Innovators on the Spectrum

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The topics and opinions expressed on the
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W four WN Radio. This is
Beyond Confidence with your host w park.

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Do you want to live a more
fulfilling life? Do you want to live

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your legacy and achieve your personal,
professional, and financial goals? Well?

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Coming up on dvparks Beyond Confidence,
you will hear real stories of leaders,

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entrepreneurs, and achievers who have stepped
into discomfort, shattered their status quo,

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and are living the life they want. You will learn how relationships are the

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key to achieving your aspirations and financial
goals. Moving your career business forward does

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not have to happen at the expense
of your personal or family life or vice

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versa. Learn more at wwdas don't
divpark dot com and you can connect with

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div Ant contact ant divpark dot com. This is beyond confidence And now here's

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your host div Park. Good morning
listeners. So thrilled to be here with

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you because I get to talk to
you and all these are just around the

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corner and there is magic in the
air. Here's what I'm going to share

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with you. I want to share
that it's important to have that sense of

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gratitude in your heart because gratitude,
and my experience, is the ultimate gift

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that you can give to yourself.
So be sure to have that gratitude in

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your heart and count your blessings.
So I want to count you as one

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of my biggest blessings because you have
been wonderful. And I want to think,

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can every one of you have got
a box, whether it's expert to

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an influencer, which will help you
become the influencer not just with numbers and

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likes or followers, but an influencer
who creates a positive impact, who brings

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meaning to people's lives, or the
entrepreneur's garden that is going to help you

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build that relationship with yourself, whether
you're an entrepreneur or a professional or a

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human being because it helps you develop
that relationship with yourself and with the important

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things like results, time, money
that will change your life. And thank

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you for getting a box because partial
profits from our books go to Kiwa dot

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org and keep the Kindness Circle going. If you can spend one hour of

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your time every month without any agenda, without any thing else on your mind,

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and help somebody out, that would
be amazing. So let's bring in

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our guest, doctor Angela Lauria.
Welcome, Hello, Thanks for having me.

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Oh, it's a joy to have
you here. So do you recall

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a moment from your childhood that still
stands out for you today. It can

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be a person, it can be
a situation, anything. Well, one

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came to mind, and it's an
interesting little story because now I'm a late

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diagnosed autistic and now I can see
so much autism in it. But I

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was picked to be Mary in our
school Christmas play and there was like a

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baby doll that they had mehold that
was supposed to be Jesus. And I

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was in this Chris misplay. I
don't know if we were singing songs or

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what. And I was rocking this
doll and for years it was a joke

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in my family that I almost rocked
the baby off the stage, just rocking

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so much because I was nervous,
which in autistic culture we call stemming,

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So we do a lot of rocking
and appropriateceptive movements to create emotional regulation.

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And what I would say is my
childhood was this mix sort of like my

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adulthood of always being featured as the
star, right like I got the lead

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role at five years old in the
Nativity play. Angela has so much confidence,

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We'll put her right on stage.
But then also learning how to stay

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emotionally regulated in those moments, and
that has been kind of one of my

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biggest challenges because I am very confident, I'll put myself out there, but

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then I'm like, WHOA did I
mean to do that? This is scary.

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So I think that is kind of
my quintessential first beyond confidence, childhood

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memory. And what you said was
so beautifully pued that it's that beautiful mix

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of it, that there's that confidence
that gets you out there and yet there

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is something that's holding you back,
and yet you tackle it and help it

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bring together. Yeah, that's beautiful. Well, and I think that relationship

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it's almost like a cyclical relationship.
I naturally want to try new things,

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but then they're uncomfortable. So then
I'm like, well, maybe I should

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not try new things because I don't
want to feel uncomfortable, because who does.

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But then I'll have inspiration from God
or sorceror however you think of it.

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That'll be like, do this thing, and I'm like, oh,

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here we go again. It's much
more comfortable on my couch with a book.

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But okay, here's the thing.
Most people are uncomfortable with most of

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the things because think about it,
we love our routines. Most of people

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my oh gosh it before I don't
have them my coffee in the morning,

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I'm not going to be awake.
And if you take a look at our

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lives there, everybody has something on
the other that they need in their lives,

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and it's hard to break that mold. So what you're sharing is it's

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applicable to everyone. So as you
continued growing and in your childhood because you're

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not diagnosed, were there moments in
your youth that it was a challenge?

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Oh yeah, the crowd? Yeah
yeah. So one of the things we

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would tell autistic kids or parents of
autistic adults now is to let them stim

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because it helps them regulate. Let
them rock. And what we used to

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tell and like, nobody did anything
wrong. I'm fifty years old. We

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didn't know that girls had autism and
that it looked different. You know,

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no one should have caught me.
It wasn't happening. I'm not mad at

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anyone. There's nothing to forgive.
But what we would say now is maybe

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don't make fun of the rocking and
maybe even encourage the rocking because it's creating

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a calmness and a connection to the
body that I didn't have because I don't

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have good awareness of my body.
That's called inter reception, and so that

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was creating that connection. So what
happened and what happens to a lot of

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autistic people, because I was sort
of told to sit on my hands,

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you know, don't rock so much, don't be difficult, don't make a

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scene. I'll slap your hands,
don't do all those things which everyone was

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just wanting the best for me.
Nobody was paying that to be terrible.

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What that creates is emotional dysregulation,
and so I would regularly have what we

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call autistic meltdowns. So I would
have flipouts. So, for instance,

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I remember another time in school,
maybe a lot of times in school where

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I felt strongly my teacher was wrong
about something. The example that's coming to

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mind was my teacher was saying Mexico
is in Central America, and I was

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arguing that it was in North America. It's in North America. I was

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right, and so I kept interrupting
the teacher, like I would not let

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the class go on until the record
was clarify. How can we pay attention

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to anything if miss Greco does not
apologize for putting Mexico in Central America instead

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of North America, which I now
see wasn't that important. But I have

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this huge meltdown. I didn't get
suspended, but I got sent down to

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the principal's office. There were all
these interventions, like so many well meaning

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people telling me that's not how to
behave. And I was perpetually in this

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state of confusion because she was teaching
geography, right, How can you How

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can the geography teacher be wrong?
I know that's wrong. I know that's

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wrong because I read the entire encyclopedia
multiple times, so I know where Mexico

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is. I have that entry memorized, and so that disconnect had me in

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constant fights. One of my teachers. He has since died, so I

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will call him out here. But
mister Harris, I can't remember what I

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did. But he was an English
teacher and I must have driven him so

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crazy that he threw me against the
lockers. Oh you know, the ham

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me against slackers. One of my
favorite teachers, Missus Crockett, and there

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are many autistic women who tell this
exact same story. Missus Krackett was like,

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I love this girl. She is
super smart, and she's completely disrupting

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my class. I have thirty kids
trying to learn sixth grade English, and

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this girl will not stop talking.
I would not stop talking. They would

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always call me chatty Kathy, you
know. And so she put me in

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an eighth grade English curriculum and she
moved my desk to the hallway and I

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taught myself eighth grade English in sixth
grade while sitting in the hallway. And

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many autistic, particularly women, experience
this where either in a nice way,

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you're completely excluded, called a weirdo
and moved out into the hallway, or

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in a frustrated way, you're thrown
against our lockers, are sent to the

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principal, or so but I have
this confidence that I was right. Will

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also often get diagnosed in women as
either narcissism or bipolar, which is a

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misdiagnosis and a frequent misdiagnosis. Because
I knew Mexico was in North America,

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I knew whatever I was arguing with
whoever was right, and it without the

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supports. And now there are much
better supports in most schools, but without

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those supports, I was in this
constant state of confusion, depression, anxiety,

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and the things that would make me
feel better, like stemming or focusing

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on my special interests I was told
not to do because they were weird,

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like don't talk about back you read
the encyclopedia. By the time I moved

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got to middle school, all of
my friends, my only friends, were

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the reference librarians at my library,
and I would I had to go to

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the library because I only wanted to
read reference books. I just wanted to

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read encyclopedias. So by middle school, I was reading the Encyclopedia of Content

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Temporary Authors, which is like a
hundred volumes of bios of every author.

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Books have always been my special interest, and I was told don't talk about

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that, that's weird. But then
I was also told academics are good and

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get good grades, and authors are
good and the library is good. So

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I'm like, wait, is it
good or bad? So yeah, So

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it was confusing because on one hand
you're being told one thing and one thing.

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It's finding that balance and yeah,
and just telling to a young child,

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Yeah, there would be a thing. This was a major thing for

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me in school. Class participation is
ten percent of the grade. I really

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want you to participate. So I
just talked all through class. I'd come

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in with presentations. I was ready
to teach on every subject, and then

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I would be told don't participate,
and I'm like, but you're doing ten

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percent of the grade. You didn't
say how much it was. I thought

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it was the more, the better
you keep saying. So then the teacher

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would be talking to class. You'd
be like everyone, I'd like you to

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participate. So I thought she was
talking to me because I was in the

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class, so I would participate.
You'd be like, Angela, please be

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quiet, turn your desk around,
go sit at the back of the room.

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So yeah, it's interesting being an
undiagnosed autistic because those are very common

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occurrences that people like me that are
diagnosed I was diagnosed at thirty nine will

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share these experiences and they're so similar. It's about having that clarity. So

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the more clarity is provided to anyone, then it's clear, like what is

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expected on one head, what does
that participation look like? Sharing that to

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people, sharing it to kids,
wherever anybody is so that way that confusion

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is not there. So that said, and you thank you for sharing your

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stories, and I'm sorry you had
to go through that. And at the

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same token, I see it has
made you a very very strong person.

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And now you're out and about true
advocating and sharing your stories and bringing that

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vulnerability to people. So that shows
a lot of courage. So I do

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appreciate that, and I would like
to acknowledge you for that. Yeah.

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Thanks. It was other people sharing
their stories that helped me find the truth

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about who I was. And so
I know, maybe it's your kid,

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maybe you're listening and you're like,
oh, my kid does that, that's

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why they're getting in trouble at school, Or maybe it was your sister.

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For years, my sister thought I
was a narcissist and we didn't really talk

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much. And then once I started
to understand what autism was, and she

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learned just a few tools to support
the neurodivergent people that you love. We

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make up about fifteen percent of the
population. So someone you love or work

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with is neurodivergent, and if they
are driving you nuts in some of these

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ways, understanding kind of our our
neurology will help you to build better relationships

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and probably be less frustrated with us. Ah, it's important that we open

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up our hearts to everyone because I
can tell you I've got my own quirks,

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plenty of quirks. So it's definitely. So let's say you said you

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talked about there a lot of new
divergent people and it is, so how

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do people Well, Before we get
there, let's come back to your story.

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So tell us you know you are
absolutely very, very smart, as

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you've shared from your stories. So
what career did you take on in your

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college and where did you go from
there? And tell us a little bit

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about your journey from there to here. Yeah. One of the things about

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autism, again I did not know
this, is we have a very strong

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sense of social justice and sensitivity to
justice and fairness. That is often the

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negative way that's described as we're very
black and white thinkers. But in eighth

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grade I was skipping school to attend
apartheid rallies. So yes, I started

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my first nonprofit when I was thirteen
to raise money for live aid for the

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famine in Africa. And was always
very interested in social justice and also journalism,

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and so I majored in journalism.
I wanted to be an investigative reporter

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and ended up actually getting a job
in my field. So I worked for

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some of the most famous investigative reporters, pulletz Er Prize winners, helping them

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with books. So I did a
book on the Iraq War. I did

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a bunch of espionage books when I
started, And so yeah, I majored

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in journalism, which as my special
interest. It was sort of a cross

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between writing and investigative journalism, which
were two of my special interests. And

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then I moved into working on books, which is what I do today.

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I run Difference Press. I help
people to write books. I'm a ghost

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writer. I have editing services,
i have publishing services, and I've been

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doing this since I was twenty years
old and I'm fifty now. I don't

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know how it happened. So it's
fantastic, congratulations. What we know about

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autistic people is if you can find
work in your special interests. So let's

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say you're really into trains and you
know everything about trains, get a job

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working in trains, be a train
historian, work in a train museum,

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like, whatever your special interest is. And I've been able to do that,

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even though I thought it was just
luck. But I do have a

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little family story about that. So
autism is hereditary. My dad is autistic.

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We also figured that out late in
life. But one of the big

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lessons to me growing up. One
of our family stories is my dad fell

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in love with hot rods when he
was twelve years old. He saw his

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first model tea and he really wanted
to buy one, so he bought a

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shoeshine kit and he used to go
to the church, Saint Mary's Church in

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New Haven, and he would stand
on the steps when church would get out

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and he would sell shoeshines for a
quarter. And he collected all those quarters,

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and by the time he was sixteen, he bought his first car,

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and by the time he was eighteen
he had started a company. He was

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very successful. My dad's in the
hot rod hall of fame. He's done

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lots of famous people's cars and always
made money, made a good living working

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on hot rods, on specialty cars. And so when I grow up,

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they say children learn what they live. So what I thought was, when

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you were, you know, twelve
years old, you would find the thing

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you were most passionate about in the
world, and then you would build a

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career doing the thing you loved most
in the world and make lots of money

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doing it. I never considered anything
else. And it's one of like the

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greatest parenting lessons. And obviously none
of us knew anything about autism at the

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time. But that is the secret
to happiness for a lot in work,

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for a lot of autistic people is
to do what you love. Everybody says

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that, but it's not always as
easy to do right. And as you

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mentioned, one of the things that
it's important to do what you want to

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do. Now what happens is in
your case, you know, you were

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diagnosed late, so you did not
know that and you had different type of

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challenges. And especially nowadays, you
know what people are so much aware.

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People are very much into like,
Okay, you know my kid is here,

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let me get them diagnosed. And
see what's the best thing that I

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can do for my child. So, now, as the child grows,

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how can they embrace their autistic or
neurodivergent entity. Yeah, so I think

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the first thing is the saying you
hear over and over again. If you've

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met one autistic person, you've met
one autistic person. Everyone has their own

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profile, all of us, whether
you're autistic or not. Everybody's brain is

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different, everybody is different, and
getting to know your own needs is important

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for everyone. The problem with neurodivergent
people and all neurodivergent means is if you

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imagine a bell curve, with every
bell curve, eighty percent of the people

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are in the middle, twenty percent
around the ends. Right, Neurodivergent people

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are just those people in the skinny
part of the bell curve that are different.

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And so a lot of the advice
that's out there, and this is

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one really specific thing, is a
very famous book right now called Atomic Habits,

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and it's like how to be productive. It's got habits, stacking,

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how to create new habits, twenty
one days of repeating a habit. They've

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got all these great techniques for most
neurodivergent people those techniques won't work. And

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so what happens is your teacher,
THEHR representative, the podcast you listen to

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are recommending these solutions. For instance, they might say the best way to

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deal with a conflict is to sit
down with a person and tell them that

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does not work. For nerdivergent people, we have other ways of dealing with

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conflict. We work much better in
writing, for instance, many of us,

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not all of us. Some of
us work better in pictures. So

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what happens is you hear this advice
over and over again. And if this

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is you and you're a parent and
this is your child, you're giving this

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advice of what to do. I
would get a lot of advice about exercising.

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You should exercise thirty minutes four times
a day, like there's just best

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practices. That does not work for
my appropriate aceptive needs. I get very

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sick from exercising, So there are
ways I can exercise, but I struggle

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with being juggled. So if I'm
like running, for instance, or doing

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any sort of cardio, I am
going to go into vertigo and I'm going

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to be in bed very quickly because
I'm super susceptible to vertigo. Nausea that

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lasts for days. So yes,
theoretically four times a week, half an

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hour a day is great. Realistically, as a neurodivergent person, I now

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know I have to filter all the
advice for what are the pros and cons

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for my neurology. And that's what
you want to do as a parent,

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is to help your kid just get
to know themselves, whether they're nerve diversion

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or or not. My son,
if he does not exercise at least four

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days a week, he is a
hot mess of anxiety. He says it,

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I see it, he sees it. If he exercises every day,

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he has a lot less anxiety.
That is fantastic. He should exercise every

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day. If I exercise every day, I am incapacitated, not working,

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and very anxious about the fact that
I can't pay my bills. So that's

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not going to work for my anxiety. So when you hear like this is

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good for or this does this,
or you can build a habit in twenty

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one days, they are not talking
to neurodivergent people, and knowing that makes

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it so much easier to not feel
terrible about yourself when all this best practices

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advice doesn't work for you. And
that's definitely a good point that filtering what

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you're sharing is that, yeah,
there's a lot of advice out there,

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but filtering so first of all knowing
yourself and then filtering the advice that works

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the best for you. Then always, every person has their strengths, so

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for neurodiverage and people how best they
can leverish their strants. One hundred percent.

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I loved that book. This was
right before I was diagnosed. I

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found the book Strengths Finder. Have
you ever heard of that one? Oh?

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Yeah? And I think they had
a follow up book called Now Focus

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on Your Strengths. Just the title, even before I read the book or

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took their quiz. It's put out
by the Gallop organization. But even before

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I knew any of that, just
the phrase focus on your strengths brought me

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this immense sense of calm because I
was so good at certain things, but

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I was so terrible at other things. And my whole life I was told

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to focus on all the things I'm
terrible at. You know. I struggled

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with an eating disorder, with my
weight and my relationship with food, and

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the message was spend all your time
focusing on fixing your weight and fixing your

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relationship with food and eating healthy.
Now I am at my healthiest weight.

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I have a great relationship with food, and I spend almost no time focusing

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on it. So focusing on my
strengths was a big game changer for me,

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definitely. And you mentioned that that
it was an issue before. Now

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it's not. So what did you
do that it has become that routine where

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you don't even have to think about
it. So I embraced an autistic concept

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called same foods and safe foods.
So if you think about a lot of

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kids who are picky eaters, and
I was always a picky eater. A

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lot of kids who are picky eaters, their parents are like bribing them,

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like if you have one more bite
of vegetables, then you can watch a

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half an hour of TV or screen
time whatever we do kids now. So

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I always felt like I ate badly
and therefore I was bad. And then

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if I ate good, if I
was a good eater, I would eat

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vegetables and meat and whatever all the
rules were. But there are actually very

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few foods I eat. There's about
thirty of them. They have enough nutrition,

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and I don't want to try anything
new. I don't need to try

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new things. I always say cornflakes
is as spicy as I get. That

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is like my maximum spice. I
am super sensitive, so I am sensory

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avoidant. So to me, cornflakes
taste very different than they taste to you.

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And so I know the foods I
eat. I know what nutritional benefit

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I'm getting from them. I know
what supplements I need. And I don't

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feel badly about my life my self
for not being a good eater. I've

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kind of changed those definitions. So
I stick with my same foods and my

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safe foods ninety percent of the time. And before I go to a restaurant,

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I'll look at everything they have and
make sure there's something that's safe for

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me. I know it's going to
use up units of energy if I try

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something new. So like last Christmas, I went to a chef's tasting dinner

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and I tried fuaux grath for the
first time, and I don't know other

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exotic foods, and I wanted to
do that. It was a family outing.

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I can do that. I didn't
enjoy it. I don't want to

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do it again, Like I didn't
enjoy those foods but I enjoyed the time

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with my family and the experience,
but I had to rest all day and

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I had to plan to rest the
next day. So that's not But for

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some like foody people, that's like
the best night out. They could do

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it every night if they had the
budget. So I have to really play

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to experiment with food. But I
also don't need to eat a bag of

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oreos. They're not actually a safe
food for me, but if they were,

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I don't need to eat a bag
of oreos to make myself feel better

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about being such a bad eater and
having a bad relationship with food. Now,

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I'll you know, even if it's
something sweet. Vanilla pudding is one

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of my safe foods. I'll have
you know, one little cup of vanilla

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pudding. I don't need to eat
the whole pack because I feel badly about

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not eating vegetables. So that story
that I'm broken went away, and then

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I basically eat what I need for
fuel. I'm not saying I'm skinny,

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but I was three hundred and fifty
pounds and I'm one hundred and eighty.

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So it's a remarkable difference when you
realize, like, no, you don't

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need to eat a variety of foods. You don't need to eat the rainbow,

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you don't need to eat the food
pyramid if the cost of doing those

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things is that you hate yourself and
it makes you three hundred funds because you're

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so miserable and anxious. So it's
good advice unless it's not for you.

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Right. The key is what works
for you, and that's applicable to anyone

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who's trying to change or knowing what
makes you move forward, knowing yourself Basically,

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that's what you're going back to.
It that the more you know about

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yourself, the more you can design
your habits, your food. It doesn't

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matter, and you can keep on
moving forward and achieving great things like you

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have done. So can you kind
of share? Is there any harmful stereo

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typing that is around neuro divergent people? Yeah? So I want to teach

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this little concept called double empathy.
There is a lot of old, dated

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and incorrect research out there that says
autistic people are not empathic, they don't

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have empathy. This is work that
was done by a guy named Simon Baron

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Cohen work on theory of mind and
autistic people, and there are some famous

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ones you might know, like Steve
Jobs or Elon Musk, they are often

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known for being We are often known
for being quite blunt, for being rude.

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And what this is interpreted as is
we have no empathy. So someone

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would come into Steve Jobs's office he
didn't like something they did, and he

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would just say you're fired, get
out of my office, and people are

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like, god, he has no
empathy. Like this woman has a family,

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she's been here thirty years. Oh, Elon Musk, when he fired

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three thousand people over email, people
are like, I've worked here twenty years.

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Do you have no empathy? So
recent studies in the past eight years,

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led by a guy named Damian Milton
in the UK, have shown when

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you pair two autistic people together,
both of them show empathy towards each other.

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And when you pair two non autistic
people or what we call allistic people

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together, they will show empathy to
each other. They will find the other

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person has empathy. But when you
pair an autistic person and an aulistic person,

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they will say the other person doesn't
have empathy. What this shows,

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and this study has been repeated over
and over again in multiple cultures, is

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autistic people have empathy. Holistic people
have empathy, but we don't have empathy

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for each other because we don't understand
our neurotypes. So the reason why Elon

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Musk would have felt like the way
he fired people was very empathetic was they

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knew it was coming. They'd been
following in the news that there was going

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to be huge layoffs. He'd been
interviewed and said he was going to lay

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off seventy five percent of the workforce. He would think, you just want

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to get this over with and get
on with your life and find out what

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the package is. And if I
have to do phone calls with three thousand

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employees personally, it's going to take
a long time. You're going to find

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out already. It's going to be
super awkward and it's a waste of your

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time. So the most empathetic way
I can lay you off is by sending

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you an email all at the exact
same time. Now, in autistic culture,

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that is the empathetic way to do
it. That is high empathy.

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But in aulistic culture, it's just
this massive affront. So the biggest stereotype

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that we need to break about autistic
people is we aren't empathetic. We are

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incredibly empathetic. We just see it
differently than you. And if we understand

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that, we can bridge that double
empathy gap definitely. And you mentioned initially

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good I'm going back to before and
I completely agree with you. Before we

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go to the next point is that
understanding people and what they're capable of,

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and if you understand them, it's
much easier to accept people rather than cancel

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them or rather than say, oh, they don't have X, Y,

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and Z. And that goes for
every human being. That's part of being

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a human and having that humanity is
understanding other people that we all are different

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and how can we come together to
build that common connection. So you had

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mentioned earlier that several women go undiagnosed
or get misdiagnosed, So can you share,

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00:33:45.839 --> 00:33:50.079
like, what's the reasoning behind that. Yeah, well there's a few

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00:33:50.119 --> 00:33:53.039
reasons. So when I was growing
up and I was born in the seventies,

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autism was first diagnosed in nineteen forty
three by doctor Canner. Okay,

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00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:09.000
so that diagnosis happened, and it
happened to be a white male, and

402
00:34:09.440 --> 00:34:15.119
that scientist was also a white male
at the time. That's just how things

403
00:34:15.199 --> 00:34:21.119
were, and so all of the
early research tended to be done on white

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00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:24.800
male boys. There's a famous exception
around this time. Who's the first woman

405
00:34:24.920 --> 00:34:29.840
diagnosed? A woman named Temple Grandon, who a lot of people have heard

406
00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:37.199
of. There's a film about her
life. Her mom was very advocated,

407
00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:42.360
very hard to get her diagnosed.
Her mom was extremely smart. I think

408
00:34:42.360 --> 00:34:46.239
she was from Wellesley. They were
in Massachusetts. They were connected to the

409
00:34:46.280 --> 00:34:52.039
top autism research groups, and she
figured it out. And her mom's kind

410
00:34:52.079 --> 00:34:54.559
of a little bit of the hero
there, partly because they used to blame

411
00:34:54.760 --> 00:34:59.719
moms, mostly of autistic boys.
They would call them refrigerator moms, and

412
00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:02.159
they say, if your mom is
cold, it will turn you autistic.

413
00:35:02.920 --> 00:35:07.880
Not what happens. It's hereditary.
You are autistic for the same reason you

414
00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:10.519
have brown eyes. That's it.
It's just hereditary. There's no vaccines.

415
00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:15.800
That's a complete lie. It's not
the food you eat, it's not monsanto,

416
00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:20.320
it's not social media. You are
autistic for the same reason you're five

417
00:35:20.360 --> 00:35:24.000
to five. Like just it's genetics, that's the answer. So it's not

418
00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:29.800
like getting to the getting people educated. It sounds like it's really really important

419
00:35:30.119 --> 00:35:36.440
sect. So all those studies were
done on wealthy white boys, and so

420
00:35:36.639 --> 00:35:43.000
there are a bunch of ways that
autism presents in men because of sexism and

421
00:35:43.079 --> 00:35:47.199
the patriarchy. So, for instance, boys will be obsessed with trains or

422
00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:52.719
trucks or traps, and that was
just sort of seen as a boy thing.

423
00:35:52.400 --> 00:35:58.440
But if a girl got obsessed with
something, they would be told they

424
00:35:58.440 --> 00:36:01.119
needed to do the dishes, or
clean the kitchen, or help their mom

425
00:36:01.159 --> 00:36:05.679
with the vacuuming. Again, we're
in the fifties, sixties, seventies here,

426
00:36:05.760 --> 00:36:09.679
right, and so girls were socialized
differently. So we are what is

427
00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:17.119
called generally everybody's different but high masking. So in order to survive in our

428
00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:23.079
family, no one could find out
about our special interests. So obviously I

429
00:36:23.239 --> 00:36:28.840
was very obsessed with reading, and
I would sit in my closet and read

430
00:36:29.079 --> 00:36:32.360
because it wasn't seen like I read
too much. It was seen as weird.

431
00:36:32.519 --> 00:36:35.840
Does she always have to have her
head in a book? By the

432
00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:42.599
way, famous undiagnosed autistic girl Belle
from Beauty and the Beast and that song

433
00:36:42.679 --> 00:36:45.960
about Belle about how she's walking around
the town and everyone in the town thinks

434
00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:50.960
she's weird and she's reading a book. She like me, is a linguistic

435
00:36:51.039 --> 00:36:54.920
autistic that is what autistic girls look
like. So maybe you think we're nerdy

436
00:36:55.119 --> 00:37:02.639
or shy or bookie or awkward,
but that can be a sign of masking.

437
00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:07.000
So that's what happened. At the
beginning. All of the studies were

438
00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:10.679
done on boys, so they didn't
recognize how autism shows up in girls and

439
00:37:10.719 --> 00:37:15.679
also in people of color, and
also in poor people, because like,

440
00:37:15.440 --> 00:37:22.719
if you're dealing with poverty and you
need to get a meal and the easier

441
00:37:22.800 --> 00:37:29.599
way to get a meal requires masking
your autism symptoms, you are much more

442
00:37:29.760 --> 00:37:37.280
likely to mask. So poverty has
a huge it's very intersectional what all the

443
00:37:37.320 --> 00:37:42.559
different effects are. Now there are
much more robust studies and since the nineties

444
00:37:42.599 --> 00:37:47.400
we've been diagnosing women. But that
means that there's a whole bunch of adult

445
00:37:47.559 --> 00:37:55.719
women and people of color and people
with other intersectionalities that were never diagnosed younger

446
00:37:55.760 --> 00:38:00.360
because they weren't part of those studies. So that's the number one biggest reason

447
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:04.800
that people still see it as a
boy's illness, and that is for sure

448
00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:09.440
changing. Yeah, that makes sense. And as we're getting closer to wrapping

449
00:38:09.519 --> 00:38:16.920
up our show, what could people
do to make environments safer and inclusive for

450
00:38:17.039 --> 00:38:24.800
your adwagent people. Well, I
think the number one thing is to see

451
00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:36.519
if you automatically feel like somebody is
being difficult or blunt in their communications,

452
00:38:36.679 --> 00:38:42.719
or too black and white, or
asking too many questions or asking for instructions.

453
00:38:43.599 --> 00:38:49.559
It is knowing we just have a
different communication culture. So because we

454
00:38:49.639 --> 00:38:52.039
make up fifteen percent of the population, just like blue eyed people, it's

455
00:38:52.079 --> 00:39:00.159
a recessive gene. We know that
now it's everybody, every single person that

456
00:39:00.280 --> 00:39:07.360
interacts with humans. You are interacting
with neurodivergent people. So learning this different

457
00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:13.760
communication style isn't bad. And just
being able to recognize, oh, that

458
00:39:13.800 --> 00:39:19.599
person has a direct communication style without
jumping to the conclusion, oh that person

459
00:39:19.679 --> 00:39:22.920
is a jerk, that person is
in kind. Just I mean, what's

460
00:39:22.920 --> 00:39:27.920
that thing they say when you assume, you make an ass out of you

461
00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:34.679
and me? That assumption that people
have that blunt or direct communication is coming

462
00:39:34.719 --> 00:39:40.000
from a destructive place. That is
not who autistic people are at all.

463
00:39:40.119 --> 00:39:45.199
We're asking questions or we're bluntly stating. So for instance, in autistic culture,

464
00:39:45.280 --> 00:39:51.360
if you would say do you want
to get Indian food tonight? I

465
00:39:51.440 --> 00:39:54.880
might answer you no. I would
always say yes, I actually like Indian

466
00:39:54.880 --> 00:40:00.639
food, but I would just say
no, and you might think that person's

467
00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:05.039
rude, that person didn't appreciate my
request. No. Literally, your question

468
00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:09.880
was do I want Indian The answer
is no, so blunt, or I

469
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.960
might say what kind of Indian food? From what restaurant? How long is

470
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:17.920
the drive? Whose car is?
Whose car are we going in? That's

471
00:40:17.960 --> 00:40:22.039
because I'm I'm trying to deal with
some of my sensory sensitivities. I know

472
00:40:22.079 --> 00:40:25.199
I'm gonna get carsick. I don't
want to get carsick on the way back

473
00:40:25.280 --> 00:40:30.679
after we had Indian food? Is
it a long drive away? So your

474
00:40:31.199 --> 00:40:40.960
assumption about questions or direct answers,
very often neurotypical people will add a whole

475
00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:45.159
bunch of color. This person doesn't
like me. They're not being considerate,

476
00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:51.920
They you know, are being rude, they're being blunt. Usually that's not

477
00:40:51.960 --> 00:40:57.760
what's happening for people. So just
having that awareness of those communication styles as

478
00:40:57.800 --> 00:41:04.039
a parent, a coworker, a
bar, a partner, just simply educating

479
00:41:04.079 --> 00:41:10.000
yourself on autistic communication culture will make
a huge difference in your relationships because,

480
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:15.920
as you can imagine, those things
escalate quite quickly. Absolutely, So what

481
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:22.719
I'm gathering over here. Is that
widening a perspective and creating that safe space

482
00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:29.119
for people, allowing people to be
themselves and not making assumptions. And when

483
00:41:29.159 --> 00:41:32.840
you're coming from a place of compassion
and no assumption, it creates that safe

484
00:41:32.840 --> 00:41:42.039
space for everyone. So though,
that's a really powerful inside and anybody can

485
00:41:42.079 --> 00:41:49.320
apply that. And when you connect
it to confidence, you can see how

486
00:41:49.360 --> 00:41:52.800
if this is your child or someone
who cares about you, care about how

487
00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:59.599
you would be much more confident in
developing vulnerability and connection if you weren't constantly

488
00:41:59.639 --> 00:42:06.239
being accused of being a jerk when
you were just like asking a question or

489
00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:09.880
trying to be helpful that you know. My thought about that Mexico story that

490
00:42:09.960 --> 00:42:13.599
I told you was like, I'm
helping the whole class. The whole class

491
00:42:13.639 --> 00:42:17.159
could walk around thinking Mexico is in
Central America, this would be a tragedy.

492
00:42:17.199 --> 00:42:22.320
What would happen? And instead of
people assuming that I was trying to

493
00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:27.519
help the class, they assumed I
was trying to embarrass miss Greco. I

494
00:42:27.559 --> 00:42:30.320
was not embarrassing Miss Greco is the
last thing on my mind. I was

495
00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:35.679
like, we must correct the record
or the people of Mexico will rise up

496
00:42:36.079 --> 00:42:45.519
in protest. So yeah, it's
just understanding someone else's perspective and share with

497
00:42:45.599 --> 00:42:50.480
us. Where can people find you
and tell us about your podcast? Yeah,

498
00:42:50.519 --> 00:42:54.679
so the best way to find me
is over at Autistic Culture Podcast.

499
00:42:55.199 --> 00:43:00.840
We talk about autism as a culture
and introduce you to people like Bell from

500
00:43:00.840 --> 00:43:07.559
Beauty and the Beast and Hans Christian
Anderson who wrote The Ugly Ugly Duckling,

501
00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:13.519
which is the original autism story,
and also his story Thomas Jefferson, one

502
00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:16.360
of our founding fathers in America,
who is also autistic, and we talk

503
00:43:16.400 --> 00:43:22.559
about the autistic influence in Washington,
d C. And then some famous autistics

504
00:43:22.719 --> 00:43:30.079
like are autistic hobbies like Pokemon and
dungeons and dragons and chess. Bobby Fisher

505
00:43:30.320 --> 00:43:35.880
also autistic, so you and the
inventor of Pokemon. So you could hear

506
00:43:36.159 --> 00:43:43.360
about famous people and entertainment in autistic
culture and through those fun stories, it's

507
00:43:43.400 --> 00:43:46.559
not science y, it's not technical, but you'll learn how to recognize some

508
00:43:46.599 --> 00:43:51.920
of those triggers so you can be
more loving to yourself if you're autistic,

509
00:43:52.480 --> 00:44:00.920
or to the neurodivergent people in your
life. Sounds like the place to go

510
00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:05.920
and get a lot of great information, connecting and getting educated, because I

511
00:44:06.039 --> 00:44:12.360
believe that education is the light that
can take away the darkness of assumptions and

512
00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:19.559
judgments and bring inclusiveness in. So
thank you for joining us and sharing your

513
00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:25.639
insights. Thank you so much for
having me absolutely because I got educated on

514
00:44:25.719 --> 00:44:30.639
quite a few things that I didn't
know. So it's important that we continue

515
00:44:30.719 --> 00:44:40.079
educating ourselves and keep on bringing that
compassion and opening up our wideness of our

516
00:44:40.159 --> 00:44:44.440
eyes, not just looking through the
lens of like you know what, we

517
00:44:44.519 --> 00:44:51.039
have been conditioned looking through the lens
of understanding and different perspectives. So thank

518
00:44:51.079 --> 00:44:54.559
you and thank you listeners for joining
us, because you are the soul of

519
00:44:54.599 --> 00:45:00.679
the show. Do reach out to
us and let us know can we support

520
00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:07.320
you and how can we help you
live the life you deserve. And I

521
00:45:07.320 --> 00:45:15.280
wish every one of you happy holidays
as they around the corner, and wonderful

522
00:45:15.320 --> 00:45:21.599
times with your families and happy times, joy and love. And thank you

523
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:24.599
one for making the show technically possible. We'll see you next time. Be

524
00:45:24.719 --> 00:45:29.559
well and take care. Thank you
for being part of Beyond Confidence with your

525
00:45:29.559 --> 00:45:32.079
host Divva Park, we hope you
have learned more about how to start living

526
00:45:32.079 --> 00:45:36.920
the life you want. Each week
on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of

527
00:45:36.960 --> 00:45:42.760
real people who've experienced growth by overcoming
their fears and building meaningful relationships. During

528
00:45:42.760 --> 00:45:45.639
Beyond Confidence, div Park shares what
happened to her when she stepped out of

529
00:45:45.679 --> 00:45:50.719
her comfort zone to work directly with
people across the globe. She not only

530
00:45:50.760 --> 00:45:55.000
coaches people how to form heard connections, but also transform relationships to mutually beneficial

531
00:45:55.039 --> 00:46:00.119
partnerships as they strive to live the
life they want. If you are ready

532
00:46:00.159 --> 00:46:04.559
to live the life you want and
leverage your strengths, learn more at www

533
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:10.119
dot wpark dot com and you can
connect with wants contact at wpark dot com.

534
00:46:10.159 --> 00:46:13.320
We look forward to you joining us
next week.