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Author, Activist, and Educator Amanda Morin
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Amanda Morin is a special education and accessibility advocate who specializes in neurodiversity-affirming learning environments. We talk horror movies, labels vs stigma and the value of diagnoses. Also depression vs burnout, the "crip trope" and her work with Noggin. Fina Amanda at www.amandamorin.com
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Host
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Speaker
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, where we talk with creatives about neurodivergence, trauma, addiction, and all the other things that impact and inform our art. Our goal is to show everyone that no matter what you're going through, you are not alone and you can make art about it.
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Music
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You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesdayly Friday, and we are sponsored by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine.
Amanda Morin's Background and Early Experiences
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Do find us on Ko-Fi. That's K-O-F-I.
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This week, we have Amanda Morin. and Amanda Morin is a neurodivergence and neurodiversity activist. Actually, I said that wrong. She is neurodivergent and she is also a neurodiversity activist.
00:01:00
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Two different things that go well together. um She is an award-winning author of six books, um an early childhood and behavioral specialist, and a nationally known speaker dedicated to fostering inclusive environments for neurodivergent individuals.
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She provides neurodiversity affirming coaching for parents and students. Welcome, Amanda. Thank you Thanks for having I am so glad you could be here.
00:01:28
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Yeah. um Before we get into the heavy stuff, um we do like to ask our guests to tell us about the first horror movie that they remember seeing. So please, let's hear it.
Nostalgia and Horror Movie Connections
00:01:40
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Well, there's two answers to that question, actually. So I grew up in Bangor, Maine, where Stephen King is from, right? So... hu I remember seeing the premiere of Firestarter in my town, right? So they did the premiere of Firestarter at the the Opera House in downtown Bangor.
00:01:59
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Of course, was- How old were you? Oh, I was like five. I was the same age as Drew Barrymore, who was in the movie, right? So right I don't remember going in and seeing the movie, but i remember seeing like all of the hubbub around it.
00:02:10
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um The first movie I recall actually watching was The Exorcist. That's my first horror movie. um And I think as I got older and I watched Firestarter, I wish I remembered Firestarter more than I wish I remembered The Exorcist.
00:02:26
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Very different, right? With two movies about terrifying little girls. Yeah, no kidding, right? i know. Although you could go like powerful little girls too. I know one way or the other, right? that Yeah, that is true.
00:02:41
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And how powerful girls or girls with power tend to have a difficult time of it. True, true, true. Even if they're extremely well-meaning. Yes, and horrifying in all the ways that horror movies make them horrifying, which, you know, it's probably an allegory somehow somehow that I can't put together at the moment.
Perceptions of Neurodivergence in Society
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but um So two different answers, but like they're kind of fun, right? Like it's it's fun to have seen one come to life right around me.
00:03:09
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um Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, i'm I'm from Michigan, so the Evil Dead is from here. Oh, nice. That's the horror movie that that we always hear about. and Well, and the thing is, I don't actually like Evil Dead.
00:03:22
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Well, when I was was told about it as a kid, I was told, hey, there's a zombie zombie movie coming out, and it's from some guys from Michigan. Yeah, yeah. And it was treated like it was the most amazing thing in the world that these young people...
00:03:37
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had were' able to make movies and i mean Yeah, that's cool. i'm not going to say it's not cool but as we know today it's not so much that young people didn't know how to make movies and that was just so amazing that they were able to do that it's because there they had parents that could afford to buy them movie cameras in a time before cell phones.
00:03:58
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Totally. Because now that everybody has a movie quality camera, we see, I mean, the cat with hands is better than the evil dead, for heaven's sake. That's true. Yeah. Plus, you know, the the tree. and I've never been a fan of the tree. I've never seen why it was necessary. It's so, so, so exploitive. And and it's not even about zombies.
00:04:19
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No, no, that's the that's the part where I get stuck. It's not about zombies, right? Like, and that's, the that's I don't know. I do think that there's something nice about being able to say, like, there's some connection to where I grew up, where, you know, with the movies, but also, like, you want to be able to say, and I really appreciate the movie that has some connection to where I grew up, right? There's sort of a... yeah yep Well, and then It Follows came out, and It Follows is all about Detroit. I mean, there's like commercials that I remember from being little in that movie. so Isn't that wild? I mean, I think a lot of the Stephen King movies are like that, too. So, for example, um The Stand, right? If you think of of the... No, The Stand is one of them, and then and then Stand By Me also. Yeah.
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um There are pieces that were written in that have names of places in Maine that got left in the movie because people didn't know they were actual places. So like they talk about Amahe and Stand By Me, which is really a um ah hospital in Augusta.
00:05:16
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But I don't think anybody knew it was an actual name of a hospital at the time. So I watched the movie. I'm like, whoa they went where? You know, it's just it's kind of a cool thing to. To be able to recognize your own surroundings. Although it can be terrifying too at the same time in horror movies. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, my my husband is from Philadelphia.
00:05:36
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And a lot of movies are made there. So every time we watch Trading Places, he's like, oh, look, that's such and such thing. That's that sculpture from bla blah, blah. I love that people do that. I'm not the only one that does that. That makes me happy.
00:05:50
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I don't know if that's a neurodivergence thing or not. I think it may be. think it may It could be, but you know, i think the more time I spend on this show talking about neurodivergence, it makes me wonder if that's even a
Communication Styles and Neurodivergence
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thing.
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Like, I understand that some people do not fit the the common mold, but like, is there a common mold or do we all just not fit it differently? Because it seems like when people talk about neurodivergence in any capacity,
00:06:23
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It's about how that condition impacts people who do not have it, as opposed to describing what the condition actually is. You know what i mean?
00:06:35
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yeah Like hyperactivity disorder, for example, is like, we need you to sit in this classroom for eight hours and you can't do it. What is wrong with you? And the answer could very well be, look, man, nobody's supposed to be sitting here for eight hours. Why are you even making us do that? So we don't have to enter the workforce?
00:06:52
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Totally, totally. Well, and you know, it's interesting because the work that I do, i do, I flip it, right? I'm, I'm, I'm talking about how the way that your brain processes information or like interacts with the world actually impacts you.
00:07:04
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But the way I look at it from that perspective is like, why is the world not set up for all kinds of brains, as opposed to Right, which is that that like, yeah, nobody sits for eight hours straight and feels good about it, right? Like we don't we don't expect that of adults.
00:07:19
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um Expecting of kids is is hard. So I think for me, when I look at like neurodiversity affirming, it's about like how do we make the world fit all kinds of brains better? And I think in that regard, we probably wouldn't see as many people who say like neurodivergence is actually impacting them.
00:07:38
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They can say it's like part of their lives. and there is impact. But yeah, now I hear i hear you. I think that there's there's value to think. I also think there's a self-selection component of things, right? So people who have special, like, interest in specific kinds of things may kind of group together because they really like talking to each other.
00:07:59
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i think i find that when I'm like talking to people for podcasts or for, you know, actually i talk to people everywhere. So like in airports, wherever, you know, um yeah I wonder sometimes how much of that's just like our brains are just connecting on a different level and we're like, hey we actually can talk because we do this well because our brains think in the same kind of way.
00:08:21
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i think, yeah, that absolutely. And I
Impact of Diagnosis and Misdiagnosis
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think that communication style is is so important because sometimes I'll meet someone and I know that I've been told that they have one of my core interests.
00:08:35
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but like for whatever reason, and it's happened to me on the show, like our, so our styles just don't jibe. Like sometimes it's because I'm like not remembering something really obvious.
00:08:46
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Yeah. I had a, a, person on the show who has ah dwarfism and ah they're they're young. They're like mid-20s and I asked them ah you know what their favorite Billy Barty movie was.
00:09:00
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It's like, first of all, that's probably offensive to people with dwarfism, but also what 20-year-old is watching Billy Barty movies? No kidding, right? so So it's like, okay, that's me. That's a me thing.
00:09:12
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But other times it's like, I don't... Like i you want to talk to someone, but they're expecting something like, i don't know, eye contact that I may or may not be able to muster.
00:09:26
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Yeah. And I'm the person who'll just be like, you're not going to get that from me, you know which is, which I mean, maybe either my best or worst quality, depending on who you're talking to. Right.
00:09:36
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But I, you know, I'm just the one who's going to say, like, I'm the person who's just going to tell you what you get is, is kind of what you get. And if, if you need something different, I'll see if I can figure that out in terms of communication, but otherwise we're applying, we we'll either muddle through or we won't, you know, kind of. Well, and, you know, a lot of people say, well, why do I even need a diagnosis? I'm doing just fine. And that is such a huge part of it is that clarity yeah of, yeah you know, I'm not able to do this. So don't get mad every time that doesn't happen. Just know in advance that these things will not be happening.
00:10:10
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Right, right. And I think there's a validation in being able to say there's a reason for this as opposed to just not feeling it, right? um You know, and I know plenty of people who will say there's something behind, there's just not feeling it. And I think that's true, but sometimes we're not just, we're just not feeling it.
00:10:25
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But being able to say like, I literally can't do eye contact because I'm going to get so distracted by trying to do eye contact that I can't keep the rest of the conversation going has value, right? To be able to say like,
00:10:38
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My nervous system literally can't handle that um is is something that I think has value and being able to say like, and I have a diagnosis that explains that is very helpful to some people.
00:10:50
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Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's certainly been helpful to me. um I've been misdiagnosed and and not diagnosed as I should have been like every step along the way. And so every time I have one of those, oh, well, for heaven's sake, why didn't someone tell me that when I was six 12 or 20? know.
00:11:09
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you know I know. I feel like once you know it. Yeah, it's it's so helpful to say like, oh, I'm not lazy. I'm not just forgetful. Like there are reasons that all of these things happen and I can take steps to mitigate them because I understand why they're taking place.
00:11:30
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Right, right, right. And I, you know, and I think that
Neurodiversity in Education and Government Role
00:11:33
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misdiagnosis thing happens to a lot of us along the way too. um And, and so our reasons change over time, even though they, they really don't.
00:11:43
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I don't know. That's like, that's not very clear, but it feels like sometimes you're like, well, that doesn't feel like the right reason. And then you get to the right diagnosis and you're like, that's the right reason. That makes sense. Right.
00:11:54
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I know that your most recent book is about meeting the needs of neurodiverse students in schools, which is huge.
00:12:07
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um Our current secretary of education, Secretary McMahon, how how do you think she's doing on that issue? um And then we pause to laugh. Can I pass on that question?
00:12:19
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You can. and You can. um if you If you don't want a bad mouth or a good mouth, Secretary McMahon, that's that's a choice you could make. I think the choice I would make is say, I really don't have enough information on what's happening ah in and her realm, right? And that's probably tells you a lot there too.
00:12:38
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um Not well, I would say not well, based on a lot of the the budget cuts and the things that we're seeing for education, the money that didn't get released recently for programs for students who who really need extra support.
00:12:52
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um I don't feel like... I don't feel like what's happening on an administrative level is is actually matching up what's happening on a societal level, which is really interesting to me.
00:13:03
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Because like, societally... That's what the rise of fascism is, when the government says, yeah, we know none of you want this, but this is what we're doing. and I know, i know. And it's sad to me in so many ways, sad, angering. Like, I don't know, I have all the emotions. I can't even like muster the words for all of them.
00:13:23
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We're just hitting this point where people are talking about neurodivergence and disability and like taking some of that stigma down a little bit and here we are again, right?
00:13:35
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So that's that so frustrating to me. um One of the things that's been really nice about the book is seeing that people are willing to take it into their own hands and do some grassroots work in schools has been really enjoyable. And a lot of it's been because we see teachers who are like, I see myself in this, right?
00:13:54
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This is the schooling that I wanted to have for myself. And now I can provide it for the students who are around me. um It would be really nice if we had administrative support, if we had, you know, financial support for those kinds of things. But In the meantime, information will probably just have to be passed on. Hopefully we can keep passing it on, not through like back channels, right?
00:14:18
Speaker
So for people that are not involved in education, why would it cost more money to be more aware of neurodiverse students? Like why is there a ah cost associated with that?
00:14:30
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Well, I mean, i think I think there are two answers to that question also, right? In some ways, there's not, right? In some ways, it's a matter of how do you set up what you do differently, right? Are you setting up your classroom or your education setting differently so, like, you have spaces that are less lit for for people who have trouble with bright lights or places that are um calmer for people who need less distractions or that you're actually naming out loud that there are different communication needs, a different communication style. So there's a lot of things that can be done that don't actually cost a lot of money.
00:15:04
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What does cost money are specialized programs, right? So like specialized instruction for special education teachers teaching students who need additional instruction or things like occupational therapy or speech therapy. So that funding all comes under special education funding.
00:15:22
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um And that costs additional money. And then the funding that I'm most, I don't know, I think devastated is probably the word, the most devastated about not being available right now is professional development funding, right?
00:15:35
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So that's a big part of it, is we have to be able to educate teachers to do things differently. And they want to. But if there's no money to teach them, then they are doing it out of pocket.
00:15:49
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Right. And that's I don't know. I have big feelings. My understanding is that teachers already do a whole lot out of pocket and that the pockets are not very deep to begin with because they're not making great money.
00:16:00
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Oh, this is true. and You know, and like I'm a, ah ah right now, I, you know, i am not a classroom teacher. I'm a director of academic services at ah a high school for students who are completely neurodivergent, which means I'm in charge of sort of professional development and teaching. But I was a classroom teacher for a number of years. And um my pockets were scotch taped together because i was trying to...
00:16:25
Speaker
But I had to go buy the scotch tape to scotch tape them together, you know, all of those things at the same time. um There's a, you know, teachers invest really heavily in their classrooms and their students. They don't invest as heavily in their own professional development because that's like the last thing they think of, not because they don't want it, but because they're so invested in making sure their students have everything they need.
00:16:50
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um And I think that's where we fall down. And that's what I'm most upset about seeing kind of disappear from the radar is the money to help teachers be better teachers.
00:17:02
Speaker
Now, presuming that you and I don't know anything that the general public don't know about, um How do you feel about the suggestion that the government, the current government, doesn't want us to be smart?
00:17:17
Speaker
They don't want to teach critical thinking. They don't want to teach diversity. um You know, just just in general, when they say that we're we're making it America great again, we're going back to a time where, like, men ran things and you know, white culture was culture and everybody else was a specialty culture, like that sort of thing. I mean, do do you see that as being like one big thing? I think it's pretty obvious that I do.
00:17:43
Speaker
Anybody who listens to the show. But I don't want to just like throw that opinion at you and be like, right. But I mean, I mean, right. There's something there. I do. I absolutely do. You know, and i I think like if you look at the sum of things that are being disappeared or coming under attack, it's the things that create an educated society that can fight back against the rise of fascism, right? Like, um I feel like that might be the first time I've actually put that sentence so coherently together, but because usually I'm walking around my house ranting and raving and using all the swear words around it, but
00:18:20
Speaker
you know, you get rid of education, get rid of social systems, you get rid of all of these things that make people willing to ask questions. Yeah, yeah, I think that's absolutely what's happening.
00:18:32
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um And so I think it's it's up to those of us who are who are critical thinkers to continue asking the questions and teaching other people how to think more critically, um which is a huge responsibility, but worthwhile.
Historical Context and Awareness of Diagnoses
00:18:48
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Have you heard anybody say that we didn't have all these diagnoses 50 years ago? That we didn't know people were you know, nobody was autistic, nobody had ADHD, like, oh what what would you say to that?
00:19:05
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I would say ah couple of things. The first I would say is we literally didn't have some of those diagnoses 50 years ago. So that's a truth, right? But I would also say it doesn't mean that the people who now would qualify for those diagnoses didn't exist, right? So those are two really important things to look at together.
00:19:26
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The other thing I would say is, you know, the word quirky went really far for a long time, right? People were quirky. They were a little sort of, you know, not quite what you would expect.
00:19:37
Speaker
So eccentric is eccentric. Yeah, but I think you have to be rich to be eccentric. I think so, too. I think that's where I live. you know like That's why I go to quirky, because quirky is a you know ah maybe a 10-cent word. More universal. Yeah.
00:19:50
Speaker
But I also think that um people are talking about increase in diagnosis. What they're not paying attention to is the fact that we have increased in awareness of being able to get diagnosed, right? Mm-hmm.
00:20:03
Speaker
like you can have an increase in diagnosis because there are more people seeking out diagnosis. It doesn't mean there are more people who have ADHD or there weren't any people who had ADHD or there weren't autistic people.
00:20:17
Speaker
It just means that the access to being able to get that diagnosis or the willingness to look for ah diagnosis or the understanding that it's not the end of the world, that if you have a diagnosis, right?
00:20:32
Speaker
Those things have increased over time. But to be like really frank, theyre you know the diagnosis for autism isn't even like like the the current diagnosis that we have is, and don't know, 30 years old. i wouldn't quote me 100% on that.
00:20:49
Speaker
But the way it's set up now, I mean, it's evolved over time. It wasn't that long ago that we were only talking about ADD. And ADD, which was attention deficit disorder, doesn't even exist as a diagnosis anymore. It's evolved into ADHD, which has like inattentive type or hyperactive type or combined type, right? So we've evolved these diagnoses over time.
00:21:13
Speaker
And we've had more people and more early intervention processes happen over time. So, you know, i have... I think that people want to find a reason for increases. I think it makes them worried, right?
00:21:27
Speaker
I think it makes them nervous. um And i also think that there's a lot more, like, you know you talked about the guests you had who's in their 20s.
00:21:38
Speaker
I think a lot more increases. People who are in their 20s and early 30s are, there they're seeking identities, right? And they're trying to figure out who they are. And sometimes that diagnosis helps them put that identity into place.
00:21:52
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um And like, I think that's a really cool thing to watch is young people say like, no, I need to know who I am. so I'm going to to figure out if there's something the additional I need to know to put those pieces together.
00:22:06
Speaker
Right on. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah. You know, with regard to diagnosis, I actually always think of breast cancer. Yeah. Because in the 70s, very few people talked about breast cancer. But by the 90s, there was something like a 300% uptick in right in breast cancer diagnoses. And it wasn't because lots and lots of women were suddenly getting breast cancer. It's because they invented mammograms and told people to start getting them, you know, which is exactly what you were saying before Yeah.
00:22:37
Speaker
Knowing that there are there is a diagnosis and how to get it and that it's important to get it makes a profound difference. So if your kid is struggling at school, instead of yelling at them and grounding them, you could actually take them to someone if you have insurance.
00:22:54
Speaker
or and And find out like what could be happening. it It might not just be as simple as like, okay, we went to that appointment and now we know everything and what to do about it. you know It's a process, but getting people on a path is is so important.
00:23:09
Speaker
It is. And and the the thing that's, I think, more people are more aware of now is that there is a process through school systems, public school systems, where you can ask for your child to go through that evaluation process to see if they can be identified. The difference in in education and medical systems is there's like diagnosis and identification. And and identification means that you have some sort of disability that is impacting your ability to function in school in the way that we would expect, right?
00:23:40
Speaker
But that process in public schools is free. It's free. And being able to like share that information has made a huge difference for a lot of parents to be able to like really reframe how they see their child. You know,
00:23:55
Speaker
a I have three children and all of them are neurodivergent. All of them have different identifications and diagnoses. And, um you know, I'm not always my best self with them, but it certainly gives me an opportunity to go, oh, yeah, no, that wasn't your best move, Amanda. Like, you probably shouldn't have said, why can't you pay attention?
00:24:14
Speaker
And the answer is because you can't pay attention right now.
Understanding Diagnoses and Personal Identity
00:24:18
Speaker
Too poor. Too poor to pay attention. um ah o but i'm bum but Right.
00:24:27
Speaker
So what a what would you say to a parent who says that they would not want to get their child diagnosed because they don't want them to have a label because labels come with stigma?
00:24:41
Speaker
I would say, the first thing I would say is I totally understand that, right? Just flat out. i would I totally understand that. I also think that there's more reason to worry about that now. I'm just going to be honest. I think like in the climate that we live in, there is more reason to worry about that.
00:24:59
Speaker
The second thing I would say is that there's a difference between a label that you wear and a label that gives you instructions on how to take care of whatever is being labeled, right? So if you think about it, right, I will always be the person who will tear the labels out of my clothes or try and buy them without it because it bothers me. Like I don't like the way it feels, but I'm going to need that label to know whether or not I need to dry clean the shirt I'm wearing, which, which I don't I'm laughing because I have taken to wearing my cotton sports bras inside out.
00:25:34
Speaker
Because of the tag. Yeah. Well, and it's it every time I do it, I say, this is why you know that men design clothing. Because when you buy men's t-shirts, they say, oh we took the tag out so it won't hurt your witch or neck. I know. And when it's a bra, it's like, yeah, here's three tags right in the middle of your back. And if you don't keep them on there, you'll never know what size this was or how to clean it ever, ever, ever again.
00:25:59
Speaker
or you're gonna have the hooks digging into your back. So yeah, same, same, same. i Also, I don't dry clean things. I just wanna put that out there for people because it's a lot of work. It's like, wait, you want me to take my clothes to a place so someone else can clean them for me? I don't even wanna walk upstairs to the laundry.
00:26:18
Speaker
It means putting on shoes. I mean, come on now. Outside, I'm going to get sun all over me. i know. i know. it's just It's just so much work. It's so much work.
00:26:29
Speaker
But I will say, knowing that I should have dry cleaned my clothes gives me an understanding of why they didn't get clean the way I expected them to in the washing machine, right?
00:26:40
Speaker
And so to some extent, I would say to parents that that... information is really just information, right? There's a label that goes with it because that's how we do things. That's how we get supports.
00:26:53
Speaker
That's how we get insurance codes. That's how we do all of the things that make society run or not run, depending on how you look at that, right? But the label doesn't define your child. It gives you more information about them. And so that's the piece that I always try and make sure that parents understand is like,
00:27:10
Speaker
You don't have to walk around saying, i have an autistic kid or my child has autism, however you do it, identity first or people first language, right? You don't have to say, my kid has ADHD. You don't have to tell anybody, you know, like, by the way, all of a sudden you need to know that my child has dyslexia. None of that has to be said out loud.
00:27:26
Speaker
But what has to be said out loud is this is what this means for my child and what they need and what we can do to support them, right? And it also, I think kids know when they feel different, they know, right? And if we give them, yeah, I mean, like I, I, I know that I felt different for, I don't know, I still do, but like, you know, but at least I have a words for it now. Right.
00:27:49
Speaker
And so i think it's important for kids to have an understanding you, you know, we started this conversation and you said like, knowing that it's not that you're just lazy or any of those kinds of things. We don't want kids are going to give themselves their own labels. If we don't give them words for it, they're going to think they're lazy.
00:28:05
Speaker
They're going to think they're not trying hard enough. They're going to think they're dumb. They're going all of these negative labels. So if we give them that diagnosis, that identification, and then say, and this is what that means in terms of how your brain might process information, we're giving them the chance to like relabel themselves. And so I think that's an important thing what to talk to parents about.
00:28:28
Speaker
yeah I could tell you as a young person who knew that they were weird that if I could have been called autistic instead of fucking weird that would would have made a great deal of difference to be a kid who more than anything else wanted to be normal yeah and yeah and you know and then later on I developed this like hard shell about it like oh well normal means boring and I'm not boring and blah blah blah but like no I'd You know, I was a fat, weird kid with a stupid name, and I didn't like it.
00:29:03
Speaker
So it it made such a profound difference, and people say, oh, but it made you so interesting. Well, you know what? The United States is pretty interesting right now. I'd like to go back to being boring if we could.
00:29:15
Speaker
No kidding. and also And also, interesting to whom? Right? like right Right. like i'm I appreciate that you thought I was interesting, but like I didn't feel interesting. I felt uncomfortable. I felt whatever those words are.
00:29:29
Speaker
Does my uncontrolled sobbing amuse you? Is it entertainment? um Yeah, yeah. yeah and And I mean, I get it. I get it because I am also drawn both socially and romantically to train wrecks.
00:29:44
Speaker
The more messed up someone is, the more interesting I will find them and the more I want to know about it. um if If you actually knew who like my secret celebrity fascination is, it's not a secret because I've written books about it.
00:29:56
Speaker
But it's one of the most fucked up people you can think of. And I was so convinced that they were good for so long. And boy, they're not. But...
00:30:07
Speaker
Well, and I think that's because we look for people who make sense to us, right? Like, and if you grew up feeling like a total goddamn disaster, you like connect with or connect to parasocially or socially, whichever one, right?
00:30:25
Speaker
To people who are that kind of disaster because you're like, oh, I recognize this. I recognize yes this. this comfortable and familiar to me even though it looks like a nightmare to everyone else. Right.
00:30:36
Speaker
Totally. Totally. So I don't know. That's how serial killers get girlfriends when they're in prison. Oh my God. That's not. But what it is though. is It is. totally is. i never thought about it that way, but it is.
00:30:48
Speaker
Yeah. Ooh. I, I, wow. Yes, it
Challenges of Misdiagnosis and Personal Journey
00:30:52
Speaker
is true. It is true. Um, yeah. I don't even know what to say. i I would actually like to talk about speaking of serial killers. No, I'm joking.
00:31:02
Speaker
Um, um No, but I would like to talk about your mental health journey. So when were you diagnosed? So, I mean, that's a tricky one because I wasn't officially diagnosed appropriately until like 30.
00:31:18
Speaker
I was 50, right? And I'm 51 now. So not that long ago. But I went through ah whole series of diagnoses that were not accurate from the time I was a teenager on.
00:31:32
Speaker
Okay. So I was a quirky, weird kid. And people just were like, well, she's a little weird. She sits in the corner. She's the one who likes to read. doesn't like know how to do a lot of friendship kind of stuff and when she does she's super intense you know like all of those kinds of things right um she's gonna say a word that she's only read in a book so she's gonna say it wrong all the time right like that's that's the kid I was but as I got to be you know early teens mid-teens um it just It took its toll on me.
00:32:02
Speaker
It took a toll on me and I and i hit like depression phase. right like i was I was anxious, I was depressed, and so I was diagnosed with depression. and I was diagnosed with depression but when SSRIs were first coming out, so I was put on SSRIs. That didn't really make much of a difference. right And then over time I was diagnosed incorrectly as bipolar 2, right? like So all of these kinds of things that eventually added up to the correct diagnosis.
00:32:32
Speaker
So I went through a lot of my life not understanding why the diagnoses I had on my records or conversations I was having, why they didn't feel right and why I wasn't actually I don't know, like doing well, you know, like I was. No, I yeah totally, totally feel that because when I finally did get a diagnosis, the doctor looked at a fat lady who was sad and said, well, you have depression.
00:33:00
Speaker
And he put me on Wellbutrin. So when it turned out I was bipolar and that it sent me into crazy, crazy mania. I mean, because the thing about depression is that like depression will keep you from getting things done.
00:33:16
Speaker
You know, it'll put your life on hold and it can. I mean, you know, sometimes it leads to, like, self-unaliving thoughts and whatever, but not not that I'm glossing over that. It's very serious. No, no, no. No, I hear you. But, like, that's a thing that happens. But then, like, mania is more like, yeah, I have a new idea that's going to make me a millionaire, so I'm going to spend thousands of dollars on it. Hang on. I got to go tell my boss to go fuck himself.
00:33:42
Speaker
And then I'm going to get a divorce because you know what? And, like... And I haven't slept in three weeks, right? like like Right, right. And every idea seems like the best idea you've ever had and nothing is going to stop you. And then two weeks later, you're like, oh, holy shit, I just blew up my entire life.
00:33:59
Speaker
Right, right. And like, and just, yeah. And if anyone's still speaking to me, please help me through this. And that's the thing, right? And I think that's the important thing is I'm trying to figure out to like even put this into words. Well, the first thing is you know, when my two youngest kids who are 23 today, actually 15,
00:34:19
Speaker
um they were They both have diagnosis of autism. they They use autistic because that's their identity first kind of place, right? All of a sudden I was like, oh, wait a second. Of course, that makes a ton of sense. And of course I work in this field too. So I'm like watching little pieces of myself make more sense as I'm working in the field.
00:34:37
Speaker
But I had this moment where i was like, okay, all of those things, that's me also. But it took a long time as a woman to get heard. And on top of that, when you're somebody who is able to explain to somebody what you are feeling and how bad it is feeling, they look at you, a lot of doctors look at me and they're like, but you're functioning so well. And I'm like, this is what you're seeing, but underneath I'm not functioning well at all, right?
00:35:03
Speaker
Well, isn't that like a huge thing with autistics is that we kind of make it look easy? i think so. I think, you know, I think about like the duck paddling underneath the surface, right? We're gliding along, but underneath the surface, we're just paddling, paddling, paddling, paddling.
00:35:17
Speaker
But the fact that you can articulate it... says to people, you're fine. And I'm just like, that's not actually true. And so it took me a long time to be able to find somebody who I could say to, you're hearing me articulate this because I am very good at articulating things.
00:35:35
Speaker
I'm very good at telling you the things. Right. Right. Also. Being good with words doesn't mean I'm sane. It just means I'm adept at explaining exactly how I'm not.
00:35:47
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. So it took me a long time to get to the right right diagnosis. Some of the pieces were there, you know, along the way, right? Like, but I think the piece that was really important to me to realize is like, depression was not wrong, but it was situational, right? It wasn't like, it's not the big diagnosis.
00:36:07
Speaker
It was the situational component of things. And it would be like, I'd have autistic burnout and I'd be like really down and tired and all of these things. And that tired wasn't depressed. It was unable to function because I had just used up all the spoons I had left. Right. I had no spoons.
00:36:25
Speaker
I was like, I don't know. Like, what's a negative spoon? I don't actually know what a negative spoon is. I was a fork. A slotted spoon, perhaps? I was a slotted spoon. It's shaped like a spoon, but it doesn't actually contain anything. nor A spork.
00:36:40
Speaker
I was a spork, I think, at that point. You know, but that component of things and the anxiety and the like obsessive thinking kinds of things, they all fit into this label of autistic for me in a way that made me go, oh, this makes so much more sense.
00:37:00
Speaker
it doesn't change how I exist in the world, but does change how I can be graceful to myself, right?
Personal Rhythms and Mental Health
00:37:09
Speaker
Or i can stop saying, why can't I do this?
00:37:11
Speaker
Because the answer is because your brain really won't do it, right? Whatever it is. Yes. Yes. And I can remember the first time i had anything like that happen to me and I was ah in high school and somebody said, oh, you're a night person, right?
00:37:28
Speaker
And I didn't, I had never heard that term before. and it's just somebody that functions better at night. Right. And that is part of the human condition. It goes back to caveman times when somebody had to stay up all night and let everybody else sleep and know they'd be safe.
00:37:44
Speaker
So that is just a thing. But yet my whole life, not only, i mean, I had apnea, which also fucked with my sleep. Yeah. But just this whole like, oh, you're so lazy. Oh, you go to bed and you, you know, whatever. You always seem tired. You always seem this and that.
00:38:00
Speaker
And it turns out that like, no, the world is set up for people who have to be somewhere by 8 a.m. m and home by 6 and that can actually go to sleep at a reasonable hour. i can't do any of those things.
00:38:12
Speaker
Totally. But that's when school is. And even as an adult, that's when the bank is open. That's where a lot of jobs are. Right. you know But once you understand like, oh, I don't really do things that way, how much of my life can I organize to accommodate that?
00:38:28
Speaker
And how much easier will it be going forward after making just a couple of simple accommodations? And it's huge because you stop being so hard on yourself and you start being like, you treat yourself like you would treat somebody else maybe, right? You know, which is- Well, that's that's always my philosophy is don't say anything to yourself that you wouldn't say to your best friend.
00:38:51
Speaker
You know, I say a lot of things to my best friend, though. I don't know. Well, maybe she shouldn't be such a bitch. i'm I will tell her that.
00:39:03
Speaker
So when some random person just punches me in the face one day, I'll be like, oh, right. I said that on the show. No, no, because she would say it right back to me. She'd be like, Amanda, you don't be such a bitch. And we'll be fine.
00:39:14
Speaker
That's the joy of friendship sometimes, right? like Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. i you know, and I appreciate you noting the like, the sleep thing, because I think that's huge. It's a huge thing. Like, people have different rhythms. and we expect, you know, expect them to live in one rhythm. And it doesn't make any sense.
00:39:32
Speaker
It just doesn't. I mean, if you're productive at two in the morning, do it, do it at two in the morning, you know, like, yeah that's, that's what I mean. i wish the world would be a little more accommodating to that, but being able to say like, I'm not,
00:39:51
Speaker
asleep at 9 a.m. because I don't feel like getting up. I'm asleep at 9 a.m. because I went to bed at 4 because I got so much done between 12 and 4. And not because I was manic, but because that's when my brain was functioning best.
00:40:03
Speaker
Period. Well, and there's also the two sleeps thing. Because in the Middle Ages, people slept twice. And I do so much better. If my life was some sort of like overlook hotel situation where time had no meaning and I could just do whatever I want, definitely two sleeps. Me too. I just read a really good article in the Atlantic about that, by the way. I just read a fantastic article about sleep.
00:40:25
Speaker
And it talked a lot about the two sleeps and and how. Oh, it's a new month. I have free Atlantic articles. I should definitely go check. that It was really good. It was really good. I was reading it out loud to people in my house who didn't necessarily want to hear it, but they heard it anyway. because I was like, listen to this. This is so, like, this makes so much sense.
00:40:42
Speaker
um But it, you know, yeah, the two sleeps, like that seven hour sort of you get up and then you go back. And it it just makes a lot of sense to be able to to do things when you're best equipped to do it. And like yeah in a neurodiversity affirming world, that's what I would hope for is that we be able to say like, hey, you do this when it works for you. Like the self-imposed deadline really isn't important.
00:41:06
Speaker
It's self-imposed, right? Like, I would like to see a world where we have more real deadlines and not like fake deadlines because I don't know how many of them are actually real sometimes. ah yeah That's a whole thing.
00:41:20
Speaker
It's like, okay, is this is this real or is this like a border where we all just made it up and now we're going to kill somebody if they if they go past it or whatever? Totally.
00:41:32
Speaker
So, so let me ask you this. So, so you have a person like you or me who were not really properly diagnosed until they were well into adulthood.
00:41:43
Speaker
um i know I felt a fair bit of of anger about that at what my life could have been had I known these things as a ah youth or a young adult even and and didn't.
00:41:56
Speaker
So how does one get past that? Yeah. I felt, I'm not sure, it's interesting, I'm not sure I felt anger as much as I felt grief, right?
00:42:07
Speaker
I felt a lot of grief over how much different my life could have been. And I think that there's room for that, right? So for adults who are just getting diagnosed, I think there's absolutely like a need for you to be able to take that time to be angry or to be grieving or to be whatever.
00:42:26
Speaker
But also, eventually, I got to a place where I was like, you know, in the grand scheme of things, everything I went through brought me to where I am. If I'm comfortable with where I am today, i guess I just have to deal with the shit that brought me here, right?
00:42:42
Speaker
Like that's... which is sort of the philosophical way of looking at it. But I do think that one of the things that a lot of adults do is they go through, they go back through their life and they think about like, how could it have been different?
00:42:54
Speaker
Who would I be today? And i think just giving yourself the opportunity to say like, that's a valid reaction. Of course it is, right? where it gets tricky is like, are you blaming somebody else for not picking up on that? or you know, what, what, you know, it's the, what can you do now?
00:43:13
Speaker
Right. So a lot of times, once you get past that grief and anger, or you may never get past it, but like, at some point you have to think about how am I moving forward? What can I do differently now? Right.
Masking, Success, and Relationships
00:43:24
Speaker
What would I have liked to have done when I was younger that i now can do because I have this information And for me, that's the piece of where I'm just like, I just show up as I am, you know, and I think I spent a lot of time, you know, a lot of people who neurodivergent know the the masking thing, right?
00:43:39
Speaker
We mask, you know, we mask, we camouflage, we do all of these things. And I hit a point where I was like, I'm not doing that anymore. Right? It served me well before I had understanding of why I do it.
00:43:53
Speaker
And now I'm less likely to mask and I'm less likely to apologize for who I am. And that's freeing to me in a way that I didn't expect I'd ever get to.
00:44:05
Speaker
Right. But I think it takes some time to be able to say like, you know what, who I was back then was fine. I was, I was okay. I was, you know, i didn't feel fine, but like there was nothing wrong with me Sometimes people have to go back and have those conversations with like family or they are old friends and say like, I need you understand that like, your perceptions of me.
00:44:34
Speaker
are based in something that we didn't understand the full reality of, right? So to be able to say to somebody like, you know, you always thought I was kind of like lazy or didn't feel like getting up in the morning or I was super grouchy when there were lots of people around, able to say like, and that's because my nervous system wasn't regulating and it still won't regulate. Like I need to understand that there's been reasons, you know, like be able to say because reasons matters a lot.
00:45:03
Speaker
um But also just to say like everybody's experience is going to be different, right? Some people get very stuck in that place where they're like, I could have been different. I could have had a different life.
00:45:15
Speaker
And I respect that, right? i like How about just my same life but like successful? Right. great what like Without a billion different fuck-ups because you didn't know how to manage a situation that other people seem to manage just fine.
00:45:34
Speaker
Listen, I wrote an entire book- Why can't I get a job and keep it? Why did I fuck up that relationship? Why is that friendship no longer a thing? Right. all these right these little things that are like okay this is not a huge thing and if this happened as a natural course of events i probably wouldn't even care that much but because i know it happened because i didn't have the information that i needed ah about myself or how my brain works, I'm so mad about it.
00:46:04
Speaker
You know, I went out through school and they wanted to test me in school, but my people like my mom didn't want people to know how much she was beating us. And like, it's a whole thing. boy Yeah. You know, so like, I mean, I guess when I'm angry, I'm angry more at like a specific person than at like yeah just a general like, you know, I'm not mad at my teacher because my teachers didn't notice I was autistic because, you know, they're dealing with like 35 kids a day.
00:46:30
Speaker
so And they may not know anything about it anyway, right? Like that's. Well, in the seventies, yeah, they really didn't. yeah They didn't. I mean, even if I had been tested, they didn't know how to diagnose ADHD in girls and they were still calling it like Asperger's syndrome or something in the seventies. Like, yeah you know, I don't know that I necessarily would have felt better about being told that.
00:46:52
Speaker
Cause my mom kind of treated anything that was non-average about me. Like it was a hang up or a, or it was an issue, like it was a problem, good or bad. You know, like if I won a speech contest and had to go to another town to give another speech, that was a huge imposition and it was terrible.
00:47:09
Speaker
But then like, if I did something poorly, then that was, you know, there was no way to win with her. Probably because she was autistic and didn't know it. But I, right. I know. I know. There's such a genetic thing there too, but also that angry piece, right? Like there are a lot of adults who,
00:47:30
Speaker
go no contact with people in their lives at some point, you know, and, and if that's what you, you, whoever you are are listening, right. Need to to feel healthy. Like I support that a hundred percent.
00:47:44
Speaker
Right. And so i'm I'm a great fan of that for people, who regular listeners know I went no contact with my mom when I was 24. um Good for you Well, almost 24. It was like September. I turned 24 in November.
00:47:56
Speaker
And it's easily the best big decision that I ever made. You know, better than picking a major, better. Well, not my husband. That's probably the best one. But...
00:48:08
Speaker
But in the first 30 years, that that ah was the best one. But also, they can be equally good, right? like they can like you You going no contact probably set you up to be able to make the big decision to have the best decision about your husband, right? like because Well, yes, because I was not choosing men well when I was being emotionally and physically and mentally abused at home.
00:48:30
Speaker
I was making decisions that would get me the hell out of there as opposed to, you know, choosing a respectful man who would be right for me. Because and it the thing is, that that's like, you know, having a successful marriage is the one success in my life. My career is kind of shitty. I don't have any money.
00:48:50
Speaker
But that that one thing that I have is something that I know a lot of people would kill for. So in a weird way, kind of good about that. I think weird at all.
00:49:01
Speaker
I think you should feel really good about it. Like having a successful marriage is hard, hard, hard, hard work. Right. It's, yeah, it's a lot of work. And I think people don't always know how much work it takes. And so like that success isn't just magical.
00:49:17
Speaker
It's work. It's putting in a lot of work. I mean, neither one of us came out of the box like this. We we both had to to do ah a fair, like I, when I met my husband, I was 28, 29, something like that. And I had never been in a healthy relationship before and I don't believe that I have ever seen one modeled.
00:49:39
Speaker
So that was all new to me. Like, wait a minute, I shouldn't just scream and just swear at you because I'm mad about some mundane thing? oh right, because you have feelings. Okay, this is all coming together. you know i You know, so I wrote an entire book on adulting.
00:49:56
Speaker
Don't love the title, but like, because it cracks me up adult, you know, but in the book, one of the things I did is told all the stories of the way I messed it up so badly. Right. Because I didn't know how to be a good adult.
00:50:08
Speaker
I got married for the first time a week past my 19th birthday. I was a baby. Oh my gosh. Child. Um, I've got married the second time at 31 and I've been married almost 21, 20, 20 years now.
00:50:22
Speaker
I can't even math here. Yeah. Yeah. almost 20 years. And I'm really proud of that. Like how much work has gone into like really being a healthier person and respecting other people's feelings and like all of those kinds of things.
00:50:36
Speaker
I have other professional successes, but like my personal successes are the ones that like I feel best about because i don't know, like professional success comes and goes, right?
00:50:48
Speaker
At the end of the day, the people that I live with are the people who like it has to be good, right? Like that has to be good because i don't know.
00:50:59
Speaker
I was going somewhere and then I got lost in my own head. So nevermind. Like it was good.
00:51:05
Speaker
Nerd divergence at work right there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I did want to actually talk more about your book. So I'm glad you brought it up. um ah Just looking over just a general sense of your book, it seems like,
00:51:20
Speaker
You have an appreciation for the line between providing information and giving advice. because Oh, yeah. Any book that I read about mental illness has advice in it, and some of it is just fucking dumb.
00:51:36
Speaker
If I wanted to go out in the sun and get fresh air, i would be there now. Clearly, I do not suggest something else. ah Have you tried meditating? Oh, my God. that Yeah. And then I did CrossFit and I went vegan. And and and i then I started buying supplements from Joe Rogan.
00:51:55
Speaker
um There you go. Okay, cool. Done all the things. No, there that there I don't go. um um But why why is that an important distinction in your mind?
00:52:07
Speaker
So I think there's a huge distinction between being prescriptive and being descriptive, right? And so the books that I write, and I've written a number of them and they sort of range, one of them is actually the Everything's Parents Guide to Special Education. And then I've written a children's book on empathy. Like I've i've done a whole range of of books.
00:52:26
Speaker
And in every single one of them, my goal has been, want you to have the information to make informed decisions that work for you, right? Period. That work for you based on who you are, what your life is like.
00:52:39
Speaker
Because me sitting here, I could tell you what works for me, but your life isn't the same as mine, right? So what I want you to do is have all of the information to make informed decisions that and to feel like confident in the decisions that you make.
00:52:54
Speaker
I could prescribe exactly what I think you should do, or I could describe the things that you need to know in order to make your own decisions. And that's really, really important to me, in part because I have that autistic thing where I don't like being told what to do, just frankly, like i don't like it. I don't like when people say to me, you know what you need to do? Because I'm just like, no, but apparently you do.
00:53:14
Speaker
You know what I need to do, right? ah um But what I do appreciate is when people say, have you thought about this? Right. Have you, have you thought about this? Here's something that you may not know. Right.
00:53:26
Speaker
So to me, it's really important to give people as much of what they, they might want to think about to be able to make the decisions, but also to give them some pathways because I, you know, like there's decision overwhelm is a real thing, right? When you have oh yeah a lot going on a lot coming at you the The other thing that i you know i like I do a lot of writing around not just here's the information, now figure it out. It's also, and here's one thing you could do with this.
00:53:53
Speaker
And here's another thing you could do with this. And here's another pathway. And here are some questions you could ask the doctor or you could ask the teacher, right? So I'm providing them with tools to be, to build their own, you know, kit and their own success.
00:54:08
Speaker
um Because I just really, really, really think it's important to realize that not everyone has the same pathway and not everybody has the same skillset, right? So one of the things that I will just say 100% out loud is like, I don't love it when people are like, you have to learn to advocate for yourself.
00:54:25
Speaker
Right? Yes. I think it is helpful to learn how to be an advocate for yourself, but that big A advocacy, not everybody's comfortable with it. I don't think I want to say to everybody, you have to learn to advocate for yourself.
00:54:38
Speaker
What I do want to say is I want you to understand yourself so that when you find yourself in a situation that doesn't feel comfortable, you can tell somebody why, or you can leave it and feel good about leaving that situation. Right?
00:54:53
Speaker
So, yeah. So, I mean, I think it's just because we're all different. We're all different humans and we all have different reactions in different ways. And I can't anticipate everybody's experience. And I do not want to pretend that I can.
00:55:06
Speaker
And I think that's one of the things that, like, a lot of self-help books kind of come from one perspective.
Social Media and Human Experience
00:55:13
Speaker
And so I don't write self-help books, right? I write self-help books.
00:55:18
Speaker
I don't even know. I don't write self-help books. I write informational texts that you can, you know, they have little stories in them that you can go, oh, Amanda was a mess too. Cool. You know? like but Well, it's really validating though to see vulnerability in people. That's what I love about social media is to see that like people, I tend to idolize people because people are sort of abstract to me if I don't know them.
00:55:46
Speaker
So, finding out for example that like you know a writer that you love is having money problems or yeah finding out that like you know this millionaire star is having a bad day because they spilled their coffee this morning just you know stupid humanizing things that are like right oh yeah that's annoying for everybody isn't it right or that like people that have success still have problems so if I'm yeah that there There really is like no escape from regular mundane things. So you don't have to feel like a failure if you're having money problems or you spilled coffee this morning, you know, that whole thing.
00:56:29
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and it's, it's interesting. i you know, I, I think that's one of the best things that's come out of social media is the ability to realize like, people are people.
00:56:40
Speaker
um I just went all, you know, people are people. That's how, why should it be? Anyway, song lyrics. There we go. But like, i met the dudes in Depeche Mode.
00:56:51
Speaker
Oh my gosh. I was working at industry. friends It's, it's this club in, in Pontiac. It's called industry. And they would have like Halloween haunted houses. And they were all like gothy and industrials in the nineties.
00:57:05
Speaker
And, uh, I love that. I saw the, well, i did, i I talked to like, you know, it was kind of like, oh, hey guys, this is your crew. And I'd be like, oh, hi, I'm on the crew. and And when I went to clean their dressing room in between sets, I saw the biggest pile of cocaine i had ever.
00:57:25
Speaker
I mean, I was not commonly around cocaine. I was much more of a weed person. Still am. Wink. Um, But, I mean, it looked like an anthill. Like, I wasn't sure at first that it was cocaine because there was so much of it. Remember in the movie The Departed where Jack Nicholson just picks up like a handful of cocaine in a sugar bowl? It was like, okay, this is a preposterous amount of drugs here. i can I'm just laughing at it.
00:57:53
Speaker
That's hilarious. Because sometimes I'll tell that story and people are like, oh my god, how much did you take? um i I took zero amount of cocaine because what the hell?
00:58:04
Speaker
That's a lot. That's a lot. But yes, that's that's my Depeche Mode story. But see, like, you and I are people who have stories like that because when, because we do, like, it's interesting because you say you idolize people, but what you actually do is you humanize people, right? So you can, like, say, hey, guys, I'm on your crew, whereas some other people would just be like, oh, my God, that's Depeche Mode. I can't talk to Depeche Mode, you know?
00:58:28
Speaker
And I'm just... People are are humans, right, first. And so when I meet somebody that every somebody else might think is like a ah huge deal, I don't disagree that they're a huge deal. But I'm also like, hey, you know, you have toilet paper on your shoe because everybody needs to know that kind of thing, right?
00:58:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. So, yeah. So, I mean, i like the way you describe idolizing. I really think what you're talking about is like you're you're recognizing the humanity in everybody, that we all just have these common things that that is the human experience, right? You can't get away from...
00:59:06
Speaker
sadness you can't get away from bad weather you can't get you know like all of those things that happen ah and that was like a weird example but like they don't discriminate life doesn't discriminate it does get easier I think for some people when they have people around them who can help them and they have money and things like that but they they can't They can't escape from just the humanity of like, oh, I spilled my coffee and now I have to go to this meeting with like this coffee stain and I'm just going to walk through that. and
00:59:38
Speaker
you know i want to say it was Jim Carrey who said that he wished everyone could become rich and famous so they could find out that that's not it. That's not the happiness.
00:59:50
Speaker
I think it was actually. I i think, yeah. Seems like something he'd say. He's he's pretty deep. Yeah. And it's it's a funny thing about Jim Carrey because, you know, he started out doing all that that silly, crude kind of humor. Yeah. And that he dropped something like Truman Show or Eternals on China on It's like, wait, what what just happened?
01:00:12
Speaker
i um and Why is Carrey making me cry and reconsider everything I've ever said and done? That's not fair. Truman Show is one of my favorite movies ever, I'm just going to say. like I would watch it over and over and over again.
01:00:24
Speaker
um Yeah. And I have. Well, that's relatable. Yeah. It's, you know. So. Yeah. I wanted to actually talk about ah anxiety and obsessive compulsive thinking, because I know that's something that a lot of autistic people live with and something you live with as well.
01:00:43
Speaker
Do those things go together, the anxiety with the autism? um Some people would say yes, right? I'm not 100% sure. i think it is a part of it.
01:00:54
Speaker
um There are people who are now thinking about whether or not there's a very specific type of anxiety that goes with autism. I can't remember the name of it. I wish I could at the top of my head. I think that the state of being anxious is part of autism in some way, right?
01:01:12
Speaker
Because there's unpredictability to a lot of things and predictability and routine are part of the things that the autistic brain craves. And, um, and so not having that predictability and routine because like not everybody lives inside your head,
01:01:27
Speaker
um can cause a lot of that anxiety. But it's situational. It doesn't always stay, right? like So I think they they co-occur quite often, but I don't know that they're always tied together.
01:01:41
Speaker
For me, they are like i just they are. And part of that is because my sensory system misfires in ways that actually make my body feel anxious, even though my brain may not be anxious.
01:01:54
Speaker
So then when my body feels anxious, my brain is trying to find a reason why it feels anxious. and perseverates on all of the things that could be making me
Justice-Sensitive Autism and Media Preferences
01:02:02
Speaker
anxious. It's like this weird cycle of of all the things that happen at the same time.
01:02:07
Speaker
um I do know a lot of self-aware autistic people who describe anxiety as being like an existential anxiety. There are a lot of people I know who talk about eco-anxiety. Like they have very specific types of anxiety or things that they get anxious about.
01:02:24
Speaker
and don't know if that's, I think I just went off on a pedantic thing. i've I've heard the term um justice sensitive autism. Which seems like if you want things to, I mean, I'm pretty sure I have it.
01:02:37
Speaker
A doctor hasn't said, hey, you have this, but it it certainly makes sense because my earliest meltdowns all came from things that I knew were just 100% not fair and were happening for reasons that no one could adequately explain to me.
01:02:53
Speaker
and it would just make me furious. And it still kind of does. because it's ah it's a very much a, well, I did everything I was supposed to do here and I still seem screwed. Whereas these law-breaking a-holes are taking over the world.
01:03:06
Speaker
So, know. Yeah, and I don't, yeah. I've heard a lot of people talk about that that sense of social justice or that sense of, you know, like powerful sense of like when things are unjust is part of autism.
01:03:20
Speaker
I don't know what to think about that. I think it is absolutely true that a lot of people I know who are autistic are really tuned into injustice, right?
01:03:32
Speaker
I don't know how much of that is about injustice as much as it's about like systems expecting things to go a certain way. And when they don't, and then people don't get penalized for not following the systems and the rules, it doesn't seem right that like...
01:03:51
Speaker
that they don't get penalized and we don't get rewarded and like all of those kinds of things. Right. So I don't know what I think about that because I don't know that all autistic people have that sense of justice. I think we all have a sense of rules and rights and wrongs. Right. And they may be different for each person. I see. Yeah.
01:04:10
Speaker
Yeah. um But it's not to say that it isn't a very common thing. It is a very common thing. You know, I yeah i worked with a ah wonderful teenager who was just like, having trouble with a teacher. And it was just like, I just want her to pay for not doing it right.
01:04:27
Speaker
It was like, fair. Okay. i understand that impulse completely. Right? Like, I get that. um And it was like this teen was willing to put up with things that weren't comfortable for her because she wanted the teacher to learn from it.
01:04:42
Speaker
Right. And that that I think happened. So I think the part that gets gets me as i I hate to see us putting ourselves in situations where we continue to feel like we're not getting what we need because we want somebody else to get what they deserve, you know.
01:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Yeah. But yet I do it too. and Just going to say that. no I definitely want to talk a lot about ah media. And my first question is, and I know you haven't like researched this specifically, but people with anxiety like to watch ah true crime, serial killer shows,
01:05:24
Speaker
ah horror shows, stuff like Dexter, American Horror Story, um to relax. that's That's how we relax. um is Is that something that you do?
01:05:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I am a true crime fan through and through. um i Yes, it actually is. it's you know like I'll be like, I've had the worst day. What's on 2020?
01:05:46
Speaker
you know like What's the new documentary out about the new you know whatever that happened? Well, there are a lot of theories about like why that is. Do you describe ascribe to any of the popular theories?
01:06:00
Speaker
I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I don't know that I've actually like done a deep dive into it. I think I'm a little afraid to figure out what those theories are, to be honest. Well, sometimes it's just about how rewatching things is comforting because you have control over the situation. You know what's coming, so you're not going to get blindsided.
01:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that that actually, like, that is definitely, I've read research on that one, right? I've read research on the fact that there are people, like, that when you, people who have anxiety will come back to the same shows and books over and over and over again. and I am definitely one of those people. Like, I i have things that I've read, um my gosh, like, dozens and dozens and dozens of times.
01:06:38
Speaker
I have shows that I watch over and over and over again because my brain can shut off when I do it, right? Because I don't even really have to pay attention to it Because I know exactly what's happening. So I'm, I'm, it gives my, it quiets my head.
01:06:53
Speaker
Like i I haven't been able to say it in any other way. It quiets my head in a way that it doesn't quiet usually. And I think that that is the same for a lot of people who rewatch the things that they rewatch. They have their comfort shows. it's like having comfort food, right?
01:07:06
Speaker
Because you don't have to decide whether you're like getting adjusting to the new taste or whatever. You just know you like it. um Well, because there are shows that I love that I'm like reticent to sit and watch when I had to catch up with Doctor Who.
01:07:20
Speaker
I had I had to kind of psych myself up because I don't know. Do you watch Doctor Who? I don't. I don't. i My kids do, though. My kids. Well, one of the things about Doctor Who is that a lot of it is standalone stuff, and there are some like arcs that last a few episodes or a season.
01:07:36
Speaker
But the thing about Doctor Who is that one day you're going to get a hilarious episode about dinosaurs on a spaceship, and then the next day you're going to get something that changes how you think about All of reality and life itself, plus one of your favorite characters is going to die in a tragic way. And you don't know which it's going to be, you know, so I'm much more likely to watch something like Dexter, where even if people are going to die, it's like, okay, well, this is black comedy. So yeah I'm not going to end up emotionally devastated either way
01:08:09
Speaker
Because you know how it ties up in the end, right? Like it yeah it has like it has a predictable, there's going to be a neat little bow on this in some way.
01:08:20
Speaker
you know i was actually just talking about that with my husband in terms of like legal shows. Because when I was coming up, the legal shows we were watching were things like l LA Law or Law and Order or and the Practice. thinking that one.
01:08:35
Speaker
Because so often on those shows, they're meant to keep viewers outraged. So like somebody will be found guilty and then you'll find out they didn't do it or they'll get away with it. And then they'll be laughing at their lawyer for helping them. It just, you know, they wanted outrage.
01:08:51
Speaker
But then like Kathy Bates just did that remake of Matlock. It it is very much that CBS style. but You know, the good guys are going to win. There's a little suspense.
01:09:03
Speaker
But it's predictable formula. Yes. It's formulaic. And I think the formulaic is the piece that soothes the brain that needs some sort of formula.
01:09:15
Speaker
Right? Well, and because it's Kathy Bates, you just want to hug her at the end of every episode. Yeah. i mean Be my mom! um yeah I love Kathy Bates. Oh my gosh. Yeah, she really is marvelous.
01:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, I, you know, and I think that it's interesting because i think a lot of us who do have those kind of comfort shows, it depends on what we're going through in our lives, right? So like there are times where, yeah, like a good binge of Dateline is gonna like keep me really calm.
01:09:46
Speaker
And then there are times where it has to be like 20 minute rom-coms or like comedies or some things like that. So it depends on what's gonna calm my brain. But, um I mean, listen, documentaries, true crime, and like, that is my that is my place. I have friends who, together, we have a ah document that we call the DocDoc because we put our documentaries in the document so we can keep track of but what we're going to watch next or who's going to rate the doc on this one. So, like, the DocDoc, like, is my happy place to, like, pick up and and go, like, what have I not watched yet, you know?
01:10:23
Speaker
Because I always know that in the end, there's some sort of resolution, whether it's like one I would have wanted or whether it's one that I predicted, not necessarily.
01:10:37
Speaker
But there is a resolution,
Believing Personal Experiences and Media Portrayal
01:10:38
Speaker
right? Because you can't have those shows without it resolving in some way. Right. Of course, the problem with ah true crime documentaries now is that we're old enough to be like, no, I remember when that happened. That is not what the public was saying.
01:10:53
Speaker
A hundred percent. And now that there's like, people are going back and revisiting cases because of podcasts that are revisiting those cases. I, I'm always like, wait a second, wait a second.
01:11:03
Speaker
But the headlines were, you know, at that time. Right. Right. But it's kind of, it's kind of fun because my kids will watch it and they'll be like, I don't know anything about this. I'm like, but let me tell you, let me tell you what we were talking about at that time. Okay. Well, and even just the little details, because I find myself being furious about something I found out in the 90s.
01:11:22
Speaker
Like, no, that's not why he died. He died because the cops weren't listening and they were gay bashing and they took him back to the apartment. So you shut up. And I'm like, wait a minute. I'm really mad about a Jeff Dahmer victim like right now. Why am I feeling like that?
01:11:37
Speaker
I'm going go watch Dexter. yeah Because that'll make sense. Right? Well, it doesn't have to make sense. It just has to make me feel better. Exactly. Exactly. And like, I think that there is such value in being able to say like, this is what makes me feel better.
01:11:54
Speaker
Right? And we all need that thing right now, if nothing else. We need to be able to say, this makes me feel better. And I don't need you to understand it. I just need you to believe it. Right? Right. that's, that's a big part of everything I do and all the work I do, whether with students or teachers or families or whatever, is that idea that like, you don't have to understand it.
01:12:14
Speaker
You don't even have to agree with it, but just believe it's true. Right. Just, just believe that when I say something to you about what makes me feel better or what's going on in my brain, that like, it's true.
01:12:25
Speaker
You don't, you know, just believe me. I wouldn't just make it up. and That is such an enormous problem that we have in society is that people do not believe each other about their own experiences.
01:12:36
Speaker
Right. You know? Yeah. And we just saw that with the big ditty court case and people saying, well, no, clearly this is abuse. And then people want to tell you why.
01:12:46
Speaker
Maybe it wasn't, or maybe she's remembering it wrong, or maybe she's lying because she dated somebody else one time and they said, I mean, just, it's all such bullshit. And yet, you know, if we can't believe that people understand their own life,
01:13:02
Speaker
yeah We're not going to make it as a society. Agreed. Agreed. and And it's entirely possible that we won't. We may not. Because, mean, MAGA boys tell me every day what my life is, and they never even remotely get it right.
01:13:19
Speaker
I mean, that's also the downside of social media, too, right? Is all the people who tell you, like, no, no, no. No, you're wrong about you. You're wrong about you. And I'm just like, um I'm wrong about me? I'm sorry. What? Yeah.
01:13:30
Speaker
Yeah. i don't know. Like, okay, fine. I get big fat disability checks plus checks from George Soros. You figured me out. Exactly. I only hate Trump because someone's making me.
01:13:44
Speaker
Never arrive at that conclusion on my own You are so smart sir
01:13:50
Speaker
So let me ask you this In terms of um and General movies and TV Not necessarily specialty stuff But mainstream stuff Are there any depictions of autism That you think are truthful?
01:14:05
Speaker
Oh boy Because I mean Rain Man is the thing that everybody thinks about When they think of autism And so if you're not you know, talking about Wapner and repeating yourself and and counting matchsticks when they fall down that you must not be autistic.
01:14:20
Speaker
So I think, yeah, no. And I, and I think the interesting thing is the ones that I see that have been most reliable or most accurate are what we would call autistic coded.
01:14:32
Speaker
Right. And what that means is like in the media, they are not specifically saying this character has autism. Right. It's not being said out loud. It's you're watching that sort of unfold. And those of us who know what it's like to be autistic are like, oh, my gosh, hey, that's one of my people.
01:14:48
Speaker
Right. Like, but I don't think I think Dexter is a I'll stay in by that. Yeah, I think probably Dexter. Yeah. And I think that there are a couple of others um that come to mind. And, you know, it's interesting, like, I think about the Big Bang Theory, right? And that's a whole, like, sort of, at the very beginning of that series, Sheldon was very sort of autistic coded, right?
01:15:13
Speaker
In a way that that's very, it was sort of stereotypical. And then he evolved, his character evolved, and nobody ever, ever said this character has autism.
01:15:25
Speaker
And I remember reading interviews with the writers and and the you know the executive producer and saying like having them say, like we really wanted people to sort of take from that character what they wanted to take from that character and not tell them what to take from that character.
01:15:41
Speaker
And I think those are the ones that are done really well. i think like I think about like the good doctor, for example, as an autistic character and think it's harmful to see those stereotypical kinds of things that are not true for all people. I think one of the things we see in media around autism is that Autistic savant trope comes up over and over again.
01:16:05
Speaker
And it's subtle sometimes and it's not so subtle in other times. And one of the things that like drives me bananas about that is the idea that like if you are autistic or you have but any other kind of disability, this trope, it's called the crypt trope. I don't know if you've ever heard the crypt trope. The crypt trope says like basically if you're disabled, you have to have something that makes up for it to be worthy to be in society.
01:16:30
Speaker
Right. Oh, shit. It's it's a whole thing. Right. It's a whole thing. And I don't love it. You know, I'm now that you're saying that I'm thinking of like a bunch of different examples of it and it's making me really mad. so I'm going to need a minute.
01:16:44
Speaker
Oh, my God. Take that time. Yeah. Furious right now. No, that that makes so much sense. Because there's that Predator movie where there's a kid with autism, and basically the Predators decided that autism is the next step of human evolution.
01:16:59
Speaker
And I actually brought that up with another guest once, and they were like, um no. No. What the hell? No. And that's part of the cryptrope, right? That's part of the cryptrope. Like, and I, a lot of times I'm just like, can't they just, can't we just like exist and have nothing extraordinary about us and like still be valuable?
01:17:19
Speaker
Cause I think so. Right. I think like I, you know, and sometimes I feel really kind of like torn about being successful, having written a number of books that I've done well, because I'm like, am I playing into that trope?
01:17:32
Speaker
you know and I don't want to play into that trope maybe I could just be an ordinary sit in my house wanting to write a book that and I never write kind of person and that would be fine too you know so yeah so I just introduced the whole thing to you to make you more angry and I'm so sorry no, no. See, one of the things I say ah is that I would rather be annoyed by like an irksome truth than charmed by an enticing
Reflecting on Writing and Personal Growth
01:18:04
Speaker
lie. So if there's something bad happening, I need to know about it just so I could know about it.
01:18:09
Speaker
You know, I can't just have myself not knowing difficult things because they're uncomfortable and then I got to have feelings and think about them because that's kind of my whole deal. You know, I'm a I'm a writer, so so all about figuring stuff out and writing it down and then someone dies at the end because I'm mostly a horror writer.
01:18:33
Speaker
Well, no, I'm actually re-releasing my first book in a couple of weeks. Oh, congrats. Amazing. It's third edition. Yeah, I'm excited because this was the first book I ever wrote and I wrote it as NaNoWriMo novel because I had just lost my job and I'm like, okay, you know what I'm going to Something positive with all this time I just got handed even though I'm really sad.
01:18:54
Speaker
yeah And it's it's a total Mary Sue. Total Mary Sue. It's about a fat, mentally ill chick who murders her mom. um And then spends the whole book explaining why.
01:19:05
Speaker
and so And it's it's ah the kind of thing that I think if I was 15-year-old me, I would have made my whole life about this book.
01:19:16
Speaker
is Interesting. It's just like you know that the deep dive into the emotional, mentally ill girl. And, oh, please go ahead.
01:19:27
Speaker
I was just to say the cool thing about being able to re-release it is you have like that perspective. You can go back and say like, here's something I wanted to explore more. Here's something I, you know, I want to change or here's, you know, I don't know.
01:19:38
Speaker
i i'm I'm having a difficult time with it because i i don't want to reread it. Like every time I reread it it's, well, cause I mean, it's a fictionalized version of my life.
01:19:50
Speaker
yeah So it's extremely, extremely emotional and some of it's funny and some of it is like, okay, Wetnes, did you really have to be so up your own ass in the scene? I mean, yes, you had feelings and everything, but calm down. Like some of it's just overwrought and then some of it seems overwrought because I'm still,
01:20:10
Speaker
Far less uncomfortable with my own emotions than other people's because I've been told that emotions are... I mean, I was basically raised by people that are MAGA people now. you know like That whole mindset of like you know empathy is for suckers and helping people. like What do you just want everybody to like you? That's so weak. and just you know Those mindsets so Well, and then later I found out that like, oh, your apnea was actually like killing you and making all of your body not develop right. Plus you had autism and you didn't know. and Like just, you know, it's all a rich tapestry, right?
01:20:46
Speaker
It is. but It is. But then to to put that in a book before really knowing any of that, like I had been told I was bipolar. maybe a month before, actually no, it was around the time I started writing that book, because that was the other thing I did with my downtime. Because I said, actually I said, oh no, I'm not gonna be able to afford afford all the drugs I wanna do to keep me sane.
01:21:10
Speaker
Maybe I should see a psychiatrist. And that that was what I did. And that was when I started getting, because I mean, that honestly my biggest fear when I lost my job was holy shit, how am I gonna buy weed?
01:21:22
Speaker
Because I had a boyfriend at the time who is my husband now. And he absolutely took care of my insane ass. And he would buy me anything I needed, but not weed.
01:21:33
Speaker
So that was my panic. was like, oh no, my drugs. Which, in hindsight, not not a very positive thing to to know about yourself. that like...
01:21:46
Speaker
Like, oh, I won't be able to contribute meaningfully meaningfully to the household, but no, seriously, about the weed, what are we going to do you know i'm Do you so do you look at the like you look at the book now and have like a different, I don't know, like feeling for the person you were then?
01:22:05
Speaker
like do you have more compassion for for yourself in reading it again? in in On some issues, yes. There are definitely issues where i thought, you know, like most of the stuff having to do with men.
01:22:18
Speaker
And like, you know, being sad because a man was treating me in a way. and And I have a lot more like, oh, yeah. ah yeah i yeah you know But then there's other stuff that's like, my God, how much time did you waste on this?
01:22:34
Speaker
Oh, a lot. just I was just a curiosity. like I just was wondering, like how how do other people look back at their themselves after they have more knowledge and go like, oh, yeah.
01:22:45
Speaker
Yeah, with with ah a mix of embarrassment and admiration, alternative alternatively, i think. Alternately? That's the word, alternately. yeah that tracks for me, too. Yeah, no, that's how I would do it, too. I actually would probably lean heavily into the embarrassment on my end, but just like, you know.
01:23:04
Speaker
Well, you know, at one point after I moved into this apartment, I found like my old poetry notebook from high school. Oh, boy. Holy shit. Yeah.
01:23:14
Speaker
Like, wow, I really thought I was a good poet poet then. And then you look and like, i mean, i have Edgar Allan Poe fanfic in my poetry notebook from high school.
01:23:26
Speaker
Like, oh, I'm going to rewrite The Raven about a thunderstorm. And I put, I published it like within the last five years, I put it in one of my horror collections because I'm like, this is so ridiculous that it's almost a lie to pretend I didn't write it. So I'm going to publish it.
01:23:42
Speaker
That's amazing. That's I, you know, i so i mentioned to you that we had just moved across the country and, uh, yeah, had to go through all of our stuff, right. And pack up. And I was finding like notebooks and, and, and journals and things like that. i was like, Whoa, who was I even, you know, like I don't even remember for this version of me.
01:24:02
Speaker
Um, Which, you know, and sometimes you go like, oh, I kind of miss that version of me. And then sometimes you're like, whoa, I was lot. was I was a lot.
01:24:13
Speaker
Yeah. It's like you look back and say, wait a minute. One of the guys that called me his crazy ex-girlfriend was absolutely right. Most of them were not. but But yeah, there's there's that one guy. Yeah.
01:24:28
Speaker
um I actually would like to get into some of the non-book related work that you do.
Supporting Neurodivergence in Workplaces
01:24:34
Speaker
um Now, so there are companies and like schools yeah that are going out of their way to meet the needs of neurodivergent folks. So what who are who are your typical clients and like what specifically is it that you do for them?
01:24:50
Speaker
Sure. So, you know, I've worked with school districts, like big school districts, small school districts, individual schools. I've worked with very big companies, you know, um and I've worked with like little practices like speech therapy practices. so I've worked from sort of the gamut.
01:25:06
Speaker
And when I'm working with school districts, a lot of the work I do is literally just sort of talking through what is neurodivergent, what is neurodiversity, what is ah executive functioning, like what are these skills that we expect kids to have and their brains aren't ready to have them yet.
01:25:24
Speaker
And so how do we recognize when it's willful versus when it's not willful, that it's actually just like a deficit or like a ah need, right, kind of thing. So I do a lot of that work. It's interesting to me that I've progressed from talking about what is neurodiversity and neurodivergence to like specific things. So I do a lot of work with school districts right now around how do you rethink what behavior, you know, and I quotation mark behavior because everything is sort of a behavior, but like I do a lot of work around like what is the context in which you're seeing that behavior and like what could other explanations be
01:25:59
Speaker
And a lot of it sort of comes down to like communication sometimes, right? Like, what are you communicating? How are you being understood? How are the kids being understood? So I do a lot of that work. When I'm doing works with, works, wow, when I'm doing work with companies, it depends on what they're looking for, right? Some of them, it's manager training.
01:26:18
Speaker
They're looking for how does their middle management or managers work? work with neurodivergent employees to understand better how to make sure that everybody's working well together.
01:26:31
Speaker
i do a lot of that work around reframing because people always say, you know, well, we have to accommodate. And I'm always just like, hold up, hold up. Right. Like, let's let's think about this for a minute.
01:26:42
Speaker
And I do a lot of reframing around like, what do each of your employees need to be their most productive self? Like, let's not look at this as like, what do they need to like accommodate this disability? You know, because people have this like, oh, we have to do this legal thing.
01:26:56
Speaker
And I do a lot of work around like, how do you actually allow for space for people to say, this is what I need to be productive, right?
01:27:07
Speaker
Whether it's, I need you to install like Grammarly on all of my email stuff so I don't mess that up, right? Or whether it's like, I need to be able to work in a room where I can close all the doors and nobody thinks I'm being antisocial because that's how I get my work done best, right?
01:27:25
Speaker
So do a lot of work around understanding that there are different ways of working that actually contribute to building really strong teams. um One of my favorite things to have done, Noggin, which was part of Nickelodeon, and then it just, somebody just reopened it, which was amazing, but Nickelodeon had sort of Oh, cool. No, I remember that.
01:27:49
Speaker
Yeah. I did some very cool work with the content creators at Noggin to talk through how can you um how can you show sort of the traits of ADHD or autism or something like that in your characters without being like, hit you over the head with it kind of thing. And that was some of the most fun I had was to talk through what what does that look like?
01:28:13
Speaker
And I had fun there because I took some of the characters they already had. And I was like, you're already showing this. Let's look at like the traits of this character and what could that be like coded for, which was super fun. um And sometimes I'll do like sensitivity reading work, right? So I'll look at books or I'll look at scripts that all, and I'll look to see like, are there things in there that they need to change, that they need to pick differently?
01:28:37
Speaker
um So like I do a whole variety of different kinds of work, but all all of it with the goal of being like, The goal is to understand the people around you better and to make sure that you are providing ways that we can all exist in the same environment, right?
01:28:57
Speaker
Or ways that people can say, this environment isn't working for me and here's the change that I am needing to make for me to be a better version of myself. And that's the reframing I do over and over again.
01:29:08
Speaker
It's not that we're accommodating people because they need us to be like, aware of them. It's because we want everybody to be thriving in the way that they can thrive, right? And that success looks different for everybody. And I think that that's an important component of the work that I do too, because a lot of times, you know, at workplaces, people are measuring against KPIs or OKRs or goals or things like that. But sometimes it's like,
01:29:35
Speaker
Right. But sometimes we have to go like, what else could success look like? And what are you not measuring? And so sometimes I'll talk about like, people have this whole thing around soft skills. Right. And I'm just like, they're just skills.
01:29:47
Speaker
They're just skills. They're not soft skills. They're skills. And just like any other skill, we need to explicitly teach those skills and to expect people to pick them up is not fair.
01:29:57
Speaker
Right. And so i have a whole conversation around that no matter where I am, whether it's with teachers or parents or employers to say like these skills that you think people are going to pick up like conversation or the ability to ask clarifying questions or whatever that is it's not intuitive like don't assume it's intuitive totally and like i i worked customer service jobs for decades without knowing that i was autistic Yeah. And ah let me just tell you, that made things much more difficult than they should have been.
01:30:31
Speaker
Because part of, well, part of what I didn't understand is that I would say to a customer, well, no, that's that's not right. What you're saying is wrong and I'm not doing it because that's wrong.
01:30:43
Speaker
And you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to smile and pretend that you're really sorry that you can't do what they want, but they're wrong. Why the hell should I do that? They're being an idiot. Why do I have to talk to idiots all day?
01:30:56
Speaker
And the thing is, as far as I am concerned, part of the job of an employer is to provide the tools that employees need to do their job effectively.
01:31:07
Speaker
And so if you don't tell me that I need to show profound empathy to mean idiots, I won't think of that on my own. That's not, you know, I won't say, yeah well, right. and And that's the thing is that when it's time to get you to sell things, businesses will dissect the entire selling process.
01:31:32
Speaker
But when it's something like interpersonal skills, you know, because they'll say, well, you seem great in the interview. You were you were wonderful. well Everybody likes you. So why do you have so many confrontations with customers?
01:31:43
Speaker
I'm like, i I can't help it if they're wrong and stupid and want me to give them free stuff. That's not, I mean, if you want to give me permission to give everybody free stuff to make my day easier, we can do that.
01:31:55
Speaker
But yeah, there are so many things that just like, Because they're right. I'm not stupid and I'm not mean. And yet I am having a lot of customer confrontations because there's something missing. And I never fully came to appreciate what that was.
01:32:11
Speaker
Well, in workplaces, a lot too, right? There's a lot of unspoken stuff, right? Yes. Or there's a lot of like, we're going to say one thing, but we actually mean something else. Yes, like people asking you questions that they don't want answers to, for example.
01:32:26
Speaker
And then when you give them the answer to the question they just asked you, then suddenly you're being a smartass and you're being difficult. And it's like, what the fuck could you ask me for then?
Effective Communication in Neurodiverse Teams
01:32:37
Speaker
And so a lot of the work that I'm doing is around saying like, are you actually being clear to the people?
01:32:43
Speaker
and some of that is like, because they've come to me and said like, how do I work with my neurodivergent employers, and employees? And some of that, I'm just like, okay, let's expand this a little bit and go, would this just be helpful for all of your employees? Right. Like to be direct, to be explicit, to explain what the expectations are, to show an exemplar of what it should look like in the end, you know, like,
01:33:06
Speaker
All of these things are just good practice for humans to understand what they are supposed to be doing, right? Like, I don't know. I think one of the things that I spend a lot of time on is is talking to people around like, what is your goal? Is your goal to have a functioning team or is your goal to have a gotcha, right?
01:33:23
Speaker
Because if your goal is to have a gotcha, I think you're doing it okay. But if your goal is to have a functioning team, you have to dial back on the like, gotchas, right? Like that, yeah that catch you on, on, on doing something wrong. So, and it's, a lot of it comes down to communication. A lot of it's, and I mean, frankly, you know, the first time I was running a team, the first time I was in an executive position, nobody taught me how to do it.
01:33:47
Speaker
Right. And I probably learned a lot more by the seat of my pants than I should have. And it's and in everybody's best interest for us to train people on how to be managerial, if you will, right? Like, not how to get the work done, but like how to work with people, because that is hard.
01:34:08
Speaker
It is really, really hard. And it it really relies on you being willing to take a step back and go, okay, the people I work for are not just, or I work with, aren't just there to produce a thing for me.
01:34:23
Speaker
They're there for us to like. Right. They're full human beings. Right. Right. That are doing this as part of the life that they're living. Right. And at the end of the day, like, honestly, most people are at their job so they can have a paycheck. Right. So like this, I don't know, I'm going to go off on something for a minute and you're going to have to roll with this.
01:34:42
Speaker
That lady. get comfortable. The, the, the, uh, the, we're, we're one big family. i always think like, oh my God, family's so dysfunctional. Like we don't want to do that. Yeah, they You know, like,
01:34:54
Speaker
Though, you know, we're not a big family. We're a bunch of people who have to learn how to work together. and that means we have to learn how to communicate. And that means we have to mean what we say. and that means if we don't mean what we say, we have to be clear about that and tell people when it's okay to say something different than what you mean. And when you're expected to like tell little white lies or, you know, all of those kinds of things that are so, so hard for so many of us to grasp.
01:35:20
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. So that's you know some of the hardest work I do and some of the most rewarding when I see somebody go, oh, yeah, no. Okay, yeah, no, I never explained that like we don't say that out loud. right or ah you know One of the things that people who haveve worked with me will will joke about, and it's it's actually hilarious because my family jokes about it too, is I um narrate my facial expressions to people.
01:35:47
Speaker
So like i' will be on like a phone call or I'll be in a meeting and I'll be on looking off to the side and I'll be like, this is my thinking face. Right. And I don't do it on purpose. I think I just do it because I raised autistic kids and I just got used to doing that. And then I realized it's helpful for everybody.
01:36:04
Speaker
So I'll be like, I'm not angry at you. I'm just thinking really hard. Or what you're seeing right now is confusion. you know or Or, you know, I'm kind of mad. like So you'll like I'll narrate that out loud.
01:36:17
Speaker
And it's funny to see how many people are like, I'm going to do that. I'm going to start narrating my facial expressions. I'm like, you should. You absolutely should. Yeah. don't Don't guess and don't make people guess. Yeah, don't make people guess, right? Because they're they don't know.
01:36:31
Speaker
They don't know what it is. and I mean, like, I tend to assume that everyone hates me and everyone is annoyed with me at any time if we're disagreeing. So if I have to guess what your facial expression means, I'll probably guess something far worse than what you're actually thinking. Right.
01:36:46
Speaker
Or like when somebody says to you, i need we need to talk. I don't know about you, but I'm like, oh my God, never say that to me. Just say the thing, whatever it is. Just blurt it out. i Don't leave me in suspense.
01:36:58
Speaker
I do this thing with um sort of the people that I manage or... um I have a like ah ah user's guide to working with me, right? And I fill one out and I and i give it to them so like they know what things make me nervous. They know my communication style. They know the weird things that might come out of my mouth or you know they know when i um you know whether I need time to process or how much time I, so it's a whole sort of like user's guide.
01:37:24
Speaker
And then I ask them if they're willing to fill one out so I can understand them better. I think we all need to have a user's guide that goes along with us so that you can know that when I say to you, you know, or when you say to me, like, we need to talk, I'm going to a panic.
01:37:40
Speaker
I'm going to have a full on panic until we actually figure out, like, I know why you need to talk to me. Even if it's like, we need to talk because like, you want to go out to lunch, like put that other thing on the end there. Cause otherwise I'm going to be like freaking out until I know why you wanted to talk to me because I don't know. I'm going to assume the worst. you're gonna fire me.
01:37:59
Speaker
I'm doing something terrible. I said the wrong thing. Like my mind goes to bad places. So yeah yeah I tell people that upfront, like I'm going need you to be specific. Um, and if it's something that I'm doing wrong, I'd rather know that than imagine all the things that it could be.
01:38:17
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
Conclusion and Appreciation
01:38:19
Speaker
So we're actually getting to the end of our time and I want to make sure that there is nothing that, uh, yeah There's no topic that you wanted to cover that we haven't gotten to yet.
01:38:30
Speaker
I think we've covered so many topics. I love this. We have. We're fascinating. We are fascinating people.
01:38:37
Speaker
um do Do you have any questions for me? Because I do love to give guests a chance to ask me something if there's something that ah you want to know. There isn't. I've learned so much about you just through this conversation, like in like the best possible way. Like I'm going to be very explicit in saying like, it's been really fun to just have a conversation, right? Because I really enjoy just like learning about people through organic conversations. So I've really enjoyed it.
01:39:04
Speaker
um i also enjoy another person who will just drop the F-bomb all the time. Yeah. ah that is my That is my non-professional self right there. um Sometimes my professional self, but that's a whole other story. And it's always funny because sometimes people that I know like in real life will say, is it okay to swear on the show?
01:39:23
Speaker
like What are the odds that I would make a show that you can't swear on? You also have to be stone cold sober and under 120 pounds. What are you even talking about? so I just failed all of that.
01:39:35
Speaker
like No, no, wait, no, I didn't fail the stone cold sober unless you count like caffeine because I'm highly caffeinated right now. So yeah, I think whether or not caffeine counts as a drug really depends on who you're asking because you can tell Mountain Dew me from non Mountain Dew me. It's it's pretty obvious.
01:39:55
Speaker
seems to yeah But for some people like my husband can drink Mountain Dew and then go to bed. I don't I don't know how he's even doing that. But does he have ADHD?
01:40:06
Speaker
Not technically. Random fact. Random fact that some people who have ADHD, the caffeine does the same thing that like a stimulant would and it like calms down that that center of the brain and people actually will drink caffeine to get sleepy.
01:40:25
Speaker
Just a random fact. that's like That is wild. It really is. Anyway, sorry. Well, guess what? Well, the good news is it's time for the Mad Lib. Alrighty, let's do it. Alright, so let's see. It looks like one, two three.
01:40:41
Speaker
I need three plural nouns. Three plural nouns. Okay, let's see here Cups.
01:40:51
Speaker
Um...
01:40:53
Speaker
Boy, I can't think of anything fun. Cups, cars, and ostriches.
01:41:00
Speaker
I'll tell you, part of the the issue with this is that the smarter and more creative someone is, the more difficult time they have with Mad Libs because the pressure is on to pick interesting words.
01:41:12
Speaker
um And I don't, ah yeah, that's, I get it. I definitely get it. So let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight singular nouns. Good heavens. That's a lot.
01:41:26
Speaker
That is a lot. Okay. Oh my goodness. Bookcase, banana. um feel like I'm going on a theme here. Cantaloupe.
01:41:38
Speaker
um That's three, right? Bookcase, banana, cantaloupe, chocolate, table, scissors.
01:41:48
Speaker
No, scissors is a singular. Scissor, I guess. um Well, scissor sounds like a verb, so we'll use scissors as noun. No, that's true. Okay, and then two more.
01:41:59
Speaker
Okay. um Hat and flip-flop.
01:42:07
Speaker
Okay, I need three adjectives. um Blue. Happy. Short.
01:42:20
Speaker
Oop, I lied. One more. Oh, no. um um um Purple.
01:42:30
Speaker
Okay, I need one adverb. Softly. And one celebrity. a Oh, no.
01:42:43
Speaker
Big Bird.
01:42:45
Speaker
I'm going to call Big Bird a celebrity. Okay. Well, no, I mean, I know who it is. They must be famous. um All right. So this is called Baseball's Biggest Fan.
01:42:58
Speaker
I am the world's biggest fan of the game of baseball, whether it's played by professional cups or little league cars. I watch all the games on the big screen bookcase in our family banana.
01:43:14
Speaker
I have a cantaloupe autographed by Big Bird. The most blue player who ever lived. I even named my dog Ostriches after my favorite chocolate.
01:43:27
Speaker
And when my happy parents asked me where I'd like to go this year on vacation, I said Cooperstown, of course, so I could visit the baseball hall of table.
01:43:39
Speaker
This year for my birthday, i am hoping to get 32-inch baseball scissors made of northern white ash, just like the short sluggers use. Some people go through life seeking purple wisdom and asking questions like, what's the meaning of hat?
01:43:56
Speaker
And what's the secret to living softly? All I want to know is who's pitching and who's on flip-flop. Wow. Yeah, irreverent.
01:44:08
Speaker
It's like beat poetry. so Right? Yeah. I love this. I love this. Amanda, I am so glad that you could be here and have this conversation with me. I learned a ton of stuff and I hope that listeners did too.
01:44:22
Speaker
It's been a joy. It's a great conversation. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate oh it. Oh, it is our pleasure. I always use the royal we. um cause i Yeah, I always say our, but like it's it's me. It's me thing. Nobody helps me.
01:44:36
Speaker
um Not like the magazine, because we're sponsored by sometimes hilarious horror magazine, which is also largely me, but we have an assistant curator now. She's the assistant editor, and she's great.
01:44:49
Speaker
We have a graphics guy. And if you support us on Ko-fi, that helps us pay the writers because we're a magazine that actually pays the writers upon publication instead of doing that ethereal like...
01:45:02
Speaker
Well, on the off chance that i make some money, I'll definitely send you some. Yeah, yeah, that's it. No, we we pay upon publication. And the way that we do that is through the support of listeners and readers and people who like what we do.
01:45:16
Speaker
So please, listeners, do find us on Ko-Fi. That's K-O-F-I. ah we are Where we are sometimes hilarious horror because the best way to support the show is to support the magazine.
01:45:27
Speaker
And we will see everybody next week.