Latest / The Horsehuman Connection Matrix / Sarah France, Ice Dancer, Horse dancer: Extra~Ordinary Autistic woman!!

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Sarah France, Ice Dancer, Horse dancer: Extra~Ordinary Autistic woman!! · The Horsehuman Connection Matrix

• 0:00
  Hi, this is Ishii Abel with the Horse Human Connection Matrix.
• 0:04
  Today I have with me a fascinating guest, Sarah French.
• 0:10
  Sarah is a figure skating coach.
• 0:13
  An ice dancer, and she dances with the Ice Theater of New York Dance Company and with the Equus Project.
• 0:22
  So she dances with horses, she dances on ice, she dances through life, and just a really warm welcome for you joining me today, Sarah.
• 0:32
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:35
  Tell me.
• 0:36
  A little bit about the horses.
• 0:39
  Tell me about what your reaction was when you were invited to do this project with the horses.
• 0:45
  I kind of came about it in.
• 0:48
  A strange way.
• 0:49
  So the artistic director of the Equus Projects, Joanna Mendelshaw actually worked with me first on the ice with Ice Theatre of New York.
• 0:58
  There was a piece she had choreographed on the company in the late 90s that we'd Pulled out of our repertory that I was really excited to be a part of.
• 1:07
  And so I worked with her in skating first and after we finished our performance for that piece last spring I asked how I could keep learning from her and she invited me to dance With her in the studio and then eventually to be a part of the latest performance that the company did in November called the fable.
• 1:30
  So starting in July we would take what we call a single day run out to the barn and start working with horses both, you know, on lead line and at Liberty learning how to dance alongside an equine partner.
• 1:45
  Wow, that just sounds absolutely amazing.
• 1:48
  Dancing with an equine partner.
• 1:50
  What, what does that look like?
• 1:52
  Are you connected to them energetically?
• 1:55
  Are the moves mirroring each other in any way?
• 1:59
  A lot of what I would say as a dancer skill that we're using when we work with the horses is sponging kind of using their movements to shape what we're doing choreographically as well as definitely energetically connected.
• 2:15
  But I find for myself that very frequently I have an easier time connecting with animals than with humans, so I tend to feel energetically connected to any creature that I'm close to.
• 2:30
  Okay, and I didn't mention before, but you're also on the autistic spectrum, correct?
• 2:36
  Yes, I am.
• 2:38
  And so, What you just said about really connecting easily with the animals, do you feel like that's part of being on the spectrum?
• 2:46
  Is there do you notice comparisons between you and other dancers and how you connect with the horses?
• 2:51
  I'm not sure if it's necessarily like I've always felt that way.
• 2:57
  So to me, it's a natural part of life to connect very strongly to animals.
• 3:02
  And my autism diagnosis came later.
• 3:05
  So You know, I've never really necessarily married the two in my mind but I do think that I I pick up on feelings and connection with animals in a way that's a little unique.
• 3:20
  Yeah.
• 3:22
  And so when you say feelings, are you, do you feel like you're empathically connected with them?
• 3:29
  Like, like you get hits from them about their emotional states?
• 3:34
  I think that I do in some ways track that information.
• 3:40
  I tend to also pick up on on feelings of people around me, which can be very confusing if what they're saying and what I'm sensing are not congruent.
• 3:51
  Yes, that's a word that I use a lot and the horses have taught me a lot about and it is really confusing when people are saying one thing but doing another or behaving as if they're not upset when you really can feel that they are.
• 4:07
  Yes.
• 4:09
  What are your strategies for dealing with that with people?
• 4:14
  Generally speaking, I, I'm a person who takes information as it's presented to me.
• 4:21
  So I, I have recognized with people that very frequently they need to pretend something is fine when it's not in order for themselves to be okay.
• 4:34
  So I try to let the other person set the tone of that interaction.
• 4:38
  But I stay aware of what I'm feeling and I honor that with my own kind of way of handling things.
• 4:48
  But in all reality, I'm a pretty I don't want to say isolated person, but I'm very invested in, in protecting my emotional space with other people.
• 4:58
  And so very often those interactions, I keep somewhat limited because I find them stressful.
• 5:07
  Yeah, I can understand that.
• 5:08
  And, you know, as you're talking about it and I'm watching your face, I, I can really relate.
• 5:15
  And it seems like it's a gift that you're offering as a form of acceptance to interact with them when they're being so incongruent, but it comes at a cost.
• 5:27
  Is that correct?
• 5:28
  That's correct.
• 5:29
  Yes.
• 5:31
  And part of that cost is that you feel like you need to withdraw or contract or really limit your interactions.
• 5:40
  Yes, it's hard to know how to operate when things are not consistent.
• 5:46
  Do you have people in your life that you feel are congruent?
• 5:50
  I do.
• 5:51
  Yes, I have people that are, are very willing to be transparent with me and I'm very grateful for that.
• 5:59
  Along these lines, one of the things that's confused me for a really, really long time is, I went into some therapy in my early 20s and have been with a therapist now and then at difficult parts of my life, and it seems like, at least with the therapists I have picked, teach is that we ought to be in touch with our feelings, that we ought to be congruent, that people want us to be transparent and open, and that that's the way to being healthy and having healthy relationships.
• 6:31
  And yet, Of course, this was mostly before I realized I was on the spectrum as well.
• 6:37
  And yet finding people that actually do those things has been so difficult.
• 6:46
  I would agree with this.
• 6:47
  Yes.
• 6:49
  Yeah.
• 6:49
  And it's even too like this.
• 6:52
  I've been thinking about this a bit.
• 6:54
  But like maybe I've misinterpreted the female heroes that I see in movies and TV shows that really strong female character that says what she needs to say May be very abrupt and direct and in charge And it works for her But I don't know.
• 7:17
  Maybe she's really the villain.
• 7:18
  Maybe she's not the heroine and i'm just twisting it up in my mind.
• 7:23
  Do you, do you relate to a strong female character and, and, and how, and what do you think about that?
• 7:30
  I do in a lot of ways.
• 7:32
  I am not unfamiliar in being in leadership positions within my work, especially and I tend to be a very direct communicator.
• 7:40
  I'm not I'm not one to sugarcoat things too much as as the phrase is.
• 7:48
  I think though, too, with that in day to day life outside of a movie, people can find that very disrupting to their sense of how they expect a woman to treat them.
• 8:05
  You know, I, I think there is an expectation that there is less directness, there is less being.
• 8:13
  Confident with being in charge of something.
• 8:16
  And and I find it interesting in my interactions with people, you know, I'm a fairly short, physically small person that participates in the arts, like I, I'm often expect to be more.
• 8:36
  Expected to be more pliable than I can be.
• 8:40
  I don't tend to make a decision until I've really thought something through.
• 8:43
  And when I'm set on that, I'm very sad.
• 8:45
  So, in your work, being spontaneous and like knowing right away and just picking something and going with it isn't, isn't your normal MO?
• 8:58
  It is and it isn't.
• 9:00
  I find that dance requires a degree of comfort with improvisation.
• 9:09
  And in my mind, I very much frame the structure of my time in that I know that's coming.
• 9:19
  And I love to improvise.
• 9:20
  I really find that that to me is sort of my emotional language in a lot of ways is the movement that comes from, you know, just moving through space in whatever form of dancing I'm doing.
• 9:37
  Is how I experience feeling.
• 9:39
  And so to me, I'll framework that time by I know I'm setting aside the time that this is going to be what it's going to be.
• 9:47
  And, and I'm not going to pre plan that.
• 9:50
  But I tend to be fairly structured as a matter of necessity in the rest of my life in order to function.
• 9:59
  And I think that's, that's kind of that play with being a creative person and being autistic.
• 10:04
  I, I require a degree of structure to feel secure in my world, but once I have that security there is so much that I, I think I can offer as a creative person.
• 10:21
  Yeah.
• 10:22
  So one of the topics that I've thrown around a little bit is freedom through discipline.
• 10:27
  And it sounds like that really fits with what you're saying about your life, like the organization and other autistic people that I've talked to.
• 10:36
  have spoken to me about needing the structure.
• 10:39
  And I mean, structure is also discipline and how, how important it is and how upsetting it is when that gets switched around a lot.
• 10:51
  And I know that's my experience too.
• 10:52
  Like if I have, you know, four or five things scheduled in a week and three of them get moved, I'm just like, Oh no, what am I doing?
• 11:01
  Yes.
• 11:02
  I, I shared this struggle as well.
• 11:04
  Like when something is, is set.
• 11:07
  I, I require a degree of consistency to that in order to not feel very untethered.
• 11:14
  Have people given you a lot of grace?
• 11:16
  I mean, do people that you work with mostly know you're autistic?
• 11:20
  Maybe this is a better question.
• 11:21
  Comparing and contrasting work, before knowing you were autistic and after knowing you're autistic, is there a big difference?
• 11:30
  I think for me Learning that I was autistic really didn't come with some great change to how I operated in the world.
• 11:41
  I've kind of always been a person to design life Once I had the autonomy to do so to what I've needed it to be.
• 11:49
  And I've been involved in my industry for my, most of my life.
• 11:56
  I started you know, I started skating when I was 11 and I started teaching it at 14.
• 12:01
  So I've had a professional career that started my first year in high school.
• 12:06
  And I moved into professional performing as a skater in a more serious way with ice theater after I was diagnosed.
• 12:15
  So, I've come into my world here in New York with that full knowledge of being autistic and needing to focus.
• 12:22
  I don't think I've ever been able to process that, you know, piece of myself into a framework that doesn't necessarily have a great degree of hospitality for different.
• 12:33
  But I have been remarkably lucky.
• 12:38
  In the people that I interact with and work with and for here being very open to accommodating what I need to be successful.
• 12:47
  And I've been lucky in a few other work situations as well as a coach working with people that have allowed me to prioritize.
• 12:55
  What I need to be successful in that environment and really kind of push me forward in those ways so that I could do my best work.
• 13:08
  And I'm very open about, you know, that I'm autistic.
• 13:12
  This is who I am.
• 13:13
  You know, I'm also gay and I am very clear about that with people and in, you know, Especially within the skating world.
• 13:23
  Those are not things we talk about.
• 13:25
  I've noticed and so I have really made a significant effort in my career to be forthcoming and to be very transparent about who I am.
• 13:37
  Because I want the next generations past mine to have a framework of somebody who's completely comfortable with that about themselves.
• 13:47
  And, and I've been so fortunate.
• 13:50
  remarkably thrilled to have so many students over the years that have felt secured their identities and in their neurotypes to be open about that themselves because they have somebody to support them in that.
• 14:05
  So you are really consciously setting an example.
• 14:10
  Yes.
• 14:11
  I'm listening to your word choice and, and kind of the attitude to about your life and your work.
• 14:17
  And everything is framed very positively.
• 14:21
  Like, like the words you're choosing to describe things are so beautiful.
• 14:25
  I was recently listening to a YouTube, the, Diary of a CEO.
• 14:30
  I just love this guy.
• 14:32
  And they were talking about people's stories, and how either you could have a victim story, or a hero story, Or you know, life is kind of against me, but I keep fighting it kind of story.
• 14:44
  And it strikes me and, and saying that you're lucky had a lot to do with what manifested in your life.
• 14:51
  And so I really was picking up on that as you were talking about it.
• 14:55
  And it looks like it's really worked for you.
• 14:57
  You have a very full, very accomplished of life.
• 15:04
  I do.
• 15:05
  I also think though, to I, I frame my overall situation as I'm a person who has survived a lot and, and I've been through some fairly unimaginable darkness in my life.
• 15:18
  And I have made a very deep choice to not be a person that is going to perpetuate that and that wants a better world than the one I've known.
• 15:30
  And to me, the small ways I can affect change are through my creative pursuits and through the way that I choose to interact with others.
• 15:41
  And I recognize that, especially especially with my work on the ice where I, you know, for better or worse, have a degree of notoriety and being a public figure in that I have the ability to affect a change that I could have used deeply and desperately when I was a young person.
• 16:04
  So there is a burden to that, that I take very seriously and that I care immensely about.
• 16:13
  You are not the first person I've interviewed who has that experience.
• 16:18
  And I think it's, It's so powerful and so focused.
• 16:22
  I really appreciate that.
• 16:26
  So can you tell me, I, I went to the website where Joanne Joanne and the Equus Project are and some of her other projects, and I will be interviewing her later this week.
• 16:37
  I'm super excited about that too.
• 16:39
  Yes.
• 16:41
  Can you, I, I can't get a real visual on, What happens with the horses and where what's the audience and and how big is the audience?
• 16:51
  And can you can you tell me a little bit more about all of that and your experience with it?
• 16:56
  Yes, I can.
• 16:58
  So I generally speaking, the Equus projects doesn't own any horses.
• 17:05
  So we're always working in collaboration with horse owners and their herds.
• 17:13
  And the, the place I have mostly interacted with this has been at a therapeutic riding barn in New Jersey where we you know, really intensively honer practice of dancing with horses and We performed there in November.
• 17:33
  The audience was a mix of people who I'm going to refer to as horse people and dance people.
• 17:40
  Okay.
• 17:41
  That makes sense.
• 17:41
  Yes.
• 17:42
  And, and there is crossover within those worlds.
• 17:45
  I think you know, for many people, I think dance has been a part of their lives.
• 17:54
  And I think also, My impression has been that within the worlds of, you know, horses and working with working with equines there's more women proportionately who are also more likely to have experience, even if it was, you know, just minimally in childhood with dance.
• 18:17
  And so I think there's, there's always sort of a little bit of, you know, somebody has some Interactions with dancing sometime in their life.
• 18:30
  I think it's a very human activity that we do.
• 18:34
  And I think it's, it's quite wonderful in that.
• 18:36
  But you definitely can tell there are some people that are there to see how the interactions go with the horses.
• 18:42
  And there are some people that are there to see dancing.
• 18:46
  And I find that very interesting.
• 18:48
  And, it's, it's been such a remarkable experience for me.
• 18:54
  Danced very seriously when I was a kid and then, as I transitioned onto the ice, I danced as, you know, more of a cross training to compliment that aspect that I was pushing ahead in competitively.
• 19:10
  And then after.
• 19:12
  retiring from competitive skating at the ripe old age of 19, which sounds absurd, but is considered old in our sport.
• 19:19
  I transitioned into a brief, but important to me, professional dance career.
• 19:24
  And then I really did none of these things until from the time I was about 22 until I was in my early thirties.
• 19:33
  I, I only taught skating during that time.
• 19:37
  I didn't.
• 19:38
  Didn't perform, didn't really skate for myself.
• 19:41
  Didn't take dance classes.
• 19:43
  I also was going through some really substantial health issues during that time.
• 19:47
  And you know, for better or worse, my one marketable skill I have is that I'm very good at coaching.
• 19:54
  So as a means to survive, I've always taught, but I do love it, Do you find that your directness really helps you with that?
• 20:01
  I am very good at being direct with my students, and yes I think, I think teaching comes naturally to me in a lot of ways because I do genuinely care about what I do and I do genuinely care about my students very, very much.
• 20:20
  It has been my, ethos as a coach that it is my job to facilitate their version of success.
• 20:30
  It has nothing to do with my need for personal growth.
• 20:33
  Ego of having successful students in whatever permutation I'm teaching.
• 20:38
  It has everything to do with what they consider successful in their journey.
• 20:43
  And I have had some skaters where that is, you know, I want to be an internationally competitive athlete and I want to go to an Olympic games and I have worked with skaters in that capacity.
• 20:54
  And I have worked with skaters that say, I really just need an hour of the day, you know, once a week.
• 21:01
  To set aside for my, you know, mental health of this is somewhere I want to be in somewhere.
• 21:06
  I feel supported and I just need that touch in and I expect to never be good at it.
• 21:11
  I've had skaters where their only goal is just to learn how to glide, which is shockingly difficult.
• 21:18
  It's hard.
• 21:18
  We lose sight of that when we see you know, the highest levels of what can be done in that discipline.
• 21:27
  The difficulty and the hardest thing about it is making it look so very easy and so fluid and so effortless and I have been, I think because I'm autistic, able to really hone in on the details of how to make that happen for people.
• 21:44
  That's what I was going to ask you, you know, I taught some very beginning level dance at times and kids gymnastics and things like that.
• 21:53
  And yeah, yeah, And beginning writing as well.
• 21:56
  And I seem to have.
• 22:00
  a focus on the importance of like how a muscle is held or how the isolation is that I don't hear other teachers talking about.
• 22:09
  And so I've kind of wondered, like thought that that was probably part of the autism and could see where it would, if you have that and you're using that, how it would definitely set you apart, you know, at a different level.
• 22:23
  Yes.
• 22:24
  I think I think in a lot of ways.
• 22:27
  One of the things that I struggle with a lot as an autistic person is sensory issues.
• 22:32
  And one of the things that I think is an incredible asset to me as a dancer and as a coach is my sensory issues.
• 22:40
  I am so attuned to small changes and my hearing is incredibly sensitive.
• 22:48
  So when I'm working on the ice I'm tracking, spatially, people by sound a lot on the rink and the sound of their blades on the ice, and I know the sound of each of my individual students I'm working with which does mean that I know when they mess up a turn and I'm not facing them, and they're on the other side of the rink, and they think I didn't see it, and they're fine, and I'm like, They're not because I'm like, I heard that again.
• 23:16
  But, but I'm very aware of how people utilize their bodies in space.
• 23:23
  And and in some ways, I think it's an incredible asset when I have the removal of being able to analyze that.
• 23:33
  And in some ways when I'm trying to learn movement, it makes it incredibly hard.
• 23:39
  I pick up choreography, I think slightly slowly compared to other people because I'm paying attention.
• 23:46
  To so many details and I have to separate out which things matter and which things don't I don't pick up the broad gesture of it first and refine it.
• 23:55
  I see all of the small stuff.
• 23:57
  And I have to put that together in my mind.
• 23:59
  You can't turn it off.
• 24:00
  I totally get that.
• 24:02
  I it can be so distracting.
• 24:04
  Yeah.
• 24:04
  I, I understand that one too.
• 24:07
  So you have, I love hearing about the superpowers.
• 24:09
  I just, I just love hearing about them, but they are, they are two sides of a coin for sure.
• 24:16
  There's compensations that need to happen.
• 24:19
  I'm curious about this.
• 24:21
  I've really struggled with some understanding some of my blind spots, especially socially, and you feel like you understand your blind spots, all of them.
• 24:32
  I am not sure if I do or not because I think the nature of something we're blind to is that we may not recognize it.
• 24:38
  But I am very aware of both my difficulties with interacting with people and, and I think sometimes that is because I've had experiences where I'm just absolutely slapped in the face by the reality of something.
• 24:56
  What do you mean by that?
• 24:58
  I mean where I will, I will not recognize that.
• 25:07
  I am in a situation with another person where they are wildly uncomfortable with me for whatever reason or I have said the wrong thing or I have not interacted in the expected way and it will be someone else pointing out to me you know, this person is upset about this because and I actually had A really interesting experience with this when I was directing a program, a skating program at a rink where there were some people in that work environment that knew me for several years and knew that I'm, you know, I'm a very open minded.
• 25:43
  I'm a very, nonjudgmental kind of person.
• 25:49
  But I also tend to be inadvertently intimidating to people, especially in the context of skating.
• 25:58
  And, I don't know if that is that my default facial expression is fairly non expressive or that I simply come into what I'm doing at this point in my career with a lot of credentials behind me that can scare people off a little bit from believing that I'm as approachable as I feel I am.
• 26:22
  But there was a skater at the rink that Was absolutely convinced.
• 26:28
  I hated her.
• 26:29
  Because I wasn't outwardly friendly.
• 26:34
  And the reality is that I was simply blind to recognizing how she needed to be interacted with.
• 26:43
  And some, you know, another person that skated at the rink pointed out to me that there was an issue with this, for this person.
• 26:49
  Person and that I should probably, you know, address that.
• 26:53
  And so I chose to do so in my usual way of extremely directly.
• 26:57
  I sent her an email and I said, hi, I need you to understand this about me and that I have absolutely no problem with you.
• 27:07
  And I struggle also with, I'm face blind.
• 27:12
  So I can't remember what somebody looks like.
• 27:15
  I pick up on how they sound and how they move their body to tell the differences between people, but I'm never going to recognize face.
• 27:25
  Wow.
• 27:26
  Okay.
• 27:26
  That's, that's huge.
• 27:27
  You're one of the autistic people I've talked to that has that and that severely.
• 27:33
  So yeah, you compensate in all different kinds of ways.
• 27:37
  I feel that my this is interesting because I've been discussing compensation with Joanna actually a fair amount and compensation strategies because she likes to make me think about things and I love that she does.
• 27:53
  And, yes, my life is a series of compensation strategies to work with the way my brain needs to work in a world that is not at all designed for it to be done that way.
• 28:08
  But I'm also incredibly determined to do exactly what I'm doing.
• 28:15
  So I think between, lifelong special interests about movement and, especially choreographically, especially as fast and as dangerous as possible.
• 28:27
  I, I've needed to find a way to build a place for myself in a world that has not.
• 28:36
  been super welcoming.
• 28:38
  And I compensate in so many ways for so many things.
• 28:42
  I live in a city that is incredibly overstimulating.
• 28:47
  I am always strategizing how to make something work so that I can do the things I want to do.
• 28:54
  And Not burn myself out and not and not fall apart in that world in a lot of ways.
• 29:03
  And I'm a shutdown autistic, not a meltdown autistic, so I tend to just completely close in and You know, I, I will go no contact with the worlds for days at a time as somewhat of a self protective measure, I think, so.
• 29:19
  There's a lot of information there.
• 29:21
  That is an incredible amount of work to, I mean, for you to be operating in a world that other people walk through with such ease.
• 29:32
  And I think it's incredible.
• 29:36
  I mean, you know, I live in the country in a very quiet place where I can walk in the forest every day because my nervous system demands it of me.
• 29:45
  I cannot even imagine being in that kind of an over stimulating environment and all that you must have to face.
• 29:52
  And I find it interesting the you said you're not a meltdown.
• 29:58
  What did you call it?
• 29:59
  Shut down.
• 30:00
  Shut down.
• 30:01
  You know, horses do that too.
• 30:03
  People talk about fight or flight, but there's fight and flight and freeze.
• 30:07
  Yes.
• 30:08
  And horses will sometimes just completely freeze and just disassociate and just hold absolutely still when they are in that part of their brain.
• 30:20
  Because I'm a meltdown person after the meltdown and the crying and the emoting.
• 30:25
  And once I come back, it's like, it's like a wash, it's like a purification process that happened where it resets me.
• 30:34
  And because the shutdown is, is so foreign to me, is it, is it the same way?
• 30:39
  Is it when you come out of it that you're reset?
• 30:42
  I wouldn't say I'm, I'm reset.
• 30:45
  I think for me and this may be unique to how I've kind of built my life for me, I process emotion through movement.
• 30:53
  So I will shut down and I will have a very hard time dealing with things and I will close myself off and then I will find, I create that space of quietness to go move my body and feel what I need to feel.
• 31:07
  And after that, that is that release.
• 31:10
  But it's kind of a two stage process and there are a lot of times that I wish I could get it over with faster.
• 31:19
  Right.
• 31:20
  But that's not how things work for me.
• 31:23
  So I tend to I tend to take a long time to recognize how I feel.
• 31:29
  And an even longer one to be able to verbally process that which is much slower for me.
• 31:34
  I, I don't really think verbally at all.
• 31:37
  I think visually and I think in a very pattern recognizing way.
• 31:44
  But I, I have to bring myself to a point of words.
• 31:49
  And I think with emotion for me, movement has always been the very natural expression of that.
• 31:57
  And I always.
• 31:59
  You know, I feel physically things very strongly.
• 32:04
  But when I am overstimulated or the world is overwhelming, I get very still and I get very quiet.
• 32:11
  And then I need to move through that eventually.
• 32:15
  This is so important.
• 32:17
  I know, I know several people I can think of that do a shutdown and people around them don't always understand the shutdown.
• 32:27
  So whether they're autistic or on the spectrum or not or undiagnosed, perhaps that what you're describing I just, I realize now, like, the depths of what those people may be going through because it really isn't visible to the outside world.
• 32:47
  Yeah.
• 32:48
  And you know, the piece about movement, horses do that too.
• 32:51
  Like, you know, horses will run it out and, and move it out through their bodies and do these different things to release.
• 33:00
  When you said, You wish there was a faster way sometimes, but that's what the process is.
• 33:08
  I would bet that there is a slightly faster way with an equine assist.
• 33:14
  There likely is, yes.
• 33:16
  Unfortunately, my proximity to places where horses are comfortable is not nearby.
• 33:23
  Right, right.
• 33:24
  But I have found that that when I have been with the horses I definitely, there, there is a grounding and a calming to that for me that is very significant in my nervous system.
• 33:36
  And to be able to move with them in dancing is.
• 33:41
  There's an honesty to that that I really value in a lot of ways.
• 33:46
  I think when I've considered, you know, what it is to perform and be a performer I have always been looking for ways in which to own who I am and, and be honest in that, in, you know, In a very manufactured space, you know, we curate a performance in so many ways.
• 34:09
  Can I, can I ask you another question?
• 34:11
  I don't mean to interrupt, but it's fresh in my mind because it was a little while ago.
• 34:15
  There's so much great stuff here.
• 34:16
  I just, I I want to interact with some of it.
• 34:20
  The part about being intimidating to people.
• 34:22
  I mean, I've had that, I've had that said too, and I think the directness is part of it.
• 34:27
  And, you know, even just the.
• 34:29
  The posture of a dancer is part of that, you know, or a performer.
• 34:35
  I think there's a con so this is the concept that I that I struggle with like when I found out I was doing what they call masking But really I felt authentically grounded so much of the time, you know, and when I think about masking it has this quality of Imitating other people without a lot of confidence and yet And yet people have told me quite a few different people have told me how intimidating I can be and I don't mean to be I'm just being myself.
• 35:04
  And so I'm curious a little bit about how your brain processes that like confident but masking, I'm intimidating people but I don't mean to like, is there another way that you make sense from that to me, I think, you know, a lot of ways.
• 35:22
  I think my, my masking in my life has manifested as trying to make others comfortable in a way that I am very much not or being compliant and pliable to my own detriment to fit in.
• 35:40
  And I have been absurdly terrible at fitting in.
• 35:44
  In so many ways in my life.
• 35:46
  And I think to me, I, I feel a degree of being fortunate that I am somewhat socially oblivious.
• 36:02
  In that, you know, I tend to walk through life exactly as I am.
• 36:09
  And I'm, and I'm very open in that way.
• 36:12
  But also I think the ways I communicate are very direct to me, but not necessarily standard enough that it's easy to gain understanding with another person.
• 36:28
  And I think in some ways I kind of.
• 36:30
  have always felt that I have this periphery world.
• 36:35
  I, I tend to observe people very closely and try to understand them without necessarily being as directly engaged or choosing my direct engagement very carefully.
• 36:50
  I feel that there are circumstances in which I absolutely have to mask and feel immense pressure for that.
• 36:57
  And within, within my skating world, that is incredibly common.
• 37:02
  And, and I have recognized that I have done that in many ways to push my career to a place where I could stand in a position of enough belonging in that space to be authentic and start to shape it around what I need which has been an interesting process.
• 37:28
  I'm just, I'm so impressed talking to you.
• 37:29
  I have like jillion questions.
• 37:31
  I, I don't know that I can keep up.
• 37:33
  So this conversation seems to be flowing really well, other than me interrupting you occasionally, which is like not always knowing what is my time to talk or being so excited about, you know, what you're going to say next.
• 37:46
  You're being authentic right now.
• 37:49
  Is this work?
• 37:51
  No, this is not work for me.
• 37:53
  I do find it easier to talk to other neurodivergent people.
• 37:58
  Generally, I find that those interactions tend to not require the participation in benign conversation topics that I find boring.
• 38:10
  I'm, I'm really, really guilty of I, I've Had pointed out to me and I realized how often I do this.
• 38:19
  And so it's something I've had to be very conscious of.
• 38:23
  I will absolutely walk out of a conversation with another person.
• 38:31
  If it's small talk and I don't see a purpose in it.
• 38:34
  Which has gotten me in some trouble because I just, I don't really recognize why I should be there to stay here for this?
• 38:44
  Oh my god, I totally have done that so many times.
• 38:47
  And I've been told this is rude.
• 38:52
  And it was never intentionally so, but I have a hard time telling when those conversations are over.
• 39:00
  And I don't necessarily understand the rules of participation.
• 39:04
  I have learned that when 90 percent of the people I encounter in a day ask, How are you doing?
• 39:10
  They genuinely don't want a real answer to that.
• 39:13
  No, they want, they want a single word that immediately turns back to, How are you?
• 39:19
  And these are rules.
• 39:20
  And so in a lot of ways, I think I've strategized the rules of interactions in my brain as a, you know, process of steps to follow as opposed to something that feels easy or comfortable.
• 39:34
  And I very much value the people who will ask me something like that and accept a real answer.
• 39:43
  And, and want to have an actual dialogue.
• 39:46
  I, but I am terrible at kind of those scripted conversations in a lot of ways.
• 39:55
  But I recognize there are so many times I rely on a degree of scripting to allow conversational ease to allow When I'm teaching, I very frequently am relying on things I know and it helps that it's, you know, this is a special interest for me, so I will talk endlessly about what I love to do with great excitement and, and much animation, but I will absolutely, be engaged in small talk with another person because I'm at a work event and I have to do it and not necessarily realize that I have just walked away when someone thinks that we're in the middle of the conversation and been you know, socially not so great.
• 40:40
  Have you ever had the thoughts at those times that especially before knowing you were autistic and how old were you when you found out?
• 40:49
  I was in my late twenties.
• 40:51
  Yeah.
• 40:52
  So have you ever, have you ever had the thought of like, what is wrong with all these people?
• 40:58
  Why are they talking about this stuff?
• 41:01
  I just never understood the point.
• 41:04
  I've never necessarily thought that there was something wrong with all the people.
• 41:09
  My life experiences very much taught me that I was the outlier very early on.
• 41:14
  And so I never really got what it was.
• 41:18
  I didn't understand.
• 41:20
  About why these interactions were the way they were.
• 41:25
  And so, in a lot of ways, I socially have struggled my entire life.
• 41:31
  And I think, I make very few genuine connections to other people, but the ones I have tend to be very strong and I'm fiercely loyal to the people that I care about.
• 41:46
  And, and truly I'm very grateful for the ones that take in stride how I operate because I'm not the world's most consistent communicator I'm one of those people where I can interact very intensely for periods of time and then not speak to them for six months and not really even realize it and then come back and and still care just as much about that person the entire time.
• 42:13
  But I don't necessarily miss people.
• 42:17
  When I'm not aware of them in my immediate sphere.
• 42:26
  So, When my world is focused on something else, that's really, I have.
• 42:32
  The ability to focus on one thing at a time in some way.
• 42:35
  And you do have a very busy life too.
• 42:38
  I have an incredibly busy life by design in a lot of ways.
• 42:41
  I think I have built a world entirely based on the things that I, I care so intensely about.
• 42:49
  And I think, you know, I was so clear about what I wanted to do with my life very early on.
• 42:58
  And and very methodical about achieving that in so many ways.
• 43:03
  And in some ways, I think that was also needing to feel a sense of purpose.
• 43:10
  Because I never felt a sense of belonging.
• 43:13
  So purpose was a very effective tool.
• 43:17
  Yes.
• 43:19
  I, have you ever thought about writing a book?
• 43:21
  You're saying so many things that so many people would benefit from.
• 43:25
  And your turn of phrases is just compliant at my own detriment.
• 43:31
  Like that, I mean, the way you're expressing things, I'm just like, Oh my gosh.
• 43:36
  So funny about that.
• 43:39
  Many people have told me I should write a book and for a long time, I really resisted this and not necessarily because I have any issues with writing a book.
• 43:53
  I love to write and I write fairly obsessively.
• 43:58
  I've been journaling since I was seven years old.
• 44:00
  I have a very full accounting of my life available to me in various formats.
• 44:06
  But I had always pushed this back as saying I'll consider it when I'm 40.
• 44:12
  And there was a not insignificant part of me that did not expect to live to 40 and now I'm 40.
• 44:21
  And so I have realized that in some ways I created a threshold where now I do have to consider doing that.
• 44:31
  It is something I would.
• 44:33
  entertain doing, but it is very hard to know how to sum up a life in that sort of way.
• 44:41
  And I think I, I will be an enormous problem for an editor at some point.
• 44:51
  But I, I have written for quite a long time.
• 44:56
  And I very much journal I suppose for lack of a better, I keep what I call my books and I I carry them around everywhere with me.
• 45:05
  They're a combination between writing, which is very factual to me, not very emotional about what's going on in my life.
• 45:17
  And after I've had a chance to emotionally process, I will document.
• 45:22
  what that has been in some ways.
• 45:24
  And I draw and I collage and I glue things in these, I break the spines of these books and absolutely destroy them in the process of making them, but I have shelves and shelves and shelves of them from my life.
• 45:36
  And I don't know why I started but it has become a very important part of my structure of my days.
• 45:46
  You know, as you're talking about that, what I would love to see is just a collection of pages of your diary and pages of your art that's in there.
• 46:00
  I mean, if you have that many, like, how, how special it would be, like, that would feel to me like a really intimate way to let someone in just without any editing, just a page here, you know, there.
• 46:14
  I have considered some of this with very few of the pages over the years.
• 46:19
  I have photographed some of the ones that I, I mean, now they're 20 some years old.
• 46:26
  At one point I did photograph those pages.
• 46:28
  And put them online in a now absolutely defunct blog, but it is something I have considered and there are people in my life that, you know, I, I have a great degree of transparency with the people I choose to be close to and if they grab those books and thumb through them, it does not bother me in the slightest.
• 46:48
  But.
• 46:50
  You know, I, I went to art school for a couple of years.
• 46:55
  In high school, I actually graduated with a major in visual art.
• 47:00
  And I have very much bristled until fairly recently at considering myself an artist.
• 47:09
  And I'm not sure.
• 47:11
  If I was waiting for some sort of certification from some outside source to be like, well, now you're good enough to be an artist or.
• 47:24
  If I just never wanted the pressure of that to be on something that to me is such an intimate process.
• 47:33
  You know, I don't, I don't make these books to produce something, I make these books as a practice of knowing where I've been.
• 47:46
  And having, a record of a life I've lived in a lot of ways.
• 47:51
  Maybe part of how you process the world too.
• 47:54
  I think it's part of how I process the world and I think it's how I solidify the lessons of what I've learned in that process too I experienced the thing, I very frequently, have to then later feel the thing and, and think through the thing because I'm a little slow at that.
• 48:16
  I will write about the thing and I will make art about the thing.
• 48:19
  And, and so, to me it's like the practice of studying in a way how things work.
• 48:27
  And I love learning how things work.
• 48:29
  And I've been trying to figure out how life works and how people work for 40 years.
• 48:34
  And I'm not very good at it, but I keep trying.
• 48:38
  And To me, at least I think I felt like writing a book, an actual book about it, is that I've gained enough wisdom in some way to, to share it, to teach it.
• 48:51
  Absolutely.
• 48:53
  And, and I'm very hesitant to claim.
• 48:56
  The ownership of any vast knowledge about how things work when I'm still trying to understand when is the correct time or not correct time to walk out of small talk, because I don't like it and makes me uncomfortable, or, you know, how to.
• 49:13
  Like I struggle a lot with eye contact and I find it immensely uncomfortable.
• 49:19
  And, and I've recognized that other people feel a sense of connection from this.
• 49:24
  And and I think that is something that's very challenging for me to in some ways want to care about other people enough to give them something that for them feels like a sense of connection.
• 49:39
  And for me, it makes me feel like everything inside of my body wants to immediately bold.
• 49:46
  What would the world look like?
• 49:48
  Do you think if The population of people on the autism spectrum was like 85 percent of the population, and there was this minority of normal people that wanted to stand around and talk about the weather or the septic system that they installed on this property, whatever it is that they're going on and on about.
• 50:11
  And, you know, like, The thing is, is like, if they were talking about the septic system, they installed in their property, I'd be like, immediately ready to dive into all of the technical details of understanding how all this works.
• 50:22
  And I would be completely fine with that.
• 50:25
  But, but they're like, yeah, I had a guy come in and put it there, like the, you know, right.
• 50:31
  Right.
• 50:31
  And, and I'm like, well, but.
• 50:33
  Like where and what was the decision?
• 50:37
  I feel like the world would be one where we investigate things much more deeply.
• 50:42
  In a lot of ways, I think I have a very active inquisitive mind and I found that a lot of my interactions with other autistic people has been.
• 50:57
  One of not necessarily trying to make the other person feel comfortable with the idea we have about ourselves.
• 51:05
  But in trading information and enriching one another in a way.
• 51:13
  That is very different.
• 51:15
  And I love when people share with me the things that they are excited about.
• 51:23
  I love when somebody will go on an intense monologue about their special interest and not shut up and I can listen.
• 51:30
  It makes me thrilled.
• 51:33
  I think that is the way we see people come alive in so many ways.
• 51:38
  It tells you so much about how their minds work.
• 51:40
  Yes, how their minds work.
• 51:42
  Can you see how other people's minds work when you get to know them and you're like, I know exactly what you're doing or thinking because I've studied how your mind operates.
• 51:51
  Yes.
• 51:51
  Yes.
• 51:52
  And, and I'm very intensely observant of this.
• 51:58
  In people and I tend to very much evaluate who I'm willing to be close to based on how they work after much evaluation.
• 52:08
  And I'm also very often, I'm evaluating a lot of the time because I'm not sure what type of interaction I'll have or, or whether or not it's a situation in which I know how to engage.
• 52:25
  But like, I struggle a lot with groups of people, but I'm pretty okay with individuals.
• 52:30
  Most of the time, I'm not super social, but like, if I'm allowed to just like work on my own thing in a room with another person that I feel relatively secure with, I'm going to be completely content and feel a great degree of bonding from that activity.
• 52:44
  Right.
• 52:45
  I love to be ignored.
• 52:46
  And And even better if they are working on their own very focused thing over there and I am doing my own focused thing over here, and we do not need to say any words at all.
• 52:56
  But at the end, there can be sharing or not, and, and I'm quite content with that sort of interaction, but I'm, I'm very observant and I tend, I've learned I tend to evaluate people quite a bit.
• 53:12
  On the things that once I start to sense how they operate in the world and how their mind works I'll get very focused on trying to sauce all of that out.
• 53:21
  And then I tend to, you know, be able to ask questions I actually care about.
• 53:32
  Right, right.
• 53:34
  One of the things my therapist has said is that, you know, autistic people have a lot of, there's, you know, there's like this long list of traits and some of us have some of them.
• 53:49
  Nobody has all of them and they're just this different mixed bag.
• 53:53
  And as I get to know and get to interview more autistic people, I find such delight in finding people.
• 54:00
  That have traits like me or that do things like me, and that don't, you know, like, like there's just so much permission to walk like all those times I've walked away from those conversations and just been, it's been so awkward, you know, and, and usually there's someone else there who can continue it and I can just, you know, disappear but the level of discomfort.
• 54:23
  And having to do this thing that people do all the time that they don't seem to find discomfort and they seem to find some degree of connection and joy in is just, it's baffling.
• 54:34
  And I, you know, I made this, I, I, I did a, an intro about changing the podcast a little bit in direction.
• 54:41
  One of the things I said, I took, I put it up and then I took it down.
• 54:44
  But one of the things I said in it was autistic people are all a little bit different, which might be a good thing.
• 54:51
  Otherwise, We might just take over the world.
• 54:54
  Like, if we were all closer to being the same, those normal people would be in so much trouble.
• 54:59
  Because we would, we would shift things to stop being so uncomfortable and difficult.
• 55:06
  And the thing that really still baffles me is that there's all of these things in our culture that point to so many of the ways and characteristics that we have that seem to be what people are chasing and want to want to own and incorporate into their lives and be like and yet when we're like that there's all this pushback I just can't seem to wrap it around my head.
• 55:33
  I think I think there may be a degree in some When you just do the thing as if it's natural to you usually because it is that people wish in their minds they could do and are so engaged in a set of rules and expectations that they believe are the correct thing to do.
• 56:03
  I think that it scares them.
• 56:08
  To be so bold.
• 56:10
  And, and like, you know, I am certain that there are plenty of neurotypical people who really would not like to have a conversation about, you know, well, how was the weather this weekend and, you know, whatever else because it's dull, and they're going to have that conversation 15 times within the same group of people until they've had it with every single one.
• 56:36
  Who would love to just walk away or be like, you know, instead of talking about that, like, why don't we say something real?
• 56:44
  And I think in some ways a lot of the, the counterpoint of being neurodivergent is that we just don't do those things that people wouldn't do as an expectation.
• 57:05
  And, and it, it creates an affront in some ways where people take it personally when you don't follow the rules that they expect to follow and that they have been following sometimes to their own discomfort.
• 57:20
  And I had somebody ask me once what it's like to live life caring so little about what other people think of you.
• 57:32
  And I realized that the reason they were asking this question is because I'm operating in my own world.
• 57:41
  Set of worlds, you know and it's not that I don't care what other people think it's that That I am not necessarily always super aware that I should care that much or that that the Expectation put upon me if it doesn't make sense I will listen patiently to your rules and then I will go do something entirely else And that I'm, I'm very guilty of that in my life, but it has never been a, I don't really care.
• 58:23
  It has been a, it doesn't make logical sense and so I'm not doing it.
• 58:27
  I refuse to participate.
• 58:29
  The, it's not a structure that has a purpose to me, and I think in a lot of ways, the quote unquote normal people, none of them are normal.
• 58:41
  They're just some of them are better able to hide their weird than others.
• 58:45
  Some of us Have brains that just don't operate in the same way.
• 58:49
  And I think a lot of times it's the neurodivergent people that say the things that make people uncomfortable and create the things that alleviate discomfort in life.
• 59:04
  how many inventors have likely been autistic?
• 59:08
  Right.
• 59:09
  You know, we're, we're looking at the world in a different way.
• 59:12
  And we're saying, you know, how does this work to such a degree that we want to solve something you know, it's just parsing information differently.
• 59:23
  And.
• 59:24
  making a choice of how you will or will not engage with that information.
• 59:30
  But I think for a lot of normal people, it makes them vastly uncomfortable to see somebody so blatantly just interact with the world in a way that they're not willing or able to for whatever reason, because they understand something about convention.
• 59:47
  Whereas we understand something, or at least I tend to not understand something about convention and understand something more about if there's not a point, why am I doing it?
• 59:58
  Right.
• 59:59
  No, you're describing, you know, a blind spot that I am still trying to wrap my head around this, this And you've described it really well.
• 1:00:08
  And, you know, somebody could on from the outside, it could look like some narcissism or some self centeredness and just not caring.
• 1:00:16
  But no, it comes from a place of caring very deeply.
• 1:00:19
  And then for myself, of, of being hurt so much bumping into the world is what I call it, when I bump into the world, and it pushes back, that reach a point where it hurts.
• 1:00:31
  to care.
• 1:00:32
  So then you just operate from, from yourself with these sort of blinders on in, in what for me feels like my authenticity.
• 1:00:42
  And oops, I didn't mean to not consider you.
• 1:00:45
  I just didn't see it, or it didn't make sense, or I was really busy being authentic.
• 1:00:50
  And it's not, it doesn't come from a narcissistic place or a self centered place.
• 1:00:55
  It comes from, I'm just trying to be me, which is what all the signs out there are pointing and saying that I should or ought to do.
• 1:01:04
  Yes.
• 1:01:04
  I think in some ways at least in my feelings of this, it is not as self centeredness.
• 1:01:13
  I have a very contained sense of self and I'm very clear about it.
• 1:01:19
  But I do care immensely about other people.
• 1:01:21
  But the thing is, is that I.
• 1:01:24
  I don't want to.
• 1:01:28
  I don't want to be forced to care on a surface level.
• 1:01:31
  Yes, thank you.
• 1:01:33
  Yes, well said, I truly, I want to genuinely care I want to really understand.
• 1:01:40
  And.
• 1:01:43
  I, I, you know, this is that congruency to me.
• 1:01:50
  It would be so much easier if we could just be honest about how we're actually feeling when somebody asks us, how are you doing?
• 1:01:57
  As opposed to having to say fine and move on to the next thing, because that's what's expected.
• 1:02:03
  And when that congruency isn't there, I am, So willing to invest in really getting it really learning about somebody about anything.
• 1:02:18
  I love to learn.
• 1:02:19
  My brain is so inquisitive that being put into.
• 1:02:24
  a paradigm where I have to participate in a set of rules that prevents me from operating the way I operate best.
• 1:02:33
  I'm not going to participate in that because it's a incredibly boring and B I'm being asked to shut off one of the best parts of me, which is that I want to understand that I want to care and I want to do that all on an incredibly visceral level.
• 1:02:56
  This is This has been an amazing conversation.
• 1:03:00
  Oh my gosh.
• 1:03:01
  I have so much gratitude for you.
• 1:03:04
  You have like really stimulated my brain in these wonderful ways.
• 1:03:09
  I'm glad I've enjoyed it as well.
• 1:03:12
  Yeah, really, really good stuff.
• 1:03:14
  I think this is probably a good, a good place to, to end.