important.

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Ann Shervheim

Yeah. Because Yeah. I mean she's my home and without her I would be lonely probably every day in my life. I would hate for that to happen to her.

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Jannet Stewart

Have you always spent a lot of time together.

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Ann Shervheim

I've always been together with both my sisters.

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Jannet Stewart

When do you get lonely? Today? What? What's what's going on? When you start to feel like. What do you long for? Or what do you hope? What do you hope for? Other times when. Gosh, I wish I had something more that would make me feel a little less lonely. Do you ever think about that.

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Ann Shervheim

A little bit, yeah.

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Jannet Stewart

And so around those times, is it times when you're, just you're busy and you're having to spend more time alone because you're doing so many different things and you haven't been to a party much recently or have done many social things, or is it or is it more of, gee, I wish I had a deeper, friendship with someone not in my family.

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Jannet Stewart

Or is it both of those things?

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Ann Shervheim

Yeah, actually. One. And so this is in my school at tech. Okay. I, I've had, I've had a best friend that we've known each other since Lincoln, and he's really, really important to me.

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Lee Shervheim

And Lincoln was your elementary school.

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Ann Shervheim

Yes. Right. Yeah. I've known I've known him for a long time. He was really important to me, too.

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Jannet Stewart

And so you guys are close?

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Ann Shervheim

You really close? Yeah.

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Jannet Stewart

And so when you have to go a while without seeing him, that's a bummer.

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Ann Shervheim

A little bit. Yeah.

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Jannet Stewart

Well, one thing I'd like to do now, I know you're a journalist as well. You're a writer for your high school paper or for your for the Tech Times transition, program paper. And so what? I'd love to do is have you put on your writer hat and your reporter hat and maybe, maybe start with your dad and introduce him and ask him a little bit, about how he thinks about loneliness.

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Ann Shervheim

This is my dad, and he was born in nineteen sixty five. And then what does loneliness mean to you?

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Lee Shervheim

I can think about one of the times I was really, really lonely was when I went off to college for the first time, because that was the first time I had been away from home and away from my family, and I didn't really know anybody. I hadn't met mom yet, so I didn't know her. And yeah, it was a it's a hard time.

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Lee Shervheim

It's hard to be lonely.

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Ann Shervheim

I wonder how your mom, you know, got together, got engaged and got married.

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Lee Shervheim

Okay. Wow. So mom and I were both students at Iowa State, and we both happened to be going to the same church.

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Ann Shervheim

And did you have a crush on her?

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Lee Shervheim

Well, yeah, I kind of did. And I thought she was pretty cute. Yeah. And so I started talk to her and she talked to me and yeah, I did kind of get a crush on her. We kind of fell in love and decided we should get married.

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Ann Shervheim

They have kids.

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Lee Shervheim

And then have kids. Yeah.

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Ann Shervheim

And then, so the both of you gave me the one thing that I needed the most. And that was both you and me and Katie.

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Lee Shervheim

Yeah. Let me talk about that a little bit. So we had Daniel and Andrew, who are twins, and then we had Sam, and then the fourth child we had was who me was, you know, and so when and Ann was born in two thousand four and we didn't know that and was going to have Down's syndrome when she was born.

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Lee Shervheim

So that was a little bit of a surprise. And I think at the beginning, both Karen and I, were afraid, I think there was obviously some fear. I think there was some lots of uncertainty about what it was going to look like, and maybe also feeling very unprepared to figure out what was next. But you came in to our family and pretty quickly we learned that as long as you were full and had a clean diaper and had lots of rest, you were you were pretty good to go.

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Lee Shervheim

And then you have another brother named David. But when you were not very old, we started thinking about you. And we start thinking about your future. And I think one of the things that we thought about was what will and do when she gets older, and who will her companions be? Who are the people that will be around her and with her, and also maybe help to make sure that she's not lonely?

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Lee Shervheim

And so this is goes back to about two thousand six, maybe hand was probably two, 2 to 3. We became aware of an organization. I think it was based out in Maryland, if I remember right, it was called Reece's Rainbow, and they facilitated adoptions, between couples in the US and children in Eastern Europe, mostly who had developmental disabilities.

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Lee Shervheim

And they had a Christmas program, an angel tree or something like that. And we saw a picture of Katie and just became kind of convinced that Katie needed to be part of our family. So we started the process of going through all the international adoption things that you have to do with, you know, home visits and studies and, petitioning and all that kind of stuff.

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Lee Shervheim

In two thousand seven, I think it was, and then we actually got clearance to travel, in July of two thousand eight. So Daniel and Andrew and Karen and I went to Ukraine for six weeks.

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Ann Shervheim

And there was even a, there was a video. So there's some pictures.

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Lee Shervheim

There are some pictures yet, but Ann and David and Sam stayed with relatives and friends back here. And so we were in Ukraine for six weeks. And we had gone with the intent of adopting. We had, we had we were going to adopt one for sure. We had the option of adopting a second child. And as we were going through that process, we were shown a picture of Amie, and the picture of Amie was a picture that could have been taken of Anne because they were almost identical in terms of they were kind of laying on a blanket like a little turtle with their head up.

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Lee Shervheim

And I think we saw that pic, both of I think saw that picture and just knew that Amie needed to be part of our family as well. So, and Katie and Emmie happened to be in the same orphanage in Ukraine, right outside of her Kyiv. So.

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Emmie Shervheim

That meant monthly events.

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Lee Shervheim

That's right. You have a different mom and dad, don't you? So, yes, we spent six weeks in Ukraine adopting Katie and Amie. The year that they came home, we had to move down to the Twin Cities. Yeah, we've been trying to figure it out ever since.

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Jannet Stewart

I'd love to hear from either one of you. You know, that's a pretty profound, move to make. That was loneliness on the top of your mind when you were when you were contemplating this.

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Lee Shervheim

You know, I wasn't thinking of the term long. I was thinking what I was thinking about was companionship. Because I think both of us had this sense that, you know, that and would be close to her brothers. But whether it's geography or whatever, I mean, that tends to split people apart. So I think we were really thinking about who would be her companions, as she got older.

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Lee Shervheim

And, that part has worked out really, really well. All three of them are, super good friends. And do you fight sometimes with your sisters? Yeah.

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Ann Shervheim

I don't want to talk about that. You know that.

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Lee Shervheim

What can we make? Yes or no question? No, no. Okay. They're regular sisters, but they also, enjoy many of the same things and really do have a lot of fun together.

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Jannet Stewart

So, so over the years, as, you know, as the your as all your kids, you know, had friends in and out of the house and all of that, you know, deduced and you started getting more and more involved in different kinds of advocacy groups. Can you talk a little bit about that and then maybe how your experiences through some of those advocacy groups, taught you to understand how people with disabilities do experience loneliness?

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Lee Shervheim

Sure. So one other, event in my life that was significant and you always kind of look back over your parts of your life and say, wow, I wonder if that wasn't preparing me for something, but, I had a cousin with a developmental disability who was about ten years older than I was. And through the course of his life, it was, he was kind of not diagnosed until actually he got into, I think it was later elementary school or early junior high.

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Lee Shervheim

But, he actually spent time in, several of the institutions that Minnesota had, both Faribault and, Brainerd. And then as he got older, moved into community residence, housing for a number of years, and then finally ended up back with his family. And he passed away about ten years ago or so.

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Lee Shervheim

So, you're asking about advocacy? I think one of the things that I've always said is, you know, when when you have a child or children with disabilities, there really is no playbook for it. There's there's no place you can go and say, do this, do this, do this, and everything will kind of work out at the end.

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Lee Shervheim

So, I always kind of looked at it as a bit of a challenge and trying to figure out what's next. And I think both of us would, would say that, you know, when you're kind of in the middle of it, all you can see is probably the next day or maybe the next week or maybe the next month.

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Lee Shervheim

So you just kind of live for what are we doing today? And then what are we going to do tomorrow? But there were several things that were really, really helpful for us. We were involved in, Special Olympics, young athletes, actually, to start with, when the girls were small and then Special Olympics. And, that connected us with a pretty awesome parents, group and, you know, parents talk, and so parents start, well, what's happening here?

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Lee Shervheim

And, you know, what kind of either services do you have available or what are you exploring or what's working for your children. And, you know, you talk about doctors and you talk about dentists and you talk about everybody who can can help. So certainly getting in with a parent, with other parents, and helping them, kind of steer towards what's next.

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Lee Shervheim

The other thing that was really important for me, and this goes back now about ten years, and it was, again, from a parent's recommendation, to take the partners in policymaking class, that was sponsored by the Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities. So I did that in two thousand fourteen. And that that really opened my eyes to several things.

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Lee Shervheim

One, you know, the first weekend that we were together, we learned about the history of kind of disability, and it was, pretty amazing because some of it was for things that I had experienced in my family personally. And just recognizing that. Yeah, that's that's our that's our past. That's that's what's happened. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way in the future.

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Lee Shervheim

And so as we, as I learn more, about advocacy and about reaching out to legislators and the role of state government and federal government and local governments, learned about you know, the Ada Americans with Disabilities Act, the Idea act, all those things that just was, very empowering. I think for me, because I realized that things could be very different for my children, than maybe what people had experienced previously.

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Lee Shervheim

So, that's kind of been a part of my journey and know now, currently, I chair the Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities have for the last several years, and that really keeps the the best thing for me is that keeps me really plugged in to both. What's happening? What we need to be concerned about as parents and advocates.

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Lee Shervheim

And also, I think most importantly, probably what remains possible, because, again, the the life of somebody that has a developmental disability does not have to be, anything close to what it was in the past. It can be very exciting. And they can choose to choose the life that they want. And part of our job is to just help facilitate that and make it the best life possible.

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Lee Shervheim

And, and Amy have been, part of an acting community, which is something that they enjoy and that helps them, be in the community, helps them sharpen their skills. I mean, it helps them. It helps them show others what's possible. And I think it's really rewarding for them. So, Katie enjoys, sports activities and things like that.

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Lee Shervheim

So she's been involved in Miracle League. She's been involved in Special Olympics. She was involved in adapted sports when she was in, high school. And all of those things were kind of her community and ways that she stayed involved.

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Jannet Stewart

You know, I also noticed something else since we've been sitting here today a couple times when your dad was talking about some things that were pretty important to him, I noticed you just kind of reached over and put your hand on his shoulder and and just made him feel a little better. Is that the case? Yeah. I thought that was really sweet.

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Ann Shervheim

I've been the catch, my mom, because I love his paper so much. And and dad, helped to work together.

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Jannet Stewart

So all these are ideas, right? We can, we can. Fine togetherness in clubs that we belong to. Like, you guys probably found some friends who acting like you mentioned and all of that. And when you when you see all this and you, you know, you've heard all of all of what we've said today, what ideas are sticking out at you?

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Jannet Stewart

What are there some things you heard today that you think are, you know, would be a really good way to reduce loneliness and to make people feel belong, that that they belong more.

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Ann Shervheim

You've been with family for most of it, but also, you know, you have friends that really support you the most.

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Jannet Stewart

And me, what have you done? What are some things you've done that you can remember that made somebody feel better? Like if you want to make someone feel a little less lonely, like you're with you're right with them and you're going to stand by them, what do you do?

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Emmie Shervheim

Well, I, I could hear surgery, etc. and yeah, Poppy, I hope I get life happy a happy hour I said I got yeah Poppy that make me feel badly.

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Jannet Stewart

I'm not sure I caught that. Yeah.

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Lee Shervheim

So so she's telling us about that time. She had some pretty extensive hip surgery about six years ago. Seven years ago.

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Emmie Shervheim

Yeah.

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Lee Shervheim

So she would have been early, early teens. Yeah. And spent some time in the hospital. And one of the things that helped you not be lonely, they had a therapy dog that came.

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Emmie Shervheim

I love how it try how you feel about. Yes. First the puppies.

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Lee Shervheim

You you do love puppies. And then you also had a number of friends who came. And they even they brought you presents. Yeah. Katie has something that she does. When you notice that somebody is feeling sad or somebody is sick. Katie, what's what do you usually do.

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Ann Shervheim

Do to get coffee? And to, look at curfew, for birthday.

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Jannet Stewart

Lee any final thoughts?

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Ann Shervheim

Yeah. And.

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Lee Shervheim

You know, loneliness is sometimes a byproduct of of not being a part of a community. And I think, one of the things that we need to continue to advocate for and to push for and to work towards is creating those communities, you know, life really is a journey. And, it's great when you have a wonderful and supportive family that you can take that journey with and also a community around you.

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Lee Shervheim

And I think, you know, looking back on our lives and the girls lives, I mean, one of the things that we want, wanted them to do is have opportunities and to be able to make their own choices about you know, how they spent their time and what they did. And, what they wanted to be. And that's very much a work in process for us right now.

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Lee Shervheim

So, it's been fun to hear their thoughts on loneliness, though. And it's, interesting to see because, we all experience loneliness and sometimes loneliness and grief can get mixed in together. And sometimes we need other people and we need help to kind of figure out what's going on and not be lonely anymore.

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Jannet Stewart

Well, and I just so appreciate your family, part of your family coming in today. We couldn't have even fit your whole family in this room, could we? It's just been terrific to have all of you here today and to be talking a little bit about that and giving us hope that even a family as large as yours, and as close as you all are, there's still room to to deal with loneliness and to experience it and to realize that we can lean on each other to get through it right.

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Jannet Stewart

I'm reminded of, you know, as we're trying to put this issue together, we're trying to talk with people who have all kinds of different disability experiences, you know, throughout the country, throughout the world, you know, what is it? What does it look like in different parts of our communities? And I was chatting with one of our other authors who is autistic, and she shared, she's she's older now.

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Jannet Stewart

She's in her 50s. But she shared that as someone with autism when she was very young, she didn't understand the concept of why when when someone would say we, she didn't understand what that meant because all she could feel was I. She just felt all kind of alone inside of herself. And I think what we did here today with your big, huge, lovely family is to get a little concept of we and you obviously have all grown up with that, and you're all part of something, and that's something that's pretty special.

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Jannet Stewart

And I just wanted to thank you for sharing that with us.

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Lee Shervheim

Thank you for giving us the chance to absolutely.

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Jannet Stewart

Thanks for joining the conversation. If you'd like to reproduce all or part of this podcast, please email icipub@umn.edu.

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Pete McCauley

Our show is co-produced at the University of Minnesota's Institute on Community Integration by Impact Managing editor Janet Stewart, and ICI media producer Pete McCauley. Skyler Mihajlov is our editor. Graphic designers are Connie Burkhart and Sarah Curtner. For more information on the Institute and all of our products and projects, please visit ici.umn.edu.