Now You Know One Autistic! Podcast
Episode Title: From Sammy's to Jerusalem: The Unlikely Love Story of an Autistic and a Neurotypical
Episode Number: 1
Release Date: April 18, 2024
Duration: 43:58
Episode Summary:
In this inaugural episode of Now You Know One Autistic, Moshe and Leah, a neurodivergent/neurotypical couple, introduce themselves and their unique podcast. They share their personal journey, starting from their childhood connection in Montreal, and discuss their mission to provide raw, unfiltered insights into neurodiversity in relationships.
Key Takeaways:
- Meet Moshe and Leah: A neurodivergent/neurotypical couple sharing their raw and unfiltered experiences.
- Childhood Connection: Their story begins in 1988 Montreal, where their unique bond formed.
- Life Experiences: They offer insights from decades of navigating a mixed neurotype relationship.
- Open and Honest Dialogue: The podcast promises candid discussions on autism, relationships, and more.
- Future Topics: Get a sneak peek into upcoming episodes on parenting, communication, intimacy, and more.
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
- The unique perspective of a mixed neurotype couple
- The importance of open communication in relationships
- The challenges and joys of navigating neurodiversity
- A preview of upcoming topics on autism and relationships
Quotes:
- "We're not going to offend someone in another place, and we're in a position to talk about these topics in a very open and honest and blunt way." - Moshe
- "What we really kind of want to discuss...is bluntness and honesty and openness and straightforwardness is really key to the way of relating to neurodivergence." - Moshe
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Subscribe & Review:
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Transcript:
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Music.
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Hi, I'm Moshe, and I'm autistic. I'm Leah, and I'm boring.
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Welcome to Now You Know One Autistic, a podcast about neurodiversity in couples,
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marriage, meltdowns, and making it all work.
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The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the experience of one couple and one autistic.
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Nothing that you hear in this podcast should be taken as a medical opinion,
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and unless otherwise stated, no one is an accredited specialist in any of the
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many feels that comprise the autism spectrum.
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But as someone who is on the autism spectrum, I feel that my experiences will
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be very valuable to many of you, whether you're on the spectrum,
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a support person like Leah, or just a curious bystander.
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If you think that you or someone you care about may be autistic,
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consult your family doctor.
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Music.
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So moshe this is very exciting it's our very first episode of our very first
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podcast it really is i we've been talking about doing this for a while and it's
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pretty neat that we we get to uh to actually get started on this yeah so what
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do you think that the people would would want to know about us or know about anything, really.
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Well, I think to start off with, we should probably tell them our story.
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It's a very cute story. It really is. Where should we start?
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Well, why don't we talk about, you know, who we are? Who is Moshe and Leah?
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Moshe and Leah are a married and devoted couple. One of them is neurodivergent.
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One of them is neurotypical.
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We're currently raising our two youngest children who are still in the house
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with us. We live in Jerusalem, Israel. That's in the Middle East.
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Moshe works. Leah is a housewife right now. And that's essentially who we are at this time.
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The reason I say this time is because we've had many, many incarnations throughout
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our life, as you'll learn while listening to this podcast.
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For sure. So, we kind of got an idea of who Moshe and Leah are,
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but how did we become Moshe and Leah?
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That's a funny story you have to go back to Montreal Canada circa 1988 I just
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aged ourselves oh my goodness so yeah we were seven years old and we.
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We both came from divorced single moms.
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And I think, were we part of a group or was there something?
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Yeah, we met through the Jewish community. Like, how else were we going to meet?
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Right. So in Montreal at the time, every mom was divorced.
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The 80s, nobody stayed together, really. It was atypical to have a friend who had parents together.
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And the Jewish Community Center, I guess, set up this group for single moms
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with kids. So that they could, I guess, talk about their divorces and the kids could play together.
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Right. So I was, where did we actually meet for the first time?
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So that was the first time that we met? It was, yes.
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I think that was like a birthday party or something like that?
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No, I think it was a get together.
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It was just a get together? Yeah. Okay. That the mom's group was having.
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In so you you you came
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in with your mom and i remember you were we're
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wearing you were wearing this like a
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black dress with like polka dots on it or
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something yellow polka yellow polka dots and
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frilly socks and some kind
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of shoes obviously and i i think i was looking because sammy's was one of those
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places that existed in montreal i don't i don't even know if they're anywhere
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else where it was it was a place where you get like the usual I guess bar food
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like burgers and fries and.
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Breads and yes chicken fingers and stuff why was Sam is unique let's just summarize that quickly it was,
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Made out of an abandoned train. It was. Had just kind of left in a field.
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Like in the middle of nowhere. And they turned this abandoned train into this
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restaurant that was filled with video games to keep bad boys like you off the
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table so their moms wouldn't have to deal with them.
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And they had really good food. They had like rolls and chicken fingers and stuff.
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So it was the place to go before cell phones and Netflix.
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So we had a get together and I was in, I don't even remember where in Sam is
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I was. and you walked into the room and I just kind of stopped everything that
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I was doing and just looked at you.
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And I was like seven at the time.
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It was just, what is this? Like, I don't know what's going on.
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I knew in my own mind, it was like, my life is never going to be the same again.
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As much as it's possible for a seven-year-old to fall in love,
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that was when I first decided I was in love with you. That is adorable.
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I had a very different experience there. But people tell the story. It's like legend now.
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So I was playing with your little sister. Right.
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And she was like my little baby dolly because she was only three at the time.
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So of course, little girls love playing with other little baby girls, right?
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She was wearing this cute little red dress. And you and your friend who I won't
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name, I guess without his permission, came running up to us and he stopped.
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And I was like, oh, look, it's a boy anyway. And I sort of walked away.
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But my mom and your mom used to tell the story that you actually ran up to me,
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stopped, your eyes opened wide, your mouth fell open and went, oh.
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And sort of everybody knew what was going to happen at that point, I guess.
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Yeah so that was that was the first time that we met and then we we used to you know get together,
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either just you and i or you and i and the other guy we go we go for like breakfast
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and our moms would like sit and spend hours sipping coffee for hours you're
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gonna hear a lot about this stuff i think we're gonna reference back to it quite
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a bit when we're telling different stories and talking about different topics
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but yeah we would hang out all the time and.
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Another interesting aspect to our story is that we were both from the Montreal
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Jewish community, but Moshe was actually quite well off, and he went to Hebrew
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day school, where he had more exposure to Judaism than I did.
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And I was not well off, and I lived in a much poorer part of town,
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where I went to a Protestant school of all places, because that was the public
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school at the time, and it was what we could afford.
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And I would often spend weekends at his nice sort of big house in the nicer
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area, I guess, because it was one of those things that my mom wanted for me.
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And it turned out to be a really good influence on my life.
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And also just he and I and his sister got really close.
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Like we were the best of friends for a very long time.
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And we sort of just kind of grew up together. Like I had other friends who went
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to my school or that, that I was associated with.
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And you had, you know, the friends that you were familiar with that were in
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your neighborhood, but then we would like get together and we would just do stuff together.
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Yeah. Our moms would get together sometimes with, with other moms or sometimes just with you and I.
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And it was, it was the eighties. So we just, we, we had, you know,
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we did 80 stuff together. We did.
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Our moms were like the mean girls. They would make fun of all their other friends
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and drink coffee forever.
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It was, it was, it was, anyway, those were the times. So that's how we met.
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Why does this roll into what we need to talk about?
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Well, it's, it's important to know who we are because we are together,
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but we're together in our forties.
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And it's, it's an interesting story because if you look on the list,
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I don't know what, what podcasting app you're, you're listening to this on.
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But if you look at the list of podcasts that are available for neurodivergency
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or for autism or for relationships, a lot of the time you'll talk to experts.
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You'll talk to people with PhDs and sometimes they'll be relationship therapists,
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sometimes they'll be counselors. counselors, and essentially,
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they would be so-called experts.
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They might be in relationships themselves and talk about that,
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or they may have qualifications to talk about relationships,
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or they might have qualifications in psychology or sociology, developmental,
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you know, work that allows them to be qualified to talk about these topics.
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But I don't believe, and of course, I could be completely wrong,
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and I'd love, if you know of any like that, then that absolutely let us know.
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I don't know of any couple that is.
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Neuro that that is mixed functionality neurodivergent and and neurotypical that
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is together that is ha that has the life experience of knowing each other as long as we have.
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And that and one of the most important things
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about that is that a lot
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of these podcasts are very sanitized a lot of these conversations are
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very scripted today we're going to talk about this and this and this
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and this and this and we're going to keep you we're going to keep it
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on the up and up but we i work as leah
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said i work from from home i i have my
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own job i i work for myself and and
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she doesn't currently work so we we can say what we want we're not we're not
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going to we're not going to offend someone in another place and we're in a position
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to talk about these topics in a very open and honest and blunt way and i think
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one of the things as we go through the podcast that we'll discuss more,
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is bluntness and honesty and openness and straightforwardness is really key
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to the way of relating to neurodivergence.
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In a very deep way. We're able to take a very deep dive into a lot of the issues that we've had.
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Neither Moshe and I are very shy people, so we will go there with you.
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I think this is a point in time where we're going to remind everybody that also
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one of the reasons why we're able to do that is because we're not accredited experts in anything.
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So none of us has a PhD or an alphabet soup behind our name.
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We just have lots and lots and lots of life experience. And we're willing to
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share a lot of what works for us, what doesn't work for us.
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It'll just be a fun time. It'll be a really fun time. And as we said in the
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intro, or as the intro said before this episode started, neither of us are qualified
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to give medical opinions.
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Neither of us are qualified to give professional advice.
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What we have is our own life experience. And that sort of leads into the title
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of the podcast, Now You Know When Autistic.
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I was going to ask you about that, Moshe. Why do we call it Now You Know When Autistic?
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So what a lot of
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people don't necessarily know about autistics is
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that we're not monolithic now if you have a
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cold or you have the flu or you have like chicken pox or you have some some
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kind of i don't want to use the word condition but if you have some kind of
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thing going on with you whether it's mental illness whether it's physical disability
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whether it's just some sort of of of sickness.
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It has a certain level of understanding with the symptoms. If you have a cold,
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you have a runny nose, you have a sore throat, you have a cough.
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Sometimes you have a fever. If you have this but not that, then it's probably this but not that.
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If you have depression, then you're going to feel down more often than not.
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You're going to feel like they have these feelings that they express.
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With autism or general spectrum of neurodivergency, there's very few things
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that connect one autistic to another.
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And the title of the podcast is, if you've met one autistic,
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now you know one autistic.
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Because what works for me and what doesn't work for me is not necessarily going
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to be what works for another autistic.
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And and it might be but it might work in
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a different way so what we really kind of
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want to discuss because a lot of these these podcasts
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that that involve people who are autistic or
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videos you look on youtube or instagram or
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tiktok or whatever they have autistic people and they go look at the person
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and is is what what they're doing look at what they're doing or they have these
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videos that if you if you google search what does autism feel like they have
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these you know Here's a typical experience of what an autistic will see or what they'll experience.
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And I looked at those videos. I went through them and I sort of said,
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all right, so I kind of want to feel what I'm supposed to feel when I'm autistic.
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When I'm autistic. And I looked at them and I'm like, yeah, but also no.
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Exactly. So I think what Moshe is trying to say in his really verbose way of
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speaking, which is another thing you're going to notice, is that in our household,
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we discuss a lot about neurofunctionality.
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And the reality is that the spectrum that you'll see online when you research
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what is autism is a very useful tool.
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The symptoms that you'll see online, again, a very useful tool.
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Some of the things that you're going to find when you do research or talk to
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experts on this are very useful tools, but they are guidelines.
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So it would be the same as me saying, I am exactly like every neurotypical.
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Because my brain functions in this way, we all like the same things,
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we all do the same things, the same things work for all of us,
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and that is just ridiculous.
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The only reason why Moshe's neurofunctionality is not typical is because there
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are less people like him than there are like me.
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But it absolutely doesn't mean that he or our son, who's on the spectrum also,
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which you're going to hear a lot about in the coming episodes,
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are the same as each other even, and they're exposed to each other all the time.
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And they're certainly not the same as other people that they've met, necessarily.
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Definitely. And another thing that we are going to focus on in this podcast
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that I don't really think that any other podcast is focused on.
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And again, if that's not the case, I'm absolutely okay with being proven wrong.
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Let us know by email or in the comments or by responding if there's like a way
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to do that in the format that you're doing.
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And what we're going to do is actually kind of flip the script a little bit.
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Because all of these autism or neurodivergency-focused podcasts talk about the
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way that a neurotypical can relate or understand or function with or develop
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a relationship with or communicate with or be intimate with a neurodivergent.
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But I am a neurodivergent. Did you know? I kind of knew.
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I did. I apologize if this is the first that you all are hearing about this,
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but I am neurodivergent I am autistic and it's also ADHD and ADHD and.
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A lot of the questions are focused on how, for example, Leah can understand
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me and relate to me and get along with me.
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But what about how I relate to her?
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What about how I'm able to communicate with her?
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And the difficulties that I have with getting my point across,
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with expressing my needs, with showing her that I need certain things and don't
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like certain other things.
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Things because what one of the things that we're going
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to talk about a lot and it's number one
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pet peeve when it comes to autistics and i
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don't want to get in trouble but again it's my word so i can use it which is
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another thing i'm going to say quite a bit maybe we can put it on a t-shirt
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at some point is i hate the term non-verbal because a lot of people throughout
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the the ages have tried to divide autistics into categories.
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They treat autism like it's a substance that you have to stick in a jar with a label on it.
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This jar says high functioning. This jar says low functioning.
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This jar says verbal. This jar says nonverbal. And I'll tell you why I hate the term nonverbal.
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Because, and I just want to say that, I'm just going to give like a quick touch
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on it because we're going to have like a whole episode on communication.
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But what I hate just like Cole's notes as we used to say in Canada,
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about the term nonverbal is nobody, unless they're selectively mute and make
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no noise whatsoever, is nonverbal.
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Everyone communicates in their own way. They might communicate using sounds.
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They might communicate using words.
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They might communicate using a language that only they know,
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but they are always trying to communicate.
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And communication is key. and a
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lot of my struggles both in in
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my own life and also in in my relationship with Leah is
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this is how i feel how can i
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get that across this is what i want how can i get that across this is what i'm
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going through how can i express that in a way that she will understand and i'm
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sure there's a lot of autistics out there who are maybe they're in relationships
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maybe you have an autistic child maybe you have an autistic friend or maybe
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you just know autistic people and you're like how do
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i how do i how do i talk to them well the
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question i want to ask you is maybe they're
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wondering the same thing that is where we're unique because
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of the childhood best friend situation i
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had no issue once we were in a relationship with you going well i can't and
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you have to and and you have to understand me and i had no issue looking at
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you and going well what about you understanding me what makes you so special
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and i think that a lot of mixed couples don't do that because the neurotypical
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doesn't want to feel like,
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I don't want to use this word, like a mean person.
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Let's go with that. They don't want to be judged as being mean or harsh,
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and they don't want to be judged as being...
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Ableistic that's ableistic yeah they don't want to be judged as
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being ableistic so they have to accept all the bad behaviors
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because that's what an autistic is and you
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said something very cool earlier about sort of like your
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grown-up version being you know three midgets in a trench coat right versus
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i would look at you and be like i see you mosha i see you ston that and that
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was extremely useful for us to sort of be able to get through that haze of i'm
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neurotypical am i being ableistic here?
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Can I say this? Is this even okay?
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And I was like, no, what about me? And that honestly really cracked the door
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open to a lot of very useful conversations.
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Exactly. This is probably a good point to mention that one of the things that
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makes our podcast very unique is that we do not censor ourselves as much as we possibly can.
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So if we say something that offends you, or Leah says something that offends
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you, or I say something that offends you, just know that we mean it from the best possible place.
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Place and if you happen to be
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a little person and are offended
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by the term midget then just know
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that we mean it from the nicest place possible and we don't mean to offend you
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but feel free to send us comments indicating why you feel that that term is
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offensive to you and that is that is how we're going to go forward but it is
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going to be a raw podcast you're going to hear some things that
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might not be PC, that might not be woke.
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And that is kind of what makes us unique, I think.
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Yes. And I will apologize publicly to those people and listen to everything that they have to say.
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Fantastic. Because we're very open to criticism. And if you listen to the podcast,
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this is the hook for the end, but we'll say it now.
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If you listen to the podcast and you have comments and you have complaints and
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you have concerns and you have questions and you have conundrums and you have
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queries and you're like, I don't think that what you said was right.
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Great. great, tell us why.
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Or I really, you know, didn't like that you used that word.
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Okay, great. Tell us why you didn't like that word. We can have a communication.
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We are happy to hear from you. In fact, if we say something that really offends
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you, let's discuss it and make it, maybe we can talk about it in a future episode.
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So this person commented about episode whatever and said that we said this thing
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and it was actually really offensive to them.
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Let's talk about that. Because again, also as a neurodivergent,
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something that I've gotten to know about you is things that don't offend anybody
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else really offend you. Yes.
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Things that offend other people, they slide right off of you. So you never know.
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Somebody with a difference, a body difference, a functionality difference,
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a brain difference, might actually just like to own that term.
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I was very, a woman of mass for a long time.
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And I freely used the word fat. So again, you can message me and we can discuss that as well.
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Because when it's your turn, you can do it. For sure.
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So the discussion about comments and replies and maybe making it into a future
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episode is a good segue to discuss the format going forward.
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Word so what's going to happen for for
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future episodes is that it's going to be Leah and i and we might try to get
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guests in on it at a later time and we should probably mention that we have
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a minor bird couple that lives on our deck so if you're getting tweets so just as again raw uncut.
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Unfiltered so we're recording the podcast in our in our apartment currently in jerusalem him.
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And we have lots of birds, and we have a minor bird couple that lives on our balcony on occasion.
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And when they come here, they express their pleasure with the food that we've left them,
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by by tweeting very loudly so maybe
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maybe if you want to discuss uh if you
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have birds that live on your balcony and and if you feed them
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and also why that's not a good thing and and we
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can discuss you know the the wildlife in your city but let's talk about some
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of the some of the topics that we're gonna we're gonna discuss because it's
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gonna it's generally gonna be this it's gonna be Leah and i talking back and
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forth having conversations with each other like i said we We might have people
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on if we can figure out how to do it,
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where we discuss other topics depending.
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And some of the things that we're going to discuss, Lea. So parenting as an
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autistic and parenting an autistic child.
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Right. Those are some of the topics that we find extremely important.
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Communication. Every style and means of communication, as Moshe said about the
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nonverbal versus verbal.
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And double empathy, different styles. If you don't know what double empathy
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is, we'll definitely get into that later.
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We're going to use a lot of terms, a lot of jargon sometimes.
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We try to make things as understandable as possible. But if we use a term that
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you don't understand or don't know, and we don't explain it,
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please feel free to let us know.
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And we'll be happy to discuss it in a future episode or just respond to you
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privately if you have any questions. From our layman's understanding,
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is ASD different than ADHD, Tourette's, global delay, and all the other things
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that are currently under the same umbrella?
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Decision-making, who makes the decisions in the household and why?
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Intimacy and connection, every type of intimacy, including sexual intimacy.
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Yeah, there's going to be a disclaimer on that, of course.
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But again, we leave nothing out. So if you if you do want to stick around for
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a future episode about Leah and I's, you know, sex life, then buckle up.
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Self-care, therapy, to therapy or not to therapy, in which therapies work, in which don't.
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Autism in the wild we're going to try to speak to other autistics and
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see what they have to say about things see how that goes traveling and
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adventures a big topic in
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our household is fleeting fancies so moshe will come home with these bright
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ideas and we have to sort of wait through which ones are just interests of the
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moment or stuff that we should you know chuck it all in and give it a shot right
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being autistic in the jewish community it won't necessarily interest everyone,
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but it's a big part of our lives.
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Yeah. I mean, Leah and I are what you would consider Orthodox Jewish.
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This podcast is not about necessarily our faith or our religion,
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and certainly we don't intend on speaking to dogma or doctrine because we're
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aware that there's going to be people out there of all different faiths,
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but we are going to devote an episode to connecting the two.
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And when we get to that episode... We probably disclaim that one as well.
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Yes, there's strong feelings.
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And I mean, we're happy to talk to people of all other religions.
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So if you do want to be featured possibly in that episode and talk about how
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your religion, whatever it may be, is influencing or influencing your relationship
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vis-a-vis the neurodivergency angle, we can talk about that.
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We're also going to discuss the uncanny valley of autism, where the person sort
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of seems kind of just like you, but they're a little bit off.
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And again apologies if that's offensive to you but it's a reality and we're
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not going to shy away from it right.
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What time means to Moshe. Apparently time passes differently for Moshe and also our son. Yes.
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We've noticed than it does for myself or maybe someone else.
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Liaison with the school, emotional labor, who does, you know,
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a lot of the emotional labor and heavy lifting and how that works.
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And, you know, just anything else that may come up. And we're very open to things
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that people want to talk about from our perspective.
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We are going to do a lot of research and come at you with some facts as well as our opinions.
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I think that's an important thing to say.
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Yeah, this is not by any means an exhaustive list.
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This is our first episode, or as we call it, episode zero, because it's really
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more about introducing ourselves than actually getting into any of the topics,
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which will be next week's endeavor.
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But feel free to leave in the comments any ideas that you have about things
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that you'd like to talk about.
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It may be difficult without knowing more about us and our knowledge and experiences,
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but if you do hear something, you're like, oh, you know what,
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I'd really love to hear Leah talk about this, or I'd really love Moshe to explain this.
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We would love to do that.
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And again, for the second time in this episode, we are not experts.
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We just have our own life experiences.
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But we're not by any means stating that what we're saying is the definitive
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answer for all situations.
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Because again, the podcast is called Now You Know When Autistic,
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not This Is How All Autistics Are, which would be a far different podcast and
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far more controversial.
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An impossible podcast. It would be an impossible podcast and very short-sighted.
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And I think overall, the podcast is generally us, Leah and I, yammering on.
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But it also is meant to be a dialogue. So if you have feedback and if you hear
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something that you have comments on or you disagree with something that we're
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saying, we would love to talk about it.
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Because like I said, we're not experts. We definitely like to hear more about
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your feelings and the feelings of everyone who is listening.
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Absolutely. So one thing that we wanted to touch on in episode zero that we
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had is how you figured or how you discovered that you were autistic.
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Right. So one of the problems with being autistic and also ADHD in the 80s is
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that there wasn't a lot of knowledge with neurodivergency.
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And and again i'm going to
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go into a bit of a controversial subject here but again
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it's it's my life so i can talk about it however i feel like
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in the 80s my experience and
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again this was just my experience as one autistic is that if you had some kind
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of a different functionality be it intellectual be it learning be it developmental
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be it anything you were just called retarded and And that is just the way it was.
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And a lot of people don't like that word, but I would urge you,
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for example, to watch commercials from the 70s and 80s. And that was a word
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that was just thrown around casually.
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And it is the way a lot of people saw me.
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And even those who are very polite, because I'm not intellectually disabled.
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I do know many people or I have known many people that do have certain things
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that have delayed them and that's.
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You know, that's their own story to tell. But I was always different.
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I always had difficulty with my emotions. I always got very lost.
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I'll tell a quick story, just a quick side note, that these podcasts will generally
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be between 45 and 60 minutes.
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So we still have some time. I'll tell a quick story.
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My parents divorced when I was about four years old. My father other moves, I believe, to Ottawa.
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And my mother and I and my sister stayed in Montreal.
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But when my parents were together, I must have been about two or three years
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old. I was always a very early riser.
429
00:29:57.510 --> 00:30:02.330
Sleep disturbances and difficulties is something that is medically relevant
430
00:30:02.330 --> 00:30:06.610
to autistics, and it does seem to come up quite a few times. Our son doesn't sleep.
431
00:30:06.830 --> 00:30:11.530
But I was, yeah, I was a very early riser. So I would get up at 4.30 or 5 o'clock
432
00:30:11.530 --> 00:30:14.670
every morning, not because there was anything in particularly going on,
433
00:30:14.690 --> 00:30:18.250
but just because I felt like that was enough sleep for one night.
434
00:30:18.550 --> 00:30:25.310
And I would go into my parents' bedroom and I would sit on my father's side
435
00:30:25.310 --> 00:30:30.250
of the bed and just put my face like right up to him and just stare.
436
00:30:30.410 --> 00:30:32.490
I wouldn't make any noise. I would just stare.
437
00:30:32.790 --> 00:30:38.250
And he told me that like he would always get this weird feeling like someone
438
00:30:38.250 --> 00:30:41.690
was watching him and he would open his eyes and my eyes would be like right there.
439
00:30:41.690 --> 00:30:44.590
The first few times it was very disconcerting but
440
00:30:44.590 --> 00:30:47.830
after that he was just like okay so you
441
00:30:47.830 --> 00:30:50.870
you need to not do this give us another two or three
442
00:30:50.870 --> 00:30:53.990
hours then we'll get up so we had this beautiful living
443
00:30:53.990 --> 00:30:57.110
room where my mother put plants and they had these vertical
444
00:30:57.110 --> 00:30:59.990
blinds that were sort of dangling on a string
445
00:30:59.990 --> 00:31:02.950
and they would sort of and the window was slightly open or
446
00:31:02.950 --> 00:31:05.750
there was like a forced air condition and they would sort of
447
00:31:05.750 --> 00:31:08.630
move around and i would sit on on the
448
00:31:08.630 --> 00:31:11.670
couch across from the the verticals and as
449
00:31:11.670 --> 00:31:14.950
the sun would would hit the verticals there would
450
00:31:14.950 --> 00:31:18.030
be shadows and and shades cast on
451
00:31:18.030 --> 00:31:21.350
them and i would actually sit on the couch and watch
452
00:31:21.350 --> 00:31:26.730
the the different you know lights and shadows and and things just go back and
453
00:31:26.730 --> 00:31:31.530
forth and i found it mesmerizing i would make up these pictures in my mind i
454
00:31:31.530 --> 00:31:37.010
recall at one point i was sort of the the the shapes of the shadows turned into
455
00:31:37.010 --> 00:31:38.950
like a horse that was running across the window.
456
00:31:39.170 --> 00:31:42.690
It was actually very surreal. And that was my first indication,
457
00:31:42.870 --> 00:31:45.950
in hindsight, of course, because when you're that age, you don't think about
458
00:31:45.950 --> 00:31:47.410
those things. That was my first indication.
459
00:31:47.530 --> 00:31:49.530
There might have been something a little bit off about me.
460
00:31:50.150 --> 00:31:54.510
I had a lot of difficulties with, you know, being in groups.
461
00:31:54.650 --> 00:31:58.550
Whenever I was put in large groups, I would have what we now know as meltdowns.
462
00:31:58.570 --> 00:31:59.990
They called them panic attacks.
463
00:32:00.350 --> 00:32:04.130
They called them panic attacks. Or they called you just being very difficult.
464
00:32:04.610 --> 00:32:09.370
So I struggled. Throughout your childhood. Go talk to him. I don't know what to do with him. Right.
465
00:32:09.750 --> 00:32:14.770
So I would go through periods of just being very emotional or very like...
466
00:32:16.399 --> 00:32:22.139
And in those days, they didn't know a lot about autism, but they thought they
467
00:32:22.139 --> 00:32:23.919
knew a lot about giftedness.
468
00:32:24.379 --> 00:32:30.239
So there was a period of time when I was probably about five or six that somebody,
469
00:32:30.399 --> 00:32:32.939
could have been a social worker, could have been a psychologist,
470
00:32:33.139 --> 00:32:33.959
could have been a psychiatrist,
471
00:32:34.259 --> 00:32:38.819
could have just been a friend, I never really knew, told my mother that she
472
00:32:38.819 --> 00:32:42.839
suspected that I must be gifted because gifted people are like that.
473
00:32:42.839 --> 00:32:47.519
I couldn't walk until I was probably about three, but I could read.
474
00:32:47.759 --> 00:32:53.039
I would be 18 months old and I would be sitting there just reading books and
475
00:32:53.039 --> 00:32:54.779
speaking like actual words.
476
00:32:55.339 --> 00:33:00.419
My mother, just as a quick side note, my mother told the story that she would
477
00:33:00.419 --> 00:33:05.279
walk in, it's like she walked into my bedroom when I must have been just a few
478
00:33:05.279 --> 00:33:07.419
months old, lying on the change table.
479
00:33:07.419 --> 00:33:10.579
Table and again we know you're not supposed to leave the baby unattended
480
00:33:10.579 --> 00:33:13.399
on the change table but again it was the 80s and if your baby died
481
00:33:13.399 --> 00:33:16.379
i guess they weren't meant to live or whatever but she
482
00:33:16.379 --> 00:33:22.719
walked into the room and and i was just lying there playing with my feet and
483
00:33:22.719 --> 00:33:27.079
she was getting ready to change me and she would and she said i looked up at
484
00:33:27.079 --> 00:33:30.819
her and i had these big blue eyes then which i still do and i said mommy i'm
485
00:33:30.819 --> 00:33:35.019
filthy and she just about fell through the floor she she
486
00:33:35.219 --> 00:33:41.839
was like, this baby was just articulating to me these complex thoughts.
487
00:33:42.359 --> 00:33:47.959
Not I'm messy or undirny. No, I'm filthy. I am filthy, mummy.
488
00:33:48.559 --> 00:33:52.379
So she changed me. So anyway, back to the gifted story.
489
00:33:52.719 --> 00:33:56.899
So they put me in a day camp for gifted kids.
490
00:33:57.379 --> 00:34:00.259
And I walked into the classroom one day and there
491
00:34:00.259 --> 00:34:04.119
was like these toddlers doing complex calculus on
492
00:34:04.119 --> 00:34:07.119
the blackboard and someone was like painting this
493
00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:12.059
masterpiece on an easel and this other guy was like doing rubik's cubes and
494
00:34:12.059 --> 00:34:16.919
putting together puzzles and and i and i would just walk in looking at all these
495
00:34:16.919 --> 00:34:20.819
things going i don't know what's going on here and then the kids would like
496
00:34:20.819 --> 00:34:24.619
approach me and be like well what what's your favorite theoretical physicist?
497
00:34:24.819 --> 00:34:28.399
And I was like, I like dogs. I like horses.
498
00:34:29.019 --> 00:34:32.179
I like cats. I can color. I know colors.
499
00:34:32.859 --> 00:34:34.219
Do you know colors?
500
00:34:34.919 --> 00:34:41.499
So all the kids would approach me and try to connect with me on their hyper-focus or their passion.
501
00:34:42.279 --> 00:34:47.159
And I just didn't know. It took a few days of me just kind of standing around
502
00:34:47.159 --> 00:34:52.439
going, I don't know what's going on, before the person who ran the camp looked
503
00:34:52.439 --> 00:34:54.239
at my mom and said, yeah, I don't think he's gifted.
504
00:34:55.059 --> 00:35:00.039
So they took me out of there. This is a common story from back in our day, by the way.
505
00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:04.559
A lot of autistics, who we now know are autistic, were putting gifted programs,
506
00:35:05.179 --> 00:35:09.859
mostly because I think that the social pressure was off so they would function better there.
507
00:35:10.566 --> 00:35:15.106
So this is where I'm going to step in. And I'm going to talk about very quickly,
508
00:35:15.246 --> 00:35:20.466
my mama bear side is coming out right now, because this is a prime example of
509
00:35:20.466 --> 00:35:25.186
why functionality labels are trying to understand the functionality of anybody
510
00:35:25.186 --> 00:35:28.266
really, but especially an autistic is so, so damaging.
511
00:35:29.666 --> 00:35:36.126
Because neither Moshe nor our son would actually have met the criteria for autism
512
00:35:36.126 --> 00:35:41.286
long ago. and everybody says to me all the time, what, they're so functional.
513
00:35:41.446 --> 00:35:46.826
Wow, they read so well, they're so articulate and our son is so popular.
514
00:35:46.886 --> 00:35:48.466
He's so popular, he has so many friends.
515
00:35:49.106 --> 00:35:54.866
I had no idea. And I'm just sitting there going, yes, but I struggled to get
516
00:35:54.866 --> 00:35:57.686
our son to take a shower and clean his room today.
517
00:35:58.226 --> 00:36:02.226
He is low functioning in the things that don't matter to other people.
518
00:36:02.446 --> 00:36:05.066
And that's what is very, very, very damaging.
519
00:36:05.326 --> 00:36:08.226
So they're like, yeah, you're his mom And you can do that when he's out in the
520
00:36:08.226 --> 00:36:11.646
world. He's cute and he's happy and he's funny and he's got, again, big blue eyes.
521
00:36:11.746 --> 00:36:16.826
And, you know, he smiles and he's functional enough and he doesn't have so much
522
00:36:16.826 --> 00:36:19.306
intellectual delay. So we don't see him as an issue.
523
00:36:19.666 --> 00:36:21.746
And he's not an issue. He's a human.
524
00:36:22.446 --> 00:36:25.526
No, right. He has issues. And that's the point.
525
00:36:25.666 --> 00:36:30.546
If he's going to function as a human being that gets older, he's going to have
526
00:36:30.546 --> 00:36:35.386
to be helped in those areas where he's less functional. And the same thing is with you.
527
00:36:36.006 --> 00:36:42.126
Right. because this is why when people say autism is a spectrum, it's a spectrum.
528
00:36:42.306 --> 00:36:46.326
And a lot of people hear that and they're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense,
529
00:36:46.366 --> 00:36:49.186
but definitely a spectrum. But what is a spectrum?
530
00:36:49.506 --> 00:36:54.186
Because essentially, if you're looking at autism from like this one,
531
00:36:54.446 --> 00:37:00.106
like a scale of zero to 10, zero being non-functional and 10 being fully functional,
532
00:37:00.306 --> 00:37:06.106
then you're going to end up with people just being, they're falling through the cracks.
533
00:37:06.106 --> 00:37:10.606
But if you look at it as like a whole broad picture, what you will find,
534
00:37:10.646 --> 00:37:17.406
like in my case, my special talent or passion was articulation and reading.
535
00:37:17.906 --> 00:37:23.186
My mother used to get very frustrated with me and she used to drop me off at the public library.
536
00:37:24.133 --> 00:37:29.813
For long periods of time. And I would just walk into the kids section and just read every book.
537
00:37:29.953 --> 00:37:34.633
I would be sitting there, like she would drop me off and she would come back
538
00:37:34.633 --> 00:37:40.173
a few hours later, and I would still be in the same spot with just piles of books all around me.
539
00:37:40.433 --> 00:37:45.253
And that was my ability. It made you quite predictable as a child,
540
00:37:45.293 --> 00:37:51.653
because the thing about you and also our son is, is if you look away for a second, they're gone.
541
00:37:52.113 --> 00:37:56.053
So as a child, when we would go to big shopping malls, for example,
542
00:37:56.053 --> 00:37:59.313
I would know he'd be in one of three stores, and I could always find him there.
543
00:37:59.413 --> 00:38:02.533
And our son, very much the same, you know, he's going to be in one of a few
544
00:38:02.533 --> 00:38:05.853
parks or a couple of friends' houses, and we can find him there.
545
00:38:06.013 --> 00:38:10.593
So predictability is actually something that goes so well with the.
546
00:38:11.413 --> 00:38:14.513
What's the word that, you know, like stubborn, what's the other word I use? Rigid.
547
00:38:14.873 --> 00:38:18.613
Rigidness, yeah, exactly. Exactly. The rigidity, because you can predict what
548
00:38:18.613 --> 00:38:20.233
your person is going to do.
549
00:38:20.573 --> 00:38:24.773
But it comes with understanding them and knowing them. And that was what happened
550
00:38:24.773 --> 00:38:28.853
with me, was everyone couldn't handle me. I can't handle it.
551
00:38:28.913 --> 00:38:31.493
Everyone always used to say, I can't handle it. I don't know what's going on.
552
00:38:31.513 --> 00:38:33.353
Something's going on with him. I don't know what's going on with him.
553
00:38:33.493 --> 00:38:36.533
And it got worse as I got older, because again, I was never diagnosed.
554
00:38:36.893 --> 00:38:42.153
I went to regular school. They had a school for autistics in Montreal.
555
00:38:42.633 --> 00:38:45.453
They still do. they still do but I wasn't autistic
556
00:38:45.453 --> 00:38:48.913
I was they would just come up with different he's an absent minded professor
557
00:38:48.913 --> 00:38:54.613
he he's just he's very he's very sensitive that I got every label except the
558
00:38:54.613 --> 00:38:59.093
ones that I needed and this continued all the way through elementary school
559
00:38:59.093 --> 00:39:03.373
and high school and of course this is just a like a surface view we'll get into
560
00:39:03.373 --> 00:39:05.393
the deep dives about my experiences,
561
00:39:05.933 --> 00:39:10.713
in future and later episodes because there's a lot to unpack and hopefully it'll
562
00:39:10.713 --> 00:39:11.813
be interesting and helpful.
563
00:39:12.133 --> 00:39:16.073
But eventually, I just kind of went through my whole life, missing opportunities,
564
00:39:16.493 --> 00:39:18.673
struggling, being unable to express myself.
565
00:39:19.313 --> 00:39:23.073
And again, a lot of stuff happened, which we will get into in future episodes,
566
00:39:23.193 --> 00:39:25.793
until the point when I was in my 40s.
567
00:39:26.193 --> 00:39:31.853
And I actually turned to Leah one day and I was like, I think I might be autistic.
568
00:39:32.153 --> 00:39:32.833
Do you think I'm autistic?
569
00:39:33.233 --> 00:39:36.273
And I said, yes. And I got diagnosed.
570
00:39:36.853 --> 00:39:41.713
And when you're diagnosed, again, and we can look into this in a future episode
571
00:39:41.713 --> 00:39:47.953
too, but I will say that as an adult diagnosed autistic, when you get that diagnosis,
572
00:39:48.413 --> 00:39:53.613
it's like it's cathartic because it's like you can go back over the course of your entire life.
573
00:39:53.613 --> 00:39:59.193
And you just let out this big, oh, and everything makes sense.
574
00:39:59.433 --> 00:40:04.553
All the memories from my past, that time when I was in grade six and I would
575
00:40:04.553 --> 00:40:05.913
just stand there with a gold necklace
576
00:40:05.913 --> 00:40:08.633
and spin the charm around and the teacher's like, what's he doing?
577
00:40:08.773 --> 00:40:11.293
I don't know what he's doing.
578
00:40:11.793 --> 00:40:16.953
Or that time in grade four where I stood in the puddle in rain boots and just
579
00:40:16.953 --> 00:40:21.793
splashed over and over again because I liked the sound and the feeling of the water.
580
00:40:22.531 --> 00:40:26.031
Or when I would throw my books out the window just to see what would happen.
581
00:40:26.711 --> 00:40:29.351
And like these weird things that I would used to do.
582
00:40:29.411 --> 00:40:34.691
And that story of when I was just like a baby, like a toddler sitting on the
583
00:40:34.691 --> 00:40:39.051
couch in my mom's living room and just watching the shadows go across the verticals,
584
00:40:39.071 --> 00:40:40.931
getting the diagnosis. I think you're autistic.
585
00:40:41.531 --> 00:40:47.211
I was like, oh, now it all makes sense. Actually, you came to me with that first.
586
00:40:47.371 --> 00:40:48.591
And you said, do you think I'm autistic?
587
00:40:48.791 --> 00:40:50.931
I said, yes. And I also think you have ADHD.
588
00:40:51.371 --> 00:40:55.431
Right. We have to really just drive home very quickly. Again,
589
00:40:55.511 --> 00:40:56.531
it's almost time to wrap up.
590
00:40:56.651 --> 00:41:00.871
But that motion monitor, his life has no diagnosis, no medication,
591
00:41:01.151 --> 00:41:05.451
being very significantly affected by both autism and ADHD.
592
00:41:05.991 --> 00:41:10.811
And then people sort of looked at him and wondered why he wasn't actuating correctly.
593
00:41:11.291 --> 00:41:16.831
Right. That was a very, very difficult thing to have to go through, I'm sure, and I saw.
594
00:41:17.011 --> 00:41:21.891
It was painful. It was difficult. And again, opportunity. If you are also an
595
00:41:21.891 --> 00:41:26.551
adult diagnosed with autism or ADHD or both, because it usually comes,
596
00:41:26.671 --> 00:41:29.811
the two of them kind of come packaged together, which we will discuss later.
597
00:41:30.615 --> 00:41:34.395
Then let us know in the comments or email us and let us know your experiences.
598
00:41:34.475 --> 00:41:40.175
Or alternatively, if you also have a child like our son who was diagnosed from the beginning.
599
00:41:40.375 --> 00:41:42.595
Four and a half. Yeah, four and a half. But we had to fight.
600
00:41:42.795 --> 00:41:47.855
Who, you know, how that helped you or hurt you or what his experience or their
601
00:41:47.855 --> 00:41:50.975
experiences or her experiences are with that.
602
00:41:51.395 --> 00:41:56.015
And whether you feel, because I was told when I said I'd like a diagnosis of
603
00:41:56.015 --> 00:41:57.755
autism, people were like, why?
604
00:41:57.835 --> 00:42:00.775
You have a job. You have a family. why do you
605
00:42:00.775 --> 00:42:03.935
need a diagnosis in your 40s they said it's
606
00:42:03.935 --> 00:42:06.935
not necessary it doesn't do anything for you and we
607
00:42:06.935 --> 00:42:09.775
said no it is necessary because it it
608
00:42:09.775 --> 00:42:12.835
it actualizes every experience
609
00:42:12.835 --> 00:42:16.115
that i ever had so if you were
610
00:42:16.115 --> 00:42:18.895
told something similar then that absolutely let us
611
00:42:18.895 --> 00:42:21.895
know in the comments or send us emails about your experiences we'd love.
612
00:42:21.895 --> 00:42:24.955
To hear about them oh yes we'll be there for you here and we will back you
613
00:42:24.955 --> 00:42:27.835
up because yeah it is absolutely an
614
00:42:27.835 --> 00:42:30.655
important thing before we wrap up was there anything else
615
00:42:30.655 --> 00:42:33.615
you want to mention i did want to mention the one thing that
616
00:42:33.615 --> 00:42:36.655
you are not do have in common in terms of your
617
00:42:36.655 --> 00:42:40.095
functionality if you want to put it that way is that you
618
00:42:40.095 --> 00:42:43.315
both have very significant processing
619
00:42:43.315 --> 00:42:46.415
delays and that itself is going to be a whole episode processing
620
00:42:46.415 --> 00:42:49.115
the licensing yeah but just to put a picture in your
621
00:42:49.115 --> 00:42:52.295
head it's it's very cute so you can see you know this
622
00:42:52.295 --> 00:42:55.035
very smallish five foot six
623
00:42:55.035 --> 00:42:58.295
woman going to this largest you know six foot
624
00:42:58.295 --> 00:43:01.975
man and going now moshe we're going
625
00:43:01.975 --> 00:43:04.595
to process through this now we got to go quickly we're in
626
00:43:04.595 --> 00:43:07.475
a rush and you know there have been people who
627
00:43:07.475 --> 00:43:10.175
sort of stopped us and i think is he okay is she doing
628
00:43:10.175 --> 00:43:12.915
something to you sir so that's also one
629
00:43:12.915 --> 00:43:15.895
of those awkward things that we're we're going to discuss but the processing
630
00:43:15.895 --> 00:43:18.835
delay is is is huge because it's invisible
631
00:43:18.835 --> 00:43:21.595
visible yeah and of course we we will talk about it
632
00:43:21.595 --> 00:43:24.635
in a future episode but i uh i guess that's
633
00:43:24.635 --> 00:43:29.135
it's going to be all now so thank you for listening well that's
634
00:43:29.135 --> 00:43:32.135
our show for today now you know one autistic just a
635
00:43:32.135 --> 00:43:38.595
little bit better so something you may not know about some autistics is that.
636
00:43:38.595 --> 00:43:45.355
We often struggle with ending social interactions so Leah all right Moshe
637
00:43:45.355 --> 00:43:50.735
i'll take care of it thank you for listening to now you know one autistic see you next week.
638
00:43:50.800 --> 00:43:58.714
Music.
Version: 20240731