We’re repeating a conversation from our first season so you can get to know Michael Cantwell, one of our co-hosts. Michael was a listener whom we invited on for a chat. We liked him and his sense of humor so much we asked him to join the podcast crew. In this conversation, we talk about getting a diagnosis, bullying, trying to explain what it’s like to be autistic, disclosing you’re autistic, masking, and bacon sandwiches. 

00:56: Michael had a great experience with the pandemic
4:45 Michael once lost his eyesight for three days
8:20 Introductions
9:28 Michael found Robert on Reddit - WiseKnowledge
11:38 Search Angels helps adoptees to find family - Search Angels
12:45 Classic Autism - Classic autism - Wikipedia
13:35 Hyposensitive - Sensory Hyper- and Hyposensitivity in Autism - Integrated Treatment Services
15:45 Michael’s diagnosis story -  “Everyone’s a little autistic”
17:04 Anxiety
22:35 The effects of getting diagnosed
22:49 Bullying - Articles | - Bullying and Autism Spectrum Disorder
25:00 Sexual assault and autism - Girls with autism at high risk of sexual abuse, large study says
27:20 Neurotribes - https://neurotribes.com/
28:05 Canada Day - Canada Day - Wikipedia
28:12 Mass graves of indigenous children by the Catholic church - ‘Horrible History’: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada - The New York Times
28:29 Mother and Babies homes in Ireland - Ireland's 'brutally misogynistic culture' saw the death of 9000 children in mother and baby homes, report finds
29:38 Michael: “The pathology of everything that’s neurodivergent”
33:00 Trying to explain what it feels like to be autistic
34:20 When you meet one autistic person… - When you meet one person with Autism, you’ve met one person with Autism.
34:30 Bacon Sandwich story
35:20 Michael's disclosure of diagnosis
36:20 Robert coffee shop disclosure story
42:25 IDD individual with intellectual development disability - About Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDDs) | NICHD - Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
47:00 Michael's website story
49:50 Robert: many hobbies then discarded/ hobby of the week
58:13 Face blindness - is that a common autistic trait - Autism and Face-Blindness: Facial Recognition Difficulties in Autism - Jeannie Davide-Rivera
1:00:46 Robert identifies people by their voices
1:03:50 Michael identifies people by their shoulders
1:07:34 The wives help out with introductions
1:09:26 Michael’s wife: “You do all the practical stuff and