The Middletown Centre for Autism Podcast
The Middletown Centre for Autism Podcast
Animals & Nature with Becca Lory Hector
Animals & Nature with Becca Lory Hector
Many autistic people feel particularly comfortable around animals and nature. In this podcast we speak to autistic author, researcher and advocate, Becca Lory Hector about her relationship with animals and how they have improved her life.
Trigger warning: this episode includes mention of mental health challenges and grief.
To learn more about Becca visit: https://beccalory.com/
Welcome to the Middletown Podcast. I'm Kat Hughes, I'm a researcher at Middletown and I'm also autistic. In this episode I'm talking to author advocate, consultant and researcher Becca Laurie Hector. As you can imagine from that list, there are a lot of things that I could chat to Becca about. For this episode, I wanted to focus on Becca's relationship with animals and nature. She speaks about how central they are to her well-being and I know a lot of autistic people relate to that, myself included. We also chat about her great little look always bring your sunglasses and the importance of understanding and self-acceptance. I should say that we do mention mental health challenges and grief in our chat, but overall I think it's a pretty joyful conversation. I hope you enjoy it, becca. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast, so I suppose I wanted to start by asking you have you always had kind of an affinity to animals and nature?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think it is my longest standing and probably, um, my earliest like memory of joy, and it's my longest standing special interest, in a weird way it's where I don't know. I just those two areas. My life is incomplete without that stuff. Um, so, like if anything else is missing in my life, I can kind of get by, but without animals and nature I am just no. I'm like put me in a basement and let me die, that's it.
Speaker 1:I relate to that completely, absolutely. Yeah and same for myself. The first interest I remember ever having was in animals and sort of animal communication and trying to figure out what they meant.
Speaker 2:And yeah, animals and sort of animal communication and trying to figure out what they meant. And yeah, definitely, I tell people all the time my relationships with animals, and especially with my own animals, um, are my best and closest relationships. To this day. They are my most intimate relationships, um and I know that's really hard for a lot of people who are, um, not non-traditional the way that I am, but, but it really has been my experience in life. Animals were always my safe space and I've learned to communicate with them in a way that's easier for me and comes more naturally to me than communicating with other humans. So you know I like it. It's a comfortable space for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. And the first time I heard you say that sort of your, your relationship with animals was almost more important than your relationship with people. My immediate reaction was kind of go, are we allowed to say that?
Speaker 2:illegal, right, like we're not, but yeah, but you know, I'm somebody who really, um, I really have embraced living my truth, because for so many years of my life I didn't even know what that truth was Like. I didn't, I wasn't even allowed that, and so that is my truth and it and if it makes people uncomfortable, then good, because there's a reason that they're my closest relationships, right, it's like if you're feeling uncomfortable, then imagine how I feel with other people. Like that's exactly how I feel. So you know, and so I really started to to, to really kind of push that piece with people is really just being honest and admitting that. For even I love my husband I do, and he's my bestest friend but my relationship with animals is different. It lives in a different place in my heart and it always will, and I think it's the same for him too, which is interesting. They definitely get more kisses than I do and stuff like that. So, like you know, it's one of those.
Speaker 1:And what is your menagerie like now?
Speaker 2:We're a big one, so I have six cats right now and four dogs, and then we also have two snakes and a tortoise who was a hatchling. He's going to be two years old now, so we're almost able to sex our tortoise, who is right now a gender, but yeah, and a tortoise, and so that's that's my life right now. I was as surrounded as I can get away with now, and when I get older and I am starting to do less work things, I would like to have a few more.
Speaker 1:Amazing, that sounds like a dream and why do you think it is that so many autistic folk seem to have that connection with animals?
Speaker 2:Well, that is. It's really interesting to me, and that topic the topic of how important animals and nature are to us, right is so important to me that I'm actually doing research about it right now. So I'm working right now on autistic quality of life research and looking into what it is that makes quality of life for us according to us not according to everyone else right. So what are the things that are must-haves, what are our non-negotiables for a quality life? And for me, as I mentioned really early on in this interview, nature and animals are my non-negotiables right For my quality of life. When they're missing, I am not having my best quality of life, right.
Speaker 2:So in that search I went looking for what's the rest of our all things right, and a lot of us require animals and nature as a part of our quality of life, and so what's really interesting is to look at that and say, well, that's something that maybe is intrinsic to the way we communicate and the way that, like the way we innately communicate and innately function in the world, because we do have an honesty to the way that we communicate and the directness that is very similar to the way the animals communicate, Right, and so it's a very interesting piece to me, and so I went out into the world to find out if other there are other people like me and you that are like, yeah, I need that, I have to have that, and there are, which is really reassuring to us.
Speaker 2:So a lot of us, I think, received judgment around our particular interests, whatever they were, and if you were an animal person like me, it was like a big right, it was all I wanted to talk about. Do be everything, and so it's a really big deal for us. It's something that was pooh-poohed, I think, and judged, but something that is innately important to who we are as people and how we function yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:And I think I remember sort of the first time probably that I actually considered masking was I was talking to one of my teachers in school. I was very young and talked to one of my teachers in school about a dog that I had seen. It wasn't even about my own dog, it was a dog I had seen and I was excited about it. And, um, I remember other people in my class kind of going oh, that's a bit much, isn't it? Maybe you should, you don't need to keep talking yeah, and I kind of went oh is, am I going?
Speaker 1:is this not what everyone wants to do? And it's the first time I kind of had that sort of self-reflection and sort of idea that I needed to tone it down a bit, which obviously wasn't helpful at all right.
Speaker 2:I mean because we lose a lot. You know that's an important piece of who we are, and so what the world ends up doing is asking us to omit or hide these little special places that are us and just being, um, and I really, with my diagnosis, in search of just like I wanted to be. I just want to be what's underneath all that masking from all of these years? You know, who am I without all that stuff, and animals and nature are like. That is where I begin and end.
Speaker 1:I think yeah me too, and then do you find that you kind of have an intuitive way of understanding animals that you maybe don't have with other people or other non-autistic people?
Speaker 2:Definitely. I think it's almost like, in terms of ease for me and my brain, it's easiest for me to communicate with animals, in particular with cats, just because I've had a long, I mean probably. I feel like I can't remember a time when I didn't love cats, so it's like they were a special interest for most of my life. I didn't have dogs until I was in my 30s, 40s, so really, you know, that's my okay, I speak cat and then I can speak English. It's that right. So for me and then other animals, it's sort of similar, of similar, and again it's that directness, it's the honesty and the rawness. It's like there's no, well, I wanted to be blah, blah, blah and so it kind of made me feel like and blah, blah, no, cats are like I, that me off and I'm just gonna tell you like smack, right, and in a way, that's really the comfort space for autistic communication. Right, when we communicate with each other, we, we don't go. Well, kat, let me just say, oh, and I love your shirt, but before we right, like no, I would be like, hey, kat, you know, when we talked the last time, right, and because, kat, communication makes more sense to me, right, the directness of it, and so I also.
Speaker 2:When I'm with other autistic people that are openly autistic, also like we can be freely autistic, I have that ease of communication. It's much easier. It's not as easy, but easier. And with anybody outside of my neurotype, that is when I feel my difference, that's when I think I run into it head on, that's when I feel like I don't communicate well, maybe, or there's something I'm missing or not getting. Is when I get like I don't communicate well, maybe, or there, you know, there's something I'm missing or not getting. Is when I get outside of my neurotype. I think yeah.
Speaker 1:I agree the same, and then do you feel like you've, now that you've got your diagnosis and you understand kind of where you're comfortable and what brings you that comfort? Has that kind of guided how you live and have you shifted how you live as a result of that?
Speaker 2:100 percent. Um, and I have a course about exactly what I did. Um, so if folks are interested, it's out there. My course is called self-defined living a path to a quality autistic life, and that's exactly how I built that course, as I did it first for myself. Um, I had to.
Speaker 2:With my diagnosis, I was 36 years old, so for 36, I had lived thinking I knew who I was right. It was like this fallacy, right, but I was really half blind to who I really was. And so when I became enlightened and that's really how I feel about it I was like gifted this information. That's how I see my diagnosis. I was gifted a piece of information that I had not had before. It's like I had been trying to do math without a calculator and somebody gave me a calculator, right, and that's how it felt for me. So like, literally, was my second chance at life my diagnosis. And I felt like if I didn't honor that With gratitude, like just the luck of it all working out the way that it did, with trying to really make use of the information, then I would not be doing myself any service, right? So that's what I did. I was like okay, now I have all this information. What does it help me do? What decisions will it help me make better? What things do I know? And I started making changes, and they were little. So this is 10 years ago, you guys, so hang on to your hats.
Speaker 2:Second, so 10 years ago, I got my diagnosis a little bit over that right now, and at that time, grocery delivery was just beginning for us. Okay, we all were just at that time, able to order from the grocery store and have it delivered to our homes, right? Not yet Instacart and things like that, but you know, we had. We're at the beginnings of that, and that was the first gift that I gave to myself as a life shift. Was you know what? I know it's going to be a little bit more expensive, but I don't have the capacity to carry all my groceries. I have cats. The litter alone is like a major carrying thing, right, and I have all of these things that I need to keep up with now, right In my adulthood. And this is a way to decrease my suffering.
Speaker 2:Right Is I can order my groceries online. It meant I didn't have to have that panic when I'm in the store that I'm going to forget something. Then I usually would forget something, because I was overwhelmed, right, or I couldn't find things and people didn't understand how, like, a trip to the grocery store was like an all day process for me, right, and so what I did was I gifted myself that grocery delivery and I got my life like I got spoons back, I got energy back, I got time back, right, and I was slowly building a really more confident grocery list because it was just online. I would just be like, oh, I need that, and I'd add it, and I'd add it, and then I'd place the order, right, and it just was like this, this gift from heaven to me, like now you can have the food in your house without all the things that go along with it. Right, and that was the first little thing that I did, right, and then I started making those little shifts and now I'm 10 years out, I have moved across country twice in search of the right place to be, so they can be near nature, so I can have my animals, so that I can be cognizant of my sensory load Right, because I'm born and raised in New York City, so that the sensory load that I grew up with was not autistic friendly up with was not autistic, friendly, right. It was like the bean of my existence most of the time.
Speaker 2:So I made opposite choices for myself, and that meant getting out of my comfort zone. It was no easy task to move cross country. I have, at that time, we had two dogs and six cats, and so it was like, how do we do that? I don't know. It was a huge challenge, but we did it because, right, I was gifted this beautiful piece of information that said why would you live in a place like New York City when you have sensory issues, right. And that was like, okay, but I didn't know I had them and so without them, I was just miserable, right. I was like, well, there's no place else to live in New York. Everybody wants to live here, so I'm going to stay, you know no. And so that's what it did for me, that diagnosis. It gave me the ability to make informed decisions that up until that point in my life I was not able to make.
Speaker 1:I was just guessing all the time and hoping you know so much of your life just trying to crush yourself into this little box that absolutely does not fit and just judging yourself for not being able to fit into it. And then suddenly you realize I don't need to live in a box at all. I can figure out where I'm comfortable and, like I think, as you say, it's so empowering to be able to make those choices for yourself and realize how you can navigate things in a way that might be different to how other people are living, but if it suits you, really that's all that matters right it really.
Speaker 2:And, as we know, when we make those adjustments, if other people outside of autism land made those adjustments for their lives, right, a some of do it. They just don't call it that already, but then also right, if they do it, they also feel the benefit, which is why we do have Instacart now, because everybody 10 years ago was like yes, please, right. And so that's what happens is we're judged for the things that we need. Right, because we think that it makes us different, and so we start judging ourselves.
Speaker 2:But the truth is that everybody out there is doing lots of little things to make the things that are hard for them easier. It's just that what's hard for us is different, right, and so you know people are accommodating for their challenges out there. They just need to do it in a different way, and we need to do it in a different way, and there should be no judgment about the way that you go about getting your needs met. That's, I think, where the whole issue has begun. Right, that's where it begins is there is no right or wrong way to get your needs met.
Speaker 1:On that sort of note of judgment. Have you found that there's been judgment around your sort of preferences to be around animals and nature Sure?
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely, oh, for sure. I mean I think that I got started. I was started to be called a crazy cat lady, maybe when I was six years old. So like, yeah, I mean we do, we absolutely see people work. I was weird because I loved cats and I didn't want to have people friends and I was okay with that and like I was flourishing that way and it was just mystifying to people, right, and that you know, maybe by 10 years old I was like I remember I think people were outraged, but I remember that saying, like I know I don't want children.
Speaker 2:If I'm not able to have kittens, then I'm not interested. Right, like, legitimately, I wouldn't love a baby the way I would love my kittens. So it's like not, and I and like why would I want to have something that I don't love in that way? Right, like no, there should be people out there saying no to parenting too more of us, right, and so you know that is.
Speaker 2:And there was judgment around all of that. There was judgment around wanting to be child-free. There was the right. There was like around wanting to be child free there was the right. There is like people just think that they can sit in their homes and make all these calls, but when you turn the lens around on them, you know they're hiring accountants to help them with their taxes and they're taking their car to get their oil changed and they, too, are ordering their groceries online or maybe have a cleaning lady, right. And so come on now. Hello fresh is really just meal planning, right. And so come on now. Hellofresh is really just meal planning. Side note and right. There's like everybody's out there doing it, and what we need to do is stop feeling guilty and shameful about the ways that we both have is knowing that grief is kind of part of the bargain, unfortunately, because their lives are shorter than ours.
Speaker 1:Anyone who follows me on any form of social media will know that my beautiful gal freedom, my lurcher, passed away in September and it was. It was like losing a best friend and losing a soulmate, honestly, because we were sort of each other's shadow in all aspects. And do you think that, because that connection can be more intense, potentially, is there sort of a difference to the type of grief that autistic people might experience as well?
Speaker 2:I definitely think we experience grief differently. Think we experience grief differently. We just, you know, we process everything in a different way. So, like you know, we see on TV, when people find someone has passed or they've lost a pet or anything, right, it's like this immediate tear factory, right, oh my God, right, it doesn't matter how publicly they are standing when they get this information right. And so then we're like inclined to believe that that's your, should be your response to right. And so then we're like inclined to believe that that should be your response right. And so there's almost like this onus upon us to immediately cry, right, when something is. And if we don't immediately cry, then we're unempathetic and have no feelings and we're not breathing right. But like everything else that we do as autistics, we are grieving. It just looks different, right. And so we process a little bit more slowly. So that realization, right, what we?
Speaker 2:I always had this very interesting conversation in a book I was reading. I'll share it with you, this book, because I think you'll find it interesting on grief and kind of how our brains process grief. Right, and what it is is that our brains notice that something is missing that is supposed to be there, that we're used to having right and now it's not, and that realization that that thing will never be back right, that understanding that there will never be a time again where that you and that thing will be in that same space, right, whether it's a person or your pet, right, and that's the space that grief comes from. That never changes. What we do is grow around that space, right, we grieve around it and because as we grow around it, it feels like it's smaller, but it really hasn't changed and it's still there, right, and so there will never be another cat for you. That is that cat and we will move on and we will say I will give this space to another and we will also have a relationship, but it will never replicate that, right, and that's where the grief comes from and it doesn't go away because you can't replicate those relationships. They're very special and I think the difference for us is that we feel that strongly about it when we lose a pet and I think the neuro majority only feels that strongly when they lose a person, right, and that's where we get where it comes from, because we process slower. So we grieve over a longer period of time, at least visibly grieve to people over a longer period of time and it hits us in different places than other people, and I think you know we'll be going about our lives just fine.
Speaker 2:But I think there are moments when we notice that that presence isn't there and it can never be replicated again, that we have these deep moments of grief, and it's that part, I think, it's hard for other people to grasp, that we can still be that raw about something six months down the line or a year down the line, and it's that idea to me that this little piece of grief doesn't change its size. It doesn't right? We're just growing around it and so every time we feel it, even if those times get further apart, it still feels just as bad. Right, and that's something that we need to own, like. We need to honor ourselves for our pets, for us, for many of us, are what keep us from being isolated. There are family members, there are roommates, there are you know. So these are people you brush.
Speaker 2:I mean my cats are with me when I brush my teeth, when I go to the bathroom, when I I mean I'm not like they're with me more than my husband's with me sometimes. You know that's how cats are Like they're with me more than my husband's with me sometimes. You know that's how cats are, and so that's a big presence to have not in your life Right, especially if you're someone like me who's an introvert that spends most of your time at home with that Right, and so it's a big loss for us. And I think, because we process grief differently, we're given like a double hit, like oh, you're that sad about your pet, and then oh, you're still so sad about your pet. So we get like hit twice on it. But we do, we process just like you process your other thoughts slowly and your other emotions slowly.
Speaker 2:Grief too is processed slowly, and we need to allow ourselves that kindness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and we need to allow ourselves that kindness. Yeah, absolutely, and one of the things that you made me think of there is the, I suppose one of the things that I think animals can bring us, particularly if it's a dog that's coming out of the house with us, they can help us to kind of navigate the world and sort of almost be a sort of function as sort of a translator, almost. When we meet particularly non-autistic people because I know I find that with my all of the dogs that I've had, it's like they can be the focus of the conversation chances are it's a dog person who's coming over and I will get on better with a dog person than a non-dog person and so they can sort of be a really nice way to kind of navigate us through the world as well, and this to me, was a late in life learning that you're sharing right now.
Speaker 2:Right. So I was cat person my whole life and I was like I don't get those. I don't get all the people. I don't understand. They are so needy, why do we have to? Right?
Speaker 2:And I was like I didn't get it Right. But when I was coming into this awakening through my diagnosis, I had this realization that they provided peace in my life that cats can't, meaning that they do want to be with you. So there are times when my cats are like, yeah, peace, lady, I'm going to nap, don't pet me. Right? Dogs really don't do that Right, and their needs are much more, are timed in this weird way that's very close to human needs. So they need to eat two or three times a day in the way that we need to eat. They also need to bathroom just about that often, right. And so what I found with the dog is that a dog is a sneaky way to do self-care. This is what a dog is that a cat does not do, right. So for a lot of people, I would remember to go to the bathroom because I would have to let my dog out or I'd have to sit right or I'd remember it's time for me to eat lunch because my stupid dog is whining at me because he needs lunch, right, and so it's a way for me to remember that I do have to do those self-care pieces and it was a way, in a weird way, to mark my day, like it helps me time my day out and mark my days right. There are things that my dog needs routine more than I need routine sometimes, and so that is very helpful. It works with my brain to give into my dog's routine, because it means that I'll be drinking water and eating and going to the bathroom on a much more regular basis than I was doing before. That, right, and I can't be left on my own with those responsibilities, is how I feel most of the time, because I don't forget and I do let other things take over and I do have a hard time with that body, brain communication piece and my dog helps me with that.
Speaker 2:And then when you're out in the world, they are truly the best social buffers in the whole world. It means you're guaranteed a conversation that's about something you like, right? So that's for the whore, which for animal people the other person's dog too. I'm just as excited to meet their dog as they are, to meet my dog right and to see our dogs meet each other and the whole experience meet each other and the whole experience. And to talk about breeds and where'd you get your leash, and things like that right. It's an easy version of small talk. To me it's a more accessible version of small talk and then it's also, you know, very well-timed. It's often very short. Our dogs don't need but a few minutes to sniff their butts and then they're off on their way. So I'm off on my way, I'm not stuck there, right, and then you know, it's really just. I just think they're a great social buffer.
Speaker 2:And the other thing that having my dog with me in public does for me is keep crowds in control, which in their own it's a subconscious thing and it's not. I have a hound dog. He just looks like a lazy old Disney dog. So it's not that they're afraid of him, but there's just this natural thing that happens when you see a person with a dog right, that you kind of give them a little more space because they're actively taking up more space. Man, do I love that extra space. Oh, is it so nice to have just that little bit of extra space.
Speaker 2:And my dog knows it, he goes out and he's like you know, like he goes just a little bit ahead of me and clears, like that kind of thing, and so that's sort of the space and I think that I found a love for dogs in that relationship and in our relationship. It's like up until then I hadn't had a relationship with a dog, I just knew dogs from afar, and then I really the combination of my diagnosis and the dog was like, oh, this is what it feels like to go to the bathroom regularly and like, oh, when you eat all day long, you don't feel so bad, and like you know, and so there there's, I have an appreciation for dogs that I didn't have before, I think, and that was a relationship that grew on me, which they know I tell them all the time I like cats better.
Speaker 1:It's okay and then I said there's probably going to be potentially parents listening to this who are thinking, oh, it sounds like we should get our, our young person, some sort of animal, because they might have an affinity and they may not. Isn't the number one thing to consider. They may not. I know some parents who've gone and got a family dog thinking that their, their autistic child will love it and it becomes their dog and they're off looking the dog, the kid wants nothing to do with it. And but if parents are thinking that way, are there some things that they should kind of consider? If they were, yes, there are lots of things to consider.
Speaker 2:So the first thing that I am adamant, adamant, adamant about and I will probably hear flack about it, I don't care, because I know that people have to do what works for them, but I don't believe in sending your dog off to be trained and not being a part of the training. So I think that's what happens is a lot of well-meaning parents go and they adopt a dog, or they buy a dog or they do what they're going to do. They know they've done their research, right, it's supposed to be a good breed for this. X, y, z, blah, blah, blah, right. And then they either purchase they sometimes some people purchase a dog they were like just you know and they send it off to a training service. So they get their dog and then will like board their dog for a few weeks to train it and then take it back. And other people opt to like do a service dog company, right, and we'll say they're getting a service dog for their child. And it's a similar process where you're purchasing the dog but you're doing it through that company and they're training that dog and then sending that dog to you.
Speaker 2:Here's the deal. That's terrible for two reasons. It's a plot hole for two reasons, and they are that if you were not there when that dog is being trained, that dog doesn't have that level of communication with you and that dog is not going to listen to you unless you basically retrain that dog when it gets to you, meaning you need to be trained. So if you weren't there for the training, you don't know the commands, you don't know how right, and you weren't trained on how to communicate with your dog, and so communication goes terribly right. The second thing is you weren't there to pick your dog. Really, when we aren't there, part of the pick the dog process we also don't match with our dogs. I'm sorry to tell you this. I worked in animal shelters for many years. We don't pick our dogs, our dogs pick us. We do not pick our cats, our cats pick us. Right, and you want to be a part of that process. You want to be I don't know like energetically attached to your dog. You want to have that bond right, you want to belong together. And if you do that process but don't involve your child in that process of picking dog, we also miss out. So your kid's not going to be like that kid's going to be like okay, now there's a dog in the house, just like you bought a new TV, right, it's just another object in the house. We haven't created the relationship.
Speaker 2:The last piece of this, which is just general parenting advice about animals, which I would give to any parent adopting an animal anywhere, is really make sure that you are adopting the dog for the right purposes. So if you are adopting this dog in hopes that your child will miraculously start walking this dog and feeding this dog and grooming this dog and training this dog, you are wrong, because your child cannot yet even groom themselves or walk themselves, or right. And so if you're getting a dog with a child, you have to be getting that dog with a child, knowing it's your responsibility, and if they catch on, that's cool, right. But if you think, ok, we're getting you this dog and you're going to do all the work, that never happens in any home scenario, ever. It always becomes the parent's dog, right, and so understand, what you're doing is really buying a companion for your child, right, and we're going to raise them together, right, that's the hope, because they're both sort of in that same developmental space.
Speaker 2:Right, they need to learn what the rules are. And so please don't, please don't go and adopt a pet and think your kid is going to just all of a sudden be a grown up and take care of this pet. They may love it very much, but they will not understand the ramifications of not caring properly, right? So that's my spiel. And also, please just do some research on the difference between service therapy and emotional support animal. Please don't go out there with a fake dog. Please make sure you know what the rules are. Don't say your emotional support animals allowed in a restaurant. No, they're not, because you ruin it for all the rest of us. And so that's it. I will get off my soapbox.
Speaker 1:Perfect, oh, that's really good, really important stuff, definitely. And then I want to talk a little bit about your new book.
Speaker 2:Always.
Speaker 1:Finish Like Glasses Congratulations on its publication and I know it's. You kind of look back on your life post diagnosis and you're talking about how you can sort of bring that comfort and you talked about sort of the Instacart idea of sort of allowing yourself that comfort and to follow where the comfort is for yourself. Are there other ways that you've sort of found to do that? I presume moving.
Speaker 2:There are so many ways, and what I really tell everyone to begin in a very basic place, which is in this concept of input and output. If you want, like, there's two rules to live by, which is, if you want more of something, you need to put more of it in. So if you wanna be a happier, more joyful person, stop following things on Facebook that are all about sarcasm and irony, right, because that's your brain is gonna produce more of what it takes in, so you wanna put in what you want more of. That's the input. Output is that idea.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is that if you really want something to change, you have to let go of the way that you're doing it now in order to it's physically.
Speaker 2:They cannot occupy the same space. So I always say picture like your current, like the way you're currently doing things, like a ball in your hand and know that there's another ball out there which is a better way to do it, but you can't have both balls in your hand. So you literally have to let go of the old way of doing it in order to have the space to pick up the new way of doing it. And that's hard for us because the old way of doing it is how we've survived. The old way of doing it is the only way we know. Sometimes, and even if it's unhealthy like masking it works, and so it's very hard for us to let go of it, right? But those are the two things that really kick you off to making the changes. And start small, started with grocery delivery. Start with little changes, start with the ones that just impact you and your life, you know, and not the big picture.
Speaker 1:And do you have then plans for future books? Is that a terrible question to ask?
Speaker 2:No, not because as a writer, literally the minute you're like you're done with the writing process, the book has so much more things that have to happen to it, but as a writer you're done. So I'm like my creativity bubble went into those pages and then I was done with it and I was ready to write the next one and my publisher's like no, you have to promote this one before you can write the next one, which is hard as a writer. So I take a lot of copious notes about all the things going on in my brain. And there is. I have two more books that I'm working, that I have kind of outlines for.
Speaker 2:One is a follow-up on this one, so it'll talk a little bit more about my life after you know, kind of the later part of my life and some of those bigger issues like employment, like medical issues, that kind of stuff, and my little journey from my diagnosis and how I changed my life around and I did all the things that I had to do to make my life feel like my own, and so that'll be coming. And then eventually I have others that I want to write, but this one has been on deck for a very long time and the one behind it has too, and so I'm going to get them out. Is there advice?
Speaker 1:that you'd give to your younger self, now that you know yourself so much better.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, I love when people ask me this question because I have the strangest answer to it I think that anybody would ever have. But no, there is not advice that I would give my younger self because I didn't know like what could I write? Like what, what do you say? I would never believe me. Like I wouldn't. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like me pre-diagnosis, wouldn't believe me post-diagnosis, and so I don't think there's anything that I could have said to pre-diagnosis me. That pre-diagnosis me would have been like yeah, right, that's not how it goes. Our life is like this, you know. And so it's hard to think back on that because I remember so viscerally what it's like to be pre-diagnosis and I never want to feel that again and to thinking about kind of giving advice to that person was such a sad, angry, lonely person and when you're like that, you can't hear, right, you can't hear anybody's advice, and that's where I go to with it is. I get very sad because I think about what that would mean to that person and I know it would fall on deaf ears and it would just, for lack of a better right, it would just I wouldn't hear myself. And that's the truth of pre-diagnosis is that? You know, it's that sad, it's that lonely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's, it's. It's a bit of a lost time, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I, yeah, because I I have. When I ask people that question, I tend to have answers in my head or in what I think I would say to my younger self, and it's generally, like you know, find other autistic people. But actually I think the reality is I would have been like no what does that even mean?
Speaker 2:like I would have been like what do you mean autistic? What does that even mean? I'm not autistic, right? No, like I wouldn't have even understood. It's such a crazy thing to think about, um, and what would I say?
Speaker 2:I would say it's going to get better. I wouldn't have heard you say I wouldn't have believed you, right, because it never got better and so I wouldn't. I wouldn't be able to hear that either, and and that I think that's what keeps me doing what I'm doing, because I know there are still autistics out there who still won't believe me, who wouldn't believe my right, and so they deserve to know that they can. They deserve to know that there's another way to live this life and it doesn't have to look like all the supposed to is that everybody has told you, that everybody has told you, and so I think that's yeah, that's why I do what I do, because poor that girl, that girl was so sad and it's hard for me even to know that we shared a body. Like I'm so different than I was then and my choices and thinking and word choices and the way I talk to myself and everything is different. And so, yeah, that's my honest answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a beautiful answer. Yeah, and I agree in terms of the, the sharing a body part, because I almost think of it as someone. Separate that I want to comfort, you know. Separate to me, though, but I don't know someone.
Speaker 2:I still protect that person because I'm right, like I know that right now I'm healthy and I can make these choices, but that person was needed me, that person needed me now to help that Right and so that's what I do. I protect, I'm protecting that part of me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. But then the impact that you're having through the work that you're doing and through your book in terms of sort of sharing that information and even if it's just sort of a glimmer in someone's thought processes, that kind of makes them stop for a second and it doesn't immediately, you know, with them, but it's there and you know, eventually they might relate to, to the sort of things that we're talking about and the information that you're sharing and that is so it's, it's life-changing, you know it is, and that's all that I hope for.
Speaker 2:and we're all all of us as human beings we're on this journey and we're all on our own journey, and we're all, all of us as human beings we're on this journey and we're all on our own journey and we're all the star of our own movie and living our lives. Right, but there's no rules Like they. They made us believe that there were rules, and that's not true. Right, the rules are made up, and so you can make up your own, and that's like you know what I mean. Like everyone else made up those rules, so you get to make your own set. And that's the piece that I want to give autistics. It's like no, those aren't real rules, they're just not they're pretend rules, so make your own pretend rules.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. This is a conversation-based interview designed to stimulate thinking and hopefully support the development of practice. It's not intended to be medical or psychological advice. The views expressed in these chats may not always be the view of Middletown Centre. If you'd like to know more about Middletown, you can find us on X at Autism Centre and Facebook and Instagram at Middletown Centre for Autism. Go easy until next time.