Now You Know One Autistic! Podcast
Episode Title: Decoding Emotional Labor: A Guide for Neurodivergent Relationships
Episode Number: 19
Release Date: July 21, 2024
Duration: 44:21
Episode Summary:
In this episode of Now You Know One Autistic, Moshe and Leah explore the concept of time and how it is perceived differently by neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals. Moshe, who is autistic, shares his perspective of time as a measurable quantity, while Leah, who is neurotypical, emphasizes the quality of time over quantity. They delve into the challenges of understanding and bridging the gap between these different perceptions, drawing from personal experiences and insights.
Key Takeaways:
- Time as Currency vs. Time as Experience: Moshe views time as a measurable currency that can be exchanged, while Leah values the quality of experiences over the quantity of time spent.
- Order from Chaos: Moshe discusses how autistic individuals often seek to create order and structure in their lives, including their perception of time.
- The Importance of Early Intervention: Moshe and Leah emphasize the importance of addressing differences in perception and communication early on in relationships to foster understanding and growth.
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
- How neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals perceive time differently.
- The challenges and misunderstandings that can arise from these differences.
- Strategies for bridging the gap and fostering understanding between neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals.
Quotes:
- "Time is a measurable quantity." - Moshe
- "Time is essentially meaningless unless it has to do with I need to be at a certain place at a certain time." - Leah
- "Life is not a video recorder where 1 hour equals 1 hour." - Moshe
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Transcript:
[00:08] Moshe: Hi, I'm Moshe, and I'm autistic.
[00:10] Leah: I'm Leah, and I'm boring. Welcome to the now, you know, one autistic podcast.
[00:16] Moshe: The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect one autistic and one layout and don't necessarily reflect the entire autistic community.
[00:25] Leah: Let's get to it. Hi, Masha.
[00:33] Moshe: Hi, Leah.
[00:34] Leah: How are you?
[00:35] Moshe: I'm well, thanks. How are you?
[00:37] Leah: I'm good. So what are we talking about today?
[00:40] Moshe: So today we're talking about the concept of time. Now, that sounds like a really great introduction for some sort of a science fiction podcast, but really, what we're going to talk about today is how the perception of time is different between neurodivergence and neurotypicals.
[00:58] Leah: I am going to have to be really careful about not going too much into the science y aspects of it, because I don't know that that's what we're trying to achieve here today.
[01:06] Moshe: No, not really.
[01:07] Leah: You may have to keep me on tasks.
[01:09] Moshe: It's all right. So the perception of time and how it's different between autistics and other neurodivergents and between neurodivergence and other neurodivergence and neurodivergence and holistics and neurotypicals is something that. That came up a while ago when it came to discussing my perception, at least initially, that the adage that time heals all wounds should be taken literally. And you discussed with me the fact that that's not actually how it works.
[01:43] Leah: I. A little bit hesitant to use the word actually how it works, because here's the thing. If it works for neurodivergent people differently, that's actually how it works for them. It works for neurotypical people a different way. That's actually how it works for them. The problem is, when you're connecting again, it comes down to speaking each other's language or understanding what the other person is doing or thinking. So I don't know about. I'd be careful about saying how it actually works. But for me, at least, and for a lot of neurotypicals that I know, that is not how it works. It's the quality of the time you spend that changes how you feel about things.
[02:21] Moshe: Right. And that's, I think the operative word is the quality of the time. And when we further dug into the. The aspect of the differences with how neurodivergents and neurotypicals perceive the passage of time, what we sort of zeroed in on is the idea that because autistics and other neurodivergents often try to structure and order and understand things in a tangible and uniform way. They end up creating these blocks of time, because a block is an easy to understand concept. So 1 hour is equal to 1 hour is equal to 1 hour, and a day is equal to a day, and a week is equal to a week, and a month is equal to a month. What we discuss, and what you discuss with me is quantity is a factor, but quality is far more meaningful to you than quantity.
[03:25] Leah: Okay? So I think we have to backpedal a little bit, and I'm going to do a little bit of what I said I wasn't going to do. But again, you'll have to bring me back to task. So time. Time is an interesting concept in and of itself. There's a reason why it's deserving of being one of the dimensions, you know, reality, because time is not even really a thing. Like, it's not a solid substance. So one could say that the way your brain perceives time is how time is realistically to you, because time theoretically should be linear, only going forward. But if you look too much into it, it's not really. It could be like a circle, it could be a bubble. You could go back in time. Like, if you're experiencing memories from the past, are you actually back in time? Time has this really interesting relationship to gravity, whereas if the gravity is heavier than time actually slows down. So again, that all leads itself to time being a thing that you perceive. Right?
[04:17] Moshe: Right.
[04:18] Leah: And we talked about how, you know, there's a lot of, like, tropes, right? Time flies when you're having fun, right? You didn't understand that one. I totally did. So when I'm having fun, time legitimately seems to speed up for me because I don't want the fun time to end. So it seems to be going too fast when I'm bored, time legitimately seems to slow down for me because I want it to be over with. So when's the goal? Where's the end? So it has to do a lot with perception because time itself is just too much of a fluid thing for most people to understand. Does that make sense?
[04:48] Moshe: It does. And it works like that, at least for, for me as one autistic. And I, I've read some research that it works like that for a lot of other autistics, because the reality is time is a measurable quantity. And a lot of these tropes, like time flies when you're having fun. And a watch pot never boils. And all of these things are really aimed not at eliminating the concept of time, but at ignoring the passage of time.
[05:19] Leah: But I think that's the point I'm trying to make, because what you just said, time is. What did you say? A measurable quantity. It is for you. It's a measurable quantity, but it's absolutely not, because how are you measuring it? What are you measuring it by? Are you measuring it by the way you feel like this is sort of reminding me of that song and rent, actually, you know, how do you measure a year? 525,600 minutes. Are you on Mars? Because time passes differently on Mars. Are you near a black hole? Time passes differently near a black hole. It's a measurable quantity to you based on what you're perceiving, but it's actually kind of not right.
[05:53] Moshe: So when you get into the concept of the theoretical, then, essentially, we can go into philosophy and talk about how time is nothing but an illusion and all these other interesting things.
[06:05] Leah: But you have philosophy and science prove each other in this case. So it's hard to actually make the point we're trying to make, which is that you measure time in a certain way because of the way your brain perceives it, and I measure time in a certain way because of the way my brain perceives it, and that neither of them might actually be right, which is very much philosophy.
[06:21] Moshe: Right. And the reality is, we could discuss this concept for about a year and a half, but the reality is that we have a certain timeframe that we want to record each episode. And it seems like every week it gets longer and longer. So we want to break it down into some key points. The first point that I want to discuss, as far as time goes, is the idea that my perception of time is, in the past, it was a lot more, but now it's still slightly tilted toward the concept of quantity versus yours is more the concept of quality. And the way that looks is we discussed the like for, like, exchange of everything. If we have spent an hour doing something good, then that overrides the hour that we might have spent doing something bad, or if we had one week of great experiences. And that will, in turn, counteract one week in our past of bad experiences. And that is essentially like a lot of autistics, myself included, perceived time like one of those video recorders for security cameras, where every night it records 24 hours worth of footage, and then the next night, it wipes out that footage and just records another 24 hours. And it's a limited memory.
[07:46] Leah: It's one to one measurement.
[07:48] Moshe: It's a one to one measurement. So, like, for, like, like when you make rice, everyone talks about, is it one cup of water to one cup of rice? Or is it one cup of water to half a cup of rice? It's. It's. And then we. We talked about the. The concept of how much blue should be on. On my tsetseam and stuff.
[08:05] Leah: Yeah.
[08:05] Moshe: And that sort of thing has to be considered when you're talking about something tangible. But time doesn't work like that. Life is not a video recorder where 1 hour equals 1 hour. At some other point in the past.
[08:21] Leah: I think maybe your brains need to classify everything and have things be in tidy little packages. Is doing that to your perception of.
[08:29] Moshe: Time, classify and balance? Balance is extremely important because everything has to line up exactly the way it's supposed to. And what the autistic brain quite often attempts to do, either consciously or unconsciously, is to create order out of chaos. Because a lot of the time, our minds are chaotic. They're just a big jumble of random feelings, thoughts and concepts. And so we try to make them into even little piles so that we can understand them better.
[09:01] Leah: Right, but that makes time really meaningful to you, possibly more than it should be.
[09:06] Moshe: Absolutely.
[09:06] Leah: And again, there's no saying who's right here. Probably neither of us, to be honest with you. But for me, time is essentially meaningless unless it has to do with I need to be at a certain place at a certain time. Otherwise, it does nothing for my emotional state or my mental state or my ability to forgive somebody or my ability to function. It doesn't factor into my life in that way. So it's hard for me to understand because time is important. Like, I have to be somewhere at 02:00 and I know I have to get up at a certain time and have to shower at a certain time, and I have to get on the bus at a certain time and have to be there at 02:00 but that's really the only thing that I think I use time for in my. Other than nostalgia. Like, we've known each other for 30 years. Isn't that nice? That kind of thing?
[09:47] Moshe: Right? But the. The autistic brain, at least mine, actually sees time as a form of currency that it can be used to buy things with, right? Like, I have given you 2 hours of time, therefore now I can have 2 hours of something else. Or if I give you a year of, I don't know, something, good behavior of constant attention, then I buy myself less responsibilities.
[10:19] Leah: The difficulty with that is that when you're interacting with somebody who doesn't view time the same way as you, then it doesn't have the effect that you're hoping it will.
[10:29] Moshe: It doesn't, because a currency is only a currency if everyone accepts it.
[10:34] Leah: It has value to everybody. Exactly.
[10:36] Moshe: It's kind of like when we came to Israel and we tried to **** off our canadian dollars and they're like, what's this? Like, this doesn't have any value to us. And that's what time is like for someone that doesn't see time like a currency. And it happens a lot in children in that they will try to quantify time based on merits. Like, I clean the house for 2 hours today, so now I get to watch tv. Or I sat at the table for an hour, so now I can go and play on my game Boy or whatever. You're basically exchanging quantity of time in exchange for favors or merits or something that does happen.
[11:22] Leah: And it's an actually very good way of parenting because you do have to teach your children that they have to do their responsibilities before they do something that they want to do. But again, for me, and maybe for other people, it's not about the amount of time they end up doing it, it's about the fact that they've done it. So you've done this thing. Now, in exchange, I'm going to let you do this other thing that you want to do.
[11:41] Moshe: Right.
[11:41] Leah: The amount of time for me doesn't factor. It takes five minutes to take the garbage out. Doesn't mean that Abram only gets five minutes on his tablet, for example.
[11:48] Moshe: Right? It's not a like for like, exchange. So if you spend an hour washing the dishes, you don't get an hour of other things. You might get more, you might get less. It really depends on a number of other factors. And that is where we start to break off.
[12:02] Leah: So life is essentially an exchange. You're right about that. But you can't necessarily use time as a currency to people who time doesn't matter. Like, for me, for example, time has actually always been my enemy. I hate waiting. Hate it to the point where I'll purposely show up everywhere five minutes late so that everyone else has to wait for me. I hate having to wait for something to happen that I need to happen without having my mind occupied with other things. I hate the fact that one day I will run out of time and I will die. Like, it is a huge currency to me, but not in the way it is to you. It is like I need to make the most of all this time that I have, because eventually I won't have it. I see it as spending money. You have $1,000 and then you spend it and then you're out. So for me, time is eventually I will spend all my time and I will be dead. What did I do in those periods.
[12:54] Moshe: Of time in that way? I'm a bit of a time miser when I put my mind to it, because my ideal is to essentially sit on time and just enjoy the savings. I like to arrive places an hour or two early so that I could sit there and go, wow, I have so much time that I could be doing whatever I want now, or I'll get something that needs doing done right away so that I could sit there and go, wow, I got this done, and now I have 4 hours to do what I want. Or, you know, I'm the one that does the project early.
[13:27] Leah: What are you doing with the 4 hours?
[13:29] Moshe: That's the point.
[13:30] Leah: It's because those 4 hours are still passing away. They're being spent, but what are you spending them on?
[13:36] Moshe: Right. So you have to use time as an exchange. But unlike physical currency, you can't just sit there and bank it so that you can say, I put away 4 hours of time.
[13:47] Leah: It's not like you're going to live 4 hours longer at the end of your life because you did the project early. And I'm not saying it's bad to do projects early. It's really great. Like, the way you do things is also really great. Doing things early, getting places early, you know, it helps with not being stressed, and it helps with people finding you more reliable, and it helps with a lot of things, but it's not like it's adding that time to the end of your life.
[14:09] Moshe: Right? So the way it works for me and the reason that it evolved in me the way that it did was actually to an offset to my ADHD, because autism is very structured and ADHD is very chaotic. So what the autistic part of me would do was it would buy extra time so that the ADHD person could waste time, and then we would sort of balance itself out. And again, it's back to balance. It's kind of like the concept of John Panett, who was the late John Panett used to make jokes about his experiences with Weight Watchers, and he said that he invented a splinter group of Weight watchers where you can buy and sell points on the open market. And that's kind of how it goes.
[14:55] Leah: Unfortunately, it doesn't result in weight loss at the end of the week, which is why you're there.
[14:59] Moshe: Right.
[15:00] Leah: And I was going to bring that up is actually your tactics. You might have had the best of intentions, but here's the thing. You would drive somewhere early and park outside for 2 hours, knowing you had to go in for two in 2 hours and saying, well, I'm here already. So half the battle won and then you would still end up going into the place 15 minutes late because you lost track of all the time you were using. So ultimately it was a great concept but it didn't necessarily work out the way you wanted it to. And the same with the weight watchers points. The reason why you have the points is they're meant for you and then it results in weight loss. If you're not doing that then what.
[15:35] Moshe: Are you doing, right? Like they're not for you to sort of bank and use them later. Like I won't eat anything today so I can eat extra tomorrow.
[15:43] Leah: And I mean the flexpoints program kind of worked like that. But let's not get me started.
[15:48] Moshe: But, but what I mean is it's the concept of time being a quantity that you can save and spend depending on what you want. But the problem is you have to save it.
[15:58] Leah: It's passing anyway.
[15:59] Moshe: That's the problem, it's passing anyway. So if you're going to save it, you actually have to use it for a good purpose. And the way I once explained it is I would rather take an early bus to get somewhere because I know that I'm going to have enough distractions along the way that in the end I might end up being late. And it's the difference between being five minutes late and being an hour and a half late because I forgot my wallet and I forgot my phone and I walked out without any socks on or I'm not wearing pants or I can't find my glasses or something that's going to happen. So it's like you get a running start so that you can arrive there exactly the time that you need to get there because you spent so much time wasting time.
[16:42] Leah: But that's the thing, you have to do that. I don't have to do that. And it bugs me to get places early because then I'm just like wow, I'm wasting all my time waiting for these people.
[16:50] Moshe: But the thing is I have all sorts of things that I could be doing because if you're just spending time waiting then you are wasting time because if you're going to do nothing. You could get there later and spend more time on the front end not doing anything right.
[17:06] Leah: So my point of view is, yeah, I should stay home and sweep the floor and do the dishes, maybe get a start on dinner, and then I can show up to the place exactly on time, or five minutes late. And I had done all that stuff already at home.
[17:19] Moshe: But the idea of being late for me is something that causes a great deal of anxiety.
[17:24] Leah: I can imagine.
[17:25] Moshe: Because of how I was raised, my mother was always late for everything, and.
[17:31] Leah: I still don't know what she was doing.
[17:33] Moshe: I don't know either. And here in Israel, the concept of time is different yet again, because the time that someone says that they're going to show up is really more of a 15 minutes later around figure I will be there at this time means I will be there around this time, give or take 15 to 20 minutes. So you'll forever get somewhere and be like, where are you? And you're like, okay, I'm almost there. And that's very difficult for me. So that is how the perception of time is relative to me as a quantity, versus you, where it's more just a thing that happens. The other thing for me is that time is perceived by me as like oxygen, and you have to sort of trap it and hold onto it, otherwise you lose it. The passage of time, if you're not paying attention, which I'm often not paying attention, becomes something extremely nebulous. And whole things can happen without even being aware of them. Things that took an hour seem like they only took five minutes, or things that seemed like they only happened for ten minutes can take a lot longer. And the passage of time is challenging because you'll end up in a position, especially, like with Avram, where you're like, okay, you need to go to bed now. And they'll be like, I just started. And kids do that. They'll be like, I just started doing the thing, and now you're telling me to go to bed. But it is a constant thing that happened, actually, for both of us, where it seems like we have a lot of time, but then it just disappears.
[19:08] Leah: Yeah, but I think that's also why I'm going to quote one of our favorite shows again, the good doctor. I think that's why they picture him having alarms for everything. Because I think that's a common situation where the passage of time doesn't necessarily connect to your brain in the same way that does to other people. I can sort of sense time passing. I'm not super accurate, like, I'm not an oracle or anything, but I can sort of feel like, okay, I've been doing dishes for 30 minutes, and I'll be right. It'll be 25 minutes or 35 minutes, but I'll be right. Whereas you and Avram don't necessarily seem.
[19:41] Moshe: To have that right. And the idea of taking your time is a foreign concept, because everything is done now, and now is done now. So you eat too fast, you breathe too fast, you run too fast, you spend too much time doing too much, and then you end up losing time.
[20:05] Leah: Why does everything have to be done now, though? What's the reward at the end for you?
[20:09] Moshe: The reward is that I get to move on. We had a conversation a few episodes ago with Adam and Becca, which was very wide ranging, and we talked about how there's no reward for accomplishing tasks.
[20:24] Leah: Right.
[20:25] Moshe: So the question is, why do you. Why do you accomplish what you accomplish with such alacrity? And the answer is, so that I can be done with it and move on to the next thing. And that's essentially what it is. Life is a slog. It's basically like you're running from one destination to another for the only purpose of getting to that destination, so that you could go to the next destination, and you would look at that situation and go, wow, that seems like such a sad life. If you don't get any sense of satisfaction or completion out of accomplishing a task, then why do you bother doing it? And I go back to the whole idea of I do the task so that I can finish it.
[21:03] Leah: Right. So we actually had a talk about something while we were planning this episode, and it was an interesting talk because I tried to get you to explain to me in the clearest of ways that I could understand how it is that you perceive time, like the direct exchange. So, for example, we weren't together for six years, so once we're together for six years, all will be better. Doesn't matter what I do with that time. Just the time has to pass.
[21:28] Moshe: Right.
[21:28] Leah: And I tried to get you to explain it to me, and ultimately, the takeaway I got from that was I looked at you and said, so you're lying to yourself.
[21:34] Moshe: Yes.
[21:34] Leah: And he said, no, it's not a lie. It's a truth. I said, okay, so you're comforting yourself with an untruth. And ultimately, I think that's what it came down to, but yet not. Because if it's true for you, then I guess it's true. But that's not how the majority of the world works, right. To actually do something with the time for somebody to forgive you if you wrong them, for example, or to be able to get a job if you don't have one or two, I don't know.
[21:57] Moshe: Right. And that goes back to the initial thing that we discussed, which is the difference between the quantity of time spent and the difference between quality of time spent.
[22:06] Leah: Your notes and one of them says coping mechanism. So that brought it back up.
[22:10] Moshe: Right.
[22:11] Leah: So the fact that you're so out of control and the fact that you didn't do the things you were supposed to do with the time you already had, you're wrapping yourself in this blanket of, okay, so if I just give the time, you know, with this intention, it's like giving Sadaqa with the intention, you know what I mean?
[22:26] Moshe: Yes. Charity is a big idea.
[22:29] Leah: You don't know who you're giving your money to, but it's an intention to do good. It seems like you're sort of doing the same thing with time. I just. I have the intention that this time is going to fix, and it will. To someone like me, that just seems like a fairy tale.
[22:42] Moshe: It's not a fairy tale. It's actually very. It's one of the factors that are used to determine things like karma. And the karmic exchange states that if you spend x number of years as a person who does bad, then in order to make up for it, you have to spend x number of years as a person who does good in order to balance the scales.
[23:05] Leah: Right. But you have to do the good. It's not just the time you're spending.
[23:09] Moshe: Right.
[23:09] Leah: Just, I don't know, become a rock or whatever it is that reincarnation people believe in and just sit there for 70 years and be like, yep, my bad. Life from before is over. Like, you have to actually do something.
[23:20] Moshe: And that is where you end up having to take someone from a purely quantitative perception of time and insert quality. It doesn't have to be complete. Like, 1 minute of excellent behavior does not make up for like ten years of terrible behavior. But at the same time, if you spend time doing good, then it may not end up that you have to do an equal amount of good to make up for an equal amount of bad. It's just a matter of theoretically you're right, though.
[23:53] Leah: You do have to do an equal amount of good. But you can do something so good in such a short period of time that it can overwhelm bad you've done over a long period of time. Balance. Right. It's a ****. So it doesn't necessarily require all the time. It requires the. I don't know, whatever it is. You, you know, you get penance or you apologize or you show somebody differently, and you can do something so good that it overwhelms, like, a long time of that it, unfortunately can work the other way, too. You can be good your whole life.
[24:23] Moshe: And then, like, murder somebody, unfortunately, that's the case. But with people that care about you the way that you care about me and that I care about you, there's a lot more forgiveness involved. Because if the expectation is a certain level of treatment, then the good ends up being worth a lot more than the bad.
[24:40] Leah: It does.
[24:41] Moshe: Because if what you expect from someone is good behavior and they give you bad behavior, it can hurt you. But over a long enough period of time, and with enough consistent behavior, the good can easily make up for the bad in a shorter period of time. As long as it's consistent.
[24:59] Leah: I agree with that.
[25:00] Moshe: So it's really not just about quality versus quantity. It's more of a mixture of both.
[25:05] Leah: Yeah, it's a balance. It's a dance.
[25:07] Moshe: So the coping mechanism principle is, as you would state, a way of comforting yourself by doing very little.
[25:15] Leah: Right. It's laziness.
[25:16] Moshe: So it's laziness. And it's not a lie so much as it's a lie of omission.
[25:22] Leah: It's actually. You know what it is actually? It's actually very immature. It's magical thinking, like little kids have. You know, like, if I just wish hard enough, then I'll get a puppy. Like stuff like that. It's magical thinking, which is kind of interesting because you don't really expect an autistic to engage in magical thinking too much, because they're usually quite literal and practical.
[25:43] Moshe: Yes. But they also consider the concept of time being a period of distance. If you run far enough, then the things from far enough away won't be visible anymore.
[25:57] Leah: What if the thing's chasing you?
[25:58] Moshe: The thing has to chase you. But if the thing isn't chasing you, then it's hard to grasp the concept that something that happened so long ago still matters. If you can't see it, it's kind of like thinking of peek a boo with a baby. If you can't see the person, then they don't exist anymore. If you can't see the problem anymore, then it doesn't exist.
[26:19] Leah: I just would like to take a second, honestly, to acknowledge and thank you for this frank conversation. Because I know that maybe according to some other people who are listening. And definitely, according to me, I'm being really hard on you, and I'm calling you out on some really difficult concepts. But the reality is that if they're going to be discussed thoroughly, they have to be right?
[26:37] Moshe: They do. And one of the things that makes our podcast so different from a lot of people's podcasts is that it is very unpolished. And, I mean, I don't know if that's always a great thing, but at the same time, it's very important. At least I think it's very important. And I know that you do as well, that people hear us talking about things that are not in the rearview mirror, necessarily.
[27:00] Leah: And they're not simple, and they're not simple. You don't actually solve problems by being like, yep, life is wonderful, because what.
[27:07] Moshe: Really connected me with a lot of other autistic influencers and people who talk a lot about neurodiversity is that they kept things as real as possible. And unfortunately, a lot of other people talk about things as though they're in the past. Remember that thing that you used to do that you no longer do ever?
[27:29] Leah: Yes, but this brings me to another concept of neurodivergent. People often in social media and influencers will be like, well, I'm neurodivergent, and this is how I am. And you all neurotypical, just have to accept it. And the thing is, theoretically, yes, but what we will do, and this is me being 100% honest here and not necessarily shining myself in the best light, is if we don't care that much about you, we will tell you accept it. We'll be like, okay, yeah, that's fine, whatever. And then we'll just stop answering your messages, or we'll stop calling you, or we'll just stop hanging out with you because we don't get it. You're annoying us, but it's just easier for us to be like, yep, we accept this and move on. Versus, if you're in a meaningful relationship with somebody, you actually have to work on these things.
[28:11] Moshe: Right? And that's the next subject that I wanted to discuss, which is the pre versus the post solution based thinking. If you have someone that is young, like a child, and you observe behavior, whether they're autistic or not, and you challenge that behavior, then you will quite often get to a point where a lot of this thinking will no longer be the case. Whereas if you address it afterwards, then you almost kind of lose some of your power, because with Raya and Avram, when they misbehave, there are consequences for their behavior. And especially with Avram, because he struggles so much to understand certain things. And he has this sense of injustice and the autistic concept of needing to be right about everything. His mini politician and challenging his concept of what's right versus what's wrong throws his entire life into upheaval. Because, I mean, and this is not just for me and him, but for a lot of autistics, the last shred of humanity that they have is this illogical concept that they are always right and everyone else is always wrong. Because if they are not right about something, then it means that they have nothing.
[29:32] Leah: But theoretically, that's not true. If you're not right about something, then you can be wrong about everything, which is scary. But if you really objectively step out of it and look, nobody can be wrong about everything, you're always going to have this balance where you're sort of right about some things, you're totally right about some things, and you're wrong about some things. And that has to be okay.
[29:54] Moshe: Exactly. And the black and white thinking thing needs to be addressed very early on because if it's allowed to evolve along the wrong path, then it almost becomes kind of like a cancer. When you catch cancer early enough, you can usually remove it. But what the malignancy does is it replicates and replicates and replicates and replicates, and it rewrites a lot of the, I guess, the genetic or whatever it is that happens. So with an adult autistic who has never received the proper help or counseling or support, then you end up with a lifetime worth of bad behavior that has not just become the norm, but has become the correct thing.
[30:38] Leah: The feedback you're getting from the world is reinforcing that. That's the problem. Yes, because nobody wants to challenge somebody who already has challenges.
[30:47] Moshe: Exactly.
[30:48] Leah: So that will lead to a neurotypical being like, yeah, of course I support you, and then just sort of backing away.
[30:54] Moshe: Right.
[30:54] Leah: And the irony of that person supported me. But then you don't think about the. Where are they?
[30:59] Moshe: Yeah. The irony of that is autistics think in black and white thinking a lot of the time, but other people see us in the concept of black and white as well. Because you have people that you can help and people that you can't and people that you are willing to introduce into your life and people that you're nothing. And you have to actually have an investment in that person like you did in me. Other thing to really catch it later on, because you end up with a very small problem, and it turns into a very big problem, which is why being an adult autistic is so challenging, because you have a lot of misguided notions that you've evolved over the course of your entire life. Instead of talking to Avram, who is ten, you're talking to me, who is 43.
[31:50] Leah: Yeah, and we discussed that, too, whereas Avram, we can still correct him, but you're an adult, so you're past that point. You're actually at the point where you have to want to do something, and if you don't, then who's going to stop you? You're a grown man, right?
[32:06] Moshe: So you kind of have to put the relationship on the line, the lifestyle on the line, the standards that you accept on the line, and use a very. A very kind form of blackmail to be like, if you want to continue to behave this way, then this is not acceptable for me. So you go on and keep doing what you're doing, but you'll have to.
[32:30] Leah: Do it alone, which is very, very brave. It really is, because here I have to call out, again, neurotypicals, where it's so worthwhile. You know, those people are just like, yeah, you do whatever you want and back away. It's so worthwhile to actually get invested in somebody who is autistic. The rewards are huge, but you have to get past that initial, like, oh, I don't know that I want to have this person in my life, or I don't know that I want to get involved in all these problems to get past it. So I would say that might be one of those neurotypical traits, if you want to put it that way. That's not necessarily glowing, right?
[33:05] Moshe: The idea of judging somebody based on it. Some people can look at an old car in the woods or an old boarded up house and go, wow, imagine all the work I can put into beautifying that thing and making it pristine again. I can really invest my time. And other people are like, can I just get, like, a pre built house that's already gorgeous with modern appliances?
[33:31] Leah: And I invite people to look at your social media and look at pictures of you from ten years ago when you had nobody who cared about you, and look at pictures of you now and tell me that you weren't absolutely a broken down car in the woods. That was totally worth refurbishing.
[33:45] Moshe: Absolutely.
[33:46] Leah: I dare everybody to do that and then write it to us.
[33:50] Moshe: And it's something to behold, because when you have someone who is neurodivergent and they have a lot of things that they're doing that they're not necessarily thrilled about, but they feel that that's the way that they operate, and they have enough investment in you to want to put in the time and the effort to help you to grow as a person and drag you sometimes kicking and screaming, into a place where you're far more functional, far more contributing, and just generally far more attached to good things and less attached to bad things. I wear Leah as a form of armor, and she is sort of like my human squishmallow.
[34:37] Leah: I'm also pretty squishy.
[34:39] Moshe: You are pretty squishy, but that's okay, because that's what I like. So it's very important that when you do invest in the concept of a neurodivergent person, and you put in the time and you put in the effort that they have to reciprocate, there's. There's no exceptions for it.
[35:01] Leah: There are people who, as you said, want the pre furbished, you know, house on.
[35:06] Moshe: They want the pre done. Everything's already set. No work.
[35:08] Leah: That's okay, too. But everyone in that relationship, then, has to be honest about that.
[35:13] Moshe: Yes. Looking for a man in finance.
[35:16] Leah: Trust fund. Blue eyes. I have the blue eyes.
[35:21] Moshe: I have the blue eyes, and I.
[35:24] Leah: Don'T have any of the other things, and that's okay.
[35:27] Moshe: So we're really talking about the idea that when you consider time as a quantitative factor, you have to determine not just the quantity of the time, rather, that you put in, but the quality of the time and what it actually means.
[35:50] Leah: So, ultimately, to summarize this whole rambling thing, Moshe sees time, or has seen time, or continues to see time. I don't know. It depends on what he does with his newfound knowledge as a currency, whereas I don't. So he's, like, forever offering me this currency that I don't value. And it causes a lot of misunderstandings. We don't necessarily fight about it, but you'll say things to me like, well, once we've been together for this many years, it'll be fine. And I go, why?
[36:18] Moshe: It almost comes across, I think, when I think about it, as almost like an OCD thing where if I knock on the table three times and everything is going to be okay, if I'm with you for a long enough period of time, then all of the mistakes that I made in the past won't matter anymore to me. And the question that you asked me was, if they don't matter to me now, then why do they still matter to you? And we talk a lot about instead of dwelling on what should have been, what could have been, and how things could have been and how everything would have been different.
[36:50] Leah: Granted, at the beginning of our relationship, disincarnation, we both did that. But I got past it way faster than you. And that was one of those things that started to creep up, like, why aren't you? You were like, I need this amount of time to pass. And I was like, why? And that's essentially why we're talking about this topic. It's not that either is bad. It's not that either is incorrect. It's just that it was a thing that we absolutely didn't seem to understand about each other.
[37:15] Moshe: Right. So it comes back to the concept of how autistics see the world. You have been in a relationship for 25 years, but after three years, you are perfectly happy with me, and you are willing to put everything else aside and be happy that you're in a relationship with me. And the autistic brain does not understand that.
[37:42] Leah: Whereas I had to explain to you, and again, no offense to my ex, sorry if you're listening, but as part of me leaving that relationship, I was already basically done with it. So no time had to pass for me to be able to be like, okay, so this one's done. And then this one started.
[37:59] Moshe: Right?
[38:01] Leah: It's.
[38:01] Moshe: It's based in the concept, number one, that it's time that we can't get back. And it was also no small amount of time. But it's really more about me telling myself that I owe you that time, because I should have always been there. So I think it's more about me trying to prove to myself that I will be able to go the distance in the way that I should have gone.
[38:31] Leah: I mean, I'm super happy to spend all the rest of our time together with you, but I don't know. I don't know that there's a but. I'm really happy to take all the time that you have left to give me. I don't know if that solves all our problems, though.
[38:44] Moshe: I don't know that it solves all of our problems either. But I think at the end of the day, we are together. And whether we're together for a short period of time or a long time, the time that we spend together is about quality and not quantity, necessarily. And after struggling so long with the concept of time, I think I'm now at a point now where I've made peace with it. I would still absolutely love to give you 22 years of my life more. And I fully intend on it and then some. But I know that as long as I'm living the best life that I can with you, and we're doing the things that we want to do, that it doesn't really matter how much time we're together, as long as the time that we are together is worthwhile, right?
[39:35] Leah: Because it comes back to what I said. How do you count time? Each day has to be meaningful. Each day has to be important. And then those days will add to weeks, and then those weeks will add to months, and then those months will add to years. And eventually we will look back from the top of a proverbial hill and be like, wow. But if the increments of time that made up all that time have no meaning, then what does it mean, really?
[39:59] Moshe: Exactly. So I want to take some time to discuss a few other things. The first thing is my usual pitch that once again, you guys have gone out and listened to us and downloaded us, liked us and commented it on us, and we've really appreciated everything that you've done. So we're going to ask you to continue to do it. Go to our website now, you know, on autistic dot pawbean.com. and I keep, you know, liking each episode, this episode, past episodes, and subscribe. There is a link at the very top that you can be a paid member, and there's a bunch of goodies that you can get. You'll get shoutouts and episodes, and you can get private chats with Leah and I for what that's worth. But you're also supporting a podcast where we're trying to provide every week an opportunity to share with you a little bit of our life. There was a post that we made on social media this past week where we talked about how we walked through Jerusalem and we took the kids out and really kind of gave you a look into our life behind the cameras and showed you that we are a very happy family and we're doing the best that we can, in spite of me and Avram being autistic. And we're really doing everything that we can.
[41:24] Leah: So please, maybe sometimes because of it.
[41:26] Moshe: Maybe because of it, the majority of our listeners do listen to us on Apple Podcasts. But regardless of how you listen to us, please keep sharing, please keep subscribing, please keep commenting and liking and help us to be very successful. We would love for this to be our full time job at some point in the future. So that is 100% in your hands. You can help us by liking the podcast and subscribing and moving us up the lists on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and listen notes and stuff. You can do that by sending money to our Patreon and supporting us to buy better equipment. And you can probably, I mean, no one's asked yet, but like, if you really wanted to, like send us gifts or whatever, you could do that. But we would love to continue to do episodes and we're happy to keep doing it. But if you ever do want to support us in some tangible way, those are some great ways to do it. Share. Share.
[42:19] Leah: Like sponsorships. If anybody out there listens to us, is in charge of, I don't know, marketing for munchables or compression clothing or anything that has to do with autism, we're open to sponsoring.
[42:33] Moshe: We would love to test out your products and talk about them on the show. So if you happen to be in the market of autistic goods, we would love to talk to you. Subscribe to our Facebook channel. That is one of the best ways to keep up to date on the latest episodes. I post there, gosh, two to three times a day most days, about this episode, about past episodes, right back to the very beginning. If you want to go back to episode number one or zero, depending on how you're counting and see how the podcast started and how we're evolving, you can do that. The other thing that I do want to mention is that today is Leah's birthday.
[43:12] Leah: Aw.
[43:13] Moshe: So happy birthday to Leah. If you want to send messages, you can post on our Facebook or send us emails at. Contact us at. Now, you know one autistic.com and Leah's going to go out for supper with me and the kids, and we're spending a really wonderful day at home. So we hope that you like this episode and you listen to this episode a hundred times and share it with your friends. And we hope that you will join me in wishing Leah a very happy birthday.
[43:47] Leah: See you next week.
[43:48] Moshe: See you next week. Well, that's our show for today. Now you know one autistic just a little bit better. So something you may not know about some autistics is that we often struggle with ending social interactions. So, Leah.
[44:07] Leah: All right, Moshe, I'll take care of it. Thank you for listening to now you know one autistic. See you next week.
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