Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Jim Irion: The Unseen Struggle and Triumphs in Adult Autism

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Send us a text When Jim Irion finally pieced together the puzzle of his life after an autism diagnosis at 37, it was akin to finding a missing key to a lock long-closed. Our latest episode offers an intimate glimpse into Jim's powerful narrative, highlighting the profound influence a late diagnosis can have on understanding oneself and redefining one’s life path. We journey alongside him as he traverses the realities of adult autism, from the daily nuances like tying shoes to the larger life decisions that shape our existence. His voice serves as a beacon for others who may be grappling with similar challenges, and his candidness about the mental health battles he's faced is both sobering and deeply impactful. Through the lens of Jim's experiences, we tackle the complexities that autism weaves into the fabric of daily life. He lends us his insights on the delicate balance of expressing oneself while managing the intricacies of neurodiversity. Our conversation ventures into the nuances of meltdowns versus tantrums, the weight of career uncertainty, and the importance of recognizing and embracing one's autistic traits. Jim's story isn't just about the hardships; it's a resonating message that clarity and empowerment can emerge from the most tangled of situations. The episode culminates with an empowering discussion on perseverance and the importance of building a resilient support network. Jim's reflections on suicide and the coping strategies he has developed offer a lifeline of hope and solidarity to listeners. Together with the autistic community and their allies, we underscore the shared commitment to understanding, advocacy, and the unwavering 'Why Not Me' spirit. Join us for this heartfelt conversation that promises to enlighten, inspire, and remind you that you're not walking this path alone. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World.

My guest today is Jim Arian. He was diagnosed autistic later in life. He's here to tell us how that affected him, how that changed his life. Also, he talks about something that society in general just does not want to talk about. It's the second leading cause of death for autistic people around the world. And that's suicide. He will tell us his journey through his life with autism, how it affected him, how he considered suicide, how he tried to commit suicide, and now how he is an advocate for the autistic

community around the world. Thanks for coming on to tell your story. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Tony. Oh, it's my pleasure. You've got such a great story. You're an advocate for autism. You found out later in life you're autistic.

Tell us a little bit about both, if you would. As an advocate and a writer, I make sure to tie in years and ages, or if I'm in high school, what grade, so that people can relate to that basic information. For me, nobody had a clue until 2019, and it was probably May or June, where my counselor at the time had a hunch. Dialectical behavioral therapy wasn't working for me. I raised my voice to the guy, not in a disrespectful way, but it just was so frustrating. I didn't understand. Here's what I thought I needed, employment and companionship, and this wasn't going in that direction.

And she said, I wonder why it's not working. I'm going to have you assess for autism. And I didn't hardly know anything but the name, autism. And I wanted it to stay that way because I was afraid that it would be biased. I wanted to be unbiased. If you're going to do it, do it right. And after an assessment, after one month, and then going to, through with my psychiatrist and counselors for about two months. They decided, yes, I am, as it was said,

on the anxiety part of the spectrum. But nobody knew until age 37, two months later, I turned 38, because I had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder at age eight in 1990. And it wasn't until I broke out of that in 2008 that I could begin exploring slowly that there was something more here. I knew there was something else that was wrong. You know if you have just a minimal understanding, of mental health, in AED, or as it's known now, ADHD, that it just didn't seem to fit. So how I got to that point was as rocky as it gets because although I live at home, I still do. Okay. I couldn't rely on my parents because of their age and the generational gap, which is common.

Sure. In seeking out who, I mean, I'm starting literally from scratch. I went to a general practicing counselor for three visits in September of 2016. Okay. That gave me the guidance to explore the volunteer community, but I alienated some of them at the same time as I started, as I refer to modern counseling or conventional counseling the people know versus 20 or 30 years ago. Right. Within six to 12 months, we came upon that realization of them autistic, and if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't be talking to you. Wow.

It was very specific. And then afterwards, slowly, more so since 2022, I started. realizing, oh, I am. And as they say, that it just made more and more sense. You found more clues. And I'm thinking, I had hoped one day that whatever these unknown issues, whatever was causing him, that there might be support of some kind that I can get right in life and get somewhere and move on from this to realize the more I found out, the more I found out that there wasn't. Right. And because of age, too. Yeah. So when you found out and it was, and the diagnosis came back, what was your reaction to that? Did you embrace it or did you kind of say, no, no, I don't think it is? How did you react? And that's good because within the last year, I can answer that question versus before.

initially what happened was what's this on the list what's this autism spectrum disorder I had a co-volunteer who was a program coordinator and he said there's really no services for adults with autism that was bad enough and one of the big needs of my life

is companionship that within I'd say three or four months attending lucky to have a local autism support group for adult age and research was shared that one in three autistic people find companionship and that's not very good odds. So that was very depressing, and I'm surrounded by people who need to be positive about it,

who are struggling in people who want you to be. Right. And want you to be right now. Right. So I had to bury it. I had to, and I didn't know this until, I think, technically it was July of 2022 or June of 23, not very long ago. Right.

That I was in denial. Okay. that I moved on something I couldn't get around. I'm understanding autism piece by piece like falling leaves and not seeing the tree. Sure, sure. And it was more traumatic once they uncovered that because how that happened was I started asking the right questions when I looked up a support group for a nonprofit, mental health nonprofit. I'm a member of. Okay.

And that debated is autism neurological or not and it doesn't belong? It shouldn't get any assistance. So I asked the right questions, and I found out, thanks to another two co-volunteers in the community, that autism was neurological and developmental. Right. So when I asked the right questions, I realized, wait a minute, this affects, and this is still answering that question, this affects more a lot more than I thought. Sure. When I got to that point, it was June.

I was given a presentation opportunity. It still really hadn't set in. So in July, when I finished the first draft of that, and I had it in writing in one place, condensed, I had 24 hours where mostly I just shut down. I went numb, but I didn't understand why until June of 2023. When I'm going back over there, I'm saying, well, I didn't process this. Is it an identity crisis? And when I did, I have an hour long bit of that 24 hours ahead the year before.

I just started crying. Just uncontrollably, like I finished the paragraph about that realization and what did I go through right after I was diagnosed and I cried. I was thankful I had someone a friend on Twitter who consoled me but and I since realized not only was I diagnosed late the damage it had done to my life was pretty serious. Right. And may have touched off I'm in the writing to be assessed for post-traumatic stress because I've had an increase of stress considerably since June of last year and it may have reached briefly a nightmare level

I had a nightmare when I was working on my holiday journey experiment this holiday season on the 29th. I just woke up absolutely terrified. And there was no origin for that fear. So it's been quite rocky since June. Okay. All right. So you was diagnosed when you was 37, 38. So what was your formative years like?

I talked with one lady that found out in her 30s and I talked with another one that found out in her 40s. She started looking back at things that had happened in her earlier years, and then it took her a while. Then when she heard her 50, she started actually living, she said. She said, I lost four decades. So how was your formative years? Did you know something was different wrong? Just couldn't put a finger on it? How did that go for you?

First, a quick comment with the loss of the 40 decades. I think mine is about 20 or 30. Okay. All this time and realizing, it's almost like you're subconsciously connected to patterns of something's not right here, something's not right there. And certain things I did, like with a best friend, it did twice. And I think, why did I do that? Or I would just spit out something that I was thinking. And I'm asking myself, before I even get a reprimanded from the teacher, why did I say that?

Right. Okay. But one of the earliest examples, and for me, it's processing that bit by a bit, piece by piece, because it's so long ago, even if it would have been at 37 or 38, it's so many years ago. Yeah. When I had a lot of bullying in school, I repressed a lot of, of that. So there's a lot I don't remember and I have to piece it together. Okay. But one of the first clues was fourth grade, same as that example for spit it out. That's

what I said, was I was given an assignment. The class was, here's your card, do a presentation explaining what it was. And mine was how to tie your shoes. Okay. That was so difficult because it was something so easy and taken for granted to do that it probably caused a, a, a, some sort of a meltdown or a panic attack because I freaked out at home when I'm trying to write it. And I'm thinking, why is this so hard? I couldn't explain the way that made sense because it was something so simple. I presented it to the class and it was confusing. And it almost seemed to have been kind of like a mini traumatic episode from presenting it because not only is you're up in front of your peers, given something that I had a lot of trouble doing that wasn't just what's one plus one equals two.

It's something that involves comprehension. Sure. It's piece by piece and there's literally been no pattern. It's what am I looking at in my life? I was diagnosed with chronophobia, a fear of time-related stressors, the same time as I was diagnosed as autistic. Okay. And September, I'm thinking, well, that's something I didn't connect.

I just shoved it to the side. Right. Okay. Does that involve anything to do with autism? And I sat down and thought my way through it. I had gone through my life with the career indecision. issues that I had in an article one year ago. I went back a little bit further and did it again,

taking into consideration, decent sense of where I had episodes of crying that seemed trauma involved. And it actually went back to, I think the summer before I started junior high, it was 94, probably mid-teens, and I kept on going through to the present, and I realized not only is there issues of indecision,

there's instances where I had breakdowns, Between 94, and I did this to my counselor when I had the R. I did go back to this section and count how many times it looks like there's a traumatic episode. How many do you have? And between 94 and 2001, not very much time, but that's junior, senior high, early college. Right. Five. Wow.

She counted five. And I said, yeah, that's how many I was. Because I wanted to make sure I got her opinion without being biased about it. Right, right. And that was a minimum. Okay. What I could remember after so much time and how many. many there have been since then. It's probably more than I've had, definitely more than I've had

four instances, experiences with suicide. Okay. Contributing a plan and two instances of furtherance that it could be 20. It could be 30, 40, 50, because you're masking, you know, your decision issues, your interest, your monotropism. Right. Try to blend in because what do we do? We don't have a choice. Right. Well, automatically, people automatically will mask anyway. But for us, well, why didn't I say that, then you're masking it. Why did I do that? That didn't seem right. Anybody looked at me and then you're masking it. And before you know, it's, you can't tell when you're doing it. Okay, so how did that affect your family life? Did your parents think there was something going on? Did you have any conversations about that? You brought up meltdowns. There's a difference between a

meltdown and just be having a tantrum. Did your parents understand or how was your home life that way? During my use? Yeah, yeah, during while you was in school, high school. Yeah, everything was seen having that 1990 diagnosis of ADD and age eight. That's all everybody saw. Okay. Because that was through specialist care. So for that instance, in fourth grade, I think, I don't know if they had detention that early, but it was something my parents needed you be called about.

And I thought, why did I do that? And that's the same thing they thought, well, that must be ADD. And yet, if you had sat down and thought your ways through it, it never would have made sense. Right. So it was always, well, he's having these communications. issues. I had a psych about. I uncovered a couple months ago that the old paperwork for it in that year, 94, where they saw I had issues. I wasn't aware of it. It's, it's confusion on the part of my classmates that are around me, friends, as well as my parents, because I have a, a sibling

who may be, and it was looking at, we're raising these kids, but why are they having these issues, some frustration, difficulty, it is not easy being a parent of autistic kids. Right. So it was, I mean, really a lot of confusion and no solid awareness until much later in life. Now, I'm not as impaired as some to need to be set in a side room or having trouble with what you're wearing or the texture of what you're wearing as much as something. That causes a lot of disruption. Okay. But maybe that was balanced by the fact you just didn't know what it was and what are these issues, what there's something there. We don't know what it is and it's ongoing just frustration of, well, it's not working, but we'll just keep.

doing this and if you don't know, then at what point being now, you have to bridge that gap in order to deal with the problem. And if you don't know it, you're not going to be dealing this problem. Right. So once you got out of high school, you mentioned college. Did you go to college too? Twice. What was your major? Originally, it was, and this is following, masking that indecision and not following the monotropism was, I started with what I graduated in engineering degree prep. Okay. In mechanical engineering technology, but after the first semester, in the second one,

spring of 2001, they had a math course that was intended to weed people out who weren't serious about being an engineering. Well, I'm not good at math. I got weeded out. That burst my bubble. Okay. It led me to just pick something so I don't

graduate or just drop out. And I graduated with liberal arts degree of letters, art sciences, art history. Okay. Not in the script. It wasn't going to get me anywhere. And we'll get to what that caused a little bit later. Okay.

Because there was suicide involved in a year after I graduated. So I went back. After I worked, earned enough money to pay for the tuition myself. I went back in 2008 to 2010. I finished when I started. But if you really look at it very closely, I didn't start anything. There was no decision, no definitive attachment. I had been masking that whole time.

So I graduated with a bachelor's of arts. arts degree in history in a criminal justice minor. Okay. But never having that that path in investment. And it's nothing that some people may see as trivial or silly. It really is, if I'm doing something that somebody is guiding me to do that they kind of want, you're going to be empty. And that's cool is going to get bigger.

The longer time passes, or if it's just a regular job and not some big career, it's going to pull you down more over time. Okay. So there is a lot of indecision issue with that that the first time I was at college touched off suicide once, the second time was actually a break. I felt fine. It's like, okay, I'm doing this.

But when I graduated, then everything came right back to where it started as if it never stopped and the stress was there. So there's a lot of indecision I'm aware of, as far as monotropism, that's an issue for me going to college and not knowing about autism at all. All right. Now you just brought up a topic that's really tough for a lot of people to talk about. When people talk about it, they tend to think a little more morbid than they should. but it's one that needs to be talked about because there are other people out there that's going to be going through situations like you've gone through or they may be going through it like you have.

So you mentioned suicide. You've attempted suicide how many times? Twice? Once. Once. Okay. What led to that thought process for you to lead to you that you didn't want to be here anymore? And that's a very good question because it allows me to share the very specifics with autism. because until I understood autism, I couldn't apply this answer. Okay.

In that we commonly think in a very analytical way, logic. And I believe that in my case, I remember about a year or two before, I wasn't necessarily suicidal, but I was getting close. And how I described my life was, and I quoted it since then, was if I cannot decide whether or not to live my life, no one can make that decision for me. Okay. That's very analytical, very cold. you're painting yourself in a corner. Why? Nobody could figure it out. I don't think I really

told anybody at the time anyway. Okay. And so I have to be the one to do that. And I'm painting myself into a corner. That I think made it more susceptible for me to not relate to someone else before I did. It's harder after because then you're different. You seem to feel like you've changed. Right. But before, I couldn't relate to anybody anyway as well as being autistic and not knowing and realizing I may be alienating half the people I know in my life. Okay. And so I'm there. I mean,

I got to the point, and for some who are autistic, they may overshare. They may be unfiltered about the very specifics of suicide and having my survival story published in 2020. I know to be careful with that, I know also for some hard experience. Sure.

It really doesn't matter what the details are of the act. Yes. It's important to know why did it happen. and then finding some way to recover. Now, I've had one attempt experience, and I've had three others, and I consider because having been through them, I realized after the fact, because it takes a lot of time, took a lot of time for me to take it seriously,

that there's more than just attempts. Right. If you consciously harm yourself in a serious way, but it doesn't, you know, put your life in danger, that's a serious issue. It's also indicative of a decline that something's not being addressed properly. Okay. So I contemplated it.

a plan having the economic integration issue, not knowing I was autistic. I had that up to about 20, 2013 and my 2014 after college the second time. When I'm working temp jobs because the housing market had crashed, I decided, okay, here's a serious plan. I'm going to do this if A or B doesn't work out if I don't find a path to life in the next six to 12 months. And the next six months later in 2015, April, I got a job. Now, it was a tech troubleshooting for a direct TV at a call center, and I had that for a year. When they fired me a year after that in June of 2016, the last job I had, everything picked up where it left off again, like after I graduated college the second time. Okay. And I realized, oh, okay, I did make a plan in 2014. That's technically a relapse.

I need to take that seriously because here I am again facing. it happening a third time. Okay. So that was contemplating a plan, but not like hacking your bag or anything. It's still, I consider a serious because it can go to something worse. And worse did happen in 2018 and 2021. 2018, after I got alienated from the volunteer community, and that meant a lot to me to help myself and help others.

That triggered what I refer to as an act of suicide furtherance, where it's not an ideation, but it's more than ideation, it's thinking the thoughts of what happens, but it's not an attempt that puts you in life at risk. It puts you in that situationally. You can't. Okay. For me, I was at a physical location where I could, and I sat there and tried to cope with it on my own. Okay. Not the best idea to do. And it happened again when I was accused in misconduct, that it was actually missing social cues, oversharing and being unfiltered in 2021, one with an employment service provider, that for any of which ended the nine months I had services with them.

I went back and did it again. And I realized that more so than the plan is very serious because people think, oh, there's an attempt when you think about it. No, there's not. There's a clear progression to gray area that if you end up in that situation, it's probably even easier than not reporting your attempt. It's easier to dismiss, well, I had an instance of suicide furtherance, but that's a big red flag.

And even if you're asked by a care provider, are you suicidal today, and just didn't stop the problem. So in other words, basically what led up to your suicide attempt was a period of time. You thought about it. Things changed and you thought about it again.

So it was like one of those things that the more you contemplated it, the easier it became to become a reality. For the attempt, that was more so in 2003 at age 21, I believe. Okay. And actually, that brings to mind something

that I found out, within the last year, someone else. Now, though I'm learning this, looking back 20 years ago, I found somebody who was late diagnosed autistic in their early 20s, who had a similar experience specifically with college. Okay. We both, and I'll say them together, we both had significant indecision with what to do

as far as a career, an employment passed forward. We couldn't decide, and that was seriously disrupted our mental health. we had no path forward economically what to do or even maybe regular employment. There was just, there was a gap of what I had when I graduated. We both graduated with liberal arts degrees that that wasn't enough. It wasn't going to get us anywhere or where our interests were. And we had instances of traumatic stress, mine not knowing too much about hers. Mine was, I went to see a movie in December, mid-December of the 2002 when I graduated.

and I had an episode by at least a minimum of an hour of just crying out in my car afterwards. Okay. And it seemed like a release, a serious pressure release of stress,

traumatic stress. The attempt was seven months later in July. Okay. And she got connected with her interests in recent months now at that probably about early to mid-20s age

and now she's fine. That's great to hear. But with me, I wasn't. And what happened was it ended up peaking as a suicide attempt. Wow. So I think we see similar, similar experiences and almost identical age group.

So as well as being a male example and a female example, because women often manifest their autism differently. Yes. This similarity and such a detailed example, I think, was very important. It's one of the things that I'm trying to get out that it just, it wasn't just like a pain attack like, oh my gosh, this is going to happen. you get overwhelmed, there's a lot more to it than that for that attempt. So how old was you in what year was it your attempt?

It was July of 2003 and I believe I was 21. Okay, all right. Because I was 21, I think, in the up to the year before, 18 before I graduated. All right, so now once you attempted, how long did it take you to get back to what seems normal to you? To be honest, I'm not sure if I have. I was hoping that I would be wrong. I thought that just might be your answer. I've gone back to, I've risen from that, I've learned a lot about that, reflected on it.

But if we consider suicide is a serious issue and there's more to it than just an attempt or an ideation. Right. And I've had four, it's not four attempts, but it's a problem that it's still ongoing. And I'm not going to say that some people think those who have attempted are try to seek attention or they threaten that I'm going to harm myself to get. That's somewhere far from the tooth. It's more like a cry for help, but I'm on the cusp of the potential. I want to stress that again, the potential for a fifth incident, because the issues that caused four times before haven't been resolved.

What needs to be resolved to help your thought process? A lack of social integration, economic integration, because of my late diagnosis, no accommodations for that indecision issue with employment, and I missed so many milestones. then the social integration goes with it. So what do you do now so that you don't go back to those thoughts of thinking about suicide again? That's probably an everyday question that I constantly, although I'm not employed and trying to resolve that to get employed, every day, whether I have appointments or not, it's constantly distracting from thinking about thoughts like that or I'm 42, I'm unemployed for seven years, I'm not going

anywhere, specific examples that are good in their own right, good for something that's not suicide or autism related, but are important for me because it gets me through, as they say, to get, just to get by each day, is I listen to music, I mix playlists, music is very important to me because although I am legally blind, 21,000, my sense of hearing took a greater precedence as far as my senses, so I appreciate music as well as the kind that I listen to. I play some puzzle games, a heyday farming game app that's cooperative. You can help people instead of having your tout or base looted or your castle destroyed. You can work together.

There's a chat system that you can cooperate with people and years, 10, 11 years playing that and building friendships. Okay. Watching, I set aside, if I have something in the afternoon, then I have a period in the evening, or if I have nothing for the day, I watch in the afternoon and evening, at least one for twice, entertainment. And I've embraced that so much that I've watched some things that people may not even think of, that are engaging from my interests as well as distracting from the issues of my life. Right.

And I watched video game play-throughs of games that I've played or haven't played, that are done in a serious way that it's like somebody playing it for me. I can just sit there and watch quality gameplay. Okay. Because I grew up with that. All right. So do you have a good support system around you now that helps you navigate through the challenges that you have on daily basis?

Kind of social support network is really very spotty if at all because it's going from basically all that's left is one person to the next. People have busy lives. Commitments, families is a big one. I don't have a family. If I did, I would have that either daily

responsibility and or that compassion connection. I don't. So, and it's a serious issue that people don't take for granted. Particularly on the mental health profession is I have counseling. And I I did have psychiatry and trying the medications I've tried to six or seven years and not really getting any out of them. So it boils down case management isn't sure really to function to get you to somewhere for employment to help your finances and your financial assistance.

So it comes down to counseling that I have one hour. If I get it once a week. Okay. I just came from having right after Thanksgiving, having a counseling appointment on December 6th, and this is last year, December 6th. December 6th, and because they overloaded her schedule, there was a four-week gap. It turned into five after we had, they went a storm a couple weeks ago, five weeks, then I went backwards. And I told them that. Wow. That I'm in a very serious point. We can start working on maintenance stuff now that I have my support needs. What I ended up in these last two weeks is, well,

they're still not taking the accommodation seriously that I've requested. So you've got to realize one hour a week, how many hours for a short week there are, and how much many hours and days there are for a year. Right. Like 52 hours for an entire year, if I worked the math out, right, for a counselor once a week, every week. I don't have them every week. I just have five weeks of a gap. Yeah. So when am I really getting out of it? Now, I'm not saying there's nothing to get out of counseling or therapy. There is. Right. I got the way I'm understanding autism in part because of it. But not only you have to deal is that more responsive responsibilities on you or no matter how good your counselor is, you're only seeing

for one hour or week, if you do. So in some cases with autism, I'm not sure if it's helping for everybody. They might not have a counselor that really is sensitive to their autistic needs, and those needs are different and more pronounced than someone who isn't. So the profession hasn't gotten there yet. Okay. Now, you're an advocate for autism. What do you do to put the word out there to help people?

Do you have groups that you work with that helps you get the word out there so that you bring more awareness and acceptance and, of course, understanding to autism? Yes, and no, I do value, and lately I'm amazed that I have amassed a thousand followers. I used to be mostly on Facebook where you hardly have anybody or if it's, if you're, as they say, shadow band. But getting the word out, I have my writing on Medium, and I can provide a good reading list for the most essential information and articles that you can share when you share this podcast, however, as far as getting it out and being a futurist and seeing right away, even a year ago,

serious problems with the inconsistency in research and publicly available autism research where you look at and you think this is 18 or 21, that's not me. Or it's mostly impaired, that's not me. And it is like a bell curve. And we're in the middle where the greatest part of the curve is. That may be on either side. So I feel I always push myself to find ways to get it out. tweeting, different methods of doing tweets.

Okay, good. I'm driven by that knowing the need and the desire to help and knowing the severity of these issues. I have two informal theories that have gotten a lot of positive attention because informal, I'll have a PhD. But one PhD researcher said that she found that it was, I've been trying to figure that out in therapy for years. Good.

Oh, my gosh, that's a PhD saying this. Not only I have value, but I stumbled onto something I've, connected the pattern that we're really good at pattern recognition. It's important for people to see, well, what's that autistic chronophobia pointing out is that you're going to feel that time is running out because you're fearing that you're not integrating with society soon enough. And you'll have those stresses like the end of the year, your birthday. The second theory is monotopism employment theory with the issues that I mentioned about

indecision. Right. They inhibited my ability to choose something. And that inhibited my economic integration. up to today and will the days after every single day until it's fixed. And that it kind of highlights the importance that this can be really hard. And I might have it favorable compared to some, but have me hard in my own right. That I'm still not just wanting to give up, give in to suicide. It's trying to solve the problem. It's a sense of a justice sensitivity that this has been

my life. I'm a primary source with lived experience and in research, that's the best research they can get. Right. Try to do something about it, like you are with the podcast. Yeah. Okay, so this has been a great, great conversation.

You've given a lot of great information. Hopefully somebody that's listened to this can get something from it that will help them or help some others. What would you like to leave for a final comment about suicide or autism that could help others?

So the many things I've known to come up with, I have that sometimes it's as simple as few words can be as effective as many. One word, persist. I'm going to be doing a proprietary presentation in a couple months for a senior high age group in high school that no matter what, persist. You're going to face these challenges in life

that are going to be, they're going to be hard. It's going to take courage, it's going to take strength. You're going to feel that there's no way forward. And I feel that from time to time, even in recent years. My issues aren't resolved. and it's easy to just think, I can't do this, but get a decent night of sleep, wake up the next day, give tomorrow a chance, and persist. Even those who aren't autistic could be helping as you are can be valuable sources of information

about, well, why am I feeling the stress at the end of the year? Here's a theory. And then I'm thinking, I never thought I'd ever do that. Well, push you sounds further that you have valuable experience as well as valuable wealth of humility and humanity as a person. It's hard, but some of us are here like Tony and I trying to make sure we can do everything that we can because we've been there.

I believe this is something that people need to hear and I think you're going to help a lot of people with it. I really appreciate you coming on. And I appreciate the opportunity, Tony. Thank you very much. It's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today.

We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com. Contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask, tell everyone everywhere about why not me the world, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere, that you are not alone in this world.