Speaker 1: I'm Talia Shlanger and you're listening to here's the thing
Speaker 1: from my heart radio. The netflix show love on the
Speaker 1: spectrum is a reality dating series, but it is totally
Speaker 1: different than anything you might have come to expect from
Speaker 1: the crowded and, let's be honest, often staged world of
Speaker 1: reality dating shows. The series is full of heart and
Speaker 1: promise and it features people who don't often get the spotlight.
Speaker 1: My name is Kaylin, I'm twenty four years old and
Speaker 1: I'm single and I'm looking for a boyfriend. Why do
Speaker 1: you want to find them? I don't want to die alone.
Speaker 1: Being around people is straining, but I don't like being alone.
Speaker 1: I like to be with my friends, I like to
Speaker 1: be with my family. I don't like to be really alone,
Speaker 1: just day to day. So I think having love, having
Speaker 1: a boyfriend, would really be helpful. I basically have every
Speaker 1: learning disability you could have, um dyslexia, dyscalcula, dysgraphy, a
Speaker 1: D H D and autism. It makes a lot of
Speaker 1: the different aspects of my life challenging. That's Kaylin partlow,
Speaker 1: one of the participants, in a clip from the show.
Speaker 1: The subjects looking for love are all on different parts
Speaker 1: of the autism spectrum and throughout the series you see
Speaker 1: them navigate the pressures, struggles and successes of dating life
Speaker 1: through Swiping, speed dating and, yes, even ghosting. There are
Speaker 1: already two seasons of the original Australian version of love
Speaker 1: on the spectrum. The American version premiered earlier this year.
Speaker 1: Just this month it won three Emmy Awards, including best
Speaker 1: unstructured reality series. Coming up I'll talk with the show's
Speaker 1: relationship expert, Jennifer Cook, who is herself on the spectrum,
Speaker 1: but first I spoke with Creator, producer and director Keyan o'clary,
Speaker 1: and participant Kalin partlow, who is also an autism therapist
Speaker 1: and advocate. I was curious about how partlow felt this
Speaker 1: series compared with the traditional portrayals of autism we've seen
Speaker 1: in the media. Yeah, I think it's been pretty consistent
Speaker 1: in terms of portrayal. In the media we see a
Speaker 1: lot of genius stereotypes, people with incredibly high I Q s,
Speaker 1: people who are classified as savants, and they're usually men
Speaker 1: and that's just not the reality. For their the vast
Speaker 1: majority of people on the spectrum, we on average, do
Speaker 1: not have genius level. I use it but yeah, in
Speaker 1: the media they portray autism as somebody who is a savant,
Speaker 1: who is a genius, who has these special abilities above
Speaker 1: other people, and that's just not the reality that most
Speaker 1: of us face. Klin, I know you answer this question
Speaker 1: in the show, but for our purposes here and for
Speaker 1: people who haven't watched love on the spectrum yet, do
Speaker 1: you mind answering it again? What does autism mean for you?
Speaker 1: For me it means I've always kind of been a loner,
Speaker 1: and not by choice. It's always been kind of difficult
Speaker 1: to connect to people um and kind of form those
Speaker 1: relationships and then maintain those relationships. I think when I
Speaker 1: was younger I was missing a lot of those skills
Speaker 1: and now, as an adult, I'm missing a lot of opportunities. Sometimes. Um,
Speaker 1: it also means sensory sensitivities and a lot of routines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when you first heard about this show, love on
Speaker 1: the spectrum, and the idea that it would be a
Speaker 1: spectrum of people with a range of presentations of autism,
Speaker 1: what was your reaction to the idea of this show? Well,
Speaker 1: I loved the Australian version. I love both seasons. I
Speaker 1: loved the diversity that they tried to accumulate for everybody
Speaker 1: in the series and even the amount of like orientations
Speaker 1: that they had. Not Everybody was straight, and I thought
Speaker 1: that was really important. Yeah, for sure. And Kian, I
Speaker 1: want to know you. You've said that after doing two
Speaker 1: seasons of the show in Australia, you've said that it
Speaker 1: was important for you to bring the show to the US.
Speaker 1: Why is that? Well, look, it was just a great
Speaker 1: opportunity to make a show that we'll potentially reach and
Speaker 1: even to audience, you know, a bigger audience. So it
Speaker 1: was just a great opportunity to keep exploring that, the
Speaker 1: diversity of the spectrum, but not just reaching a water
Speaker 1: audience but exploring even further. You know, everybody is so different.
Speaker 1: We're not fictionalizing anything, we're not over dramatizing things, we're
Speaker 1: not editing things to look at a certain way. So
Speaker 1: it's just a great way for people to get to
Speaker 1: know people and hopefully to have some fun in the
Speaker 1: process and enjoy the experience of, you know, watching their
Speaker 1: stories unfauld. You know, we also get messages from people
Speaker 1: on the spectrum themselves, families, people, just saying what a
Speaker 1: difference it's made to them. and to their lives, which
Speaker 1: is great. So it's just great to be able to
Speaker 1: have this platform. When people see a story of someone
Speaker 1: like Kalin. You know, she was so important to include
Speaker 1: because Kalin presents in a way that people are very
Speaker 1: surprised that she's on the spectrum, and that's really important
Speaker 1: because it's that invisible thing, you know. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: people tend to equate high functioning artism to easy artism,
Speaker 1: and it's not that it might be easier for those
Speaker 1: around me, but it doesn't necessarily mean that my experience
Speaker 1: is easy. I have a lot of language and so
Speaker 1: it can kind of throw people off to learn that
Speaker 1: I have a disability that can impact my communication just
Speaker 1: because my expressive language is so good. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: account for the social anxiety that I'm feeling and it
Speaker 1: doesn't certainly account for the isolation that I've experienced as
Speaker 1: a result of having a brain that is wired differently.
Speaker 1: Is there a term that you prefer to high functioning
Speaker 1: that you like people to use? Sometimes, if you're trying
Speaker 1: to describe somebody, as you know this person is autistic,
Speaker 1: rather than using higher low functioning as descriptors, you might
Speaker 1: say instead they're autistic their language abled, or they're autistic
Speaker 1: and they have language deficits or language impairments or language difficulties,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a mouthful, but it might give
Speaker 1: you a better idea of the person that they're talking about.
Speaker 1: Key and I was very curious about how you went
Speaker 1: about finding blind dates for people or deciding, deciding whether
Speaker 1: even to draw on the neurodivergent or her atypical communities
Speaker 1: when you're setting up individual participants. Maybe you can see
Speaker 1: a bit more about that. Yeah, well, I guess the
Speaker 1: one element of the series that is, I guess, or constructed,
Speaker 1: or the one element of the series that we do
Speaker 1: as producers, kind of create, is that we find matches
Speaker 1: for people, and that's mainly because if we were just
Speaker 1: following someone on their dating journey, not a lot might
Speaker 1: happen in some cases, for example so so bod who
Speaker 1: had never been on a date in his entire life.
Speaker 1: So he was kind of really hoping we could help
Speaker 1: him with that. His family were hoping we could really
Speaker 1: help him with that. So I guess in terms of
Speaker 1: how we look for people and how we find people,
Speaker 1: it's very different depending on the person. So it's all
Speaker 1: about getting to know people really well. And then we
Speaker 1: have our production team and as producers we kind of
Speaker 1: actors matchmakers as best we can. The main thing we
Speaker 1: try and do is match people that we think will
Speaker 1: at least have something in common get along. Even if
Speaker 1: something romantic doesn't happen, they might find a friend. That's
Speaker 1: kind of what we hope for. And Yeah, we we
Speaker 1: find people in old different sorts of ways, again, depending
Speaker 1: on who the person is. That way trying to match. Calin,
Speaker 1: still hoping to find someone, but you know, there's always time. Calin,
Speaker 1: you've had a lot of interest since the show, I believe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have had a lot. I can't say that that
Speaker 1: interest has always been reciprocated, but there has been quite
Speaker 1: a bit of interest. Bet So, there was quite a
Speaker 1: different technique for you. We saw you go to a
Speaker 1: speed dating event to meet potential dates. Can you talk
Speaker 1: me through that? What was that experience like for you? Well,
Speaker 1: I had never been speed dating before, so I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what to expect, but once I started I realized
Speaker 1: how efficient it was in terms of time. Um, you
Speaker 1: kind of get to know people very quickly and so
Speaker 1: maybe you don't know everything about them, but you know
Speaker 1: at the very least if you're interested in seeing them again,
Speaker 1: and so I thought that was a really efficient way
Speaker 1: to date and honestly, more people should try it. We also,
Speaker 1: I mean we also saw you do some advent chers
Speaker 1: in online dating. Can you speak a little bit about
Speaker 1: what that experience is like? Online dating? Online dating has
Speaker 1: not been fruitful and I don't know that it will
Speaker 1: be even given time. It's been a couple of years
Speaker 1: now and it's just not gone very well. And I
Speaker 1: couldn't tell you why, I because I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: plenty of Nice guys out there. It's just finding them
Speaker 1: and connecting with them is the hard part. Yes, you
Speaker 1: were quite funny and talking on the series about a
Speaker 1: particular trend that you noticed in many men's photos, and
Speaker 1: I think anybody who's listening who's done online dating can
Speaker 1: relate to this. The dead animals, and particularly the dead fish.
Speaker 1: Every time, and you know I said it, somebody asked
Speaker 1: me this the other day. I said, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: this might be a little gross, but is the fish
Speaker 1: meant to be like a euphemism for something? Is it's
Speaker 1: supposed to represent something? Because there's just so many people
Speaker 1: who are holding up the fish. There's got to be
Speaker 1: some significance either that or my other thought was, is
Speaker 1: it that they're showing that they are a good provider,
Speaker 1: because we go to the grocery store? So that's great,
Speaker 1: but it's not very necessary. That would definitely be a
Speaker 1: more appealing photo full grocery cart. And Look, I think shop.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. That's a life skill. Lots of people don't
Speaker 1: know how to do that, but I'm not particularly impressed
Speaker 1: by fishing. So, Caitlin, I know you answered this question
Speaker 1: on the show, but I'm going to ask it to
Speaker 1: you because I think it sets up a good context
Speaker 1: for the way that we're talking about this. What does
Speaker 1: autism mean for you in a dating context? I think
Speaker 1: for dating it means that I'm more careful and maybe
Speaker 1: picky or choosy about who I am spending time with.
Speaker 1: Um I've had a couple experiences where I've allocated my
Speaker 1: time towards somebody only to find out that they're not
Speaker 1: somebody who is compassionate to people with disabilities, even before
Speaker 1: finding out that I am a person with a disability
Speaker 1: and that's really important to me. So me aside if
Speaker 1: they cannot have compassion or understanding for other people, disabled
Speaker 1: or otherwise. That's not somebody I'm gonna want to spend
Speaker 1: my time with. So it's made me more picky, I think,
Speaker 1: in that regard, and it's also kind of harder to
Speaker 1: relate and to connect to people just because my hobbies
Speaker 1: and interests have never been what's been considered typical or
Speaker 1: normal Um, and even if they were something that was
Speaker 1: typical or normal, they would be more intense than what
Speaker 1: would be normally expected of somebody. So that can make
Speaker 1: it harder to connect with other people. That's really interesting
Speaker 1: that there would be a period of time where you
Speaker 1: get to know somebody's general attitudes towards people with maybe
Speaker 1: neuro divergence without even knowing that the person that they're
Speaker 1: on a date with, who is you, is part of
Speaker 1: that community. How do you decide when to share that
Speaker 1: part of yourself with somebody that you're getting to know?
Speaker 1: I think I've had the, you know, the experience of
Speaker 1: being on the show and it has made me more
Speaker 1: confident in disclosing that information to people and not being
Speaker 1: afraid just because I think I know how to handle it.
Speaker 1: Now I've come into so much contact with success that
Speaker 1: I'm able to do it and not feel so nervous
Speaker 1: about it. But otherwise I would say that I don't
Speaker 1: usually lead with that information. I try to get to
Speaker 1: know them first and if it's relevant to the conversation
Speaker 1: or if I think it will be useful for some reason,
Speaker 1: then I'll share that, but usually I'll wait until I
Speaker 1: get a little bit closer to them. Yeah, Kien, can
Speaker 1: you tell me a bit about your approach as a
Speaker 1: filmmaker to capture these really intimate moments but also, I guess,
Speaker 1: not be in the way of what was unfolding? MHMM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the way I like to work we just try
Speaker 1: to have a really small footprints and I think that
Speaker 1: just really helps to, I guess, make people feel comfortable
Speaker 1: and for people to sometimes forget the way around and
Speaker 1: to be able to capture things that are really truthful
Speaker 1: and honest. When my filming dates, we we try and
Speaker 1: hang quite far back and use longer lenses, so we're
Speaker 1: just trying to be as low impact as possible and
Speaker 1: I think that helps to tell those stories in a
Speaker 1: in a way that feels real. Kalen, I've seen some
Speaker 1: of your social media and that people have commented publicly
Speaker 1: on your post to tell you how much your participation
Speaker 1: means to them. Can you say a little bit about
Speaker 1: what the reaction has been like for you in particular?
Speaker 1: I kind of knew that it was gonna be I
Speaker 1: would gain some followers and people would message, but I
Speaker 1: never could have predicted the amount of people who are
Speaker 1: so impressed and so inspired by it. Um and, more importantly,
Speaker 1: the people that relate to me. I kind of thought
Speaker 1: I was an outlier in terms of just where my
Speaker 1: specific deficits are in terms of relating to autism and
Speaker 1: the things that I struggle with. I kind of thought
Speaker 1: I was a bit unusual. You know, I've seen bits
Speaker 1: and pieces of myself in other autistic people around me,
Speaker 1: but I've never met somebody who was truly like me,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense, especially in an adult. And so
Speaker 1: seeing that on social media, getting messages from other autistic
Speaker 1: women saying I relate to you for all these reasons
Speaker 1: and giving all the specific information that they have in
Speaker 1: common with me after seeing my story. I don't even
Speaker 1: know the word for it, flabbercacid, surprise, Um, incurridge, all
Speaker 1: of those. You know, it's been wonderful. It's got to
Speaker 1: be pretty cool. I mean it's amazing. What were you
Speaker 1: hoping would happen when you participated in the show in
Speaker 1: the first place in terms of how autism is represented
Speaker 1: on screen? I was hoping, kind of like keyns talked
Speaker 1: about before, to bring some awareness to just the different
Speaker 1: parts of the spectrum and how it can show up
Speaker 1: differently for different people. That aside, I was kind of
Speaker 1: just expecting to have a fun you know, I've never
Speaker 1: experienced anything like this. Most people probably haven't experienced anything
Speaker 1: like this, and so I was just hoping for kind
Speaker 1: of a new experience, to do something fun Um, and
Speaker 1: it's met and exceeded my expectations. From love on the spectrum.
Speaker 1: That's director Kian o'clary and participant Kalin partlow. If you
Speaker 1: love conversations about real people's stories, check out our episode
Speaker 1: with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. I would just suggest, too,
Speaker 1: that these big themes, these big stories, the constituent building blocks,
Speaker 1: are these intimate, bottom up stories, more often than not,
Speaker 1: of people that you don't know, and so, like William Blake,
Speaker 1: we're finding the world in a grain of sand and
Speaker 1: that changes, particularizes, literally atomizes, the way you tell these stories.
Speaker 1: So it isn't just the thirty thousand feet great man
Speaker 1: history of the presidency in generals and wars. It's something
Speaker 1: that is bottom up and you and you touch on
Speaker 1: the African American experience, which is in almost every film
Speaker 1: we've made. And when you learn from so called ordinary people,
Speaker 1: then it sort of mitigates the tension of the big idea.
Speaker 1: Here the rest of the conversation with Ken Burns at.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, dot org, when we return, autism advocate
Speaker 1: Calin partlow shares what she feels is most misunderstood about
Speaker 1: the spectrum. I'm Talia S Langer and you're listening to
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Director Kiano' CLARY had made two seasons
Speaker 1: of the series. When he set out to film the
Speaker 1: US version of love on the spectrum, I wondered if
Speaker 1: he ever felt pressure about the show's portrayal of the
Speaker 1: artistic community. Yeah, there is a sense of like a
Speaker 1: weight of responsibility that these stories are, you know, probably
Speaker 1: one of the biggest representations of autism now in the media. So,
Speaker 1: given they are real people's stories, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: most comforting thing for me, is that you know these
Speaker 1: are we're just we're trying to give voice to people,
Speaker 1: to tell their own stories as much as we can,
Speaker 1: which is why we have those muster interviews where people
Speaker 1: are looking down the barrel. It looks like they're looking
Speaker 1: straight at the audience. They're looking at me through a
Speaker 1: mirror thing, just things like that that just helped to
Speaker 1: feel like we're giving people a voice rather than trying
Speaker 1: to present people. Kaalen. Do you feel that public views
Speaker 1: are changing or evolving about our atism? I think so.
Speaker 1: I think some countries are doing really well, in some
Speaker 1: countries are not quite caught up in terms of accurate
Speaker 1: information or information at all, and so I think in
Speaker 1: some places and in some aspects we're doing really well
Speaker 1: in terms of autism awareness, and in some places and
Speaker 1: some aspects there's lots of work to be done. What
Speaker 1: do you wish that more people understood about autism? I
Speaker 1: think something important to be considered, to be understood by
Speaker 1: people about autism would be just that autism can present
Speaker 1: in so many ways and that you shouldn't make assumptions
Speaker 1: about the autistic person that you are meeting based on
Speaker 1: the last autistic person that you've interacted with. So they say,
Speaker 1: once you've met one person with autism. You've met one
Speaker 1: person with autism and we're all so incredibly different that
Speaker 1: there are going to be traits that we have in
Speaker 1: common and similarities that will have between us, but the
Speaker 1: way that those present in each person are just going
Speaker 1: to be so different. I'm wondering what are some things
Speaker 1: that you love and appreciate about your own autism? One
Speaker 1: thing I really like is my ability to have great
Speaker 1: passion for the work that I'm doing, be that with
Speaker 1: dogs or with children. I think I've just been really,
Speaker 1: really passionate about everything that I've kind of set out
Speaker 1: to do in my life and I don't know that
Speaker 1: I would have had that same passion and drive if
Speaker 1: I weren't autistic. Yeah, I wanted to read a quote
Speaker 1: from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and the quote is
Speaker 1: our society says that disability is the problem and that
Speaker 1: the solution is to cure the disability or to try
Speaker 1: and make the person, quote, less disabled. Unquote. The disability
Speaker 1: rights movement says that people with disabilities are not the problem. Instead,
Speaker 1: society is the problem when it does not accommodate people
Speaker 1: with disabilities. Do you agree and how can we change it?
Speaker 1: So I come at it from two angles, both as
Speaker 1: a provider of services for disabled people as well as
Speaker 1: a disabled person myself. There are definitely some systemic and
Speaker 1: societal problems that, if they were removed, our lives would
Speaker 1: be significantly easier. That said, there is no amount of
Speaker 1: societal changes that is going to give somebody the ability
Speaker 1: to communicate without being taught. That doesn't mean that they're broken,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with them, it
Speaker 1: just means they need to be taught in a way
Speaker 1: that they can understand. Like all people. All people have
Speaker 1: skills to learn, all people have things that they need
Speaker 1: to learn in their lives and no amount of turning
Speaker 1: the lights down or changing the physical environment is going
Speaker 1: to give somebody an ability that they didn't have before.
Speaker 1: That is so well explained and it's also so applicable
Speaker 1: just to humanity in general, to the human experience. It is,
Speaker 1: and I think people might criticize me for saying but,
Speaker 1: like you just said, it's it's so applicable to humanity,
Speaker 1: not just the disabled portion of humanity, it is for everybody.
Speaker 1: Accommodations are wonderful and they do help a lot of
Speaker 1: people and they help for a lot of different things Um,
Speaker 1: but it is not going to cure the problem. Not
Speaker 1: to say that being disabled as a problem that needs
Speaker 1: to be cured, but just to say that if you
Speaker 1: are having a difficulty, a societal change might help you,
Speaker 1: a systemic change might help you, but depending on what
Speaker 1: it is, it also might not help you. I've enjoyed
Speaker 1: talking to you both so much. Thank you. I've learned
Speaker 1: a lot and I've I've really loved watching this series.
Speaker 1: So Calin, thank you, and Kien, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us. It's great director Kian o'clary and
Speaker 1: Klin partlow from love on the spectrum. My next guest,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Cook, is a speaker, consultant, autism advocate and the
Speaker 1: author of several books on autism, including her memoir autism
Speaker 1: in heals, the untold story of a female life on
Speaker 1: the spectrum. Cook works as a dating coach with the
Speaker 1: participants on the Netflix show love on the spectrum. She
Speaker 1: brings her own experience as a person with autism to
Speaker 1: her work and she really tailors her help to suit
Speaker 1: each individual's particular needs. Before we talked about the show itself,
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear how she defied autism in her
Speaker 1: own words. So the technical answer is going to be
Speaker 1: that it's a neurological and neurodevelopmental disorder, and you can
Speaker 1: certainly say that that is true. It's Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: clinically it's a disability, and that's how any professional is
Speaker 1: going to go ahead and describe it. However, that being said,
Speaker 1: I think it's more like a constellation. You know, if you,
Speaker 1: if any of us, look up into the night sky
Speaker 1: and we see, you know, let's say we're looking at
Speaker 1: the big dipper. Okay, well, we're imagining that. There's a
Speaker 1: picture there. Those are all their own little, you know,
Speaker 1: stars in the sky, but if we journeyed on over
Speaker 1: to Mars and we looked up in the same place,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't see that same picture. That's because those stars
Speaker 1: are really, you know, in and of themselves. They're doing
Speaker 1: their own thing. It's together the cluster that we are seeing,
Speaker 1: that we're imagining together, we're putting a parameter around that
Speaker 1: is what we then label the big dipper. That's a constellation, right.
Speaker 1: That's the same thing we do with autism. It's a cluster,
Speaker 1: a constellation of otherwise unrelated that's what syndrome means otherwise unrelated,
Speaker 1: you know, issues, challenges. I don't like to use the
Speaker 1: word symptoms because that to me, that sounds like I mean,
Speaker 1: that could be a cold, you know, it just sounds wrong,
Speaker 1: but that we then associate together and form this concept
Speaker 1: that we call autism. That was very well explained. And
Speaker 1: given that it's a spectrum and everything is is different
Speaker 1: for every single individual, just as you sort of just
Speaker 1: made clear for us, because we're talking about dating and
Speaker 1: people on the autism spectrum dating, can you give me
Speaker 1: a sense sort of in general what some of the
Speaker 1: challenges that people on the spectrum might face when it
Speaker 1: comes to romantic relationships? Absolutely, you know. So you'll notice
Speaker 1: I speak and a lot of metaphors and that in
Speaker 1: and of itself will challenge a lot of beliefs that
Speaker 1: in fact, I've I've I've heard before. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't be autistic. You use too many metaphors for an
Speaker 1: autistic person to understand. And my point is, well, that's ironic,
Speaker 1: because I am in fact and I can clearly understand
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So I think maybe that's not where
Speaker 1: the challenge lies. I think, as with anything else, that
Speaker 1: there are uh different levels of ingredients and everybody's secret
Speaker 1: recipe and everyone's secret sauce, and it's sort of like
Speaker 1: going to starbucks and seeing the menu where you can
Speaker 1: get a million different kinds of, you know, Latte this
Speaker 1: and Latte that and refresh her this and whatever else,
Speaker 1: and it's essentially the same ingredients just kind of mixed
Speaker 1: in different recipes. Right. Well, that's what it's like being
Speaker 1: on the spectrum too. So it looks a little different
Speaker 1: because the end result of that recipe is going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit different for each person. But it's
Speaker 1: less of a linear spectrum and more of a mixology
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And if you can imagine that the
Speaker 1: same ingredients are going in and whether that's sensory sensibilities,
Speaker 1: whether that is challenges with social cues. The biggest one
Speaker 1: is what I call mind blindness, which is literally the
Speaker 1: inability to innately, organically step into somebody else's shoes, into
Speaker 1: someone else's perspective. We can learn to do it beautifully,
Speaker 1: we can learn to intellectualize the process that comes organically
Speaker 1: to others, but we have to do it intellectually. We
Speaker 1: have to learn to do it. So all these things
Speaker 1: add up to a cocktail, if you will, of challenges
Speaker 1: when it comes to making any kind of relationship work,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't mean even just a romantic relationship. Means
Speaker 1: friendships too, an employee employer relationships, pretty much everything. So
Speaker 1: if you know that a dating relationship, if it's going
Speaker 1: to work and be of any substance, has to have
Speaker 1: a foundation of friendship first anyway, right, then it kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense that you can understand if you're in
Speaker 1: a position where you naturally don't take somebody else's perspective
Speaker 1: and your communication, your social communication queues, might be a
Speaker 1: little bit different. You might tend to go on and
Speaker 1: on and on when you know something well and not
Speaker 1: realize you're, quote unquote, taking up all the air in
Speaker 1: a conversation. Things like that. It's doubly hard. Dating is
Speaker 1: hard for everybody. You know, it's not an easy thing.
Speaker 1: Be No need for dating coaches, right, but throw these
Speaker 1: little challenges in the way and again, with maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit more here and a little bit more there,
Speaker 1: the recipe is always kind of, kind of be the same.
Speaker 1: So you see a lot of masking sometimes and a
Speaker 1: lot of mimicking, and that's not always a bad thing,
Speaker 1: right I want to talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: mind blindness that you mentioned, because I think putting yourself
Speaker 1: in another person's shoes, are connecting with them by imagining
Speaker 1: what they might be thinking or feeling is a part
Speaker 1: of dating for lots of neurotypical people. So can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about how how one learns
Speaker 1: to work around the tendency towards mind blindness when interacting
Speaker 1: with somebody else? Sure you know it's you're gonna hear.
Speaker 1: Everything that I say is going to be applicable for
Speaker 1: everybody on the human spectrum. I mean that's the reality.
Speaker 1: Nothing that I say is truly unique to people who
Speaker 1: are autistic. It's that it's life with the volume turned up,
Speaker 1: if you can kind of imagine, with all the intensities
Speaker 1: turned up. So that being said, mind blindness is not
Speaker 1: something you can train yourself out of. What you can do, though,
Speaker 1: is become aware that you have it. So, just like
Speaker 1: I'm terribly nearsighted, I mean terribly, so I know very
Speaker 1: well that if I don't have my contacts in, what
Speaker 1: I see is a big smudge that perhaps resembles reality,
Speaker 1: but in no clearer perspective. I know that. So I
Speaker 1: know I've got to put in contacts or I know
Speaker 1: I've got to put glasses on so that I can see,
Speaker 1: so that I can make heads or tails of the world. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing if you know that you're going
Speaker 1: to have to ask more questions that might seem obvious
Speaker 1: to others. First of all, nobody gets annoyed if you say,
Speaker 1: could you tell me a little bit more about you,
Speaker 1: or could you explain more about that? Nobody's going to
Speaker 1: get annoyed when you want to show more interests. That's
Speaker 1: you know, that's sort of a misconception, and this is
Speaker 1: one of the things I coach a lot. It's okay
Speaker 1: to not have it all together in the moment. It's
Speaker 1: okay to say, what's that like for you? I can't
Speaker 1: even imagine. Literally, I can't even, because maybe couldn't you know,
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine what's that like, and I think
Speaker 1: they're communication skills that truly would only benefit anybody. Thinking
Speaker 1: of a game that you sort of played with one
Speaker 1: of the participants on love on the spectrum. That was
Speaker 1: the ball rolling game, where you sort of modeled what
Speaker 1: it's like to have a conversation. Can you say a
Speaker 1: little bit about that, because I think it does applied
Speaker 1: to everyone. UH, no matter. Yeah, absolutely so. We're using
Speaker 1: a ping pong balls myself and one of the participants.
Speaker 1: Her attention was real short and she would kind of
Speaker 1: be here, there and everywhere, and that makes it hard
Speaker 1: to have any real connection with somebody else. Obviously you know,
Speaker 1: because if you're not playing, almost like you know when
Speaker 1: you're in the pool or when you're a kid and
Speaker 1: you play that game with balloons and it's how many
Speaker 1: times you can both keep it up together, you're not
Speaker 1: competing against each other, you're working together. Right, okay, it's
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. That's what a conversation is. So
Speaker 1: among the dating tips that I give you know, one
Speaker 1: of them is that you have to start with the
Speaker 1: foundation of friendship. But in another one that I'll often
Speaker 1: say is that when you are having conversations, you are
Speaker 1: not interviewing someone and you're not also testing to see
Speaker 1: if they can keep up with you. This is not
Speaker 1: a moment to try to show off either. So what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was ground her with a concrete
Speaker 1: experience that would go to get it at an abstract topic,
Speaker 1: the idea of being a conversation right, not being one side.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I did first was
Speaker 1: I had a whole bunch of pain pung balls and
Speaker 1: we were on the ground and I said, okay, now,
Speaker 1: what your favorite color was? That, you know, four or
Speaker 1: five questions in a row when I rolled them all
Speaker 1: at her. Perfect. So I'm gonna roll this to you,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to roll a bunch of them ready.
Speaker 1: So what do you like to do? What's your favorite color?
Speaker 1: My favorite color like dogs. Yes, my favorite color. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of questions. It is a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: When somebody asks you a lot of questions like that,
Speaker 1: it's hard to figure them out and listen to what
Speaker 1: they're saying, which means I didn't get to know anything
Speaker 1: about abby right. Okay, so let's try something different. Will
Speaker 1: you roll the balls back at me? What's your favorite
Speaker 1: thing to do? I like to play with my dog.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite thing to do? Work out and swim.
Speaker 1: Roll it back. Okay, Great. What do you like best
Speaker 1: about swimming? Because that Mermaid Swim, but I don't want
Speaker 1: to go too far out where there's dangerous and roll
Speaker 1: it back. You just gave me a good answer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Sharks can be scary. Right. Do you know
Speaker 1: what you just did? You just had a conversation with me.
Speaker 1: Oh my God, so what it instead? And then, right,
Speaker 1: was then, okay, let me roll this question to you
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have to roll it back to me
Speaker 1: with an answer, and then I'll roll it back to
Speaker 1: you with a tell me more, and in doing so,
Speaker 1: you've got to adapt, you've got to move, you've gotta shift.
Speaker 1: Rigid thinking is like being uncooked spaghetti. Right. So it's
Speaker 1: that unbendable snap here, if you will. Right, but that,
Speaker 1: with a little time and a little more like the
Speaker 1: little nice bath in the water, you can be flow ere,
Speaker 1: you can be flexible. This is you're literally having to
Speaker 1: go with the flow, actually, and get that grabbed, that
Speaker 1: little ball, that conversational nugget, and keep it going. And
Speaker 1: that's the goal. What the best part of that experience
Speaker 1: was for me was seeing how she absolutely didn't realize
Speaker 1: what was happening until it was over and I said
Speaker 1: to her, you just you just had a conversation and
Speaker 1: it was this Whoa, I did moment. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like being a kid and you're on the bike and
Speaker 1: they're pushing you along and they're not pushing you along
Speaker 1: anymore and you haven't realized that you're actually the one
Speaker 1: riding the bike by yourself. That's what she had done.
Speaker 1: You sort of, I guess, hinted at the balance between
Speaker 1: helping her have a conversation that would be engaging for
Speaker 1: somebody else, but also celebrating the fact that the way
Speaker 1: that her mind works makes her an exciting person to
Speaker 1: talk to. So maybe you can speak a bit to
Speaker 1: this idea of as a coach, like how do you
Speaker 1: guide somebody in dating while also helping them to be
Speaker 1: their full selves on the spectrum? You know, I think
Speaker 1: it's just as any good, if you will, teacher would do. Right,
Speaker 1: a teacher isn't a doctor, and neither as a coach,
Speaker 1: and not there to to fix someone, because I don't
Speaker 1: believe they're broken. Right. I don't believe that I'm in
Speaker 1: there to repair something or get the autism out of them. Right.
Speaker 1: It's that there's a very able list, if you will.
Speaker 1: You know perspective right now, that that's what is. That
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do when you're learning social rules
Speaker 1: or your practical absolutely, from my perspective, absolutely not. It's
Speaker 1: a matter of having multiple choices. It's a matter of
Speaker 1: being a little bit bilingual, having social ease as a
Speaker 1: second language in your back pocket that maybe you can
Speaker 1: use to express your authentic self as well. And, Um, abby,
Speaker 1: the participant we're talking about, definitely she's Quirky, she's out there,
Speaker 1: she's funny and if she were stayed and reserved, I'm
Speaker 1: sure she would be fascinating, but she wouldn't be abby,
Speaker 1: and so that wouldn't be putting her out there in
Speaker 1: a real way. And so, Um, if we want abby
Speaker 1: to be happy and find somebody, which she has, then
Speaker 1: you know, you've got to be able to do it, coach,
Speaker 1: in a way that's still, like you said, keeps that
Speaker 1: authentic self, says that true, true center. Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: also mentioned masking or mimicking before. Can you help me
Speaker 1: understand those concepts a little bit better? Sure, and they're
Speaker 1: different and they can both work for you and against you.
Speaker 1: So start with the mimicking first. One of the things
Speaker 1: that you'll see with kids on the spectrum oven times
Speaker 1: is they'll they'll be able to script, that is too
Speaker 1: play off of an actually um re enact scripts from
Speaker 1: their favorite TV shows or books to the letter. I
Speaker 1: did a lot of theater growing up. I think that
Speaker 1: actually helped me in that I could pick and choose
Speaker 1: lines from characters that I played two then play characters
Speaker 1: in real life a little bit, not in a way
Speaker 1: that made me inauthentic or falls but if I wasn't
Speaker 1: really sure what might best fit this social situation, especially
Speaker 1: if it was around peers. That was my hardest we
Speaker 1: tend to struggle the most when we're around our own
Speaker 1: peer group. Um, we do better if we're with somebody
Speaker 1: younger or older, or if we see your role or
Speaker 1: we are in charge, we are or the subordinate, but
Speaker 1: when it's spontaneous, pure relationships, which, of course, that's what
Speaker 1: dating is going to be usually, you know, that can
Speaker 1: be the hardest. So for me I literally would use
Speaker 1: scripts Um and I would use the different like stage coaching.
Speaker 1: You know that you would get from a director, and
Speaker 1: that's one of the hard things the scripting can be.
Speaker 1: It can be wonderful, it can in that it does,
Speaker 1: it can empower you and give you a vocabulary, but
Speaker 1: it can also be really challenging and cause dangers when
Speaker 1: you are not fully aware of the entire situation. The
Speaker 1: entire plot that you're bringing with with that script. Can
Speaker 1: I also ask like when you're doing that, in that
Speaker 1: moment it sounds almost like there's a split going on,
Speaker 1: like you're aware of yourself as a as a person,
Speaker 1: and then you're aware of a sort of script that
Speaker 1: you're trying out to fit into a social situation. And
Speaker 1: My understanding that correctly? Yeah, no, you are. It really
Speaker 1: reminds me with again, with a foreign language. Right, so
Speaker 1: if you're at a level with a foreign language where
Speaker 1: you can speak pretty clearly, pretty fluently, but you still
Speaker 1: are having to think it and then there's that moment
Speaker 1: after you've finished speaking, where you're going. Please, did I
Speaker 1: say the right thing? Right? You know, I speak Spanish,
Speaker 1: but I can, I can think very clearly back to
Speaker 1: a time when I said that, which means I said
Speaker 1: ladies and horses in stead of Ladies and gentlemen, Right,
Speaker 1: and it took me a moment to realize what I
Speaker 1: had done and white people were looking at me strangely.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of that same thing in that you
Speaker 1: know you you are watching for reactions, and doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you're always going to interpret the reactions correctly either. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there is that that momentary. It's like a lag, I suppose,
Speaker 1: you know, making sure you don't have to bleep something out.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like that in real time. And is
Speaker 1: that something typically that some people on the spectrum do
Speaker 1: in order to navigate their way through social situations, almost
Speaker 1: like that second foreign language, is social interaction? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: exactly what it is. And so, and that's where we
Speaker 1: get to what we call masking. And masking can be
Speaker 1: conscious or unconscious, right, it can be the I am
Speaker 1: trying to quote unquote, look normal, and this is where
Speaker 1: I always point out that, you know, normal and typical
Speaker 1: or not actually synonyms. But yeah, and that's where masking
Speaker 1: can get very dangerous, because if you are trying to
Speaker 1: suggestribly to be something else, then you are, you know,
Speaker 1: if there's subterfuge happening, I mean you're literally, you know,
Speaker 1: destroying your own self in an effort to be something
Speaker 1: and someone who you are not. And we we can
Speaker 1: look at all groups in society and see where that
Speaker 1: has happened and why. You then get higher rates of
Speaker 1: suicide and depression and eating disorders and self harm, and
Speaker 1: that's what you'll see, especially among women and girls on
Speaker 1: the spectrum. The rates are very, very high. In fact,
Speaker 1: in my work one of the things I'll say frequently
Speaker 1: is that if a girl or a woman has an
Speaker 1: eating disorder, truly disorder, then that should be considered a
Speaker 1: red flag to consider whether or not choose on the spectrum,
Speaker 1: because it's that prevalent. So, that being said, you know,
Speaker 1: masking can also be away if you're if you sort
Speaker 1: of know what you're doing. You can also give you
Speaker 1: a sense of control, and that's not a bad thing
Speaker 1: because you can feel a little bit more like, okay, look,
Speaker 1: when we put on our clothes every day, we're putting
Speaker 1: on a costume. It's not a false one, it's what
Speaker 1: we're choosing to present to the world. So in that
Speaker 1: sense I think it can be a good thing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it is very much like speaking a second language. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the masking sounds quite painful and it sounds like it's
Speaker 1: very much based in a sort of almost like double think,
Speaker 1: of what society expects you to be like versus who
Speaker 1: you are. Yeah, no, and you're a hundred percent right.
Speaker 1: What it means is that I can mask, if you will,
Speaker 1: so well that whatever support or help I might need,
Speaker 1: you won't see it, and so you're getting this this
Speaker 1: sort of duel will experience where you're probably going to
Speaker 1: be much more included, right, like. I know I've gotten
Speaker 1: this a lot from the show, you know. And just
Speaker 1: in like, you don't look autistic, you don't seem autistic
Speaker 1: or you know, it's sort of then lends itself to
Speaker 1: the like. You know, what does what does that mean exactly?
Speaker 1: And I know what it means generally. What that means
Speaker 1: is that because I've got high language skills. I mean,
Speaker 1: I suppose I'm the gift of Gab word girl. So
Speaker 1: that makes it look like there's no challenges, but that's
Speaker 1: because I'm really good at mimicking, right, at copying and
Speaker 1: then playing around with it and twirling those words into
Speaker 1: something that works. I'm pretty good at speaking of foreign language.
Speaker 1: Is What it comes down to. But Um to the
Speaker 1: larger question, just, you know, of masking and mimicking and
Speaker 1: where it all comes together, is that that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that I tend to be pretty even flowing
Speaker 1: when it comes to language. Uh, using the verbage. Regarding
Speaker 1: the spectrum, I don't care much whether people stay people
Speaker 1: with autism, person with autism, autistic person like it, just
Speaker 1: it doesn't bind. Language is powerful and important, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't bother me so much one way or the other.
Speaker 1: I'd rather just make sure we can get to the
Speaker 1: nut and be able to have a conversation rather than get,
Speaker 1: you know, caught up in language or in the specifics
Speaker 1: of verbiage. But the one exception to that is the
Speaker 1: phrase high functioning or low functioning. I find that really
Speaker 1: disturbing because, well, so many reasons, but one of them
Speaker 1: is that you can be, you know, you can literally
Speaker 1: be a non speaking autistic and have a verbal IQ
Speaker 1: in the genius range. So I mean there is that,
Speaker 1: you know, but when you stay high functioning or low functioning,
Speaker 1: you're generally not taking account and not taking into account
Speaker 1: the work that's going on to mask, to put it
Speaker 1: out there, to be and so if you're too good
Speaker 1: at it, if you're too good at your second language,
Speaker 1: then you know it doesn't look like you need to
Speaker 1: board or help. And if you ask for it, which
Speaker 1: you probably won't anyway because you're not really sure what
Speaker 1: that would that help would look for like, it's going
Speaker 1: to seem more like you being lazy or difficult or
Speaker 1: a know it all. That kind of thing, right. There
Speaker 1: is a suggestion that you might have for listeners in
Speaker 1: terms of terms that you do, uh, a lot of. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like to use more or less obviously in need
Speaker 1: of support. Oh cool, yeah, yeah, you know. So I
Speaker 1: think that's just kind of what I say and and
Speaker 1: it works. Um. Again, I'm hard to offend, truthfully, but
Speaker 1: I think that gives a I think it gives a
Speaker 1: little bit more um onus to what's going on underneath.
Speaker 1: That's author and advocate Jennifer Cook. If you're enjoying this episode,
Speaker 1: don't keep it to yourself, tell a friend and be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on the I heart radio, APP
Speaker 1: apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. After the break,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Cook shares how the terms normal and typical I
Speaker 1: mean two very different things. I'm Tallyash Langer and you're
Speaker 1: listening to here's the thing. While Autism Advocate Jennifer Cook
Speaker 1: is clearly an expert in the space, she actually wasn't
Speaker 1: aware of being on the spectrum herself until she was
Speaker 1: in her thirties. I was curious about how the later
Speaker 1: in life identification affected her. The phrase autism, and you
Speaker 1: know well, women and girls in general, that they didn't
Speaker 1: go hand in hand. You know, Um, it would have
Speaker 1: been more of a classically autistic child that would have
Speaker 1: gotten that diagnosis, something someone who was non verbal, really
Speaker 1: hard to integrate into society. That that was not me.
Speaker 1: I was the goody good girl who, you know, was
Speaker 1: the overachieving teacher's pet. I mean, let's that's well, I'll
Speaker 1: just put it right there. That's what I was because
Speaker 1: I was following all the rules. I was looking to
Speaker 1: see how to be and how to be were. What
Speaker 1: got rewarded the most was, you know, being what the
Speaker 1: adults were telling me to do. I was not diagnosed
Speaker 1: or identified, or whatever phrase you want to use, until
Speaker 1: after my three children. Now my kids are now I
Speaker 1: have a daughter who's nineteen, a son who's sixteen son
Speaker 1: who's thirteen. But this is going back eleven years ago,
Speaker 1: and at that point I had really fought for my
Speaker 1: daughter's diagnosis, and I say fought for in the sense
Speaker 1: that she was checking off boxes. But what wasn't quite well,
Speaker 1: the phrase was weird enough that I was told she
Speaker 1: wasn't weird enough to fit the bill. Basically, my kids
Speaker 1: were diagnosed with what was then asperer's syndrome. You know,
Speaker 1: it's now just all considered to be under the autism spectrum,
Speaker 1: bubble Um, an umbrella. I was identified because I went
Speaker 1: through and really I saw myself in my kids. My
Speaker 1: Dad had passed away not long beforehand. He had he
Speaker 1: was just a classic absent minded professor and that is
Speaker 1: a real that's a persona of of Asper Syndrome. So
Speaker 1: it was kind of like, okay, I think that I'm
Speaker 1: the missing link between the generations because Pretty Dang sure
Speaker 1: he had it. So therefore, but I had to really
Speaker 1: sit back and go through all of these bullet points
Speaker 1: of how autism presented, or how aspergers presented, what it
Speaker 1: might look like. But all the ways that it, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: might look tended to be very, quote unquote, manly or
Speaker 1: boy focused. Right like, the questions would be things like,
Speaker 1: you know, does the child line up their toy cars
Speaker 1: and trucks? Now, I didn't have toy cars and trucks
Speaker 1: growing up. First of all, that question always throws me
Speaker 1: because doesn't one line up things that are like aren't
Speaker 1: lines of traffic? Lines of traffic anyway? It's so, but
Speaker 1: this would be the autistic reaction. Is that I'm questioning
Speaker 1: the questions, I'm getting right, that there's the autistic reaction
Speaker 1: is that I'm getting into the nuances while missing the
Speaker 1: bigger picture. But what I could say that I did
Speaker 1: with my barbies is that I would set them up
Speaker 1: in Tableau and I would take pictures of them and
Speaker 1: that would be their adding albums. Rather or script we
Speaker 1: go back to the scripting or script news stories that
Speaker 1: they were then, you know, re enact other little kids
Speaker 1: not necessarily doing that. You know they're not really interested
Speaker 1: in doing that. So for me, finally getting the the
Speaker 1: identification at thirty five, it took me having to go
Speaker 1: through every one of those bullet points, UN zipping them
Speaker 1: and saying, okay, well, what is it that in this
Speaker 1: by doing this, in this behavior, somebody's trying to achieve?
Speaker 1: What is the need that's being met? Ironically, I was
Speaker 1: asking the diagnosticians to change perspective, which was what I
Speaker 1: was not supposed to be able to do. Only most
Speaker 1: of them were not doing and it was by doing
Speaker 1: that that I could kind of go through it all
Speaker 1: and say here's why, and yeah, and that's how it happened.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. How did your life change. When you came
Speaker 1: to that realization, you know, it was very much the
Speaker 1: moment of okay, self forgiveness. You know, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid I used to think I had somebody once
Speaker 1: say to me you're too smart for your own good,
Speaker 1: and I you know, that's an expression and I realized
Speaker 1: that they probably didn't mean it, but I really took
Speaker 1: that to be the case and I thought, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, what do you do with that? I remember
Speaker 1: clearly starting to write a book when I was in
Speaker 1: fourth grade. I had titled It Smart Because I thought
Speaker 1: that was the problem with my life, was just being smart.
Speaker 1: But can you imagine that? Now I would break my
Speaker 1: heart to hear a child doing you know that, feeling
Speaker 1: that way. But but no, for me it was a
Speaker 1: great relief because it made everything else makes sense, that
Speaker 1: I could be a genuinely kind, good person who also
Speaker 1: was clueless at the same time and, you know, seemed
Speaker 1: too smart to be clueless. It all just made sense,
Speaker 1: and so for me that was a great, great gift.
Speaker 1: Absolutely he said a little while ago that normal and
Speaker 1: typical are not synonyms and it sort of went by.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you to please elaborate on
Speaker 1: that sure. So this is one that I I really
Speaker 1: like staying in front of crowds where I can pick
Speaker 1: someone out of the crowd who might be saying visually
Speaker 1: a minority. So I will tell a story. There was
Speaker 1: a very small woman who was turned out. She was
Speaker 1: of Pakistani descent, and I said to her, would you
Speaker 1: come up here with me please, on the stage and
Speaker 1: in making this point, and she was a spectrum mom
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1: Would you agree that it is less typical to be
Speaker 1: a Pakistani American woman? Then say me, German and Irish,
Speaker 1: French American woman, because when we're talking about typical, we're
Speaker 1: talking demographics, we're just talking numbers, pure numbers. That's it.
Speaker 1: And she said yeah, that's true. There are simply fewer. Okay, perfect, great,
Speaker 1: and I said all right, so we would say that
Speaker 1: it's that you are less typical. And then I said,
Speaker 1: but if I said you are less normal than me,
Speaker 1: what would you say? And she said, Oh hell no,
Speaker 1: and it was great because there's this little, teeny tiny
Speaker 1: woman and just oh hell no, and I said exactly right, ma'am.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. You may sit down to the
Speaker 1: whole audience community cheered for and it was great, because
Speaker 1: that's the point. One has everything to do with demographics
Speaker 1: and numbers and there you know. It's absolute value stuff.
Speaker 1: There's nothing attached to it's neutral. The other normal is
Speaker 1: everything about judgments and everything about wanting to be something,
Speaker 1: wanting to fit. Everybody wants to be, quote unquote, normal,
Speaker 1: but do you really? I mean we all want things
Speaker 1: to be easier in life. Nobody wants to have to
Speaker 1: fight a fight and I think that's normal and that's
Speaker 1: that is normal, and I think and I think that's okay.
Speaker 1: It's it's all right to not want to have to
Speaker 1: fight more battles than you have to already. Life is
Speaker 1: not an easy thing. But that being said, you know,
Speaker 1: there really is no normal. And when we are, if
Speaker 1: we are believing that by being less than typical, we
Speaker 1: are less than normal, then I think that's and self
Speaker 1: esteem goes by the wayside. That's when you get into levels,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, of depression and self harm, of loneliness,
Speaker 1: of there being a great disjointed nous between intelligence and
Speaker 1: career progression. Things just don't look good when you don't
Speaker 1: when you can't find a way to see yourself in
Speaker 1: normal right. What do you see as the difference between
Speaker 1: autism awareness and autism acceptance or even celebration? To me,
Speaker 1: acceptance sort of implies that there's something that's not ideal
Speaker 1: that you have to accept, versus even inclusion or, as
Speaker 1: you've just said, celebration. So talk to me about that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so inclusion to me, you know, like inclusion is that
Speaker 1: should be like. That is not something to celebrate, like look,
Speaker 1: we're being inclusive, like that's like being in elementary school
Speaker 1: where you have to invite every kid in the class
Speaker 1: to your birthday party. Do you want to be the
Speaker 1: kid that everybody had to in? No, you don't want
Speaker 1: to be that kid. That's inclusion, right, and that shouldn't
Speaker 1: be the goal. That should be the baseline where you started,
Speaker 1: start off from. So to me, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it, and maybe this is just the way mine works,
Speaker 1: I see autism awareness or autism acceptance and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it has to do with a literation,
Speaker 1: to be very honest, and then it works out easily,
Speaker 1: but it's my works that way. So I see the
Speaker 1: a's and I'm like, well, obviously that goes together, but
Speaker 1: I think yeah, you know, when we think of tolerance
Speaker 1: or we think of, you know, awareness or acceptance, it
Speaker 1: can be really hard to not like equated with like
Speaker 1: an ingrown tonnail or something that you've just learned to
Speaker 1: like acceptly. there. Yeah, I deal with right. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm on the Board of the Council of autistic
Speaker 1: advisors from the for the Autism Society of America, and
Speaker 1: it was a huge deal to get to the point
Speaker 1: of being able to say autism acceptance, because that was so,
Speaker 1: so controversial even to some. Beyond going beyond awareness, I
Speaker 1: like to push it. I like to say, can we
Speaker 1: celebrate in the same way that you celebrate pride month
Speaker 1: or whatever else? You know, it is by having difference
Speaker 1: that we come up with something richer, more hybrid, vigor
Speaker 1: in our world. So yeah, yeah, I think a little
Speaker 1: bit of a little bit of melody to the tune
Speaker 1: makes nice harmony. Okay. So just to close off then,
Speaker 1: how can we all sing together? How can we all
Speaker 1: help people in the autistic communities to be celebrated in
Speaker 1: the way that they deserve to be? I think through
Speaker 1: moments like like this, through listening to autistic voices. I
Speaker 1: think for the autism community, if it's up to us
Speaker 1: to try to explain a lot, just without disdain, without
Speaker 1: you know, there when you've been through a lot of hurt,
Speaker 1: it can make you bitter, and I think so you'll
Speaker 1: see that there there can be a lot of bitterness
Speaker 1: or anger Um amongst those who have felt rejected or
Speaker 1: other for a long time, and that, I think, can
Speaker 1: be dangerous. So for the autism community ourselves, I think
Speaker 1: what it comes down to is patience and gentleness and
Speaker 1: kind nous, that which we would expect and hope for
Speaker 1: for ourselves, for the rest of the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: if you will. It's willingness to not be afraid of
Speaker 1: the word autism so that when somebody is saying Golly,
Speaker 1: I think I identify with that. There's something in there
Speaker 1: that makes sense to me that the response to that
Speaker 1: isn't no, you're not, no, you're not now you can't be,
Speaker 1: which really has more to do with the person who's
Speaker 1: reacting that way in the first place. It's about listening,
Speaker 1: it's about learning, it's about having more depictions like this
Speaker 1: show that are real, that aren't, you know, scripted, but
Speaker 1: that are respectful. It's not autism porn if you will.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's not. You know it's it's not playing
Speaker 1: to a disability that everyone let's all stare at the
Speaker 1: autistic people. You know. It's instead giving a platform to
Speaker 1: real people, getting to be real people. Jennifer, I've learned
Speaker 1: so much from talking with you. Oh, I'm so glad.
Speaker 1: I'm just extremely grateful for your your clarity and your openness,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for making the time to
Speaker 1: talk today. Oh, I really really appreciate it was wonderful.
Speaker 1: My thanks to Jennifer Cook, Kean O' clary and Kaylin partlow.
Speaker 1: You can find love on the spectrum. Both the Australian
Speaker 1: and American seasons on Netflix were produced by Kathleen Russo,
Speaker 1: Zach mcneice and Maureen Hoban. Our engineers this week are
Speaker 1: frank imperial and Brent bow drug. Our social media manager
Speaker 1: is Danielle Gang Rich. I'm Talia Schlanger. Alec Baldwin will
Speaker 1: be back next week. Here's the thing. Is brought to
Speaker 1: you by I heart radio.