HealthyGamerGG - Growing up with Autism, Finding Love, and Identity ft. DesMephisto

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

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Welcome. Hello. So can you first tell me what you, you know, what you go by and how you'd like to be addressed today? Um, Dess is fine. Dess, okay. I'm all-Oaker Dr. K. It's nice to meet you, Dess. Nice to meet you as well. Thank you very much for, you know, coming on. We appreciate it. Absolutely.

Is there something in particular? So can you just tell us a little bit about, you know, I understand you're a streamer. So can you tell us a little bit about what kind of? kind of streaming you do and where we can find you? So, yes, I focus a lot on charity. It's one of the things that I've really found to just help with my own mental health. In fact, one of the things that they recommend is helping others tends to be like the best way to kind of just deal with your own problems and kind of, you know, get a lot of that intrinsic value. Okay. So I've been doing that a lot.

You can find me at Twitch. TV, Desmaphisto. I mainly play a lot of World of Warcraft, things like speed running, collecting. I really, really enjoy collecting things that sense of completion is really satisfying. Cool. Thanks a lot. And is there something in particular that you wanted to talk about today, Des? So really, I just want to go in and get across what autism is. I want to kind of engage with the community and help create some understanding of that concept, especially like when I didn't get diagnosed until I was 29 and what I thought autism was growing up as a kid isn't what it turned out to be. And then there's the whole issue of things like ABA and there's this big charity event going on

right now that is color the spectrum, which I think is sending out a lot of mixed messages about what autism is and is more so hurtful to autistics rather than helpful. Interesting. So a lot of, so, okay, so that sounds like a great structure. Does, do you mind if I ask you, just throughout this conversation, I think a lot of times the way that we try to illustrate things is by asking people sort of like personal questions about their experience of a particular. particular thing, whether it be like, you know, dealing with, you know, toxicity and gaming or,

you know, dealing with depression, things like that. Is it okay if I ask you, you know, personal questions about what your experience of autism is, things like that? Yes, that's completely fine. And in fact, I recently there was a video that just went viral of a BPD per individual who was hitting themselves in the head repeatedly after being harassed by a customer. And that video gave me the strength to actually post a video of me having an autistic meltdown on stream. So I'm very, very open to answer anything personal or to do that because I see this as a way of helping others. Sure. Yeah. And just, you know, for clarification, if I ever ask you anything that you don't feel as appropriate or you don't feel comfortable answering, you know, please just signal that to me in some way.

If I detect from you that maybe we're talking about things that could be making you uncomfortable, I may point it. out to you. And, you know, at the end of the day, like, we're really here to help people, but I don't want you to hurt yourself or sacrifice anything for the sake of the greater good. Okay. If I do so, it's of my own volition. I understand to make a difference, pain is kind of necessary at times, but it's important to recognize that I choose that, not that it's something I'm unwilling of. Yeah, that's a pretty profound statement, that pain is necessary sometimes to make a difference. Can you help me understand that?

Being open about autism, like using my life as a kind of open book to help others. One of the things that I've enjoyed most about streaming is having individuals who didn't realize they themselves were autistic. And after saying and hearing my story and everything that I talked about, make that connection, they go and see a therapist, they go through their practice, and then they get diagnosed themselves, right? It puts you in these positions where, you know, I really wish I didn't have to open up about this,

but it really also at the same time helps a lot of people. What makes you not want to open up about it? It's, it's, it's, there is a lot of negativity that can come from these things. I mean, for example, the sharing, the video of myself having an autistic meltdown where I repeatedly punched myself in the head, it's scary, right? It's a scary thing to witness. It's something that could potentially make future job opportunities impossible.

And I understand, though, that these things have value and that they can help others. and like it's that hard thing where I know I can handle it I know that if things go bad I can at least I'm sure I can find a way to recover from it whereas I was good no I was I was just going to say so you've mentioned autistic breakdown or meltdown a couple of times now and and apparently you were you know hitting yourself can you help us understand what you mean by that term? So an autistic meltdown is, I would say in some ways it's similar to like the common understanding of a meltdown in a neurotypical individual where everything is

at its absolute worst in that you can't really process anything going on, at least to my understanding. And for myself, basically it's like everything's. ceases the function, the brain goes straight into the fight or flight system, but it doesn't have a way to channel it. So everything just kind of blows up. And as a result, I can't think I can't function. One of the negative stems that I have tends to just be punching myself in the head because I'm so overwhelmed. It's taken a lot of practice and a lot of awareness to be able to recognize.

The only way that I can stop these things is to be aware that I've reached the point of that I'm going to be overwhelmed sooner rather than when it already happened. So it requires a great deal of self-awareness to avoid these situations. And can you share at all, like what your experience of being in a meltdown? down is like? It's it's like it's it's almost like I guess a panic attack

well maybe not a panic attack but it's a blur right so like I don't really have any cognitive processing over what's going on I don't really understand what's happening it just it is

and yeah it's really hard to like know what's going on in those moments. I try to basically it's it's I don't want to say it's quite like Johnny but I do feel like there's these little moments where I can get that little breath of air to try and move myself away from it. So of course, sorry. No, go for it. And of course, like the better I get at it, the more I can kind of shut those feelings down, which would result in a shutdown, which is kind of like it's, it's like a momentary, well, I wouldn't call it momentary, but it's, it's like this, this depression or this, this weighted blanket, this sinking feeling

where everything just becomes super muted. Usually if I, if I, into that, I'm, I'm out for like two, three, four hours. I'll just end up passing out. Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting because what I'm hearing from you is that, you know, it takes a lot of awareness to manage, you know, preventing a meltdown, but that when you're actually in the meltdown, you sort of lose yourself. Yes. And, you know, sometimes on stream will kind of joke a little bit about becoming an anger elemental where, like, your personhood becomes, like, dominated by a particular emotion. and then like some people will be like anger personified or shame personified and you sort of become like a shame elemental

and what I'm sort of hearing from you just like I'm trying to put myself kind of in your shoes it's that like you are no longer there and you're just dominated or overwhelmed you don't have particular cognitions or thought processes it sounds like there's a lot of emotion that you're experiencing that's quite negative and you're not really in control of your behaviors necessarily either And that you kind of like will, it almost reminds me a little bit of what I think about kind of physiologically is like a seizure actually. So you get this state of hyper excitation of electrical signal followed by this refractory period where everything kind of shuts down. And it and it's really, yeah, you wanted to say something? Sorry. Oh, no, no, yeah. That's that's very, yes.

And so can you tell us, Desz, a little bit about, like you said, you were diagnosed at the age of 29 and, you know, what growing up was like what you understood autism to be. Did you recognize in some way that you may not have been neurotypical or how did you understand that? Sure. So, in retrospect, like looking back years later, especially after my diagnosis, my uncle is mentally challenged. and also likely undiagnosed with autism. I had kind of put myself through through my own version of ABA as a kid growing up because I saw the way he was treated. He was yelled at.

He was kind of shamed. He was dismissed. He would have love withheld from him based on his behaviors. So every time I saw him walking back and forth, I did everything I could to avoid displaying those behaviors if, you know, the sound of a spoon on a ceramic bowl was painful to my ears. I would just grin and bear it because I didn't want to display his behavioral characteristics and be treated the same way. And go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

Sorry, I keep interrupting you. It's okay. So I'm just so curious, what were the behaviors that you noticed in your uncle that you didn't want to duplicate? So the rocking back and forth, the specific reaction to sounds, the way that he interpreted or interacted with problems. And of course, that even then extended into excitement. So like things like Christmas, I began to immediately mute that behavior as well. So instead of being excited about Christmas, I was like, oh, it's just Christmas. And I did this at a very young age because I didn't want any of those associated behaviors,

which is I think what resulted in just a lot of knowing and unknowing masking growing up as a kid. I was originally diagnosed with ADHD and third grade. And then I always knew something was wrong. I just didn't understand what was wrong. The best way I could describe it is I always kind of felt like everyone knew something I didn't know. I don't know how to like fully explain that, but I always felt like I always just knew something was wrong. And it wasn't until like I graduated college that I started. started to experience what is known as autistic burnout, where I lost a lot of my masking

and abilities to kind of do things, things like driving became hotter. That's when I ended up getting diagnosed with OCD Pure O, because I was having a lot of intrusive thoughts, very obsessive. My anxiety started shooting through the roof. Basically, all the kind of coping mechanisms that I learned how to deal with throughout life. They all came crashing down, which ended up leading to the autism diagnosis. And you mentioned that, you know, you started like muting or masking particular behaviors. It sounds like that's a pretty like subconscious process. Is that fair to say?

It was both conscious and subconscious. I mean, I would probably equate it to, to, um, Like, instead of being the person to touch a hot stove, you'd be like, oh, that's hot, I used others to learn that. So if I saw someone else treated a certain way, I was like, okay, I'm not going to act that way because I don't want to be treated that way. Honestly, I'd say that was kind of like a lot of how I learned things, was I had to study other people to understand those behaviors. Yeah.

So let me. Do you mind explaining what ABA is because some people aren't familiar with that? So ABA is a psychological practice. It's a therapy where behaviors that are considered undesirable are replaced with behaviors that are considered desirable. I wouldn't say basically like dog training, but very similar. That idea of like, say, if you want to be. wanted to get a person to make eye contact.

It used to be that you would punish them if they didn't make eye contact now that they prefer kind of just reward reinforcement. Although at the same time, there's a lot of question, well, not a lot of question. It's mostly an unethical practice. Okay, so let's take sort of like, I'm going to table some of the stuff about ABA, color the spectrum, things like that. I think, Des, it's very helpful. I personally am learning a lot talking to you,

and I'd love to just hear more of your raw experience. Because I think, you know, rather than using like terms and stuff, which we can definitely get to, I think that the challenges, like you said, a lot of people with autism feel like, you know, everyone else is watching a movie with the volume on. And like, you can tell, like, you're still watching the movie, so you kind of know what's going on,

like you can kind of enjoy what's going on, but it seems like there's something that other people are sort of getting that you don't seem to have access to. I think that is such a good, and in some ways it's also devastating to kind of hear people talk like that. But when I work with people with autism, I think that's such a beautiful way to describe their experience.

It's sort of like, you know, some people just seem to know things that I don't know. I don't know exactly what I'm missing because you can try to be like, calculating about it, right? Like you can kind of say like, okay, well, it's clearly not like, you know, I can hear things and they can hear things. It's just things seem to affect me differently or other people.

Things seem easier for other people and I don't know why this has to be so hard for me. Those are kinds of the sentiments that I've kind of come away with. What do you think? Yes, I absolutely agree with that. Like, just everything going on. up, like making friends, interacting in school, the interaction with teachers, like, all these individual components. Every single aspect felt like a struggle because I couldn't connect.

I struggled to start making friends until I was 21, 22. And the way I went about it was I sat down with a therapist and I told my plan that I was going to go to bars. I was going to sit there and I was just going to observe. Like, I wouldn't have a phone or anything. I would just sit there and watch everyone. to the point that I would become so bored that the act of talking with someone would kind of at least compensate for the fear of interaction to some degree as well. But also in that time, I would be watching, you know, how the body language displayed.

What topics were they discussing? You know, how do they interact? You know, like all these little components. I observed all of that to try and replicate. Like, I know it maybe sounds weird. but the idea of like a sociopath where it becomes all about mimicking the behaviors where you have to put all this thought into like, okay, I put my arm here, this indicates this behavior, like all of those components into being able to start trying to develop friendships. Yeah, it sounds quite labor intensive.

And is it okay if I ask you one or two more questions about your uncle? Yes, I don't want to go too too personal on my uncle since he's not me. Sure, totally understand. So this, so I'll, you know, let me know. I'm asking for permission for a reason. So let me know if we skirt that boundary. But what I'd like to understand is like, you know, are there particular experiences that, so it sounds to me like you noticed that your uncle behaved in certain ways,

that maybe you shared certain tendencies with him. And then you started to mask or mute those behaviors. Did I understand that correctly? Yes. And I was wondering if you could just illustrate. for us like an experience that you had where you saw something and then you recognized like, oh, I shouldn't actually act like that? The one that oddly, like the one that stands under my mind the most, which is silly,

was literally how he held a fork. My grandma yelled at him something fierce. Like, like just chewed him out of, like, we were having dinner and just the way that he held a fork. because he would hold the fork with his fist rather than like that and that that just it's forever burned in my memory I remember things like

Kim complaining about the noises sound and everyone just doubling down on that sound so that they all started doing it like those little components in seeing how they were how he was kind of treated was like I don't remember everything since it was this this is like I but those those are like two of the things that are really just burned into my memory. Yeah, I think, Des, that was exactly sort of what I was looking for when I asked the question because I think a lot of times I'm trying to imagine that I'm like a 15 year old autistic kid right now or a kid with autism depending on what what's the appropriate way to describe it.

And I think the challenge is that like, you know, when we use technical terms, like, it doesn't actually capture people's experience. And I think the way that you're kind of describing that like there are these particular things which seem like a little bit, you know, unique or idiosyncratic. But then a lot of people like really, you know, punish people for being a little bit different. or they don't it's just so foreign to understand that like or if you ever heard of mesophonia? No. So it's interesting. So there's some correlation potentially between, I don't know if there's some correlation, but misophonia is actually like a neurological illness or disorder where benign sounds cause

people like excruciating pain. And what I'm hearing from you is that there are particular sounds which feel very like almost painful to you. And it reminds me of actually misophonia. But yeah, so thank you for sharing that because I think that really illustrates it. And what did you notice about yourself that was different? One of the major things, well, it's one of those things like looking back on it now that you notice that it was different.

But like, for example, always wearing a beanie. I've always been wearing shorts. I think I got diagnosed with sensory processing disorder fairly early on. I vaguely remember going to therapy for it. But it's more of these things where you look back and you start to realize when you're growing up as a kid, you don't necessarily think, you know, oh, this is wrong. It's why is this so hard? Why is it so easy for everyone else? Why can't I accomplish what they're accomplishing?

It's hard to realize. Like, I didn't grow up in the best of households. And for me, while growing up through that, I thought that was normal. It wasn't until, you know, even when, like, visiting other places where it was much nicer and everything, I, like, that was the abnormality to me. It wasn't until I grew up and, you know, met my wife. And I started to realize, like, oh, that's, this, this isn't normal. And so it's kind of that that, you don't really notice it when you're in there. I kind of forgot the question, though.

That's totally cool. I loved your answer. So let me just ask a different one. What was growing up like for you? It was hard. It was hard. Friendships were really difficult. The friendships that I did make often resulted in harm to myself.

So people who are hung out with would end up abusing me like I would I'd been hidden in the head with a shovel a razor scooter punched in the head repeatedly um I even I haven't had one instance and this this is in a PC gamer article so it's it's um but I was even pissed on at one point um and these were people that I considered friends because, you know, they, they interacted with me. And that was, that was rough. I actually caught a bit of Asmengold's interview,

and I could even relate to some of what he was talking about. Well, he specifically referenced it as laziness, i.e. if a light bulb goes off in a room, he, he was, oh, I just won't use that room anymore. That's kind of the household that I grew up in. So like if our sink stopped working, we just used the bathroom sink instead. So there was a point of time where there was like five or seven years where our kitchen sink just wasn't used. Yeah, it's, it was rough.

How does it feel to talk about things like that, Des? Honestly, it feels like past trauma. Right? Where, like, I went through this. I've talked with normal, like, not normal, numerous therapists about my experiences growing up as a kid, that kind of, like, trauma and stuff. And it is what it is. It happened.

It sucks, but focus on the now. Yeah. Yeah, I can sort of detect your, the imprint of therapy and all the work that you've done in the way that you talk about it. You know, I think that there's, I'm hearing a lot of acceptance. I'm not hearing a whole lot of excuses or defensiveness, which is, which is interesting, because a lot of times, you know, when people will talk about their upbringing and like, or the negative things that potentially their parents or loved ones used to do, there'll be a lot of, like, caveats, excuses, you know, balancing the equation, oh, my parents did love me a lot, things like that,

you know and and i'm not really hearing a whole lot of that from you which doesn't you know i'm not getting the sense that your parents were um abusive or neglectful i mean maybe they were but like you know i'm not i'm not i think it sounds like there were just a lot of challenges in the household you know it sounds like some of your caregivers could have done a better job it's definitely one of those tough things my mom she single mom all that my my father uh who i I actually finally got a mute for the first time when I turned 30, which was interesting. He was, he was in prison and stuff. So it's, you know, it is what it is.

It's best to focus on the now because, like, you can't do anything to fix the past. You can do plenty to fix the present. Yeah. What I'm hearing is that you kind of spawned in a rough location. That puts it well, yeah, actually. Didn't really get a winnings fly. on there, but you got to play from it, right? Like, wherever you spawned, you got to, you know, you got to work with what you got.

Absolutely. And I feel, I am, plus, I mean, I feel like where, where I spawned resulted in me doing a lot of good. I mean, hell, we've raised them for charity since I've started streaming, which is just, wow, that's amazing, man. Like, I never thought someone, someone like me would be able. to do so much good. And who is someone like you?

Disabled, like struggling. Like I've always struggled to do full-time employment, that kind of thing where I've always just, no, I never felt like I could connect or fit in or do anything and to suddenly be able to be like, oh, no, actually you found a place where things are working and you're actually doing a really good job at it. it really changes.

It's one of the things I love about Twitch, right? Where in a lot of instances where you've struggled in the real world, especially as a disabled individual, to finally find a platform where your disability isn't as much of a limiter as it is in reality. I mean, streaming is reality, but the real world, so to speak. Yeah.

I think there's a lot of interesting philosophical points there about, you know, what's the real world, what isn't. I'm curious, how do you feel about the term disabled? I'm personally fine with it. I understand that there's some backlash around the word and everything, but I mean, it's hard not to refer to it as a disability because I feel like it limits me in so many ways. Going for my master's program, that was a nightmare. And academia in general, for those of us with disabilities, is almost an impossibility.

And then adding in COVID into it, and I was completely wrecked. I can even, I finished my master's program with a 4.0, but I couldn't finish writing my thesis because everything changed. And I just, it was like it just slipped through my hands. Interesting. What's made it hard? Can you help us understand, like you said, you've struggled to maintain full-time and What's made that hard? A lot of it is focusing and maintaining a lot of the interactions, the social interactions, everything that goes in at work, understanding like the hierarchy and the systems that are there and the clerks and the groups in office politics.

That's what they're called. Like navigating through all that was basically felt impossible. there are certain tasks that you're expected to be able to complete, like talking on a phone. I've learned ways around it, but it's difficult still. I really, really, really hate phones. I do not like phones. They are such a just overwhelming sensory, especially phones ringing. And then, of course, you know, like sometimes, because a lot of workplaces, they don't give you space.

You're all kind of in, like, enclosed. So things like, like I used to have a co-worker who would like spam click their mouse to activate their computer. They just like click, click, click, click, click, click. I could not get any work done. I would have, I would have noise counseling headphones and everything. Or, you know, people come up behind you, start having full count conversations. There are so many components in a workplace that, you know, neurotypicals or just normal individuals. individuals will be like, oh, whatever.

Like, oh, I can just counsel that. I can't. And there's also like when I reach these points of where I'm completely overwhelmed, like, hey, if I keep pushing myself, I'm going to have a meltdown. War tends to not be a place where you can go ahead and get the flexibility necessary for that. And that's again, one of the things that I love about streaming is like, hey, I've reached, I'm like nearing that point where I'm overwhelmed.

I'm going to have a meltdown and I can just stop. Like it's, sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, have you played darkest dungeon? I have not. I've always wanted to, but I've never actually started. It's interesting because hearing, I've never used a darkest dungeon analogy on stream before, but hearing kind of like your workplace environment, like I don't know if you are familiar with the mechanics, but you know, you have an HP pool like any other RPG.

and then like essentially magic does stress damage. And so this is like a reverse HP pool where like it goes from zero to 200. And if you hit 200, you die. And then like once you hit 100, like your character gets like a pretty significant debuff. What I'm almost hearing from you is that there's like this stress. Like it's just like darkest dungeon where there's stuff that like racks up your stress. And then if it hits a certain point like you have a meltdown. And you can even kind of use.

a lot of your like cognitive energy or manipool to like suppress or like kind of keep that stuff buried, but it's still like building up in the background. And if you force yourself into these situations, you can kind of last for some amount of time. But I, it sounds like, you know, that meltdown or burnout is you mentioned. You mentioned something about like coping mechanism burnout. I forget what the term you used, but you said that you had like, all of your autistic burnout. Yeah.

And so it's bizarre, but that's kind of what I'm hearing. Is that kind of fair that like you could manage it for a while, but it really wouldn't get better and then you sort of, it was too much for you to handle. Yes. I think that's a good comparison. Specifically, like,

it, we can kind of push ourselves. And this is one of the things that I had to learn in my, master's program is how often I had to say no. Because if we push ourselves, like, I don't like hitting myself on the head. Like it's, it's, one, it's not a pretty thing to see. And two, it's not very good for myself. And so I had to start learning to say no more often, even though like I wanted, right? Like, I wanted to play everything. I wanted to get my master's degree. I wanted to succeed in academia. I understood that I had to just stop.

Otherwise, like, it would just get worse and worse. And these meltdowns, like, the more I have them, the more I push myself, the worse that it would get. Yeah. Des, what's it like to want something so much and not be able to do it? It sucks. I think we can all kind of relate to that.

But I think it's also something that we all. have to come to terms with, that the notion that we can become anything isn't a reality. And that sometimes it's best to pay attention to what we can do and to strengthen that rather than climb an impossible wall. And I know that I can get my master's. I can get my doctor's, but it's going to be about finding a program and thing that works with me. Des, bro, I think, how did you learn that? Because I think like 99% of people out there, like arguably myself included, you know, have trouble learning the lesson of like, I want this so much, but I may not be able to get it. How do you get that acceptance?

Believe me. Once you punch yourself in the head enough times, you learn. Seriously, though. Like, when you reach those points, where you feel yourself breaking, you realize something's going to give, right? And I think that's kind of one of the, at least the positive things is learning that it's like, I can't keep doing this. I got to find another way. The best way to describe my experiences is it's like trying to Kool-Aid man through a bunch of walls. and eventually you can't collate through the wall,

so you have to find a way around it. Yeah. Well, said. Beautifully set. Des, you know, it's also kind of interesting. Let me just think about this. Because you mentioned the cycle, which I think is really important to understand,

which is like, you know, once you coolade man through a wall or, you know, once you fail, it's something that you really want. It actually causes you to try to collade your way through more walls, right? You dig deeper. there's some amount of shame, there's some amount of lack of acceptance, there's some amount of attachment and wanting it,

that you kind of like, you like burn out even more. Like you try even harder, you dig deeper, you push yourself more because that's what we're sort of taught to do, right? Like don't ever give up. And where there's a will, there's a way. And then, so then what happens is, and the crazy thing is that you can coolade your way through a wall, right? You can smash through things by digging deep.

and then what happens is people like they dig deep and then they like they do it. They sort of succeed even though they're like cannibalizing themselves from the inside and then they say okay this works right because then they've been able to do it and then they got what they wanted

and they're sort of not really paying attention to the cost and then they think to themselves oh I can do this this is possible and that's almost what I find to be like the most damning thing because it's sort of like yeah it's possible but what did you have to pay? You know, what's the price that you pay to get to where you are? And then if they

fail again, the whole cycle repeats and they're like, oh, if I had dug deeper, if I had sacrificed more, if I had done more, if I wasn't just so messed up, like, if all of these things, and then, like, the cycle repeats and it repeats and repeats. And what I'm curious about is, you know, when, when you are able to push yourself and actually accomplish things, and then, like, when you fail and you sort of like, how did you get out of that cycle? You know, like, because I can sort of see it going both ways, one, which is like, you need to do better. If you did better, you could do it.

Versus recognizing, oh, actually, like, maybe I can't do that. Yeah, it's really hard to say, honestly, the best way, like, the past, ever since the diagnosis, which is, it's been almost four years now, I feel especially like every, well, Honestly, the past five years have been a blur. Like, ever since I graduated college, everything's just kind of, it's, I don't know, like, the ability to grasp, like, what's happened feels less tangible than it did when I was younger. But what I do know is each time I reach the breaking point, each time I hit a wall, it got harder and harder to kind of break through and to keep. going. And I know that eventually I was, it was hurting myself to just bash into the wall.

And so I had to start thinking about it more critically. I had to look at the wall. And, you know, sometimes there actually happens to be a door right next to the wall. Sometimes I sometimes I have to, you know, maybe get scale. or, you know, whatever various option, because I was literally, like, I was literally killing myself, so to speak, by constantly running into these walls. I think one of the things that makes it more apparent for those of us with disabilities is that we run into them more frequently, which the more frequently that you run into it, you're going to be more aware. Whereas if it happens

like, you know, every six months, every year, you might fall into that. same trap where you, I just got to dig deeper. I just got to dig deeper. So I really think that contributed a lot is that it's that when you have these problems, you run into them more frequently and you learn faster, so to speak. Yeah, that's, it's so wise and also a little bit damning because kind of what I'm hearing for your answer is like, you know, oh, Des, like, how did you guys, you know, figure out how to wipe, I mean, how to down Ragnaros? And it's like, yeah, I wiped a whole lot. Like, other people may wipe every six months to a year, but I wipe like once a week. And it's really hard to say, but to listen to and to really think about. But I do

think that there's a lot of value to sort of like recognizing that maybe you're just like more experienced at wiping. And, and I don't know what that means for people who are neurotypical. who encounter things less frequently, but I'm certainly detecting a lot of, like, you know, awareness on your part and critical thinking and sort of recognizing who you are, accepting yourself or who you are, separating out maybe what you should be from what you are.

And I think in some ways, it sounds like you started that process very young because you noticed when you were young that, like, you were different from other people. Absolutely. Absolutely. How did you feel about getting an autism diagnosis, or what was that like for you to get diagnosed with autism? It was a major relief, to be honest.

It was a struggle. The therapist and kind of everything, they don't like diagnosing adults as autistic. They don't really see, or at least my therapist, didn't really see that. the resources were useful to diagnosing an autistic adult, that you're seen as like taking resources away from autistic children, that that's something that could be, you know, benefiting someone that they could help. Because once you're an adult, there's, there's no support network. There's nothing that can really be done, which is part of what led me into charity,

because that's literally horrifying to realize, okay, you invest so heavily in autistic children and then it's just like, well, it's someone else's problem now, right? It's like building a beautiful garden and it's like, ah, we'll let the weeds take over, right? Like, it just it makes no sense. So getting that diagnosis not only gave me ease of mind and understanding of who I was, but it also connected me with the autistic community, being able to connect with other autistics that have had similar experiences, to be able to be a part of a part of a network where I finally felt a sense of belonging, which like I think a lot of that, that, um, that psychological usefulness is missed in these diagnosis because they're,

there's, it's super important. It's really important to be able to have that connection, to have that belonging, to know that you're not alone, to go from feeling like there, there's no one else like you, no one else going through the problems that you're going through to send them like, holy, shit. There's other people out there that that understand. Yeah, it sounds like you had felt alone for a long time. And now I'm sort of hearing you say a lot about being able to connect to other people, but other people I've worked with have also sort of emphasized that they had a reason for why things were the way they were. Right? Because people like, my experience

with people with autism just listening to them is they just feel so broken. Like, arbitrarily. Because it's not, there isn't like a diagnosis or reason or rhyme. Like, you're just, you're just bad at making friends. There's like something fundamentally busted. And you just suck at it. There's no like explanation. There's no reason. There's no like, you know, and for some people who get an autism diagnosis, they sort of understand that what I have always experienced, which is that it's hard for me to live life like neurotypical people do, actually has like a neurological or neuroscientific correlation to it. There are parts of my brain that literally function in a different way from like what a

neurotypical person's brain functions like. And so it's not like some kind of moral deficiency or being weak or just sucking or like a charisma stat that's like low. It's that you're wired differently. Did that sort of have an impact for you in that way or was it mostly about connection? No, definitely like finally having that. and understanding. Absolutely.

I have focused on the connection because I think that's a really important thing because I think many of us with autism, we desperately want social connection. That was like one of the big misunderstandings that I had about autism before getting my diagnosis was that if you wanted to have friends, if you wanted that social interaction,

that you couldn't be autistic because autistics weren't sociable, which it's simply not the case. And there was like a lot of these kind of this misinformation out there that I had to search through to better understand what autism was when I went to seek my diagnosis. And can you help us understand a little bit about sort of this, I can imagine it's tricky because on the one hand it can be hard to make social connections and wanting social connections and what it's like kind of swimming through those waters? A lot of it, like one of the big things that I struggled with growing up as a kid is noticing

when I was being annoying, right? Like, I would talk about something I'm very passionate about, something that I care about, and realizing that the other person was annoyed, bored, or whatever in trying to, like, now, like, I have all this anxiety. And I'm like, I'm constantly watching, like, facial interactions. I'm watching body language. There's this huge anxiety where I'm like, okay, I need to change the subject. To the point that even if someone is enjoying the conversation, I'm ready to jump that.

Like that conversation is like, oh, wait, I've been talking about this for three, four, five minutes. Okay, I need to change the subject. Even if they are liking it because it's almost like the script that plays in my head. Yeah, like a lot of those that kind of like trying to figure it out, was just, it was constant like, okay, I didn't get the reaction I wanted or, okay, this didn't happen the way it was, try again, let's change one thing. I mean, I definitely relied on science a lot like things like scientific method to be able to go in the experiment and like, okay, we'll try this one little tweak. We'll try this tweak. We'll try this tweak.

Until I ended up with a script that was somewhat successful. Yeah. It sounds very intensive. from an energy standpoint. Yes, it can be exhausting. Yeah. And that, you know, once you came up with your algorithm that, like, even if the conversation organically didn't require a shift, there's a part of your brain that has learned that after four minutes about talking about a subject, the safest thing to do is to switch the subject.

Yes. Yeah. And really, and I know you used the term sociopathic, but I think, um, I think that it's somewhat apples and oranges, but I am hearing a lot that you make, like a lot of your social interactions are calculated. And not out of a desire to like take advantage of anyone, but just because I think what I'm also hearing from you and this is my experience working with people with autism is that, you know, some of the empathic circuitry that allows people to like naturally like know how to swim is is not quite intact. And so you have to rely, you have to figure out other ways. I just had another analogy, which maybe is devastating and offensive, but sort of like a duck without feathers. You're still a duck, but like some of the things that you normally allow you to float, like you have to learn how to like swim in a different way.

And so it sounds, it sounds really tough, man. Yeah. You've mentioned specifically about not trying to take advantage of others. I growing up before I knew I was autistic, that was one of the big things that I dealt with a lot was, like, because of how I approached everything and thinking about it to try and elicit specific responses, I, like, I had this, this big fear that I was deliberately trying to take advantage of people, right? Because it was literally how I had to solve all of my problems. Like, I had to do this, like this component that came so natural to everyone else, I had to going all this deliberate and like thinking about each of these components where I literally felt like I was manipulating others. And it, it sucked. It definitely had a huge kind of negative mental toll. I can completely understand that. I think unfortunately, you know, that's not necessarily the case. And I've met a ton of people who are very emotionally, like, not overly cognitive.

and at the same time are also incredibly manipulative. Like, it's not that thinking very cognitively about social interactions makes you manipulative or not. I've seen, you know, both versions of that. And Desa, I'm curious, you mentioned that you're married?

Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about how that happened? Because I know that's something that's very anxiety-provoking for a lot of people with autism. Like romantic relationships. So I actually, it's kind of silly. I kind of fell into my lap, so to speak.

I didn't really have any relationship experience until I was 22. When I was 22, I just sounds really bad. I basically found a situation where I could rely on my looks to be able to bypass romantic or the kind of romantic interactions to lose my virginity. So I had to go through this, this kind of like cold calculation to be able to find myself in a position to be able to go through that because I wanted to solve that problem. I'm looking at chat.

God, yes, you can't look at chat from. Sorry, I. Everyone wants to know how you did it. I want to know, but you can't look at chat. You are on a roll. When you're socially awkward and you're not, even if you're not neurotypical. Imagine all the neurotypical people with social anxiety who think that they're in cells and aren't even on the spectrum. And here you have the answer for them.

And you get distracted by chat. Just let's put it on the ADHD part as well. but yeah it is so that that whole situation I basically it kind of allowed me to I don't know I've been met my way through it

so like relationships are really like fine task where you need like you know like you need to be able to like be able to move everything just right for it to go through And I specifically reference oven mitt because that's what it feels like interacting with social circumstances. It's this very textuous, fine-tuned interaction. And we have oven mitts.

So it feels really hard to be able to piece through that. And it worked. I, like looking back on it, I feel bad because it definitely feels like a situation where I may have manipulated someone. into a romantic relationship in order to meet that, right? It's not a nice thing. I don't consider it a nice thing. But it allowed me to kind of get past that big fear when you're a virgin, which is what happens when you do get to that point, right?

It completely changed the kind of dialogue and interaction. for me. Can you help me understand? I find myself being curious about, you know, what, yeah, I just have so many questions. Like, can you just share more about that? I'm serious because I, like, I think, you know, doing something because you want to get laid, like I can sort of understand where you're coming from there. But I think just as equally as important is like illustrating or helping people understand

what felt unethical about for you about that, what felt manipulative. for you, how you came to that realization. I feel like there's actually a lot of all the memes and stuff aside. I think there's a lot of important wisdom here. So mainly what made it feel manipulative is for the individual, I didn't really care specifically about them that it was kind of a means to an end. I mean, they were obviously interested and wanted to engage in everything. So it was mutual.

But for me, my understanding of sexual interaction has always been based around things like love, right? That very romantic nature. So utilizing it to not utilizing love, but utilizing sex to kind of understand was ethically problematic to me, I think. Interesting. Because, you know, to play devil's advocate for a second, I mean, you were the one who is there. So I, but I'm sort of, you know, my understanding of sex and love is that the two don't necessarily have to go hand in hand. And that especially if you're a 22 year old, you know, like a little bit of figuring it out as long as, and it sounds like the other person was like

interested in consenting and all, you know, that's, that's the really important stuff to me. But, you know, I, I want to say that like, I don't want to discourage people from figuring it out. because at 22 you're not going to know exactly what the relationship is between sex and love, right? Right. You're just not. And so I'm not hearing anything so far that seems kind of unethical to me, except maybe some expectations that you had, but or that you knew maybe were not that much like potentially romantically into this person. But I feel like I utilize them not for sex, but for what sex meant, which is why I. I think this became a little bit more unethical to me.

Oh, no, it's one of those things where when you're 22, it makes sense. But, like, looking back on it, I basically treated it kind of like a science experiment rather than, like, the kind of, like, sexual experience, right? It was about seeing what it was about getting through that and kind of removing it as a factor. rather than just trying to get laid. Interesting, okay. And how did you meet your, you said that your current relationship

sort of fell into your lap? So I met, I met my wife through a friend that I was able to make, thanks to, you know, sitting in bars, constantly watching language. Turns out they were like a big metal head. So we, we, oh, God, it was amazing. Like, finally, this was one of those scripts

where I didn't have to change the conversation every four minutes. We would talk about metal for like hours and hours and hours. Like, oh, we loved metal. But eventually he told me about this girl that he had met. She was getting her bachelor's in neuroscience. I wanted to get my bachelor's in neuroscience. And so we started talking on Facebook, all of that. She was currently seeing someone else.

And, you know, as we talked more and more, I basically just laid out my feelings for her and talked like, you know, about how like I cared for and all of that. And things just ended up working out. She ended up breaking up with the other guy who happened to be super abusive. We shared our first kiss, August 11th. And it's, I don't know. I think because I spent so much time analyzing every single situation, having to be super aware of where I was cognitively, where I was emotionally, actually ended up preparing me for that relationship. So when we ended up in this, I was very quick to, I was very quick to be like, hey, this is problematic or, hey, this is bothering me.

Or, hey, I don't like this. And we would actually talk about things before they became a problem. I definitely do see a lot of my experiences as an autistic having been beneficial, even unknowingly, because of how much I had to rely on observing literally every single detail. Yeah, it sounds like, you know, I'm purposely avoiding chat because I can only imagine, you know, all the messages about your autism and Chadness rolled into one. But I think it's great because I think it sort of illustrates something really, really important, which is that what I'm really hearing from you is that you took a lot of risks, right?

So I'm not, when you sort of confessed your feelings for her, had you all met in person? We had met in person. We had met a couple of times. And this is still when I was trying to figure out how relationships worked. So, you know, like the whole, you know, you should ignore women. That makes them want you. Like all of those kind of like really kind of crappy information. that's out there for when you're young.

And trying to somehow cypher wisdom from all of that in some form to interact a relationship. And so what do you think is useful to make a relationship? So it sounds like y'all are married now. Yes. I honestly, I got lucky.

I'm going to be real honest. I don't know how it happened. It's like doing that jump in a video game, you do it once and you have no idea how you did it you can never do it again. That is literally like, it's just everything lined up. I don't know. But what I will say, as far as it lasting, we've been married for over, we've been together

eight years. We've been married six. Communication is so incredibly important. If the other person doesn't know where you're at, they can't work with you. and she didn't know I was autistic when we got married and all that. We didn't find out until years later. And there were points where, you know, it looked like we might get divorced, but communication, having a conversation around there and understanding, like,

yeah, this is, this sucks, this is problematic. We weren't quite expecting this, but we got through it because we talked. understand. She knows how much I love her, how much I care about her. I do what I can to try and help out, even though I struggle in some of the other ways. Like being married to someone who isn't able to bring in like full-time work or isn't able to bring in lots of money is difficult. But communication really helps. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I think that's what I'm hearing is different. So I think that, you know, sometimes people feel like they don't, they can't bring value to a relationship. And I know you say, frankly, it was luck or so therefore it was RNG. And I certainly

feel the same way about my relationship in terms of getting really, really lucky. But I do think that, you know, there are a lot of really interesting things kind of objectively does about your relationship and how it evolved. And I think there are a lot of lessons to take away for people. So here's what I'm hearing you, you know, this is, this is what your character sheet shows, right? So you were born with the autism trait, which is like, comes with, like, charisma penalties and, and things like that. Like, it's hard for you to socially interact with people. It can be really challenging. And let me know if this sounds offensive at some point, okay? And then also that, like, some of your disability prevents you from doing things like working full time and things like that. And so on paper, you know, I think a lot of

people will look at that and will say, like, if people are in your shoes, like, I could only imagine being, you know, a 24-year-old person with autism who's unable to hold a full-time job and to think to myself that I'm not worthy of having a relationship. I can't ever be in a relationship. And yet what I'm hearing from you is that ultimately, like, you can actually have a very successful relationship. And that as important and as it's hard, right, so there's some amount of shame and expectation and societal stuff and whatnot. But at the end of the day that like communicating with your partner and like letting people know where you're at, letting people like owning up to what your shortcomings are and trying to support them the best that you can,

that like you can talk about things and like let people know where you're at. And I think another thing that you're not really mentioning, I'd imagine you're very good at listening. And also like, you know, what people sometimes what the trickiest thing that I see in terms of like marriage counseling, I don't do a whole lot of it, is that a lot of people make sacrifices and then feel resentful. And then their partner says, I never asked you to make that sacrifice. Right? So like, I'll make a big sacrifice and then I'll feel owed because I made this big sacrifice. And then the person on the other side of the table is like, I never asked that of you.

And then we get into this really tricky impasse because, you know, one partner feels really owed because they've given something up. And then on the other side, the other partner was like, I didn't buy that thing so I don't owe you anything. You know, I never asked for that sacrifice. And so what I'm kind of hearing from you, I'm reading between the lines here, is that I think you guys probably did a really good job. It's not about making the sacrifice or not making the sacrifice or being able to be full-time employed or having autism or not having autism. It's about ultimately being on the same page about where you guys are, whether it's in a good place or a bad place. and I'm hearing you say that you know you all have talked about divorce which sounds like very understandable because it sounds like there are a lot of challenges that you all face in your relationship just like any other

relationship and that you guys have an additional layer of challenge because on some level you know there are a lot of things that society expects from you that you may not be able to do and let me know if this feels mean at some point I'm not really I think it's it actually is like a shining example of how so many of what we assume about a successful relationship, I don't think is actually what makes a successful relationship. It's not having a particular career. It's not, it's like really about being on the same page. And it doesn't, it sort of doesn't matter. It matters. But to me, the most crucial thing, I've seen, you know, two neurotypical people who have successful careers and are very charismatic who have gotten divorced. And I think the problem is like they're not on the same page. And I've seen a lot of people who

feel hopeless because of certain disadvantages they have, that they're unable to find love or sex. But what I'm really hearing from you is that, like, you know, it's possible to have both of those things as long as you really focus on self-awareness, attending to another person's needs, being somewhat transparent about what your needs are. These are the kinds of things that I'm really hearing have led to your success. What do you think? Absolutely. I think spending so much time, observing, studying, being aware of, recognizing, I think all of these things have played an important and critical role in my own success with relationships. I mean, it's like any subject. The more you study it, the better you get at it. You might not, like, I didn't, I didn't

just, I wasn't suddenly born with my understanding of neuroscience. I had to study it. I had to go through it, I had to take classes. And then, you know, I was able to actually start to understand. it. And so for a lot of normal individuals out there, they might have all this understanding already kind of pre-built in. Whereas for myself, I had to study it and study and study and study it and I think it paid off. Yeah. Well said. So I had a couple of other, like, so I really appreciate everything you've shared with us. I'd love to hear a little bit about ABA activism, what's going on with autism if you want to talk about that. You know, I think there are a couple of other things that you mentioned, which I think are like really, really important for people to hear.

Like this concept of love being withheld based on your behaviors. Is there a particular direction you want to take things, Des? So, like, this is a really important conversation for the autistic community. since ABA is generally considered abuse by our community. And on the idea of like the old school ABA being a way of withholding love, withholding attention, withholding certain characteristics and why I compared earlier like giving myself ABA. For those asking by what ABA is, it's basically put the simplest way, not to downgrade what it is or to downgrade ourselves.

It's Pavlovian, right? Whereas, like, you give a reward or you give a negative response to elicit a specific response, a specific behavior. And in the instance where I was talking earlier about with my uncle, is my uncle would do an action,

I respond negatively to the clinking noise of a bowl, right? My response would be, be, okay, I'm not going to react to that because I don't want that added pain because they'll keep clanking the ball in an response to his annoyance. So that is a negative reinforcement that tells me not to elicit that behavior. This is similar to what we've seen in a lot of ABA. It's changed since then, I've been told. But there's still a lot of problems, especially like positive reinforcement can still

problematic if you're getting a behavior to respond that causes harm. For example, I once had a meltdown, not when that resulted in me hitting myself, but I threw my phone and ended up running into a wall because a professor touched the lip of my can. So I had a can and their hand touched the part where you drink from, which caused me to become very overwhelmed. It's something that's very stressful and painful for me. But ABA would see this behavior as problematic and would expose me to it constantly until I didn't respond in a negative way. So what is the problem you see with that?

It elicits pain as a way of no longer. performing that behavior, rather than acknowledging the needs of the individual and what is going on, I ask the person to move the can versus moving the can yourself. It puts the burden on the autistic to suffer rather than creating a situation where no one is suffering. That's a good point. I'm not sure if people were... Yeah, so that's a good point. So can I share like a similar experience that I've had sort of as a treatment professional? Yes, go ahead. So I was working with a young guy with mesophonia. So mesophonia is a neurological disorder where like something is messed up where so normally when we hear a sound like, you know, sound hits our eardrum.

And then that, you know, the sound travels via a neuron to our auditory cortex, then travels to our auditory association cortex. So like I'm able to. hear sounds, but if I use words, for example, your brain does not interpret words as sounds. It interprets words as words. So that comes from your auditory association cortex. So something is, we don't know exactly what happens in misophonia, but there are some sounds that elicit like pain. Like, so instead of, you know, like the, hearing a particular sound is like the experience of like rubbing, you know, like this person described it to me as like, like, you know, like, this person described it to me as

like rubbing like an open wound with sandpaper. And so like literally sounds will hurt them. And so the interesting thing, this is, unfortunately this person is older now. And so like back in the day, they went to go see a neurologist who would essentially do exposure therapy and was like focused on like making this person more resilient. And they're like, you know, much like exposure therapy, like what we're going to do is expose you to the sound until your neurons are climate. to it. And so what this person sort of discovered is that, like, they didn't ever acclimatized to it because it's sort of like, you know, it doesn't matter how many times you get kicked in the nuts. Like, it's going to hurt every time. There's no like acclimatizing to getting kicked in the nuts. And so the bizarre thing, the reason they wound up in my office is they were so traumatized by the treatment that they sort of developed PTSD and a personality disorder as a result. Like chronic PTSD. So, you're not so. You're not. You're not. You're not. So, you're not. You PTSD personality disorder, it sort of completely changed

the way that they, like, interacted with like, so, like, they started to think of, like, doctors and parents. Like, it was really confusing because they understood, oh, this doctor is trying to help me and, like, my parents are trying to help me. But, like, they're hurting me a ton and they won't stop.

And they won't stop ever. And they tell me that every time I get hurt, that, like, I need to be stronger. And it completely reshaped the way that they looked at their, like, important relationships caused a ton of problems. And I think the way we were able to make progress is through recognizing that, you know, early on when you were like six years old, these people who were supposed to protect you

actually would like take you once a week and rub sandpaper over your open wounds. And what do you think that does to a child when it happens like clockwork once a week for an hour for a decade. And it's really kind of terrifying that, like, a lot of times, I think, unfortunately, as treatment professionals, there's a lot of iatrogenic, which means, like, you know, treatment induced injury. And it's really sad. But just, you know, I get what you're saying.

I didn't realize this about ABA, though. So it's good to know. Yes. There's been talks about changes. I recently read an article that came out in 2021. And from there, like the argument that ABA has changed, it still argued as unethical because the practitioners are working outside of their scope as well, i.e. that they're not experts on autism,

and that to treat a neurological disorder from a psychological perspective is also troublesome, because it's not, it can't be solely confined by behavior. So it's kind of outside of the scope of the individual to not have experience with autism, like to actually be like an expert on autism. So they can't even notice like if the autistic individual is in pain, right? Because we don't display our pain. We don't display our trauma in the same way that neurotic. typical individuals will.

So it's very problematic to say that, well, they're not, they're not being hurt. It's like, anyone can say that. It's like, well, they're not being hurt. It doesn't mean that you can't, just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there. Yeah. I mean, don't get me started there. Because it's like such an uphill battle to try to explain to people who think that they're experts, that they're not experts. like the one lesson that I've come away with,

desk, like just personally as a clinician, is that I can have all the training in the world, but every person I meet is an individual. And when I run into trouble is when I start thinking about myself as an expert. And when someone comes to me and says, you don't know what you're talking about, like, I've learned how to listen to what they're saying. no matter where I trained, no matter how much experience I have.

Because this is a bizarre thing about medicine is like, you know, we use like these protocols and paradigms, but like literally every human being is unique. And so I don't know as a system of medicine, why we don't sort of like acknowledge or factor that in to our day to day operations. But I think it's really hard to explain to people who believe themselves to be experts that, you know, you may not know as much as you think. There's a lot of like professional hubris, certainly within medicine. I think we see it a lot in especially,

unfortunately, in mental health, because you'll have a lot of people who are, you know, I think I have a bias here, so, you know, I have to kind of share that. But it's my belief that a lot of our mental health is actually physical in nature. There's a lot of evidence of this nowadays,

but if you look at like, for example, you mentioned the fight or flight response, right? That's a physiologic response. And so I don't know how much therapy is going to help. I mean, I think therapy can help a lot with that kind of stuff. But I think that therapists, if they ignore the physiologic component of your autistic meltdown, they're going to be doing you a disservice. The challenge is that most therapists are not trained in physiology.

And we see this a lot, too, in terms of physical medicine as well, where medical doctors who are not trained in psychology will, like, ignore the symptoms of their patients because they think that they're psychological. So, like, everyone's guilty of it. You have medical doctors that are ignoring the psychological component, and you have psychologists who are ignoring the physical component. And I think, unfortunately, like, the problem is, like, the person who gets screwed is the patient, which is sad. And I've just seen a lot of professional hubris, like, and I don't think it helps people. Like, I don't think it does right by our patients. So I don't know what I'm trying to say there, but.

No, I completely understand what you're getting across. It definitely is a problematic situation. Damn it, there was something actually I wanted to say on that too. That was really, really important. Oh, no. Damn it. This is the problem with the ADHD brain as well. We have that thought, but we didn't write it down.

So it's just it's gone. Well, next time just to interrupt. I know you've trained yourself not to. I've been taught not to interrupt that. That's the problem. So I know you've trained yourself not to. But like, I think next time interrupt, you know? Yes. Let me try to run through the sequence.

So we were talking a little bit about and see if we can catch it again, even if it slipped away. So you had talked a little bit about how ABA is still unethical. I shared the story about misophonia, how a lot of times. treatment can actually be like iatrogenically injuring that we're trying to help people and we actually end up hurting them instead and then I talked I ranted a little bit about

professional hubris and a big problem that I see in sort of mental health treatment which is that you know yeah there you go autonomy autonomy it's the idea that those with mental health

issues don't have it and so that these experts feel like they have a power of authority over the individual because they're not as seen as having autonomy. It's one of the big issues that we face as autistics is that we're emphasized. Things like the puzzle piece and how all these little different components, it gives people the idea that we can be spoken over because we're not capable of speaking for ourselves. I think it's only approximately 30% of autistics have an intellectual disability.

So there's still a large portion of the autistic community that is capable, I mean, are not even those with intellectual disabilities. They can still speak from themselves. They might just need more help to be able to do so. But that 30% is what's seen rather than the entire autistic community. And it's sadly not just us, as I was mentioned, and it's the entire mental health as well, where you lose that autonomy as soon as you're seen as having a disability.

A good example is individuals and wheelchairs. People will go around and push them in the wheelchair if they're in the way. They'll invade their space above their head. Like that that kind of individual control is gone. I've never heard the face. I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense, but I've never heard the phrase, invade the space above your head, their head.

I never think about, like, when I think about my personal space, I mean, I, you know, I haven't sat in a wheelchair, but I'm just appreciating for a moment that, generally speaking, when I think about invasions of my personal space, I think about them in, like, horizontal directions. I don't really think about it in a vertical direction. I don't mean, I mean, I'm laughing just because I don't know what else to do right now, but it's bizarre. Like, I can't imagine what it's like to, you know,

have to worry about that space. And I feel lucky to not have to worry about that space. But it's crazy. Yeah, I'm with you in terms of autonomy, though. And I think this is the other tricky thing. Yeah, so that's why I was kind of curious about, you know, this term disabled because I see this a lot too. And I think sometimes, yeah, it's tough because I think we're quick to take away other

people's autonomy. I see this a lot too where a lot of times, like I see this with, with our community actually and like when they talk to their parents. So we work on this a lot where people will say you don't understand. Right. So like the parents will say to the kid like you don't understand. Like I wish like let me explain it to you. And it's like no like I'm allowed to understand and disagree. It's not that I don't understand like you're you're kind of assuming that I'm ignorant. Whereas I just disagree. I'm allowed to have an opinion that is different from yours, and that doesn't make it objectively wrong.

It's not a deficiency in my understanding. I see this a lot also in gender dynamics in terms of like sometimes, you know, people will like, especially towards women and within our community. You know, people will be like, oh, because you are a woman, therefore your opinion is worth less than someone else's. Like, you need to understand. Or actually, I don't even know that it's even that conscious, but like I see this a lot where, where, where, disagreements are viewed as like a lack of understanding. Anytime there's kind of like this power dynamic, whether it's parents and kids or men and women or whatever. Have you had personal experiences where you felt like you've been kind of shouted down or ignored because of your disability?

I want to say yes, but I'm not able to pull anything right out of the top of my head. Totally fine, man. I know I've had to argue a lot with like psychiatrists and everything as well, just in general, things like medication. It's one of the reasons why I pursued pharmaceutical sciences and stuff because I wanted to have a bit more control over my own medication since, like, when it comes to like the pharmaceutical side, it's very, it's not patient tailored because we're not going into like genetics, et cetera, et cetera.

So finding those right mediums were very difficult. And so I wanted to have some sort of authority in that conversation to be able to better treat myself versus where it's just, no, I'm, I know better. Yeah, that really pisses me off. Like, I think that I recently had a conversation with a patient of mine where, you know, it was a tough, it was a tough sort of impasse because I was sort of recommending a particular medication that they didn't like. And then ultimately, like, you know, at some point in the conversation, I was like, I'm not the

one, it's easy for me to make this recommendation because I'm not the one who has to put that pill into my body on a daily basis. You know, and I think that's very easy to forget. Like, we sort of think about, you know, what's like evidence-based and scientific. But like, as pharmacologic prescribers, like, we're not the one who has to, you know, I have this book, right? And the book has a list of side effects. And I'm like, it can cause dry mouth.

It can cause weight gain. It can cause erectile dysfunction. But like, I'm not the one who has to live with it, right? It's the patient who has to live with it. And that's what makes it really, really change. challenging. I think oftentimes as prescribers, like, it's one of the things that I try really hard to remember. It's something that I don't think we emphasize enough, but I don't think that you should need to get formal training to be informed about medications. I think actually that's your right as a

patient, and it's the responsibility of your doctors to equip you with the information to make an informed choice as opposed to overrule what you want to based on their authority. Like, do they know about it more than you do? Absolutely, but it's their job. Informed consent is like not about the consent, it's about the informed. Absolutely. I do actually have an example as well. I went to my friend's wedding and I had gotten lost. I was in the actual wedding venue, but I guess I wasn't supposed to be there yet. and I told like this person came through and said like hey you're not supposed to be here like he was like getting really aggressive with me and so you know I went in to open up immediately

with hey I'm autistic I'm confused I don't know where I'm supposed to be and his response immediately was to see me as a child he directly put his hands on me and it was like there there bud like literally all of my autonomy in that instance was ripped from me rather than being like, hey, I might have some trouble interacting this conversation. I just need a little bit help. Like, it was completely ripped from me and just, like, my personal space was invaded. My intellectual capability was invalidated. It sucked.

Like, like, I don't want to call it traumatic, but at the same time, it felt, disgraceful. You're good with words, Des. I paid a lot. I had to pay a lot of attention to words growing up. Like there was times where like I think I spent days

studying to understand metaphor, simile, stuff like that, just because I wanted to have greater communication capability. Yeah, I think you do a very good job. I think you're, you know, we talk about Alexa Thymia sometimes on stream. I'd be really curious about how you learned how to put words to what you feel.

Because I even saw like the gears turning in your mind there where you were like recalling the experience and trying to figure out what is the right word to describe how I felt. And it was yeah, you're good with words, man. It's cool. It's it's a pleasure to hear you talk about stuff. I'm happy to hear that. Yeah. You're like your skill. with your words, like in terms of the way that you paint. And you can paint a very clear picture because your words are quite precise. Do you want to talk about color on the spec? I'm sorry, did you have a response?

I mean, I didn't mean to shift gears on you there. So color the spectrum is an event that's happening April 30th. That is really problematic for those of us on the autistic spectrum. It's done by Mark Robber, and I'm sure it's done with good intention. some of the language used, one of the problematic things are things like my son will never be able to become an astronaut, where there's a lot of this, like a lot of autistics, and a lot of parents are hit with this immediately as soon as their child's diagnosed with autism, your son will never be able to do this. Your daughter will never be able to become this, right?

There's a lot of, a lot of, I can't think of the word. There's a lot of qualifiers placed on what a person can and can't be as soon as they have a disability. And this language is really harmful to the autistic community. We were kind of, as mentioned, emphasized where we're seen as children, a lot of everything going on is from the perspective of parent to child rather than adult to adult or adult to child, right? I think that an adult to a child, that communication is different than a parent to a child. And next for autism is the charity that's being supported. Up until recently, they wanted to cure and prevent autism, which many of us in the autistic community feel is very, they use eugenics. I think that's very, very, very powerful term, I see it as saying you don't want me to exist, that autistics shouldn't exist because we're seen as problematic. Of course, next for autism came out with a

whole thing like, oh, we never said that. This is just gross misinformation. And then they suddenly removed their mission statement that actually included. cure autism, et cetera, and just didn't talk about it. So they basically gaslit the entire autistic community and just like, oh, don't listen to them. Sorry, go ahead. Can I play devil's advocate for a second? Because now actually I'm a little bit confused. Devil's advocate means I'm supporting a point, but it's really, I'm confused.

So when I, as a medical professional, when I think about a disability, I do certainly have a bias. Like, for example, when someone, you know, loses a let, or maybe that has to do with losing, I tend to think about restoration of function is an important part of my profession. And so when I think about someone with like a physical disability, like if someone had lost a hand, like I would think that it is a good move for that person to no longer be disabled. when I think about, you know, like I'll write letters for like medical disabilities for people with depression. I certainly, I mean, I personally like have a goal as a treatment provider to get that person to no longer be disabled. So now I'm a little bit confused about, and apologies if I'm, you know, coming across as like not understanding because I'm really confused now because when I, when you use the word disability, I think about something as.

that word triggers in me the idea that something could or eventually should be fixed. What do you think about that? I acknowledge that it is a disability. It does limit what I can do and what I can accomplish. But I think it's a disservice to also what it allows for us to do and for what it allows for us to accomplish. right? It's important to acknowledge, is autism a disability because it's a disability or is it a disability because of society? And understanding how our ability to function in society makes it a disability. That's a great point.

And so there's a lot of that argument where it might not be something that needs to be care or prevented because rather it should be about, meeting us and understanding what we are or what we're dealing with rather than me like, you don't fit. Let's fix you. Because that, that, that's super problem. Very well said. So I'm going to kind of just riff off that for a second and talk about ADHD. So a lot of times when I work with people with ADHD also as a clinician, I try really,

really hard to not take the kid and make him successful. Don't default to making him successful. sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day. So my treatment, if you can call it that for ADHD, is to try to structure an environment where their VATA mind. So they have a mind that's far more dynamic, can handle a lot more varied stimuli and is not really suited to like staring at a book for four hours a day. So what I actually try to do with my patients with ADHD is not to turn them into people who can read books, but to help them structure an environment because I think that ADHD is actually like more of a natural. I mean, there's definitely a clinical illness in there,

but I think there are too many people who get diagnosed with ADHD because their minds are not suited for a particular environment like school. So there's a really interesting bit of research that shows that as the student to teacher ratio gets worse, more kids get diagnosed with ADHD. So if you have one teacher in 10 students, very few diagnoses of ADHD. If you have one teacher in 50 students, like half the class is going to get diagnosed with ADHD. So I can totally get behind that. Did you want to say something? I actually wish I had that kind of treatment growing up. For me, the only place I can actually study is in a classroom now. So I need like this is very specific environment. Anywhere else I can't study. Yeah. It sucks. Yeah, I think it's also an

interesting philosophical question about, you know, how much do we change who we are versus how much do we adapt or shape our environment to accommodate us. I'm curious, and let me know if this question rubs you the wrong way. If I could give you a pill and that would quote unquote cure your autism, would you take it? It's one of those hard things, right? It's like, it can't, I can't quantify what part of me is autistic.

Right? That's one of the big things in like why we we tend to prefer autistic individual versus individual with autism is because we can't really separate that. We can't be like, oh, that's my autism part. Okay, bye, I don't like you. It's so much of who I am. And so to secure my autism would mean eliminating who I am. And so, like, I couldn't.

Like ethically, not just like, not just because of like the other reasons. So even ethically, I would be deleting a part of myself. Hmm. Interesting. So can I disagree with you a little bit? Yeah, sure. You're more than welcome to disagree. All respect.

So this is where like I tend to be in the minority and I realize what I'm about to say like may offend like millions of people. But, you know, it's weird, Des. Like, because it's hard because what are you? right like i can understand exactly where you're coming from but the more i've meditated so a lot of what i'm saying comes from my experiences in meditation where i've come to realize that core parts of my identity is not truly who i am so i would potentially for example identify as a doctor and i clearly do and there's a part of me that feels like if you took my medical license away i would not be me but oddly enough, the more I've meditated, the more I've come to realize that even being a doctor is a false part of who I am, that the truest part of who I am is somewhat transcendent and cannot be reduced to a particular quality.

I know it sounds weird, but like, like, I don't think of myself, so it's kind of bizarre. So I work with a fair number of people who are transgender too. And, and, you know, my approach to them is I can't tell if this is like really, really offensive or really, really accepting. but that their basic humanity is like makes the core of who they are and that that transcendent humanity is far more important than what their gender is.

And some people get really offended by this and we have that conversation and other people really appreciate it. I'm not sure what's right or wrong. It's just been my experience in terms of discovering who I am. Because there's a part... Yeah.

Sorry, I don't think I've, follow. Doesn't that fit my statement? Because you said that it may. Sorry. Yeah. So, so that's what's kind of confusing. I think it's a different way of looking at identity. But like, I, there's a part of me that says that we could change a lot of things about you and you would still be you. But what I'm hearing you say is that you consider your identity to be entangled with autism. And so removing the autism is removing a piece of you. Right. Like philosophically, in somewhat neuroscience scientifically speaking, like our consciousness is our brain, right? We could argue that the structure of our brain plays a large role in our consciousness. With autism being a neurological disorder, the way that my brain is shaped is shaped so by my autism. So to change that neurological component would be to change myself. Yeah, so then my next question is, is changing yourself a bad thing?

There's a difference between changing yourself in neuroplasticity and choosing key components of your identity. And in that, I can't think of a good example right now. There's superficial change that we all have that, to some degree, I think, can be critical. But at the identity of it all, it's the same. I think maybe this is a good example, Phineas Gage. For those who don't know, Phineas Gage had a rod. He was a railroad worker.

He had a rod go through his job, basically. I can't think of this specific. And went through the frontal cortex, which caused his entire behavior to change. So he started gambling. He went from like this religious devout person to a gambling alcoholic, very aggressive, very, just very horrible person, so to speak, by comparison. Not saying that, that is horrible, but was he still Phineas Gage?

And like that's the whole theory of mind and what is and isn't. I don't think I'm equipped to really have that, that conversation. But to my understanding is that I cease to exist when that changes. Yeah. So this is where things. get a little bit tricky because I, you know, it's interesting, Des, because I get exactly where you're coming from. And I think autonomy is ultimately like what is most important. So I think you get to decide whether you like who you are and whether you want to change. I do think it's

arrogant for an organization or for someone else, like including myself as a, you know, potential treatment provider for me to decide what is right for my autistic patients. Like, I don't get to make that decision. You get to make that decision. And so I can get, I can totally support you 100% in terms of, you know, you saying that autism has shaped the person that I am. And I would, it's, I didn't hear you say yes or no if I offered you the pill. No. No, okay. So I think that's totally fine.

I think that's, ultimately, I think autonomy tends to be the, the ethical principle that is a treatment provider. Like I try to value above everything else. at the same time, I also find that I'm in the profession of trying to make people change, that a lot of times people will come to me because there is a part of what they view as their core identity, which they do not like, in which they want to change. And I think that's totally fine, too. I know personally that a lot of my journey has been struggling to get away from my identity and discover who I truly am. Because I think a lot of our identity is like crafted and given to us.

Right. Like you're like the identity that society gives you when you're at that wedding and you say to this person that I have autism and I'm confused. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to be. The way that the world treats you, the way that the identity that like the world kind of hands you is one that I think sometimes we have to actually try really hard to get away from because I think we also internalize some of that. So it's not just, you can arguably say, yeah, society's like, society's wrong, but I think what we do is we internalize these things,

right? When we think about shame and stuff like that, we start to believe that we are, you know, when it comes to the chads and the, what chads in the betas? Is it Chad and beta? Is that the, what's the opposite of the Chad? Anyway, I don't know. So it's tricky, but I'm, I'm really happy that you answer the question. I feel like I learned a lot, and I think you really helped me understand. You said not people with, because that's interesting, because I've been told the opposite, that it's more offensive, that you should define a person by a particular diagnosis. That's the thing, right? Like, as I was mentioning, since autism is a neurological disability, we are as much autistic as we are a person.

We're an autistic person, right? Our identity can't be separated. I can't just be like, okay, I'm going to go ahead. and take my autistic self. Now I'm going to just leave it out home. Now I'm going to be totally normal today. I never can separate that. So I was taught the opposite by a different group of people with a different diagnosis. So, and I'm not saying one is right or wrong, but like just to share with you like another conversation I had, I was talking with people with schizophrenia. And in medicine, we have some diseases that we define as the person. So we'll say so and so is a

schizophrenic, right? But there is no noun that involves cancer. So cancer is an illness, like you're not defined by your cancer, like you get diagnosed with a cancer. I have a cancer. I'm not like a canceric. And so people like when I was kind of like talking to people with schizophrenia, what they were sort of saying to me is that they don't appreciate being defined by a particular illness or aspect of themselves, and that they think that the person is more important with schizophrenia. Because there's still a person. And the problem is that once you get labeled as a schizophrenic,

you become a schizophrenic. You become a, and I guess what they would say is you become an autistic in the eyes of others, but that your humanness is more important than your autism. But I understand both sides of the argument. I don't know. I think when it comes to schizophrenic, it has a lot to do with the stigma. As we mentioned at the start of this, the individual with borderline personality disorder, these things have such negative connotations to them that you naturally don't want to be associated to that.

You want to be seen as a person because what society sees when they hear these words are untouchable, someone that just to avoid. Thankfully, that hasn't happened with autism yet. Okay. And so I think we have the ability to take that word. and make it a positive rather than trying to distance ourselves from negative connotations. And so do you consider, like, if I were to, so you refer to yourself as an autistic individual. Is that your preferred?

And is the term, is there a noun form of person with autism? Is it an autistic? Yes, an autistic. As an autistic. Okay. So then the term autistic is not offensive to you. No. Okay, got it.

Thanks for clarifying. Cool. Again, I can only really speak for myself and other autistics that I've interacted with. Obviously, there's going to be people of a community that might feel otherwise. I think I saw a comment. It's up to the individual. And I think that's important as well to consider is that some individuals will prefer to be referred to as individual with autism. some will be referred to as autistic individual.

And I think both should be honored based on the individual person. Yeah. Cool. Anything else that you want to tell us or explain to us about, you know, what's going on in the autistic community or anything that you want to raise awareness of? I'm currently doing a charity event for Autistic Self Advocacy Network. We've raised $16,840. so far this month. This is my third year running Warriors for Autism in World Warcraft.

I eventually would like to start my own charity focusing on helping autistic adults. I want to focus on things like housing and employment and kind of like creating this, this community that is self-sustaining. But in the meantime, one of the most important things is I think self-advocacy, equipping autistics to be able to advocate for ourselves to illustrate what autism is so that the broader population can understand who we are is incredibly important. And it's one of the reasons why I've been really, really proud to support ASAN for these past three years. Awesome. Can I ask one clarifying question? Sorry, about the terminology.

Yeah, go ahead. Is the term autist, hopefully that's not a banable term, but do you know, But is that offensive or is that okay? I'm not a big fan of autist. I don't know about others. Like, I can't speak on that one with any authority. But I know that autist has a bit more slang to it in that it has negative connotations, kind of similar to Spurg.

A lot of people don't know that Spurge comes from Asperger's, and that a lot of the characteristics that use are associated, to Spurg are the negative characteristics that you associate to autism. Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Yeah, I sort of am more familiar with that term in terms of like, I do find it to be a little bit more derogatory and stigma inducing. I basically don't see it used outside of 4chan, which I think by definition makes it a little bit less savored. Yeah, exactly. So, but thanks for clarifying, Des. I appreciate that. Of course.

So sometimes I'll teach people how to meditate on stream. Is that interesting to you? I actually used to meditate a lot when I was younger. I got harassed a lot for that. Like one time when I was in an after-school care thing, I would be meditating and not even joking, one of the employees there took their drinking through it in my face. That's crazy, man. Yeah. I wish I have so many stories like this. Childhood was rough. So, meditating. Yes. I haven't done in many, many, many years, but I used to quite regularly.

Okay, so I can teach you like a relatively introductory technique, which we do frequently on stream. Maybe we can all do it together. but it's a good technique because it actually increases your sympathetic. Let me think about this. So there's one that balances your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. And there's another one that, um, you suppress a yawn? No. Okay.

I just felt like I got a yawning signal for me. I just took a deep breath. Just like, like getting prepared to meditate. I was like, oh, he's trying not to yawn to be polite, and he's been programmed. Oh, no, no, oh my God. I was taking physics, a calculus-based physics, and it was lit at night. And I totally forgot where I was, and I just let out this big, while the teacher was talking.

Yeah. I have something to show you real quick. So I can give you two options for a technique. One is one that balances your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. And another one actually activates your parasympathetic nervous system more directly. This is not what I was looking for, but I think it's interesting. So there's some evidence that people who test high on sociopathy don't actually people who test high on the sociopathy scale actually don't, they don't yawn the same way.

So, like, a contagious yawning is less common in people who are sociopaths. So if you guys are, for those of you on Twitch chat who are yawning with us, you are less likely to be a sociopath. And for those of you who are not yawning, you are more likely to be a sociopath. This is not the paper I was looking for, but I grabbed it anyway just because I think it's interesting because this one talks about autism versus psychopathic traits. I've never seen a paper that compares the two. But I'll have to look at this. I can send this to you want.

Yeah, I'd actually really like that. Yeah. That was actually one of the hardest things I found about. My master's program was reading papers. Oh, God. I hate papers so much. I think that's the ADHD part, though. Anna Lutty.

I don't know her. Okay, interesting. So in terms of meditation, You want, you know, we can do something that is, what you might call. We can do something that's parasympathetic and sympathetic, or something that it really recruits the parasympathetic nervous system more directly. Let's try the parasympathetic more directly. Okay.

So I'm going to teach you a technique called Bellow's Breath. Actually, let me think about it. Let's teach you something new. So I'm going to teach you, hold on. Yeah, okay. I'm going to teach you a technique called Bellow's Breath or, no, that's not the translation. I'm going to teach you, I forget what the Sanskrit word is, but I'm going to teach you, yeah, let's just call Bellow's breath. It's technically not correct. But so what I'm going to do is do a series of rapid, forceful exhalations followed by a passive inhalation. It's kind of hard to describe it. You'll understand, I think, hopefully when I show you. So we're going to breathe very rapidly, focusing on the exhalation. And then what's going to happen is our CO2 level is going to drop really low. And so as our CO2, as we become hypocarbic, our respiratory drive is going to compensate by slowing down our breathing.

And so as we slow down our breathing, it's going to be like really, really natural. And then we'll sort of be in this like chill state afterward. Okay. So what I'm going to do, I'll just demonstrate. So we're going to start with like, I'll do nine breaths. And I'm going to blow out ex forcefully through the nose nine times. And it sounds kind of weird, but I'm not going to focus on inhaling. I'm just going to try to push out air over and over and over again.

And then after nine breaths, I'm going to just be silent. Okay? So ready? Hold on. I need Kleenex. The snot came out. Okay. Here we go.

Did you get that? So nine forceful exhalations. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to watch you do it. Okay. So breathe out hard nine times and then just chill after. Okay.

Good. So second time around, we're going to do, let's do 15 with our eyes closed. Okay. So close your eyes. Take a deep breath in and begin. All right. Let's do 20 now. How do you feel after the 15 breaths?

Confused mostly. Okay. So let's try 20. Am I supposed to breathe in directly after the 15 or do I hold my breath there for a bit? Don't hold your breath. Okay. Just do whatever feels natural. Because holding my breath is what felt natural because like I just didn't want to breathe.

Yep, yep. That's the point. But don't try to hold your breath, right? So I told you that there's going to be a natural, slowing of your respiratory rate because you're hypocarbic. So your mind will, like, you'll feel like not breathing. And then as you don't breathe, it'll actually like recruit your vagal systems. Okay.

Right? So rapid breathing is associated with this sympathetic nervous system activity, increased respiratory rate. So what we're doing is recruiting naturally our vagal system. Okay? Okay. So let's do 20 breaths. ready take a deep breath in go so we're just going to sit in this space for about 60 seconds

and when you're ready go ahead and come on back how are you feeling it feels very similar to like a hot shower or a hot tub or relaxing on the couch with a loved one interesting relaxing on the couch with a loved one meditation well yeah like like there's these times where like you just find a really good show it's not like super like exciting, but you just feel so at peace with your, your loved one that you just kind of like melt into the couch. Right. I don't really know how to. So that's what we call parasympathetic activation. Right.

That's a beautiful way to describe it, actually. It's like, you know, you're kind of recruiting your floatiness, your chillingness. And, you know, I'd be a little bit careful desk. Like I'd experiment a little bit on your own. maybe if you have a clinician involved, just touch base with them. But my hope would be that if you're ramping up towards like an autistic meltdown,

you may be able to use this to recruit some of that floaty sensation. You've just got to be a little bit careful that that initial hyperventilation phase doesn't actually make things worse. Chances are I use this technique for people who have panic attacks. And if they can do it kind of early enough,

they can sort of stave off the panic attack. And a lot of times, even in the middle of a panic attack, it can be helpful. And they always tell me when I do it with someone who's acutely in a panic attack, like in the emergency room, they say it doesn't help. But then a week later, they'll like, yeah, that actually helped a lot. I just didn't realize it at the time. So I didn't use this metaphor earlier, but I think it's a good example to describe kind of the difference between neurotypical response and autistic response. It's like we have this, this water balloon, right? And so the water balloon can hold so much water. And eventually, if there are too much water gets in it, it bursts, right? I feel like

normal individuals have valves towards the bottom of it. So it takes a lot of water and a lot of like misfortunate circumstances for it to actually fill enough to burst. So eventually, like, as water comes in, water goes out. For those of us with autism, or at least for myself specifically, the way I would describe it, is we have a much smaller balloon, and the valves are at the very top. So as it fills with water,

it takes longer for water to come back out, so it fills up at a much more rapid rate than the water going out. So we're more likely to hit that burst point before we realize that we're full. So it's really hard and requires a lot of cognition of like there's water in here. I need to start prepping and preparing myself before it even reaches those valves. Well said.

Beautiful analogy des. So thanks a lot for coming on. We really appreciate you coming on, sharing your perspectives about what it's like to kind of grow up with autism. I think you did a really awesome job of showing. showcasing kind of what the experience is on the inside for someone with autism in terms of like, you know, not being able to really understand why things were hard for you, which I think is a really, really good example. I hear that the most from people, not with anxiety or depression, but people with autism and ADHD. I don't understand why this is hard for me when it seems so easy for everyone else. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. No, no, go for it. Oh, no, no. I was just, just. going to agree with you. Yeah. I think it's a beautiful way to describe, you know, because a lot of

times people aren't going to know, like, like people who may wonder if they're autistic, I think this is a really key takeaway for them, is that if things just seem really, really hard for you and like they seem so much easier for other people, there may be something going on, like autism or ADHD. Exactly. So I think that's actually like a really beautiful way to put it. So thanks very much for coming on. Thank you for all the work that you do. I think it's awesome that you're doing it. And yeah, man, thank you.

Thank you so much for having me. This has been really exciting. And I was so nervous about today. I'm not going to allow. I was so nervous. But this was actually really great. I really hope that my story and everything's helped connected with others. And I mean, one of my favorite things is,

people hearing this story and realizing like, hey, maybe I'm autistic. You know, and they start looking into it. They start pursuing it. And they might finally have answers to why life's been so hard. And not only that, but to have that connection and to finally feel that sense of belonging. Yeah. So thanks a lot, man. I'm struggling to not make a joke about how much of a Chad you are.

Like you guys can find des at Twitch.tv slash. Des the autistic Chad. But it's Desmaphisto, right? Yes, Desmaphisto. So check out Des on Twitch and good luck, man. Yes, thank you. Thank you. That's great.

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