October 18, 2022 • 37 mins
It’s really hard to be a newly diagnosed autistic person and not know any autistic people. So it’s time for Lauren to make some autistic friends. But it’s not as easy as you might think. Which is why Lauren has to call up some big guns — Olympic BMX rider Chelsea Wolfe, New Zealand pop star Ladyhawke and best-selling author Katherine May — and force her friendship upon them.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. A little content warning. We get into some descriptions
of throwing up in this episode, so if Barf's not
your jam, keep that in mind when listening. Okay, onwards,
(00:36):
I have to give my dog a peanut butter treat
so that she doesn't bark the entire time I'm on
this call, which is what is it? It's the second
meetup of the DC Women's Autism or something. I don't know,
(00:58):
really good grasp of the details there, Lauren. Anyway, I
wanted to dip my toe in the wider autism community
and maybe even make some okay one an autistic friend,
and this group seemed like a good enough place for
me to start. I mean, I am a DC area
autistic lady person, so why not see what they're all about?
(01:21):
Except there was one snag. I actually hate joining things,
but I figure, if I don't have to keep my
camera on, you know, then I feel more comfortable. Obviously
I'm babbling into my voice memos. But then maybe a
(01:43):
lot of people won't turn their cameras on because they
feel the same as I do. And then it's like, well,
why don't we just have a conference call? Okay, so
already I have a bad attitude mostly born of anxiety.
But if I was going to live in the real
world and not some fantasy autism pleasant phil, I needed
to meet some folks like me, and this group seemed
(02:03):
like a low pressure effort at the time. Oh my god,
I'm one minute late. I'm always oh so who cares? All? Right?
Clicking in he we have buses, Yes, Alexandre, we had
to dash bus. I know there's a buses. When the
zoom screen opened to a bunch of strangers and little squares,
(02:26):
folks who were already engaging in some idle chit chat
about public transit right off the bat, I felt squirmy.
It's very common among artistic people not to drive. Yes,
very common. Okay, well, I love driving and my parallel
parking skills are beyond reproach. Oh I can't do it.
(02:49):
I left the zoom room without ever talking or showing
my face. It was a total bust. I tried. I
gave it what three minutes before I bail. It's not terrible,
it's not great, But I could have not shown up
at all. Yes, here's the thing, though, These types of
(03:12):
situations are my private hell, a group where the connection
is tenuous because it's based on some sort of broad identity.
No thank you, like I don't relate to all Gingers
just because none of us look good in the color
red and we all have to wear long sleeves at
the beach. But I was trying to keep an open mind.
I really wanted to know autistic people, even if the
(03:34):
effort came with a slight cost. But I bailed. Clearly
the cost was higher than I anticipated. Now I want
to be absolutely crystalline. This is not about the group.
I'm so glad that it exists and that it provides
some kind of comfort and joy and connection to the
people who participate. Really I do. This is not me
(03:58):
yucking their yum. This is actually me mad at myself
for not getting into it. I'm frustrated that my social
anxiety and my fear of joining make it really hard
for me to feel like I fit in, not just
here in this zoom room, but like in life. But
if I want other autistic people in my orbit, if
I want friends who have this particular shared experience, I'm
(04:21):
gonna have to get over myself, or at least tighten
up my friend making skills. Plot out a BFF strategy
and implemented step by step. So that's what I'm going
to do with the assistance of a millennial self help book,
a neurodivergent psychiatrist friend, and a handful of willing autistic
guinea pigs. But not like pet guinea pigs who are autistic.
(04:44):
You know what I mean. You're listening to the Loudest
Girl in the World. Who is not that one drunk
lady cheering at the baseball game. It's me, Lauren Obert.
The Loudest Girl in the World is a show about
finding yourself broken in a pretty dark place and emerging
(05:06):
from that place a mostly glued back together our person.
I'm a person who likes to solve my own problems.
For example, recently, after some gnarly dental surgery, I figured
I could fix the issue of a giant piece of
(05:28):
bone protruding from my lower jaw with some two dollars
orthodontic wax from CVS, rather than take one more useless
tail and all. My girlfriend regularly marvels at my ability
to come up with fixes for problems she didn't even
know could be solved. What can I say, I'm solutions oriented,
And so it was that I found myself at the
(05:49):
main branch of the DC Public Library looking for a
book on how to make friends use old do it does?
Some more skills here, some like panting, like was he
even wrong with me? Oh? Yeah, what's wrong with me
is that I chose to walk up a million stairs
(06:11):
but neglected to remember how monstrously unfit I had become
in my dotage. Anyway, I'm going to the Psychology and
Personal growth section of the library. I passed a bunch
of books with titles like failure to Launch out Order
(06:31):
in her Calm, and I really needed this today Hoodakapi's
inspirational Words of Wisdom. Then I found what I was
looking for for two. Here we go here to make friends,
How to make friends as an adult? I hope killer
her so short her? WHOA? All right? I'm like almost
(06:56):
embarrassed to take this up to the counter and check
it out, but only almost. When I got home, I
cruised through the book, and here's what I learned. Most
people we have between one and five close friends. A
quality friendship has many dimensions like reciprocity, interdependence, emotional intimacy,
(07:17):
and conflict resolution. And between the ages of forty five
and fifty five. The number of friends people have seems
to plateau. Great something to look forward to. One thing
the book suggested that I hadn't thought of before was
using apps to make new friends, which seems an awful
lot like doing a zoom meet up to me, but
(07:39):
worse because it seems desperate. Just the suggestion that I
use something called friended or friender or friending all real
apps to meet a buddy makes my hair curl pass.
I did the dating apps a million years ago and
had about as much success as a toddler trying to
read Tolstoy. But maybe the apps would be good for
(08:03):
friend making, more one on one interaction, no awkward video.
So I broke my no apps ever again rule and
set up a bumble bff account. Okay, it's downloading, downloading
all right? Open? Oh no, this is giving me like
(08:25):
flashback PTSD. First I had to upload some photos, which
was totally annoying. I was already over this and I
hadn't even gotten into it. I don't need to drag
this out. I quit about thirty two seconds after starting.
Definitely not for me. The profiles were mostly just straight
moms looking for friends or activity. Partners and I wish
(08:46):
some good luck in that, but nary an autistic person
to be found. I was starting to feel dispirited. I
couldn't join the Zoom group, the friend book didn't really help,
and the app Root was not my jam. I was
never going to make an autistic friend. I was stuck
with the neurotips forever unless I called for backup in
(09:09):
the form of a narc ealeptic psychiatrist slash TV personality
who also has ADHD. Doctor Kelly to the rescue. That's
after the break my friend. Doctor Kelly Cyrus is a
board certified psychiatrist in private practice. She is also a neurodivergent,
(09:33):
queer black narc elliptic assistant professor who is often on
TV commentating on race identity and mental health, like here
on the Showtime show Couples Therapy, where she gently nudges
psychoanalyst or a girl Nick to examine her own racial identity.
Can I ask a question, has your whiteness been named?
(09:54):
In what way? Did they ever challenge you about it? No?
I want them to. Ooh Spicy Cally' is a good
pal of mine and helping people fix their problems as
part of her job, so I figured could ask her
to solve all my crap for me. Well, really, just
one thing, Kellie. I need. I need to find autistic
(10:16):
friends who are like me, who are my age, and
I need your Ope, can you help me? I can try,
you can try. I can try. Have you ever have
you ever had anyone ask you to help them find
friends before? I can't say that I've had someone say
help me find autistic friends before? Like me? Right, yes,
(10:39):
but I have gotten before. I need some friends that
they may not really Yeah, so you are not unfamiliar
with the strife and struggle of humans needing connection aka friends. Right,
but this is a special request, I will say. So
what can I say? I'm special? As anyone who is
(11:02):
over the age of twenty three knows, it's hard to
make friends as an adult. It's especially hard when you're
out of practice and you're looking for a needle in
a haystack, in my case, middle aged autistic people who
are not men, but also who like dogs and loud
talkers and don't mind endless conversations about perimenopause or my
upstairs neighbors midday karaoke habits. Before doctor Kelly could help me,
(11:27):
she wanted to know a crucial bit of information. Why
did I want to make an autistic friend so badly?
I could understand why you'd want to find a friend
like you, but what do you want to talk to
them about that you can't talk to other people about it?
Just kind of saying, Okay, that's a really good question.
I've been thinking about this myself, and I think it's
(11:48):
like a comfort thing. I have gone through my entire
life in what I would categorize as like a non
autistic way. I don't know anybody who is autistic, except for,
(12:09):
you know, my girlfriend's son. I'm sure I have engaged
with autistic people many times and just not known it.
But in terms of like my close friends or even
my wider circle of acquaintances, to the extent that anyone
knows anyone's neurology, I don't think any of them are autistic.
(12:30):
And that feels weird in a way that I think
it would feel weird if I was like gay and
didn't know any gay people. Okay, Well, in case you're
just tuning in newsplash, I am gay and I do
know loads of gay people, and being friends with people
like me makes my life feel more complete in a
(12:52):
world where I often feel like an interloper. Having that
familiarity is critical. I explained it to Callie in a
different way. I'm from Pittsburgh, so I don't need to
know people from Pittsburgh to make my way through the world.
But every time I meet someone Fromburg it's like I
immediately feel like comforted around them. We have a similar
(13:16):
understanding of accent, of a language, of a sports team,
of a whatever. But there's another reason why making an
autistic friend or twelve is really important to me. Autism,
for me, doesn't feel normalized unless it's sort of a
part of your everyday life. But right now, it's not
a part of my every day in that I haven't
(13:38):
told that many people, so it's mostly just a diagnosis
that lives in my head along with the lyrics to
Salton Peppa Shoop, my running list of puppy names, and
deep regrets over that cross country road trip I didn't
take when I was twenty two. But doctor Kelley says
it's the lack of disclosure that makes it hard to
connect with people like me. It's kind of like dating
(14:00):
in this way, right like you're looking for someone to
set you up on a blind date to think of
you the next time. Maybe they know somebody or even
if it's there, and you can either try to look
for your future friend in real life or on the internet. Right,
And so some of that means some level of public disclosure,
(14:21):
because this is, you know, more of a private thing.
So you're gonna have to try to attract you know what,
you're looking like, God, well, putting myself out there is hard.
Why can't I just accidentally happen upon a whole trove
of autistic friends while I'm out walking my dog or something.
The best scenario would be like if you were out
doing something you would normally be doing, let's say it's
(14:42):
not coronavirus, and you met someone who also happened to
be autistic, which is like how you would find out
in that way because you're not wearing a badge of like,
don't just I'm going to though, now we're I'm going
to I'm gonna wear pins, I'm gonna wear some I'm
gonna be like, I'm autistic. Hey, what's what's your name? Okay,
badge pin idea not so great. I think I just
(15:05):
need to get my disclosure on to find people who
are like me. But doctor Kelly said, exercise some caution.
I believe that there's a way to disclose that is
professionally or personally responsible and aligned with whatever your boundaries are. Okay,
so this gives me. This gives me hope that I
might be able to make an autistic friend. But I
(15:25):
really just have to I have to put myself out there. Yes,
if you build it, they will come. Great. Great, I'll
just embody Kevin Conser. I'll just walk out of an
Iowa cornfield being like I'm autistic, and then all of
a sudden people would just be like flocking to me.
(15:46):
He right, I'm telling you that now. But before I
jumped from the autism kittie pool to the deep end,
I wanted to create a cheat sheet of sorts for
myself so I wasn't just flailing about. Luckily, girlfriend Hannah
had just the thing I was looking for. We met
up to talk about it over lunch. I think you're
(16:07):
sitting like too close to me right now? Okay, just
like we don't have to touch while you're sitting next
to me. Are you wearing a mock turtleneck? Okay? No,
I am not stop touching me if oh, if I
can't touch you, then fine, okay fine. Hannah pulled out
a folder with a sheaf of paper stuffed inside. Okay,
this is the thing I wanted to show you, right
(16:28):
which which is It's a it's a pretty well known
program called Peers. Yeah, and it's a program that Jacob
and I did together right before the pandemic. Jacob Hanna's
middle child and my favorite autistic team. Basically, it's a
pretty intense program and it's like a very specific breakdown
of how to make friends, and it's designed for teams
(16:53):
and which I am not, which you are not? But
aren't we all have like an internal age, you know,
and my internal age is seventy five. Thank you. The
handouts from Jacob's class broke down how to make friends
into the tiniest steps. They might seem obvious to most folks,
but autistics are not most folks. It's like identifying where
(17:16):
sources of friends might be. So it's basically like where
do they live, where do they exist? Where do they
show up? And then it's like, then how do you
enter into that the source? Like how do you jump
in that stream? How do you jump into the stream?
And then how do you maintain a conversation so the
conversation doesn't go like this, I like your green sweater.
(17:39):
Thank you. That right there is what we would call
a conversation ender. Good thing. Hannah took so many notes
on the strategies to avoid that happening in the future.
Look at my notes here. It's like, if I can't
even read your hand, reisation, have a prop ready so
that you can drop like a cane or like a
top hat. I would one hundred percent advocate that Hannah
(18:03):
dumped me after this exchange, But there were a lot
of good reminders in the worksheets about how to comport
yourself around people you might want to be friends with.
Ask the other person about themselves, find common interests, share
the conversation, don't be a conversation hug, don't be an interviewer,
don't get too personal at first, Assess interest. There are
(18:26):
for sure a few of those that I struggle with.
I'm going to let you guess which ones. After the break,
I'm going to take all this info and I'm going
to use it to put myself out there and see
who shows up. Just kidding, I'm going to be a
reporter and call up cool autistic people and see if
any of them want to be my friend. It's one
of the perks of working in media, asking interesting folks
(18:46):
to talk to you, and damn it, I'm going to
use it. Would you think I was going to do
stand on the sidewalk wearing a sandwich board that read
I'm autistic? Are you? I mean? I did consider it.
(19:10):
After trying and failing with the autistic Lady zoom and
the make a Friend app, I figured I needed to
get more strategic. With my doctor Callie conversation in my
head and the autistic teen worksheets at my fingertips. I
came up with a few rules to help guide my approach.
Rule number one, find things in common to talk about.
(19:34):
Catherine May is the New York Times best selling author
of Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult
Times During the pandemic, I, like half the people I know,
read this book. It was a real beacon in the
perpetual bleakness that was COVID times. In reading that book,
one of the things I learned was that Catherine was autistic.
(19:56):
Well shit, that's exciting. Of course, upon uncovering that, I
had to know everything about her. One crucial detail about
Catherine is that before she wrote Wintering, she published a
memoir about learning she was artistic. It's called The Electricity
of Every Living Thing, and you should pass this episode
and go order a copy right now. It's that good. Naturally,
(20:20):
I wanted to be best friends with her, so I
called her up at her home in Kent in the
UK and just went for it. I'm curious about the
initial process of thinking about artism, or kind of diagnosing yourself,
Like I know in the book it became like a
compulsive yeah, job of like I need to hoover up
(20:42):
all the information about this. Yeah. I think that's a
really common experience having talked to other like diagnosed autistics.
Actually that you've become totally obsessed with hoovering. Like it
was this moment of recognition for me. I was driving
in my car and I heard a woman on the
radio talk about being autistic herself, and genuinely, you know,
(21:02):
like I was thirty nine years old. It was the
first time I'd ever heard an autistic woman speak about
her experiences, and I immediately recognized myself. There was just
there was just no shadow of a doubt in my mind.
Like I felt this immediate contact with her, and it
was on one hand quite thrilling and on the other
(21:24):
hand completely terrifying and unknown. And like, you know, did
I want to carry this label? What would it mean?
What does it mean about me? You know, the whole
big cloud of thought and fear, you know, anxiety, Oh
my god, same, we're twins. I wanted to talk to
you about your temper as a kind, and and I guess,
(21:49):
like what that looked like when you were a child. Yeah,
I was, you know, seen as a child with a
temper who could kind of fly off the handle, who
was naughty and difficult. And I believed that about myself,
and so that's what I've kind of overwritten my memory with,
(22:09):
you know. And so to see it now as like
an autistic child who was meeting moments of social and
sensory overwhelming was therefore mentally collapsing in the way that
you know, we're really familiar with understanding that autistic kids
do now and adults, but you know, probably more more
visibly children. I find it hard to unravel and to
(22:31):
go back to what those triggers were for me. You know,
they've they've kind of vanished in time, and what I
remember as being disapproved of by adults for losing control
and feeling very different in that sense, like very very
much like a like somebody who was who did not
have control of their behavior in the way that other
(22:53):
children did, and wondering how other children managed to pull
off this amazing feet of control. Okay, it was clear
that Kathern May and I weren't destined for best friend necklaces,
Oprah and Gail move over. We had empathy, we had
in common like anger and meltdowns. We were on the
express train to Paltown, so I had to ask will
(23:17):
you be my autistic Yes? Yes, this is so great.
I'm so glad you said yes, because it would be
really awkward if you said no. Autistic friendmaking level one unlocked.
But then I made it weird by following up our
chat with an email saying I was going to fly
to the UK so we could do a ramble in
(23:38):
the countryside like a good brit Catherine politely declined rule
number two for how to make a friend show some vulnerability. Now,
normally I'm allergic to the V word, but sharing is caring, right.
(24:03):
Pip Brown is an electro pop singer songwriter from a
Tiaroa New Zealand known as Lady Hawk. Hey, I'm Lady
Hook or you can call me Pip. Fun fact, Pip
composed all the original music for the series, So if
you like what you hear, give Lady Hawk's tunes a whirl.
But Pip is other things besides a musician. She's a
(24:24):
prolific gamer, a parent, and for our purposes and artistics,
soon to be friend. Did you ever have a clue
you're like because you felt like you were a little
bit weird, a little bit different than you found music
and it was a relief. But did you sense like
like there's something else? Yeah? Yeah, there was that feeling
(24:44):
for me. And when I was living in Melbourne, I
was struggling a lot with going outside. I was struggling
with like getting on public transport to go to my job,
which was I worked at a bar. I remember thinking
to myself, this shouldn't be this hard for a person.
Other people don't find it that hard to walk out
the front door and like get on a tram. But
(25:06):
for me, I had the cyclical thoughts in my head
of everything that could go wrong in the time that
I stepped out of the door and hopped onto the tram.
So for me, my biggest fear has always been the
unpredictability of other people. And I hate getting on like
public transport and not knowing what's going to happen because
strangers are just like crazy, instantly crazy. To me, I'm like,
(25:28):
anyone could do anything at any point. Pepper is doing
an excellent job in the vulnerability department. Clearly she knows
how this friend making thing works. So I hopped on
a tram. I really really mentally worked myself up to it.
I was like sweating and I felt sick. I was
like I'm nautious, I'm nauseous, and I was sitting there
and this like junkie couple hopped on the next stop
(25:52):
and instantly the check just puked on the ground and
I went and that's why worst, that's like my worst nightmare.
Like you couldn't put me in a worse situation. And
I was like having a meltdown and like I had
to get off the tram and I called my girlfriend
at the time. It's like I'm off the trim, come
come get me, help me. A junkie puked Like that
(26:19):
was I'm laughing so much because this is like, this
is exactly my feeling, Like I feel you on this
so hard, because like any kind of erratic behavior is
very stressful to me. So like, so this is gonna
sound totally nuts, but just bear with me. Like I
(26:43):
have a real I have almost like a phobia of
particular birds, because birds are like unpredictable. Birds will come
like flap at you. Like I got tacked by a
turkey once and it was like holy shit, like what
is happening? Yeah, yeah, And I'm fearful that the thing
is gonna impact me, Like what's happening. I'm fearful that
(27:04):
it's gonna happen on me. Oh yeah, Well, you don't
want to get barthed up. I don't want to get
based on or pooped on, or like all the things
I've seen heaven. You know, I had to immassive. Well
you wouldn't know this, but like my social anxiety when
I was a kid up and through probably college was
(27:25):
like that I would throw up in public and I
would make myself so nervous about the idea, and because
I was anxious about that, I would get a stomach ache,
and the stomach ache would say to me, oh, you're
gonna throw up in public, so so I would have
to like sit out, Like I'd be all ready to
(27:47):
go for like Halloween trick or treating and then feel
super anxious, feel like I was going to throw up,
and then have to sit it out. And I never
puped ever. I never did. You've just described my entire
childhood that exact thing. Yeah, was my thing, and I
always god would work myself up to the point where
(28:08):
I felt nautious, and then I'd be like, I'm gonna puke.
I'm gonna puke, I'm gonna puke. I can I'd be like,
oh my god, I'd have a puke. And I'd always
have to get seen hard from school as well and
be like, I can't, I can't do this class. I
feel sick. I feel sick. I want to be sick. Right.
It was just like it was awful, and it followed
me around for years. That ship. Oh my god, me too.
(28:31):
I don't tell many people that stuff because it's weird
like bird and bar phobias, really, but I shared some
of my vulnerabilities and it turns out Pip has them
too well, not the bird thing that's all me. But
still I feel like we could be moving to best
friend zone. Oh, I have one last question, Um, do
(28:52):
you want to be my autistic friend? Yes? Yes? M
Did I sense a slight hesitation in Pip's voice? Maybe
she is probably worried I will exhibit unpredictable behavior if
we ever meet in life, and she would be right
to be concerned. According to the Autistic teen Worksheet, one
(29:15):
of the most important skills in friendmaking is that when
you are in conversation with someone, you reflect back what
the other person has told you. You don't shift the
conversation back to you and your story. This approach to
friendship might be obvious, but it's something I actively struggle with,
mostly because I use my own experience as a way
(29:36):
to empathize with people. But that can take you out
of someone else's story. By the way, this is me
being vulnerable with you. Do you want to be friends now?
And I thought so? So my final rule be a
(29:57):
reflective listener. Chelsea Wolf is a professional BMX writer in
San Diego, and a pretty excellent one at that. She
was an alternate to represent the US in the twenty
twenty Tokyo Olympics. Chelsea is also one of the very
few out transaction sports athletes. From a young age, Chelsea
(30:18):
was into just about everything with wheels, jeeps, remote controlled cars,
but bikes stole her heart. There's something so fascinating and
beautiful about the bicycle and how it's just a simple
but also complex piece of machinery that can be fine
tuned to just create beautiful music of riding basically, and
(30:42):
just the different styles of bikes and construction they're They're
very fascinating. Her obsession with bikes was one of the
reasons she suspected she might be autistic. Probably one of
my longtime special interests is just bikes and bike knowledge.
I worked as a mechanic for like nine years, and
there's just so many things to learn about such a
(31:04):
simple thing. But then socially as well, like the freedom
that bicycles provide of just freedom of motion and their
involvement in various liberation movements throughout history. Bicycles are a
very special thing to me. I feel you like I'm
smiling the whole way through as you're talking, because I
(31:26):
feel the same way. I mean, you know, I was okay,
So I'm shifting back to me not really reflective listening, Lauren.
Let's try again. Did you get a formal autism diagnosis
or did you sort of self identify self diagnosed? And
when did that happen for you? I kind of always
(31:46):
knew there was something. My older brother was diagnosed as
autistic at a very young age. Very difficult, you know,
the boy gets diagnosed and the girl is ignored. So
it wasn't until a couple of years ago actually that
when the pandemic started, all of those supports kind of
fell apart and I had to start spending time with
(32:07):
myself that I started to really have to figure out, like,
what is it that makes me tick? How do I
learn how to function again without the supports that I
used to have. So it was during the year of
twenty twenty, like that was when I sought out and
got a diagnosis. But I went my entire life just
(32:30):
thinking that there was something wrong with me, rather than
realizing like, oh, this, this particular thing about me is
because of the autism. Like I just thought it was
like a character flaw. That's interesting that you had a
sibling who was on the spectrum and was diagnosed, and like,
(32:51):
I mean, were there similarities between you where you were like, oh,
he has that I'm a little bit like that, absolutely,
And that's the thing that blows my mind that I
don't understand how I wasn't diagnosed sooner. Is like almost
all of the things that got him his diet ignosis,
like the various traits that were noticed and picked up
(33:12):
on by the adults. I had the same thing. But
instead of being like, oh, wow, like you might be
autistic too, let's take you to a professional and figure
this out, it was like, why are you doing that thing?
And I would get in trouble for it and be criticized.
It's like, well what, And it's really funny too. Was
like at the time, my parents wouldn't have had any
reason to suspect that I wasn't a boy just like
(33:34):
my older brother. And yet my experiences even in that
time is more closely aligned with experiences of them people
and women who are autistic being overlooked and having our
needs neglected because the way that they are perceived that
is so interesting. Isn't like like in your brain, in
(33:57):
your soul, in all of the parts that matter, you're
identifying as female, and so that is how your brain works,
and you were probably doing all of the sort of stereotypical,
like masking, camouflaging, like all of that kind of stuff.
I don't know. I mean, it's so it's also complicated
(34:19):
and interesting, weird and like our brains are so bizarre.
This is all going very well. I think now you
know what I have to ask, Chelsea. I want to know,
will you be my autistic friend? I would love to
be your autistic friend? Yes? Yes, lemons the best friends
(34:40):
like this. You know how there's always like growing up,
there's that just disconnect of like you don't understand why
you don't connect with your peers, but you know that
you don't, and you just feel like an outcast. Autistic
friends of the opposite. It's like you don't understand why
you have that connection, but you just fit in. It
works so well. So yeah, are the best fantastic So
(35:03):
if I ever, if I ever come out to talking
to all these great autistic women and gently forcing my
friendship on them was so inspiring and heartening. It's such
a lovely feeling to know that you're part of a clan,
that you have kin beyond the people who raised you.
These women made me feel like I'm not alone. I
(35:25):
felt like they got me, and I got them, and
the importance of that can't be underestimated. We all want
to feel seen and have our experiences reflected back to
us in a friendly face or a kind word or
a light touch. Just kidding, light touches are the worst
for me. Just knowing that people like Catherine and Pip
(35:46):
and Chelsea exist as well as doctor Kelly, who is
autism adjacent, make stepping into this new identity seem a
little less terrifying. I feel more sure of myself after
talking with them, like I can accomplish anything, which is
good because I have a big task ahead of me.
At this point in my journey, I've passed through the
(36:07):
outer rings with my disclosure. I've told friends, acquaintances, and
total strangers. But now it's time to let in the
innermost ring, the ring with the highest stakes. It's time
to tell my family You've been listening to the Loudest
(36:32):
Girl in the World. It's hosted, written, end executive produced
by me Lauren Ober. Our senior producer is writer. Also
our associate producer is David John. Sophie Crane is our
showrunner and senior editor. Jake Gorski is our mix engineer.
Music composed by my autistic Kiwi Pale the Inimitable Lady Hawk.
(36:53):
Our artwork was created by the autistic illustrator Loretta Ipsum.
The show was fact checked by Andrea Lopez Cruzado, and
our autism consultant is Sarah Cappett. Our executive producers are
Mia Lobell and Lee tom mullat Big. Thanks to my
(37:15):
pal doctor Cally Cyrus for her time and expertise. You
can find her online at Callie DCMD dot com. That's
Callie k a l I super special. Thanks to all
my new autistic best friends Katherine May, Pip Brown, and
Chelsea Wolf check them out in all the places. And
(37:36):
thanks to you friend for listening.
Pushkin. A little content warning. We get into some descriptions
of throwing up in this episode, so if Barf's not
your jam, keep that in mind when listening. Okay, onwards,
(00:36):
I have to give my dog a peanut butter treat
so that she doesn't bark the entire time I'm on
this call, which is what is it? It's the second
meetup of the DC Women's Autism or something. I don't know,
(00:58):
really good grasp of the details there, Lauren. Anyway, I
wanted to dip my toe in the wider autism community
and maybe even make some okay one an autistic friend,
and this group seemed like a good enough place for
me to start. I mean, I am a DC area
autistic lady person, so why not see what they're all about?
(01:21):
Except there was one snag. I actually hate joining things,
but I figure, if I don't have to keep my
camera on, you know, then I feel more comfortable. Obviously
I'm babbling into my voice memos. But then maybe a
(01:43):
lot of people won't turn their cameras on because they
feel the same as I do. And then it's like, well,
why don't we just have a conference call? Okay, so
already I have a bad attitude mostly born of anxiety.
But if I was going to live in the real
world and not some fantasy autism pleasant phil, I needed
to meet some folks like me, and this group seemed
(02:03):
like a low pressure effort at the time. Oh my god,
I'm one minute late. I'm always oh so who cares? All? Right?
Clicking in he we have buses, Yes, Alexandre, we had
to dash bus. I know there's a buses. When the
zoom screen opened to a bunch of strangers and little squares,
(02:26):
folks who were already engaging in some idle chit chat
about public transit right off the bat, I felt squirmy.
It's very common among artistic people not to drive. Yes,
very common. Okay, well, I love driving and my parallel
parking skills are beyond reproach. Oh I can't do it.
(02:49):
I left the zoom room without ever talking or showing
my face. It was a total bust. I tried. I
gave it what three minutes before I bail. It's not terrible,
it's not great, But I could have not shown up
at all. Yes, here's the thing, though, These types of
(03:12):
situations are my private hell, a group where the connection
is tenuous because it's based on some sort of broad identity.
No thank you, like I don't relate to all Gingers
just because none of us look good in the color
red and we all have to wear long sleeves at
the beach. But I was trying to keep an open mind.
I really wanted to know autistic people, even if the
(03:34):
effort came with a slight cost. But I bailed. Clearly
the cost was higher than I anticipated. Now I want
to be absolutely crystalline. This is not about the group.
I'm so glad that it exists and that it provides
some kind of comfort and joy and connection to the
people who participate. Really I do. This is not me
(03:58):
yucking their yum. This is actually me mad at myself
for not getting into it. I'm frustrated that my social
anxiety and my fear of joining make it really hard
for me to feel like I fit in, not just
here in this zoom room, but like in life. But
if I want other autistic people in my orbit, if
I want friends who have this particular shared experience, I'm
(04:21):
gonna have to get over myself, or at least tighten
up my friend making skills. Plot out a BFF strategy
and implemented step by step. So that's what I'm going
to do with the assistance of a millennial self help book,
a neurodivergent psychiatrist friend, and a handful of willing autistic
guinea pigs. But not like pet guinea pigs who are autistic.
(04:44):
You know what I mean. You're listening to the Loudest
Girl in the World. Who is not that one drunk
lady cheering at the baseball game. It's me, Lauren Obert.
The Loudest Girl in the World is a show about
finding yourself broken in a pretty dark place and emerging
(05:06):
from that place a mostly glued back together our person.
I'm a person who likes to solve my own problems.
For example, recently, after some gnarly dental surgery, I figured
I could fix the issue of a giant piece of
(05:28):
bone protruding from my lower jaw with some two dollars
orthodontic wax from CVS, rather than take one more useless
tail and all. My girlfriend regularly marvels at my ability
to come up with fixes for problems she didn't even
know could be solved. What can I say, I'm solutions oriented,
And so it was that I found myself at the
(05:49):
main branch of the DC Public Library looking for a
book on how to make friends use old do it does?
Some more skills here, some like panting, like was he
even wrong with me? Oh? Yeah, what's wrong with me
is that I chose to walk up a million stairs
(06:11):
but neglected to remember how monstrously unfit I had become
in my dotage. Anyway, I'm going to the Psychology and
Personal growth section of the library. I passed a bunch
of books with titles like failure to Launch out Order
(06:31):
in her Calm, and I really needed this today Hoodakapi's
inspirational Words of Wisdom. Then I found what I was
looking for for two. Here we go here to make friends,
How to make friends as an adult? I hope killer
her so short her? WHOA? All right? I'm like almost
(06:56):
embarrassed to take this up to the counter and check
it out, but only almost. When I got home, I
cruised through the book, and here's what I learned. Most
people we have between one and five close friends. A
quality friendship has many dimensions like reciprocity, interdependence, emotional intimacy,
(07:17):
and conflict resolution. And between the ages of forty five
and fifty five. The number of friends people have seems
to plateau. Great something to look forward to. One thing
the book suggested that I hadn't thought of before was
using apps to make new friends, which seems an awful
lot like doing a zoom meet up to me, but
(07:39):
worse because it seems desperate. Just the suggestion that I
use something called friended or friender or friending all real
apps to meet a buddy makes my hair curl pass.
I did the dating apps a million years ago and
had about as much success as a toddler trying to
read Tolstoy. But maybe the apps would be good for
(08:03):
friend making, more one on one interaction, no awkward video.
So I broke my no apps ever again rule and
set up a bumble bff account. Okay, it's downloading, downloading
all right? Open? Oh no, this is giving me like
(08:25):
flashback PTSD. First I had to upload some photos, which
was totally annoying. I was already over this and I
hadn't even gotten into it. I don't need to drag
this out. I quit about thirty two seconds after starting.
Definitely not for me. The profiles were mostly just straight
moms looking for friends or activity. Partners and I wish
(08:46):
some good luck in that, but nary an autistic person
to be found. I was starting to feel dispirited. I
couldn't join the Zoom group, the friend book didn't really help,
and the app Root was not my jam. I was
never going to make an autistic friend. I was stuck
with the neurotips forever unless I called for backup in
(09:09):
the form of a narc ealeptic psychiatrist slash TV personality
who also has ADHD. Doctor Kelly to the rescue. That's
after the break my friend. Doctor Kelly Cyrus is a
board certified psychiatrist in private practice. She is also a neurodivergent,
(09:33):
queer black narc elliptic assistant professor who is often on
TV commentating on race identity and mental health, like here
on the Showtime show Couples Therapy, where she gently nudges
psychoanalyst or a girl Nick to examine her own racial identity.
Can I ask a question, has your whiteness been named?
(09:54):
In what way? Did they ever challenge you about it? No?
I want them to. Ooh Spicy Cally' is a good
pal of mine and helping people fix their problems as
part of her job, so I figured could ask her
to solve all my crap for me. Well, really, just
one thing, Kellie. I need. I need to find autistic
(10:16):
friends who are like me, who are my age, and
I need your Ope, can you help me? I can try,
you can try. I can try. Have you ever have
you ever had anyone ask you to help them find
friends before? I can't say that I've had someone say
help me find autistic friends before? Like me? Right, yes,
(10:39):
but I have gotten before. I need some friends that
they may not really Yeah, so you are not unfamiliar
with the strife and struggle of humans needing connection aka friends. Right,
but this is a special request, I will say. So
what can I say? I'm special? As anyone who is
(11:02):
over the age of twenty three knows, it's hard to
make friends as an adult. It's especially hard when you're
out of practice and you're looking for a needle in
a haystack, in my case, middle aged autistic people who
are not men, but also who like dogs and loud
talkers and don't mind endless conversations about perimenopause or my
upstairs neighbors midday karaoke habits. Before doctor Kelly could help me,
(11:27):
she wanted to know a crucial bit of information. Why
did I want to make an autistic friend so badly?
I could understand why you'd want to find a friend
like you, but what do you want to talk to
them about that you can't talk to other people about it?
Just kind of saying, Okay, that's a really good question.
I've been thinking about this myself, and I think it's
(11:48):
like a comfort thing. I have gone through my entire
life in what I would categorize as like a non
autistic way. I don't know anybody who is autistic, except for,
(12:09):
you know, my girlfriend's son. I'm sure I have engaged
with autistic people many times and just not known it.
But in terms of like my close friends or even
my wider circle of acquaintances, to the extent that anyone
knows anyone's neurology, I don't think any of them are autistic.
(12:30):
And that feels weird in a way that I think
it would feel weird if I was like gay and
didn't know any gay people. Okay, Well, in case you're
just tuning in newsplash, I am gay and I do
know loads of gay people, and being friends with people
like me makes my life feel more complete in a
(12:52):
world where I often feel like an interloper. Having that
familiarity is critical. I explained it to Callie in a
different way. I'm from Pittsburgh, so I don't need to
know people from Pittsburgh to make my way through the world.
But every time I meet someone Fromburg it's like I
immediately feel like comforted around them. We have a similar
(13:16):
understanding of accent, of a language, of a sports team,
of a whatever. But there's another reason why making an
autistic friend or twelve is really important to me. Autism,
for me, doesn't feel normalized unless it's sort of a
part of your everyday life. But right now, it's not
a part of my every day in that I haven't
(13:38):
told that many people, so it's mostly just a diagnosis
that lives in my head along with the lyrics to
Salton Peppa Shoop, my running list of puppy names, and
deep regrets over that cross country road trip I didn't
take when I was twenty two. But doctor Kelley says
it's the lack of disclosure that makes it hard to
connect with people like me. It's kind of like dating
(14:00):
in this way, right like you're looking for someone to
set you up on a blind date to think of
you the next time. Maybe they know somebody or even
if it's there, and you can either try to look
for your future friend in real life or on the internet. Right,
And so some of that means some level of public disclosure,
(14:21):
because this is, you know, more of a private thing.
So you're gonna have to try to attract you know what,
you're looking like, God, well, putting myself out there is hard.
Why can't I just accidentally happen upon a whole trove
of autistic friends while I'm out walking my dog or something.
The best scenario would be like if you were out
doing something you would normally be doing, let's say it's
(14:42):
not coronavirus, and you met someone who also happened to
be autistic, which is like how you would find out
in that way because you're not wearing a badge of like,
don't just I'm going to though, now we're I'm going
to I'm gonna wear pins, I'm gonna wear some I'm
gonna be like, I'm autistic. Hey, what's what's your name? Okay,
badge pin idea not so great. I think I just
(15:05):
need to get my disclosure on to find people who
are like me. But doctor Kelly said, exercise some caution.
I believe that there's a way to disclose that is
professionally or personally responsible and aligned with whatever your boundaries are. Okay,
so this gives me. This gives me hope that I
might be able to make an autistic friend. But I
(15:25):
really just have to I have to put myself out there. Yes,
if you build it, they will come. Great. Great, I'll
just embody Kevin Conser. I'll just walk out of an
Iowa cornfield being like I'm autistic, and then all of
a sudden people would just be like flocking to me.
(15:46):
He right, I'm telling you that now. But before I
jumped from the autism kittie pool to the deep end,
I wanted to create a cheat sheet of sorts for
myself so I wasn't just flailing about. Luckily, girlfriend Hannah
had just the thing I was looking for. We met
up to talk about it over lunch. I think you're
(16:07):
sitting like too close to me right now? Okay, just
like we don't have to touch while you're sitting next
to me. Are you wearing a mock turtleneck? Okay? No,
I am not stop touching me if oh, if I
can't touch you, then fine, okay fine. Hannah pulled out
a folder with a sheaf of paper stuffed inside. Okay,
this is the thing I wanted to show you, right
(16:28):
which which is It's a it's a pretty well known
program called Peers. Yeah, and it's a program that Jacob
and I did together right before the pandemic. Jacob Hanna's
middle child and my favorite autistic team. Basically, it's a
pretty intense program and it's like a very specific breakdown
of how to make friends, and it's designed for teams
(16:53):
and which I am not, which you are not? But
aren't we all have like an internal age, you know,
and my internal age is seventy five. Thank you. The
handouts from Jacob's class broke down how to make friends
into the tiniest steps. They might seem obvious to most folks,
but autistics are not most folks. It's like identifying where
(17:16):
sources of friends might be. So it's basically like where
do they live, where do they exist? Where do they
show up? And then it's like, then how do you
enter into that the source? Like how do you jump
in that stream? How do you jump into the stream?
And then how do you maintain a conversation so the
conversation doesn't go like this, I like your green sweater.
(17:39):
Thank you. That right there is what we would call
a conversation ender. Good thing. Hannah took so many notes
on the strategies to avoid that happening in the future.
Look at my notes here. It's like, if I can't
even read your hand, reisation, have a prop ready so
that you can drop like a cane or like a
top hat. I would one hundred percent advocate that Hannah
(18:03):
dumped me after this exchange, But there were a lot
of good reminders in the worksheets about how to comport
yourself around people you might want to be friends with.
Ask the other person about themselves, find common interests, share
the conversation, don't be a conversation hug, don't be an interviewer,
don't get too personal at first, Assess interest. There are
(18:26):
for sure a few of those that I struggle with.
I'm going to let you guess which ones. After the break,
I'm going to take all this info and I'm going
to use it to put myself out there and see
who shows up. Just kidding, I'm going to be a
reporter and call up cool autistic people and see if
any of them want to be my friend. It's one
of the perks of working in media, asking interesting folks
(18:46):
to talk to you, and damn it, I'm going to
use it. Would you think I was going to do
stand on the sidewalk wearing a sandwich board that read
I'm autistic? Are you? I mean? I did consider it.
(19:10):
After trying and failing with the autistic Lady zoom and
the make a Friend app, I figured I needed to
get more strategic. With my doctor Callie conversation in my
head and the autistic teen worksheets at my fingertips. I
came up with a few rules to help guide my approach.
Rule number one, find things in common to talk about.
(19:34):
Catherine May is the New York Times best selling author
of Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult
Times During the pandemic, I, like half the people I know,
read this book. It was a real beacon in the
perpetual bleakness that was COVID times. In reading that book,
one of the things I learned was that Catherine was autistic.
(19:56):
Well shit, that's exciting. Of course, upon uncovering that, I
had to know everything about her. One crucial detail about
Catherine is that before she wrote Wintering, she published a
memoir about learning she was artistic. It's called The Electricity
of Every Living Thing, and you should pass this episode
and go order a copy right now. It's that good. Naturally,
(20:20):
I wanted to be best friends with her, so I
called her up at her home in Kent in the
UK and just went for it. I'm curious about the
initial process of thinking about artism, or kind of diagnosing yourself,
Like I know in the book it became like a
compulsive yeah, job of like I need to hoover up
(20:42):
all the information about this. Yeah. I think that's a
really common experience having talked to other like diagnosed autistics.
Actually that you've become totally obsessed with hoovering. Like it
was this moment of recognition for me. I was driving
in my car and I heard a woman on the
radio talk about being autistic herself, and genuinely, you know,
(21:02):
like I was thirty nine years old. It was the
first time I'd ever heard an autistic woman speak about
her experiences, and I immediately recognized myself. There was just
there was just no shadow of a doubt in my mind.
Like I felt this immediate contact with her, and it
was on one hand quite thrilling and on the other
(21:24):
hand completely terrifying and unknown. And like, you know, did
I want to carry this label? What would it mean?
What does it mean about me? You know, the whole
big cloud of thought and fear, you know, anxiety, Oh
my god, same, we're twins. I wanted to talk to
you about your temper as a kind, and and I guess,
(21:49):
like what that looked like when you were a child. Yeah,
I was, you know, seen as a child with a
temper who could kind of fly off the handle, who
was naughty and difficult. And I believed that about myself,
and so that's what I've kind of overwritten my memory with,
(22:09):
you know. And so to see it now as like
an autistic child who was meeting moments of social and
sensory overwhelming was therefore mentally collapsing in the way that
you know, we're really familiar with understanding that autistic kids
do now and adults, but you know, probably more more
visibly children. I find it hard to unravel and to
(22:31):
go back to what those triggers were for me. You know,
they've they've kind of vanished in time, and what I
remember as being disapproved of by adults for losing control
and feeling very different in that sense, like very very
much like a like somebody who was who did not
have control of their behavior in the way that other
(22:53):
children did, and wondering how other children managed to pull
off this amazing feet of control. Okay, it was clear
that Kathern May and I weren't destined for best friend necklaces,
Oprah and Gail move over. We had empathy, we had
in common like anger and meltdowns. We were on the
express train to Paltown, so I had to ask will
(23:17):
you be my autistic Yes? Yes, this is so great.
I'm so glad you said yes, because it would be
really awkward if you said no. Autistic friendmaking level one unlocked.
But then I made it weird by following up our
chat with an email saying I was going to fly
to the UK so we could do a ramble in
(23:38):
the countryside like a good brit Catherine politely declined rule
number two for how to make a friend show some vulnerability. Now,
normally I'm allergic to the V word, but sharing is caring, right.
(24:03):
Pip Brown is an electro pop singer songwriter from a
Tiaroa New Zealand known as Lady Hawk. Hey, I'm Lady
Hook or you can call me Pip. Fun fact, Pip
composed all the original music for the series, So if
you like what you hear, give Lady Hawk's tunes a whirl.
But Pip is other things besides a musician. She's a
(24:24):
prolific gamer, a parent, and for our purposes and artistics,
soon to be friend. Did you ever have a clue
you're like because you felt like you were a little
bit weird, a little bit different than you found music
and it was a relief. But did you sense like
like there's something else? Yeah? Yeah, there was that feeling
(24:44):
for me. And when I was living in Melbourne, I
was struggling a lot with going outside. I was struggling
with like getting on public transport to go to my job,
which was I worked at a bar. I remember thinking
to myself, this shouldn't be this hard for a person.
Other people don't find it that hard to walk out
the front door and like get on a tram. But
(25:06):
for me, I had the cyclical thoughts in my head
of everything that could go wrong in the time that
I stepped out of the door and hopped onto the tram.
So for me, my biggest fear has always been the
unpredictability of other people. And I hate getting on like
public transport and not knowing what's going to happen because
strangers are just like crazy, instantly crazy. To me, I'm like,
(25:28):
anyone could do anything at any point. Pepper is doing
an excellent job in the vulnerability department. Clearly she knows
how this friend making thing works. So I hopped on
a tram. I really really mentally worked myself up to it.
I was like sweating and I felt sick. I was
like I'm nautious, I'm nauseous, and I was sitting there
and this like junkie couple hopped on the next stop
(25:52):
and instantly the check just puked on the ground and
I went and that's why worst, that's like my worst nightmare.
Like you couldn't put me in a worse situation. And
I was like having a meltdown and like I had
to get off the tram and I called my girlfriend
at the time. It's like I'm off the trim, come
come get me, help me. A junkie puked Like that
(26:19):
was I'm laughing so much because this is like, this
is exactly my feeling, Like I feel you on this
so hard, because like any kind of erratic behavior is
very stressful to me. So like, so this is gonna
sound totally nuts, but just bear with me. Like I
(26:43):
have a real I have almost like a phobia of
particular birds, because birds are like unpredictable. Birds will come
like flap at you. Like I got tacked by a
turkey once and it was like holy shit, like what
is happening? Yeah, yeah, And I'm fearful that the thing
is gonna impact me, Like what's happening. I'm fearful that
(27:04):
it's gonna happen on me. Oh yeah, Well, you don't
want to get barthed up. I don't want to get
based on or pooped on, or like all the things
I've seen heaven. You know, I had to immassive. Well
you wouldn't know this, but like my social anxiety when
I was a kid up and through probably college was
(27:25):
like that I would throw up in public and I
would make myself so nervous about the idea, and because
I was anxious about that, I would get a stomach ache,
and the stomach ache would say to me, oh, you're
gonna throw up in public, so so I would have
to like sit out, Like I'd be all ready to
(27:47):
go for like Halloween trick or treating and then feel
super anxious, feel like I was going to throw up,
and then have to sit it out. And I never
puped ever. I never did. You've just described my entire
childhood that exact thing. Yeah, was my thing, and I
always god would work myself up to the point where
(28:08):
I felt nautious, and then I'd be like, I'm gonna puke.
I'm gonna puke, I'm gonna puke. I can I'd be like,
oh my god, I'd have a puke. And I'd always
have to get seen hard from school as well and
be like, I can't, I can't do this class. I
feel sick. I feel sick. I want to be sick. Right.
It was just like it was awful, and it followed
me around for years. That ship. Oh my god, me too.
(28:31):
I don't tell many people that stuff because it's weird
like bird and bar phobias, really, but I shared some
of my vulnerabilities and it turns out Pip has them
too well, not the bird thing that's all me. But
still I feel like we could be moving to best
friend zone. Oh, I have one last question, Um, do
(28:52):
you want to be my autistic friend? Yes? Yes? M
Did I sense a slight hesitation in Pip's voice? Maybe
she is probably worried I will exhibit unpredictable behavior if
we ever meet in life, and she would be right
to be concerned. According to the Autistic teen Worksheet, one
(29:15):
of the most important skills in friendmaking is that when
you are in conversation with someone, you reflect back what
the other person has told you. You don't shift the
conversation back to you and your story. This approach to
friendship might be obvious, but it's something I actively struggle with,
mostly because I use my own experience as a way
(29:36):
to empathize with people. But that can take you out
of someone else's story. By the way, this is me
being vulnerable with you. Do you want to be friends now?
And I thought so? So my final rule be a
(29:57):
reflective listener. Chelsea Wolf is a professional BMX writer in
San Diego, and a pretty excellent one at that. She
was an alternate to represent the US in the twenty
twenty Tokyo Olympics. Chelsea is also one of the very
few out transaction sports athletes. From a young age, Chelsea
(30:18):
was into just about everything with wheels, jeeps, remote controlled cars,
but bikes stole her heart. There's something so fascinating and
beautiful about the bicycle and how it's just a simple
but also complex piece of machinery that can be fine
tuned to just create beautiful music of riding basically, and
(30:42):
just the different styles of bikes and construction they're They're
very fascinating. Her obsession with bikes was one of the
reasons she suspected she might be autistic. Probably one of
my longtime special interests is just bikes and bike knowledge.
I worked as a mechanic for like nine years, and
there's just so many things to learn about such a
(31:04):
simple thing. But then socially as well, like the freedom
that bicycles provide of just freedom of motion and their
involvement in various liberation movements throughout history. Bicycles are a
very special thing to me. I feel you like I'm
smiling the whole way through as you're talking, because I
(31:26):
feel the same way. I mean, you know, I was okay,
So I'm shifting back to me not really reflective listening, Lauren.
Let's try again. Did you get a formal autism diagnosis
or did you sort of self identify self diagnosed? And
when did that happen for you? I kind of always
(31:46):
knew there was something. My older brother was diagnosed as
autistic at a very young age. Very difficult, you know,
the boy gets diagnosed and the girl is ignored. So
it wasn't until a couple of years ago actually that
when the pandemic started, all of those supports kind of
fell apart and I had to start spending time with
(32:07):
myself that I started to really have to figure out, like,
what is it that makes me tick? How do I
learn how to function again without the supports that I
used to have. So it was during the year of
twenty twenty, like that was when I sought out and
got a diagnosis. But I went my entire life just
(32:30):
thinking that there was something wrong with me, rather than
realizing like, oh, this, this particular thing about me is
because of the autism. Like I just thought it was
like a character flaw. That's interesting that you had a
sibling who was on the spectrum and was diagnosed, and like,
(32:51):
I mean, were there similarities between you where you were like, oh,
he has that I'm a little bit like that, absolutely,
And that's the thing that blows my mind that I
don't understand how I wasn't diagnosed sooner. Is like almost
all of the things that got him his diet ignosis,
like the various traits that were noticed and picked up
(33:12):
on by the adults. I had the same thing. But
instead of being like, oh, wow, like you might be
autistic too, let's take you to a professional and figure
this out, it was like, why are you doing that thing?
And I would get in trouble for it and be criticized.
It's like, well what, And it's really funny too. Was
like at the time, my parents wouldn't have had any
reason to suspect that I wasn't a boy just like
(33:34):
my older brother. And yet my experiences even in that
time is more closely aligned with experiences of them people
and women who are autistic being overlooked and having our
needs neglected because the way that they are perceived that
is so interesting. Isn't like like in your brain, in
(33:57):
your soul, in all of the parts that matter, you're
identifying as female, and so that is how your brain works,
and you were probably doing all of the sort of stereotypical,
like masking, camouflaging, like all of that kind of stuff.
I don't know. I mean, it's so it's also complicated
(34:19):
and interesting, weird and like our brains are so bizarre.
This is all going very well. I think now you
know what I have to ask, Chelsea. I want to know,
will you be my autistic friend? I would love to
be your autistic friend? Yes? Yes, lemons the best friends
(34:40):
like this. You know how there's always like growing up,
there's that just disconnect of like you don't understand why
you don't connect with your peers, but you know that
you don't, and you just feel like an outcast. Autistic
friends of the opposite. It's like you don't understand why
you have that connection, but you just fit in. It
works so well. So yeah, are the best fantastic So
(35:03):
if I ever, if I ever come out to talking
to all these great autistic women and gently forcing my
friendship on them was so inspiring and heartening. It's such
a lovely feeling to know that you're part of a clan,
that you have kin beyond the people who raised you.
These women made me feel like I'm not alone. I
(35:25):
felt like they got me, and I got them, and
the importance of that can't be underestimated. We all want
to feel seen and have our experiences reflected back to
us in a friendly face or a kind word or
a light touch. Just kidding, light touches are the worst
for me. Just knowing that people like Catherine and Pip
(35:46):
and Chelsea exist as well as doctor Kelly, who is
autism adjacent, make stepping into this new identity seem a
little less terrifying. I feel more sure of myself after
talking with them, like I can accomplish anything, which is
good because I have a big task ahead of me.
At this point in my journey, I've passed through the
(36:07):
outer rings with my disclosure. I've told friends, acquaintances, and
total strangers. But now it's time to let in the
innermost ring, the ring with the highest stakes. It's time
to tell my family You've been listening to the Loudest
(36:32):
Girl in the World. It's hosted, written, end executive produced
by me Lauren Ober. Our senior producer is writer. Also
our associate producer is David John. Sophie Crane is our
showrunner and senior editor. Jake Gorski is our mix engineer.
Music composed by my autistic Kiwi Pale the Inimitable Lady Hawk.
(36:53):
Our artwork was created by the autistic illustrator Loretta Ipsum.
The show was fact checked by Andrea Lopez Cruzado, and
our autism consultant is Sarah Cappett. Our executive producers are
Mia Lobell and Lee tom mullat Big. Thanks to my
(37:15):
pal doctor Cally Cyrus for her time and expertise. You
can find her online at Callie DCMD dot com. That's
Callie k a l I super special. Thanks to all
my new autistic best friends Katherine May, Pip Brown, and
Chelsea Wolf check them out in all the places. And
(37:36):
thanks to you friend for listening.
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