Dr. Kristen Williamson on Neurospicy Brains: Autism, ADHD & Feeling Seen (Part 1)

Hey y'all, this is part one of a two-part episode. Hey there, listeners. Welcome to Shit That Goes Under Our Heads, the podcast where we normalize conversations around mental health. That's right. I'm Dirty Skittles, and alongside my amazing co-host, you, Rex, we are here to share stories and tips from our incredible guests. Each episode, we deep dive into struggles and triumphs of mental health, offering practical advice and heartfelt support. Because no one should feel alone in their journey. Join us as we break the stigma and build a community of understanding and compassion. Tune in and let's start talking about the shit that goes on in our heads. Three, two, one. Welcome back to another episode of Shit That Goes On Our Heads. I'm here with my amazing co-host Dirty Skittles and today We have an awesome guest who's waited almost a year to be on the podcast. Kristen, welcome, welcome to the podcast. Welcome. Hi, thank you for putting me on for this on the calendar for the year. What a way to kick off the year. Yeah. And that's such an important and amazing conversation. And it's going to turn into a two-parter, which I think is really awesome and just a great way to start off 2026. Yeah. Oh my gosh, yeah. So where should we begin? Would you like to tell us just a little bit about what do you do for work? Yes, absolutely. Hi, my name is Dr. Kristen Williamson. I feel so bougie when I say that, but really it's only because it gets me better hotel rooms. I'm not lying. I'm really, I'm like, I'm my own assistant and we'll call in and say that. I love that. I am a licensed professional counselor and I'm licensed in Texas, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, and Georgia. I work now almost specifically with the NeuroSpicy community, which is basically people who are autistic, ADHD, just any kind of spice of life. And it's fantastic because I didn't get diagnosed with autism until I was almost 40. I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until I was almost 40. And I was just out here experiencing life. And now I'm like, what? I used to say that and then people had told me that it was more of a sexual term. and I'm like, maybe I need to not use that term for how I am living life. Whatever. Fair. It is. I have slowly come into this amazing world of advocacy for the neurodivergent mental health world and it's amazing. I love that. So was it your own diagnosis that brought you to where you are now that it just makes your heart skip a beat every time you think about doing it, doing your work? No, absolutely not. Nope. Nope. I have two not so tiny humans. One is 16. One is 13. My 16 year old got diagnosed with autism at eight, seven, I don't know, a lifetime ago. And it was a fight for years to get to that diagnosis. It was usually what's wrong with you. There's something wrong with him. There's this. And so I got to dive into the world of just understanding autism. And I was a therapist at this point. I've been the therapist now for about a decade, not at that point, but currently. And about five, six years ago, I had a coworker, a friend of mine, Josh, say, I think you're autistic. I'm like, that's not true. I've got a kid who's autistic. I know what that looks like. I have studied it. I've read the books. These females present differently. And I was like, that's true. And so I went on a multi-year soul-searching, teeth-pulling, because I could not come to it easily. Nope. But then at once, because also getting diagnosed as an adult is expensive. and not everybody has that opportunity because insurance is you've lived this long. Why do we need to pay for it? So it was for a long time being as close as I could to being diagnosed, but having that undiagnosis and just like the awareness and then getting the diagnosis and yes. So now with the diagnosis, it's able to give me that podium in which I can speak that other people tend to listen because now I've got autistic and doctor behind my name. What did your coworker see in you that can let you know that about yourself. A lot of black and white thinking and a lot of would just, and I didn't even realize it was masking or non-masking at the time, but when we would talk, I would just, it's safe enough that I could just be more robotic in my speaking, more straightforward. I don't have to sugarcoat anything. And in Texas, everyone has a love for sugarcoating and doing the underlying words. And I don't often catch on to that. I think I've trained my brain into understanding it more now, but it wasn't for a long time. And so he was just not so easily dropping these breadcrumbs in front of me saying, look at this. How about this? Yeah, I guess I'm very curious when you say it presents different for females, what are some of those things? Like how does it? That is a glorious question. I'm so glad you asked that. From my take on it, it's almost from the womb that females are tasked with. We need to smile. We need to be pleasant. We don't need to make a ruckus. That's what boys do. So you think of a lot of the way that I think of ADHD or autism, I think of in the classroom. And so when I would think of the ADHD kind of boys from the 90s, because I was in school in the 80s and the 90s, they were jumping about the classroom, like bouncing off the walls, doing that, chattering a lot. I was the girl who could talk to anybody about anything. I was put in the back and I could talk to the wallpaper. I just would chatter like, oh, look, this is really interesting. Do you like bread? Cats are fun. Right. But I wasn't one who got in trouble. so we're with females it's maybe not the one who makes a lot of things that get you noticed it could be the daydreamers the ones who are like they're just quiet they do really well in school you are an overachiever but you don't see just that internal panic attacks that are coming in the perfectionism the i need to do this or else i'm going to be wrong the it's so masking and just covering things up. And we tend to just, we are not as verbose as the traditional male representation of autism or ADHD. And it's funny because it's not even just female, it's female presenting humans. Like it just, we are missed. Yeah. I wonder if that's for there as well. There's just, there's a whole subsection upon subsection. I was going to say, I wonder if that's where the term chatty Cathy comes in. Yeah. It's always chatty Cathy. Why's it got to be Cathy? Anyway. it could be chatty gretchen it could be chatty dirty skittles it could be all of them it was definitely chatty kristin yeah definitely chatty gretchen so i still am yeah so what led you i guess you said that g-rack sad ass earlier that was where your passion and what made your heart skip a beat came in was that you were experiencing it yourself and now that's what you're specializing in, how did that, how did your career take that path? Or how did you even end up becoming a doctor? It was so cool. It was just in 2020, I think I was let go from a telehealth company because COVID and they're just, mental health, unfortunately, is a luxury. Mental health help is a luxury and one that not everybody can afford. And so it's still COVID 2023 is still going on and companies are like, well, we're going to get rid of our EAP. We don't need this. People don't need to go get therapy. And so a lot of therapists were like, oh, I went into business for myself and going into business by myself, I learned I don't have to just take every client that is given upon me. And so the people who started coming to me and sticking with me were either people who have had a diagnosis of ADHD or autism, people who I work with adults. So adults who are wondering, people whose spouses might be neuro-spicy or their kids might be neuro-spicy. And so it's just little by little. They just found me. And I think my therapy profile is that of we are the autism community. Come find me. And so when they read my profile, they're like, oh, you understand me. And I think one of the things that I just lucked into is since being spicy myself, I have an understanding of spicy brains. And a lot of therapists don't. And so they can come in with the clinical knowledge, but they don't have that. Oh yeah, you've had chicken that tastes too much like chicken. I understand that your teeth are now feeling things. And it feels really good to be seen. And that's where my heart comes in with that. I can have people be seen. I can come in and validate and empower. And then I wanted to take that onto a larger scale. Yeah. I wonder this all the time, but you're saying things that I'm like, Maybe I need to schedule a follow-up after this. My husband teases me constantly. And I mean, we're best friends, so it's fine. But he'll always make fun of me. I have little, I call them quirks. That is what they are. I don't particularly love chicken. I went many years not wanting to eat chicken because everything about chicken grosses me out. And there's little weird things that I do. But I also am married to somebody who has ADHD diagnosed. And my son has ADHD diagnosed. and we're probably going to pursue to make sure we get everything diagnosed. So I guess maybe I should figure out what's going on with me. Spicy brains? You got spicy brain. We all have spicy brain. I got spicy brain. You got spicy brain. Dr. Kristen has spicy brain. I do. I think that there more of it out there than is undiagnosed You know what I mean Because yes Like I wouldn even know what the first thing to ask my doctor And you know what If I have a little bit of autism and I already know I have ADHD I don need a diagnosis I'm treating myself just fine. I live in the woods. I'm treating myself fine. That's the thing for autism. There's no medication that makes it better. There's no pill that makes me less autistic. In fact, the diagnosis for me almost made me feel more autistic because then I was becoming aware of the things that I had just been pushing aside. And so when I started taking in and accepting and understanding that this is really who I am and I'm allowed to have space and be seen, it helped reduce panic attacks and just a lot of levels of anxiety, not even to panic attack level, but just that understanding of what sets off the overwhelm. All right. That is interesting to hear you say that. I have to ask when we keep saying neuro spicy. What do we mean when we say neuro spicy? I love just not excited. I love I love saying neuro spicy. It is the idea of we have the spice of life, whether that is a hot spice or not, whether that is potent that and sometimes change day over day, the spice house. Depending on my level of sleep, I can be real spicy. For me, it takes away the stigma. Someone comes in still in 2026. I have autism. People are like brain man, huh? It's like they only know the one. Yeah. Or Sheldon Cooper. Or other, not necessarily negative media representations, but ones that aren't necessarily positive. Right. Right. Okay. Neuro spicy means different. Today I'm a cinnamon. I would love to say if I had to give myself a spice. What about you, G-Rex? Today I am cardamom because I'm a little, I'm a little, I'm a little sweet. I'm also a little spicy today. You know why I'm a little spicy? Because I'm fucking over winter, okay? I realize it is only January, but I'm over it. So that's that. And then on the sweet side, I'm super humbled today. We all have these dreams of something big happening in our life. And I've been spending the last two days just pinching myself because it doesn't feel real. So, but that's the sweet side of me. That's sweet. What about you, doctor? What is your spice tip? Can glitter be a spice? Because I just want to be glitter. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? That's like the herpes of the craft world. I've heard that. I have heard that. But you know what? I've always appreciated glitter. Because the way the light hits it, it looks different. It makes me so happy. There's a coffee shop near me. They have edible glitter in the coffee drinks. And I'm like, it's just swirls of happiness. Yeah. And why not have that be a part of our morning cup? Right? I love that. Okay. So when you got diagnosed in your 40s, you said? Right before 40. Okay. So like big monumental, quote unquote monumental year, right? You're about to hit 40, you get diagnosed with autism. And I know that you mentioned that you started to almost feel more overwhelmed because you were noticing. Yeah. It was more. Even before the full-on diagnosis, I'd been taking the time and doing kind of my due diligence of understanding what autism looks like and maybe not even autism at that point, but understanding what sensory issues are, what sensory issues I might have. There is the whole idea of raw dog in life. Hey, let's go to a concert. Oh, look, groups of people stress me out. I come home and then have a whole meltdown afterwards. And why? Why? Why am I melting down? I'm home. It's all because I've been pushing down this overwhelm for three hours listening to a growly band growling loudly. And it's a bunch of growlers. Just a bunch of growlers. And you come back and you're like, why am I in bed for the next four to six business days? This has taken me a while to recuperate from that. Yes. And so it was almost like checking off. I was sciencing my brain. What kind of things make me feel overwhelmed. I'm going to add it to my checklist. I love a good Excel spreadsheet. So yes, here's sensory, here's like auditory sensory, here's tactile ones, here's food that I like and don't like. I love peanut butter crackers because they are the same consistency, very different than blueberries, which you can have sweet or sour or squishy or not. It's not consistent and it stresses me out. I feel you. That's me on holidays. I love Christmas. It is my favorite holiday. I love Halloween also bright up there, but Christmas is my favorite. I love having a house full. Let me say this. I love the idea of a house full of my family and friends. And in the moment, I am internally like spiraling, right? I'm like, there's too many people, there's too many sounds, there's too many things. And I'm worrying about every little freaking thing out of my control. And then, but you know, on the outside, I'm like, look at my beautiful Christmas tree, right? And then everybody leaves. And I promise you, It feels like it's louder. Like I can hear all the sounds louder after everybody is left. And I'm like, why am I so grouchy? Like I put my grouchy pants, like I got my grouchy pants on. And I just always understood it to be overstimulated. I get overstimulated. The crowds, people, if there's too much going on in one space and I'm in it, it's too much. It's too much. Isn't it wild that you have that understanding for then later on? You're like, okay, I love that people are going to be here. This is a great, grand, wonderful thing. However, I will need time to decompress afterwards because this is a lot and my brain needs to breathe. Yeah. So I have a question for both of you because I don't get that way at all. When you guys are in those situations, let's just say Dirty Skittles you've had, you have a busy young people at your house for Christmas. Dr. Kristen, you're out somewhere publicly, right? Just a lot of noise. What do you guys do to center yourself? Like how can you make yourself feel better in that moment? Can you just walk away, maybe go to a different room or go find a quiet space just so you can continue to putting one step in front of another? I haven't figured it out yet. So maybe, maybe... Let me pull out my list. I'm pulling out a list thinking I'm going to be funny realizing that you now said this is going to be an audio only so people aren't going to see my list. We heard the ruffle though. We heard the paper ruffle. That ruffles, there we go. Okay, I have so many things. We come in, it's almost like we're getting ready for battle, right? If being around a bunch of people is something that can make you feel a little overwhelmed, earplugs, like the loop, earbud, things that take the decimals down, things that can cancel out the noise, especially for going to concerts, things like that. Maybe a room full of Christmassy people that would be harder, but maybe not. Maybe not. If you are, I live in Texas and it's hot as balls outside, going out to anything in the sunshine. It's like wear a hat, wear sunshine, something that takes down the brightness, that takes down the temperature. Because for me, instead of hangry, I'll get hot and angry. Because if my body starts heating up, I'm like, I'm a snapping turtle now. Watch out, I'm fluffy. If you are in a place, if you're in a restaurant and it's really loud and you're getting overwhelmed, if you are at work and it's loud and it's a lot, go to the bathroom. Go to the bathroom that immediately shuts down a large chunk of the sensory, at least for the auditory. It might not smell the best, but you know, that's a risk you're going to have to take. Get paper towels, put it in water, run your wrists under the water, put a paper towel on the back of your neck. The difference in temperature tells your brain I'm safe. And so it's one of the quickest things to re-regulate your emotions. And it's just, it's delightful because you can take a few minutes in there. You can breathe. People might think you're pooping. That's okay. Everybody poops. And it just, it helps bring down the overwhelm and re-regulate you where you are so you can go back out. This makes sense, actually. I know nothing. First of all, I know nothing. I don't know how to get control of this. But as you were saying these things, I'm like, that's why I love that thing. Or that's why I love doing that. So I'm a huge audio book person. And my husband had gotten me these Apple AirPods that are noise canceling. And I just remember, like, I get overwhelmed with a lot of stuff, but I love if I'm going to do something that I hate. Listening to the audiobook while I do it. And it's so much so like it's become like, for everybody else, trying to talk to me a problem. I can't hear anything anybody is saying, but I love it. Like, oh, I'll put this in. I'll listen to a sound I want to hear while I'm doing the thing I hate doing. It's almost like building up your battle shields. you got your armor on if I can do this yeah that the skincare for me I do the skincare but I like it when it's cold so when you're saying now I'm like oh maybe that's why I love doing that middle of the day so like for me that that's funny because like we I still have the Heather Grace like lotions up here right and so that's my ritual is my skincare because I get dry as fuck up here I turn into a raisin during the wintertime because we have the heat on. But my ritual is to put that nice, cool lotion on. And that just centers me because otherwise I'm scratching my arms off. Same. The cold skincare on the face is my favorite. And then the upstairs bathroom is what I prefer. Even though there's a really nice bathroom downstairs, I'm like, it's quieter up there. It's all lining up, guys. And you're away from the men in your house, right? It like just you quiet in the bathroom doing your routine And that helps ground you a little bit right So you can find your center Okay Yeah but I never realized that what it was I just knew I felt better. I feel better if I'm up there. I feel better if I'm doing this. I feel better if I'm doing that. See? Signs in your brain. I know. This is the episode where we learn about what's wrong with me. I think we're learning about what's right with you. Yeah, because you know what? Here's the cool thing. the NeuroSpicy people that are out there, they are some of my best friends, right? You're all eclectic in your own little way. And we all, we can all just like jive, right? And it still makes me sad today. It won't keep me sad until it actually happens. It's like in school, right? They don't teach us anything. Nobody taught us anything about neurodiversity. Never taught us anything about mental health. And so there's these kids that are in school now or adults like me that have been going through this their entire life and nobody has been there to help them. And that's why you, Dr. Krishna, are so super important, right? We need people like you that can advocate for that group of people. Because there's people out there that are like me, 62, 63, they've been suffering their entire life. and helping them identify what's going on and realizing that there's not a pill to fix them. They are who they are and normalizing it. That's really the pretense of our podcast is normalizing how we talk about mental health and neurodiversity and letting people know that you're not alone. Okay, there's a whole bunch of us out there that are really messed up in the head, but it's not our fault. Yeah, and sharing stories and experiences and what one person is going through, like we're connecting on something I had no idea would happen, right? But it's true. So it's nice to be able to hear that too. Well, it's like mental health is my jam. I love it so much. I feel like there's just going to be an undercurrent of anxiety and depression just living in America in 2026. Yeah, I would agree. And so that's just, yep, we are pulling up our big girl panties and holding our breath and doing what we can to support ourselves and our communities and just be good humans. But that doesn't mean that there's not fear and anxiety and stress and everything still there. I think an added component is being neurodivergent, being neuro spicy, being female, being part of the queer community. All these different things that just add a chunk of, oh, you're different. You're not part of the norm. You're walking down the street backwards. That's weird. Yes, that's true. Isn't this cool? I love that. I love that. And I think this is my year to embrace those things a bit more because I've been focusing on how do I make my happy place? Like what does my happy place look like and not get anybody else's weight in on it? Like I'm like, I'm good. Thank you. And then knowing it's for me, it's quiet here. It's dark here. It's all the things that I love are in this space. And it's my little cave. I call it my little witch's cave. I love that. Yeah. So as your son was getting diagnosed, like how hard was it as a parent to see them like struggle? It was harder before he had the diagnosis, honestly. I was married to the Navy when he was born and there was a doctor who saw him for 3.6 seconds when he was 18 months. And she was like, oh, he's autistic. And I am 25 at the time and I don't really know what autism is and come home and cry and have no idea. And then that was it. Like no other doctor told us about that for years because we fell through the cracks. Military families fall through the cracks. you move to a new base, you do something. And so you're not seen or you can mask it long enough to where you don't get noticed. And so it wasn't until we had moved to Texas where he was in the same school district with the same kind of teachers. And they're like, he's perching on his chair. He's hiding under the table. He just walked out of the school. I'm like, okay. Me and his preschool teacher, we had a notebook where we wrote daily messages to one another. I was on a first name basis with most of the administration. I think I still am with the school district that we're in. And my whole goal was to say, yes, I am his parent, but I'm also here to help guide you. Please come to me and say, he's struggling. I'm not going to say it's your fault. I'm going to say, what do I need to do at home to help? And so it was saying, I want to make life easier for everybody because if you understand the magic words that help his brain understand, and for us, it was, that's not appropriate, that's inappropriate, and things like the keywords that he would snap into, okay, I can't really say this. I can't draw these figures at school. No, you cannot. That's inappropriate. It just helped the teachers have an easier time directing and guiding his learning, let his brain open up more to experience the learning. And so before having the diagnosis, it actually, it was harder because I had to fight more for schools who didn't have the paperwork written down that said they're allowed to listen. And so it was all based on the teacher. And almost every teacher he's ever had has been glorious. And so they would take on the information, whether he was diagnosed or not, because they want to have an easier time teaching. But the schools, they couldn't implement any accommodations or any actions without anything that's official. Or that was, no, his grades are too high. He's not autistic. The kid perching on a chair like a bird? All right. And so whenever he got the diagnosis and we were able to start different realms of therapy because we had Tricare and Tricare is one that you have to pull teeth sometimes to get some actions. But once you get it going, it worked okay. And we got into therapies and I got to sit in the waiting room with all moms and dads who have kiddos who were the same. And I'd never felt so seen. And it wasn't my kid is having a meltdown on the floor because he's a butthole. It was he's overwhelmed and this is a lot going on. And every parent was like, yep, we understand. This is OK. You are not doing anything wrong as a parent. You are not a failure, which I think a lot of parents in general have these moments of, oh, my gosh, I'm failing my kids or failing life. And I think parents of special needs kids, of neurodivergent special needs, If we don't know, then we just have that added, what am I doing wrong? Why can't I keep my kid from flipping out at Walmart? Like, why is he crying between the limes and the avocados? I don't get it. They're two different greens, apparently. They are. So my other question for you, Dr. Kristen, would be for parents that maybe don't have the means to go to a doctor or get a true diagnosis for their kids. What are some things that they can do to help not only themselves, but their kids? Glorious question. There's so many answers. And if I'd segue, I promise I'm going to come back, hopefully. One of my favorite things to do is to, again, we're going to science it out. We are going to document it. We're going to pretend to be scientists, unless you're an actual scientist and be a scientist. If you notice that your kid really likes a certain texture of foods, write it down. If they struggle being in a group of people or if they're easier with sunglasses on or with headphones, my kid couldn't sit next to other kids who were aggressive erasers in class. And so it was telling that to the teacher. Teacher would, if they see that, they would flip and move and just you write the things down so that way you could share that information. And we're not sharing it in a negative connotation of like, I can't sit next to aggressive erasers. No. Hey, just so you know, this is an issue. This is a struggle. We're working on it at home. However, this may help. And so it's just documenting the different things. I will also say for parents taking care of your mental health. It's like the airplane. You put on the oxygen mask for yourself before you can help others. If you are running at zero, you are not going to be good for them. Take an extra 10 minutes in the shower. Put on an audio book. Do your nails. Don't do your nails. Do your skincare. Sit in a cold room. Self-care is not a, we're going to go out to a holistic retreat and we're going to do this. Sometimes it's finding those 10 minute increments. Sometimes it's saying, I'm going to talk to my friends that help fill up my cup rather than make me feel depleted afterwards. For me, when a kid I was little, it was sitting in the therapy waiting room with the other parents who just made me feel seen. And I left feeling good every time. I wrote that as a note. You found your community. Yeah. Are you still, I mean, I don't know if it's weird to be like, did you actually find a community where you were able to exchange maybe what you were going through with other parents who might be going through similar? Oh, I've got such a community. I think of it as like hunter-gatherer. my autism brand, I am the gatherer. I'm going to harvest all of the people and just collect them and be like, you're mine. Here's my trading cards. Look at all these cool people I have in my life where the ADHDers are the hunters. They're like, we can do three days of not eating and look at this cool thing and do this. I'm like, I'll collect the information. And so it's just keeping cool people in my life. And oh my gosh, you're really cool. This, you could do this. Look at this dragons and just amazingness. And I think that's the cool thing too, like with doing podcasts, right because you can get that message out there and you can help build that community yeah we hit so many different genres and so many different people i mean you're this episode will be listened to in 60 plus countries that's so cool still trying to figure out like how they translate fuck into anything but i love that we get to talk about this because i learning too right i learning like how I can be more approachable how I can be a little bit more understanding and understand what they're doing and their resilience to keep showing up every day, right? Yeah. It's hard. When we get into our own little patterns and unable to ground, it's really hard to be out in public. And so you guys are teaching me how I can be like a better person, a better human. I've heard leaning in with curiosity is easier than learning and leaning in with judgment. And I learned this being special needs, just part of the special needs community and especially it's mom. When my, and I'm really glad my son does not listen to these because he doesn't realize how much I talk about him. When he was, I think 14, I could not get that kid to wash the top of his hair and it drove me nuts. I'm sitting here. It was like a reverse mullet, like dirty on top, clean on the back. It was just weird. And I'm like, have I just not taught you how to shower? have I are you're really gross this I don't get it there are flowers sprouting from the top I don't get this what like do you need to be in swim shorts and me watch you shower and teach you like I said to me YouTube videos and everything thinking I had failed him and one day my brain just clicked I'm like I need to ask him like what is it about this and it turns out the sensory of having water hit the top of his head he could not handle so he would avoid it he'd turn the other way and water would only hit the back. And so he'd only wash the back of his hair. Yeah. And I had no idea. That's not good. So coming in, like we were able to change out the shower heads to one that was fine. They have it. Amazon had these cool little visors that you put them here and it like keeps the water from hitting your face. Made life just night and day different. I'm learning so much right now. That is my little nugget. He's on, I'm going to let my hair grow out. Maybe? Or maybe not. I'm not sure. And I said, well, if you're going to have long hair, you have to learn how to take care of it. And so washing and conditioning, I was, I've been wondering, I'm like, have I just never showed him how to do this or like, why? Because he'll go in and like, just do the bare minimum on the sides and it is both dry here and then wet. And then he doesn't, he doesn't rinse the soap out all the way. So there's so many times I'm like, okay, bend over the sink, let me do it. And it's just super frustrating. But I wonder, I've never asked him like, hey, what's going on? Right, it's leading it because they don't have the vocabulary to say this is what I'm struggling with. But as I'm learning the vocabulary, I can come in and I can say, what is it about this? I can ask more pointed questions and AI honestly will help me with that because I feel like my brain is a computer sometimes too. And I have all the hodgepodge of information, but I don't have it spread out in a way that I can articulate it. And so it can come in and just help me learn different ways to ask questions. But it was me understanding that I need to lean in with curiosity because I was like, you are smelly. You are lazy. You are this teenage boy. I don't get it. I've never been a boy. This is gross. And let me tell you the amount of crow I ended up eating because I'm like, I'm a therapist who specializes in autism and I'm judging my kid. And it was a sensory issue. It just means you're still learning. That's all. That's what I was going to say. You're still learning and I think that for parents who have newly diagnosed kids that are autistic or maybe haven't been diagnosed and are noticing these things about their kids I mean I know you guys are both like mama bears and you would do everything to protect your kids but I on the other side of that coin I think about the fathers right and sometimes the fathers are not as forgiving right they're like suck it up buttercup listen I'm gonna take you outside and hose you down with a I think that for all the men that are out there listening to this episode, be a little bit more sensitive about what's going on with your child or what may be going on with your neighbor's child or somebody at work. Be sensitive to that because what you're thinking in your head is generally probably not what's, it all goes back to being a kinder society. Yeah. Don't be a dick. That's really what I'm trying to get to. Don't be a dick. Your preconceived notions that like we think this is what normal looks like is not necessarily that. I love that you brought the idea of dads. My husband is not the kid's bio dad. And so he got to come in to them later on in life, already fully formed humans. And so we're an autism and an autism accepting family. And he had no idea. Like he was in the military. He did all these things. It was a suck it up buttercup, do the things. So when he would see my son's face come, he would say something and I would say something. and my kid would just have this mean, aggressive face. He would get all manly and you can't do this. I was like, that's not, he's not being aggressive. That's his thinking face. That's his normal face. And it's, he had to open up his thoughts and expand his awareness of what fiant looks like. It's not, my kiddo is not that traditional male that I'm just gonna do this. No, my kiddo is not one who has a whole lot of big emotional range. you get a little range. And sometimes that can be a smile to a frown. And that's it. But that doesn't mean that we are being aggressive. And so men, specifically men past a certain age, were taught like, you have to be manly. You can't show emotions, no socio-emotional awareness. Nope, none of that. And so I think men are having to do the work of doing a deep dive themselves of saying, I'm allowed to have feelings. I'm allowed to experience life in this time and place. And I'm allowed to be here, what does that look like? Interesting point that I wanted to bring up too is, you know, I live in rural upstate New York, right? Not a lot of good care for autism, ADHD. And so I think that a lot of those folks are at a loss as like what they can do because like for us, like the nearest big hospital for us is an hour up the road, either up the road or down the road. So you can either go to Syracuse or you can go to, say, Pennsylvania. And so I'm trying to think of ways as for like our rural communities, people without means, how we can help them, how we can help them see that their kids aren't different. They just have this chemical imbalance, genetic thing that's going on in their head. And if their kids aren't different, they just, they act differently. I think I asked that wrong. I think Temple Grandin put it great when she said, we're different, not less. Temple Grandin is one of my huge heroes. She's a pioneer for the autism world, even though hers wasn't necessarily autism world. It was like the animal husbandry. And so when I met her, I'm like, let's talk about autism. She's like, let's talk about cows. I'm like, there's the autism. All right, you're still my hero. For getting the resources out in the world, living in a rural community that does, it does give you less options. However, comma, One of the only good things that came out of COVID for me was when the world shut down, we went online. We came and we shared our stories. We built these amazing communities of, hey, this is what autism looks like in my world. What does it look like in yours? This is what ADHD looks like. Is your kid building this giant spaceship out of Legos? Mine is. And it's just this collection of Facebook groups, Discord groups, Reddit threads. I loved, I still love all my TikTok algorithm that just shows me the different flavors of autism that people are like, what's your flavor? Mine is making beanies. Mine is dinosaurs. So even though you live in maybe more of a rural place, still with autism, there's not going to be a medication that can help make you less autistic, but you can gain understanding of it. You can do research. You can meet up with different groups online. A lot of times, like with the spicy groups, we are a lot of introverts. So we're like, let's not meet up in person. Let's get on Discord and not show our faces. We just want to sit and listen to everybody. But we're still a group. We're still here. And or you could do things like, let's go to Comic-Con. I did the amount of NeuroSpiciness that's in conventions because it's a whole bunch of like-minded people doing fun things, dressing up, doing whatever they love. And it's, yes, that's less of getting the information and more of meeting your people. Hi, all. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I'm G-Rex. And I'm Dirty Skittles. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. We'd love to listen to your feedback. We can't do this without you guys. It's okay to be not okay. Just make sure you're talking to someone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.