Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / Navigating Autism In Life Insight Into Autistic Lives

Transcript

Navigating Autism In Life Insight Into Autistic Lives · Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD

• 0:00
  Glad what's going on Welcome back to another Saturday live.
• 0:02
  I know it's probably it's not Saturday right now and it it
• 0:05
  should be Saturday when you watch this video, but you know
• 0:07
  me. Hey ho, what's going on?
• 0:09
  It's down here and I have a fantastic guest and they've been
• 0:12
  a friend of mine for quite some time.
• 0:14
  I think probably since they started on social media right.
• 0:17
  And this is purple Ella. You probably may have seen some
• 0:21
  of their videos or if you're hiding under a rock somewhere,
• 0:25
  you probably have never seen their videos.
• 0:27
  But great videos, a lot of packed content.
• 0:30
  I want to talk all about their journey and everything to do
• 0:33
  with them. So Ella, would you like to take
• 0:35
  it away and tell us a little bit about you and and who you are?
• 0:37
  Yeah, hi. Thank you for inviting me, Dan.
• 0:40
  Yeah. And so I'm Ella, known commonly
• 0:43
  everywhere on the Internet as purple Ella.
• 0:45
  And I received a late diagnosis of autism after the diagnosis of
• 0:50
  my child, one of those people, and then was diagnosed with ADHD
• 0:55
  about two years ago. So multiply neurodivergent.
• 0:59
  I actually received a dyspraxia diagnosis in childhood as well.
• 1:02
  So I've always been in the neurodivergent camp and I have a
• 1:06
  background as a performer. So it kind of made sense to me
• 1:10
  to combine the skills that I had with my complete and passionate
• 1:15
  interest in autism and then ADHD and kind of put the two together
• 1:18
  and start making videos. Mostly because I, I guess I like
• 1:23
  to think of myself as one of the oldest people talking about
• 1:25
  autism on the Internet. And I feel like that, that
• 1:28
  demographic of people that were diagnosed, you know, really
• 1:31
  late, late 30s, forties, 50s, needed someone who'd been
• 1:35
  through the things that they've been through.
• 1:37
  And so I decided to do it and make that be me.
• 1:40
  And it's it's been a lot of fun. Amazing and it's super
• 1:43
  important. I think that type of, you know,
• 1:46
  I, I was diagnosed at 26, which is still relatively young when
• 1:50
  you consider to people in the faces of folsage, right?
• 1:53
  And so, you know, I have a demographic for those people who
• 1:56
  who listen to my concept, but in, in terms of your, your kind
• 1:59
  of niche demographic, that is still such a voice that needs to
• 2:02
  be heard. You know, I, I hear so many
• 2:03
  stories are so similar to yours. And I just think, Oh my
• 2:06
  goodness, you know, And so it's great that you can share that
• 2:08
  kind of journey and that and the stories and the stuff you've
• 2:11
  been through, because there's so much value to add to people,
• 2:13
  right? And then and, and that's really,
• 2:15
  really good. So your main platform, What are
• 2:19
  your main platforms? My main platforms at this point
• 2:22
  are YouTube and TikTok. YouTube kind of deliberately,
• 2:25
  and I think we actually met in, I'm going to say 2016.
• 2:28
  I remember that what actually happened was that I put out a
• 2:31
  tweet being like, I want to do YouTube, but it's too scary and
• 2:34
  I can't do it. And you very kindly came back to
• 2:37
  me and set up a Zoom session and basically helped me have the
• 2:40
  confidence to go ahead and do it.
• 2:41
  So thanks for that. You're welcome.
• 2:43
  And then I went on TikTok for kind of a laugh, really.
• 2:46
  I just thought, you know, pandemic like everyone else, and
• 2:48
  that's kind of grown. And I'm really enjoying that as
• 2:50
  well. But I also put a reasonable
• 2:53
  amount of content out onto Instagram.
• 2:55
  I think I I see most of your content on Instagram every now
• 2:58
  and then I see YouTube stuff off, but I think Instagram is
• 3:00
  kind of like, I don't know what it is something like like I feel
• 3:04
  like you fit really well with Instagram and and TikTok.
• 3:07
  I don't know what it is. Maybe it's maybe it's the type
• 3:08
  of content because it's quite, it's quite diverse across those
• 3:12
  two platforms, which is really, really good.
• 3:14
  We actually met in real life as well.
• 3:16
  We, we did, we've done quite a few things, haven't we?
• 3:19
  Together now? But we were talking in the the
• 3:21
  Autism Show, I think in. It was 2017.
• 3:25
  I came up to Manchester to speak.
• 3:27
  That was the one, yeah, yeah. Manchester.
• 3:29
  Yeah. I'm actually there this weekend.
• 3:31
  Are you talking in the Manchester one this week?
• 3:33
  No, I managed to completely mess that up.
• 3:35
  I was invited to speak at the autism show, got the dates
• 3:37
  wrong, thought I was going to be away.
• 3:38
  I'm actually not going to be away.
• 3:40
  But obviously everything's, you know, sorted now.
• 3:42
  So no, not this year, but I hope it goes really well for you.
• 3:45
  Oh yeah. Well, it's first one back since
• 3:47
  the pandemic, so I'm very excited about that.
• 3:49
  But yeah, it's just, it's all, it gets a bit crazy when I do
• 3:52
  the autism shows because we get Sonic, we want to kind of take
• 3:54
  selfies and talk and stuff and that kind of, it takes up a lot
• 3:57
  of like, especially when we did, we did Birmingham the last time,
• 4:01
  I think it was 2019. And, and it was just this like,
• 4:06
  I don't know, a hundred, 200 people just like queued up and
• 4:08
  it was like, Oh my goodness. And a national.
• 4:10
  So it's excited to have to kind of come in and help organise it.
• 4:12
  It was just a bit crazy. You know, it was chaos.
• 4:13
  And I wasn't burnout for about a week afterwards.
• 4:16
  It was just nuts. So we've kind of got a plan for
• 4:18
  this one. So hopefully fingers crossed is
• 4:19
  going to be a bit more smoother. And yeah, but yeah, it was
• 4:24
  really fun actually when I met you and I was like, Oh yeah.
• 4:25
  And I always remember, yeah, it was like, it was like purple.
• 4:30
  And it was really cool because yeah, we did that session on
• 4:33
  Zoom. It's, oh, might even Skype back
• 4:35
  in the day, not. Even have been Skype.
• 4:37
  Yeah, I remember it was you had like really no kind of prior
• 4:40
  motivation to help out this random stranger on the Internet.
• 4:43
  So that's always kind of stayed with me that you put in the time
• 4:45
  to help me with that. Yeah, you know what it it was, I
• 4:48
  think, you know, because I started on YouTube until the 13
• 4:50
  and I had no idea what I was doing.
• 4:52
  And I wish somebody had told me. And so when I see people who got
• 4:54
  the the the gap and go and say like, I want to do something.
• 4:57
  I just need a bit of, I'm like, look, I'll, I'll help you, you
• 5:00
  know what I mean? Like, why, why wouldn't that,
• 5:02
  you know what I mean? Like if we're all trying to get
• 5:03
  along in the day against me, it's not a competition.
• 5:06
  No, it's a community. And so it's kind of like, how do
• 5:09
  I, how do I help as many people, you know?
• 5:10
  That's why, you know, I love doing that.
• 5:12
  So yeah, you're more than welcome.
• 5:13
  You can always have a refresher if you ever want to catch up
• 5:15
  again. It's so much more stuff to talk
• 5:17
  about. But anyway.
• 5:19
  I think I'm kind of set. I'm kind of happy sitting on
• 5:22
  YouTube. But yeah, yeah, I definitely
• 5:23
  feel like I ran with the advice that you gave me and it wasn't.
• 5:27
  Yeah, yeah. And you know, to be fair,
• 5:29
  nothing which has changed, you know, we do, it's pretty much
• 5:31
  the same thing. Each is basically the same.
• 5:33
  But we don't bore everybody. We are technical nonsense.
• 5:36
  So. So tell us about I would also
• 5:38
  know about the, the, the, the autism process that you went
• 5:40
  through, the diagnosis process and what it was like, especially
• 5:44
  later on in life. I mean, like, how did it feel?
• 5:46
  I don't know, sometimes talk about feelings, but like how?
• 5:48
  What were your thoughts during that process, that time period?
• 5:52
  Well, I guess, I mean, it's kind of wild when you think that I,
• 5:55
  you know, went to university, got married, had three children
• 5:58
  and started a career completely unaware that I was autistic, but
• 6:02
  I was suffering from quite significant mental health
• 6:04
  problems. There's a lot of people who are
• 6:06
  late diagnosed end up, you know, doing, which is always side
• 6:10
  note, my argument for why diagnosis is important
• 6:12
  essentially. And every time I'd seen a
• 6:16
  psychiatrist, they'd genuinely been quite puzzled by me because
• 6:20
  as you know, I'm quite an upbeat person.
• 6:23
  But I was telling them that I was struggling and it just kind
• 6:25
  of didn't make sense to them, the things that I was
• 6:27
  describing. And then I had children and my
• 6:31
  eldest child was displaying some real kind of stereotypical
• 6:34
  traits, I guess of autism, you know, lining things up, spinning
• 6:37
  wheels, echolalia, stimming. So she, she was diagnosed and
• 6:44
  even then I didn't really think anything of it because we do
• 6:47
  have older autistic members in our family.
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  So I just sort of thought, oh, well, you know, it's, it's kind
• 6:51
  of comes through from, from granddad essentially, who was an
• 6:54
  engineer, shockingly. And yeah.
• 6:58
  And then literally one day I was kind of driving her somewhere
• 7:02
  and I'd, I'd planned on parking in a particular spot.
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  And when I got there, the whole of that parking area had been
• 7:08
  turned to residence only parking.
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  And I that had what I now recognized as an autistic
• 7:13
  meltdown because I could not figure out what to do in the
• 7:17
  absence of the plan I'd already made.
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  And in that moment, literally, I went, Oh my God, I'm autistic.
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  It was a real kind of lightning bolt moment.
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  And of course, then I went through the like, I mean, what
• 7:26
  are you being ridiculous? But, you know, stage point.
• 7:30
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, have I lost my marbles and
• 7:35
  my friends and all my friends were like, Oh my God, did you
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  not realize? Thank.
• 7:39
  You so much, yeah. Yeah.
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  But then, yeah, I think I was really, really lucky.
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  I went from kind of that realization to accessing an
• 7:47
  assessment and a diagnosis within three months, which is,
• 7:50
  you know, on the NHS, completely miraculous at this point.
• 7:53
  Yeah, that really is miraculous. Yeah, yeah.
• 7:55
  So I was lucky. So I didn't have that period of
• 7:58
  time where I was kind of self diagnosed, I guess, if you like,
• 8:00
  which is why I really try to support the self diagnosed
• 8:03
  community because I feel like that would have been really,
• 8:05
  really hard. And yeah, and the guy that
• 8:08
  assessed me basically was like, well, this is not going to be a
• 8:10
  hard one, is it? You know, read into that what
• 8:13
  you will. And then as I'm sure you know,
• 8:15
  Dan, then there's a quite a long period of time, isn't there, of
• 8:18
  processing that? Yeah, yeah, that's, that is a
• 8:21
  long process. And also I feel like there was
• 8:24
  the, it's not just the processing, it's the processing
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  and updating people, you know what I mean?
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  And I feel like, and it sounds a bit weird of being people, but
• 8:31
  you know, say to your parents or seeing kind of like your family
• 8:33
  members or whatever. Like so this is, I've been to
• 8:38
  see it here. And kind of like, and then they,
• 8:40
  they kind of go, oh, you know, it's kind of like one of those
• 8:43
  things, one of the things they found most interesting with,
• 8:45
  with my personal diagnosis. And I'd love, love to know if
• 8:48
  you had this kind of experience is I told some people, I'm like,
• 8:50
  I love that I treat you any differently.
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  And they have this kind of weird attitude, like they know best
• 8:54
  for you. And it's like you're not
• 8:57
  listening to the point here, you know?
• 9:00
  And I found it quite, almost kind of they dismiss it.
• 9:04
  They dismissed it, you know, they said, oh, you're just you
• 9:06
  and you just, and that's it. I'm not cheating any
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  differently. You don't come at me with these
• 9:09
  labels. And I was like, oh, OK.
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  And it was just a bit, that was a bit of a backhand slack,
• 9:13
  really. Did you come across anybody like
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  that? Yeah, yeah, definitely.
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  I mean, I'd already encountered that with having been given kind
• 9:19
  of mental health diagnosis of like, oh, you don't need a
• 9:21
  label, blah, blah, blah, blah. But my take on it, I haven't
• 9:24
  given it quite a lot of thought, is that people are kind of
• 9:26
  trying to reassure you that you're OK and that they accept
• 9:30
  you in a bit of a backhanded way of like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:33
  But you're but you're fine and you're just the same as everyone
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  else when they don't realize that what they're actually doing
• 9:38
  is invalidating the challenges that you've had.
• 9:41
  Yes, that's a perfect way to say it.
• 9:44
  I've I've had that and, and it's yeah, nobody says nobody speaks
• 9:47
  about that. But so thank you so much Allah,
• 9:48
  for saying that, that that is a perfect.
• 9:51
  That's exactly what it is. They they're they're they're
• 9:54
  they're qualifying your what you're saying.
• 9:56
  But they're also taking away the, the, the, the not the
• 10:00
  power, but the, the, the, the accreditation that you've just
• 10:03
  given, right? They qualify and take it away.
• 10:04
  They'd say, yes, I understand, but you know, you're fine,
• 10:07
  you're OK, you know you're doing well, aren't you?
• 10:09
  You say, what are you talking about?
• 10:11
  Like it's not for you to assess really, is it?
• 10:13
  I think it says more about what their view of what autism is, is
• 10:17
  than it does about you, because they obviously see autism as
• 10:20
  being a negative label, so they don't want to.
• 10:23
  It's like the equivalent of saying, oh, yeah, yeah, but you
• 10:25
  don't really smell. You smell fine, right?
• 10:29
  But we know that that's not the case and that autism is, you
• 10:32
  know, a positive label for people like us.
• 10:35
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And I, but I think a lot of that
• 10:38
  kind of does stem from maybe when, when they think about
• 10:41
  autism, they've probably seen quite, you know, kids with
• 10:43
  severe difficulties or severe needs or they'll have a mixed
• 10:46
  complex, you know, maybe they'll have global learning disorder
• 10:49
  with like physical disability and autism.
• 10:52
  You say it's, it's kind of like, you know, they, they, they don't
• 10:55
  see it from where, where they're coming from.
• 10:57
  And then when we say about it, then they're just like, oh,
• 11:00
  well, that's not what I, you know, it's kind of a bit like,
• 11:02
  well, it's not for you to decide really.
• 11:04
  And I always say those people, they kind of like, oh, I
• 11:06
  wouldn't, I wouldn't know, you know what I mean?
• 11:08
  I wouldn't know. You're just like, what are you
• 11:09
  talking about? Like, are you a clinical
• 11:10
  psychiatrist? Are you a doctor?
• 11:12
  No, so shut up. Like move along, you know what I
• 11:14
  mean? It's like, and I'm quite blunt
• 11:15
  with things like that. You know, I don't really care to
• 11:17
  be honest. It's because it's, it's kind of
• 11:20
  like you either you've either understand what I'm saying or
• 11:23
  move on, you know what I mean? And that's kind of, that's kind
• 11:25
  of it really. Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:27
  I agree. But I think there's like a wider
• 11:29
  picture there, isn't there? And picking up on something you
• 11:31
  said earlier of people wanting to tell us what we need, I think
• 11:34
  there's a wider picture there of wider society, businesses, you
• 11:39
  know, hospitals, wherever it is that we go, kind of go, oh,
• 11:42
  autism is this and therefore autistic people need this
• 11:46
  without recognizing. And I think that the absolutely
• 11:48
  best autism training we can give the world is like, autism is
• 11:52
  this, but learn about the person you're talking to.
• 11:55
  Don't have assumptions. 100% it's the it's the speak to them
• 12:00
  directly and see what they need. It's that that's rough.
• 12:03
  Really how you'll get the best out job was funny.
• 12:05
  I had I was doing AI think I did a presentation.
• 12:08
  I was doing a consultation with somebody and they and they asked
• 12:12
  what's the best way I can support this employee in the
• 12:14
  state and someone would just ask them, you know, it doesn't take
• 12:18
  a genius to figure this out, But people have, like you said, they
• 12:20
  have this pre kind of this notion that they think that
• 12:23
  there's going to be a simpler solution to just blanket
• 12:26
  everybody the same and say, oh, this is this is what they need.
• 12:29
  They'll just do that. But there's more, there's more,
• 12:31
  there's more individual kind of like issues that that you'll
• 12:35
  need to address. So moving on slightly.
• 12:38
  You're you're married and your husband.
• 12:42
  Are they Neri diverse or? No, I'm married to a
• 12:45
  neurotypical person, which is good in that he's really great
• 12:51
  at making phone calls for me and you know, that kind of stuff.
• 12:56
  But it does come with its own set of challenges because, you
• 12:59
  know, if you look at Doctor Damian Milton's theory and the
• 13:03
  double, the double empathy problem, obviously in a marriage
• 13:06
  with someone who is neurotypical, we come across
• 13:09
  that, you know, that communication problem and that
• 13:11
  difference in processing and, and, and that can be
• 13:14
  challenging, but, but it's great.
• 13:16
  You know, we've been married for gosh, I think it'll be 21 years
• 13:19
  next month. Wow.
• 13:20
  Congratulations. Thanks.
• 13:22
  Oh, what a fantastic time. So, so how has, how had the, how
• 13:27
  did the diagnosis impact your marriage or your relationship?
• 13:31
  Did it at all or, or was it kind of like a, yeah, let's you know,
• 13:34
  that's awesome. We understand it now.
• 13:35
  Was it kind of like a, was there a transitional period where they
• 13:37
  had to kind of like your husband had to really understand what
• 13:40
  was going on? Because when I was diagnosed, I
• 13:43
  actually didn't know anything about autism, which was really
• 13:45
  funny because I literally knew nothing about it.
• 13:47
  And I was like, oh, you know, stressed upon this thing.
• 13:49
  And I'm like, you know, there's always chronic attacks.
• 13:51
  And then to my partner, it was kind of like, what does that
• 13:54
  mean? You know what I mean?
• 13:55
  So we had an interesting time. What was it like for you?
• 13:57
  Yeah, so. Oh, sorry, just to be switching
• 14:00
  the board. So you're you're you were with
• 14:02
  your current partner before you were diagnosed.
• 14:04
  OK. So you went through kind of a
• 14:06
  similar thing? Yeah, I guess.
• 14:08
  Well, I mean, I would say I'm not sure we'd still be married
• 14:11
  if I hadn't been diagnosed. It's definitely been that kind
• 14:13
  of significant because you know, you, you keep hitting those same
• 14:18
  communication barriers without really realizing you're hitting
• 14:21
  them because you're both misunderstanding each other, but
• 14:24
  not necessarily recognizing you're misunderstanding each
• 14:26
  other. So just rowing essentially.
• 14:28
  Once we were diagnosed, he was able to learn about autism.
• 14:33
  He went to us through a few autism support group things for
• 14:37
  like partners of autistic people and he didn't really kind of
• 14:40
  find that very helpful because he was like, I don't really want
• 14:42
  to go and moan about you once a week in a room with a bunch of
• 14:45
  other people. So that was reassuring that, you
• 14:48
  know, he obviously enjoys being with me.
• 14:50
  But yeah, I mean, it's been, it's been a very long learning
• 14:54
  process. I've had my diagnosis now, but
• 14:55
  what is it? 7 years maybe.
• 14:57
  And we're still learning about how that works between us.
• 15:03
  But but with that learning and with that, like, energy comes
• 15:07
  like a really great, deep understanding and love for each
• 15:09
  other That's, you know, that's amazing.
• 15:11
  And he always says, my husband is someone who gets bored
• 15:14
  really, really easily. So he always says that, you
• 15:16
  know, I'm like, oh, my gosh, you could have married someone
• 15:19
  really much more straightforward than me.
• 15:21
  And he's like, yeah. But then I just got bored.
• 15:22
  You always keep it interesting. So that's.
• 15:25
  Good, that's awesome. Much way to heaven sounds like.
• 15:28
  Yeah, for sure. Oh.
• 15:30
  Definitely. So how do you like, how do you
• 15:34
  get stuff done? Like I'll be blunt, how do you
• 15:36
  get shit done in a day? I have ADHD and a Nordson
• 15:39
  diagnosis and I have OCD as well and I'm dyslexic.
• 15:42
  I mean, it's just a whole kind of cake of nonsense.
• 15:45
  Sometimes I'm just like, I just can't get out.
• 15:46
  But yeah, so to like, you know, things like executive function
• 15:52
  and an organization and getting things done and meeting
• 15:55
  appointments and getting work done and organizing my team and
• 15:58
  just like inside with family, you know, going to eat.
• 16:00
  How do you do all these things? What are your kind of hacks?
• 16:02
  Oh gosh, I wish I had a magic cancer.
• 16:04
  If you I really did, I would say getting that ADHD diagnosis has
• 16:08
  been really helpful. So I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD
• 16:10
  till two years ago, even though I had such a classic ADHD
• 16:14
  really, really strongly getting that diagnosis.
• 16:18
  And to be honest with you, getting the meds that accompany
• 16:20
  that diagnosis has been really, really helpful.
• 16:23
  Because before, what I recognize now is before I was spending
• 16:27
  three times as long to do the same amount of stuff because I
• 16:30
  was so chaotic in my approach. So when I got my ADHD diagnosis,
• 16:34
  I spent like a year trying to develop the perfect
• 16:37
  organizational system like every ADHD does, right?
• 16:39
  We actually do stuff. I'll just work on the system
• 16:42
  that will. Make lists for lists.
• 16:44
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. I tried all the computer
• 16:46
  programs, you know, Notion, and then bullet journaling and all
• 16:49
  this and that. And eventually what I've come up
• 16:52
  with is the really most straightforward thing in the
• 16:54
  world. I literally get up in the
• 16:56
  morning and I write a manageable To Do List and I write my
• 16:59
  schedule and I figure out where that stuff's gonna fit in.
• 17:02
  And I use Pomodoro technique, which is where you set a timer
• 17:06
  for a certain amount of time, turn your phone off, don't do
• 17:08
  anything other than what you're doing.
• 17:09
  And I kind of do that and chunk the day like that.
• 17:12
  And there are days when that works and I'm really efficient
• 17:15
  and there are days when I find myself suddenly doing something
• 17:18
  that was not in the plan and go hang on.
• 17:21
  Well, I just lost two hours in Stardew Valley.
• 17:23
  This was not what I was supposed to be doing.
• 17:25
  It's like rolling with the punches, I think.
• 17:26
  And have self compassion that you're going to get it wrong
• 17:29
  sometimes. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:31
  Don't beat yourself up right, right.
• 17:33
  Yeah, I get, I get that and I, I totally I sympathize as well and
• 17:37
  I, I'm very much a tech guy, so I have to use even though I have
• 17:39
  made analog lists to kind of get stuff done.
• 17:41
  But but but one of these apps I use called streaks, it's
• 17:44
  fantastic. Actually.
• 17:45
  It kind of like it does that thing you put a task on and it
• 17:47
  makes this timer for you and so it kind of locks your phone to
• 17:51
  oh, I do I put a focus mode on my phone and I and I have this
• 17:53
  visual like task countdown thing so I can get so that that is
• 17:58
  really good. I think that, you know, since
• 18:00
  you're doing that as well, I think that's probably is where
• 18:03
  we kind of most the ADHD peeps will kind of go to that form of
• 18:08
  procedure to kind of get things done.
• 18:10
  But I do agree as well, medication is a godsend.
• 18:13
  I mean, like honest to God, like I, I started medication really
• 18:18
  late in my diagnosis. I started in 1020.
• 18:22
  At the same time as me then. Oh.
• 18:24
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just January 2020 and I, I've
• 18:29
  never honestly like the, it's like night and day, you know,
• 18:32
  like, so I and I get, and another thing is like, because I
• 18:36
  couldn't get focused on stuff, I get, I get really depressed
• 18:38
  because I couldn't learn the things I wanted to learn.
• 18:41
  And, and I get really kind of like a little tone of mood.
• 18:44
  And so it was just like this horrible cycle of kind of going
• 18:47
  in and out of the crash. It was horrible.
• 18:49
  And then as soon as the medication kicked in and I kind
• 18:52
  of documented it on YouTube, I was like, look, I'm going to
• 18:54
  start it now. I'm not like I've been skeptical
• 18:55
  of medicine. It's just that I didn't want to
• 18:56
  take metaphor because I didn't really feel like I needed to.
• 18:58
  But they came to a point where I was like, OK, something's got to
• 19:01
  give, you know? And, and I just and my son was
• 19:03
  born in 2018. So I had this little kid who
• 19:06
  really needed me to really be focused, you know, and so I was
• 19:10
  like, oh goodness. So I was like, let's try
• 19:12
  medication. And you know what?
• 19:13
  Amazing. Like I can't even, I'm just
• 19:16
  like, wow. And I'm not advocating for
• 19:17
  people to take medication. I'm just saying that if it works
• 19:18
  for you, it works for you, you know, And I think that to me,
• 19:21
  and I, and I agree what you're saying, like there's certain
• 19:23
  people that work well with it. And I think, I think that's a
• 19:25
  good thing. I think that's a really tricky
• 19:27
  thing when you talk about meds, don't you?
• 19:28
  Because for me, as well as the sort of focus aspect, I've also
• 19:31
  been given a level of emotional regulation that I've never had
• 19:34
  before, which has enabled me to stay calm enough to do work.
• 19:37
  So I suppose it helps focus as well because I'm not weeping on
• 19:39
  the floor twice a day. But when you talk about
• 19:42
  medication, you've got to be so careful.
• 19:44
  Haven't you just sort of say, you know, it's not for everyone?
• 19:46
  I'm not a doctor, I'm not advising people to take meds,
• 19:49
  but there is definitely anecdotal lot of people on a on
• 19:53
  ADHD meds kind of saying yes it has changed my life so it's OK
• 19:57
  to share that right? Yeah, of course there's the
• 19:59
  reason it exists, doesn't it? I mean, if it didn't work then
• 20:01
  if it didn't work for anybody, then it wouldn't exist.
• 20:03
  But it, and that's the thing like, and I always say it's like
• 20:06
  it may work for some people who may not work for this.
• 20:08
  And it's, it's a personal, personal journey, but it's nice
• 20:10
  to share that with other people who've been on a similar
• 20:12
  journey. So changing the, the Cedric
• 20:15
  slightly, I, I was reading an article recently about the
• 20:22
  autistic community and how that 74% of the autistic community
• 20:26
  roughly are part of the LGBTQ plus community, right?
• 20:31
  And I was like, wow, this is super interesting.
• 20:34
  Now I came across some of your videos.
• 20:36
  I think it was one of your videos.
• 20:37
  I think I'd come and said that I was like, wow, this is awesome.
• 20:39
  You said that you had come up as being no binary and I was like,
• 20:43
  wow, this is so powering, this is so cool.
• 20:45
  And and I commented, I think on that saying, you know, this is
• 20:49
  awesome. This is great stuff.
• 20:50
  And so I was really intrigued and, and wanted to kind of talk
• 20:53
  to you a little bit about that and talk about, you know, how
• 20:57
  has, how has coming, coming out as non binary or, or finding
• 21:01
  that identity for you? How, how you, how have you found
• 21:04
  that, you know, publicly and, and how, and how do you feel
• 21:08
  about it within the autism community?
• 21:09
  Have you found that there's a lot of this type of crossover in
• 21:12
  the autism community? Yeah, well, I mean, it's been a,
• 21:15
  it's been a real journey. I would say.
• 21:17
  Actually, my journey through to discovering my gender identity
• 21:20
  has been more intense and overwhelming than discovering I
• 21:23
  was neurodivergent, to be honest.
• 21:25
  Because I think that as a neurodivergent person, I learned
• 21:30
  quite early on that people would be more comfortable if I masked
• 21:34
  a more traditionally feminine persona, right?
• 21:38
  And so I think even in my early days on YouTube, I was very much
• 21:41
  trying to be, I suppose, the girl next door, if you like, you
• 21:44
  know, quite a wholesome girl because I felt like that's what
• 21:48
  people wanted from me. And I felt like if I and then
• 21:51
  when I started to realise I was non binary, I basically realised
• 21:54
  I was non binary because my eldest child came out as trans,
• 21:58
  she is trans. And through that I obviously
• 22:01
  ended up meeting non binary people, learning about different
• 22:04
  gender identities, like going in deep into the whole kind of
• 22:07
  gender identity stuff stuff. Yeah.
• 22:11
  And my initial reaction to non binary identities, I'm ashamed
• 22:14
  to say was, well that's not a thing because everybody feels
• 22:16
  like that, which is such a like in the closet.
• 22:20
  Because yeah. And over a couple of years I
• 22:24
  explored that more just inside my head, you know, and kind of
• 22:27
  realized that, yes, the person who wore a suit to university
• 22:31
  balls would not wear anything feminine until the age of 25 and
• 22:34
  basically hated the feminization of my body.
• 22:37
  It was probably non binary. But even when I realized that, I
• 22:40
  didn't make it public for another couple of years.
• 22:42
  So I've known for a long time, but I felt more scared to put
• 22:47
  that out on the Internet than I did talking really openly about
• 22:51
  autism, ADHD and mental health struggles because there is so
• 22:54
  much backlash. So yes, I made a video about
• 22:59
  autism and gender identity because that was the next
• 23:02
  logical step in which I came out as non binary.
• 23:05
  And I learned from that video that yes, it does appear that
• 23:08
  there are a larger number of people who are autistic or
• 23:12
  neurodivergent in some way and don't have a traditional don't
• 23:17
  identify with their sex assigned at birth.
• 23:22
  But we have no idea why at this point, essentially there has not
• 23:26
  been the research done. So it's kind of my theory, which
• 23:29
  is based entirely not on science, is that we tend to
• 23:34
  conform less generally to social constructs, and gender is a
• 23:38
  social construct. So it makes sense on that level
• 23:42
  that autistic people would be a little bit as confused by gender
• 23:46
  as a social construct as we are by the notion of saying, hi, how
• 23:49
  are you? I'm fine, thank you.
• 23:51
  You know, Yeah. So.
• 23:53
  But I did get a lot of backlash. I would say I've had a lot more
• 23:56
  hate from the Internet on account of talking about my
• 23:59
  gender identity than I have on account talking about my autism.
• 24:03
  Smoked. Have you found that it's people
• 24:05
  from the autism community or people outside of that giving?
• 24:07
  You the hate. I mean, I don't really delve too
• 24:09
  far into who it is when I get the nasty comments.
• 24:12
  I just kind of go, oh gosh, okay.
• 24:14
  And initially, so I think it's probably both, because I always
• 24:17
  say it is possible to be both autistic and a Dick.
• 24:20
  Sorry. Yeah, of course you go.
• 24:22
  You say that. No, no, it's fine.
• 24:24
  It's fine. Yeah.
• 24:25
  I love it so. You know, it doesn't mean that
• 24:27
  because you're autistic, you're going to not judge another
• 24:29
  minority group, right? Especially one that you don't
• 24:32
  understand. So I would say it's probably
• 24:34
  like in the real world, it's probably both.
• 24:36
  But the general kind of, I think it's a similar kind of hate to
• 24:41
  the hate associate. It was all as you get which
• 24:47
  trying to special or trying to be, you know, you want
• 24:52
  attention, you're doing this for attention and you're doing it to
• 24:55
  be special. And that's really, really hard
• 24:57
  when you're talking about something that essentially I had
• 25:00
  an eating disorder because of my non binary identity.
• 25:03
  So you know, it wasn't like this will be fun.
• 25:06
  It was I have to do this to feel comfortable in my own skin, you
• 25:09
  know? Yeah, I, you know, it's so, it's
• 25:12
  so interesting because like up until like a few years ago, we,
• 25:15
  we really didn't know about kind of like gender identities and,
• 25:19
  and what could be possible. So it must have been so
• 25:21
  difficult for a lot of people who were like, huh, what's going
• 25:25
  on here? And, and feeling quite
• 25:26
  ostracised from society because they didn't know how to envision
• 25:30
  themselves on a social kind of level, Which is it?
• 25:33
  Which is how you, you know, come, you know, how, how do you
• 25:35
  identify? You know, like you're a punk
• 25:37
  rock scene or a skating scene, you know, you jocks or, or
• 25:39
  sports people are all the freaks in school, you know, all this
• 25:42
  kind of stuff. And then you have these, these
• 25:44
  outside of kind of like childhood in school, you have,
• 25:48
  you have a bigger issue. Where am I in the world?
• 25:51
  You know, who, who, who am I as a affronted human being?
• 25:55
  Because we're all inherently human.
• 25:57
  I mean, that's just the basic notion of being alive.
• 26:00
  But where do you where do you identify?
• 26:02
  I think that is seriously super interesting and it just
• 26:05
  absolutely fascinates the heck out of me.
• 26:08
  So here's a question. How did your husband respond to
• 26:10
  that? Because it's like another thing,
• 26:12
  you know, he also never understood.
• 26:14
  Don't buy anything. He said.
• 26:15
  Oh my goodness, what else is next?
• 26:17
  Yeah, that's basically, Yeah. Well, before I I kind of came
• 26:20
  out to my husband and the Internet on the same day, being
• 26:24
  an ADHD or I was like, well, right, I couldn't.
• 26:26
  What? Yeah.
• 26:27
  What's the best time? Yeah, What's the best time right
• 26:29
  now? Yeah, but I was really, really
• 26:31
  nervous about approaching that conversation because, like
• 26:33
  you've just said, it was just like, Oh my gosh, could this get
• 26:35
  any reason for him? But, you know, I don't think
• 26:40
  it's that surprising. When he met me, I was a Skinhead
• 26:45
  who wore suits to university balls.
• 26:46
  So it's not like I've ever been a traditionally femme person.
• 26:50
  And it's not like he ever. I was also in a relationship
• 26:52
  with a woman when he met, so it's not like he's ever, he
• 26:56
  always knew that was on the LGBTQ plus kind of community,
• 27:00
  but I was a little bit worried about that.
• 27:01
  But he, you know, continues to amaze me with his support and
• 27:06
  was basically like, you know, you do you.
• 27:08
  I, you know, have absolutely no problem.
• 27:11
  I want to support you. I understand.
• 27:13
  I've seen the struggles you've had with your body dysphoria.
• 27:16
  And if this makes you feel more comfortable, I'm absolutely
• 27:19
  going to embrace it. So yeah, I just feel really
• 27:22
  fortunate in that respect. Love.
• 27:24
  It I he he sounds like a great guy.
• 27:27
  Well, you can see where you guys revised.
• 27:28
  It's so, so long. That's that's beautiful.
• 27:30
  And you know, it's all about being happy at the end of the
• 27:32
  day. I mean, I shouldn't care what
• 27:33
  anybody wants to identify as really, as long as they're happy
• 27:35
  and not hurt anybody, just do it, you know, like you are who
• 27:39
  you are. Just just embrace that and just
• 27:41
  be like, yeah, I'm going to do me.
• 27:43
  Hopefully everyone just deals with it and it's great.
• 27:45
  So I think it's AI think it's a beautiful thing.
• 27:47
  So so I got a question and this this, I have no idea.
• 27:52
  So I get the pronouns for like, you know, sometimes people want
• 27:56
  to be he, she, they or just they them and whatever, and they get
• 27:59
  all that. So I can get I say, and when I
• 28:00
  meet a lot of people, I assist them like, Hey, you know, worry
• 28:02
  profiles, profile pronouns, because I can tell, you know,
• 28:05
  you can you're in your presence of people who are non binder,
• 28:07
  but you can typically tell. And so I'm just like, oh, do you
• 28:09
  want to get your pronouns right? And people find that really it's
• 28:11
  really nice to actually just say that because rather than just
• 28:13
  kind of start offending somebody from day dot when you don't even
• 28:15
  want to or try to. It's nice.
• 28:18
  But one of the things I don't understand is where does the
• 28:21
  turb because you did a video, I think I saw it yesterday.
• 28:23
  It was about you saying like something on Friday and also
• 28:26
  dressed like a 12 year old boy. I laughed so much.
• 28:29
  It was so great. It was a great video.
• 28:30
  Anybody hasn't seen, go check out Ella's Instagram page.
• 28:34
  It's absolutely great. But yeah, I do love watching
• 28:37
  videos and and so I have a question.
• 28:39
  How do your children respond to? Is it mother, mum, parents like
• 28:46
  and how does your husband's wife life partner?
• 28:50
  How does this work? How do those ones work?
• 28:52
  Yeah, that's a really interesting question and what I
• 28:54
  definitely had to figure out for myself.
• 28:55
  So with my kids, I have continued to be called mum
• 29:00
  because not, not through, not through personal choice I guess,
• 29:03
  but because I came out when my kids were 1513 and 10 and they
• 29:08
  had known me and called me mom their entire lives and it felt
• 29:12
  too much at that time to ask them to change that.
• 29:16
  But moving forwards when they're older, maybe I'm going to ask
• 29:19
  them. I have come up with a word.
• 29:20
  I was thinking that it might be nice for them to call me Ren
• 29:23
  like parent. Oh no.
• 29:26
  There's a bird I thought that was quite cute, so cool.
• 29:29
  And they might be up for that. I mean, obviously my
• 29:30
  transdaughter is a massive advocate for me and we'll
• 29:33
  probably adopt that straight away.
• 29:34
  With my husband, it's been a little bit trickier.
• 29:36
  And this is quite an interesting question in that respect.
• 29:39
  So we went to a a thing and he introduced me as his wife and I
• 29:42
  said, I, I really, really don't like that.
• 29:44
  Would you mind introducing me as your partner?
• 29:47
  Which he started to do, but then he came to me a little bit later
• 29:49
  and was like, when I introduced you as my partner and you're not
• 29:53
  there. I'm a little bit concerned that
• 29:55
  people think I'm gay, which I thought was really interesting
• 29:57
  because it was like, well, why would that be a problem?
• 29:59
  Firstly, is there some internalized homophobia?
• 30:02
  You know, we, my husband is, is 10 years, 11 years older than
• 30:06
  me. So, you know, like at the time
• 30:08
  that he was a young man growing up, homophobia was right.
• 30:12
  And he's not homophobic openly. But we do internalize some of
• 30:15
  those things, don't we? Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's
• 30:16
  within that kind of time period of, of people, isn't it?
• 30:19
  Like it's not inherently hopeful because it's just that it was
• 30:22
  the society they were around the site, wasn't it?
• 30:24
  Exactly. So we so because I'm all about,
• 30:27
  you know, if you've ever watched any of my content, you'll know
• 30:29
  I'm all about finding a way to make things work in which
• 30:31
  everyone feels comfortable. I suggested that he call me
• 30:35
  partner when I'm there or when I can hear him, and if it made him
• 30:38
  feel more comfortable to tell people he was going home to his
• 30:41
  wife when I'm not there and I'm not even going to hear it, that
• 30:44
  was fine because what difference does it make to me, right?
• 30:46
  Yeah, exactly right. Yeah.
• 30:47
  You don't even know what you've like how how useful, unless he
• 30:49
  comes back and says, right, here's a report.
• 30:51
  I saw four people and, you know, he's like, no, I totally get
• 30:54
  that. That's super interesting because
• 30:55
  I was really, I was really confused by it because I was
• 30:58
  like, oh, wow. What, what what would be the.
• 31:00
  Do you say that like I'm a mother to three kids?
• 31:03
  No, I, I would say I'm a parent, so I would never use female
• 31:06
  gendered pronouns to talk about myself.
• 31:09
  But as I said, my, my kids still use mom, but I would say I'm a
• 31:13
  parent of three children. But I have to say, even for me,
• 31:17
  it has taken some adjustment to not absentmindedly.
• 31:21
  I I use those I accidentally misgender myself, hear it, feel
• 31:24
  uncomfortable and have to correct myself.
• 31:26
  Which is why I do understand that it's, you know, tricky for
• 31:28
  everyone else to get it right as well sometimes.
• 31:31
  That's super interesting. Like I, I feel it's just so
• 31:34
  fascinating, like because I'm just the CIS white male, right?
• 31:40
  And so, and I, I, you know, and so I, I had, you know, I'm
• 31:44
  comfortable. People call me dude, they them,
• 31:46
  him, whatever. I really care.
• 31:47
  Even if people call me a sheet, I wouldn't care.
• 31:49
  Like that makes no difference to me, right?
• 31:51
  And so I'm not offended like, because I used to have like
• 31:53
  super long hair. And so if somebody would refer
• 31:58
  to me, you know, as as female, if they kind of just like, you
• 32:01
  know, like just mistaking me for having long hair, like
• 32:06
  stereotypically female and just call me she, I'd be like, that's
• 32:11
  OK. You know, we all make mistakes.
• 32:12
  But I feel like a lot of people who are, who are like non binary
• 32:15
  or whatever, they would get super offended the other way
• 32:20
  around, you know what I mean? And I find that that's a really
• 32:23
  interesting. I like, why, why is it?
• 32:25
  Why is it such an issue if somebody calls you she or her?
• 32:30
  Like, is it, is it painful? Like what?
• 32:32
  What? What is it?
• 32:33
  I'd love to just know that it might be a bit of a deep answer.
• 32:35
  Maybe we don't want to answer it, but I would just love to
• 32:37
  know. No, that's fine.
• 32:37
  I think it's I think it's very individual.
• 32:40
  There are actually a lot of gender non conforming people,
• 32:44
  you know, and non binary people who are completely comfortable
• 32:46
  with all pronouns. That is that that is a thing.
• 32:48
  And then there's the other extreme of sort of people that
• 32:51
  use, I think they call them Z. Zen, yeah.
• 32:55
  There are specific name, type of pronouns, and everything in
• 32:59
  between. For me, when someone misgenders
• 33:01
  me, it feels like it just, it doesn't hurt.
• 33:06
  It feels like they're talking about someone else.
• 33:08
  Oh, oh, interesting. So I think it's, I think it's a
• 33:11
  very different experience depending like with autism, I
• 33:13
  guess. Yeah.
• 33:14
  Wow. Super interesting.
• 33:16
  I'm so I'm fascinated. I don't really know.
• 33:18
  You know, my brother's a homosexual male, you know, and,
• 33:22
  and he, he said he and his partner, you know, that that
• 33:26
  they're a couple and they're both he and and so and I have a
• 33:29
  trans friend who is completely transformed Jess.
• 33:32
  She's great. And like so they're the only
• 33:35
  people I know in that type of community, but I don't really
• 33:37
  have friends who are non binary in in the way of I can ask more
• 33:40
  questions about it, you know, because it was so I just found
• 33:42
  it so interesting. But I hear time and time again,
• 33:46
  excuse me, that the autism community is super super has
• 33:50
  large numbers of LGBTQ plus community.
• 33:53
  And I think it's super interesting about kind of what
• 33:55
  it needs to be addressed. And I think that it's so it's so
• 33:58
  interesting. I'm like the, the, the question
• 34:01
  is why? You know what, how come?
• 34:03
  But is it because just like any other portion of the, of the
• 34:07
  population, you're going to have large percentages of, of people
• 34:10
  who are in that community because we're all people, you
• 34:13
  know what I mean? It's such an interesting
• 34:15
  concept. Like I, I wanted to know is it
• 34:16
  something that's kind of specific to an individual brain
• 34:19
  type or a phenotype? Or is it something just because
• 34:22
  it's a population, you know what I mean?
• 34:25
  I. Think, I think it's a bunch of
• 34:26
  things. I think it's partly because
• 34:27
  we're all human. I think it's partly because, as
• 34:29
  I've said earlier, we don't necessarily feel the need to
• 34:31
  conform to societal standards anyway.
• 34:34
  So and I think it's partly that more of us know, like I wonder
• 34:38
  whether more of us know because if you think about it, if you're
• 34:40
  exploring your divergent, you're thinking more deeply about your
• 34:43
  identity generally, right? So you might and also you're
• 34:46
  going to be mixing in circles where you're more likely to come
• 34:48
  across gender non conforming people.
• 34:50
  And so you might be more likely to realize, like if I hadn't
• 34:53
  been in the autism world and I hadn't had an autistic child and
• 34:57
  I hadn't, you know, done what I did, I might have never found
• 35:00
  out that I was non binary because I wouldn't have ever.
• 35:05
  You know, if I had to come across it, right?
• 35:06
  Yeah, Yeah. And it was.
• 35:07
  Still have been non binary. I'd have just been.
• 35:09
  Yeah, but you would never. Longer.
• 35:11
  Yeah. So is it?
• 35:13
  Do you feel way more comfortable now that?
• 35:15
  Yeah, I mean, I'm getting there. I'd say the first, how long have
• 35:18
  I been out now? About a year, I would say.
• 35:20
  The first six months I was just, I wouldn't have been out of talk
• 35:23
  to on a podcast about it like this.
• 35:25
  It was, it was so deeply personal and difficult to talk
• 35:28
  about. And then in the last few months,
• 35:30
  I've really explored what that means for me in terms of that.
• 35:34
  You know, I've started making some physical changes that have
• 35:38
  made me feel more comfortable and I've started being more
• 35:40
  confident asking for people to use my pronouns and less
• 35:43
  apologetic about it. So I feel like I am getting
• 35:47
  there, but I'm not there yet. But thanks to the work of some
• 35:50
  amazing, you know, gender non conforming influencers, like off
• 35:54
  the top of my head, there's an amazing woman on TikTok called
• 35:57
  Dylan who is charting her transition in like first day of
• 36:01
  being adult, second day of being adult and she awesome.
• 36:04
  So people like her, who are just unapologetically who they are,
• 36:08
  inspire me that I can do the same thing.
• 36:12
  And that's been a really fun. Self-confidence, right, and self
• 36:15
  belief. And I think that's a beautiful
• 36:17
  thing and we all need that. And I think it's nice to hear
• 36:20
  stories like yours. And thank you so much for
• 36:21
  sharing it because I think it will allow other people who are
• 36:24
  on a similar journey or a similar path or a similar, kind
• 36:26
  of like maybe they lack confidence.
• 36:28
  They needed to hear your story. I think that's brilliant as
• 36:30
  well. No hate in the comments, please.
• 36:35
  But we get him. We get him.
• 36:36
  But you know, love is love the end of the day and that's it.
• 36:39
  So yeah, it's, it's pride month. So have it Pride month.
• 36:41
  And hopefully this episode will be out this Saturday, I think.
• 36:47
  Oh, no, no, wait, no week's Saturday will be out on the 7th,
• 36:50
  18th, 18th. So we're out on the 7th, 18th.
• 36:53
  So, oh, before we before we disappear, is there anything
• 36:56
  you'd like to share with my audience?
• 36:58
  Maybe a line or a quote or where they can find you online.
• 37:02
  Yeah, you can find me on YouTube as Purple Ella, on TikTok and
• 37:06
  Instagram as Purple Ella and Coco and or throw a carrier
• 37:11
  pigeon into the ether with a message and maybe it'll reach
• 37:14
  me. I'm going to try that and see
• 37:16
  what happens. Thank you so much.
• 37:19
  You know, it's an absolute pleasure catching up.
• 37:22
  Just just interesting, fascinating, brilliant as
• 37:24
  always. And I wish you the best of luck
• 37:26
  in life. You're definitely one of the
• 37:28
  most interesting people I know. And yeah, just really brave.
• 37:31
  So thank you so much for sharing everything.
• 37:33
  Thank you for having me. You're welcome.