Episode Title: Can't Keep Up? Self-Care and Neurodivergency

Episode Number: 24

Release Date: Sept 4, 2024

Duration: 01:02:31

Episode Summary: In this episode of Now You Know One Autistic, Moshe and Leah explore the challenges of self-care for neurodivergent individuals. They share personal experiences and practical strategies for managing hygiene, time management, budgeting, and other essential routines.

Key Takeaways

  • Self-Care Challenges: Neurodivergence can make basic self-care tasks like showering, organizing, and time management overwhelming.
  • Solutions & Strategies: The hosts offer practical solutions, including visual aids, timers, breaking tasks into smaller steps, and seeking help when needed.
  • Importance of Support: The episode emphasizes the importance of understanding, patience, and communication in supporting neurodivergent individuals in their self-care journey.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

  • The impact of executive function challenges on daily routines
  • Strategies for overcoming common self-care hurdles
  • The importance of open communication and support

Quotes

  • "The reality of the situation was I was very, very, very fortunate that I had a job. But the only reason that I had a job was because I had a supervisor by the name of Kelly." - Moshe
  • "It's okay if you ask for help, if you need help, and it's okay. And it's okay if other people ask for help. And if they do, it's your responsibility to be understanding and accommodating, because we're all, we're all dealing with struggles, and some of us are dealing with struggles with the basics of. And that's why we're all here." - Moshe

Resources & Links

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SEO keywords: self-care, neurodivergence, autism, ADHD, executive function, hygiene, time management, budgeting, routines, parenting, support, communication

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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 leia and don't necessarily reflect the entire autistic community.

[00:25] Leah: Let's get to it. Hi, Moshe. Whatcha doing?

[00:33] Moshe: Oh, you know, just sitting here recording a podcast episode. Finally.

[00:37] Leah: Are we?

[00:38] Moshe: We are.

[00:39] Leah: Oh, I didn't know that's what we were doing.

[00:41] Moshe: Yeah, there's been a bit of a change because of some other commitments that came up since the move. Our recording schedule used to be that we would record on around Sunday and the episode would be posted around Monday after some fancy editing. But because of the fact that you and I have gone back to school and my new job, there is going to be a bit of a change. It's not going to be a huge change, but the episode will come out generally within the first half of the week. But the good thing is that if you are a loyal fan of a recording or really of anything, then a few extra days of waiting, as the saying goes, will make the heart grow fonder.

[01:21] Leah: Well, it's just essentially, it's going to be a pleasant surprise for all our listeners. Now, they'll just have to keep checking back to see when the episodes go up. But we are aiming for still once a week.

[01:30] Moshe: Yeah. Or, and here's a really early on plug. You can subscribe and then you'll be notified when a new episode is posted.

[01:38] Leah: That's a great idea, Moshe. Why didn't I think of that?

[01:40] Moshe: It's a fantastic idea, Leah. And talking about things, causing other things to be done later or forgetting to do other things. The subject of today's episode is self care.

[01:54] Leah: Right? So when we're talking about self care, we're not talking about how, you know, me, Leah, busy mom and wife, you know, takes a bath or goes to the spa. That's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about the literal basics of self care that one would do for oneself. Correct?

[02:09] Moshe: Correct. So we're talking about things like the very basics. Things like hygiene, things like time management, things like keeping schedules, things like, you know, prioritizing.

[02:21] Leah: Now, explain really quickly to everyone why that might be an issue for someone like you or Avram, especially because he has the fact that he's a kid and doesn't know everything on top of it.

[02:32] Moshe: Now, a lot of these things that we're talking about are things that all kids struggle with. Bath time, bedtime, time management, prioritizing. But through the course of their life, either by being shown by other people or by learning it on their own, they pick it up. Neurodivergence, autistics, people with ADHD, people with ADHD and autism, et cetera, et cetera. They often either don't pick it up. They don't pick it up thoroughly, or they pick it up and then constantly need reminders, because a lot of these different aspects of self care have to do with remembering certain steps, right?

[03:11] Leah: So it has to do with executive function. It has to do with top down functioning, meaning that. So when Abram Fertet, his diagnosis and treatment plans, they very much told us that he can be given maybe two instructions in a row at a time. And when you think about something like showering, how many steps are there? Way more than two. Right. So if he's to shower on his own, he's gonna miss stuff, right?

[03:36] Moshe: Things like showering, things like getting ready for school, things like getting dressed, things.

[03:40] Leah: Like anything that has more than a couple of steps. Both struggle with you less than he does because you're an adult with lots of practice.

[03:47] Moshe: Yeah, but the other thing that is important to note here is that when we're talking about self care and remembering the basics, we're oftentimes talking about children. But when you're an autistic adult, as I am, it's something that I still struggle with.

[04:04] Leah: All right, so let's talk. Let's go there, right? We're known for going there. Hopefully, this won't embarrass you too much, but you didn't perfect your shower routine until we were together. Tell the listeners how you actually did that. And it's not one of those, like, pervy, gross things. It's an actual very sweet, loving, you know, helping thing.

[04:20] Moshe: So the actual aspect of washing yourself, whether it's washing your hands or washing your face or washing your whole body, it comes in multiple steps. And what I often struggled with was the concept that everything needed to be washed, but what order to do it in Orlando, what aspects of the. Of the washing process I already did, I'm currently doing and still have yet to do the different aspects, like going right down to the specifics of first you have to put on the soap, and then you have to put on the water, and then you have to do this, and then you have to do that. And on a very basic level, with something a lot simpler than showering, just washing your hands. You still have to remember to wash the, you know, palms of my hands? Do I wash the back of my hands? Do I wash my wrists? Do I wash my nails? And just remembering what I'd already done. So what often happened and what still sometimes happens, because it's one of those things that I guess it's a lifelong struggle, is keeping in mind the order of doing things. And then when a thing is done, remembering what has already been done and what is still yet to be done. So we're sort of living in the past, present, and future.

[05:36] Leah: Exactly. So lots of steps and lots of past, present, future. Let me explain to the neurotypicals out there who may not understand that just the idea of using a body wash, and, like, heaven forbid you have to use more than one item, which sometimes you do because you have hair and you have a beard and you have a body to wash. Just the. Let's just talk about washing hair right there. There's about five steps, because you have to wet your hair, and then you have to put the shampoo in your hand, and then you have to rub the shampoo on your hair, and then you have to make sure that it's not going into your eyes or causing some sort of, you know, sensory thing. And then you have to remember to rinse it out. And what if you don't rinse it out all the way and then your hair is still soapy? And that's just step one. Right. And that's what I mean by sort of top down processing. Why would that be an issue for you? Anna Robbin? I think we should explain that. So the autism is one thing, but you both have ADHD, which is what causes this executive function problem specifically.

[06:30] Moshe: Right. And it has a lot to do, number one, with remembering what has already been done, remembering what is currently yet to be done, remembering what I'm currently doing and what order of that it comes in. So that is just purely the ADHD component. That doesn't even take into account the autism component, which is I don't like the feeling of the water in my eyes, and I don't like the feeling of the soap, and I don't like the feeling of the soap, and I don't want the soap to get in my face. And then if I accidentally get soap in my eye, or especially if Abram gets soap in his eye, everything is thrown completely awry and the shower is essentially done. And you have to start from square one. So before you had a meltdown over the fact that you got a bit of shampoo in your face, then, you know, what have I already done. What did you do? What are you still working on doing?

[07:22] Leah: Whereas you'll sort of make a face and sputter and you'll have express your displeasure. He'll have a full on meltdown if he gets, like, soap in his eyes.

[07:30] Moshe: I don't have nearly the amount of sensory issues anymore that he does. Perhaps one day he'll stop having them, or perhaps not. I had a lot of sensory sensitivities when I was younger that I don't currently have anymore, either because I grew out of them, I found ways to cope with them, or I just unfortunately, had them disciplined out of me. I was one of those kids. And for him, you have to combine his autism, his age, AdHD, with the fact that he's ten and also the fact that he's a boy, and you have to sort of separate what is what, and what is the main issue.

[08:06] Leah: Right. So let's talk about specifically the shower again, let's go back to it. How we solve the problem for you. Well solved. I mean, how we helped the problem for you and how we're helping the problem for him. So when you and I first got together, and not again, let's go there not to be, you know, too. Whatever. It's not embarrassing. You would watch me shower? Not in a pervy way, no. You watch what I was doing.

[08:31] Moshe: Right. Because the. The very concept of another person, be it man or woman, going through a process that you yourself have to go through and watching the order that things are done and the way that things are done and the level of thoroughness to what things are done, in which, I don't know if that's a proper sentence, just allows me to process what the whole thing looks like. Mirroring is one of those things that autistic people are often good at. And if you mirror something good, be it a behavior or in this case, a routine, it really helps to solidify in your mind what you then have to go and do for yourself.

[09:13] Leah: Yes. And who better to do that with than with somebody you're comfortable with? If you're sleeping with them, you've seen them naked already. If you're friends with them, and if you're in a relationship with them, then you're comfortable to do that. The next step beyond that was you were quite, I think, embarrassed at first, but then the next step beyond that was that we would go into the shower together. And when we have space to do that, we still do, and everybody sort of rolls their eyes and says, ooh, there they go again. But we're not actually doing anything, actually washing you. Right.

[09:41] Moshe: Yeah. And I think it's really important, as sort of an aside, that being a grown man and a parent and a partner, it's embarrassing.

[09:50] Leah: So we let people think we're getting it on in the shower and everybody sort of winks, but we're not. I'm washing you.

[09:56] Moshe: Right. It's important for us to sort of, no pun intended, pull back the curtain on the aspect of the fact that adult autistics often do struggle with basic self care.

[10:08] Leah: Yes. If you're having a bad day, you will ask me to come in the shower with you and you'll say, can you wash me?

[10:12] Moshe: And there's an aspect in certain cases of I don't want to, but there, at least in my case, much more of an aspect of I don't necessarily know how to. Not that I don't know how to wash myself. That's not the case. The case is sometimes I forget.

[10:29] Leah: I'm so preoccupied, I'm having a bad Adhd day. I've had a meltdown, we've had an argument. Just my brain capacity is not there and I still have to get clean. So can you help me here?

[10:38] Moshe: And some of our listeners, especially those who are also autistic, may be listening and going, do I also have problems? I don't think I have issues.

[10:48] Leah: Listen again. Let's pull back the curtain. If people have ever told you you smell, if people have ever told you that your laundry is very dirty or that you have **** stains, if people have ever told you that you're not clean, if people have ever told you why are all your clothes dirty, messy or, you know, why can't you do up your fly or tie your shoes, then, yes, you're having issues. And yes, you should find somebody that you trust, even if you're an adult, to help you.

[11:14] Moshe: Right. The aspect of asking for help is something that we talk a lot about, especially when we're discussing communication. But one of the key reasons that I, that not just I, but that we wanted to do this podcast is so that we would have an autistic perspective on things that unfortunately, sometimes other neurodivergent adults embarrassed to talk about it.

[11:36] Leah: Is it's uncomfortable because you're a grown up ultimately, and you're saying to yourself, I should know how to do this, but I don't.

[11:42] Moshe: Because if you have a son, especially, but even, I guess if you have a daughter, you do at certain point have to show them how to clean themselves.

[11:51] Leah: It's interesting because Raya's very good at self care, but I did spend a lot of time with her from the time she was very small. Again, going in the shower with her, washing her, giving her baths, you know, showing her how to make lunches, showing her how to do things. So maybe it's just that aspect of the fact that we're the same gender, that she spent a lot of time with me learning those things.

[12:10] Moshe: But it's also about personal preferences. At a certain point, at least for certain people, they decide that hygiene is important. You are chasing your teenage son around with a bar of deodorant, or you're reminding your son whether or not he is neurodivergent, that he needs to shower this week or. Or month or year.

[12:31] Leah: Right.

[12:32] Moshe: Or girl. I mean, we don't discriminate based on gender.

[12:34] Leah: No. Sometimes ride and shower for a while.

[12:36] Moshe: But sometimes you don't prioritize personal hygiene. And either one day you just kind of wake up or decide that now it's really important for you to look and smell good. Or perhaps your friends or teachers or unfortunately, coworkers tell you you really do need to start wearing deodorant, or you really do need to start, you know, cleaning yourself. Your hair is very greasy. Your face is very oily. You smell, and that's not something you want to hear.

[13:02] Leah: Yes, we would like to avoid that for our children. So let's bring it back to, then, how we deal with Avram, because he's at an age now where it's kind of inappropriate for me to see him undressed. So how do we help him?

[13:13] Moshe: So, I mean, it really kind of comes down to personal sensibilities, because neurodivergency, be it autism or ADHD or any of the rainbow of spectrums that exist, it affects your developmentalness in certain aspects. In many aspects. But what it doesn't do is it doesn't affect your physicality. So if you're autistic, you're still going to go through puberty, you're still going to have hair in certain places, you're still going to start smelling. You're still going to start projecting fluids of various kinds outside of you. And while your developmentalness may still make you feel that you're much younger than you are physiologically, at a certain age, all people are going to start smelling or needing to take more care in personal hygiene, particularly in Avram's case because he is a boy. And on top of his other autistic tendencies, you know, he's going through the process of eventually starting to go through puberty, and with that, there's going to be body odor and stuff. And while his sensitivities do make it very challenging for him to shower, it's not only something that he should do, it's something that he must do.

[14:34] Leah: Yeah. So a couple of things that I've been able to help him with is identify his sensitivities, and a handheld shower helps him a lot, because then he can control how much water is going on to his head and face.

[14:47] Moshe: Right.

[14:48] Leah: So that's one of those solutions that we've come up with. Another is literally just supervision. Sometimes Moshe will have to stand with him and say, okay, put the soap in your hair, put the soap under your arms. He struggles a lot with showering, brushing teeth. Anything that has to do with putting a product on an item and then putting it on his body will half the time end up with the product just going down the sink or the drain. So he'll just pour soap into the shower.

[15:11] Moshe: Right.

[15:11] Leah: Or he'll just, you know, put the toothpaste on his tongue for a second and spit it out.

[15:15] Moshe: Right.

[15:16] Leah: Like that.

[15:16] Moshe: He doesn't like the taste of it. He doesn't like the feel of it. It causes certain sensations, and a lot.

[15:21] Leah: Of it is supervision and repetition.

[15:23] Moshe: It's not. It's not a case that he just doesn't have to do it. He absolutely must do it. He has to wash his face. He has to clean his body. He has to brush his teeth. And if he doesn't, then there's obviously going to be very serious consequences to his health as well as to his ability to socialize, because no one's going to want to be around him if he's smelly and his gums are bleeding or he has no teeth. So the fact is you have to find ways to take into account his challenges, or rather the challenges of anybody who struggles with these sorts of things and make it accommodating, make it easier, and find ways to function. You mentioned the handheld shower is really good for him because it allows him to control personally, the water, to get the soap off of his face, having a towel close to him at all times so that he can repeatedly wipe his face if he doesn't like the water or the soap in his face. Sometimes it's helpful to have multiple towels, face cloth. A face cloth is really important for him. And like Leah said, the issue is that he's not a baby anymore, like his parts are growing to. And at a certain point, we're religious. But even if you're not religious. You do have to protect, I believe at least you have to protect your child's modesty at a certain point.

[16:42] Leah: It's also about him and his preferences. He doesn't like seeing me undressed and he doesn't like me seeing him undressed anymore. It's honestly on him as well.

[16:51] Moshe: I wanna give him, or rather, we wanna give him the understanding that it is not appropriate after a certain age, for him to let members of the opposite sex see him naked. And it's not appropriate for him to see members of the opposite sex naked, you know, if he's not in a relationship with them. But of course, he's ten, so that's not gonna happen.

[17:14] Leah: I mean, it's more complex than that. Because of his neurodivergence. We also have to explain, even members of the same sex, you have to like. It has to be a trusted person.

[17:22] Moshe: Right. But that gets into that sort of thing. But in terms of the subject of self care and particularly hygiene, we really do want to instill in him the understanding of accountability. Because Abram is very challenging or very challenged. He's also very challenging.

[17:41] Leah: He is, because he has this aspect of, of course, he's extremely intelligent. He has no, like, intellectual delay. So he wants to be able to do things. And he's upset by the fact that he can't do everything himself. So he'll hide things or not ask for help or try to do it on his own, and then it turns out it's not done.

[17:57] Moshe: He is, unfortunately, or fortunately, what would have been called in the past, high functioning autistic, which is really interesting, because if you examine his needs, he is not high functioning in many aspects because of his significant struggles with executive functioning. However, because he has the presence to be aware of certain things, at least he is nothing in a place where he is going to be comfortable with me or his mother washing him anymore. He wants to do it on his own. He doesn't want people to touch him in certain places or take care of him. And he also struggles with having to ask for help doing things. So these are all very complex things that go through his mind, which means that he has the presence to at least want to be independent in certain aspects.

[18:49] Leah: Absolutely.

[18:50] Moshe: And there's a significant difference between wanting to be independent and being able to be independent. He is not, at least not right now, especially when it comes to aspects of self care. Because if he is not reminded to shower most of the time, he won't. If he's not reminded to eat, he won't eat until he's starving. If he's not reminded to do certain things, he'll just not do them.

[19:14] Leah: Well, let's sort of go back to you, too, because you were in an interesting situation as a single man where you were forced to be independent, but you actually couldn't be. Like, you could to an extent. But then things sort of went by the wayside and things didn't get done. Like your budgeting didn't get done, your scheduling didn't get done, your dishes didn't get done. When we first got together, you only had half a house full of furniture.

[19:38] Moshe: Right?

[19:38] Leah: Self care didn't always get done, so you had to be independent. You were independent enough to sort of function. Sort of. Kind of.

[19:45] Moshe: I mean, the goal of neurodivergents such as myself and such as Avram and such as others is independence, or independence to the extent that it's reasonable.

[19:57] Leah: Right? But you were thrust into independence without the skills.

[20:00] Moshe: No one provided me any occupational therapy. No one provided me any strategies of self care. I was. I literally went from someone looking after my basic needs to being fully independent with nobody to tell me what to do. And it was sink or swim. And I sang.

[20:19] Leah: Well, you swum. You sort of floated.

[20:21] Moshe: I floated. I was basically non functional.

[20:25] Leah: And I had to learn six, kinda, but there were holes everywhere and it showed. And it was beyond just being a bachelor. Like, ooh, ah, such a bachelor.

[20:32] Moshe: Because you are going to grow up. And when you transition from being a teenager to being a young adult to being, you know, an adult in their thirties or forties, there's expectations that society puts on you. And I wasn't there. I was stuck developmentally around 1617, maybe on a good day, 18, for at least a couple of decades, because nobody was ever going to be around to tell me that at my age, at 2025 30, 35, that there were certain expectations that were now put on me. My opinion was, I don't know how to do this. I want to know how to do this, but I don't have anyone to show me how to do this. And I certainly don't want to ask because the expectation is that people expect me to know how. And I didn't want to admit that I didn't know what I was doing. So I kind of pantomimed a caricature of being an adult when I was in no way an adult upstairs.

[21:35] Leah: But along came Leah. And you don't know how to do this, do you? And eventually, one thing at a time, all the dominoes came down, and we had to rebuild and express how that was really hard for you because 20 years of development in a year and a half or two years had consequences, didn't it?

[21:51] Moshe: It did, because it's kind of like, I think I likened it to, like, Adam and Eve syndrome, where you spend your whole life in this sense of innocence, this sense of floating, as you would say. And then I, over a matter of days and weeks and months, you suddenly become self aware, oh, my gosh, I stim all the time. Or, oh, my gosh, I don't actually know how to wash myself, or, oh, my gosh, I have no idea how to keep on top of my budget or my rent or, oh, my gosh, I don't even know how to interact with other people. So it was kind of frustrating for me because on one hand, I now had someone in my life who was accommodating and accepting and loving and trustworthy and supportive, but in my own mind, based on my deluded perception of my reality. And we actually discussed, I think, two weeks ago, the sense that autistics often suffer from delusions. But they're not delusions in the sense of, like, schizophrenia. They're delusions in the sense of how you perceive that things are versus how they actually are.

[23:03] Leah: Yes. You're explaining to yourself unacceptable reason for why you're not functioning, and that becomes reality.

[23:09] Moshe: You build this. The term is like Potemkin village, which is a sense that Soviet Russia, they built an entire village for a visiting bureaucrat, and the houses were made of flimsy material, had no one living in them. Nothing was functional. I believed in my mind that I was a fully functional adult. But then, as you actually, you believed me for a while. You actually said, well, clearly you have some of your things together. And the closer you got to me, the more you realized that there was nothing. Like, the light was on, but there was nobody home.

[23:43] Leah: It was like, it started with small aspects. Like, when we started to shop for a house, we had to have a house because we combined our families. And my mom was coming, and you said, well, how much should we spend for a house? And I went, what do you mean? You don't know how much we make small things like that?

[23:58] Moshe: Right. So it was like, in my mind that in a matter of days and weeks and months, that I went from fully functional to nonfunctional. And I. And I would sort of look at myself and go, what happened? Like, it seemed like a week ago I had my stuff together, and today I feel completely useless. And you took the time very patiently and very caringly to explain to me that I convinced myself that I was okay, but I absolutely wasn't. And now that I was able to be honest with my lack of abilities, that it seemed like I had gone from functional to non functional.

[24:36] Leah: I mean, you're giving me a lot of credit that I don't necessarily deserve. It wasn't always patient. And it sort of went something like, listen, do you need help with this or not? I'm here to help you. Stopping like dumb.

[24:48] Moshe: And now that I'm far enough away from it, because, I mean, we are skipping over a lot of conflicts, a lot of struggles, a lot of emotional, right.

[24:57] Leah: Some of them are episodes and two of themselves, which is why we don't have time to go over everything.

[25:03] Moshe: But we will eventually, it'll all be revealed. But again, we are skipping ahead because there's a lot to unpack there. But essentially, I'm at a place now where I can look back with a fully sound and I, you know, rational mind and go. I had no clue about any of the basics in my life to the extent that I was functional to a very minimal level. And there, by the grace of God, I was able to have people in my life, certain points, who compensated for a lot of my gross deficits, not enough by any stretch. But, for example, I had.

[25:45] Leah: You were getting by.

[25:47] Moshe: I had a job.

[25:48] Leah: You had an apartment.

[25:49] Moshe: I had a job at an apartment. I had some friends. But the reality of the situation was I was very, very, very fortunate that I had a job. But the only reason that I had a job was because I had a supervisor by the name of Kelly. She is an amazing person. Even today, we do keep in touch once in a while. And Kelly was a mother, grandmotherly figure, and we would have talks, and she, of her own free will, would call me to her desk frequently and ask me questions that a work supervisor would not normally ask, like, how are you today? You seem really down. What's going on at home? Or when I would have struggles at home, I would sit with her and I would talk and I would cry, and I would explain things to her. And. And she got to know me on a personal level, not just on a work level. And she is solely responsible for my ability to do the job because she allowed me to believe that people could care about me. I had co workers who were also most likely neurodivergent, and they provided me with social interaction to the extent that I felt like I could talk openly about aspects of my life that I struggled with. So I had certain things in place completely by accident or by luck. By luck? I don't like the word luck. We'll say by blessing or whatever you want to call it. But I had enough in my life, and it was kind of like people underwater who were sort of keeping me afloat and allowing me to function on a very minimal level. But I didn't actually know how minimal until we had to live. And you were going on the assumption for a very long time that I actually knew what I was doing. And when you didn't, I was very frustrated because nobody really explained to me the extent that I had deficits until you did.

[27:41] Leah: So there's something about my personality that I should reveal now is that I'm really live and let live. But when someone I care about asks me for something or asks me for help with something, I will hunt you to the end of the earth and make it happen for you. So, for example, you say to me, we need a house. Okay, I'm gonna do everything in my power for us to be able to get that house. But it's gonna be stuff that you're not familiar with that's difficult for you, that you don't necessarily like. And we went into it not necessarily knowing that you know, or I wanna have friends. Okay, Moshe, we're gonna do the steps that we need to do to have friends. But again, it was stuff that made you uncomfortable that you weren't familiar with, that you necessarily like, I wanna go to synagogue again. You know, I made those things happen for you, but it was sort of a crash course in life in for you, which was tough. You looked at me one day a couple of years into our relationships. I've never felt so old. And it's not that you were old, it's just that you were the actual age that you were. And it happened all at once.

[28:38] Moshe: Yes, because autism is a developmental delay. Oftentimes people struggle with defining what actually autism is, but what it is. It's a developmental delay. You are physically the age that you are, but developmentally, you are very much younger than you present to the world in a lot of ways. I mean, that's not to say that everyone's universal, because once again, as we like to say, when you know one autistic, you know an autistic, and some people are very delayed, and some people are moderately delayed, and some people are mildly delayed. I was not severely delayed. The problem was I was never given the skills that allowed me to progress to the next level. It was like when you're talking about a baby reaching milestones.

[29:23] Leah: Yeah, but part of that was your fault. Tell you exactly why you are grumpy and ornery. And people would try to get near you and push you, and you would push them back, and they would say, okay, never mind. And again, I'm, I'm really tough that way. Like, you're going to be grumpy and ornery with me. I can be grumpy and ornery back. We're doing this. And then eventually you're like, fine. But you didn't have other people in your life willing to push you to that extent, because, again, you're a fully grown man, you know, bigger than most people, louder than most people. So if you're ornery with most people, they're going to say, okay, never mind.

[29:54] Moshe: Now, a lot of that is one of those problems that I encountered in my life, and which is why Leah and I are huge advocates providing support and therapy and guidance for autistics when they are children, which is what Avram is getting right now. Because if you spend 30 years with absolutely no support, then it becomes very difficult for you to get to where you need to go.

[30:20] Leah: Let's discuss, you gave me a list when we were discussing this episode of things that you struggled with and some things that Avram also struggled with. Let's discuss them point by point and discuss certain, you know, useful solutions to these problems. So, for example, the first one you gave me is organizing. You have issues with organizing, so difficulty in creating and maintaining organizational systems, meaning scheduling, grocery lists. Think of anything that somebody might take for granted that they're keeping in their mind. For example, you said to me, how do you keep yourself from being distracted by things? And to me, it was intrinsic, and to you, it was a mystery.

[30:56] Moshe: I mean, you and I grew up in the eighties and nineties, in the era before cell phones and even pocket organizers. My mother once bought me one of those little pocket organizers thing with the little clippy lid that you push open, and then you can type in, like, your appointments and stuff. And we grew up in the era before Google calendar, which would give you a reminder when you needed to take a pill or go to the store or have a doctor's appointment today.

[31:23] Leah: Yes. You're always running out of medication.

[31:25] Moshe: Yes. Your grandmother had, like, a calendar where she wrote down appointment. Remember how some of our older listeners will remember that? You know, you used to have to have a calendar on the wall and write down, oh, on the 15th, I have a doctor's appointment. And then you'd walk past the calendar and go, oh, you know what? I have an appointment at 930 today.

[31:43] Leah: Absolutely. My grandmother's was in the kitchen where everybody went every day and she wrote everything. She wrote everybody's doctor's appointments, she wrote everybody's birthday, she wrote everybody's menstrual cycles on that calendar. But, you know, it was right in the kitchen for everyone to see.

[31:57] Moshe: Our younger listeners will be like, why don't you just consult? Like, why don't you have that in the calendar on your phone? I don't understand why you have to put it on the wall.

[32:04] Leah: Yeah, we didn't have them then, so, yeah, some things you can use, visual aids, labels, simplified organizational systems, like a Google calendar, where you can put it in once and it reminds you over and over and over again. Any other ideas for organizing?

[32:17] Moshe: We talked about giving yourself the opportunity to not over schedule, because when you are someone like me who often struggles with multiple steps, you know, there's no sense in scheduling 15 different things in one day and then trying to manage all of them. You know, if I want to make an appointment, why don't we do one appointment a day? Or why don't we pick one big task that we need to do? We'll do one of them on Monday, one of them on Tuesday, one of them on Thursday. Break it down.

[32:46] Leah: That was also one of those things that you struggled with, is you wanted to do everything all at once. Why leave it for tomorrow? And I would say, whoa, we can't do everything all in one day. Like, let's schedule things.

[32:56] Moshe: I mean, the saying is, why leave for tomorrow what you can do today? And that does matter to a certain extent. But the flip side of that is, why schedule everything for today when you can do certain things tomorrow?

[33:10] Leah: Exactly. And big things. You wanted to do everything.

[33:13] Moshe: Yeah. So at 09:00 a.m. we have to go here. And then at 10:00 a.m. we have to go there. And at noon we have to be here for this appointment. And then at twelve, we have to go downtown. And then, you know, at one, we have to go uptown. And we were just running ourselves ragged, and you were like, whoa, like, the week is five days in Israel, like, six. Let's schedule a few things each day instead of doing twelve things on one day. And then, like, nothing.

[33:36] Leah: Exactly. The next thing that you brought up, and a lot of people, not just neurodivergence, I struggled with this as well, is cleaning up after oneself or cleaning the house in general. Some of the challenges would be overwhelmed from clutter. That's a big deal with ADHD. Like, once everything's cluttered, you're like, I don't know what to do. The inability to start or complete tasks, just too much stuff to do. Also, I'm sure some sensory sensitivities of picking up certain things or certain smells of really strong cleaners, etcetera, some of the solutions here are sort of breaking tasks into smaller, manageable bits. So the have you ever heard of the clean for five minutes method?

[34:14] Moshe: I have, yes.

[34:14] Leah: I used it when I would struggle with cleaning up. I would say, okay, I'm gonna give ten minutes to this task and I'll do it one bit at a time, and over time, it gets done. Any other ideas in terms of cleaning up after oneself? So for you, I'm still kind of. That's one of those things that we're working on now that we've got the broader strokes down as I'm sort of up your butt, always telling you to pick this up. This is garbage that doesn't go there.

[34:37] Moshe: Well, because if you kind of watch somebody, especially someone with ADHD, you'll see that they're forever putting things down and then walking away. And I struggled with that extensively when I was younger, and I still struggle with that a lot, but not as nearly as bad as I used to. To the extent that you, you know, you. You sit and you peel a banana, and then you put the peel down. You're watching a show, you tell yourself you throw it out later, then you get up, you walk away, and the banana peel is still on the table, right?

[35:08] Leah: So I go, the banana peel's on the table, and you pick it up and throw it away. It's not that you don't want to throw it away, it's just that you forgot about it.

[35:14] Moshe: Or what we still try to do is when you're done supper, to pick up your plate and bring it to the kitchen, or throw it out if it's disposable. Don't just leave it there and walk away. Or, oh, I have to go to bed now, and then they're gone and everything's just kind of sitting out there. Or I put out all of my stuff to do something and then I walked away. Or I'm at work, so I'm eating something and I put it down because I can't walk away. But then when I'm done work, I just leave it there.

[35:43] Leah: Right. Because it's a solution to multiple problems. So, for example, homework, right? We're studying Hebrew now. And if you take out all your stuff to do your homework and leave it on the table, whereas I put it back in the bag, you're going to either forget your stuff next time you go to class, or you're going to have to run around the house getting it before we leave, which is already in a tight schedule, whereas I'm ready to go. So it's a solution to multiple problems, not leaving a mess and also keeping organized.

[36:06] Moshe: I mean, we could do a walking tour of the kids rooms right now and sort of highlight what we're talking about. I'm, you know, I started doing an art project on my desk. It's still there. My clothes that you told me to put away are still on the bed. The bed is not made. There's.

[36:22] Leah: I made the bed.

[36:23] Moshe: There's stuff accumulating under his bed. Again, the. The mouse cage isn't clean. There's. There's books just lying everywhere. The laundry is just exploding onto the floor. There are not so much now, thank goodness, but they're developing, like, the kids develop, like, dish collections in their room where the dishes are never finding their way into the kitchen.

[36:45] Leah: Oh, we solve that by nobody's allowed to eat in their room anymore. You eat in the room when you're working. But I occasionally come in to see you, give you a kiss, and I pick up your stuff and throw it away as your shift is going.

[36:55] Moshe: But like we noticed in the past, and I'm sure you can all relate that all the dishes are in your children's rooms and none of them are in sink or the dishwasher or the cupboards or the dish rack or any place where they're actually going to get clean. And subsequently, we have no forks and no spoons and no plates and no bowls. And yet the children essentially have the entire dish cabinet on their floor.

[37:19] Leah: Yep. So they're not allowed to eat, which.

[37:21] Moshe: We were like, nope. No more bringing dishes into your room. No more bringing soda pop bottles into your room. No more, like, bringing chips into your room because you're creating, like, the town dump in the middle of your floor.

[37:37] Leah: So we all eat at the table now. We have family meal times. And when that's not happening, they're allowed to eat in the kitchen. And that's it.

[37:44] Moshe: Right. So when you have a small mess, like a banana peel on the table, you can pick it up and throw it out, if you remember, or if someone like leah slaps you and then go do it. But if you have like, a whole pile of garbage sitting in front of you or your clothes from the last time laundry was done are still sitting everywhere. Instead of being put away, you stare at it and you go, this is too much. I can't do this right now because it's a lot. And of course, the response is, well, if you did it when we first gave it to you, then you wouldn't be staring at this ginormous pile of clothes right now. So things that don't take a lot of time, it's best to do now rather than save it for later. Things that, unfortunately, you've allowed to accumulate. You can use the five or ten minute method where you spend five or ten minutes on a larger mess and you do something else, and then you come back.

[38:39] Leah: And ultimately, if you're also not just sitting down, making someone else do it for you, ask for help. I do it all the time. I say, honey, can you come into the kitchen and do this one thing for me while I'm doing these other things?

[38:49] Moshe: And certain things, like there's quick tidies, which you can do, but there's also big projects. Like a lot of people, both at work and at home, have a particularly arduous task that they schedule once a week. Like, once a week I'm going to pull all the furniture away from the wall and vacuum behind them. Or once a week, I'm going to, you know, sweep behind the refrigerator. Or once a week, I'm going to, I don't know, dust the ceiling or something. You know, you pick a project that needs to be done regularly, and you schedule it and you go, okay, so today is the day where I dust on top of all the pictures on the wall. Or today is the day that I clean the dust out of the ducts. Or today is the day that, I don't know, I organized my clothing or something.

[39:35] Leah: Absolutely. So we talked a lot about washing and personal hygiene, but I want to just touch on that real quick. Some of the challenges are, you know, forgetting to shower or not feeling the motivation to shower. Or while you're in the shower, not knowing, you know, the aspects of what to do. For example, some of the solutions could be establishing routines. So I always wash myself in the same way with the same stuff. Associating washing with positive experiences. So you can bring music into the. Like, Raya brings music with her everywhere, motivates her to do things. Or you can have a favorite product, something you really like the smell of in the shower, for example, that you use. Any other concepts there?

[40:11] Moshe: Yeah, so all of those are absolutely amazing. I. I like to listen to things. So not just with showering, but, like, any task that I don't necessarily want to do, I will add some aspect of interest or fun to it. Like, I need to go for a walk, so I'm going to put on a podcast that I really want to listen to, but I'm only going to listen to it when I'm going for a walk. Or I like a particular playlist on Spotify or something, but I only listen to those songs when, I don't know, I shower. Not that that's something that I do, but that's something you can do. The other thing is breaking it down into bite sized chunks like shower timers, which are really useful for people that struggle with knowing when and how and for how long to do things. Like, I'm gonna set a five minute timer, and in those five minutes, I'm going to wash my head and my face.

[41:09] Leah: I'm gonna come back to one of our favorite shows now, the good doctor and the unbelievable aspect of the idea that she could just come into the shower with him for happy, fun time and not have him distracted and not be, like, covered in soap or actually get clean.

[41:24] Moshe: Right. When your entire life. I mean, we can talk about the good doctor and Freddie Highmore's amazing portrayal of Sean Murphy and whether or not that's accurate or not accurate or certain aspects of it are accurate, but the idea that when you are so task oriented that you have to schedule yourself in the shower and then something comes along that challenges that schedule for me. Like, I'm not that way. And I guess Aubrey could be that way if it was sort of shown to him. But for me, I could not allow that sort of thing to happen if I was at the point when I needed a timer in the shower. I'm just saying.

[42:07] Leah: And brushing teeth, same concept. You know, you don't like the taste of the toothpaste. You don't like the feeling of the thing in your mouth. It suggests here, actually, a solution that you would come up with on your own, which is pairing it with another routine, like showering. You almost exclusively brush your teeth in the shower.

[42:22] Moshe: Yes. And the reason I started brushing my teeth in the shower is not actually for efficiency. It's because I would forget. I mean, I'm not one of those autistics that doesn't like to brush my teeth. I actually don't mind brushing my teeth, but I would often have a shower and then go to bed and be like, oh, my goodness, I forgot to brush my teeth again. So I just tell myself. When I'm in the shower, I brush my teeth. And if I continue to do that, then I can. I can tell myself, okay, so I didn't brush my teeth. So that means I probably haven't showered or I haven't showered yet, which means I probably haven't brushed my teeth.

[42:53] Leah: Exactly.

[42:54] Moshe: So if you combine a couple of things or multiple things that you need to do together, then you can remember to do all of them. And I try to incorporate that into certain other aspects of my life, particularly putting all of my cards together with my keys. Or, like, I would. What I used to do.

[43:16] Leah: You left everything in the car, right.

[43:18] Moshe: So I would. What I used to do is I would forever lose my keys. And I'm sure that once I get a car, I will return to the routine of losing my keys. But what I would. What I would do was I would attach my house keys to my car keys, right? So that if I forgot my keys, I couldn't leave because you couldn't get in the house. I couldn't, like, you know, I wouldn't be able to leave. Like, I couldn't start the car if I didn't have my house keys. So I wouldn't, like, get in the car, go all the way to work and be like, oh, I forgot my house keys today.

[43:51] Leah: Right.

[43:52] Moshe: I. So I would make it. But then the problem was when I lost them, I could go nowhere. And it did happen at least a couple of times over the years.

[43:59] Leah: Oh, yes.

[44:00] Moshe: Where I would lose my keys completely and then I couldn't drive. I couldn't get in the house. And house keys are relatively easy to replace.

[44:07] Leah: Car keys, not so much.

[44:09] Moshe: In the olden days, maybe, but now with the programmable fobs and stuff, those are like.

[44:13] Leah: It's like $500.

[44:14] Moshe: Those are like cad500 to replace. And that hurts. Like, you go to the keymaker for $10, a canadian tire, you could get like a new set of house keys. But $500, and if you lose your keys, and heaven forbid your car is somewhere else, then you're like, I guess the car lives at the McDonald's parking lot now because I can't drive it home because I lost my keys.

[44:36] Leah: Yep, I remember that.

[44:37] Moshe: And that is a problem. So now the solution is I still do it, but I make multiple sets, not of the car key, because if I lose my house keys, there's probably a set of house keys.

[44:47] Leah: Actually, one of the solutions was most cars come with two fobs and I would just keep one in my purse.

[44:52] Moshe: Right.

[44:52] Leah: I don't drive per se, but I kept it for you for when you inevitably lost your fob.

[44:57] Moshe: Right? So if you have a spare fob, one fob is, like, in a safe at home or with a trusted adult. So that way, granted, it still is unfortunate if you lose your dollar 500 fob, but at least you can still drive your car.

[45:10] Leah: Yeah, most cars come with two fobs because it's an assumption that, you know, the two parents are sharing the cardinal.

[45:15] Moshe: And, like, maybe once you accumulate enough money, you can buy a new one to replace the one that you've lost and then take back the spare one.

[45:22] Leah: Well, when we're talking lost, most of the time, it's not lost forever. Like, you've lost it in the house somewhere, under a sofa, somewhere, in pants somewhere.

[45:30] Moshe: We discovered at our old apartment that everything that was lost ended up underneath the couch because it would fall out of my pocket. It would go between the cushions and end up on the floor underneath the couch. So one day I decide, and this unfortunately tells you how often we cleaned underneath the couch, which is a bad point for me. One day, I pulled the couch aside and I found my bank card. I found my health card. I found my debit card. I found everything. My id. I'd already replaced all of it earlier, but now my wallet. Everything was just right there. Like, just. I probably spent the equivalent of two to $300 us replacing everything. And then it was just right there the whole time and had probably been there for months.

[46:10] Leah: So cooking. Cooking is a huge challenge for people who are neurodivergent, even people who aren't, because it's multiple steps. Difficulty planning meals, remembering recipes, executing steps in the correct order. So not serving raw chicken, for example.

[46:25] Moshe: Well, multiple steps is obviously going to continue to be a challenge. Anything with multiple steps, I think we can summarize, is going to be a challenge. But whether you're washing your body or cooking food, if you need to do multiple things, then it's going to be challenging, which is why I stuck to very simple things.

[46:43] Leah: I was going to say, you're actually not bad at cooking. It's just that you only cook really simple things.

[46:47] Moshe: This is something that Raya actually struggles with a lot. Probably because she's also ADHD, but also because she has no sense of smell. And the concept, she wasn't born that way.

[46:59] Leah: That was Covid, actually. Yes. She never regained her sense of smell, so.

[47:03] Moshe: So, fortunately, a lot of things have automatic shut offs, but a lot of things don't. And if you put something in the toaster it's going to pop eventually. And if you put hot water on to boil in the kettle, it'll turn itself off. But if you are putting a pot of water on the stove to boil noodles and then you just walk away and then it flies out of your head and you forgot that now the pot is burned down to, and either.

[47:29] Leah: You or I will smell burning and tell her what is happening, and she completely burnt something.

[47:34] Moshe: And if something doesn't have a timer and you just set it on and go, we tell her repeatedly, stay in the kitchen. Because, and I've done that too. Like, I don't want to put all the blame on her. Where I will put a pod on the stove and sit down to watch a show while it's boiling. And then at the end of the hour long show, the the pod is now burnt through the bottom or there's a small fire that that's now needing to be dealt with.

[48:00] Leah: So for both of you, Cassavram doesn't even really attempt to cook very much anymore. For both of you, the best solution for you in our household is me, because I'm very, very good at cooking in the steps. So she'll do a thing where she mirrors me or just helps me with aspects of a meal where I sort of organize the whole thing and set a timer. And in terms of you, you basically just eat what we cook at this point, unless I really need you to cook something. And then you prepare a couple of the things that you're able to do.

[48:27] Moshe: But what we tell her and what people told me is set like a five minute timer or a ten minute timer. That way you know that even if you can't smell it in five minutes, you check it and it's not going to be completely far gone.

[48:38] Leah: Yep. So here, just for the general population, it suggests meal prepping, simple recipes, visual guides, or apps designed for step by step cooking instructions, time management, losing track of time, difficulty estimating how long tasks will take.

[48:52] Moshe: Right. And this is a great opportunity to highlight the fact that we're now at an hour and we're just now getting to the unit of time management. So I'll take a very quick moment here to once again remind all of our wonderful listeners to please subscribe, please share, and please do what you can to continue to allow the podcast to be as successful as it is. And I will remind again, while it can certainly be very annoying, please, please, please listen to the ads that come up during the podcast. Because listening to the ads allows us to be paid by the advertisers and when the advertisers pay us, it ends up allowing us to continue to do this. So for the ads that take 1530, 45 seconds a minute, power through it, maybe, I don't know, check the roast and wash your hands, put the kids to bed, and then come back and keep listening.

[49:50] Leah: Time management.

[49:51] Moshe: Time management. So again, subscribe, share, listen. And I mean, we do have our PayPal and Patreon links up. So if you love what you are listening to and you want to support Leia and I to keep doing it.

[50:03] Leah: And share, share, share, share with people, please.

[50:06] Moshe: And also comment like, yeah, or just.

[50:08] Leah: Reach out to us, let us know you're there.

[50:10] Moshe: Like, send us an email saying, hey, listen to the show today, great to hear. Or something like that. And share with all of your friends, family.

[50:17] Leah: So, time management solution. Time management use of time blocking alarms. Visual timers. Practicing time blindness awareness. You have time blindness where you'll sit down to do something and you have no idea, like, how much time has passed.

[50:31] Moshe: Sometimes that's good at work. Like, you'll be sitting at work and be like, wow, I've been doing this for 3 hours. My day is almost over. Or, wow, I've been doing this for five minutes. It seems like an hour, but timers, because you can often lose track of time, but timers are like, to the second. So if you have to leave in 45 minutes, set a timer for half an hour or 25 minutes, or however long you need to get ready so that, you know, okay, I'm going to be watching this movie, but I have to leave in an hour. So I'm going to set a timer for 45 minutes so that when the timer goes off, I have enough time to, you know, get ready and then go out the door. So you're not late, or I'm going to. I need to do this one thing, but I only want to do it for, like, ten minutes, because then I have to do something else.

[51:22] Leah: And that dovetails right into scheduling. So, again, scheduling would be digital calendars with reminders, a physical planner with color coding, if you're into that. I don't know, vision board, anything, really. Smoke signals, whatever works for you.

[51:35] Moshe: Some people are really very old school and for the longest time, and still now, if I had a printer, I used to stick, like, a piece of paper to the back of the front door that said, keys, wallet, phone, because I was forever walking out the door with one or all of those things missing. I would often joke to leah that I would probably forget my pants if I didn't have, you know, have a reminder sometimes.

[51:58] Leah: You used to.

[51:59] Moshe: I really did.

[52:00] Leah: Do you remember when you got locked out of the apartment in your underwear because you decided to lock the dogs in your underwear?

[52:05] Moshe: Right. I needed to stick the dogs out, and I didn't feel like getting dressed, so I took the dogs out, and then the door locked, and I was stuck outside, and it was quite cold, and the dogs were thrilled. But I was cold and also naked. I was basically naked. So it. It wasn't ideal.

[52:23] Leah: All right, so budgeting impulse spending is a problem for a lot of people. Difficulty tracking your expenses or staying within your budget. Difficulty creating a budget. So this is how much I have to work with. These are all the things I have to pay. This is how much I can, you.

[52:36] Moshe: Know, give to each thing, not just narrative, urgent. Actual governments and businesses struggle with this, too.

[52:41] Leah: Everyone. I'm good at budgeting, but that is developed over years of needing to budget because I was never well off. So using budgeting apps, which I've done definitely in the past, because they'll tell you if you're spending too much on stuff. Setting up an automatic savings plan, which you're doing. Implementing the envelope system. Do you know what that is?

[53:00] Moshe: I know several envelope systems.

[53:04] Leah: So legitimately. My grandmother was a bookkeeper when she was younger, back in the day, when there was no digital anything. And she would literally take envelopes and write on it, rent, food, bills, and then she would take cash and put in each envelope what she needed to spend for that week. That's literally. It's very analog, but it works very well.

[53:23] Moshe: It does work very well. A similar method that people do use today is because of the over reliance that people have on plastic and the fact that it makes it a lot easier to just tap a card for things. What some people do and what I do when I have it is I'm going out somewhere, and I'll take, I mean, in Israel, shekels. So I'll take, like, 50 shekels instead of my debit card, and I'll go, okay, so if I'm going to do anything while I'm out, it has to fall within this, and I can't just. I also want this, and then I also want that, and then I also want this, and this is not that much. And before I know it, I've spent 500 shekels, and I have no money.

[54:01] Leah: Exactly. So a higher level thing about this that I would do, and again, this is for people who already understand budgeting, was I incorporated the digital budgeting software with the envelopes. So I had one called envelope, and what I did was I labeled each envelope in my digital system, and then I said, this is how much I have in my bank account. And every time I tapped my card, I put it into my digital system, and it told me, your envelope is full. You can't tap your card anymore. But that's for people who have self control and already understand budgeting, right?

[54:31] Moshe: And they use something like that for gambling apps and websites where, you know, when you. When you log in, it'll ask you, you know, how much money you want to put aside for that. And then after that, there'll be, like, a log. Nope, you can't use any more money. You've already gambled to.

[54:47] Leah: I have never even gambled in my life. I've never had enough money to consider.

[54:51] Moshe: It in my old life. I used to gamble a lot. I used to buy lottery tickets. Not to the extent, like, I mean.

[54:57] Leah: Lottery tickets are a gamble, I guess, but they're sort of not.

[55:00] Moshe: But the British Columbia, where we used to live in Canada, lottery system had a casino on their website, and I would often go on the casino within reason. Like, I'd only spend, like $10 or $20 or something. And a few times I actually won a lot. Like, I would win five, six, seven, $800. And if I was very. If I had self control, I'd be like, okay, I'm done, and then walk away. And I've never lost a lot of money. I've never actually won a lot of money. But one time I did. One time I did win, like, $600 on a fluke, and that was a good day.

[55:33] Leah: That's what keeps people coming back, though, that one time you win big, you just keep coming back and come back.

[55:37] Moshe: Well, that's how casinos make money, because if you lost all the time, you'd never gamble. So they have to allow you to win sometimes.

[55:44] Leah: But that's the thing. The poor person's version of that is if you just took that $10 and put it into a savings account every time, then you'd have more money than you could possibly win.

[55:52] Moshe: We did that, which is what I.

[55:54] Leah: Told you to do. And you were like, yeah, that actually.

[55:56] Moshe: So, yeah, what I did for a while is I used to buy a lottery ticket every week, and you were the one who told me, if you're spending $5 on a lottery ticket, spend $5 on the lottery ticket, and then put the same amount into a savings plan. And so every time you buy a lottery ticket, you go. Okay, so I'm actually only, I'm actually spending $10, but then $5 has to go into a savings account. So do I want to, but do I want to buy a lottery ticket and then double it by putting that money in a savings account, or do I want to just not do anything today? And over time, I actually accumulated quite a bit of money. Unfortunately, far more than I accumulated by buying lottery tanks.

[56:32] Leah: Exactly. So I proved it to you.

[56:34] Moshe: Yes.

[56:34] Leah: So now we don't gamble because of that reason. Not that I ever did.

[56:37] Moshe: Right.

[56:37] Leah: So incorporating past, present, and future, that is something that neurodivergents struggle with. So let me give you a quick example. So in the past, this was a consequence of my behavior, but I'm not going to learn from that. So now I'm going to do the behavior without realizing that in the future, I'm going to have the same consequence for the behavior.

[56:53] Moshe: Correct. So that that works for consequences. It works for, as I was saying, when you're in the shower. Yes, it works when you're in the shower. I washed my hair. I still have to wash my face, then I have to wash these parts. And then keeping track of, okay, have I already done this? And oftentimes you'll forget some aspect and you'll walk out of the shower with shampoo in your hair or you forgot to wash your armpits or something like that. But also the, the budgeting is where that works. So I spent dollar 30 on eating out this week. I have another $20 left to spend, let's say. And I'm currently out, so I'm probably going to spend $25 now. So I shouldn't order so much. So I should order less so that I have more to spend later or.

[57:40] Leah: Even deciding where you're going to go. I only have $20, so I guess I'm going to McDonald's. Like, you can't go to a five.

[57:44] Moshe: Star restaurant and it prevents you getting to a place where you're, like, trying to pay for something and your card gets declined. Unfortunately, I was so bad at that that using my debit card was almost like a slot machine. It was like you enter your pin code and you're like, come on, approved. I. Show me approved.

[57:58] Leah: Yeah, I got it.

[57:59] Moshe: And I guess the takeaway from that is if you're treating your debit card or your credit card like a slot machine, hoping that you win big with that approved message, then maybe you need to learn to budget better.

[58:11] Leah: True enough. And the last one I want to really touch on is prioritizing. So prioritizing what's important to do now, what's important to do later, what you need, what has a higher level of importance and what is not important at all to do, or you can and do another time.

[58:25] Moshe: Right. And that, again, applies to all of the categories. If you're talking about cleaning, not showering so much, because everything should be important, but if you're talking about cleaning your room, I have an hour before I have to do something else. So do I want to reorganize my closet or do I want to put away my clothes or do I want to clean up that spill on the floor? Obviously the spill takes priority because you're going to step in it and make a mess. So you should do that first, but that shouldn't take too long, and that'll take about ten minutes. And then when that's done, I need to prioritize that. Or if we're talking about a job I currently actually work, a job where I have to prioritize everything and I have to list, okay, my first priority is this. Then after those are done, I can work on this. Or if I have nothing left in this folder, then I have to work on that folder, right down to given responsibility for the ratings for people who want to leave reviews. And I can write a comment like, thanks so much for your review. That is obviously going to be the last priority. It's one of those if you've done all of your jobs and you have taken care of all of the calls and you have addressed all of your personal files, then you can spend 15 minutes just posting, you know, pithy comments like, thanks so much for your amazing rating, we appreciate your business. Or something simple like that. Or I used to struggle with overthinking. And one of those problems where you spend so much time worrying about something that you don't have time to do anything else, and I don't do that anymore because there's far less to worry about. Yes, but a lot of people will even do that. If you struggle with anxiety, a lot of people will actually say, okay, so I'm going to give myself 15 minutes today to worry about this one problem that is happening, but then after that, I'm going to stop and I'm going to move on with my day. It doesn't work for a lot of people, but that's something that some people do have to do.

[01:00:20] Leah: Yeah, it doesn't work for me because I have intrusive thoughts with my anxiety, but I can see where it would work for some people, I'm allowed to fret over this for a certain amount of time and I'll move on. Just like, you know, you're allowed to grieve for something for so long and then move on.

[01:00:32] Moshe: Yeah, like the grieving process, you're given a month to grieve over the death of a loved one, but then you're required to then move on at that point so you don't spend, like, your whole life mourning. I mean, you're always going to be sad to a certain extent, but you can't just stop your entire life because of some intrusive emotion.

[01:00:50] Leah: Final thoughts.

[01:00:51] Moshe: So for the final thought, I'll go back to the very beginning, which is as an adult autistic, a lot of basic self care still challenges me, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. And if you happen to have someone in your life like I have, leah, then you shouldn't be afraid to say, I need help with that. And if they love you, they will help you. And conversely, if you have a child or a friend or a loved one that is neurodivergent and you notice that they are also struggling with some of the things that we talked about this week, then be proactive and say, hey, you know, I noticed that you're having a little difficulty with this. You know, if you need help with it, you can ask or can I help you with this problem that you seem to be struggling with? It's okay if you ask for help, if you need help, and it's okay. And it's okay if other people ask for help. And if they do, it's your responsibility to be understanding and accommodating, because we're all, we're all dealing with struggles, and some of us are dealing with struggles with the basics of. And that's why we're all here.

[01:01:58] Leah: See you next week.

[01:01:59] 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.

[01:02:17] Leah: All right, Moshe. I'll take care of it. Thank you for listening to now, you know, we're nothing artistic. See you next week.

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