Latest / Beautifully Complex / 311: Fostering Self-Discovery for Your Autistic Kid, with Sol Smith, MS, MFA, EDS

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311: Fostering Self-Discovery for Your Autistic Kid, with Sol Smith, MS, MFA, EDS · Beautifully Complex

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Lots of times. If I do a video on TikTok
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: or Instagram and talk about traits, there will be people
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: who jump on there and say these are just human traits.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Guess what autistics are human? You know, and we all
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: experience some of these some of the time. The difference
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: with an autistic person is the persistence with which they
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: show up. It's different if somebody just finds Musac annoying
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: than if somebody goes like, oh, I can only go
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to Walmart during their sensory friendly hour from seven to eight.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from the trenches.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: of raising your atypical kid. Let's get started. Welcome back
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: everyone to Beautifully Complex. I am thrilled to have with
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: me today Soul Smith and we are going to talk
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: about his book as well as how to help our
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: neurodiversent kids to find their place to be authentic, to
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: take on self discovery so they can even figure out
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: what being authentic might look like for them. I'm really
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: excited to jump into this conversation. But will you start
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: by letting everybody know who you are, what you do,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: and of course the title of your book.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'm Soul Smith. I'm an autistic and ADHD
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: life coach, college professor for twenty four years, and I, yeah,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: have a book coming out. It's called The Autistics Guide
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to Self Discovery and it's you know, mainly talking to
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: late diagnosed autistics who are just sort of coming into
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: this world and you know, this new world of discovering
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: themselves and trying to see how to better make fits
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: for themselves. I also, I'm a parent of four neurodivergent
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: kids and have you know, a lot of experience in
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the world of education. And yeah, I'm really excited to
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: talk about all of this.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I have been able to read some of the book,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: probably thirty percent or so so far already, and it's
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: really engaging, Like you pulled me right into your world.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: And I already my neurodivergent kid is twenty two. But
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I had a lot of AHAs reading some of the
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: stories and some of the perspective that you were sharing
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: about him. And I've worked really hard to be the
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: parent who understands autism, who works with him on being
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: his true self and all these things. But the way
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: that you explain some things kind of from that insider
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: perspective really clicked for me. And Yeah, I think there's
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: going to be so many other things like that in
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: this conversation that they're going to help a lot of parents.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really glad about that. It like our kids
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: have a big advantage in that there's just a much
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: better vocabulary for self identification than we had, and certainly
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: better than you know, my parents' generation had. I imagine
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that you know, my mom would still probably argue as
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to whether or not my dad is on the spectrum,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: which is ridiculous. Just just you know, and once you
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: know the definition of all of that, it just it
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: really fits. And with my kids, like just their self
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: awareness of that. You know, studies have shown that the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: earlier you know, the happier you'll be in life, that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the better your contentment is because you don't assign what
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: appear to be shortcomings to shortcomings of yourself that you
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: see that, oh I fit differently into this world. I
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: don't compare myself to this arbitrary notion of success, and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you know, instead I have to find my own definitions
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of what all this stuff means and find my own way,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: and just by having that locus of control, which obviously
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: we have to find our own resources and create our
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: own resources for each other. I mean, just like this,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: you know, there's no centralized place to find all of
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: these things. And I think that's kind of what we're
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: in the process of doing now, is building for each
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: other all these different roadmaps. And that's part of what
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the book is about, part of what I have an
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: online community that's about that, and you know, part of
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: what your podcast here is about.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just hoping to find the comfort and being
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: who you are. And it's hard, Like this is hard work,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: especially when you feel like you maybe don't fit or
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: don't have a place.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely. There's so many different dots to connect
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: that it's easy to miss the fact that it's autism,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you know, like just sort of looking back, and you know,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I always felt like I faked my way through school
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: because I did it asignments differently than they told me to.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I'd start with the final draft and then
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I would make a sort of bad version of that
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: to be a rough draft that I'd make an outline
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: from that because you had to show all of your work.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: And I did the same thing with math. I would
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: put the answer and then i'd sort of like make
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: bad handwriting to try to show the work because I
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: just it was tedious. So I always felt like I
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: faked my way through school. Then I had jobs where
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I just had, you know, felt like I was doing
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a good job, and my students felt like I was
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: doing a good job, but my colleagues just never seemed
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: to approve of me after a few months, and I
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: felt like the only answer was to go to other jobs.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: And yet it always felt like I was just having
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: different episodes of bad luck at different places. And you
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: don't connect those two things. With the you know, tags
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: on your shirt bothering you, with music being too loud
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: in grocery stores, you know, with not being able to
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: touch cotton balls, like those don't seem like they would
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: have one underlying cause. But once you know that your
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: nervousness is different, all of these things have this big
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: underlying cause, and like memory is somehow connected to all
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of this. My point of view, the way I analyze things.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: So it's really interesting to sort of like see all
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: of this and start, you know, unwinding this thread and
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: seeing all of these differences. M hm.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: I also can't touch cotton balls.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Oh they're the worst.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: And when I read that in the book, I was like,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: I feel so seen. And wooden utensils. There are no
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: wooden utensils in our house. I cannot It just makes
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: me dry, like it's so crazy. And I also have
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: this symmetry thing like if I wet one hand, the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: other hand has to be wet too, right, And I,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: you know, I have these little things and you brought
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: this up in the book too, like that everybody has
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: some little trait that might seem autistic, but it doesn't
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: mean that we're all autistic. Do you want to explain
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: what that really means?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that you know, lots of times if I do
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: a video on TikTok or Instagram and talk about traits,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: there will be people who jump on there and say
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: these are just human traits, and it's like, guess what
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: autistics are human? You know, and we all experience some
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: of these some of the time. The difference with an
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: autistic person is the way these traits show up in
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: our life, the persistence with which they show up tend
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: to be such that it really can affect the way
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: that we choose to live, the way that we you know,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: occupy our time, the choices that we make every day.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: So once the traits are so abundant that you make
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: a totally different life choice based on it. You know,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: that's autism where it's different if somebody just finds musaic annoying.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Then if somebody goes like, oh, I can only go
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to Walmart during their sensory friendly hour from seven to eight.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a very big difference. And you know,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: it's easy to write this off because you know when
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: you have these bits and pieces, like it's like when
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: somebody says, I understand masking because you know, I mask
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: at the dentist and I have a customer service voice.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: And that's true. But we don't expect going to the
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: dentist or dealing with customer service to be necessarily a
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: fun or engaging experience where we're supposed to be our
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: authentic selves. But how about masking at a party or
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: masking at a family gathering. You know, there's lots of
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: things that are supposed to be relaxing, cutting loose, and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: enjoying yourself. That are tense and scary situations for autistics,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and we have a persona, We have a fake version
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: of ourselves that we feel like we have to put on.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: And that's really different than masking through a dental appointment.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Right right. I want to talk more about masking because
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I think this is something that's difficult for parents who
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: maybe are neurotypical to completely understand. And I can admit
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: that I'm one of those people that I don't quite
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and I think part of the reason is because I
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: have intensive social anxiety, and so I do put on
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: a front which I would consider masking because of the anxiety.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: So yeah, so like for me, it's hard to tease
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: apart when are we sort of performing in the role
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: when we go to work, you know, we interact with
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: our colleagues in a specific way versus I go to
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: work and I'm masking, and maybe that's more of the authenticity,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: but both don't feel really authentic. Like this is where
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I struggle. Help us tease this apart maybe a little bit, Okay,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: no for sure. And you know, well, first of all,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: just to say that there are some sorts of masks
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: that autistics wear that over time may become somewhat comfortable.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: You know, I always say that my sort of professor
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: persona is somewhat comfortable because there is a very clearly
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: defined role. You know, I'm standing up in front of
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: the class. I'm in control of the conversation. I don't
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: have to do a reciprocal back and forth where we
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: are trading different levels of vulnerability, or I don't have
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: to join somebody else's conversation and engage with their rules
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: or pacing. So we have these sort of really specific
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: roles that make it very easy for me to engage
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: with people and feel like I have a sort of
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: parasocial relationship with them. So that's sort of an easy
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like having an easy suit to put
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: on that it's comfortable to wear, and I don't mind
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: being that.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: With colleagues. It's a little bit different because colleagues you
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: have a sort of like work persona, but there's also
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: this element of that they're kind of trying to be
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: friends too, or there's at least a rhetoric of being friends,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and those are two very different worlds to me. So
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: that line between friendship and co worker is really hard
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and I'd much rather just not cross it. So if
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a co worker is like, you want to grab a
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: drink after work, I just always make up an excuse
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I don't because I don't know what we're going to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: talk about. I don't want to bring up my family,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about work stuff. And the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: minute that I sort of let my guard down and
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: let those two things interfere, I'm not sure exactly which
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: mask to wear at which time. So the difference really
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: is that a neurotypical will match other people's tone, vibe,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: atmosphere very instinctively. So just for example, there was an
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: experiment where they showed regular everyday social interactions on video
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to neurotypicals and to autistics, and in neurotypicals when they're
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: in the brain scanner watching these interactions, they saw that
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: their mirror neurons light up. So for them, they are
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: doing this sort of form of feeling as if they're
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: taking part in this interaction, feeling as if they sort
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: of like match what's going on here and the autistics,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: their mirror neurons are underactive and instead their mentalizing network
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: is lighting up, so they're very cognitively analyzing what's happening,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: you know. So it's like sort of like if you
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: can really understand, you know, how to play Mario Kart,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: you don't even remember which one's the gas or the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: brake anymore. If somebody says which one's the gas pedal,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Like you just put it in your
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: hand and do it where, you know. If you're just learning,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: you're really trying to figure this out. But we're always
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: just learning as autistics, we're always trying to match this.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: So like when you're building a friendship, for example, the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: number one predictor for friendship among neurotypicals is proximity and time.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: If you see somebody often you're close together, often you
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: become friends. And this is just you know, small talk.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: You feel each other out. You're kind of like lobbing
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: a ball back and forth. Then you slowly get a
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: little bit deeper and deeper, and autistics, this isn't how
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: conversation works. We don't see many of those layers of
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: depth and conversation. We see conversation just generally as a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: transfer of knowledge, as information exchange and small talk, which
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: is just the general observation of the immediate surroundings so
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: that people can converse and establish rapport without taking any
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: risks feels like a waste of time. So as things
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: get deeper, we have to sort of guess how much
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: vulnerability is being shown, how much trust is being shown,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: And you're really at risk with these different levels that
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: are happening at holding back and seeming too cold or
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: offering too much and seeming like you're oversharing. And this
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: makes it where building friendships is really feels like a difficult,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: unpaced thing to do, and is much safer for autistics
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to build friendships around common interests where we can both
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: talk about this, and that gives us something to sort
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: of build a rapport over before we risk being vulnerable
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: to each other about something. So yeah, So basically that
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: locus of control and sort of seeing these layers of
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: communication that are happening in a conversation and it's sort
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of like being color blind.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm connecting so much with so much from
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: what you're saying with my own kid, And that social
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: interaction is so exhausting if you don't have that connection
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: already between a shared interest or something like that. Right,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And so a lot of times social things are just draining.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Would you agree with that?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, definitely. You're just like, you're very busy analyzing things.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: You're very busy trying to figure it all out. I
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: noticed one thing. You know before you self diagnose and
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: you go, oh, autisks have trouble with friendship, But I don't.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: But I later realized I made all of my friends
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: through up through my teens through my brother. My brother
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: was very social and he introduced me to people, and
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: this gave me a role. I was the little brother.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I could drop in and out of friendships, I could
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: drop in and out of activities, and that was okay.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I had a sort of role to play. And since
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: getting married, I've made all of my friendships through my wife.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: She introduces me to people. I'm the husband, and again
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I have a role like I'm not expected to keep
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: up with text messages, I'm not expected to be at
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: every single function. So it puts me at this sort
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of safe distance while I can also enjoy the social interactions.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: But I also realized that it puts a certain strain
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: on my wife that she sort of has to sort
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: of watch and be a sort of ambassador sometimes at
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: these interactions. Whether she's explaining things or making sure I'm
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: being a little bit appropriate or something like that. So yeah,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: when I'm feeling very relaxed, it's usually because I'm in
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a comfortable role and I have a safe person there who's,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: you know, more or less kind of watching to help
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: regulate my executive function. And if I'm not, then yeah,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: it's really exhausting.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that you use the word ambassador because
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's sort of the role I took
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: as a parent. Often. I was, you know, a really
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: hyper vigilant, probably too much at times, I'll admit, in
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: watching over my kid's social interactions because they were hard
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: for him because people did misunderstand right, And so I
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: like thinking about it as an ambassador instead.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to know how much to do
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: because every parent who's ever gotten kids ready for school
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: in the morning knows that to some degree, you have
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to be your kid's executive function. You know that they
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: don't have executive function. You have to be their executive function.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: They're time blind, Like we end up really socializing our
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: kids into having an awareness of time and awareness of urgency,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's sort of a pity that we
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: do that. But yeah, for autistics, it goes several layers deeper,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: so it's harder to know exactly where those lines are,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and it can extend into adulthood pretty easily, And especially
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: with the spikey profile of autistics, where they're very good
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: at some things and very challenged at other things, then
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to know where to be protective and
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: where it's going to be embarrassing for them. So it's
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: it's hard to know exactly where that is.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: And you talked in the book about not being aware
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: of or not feeling embarrassed, of being aware of when
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: someone might be embarrassed in your situation, but not feeling
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: that embarrassment, and I found that really interesting.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I tend I seem to be somehow forgiven of that.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I just I tend to not get embarrassed, Like public
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: speaking is easy for me, things like that. There are
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: times where I'm under intense scrutiny that I would rather
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: not be there, but that feels much more like stress
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: or pressure than embarrassment. But definitely, yeah, I just I
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: can meet the conditions of embarrassment and recognize it without
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: really feeling that way. So yeah, sometimes there's some big
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: advantages like that, you know, where we say, oh, it's
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: a superpower. Yeah, I can really put myself out there,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and you know, people will say, I'll talk about imposter
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: syndrome and self confidence, and people will comment on my
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: videos you have imposter syndrome, you seem so confident, And
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm glad it comes across that way, right,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: you know it really is. That's my sort of lack
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: of self awareness in some ways too. That I can
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: get in front of this phone and talk, and it's
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: also years of practice of wanting to share the things
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I've learned, wanting to share knowledge, being in front of
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a classroom and establishing that relationship. So yeah, I very
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: much have the imposter syndrome and the lack of confidence,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: but I also can project that sense of those things
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: very well. So it's a bit of a dichotomy.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Sort of makes me think of fake it till you
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: make it. You know, you put on this side that
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: you're you're good, You've got it. Really inside, it's like, ah.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was working in my doctorate for education and
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I ran across this line that said that most educators
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: have impositive syndrome for the first five years of teaching,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and at this time it was my fifth year and
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh good, it's about to go away,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and it just did not at all, and I was like,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: oh darn yeah. So yeah, fake it till you make it.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: It's just kind of for autistics, we're faking it a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: lot of the time, just because yeah, we don't do
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: things the same way. We have a different you know,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the bottom up process is very different from a top
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: down process.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Can we talk a little bit about overthinking argumentativeness, these
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: things that I think society assigns to some autistic challenges
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: or behaviors that maybe aren't a good way of looking
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: at it. And I sort of had these AHAs as
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I was reading some of your book about you know,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: I feel like, oftentimes my own son just has so
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: much knowledge and he wants to share all of it
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: and he wants you to see his point of view,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: but he will keep going until I feel like, you know,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: I've been in a boxing match, right and I'm losing,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: And so how do we sort of reframe that, right
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: as the adult on the other side of that, help
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: us understand what's really going on?
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Uh, Yeah, what you're really seeing is is it's an
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: issue of context sensitivity. Neurotypicals seem to share a lot
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: of the same broad knowledge of context, so if there's
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a disagreement or an argument, say, it's usually less of
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: a misunderstanding and more of two different points of view
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: on the same landscape. And with autistics, it's very often
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: a misunderstanding because the context of what is being said
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: or why it's being said can be very very different.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: That we're anchored in a totally different set of meaning
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: than the neurotypical is, and we feel like we need
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: to explain all of the context. You know, this is
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: an issue of you know, sometimes it's intent versus impact. Right,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: we've really hurt somebody's feelings. We feel bad about that,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: but we feel even worse that they appear to feel
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: like we meant to hurt their feelings. So after apologizing
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: for hurting feelings, now we want to show how we
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: got there. So we began to explain the context of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: how we felt this way and ended up saying the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: thing that we said. And this can mean retreading some
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: old ground, and sometimes it can mean retreading years of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: old ground to establish a pattern of thinking and why
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: it would arise now and the neurotypical person on the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: other side of this conversation can be like, why are
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: you rehashing this? Why are you holding this against me?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And we're like, no, no, no, I'm not I don't
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: hold it against you. It's just that there was this
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: pattern and I thought this is the repeat of that pattern.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And so to us it doesn't feel personal. It feels
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: like this is something that happens with us sometimes and
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: it feels like we were getting into the same misunderstanding.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And to them, it feels like you're taking away my autonomy,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: my ability to make my own choices by saying I'm
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: stuck in a pattern and you're reading me like tea leaves,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, I read everybody like tea leaves,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you know, Like so it's hard to sort of separate
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: those things out. So a lot of times, you know,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: we really are searching for wanting to share more context,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: wanting to share where our point of view is coming from.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And sometimes we're seeking more context, so we can come
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: across as argumentative by questioning a lot. And this can
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: be in class, this can be in a disagreement where
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: we just want to have more and more information so
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: we can get a better idea of what is being
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: discussed here. You know, like math is hard for a
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: lot of autistic math classes because it's abstract and you're
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: doing these equations that don't have the numbers, aren't representative
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of anything, And it's like, if you can put this
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in context, then I might care about it, you know,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: if you can tell me why we're doing this, I
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: might care about it. But you come across as sounding
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: as if you are challenging the teacher to go why
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: does this matter? It feels like you're saying this doesn't matter,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: But I literally am asking them why does this matter?
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Like why would this be used? I want to know,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: because then I might be really fascinated with it, And
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: it can come across as as really questioning. And again
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: in the workplace, when you question your directions, it may
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: be because I don't have the full context of why
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: we're doing things this way and I would like to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: understand it better. But it sounds like you're challenging them. So, yeah,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of things to sort of rethink
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: about this, and yeah, really trying to sort of step
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: back and think, oh, is this one of these places
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: where the context is way off? And yeah, trying to
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: answer that can be really difficult at times, or.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Seeking context, like I hadn't counted the questioning or the
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: digging deeper or needing to know why with needing context
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: until you just explain that and it makes so much sense.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: And yeah, Peter Vermulin, I think it is. He talks
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: a lot about context to autism as well, and it's
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: a big deal. It's a big part of things I think.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Right now, it really is, and it's yeah, it's one
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: of those major things. And one of the reasons why
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: our brains are using so much more energy is because
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: we are always sort of rebuilding things from the ground
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: up by you know, bringing in so much context, where
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: neurotypical top down thinking is basically building shortcuts. You know,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: it's taking large amounts of context and then boiling them
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: down into a concept that is, you know, more or
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: less devoid of nuance or detail so that it's easy
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: to think about. Because no matter what brain you have,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: its number one job is to think less because it
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: uses lots of energy to think and it knows this,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: so it wants to think less. And yeah, so this
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: can really be again exhausting for autistics.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, before we close and wrap up. I want
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about helping parents other neurotypical
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: adults to I want to word it properly like so
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: so often I hear parents say, but my kid has
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: to exist in the real world, but my kid can't
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: speak to their employer that way, right, And so we
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: need to understand where that balance is between really guiding
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: our kid to be able to find their own success
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: and joy whatever that looks like for them within this world,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: but also being neuroaffirming, also supporting authenticity, right, And where
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: do we find that balance? It can be so difficult.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I think it takes a lot more patience than most
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: people realize. I think that you have to really as
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: much as possible, and this may be philosophical or based
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: on my own experience, as much as possible, stay out
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: of their way and let them do what is interesting
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: to them and see if this is going to take
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: them further. And if I can just share the example
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: of my third kid, my daughter and Rubik's cubing. She
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: during the pandemic, watched this documentary about speed cubers and
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: there was this autistic kid, Max Park, who became the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: world champion speed cuber and it's this very wholesome documentary
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: about him and his idol who lives in Australia and
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: their rivals, but very friendly rivals, and they've grown to
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: be great friends. And she said, my life's goal is
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to meet these guys, and she six months later met
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: them because she was going up against them, like she
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: started working on this so much so she wanted to
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: go back to school. She goes back to school after
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the lockdown, but she was so completely shy, so completely
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: closed off from people. She wouldn't talk to other kids.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: She asked that we tell the teachers not to say
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: her name out loud. She would wear a mask and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: she would not take it off even for lunch, just
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: completely shy. But we just stepped back and let her
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: do this, and we supported this cubing thing a lot.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: She found competitions, would go to it, and from this
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it took months of her meeting other kids who were
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: also neurodivergent and forming friendships at these speedcubing competitions before
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: she found her voice and found herself there and found
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: this confidence. And now she just really is very social
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: at school. She's found her way. She used to think
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: that just the classes were dumb and everything. And now
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: she's identified a college she wants to go to because
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: they have a great cubing program so or a Cuban
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: club and they're very selective. So she has a four
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: point nine to one GPA that she is determined to
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: get into this. And it all came from really chasing
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: this interest of hers. And it would be so easy
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to say, Okay, you've done your cubing, now we need
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: to work on your school work. You know, just a
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: few months into that, we very much could have said
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: you're spending hours a day on this and you're not
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: studying your history. But by letting her just keep doing this,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: she really found her sense of control and she found
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: that we felt like what she's interested in is important. Yeah,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: so she feels taken seriously and trusted, and it bloomed
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: into something much bigger. So I do think we need
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: to like sort of step back and make them feel
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: like what they're into is important first, and that the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: stuff about you know, how you're going to fit into society.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I do think a lot of that can come later
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: when they have a better sense of themselves rather than
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: yourself isn't good enough until you've done this for everybody else,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And we need to be so open with
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: those timelines. Yeah, you know, we need to quit expecting
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: that kids at certain ages are going to have certain skills.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: And we talk about this a lot, we talk about
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: neurodivergent kids, that it's developmental delay, that there's different timelines
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: there and different skills and things, but we still sort
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: of get stuck at that eighteen you're an adult spot,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: and we have to be willing to give people more
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: time to do it their way and in their own time.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: That's how they're going to get there. If you were
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: stressing your daughter and putting a lot of pressure on
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: her to not care so much about cubing, what's going
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: to happen. She's still not going to be maybe developing skills,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: she's still not going to be learning at school. She's
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: not gonna be open, she's not gonna have that confidence.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: These are all things that lead us to that point.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Right right, And Yeah, in autistics especially, we have these
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: spikey profiles were very good at some things, we fall
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: behind in others. In this myth of like how you
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: should be at different ages doesn't really check out because
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you know, we had this idea that that's being well rounded,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: but that's just how neurotypicals seem to be. It's not
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: necessarily the way one should be, and it can look
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: lots of different ways. I mean, when I did all
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: of my psychological testing, my psychiatrist was very excited to
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: tell me my IQ. He was impressed and thought I'd
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: be impressed and thought this was cool, and I was like, Okay,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: that's cool. He was not so excited to tell me
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: that my social acuity, my ability to pick up on
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: social cues, was about that of a seven year old,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, that makes sense, you know. So,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a huge disparity. And one of our
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: family friends who we spend a lot of time with,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: we met in the cubing world. She's eighteen years old
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and she's completing her master's in quantum computing.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, And all of her colleagues in this program
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: are in the thirties and forties, and they are intimidated
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: by her. They haven't made friends with her, and they
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of sympathy for They just think
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: that the world has been handed to her, that it
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: must be so easy, being so smart, and the poor
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: thing feels very isolated and alone, has a difficult time
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: making friends already, And how do you tell that to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: these people? You know, she looks like she has it
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: all together, so we can look one way and then
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: just you know, our internal worlds can be very difficult
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: falling apart, and it's hard to find the right people
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: to talk to and divulge this stuff.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: That's why it's so important to look at the whole person.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: You know. We use all these different things as standards
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: of measure you know, there's assessments and IQ tests to
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: measure intelligence, right, there's these measures of social acuity. There's
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: just measures of you know, like people think the more
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: friends you have, the right, the more social you are
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: or whatever. And it's like no, like there's different aspects
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: to all of us, and no one is high marks
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: at everything. It's just not possible. It's not human. And
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: so yeah, that just reminded me of like we have
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: to really be looking at the whole person and not
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: get fixated on one aspect or another. Right, it's really
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: really key. Yeah, tell everybody where they can find the book.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure when it's publishing. Remind me of that
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: I've forgotten, and also where they can find you online.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: The book, well, it comes out April twenty seconds, so
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: it should be out.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Now, so we have it's out by the time they
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: hear this.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: That's right, So that's exciting. And it can be found
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: on any online bookstore, and you should be able to
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: order it through your own independent bookstore if it's not there.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: And you can find me online at professorsoul dot com.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: And you can also find my community where we have
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of autistic and ADHD people come together to
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: try and build a better sense of self and better
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: sense of direction together at Neurospicycommunity dot com and we
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: have people from dozens of countries. It's gotten to be
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: a really great place to meet and talk and share.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Love that and I will link all of that up
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: in the show notes for everyone. Thank you at PARENTINGADHD
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Autism dot com slash three one point one for episode
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: three hundred and eleven. It has been so uplifting and
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: hopeful and ieopening to have this conversation with you. I
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: can't wait to finish the book and I can't wait
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: for the parents out there to read it and really
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: start to connect some of the things that they're seeing
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: in a different way, to understand them in a different way,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: and to reframe them, because it's really what this parenting
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: is all about is reframing so many things and being
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: open to letting our kids lead. And you have really
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: illustrated why that's so important and why that works as well,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: which I think is an important key aspect of that.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: So I thank you so much. Thank you for the
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: book and for being open with your own story. It
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: really it changes lives and it's an amazing thing.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, really appreciate it.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I will see everybody in the next episode. Take good care.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me on the Beautifully Complex podcast. If
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share, and don't
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: forget to check out my online courses and parent coaching
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: at PARENTINGADHD and Autism dot com and at the Behavior
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Revolution dot com.