Latest / Beautifully Complex / 365: Autistic Burnout & Self-Care, with Dr. Megan Anna Neff

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365: Autistic Burnout & Self-Care, with Dr. Megan Anna Neff · Beautifully Complex

0:01
Speaker 1: It's almost like self care has been trained out of
0:03
Speaker 1: us to where we've learned to suppress the signals coming
0:08
Speaker 1: from inside our body. So, for example, you know I
0:11
Speaker 1: pretty much always want to avoid eye contact, that my
0:13
Speaker 1: body pretty much always wants to be moving. But these
0:16
Speaker 1: were things in childhood that were kind of trained out
0:18
Speaker 1: of me. And with that, the message also became like
0:21
Speaker 1: I can't trust my body to know what's good for it,
0:24
Speaker 1: because when I did, it got me in trouble.
0:27
Speaker 2: Welcome to Beautifully Complex, where we unpack what it really
0:31
Speaker 2: means to parent neurodivergent kids with dignity and clarity. I'm
0:35
Speaker 2: Penny Williams, and I know firsthand how tough and transformative
0:39
Speaker 2: this journey can be. Let's dive in and discover how
0:43
Speaker 2: to raise regulated, resilient, beautifully complex kids together. Oh and
0:48
Speaker 2: if you want more support, join our free community at
0:52
Speaker 2: hub dot beautifully complex dot life. Welcome back everyone. I
1:00
Speaker 2: am super super excited to have with me doctor Megan
1:04
Speaker 2: Anna Neff, and we're going to talk about autistic burnout
1:09
Speaker 2: and self care, what that means for our kids, what
1:12
Speaker 2: that means for you if you are also a U
1:15
Speaker 2: a diversion adult and really get into some strategies and
1:21
Speaker 2: lots of good stuff. So, doctor Nef, will you start
1:23
Speaker 2: by letting everybody know who you are and what you do. Yeah.
1:27
Speaker 1: So I am a clinical psychologist and I'm founder of
1:32
Speaker 1: Nerdiversion Insights, So we create kind of visual forward education,
1:38
Speaker 1: is how I think about it. I'm someone who thinks
1:40
Speaker 1: in visuals, and so I need to have visual context
1:43
Speaker 1: to understand a concept. So, you know, I thought I
1:46
Speaker 1: was going to go into academia and research, and when
1:49
Speaker 1: I realized how much education we can share through social
1:53
Speaker 1: media and through digital space, that became really passionate about
1:56
Speaker 1: distilling more information specifically around and ADHD. I'm autistic in
2:02
Speaker 1: ADHD myself, and then also parenting neurodivergent children, so I
2:07
Speaker 1: also do a lot of work around kind of the
2:10
Speaker 1: last generation of autistic and ADHD adults and mental health.
2:14
Speaker 1: So that's some of what I do.
2:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you tell us a little bit more about
2:19
Speaker 2: how your own neurodivergence really shaped the work that you're
2:24
Speaker 2: doing now?
2:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it really shapes the way I think
2:29
Speaker 1: about and talk about I think advocacy within the mental
2:33
Speaker 1: health space. You know, I'm someone who had many mental
2:36
Speaker 1: health conditions before autism or ADHD were discovered. And also
2:40
Speaker 1: someone whose child could have and should have probably been
2:44
Speaker 1: identified earlier, and if she hadn't been a girl, probably
2:47
Speaker 1: would have been identified earlier. So I think it really
2:50
Speaker 1: shapes how especially when I'm talking to other clinicians about
2:55
Speaker 1: what to look for about what we're missing as a field,
2:59
Speaker 1: about the missing us, and then I think, I just
3:03
Speaker 1: I'm talking from inside the experience, and so I'm also
3:09
Speaker 1: drawn to more affirming frameworks for understanding both autism and ADHD,
3:14
Speaker 1: And not in a way I asked, don't want to
3:16
Speaker 1: be pollyannish with it, like there are very real struggles
3:20
Speaker 1: with being autistic and with parenting autistic children, So not
3:24
Speaker 1: in a way that you know, wants to kind of
3:27
Speaker 1: gloss over those, but in a way that's more balanced,
3:29
Speaker 1: where we can look at both the strengths and the
3:31
Speaker 1: challenges of being inside and living inside of an autistic
3:36
Speaker 1: or ADHD nervous system.
3:37
Speaker 2: In neurology, when you look back at your own childhood,
3:41
Speaker 2: are there things that you wish that your parents, or
3:45
Speaker 2: your teachers, or the other adults in your life had
3:48
Speaker 2: picked up on or knew about what you were experiencing.
3:52
Speaker 1: Ah, that's a great question. Yeah, I mean I wish,
3:56
Speaker 1: and I can also say this with you know, I
3:58
Speaker 1: was a child of the eighties and nineties, so I
3:59
Speaker 1: say this with a lot of compassion for my parents
4:02
Speaker 1: and for the fact if we just weren't catching people
4:05
Speaker 1: like me and especially girls. It's interesting I often say
4:09
Speaker 1: I really wish the ADHD had been caught the autism
4:12
Speaker 1: in some ways, I feel like I came to know
4:14
Speaker 1: this about myself at a time in my life I
4:16
Speaker 1: was ready to really integrate that identity. I think if
4:20
Speaker 1: we'd been able to catch the ADHD when I was
4:23
Speaker 1: in mental health treatment for anxiety and depression, I think
4:26
Speaker 1: that would have really helped with school. You know, school
4:28
Speaker 1: was always a challenge for me for reasons I didn't know,
4:31
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of the unfortunate coping that
4:34
Speaker 1: I fell into I would have had more options and
4:39
Speaker 1: more scaffolding if we'd known about the ADHD. So if
4:42
Speaker 1: I if I could go back, That's that's one thing.
4:45
Speaker 1: I think. I have really wonderful parents, who you know,
4:49
Speaker 1: my mom my room was always so messy, and so
4:52
Speaker 1: she'd body like we didn't have the language, but she'd
4:54
Speaker 1: body double it with me and be like, Okay, we're
4:55
Speaker 1: going to start at this corner. We'll do this together,
4:58
Speaker 1: we'll move on to this corner. And I needed that
5:00
Speaker 1: kind of executive functioning support and she was really supportive
5:05
Speaker 1: when I was struggling to learn how to read.
5:07
Speaker 2: I also have.
5:09
Speaker 1: Mild dyslexia, so when I was struggling to learn how
5:11
Speaker 1: to read, she was a really patient teacher. So I
5:15
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough to have parents who are very attuned
5:18
Speaker 1: and patient, which really helped offset a lot of the
5:21
Speaker 1: things I was struggling with.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, they were really supportive, it sounds like, which is amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
5:28
Speaker 2: Definitely a different time, and I think a lot of
5:30
Speaker 2: people fell through the cracks. We just didn't know yet.
5:34
Speaker 2: Now we know better, so we were able to do better. Yeah.
5:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's why I love that term lost generation
5:40
Speaker 1: because it's there's a whole generation of us who many
5:43
Speaker 1: of us have been in mental health therapy for a
5:45
Speaker 1: long time and maybe even been given diagnoses like treatment
5:49
Speaker 1: resistant depression, and it's because this big piece has been missed. Yeah.
5:55
Speaker 2: Do you think that that had any impact on you
5:59
Speaker 2: getting into the mental health field?
6:01
Speaker 1: Oh, definitely. I had really positive experiences with most of
6:06
Speaker 1: the therapists I went to. My dad's also a psychologist,
6:09
Speaker 1: so I also grew up kind of around psychology. I
6:11
Speaker 1: think psychology was one of my special interests because it
6:15
Speaker 1: was part of how I tried to crack the code
6:17
Speaker 1: and how to fit in. Was like, if I could
6:20
Speaker 1: understand people and understand how my mind worked, that really
6:24
Speaker 1: helped orient me. And so I absolutely think it influenced
6:29
Speaker 1: my decision to go into the mental health field for sure.
6:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was just curious about that, honestly, and I
6:35
Speaker 2: think it happens a lot.
6:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think a lot of people go into the
6:38
Speaker 1: mental health field because of their own mental health journey,
6:42
Speaker 1: and so I think that can be a common pathway.
6:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about autistic burnout. Can you tell us
6:47
Speaker 2: what that is? Okay? How do we understand that in
6:49
Speaker 2: simple terms?
6:51
Speaker 1: In simple terms, probably in the simplest terms would be
6:54
Speaker 1: to use the definition that Door Raymaker and their research
6:57
Speaker 1: team first came out with. Since there was search, which
7:00
Speaker 1: was early twenty twenties, there's been a lot more research
7:03
Speaker 1: studies on it, which is amazing. But their kind of
7:07
Speaker 1: working definition was we see an increase of exhaustion, so
7:11
Speaker 1: physical exhaustion, cognitive exhaustion, So that can also look like
7:16
Speaker 1: more difficulty with things like word finding or access to speech.
7:21
Speaker 1: If someone's baseline is that they normally have access to speech,
7:23
Speaker 1: we can see a decline there, so energetic exhaustion and
7:28
Speaker 1: cognitive and the kind where it's like even after a
7:30
Speaker 1: full night's sleep, you're still waking up exhausted. Also an
7:35
Speaker 1: increase in sensory sensitivities. So of course a lot of
7:39
Speaker 1: autistic folks have many sensory sensitivities at baseline, but again
7:44
Speaker 1: we're going to see an increase from that. So for example,
7:47
Speaker 1: some of the things I see, maybe someone can typically
7:50
Speaker 1: tolerate the transition in and out of a shower. There's
7:53
Speaker 1: a lot of sensory transitions that go into that, but
7:56
Speaker 1: maybe when they're in burnout like that starts leading to
7:59
Speaker 1: a sensory meltout when they're trying to do that, So
8:01
Speaker 1: we'll see a lot more meltdowns and sensory shutdowns. I
8:04
Speaker 1: mean young children, This can look like the child's having
8:07
Speaker 1: more emotional like big emotions or emotional meltdowns because they
8:12
Speaker 1: look so similarly, so we can as parents, we can
8:14
Speaker 1: easily mistake sensory for emotional and then the third is
8:18
Speaker 1: a loss of skills. This one's really interesting to me.
8:21
Speaker 1: You know, I don't like the language of like autistic
8:24
Speaker 1: regression that's sometimes talked about with children, where it's kind
8:27
Speaker 1: of skills are lost. But I'm curious about, especially burnout
8:32
Speaker 1: in children, if sometimes there's some overshadowing there that's happening,
8:37
Speaker 1: because we know that there can be a loss of skills.
8:41
Speaker 1: So that could be executive functioning, but it could also
8:43
Speaker 1: be developmental skills potentially, where you know, child's may be
8:47
Speaker 1: able to do something one month and then the next
8:49
Speaker 1: they're just it can't access that, or in adults, it
8:52
Speaker 1: can look like skills they have that help them in
8:55
Speaker 1: the workplace they just can't access. You know, I've seen
8:59
Speaker 1: like account who then can't do simple math when they're
9:02
Speaker 1: in extreme burnout. So it's a really global, pervasive burnout
9:07
Speaker 1: of the nervous system. And then what we see in
9:10
Speaker 1: autistic burnout is that global functioning just takes a really
9:13
Speaker 1: steep pit. Now, burnout is burnout? A question I have
9:17
Speaker 1: caen to get is how is autistic burnout different than
9:19
Speaker 1: any kind of burnout? And I would say all burnout
9:23
Speaker 1: is burnout with the nervous system, but with autistic burnout.
9:26
Speaker 1: I think because these things are already more vulnerable for us,
9:30
Speaker 1: we see a much more pervasive impact, and then our
9:34
Speaker 1: ability to do kind of daily tasks is where we
9:38
Speaker 1: see a lot of struggle that can be disorientined for
9:40
Speaker 1: us and also disorientined for the people around us.
9:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, from a neuroscience standpoint too, we're talking about losing
9:48
Speaker 2: access to skills. For me, I think, okay, well, if
9:51
Speaker 2: you're just regulated, you're losing access to the thinking brains.
9:53
Speaker 2: You're losing access to you where those are stored. So
9:56
Speaker 2: it makes a lot of sense that that's happening. Yeah,
10:00
Speaker 2: how can we tell, like, is there is there a timeline?
10:03
Speaker 2: Is there some sort of you know, after this many
10:06
Speaker 2: weeks or I'm sure it's not that specific, but how
10:09
Speaker 2: do we tell when a kid's just having a hard
10:11
Speaker 2: period and when it's actual burnout?
10:15
Speaker 1: I mean, and I don't I don't fully know the
10:18
Speaker 1: logic that went into this. In door Raymiker's definition, they
10:22
Speaker 1: do say three months, and I think for a lot
10:25
Speaker 1: of clinical definitions you just need to insert a timeline.
10:29
Speaker 1: I don't know that it always shows up that clean cut.
10:33
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, are the narratives in our
10:36
Speaker 1: heads that invoke threat like that in folks strain on
10:39
Speaker 1: our nervous system and it's not great for us. And
10:41
Speaker 1: so I think when we're parenting vulnerable children, it is
10:45
Speaker 1: easy to invoke those threat narratives of like if they're
10:49
Speaker 1: having a low energy day. So I do think there's
10:52
Speaker 1: wisdom of being a tune but not catastrophizing, if that
10:56
Speaker 1: makes sense. So of like, okay, let's let's lower the demands,
10:59
Speaker 1: let's increase sensory soothers, but maybe not jumping to like
11:03
Speaker 1: this is burnout and it's going to be like this forever.
11:07
Speaker 1: So I think having an eye on it, especially because
11:10
Speaker 1: I feel like kids in modern society are asked to
11:12
Speaker 1: do so much. So I definitely think it's good to
11:16
Speaker 1: be proactive when we're seeing more fatigue or more meltdowns
11:19
Speaker 1: in our kids, trying to get lower sensory demands, lower demands,
11:24
Speaker 1: increase rest time, increase space for special interests, while also
11:29
Speaker 1: being careful of those threat narratives. I know, as a
11:32
Speaker 1: parent it's so easy for me to get pulled into
11:35
Speaker 1: those threat narratives, and then I know my kids are
11:38
Speaker 1: picking up that energy when I'm kind of acting from
11:41
Speaker 1: that energy, and that's not helpful for anyone's burnout in
11:44
Speaker 1: the family system.
11:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I would guess that school is one
11:47
Speaker 2: of the biggest drivers of burnout for nerdversient individuals. How
11:53
Speaker 2: can we influence that? How can we help with that?
11:56
Speaker 1: It's so hard, it's so and I'm you know, in
12:00
Speaker 1: community around we have parent calls, and I feel like
12:03
Speaker 1: school comes up so often, and especially if parents are
12:06
Speaker 1: also parenting PDA ors. So that stands for pathological demand
12:11
Speaker 1: avoidance or the more preferred term is pervasive drive for autonomy.
12:15
Speaker 1: And these children especially burn out at such high rates
12:19
Speaker 1: from school. If they're able to even access school, it depends,
12:23
Speaker 1: I think so much based on state laws, Like there's
12:26
Speaker 1: some states where if a child's absent that you know,
12:31
Speaker 1: that can invoke calls to child protective services or and
12:36
Speaker 1: so I am hesitant to say do this, this or this.
12:40
Speaker 1: I think, whenever possible, if it can be part of
12:43
Speaker 1: an you know, individualized plan for a child to talk
12:49
Speaker 1: about sensory breaks for the child to talk about, is
12:52
Speaker 1: it possible to have some later starts or like we
12:56
Speaker 1: advocated on ours of like our child struggles to make
13:00
Speaker 1: get to school. And we know we can't formally request
13:02
Speaker 1: in accommendation, but can we market on the document that
13:06
Speaker 1: for various health reasons there will be more absentees. And
13:11
Speaker 1: if you are in a state where there is some leniency,
13:14
Speaker 1: where we're in an organ where there's a lot of
13:16
Speaker 1: leniency around how many days in school, you are like,
13:20
Speaker 1: we do create a lot of space for like sensory
13:23
Speaker 1: sick days or just like pacing days, and where you
13:27
Speaker 1: know our kids are able to say that they need that.
13:30
Speaker 1: And then it comes back to I think the expectations
13:33
Speaker 1: we hold too of managing our own expectations around what
13:37
Speaker 1: does a healthily paced life look like?
13:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, setting that culture.
13:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like you know, dropping demands is something that's
13:49
Speaker 1: talked about a lot, both in the PDA space but
13:51
Speaker 1: also burnout space. But dropping demands, I think we're having
13:56
Speaker 1: a low demand lifestyle, like it often needs to be
13:58
Speaker 1: a family experts and so it's what does it look
14:03
Speaker 1: like to be a little bit countercultural and to live
14:06
Speaker 1: a slow lifestyle. If that's something that you know we
14:09
Speaker 1: can access, what does it look like to be kind
14:12
Speaker 1: of resistant to culture in that way?
14:15
Speaker 2: Can we talk a little bit about burnout recovery, and
14:18
Speaker 2: then I want to move on to being proactive and
14:21
Speaker 2: some prevention.
14:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, what does recovery look like. It'll it'll look
14:26
Speaker 1: different for every person. And I wish I can say
14:31
Speaker 1: it's like these big things. For a lot of people
14:33
Speaker 1: I know who have who would say, like I've recovered
14:35
Speaker 1: from burnout, It's been an accumulation of a lot of
14:39
Speaker 1: little things. Now the kind of areas that I think
14:43
Speaker 1: are emphasized. The most one is sensory. You know, so
14:47
Speaker 1: much of burnout I think comes from us navigating environments
14:50
Speaker 1: that are misaligned to our sensory system. I mean takes
14:53
Speaker 1: school for example, it is such a sensory overloading environment.
14:57
Speaker 1: So sensory accommodations things that we put on our bodies,
15:02
Speaker 1: So that could be like tinted glasses to reduce some
15:05
Speaker 1: of the visual stimuli. It could be like noise blockers
15:09
Speaker 1: or noise reducers. Even some of the clothes we wear
15:14
Speaker 1: can help reduce some of the sensory input. Also adding
15:19
Speaker 1: in sensory soothers for some people, like for me, weight
15:22
Speaker 1: is a very soon. I think for some people they can't.
15:25
Speaker 1: It's too much appropriate acceptim me. But so a lot
15:28
Speaker 1: of it I think starts around the sensory health and
15:30
Speaker 1: sensory self care, and then from there, I think extending
15:34
Speaker 1: into nervous system, and that can look like getting to
15:37
Speaker 1: know the nervous system, learning some practices to help down
15:41
Speaker 1: regulate when our nervous system is in threat mode. There's
15:44
Speaker 1: also you know, more and more kind of things like
15:47
Speaker 1: biofeedback or different like newer psychotherapies that are incorporating the
15:54
Speaker 1: body in ways that can help support nervous system. Cernial
15:57
Speaker 1: sacral therapy is another one that I hear get ment
16:00
Speaker 1: and a lot in our community and that I know
16:02
Speaker 1: was really impactful for our family. So there's a whole
16:06
Speaker 1: kind of wealth of resources there.
16:09
Speaker 2: Sleep.
16:09
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of autistic folks have cocurring sleep conditions,
16:13
Speaker 1: so anything we can do to improve quantity or quality
16:16
Speaker 1: of sleep is going to make a big impact. So
16:20
Speaker 1: I think it's looking at these different domains and then
16:22
Speaker 1: making a lot of little small tweaks that help the
16:26
Speaker 1: body and the nervous system to be able to recover,
16:29
Speaker 1: and also paying attention to our narratives. Like again the
16:31
Speaker 1: narratives we tell we're either signaling safety to our bodies
16:36
Speaker 1: or we're signaling threat. And I think, especially as we're
16:40
Speaker 1: prone to ruminate, many of us can spend a lot
16:43
Speaker 1: of our time sending signals of threat to ourselves about
16:47
Speaker 1: ourselves or about the world. So I think that could
16:49
Speaker 1: also be another impactful place to spend some time.
16:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so very thankful that we are talking more
16:56
Speaker 2: about the nervous system now in general. Yeah, yeah, it
17:00
Speaker 2: matters so much.
17:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like I've been talking about for
17:06
Speaker 1: a while, and I almost I cringe a little when
17:08
Speaker 1: I talk about now because it feels like soapop psychology.
17:11
Speaker 1: But I'm also like, but I'm so excited that people
17:14
Speaker 1: are realizing how interconnected this is and how there's so
17:19
Speaker 1: much that we do in micro moments that impact our
17:22
Speaker 1: nervous system.
17:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's really the control center, and it really governs
17:28
Speaker 2: what happens and the doability of things, which I talk
17:30
Speaker 2: so much with parents about. You know, we need to
17:33
Speaker 2: be regulated to make things doable. So I'm happy that
17:38
Speaker 2: we're talking about it in all different spaces, and hopefully
17:42
Speaker 2: we don't get desensitized to that conversation.
17:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope it stays rich and keeps the nuance
17:48
Speaker 1: and keeps the meaning.
17:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I have your card deck
18:05
Speaker 2: for anybody who's watching. The self care activity is for
18:09
Speaker 2: autistic people, which is amazing. Can you talk to us
18:13
Speaker 2: about why you created that, why do we need self care?
18:18
Speaker 2: And is the self care different for autistic people than
18:21
Speaker 2: for neurotypical people?
18:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, so is self care different? I think in some
18:27
Speaker 1: ways yes and in some ways no. In some ways yes,
18:31
Speaker 1: in the sense that I think a lot of what
18:33
Speaker 1: the cultural messages around like relaxation ras self care, those
18:37
Speaker 1: don't always align for us, especially like as a woman,
18:41
Speaker 1: a lot of the social scripts of like going to
18:44
Speaker 1: a salon or like anything beauty related. I'm like, all
18:47
Speaker 1: of that sounds like a sensory nightmare. None of that
18:49
Speaker 1: sounds relaxing. Yeah, And then as an AUDIHD or I
18:53
Speaker 1: struggle to relax because my ADHD, so again, my self
18:58
Speaker 1: care is probably going to look a little bit more.
19:00
Speaker 1: I don't rest or relax very well. So I think
19:04
Speaker 1: there are some ways that just the cultural scripts around
19:07
Speaker 1: what self care looks like can be a bit different
19:10
Speaker 1: for us. And then I think so a lot of
19:13
Speaker 1: autistic folks, especially if we're someone who mask it's almost
19:19
Speaker 1: like self care has been trained out of us to
19:20
Speaker 1: where we've learned to suppress the signals coming from inside
19:25
Speaker 1: our body. So, for example, you know I pretty much
19:28
Speaker 1: always want to avoid eye contact, my body pretty much
19:31
Speaker 1: always wants to be moving. But these were things in
19:34
Speaker 1: childhood that were kind of trained out of me. And
19:37
Speaker 1: with that, the message also became like I can't trust
19:39
Speaker 1: my body to know what's good for it, because when
19:42
Speaker 1: I did, it got me in trouble. And so there's
19:45
Speaker 1: this part about learning to retrust our body and what
19:49
Speaker 1: our body needs that is such a core part of
19:52
Speaker 1: self care. I often say self care starts with self attunement,
19:56
Speaker 1: the ability to attune to like, here's what's happening for
19:59
Speaker 1: me in this moment, here's what I need. And so
20:02
Speaker 1: that can be harder for autistic folks, partly because it
20:05
Speaker 1: can be trained out of us. Can also be harder
20:07
Speaker 1: because of inter reception challenges like if we don't have
20:10
Speaker 1: access to signals of thirst or hunger, and then those
20:13
Speaker 1: like bio basic self care parts can be harder, which
20:16
Speaker 1: can absolutely contribute to burnout. And so I think spending
20:21
Speaker 1: more time on that piece around bodily awareness sensory awareness validation,
20:27
Speaker 1: validation that our needs are worthy of care is something
20:31
Speaker 1: that a lot of autistic folks need some support with.
20:35
Speaker 1: And then the whole aspect of sensory self care. I
20:38
Speaker 1: think that's just something that society in general doesn't talk
20:40
Speaker 1: a whole lot about. And then I would say that's
20:41
Speaker 1: a pre foundational bucket of self care for us. So
20:45
Speaker 1: those are some of the ways I would say it
20:46
Speaker 1: can be a little bit different for us. And then
20:49
Speaker 1: also we can experience more blocks around certain kinds of
20:52
Speaker 1: self care, whether movement's hard for us to access or
20:55
Speaker 1: for sensory reasons. Why the card deck. So it started
20:59
Speaker 1: with a couple of years ago I wrote the book
21:01
Speaker 1: Self Care for Autistic People, but then we decided to
21:05
Speaker 1: also make a card deck to make it even a
21:07
Speaker 1: little bit more like accessible and executive functioning friendly. Of
21:11
Speaker 1: maybe it's intimidating to read a whole book, but to
21:14
Speaker 1: be able to pull out a card and maybe that
21:17
Speaker 1: activity is a go on some days and maybe that
21:19
Speaker 1: activity is like no, but then you can pick something
21:23
Speaker 1: else out. So it's hopefully there to help to reduce
21:27
Speaker 1: the blocks around initiation of self care.
21:31
Speaker 2: I love that I've been using different card decks for
21:34
Speaker 2: like self affirmations and breathwork and things like that. And
21:38
Speaker 2: I love just being able to pull out one card,
21:40
Speaker 2: put it in front of me for the day, move
21:42
Speaker 2: on to the next one for the next day. And
21:44
Speaker 2: I think a lot of kids would enjoy that as well.
21:47
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of what's in this card
21:50
Speaker 2: deck would be applicable to use for kids also and
21:54
Speaker 2: to teach, Like don't we want to start teaching self
21:57
Speaker 2: care earlier? Right?
21:59
Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh, absolutely, especially with because a lot of autistic
22:03
Speaker 1: children do still experience that like invalidation. So self care
22:06
Speaker 1: is a way of teaching how do I validate my
22:09
Speaker 1: body signals, how do I validate my needs? And how
22:12
Speaker 1: do I work with these emotions that can be so
22:15
Speaker 1: overwhelming at times and being able to build that in foundationally,
22:20
Speaker 1: like we know that like increasing emotional awareness and skills
22:26
Speaker 1: and children has so many positive like upriver impacts or
22:30
Speaker 1: things like mental health. So yeah, absolutely, I think it's
22:34
Speaker 1: great if we can start teaching these kind of foundational
22:37
Speaker 1: concepts to our kids when they're young and modeling it.
22:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, right, we need to be doing it too.
22:45
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if there's a connection between the sensory and
22:49
Speaker 2: the emotional regulation.
22:51
Speaker 1: Is it?
22:52
Speaker 2: Oh?
22:52
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean sensory is like you know, energy in
22:56
Speaker 1: the body, which is also kind of emotional. And then
22:59
Speaker 1: since like I think I get most irritated when I'm
23:03
Speaker 1: sensory overwhelmed, because the nervous system is that, you know,
23:07
Speaker 1: when the sensory systems kind of being graded, then the
23:11
Speaker 1: nervous system is being graded, and then yeah, we're gonna
23:14
Speaker 1: if we're going into a sensory meltdown, we're going to
23:16
Speaker 1: have more hyper abrousal of the nervous system, which tends
23:19
Speaker 1: to track with things like more anxiety and agitation. And
23:22
Speaker 1: that's one of the mistakes that I see happening in
23:25
Speaker 1: therapy a lot, and that I was making until I
23:27
Speaker 1: developed like what I call a sensory lens, which is
23:31
Speaker 1: we were seeing emotion when the cause was sensory and
23:34
Speaker 1: we were trying to intervene with emotion regulation strategies, and
23:38
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, how do we create more sensory predictability
23:41
Speaker 1: into this space, How do we reduce sensory input? Maybe
23:45
Speaker 1: I like dimming the lights or maybe starting to sway
23:48
Speaker 1: and modeling kind of this sway movement and when I
23:52
Speaker 1: look back in my kids when they were young, I
23:55
Speaker 1: labeled so many things as my kids being emotional when
24:00
Speaker 1: it was a sensory response. And I still have so
24:02
Speaker 1: much grief about that, about all of the times I
24:05
Speaker 1: missed their sensory needs because I was seen it through
24:08
Speaker 1: an emotional lens.
24:10
Speaker 2: That's why I asked that question, because I think, you know,
24:13
Speaker 2: parents come to me a lot and say, my kids
24:15
Speaker 2: so emotional, they're not regulating their emotions very well. But
24:19
Speaker 2: is that what's actually happening or is this that just
24:23
Speaker 2: the signal on the surface that we're getting that there's
24:25
Speaker 2: something that needs assistance, that needs help, that needs change, right,
24:30
Speaker 2: And so I love that you brought that together.
24:34
Speaker 1: I think curiosity is one of our biggest gifts as parents.
24:38
Speaker 1: And it's hard. It's hard when we're tired and when
24:40
Speaker 1: we're overtouched and we're sensory overloaded. But if can I
24:44
Speaker 1: treat my kids emotions as a signal, and then can
24:47
Speaker 1: I get curious about it? Like if I come in
24:50
Speaker 1: with an assumption, like a generous assumption, that their emotions
24:54
Speaker 1: make sense, then how do I backwards track that of like, Okay,
24:58
Speaker 1: are there sensory elements here has there been a routine
25:01
Speaker 1: disruption or like have I sprung something unexpected on them?
25:05
Speaker 1: Because that can also create a lot of big emotions
25:07
Speaker 1: for autistic children, especially unexpected changes. And then like, can
25:14
Speaker 1: we backward track it to find the unidentified need? And
25:18
Speaker 1: I wish I would have been faster at it, and
25:20
Speaker 1: I you know, it's hard because I didn't have the
25:22
Speaker 1: autism lens. But there's so many times where like, after
25:25
Speaker 1: there was a pattern, we're able to finally find the
25:29
Speaker 1: unidentified need. Like during the start of the pandemic, there
25:33
Speaker 1: was so much uncertainty, and we finally got a huge
25:37
Speaker 1: whiteboard and started mapping out the whole day visually, and
25:41
Speaker 1: it was amazing how much that downright delated the arousal
25:44
Speaker 1: in the household, just having a visual map of the
25:46
Speaker 1: day and of what to expect. And of course it
25:49
Speaker 1: took way more emotional meltdowns than it should have before
25:52
Speaker 1: we figured that out. But it's often things like that
25:55
Speaker 1: which is how we figure out our children's needs that
25:58
Speaker 1: they're trying to express.
26:00
Speaker 2: I'm curious, do you have a couple of favorite self
26:03
Speaker 2: care activities.
26:05
Speaker 1: For myself for my kids?
26:07
Speaker 2: Just like I was just curious like, are there some
26:10
Speaker 2: in there in the deck or in the book that
26:12
Speaker 2: are like really standouts for you and maybe some that
26:16
Speaker 2: would be a kid friendly.
26:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's one in there about like worry and worry
26:22
Speaker 1: Machine that I like it because it's I feel it's
26:26
Speaker 1: so important, especially when we're talking about cognitive strategies for
26:30
Speaker 1: self care, that we also validate the person's experience. And
26:35
Speaker 1: so I like that card because it starts by validating,
26:39
Speaker 1: like worries here for a reason, it makes sense and
26:41
Speaker 1: also it can be hard, so let's think about how
26:44
Speaker 1: we worry. Well, So that's one that comes to mind.
26:48
Speaker 2: Love that one.
26:50
Speaker 1: I in general, like, I'm just I feel like sensory
26:53
Speaker 1: self care has changed my life so much that like
26:55
Speaker 1: any of the sensory ones, because you know, I didn't
26:59
Speaker 1: have access to sensory self care for thirty seven years
27:01
Speaker 1: because I didn't know I needed it, and then being
27:04
Speaker 1: able to incorporate sensory soothers and self care into my
27:07
Speaker 1: life has made such a difference for my nervous system,
27:09
Speaker 1: my emotions that I think anything is sensory.
27:13
Speaker 2: I also I'm.
27:14
Speaker 1: Really drawn to concept like mindfulness on the go. So
27:18
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, a lot of CBT techniques
27:22
Speaker 1: that are around, like let's catch the catastrophic thought and
27:24
Speaker 1: change it or challenge it. I find that those can
27:27
Speaker 1: be hard for a lot of autistic folks, and I
27:30
Speaker 1: think actually, anyone who has an experience that is marginalized,
27:35
Speaker 1: we have to be really careful with CBT because it
27:37
Speaker 1: can risk you know. So, for example, an autistic child
27:40
Speaker 1: might say like, well, everyone's looking at me, and so
27:43
Speaker 1: to challenge that thought might be like, well is everyone
27:45
Speaker 1: looking at you? And like a therapist might go through,
27:47
Speaker 1: like what's the evidence for that? Well, for that child,
27:50
Speaker 1: like maybe people are looking at them and that's a
27:52
Speaker 1: very real experience. And so mindfulness on the go or
27:57
Speaker 1: more mindfulness approaches, it's about like, let's tag the stressful
28:01
Speaker 1: thoughts when they show up, name them, identify them, but
28:05
Speaker 1: we're not going to try to change them or challenge them.
28:08
Speaker 1: That's probably been the number one most helpful thing for
28:11
Speaker 1: me and my mental health. I live with a lot
28:13
Speaker 1: of anxiety, and so being able to tag thoughts or scripts,
28:17
Speaker 1: and then as a parent being able to tag like, oh,
28:20
Speaker 1: I'm having a like a worry script about my child's future.
28:24
Speaker 1: That's plain right now. That kind of meta awareness. It
28:28
Speaker 1: has been so helpful for my mental health, so I
28:32
Speaker 1: would say kind of meta awareness mindfulness. Tagging is also
28:36
Speaker 1: one of my favorite self care practices.
28:40
Speaker 2: The thought of the concept of invalidation has been coming
28:44
Speaker 2: up for me over and over again as we've been
28:46
Speaker 2: talking that we often invalidate when we don't mean to.
28:51
Speaker 2: It's not our intention, but often what we say to
28:54
Speaker 2: someone who's struggling in the moment is invalidating. And what
28:58
Speaker 2: you were just talking about with the CB like that
29:01
Speaker 2: could be very invalidating, and we have to be careful
29:04
Speaker 2: of that, and it's not something that we are taught
29:07
Speaker 2: to do. We have to figure this out o O.
29:09
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, So there's a whole kind of field of
29:13
Speaker 1: research emerging around traumatic invalidation and chronic invalidation, and I
29:18
Speaker 1: am really interested in this concept because I think it's
29:22
Speaker 1: part of the autistic experience that gets missed so easily.
29:27
Speaker 1: And I think as parents, sometimes we move into comfort
29:30
Speaker 1: and sometimes we're trying to comfort our own anxiety or
29:32
Speaker 1: our kids, but exactly it ends up being invalidating, and
29:36
Speaker 1: what the child needs is a space for their reality
29:40
Speaker 1: to be validated. I mean, as autistic folks, we get
29:44
Speaker 1: a lot of micro invalidation, So even things like sensory
29:49
Speaker 1: like it's not too bright in here, or if we're
29:51
Speaker 1: you know, like one of my children is so sensitive
29:54
Speaker 1: to spice, and so it could be easy to be like, oh,
29:56
Speaker 1: it's not that spicy, but like for them, it really
29:58
Speaker 1: is that spicy. The sensory and validation that a lot
30:02
Speaker 1: of autistic people get again, it trains the body not
30:05
Speaker 1: to trust ourselves, and then because of social perception differences,
30:10
Speaker 1: it can also be common we can sense there's a
30:13
Speaker 1: conflict or something and then we'll ask about it, and
30:15
Speaker 1: a lot of non autistic people are a little bit
30:18
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with directly saying like, yes, something came up here.
30:23
Speaker 1: So there's also a lot of ways that our sensory
30:26
Speaker 1: perceptions are invalidated, and we already struggled to trust those.
30:30
Speaker 1: So anytime we can be truthful and honest and validating
30:35
Speaker 1: of even saying you know, things like this is a
30:38
Speaker 1: hard moment, or it makes sense you feel this way,
30:41
Speaker 1: like that's something that settles the nervous system of like, oh,
30:43
Speaker 1: I don't need to convince you that I'm struggling. And
30:47
Speaker 1: so there's actually been research. It took college students and
30:50
Speaker 1: had them do math equations that were really hard, and
30:53
Speaker 1: they were hooked up to kind of all kinds of biometrics,
30:59
Speaker 1: and they were either I've been a validating or invalidating response.
31:02
Speaker 1: So they were either told by the person like, yeah,
31:06
Speaker 1: this is a really hard math problem other people are
31:08
Speaker 1: struggle to or they were told you know, other people struggled,
31:12
Speaker 1: but not as much as you. And they measured the
31:15
Speaker 1: stress response, and people who were given validating responses their
31:20
Speaker 1: nervous system stress response started to go down. They did
31:24
Speaker 1: a series of six math problems where those who were
31:26
Speaker 1: given in validating they stayed at that threat mode. So, yeah,
31:31
Speaker 1: in validation. That is a great way we can support
31:35
Speaker 1: self care and reduce burnout is by being able to
31:38
Speaker 1: validate our kids and ourselves being able to validate ourselves.
31:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something I've been learning a lot about from
31:44
Speaker 2: my twenty something kids, and I've been trying to lean
31:49
Speaker 2: into you know, I know that this is true for you.
31:53
Speaker 2: I know that because a lot of time they'll say,
31:57
Speaker 2: you know, I shouldn't feel this way, this shouldn't be
31:59
Speaker 2: so hard for me, right, And I say, but that's
32:03
Speaker 2: what's true for you. You feel that way, that's valid
32:07
Speaker 2: because you're feeling it, it's happening, right, and really trying
32:10
Speaker 2: to lean into that more. I've learned a lot about
32:13
Speaker 2: what comes across that way.
32:15
Speaker 1: It's also valid that they don't want to be feeling
32:18
Speaker 1: that way. It's also valid that, like it's so hard
32:21
Speaker 1: for me, that this is hard for me. Yeah, and
32:24
Speaker 1: this is something I really learned. Danica Maddox. Doctor Maddox
32:29
Speaker 1: does a lot with the two E so Gifted and
32:31
Speaker 1: NED diversion space, and I learned a lot from them
32:36
Speaker 1: in this space around, especially for gifted children. In a
32:39
Speaker 1: conversation on our podcast, you gave a great example of
32:43
Speaker 1: you know, we it's easy to rush in when a
32:44
Speaker 1: child's doing an art project when they've made a mistake,
32:48
Speaker 1: say oh, it's beautiful, but for that child it might
32:50
Speaker 1: be so distressing. So a validating the response might be
32:54
Speaker 1: it didn't turn out the way you're hoping it did,
32:57
Speaker 1: and so like, it's okay that you have so much
33:00
Speaker 1: distress about the fact that it's not turning out the
33:02
Speaker 1: way you want it to. And that was an a
33:04
Speaker 1: homalone for me. I was realizing I was getting that
33:07
Speaker 1: part of validation wrong.
33:09
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah, I've learned a lot about validation as
33:13
Speaker 2: my kids have gotten older. Things that I thought I
33:16
Speaker 2: was being really helpful with, like I know you've got this.
33:19
Speaker 2: I know it's hard, but I know you've got this. Yeah,
33:21
Speaker 2: and that was being received as in validation, not validating
33:25
Speaker 2: that experience. So I'm so glad that we got to
33:29
Speaker 2: talk about that a little bit together because I think
33:31
Speaker 2: it's so important.
33:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be a great like visual like encouragement or validation,
33:36
Speaker 1: And it is hard and we're all going to get
33:38
Speaker 1: it wrong because it is a very fine line between
33:40
Speaker 1: what's encouraging, what's supporting resilience, and when is that cross
33:44
Speaker 1: into invalidation. Yeah.
33:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, tell everybody where they can find you online,
33:50
Speaker 2: find your book, your card deck, all that good stuff. Yeah.
33:54
Speaker 1: So we have a website Narrative Version Insights dot com,
33:57
Speaker 1: and we have lots of articles and visual guides and
34:00
Speaker 1: resources for parents as well as adults up there. And
34:03
Speaker 1: then for the books and the card decks, you can
34:06
Speaker 1: find links to those on our website, but also they're
34:08
Speaker 1: available at all major book outlets, so you can pretty
34:12
Speaker 1: much find them wherever you'd find books.
34:14
Speaker 2: Awesome, and I'll link it all up for everyone in
34:16
Speaker 2: the show notes as well, and I would encourage people
34:19
Speaker 2: to follow you on Instagram. It's very visual and I
34:22
Speaker 2: love that. I'm also always wanting to create visuals for everything.
34:26
Speaker 2: I just think it's so helpful and so I really
34:29
Speaker 2: enjoy that from you.
34:30
Speaker 1: Oh thank you. I appreciate that.
34:32
Speaker 2: So everybody can check that in the show notes and
34:34
Speaker 2: I'll see everyone next time. Take good care. I see you.
34:39
Speaker 2: You're doing hard and meaningful work and you don't have
34:43
Speaker 2: to do it alone. If you found this episode helpful,
34:46
Speaker 2: share it with someone who needs it and leave a
34:48
Speaker 2: quick review so others can find this support too. When
34:52
Speaker 2: you're ready for next steps, the Regulated Kids Project is
34:55
Speaker 2: here with the tools, coaching, and community to help you
34:59
Speaker 2: raise a more regulated, resilient child. Get more info at
35:04
Speaker 2: regulated kids dot com m