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Autism - Day in the Life with Thea Walther · Accessible Community

• 0:01
  Taylor: Welcome to the Accessible Community Podcast, where we will be exploring disability, aging, and accessibility through lived experiences.
• 0:11
  Taylor: Join us to deepen your understanding in these areas, and for show notes, you can find them at accessiblecommunity.org slash podcast.
• 0:21
  Taylor: Be accessible and be inclusive.
• 0:24
  Taylor: Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode of Day in the Life, a podcast series hosted by the people at Accessible Community and hosted by me, Taylor Dorward.
• 0:40
  Taylor: And this month we are focusing on autism.
• 0:43
  Taylor: And our goal in this podcast series is to educate community, raise awareness, but also providing a platform for people to share their stories and lived experiences with a variety of disabilities.
• 0:56
  Taylor: And maybe by doing so, they can help other people living in similar situations.
• 1:01
  Taylor: So as I said, this month we are focusing on autism.
• 1:04
  Taylor: And my next guest is a woman named Thea.
• 1:07
  Taylor: And with that, I will pass it over to Thea and let her introduce herself to everyone.
• 1:13
  Thea: Yeah.
• 1:13
  Thea: So uh hi everyone.
• 1:15
  Thea: I'm uh Thea.
• 1:16
  Thea: I am a uh trans uh gender queer woman with um who's autistic and has AHD.
• 1:23
  Thea: And I work as a digital accessibility specialist, which I know many, many of us do this because it's personal to us, and I'm one of those people.
• 1:34
  Taylor: Nice, nice.
• 1:35
  Taylor: And that I always love to meet people and doing accessibility.
• 1:39
  Taylor: So it's it's wonderful to talk to you today.
• 1:42
  Taylor: And as I said, we're focusing on autism this month.
• 1:45
  Taylor: So would you be able to, and as I'm sure you know very well, autism is a very wide spectrum, so it can vary very greatly depending on who you talk to.
• 1:55
  Taylor: So I'd love to hear your thoughts on your specific disability and how it affects you and how you like to view it.
• 2:03
  Thea: Right.
• 2:04
  Thea: Um, for me specifically, I know that it's significantly affects how I relate to other people and interact with them.
• 2:13
  Thea: And that has been a hindrance in the past in my life, uh, especially because I got my diagnosis quite late in life just a few years ago.
• 2:21
  Thea: So I didn't know why I didn't understand other people, just that I didn't didn't.
• 2:25
  Thea: And having grown into it, so to speak, I have gotten a lot better at picking, choosing who I surround myself with, who I interact with beyond the necessary, and uh it's become more of a boon than an exit than a disability for me.
• 2:41
  Thea: I'm very much a proponent of the social model of disability when it comes to uh neurodivergence, especially.
• 2:47
  Thea: So in in a society or a context more suited towards me and people like me when it comes to brain chemistry, it's not really disabling, but in this world it is.
• 2:57
  Taylor: Yeah, it's very interesting.
• 2:58
  Taylor: And the models of disability is a very interesting topic.
• 3:02
  Taylor: And like I certainly agree, I do like the social model.
• 3:06
  Taylor: I I would say my favorite is probably the biopsycho-social model, which is kind of that blend of the social and medical model.
• 3:14
  Taylor: Um, but yeah, I think that's always a very interesting topic.
• 3:19
  Taylor: But something that I I always like to cover.
• 3:22
  Taylor: Uh I had a very interesting conversation on a message board about this.
• 3:27
  Taylor: So, what do you prefer when referring to your disability person first or identity first language?
• 3:34
  Thea: Um, which is which again.
• 3:37
  Thea: I am an autistic person, not a person with autism, which I think makes it identity first.
• 3:43
  Taylor: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 3:45
  Thea: But yeah, it's uh it really varies depending on which disability we're talking about for me.
• 3:50
  Thea: With my ADHD, I tend to say that I have ADHD.
• 3:54
  Thea: I'm not an ADHD person, but that might just be my like stubbornness around grammar getting in the way.
• 4:02
  Taylor: Yeah, yeah, I totally get that.
• 4:05
  Taylor: And I I've interviewed quite a bit of people, and not specifically only in this podcast series, but I find it very interesting how that can vary greatly depending on who you ask.
• 4:16
  Taylor: But I have found that a lot of autistic people I've interviewed have seem to almost all of them prefer identity first language, which I found very interesting because for me I prefer person first, but I also find interesting that some people with multiple disabilities like a little bit of both.
• 4:37
  Taylor: Referring to autism, they like identity first, and like you were saying with ADHD, you prefer that person first.
• 4:44
  Thea: Yeah, so there's a line I really like from uh from the TV show Legion, um where a character asks another, like, you ever try to make soup?
• 4:58
  Thea: Like you make some vegetables to belt together, some broth, you boil it, it's like all kind of simmers together.
• 5:04
  Thea: You ever try to unmake soup?
• 5:07
  Taylor: That sounds awful.
• 5:09
  Thea: Yeah, and like autism is part of the the soup of me, so to speak.
• 5:13
  Thea: It's so uh inherent in who I am, it shapes me so fully.
• 5:17
  Thea: Whereas I feel like my ADHD is more like well, to stretch the metaphor further, it's part of a um solid meal.
• 5:26
  Thea: Like you could just if you put it to the side, you would still have the rest of the meal.
• 5:30
  Thea: It doesn't shape the whole meal the same way.
• 5:34
  Taylor: Yeah, and uh with another person that I had interviewed, she brought up a very interesting point because she had also had PTSD, and she said for PTSD she preferred person first because she viewed it as something that could eventually be cured.
• 5:49
  Taylor: And that was it made me think, I think that's why for such a long time I preferred person first language, because I attained my blindness when I was 18 and it was slowly improving.
• 6:01
  Taylor: So I thought one day I may not be blind anymore.
• 6:04
  Taylor: So I think that's why I preferred it, but I've slowly shifted to being a little bit more identity first, and I found it interesting when I thought about from that mindset that it's no longer really curable for me.
• 6:19
  Taylor: So maybe that's when I started to adopt it as part of who I am.
• 6:23
  Taylor: So I I find that that subject very interesting to talk about, and uh, it's good to hear your thoughts on that.
• 6:31
  Thea: Yeah.
• 6:32
  Taylor: So you told us a little bit about what you do, but could you describe that a little bit more for anyone who's not familiar with that?
• 6:40
  Thea: Sure, yeah.
• 6:40
  Thea: So I work for a company called Access Lab.
• 6:43
  Thea: That is why I am in the International Accessibility Slack where we got in touch originally.
• 6:48
  Thea: Um and we uh primarily do audits and remediations of accessibility issues on uh websites and apps.
• 6:59
  Thea: So in in very basic terms, I get paid to look at someone's website and point out why it's not really usable for people with um with disabilities and how to fix it.
• 7:12
  Taylor: Nice.
• 7:12
  Taylor: Yeah, I I as you know a little bit, I also do love the accessibility, but um I my passion lies more on the non-technical side.
• 7:22
  Taylor: I certainly appreciate the skills needed to do those manual and automated testing.
• 7:29
  Taylor: It's just I'm not that good at code and like analyzing code and that technical stuff.
• 7:36
  Taylor: But I mean it can be.
• 7:40
  Thea: Yeah, I I don't do that much coding these days.
• 7:43
  Thea: I do have a a background as a coder, but uh yeah, it's it's really a lot of it is looking at design and the visuals as well.
• 7:51
  Thea: So you you could do audits if you wanted to.
• 7:56
  Taylor: Yeah, well, that's good to know.
• 7:57
  Taylor: Yeah, I mean, I've certainly done some audit work volunteer basis when like a friend's company at like conference said, Hey, would you be able to check out our website or something like that, or a new product we're about to release, like that kind of stuff?
• 8:13
  Taylor: I'll do kind of an informal audit, but it's interesting, though, that it wouldn't be as technical as I'm thinking because I certainly can instruct people on how to write more accessible code, but I can't necessarily do it myself, so that that's interesting to know.
• 8:30
  Thea: Yeah.
• 8:30
  Taylor: How about outsider work?
• 8:32
  Taylor: Do you have any like hobbies or passions?
• 8:35
  Thea: Uh yeah, yeah, lots.
• 8:37
  Thea: Um I am uh involved in some uh some activist spaces, uh primarily surrounding trans rights.
• 8:51
  Thea: Um I um read a fair bit, not as much as I would like, uh go to concerts, um, play way too many video games.
• 9:01
  Thea: I grew up alongside the internet, and so I made a lot of friends in different places.
• 9:09
  Thea: So I often travel just to see people that I that I know but who are a bit far away.
• 9:15
  Taylor: Nice.
• 9:16
  Taylor: So for those concerts, you just like go into the concerts, like just the environment, or is it also like the bands you go to listen to?
• 9:24
  Thea: Like what kind of I I would go for the bands, yeah.
• 9:28
  Thea: Um generally with someone who wants to see them as well.
• 9:32
  Thea: I'm I'm a social creature at heart.
• 9:34
  Thea: I used to think that I was uh more of an introvert and didn't really want to be around people, but then COVID hit and I isolated for a bit and I realized that I really did want to be around people.
• 9:44
  Thea: I just needed to be picky about which people I was about around.
• 9:48
  Taylor: Well, that's interesting.
• 9:49
  Taylor: The pandemic kind of showed you a little bit more who you are.
• 9:53
  Taylor: I think that's pretty much.
• 9:54
  Thea: Oh, absolutely.
• 9:55
  Thea: Yeah, my my social circle grew tenfold because of the pandemic, because suddenly I couldn't just go out for a drink with an acquaintance because that was risky.
• 10:04
  Thea: So I would invite people over and cook for them, and that's how I went from acquaintances to friends.
• 10:09
  Taylor: Nice, nice.
• 10:10
  Taylor: Yeah, and for me, like pandemic opened up a lot more like remote community things that could get involved with.
• 10:18
  Taylor: And I'm I'm always looking for new hobbies and passion.
• 10:21
  Taylor: So anytime someone likes it, like the last person I interviewed, she told me that she does woodworking.
• 10:27
  Taylor: And I was like, I'd probably be awful at it for a while, but it sounds like it could be kind of interesting.
• 10:35
  Taylor: So I always love that's one of my favorite things to talk about, just because I love getting new ideas for things to try and always staying, it's nice to stay having a challenge and eventually get a little bored of a hobby and I'll move on to the next one and then next one.
• 10:52
  Taylor: So I'm I'm always looking for a new passion.
• 10:55
  Thea: So yeah, I mean my ADHD side finds that very relatable.
• 11:00
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 11:01
  Taylor: Yeah, I I certainly think I have some ADHD.
• 11:05
  Taylor: I feel like I fall a bit more on the ADD side.
• 11:08
  Taylor: That's more just I get distracted very easily and a little less on the hyperactive side, but just more the attention side.
• 11:16
  Taylor: It's yeah.
• 11:17
  Taylor: If you get a little rough, I find myself like mid-conversation.
• 11:21
  Taylor: I might get distracted by something and I have to say, wait, no, listen, listen.
• 11:26
  Thea: Yeah.
• 11:27
  Thea: Yeah.
• 11:27
  Thea: I mean, that's actually one of the main reasons that I talk a lot in meetings and calls.
• 11:32
  Thea: It's to help my brain latch on to the conversation.
• 11:35
  Thea: If I'm just passively listening, I am gone.
• 11:38
  Taylor: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:39
  Taylor: That that's certainly something I constantly find myself like policing myself for.
• 11:45
  Taylor: Because yeah, it happens quite a bit, but it's it's always something I'm working on.
• 11:50
  Taylor: So, do you think there are any hobbies or passions you have that are, I guess, aided by your disability?
• 11:59
  Taylor: Like, do you feel like you do better at some of them because of your autism?
• 12:05
  Thea: Uh probably, yeah.
• 12:08
  Thea: Um I I mean, I've never not been autistic, so it's difficult to compare, as you might imagine.
• 12:18
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 12:19
  Thea: But yeah, I mean, I can I can definitely get interested in some things on a level that I don't just don't see allistic people experiencing.
• 12:27
  Thea: Uh for any listeners who don't know, Alistic is just the opposite of autistic.
• 12:31
  Thea: It's it's like uh it's like the cis, like sis is the opposite of trans.
• 12:35
  Thea: It just means well cis means not trans, and allistic means not autistic.
• 12:40
  Thea: Um yeah, you probably know that Taylor, but uh just in case.
• 12:43
  Thea: Um anyway.
• 12:47
  Taylor: Yeah, that's why we're here.
• 12:48
  Taylor: So at any point, even if you think I might know it, feel free to share anything like that.
• 12:53
  Taylor: That's that's always good to have that.
• 12:55
  Thea: Also, if it's if it's okay to just call this out, I I don't really love referring to my to my autism spectrum disorder as my disability.
• 13:08
  Thea: Um because I don't think it is inherently disabling.
• 13:12
  Thea: I think it's um the world's just maladjusted to us.
• 13:18
  Taylor: Gotcha.
• 13:18
  Taylor: That makes sense.
• 13:19
  Taylor: So during this conversation, is there a better is there a way you prefer it to be referred to?
• 13:26
  Thea: Neurodivergence is one that I quite like.
• 13:29
  Taylor: All right, then that's good to know.
• 13:31
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 13:31
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 13:32
  Taylor: And that's good for other people to know they that they can make more inclusive interactions by asking these questions and like you having the courage to say, I prefer it like this.
• 13:43
  Taylor: And that's also good to have people who are accommodating you that, not I appreciate that situation.
• 13:50
  Taylor: And I'm sure you as well as me and a lot of other people have experienced similar situations where it's they don't feel quite as uh welcome in those kind of environments.
• 14:03
  Taylor: So it's good to have that.
• 14:05
  Taylor: So you said you were diagnosed later in life.
• 14:09
  Taylor: Do you feel like talking a little bit more about like when that happened and how that may have affected you?
• 14:15
  Thea: Uh yeah, I mean, I I think by the point by the time I got my autism diagnosis, I I knew I was autistic.
• 14:23
  Thea: I had known for a few years because other autistic people would clock me um and talk about it as a certainty.
• 14:31
  Thea: I remember a first date I went went on with someone, and she point she just mentioned that we're both autistic, and I had not realized that I was autistic, so I asked her what she meant.
• 14:43
  Thea: And she said, Yeah, like just reading your gender profile, it was obvious that you're on the spectrum.
• 14:47
  Thea: Uh so that was fascinating.
• 14:50
  Thea: But uh yeah, I eventually sought a diagnosis because I felt struggle a bit with imposter syndrome and with feeling as if I am uh if I'm being needy or demanding or making up problems.
• 15:07
  Thea: I know a lot of us struggle with these things.
• 15:10
  Thea: Uh probably like that's probably across the whole disability community.
• 15:14
  Thea: Um and I felt that having a diagnosis would lend these things a bit more credibility, at least to myself.
• 15:25
  Thea: Um it has I've been more comfortable asking for accommodations, uh embracing that this is who I am, that my like stimming behaviors are not just me being an annoying person and something I could stop doing, but actually as part of the soup.
• 15:48
  Taylor: So you told us a little bit about what you do, but could you walk us through like a typical day at work, like what that process is like?
• 15:56
  Thea: Uh yeah.
• 15:58
  Thea: I mean there's an I don't know that there's one typical day, so to speak.
• 16:05
  Thea: Things vary a bunch.
• 16:07
  Thea: But on an average day, I might like I get up, I make some tea, I start up my computer.
• 16:15
  Thea: I work from home uh almost exclusively.
• 16:18
  Thea: Auditing a website, or I um see what's new in the work Slack or the International Accessibility Slack.
• 16:28
  Thea: I don't know how to describe this to be honest.
• 16:30
  Thea: It's not it feels somewhat straightforward.
• 16:33
  Thea: I I start work, I do my do my job, and then I've quit work.
• 16:38
  Thea: Uh is is the uh the gist of it.
• 16:43
  Taylor: Gosh, yeah, that that question is more so like parts throughout the day, like if there's like your autism, like it affects certain parts of your day throughout your work work day.
• 16:57
  Thea: Well, I mean, again, I've never not been autistic, so I don't know what it would be like, and it's very hard to compare.
• 17:04
  Thea: I know that I struggle a lot more with spontaneous phone calls than other people.
• 17:07
  Thea: So I've made it very clear to everyone I work with that if they want to call me, they need to message me first and give me a chance to to prepare for that.
• 17:18
  Thea: Um otherwise, I don't know, like if I if I'm having a successful day of focus, I just sort of blow through the day.
• 17:27
  Thea: I don't take a lot of breaks, I tend not to break for lunch.
• 17:34
  Thea: I I'll usually have some kind of snack during the day, but I don't really uh I don't really feel hunger, which I know is a common thing with ADHD brain chemistry.
• 17:42
  Thea: So not the topic of right now, but still.
• 17:46
  Taylor: Yeah, I mean, even though this month we are focusing on autism, like you can share like about ADHD as well.
• 17:54
  Taylor: It's still valuable content, valuable to share that information.
• 17:59
  Thea: I mean, I'm sorry.
• 18:02
  Taylor: I said only if you want to.
• 18:04
  Thea: Yeah, I mean, I'm I am a chronic oversharer, so uh no worries about that.
• 18:09
  Thea: But I do think the overlap between uh autism and ADHD is pretty fascinating because they have a lot of things in common, but they're also so frequently at odds.
• 18:16
  Thea: Like uh I think my favorite banal example is that I quite enjoy things like organizing my bookshelf according to a system, but uh figuring out a system in detail ahead of time and planning is not really something I'm capable of.
• 18:34
  Thea: So I will have a system, I will start doing it, I'll realize part way through that the system doesn't work, and then it'll just be haphazardly adjusted throughout.
• 18:44
  Thea: So the top left part of my bookshelf, very well organized, the bottom right part of my bookshelf, chaos.
• 18:53
  Taylor: Yeah, nothing wrong with that.
• 18:54
  Taylor: I mean, as if it works for you, then it's organized.
• 18:58
  Taylor: That's at least the way I like to look at it because I collect vinyl records and I have around 200 of them, and I started putting them in organized organized order.
• 19:09
  Taylor: I was like, all right, I'm gonna break it down, I'm gonna do by genre, and then in that genre, it's gonna be alphabetical.
• 19:15
  Taylor: I did I think 20 records, and I was like, no, I I gave up.
• 19:20
  Taylor: I was like, there, I'm gonna end up putting them out of out of order anyway.
• 19:25
  Taylor: Like I feel like it was a bit of a waste of my time.
• 19:29
  Taylor: So I was like, uh I'll just leave a go.
• 19:31
  Taylor: I'll I'll leave it random.
• 19:33
  Thea: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Thea: Yeah, it's it's the same for me actually with my records.
• 19:37
  Thea: They were alphabetical once and now they are absolutely not.
• 19:41
  Taylor: Yeah, they'll they'll stay that way for like a week, and then I'll just they'll just get all wait crazily out of order it.
• 19:49
  Taylor: But it is what it is.
• 19:51
  Taylor: But you had said earlier about asking for accommodations.
• 19:54
  Taylor: So if you're comfortable talking about it, what are some accommodations that have really helped you in your work day?
• 20:01
  Thea: Um being able to work remotely is a big one, which is something I had for to fight for at my previous job, and that was a losing battle.
• 20:11
  Thea: And honestly, the main reason that I decided to leave when I did.
• 20:15
  Thea: Uh but uh yeah, here at Access Lab, that is standard.
• 20:21
  Thea: It's not special accommodations that I had to request, but it is something that means a ton to me.
• 20:26
  Thea: Uh having understanding for the fact that I don't function entirely consistently.
• 20:33
  Thea: I have days when I just can't focus, and then I have days when I enter hyperfocus and I get the work of three days done in four hours.
• 20:40
  Thea: Um so a bit of flexibility around expected productivity, if that makes sense.
• 20:47
  Thea: Uh I don't know about that many other accommodations, really.
• 20:54
  Thea: Um in small ways, there's things like I used to tell people that I was allergic to mushrooms if uh there was a dinner being planned or something like that.
• 21:08
  Thea: But now I can confident like comfortably just state that I have texture problems with that and with similar textures.
• 21:16
  Thea: Which makes it a whole lot easier because otherwise I would get something that had the texture of mushrooms but wasn't mushrooms, and that's just because I didn't accurately describe the problem.
• 21:25
  Thea: But I don't know if I would call it an accommodation anyway.
• 21:29
  Thea: Um yeah, it's it's a difficult question.
• 21:34
  Taylor: So is there any things like in terms of communication like with coworkers where you have expressed like a better way to communicate that they've accommodated for, like like you were saying, like letting you know in advance for meetings instead of being spontaneous?
• 21:50
  Taylor: Uh anything else like that?
• 21:52
  Thea: I mean, I know that I can be I'm very scratched to the points with things, which may be surprising because I'm also incredibly verbose.
• 21:59
  Thea: And I use a lot of words to say a few things, but uh I'm not subtle in my communication.
• 22:04
  Thea: And sometimes I came across as a bit blunt.
• 22:06
  Thea: And there have been times where primarily neurotypical people have interpreted that as aggressive or hostile.
• 22:12
  Thea: And that is something that I've had to work on, but it's also something that if I communicate clearly in advance, that this is something I struggle with.
• 22:19
  Thea: Like managing my tone in text is not doesn't come naturally to me in that way.
• 22:24
  Thea: And when I think that I'm being just factual and to the point and objective, what someone else perceives might be cold and accusatory.
• 22:33
  Thea: So yeah, I guess just getting more understanding from my coworkers that this this is how I communicate and it does not indicate any animosity.
• 22:43
  Taylor: Yeah, that that's pretty great.
• 22:44
  Taylor: And great that you share that because that's something I like frequently talk about during my public speaking, is being more open about it, because you'll realize that people just naturally want to be helpful.
• 22:58
  Taylor: And so if you express, I prefer to be communicated with in this way or to be referred to in this way.
• 23:05
  Taylor: A lot of people are going to be fairly willing to help and to accommodate those requests because I mean it makes people feel good to help others.
• 23:15
  Taylor: That's part of the reason we do it.
• 23:16
  Taylor: And so over time, I started to realize that being more open about it helps everyone.
• 23:23
  Taylor: Now that you express that to other people, they they can understand you a bit better and don't feel like, oh, Thea must hate me.
• 23:33
  Taylor: But they understand that's just part of the way you communicate.
• 23:37
  Taylor: And I feel like that's easily parallel to other disabilities as well.
• 23:43
  Thea: Yeah, definitely.
• 23:44
  Thea: That uh I actually realized another thing that I would consider a bit of an accommodation that I have requested, which is that I don't always do well with things playing out differently from what I expected or had planned.
• 23:56
  Thea: For example, if I am part of a client meeting and uh it's me and a coworker of mine and we're presenting work that we did together, then I want to know what our dynamic is.
• 24:08
  Thea: I want to know if we make space for questions after the fact or if we're taking questions currently, uh like continuously.
• 24:15
  Thea: I want to make sure that we don't interrupt each other or talk over each other.
• 24:19
  Thea: And when I haven't communicated that need clearly and like pushed for a bit of a planning session before the meeting just to make sure we're in sync.
• 24:35
  Thea: When I haven't done that, it's often been a problem where I feel like the person I'm with is talking over me, is assuming that I don't really know what I'm talking about, or I'm about to omit something important when I just haven't gotten to that yet.
• 24:49
  Thea: And then I can get incredibly frustrated.
• 24:53
  Thea: So it's been an important communic accommodation for me to uh to get the chance to sync up before and avoid surprises.
• 25:03
  Taylor: Nice.
• 25:04
  Taylor: Yeah, and I feel like that's a great example of an accommodation that could really benefit anyone, whether you have a disability or not, just having that that plan in mind before, especially if it's like a client-facing meeting or an important meeting, having that those boundaries established before the actual meeting, I feel like that could really benefit anyone.
• 25:28
  Taylor: Just having that added information, like on how we want to communicate, who's gonna run it, like what topics you want to have covered, that kind of stuff.
• 25:38
  Taylor: So I think yeah, that's that's pretty cool to know.
• 25:42
  Taylor: So like what would you say is the most challenging thing?
• 25:46
  Taylor: And I know you were saying like it can be hard to compare because you've always been autistic, but is there anything like you think is the most challenging for you?
• 25:59
  Thea: Um yeah, uh, the way holistic people communicate is very confusing to me a lot of the time.
• 26:07
  Thea: Um they have a tendency to not say specifically what they mean, but to imply things through subtext to deploy sarcasm, which I do too, but I don't pick up on sarcasm particularly well, so I shouldn't really be using it.
• 26:25
  Thea: Um but when other people use it, it also gets quite confusing.
• 26:29
  Thea: Um not the best at picking up on things conveyed through tone of voice or body language or other things.
• 26:38
  Thea: So I find it very challenging when people are expecting me to know things that they haven't said.
• 26:44
  Thea: Or even worse, when someone tells me something and they mean something else.
• 26:50
  Thea: Like maybe I mean, to take an example for my own life, uh, a past partner had a uh an important medical appointment.
• 27:03
  Thea: And so I had taken time off work to go with her and we went, and then it turned out that they wouldn't do anything at this appointment, they had to reschedule.
• 27:12
  Thea: And I asked if she wanted me to be there, and she said that I didn't need to be there.
• 27:17
  Thea: And I repeated, but do you want me to be there?
• 27:20
  Thea: Which is different from do I need to be there?
• 27:23
  Thea: Um and the response was just continued, no, you don't need to be there.
• 27:28
  Thea: So I figured that meant she didn't want me there, and then she was quite upset with me for not being there.
• 27:32
  Thea: And that's something that just makes no sense to me.
• 27:38
  Thea: Just let me know if this is done.
• 27:41
  Thea: Sorry.
• 27:42
  Thea: I think you unmuted for a screen reader and then you muted when you stopped it.
• 27:51
  Taylor: Yeah, yeah, sorry about that.
• 27:53
  Thea: That's okay.
• 27:56
  Taylor: Um, sorry, you were you were saying about your friend saying I she need didn't need you there, but you're having trouble with that communication.
• 28:04
  Taylor: Sorry about that.
• 28:05
  Thea: Yeah, that's okay.
• 28:06
  Thea: No, what I was saying was that uh she repeatedly told me I didn't need to be there, and I kept asking if she wanted me to be there because that was a different thing.
• 28:14
  Thea: And then eventually I just accepted as she said if she keeps saying she doesn't I don't need to be there, that means she doesn't want me there.
• 28:22
  Thea: And so I opted to not come along for the follow-up appointment, and then she was upset with me because to her it was so obvious that I should be there, that telling me that I didn't need to be there was some kind of I don't know, some kind of challenge, I guess.
• 28:38
  Thea: I really do not understand what what's what the reasoning was.
• 28:43
  Taylor: Yeah, I can understand that on on a level that's certainly different, but I I really have a hard time when people are trying to convey something visually because sometimes people make a gesture and I'm like like they'll like point at something or emotion about something, and I'm like, I couldn't tell what that was, but I can enough to see that they did something, but not enough to understand it.
• 29:08
  Taylor: And so that I think that's really important.
• 29:11
  Taylor: It's like understanding how someone best communicates and also how they really can't communicate.
• 29:18
  Taylor: And so I think that's important.
• 29:22
  Thea: Yeah, that actually brings to mind another thing that I struggle a bit with, which is um I have some trouble with verbal processing.
• 29:32
  Thea: I used to think that I was hard of hearing, but uh I I'm not.
• 29:37
  Thea: I just spoken words don't translate into language for me uh all the time, and sometimes there's a delay.
• 29:46
  Thea: And it helps a lot for me to be able to look at someone's face as they're speaking.
• 29:50
  Thea: I think I'm doing some level of subconscious lip reading.
• 29:53
  Thea: Um so that was a difficult thing during the hydrata pandemic when everyone was masking properly, because I really struggled to make out what people were saying.
• 30:06
  Taylor: Yeah, um, yeah, I didn't even really think about that.
• 30:09
  Taylor: I'm sure a lot of people who are part of hearing are deaf have experienced a very similar thing.
• 30:15
  Taylor: And and also like being like on camera, you can't really see body language.
• 30:20
  Taylor: And so people who do do well at reading body language, like it might have been harder for them to interact with others in that way.
• 30:30
  Thea: Yeah, probably true.
• 30:31
  Thea: Uh, but at least I I can see your face as you're talking right now, so that helps me parts what you're saying.
• 30:38
  Taylor: All right, yeah, that's totally understandable.
• 30:40
  Taylor: And I always try my best, especially in a professional setting, to eliminate sarcasm.
• 30:47
  Taylor: Because even in personal situations, sarcasm can easily get misconstrued.
• 30:53
  Taylor: And so in a professional setting, you really don't want to risk that, especially if it's something important.
• 30:59
  Taylor: So I always try to just eliminate that risk.
• 31:03
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 31:08
  Taylor: So how about like in your like personal life?
• 31:11
  Taylor: Like, is there some what would you say has been the most challenging part of your life outside of work?
• 31:18
  Thea: Oh I mean, in relation to uh being autistic, I guess the the same struggles as I've had in work settings, mainly like it's the social stuff, it's um struggling to understand people who communicate in very different ways from me.
• 31:38
  Thea: It is uh feeling like I never really fit in that there was something wrong with me, that I was lesser, um and all of that was a significant struggle for me before I found out that I was autistic.
• 31:58
  Thea: But then once I did, and I could read up more on what that meant for me, and like a lot of revelations about what I had actually been struggling with that I hadn't really realized.
• 32:11
  Thea: Um because I was feeling like everyone else is some kind of telepath with each other, and I am excluded from that because people pick up on all this subtext and um yeah, yeah, all the all the communication outside of the word she shoes.
• 32:28
  Thea: But yeah, once once I knew this about myself, I could uh beamer up front to people, I could tell people that hey, I don't really understand this kind of communication.
• 32:40
  Thea: So if I seem a bit oblivious or if I misunderstand you, that's why, and I hope that's not gonna be a problem, or I could seek out people who communicated more similarly to me, other autistic people primarily.
• 32:53
  Thea: And uh yeah, it's it's been an incredible difference.
• 33:00
  Thea: I used to be a quite lonely person, and now I am I have a bigger social network than I can really keep up with.
• 33:09
  Thea: I have a bigger community than I can really keep up with.
• 33:11
  Thea: And community isn't really something I had before.
• 33:13
  Thea: I had friends, but that's not the same thing as community.
• 33:17
  Taylor: Yeah, yeah, that's a very, very powerful statement there.
• 33:21
  Taylor: And I think like a lot of people like equate them to be basically the same, but it's very true.
• 33:27
  Taylor: Like people going through similar experiences you can relate to on such a deeper level.
• 33:33
  Taylor: So, like when you're when talking about communication specifically, like I know it can be hard to quantify, but how how much different do you think it would be communicating with another autistic person rather rather than someone who isn't?
• 33:51
  Thea: Well, that depends on both of those people.
• 33:54
  Thea: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:55
  Thea: Like, as we established, autism is a big spectrum, uh, which doesn't just mean that there's a large range of being more or less autistic.
• 34:06
  Thea: There are very different ways of being autistic.
• 34:08
  Thea: So I have met autistic people who I had more trouble communicating with than the average uh holistic person.
• 34:14
  Thea: And I have met neurotypical people who are completely on my wavelength somehow.
• 34:20
  Thea: Um yeah, I don't know, I I wouldn't draw that line in such a simplified way, but uh statistically speaking, it's easier for me to communicate with other autistic people.
• 34:34
  Taylor: That's very interesting, especially like saying like it really varies, like it could be someone who's autistic or realistic, and it can can vary.
• 34:44
  Taylor: So I found that pretty interesting.
• 34:45
  Taylor: So, in terms of autism, do you think it ever like ever any situation where it brings you joy?
• 34:54
  Thea: Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:56
  Thea: Um, I would not like if there was a quote unquote cure for autism spectrum disorder, I would not want it.
• 35:07
  Thea: I think I think it makes me a better communicator than most people.
• 35:13
  Thea: Uh because I well I think, and I've been told by other people as well, that I'm quite clear in my communication.
• 35:23
  Thea: I am uh detailed.
• 35:26
  Thea: I try not I I'm very careful to avoid misunderstandings or openings for misunderstandings.
• 35:30
  Thea: Uh and that's something I take a certain amount of pride in.
• 35:34
  Thea: Uh there are other things too, but I'm trying to think of what they are.
• 35:40
  Thea: Um I think this might be a bit of a tangent, actually, but that's uh so it goes.
• 35:49
  Thea: Yeah, you you may be aware that there there is a significant statistical overlap between uh autistic people and trans people.
• 35:59
  Thea: And I believe that a large part of the reason for that is that when you're already in one of these marginalized groups that do not quite fit into mainstream society, and you have to question um person questioning yourself a lot generally, and then maybe you start questioning the society that uh excludes you like this.
• 36:19
  Thea: And I think once you're questioning society on that front in one way and embracing your full self, it's easier to question other things as well.
• 36:29
  Thea: Uh so I don't think that more autistic people are trans.
• 36:33
  Thea: I think more autistic people are comfortable coming out as trans.
• 36:39
  Taylor: Yeah, that's very interesting.
• 36:40
  Taylor: And I always try to encourage people to, I know it sounds cliche, but look on the brighter side.
• 36:47
  Taylor: And I know it's not always gonna be easy.
• 36:49
  Taylor: Some days are harder than others, but finding joy in your situation can be very therapeutic, at least especially in my personal experience.
• 37:00
  Taylor: Like there's certainly times where I almost go into the wrong restroom where it's like, oh, like, like that's obviously not gonna bring me joy, but like when I'm, for example, playing with my niece and she gets a laugh because I I didn't see something and I like just cause a funny circumstance, like those situations.
• 37:21
  Taylor: I'm like, well, that I wouldn't have had that these moments if I didn't have my blind.
• 37:27
  Taylor: So I think to enjoy those moments.
• 37:31
  Thea: Yeah.
• 37:31
  Thea: And I mean, uh, every disability changes how we um how we experience the world, right?
• 37:37
  Thea: And not just on the spectrum of that disability, but also with all our other senses and interactions.
• 37:43
  Thea: Like um obvious example for you, I guess, as as a um you prefer referring to yourself as blind?
• 37:53
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 37:53
  Taylor: Uh really for me, I I go back and forth.
• 37:58
  Taylor: So if you say person first or identity first, I'm not gonna be offended either ways, but I appreciate you checking.
• 38:05
  Thea: Yeah, I just want to be respectful.
• 38:06
  Thea: Yeah, um, but yeah, I'm thinking as a blind person, you're experiencing more of the world through like touch and sound and other senses than a sighted person who will be less inclined to like opt for other senses.
• 38:24
  Thea: Um so I think there's a richness to the world that you experience that sighted people don't get.
• 38:30
  Thea: Yeah, I'd like to think so at least.
• 38:32
  Taylor: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:33
  Taylor: Like it's I feel like it'd be not necessarily a waste, but for lack of a better term, it'd be a waste to not the viewer in that way.
• 38:43
  Taylor: That I get to experience the world in the way that majority of people won't get to.
• 38:48
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 38:49
  Taylor: I just find it fun.
• 38:50
  Taylor: So, like, whenever I do something, like for example, about a year ago I started jujitsu, and I always think when I'm there, I'm experiencing this hobby and this passion of mine differently than anyone else I know, and I get to go about it in different ways.
• 39:06
  Taylor: And in some ways, I find in certain situations I'm even better because I can't see.
• 39:12
  Taylor: Because a lot of situations I'll be working with a newer student, and they'll say, What do I do here?
• 39:18
  Taylor: I can't see it.
• 39:19
  Taylor: And then I'll have to explain to them, you're not always going to be able to see.
• 39:23
  Taylor: You sometimes have to go by feel.
• 39:26
  Thea: Yeah.
• 39:27
  Taylor: So I'll be like, all right, take my hand.
• 39:29
  Taylor: All right, do you feel, do you feel where my leg is?
• 39:32
  Taylor: And then you do this, and then so it can be can be very helpful in some ways, some situations where having that lack of sight gives me almost like a mini superpower because I view the world in a different way than someone who's neurotypical and not doesn't view themselves as being disabled.
• 39:53
  Thea: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:54
  Thea: And I mean, I uh I have a few like autistic abilities, we might call them, why not?
• 40:03
  Thea: But like I I have an incredible sense of sound, of sound recognition and sound recall, um, which is pretty useless in most cases in the world.
• 40:18
  Thea: But I can watch a movie or a TV show and recognize all these stock sound effects that are being used, that are just like, oh, that horse Winnie has been used in movies since the 60s, or that creaky door is the same creaky door as in and so forth, which makes me very annoying to watch movies with for certain people, but brings me a lot of joy.
• 40:40
  Thea: And similarly, I can this is a funny thing.
• 40:44
  Thea: I really struggle with verbal processing, as I mentioned, and I struggle with remembering what people have said, but I can recall people's voices perfectly.
• 40:53
  Thea: So I can I can hear like my loved ones' voices on on demand in my head, but I won't know what they were saying.
• 41:03
  Thea: I will just have to invent something for the voice to say.
• 41:07
  Thea: Like it would be like I have I have this tattoo here.
• 41:11
  Thea: This is uh this is my best friend's voice.
• 41:14
  Thea: It's the uh waveform of uh a recording of her reading a poem.
• 41:18
  Thea: Oh nice, and so every time I look at this, I hear a voice, and it brings me immense joy.
• 41:27
  Taylor: That's awesome, and awesome for that, but also I love tattoos with meaning, so that's so cool.
• 41:33
  Taylor: And I I wish I had your superpower because I've learned that with with a lot of blind people, like it might differ how they how they recognize people.
• 41:43
  Taylor: I know some blind people recognize people by smell, and some by by their voice, by sound, like me.
• 41:51
  Thea: Yeah, so I actually I do that too.
• 41:54
  Thea: Oh, because I'm um I'm not blind, but I have uh aphantasia, which is uh a common comorb comorbidity with uh I forget if it's ADHD or ASD or both.
• 42:05
  Thea: If you're not familiar, aphantasia is uh an inability to visualize things.
• 42:09
  Thea: And so one of the consequences there for me is that I am uh what's been colloquially known as face blind.
• 42:16
  Thea: I don't recognize people by faces, which is a problem sometimes.
• 42:20
  Thea: I have just learned to roll with the fact that if someone comes up to hug me, I know them from somewhere.
• 42:25
  Taylor: Yeah, I can be a tricky situation.
• 42:29
  Thea: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:30
  Thea: But I can recognize people by voice, sometimes by smell if they're close enough and I've been close enough.
• 42:35
  Thea: Uh sometimes by the way they move.
• 42:37
  Thea: Yeah, which is feels like it should be a visual thing.
• 42:40
  Thea: So I don't know why I can do that, but not faces, but somehow those click differently in my brain.
• 42:47
  Taylor: Yeah, that's a very interesting point.
• 42:49
  Taylor: I I go to a lot of conferences and I've been going to them for like seven years, and so I've gotten to know these people very well, but I only see them like once or maybe twice a year.
• 43:00
  Taylor: And so it's very hard for me to form a memory of their voice.
• 43:04
  Taylor: And so some I'll be able to pick up on, but I've noticed like over time I can recognize the way people walk.
• 43:12
  Taylor: I just always find it so interesting how like so many different like disability as a whole is a vast spectrum, but even specific disability has its own wide spectrum, like even autism spectrum disorder.
• 43:30
  Taylor: But in like there's like seven, eight blindnesses that I can name right now, like they all experience the world in different ways.
• 43:39
  Thea: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:40
  Thea: Um I do actually I get recognized by the way I walk pretty often.
• 43:45
  Thea: And I think that is because and I think this is also a um a consequence of uh my ASD, is that I do not have any subconscious motor control, which I have realized.
• 43:59
  Thea: That neurotypical people they have that.
• 44:02
  Thea: They can walk without thinking about how they walk.
• 44:05
  Thea: Um, I can't do that.
• 44:08
  Thea: Like it's always conscious, which means that if I am walking through the door while I'm having an interesting conversation, I am likely to just walk into the door because I no longer have the focus to do both at the same time.
• 44:20
  Thea: Uh, but it also means that I have thought a lot about the way I move and kind of designed it for myself.
• 44:28
  Thea: And that's that's actually an effect that I find somewhat quite joyful.
• 44:35
  Thea: I like that my movement pattern is entirely mine.
• 44:38
  Thea: It's not intuitive, it's not instinctive, it's constructed.
• 44:43
  Thea: And yeah, I like that it's constructed.
• 44:47
  Thea: It's I I built this for myself.
• 44:51
  Taylor: That that's really cool.
• 44:52
  Taylor: And I it's it's very interesting of like hearing some similarities, and even though we're vastly different in those ways, but like for me, I feel very similar in the way I walk.
• 45:05
  Taylor: Like every step I feel like is very deliberate.
• 45:08
  Taylor: Like I can turn my mind off because I don't use a white cane or a or a guide dog to get around because I can see some, but not not clearly.
• 45:19
  Taylor: So I have to be more mindful where where I'm stepping, where my surroundings are.
• 45:24
  Taylor: So it's hard for me to walk and talk.
• 45:26
  Taylor: And if I'm talking just like y'all, and I have very little on my uh left peripheral, and so often I'll like clip doorways on my left shoulder because I'm distracted somewhere else.
• 45:38
  Taylor: So find that very interesting.
• 45:40
  Taylor: We can be so different in one way, but find those similarities.
• 45:45
  Thea: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:46
  Thea: Like uh shared symptoms, different root causes.
• 45:50
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 45:50
  Taylor: So uh what kind of technologies do you do do you use?
• 45:56
  Taylor: And they could be like assist of technologies, but definitely want to talk about that, but it could be uh other technologies as well.
• 46:03
  Taylor: Noise canceling headphones are crucial for me.
• 46:12
  Thea: Um for for sensory control, like uh since I'm working from home, I don't really need them while I'm working.
• 46:20
  Thea: When I've been in office landscapes in the past, they've been a absolute necessity.
• 46:24
  Thea: If I'm taking public transit, uh even if I'm taking public transit with friends who I would love to sit and talk to, if it's too noisy, I have to pick up my headphones.
• 46:34
  Thea: Uh so that's that's a big one.
• 46:38
  Thea: Other technologies that are used that would have anything to do with this.
• 46:44
  Thea: I mean various like objects that are helpful in stimming.
• 46:53
  Thea: Like uh I don't know, I have one of these exercise things that you uh like close your fist around to uh increase grip strength, which is um which is a good stim for me.
• 47:12
  Thea: And stimming is something that helps me maintain focus, feel less overwhelmed, just uh regulate the motions, all of that.
• 47:21
  Taylor: Um I actually have one that's on my desk.
• 47:24
  Thea: Yeah, yeah, I have it on my desk too, and I have uh I have pretty s pretty good grip strength.
• 47:29
  Thea: Like I I surprise people, probably in large part because of that.
• 47:32
  Thea: I don't know if I use any other technologies that I would think of in that way.
• 47:36
  Thea: No, nothing comes to mind.
• 47:46
  Taylor: Do you utilize AI at all?
• 47:49
  Thea: No, no, I I despise what we currently call AI.
• 47:52
  Thea: I think it is incredibly harmful to us as people and as a planet.
• 47:57
  Thea: And yeah, I nothing excites me more than the prospect of this bubble bursting and the constant dying a well-deserved death.
• 48:05
  Taylor: Yeah, I've I've read a lot of articles that like it, especially like they'll find it in children, like it encourages like cognitive decline because we're like people become so reliant on AI to think for them.
• 48:19
  Thea: Yeah, not just children either.
• 48:21
  Thea: Yeah, like uh I have I have seen people I've been close to actively like decline, and I've seen I've seen AI-induced psychosis, which is a terrifying thing.
• 48:36
  Thea: I've seen someone who was using chat GPT access therapist.
• 48:42
  Taylor: Yeah, that doesn't sound healthy.
• 48:45
  Taylor: No, no, it does not.
• 48:46
  Taylor: So you can't really always take it for its word either.
• 48:56
  Thea: No, I mean if if you were the one training the model, you can control where the data came from, but uh they're just training it on the internet, which is also its own like auraboros.
• 49:07
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 49:08
  Thea: Because the internet is so polluted with AI slop, and then the AI is getting trained on the AI slop, and you just have an infinite recursive, like yeah, slop loop.
• 49:20
  Taylor: Yeah, I I I certainly try to limit my exposure in AI, but coming from the Microsoft field as like with Microsoft Copilot, I had to use it quite a bit.
• 49:32
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 49:33
  Taylor: Um, I I try my best to limit it and I make sure I don't have it create any content for me.
• 49:40
  Taylor: I'll have it like spell check things.
• 49:43
  Taylor: Like if I'm sending a longer email and I keep it's harder for me to check the grammar and like check appropriately placed commas and things like that.
• 49:53
  Thea: I can I'll have yeah, to so what what confuses me about those things is that we had grammar check tools before AI.
• 50:03
  Thea: We absolutely had spell check.
• 50:06
  Thea: These are not difficult algorithms to to build without AI, and I do not understand what we are insisting on.
• 50:13
  Thea: I mean, I know why, it's because there's money in the speculative market, so everything has to be AI, but it's we really don't need AI to check the grammar of our emails.
• 50:25
  Thea: We have tools for that, we've had tools for that since the 90s.
• 50:31
  Taylor: Yeah, I I think what the reason it helps me specifically with checking the grammar and stuff like that, and this prop make sure it has proper syntax is the the spell check stuff that I use or that is used in like Word and other tools, it doesn't really always give me adequate audio audible feedback.
• 50:55
  Taylor: So AI read to me and tell me what needs to be changed.
• 51:02
  Taylor: That part is a little helpful.
• 51:03
  Taylor: It's more so just because I can't see the changes being made.
• 51:07
  Thea: So I just I just want to clarify, I am not I'm not I'm not going off on you about about your personal use of AI.
• 51:14
  Thea: I think the way it is being engineered is the problem.
• 51:19
  Thea: Because everything you're describing could be done without the tools, but those are not the tools that get pushed or developed currently.
• 51:27
  Thea: Yeah, true, yeah.
• 51:28
  Thea: So you don't have access to them even if you wanted to.
• 51:32
  Taylor: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 51:33
  Taylor: Like, yeah, in ways it's it's a bit overkill.
• 51:36
  Taylor: Like you don't need all that AI power to do those more simple tasks like checking grammar and stuff.
• 51:43
  Taylor: And yeah, I feel like yeah, it is it is uh it definitely makes some things easier, but it I feel like it's just a dangerous game, at least in my opinion.
• 51:55
  Taylor: I'd I'd still want to ever become reliant on it for anything.
• 51:59
  Thea: Yeah.
• 52:00
  Thea: Yeah.
• 52:00
  Thea: Especially with, I mean, to me, the climate effect is a big one too.
• 52:04
  Thea: Yeah, we're we're already having a problem with uh with climate change, and uh all the clean water getting spent to cool these uh data centers is not helping.
• 52:15
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 52:16
  Taylor: So you had said about like wearing your noise canceling headphones like on public transit and situations like that.
• 52:23
  Taylor: What are some environments you feel like you do really well in?
• 52:27
  Taylor: And not necessarily just like saying like quiet environments, but any environments like that you think you thrive in?
• 52:37
  Thea: Uh I mean anything that doesn't cost sensory overwhelm it's gonna be good.
• 52:43
  Thea: And I think for me that's it's a bigger problem if there are multiple factors.
• 52:50
  Thea: So I can handle a loud environment if loud is all it is.
• 52:54
  Thea: Uh I don't particularly enjoy it, but uh yeah.
• 53:00
  Thea: But if it's like loud and crowded, or if there are blinking lights and it's crowded, or blinking lights and it's loud, or anything like that, that's uh that's a struggle.
• 53:14
  Thea: So the more sensory like attack vectors there are at the same time, the worse it gets.
• 53:21
  Thea: Um but I thrive in I thrive in smaller social gatherings.
• 53:28
  Thea: I love a good house party, with by which I mean not house music, I mean in someone's home where it's like there's some music in the background, it's not too loud, it's mostly sitting and talking and maybe eating and having a drink.
• 53:43
  Thea: That is uh that's where I'm at my best, I think.
• 53:48
  Taylor: Yeah, and again, like I find it interesting.
• 53:50
  Taylor: I'm very similar because when I'm in a loud environment, I'm already blind, and so when you impair my hearing, I rely a lot on my hearing.
• 53:59
  Taylor: And like my friends will be doing fine in the loud environment because they can go off of other cues like visual cues, gestures, and reading lips to help them fill in the gaps of the conversation.
• 54:13
  Taylor: But yeah, so I I don't I'm similar to you, I I try to avoid those loud environments because I feel like it impairs me even further.
• 54:22
  Taylor: Um also navigating any new environment it is like a challenge because, like you were saying, like I need to be focused and very conscientious when I'm where I'm walking.
• 54:35
  Taylor: It's a very focused effort.
• 54:37
  Taylor: And so I it's harder to do that when you're being distracted by so many other different things.
• 54:43
  Thea: Yeah.
• 54:44
  Taylor: Yeah, so I'm I'm all with you.
• 54:46
  Taylor: The house party environment is is where I thrive in that situation as well.
• 54:50
  Taylor: Talk a little bit more about your work.
• 54:53
  Taylor: So, like, how supportive do you feel like from your coworkers?
• 54:56
  Taylor: I know you were saying about some accommodations.
• 54:59
  Taylor: Are those more management or from your coworkers or a bit about?
• 55:05
  Thea: We don't really have management.
• 55:07
  Thea: We're uh what's known as a teal organization, so it's uh it's pretty flat.
• 55:12
  Thea: Um, but I feel in general I get support from my coworkers to uh the maximum extent that I could expect it from people who don't really get it.
• 55:25
  Thea: Like yeah, I do have other uh coworkers who are on the spectrum or are differently neurodivergent or differently disabled.
• 55:32
  Thea: And I find that the more like we understand each other better, even when it's completely different disabilities, we can understand each other better because we have some shared experiences.
• 55:43
  Thea: Um which yeah, it's it's funny because in my like personal life I find that the same is true with uh like marginalized groups generally.
• 56:00
  Thea: So like I get on really well with my uh friends who are like marginal marginalized because of race or like visible disability or uh yeah, I mean gender, I'm I'm getting that too, so that's not really a thing.
• 56:20
  Thea: But uh yeah, like even if we don't have the same experiences, the experience of being different of being marginalized of being uh targeted at times can uh can really help in understanding each other.
• 56:39
  Thea: Uh sorry, I think I I went off the rails off the rails a little bit there.
• 56:45
  Taylor: Oh no worries at all.
• 56:46
  Taylor: I I mean in in this kind of context, tangents are always welcome.
• 56:51
  Taylor: It like it'll explore topics we didn't think didn't think we'd get to.
• 56:56
  Taylor: So and any any experiences you share is is potentially gonna be helpful to anyone watching.
• 57:04
  Taylor: So yeah, no need to apologize for that.
• 57:07
  Thea: So I find it a little bit interesting that you have not asked anything about masking as a concept, which seems like a pretty big topic when talking to autistic people.
• 57:17
  Taylor: Oh, very and yeah, and and I certainly have experienced that quite a bit, having also an invisible or hidden disability, just meaning a disability that isn't visually apparent when you're looking at or interacting with someone.
• 57:32
  Taylor: So, and that's again just for anyone in the audience who would not know what that term is.
• 57:37
  Taylor: So, yeah, what are your thoughts on masking, like on your experiences with that?
• 57:42
  Thea: I don't think I mask a lot um these days, at least not consciously.
• 57:49
  Thea: I think there's a lot of subconscious masking that has become so ingrained in me that I just couldn't turn it off even if I wanted to by now.
• 57:56
  Thea: Like um eye contact.
• 58:00
  Thea: You may be aware that for a lot of autistic people, eye contact is difficult or for some even like outright painful.
• 58:08
  Thea: Uh and I did not do well with eye contact as a kid.
• 58:14
  Thea: And then someone told me at some point that if you are avoiding eye contact when you're talking to someone, it's a sign that you're lying to them.
• 58:25
  Thea: And so I was terrified of being misconstrued as lying.
• 58:30
  Thea: So I would really force myself to maintain eye contact to the uh to the point where it made people uncomfortable.
• 58:35
  Thea: I was I was doing too much eye contact.
• 58:38
  Thea: Uh I think I still do sometimes.
• 58:42
  Thea: I've been told that I'm a bit intense, and that seems to be part of it.
• 58:46
  Thea: But yeah, other than that, uh some stimming behaviors are a bit more noticeable, and I tone them down in certain settings.
• 58:56
  Thea: Like uh vocalizing noises, for example, is something that you have not noticed me doing during this interview, unless I've done it really subconsciously, because I feel like that would be a bit too disruptive.
• 59:11
  Thea: So that's I suppose a form of masking.
• 59:14
  Thea: Um drumming on surfaces, uh playing with my hair or earring.
• 59:22
  Thea: Like, yeah.
• 59:23
  Thea: What am I trying to say?
• 59:27
  Taylor: Um talking about masking, and and I'm also curious, like for any other autistic people who would watch this recording, like, do you have any advice for them?
• 59:39
  Taylor: Like, do you think there's certain situations where you think masking is quote unquote more appropriate, or would you recommend people try to avoid doing it at all?
• 59:50
  Taylor: Or like what are your thoughts on that?
• 59:52
  Thea: I mean, first off, I think we need to to define masking a bit.
• 59:57
  Thea: Yeah.
• 59:57
  Thea: Because I'm not sure even you and I are on the same wavelength about what it means.
• 1:00:01
  Thea: So masking, at least in in terms of uh like neurodiversity, is behavior to uh appear more neurotypical.
• 1:00:12
  Thea: So uh maintaining eye contact even though it's not natural to you, or like tamping down on your stimmy behaviors.
• 1:00:19
  Taylor: I don't know if that was also your uh like definition of it, or if we were yeah, I I need to get better at that when I explain it, I think of it, or I explain it in the way I do it, like for my disability.
• 1:00:34
  Taylor: Like, because since I have a hidden disability with my blindness, it's not visually imparent.
• 1:00:40
  Taylor: I can make eye contact by looking at where the sound's coming from and looking up a little bit and all that like stuff like that.
• 1:00:49
  Taylor: I've over time adapting the way interactive.
• 1:00:52
  Taylor: Like it's gotten to a point where people said, I would never guess you were blind.
• 1:00:57
  Taylor: And some when I hear that, I'm like, wait, is that a good or bad thing?
• 1:01:02
  Taylor: Like, like I'm less good hiding it, covering those things.
• 1:01:07
  Thea: It's it's a it's a very mixed thing, I think.
• 1:01:10
  Thea: Um, because yeah, masking can often reduce friction.
• 1:01:14
  Thea: Um, but I guess my advice to any other autistic people listening to this or watching this, I don't know if it's video or audio, but either way, uh find people you're comfortable unmasking and more around.
• 1:01:29
  Thea: Uh, because it's um maintaining that mask, it takes more energy than you realize.
• 1:01:34
  Thea: Um, it certainly does for me.
• 1:01:36
  Thea: Like I have been so exhausted after like full-day conferences.
• 1:01:41
  Thea: Incredibly exhausting to have to be around all these people who expect kind of neurotypical behavior.
• 1:01:46
  Thea: Yeah, I think it's important to be able to unmask sometimes and not just when you're completely alone.
• 1:01:52
  Thea: I think there is a lot of value and healing power in being uh being perceived as your true self by other people and people who understand and accept and embrace that.
• 1:02:05
  Thea: I also think it's good to question why you're masking if you're doing it consciously.
• 1:02:10
  Thea: Is it to put other people at ease?
• 1:02:13
  Thea: Is it to make your own life easier?
• 1:02:16
  Thea: Is it to, I don't know, is it because you feel like you're lesser if you're obviously like disabled in some way or neurodivergent or whatever the case may be?
• 1:02:26
  Thea: Um I think thinking about it is good and reevaluating the extent to which we do it and the reasons why we do it.
• 1:02:36
  Taylor: And do you think that would be another reason why community is so important, like having that community of people where you feel more comfortable unmasking around?
• 1:02:46
  Thea: Oh yes.
• 1:02:47
  Thea: Unquestionably.
• 1:02:48
  Thea: It's it's incredibly important.
• 1:02:51
  Taylor: Yeah, I've always considered trying to reach out and get included in more groups like that.
• 1:02:58
  Taylor: It can be a bit more challenging because I can't drive, so I have to focus a bit more on like remote groups I can join.
• 1:03:05
  Taylor: But I think that's quite remotely.
• 1:03:08
  Taylor: Sorry, what's that?
• 1:03:10
  Thea: Do you live quite remotely?
• 1:03:11
  Thea: There's nothing local.
• 1:03:13
  Taylor: Um, I I live in the country, so I'm a little far away from from the cities.
• 1:03:18
  Taylor: It can get a little challenging for that, but any kind of remote communities I can be a part of, like for example, this one.
• 1:03:27
  Taylor: I joined this volunteer community uh about six months or ago, six months ago or so.
• 1:03:35
  Taylor: And it's just been nice to be able to be around people who might understand me a great deal better than a friend I would make like doing jujitsu or whatever it is, like just having feel more comfortable to be more open about my disability.
• 1:03:53
  Taylor: Because I like in certain social situations, you may feel like like at least I feel this way some ways, sometimes.
• 1:04:01
  Taylor: I don't want to seem like I'm like making it who I am and making like part of the conversation, like, hey, I'm disabled, and like, okay, like like it, I just feel like it might make situations a bit more uncomfortable, and maybe that's just my perception in certain situations, but yeah, having that community is really nice.
• 1:04:25
  Thea: Yeah, so I think I don't think a situation getting uncomfortable is inherently a bad thing.
• 1:04:34
  Thea: I think sometimes people are uh like it's good for people to sit with some discomfort.
• 1:04:40
  Thea: So if you revealing to people that you're disabled is making them uncomfortable, maybe they should be uncomfortable.
• 1:04:46
  Thea: And maybe they should think about why they're uncomfortable.
• 1:04:49
  Thea: Because that shouldn't be a cause for discomfort, as far as I at least as far as I'm concerned.
• 1:04:55
  Thea: Um but another thing that comes to mind for both you and other listeners is I think there's you don't have to just build community out of people who have the same experience.
• 1:05:06
  Thea: I think there's a lot of value in adjacent experiences, like I talked about as well.
• 1:05:13
  Thea: Like when we talk about masking as an autistic person who's also trans, I think about passing as a concept which is very close to that.
• 1:05:24
  Thea: Passing for anyone who doesn't know in in trans circles is to basically if someone looks at me and just sees a woman doesn't question it, doesn't think I'm like yeah, uh I I don't know what to say without using a slur that I'm not gonna use uh here.
• 1:05:45
  Thea: Uh I'm allowed to use it, but that's you you know how it is.
• 1:05:49
  Thea: Anyway, uh point being, I think there's a lot of commonalities between quote unquote passing and masking, especially if you're striving towards it.
• 1:05:59
  Thea: But also I think like yeah the experience of being marginalized and disenfranchised for any reason makes it easier to bond with, understand, and empathize people who may have been marginalized and disenfranchised for other reasons.
• 1:06:21
  Taylor: Yeah, and I I think it's it's important to be able to feel comfortable unmasking.
• 1:06:27
  Taylor: And at least in those social situations, is I feel like it's even more important.
• 1:06:32
  Taylor: But I found that it's been very helpful in in professional environments like at work, unmasking and like saying maybe not just raising your hand in the middle of a meeting saying, hey, I have a disability, but I mean, if that's your style, go for it.
• 1:06:46
  Taylor: But just being more honest about it, I found that my work environments have gotten a lot more on the fun is the right word, but just a lot more comfortable to be in.
• 1:06:59
  Taylor: I don't feel like I'm stressing out over wondering have they noticed, like should be something, like like will I get treated differently, all these different things.
• 1:07:11
  Taylor: And so I I think it's it's nice to find that environment, whether it's social, social environment, uh a remote community online, or even at work where you can feel comfortable unmasking.
• 1:07:22
  Taylor: I think that's great.
• 1:07:23
  Thea: Yeah.
• 1:07:24
  Thea: And I mean, I also think um I wouldn't consider like raising your hand and going, hey, I'm disabled, an act of unmasking.
• 1:07:31
  Thea: Exactly.
• 1:07:31
  Thea: That's uh uh that's more like disclosing.
• 1:07:37
  Thea: Yeah.
• 1:07:37
  Thea: But uh I also think it's something that you would what makes sense to me is just bringing it up when it's relevant.
• 1:07:45
  Thea: Uh and so like yeah, I I bring up that I'm autistic when I'm trying to like address something where my being autistic is relevant.
• 1:07:59
  Thea: Like if I if I've had a bad misunderstanding with a colleague and they're thinking I'm really angry at them, then maybe that's the moment to explain that no, I'm sorry, this is like this is the way my autistic brain works.
• 1:08:13
  Thea: I am not angry at you.
• 1:08:15
  Thea: I just struggle to communicate in a way where that comes across.
• 1:08:23
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 1:08:23
  Taylor: So do you currently or have ever had like a service animal that's helped you?
• 1:08:31
  Thea: No.
• 1:08:32
  Taylor: Now have you ever considered getting one?
• 1:08:36
  Thea: Uh I mean, I've considered getting pets, um, but not a service animal.
• 1:08:42
  Thea: No, I don't actually know what a service animal could do for me.
• 1:08:45
  Thea: I'm sure there are like ways.
• 1:08:48
  Thea: I just hadn't considered it before.
• 1:08:50
  Taylor: Uh one of my good friends, she was uh I actually saw her fairly recently at a conference, and it was the first time she had brought her dog.
• 1:08:58
  Taylor: And we're we're very close, and we've she was actually another person I'd interviewed, and we talked about it, and she was saying he really helps, like in those very busy environments, kind of grounding her, just make her feel like because she was saying like I think she was saying, like, sometimes she wouldn't feel her legs because she was like distracted and overloaded, sensory overload, and just him there, like to ground her, like he would like lean up against her.
• 1:09:27
  Taylor: And I'm sure there's other ways, so yeah, just I think it's just always so interesting what what service animals can do.
• 1:09:36
  Thea: It makes sense.
• 1:09:37
  Thea: I mean, I do have these are not service animals, but I do have an ongoing project to befriend the uh crows and magpies in my area, uh, which I find very soothing and um kind of grounding.
• 1:09:56
  Thea: Like I try to always have some unsalted peanuts with me when I go for a walk, and uh I'll feed the crows whenever I see them, and that makes me feel much better no matter what I'm going through.
• 1:10:11
  Taylor: That's pretty interesting.
• 1:10:12
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 1:10:13
  Taylor: Uh so before we head out, is there any anything you would like to share?
• 1:10:19
  Taylor: Uh like any advice you'd like to share for any other autistic people or any people who aren't to better interact or questions you can ask to make communication more accessible and inclusive?
• 1:10:33
  Thea: I think what I would want to tell any autistic listeners is um you aren't broken, the world's failing you.
• 1:10:40
  Thea: But they're like there is community to be found.
• 1:10:43
  Taylor: Yeah.
• 1:10:44
  Thea: I mean, I I think that applies to people with all disabilities, but this is the one I live with.
• 1:10:49
  Taylor: So well, hopefully, people hearing that will, if they're not already, they can experience those communities and get more involved and hopefully find those environments where they feel much more comfortable to be their true selves and just feel even more supported.
• 1:11:05
  Taylor: So thank you so much for sharing.
• 1:11:07
  Taylor: And I had a great conversation with you, Thea.
• 1:11:10
  Taylor: And again, just very appreciative of all the great information and experiences you've shared.
• 1:11:17
  Thea: Yeah, it's uh it's been a pleasure.
• 1:11:19
  Thea: And uh, well, you can cut this bit out if you want, but if anyone listening wants to reach out, that's okay too.
• 1:11:25
  Thea: Like uh yeah, I don't know.
• 1:11:27
  Thea: Uh I'm I'm not gonna be anyone's therapist, but I can be uh I can be there for people who are struggling or people who just want community.
• 1:11:36
  Thea: Anyway, I'm rambling.
• 1:11:37
  Thea: Sorry.
• 1:11:37
  Thea: Uh it's been it's been a delight.
• 1:11:39
  Thea: Thank you.
• 1:11:41
  Taylor: Yeah, yeah, no worries at all.
• 1:11:42
  Taylor: And thank you so much.
• 1:11:43
  Taylor: And yeah, that's it's great that you're willing to have people reach out to you and kind of be that that mentor or that resource that people can can ask questions and maybe just get to know someone else living in a similar situation.
• 1:12:00
  Taylor: So that's great.
• 1:12:01
  Taylor: So thank you all so much for listening or watching whichever you're doing, and we will see you next time.
• 1:12:08
  Taylor: Thank you all for joining us while we explore accessibility and disability.
• 1:12:13
  Taylor: If you enjoyed this podcast, check out more episodes and show notes at accessiblecommunity.org slash podcast.
• 1:12:22
  Taylor: Remember, be accessible, be inclusive.