Combating the chaos sensitivity of everyday life can feel hectic and exhausting especially for your brain. Using the power of neuroscience, did you know implementing an intentional Gratitude Practice for just 5 minutes a day can help flip your brain chemistry out of fight or flight sympathetic nervous system (SANS) and into the regenerating state of rest or digest parasympathetic (PANS)?
WELCOME BACK TO ANOTHER EPISODE OF YOU DON’T SOUND AUTISTIC WITH BLAKE AND RACHELLE. BLAKE IS AUTISTIC. RACHELLE IS NOT.
Listen on your favorite streaming platform.
You Don’t Sound Autistic is a mental and emotional health awareness podcast. Each week we do our best to represent both neuro-perspectives and talk about the continual discovery process of life on the spectrum. Our goal is to illuminate, uncover and transparently discuss life with multi-diagnosis and through a multi-generational neurodivergent lens.
After reading this summary, listen to the podcast to hear additional insights and stories told only on the podcast.
Watch your thought-feeling momentum shift from a lack perspective into an “I’m making progress” perspective that can downregulate stress and increase physical capacity to process emotions, future hopes and even your food. Yup…. Gratitude.
GIVING THANKS TO THE SHOW TEAM
The You Don’t Sound Autistic Podcast is created in entirety by co-creators Blake and Rachelle. Our in-house studio supports everything from podcast development, custom intro and outro music and our new website.
- Blake, our host, is currently also our graphic designer, composer, video & audio editor and life expert managing autism, ADHD, anxiety and depression.
- Rachelle, our co-host, is currently our researcher, nutritional educator, primary administrator, website developer and life expert in dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia.
INTRODUCING… THE LAUNCH OF THE YDSA PODCAST WEBSITE (4:39)
We started this podcast as a public service, to acknowledge the thousands of individuals and families experiencing the difficulties of living with undiagnosed (unidentified) mental health challenges without any idea where the invisible struggle was coming from or why life felt so hard to manage.
- We decided to tell our story in a raw and transparent format.
- Today, we can say that creating the podcast and our YDSA community has been part of our healing process and we’re grateful for the journey and fellow YDSA tribe members.
- It can feel like a dark walk but we’re not alone and that’s healing.
- We’ve launched a new dedicated website https://www.youdontsoundautistic.com and have more cool community features to launch in the upcoming weeks.
YOU DONT SOUND AUTISTIC PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP (7:30)
Whether you’re seeking a diagnosis, already have one, self-identified, raising a child or teenager, or supporting a neurodivergent loved one… you’re welcome here.
- Answer a few key questions designed to help us support you and join the group!
HAPPY PODCAST ANNIVERSARY – ONE YEAR! (8:20)
We celebrated our one-year anniversary on June 15th, 2022, with over 7,000 downloads to date. We had 25 downloads in our first month. This month we’re on track for around 1,300 – 1,400 downloads. Shoutout to everyone who listens all over the world.
We checked the stats recently and these are the places where our listeners are coming from:
- Armenia, Chex Republic, Israel, India, Malaysia, Poland, Thailand, South Africa, Zambia, Brazil, New Zealand, Iceland, Russia, Denmark, France, Finland, Singapore, Taiwan, Norway, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Canada, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, The United Kingdom and The United States.
- That’s 29 countries!
- We want to thank everyone for listening, sharing the show and helping our community grow.
Big THANK YOU to our Facebook Group Members and for sharing your journeys, tips and questions. Together we grow as a community and as impowered neurodivergent individuals. We’re grateful for you.
father’s day gratitude (11:50)
While we believe women and men are neurodivergent in equal proportions, men were the first group to be widely recognized and diagnosed. Conversely, Mother’s Day is always celebrated while Father’s Day frequently feels like an obligatory day rather than a day of expressed thanks.
- Neurodivergent Fathers are juggling extra aspects of daily life and today we celebrate Blake and each of you regardless of where you on your journey. Kids and animal companions co-qualify you as a parent.
- Being responsible for neurodivergent self IS like rocket science. Be grateful for your own progress.
Gratitude is the attitude of healing (12:40)
Trauma is a dark and lonely experience. One working definition of trauma is the experience of being confronted with an unexpected force that left you feeling helpless and alone. Identifying that you’ve been living in trauma can be shattering enough but add in the challenge of finding a way to heal from it… and you can be left feeling traumatized all over again.
- Gratitude sounds cheesy but it can be simple, grounding and organizing.
- It’s the practice of focusing your mind and emotions away from the fear/anxiety loops and towards the elements in your life that bring you joy and appreciation.
- Grounding techniques help your nervous system downregulate into Rest & Digest.
CALIBRATING GRATITUDE & SYNCING BRAIN COHERENCE (13:52)
The Parasympathetic (PANS) nervous system signals your neuro-biological systems to normalize your breathing and turn back on your digestion. Your immune system and temperature regulations flip back on to help you gain better sleep and heal from daily stress. Your brain waves start syncing, linking and operating in coherence.
- Reflecting and processing time helps so you can do a little planning and semi-peaceful thinking.
- This is a baby-steps process that gains momentum the more you do it.
- It’s cumulative. 5 minutes each night can get you started. Add 5 minutes in the morning and you’ll feel a little extra brain hug as you start your day.
initiating life transitions (14:35)
Some life changes are involuntary like a death in the family or losing your job. However embracing a desired life change can feel just as overwhelming but for different reasons. Accepting desire for change while living in the experience you no longer desire is a real trick of motivation and positive attraction.
Blake has been open about his lack of career, dating and living satisfaction in Georgia. He’s spent the last 18 months devoted to Declan and making life here work but in addition to working with his medication management physician, it’s also time to evaluate the physical location we’re living in for Blake’s mental health.
- When a flower doesn’t blossom, you change the environment, not the flower.
- This is a tricky task especially with Blake’s ADHD and need for instant gratification.
- How do we move two households, while maintaining a sense of order that minimizes dysregulation for Declan while also starts to solve challenges for Blake?
- And this all has to work for Rachelle, her career, social life, and mental health. Not to mention transitioning all the admin, medical support systems and countless other facets of our environment that are currently in place right now.
- We’re starting with GRATITUDE and intentionally recognizing every part of life right now that is working and feels good. By calibrating to gratitude FIRST, we set the framework for the next chapter to be GOOD or GOODER than what we have today.
We learn by living (15:55)
When we first start anything new in life, we have limited reference points. The brain may be fixated on visuals from social media, early childhood thought/feeling/threat programming by our parents or simply our generational DNA coding. The only way to change how our brain syncs and links to new learnings is to start doing and being.
- For example, Blake’s performance anxiety was so high, he would edit out all the “Ums” and “Uhs” to achieve a “perfect” listening experience.
- But then he grew to appreciate that the more “perfect” experience is the raw and flowing nature of a neurodivergent speech, even if it is tangential or full of natural mental database-searching pauses.
We’re human and we make verbal mistakes all the time. And that’s okay! If you haven’t heard Episode One: Jumping Right In, we recommend you circle back and give it a listen.
Beginning and Ending Conversations with Strangers (17:03)
Why do strangers walk by and ask how you’re doing? Are they expecting a response? They just keep walking in their opposite direction so how am I supposed to respond and not be considered rude?
- Do I have to respond? This happens all the time at restaurants and social events. What’s the deal?
- Why do people have to say anything at all? What happened to the polite “Hi”, followed by an awkward “Hello” and then you both go about your day?
- When did this evolve and what the heck am I supposed to do with these painful situations?
- It’s time to re-write these outdated, forced and inauthentic social greetings.
- Let me be myself and speak when I feel comfortable.
Navigating Socially Engaging Neighbors (21:55)
How do you handle initial meet & greet conversations with new chatty neighbor? What do you do with an off-the-cuff social sidewalk conversation, and you really want to walk away in the other direction and the other person won’t stop talking? How do you navigate that? Blake explains how he handled this exact awkward situation and the uncomfortable way it unfolded and ended for him.
- It’s alarming when you’re caught off guard. How do you quickly identify tools that can help you get out of and end the conversation in a polite way while still advocating for yourself and your boundaries?
- Start by honoring how YOU actually feel. If you find yourself thinking “get to your point, I don’t want to talk” then let them finish their sentence and find a self-advocating verbal exit transition like:
- “Nice to meet you. I’m on a schedule today and need to go. See you later.”
- “I’m not a big talker and mostly keep to myself but welcome to the neighborhood. See you around.”
Noticing Yourself During Social Situations (23:01)
Do what makes you feel comfortable above all because at the end of the day if you abandon yourself, you need to rescue yourself. Might you offend someone along the way? Yes. Learn how to neutrally advocate for yourself instead of socially suffering to avoid offending someone else. It’s the difference between building self-trust or pulling out your mask and hiding your needs to avoid feeling punished for not wanting to be social with a stranger.
- If you’re feeling alarmed and rigid, then your mind and body have flipped into “Anxiety: Fight, Flight or Fib” and you won’t be able to interact peacefully right now so why force yourself?
- This is just one way we abandon our self and our needs for the perception we have of the other person’s social expectations. Oversharing personal details is another sign of internal anxiety and stress.
- We must give ourselves permission to reengineer social interactions. We can be polite and decline social engagements at the same time.
- Keep yourself out of anxious reactions by owning your power to engage when you feel capable, not just because old social norms exist.
Generation YDSA: Replacing Social Norms with self-advocacy (27:15)
Social etiquette exists in cultures to create an observational framework designed to evaluate another person’s verbal/non-verbal communication and behavior. The reasons for this is to determining if two people belong in the same social group. This practice has been around since at least 2400 B.C. by Ptahhotep in Egypt. Once piece of advice from that time states, “When sitting with one’s superior, laugh when he laughs” and this was coined as “good manners”.
Since Ancient Rome, upper class citizens would only eat with three fingers to distinguish themselves from the lower class who ate with all 5 fingers. Elitism was born with a raised pinky finger but today you’d be shamed or teased for raising your pinky to drink.
Generation YDSA says:
- “I don’t fit into your social groups. I feel like I have to wear a mask to interact with you without punishment so why should I engage socially based on your rules and social games?
- “I’ll talk to someone if I feel safe talking to them, when I’m in place to carry a conversation”.
Parental Sensory Overload (31:00)
Finding sensory sensitive places for kids is getting easier with places like We Rock The Spectrum, however these same places are not sensory sensitive for adults who may need the same considerations. By contrast we found an “all inclusive” gymnastics class for Declan and quickly learned it was not for us. The loud music and directional vocals mixed with sudden, quickly communicated changes ended our experience 7 minutes into the class.
- Declan could shutdown and refuse to continue participating which alerted teachers to a disconnect.
- When Blake found himself feeling triggered and overwhelmed, he’s expected to remain calm and tolerate.
- Where is the balance for neurodivergent parents and adults?
- In both cases, the more resources we can develop in preparation for these conflicts, the better for us all.
Handling Sensory Overload in the Moment (34:33)
There are two options for expressing sensory overload, one is more familiar than the other.
- No. 1) Raise your voice in an angry and displeased manner and yell at someone to stop the person or thing that’s creating the sensory triggering noise “Arg! Shut that kid up!”. Typically, this option is followed by a social judgement of how that person, place or thing in a (currently socially acceptable) way that feels like “how dare you trigger me!” but is communicated through blame, shame, rejection and punishment.
- No. 2) Own your discomfort, recognize your own sensory needs and speak up. It’s okay to ask to move, ask to leave, ask to change the plan to meet your needs but take care of yourself instead of expecting someone else to take care of you because you punished them.
Code Words to Communicate Sensory Triggers (38:40)
Establishing code words ahead of time are a proactive way to acknowledge that at any unpredictable point in the future, anyone of you in your inner circle may become sensory triggered and may not have the coherence to communicate your discomfort or sensory needs. The use of code words allows you to be prepared and configure a game plan that includes what solutions you’ll use to resolve the trigger including pre-agreeing to leave the venue if necessary.
- By taking the time and space to pre-plan, you’re creating boundary and a plan while both of you are in your most safe and creative thinking capacities.
- You’re also mutually building trust that everyone’s needs can be met in the moment without adding additional resistance of communicating under the rapid fire of a stress response while sensory overloaded.
Managing Transition Surprises (42:33)
In today’s world we want to believe that because we’re a parent, spouse, sibling, or friend… we can plan surprises for our loved ones and they’ll “just love” all the plans you’re making for them.. Right? Well no. But let’s tease apart why.
- When navigating autism or other Neurodivergent conditions, “surprises” aren’t exciting.
- In fact, the sudden change of plans and flip flop of expectations can feel downright threatening creating immediate rigidity, refusal, pushback and meltdowns.
This is the opposite response the planner is expecting creating a conflict of “transition expectations”. It creates an instant tug-of-war between two people who mean well and are trying to show thoughtfulness and care for each other. This standoff leaves both sides feeling like the other is ungrateful or ignorant based on which seat you’re in (planner vs recipient).
- There is a new level of consideration required when making decisions on behalf of an individual with neurodiversity.
- Change without proper verbal preparations and agreement, is a threat to emotional security and will not likely be taken well.
Understanding healing needs (46:00)
Before you can start healing from dark times, it helps to know what you’re healing from. Not all traumas need to be revisited in detail but you can achieve healing just be being able to name the feelings. Keep the feelings general until you’re ready for more specific work.
- It can feel traumatizing to feel alone or unaware of what’s happening and that alone can be where your healing journey begins.
Struggling to Manage vs. Managing to Struggle (47:31)
One of the larger transitions in the self-discovery process is learning how to recognize the tides of chaotic self-fulfilling prophesies.
- Knowing that we can shift the momentum from confusion and resistance into clarity and persistence is the first step.
- The second step is learning what you’re actually grateful for in your current daily life. This is how we know what’s working and what aspects we want to keep.
- Everything else can be upgraded or transformed through the self-discovery process. All in good time.
Where do we start?
- Identifying where in our daily life that we we’re struggling to manage.
- Sit and evaluate where the pain-point is inside that process.
- Then start to get creative about ways to alleviate that pain.
- It’s okay to ask for help.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of You Don’t Sound Autistic.
Do you have a topic or question you’d like to submit to the show? We’d love to hear from you.
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