September 27, 2022 • 36 mins
So Lauren finally got her autism diagnosis. But what the hell did that even mean? Where is the neurodiversity roadmap for someone diagnosed in their 40s? Turns out, there isn’t one. So Lauren has to make it up on her own. It’s time to do a deep dive into the world of autism. Which in itself is very autistic. Let’s get our research on!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. A little content warning. We get into some pretty
big emotions and tears in this episode, plus some possibly
upsetting descriptions of psychiatry of your so keep that in
mind when listening. Okay onwards. When we left off with
(00:39):
episode three, I had just opened my diagnosis from doctor Nadlie.
You might remember it wants something like this. Obviously, I
(01:00):
didn't know what to make of the diagnosis, mostly because
I couldn't read it through my giant rain dropped tears.
But after I finished sobbing into my dog's I was
able to see what the assessment actually said. Diagnosis autism
spectrum disorder. Okay, so I'm autistic, got it? But then
(01:20):
I kept reading persistent deficits in social communication and social
interaction across multiple contexts Level one restricted repetitive patterns of behavior, interests,
or activities Level one. Lauren fulfills the DSM five criteria
for a diagnosis of autism. Her psychometrics show distinct correlations
(01:44):
with autism. Wow, that's a lot of confusing words. What
did any of them mean? And furthermore, who decided that
this is what autism is? Apparently the DSM five people,
that's who I'm a fact finder. By nature, information helps
(02:04):
bring order to my world and gives me a sense
of control. And so to manage the bigness of this
diagnosis and all it entailed, I was going to have
to go into reporter mode and find some facts. And man,
there were a lot of facts. There's the clinical knowledge
of the autism spectrum and the history of the condition,
(02:26):
plus the almost infinite ways the diagnosis can present itself,
as well as all the different interpretations of autism in
the media. Initially, I figured I could run all that
through the filter of my own experience and out the
other side would pop a whole new concept of who
I was. So I started making a list. I was
(02:47):
going to go through all the literature and movies, documentaries
and TV shows, etc. Where autism is even mentioned. My
info tank would be filled up. But first the DSM,
or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Doctor
(03:07):
Nadley's diagnosis follow the standards set forth for autism in
the DSM five, but I wanted to go back to
the source, the og manual, the DSM one. The whole
process of doing the diagnostics and waiting for the results
and trying to unpack them was like going through the
emotional spin cycle. I was wrung out. But if I
(03:29):
was going to attempt to understand this diagnosis, it was
important for me to know who set the standard, who
determined the clinical definition of autism, and why should I
listen to them. Historically, our collective understanding of the brain
and its inner workings has been dodgy at best. It
hasn't exactly been sophisticated or accurate, or based on anything
(03:52):
other than the observations of some mustache twirling alienists, as
evidenced in this nineteen fifties educational film from the Ohio
Department of Public Welfare. Because of mental illness, the brain's
ability and energy of American in twenty will be lost.
Metal illness will take a toll of talents and beauty, No,
(04:15):
not beauty, anything but that because people hate and sorrow
and fear. One in every twenty will go to another city,
a city a state hospital ornamentally ill, where psychiatric patients
were locked away in brutal gulags, diagnosed with very unscientific
(04:36):
conditions melancholia, hysteria, mania of all kinds, most of which
were probably treated with leeches or bloodletting or some other
horrifying Victorian restorative. So when the DSM first landed on
doctor's desks in nineteen fifty two, it represented a sea
change in our understanding of psychiatric and neurological conditions, at
(04:59):
least on paper. It's standardized conditions and their symptoms, and
it professionalized diagnoses, which is not to say that people
given these diagnosed sees were treated better, because they weren't.
The very first DSM was a slim, leather bound volume,
just one hundred thirty two pages. It described conditions ranging
(05:20):
from chronic brain syndrome associated with mongolism, to inadequate personality
disorder to sexual deviation, including but not limited to fetishism, transvestism,
and homosexuality. But don't worry, there were PSAs for that.
(05:40):
What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick. The
sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less
dangerous and contagious, a sickness of the mind. You see,
Ralph was a homosexual. No, not Ralph anyway, the DSM
became like a bible for conditions of the brain. But curiously,
(06:03):
that bible only made two brief mentions of autism and
didn't bother to explain it. It took nearly thirty years
since the very first DSM for autism to get its
own entry in the manual, and even then it only
addressed infantile autism, which we heard about in the previous episode. Finally,
(06:23):
in nineteen eighty seven, the DSM got wise. The big
ups at the American Psychiatric Association decided that both kids
and adults could be autistic fun so the organization coined
a new diagnosis, autistic disorder. Then in nineteen ninety four,
the APA added four subcategories to autistic disorder. One of
(06:46):
those was Asperger syndrome, which was viewed at the time
like high functioning autism, an imprecise term that we don't
really use anymore because what does it really mean to
function and who's actually defining it. But then in twenty thirteen,
the DSM was revised again. Now we're at the fifth
and most recent iteration with a couple of edits since,
(07:10):
and in this version there is no Aspergers, no infantile autism,
no childhood schizophrenia whatever that was. There is only autism
spectrum disorder, or ASD. Our understanding of autism has always
been pretty fuzzy because the definition of autism has itself
always been pretty fuzzy. Take this explanation from the nineteen
(07:34):
forties by psychiatrist Leo Connor, one of the earliest autism doctors.
We have two specific symptoms that always have to be
present in order to justify the diagnosis. They are extreme
aloneness from practically the beginning of life, and what I
(07:55):
call a desire for the preservation of sameness, which is
not at all the criteria that's used to diagnose autism. Now,
in the history of the word autism, there has never
been a fixed definition. It's always been a moving target.
And that kind of sucks because when I originally started
this journey, I thought a diagnosis, one beautiful word, would
(08:18):
explain things, simplify them, tell me why it was so weird,
maybe even help fix things for me. But after I
got the diagnosis and started learning more and more about autism,
I realized it could never be that simple. Autism and
all its many tendrils defy clear understanding. With this diagnosis,
(08:42):
this word, I was descending into some pretty cloudy territory.
You're listening to the loudest girl in the world, who
is not the lady behind you in line at the
grocery checkout. It's me, Lauren Ober, The Loudest Girl in
the World is a show about finding yourself broken in
(09:04):
a pretty dark place and emerging from that place a
mostly glued back together our person. So with my diagnosis,
I had a word, well, I guess more like three
autism spectrum disorder, and those three words were embedded in
(09:26):
a whole paragraph that gave name to who and what
I was in very clinical terms like level one, which
just means subtle autism that requires minimal support. But stowed
away inside of doctor Natalie's one paragraph diagnosis was a
crazy quilt of feelings, mostly bad sadness for little Lauren,
(09:51):
who might have had an easier time of things if
only anger at being forever misunderstood, relief that a question
I had about myself had finally been answered, but also
a sneaking sense that I was perpetrating some ornate fraud,
that doctor Natalie got it all wrong, that I wasn't
actually autistic. Now I had a word. Instead of obnoxious, rude,
(10:17):
or loud, the word was now autistic. But what did
that word even mean? And how was doctor Natalie's assessment
going to help me? As I moved on in my life.
This is just a difference in brain wiring. And then
sorry me, I interrupted before we please, you're going to
have to interrupt one you're gonna be in trouble, so good,
(10:38):
before we get sort of too far down the line,
I'd like a working definition from your perspective of autism.
Spectrum will site condition rather than disorder. But what is it?
So in terms of autism, I'll give you my definition.
One of the best ways to define autism is by
(10:59):
what it's not, because again, we have these tropes in
society of Rainman and Sheldon from the Big Bang theory,
and children lacking sociability, narcissistic, lack of empathy, and those
are just absolutely incorrect assumptions that the media really sells. Remember,
(11:23):
doctor Natalie is autistic herself, and her understanding of autism
is that it's largely positive and often inherited. So thanks
mom and dad. What autism is It is a difference
in brain wiring and that we are optimized for certain things.
It is genetic. It's got an eighty percent genetic component.
(11:44):
We have these specialized skills in the brain. We've got
this localized hyper connectivity. And what that does is allows
us to be excellent lateral thinkers. Basically the ability to
solve problems in indirect, creative and unexpected ways. Carry on.
You know, many of us are autodidacts, people who are
self taught. We tend to be very intelligent. And I
(12:07):
would also include in that we whire varying levels of support,
and I think that's something that people misunderstand. And so
we do have all these great things. But like I
always say to people that if nature gives something, it
takes something. But what doctor Natalie is telling me is
all the positive stuff that she associates with autism. Autistics
(12:28):
are creative problem solvers and great systematizers and smart and
clever and teach themselves all kinds of cool and weird things.
But that's not what the DSM sets. The main thing
is that the DSM talks about these as deficits, right,
and I call them differences. So it's a difference that
optimizes us for certain things, which also means that there
(12:50):
are things that are less optimum for us. Right, So
neurotypicals are optimized for socializing and we're optimized for work.
We're literally specialized for skills. So if you think of
us more as a specialist, whereas a neurotive it was
a generalist. Hm, I feel anything but a specialist, unless
(13:14):
by a specialist doctor Natalie means someone who melts down
at the sight of pulverized roadkill on the side of
a highway or panics at the appearance of a caper
on her plate, in which case, yeah, I'm real special.
But as I talked to doctor Natalie, I began to
think that she was a little bit of an autistic exceptionalist.
(13:36):
You got autism, you have a superpower, rather than autism
just being a difference in brain wiring. The end, Doctor
Natalie seems to see autism as a thing that makes
autistic people just a wee bit better than non autistic people.
And I mean I get that. As a gay person,
I've long held the belief the gays are better period.
(13:57):
Just kidding. I think it's just a stance that people
with marginalized or minority identities use as a bomb against
a world that doesn't always feel very welcoming. But I'm
not a point in my neurodivergent journey where I feel exceptional,
where I feel that this designation is something to be celebrated. Hell,
I only just got the diagnosis. I'm not ready to
(14:19):
be an autistic superhero, the loudest girl in the world,
able to talk bad guys into submission, so long as
she doesn't have to eat eggplant or wear scratchy wool.
Some of what doctor Natalie was saying really resonated with me.
Autism doesn't have to be a deficit. It can just
be a difference. And my brain does sometimes feel more
(14:43):
like a workhorse than a party animal. But a few
of the things doctor Natalie said I didn't really vibe with.
What if I don't want to be a superhero, what
if I just want to be incidentally autistic? I called
doctor Natalie back to get her thoughts. You're the same
person who you were before. Yeah, the thing that you're
going to do now is be able to better understand
(15:05):
your superpowers and better understand how to manage your kryptonite's.
But I guess I just wasn't totally sold on this
whole idea. For one, the Superman reference doesn't quite land,
mostly because I'm not a comics person. Also, it's just
hard to assign that many positives to the way my
brain works, especially because it's been problematized for so long.
(15:29):
I haven't exactly been celebrated over the years for my
endless talking, or my blunt opinions, or my sensory weirdness.
But maybe what doctor Natalie was talking about more broadly
was reclaiming the popular narrative about autistic people that we're
unempathetic automatons, incapable of making meaningful emotional connections with people
(15:49):
because we're too busy memorizing world flags, taking apart the
vacuum cleaner, or doing calculus for fun. I decided to
call my girlfriend Hannah for a gut check. I just
needed to talk some of this out. I see why
the idea of the superpower is so important for people,
for the idea of finding this thing that makes it good.
(16:11):
Like these are the ways in which autism isn't a problem,
It's just a condition. It's just just a neurological difference.
F why I I'm cleaning my apartment while we're talking,
which is why everything is rattling around, And so you
look at this sort of traits of autism, and right
now I'm seeing is the ways in which they are
(16:33):
negative of parstablish you know, and I think that I
haven't quite figured out the ways that this would be
a good thing, you know, like I might not be
able to have people touched me in a particular way,
but I have this other thing that makes it positive.
You can't be like, oh Lynch sent Johnny was, you know,
(16:56):
if only he weren't like this, he would be perfect.
Can't be like if only this, then this m like
I couldn't say, like Lauren would dope the Holy shows
not just that's probably true though it's actually college on yourself.
(17:19):
Thank you for the affirmation my truest love. After talking
to doctor Natalie and Hannah, I was still feeling sad
and angry and confused. Also, I didn't want to be
an autistic superhero, not even if it came with a
cute outfit. I thought my diagnosis would be my answer,
but it wasn't enough, mostly because it just brought up
(17:40):
more questions, not just questions about the science behind autism,
but also about my place on the spectrum. All the
science and official definitions and doctor Natalie's superpower stuff were
not helping. I wanted it more on the ground understanding
of autistics. What did the culture think of us, and
how we moved through the world, and how did autistics
(18:03):
view themselves. I wanted to see myself reflected back at me.
So after the break, it's time to hit my personal
autism library and get my read on. In addition to
(18:25):
being a charming and delightful podcast host, I am also
a journalist. I love diving into information. Naturally, I was
trying to learn everything I could about autism, which, FYI,
is very autistic. I wasn't quite ready to plunge into
the very active online autism community, but I was ready
(18:48):
to do some heavy reading. I read books about autism
and feminism, and books about autism and blackness, and books
about autism that never should have been written at all
because they were so boring. I read memoirs and historical
deep dives and cute little graphic novels. I dogeared and
highlighted and scribbled in the margins of so many books.
(19:09):
And I also learned some fun facts about the Oscar
winning movie rain Man. The nineteen eighty eight film is
perhaps the most famous representation of autism on the big screen.
The movie star Dustin Hoffman, plays an autistic man named
Raymond Babbitt who lives in a mental hospital and has
recently inherited his father's fortune, which is cool until his
(19:30):
younger brother, Charlie played by Tom Cruise, comes on the
scene and absconds with Raymond in an attempt to snatch
the inheritance. It's like a disability buddy comedy road movie
with casinos and Lamborghinis and a non autistic actor playing
an autistic savant. Good morning coffee, Yes, Semi Cris Shally
(19:52):
dips dips salad for six nine two. How did you
know my phone number? How do you know that? Said,
read the telephone book Class NAC tips Sally for six
one o one nine two. He remembers things, little things,
sometimes very cleverable. I'll be right back. In order to
(20:14):
prep for the role, Hoffman got a job as a
nurse's aid at the New York Psychiatric Institute. He played
ping pong and scrabble with the patience and did the
occasional pan oversight. All cute. I guess by now my
brain was exploding with autism trivia, some fun, some not
so fun. But all this optimistic book learning didn't exactly
(20:36):
have the desired effect. Learning the facts of autism didn't
make me understand any more. About myself in a way,
it had the opposite effect. I was hardly seeing myself
in any of what I was reading. Maybe it would
be different if I dipped a toe in the cool
waters of autism social media. So I started following people
(20:57):
who used the actually autistic hashtag on Twitter, and I
tried watching some YouTube videos. Ted x seemed to have
an unusually large collection of female autistics talking about their experiences.
By myself autistic. As you can see, you can't tell
from looking that I'm autistic. I had always had autistic
(21:17):
traits and struggles, but I just thought I was weird.
Imagine someone on the autism spectrum. You probably didn't imagine
someone who looks like me. At first, this diagnosis was
not easy to hear, but then something shifted got Asperger's
for me. It's just the way my brain functions and
(21:39):
how it functions is very overwhelming. If it was so
lovely to hear all these autistic women talk about their
own experiences, like yeah, girl, I see you. But then
the deeper down the rabbit hole I went, the more
I got caught up in the stereotypes, and I just
couldn't see myself in any of them. About people who
are nerdy, intelligent, socially awkward, socially isolated, and who are
(22:05):
obsessed with computer games, but who can't look after themselves.
Yeah that's not really me. Where was my place on
this autism spectrum? What if I was just an autistic imposter?
Did I even have an autistic special interest? Of course
I had to talk to Hannah about it. I'm like,
I'm forty two. I don't have an interest in video
(22:27):
games or fantasy world pre sci fi speculative fiction. I don't.
I don't feel like you can't find a place where
you belong. What's like, where's the place? Do you know
what I mean? This is what happened. You live with this,
summarize Oh what you're like, Okay, so now today I
(22:50):
am autistic. Like here I go starting up the stick
lie and you're like, oh, so I'm going to be
at the Comic Con convection. No, I like, also, I'm
going to play video games. I have to get myself
a base. It had a switch, so you cagle switch
(23:13):
and you're like, fuck, man, that's expensive, you know, So
you look for off brand Nintendo like Nintenda or something,
and then so you try it out. Then you're like,
I can't like I can't even get Mario up one
fucking ladder. Yeah, and what Hannah is so expertly doing
(23:37):
here is showing me how utterly ridiculous I was being.
I do not have to be a basement dwelling gamer
in order to inhabit my autism. Also, nothing wrong in
the slightest with basement dwelling gamers. I just haven't played
a video game since nineteen ninety eight, when Super Mario
and Duck Hunt came as a Nintendo Super two fer.
So if gaming was a requirement for my neurodivergent membership card,
(24:00):
I surely wouldn't qualify. Social media felt like was full
of gen zs or nerds and popular media. Well, that's
a real x bag when it comes to representing autistic
people or really disability writ large. Up until very recently,
autistic characters were played by non autistic actors are Pala,
(24:20):
Dustin Hoffmann, Leonardo DiCaprio, and what's even Gilbert grape Claire
Dane's any biopic Temple Grandin. I mean, sure, if Gillian
Anderson or Julian Moore want to play autistic me in
the movie version of my astoundingly mundane life. I'm here
for it, gun for that, Oscar Ladies, But for real,
I wasn't really seeing any autistic representation that felt relatable anywhere.
(24:46):
Maybe that's because most media portraying autistic people isn't made
by autistic people, shocker, so it's hard to tell if
what you're going to get is the real tea or
just some contrived pap made by slash four neurotips. Of course,
I watched Rainman Nam the Temple Grandin biopic and saw
(25:07):
almost nothing now was relatable. But then I saw Hannah Gadsby,
and Hannah Gadsby was someone I could get into and
who I do get into after a break. Hannah Gadsby
(25:38):
is a genius Australian comedian who made waves in twenty
eighteen when her stand up special Nanette came out on Netflix.
I think it's fair to say that she blew all
our minds. At least she blew my tiny mind right
on my little leer holes. Here was someone I felt
a deep kinship with, and not just because we're both
(25:58):
gay and I think I'm hilarious, because I felt I
could relate to her particularities. My favorite sound in the
whole world is a sound of a take up finding
its place. Also in Gadsby's sophomore special called Douglas, she
directly addressed being autistic. I hadn't been diagnosed yet. Autism
(26:19):
was only on the periphery of my consciousness. But when
I heard this, boy, howdy, did it resonate. I have
what's called high functioning autism, which is a terrible name
for what I have because it gives the impression that
I function highly. I do not to give you an
idea of what it feels like to be on the spectrum. Basically,
(26:39):
it feels like being the only sober person in a
room full of drunks, or the other way around. Basically,
everyone is operating on a wavelength you can't quite key into.
When I saw Gadsby perform this live well before COVID
or my diagnosis, I just kept saying out loud, yes, yes, yes, yes,
yes yes, because this is always how I feel in
social situations, and here was someone articulating it so perfectly
(27:04):
and with heart and humor. After rewatching gadsby specials, I
had the feeling that everything was going to be fine.
I was practically skipping neurodiversey is beautiful, I'm amazing. Hannah
Gatsby and I are going to be best friends. But
Gadsby Specials were maybe the only time I felt like
I really saw myself reflected back at me. Most of
(27:27):
the TV shows and feature films and documentaries on my
list got real grim, real fast, Like this little nineteen
sixty nine picture called Change of Habit with a young
fellow you might be familiar with named Elvis. Oh I got.
The opening scene is nun's taking out their clod, which
seems like a little respe for nineteen sixty nine. They're
(27:54):
putting stockings, Okay. The premise of the film is that
Mary Tyler Moore is a sexy nun who is also
a psychiatric nurse, and Elvis is a sexy doctor in
Spanish Harlem who also plays guitar. The nun sister Michelle,
gets assigned to help doctor Elvis in his clinic, and
of course they fall in love, even though Mary Tyler
(28:16):
Moore's character is already married to the Lord. But the
b plot of the film is sister Michelle and doctor
Elvis's ongoing interactions with a non speaking girl named Amanda.
Brace Yourselves from my running commentary, It only goes downhill
from here. Is Amanda your daughter? My sister's kid. She's
just come and tumped around me a couple of years ago.
(28:38):
Nice work. She never wanted a kid in the first place. Oh,
I think she's autistic. Artistic. Nah, she don't even lift
up a crayon. Oh my god, no autistic. Sometimes when
a child's rejected very early in life, they could call
inside themselves and shut out the whole world, as if
they're trying to punish the rest of us along with themselves.
(28:59):
Oh my god, are you kidding me? So they make
a diagnosis in about thirteen seconds, and then later sister
Marshall and doctor Elvis cure Amanda of her autism by
using a real, albeit pseudo scientific technique called rage reduction therapy.
It's where a therapist restrains and confronts a child in
(29:22):
order to provoke a rage response that will ultimately end
in some sort of breakthrough prompted by eye contact. And
it's just as nightmarish as it sounds. Get rid of
all your hate, do manage you can? You can start
for the love and take a love. Oh try get
(29:44):
away the baby. I love you Amanda, she liking people
love you. I want to see you. Just get out
of you. This is truly terrible. After Amanda stops kicking
and screaming and looks doctor Elvis in the eye, hoof
no more autism, Oh Amanda, we love you, love you,
(30:06):
love you, love love love love you you who love you?
Love you? This is not love you love you. Yes,
that's a big girl, Big girl. And this apparently is
(30:28):
what the medical community used to think about autistic kids
just ten years before I was born, That they had
a well of hate and rage built up in their
systems and all they needed was to be squeezed into submission.
Then magically their inborn neurological condition would suddenly vanish. This
(30:49):
was the world we had just barely left behind, and
this was the legacy I was stepping into with my diagnosis.
All of a sudden, this autism exploration was starting to
feel really bad, and then I kind of lost it,
just like, where where can I go? Or I feel safe?
(31:11):
Taken care of where the world is about bending to
meet me and not the other way round, not be
contorting myself and two billion jeemes definite figure out how
(31:31):
to fit, how to live how to live with noise
and disruption, and how to deal with just being too much,
(31:53):
too loud, too aggressive. I don't know. I just like
I'm done. They don't even do it done me. Of course,
(32:24):
as anyone who has ever experienced any mental health troubles
can attest, sometimes our brains are jerks. They tell us
bad things about ourselves and we listen, and the work
is to beat back all that badness, and it's exhausting.
I felt like my fact finding mission kind of failed.
This wasn't just something I could research my way out of.
(32:52):
I talked to my therapist at the time. Are lean
about it. We have all these bits and pieces, so
it feels kind of crazy making and until you can
start connecting things. That's that's what humans do. We make
a narrative, you know, And that's what you're trying to
do with your podcasts, and it's very hard when you're
the subject is well with Maybe that was part of
(33:13):
the problem. I'm a reporter. I'm used to telling stories
and finding truths, and you do that by researching and
pounding the pavement and asking questions, but of other people,
never about yourself. Now I was faced with a word
and I needed answers about what that word meant for me,
(33:33):
and I wasn't getting them. I tried to pass through
it because you've lived one way for a very long time,
in a sort of you know, non autistic way, in
a non autistic world. Then to be given a diagnosis
that says, well, now you're autistic, and it's like, well,
what how do I What does that mean? And it
(33:58):
doesn't I guess. Then it's like, well, it doesn't really
have to mean anything if you don't want it to
mean anything. I think the first thing for you. Then
that's what we're doing now, is digesting this for yourself.
It's like figuring out your relationship with it. But my
work wasn't just figuring out my relationship with autism. Though
(34:21):
that was plenty to keep me occupied. I also had
to consider all my people's orientation towards autism, my friends,
my family. At some point I was going to have
to tell them I've been masking for so long, camouflaging
my eccentricities and my battles and my general weirdness. What
(34:42):
was I going to say to people when I did
come out? Would anyone believe me? And how can I
talk about something I'm only just learning about with people
who know even less. I want to let my people
into my reality, but not if it comes with a cost,
not if I feel like I have to prove something.
(35:03):
I talked to Hanna about that, Like, I can just
imagine that almost every single person I talk I talked
to there's resistance. But that's true. That will be hard.
That's hard, you know, it's hard, Except what Hannah doesn't
(35:25):
know is that I'm going to prove her wrong. I'm
going to tell all my people and they're all going
to be so understanding and ask all the right questions
and it's not going to be awkward at all. Right,
you've been listening to The Loudest Girl in the World.
(35:47):
It's hosted, written, end executive produced by me Lauren Obert.
Our senior producer is writer. Also our associate producer is
David jah. Sophie Crane is our showrunner and senior editor.
Jake Gorski is our mix engineer. Music imposed by my
autistic Kiwie Pale the Inimitable Lady Hawk. Our artwork was
(36:08):
created by the autistic illustrator Loretta Ipsum. The show is
fact checked by Andrea Lopez Cruzado and our autism consultant
is Sarah Cappett. Our executive producers are Mia Lobel and Letamlad.
Special thanks to doctor Natalie Ingelbrick. You can find her
on Facebook at Embrace Autism, Inc. Also thanks to Arlene
(36:31):
Levinson and thanks to you friend for listening
Pushkin. A little content warning. We get into some pretty
big emotions and tears in this episode, plus some possibly
upsetting descriptions of psychiatry of your so keep that in
mind when listening. Okay onwards. When we left off with
(00:39):
episode three, I had just opened my diagnosis from doctor Nadlie.
You might remember it wants something like this. Obviously, I
(01:00):
didn't know what to make of the diagnosis, mostly because
I couldn't read it through my giant rain dropped tears.
But after I finished sobbing into my dog's I was
able to see what the assessment actually said. Diagnosis autism
spectrum disorder. Okay, so I'm autistic, got it? But then
(01:20):
I kept reading persistent deficits in social communication and social
interaction across multiple contexts Level one restricted repetitive patterns of behavior, interests,
or activities Level one. Lauren fulfills the DSM five criteria
for a diagnosis of autism. Her psychometrics show distinct correlations
(01:44):
with autism. Wow, that's a lot of confusing words. What
did any of them mean? And furthermore, who decided that
this is what autism is? Apparently the DSM five people,
that's who I'm a fact finder. By nature, information helps
(02:04):
bring order to my world and gives me a sense
of control. And so to manage the bigness of this
diagnosis and all it entailed, I was going to have
to go into reporter mode and find some facts. And man,
there were a lot of facts. There's the clinical knowledge
of the autism spectrum and the history of the condition,
(02:26):
plus the almost infinite ways the diagnosis can present itself,
as well as all the different interpretations of autism in
the media. Initially, I figured I could run all that
through the filter of my own experience and out the
other side would pop a whole new concept of who
I was. So I started making a list. I was
(02:47):
going to go through all the literature and movies, documentaries
and TV shows, etc. Where autism is even mentioned. My
info tank would be filled up. But first the DSM,
or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Doctor
(03:07):
Nadley's diagnosis follow the standards set forth for autism in
the DSM five, but I wanted to go back to
the source, the og manual, the DSM one. The whole
process of doing the diagnostics and waiting for the results
and trying to unpack them was like going through the
emotional spin cycle. I was wrung out. But if I
(03:29):
was going to attempt to understand this diagnosis, it was
important for me to know who set the standard, who
determined the clinical definition of autism, and why should I
listen to them. Historically, our collective understanding of the brain
and its inner workings has been dodgy at best. It
hasn't exactly been sophisticated or accurate, or based on anything
(03:52):
other than the observations of some mustache twirling alienists, as
evidenced in this nineteen fifties educational film from the Ohio
Department of Public Welfare. Because of mental illness, the brain's
ability and energy of American in twenty will be lost.
Metal illness will take a toll of talents and beauty, No,
(04:15):
not beauty, anything but that because people hate and sorrow
and fear. One in every twenty will go to another city,
a city a state hospital ornamentally ill, where psychiatric patients
were locked away in brutal gulags, diagnosed with very unscientific
(04:36):
conditions melancholia, hysteria, mania of all kinds, most of which
were probably treated with leeches or bloodletting or some other
horrifying Victorian restorative. So when the DSM first landed on
doctor's desks in nineteen fifty two, it represented a sea
change in our understanding of psychiatric and neurological conditions, at
(04:59):
least on paper. It's standardized conditions and their symptoms, and
it professionalized diagnoses, which is not to say that people
given these diagnosed sees were treated better, because they weren't.
The very first DSM was a slim, leather bound volume,
just one hundred thirty two pages. It described conditions ranging
(05:20):
from chronic brain syndrome associated with mongolism, to inadequate personality
disorder to sexual deviation, including but not limited to fetishism, transvestism,
and homosexuality. But don't worry, there were PSAs for that.
(05:40):
What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick. The
sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less
dangerous and contagious, a sickness of the mind. You see,
Ralph was a homosexual. No, not Ralph anyway, the DSM
became like a bible for conditions of the brain. But curiously,
(06:03):
that bible only made two brief mentions of autism and
didn't bother to explain it. It took nearly thirty years
since the very first DSM for autism to get its
own entry in the manual, and even then it only
addressed infantile autism, which we heard about in the previous episode. Finally,
(06:23):
in nineteen eighty seven, the DSM got wise. The big
ups at the American Psychiatric Association decided that both kids
and adults could be autistic fun so the organization coined
a new diagnosis, autistic disorder. Then in nineteen ninety four,
the APA added four subcategories to autistic disorder. One of
(06:46):
those was Asperger syndrome, which was viewed at the time
like high functioning autism, an imprecise term that we don't
really use anymore because what does it really mean to
function and who's actually defining it. But then in twenty thirteen,
the DSM was revised again. Now we're at the fifth
and most recent iteration with a couple of edits since,
(07:10):
and in this version there is no Aspergers, no infantile autism,
no childhood schizophrenia whatever that was. There is only autism
spectrum disorder, or ASD. Our understanding of autism has always
been pretty fuzzy because the definition of autism has itself
always been pretty fuzzy. Take this explanation from the nineteen
(07:34):
forties by psychiatrist Leo Connor, one of the earliest autism doctors.
We have two specific symptoms that always have to be
present in order to justify the diagnosis. They are extreme
aloneness from practically the beginning of life, and what I
(07:55):
call a desire for the preservation of sameness, which is
not at all the criteria that's used to diagnose autism. Now,
in the history of the word autism, there has never
been a fixed definition. It's always been a moving target.
And that kind of sucks because when I originally started
this journey, I thought a diagnosis, one beautiful word, would
(08:18):
explain things, simplify them, tell me why it was so weird,
maybe even help fix things for me. But after I
got the diagnosis and started learning more and more about autism,
I realized it could never be that simple. Autism and
all its many tendrils defy clear understanding. With this diagnosis,
(08:42):
this word, I was descending into some pretty cloudy territory.
You're listening to the loudest girl in the world, who
is not the lady behind you in line at the
grocery checkout. It's me, Lauren Ober, The Loudest Girl in
the World is a show about finding yourself broken in
(09:04):
a pretty dark place and emerging from that place a
mostly glued back together our person. So with my diagnosis,
I had a word, well, I guess more like three
autism spectrum disorder, and those three words were embedded in
(09:26):
a whole paragraph that gave name to who and what
I was in very clinical terms like level one, which
just means subtle autism that requires minimal support. But stowed
away inside of doctor Natalie's one paragraph diagnosis was a
crazy quilt of feelings, mostly bad sadness for little Lauren,
(09:51):
who might have had an easier time of things if
only anger at being forever misunderstood, relief that a question
I had about myself had finally been answered, but also
a sneaking sense that I was perpetrating some ornate fraud,
that doctor Natalie got it all wrong, that I wasn't
actually autistic. Now I had a word. Instead of obnoxious, rude,
(10:17):
or loud, the word was now autistic. But what did
that word even mean? And how was doctor Natalie's assessment
going to help me? As I moved on in my life.
This is just a difference in brain wiring. And then
sorry me, I interrupted before we please, you're going to
have to interrupt one you're gonna be in trouble, so good,
(10:38):
before we get sort of too far down the line,
I'd like a working definition from your perspective of autism.
Spectrum will site condition rather than disorder. But what is it?
So in terms of autism, I'll give you my definition.
One of the best ways to define autism is by
(10:59):
what it's not, because again, we have these tropes in
society of Rainman and Sheldon from the Big Bang theory,
and children lacking sociability, narcissistic, lack of empathy, and those
are just absolutely incorrect assumptions that the media really sells. Remember,
(11:23):
doctor Natalie is autistic herself, and her understanding of autism
is that it's largely positive and often inherited. So thanks
mom and dad. What autism is It is a difference
in brain wiring and that we are optimized for certain things.
It is genetic. It's got an eighty percent genetic component.
(11:44):
We have these specialized skills in the brain. We've got
this localized hyper connectivity. And what that does is allows
us to be excellent lateral thinkers. Basically the ability to
solve problems in indirect, creative and unexpected ways. Carry on.
You know, many of us are autodidacts, people who are
self taught. We tend to be very intelligent. And I
(12:07):
would also include in that we whire varying levels of support,
and I think that's something that people misunderstand. And so
we do have all these great things. But like I
always say to people that if nature gives something, it
takes something. But what doctor Natalie is telling me is
all the positive stuff that she associates with autism. Autistics
(12:28):
are creative problem solvers and great systematizers and smart and
clever and teach themselves all kinds of cool and weird things.
But that's not what the DSM sets. The main thing
is that the DSM talks about these as deficits, right,
and I call them differences. So it's a difference that
optimizes us for certain things, which also means that there
(12:50):
are things that are less optimum for us. Right, So
neurotypicals are optimized for socializing and we're optimized for work.
We're literally specialized for skills. So if you think of
us more as a specialist, whereas a neurotive it was
a generalist. Hm, I feel anything but a specialist, unless
(13:14):
by a specialist doctor Natalie means someone who melts down
at the sight of pulverized roadkill on the side of
a highway or panics at the appearance of a caper
on her plate, in which case, yeah, I'm real special.
But as I talked to doctor Natalie, I began to
think that she was a little bit of an autistic exceptionalist.
(13:36):
You got autism, you have a superpower, rather than autism
just being a difference in brain wiring. The end, Doctor
Natalie seems to see autism as a thing that makes
autistic people just a wee bit better than non autistic people.
And I mean I get that. As a gay person,
I've long held the belief the gays are better period.
(13:57):
Just kidding. I think it's just a stance that people
with marginalized or minority identities use as a bomb against
a world that doesn't always feel very welcoming. But I'm
not a point in my neurodivergent journey where I feel exceptional,
where I feel that this designation is something to be celebrated. Hell,
I only just got the diagnosis. I'm not ready to
(14:19):
be an autistic superhero, the loudest girl in the world,
able to talk bad guys into submission, so long as
she doesn't have to eat eggplant or wear scratchy wool.
Some of what doctor Natalie was saying really resonated with me.
Autism doesn't have to be a deficit. It can just
be a difference. And my brain does sometimes feel more
(14:43):
like a workhorse than a party animal. But a few
of the things doctor Natalie said I didn't really vibe with.
What if I don't want to be a superhero, what
if I just want to be incidentally autistic? I called
doctor Natalie back to get her thoughts. You're the same
person who you were before. Yeah, the thing that you're
going to do now is be able to better understand
(15:05):
your superpowers and better understand how to manage your kryptonite's.
But I guess I just wasn't totally sold on this
whole idea. For one, the Superman reference doesn't quite land,
mostly because I'm not a comics person. Also, it's just
hard to assign that many positives to the way my
brain works, especially because it's been problematized for so long.
(15:29):
I haven't exactly been celebrated over the years for my
endless talking, or my blunt opinions, or my sensory weirdness.
But maybe what doctor Natalie was talking about more broadly
was reclaiming the popular narrative about autistic people that we're
unempathetic automatons, incapable of making meaningful emotional connections with people
(15:49):
because we're too busy memorizing world flags, taking apart the
vacuum cleaner, or doing calculus for fun. I decided to
call my girlfriend Hannah for a gut check. I just
needed to talk some of this out. I see why
the idea of the superpower is so important for people,
for the idea of finding this thing that makes it good.
(16:11):
Like these are the ways in which autism isn't a problem,
It's just a condition. It's just just a neurological difference.
F why I I'm cleaning my apartment while we're talking,
which is why everything is rattling around, And so you
look at this sort of traits of autism, and right
now I'm seeing is the ways in which they are
(16:33):
negative of parstablish you know, and I think that I
haven't quite figured out the ways that this would be
a good thing, you know, like I might not be
able to have people touched me in a particular way,
but I have this other thing that makes it positive.
You can't be like, oh Lynch sent Johnny was, you know,
(16:56):
if only he weren't like this, he would be perfect.
Can't be like if only this, then this m like
I couldn't say, like Lauren would dope the Holy shows
not just that's probably true though it's actually college on yourself.
(17:19):
Thank you for the affirmation my truest love. After talking
to doctor Natalie and Hannah, I was still feeling sad
and angry and confused. Also, I didn't want to be
an autistic superhero, not even if it came with a
cute outfit. I thought my diagnosis would be my answer,
but it wasn't enough, mostly because it just brought up
(17:40):
more questions, not just questions about the science behind autism,
but also about my place on the spectrum. All the
science and official definitions and doctor Natalie's superpower stuff were
not helping. I wanted it more on the ground understanding
of autistics. What did the culture think of us, and
how we moved through the world, and how did autistics
(18:03):
view themselves. I wanted to see myself reflected back at me.
So after the break, it's time to hit my personal
autism library and get my read on. In addition to
(18:25):
being a charming and delightful podcast host, I am also
a journalist. I love diving into information. Naturally, I was
trying to learn everything I could about autism, which, FYI,
is very autistic. I wasn't quite ready to plunge into
the very active online autism community, but I was ready
(18:48):
to do some heavy reading. I read books about autism
and feminism, and books about autism and blackness, and books
about autism that never should have been written at all
because they were so boring. I read memoirs and historical
deep dives and cute little graphic novels. I dogeared and
highlighted and scribbled in the margins of so many books.
(19:09):
And I also learned some fun facts about the Oscar
winning movie rain Man. The nineteen eighty eight film is
perhaps the most famous representation of autism on the big screen.
The movie star Dustin Hoffman, plays an autistic man named
Raymond Babbitt who lives in a mental hospital and has
recently inherited his father's fortune, which is cool until his
(19:30):
younger brother, Charlie played by Tom Cruise, comes on the
scene and absconds with Raymond in an attempt to snatch
the inheritance. It's like a disability buddy comedy road movie
with casinos and Lamborghinis and a non autistic actor playing
an autistic savant. Good morning coffee, Yes, Semi Cris Shally
(19:52):
dips dips salad for six nine two. How did you
know my phone number? How do you know that? Said,
read the telephone book Class NAC tips Sally for six
one o one nine two. He remembers things, little things,
sometimes very cleverable. I'll be right back. In order to
(20:14):
prep for the role, Hoffman got a job as a
nurse's aid at the New York Psychiatric Institute. He played
ping pong and scrabble with the patience and did the
occasional pan oversight. All cute. I guess by now my
brain was exploding with autism trivia, some fun, some not
so fun. But all this optimistic book learning didn't exactly
(20:36):
have the desired effect. Learning the facts of autism didn't
make me understand any more. About myself in a way,
it had the opposite effect. I was hardly seeing myself
in any of what I was reading. Maybe it would
be different if I dipped a toe in the cool
waters of autism social media. So I started following people
(20:57):
who used the actually autistic hashtag on Twitter, and I
tried watching some YouTube videos. Ted x seemed to have
an unusually large collection of female autistics talking about their experiences.
By myself autistic. As you can see, you can't tell
from looking that I'm autistic. I had always had autistic
(21:17):
traits and struggles, but I just thought I was weird.
Imagine someone on the autism spectrum. You probably didn't imagine
someone who looks like me. At first, this diagnosis was
not easy to hear, but then something shifted got Asperger's
for me. It's just the way my brain functions and
(21:39):
how it functions is very overwhelming. If it was so
lovely to hear all these autistic women talk about their
own experiences, like yeah, girl, I see you. But then
the deeper down the rabbit hole I went, the more
I got caught up in the stereotypes, and I just
couldn't see myself in any of them. About people who
are nerdy, intelligent, socially awkward, socially isolated, and who are
(22:05):
obsessed with computer games, but who can't look after themselves.
Yeah that's not really me. Where was my place on
this autism spectrum? What if I was just an autistic imposter?
Did I even have an autistic special interest? Of course
I had to talk to Hannah about it. I'm like,
I'm forty two. I don't have an interest in video
(22:27):
games or fantasy world pre sci fi speculative fiction. I don't.
I don't feel like you can't find a place where
you belong. What's like, where's the place? Do you know
what I mean? This is what happened. You live with this,
summarize Oh what you're like, Okay, so now today I
(22:50):
am autistic. Like here I go starting up the stick
lie and you're like, oh, so I'm going to be
at the Comic Con convection. No, I like, also, I'm
going to play video games. I have to get myself
a base. It had a switch, so you cagle switch
(23:13):
and you're like, fuck, man, that's expensive, you know, So
you look for off brand Nintendo like Nintenda or something,
and then so you try it out. Then you're like,
I can't like I can't even get Mario up one
fucking ladder. Yeah, and what Hannah is so expertly doing
(23:37):
here is showing me how utterly ridiculous I was being.
I do not have to be a basement dwelling gamer
in order to inhabit my autism. Also, nothing wrong in
the slightest with basement dwelling gamers. I just haven't played
a video game since nineteen ninety eight, when Super Mario
and Duck Hunt came as a Nintendo Super two fer.
So if gaming was a requirement for my neurodivergent membership card,
(24:00):
I surely wouldn't qualify. Social media felt like was full
of gen zs or nerds and popular media. Well, that's
a real x bag when it comes to representing autistic
people or really disability writ large. Up until very recently,
autistic characters were played by non autistic actors are Pala,
(24:20):
Dustin Hoffmann, Leonardo DiCaprio, and what's even Gilbert grape Claire
Dane's any biopic Temple Grandin. I mean, sure, if Gillian
Anderson or Julian Moore want to play autistic me in
the movie version of my astoundingly mundane life. I'm here
for it, gun for that, Oscar Ladies, But for real,
I wasn't really seeing any autistic representation that felt relatable anywhere.
(24:46):
Maybe that's because most media portraying autistic people isn't made
by autistic people, shocker, so it's hard to tell if
what you're going to get is the real tea or
just some contrived pap made by slash four neurotips. Of course,
I watched Rainman Nam the Temple Grandin biopic and saw
(25:07):
almost nothing now was relatable. But then I saw Hannah Gadsby,
and Hannah Gadsby was someone I could get into and
who I do get into after a break. Hannah Gadsby
(25:38):
is a genius Australian comedian who made waves in twenty
eighteen when her stand up special Nanette came out on Netflix.
I think it's fair to say that she blew all
our minds. At least she blew my tiny mind right
on my little leer holes. Here was someone I felt
a deep kinship with, and not just because we're both
(25:58):
gay and I think I'm hilarious, because I felt I
could relate to her particularities. My favorite sound in the
whole world is a sound of a take up finding
its place. Also in Gadsby's sophomore special called Douglas, she
directly addressed being autistic. I hadn't been diagnosed yet. Autism
(26:19):
was only on the periphery of my consciousness. But when
I heard this, boy, howdy, did it resonate. I have
what's called high functioning autism, which is a terrible name
for what I have because it gives the impression that
I function highly. I do not to give you an
idea of what it feels like to be on the spectrum. Basically,
(26:39):
it feels like being the only sober person in a
room full of drunks, or the other way around. Basically,
everyone is operating on a wavelength you can't quite key into.
When I saw Gadsby perform this live well before COVID
or my diagnosis, I just kept saying out loud, yes, yes, yes, yes,
yes yes, because this is always how I feel in
social situations, and here was someone articulating it so perfectly
(27:04):
and with heart and humor. After rewatching gadsby specials, I
had the feeling that everything was going to be fine.
I was practically skipping neurodiversey is beautiful, I'm amazing. Hannah
Gatsby and I are going to be best friends. But
Gadsby Specials were maybe the only time I felt like
I really saw myself reflected back at me. Most of
(27:27):
the TV shows and feature films and documentaries on my
list got real grim, real fast, Like this little nineteen
sixty nine picture called Change of Habit with a young
fellow you might be familiar with named Elvis. Oh I got.
The opening scene is nun's taking out their clod, which
seems like a little respe for nineteen sixty nine. They're
(27:54):
putting stockings, Okay. The premise of the film is that
Mary Tyler Moore is a sexy nun who is also
a psychiatric nurse, and Elvis is a sexy doctor in
Spanish Harlem who also plays guitar. The nun sister Michelle,
gets assigned to help doctor Elvis in his clinic, and
of course they fall in love, even though Mary Tyler
(28:16):
Moore's character is already married to the Lord. But the
b plot of the film is sister Michelle and doctor
Elvis's ongoing interactions with a non speaking girl named Amanda.
Brace Yourselves from my running commentary, It only goes downhill
from here. Is Amanda your daughter? My sister's kid. She's
just come and tumped around me a couple of years ago.
(28:38):
Nice work. She never wanted a kid in the first place. Oh,
I think she's autistic. Artistic. Nah, she don't even lift
up a crayon. Oh my god, no autistic. Sometimes when
a child's rejected very early in life, they could call
inside themselves and shut out the whole world, as if
they're trying to punish the rest of us along with themselves.
(28:59):
Oh my god, are you kidding me? So they make
a diagnosis in about thirteen seconds, and then later sister
Marshall and doctor Elvis cure Amanda of her autism by
using a real, albeit pseudo scientific technique called rage reduction therapy.
It's where a therapist restrains and confronts a child in
(29:22):
order to provoke a rage response that will ultimately end
in some sort of breakthrough prompted by eye contact. And
it's just as nightmarish as it sounds. Get rid of
all your hate, do manage you can? You can start
for the love and take a love. Oh try get
(29:44):
away the baby. I love you Amanda, she liking people
love you. I want to see you. Just get out
of you. This is truly terrible. After Amanda stops kicking
and screaming and looks doctor Elvis in the eye, hoof
no more autism, Oh Amanda, we love you, love you,
(30:06):
love you, love love love love you you who love you?
Love you? This is not love you love you. Yes,
that's a big girl, Big girl. And this apparently is
(30:28):
what the medical community used to think about autistic kids
just ten years before I was born, That they had
a well of hate and rage built up in their
systems and all they needed was to be squeezed into submission.
Then magically their inborn neurological condition would suddenly vanish. This
(30:49):
was the world we had just barely left behind, and
this was the legacy I was stepping into with my diagnosis.
All of a sudden, this autism exploration was starting to
feel really bad, and then I kind of lost it,
just like, where where can I go? Or I feel safe?
(31:11):
Taken care of where the world is about bending to
meet me and not the other way round, not be
contorting myself and two billion jeemes definite figure out how
(31:31):
to fit, how to live how to live with noise
and disruption, and how to deal with just being too much,
(31:53):
too loud, too aggressive. I don't know. I just like
I'm done. They don't even do it done me. Of course,
(32:24):
as anyone who has ever experienced any mental health troubles
can attest, sometimes our brains are jerks. They tell us
bad things about ourselves and we listen, and the work
is to beat back all that badness, and it's exhausting.
I felt like my fact finding mission kind of failed.
This wasn't just something I could research my way out of.
(32:52):
I talked to my therapist at the time. Are lean
about it. We have all these bits and pieces, so
it feels kind of crazy making and until you can
start connecting things. That's that's what humans do. We make
a narrative, you know, And that's what you're trying to
do with your podcasts, and it's very hard when you're
the subject is well with Maybe that was part of
(33:13):
the problem. I'm a reporter. I'm used to telling stories
and finding truths, and you do that by researching and
pounding the pavement and asking questions, but of other people,
never about yourself. Now I was faced with a word
and I needed answers about what that word meant for me,
(33:33):
and I wasn't getting them. I tried to pass through
it because you've lived one way for a very long time,
in a sort of you know, non autistic way, in
a non autistic world. Then to be given a diagnosis
that says, well, now you're autistic, and it's like, well,
what how do I What does that mean? And it
(33:58):
doesn't I guess. Then it's like, well, it doesn't really
have to mean anything if you don't want it to
mean anything. I think the first thing for you. Then
that's what we're doing now, is digesting this for yourself.
It's like figuring out your relationship with it. But my
work wasn't just figuring out my relationship with autism. Though
(34:21):
that was plenty to keep me occupied. I also had
to consider all my people's orientation towards autism, my friends,
my family. At some point I was going to have
to tell them I've been masking for so long, camouflaging
my eccentricities and my battles and my general weirdness. What
(34:42):
was I going to say to people when I did
come out? Would anyone believe me? And how can I
talk about something I'm only just learning about with people
who know even less. I want to let my people
into my reality, but not if it comes with a cost,
not if I feel like I have to prove something.
(35:03):
I talked to Hanna about that, Like, I can just
imagine that almost every single person I talk I talked
to there's resistance. But that's true. That will be hard.
That's hard, you know, it's hard, Except what Hannah doesn't
(35:25):
know is that I'm going to prove her wrong. I'm
going to tell all my people and they're all going
to be so understanding and ask all the right questions
and it's not going to be awkward at all. Right,
you've been listening to The Loudest Girl in the World.
(35:47):
It's hosted, written, end executive produced by me Lauren Obert.
Our senior producer is writer. Also our associate producer is
David jah. Sophie Crane is our showrunner and senior editor.
Jake Gorski is our mix engineer. Music imposed by my
autistic Kiwie Pale the Inimitable Lady Hawk. Our artwork was
(36:08):
created by the autistic illustrator Loretta Ipsum. The show is
fact checked by Andrea Lopez Cruzado and our autism consultant
is Sarah Cappett. Our executive producers are Mia Lobel and Letamlad.
Special thanks to doctor Natalie Ingelbrick. You can find her
on Facebook at Embrace Autism, Inc. Also thanks to Arlene
(36:31):
Levinson and thanks to you friend for listening
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.