The Family Puzzle: Navigating Autism with Love and Understanding

Episode Title: The Family Puzzle: Navigating Autism with Love and Understanding

Episode Number: 15

Release Date: June 30, 2024

Duration: 57:55

Episode Summary:

In this episode of Now You Know One Autistic, Moshe and Leah, a neurodiverse couple, discuss their experiences as parents raising both neurodivergent and neurotypical children. They delve into the challenges and joys of parenting with autism, exploring topics such as sensory overload, meltdowns, schooling options, and co-occurring conditions like ADHD and demand avoidance. The couple also shares insights into advocating for their children's needs and the importance of understanding and embracing neurodiversity within the family dynamic. Additionally, their daughter Raya joins the conversation, offering a unique perspective on growing up in a neurodiverse household.

Key Takeaways:

• Sensory Overload and Meltdowns: Autistic individuals, both children and adults, can experience sensory overload, leading to meltdowns. Understanding triggers and developing coping mechanisms are crucial for managing these situations.
• Schooling Options and Advocacy: Choosing the right educational environment for neurodivergent children is essential. Parents need to advocate for their children's needs and consider options like special education classes or mainstream schools with support.
• Co-Occurring Conditions: Autism often coexists with other conditions like ADHD, demand avoidance, and learning disabilities. Recognizing and addressing these comorbidities is vital for providing appropriate support.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

• How neurodiverse parents navigate the challenges of raising children with varying needs.
• Strategies for managing sensory overload and meltdowns in autistic children.
• The importance of advocating for neurodivergent children in educational settings.
• Insights into co-occurring conditions and their impact on family dynamics.

Quotes:

• "When you're an autistic parent dealing with an autistic child, it's kind of like you're adding your own sensory issues on top of their sensory issues." - Moshe
• "I would rather him reach 80% and be mentally healthy." - Leah (referring to prioritizing her son's mental health over reaching his full potential)
• "It's hard being Avram's older sister... His meltdowns are very hard because I have to deal with them." - Raya

Connect with Us:

Website: Our Homepage!

Facebook: Subscribe to Our Facebook Page!

Instagram: Follow us on Instagram!

TikTok: Check Us Out On TikTok!

Subscribe & Review:

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast and click the Like button! Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and improve the show.

Transcript:

[00:08] Moshe: Hi, I'm Moshe, and I'm autistic.

[00:10] Leah: I'm Leah, and I'm boring. Welcome to the now, you know, one autistic podcast.

[00:16] Moshe: The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect one autistic and one layout and don't necessarily reflect the entire autistic community.

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

[00:33] Moshe: Hi, Leah.

[00:33] Leah: How are you?

[00:34] Moshe: I'm good. How are you?

[00:36] Leah: Good. Today's a special day. Do you want to tell everybody why?

[00:39] Moshe: Absolutely. So last week we had two amazing guests, Becca and Adam. And given the amount of listeners and the viewers and just the amazing amount of response that we've gotten, it was clearly a good episode. So we got the idea that now we were going to start having guests, not all the time, but quite a bit. And today we have a very special guest.

[01:03] Leah: Who is it?

[01:04] Moshe: Our daughter, Raya. Hi, Raya.

[01:06] Leah: Hi.

[01:08] Moshe: And the reason that we have Raya on the show today is because the topic is parenting.

[01:15] Leah: Yes.

[01:16] Moshe: So today we're going to talk about parenting as it relates to autistics and neurodiversity. We're going to talk about my experience as an autistic parent. Normally, when you hear things like autistic parent, you're referring to a parent of an autistic. But I am unique in that. I am an autistic, autistic parent.

[01:38] Leah: I was going to say you're like autism squared.

[01:40] Moshe: I am autism squared.

[01:46] Leah: So the reason why we introduced Raya up front is she might have something to interject during our usual. So we had intended for her to have her own spot, which she is going to have, or we're going to do a question and answer. But if she has something to interject in between, we want her to be able to speak.

[02:00] Moshe: So she'll be co hosting.

[02:01] Leah: She'll be co hosting.

[02:03] Moshe: Co hosting.

[02:06] Raya: Right, right.

[02:07] Moshe: Yeah. Okay. So getting into it, I want to once again thank Adam and Becca, and we definitely hope to have them on the show again. But talking to them about our experiences, as well as the experience of them having a daughter, Camilla, and us having children, we thought that the next episode, we would talk about parenting.

[02:30] Leah: So. All right, so the first topic that I have here is actually one that we've discussed a lot, and it's one that's discussed a lot in circles, you know, in terms of autism. But I was hoping we could put a perspective on it in terms of parenting. So here I have written sensory overload and supporting meltdowns. Shutdowns.

[02:50] Moshe: Right.

[02:51] Leah: What does that look like? So what does that look like for me? Who is theoretically neurotypical, versus you, who is not. In more than theory, you're not in terms of, let's say, when either child has a meltdown because rise sometimes has them, right?

[03:06] Raya: Yes. Right? Yep.

[03:09] Leah: That's correct. Okay. But Avram, by far, has more obvious ones and more often. So what are some things that could cause Avram to go into a sensory overload?

[03:20] Moshe: So, as we talked about on previous episodes, the challenge of being autistic is that you experience a lot of sensations in a much more intense way. So things like touch, things like taste, things like smell, things like changes in temperature, sudden sound, sudden touching, sudden bad smells. For example, we were out earlier today picking up some packages out by sort of, I guess you could call it, what, the industrial section of Jerusalem?

[03:58] Raya: Yeah. There.

[04:00] Moshe: And today is very hot, and it's probably about 40 odd degrees in the sun with a very slight wind. And it was such that you would sort of walk and you'd have this waft of heat that would hit your face. But because of the proximity of all the different things, there are a large amount of dumpsters. So occasionally you'd just be hit in the face with this horrible smell. You know, we'll say the dirty room and office.

[04:32] Leah: That's attractive. I am so happy that I was at home working my day job today.

[04:37] Raya: Yeah, you should be lucky. Feel lucky for that. It was terrible mommy.

[04:42] Leah: Raya. You heard it from Raya first. It was terrible mommy.

[04:45] Moshe: Yes. So the point was, I often deal with a lot of sensory overloads for myself. So when I was sort of repeatedly hit in the face with the smell of dirty diapers, although it may not have actually been that, mostly it was just rotten garbage, my instinct would be to react, but because I have learned coping mechanisms over time, I sort of talk myself through it because it lasts about two or 3 seconds. And if I was in a sustained environment like that, then it would be very hard for me to tolerate it. But Auburn would not have been allowed, like, able to handle that whatsoever. He would have been bent over, gagging, screaming intermittently.

[05:27] Leah: You mean because Adam is a different. He's a funny case. If he's in a smelly room long enough to get used to it, he'll sort of forget about the smell. But if it's intermittent, like smell, not smell, smell, not smell. Smell, not smell. Just like temperature. Hot, cold, hot, cold. He has issues with that.

[05:42] Moshe: Right. So it's the sudden change. Sudden change of temperature, sudden change in smell, sudden change in sound.

[05:48] Leah: For Avram and also for you, changing plans or not knowing what he's doing will cause him a huge meltdown. So in terms of me and how I deal with it, I'd like to call back to the day that I was asked to go on his field trip with him. And we went on a field trip, and we got on this bus, which is overstimulating for me, because it was a short bus with a bunch of special, other special kids on it. And it was loud, and they were moving, and they were all fidgeting. And then there was a train, so they all screamed, train. You know how that goes. It was such a stereotype, it honestly made me giggle.

[06:19] Moshe: Yes. And one of the few autistics that doesn't care that much about training, Avram didn't care either.

[06:24] Leah: He was just like, look at my video game. I brought his phone. I was smart enough to bring his phone so he could decompress. And it was loud. And we went all the way from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, which is far, I think it's an hour. It's an hour and a half on the bus.

[06:38] Moshe: It's a very nice drive if you've ever had the opportunity.

[06:41] Leah: And then when we got to Tel Aviv, we were going to do a hiking trail, and it started to rain. And in Israel, people don't deal with rain like we do in Canada. They're like, it's the end of the day. It started to rain. We're done. So all the kids were screaming, and then they tried to shove them all into a bathroom so they wouldn't get wet. And Avram just couldn't. And I was like, we're fine. Like, we're from Canada. We can get wet. So we went out because he was having a full on meltdown in there. And I took him out and I brought him to a tree that we could stay stand under. And he began to calm down. And one of the park rangers or something came up to me and said, it's raining. You have to go inside. And I said, thank you very much. Go away, please. And we did that. We took a walk around and we calmed him, but then they decided to leave that area, and he thought that we were going home. So we got back on the bus, and he thought that we were going home. And instead of going home, we just drove to a different location where we did a different activity. And when we got out of the bus and he realized we weren't at home, there was a whole other meltdown. And he almost jumped off a mountain. It was a whole thing. Anyway, we went to sort of this mountainous area, and he sort of ran full tilt. He almost jumped off a mountain. It was very scary. And I had to wonder how his teachers would have handled that if I hadn't been there, which in my mind is like, not at all. So then we walked down, and I sort of like, you know, calmed him down, held him. When we got to where we were going, he actually ended up really liking the activity. So that calmed him. And then when we left that area, he himself went up to his teacher and said, listen, can you tell me where we're going now? Because I just can't handle any more surprises. So he himself actually identified what the problem was, and she said, okay, so we're going to the park and then we're going back. He says, okay, so we're going to the park and we're going back. And then there were no more meltdowns that day, but it had to do with being prepared, expectations not being met. You know, different sensory experiences. Like on the bus, kids screaming off the bus, it's hot, it's cold, it's raining, I'm wet now. It was just an impossible scenario that I was really glad I was there for because I don't know how his teacher was responsible for. Ten other kids would have dealt with that. So that's my story. How about you?

[08:59] Moshe: Well, I mean, I. I deal with it on my own and I deal with it from him and we deal with it together.

[09:06] Leah: Yeah, that's got to be difficult, right? So I can at least predict some of the things that are going to happen in terms of you. You're taking care of yourself and your attention isn't always there. So sometimes you don't know that something's going to go wrong until it's happening.

[09:20] Moshe: Yeah, it's really a challenge because, and, I mean, I. I can definitely talk about my experience related to being his parent, but also my experience from my own perspective. And for me, it's kind of like Twofold. There's three basic levels of the autistic expression of overstimulation. You go from meltdown to shutdown to burnouthe, and it's a progression. And you never really want to get to the third one because it can take days or weeks to get out of the third one. And it happens a lot more frequently, especially if you don't have the coping mechanism.

[10:06] Leah: Well, meltdown can be relatively quick. It's like, the way I describe it is like a fart or a burp. It's a physical thing that happens. A shutdown can take a day or two, and a burnout can take a lot longer.

[10:18] Moshe: Shutdown really only takes a few hours. A burnout will take days sometimes. And in general, when you're an autistic parent dealing with an autistic child, it's kind of like you're adding your own sensory issues on top of their sensory issues. And sometimes they can be very similar, but they can also be different. The most interesting thing about my interactions with Abram is that we end up having very different sensitivities a lot of the time. So it's kind of like tectonic plates.

[10:53] Leah: But it's also kind of really cute because I see him looking at you and understanding your sensitivities from a level that I don't. Also, he'll just look at you and he'll be like, yeah, that's what's going on, so let's just back up and walk away.

[11:08] Moshe: But there's expectations, and that's sort of the issue when it comes to him. And also with me, because when you start off at a certain age, you're a baby or you're a toddler or you're a small child or you're a slightly older child, even older child, or you're like a preteen. And the older you get, the more you expect to be able to adapt. But the adaption takes a lot longer, and sometimes it doesn't happen at all. And that is a challenge that he faces because he's been growing a lot in the last few years. He's maturing in a lot of ways, and he's unfortunately sort of approaching that point that I hit where all of his friends are going to be, like, going off and doing their own thing, and he's going to be like, well, I'm still playing video games, except not.

[12:00] Leah: Because that's actually going to segue into the next topic, which is schooling. The reason why I say except not is because he's actually in a special class now versus when we were in North America, which he never was. And those children are also developmentally delayed. So he kind of fits well, if not actually more advanced. We just saw his report card today, and a lot of the report card says Avram is very advanced. Avram helps his peers. Avram is teaching people stuff, and including his friends that wrote to him said, thank you for teaching me the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So he's actually ahead. But do you think that's setting a false expectation for life when he's grown up?

[12:39] Moshe: I have a very interesting opinion of the special classes versus regular classes.

[12:45] Leah: Let's express why he's in the special class. He's in a special class because we've moved to Israel, and he's not fluent in Hebrew. So the authorities at large, I guess the school board, you would call it here, figured that between not speaking the language and being in a regular class would be too much for him. And we agreed for at least this and next year.

[13:06] Moshe: It's important for him, especially with his difficulties with new routines, to get a softer landing. Raya also struggles, but she's somewhat more adaptable to new circumstances.

[13:17] Leah: Well, let's go back, because I wanted to ask you one question in the previous category, and then we can move to schooling. How is parenting riot different from parenting?

[13:25] Moshe: Aaron, for you, Raya is sort of like a self perpetuating machine.

[13:31] Raya: I have no clue what that means.

[13:33] Leah: I know what it means. I used to call you a chia kid. You basically learn things once, and then you do everything yourself.

[13:39] Moshe: You tell her what to do, and as long as she hears you, she'll do it.

[13:43] Leah: Yeah. The attention is a problem, not the retention.

[13:45] Moshe: Whereas Abram will they have a very low attention span.

[13:49] Raya: It's terrible sometimes because also sometimes it's very hard for me to listen, even if. Because a lot of the time I have earbuds in. And even if I don't have, like, one earbud in, sometimes it's even hard then, because sometimes I'm just not paying attention. It's hard to pay attention to more than one thing at once. And if I have earbuds in, I'm usually paying attention to what I'm listening to. That gets difficult.

[14:18] Leah: Yes, that can be difficult for everyone.

[14:20] Moshe: And when you have limited ability to process things and you narrow down your ability to take in more information, then you can only really retain a couple of things at once. It's sort of the old joke about not being able to walk and shoot them at the same time. But Raya's really good when you give her a task, and she knows she has to do the task. That she'll do the task.

[14:43] Leah: Yep.

[14:44] Moshe: Abram, you have to give him. He's basically at the point where you give him one instruction, and he'll do it for about ten to 15 seconds and then stop.

[14:51] Leah: Yeah.

[14:51] Moshe: And you'll have to keep prodding him to do it again and again and again and again until it's done.

[14:57] Leah: Raya's very self sufficient. She just doesn't like to be so.

[15:00] Moshe: Abrams a lot like a wind up toy. You wind him up. But when he runs out, he just stops.

[15:04] Leah: You have to wind him again.

[15:05] Moshe: You have to wind him again, and he'll do another thing. In the mornings, I tell Rya to get up, and lately, especially now, she eventually does get up. Avrim won't. You'll literally have to check it on again and again and again.

[15:20] Leah: So you literally have to body double Avrim, which was actually a new concept for you, which surprised me, but didn't because a lot of times, people with neurodivergency need someone to body double them. What does body doubling mean?

[15:32] Moshe: Basically, you sort of have to emulate the behavior that you wanted to.

[15:37] Leah: Yeah. So following people around and just making sure they're doing what they're supposed to do or you doing it so they can see what they're supposed to do. It's a very typical thing with atypical people, and a lot of times, they don't even realize it's happening. The reason why Moshe didn't experience it that much is because he was single and alone for a long time, so he had to come up with different tactics.

[15:55] Moshe: I had a lot, very terrible experiences, but there are also experiences that, in a very narrow sense, allowed me to be far more functional in many ways than I would have been otherwise, but also far less functional in many other ways.

[16:12] Leah: So, yeah, that was difficult for you to understand, the concept that you have to body double him in order for him to do anything, whereas Raya will just get up and make her lunch and go, even if she complains or whatever.

[16:23] Moshe: And I think we talked in the earliest episodes, actually, about the different levels of autism. And level one, where I kind of fall, is very much about limited processing ability. Limited. Everything is limited.

[16:42] Leah: Right. You can do it, but there's a limit. But there's a limit.

[16:45] Moshe: You're limited in how much you can do and what you can do and everything. So, like, I can do everything that a normal person can do do, but I can do less than you need.

[16:54] Leah: Either an accommodation to do it, a plan to do it, or you can do it for less time. I noticed.

[16:59] Moshe: But Avram is definitely more in the level two category, where is there are certain things that you absolutely cannot do.

[17:06] Leah: That also is a difference between, I think, adult diagnosis and childhood diagnosis, because he started with the therapies early on, and part of those things are accepting that you need help learning that you need to body double people and stuff like that, whereas you didn't have that. So that's also interesting from my perspective.

[17:23] Moshe: I mean, it's very helpful when you have someone who is literally giving you these skills to do things, but in another sense, that's somewhat more negative. It sets you up to be less than you're capable of.

[17:36] Leah: Absolutely.

[17:37] Moshe: I mean, that's not to say that it's bad, it's actually quite good because you're giving them support. But much like if you have a, you know, if you walk with a cane, say, for days and weeks and months, then eventually your leg will be less capable of supporting you because it'll no longer need to. If you don't. If you teach an autistic child from a young age that they need body dumpling and they need support and they need supervision, they need help and they need guidance and they need this and they need that, then the parts of their ability to progress developmentally that will allow them to compensate for that will no longer develop. It's kind of like how some kids have a lazy eye, so they cover the good eye and force the lazy eye to strengthen. If you never do that, then you'll never strengthen the lazy eye because it'll never be need to compensate. So it'll just be, I'm a lazy eye and I'm just always gonna be lazy. Like, I have a lazy eye.

[18:44] Leah: Right? Abba does have a lazy eye. What do you call him?

[18:47] Raya: I don't remember what I call him. What do I call him? Cross eyed what?

[18:51] Leah: Cross eyed bear.

[18:52] Moshe: I do.

[18:53] Raya: Oh, I did cross eyed bear. When you shave his head, I get really mad at you and call him a boiled egg.

[19:00] Leah: That's not nice.

[19:03] Moshe: So I have a lazy eye, and in today's way of doing things is I probably would have patched my good eye when I was little.

[19:15] Leah: Probably. When you're wearing glasses, you can't see it though so much.

[19:19] Moshe: Well, yeah, because my glasses are actually such that it compensates for it. But I mean.

[19:24] Leah: But yeah, in terms of that, we're going to talk a little bit later on, actually, about like compensation, one thing compensating for the other. So right away I can see sort of the pitfall of what you said, which is, yes, he's going to be less capable of doing what he's maybe reaching his entire potential, but he's not going to incur as much emotional and psychological damage along the way.

[19:50] Moshe: Absolutely.

[19:51] Leah: So one thing sort of unbalances the other. Depends what's important to you as a parent and as an individual. I would rather him reach 80% and be mentally healthy.

[19:59] Moshe: At the end, there's different schools of thought. You're the one that taught me the philosophy about the butterfly and the cocoon. And I went through a lot of struggles to get to the place that I'm at, and it did cause a very large emotional toll.

[20:16] Leah: He's never going to sit there and think, wow, am I lazy? Why can't I do things? Or, wow, do I have dementia? He's going to know why he can't do things.

[20:24] Moshe: So emotionally, he may have will, but it is potentially preventing him from reaching his full potential. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, I guess.

[20:34] Leah: I mean, it depends on your priority. My priority was always their mental health, because I struggle with mental health, and I didn't want that for them. So, schooling options. Abramson, special school now, but the option may be for him to go to a regular school within the next year or two. And he was in regular school with and without support back in North America. So advocating for him was interesting. It was interesting for me because as the neurotypical party, they always talk to me because I'm more reasonable. I'm putting quotes around reasonable. It was also interesting for me because Raya did not prepare me for Avram. I keep saying that on every level. My first one did not prepare me for my second because she was fine. I would meet with her teachers once a year, and they loved her, and she was great. And the first time he got a diagnosis, I walked into a boardroom and there was like 40 people in there. And there was a psychiatrist and a psychiatrist for the psychiatrist and a teacher's aide and a teacher's aide for the teacher's aide and a social worker for the social workers. It was just insanity. And it can be intimidating. And you don't really know what the right decision is.

[21:40] Moshe: I do because I'm a guerrilla autistic because I dress like an adult. But I'm actually just as affected in some ways as he is. And the support that he gets hinges on my ability to advocate for him, because unfortunately, with adults who do have developmental disabilities and mental disabilities and intellectual disabilities, a lot of them prevent you from advocating for yourself. If you happen to be affected by trisomy or some of the other genetic disorders, it does, unfortunately, affect your intellectual ability to process. And that's not to say that it doesn't happen. There are plenty of very functional people with significant delays, but an autistic person, in a sense, has a hidden disability. I can walk into a room and people don't automatically look at me and go, oh, please, you must be autistic. So I have the ability to sort of have the experience where these people who think that they know best are advocating from them, and they are by and large neurotypicals with degrees. And they think that they've read enough books. They have book learning that they know. Yeah, but I can speak to the experience that I had.

[23:00] Leah: You're the real autism speaks, honey.

[23:02] Moshe: I am. And Abram appreciates my ability to, to advocate on his behalf. That's not to say that I have all the answers, because I absolutely don't. No, we aren't autistic. You know what? Autistic.

[23:15] Leah: We often go by what he wants. We ask him what he wants. Like, he's not podcasting drop. We do ask him what he wants and we ask him how he feels like about this school. We considered switching him, and eventually throughout the year he said, no, I really love this school. So we didn't switch him like he, he has input into his own education in life.

[23:35] Moshe: Abram does definitely advocate for himself in a lot of ways. I mean, absolutely. He doesn't always know what's best for him and he absolutely doesn't always know what he needs, but he definitely does get an opinion. And if he tells us that he wants something or he doesn't want something, it doesn't make our decision.

[23:55] Leah: It factors, though.

[23:56] Moshe: It definitely factors. And we were more than willing to take him out of this school that he's can. But he told me and he told Leah that he wants to stay at this school. He likes it. And that was the end of it. We told everyone, nope, he's not changing the schools. He wants to stay in this school. This is where he's going to be.

[24:15] Leah: Looking at his report card. It was the right decision because Avraham.

[24:18] Moshe: Is a very capable individual. He needs to be challenged. He needs to be tested, he needs to rise above it. And he is fully capable of doing certain things quite well. And he's a very likable kid. So it's, it's very easy to like him. He's not like one of those people that like punches and kicks and screams and like chews on their arm or whatever, you know, he's very well, I.

[24:44] Raya: Mean, he chews on his clothes all.

[24:45] Moshe: The time and the curtain, but that's the sensory Sikumiki.

[24:48] Leah: He does, he does chew on the curtain.

[24:49] Moshe: As long as he doesn't chew on other people's clothes. I think that's to be expected.

[24:54] Leah: That's more like a me thing anyway. So I do have one question to wrap that up for you. I was just thinking about my experience in terms of when I was talking about the whole boardroom thing. I've seen less people try to diffuse a bomb. So why do you think the diagnosis of ASD is treated like an explosive device, whereas other diagnoses are ignored?

[25:15] Moshe: The thing that I've always said about autism, unlike a lot of other similarly affected disorders and a lot of intellectual disabilities, is that if you ask 100 people to describe what autism is, 100 different explanations will come out of it. It's been a disorder that by all accounts has been around for a long time, and we are now the beginning.

[25:38] Leah: Of time, if you ask anybody, really.

[25:40] Moshe: We'Re now in 2024 or 57, 83, if you follow calendar. And yet we are still basically still unable to define what makes someone autistic. What are the characteristics that define someone with autism, or even how to define the term? Is it autistic or someone with autism?

[26:01] Leah: Oh, come on.

[26:02] Moshe: You know, is Asperger's still a thing or is it not? It's not being a thing. But now I'm hearing people still saying I have Asperger's and I'm like, I thought that was no longer used because.

[26:12] Leah: If you got the diagnosis back in the day, you want to hang on to it with two hands. Because it was considered better than autistic.

[26:19] Moshe: I have been because I was labeled as disabled in certain aspects, actually, to be honest, I used to be labeled as gifted, which is a whole other story.

[26:29] Leah: That's also basically, if you talk to any autistic who's an adult, they're going to say that they were in a gifted program at some point.

[26:36] Moshe: I might as well. Obviously, he's very good at it, so he must be gifted. But gifted is a universal. And we can definitely talk about the difference between gifted and savanthood.

[26:46] Leah: We're going to talk about autism later.

[26:48] Moshe: But anyway, the reason that autism is still treated so much like a bomb is because nobody really knows what it is. Is it a disability? How does it affect you? Is it social? Is it developmental? Yes. Is it psychological? Is it emotional?

[27:04] Leah: Yeah.

[27:04] Moshe: What is it?

[27:05] Leah: It's a person's literal brain function, therefore it's all of those things.

[27:09] Moshe: And we talked a little bit in the last, not last, but. But way back. I mean, we're in episode, I think 50 now, so it's not that far back. But we talked about genetics, and one of the key points that we talked about when we were discussing the genetics of autism was giving parents the ability to understand who's fault.

[27:32] Leah: Oh, come on.

[27:32] Moshe: Now, because who cares if you. A lot of people, apparently, because if you have a child with trisomy 20 down syndrome, if you have a child with fragile x, if you have a child with, you know, Rett syndrome, if you have a child with. With a bunch of other genetic disorders, you can generally go, see that right there? That's what's causing trisomy 21. On the 21st thing, there's a, there's three fragile x. There's a. There's a little bit of the x chromosome that's missing. That's missing. It's very easy because you can't do a genetic screening of a person and say definitively, there, right there, that's autism for autism.

[28:12] Leah: No, you absolutely can't.

[28:13] Moshe: So people are told that their child is autistic and they're like, what does that mean? Who are they? Whose fault is it? Why did this happen? How did this happen? Did I drink too much coffee? Did I not drink enough coffee? Did I take too many vitamins? Did I not take enough? Did I breathe something that I shouldn't have breathed? Was it the shot? Was it the air? Did I eat too many Donald's big Macs?

[28:33] Leah: The reality? Nothing. None of it.

[28:35] Moshe: No idea.

[28:36] Leah: None of it.

[28:37] Moshe: And all that. And after years and years and years and years and years and years of research, the only thing that they can say is that they have certain genetic markers that may sometimes lead someone to be predisposed to possibly getting onto.

[28:49] Leah: Unless you have the obvious ones. We discussed about that. Fragile x is one of the obvious.

[28:52] Moshe: Ones, you know, but that's a comorbidity. That is, if you have fragile x, you are greater. Very likely, if you have this, then you're probably going to be autistic, because traditionally that is, there's a direct correlation. But if you're sitting in a boardroom with like a thousand different professionals and they go, well, your child is autistic and you have all these different people because you don't know how it's going to affect them. You don't know if it's going to be the kind of autistic that's really, really good at math but doesn't know how to toilet train. Yeah, autistic, that's just really, really interested in trains.

[29:26] Leah: Like a false.

[29:26] Moshe: But otherwise it's completely unaffected. You don't know if it's going to be smells that's going to trigger them, if it's going to be touched, if they're going to be squeezed or if they can't be touched at all. If they're going to, you know, be okay with. With making friends or if they're going to be antisocial, if they're going to be this or that. Because autism doesn't have a definition. It is defined in a lot of ways as a global, but not so global, but possibly global delay in certain things, but maybe not other things, or possibly everything, but maybe nothing.

[29:56] Leah: That was going to be. That was going to be my question, but I think I already know the answer. Do you think it's fair that a diagnosis of autism should be treated like a, you know, diffusing a bomb? Do you think that's fair?

[30:09] Moshe: Absolutely not. Because saying that somebody is autistic is kind of like saying that somebody is very light skinned or somebody has really curly hair or somebody has one leg that's slightly shorter than the other. You know how it might affect them, but you can't say for sure how it will affect them.

[30:29] Leah: That's true.

[30:30] Moshe: You can say, well, he's autistic, so you have to look out for these things. And you might want to be careful with these things, but then they may not affect them at all. Like, I had no idea how to count, like, toothpicks on the ground.

[30:45] Leah: Stop it.

[30:46] Moshe: If you were an autistic that was born during, like, beautiful minds or rain man, like, the whole. The whole eighties and nineties thing, it was a terrible time to be born autistic. Yeah, because you told someone you're autistic, they go, okay, how many toothpicks are on the floor? Do you have to go home to watch Judge Wagner? Like, they don't know.

[31:06] Leah: Yeah.

[31:07] Moshe: Who you are because it's like. Or. Or. And this is how it affected me. They didn't. They didn't know. They didn't know. So they just used the r word, like, oh, I get it. He's, you know, and then they were like, okay, so that makes sense, right? But not because that word implies intellectual disability, which autism generally don't have, but sometimes they do. And that's the thing. Sometimes autistics do have an intellectual disorder. It's kind of like, okay, so you know when you set up. When you set up a character sheet, when you're playing, like, one of these role playing games.

[31:44] Leah: Tabletop role playing games.

[31:45] Moshe: Yeah. A lot of these go from a, you could roll dice and get numbers or whatever, but a lot of these, for the simple people that don't like to roll too many dice, they basically say, okay, you have 50 points, and you can distribute them amongst these skills. And the majority of the population, everyone's at like, 13. Everyone's just average across the board, no specialties.

[32:09] Leah: Whereas an autistic will have, like, 45 in trains and five in everything else.

[32:13] Moshe: Exactly.

[32:13] Leah: Yep, got it.

[32:14] Moshe: You'll be, like, super good at math, but then super bad at, like, speaking, or you'll be like, incredible, like, at exercising, but really bad at using the washere, you know?

[32:28] Leah: And it's not the things that you would expect either.

[32:30] Moshe: Right. You'll be like a master artist, but you won't be able to tie your shoelaces.

[32:35] Raya: Like Avro.

[32:36] Leah: Yes, he's a master artist and he can't tie his shoelaces. That's an exact avro.

[32:41] Moshe: But the correlation that they have found, and again, it's not even a guaranteed one, is if you do have an autistic that does have a super skill or a savanthood in a particular talent, universally they will have deficiencies, sometimes very drastic deficiencies in other aspects.

[33:01] Leah: Apparently it also does come along with a lower intelligence quotient. But I don't know if that's just because they have one or because they don't test well.

[33:09] Moshe: I don't know. You'd literally have to do multiple scientific.

[33:13] Leah: Studies of savant, so rarely IQ is actually. It's not that rare. Apparently it's 10% of all autistics. I read that today. That is, it's 10% of 2%. So it's like 0.2% populates.

[33:27] Moshe: They're not rare in autistics, but they're rare in the general population.

[33:31] Leah: Yeah.

[33:31] Moshe: 10% of 2%. It's a low number.

[33:34] Leah: Yeah.

[33:34] Moshe: So if you were to, like, put a word out that you're trying to conduct a study of only savants, unless you were, like, specifically aiming at autistics, you would have a hard time.

[33:43] Leah: You'd have to go all over the world too, because they're pretty much just.

[33:47] Moshe: They're not, like, located in, like. Oh, they're all indulgent.

[33:49] Leah: Speaking of savantism, let's discuss co occurring conditions. So that's important in terms of being able to deal with your child and getting them the attention and the treatments that they need or not. Some things don't require treatment. So the top co occurring condition with ASD is. Does anybody have a guess?

[34:08] Raya: I have a guess. ADHD.

[34:12] Leah: ADHD, that's correct.

[34:14] Moshe: I would have said that, but I couldn't think of it.

[34:16] Leah: You forgot?

[34:18] Moshe: No, I thought about it.

[34:19] Leah: You weren't paying attention.

[34:20] Moshe: I wasn't paying attention?

[34:21] Leah: Yeah. No. So a lot of the population who is diagnosed with ADHD, in my opinion, has ASD symptoms or a lot of people diagnosed with ASD have ADHD symptoms.

[34:32] Moshe: So much so, actually, that they started characterizing the two as interchangeable.

[34:36] Leah: They're actually considering the next DSM, possibly just putting everything under one umbrella called neurodivergence.

[34:42] Moshe: They created a new term recently, call it AUdHD.

[34:45] Leah: Automatic. Yeah.

[34:46] Moshe: ADHD. Yep. So it's autism, ADHD, but that's the.

[34:49] Leah: The population who did that. That's not an official thing. It's people like yourself who have declared themselves that way. But it's enough that it's a thing now.

[34:57] Moshe: Yeah, because we are.

[35:01] Leah: So. Yes, you have a diagnosis of both, which is, you know, because all the factors that raya.

[35:06] Moshe: That are diagnosing.

[35:07] Leah: What's ADHD?

[35:09] Raya: Attention deficit. Hate donuts.

[35:11] Leah: Exactly right.

[35:14] Moshe: So when we were little, it was add. It was just attention deficit disorder. Nice and clean and easy. But the thing is, ADHD became the new term because it does often be h test for hyperactivity disorder because it is not simply a lack of attention, it's a lack of attention, but a hyperactive other thing.

[35:32] Leah: Well, listen, the hyperactive thing could be considered sensory stimulation, which is also what, a stim?

[35:41] Moshe: Yes.

[35:41] Leah: You see how that's all related?

[35:43] Moshe: Global developmental delay or that's not a thing anymore. Global spectrum disorder, something. Because you have all of these disorders that are sort of piecemealing from other disorders. You have ADHD and autism, Tourette syndrome, all of these different things that have characteristics of each thing.

[36:03] Leah: A lot of these other diagnoses were attempts at not diagnosing people with ASD because, again, of the fear of the ASD diagnosis. But this global delay and this pandas disorder and all this other stuff that they were trying to give kids, it's not really a thing. I don't think if I'm wrong, you can tell me, but you're going to need to prove it to me because I don't really believe you.

[36:24] Moshe: I mean, we're going to eventually have some actual.

[36:29] Leah: Have to track down a doctor or something.

[36:30] Moshe: We're going to have some experts, like some real experts when you discuss these sorts of things at some point. And I would love to hear their opinion of why I am.

[36:41] Leah: So the next co occurring condition is demand avoidance.

[36:44] Moshe: Yes.

[36:44] Leah: Essentially, the theory is that placing demands on the person with autism or ADHD or whatever other thing stresses them so much that they'll just avoid doing the thing that you asked them to do right through any means necessary. That could be pretty destructive. I mean. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, right. Just pointed to her brother's room. He has extreme demand avoidance where he'll, like, throw himself on the floor and he'll say he has a backache and he has a tummy ache and he has this ache and that ache, but it's really just him not wanting to do stuff.

[37:17] Moshe: Right. That's why he runs everywhere, because he figures if he moves fast enough, we won't have.

[37:22] Leah: We won't catch him the next. So these are all under the same dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia. Dyslexia is a thing that people know about. I think it was pretty well documented even since the eighties and before. One thing that I learned about dyslexia today is I didn't realize it also affects working memory and organization, which is also a hallmark of ADHD and autism. Pills of priests. Because it all seems to be happening in the frontal lobe. Right. Which is the executive function place. What's this? Calculator.

[37:56] Moshe: Honey, this calculus is something that I have, which is the dyslexia numbers. And it manifests itself in ways that you wouldn't ordinarily think because you look at autistics and you think that they're amazing in the math, because they absolutely have to be. But I'm actually one of those autistics that is terrible. A myth. And it's not because I can't, I think of. I can't process math. I absolutely can. It's because numbers don't look right to me.

[38:23] Leah: Right. So, Ryan, I do the math in the house.

[38:26] Moshe: I'm always getting phone numbers backwards. Dates. I'm always getting dates wrong. I'm always getting appointments wrong. I'll swear that an address was this, but it was actually reversed.

[38:38] Leah: Yeah.

[38:38] Moshe: And it happens all the time because when I look at a number, the number is wrong. Unless I, like, really focus on. And it's hard.

[38:48] Leah: But we've come up with tactics for that. When you tell me an address, I'll look up both. Let's say you say it's twelve. I'll look up both twelve and 21 just to see where they're both are. Just to make sure, like, we've come up with tactics for that. And that's not just copy paste things to me now instead of, like, trying to, you know, exactly say them. And the last is dyspraxia, which is interesting because I think we all have this. It's like a medical lack of coordination. Back in the day, it would have been called klutzy, which I called all the time. So just not being aware of your bodily coordination. So falling, dropping things, walking through things, walking over things.

[39:25] Moshe: Right, Ryan? Also.

[39:27] Raya: Exactly. I mean, literally the other day I was just walking into people like the entire time. I don't remember what day it was, but I remember, I don't remember what day it was on, but I was just walking into people the entire time. And it was very embarrassing. But I was walking into walls and people the entire time.

[39:48] Leah: Yeah. So that can happen if you're missing one of your other, like if your bucket isn't totally full. Right. So if you're tired or whatever. I do it too, though, so I don't know. Another co occurring condition is joint problems. So hypermobility or hypomobility, which is interesting because Avram has hypermobility. He's like, he's like Gumby to the point where if he falls down the stairs, he doesn't even really hurt himself that much. And you have stiffness.

[40:15] Moshe: Yes. My legs are stiff all the time. My knees hurt. My joints are always aching. My fingers are bent at terrible angles. My neck doesn't move. I was always really amazed growing up at those people that could like hold a phone on their shoulder. I was like, I can't do that. Like, I don't know how they do that because my neck doesn't really bend. I'm always getting neck aches, backaches, headaches. It's not wonderful. It's not wonderful.

[40:45] Leah: And I mean, one could say because you're older now, but you've always been like that. I can vouch for that.

[40:50] Moshe: But I used to get, I used to get my hand hit because my handwriting is terrible. I thought, oh, his handwriting is terrible. This is the problem because he's going to be like a doctor because he can't write. No, I can't write because my fingers don't bend properly. And if your fingers don't bend, you can't hold a pen or pencil. And Leah and I went to school at the sort of the tail end of the corporal punishment. Oh, yes, that happened in school. So from like kindergarten until probably around grade four when it stopped, I was being hit by rulers and I had chops thrown at my head.

[41:29] Leah: And I remember my ballet teacher hitting us all in the butt with a, with a stick.

[41:33] Moshe: A teacher used to smack my hand with a ruler because I wasn't holding the pen or the pencil.

[41:39] Leah: Raya doesn't believe it. She's clearly, she's clearly from a better generation.

[41:43] Raya: No, I believe it. It's just terrible.

[41:46] Leah: It's terrible because it used to be.

[41:47] Moshe: That when you send your kids to school, the teachers were basically like their parents. And if the kid came home and said, you know, misses whatever smacked me today, the parents, they don't probably deserve it. Now it's like, oh, my goodness, I'm scared.

[41:59] Leah: Sure enough, my mom used to spank you, and your mom used to say, he deserved it.

[42:03] Moshe: Yeah, I was a terrible kid.

[42:05] Leah: Not really. Speaking of my mom. So the next thing to look out for is epilepsy. My mom was a full on chronic tonic epileptic until the age of 21, and then that resolved itself for whatever reason, she had brain damage. So I don't know that that's related to autism or ADHD in any way.

[42:24] Moshe: Yes and no. I mean, we've already discussed, I think, in the study that we did briefly on genetics.

[42:32] Leah: You have brain injury, and autism can.

[42:35] Moshe: Often have symptoms that mimic ASD.

[42:39] Leah: Yeah. So my mom was epileptic, and they told me to watch Avram for epilepsy. At first, he doesn't seem to have seizures of any kind.

[42:45] Moshe: No, he just falls down.

[42:47] Leah: Yeah.

[42:48] Moshe: It's not because of seizures. It's because he.

[42:50] Leah: He just falls. Cause he's very loose. So that might be a thing that parents have to look out for and definitely requires treatment. You can't just let an epileptic go untreated. What is epilepsy, by the way, for people who don't know?

[43:02] Raya: I'm not sure if I'm right, but it's like when, like flashing lights and stuff, you get seizures.

[43:07] Leah: I mean, flashing lights definitely could. Flashing lights used to bother bubbie, but you can get a seizure for any reason. Too much stress, not enough stress, not enough sleep. It's like, you know how you have a heart attack when the electricity in your heart doesn't work? Well, it's like a brain attack. The electricity in your brain doesn't work well, so it causes you to, like, shake and fall down.

[43:28] Moshe: It can do that sometimes. You can have seizures where you're just sort of sitting there, basically do what you do.

[43:34] Leah: Huh?

[43:34] Moshe: What?

[43:35] Leah: That's called abstinence syndrome, which I think Bubbie actually still suffers from, but we won't go there.

[43:41] Moshe: Right. And, I mean, it's. It was. It's a very common disorder, hereditary in a lot of ways. They used to do this drastic surgery where they cut the bridge between the.

[43:54] Leah: Two hemispheres or something, but that causes other problems. So you basically will only have that if it's life threatening. It causes other issues where your right hand doesn't now communicate with your left hand.

[44:04] Moshe: You don't acknowledge one side of your whole body. It's very interesting. We studied it in elementary psychology, but that's getting way off.

[44:13] Leah: So the next co occurrence is learning disabilities, which I don't know that any of us can discuss with any authority because we don't. None of us have it. We do have a close friend who has a nonverbal learning disability for whatever that means. I do know that she has trouble with learning basically everything, and she'll need help with a lot of stuff. So we went through school together and I helped her a lot with her homework and stuff like that because she had issues with learning. I don't know enough about it really to speak with any authority, but that's the thing that your ot or your teachers and stuff can help you with. And mental health problems, which is the last one. Mental health problems are a little bit tough for me because I do wonder in people with ASD and ADHD if they have mental health problems sort of preloaded because of their brain function, or they have mental health problems because the world isn't made for them.

[45:07] Moshe: Mental health issues definitely are a factor with ASD, especially if you're staying at the stage, if you're level one, because if you have the cognitive ability to be basically functional in all aspects of your life, but you simply struggle so much, it's going to cause some depression. If you are never really sure if what you're doing is right, or if you're going to say something that's going to offend someone and then not know why, or if you're going to act in a way that unintentionally causes someone to be upset, then it can cause anxiety that there's a whole host of mental health issues that can come with just having struggles. And autistic often do have and being aware of those struggles. If you're happy, you know, having someone help you with, like literally everything, then good on you and that maybe you're better off than others. But unfortunately, a lot of autistics are just. They don't like having to be so challenged in a lot.

[46:12] Leah: Yes, but how many autistics also have totally functional and happy lives?

[46:16] Moshe: Most, I would say.

[46:18] Leah: Exactly. So let's talk about in terms of, you know, comorbidities or whatever, let's talk about savant syndrome real quick. So savant syndrome deals with like the rain man topic that you are talking about. So somebody is really, really good at one thing or two things, like, to a genius level, like they can copy something like a photocopier, or they can remember the details of the entire Oxford dictionary or, like, superhuman ability. But then the rest of their abilities are very low, including, apparently, intellectual delay. And there's a much higher instance in autistics than the general population of savant syndrome. Thoughts, real quick.

[47:03] Moshe: Well, it really just kind of goes into the thing that I mentioned earlier, where if you are so advanced in one or a small group of aspects of expression, be it painting or music or art or math or life, you know, in some aspect, if you're, like, really, really good at dates or something, you can reproduce masterpieces with no training, but you don't know how to tie your shoes, you don't know how to keep track of money, you don't know where you are half the time. You're basically level three to categorize it, where you're completely unable to function independently, but they put you in front of an easel and you'll paint a masterpiece.

[47:51] Leah: So here it says 10% of ASD individuals have savant abilities, but also they have noticed that severe head trauma or injury to the left anterior lobe will cause it. Because the right side of your brain takes over for the left.

[48:05] Moshe: Right.

[48:06] Leah: In terms of treatment for savant syndrome, they say there isn't any necessary because it's not a disorder, it's not a.

[48:11] Moshe: Disease on its own. More of a symptom of something.

[48:14] Leah: Exactly. So again, you treat the other co occurring things. Raya.

[48:19] Raya: Hi.

[48:20] Leah: Hi. It's your turn. So we're talking about raising siblings of autistic children.

[48:26] Moshe: So in this sense, I'm actually going to give the mic to Rayade. You and mom can talk.

[48:33] Raya: I have my own mic.

[48:35] Leah: Yeah. So we call it a Mikey because we use tiny mics. Okay. Raya. Who are you?

[48:41] Raya: My name is Raya and I'm eleven years old.

[48:44] Leah: And where do you live?

[48:47] Raya: I live in Jerusalem.

[48:49] Leah: What do you do for a living?

[48:50] Raya: Nothing. I'm a child.

[48:51] Leah: And who's in your family?

[48:53] Raya: My mom, my dad and my brother and me. I'm a part of my family.

[48:59] Leah: Are you neurodivergent?

[49:01] Raya: Yeah.

[49:02] Leah: Okay, tell us why.

[49:04] Raya: Because I am.

[49:05] Leah: Do you have a diagnosis of anything?

[49:06] Raya: No.

[49:07] Leah: No. Tell us what you think. You have.

[49:09] Raya: ADHD and tourette's?

[49:11] Leah: Maybe.

[49:12] Raya: Maybe?

[49:13] Leah: Maybe. What makes you think that?

[49:14] Raya: Well, I have tics and ADHD.

[49:19] Leah: Okay. Trouble paying attention?

[49:21] Raya: Yeah.

[49:22] Leah: Okay. What's it like being Avraham's older sister?

[49:25] Raya: It's hard being Avram's. Older sister.

[49:28] Leah: Tell me why.

[49:29] Raya: Because, first of all, I mean, he's my little brother. He's annoying.

[49:34] Leah: Little brothers are annoying just by themselves. Yeah.

[49:37] Raya: His autism is kind of difficult sometimes. I've learned how to deal with it over the years because I've been his older sister since he was born.

[49:46] Leah: Yep.

[49:47] Raya: You know, even without his diagnosis, he was still autistic.

[49:50] Leah: Yeah. So he was also diagnosed when you were, like, five?

[49:55] Raya: He was diagnosed when I was, like, five, yeah. I was still his older sister.

[49:59] Leah: Mm hmm.

[50:00] Raya: But his meltdowns are very hard because I have to deal with them. Because you guys are working.

[50:07] Leah: Yeah, sometimes that's true. So how does that go usually?

[50:10] Raya: Well, usually it goes that Abram has a meltdown. It can usually go two ways.

[50:17] Leah: Why does he have a meltdown?

[50:19] Raya: A lot of times. Sometimes there's a lot of reasons. Sometimes it could be a very stupid reason, like losing a video game.

[50:27] Leah: Oh, yeah.

[50:27] Raya: Or sometimes it could be, like, a better reason. Sometimes is sometimes it's too loud. Sometimes it's overwhelming, and he has a meltdown. But a lot of the time, I have to deal with them. And it can either usually go two ways. Usually I just told him or, like, hug him and, like, talk to him until he calms down, or I try and he just yells at me. So I leave and I give him a chance to, like, try to calm himself down.

[50:53] Leah: Yeah. That's a pretty mature way of dealing with things.

[50:57] Raya: Well, I kind of have to be mature because I'm the one who deals with him.

[51:01] Leah: Do you think that most older siblings or most neurotypical or more neurotypical siblings of ASD kids feel this way?

[51:08] Raya: I would say probably. I mean, I only have one experience, which is my experience. But, I mean, probably you're correct.

[51:17] Leah: Studies do show that neurotypical siblings feel responsible for their more affected siblings.

[51:23] Raya: Of course.

[51:24] Leah: What's it like having an autistic dad again?

[51:28] Raya: Difficult. I mean, it can be difficult. Sometimes it's less difficult than Avrim because you deal with his meltdowns.

[51:37] Leah: Okay, that's fair.

[51:39] Raya: I mean, it's true, but, I mean, sometimes it could still be difficult. I don't know. I've never really had the experience of having a neurotypical father, so I don't really know the difference.

[51:55] Leah: I mean, what's some good things?

[51:58] Raya: He's very affectionate.

[52:00] Leah: Yes. He's very lovey dovey.

[52:02] Raya: Yeah.

[52:02] Leah: Yeah, that's a good thing. How would life be different if we were all neurotypical?

[52:07] Raya: It would be very, very boring.

[52:09] Leah: Yeah. I think so, too.

[52:10] Raya: I wouldn't have anything to do. I mean, I would, but, like, at home, it would be very boring.

[52:17] Leah: Yeah.

[52:18] Raya: Yeah.

[52:18] Leah: You think? I think it would be easier on mom, though.

[52:21] Raya: I do think that, too.

[52:22] Leah: Yeah.

[52:23] Raya: Yeah. Because you kind of run the whole thing.

[52:25] Leah: I mean, sort of something more than. Sort of. No, Abba does more than. Than people think he does, though. Well, he's like a backup dancer.

[52:33] Raya: He cleaned tables.

[52:36] Leah: He does.

[52:37] Raya: Yep.

[52:38] Leah: He does a lot. He helps mommy a lot, too.

[52:40] Raya: He does help mommy a lot.

[52:42] Leah: Yeah. Mommy's a lot, too.

[52:44] Raya: Cleaning tables.

[52:45] Leah: No, mommy's a lot too, sometimes.

[52:48] Raya: What?

[52:48] Leah: Mommy's a lot too, sometimes.

[52:50] Raya: What do you mean?

[52:51] Leah: I mean, I can be, like, crazy and stuff.

[52:53] Moshe: Well, yeah.

[52:53] Raya: You get scary because you're Molly.

[52:56] Leah: Yeah.

[52:56] Raya: You get scary when you get mad. I think almost everybody can relate to this because I think everybody's mother gets very scary when they're mad.

[53:05] Leah: I think so.

[53:06] Raya: I think. I think that's a normal thing.

[53:08] Leah: I think so. I think it's part of being a mommy. Like, they hand it to you when you give birth. They're like, here's your scariness.

[53:13] Raya: Yes. You have a free pass.

[53:16] Leah: What are some needs that Avram has that you don't?

[53:18] Raya: He needs help getting dressed. He needs help showering. He even needs help, like, brushing his teeth.

[53:29] Leah: Yeah.

[53:30] Raya: I don't have, like, I can deal with myself. My problem is I just don't want to sometimes.

[53:35] Leah: Yeah. I think that's normal.

[53:37] Raya: But I can deal with myself. He can't. He needs, like, he can't even make his own food.

[53:44] Leah: What are some things that he's better at you then, though?

[53:46] Raya: Drawing a. Yeah.

[53:48] Leah: Anything else?

[53:49] Raya: Drawing.

[53:50] Leah: Making friends?

[53:51] Raya: Yes.

[53:52] Leah: Yeah. As the two of you, you're more scared of making friends.

[53:55] Raya: Actually, it's scary, mommy.

[53:57] Leah: Yeah, I know. How do you feel about being his support person sometimes?

[54:01] Raya: It's a lot of responsibility that I have at a very young age. It's very difficult, as I said, like before with the other question about Avrim. It's a lot of responsibility. I mean, I love him, so I'll do it. Sometimes it's difficult to do.

[54:19] Leah: What are some joys of being Evram's sister?

[54:21] Raya: Well, he. He loves me a lot.

[54:25] Leah: Yes.

[54:26] Raya: I don't know. He always wants to hang out with me. Most siblings don't want to hang out with their other siblings.

[54:33] Moshe: Anyway. I have a question for you. If you had a choice, would you rather me or Alvarna? Are both of us not be autistic?

[54:45] Raya: No.

[54:46] Leah: No.

[54:47] Raya: I like my life the way it is.

[54:48] Moshe: Just as difficult is a little difficult.

[54:51] Raya: Very difficult. I mean, maybe for mommy's sake, to be honest, but not for me.

[54:57] Moshe: Pretty much.

[54:58] Leah: I'm okay. Don't send people. I'm fine. Blink twice.

[55:02] Raya: No, I'm kidding.

[55:04] Leah: Okay, I have one last question for you. Well, it's a multiple thing question. So you feel responsible for Avram? Do you think you're always going to feel responsible for Avrim?

[55:13] Raya: Well, if he gets married, I might not be, but if he doesn't get married, I'll probably always feel responsible for him.

[55:20] Leah: Yeah, that was my question. How do you think adulthood's gonna go.

[55:23] Raya: Again if he gets married?

[55:26] Leah: If there are any women out here who want or like in ten years to marry a really autistic guy who's good at drawing, you know, start making your applications now, sabria, for adulthood object.

[55:39] Raya: I think I should be okay, maybe.

[55:42] Leah: I think you'll do fine. Do you have anything else that you want to say? So you're in a sibling of an autistic children.

[55:47] Raya: I am a sibling of an autistic children.

[55:50] Leah: So how are we raising you, plural? Are you generally, other than the extra labor of having to be Avraham's autistic, you know, or Avram support person in generally, are you having a good childhood?

[56:03] Raya: Most of the time, I would say probably.

[56:06] Leah: Are you happy with your parents or would you change us?

[56:09] Raya: I don't think I would change most of the things. Maybe if you would yell less about chairs in the kitchen, that would be true enough.

[56:20] Leah: True enough.

[56:21] Raya: No, I'm kidding. Anyway, I don't think I have anything else to say.

[56:25] Leah: Thank you for joining us. Raya, welcome. You were so good.

[56:28] Raya: Thank you.

[56:29] Leah: Okay. Can give the Mikey back to daddy now.

[56:31] Raya: My Mikey. Anyway, okay.

[56:36] Moshe: Thank you so much for coming on, you know, on autistic.

[56:39] Raya: Raya, you are so very welcome.

[56:42] Moshe: We are very excited to have you on today. And we really enjoy doing the show. And something that we really should talk about before we wrap things up that we haven't been saying nearly enough is thank you so much to all of our listeners and downloaders and everyone who has come out to support this podcast. Please, if you like this episode comment like on whatever podcasting app you're using, go to our website now, you know, on autistic dot podbean.com.

[57:15] Leah: Share. Share on social media.

[57:16] Moshe: Please share. We actually just today passed 1000 downloads since we started. Not a great milestone overall, but definitely a big milestone for us. We're really hoping to hit 1000 per month and we're definitely going to get there because we're getting quite close. But thank you so much for all of your support, and we'll 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.

[57:55] Leah: All right, Moshe. I'll take care of it. Thank you for listening to now, you know, one autistic. See you next week.