AuDHD Relationship Goals & The Intersection Of Neurodiversity & Gender

0:00Being undiagnosed autistic, you get very used to sitting in your own discomfort. Because everyone tells you the way that you process things is wrong. Yeah. And it's just like, you know what, it's easier for me to handle this feeling. As uncomfortable and unpleasant it is for me, it's easier for me to handle that because I'm used to feeling like this than to just say how I feel. Welcome to The Hidden 20%, our neurodiversity charity on a mission to rewrite the future for people who think differently. Together with you and an eclectic range of brilliant guests, we can break the cycle of silence by smashing outdated stereotypes, exposing the myths and sharing the most up-to-date truths about what it really means to be just different, not deficient.

0:49The best way you can help is really simple. Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and if you can, donate to our charity through the link below. Enough preamble. I'm Ben, your host. Let's get into today's episode.

1:12I've been so looking forward to having you both here. and I don't usually start a conversation that way. That's high praise. But like I really do love your brains. We love your brain. It's true, we really do. And I'm so excited that people are going to get to hear you both. So I'm going to break this down for people because I'm going to give them a little bit of a promise of what we're going to talk about. Okay. I'm not going to hold you to it, don't worry. Okay. But we've got a lot of things to cover, right? ND relationships. You are in one. Yeah, we are. Late diagnosis. Misdiagnosis. I'm going to start with you individually.

1:58Okay. Max, tell me about your brain. Where do I begin? So I have recently acquired an ADHD coach. Semi by accident. Friend of a friend. and she needed some guinea pigs to do her coaching qualification and I started doing it and I ended up paying to see her after the test period because I suddenly realized that talking about my brain means that I realized things I had no idea are actually a thing and something that I recently talked to her about is the fact that I feel like I am a separate person to my brain okay so i'll talk to her and i'll say lou i'm trying to make myself do this but my brain won't let me and then i'm going we are the same person both me the concept i have of myself and my brain come from the same thing we're just a big piece of jelly first of all it blows my mind that that's even possible and secondly it's me thinking okay well if i control this then i can make it do things right not so much so if you're asking me right now to explain how my brain works my brain likes to do whatever it wants to do and I am a slave to it.

3:14I feel like my brain is a toddler. My brain has to be gently coaxed into doing everything. If it's something that it wants to do, we are sorted. They're enthusiastic, hours of hyper focus. If it's something that it doesn't want to do, which is most things that are required from being a human being, then it's some sort of negotiation. Do you like your brain? Depends on the day. Okay. Today, do you like your brain? Medium. Medium. So today we had to travel. And my brain is not great at travel because travel involves deadlines and travel involves noise. And travel usually involves London and London is busy and noisy.

3:56But also because I knew those things, my brain was like, hey, we're going to bring headphones. And we're going to make sure that we eat. And we're going to be hydrated. And we're going to bring stim toys. And we're going to make it easier. So today is a sit on the fence day. Yesterday, I liked my brain because I got really excited about something and wrote a really good post about it. Last week, I hated my brain all week because I couldn't do anything. Because every time I tried to sit down, my brain said, don't want to go and have a nap. So it really depends on the day. And what do you love about your brain?

4:29It's a creativity thing for me. I think I spent a lot of time in jobs that I now know are terrible for neurodivergent people. I was in sales. I was in retail. I was in events. I was in all of these things that involved massive amounts of social contact and paying attention, sitting still and being on the phone. Sensory. I hated it. Yeah. Absolutely hated it. And didn't understand what, you know, I had in theory a good job. I was earning good money. I was living in London. I was traditionally successful and I was miserable and I was drinking and then since figuring out how my brain works and moving more into the creative space and now finally working as a photographer which is what I've always wanted to do it's suddenly like giving my brain exactly what it wanted because there is no limit to what I can do if I really think about it and I think from a creativity perspective being neurodivergent is great because there are absolutely no rules I can give myself a starting point and say okay I want to do a shoot something about x and my brain will just spark and spark and spark and I can just have endless ideas and it's interesting because that's very different to you because often you'll say to me I help Laurie create her content a lot and often you say i struggle because i can't come up with i'm not an ideas person i can't think in the in the abstract like whereas all like all i do is think in the abstract you know it is my brain does not it just does not going back to the what do i like about it is i know i can come up with endless ideas if you put me in the right scenario and give me the freedom to do it i can just keep going i think i'm gradually learning to trust my brain yeah it's not whether I like or dislike it's it's backing it and when you say things like I know I'm going to be able to come up with loads of great ideas that's so like that's so galvanizing it's only a recent yeah realization that I can do it and again something that I think we've talked about a lot is trusting your gut as a neurodivergent person because you spend so much of your life being told that the way that you think is wrong and the way that you process things is wrong and that you're weird or not normal or whatever.

6:51I completely distrusted everything I thought about everything for a really long time. And actually in the process of starting my own studio and trying to create and trying to move into a creative industry, I've had to trust myself because there's literally no one else there. And why did you go for an assessment and tell me about diagnosis? so i started thinking that i might be autistic in 2023 and it was a really strange period of time because my dad got really ill really suddenly and something about my response to that made me think something's off here like there was something in how my brain was responding to it and i think about it now I think it was more of a trauma response where I suddenly wasn't able to mask anymore.

7:46It was almost like this huge horrible thing was happening and you know thankfully he's okay now but at the time we really didn't think he would be around that much longer and I had this really visceral trauma response and I just couldn't mask anymore I couldn't function and I remember telling you and you were like no I don't think you're autistic you know you work in sales and I think I then explained to you some of the things that I struggle with and you're like oh okay now I see this and then it was another year before I booked my assessment and the thing that triggered me booking my assessment was I went on a work trip to Japan not photography worker LGBTQ inclusion conference and just the anxiety around it and I was having a really great time so I went on the sort of preamble where you go to different places and having loads of fun and they got to the conference and involved all this socializing and loud smoothing and spaces and i've never felt more autistic in my life at one point i remember going to hide in my hotel room in the same venue as the conference because it was too noisy and then everyone said come down and have lunch and i went down and they had a dj and i walked in and walked straight back out again went to a 7-eleven bought some noodles went back to my room and didn't come out for the rest of it i was like this is too loud i can't do this there's too many people keep trying to talk to me but if you'd been three years previous or five years previous You would have forced yourself through that.

9:07I used to work in those kind of events. I used to run them. I ran five events a year, New York, Amsterdam, Dubai, Singapore. Yeah, I worked on two hours sleep, usually hung over. How do you reconcile that? And I'm slightly asking selfishly as well. You didn't do it in the same way. You couldn't do it. Something in you said, I'm not doing what I usually would do. I'm not even sure it was a conscious choice. Okay. I think a lot of it was skill regression. which is something that I've really struggled with or processed over the last couple of years because the second I realized how hard it was I couldn't do it anymore I had no idea now looking back I think you know I would finish an event when I worked in conferences and I would be absolutely dead for about a week couldn't get out of bed couldn't think couldn't process didn't even really want to eat and now I'm like oh okay that that was why and I think it's it's it's twofold part of it is just a genuine inability to do it like I cannot force myself to do it and the second part is an understanding that if I do it will be worse yeah because I will use everything I have to get through that process and I think one of the balances that I'm trying to get used to at the moment is sometimes you just have to do it if I get booked for a big shoot and it's going to be really loud but it's something's really important for my career great client I'm going to do it but I'll do it very differently.

10:32Firstly, I will prepare in a different way and secondly, I will book myself time off afterwards which as a freelancer is really hard to do. But I think at the beginning it was just a complete inability and now it's a, okay, is this worth it? Is this worth the hangover? You then went for an autism assessment. Yeah, I think I booked the autism assessment in November 2024 just after I got back from Japan and then I had it in January 25. and then where did the ADHD piece come into the mix? that was earlier that was early 2022 but I mean I'd been self-diagnosing for about two years before that and you diagnosed me as well when we met yeah I did when Laurie and I met I said oh by the way I have ADHD and here are some things that I might do and Laurie was like I do those things too it's just normal isn't it?

11:20doesn't everybody do that? me like a girl that's not weird so then to flip that over to you Laurie tell me about your brain i like my brain as a general i have had a lot of issues which i'm sure we will touch on during this chat but i have always been very proudly weird do you know what i mean like oh i know like i've never wanted to be the same as everybody else i've been a sort of like alternative-y, punky, metal, kind of drawn towards subcultures and things like that, where it's actually a sort of badge of honour to be a bit of a weirdo. And it's also completely fine to be massively obsessed with something, like a band or collecting records or like clothing items or whatever.

12:12It does not seem weird in the scenarios that I have put myself in kind of growing up. Can you remember when that became conscious? So I spent a lot of time on the kind of UK rocking scene, the rockabilly scene. And I do remember very clearly, we have these weekenders where you go and there's music and clothes and DJs and whatever. And I remember standing on the edge of the dance floor and looking out at everybody dancing and thinking, if anybody from the mainstream walked into this situation, they would be like, what the fuck? are these people doing? And I just realised how weird to a sort of mainstream audience, like how strange it is to be living our lives in this way.

13:01But I still didn't put two and two together and, you know, think that that was a neurodivergent thing specifically. But it sounds like you therefore, not putting words in your mouth, you like the fact that your brain is different. I have always liked the fact that my brain is different. Obviously, as I say, there's some not so good parts about it. But yeah, I've always sort of been drawn to subversion and not doing what everybody else does. However, on the flip side of that, to function as a human being in the world, work or whatever, there is always some degree of masking. But I don't think because of the life I chose for myself, I probably had to mask as much as you did.

13:48Even as an AFAB person, everybody just thought I was weird and I was completely fine with that. This is coming from an autistic person desperately wanting to, although be very rebellious, also not wanting to stand out and not wanting to be perceived. Yeah. Tell me about being OK with standing out. So this is something that, again, it was a fairly recent revelation was I've always dressed quite, not outlandishly, but I've always dressed in kind of vintage or like, you know, not gone with trends and whatever. And I'm heavily tattooed. That does bring quite a lot of attention upon me, but it's attention that I am in control of.

14:36I realised probably only in the last like couple of years that the way I present myself outwardly is another form of masking like yes you're looking at me but that's because I have decided that you will look at me do you know what I mean yeah so you know all the clothes and the hair and you know I've had all sorts of different coloured hair and worn like and I'm piercing and where do you sit on mask, defence, self-expression. That's really interesting, actually. I think if I wanted to kind of delve deeply, I might probably say that there was an element of don't break past this shell, don't look at me, I don't want to be seen, maybe.

15:20Like maybe I didn't want them to see what was kind of underneath. I was happy with people noticing me on a very superficial level, but anything more than that perhaps there was a degree of like putting up defences in the form of you know everybody always used to say that I was quite icy which I'm not in the slightest or that I had like resting bitch face which I do but that is just my face it's not deliberate so like can we just come in on you there and react to that it's funny I was just thinking I don't recognize that version of you no but I think that's because I met you at a time where you'd shed a lot of that i had shed yeah that's true the mask was not necessarily a defense mechanism when i met you yeah one of the first things that i really loved was your openness and your vulnerability and your literal lack of giving a shit i've never met someone who cares less what other people think of her in the best possible way and it really helped me because you know we met and i was not even a year on testosterone it was very early in my transition i hadn't had top surgery what year was this uh 2021 where you met 2021 yeah 2021 okay so very early in i started hormones in in late 2020 so okay you know it was really only just getting used to moving through the world in like a different body and i was getting ready to have top surgery so for me we met at a really great time because i suddenly had this person in my life who was like who cares who cares what people think who cares if people are looking at you and what's your take then on people looking at you masking self-expression what laurie's just been talking about oh i do exactly the same thing okay clothes for me have always been a form of defense and that's actually not necessarily from a neurodivergent perspective at least not consciously i think it was the vast majority of my adult life assigned female at birth socialized as a woman knew i wasn't straight from the age of about 16 was openly dating women from 18 i didn't start transition until i was 28 so this 10 year period where i'm moving through the world presenting very obviously as a queer woman you know i had short hair i wore men's clothes and i was really happy and comfortable with who i was okay to a degree i hadn't really started to understand gender dysphoria at that point so my way of of dealing people are going to look at me anyway it's the same people always going to look at me because i was visibly queer and i looked different so i was like well i might as well look really cool in that case you know and i would i would wear suits and shirts and i was very into like androgynous fashion and that was how i built my first kind of platform online as a content creator was talking about gender neutral style and getting my hair faded every two weeks and stuff like that so it was very much people are going to stare so to give them something to Sarah and also for me as someone who was always going into in-person networking environments working in events to give someone something to talk to you about okay so when we used to go you used to go to a lot of LGBTQ events together and I had a suit that's head to toe floral in trans flag colors which is pink blue and white and it's very loud but what's great is that it's a great way to start a conversation because I don't know how to talk to people I don't know how to network but someone calls up to you they're like hey man i like your suit and you're like oh cool thank you this is where i got it from and then you're off and you're chatting and you might compliment something that they're wearing do you find that laurie as a conversation starter i know we all don't like small talk but looking so striking and do you find that helps social wise again i have always been someone who is willing to launch into the deepest most inappropriate most no holds barred conversation with every single person i meet whether i you are the queen of the dmc i'm the queen of the dmc i'm the queen of tmi like i'm realizing that like when we talk about this because i think that was something you said about me like i've never met someone who's kind of so authentically themselves and yeah you know what small talks like it brings on a visceral feeling of like I can't escape out of this situation fast enough so I just refused to do it I was just like you know I was a hairdressing apprentice when I left school and I would have drowned myself in the basin if people wanted to talk to me about where they were going on holiday or something so I'd be like politics mental health bowel movements bowel movements medical stuff like speaking to these 60 year old women who were like what is this But don't you also find, sorry, I'm just asking the questions now.

20:04Carry on. I get a real joy out of getting someone to open up to me. Not like in a weird manipulative way. I just, you know, when someone approaches you and you can tell they're a bit uncomfortable and they don't really know you. And then you like get into a really good chat with them. I love that. I love seeing that like intimacy behind someone, especially in like a corporate environment. and then someone starts telling you about like yeah I don't know maybe it happens to me more because I used to do inclusion stuff and these really high level people would come and talk to me about the like trans kids and stuff and you just see this really vulnerable side of them I love that so humanizing I mean I think that's probably why I ended up in the profession I ended up in because prior to where I work now I was a television casting producer so I found it really easy to just ask people loads of like really personal and inappropriate questions about themselves.

20:56That was your job. That was my job, basically. And you had to get straight to it, right? And you had to get straight to it because there's no time. Yes. You have to be able to build that rapport with somebody and get them sharing in a very short amount of time. But instead of coming away thinking nothing of it, I knew that that wasn't necessarily like my natural state of being to be kind of gregarious and chatty because it's not. Like at home, I do not speak unless... No, you're naturally quite introverted at home. I'm quite introverted. Like I don't want to just chit chat unless I've got something important to say.

21:34I don't want to speak. What's the point in like wasting my breath or energy? So I would come off these calls giving myself like a pat on the back in my head. Like you did really well there. It is a performance. And I would be so pleased with myself that I'd managed to create this connection with another human being. which again is another reason I never had autism in my mind as a potential diagnosis for myself because I did have that people skill. However, it was very much a learned thing. That connection didn't come naturally to me. I learned it. Can you tell me about your journey then, a horrible J-word, around assessments and recognition?

22:21so i'm 43 i always forget how old i am i'm 43 good age and i wasn't diagnosed until last year as autistic and then i was diagnosed as adhd the year before that so you're both adhd first autism second yes which i think is quite common because you get the adhd diagnosed and then you're like something's still not right i was the other way around oh are you yeah that's so funny yeah I wonder if it's an AMAB thing let's talk about AFAB just before we then go back I don't forget anything so we're always going to get back around thank God for that because I forget everything but I know you I know there are going to be people listening going what was that yes absolutely fabulous like what yeah what so AFAB is assigned female at birth and AMAB is assigned male at birth and we use them because it's more trans inclusive and gender variant inclusive for me personally you know everybody has their own preferences on language but for me it is a way for me to explain my experiences of being trans and transitioning without having to say i was born female but afab afab amab that's yeah that's that's what that means so we refer to afab or AMAB, that's assigned female.

23:46Or socialized as is also a good way to say. Because I think if you're AFAB and you are socialized, because I was socialized as female, I was brought up with those expectations and the opposite being the same. Yes. So back to recognition and assessment. Yes. So I would hazard a guess that my journey, as much as we hate that word, is quite similar to certainly a lot of late diagnosed AFAB people and women in that my traits started to become much more pronounced in kind of puberty. And I really started to struggle with my mental health, probably around 14 or so. and I had a few years of kind of really, really struggling with my mental health.

24:41Tons of anxiety, not being able to understand what emotions I was experiencing, not able to control or moderate my emotions in any way, shape or form. I came under the care of the kind of mental health team in my late teens. Now, I didn't get any sort of a diagnosis until I was 26, I think I was. Okay. And I was given a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, which whilst there are definite overlaps with the kind of criteria that you have to meet to get a BPD diagnosis, it didn't sit right with me. It didn't feel right. But I was like, at least now I can put a label on it. I can understand that we don't use this word, but like mad.

25:31I'm not, you know, there's not something wrong with me. I have a brain condition, a developmental thing that causes my brain to work the way it does or me to behave the way that I do. So that's what I lived with for most of my life. And how did you feel about that diagnosis, that quote unquote label? I mean, it never felt right. And I couldn't explain why it didn't feel right. I think the main reason it didn't feel right was my brain wasn't in this state of kind of crisis all the time. It was only when I was in certain situations. So if I removed myself from those situations, like when I was single, I was a lot better.

26:15Because I didn't have to be figuring out what somebody else's brain was doing. So when I was single, I was better. When I was at home and I didn't have to go out into the world, which obviously you do as a human being, and especially as like a youth as well, you know, I would feel fine. So I was like, surely if I was BPD, I would have these kind of feelings all the time. But some of the time, if I could control my situation I was in, I would feel calm and I wouldn't feel kind of emotionally out of control. Did anyone say anything about autism, ADHD, anything else? No, no, no. No, I think back then it was still absolutely not a consideration that a young woman, especially one that could work and had friendships and had relationships.

27:03I don't think there was any sort of consideration that autism could be a possibility at all. And they didn't ask me any questions that could have signposted to that. They didn't ask me a kind of repetitive behaviors or like they didn't ask me anything. It was just classic, classic BPD. Let's stick that label on her and then we can just forget about her really. So then we're talking about like 14, 15 years, Laurie, of misdiagnosis. Yes. Misdiagnosis and therefore the incorrect help and incorrect treatment. Yeah. And like understanding of yourself. Understanding of myself. So trigger warning, I was a self harmer until quite late in my life.

27:52And it was because I couldn't verbalize the emotions that I was feeling. And that was the only way that I could feel some relief from like these emotions. I was massively socially anxious and awkward and I was terrified of the outside world. The noise, too many people, what could happen to me. Just like absolutely terrified of the outside world. So I started to rely heavily on drinking from a very young age, which obviously then made my mental health worse because it makes your anxiety worse and it makes your depression worse. But you can socialise. But you can socialise and you can be out in the world.

28:30and it was the only time I felt fearless was when I was drunk. So therefore I was drunk a lot of the time, like a lot of the time. I was very much like a functioning alcoholic from a very young age because it was the only thing that equipped me with the artificial confidence. You understand all of this as well, don't you? To like go out there and face the world and not be literally terrified of everyone and everything. and then obviously you know if you're drinking a lot and you're out with people who drink a lot then other things come your way and yeah it just sort of spiraled into just general substance abuse I mean alcohol was always my biggest thing above everything else but I mean I got into quite serious drugs I was definitely an alcoholic but I don't think I had a kind of drug addiction but if they were there I was very suggestible to the idea.

29:29Yes and being drunk makes you incredibly vulnerable. Incredibly vulnerable to tons of things. I mean that's a whole separate show to talk about the absolute insane dangerous situations I've put myself in as a woman like very drunk. But I think it's quite normalised to be that way. It's aspirational for some people. it's just quite normal to just go out and get light shit face isn't it I think British culture in British culture if you're sad you drink if you're happy you drink if you're celebrating you drink if you're commiserating you drink if you've had a hard week at work you drink yeah if you've been at work you drink if you haven't been at work you drink if you're on holiday you drink if you've come back from holiday you drink I mean there's there's you know and I'm not knocking drinking of course do you know what I mean like if you can do it safely sure and it doesn't impact your life great but it was impacting my life it was massively impacting my life But it was the only way I felt I could function, ironically, in some sort of a normal sense, which is bizarre.

30:33And certainly like stimulant drugs would like make my brain quieter, not more loud. So that was always an interesting thing. Yeah. So then how did you go from borderline personality disorder, that is what's going on, oh, maybe I'm not actually, or oh, I'm going for an ADHD assessment? There was a long time between those two points. There was a lot of kind of unpleasantness along that way while I was still trying to kind of figure myself out. I mean, I actually got sober before my BPD diagnosis from AA. I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. basically. And I was like, whatever's going on with me and my brain, whilst this helps me on the one hand, it also is massively detrimental to my mental health, certainly from an anxiety and depression perspective.

31:27So I got sober. I was sober for a really long time. Then I had a relapse. I've been sober now since 2018, I think I stopped drinking. So I just went about my life. And like I said right at the very beginning, I have managed to curate myself a life that has meant that I could pretty much, for the most part, just be myself. The people I surrounded myself with, the scenes I kind of hung around on, you know, everybody thinks I'm a bit weird anyway. Oh, Laurie, she's flaky. Oh, she's just decided she's not coming out tonight or she's cancelled on me. I was surrounded myself with people that kind of were as...

32:09Autistic. Probably as autistic as I was, to be honest. We really do attract each other. Yeah, we do. So I would still have a lot of fights with my own brain. And I couldn't put a name to it at the time, but I would get the decision paralysis and I would sit there on the couch knowing that I had to get up and do stuff, but I'd be frozen to my seat, like completely unable to perform any sort of action. And then I would get really frustrated with myself, like things like that, but I couldn't put a name to it. But when we met and you said, I am ADHD and I said, oh, I do that as well. That was the first time that that was put into my brain.

32:56so I was 38 but I think it was so yeah 2020 2021 was that period of time where it blew up and suddenly everyone was having these conversations yeah and it was only because of that I figured out my neurodiversity and then I think the more we talked about it the more you read about it and you were like oh okay and you know when we met we talked a lot about alcohol and substance abuse because I'd only gotten sober six months before that. Not even that. I think I was very early. You were very early. So it's like parallel lives here. Yeah. Do you know what? Not to give them any airtime, but we had both come out of probably two of the most traumatic relationships we've ever been in in our adult lives, hadn't we?

33:47Around the same time. And there was something about that that just made me think, I'm absolutely never putting up with. Like I am going to live my life for me. I am not going to people please. I'm going to be healthy. I'm going to look after my brain. I'm going to figure out who I am. And I think we were both on that trajectory when we met. So it was perfect timing really, wasn't it? You'd just gotten sober. I've been sober for a couple of years by that, three years or something. We had both reached a point where we had decided that we'd rather be alone than unhappy in a relationship. Yeah. And in order to do that, you have to be very comfortable with yourself.

34:31Yeah. Or at least working on being comfortable with yourself. I've had like three or four different therapists in the last couple of years and I start every single one. They get sick of it and they're like, no. No, I run out of money. But I start them all by saying, look, I'm not here to talk about my relationship. My relationship is the base. my relationship is like the great good safe thing and because of that i can deal with all this other stuff that's going on yeah it's like the the difference between surviving and thriving right like the vast majority of my life has been pure survival whether that's been as a neurodivergent person as a trans person as a queer person it's just like i just have to get through it yeah i've got to have a job i've got to look like a normal human being so much of my life was me doing all the things everyone else did and being like well they seem really happy why am i having a terrible time why am i miserable why am i exhausted all the time and then i think us meeting was this moment of saying okay i have this person who loves me unconditionally exactly as i am yeah exactly as i am and supports me and we've created this like little safe bubble and now i can go off and do these other hard things because i can always come back to this yes that's always been the experience for me.

35:46Mine too. My experience too. Let's talk about your relationship.

35:53What do you want to know? Cute adoring grin at each other. Or it's just making stupid faces at each other. How do you think about your relationship? What do you think about your relationship? So first and foremost, we are our own individual people and our relationship is a third entity. We don't believe in other halves or better halves, even though I'm probably the better half, if you want to know. You had to pick. You're the hotter half. No. It depends on your predilection, really, doesn't it? That's true, isn't it? Something for everyone. Horses for courses. Any more analogies you guys want to throw out there?

36:33No, I think because we had met at a time when we both had made the decision that we were going to be absolutely ourselves and not compromise ourselves. And that doesn't mean, oh, we're both going to be complete dickheads. And if somebody doesn't like it, that's not that's absolutely not it. But like prioritizing our own well-being and mental health above kind of somebody else's comfort. and that's something we still do isn't it yeah like obviously i care deeply about you and i want you to be okay and i want to look after you and vice versa but you can't pour from an empty cup so we are both always very focused on ourselves as well which sounds really self-help no i think it's an evolving thing like we've been together for it'll be five years this summer yeah which in the grand scheme of things isn't very long but at the same time I feel like we are just creating this ever-evolving thing that's always changing based on what we learn about ourselves I think it's so incredibly unrealistic to be with someone in a long-term relationship and expect that not to change yeah I know people who've been together since they were teenagers and I'm like you're really just lucky that you like the adult versions of each other because you change so much and I think that expecting someone to say the same is probably one of the biggest mistakes that you can make and i think it's really hard for neurodivergent people later in life to have to explain to their partners or their parents or whatever this thing that they've learned about themselves because we as human beings like to keep people in a box and we're like okay you're ben and you like this and you work this way and whatever and i think it's particularly hard when it's a partner but we have to have so many i call them squeaky bum conversations which is basically where it feels really uncomfortable can you give me some examples i mean at any point where you're having to give feedback to a partner about something that they've done that might not necessarily be positive yeah you know there's tiny ones like i laurie looks after the bins at home because i hate it but she does something that also really annoys me which is taking the bin bag out and leaving it outside the door and not putting it in the bin so i not finishing the job no i was like why why why why just take to the bin take to the bin because i'm usually really busy doing something else outside the door and then you can't see it so it stays there and then it gets wet and then i eventually have to take a wet bin bag around to the bins and i have to touch wet bin bag plastic and that makes me want to cut my fingers off you can see how the conversation went the conversation went me saying i'm not angry with you i'm not pissed off just like there's this thing that you do that i really struggle with can i ask you to not do it and i also offered i said you can tell me something that i do that really annoys you i legitimately couldn't think of anything apart from putting the toilet roll on the wrong way yes it's your turn which is i was like come on critique me so mine is putting this right and i am trying really hard to do it this sounds like such a like heteronormative like conversation it is these are small big things right yeah there was there was a slightly bigger one which was i internally will be getting myself ready to do something for a really long time and then i will say out loud that i'm going to do it and it might be like a really small thing like i'm going to put that thing back downstairs or whatever and laurie will go oh you don't need to do that now we do it later and i'm like no no no no i need it happens it has to happen now right now because otherwise I won't do it.

40:14So it's like, and you're trying to be nice and say, oh, you know, like, it's fine. Don't stress about it. I'm like, no, like, if you give me permission to not do it, I will never do it. But then you get a bit frustrated. Yeah. But this is the thing is that I'm trying to verbalize to you. I was trying to tell you that because otherwise I just get really annoyed because I feel like you're like impeding my full progress. Yes, I understand. But this is what I mean about it being a continuous thing that we are working on because I feel like we're always having these conversations and we're like, I'm finding this hard today.

40:46Can you help me? And I find that really useful because it's not like I can say something and it's always going to be the absolute truth. Like things change. Yes. And sometimes I can do things and sometimes I can't. And sometimes I need help and sometimes I don't. And sometimes you want to be talked to a certain way and sometimes you don't. And the only way that you can manage that and not end up resenting the other person is to verbalize it. Well, I think that's the thing. I think by our natures, being autistic, we are very direct and clear communicators. However, most people are not. And when you've been in relationships or having to interact with people who aren't direct communicators, and especially being socialized as female, where you're expected to not be direct and you're expected to be affable and friendly and people-pleased, rather than just saying, this is what I want from you.

41:35I think us having to force ourselves to like communicate in a neurotypical way or a non-autistic way we are still unlearning how to do that with each other and know that we can just be direct in our communication and it's not going to make the entire thing fall apart like it like this is what I want from you and I'm going to tell you. saying what you mean yes and believing the other person so if i say to laurie i'm not mad at you but i need you to do this thing because it's stressing me out and she's like okay because it's fine it's not a big deal but i think previous iterations of ourselves would be like oh my god he hates me conflict avoidance i've done this horrible thing and that's when the rejection sensitivity comes in and actually it's just saying like oh when you make my coffee can you not put so much water in it it's like the tiniest thing but when you're used to being someone who's used to being criticized and struggles with that and then who also just take it don't you just like you you being undiagnosed autistic you get very used to sitting in your own discomfort yes because everyone tells you the way that you process things is wrong yeah so you know what it's easier for me to handle this feeling as uncomfortable and unpleasant it is for me it's easier for me to handle that because I'm used to feeling like this than to just say how I feel and ask a person to change their behavior or their approach to something or the way that they're speaking to me or whatever it's just a lot easier to kind of sit with your own discomfort sometimes I think because you just get used to it don't you just get used to being uncomfortable it becomes just normal yeah you don't know what it feels like to be comfortable because you're constantly behaving in a way that's really unnatural to you?

43:21I think there's an additional element for me, which I've realized recently. As someone who's always struggled to make friends and always struggled to maintain relationships, but simultaneously always been told and shown that the number of friends you have and the relationships you have are a marker of your success in life. And whether you're a good person or not. Yeah. So I am, not now, but for a vast period of my life was really scared of losing people in my life. So I would desperately try and hold on to relationships that were unhelpful, unhealthy, toxic, just not fun. I would basically make friends with people or build relationships with people and then actually decide if I wanted to be friends with that person because what I needed was that approval first.

44:07And I think in relationships, romantic relationships is the same thing. You are so afraid of raising even the tiniest thing that could be wrong. In case you're rejected. I need a bit of space. i need this i don't like the way you do that in case something goes wrong because you could lose if someone reacts badly to that which if you've had those experiences in the past and then you're terrified that you're gonna so you just don't you just swallow it and swallow it and swallow it and then you're all of your relationships end in chaos because you've been holding in all of these frustrations and then it comes out as anger and resentment but you do that because you're so scared of being left because you struggle to meet people and you struggle to engage with people and relationships are so hard to build that once you've got one, you're like, I have to hold on to this at all costs.

44:54And now it's more of a like, I have like three friends and I'm fine with that. Yeah. And I have three friends and they're really your friends. I have like one friend. We have about two or three close friends between us, really. And it's a conversation we have a lot and I don't know whether it's because I work with people so I'm kind of chatting to people throughout the day or whatever, but I would be happy never speaking to anyone ever apart from you in the dark. Like I would be more than happy with that and I don't feel lonely and I don't feel, but I think you need social connection a little bit more than I do and that isn't like a negative thing.

45:31I think it's just. I do think the work element plays a big difference because Laurie works remotely but speaks to her team a lot and has like calls during the day. The vast majority of the time I'm just on my own working on stuff. Or speaking to me. Not even speaking to you. I try and avoid speaking to you during the day. You're very distracting. I love you. Sorry. So, therefore, you're both working from home quite a bit. All the time. Tell me about a working day in the life. No, I will say for a couple to spend 24-7 together, which we pretty much do, like i still really like your company but i think that's because we are so comfortable with knowing what each other needs without kind of we just like to sit in silence don't we we pretty much ignore each other during the day in a nice way we're just getting on with our own stuff we are potentially in the same space so we have an office in the garden okay and sometimes we work in the house we have slightly different needs and you know if we're working in the house Laurie wants the tv on I can't have the tv on because I'll start watching it so I'll put my headphones in yeah we work around it but I think somebody who wasn't experienced with neurodivergent people like why are you ignoring me all day why can't you speak to me it's like no I'm just I'm just in my own in my zone but I think we both know a if you need me I'll snap out of it yeah and b I'll always come back in like I've definitely had that issue in relationships before where I've been so off in my own world and people are like where are you like why are you not engaging with me and I'm like I'm just thinking about something especially since I've been working for myself because I'm usually it's 9 30 at night and I'm like oh I've just thought of a really good concept and I'm like planning it out in my head I think we're both very used to each of us going off into I call it lorry land lorry land you're in lorry land quite a lot of the time we have a lot of decompression time it's fair because it's clear it is clear like it's really clarified for both of you I never worry with Max and I hope you never worry with me you know sometimes when you've been in a relationship with like a non-autistic person and you're like the vibes are off there's some vibes going on like there's something going on here like they're being weird like they're speaking to me in a different way blah blah blah like I never have that with you if like because you will always tell me and I will always tell you which is like plenty of people could take a leaf out of that book when it comes to like interactions in romantic relationships but I think that was a decision I made that decision I made a decision that I would trust you to tell me and if you didn't tell me then there wasn't anything yeah but that's a huge one Every single person I've ever dated, even friendships, nothing's wrong.

48:33You're being really weird. And I know I'm autistic, but like your body language is strange and you're speaking to me funny. So something's wrong. And it's okay if you don't want to tell me, but don't lie to me. Because then it's like I'm being gassy on my own brain. Because my brain is like, well, now you don't know what anything means. And if you don't say, how do I know? This is the thing. I'm not a mind reader. But you said that to me really early on. You said you were not mind readers. And it took me quite a while to trust that you would tell me. Because I have to see that in action in order to believe it's going to happen.

49:01And then we would have conversations and you say, oh, this is how I'm feeling about this. I'm like, okay, I actually, I trust you. So if I do pick up that something's going on, I'll say to you like, are you okay? Do you want to talk to me? And you're like, oh, no, I'm distressed. And I'm like, all right. Yeah. I'm here if you need me. I don't take everything personally. I think as two autistic people in a relationship with each other, I think that our needs are quite balanced in so far as it's very rare for us to be having a moment at the same time because our triggers are so different. So Max is a everything needs to be spotlessly clean germaphobe.

49:43Were you diagnosed with OCD? No. Suspected OCD. But I think it's probably just the autism. It's probably just a tism. I don't want to add more letters. It's enough. So there's things that I do around the house, for example, that he just cannot stand to do. And vice versa, there's things that I find really difficult that you don't find difficult. So we work in tandem. And we kind of have an unspoken way of figuring out who has the capacity. If it's something that neither of us like to do, like make a phone call or something, it's like, well, who's feeling more robust today? But we do have a theory.

50:14It's called the I love you override. Yes. which is if the person you love needs you to do something and it's something that you couldn't do normally you can do it I love that I can't remember the last time I voluntarily made a phone call I think it was a year ago I love phone calls I remember you saying this to me the first time I met you like old school phone calls I can't stand it if I know someone's calling me it's fine no because it's like a work phone call but having to call someone to make a reservation If a restaurant doesn't have an online booking, I won't go. We're not going there. So it's usually speaking to strangers.

50:53If someone calls me out the blue, I think someone's died immediately. Even if it's just a random number? Especially if it's a random number. I'm like, it's the police. I have anxiety, okay? The override thing is so real though, because I hate emptying the dishwasher. Don't like the smell, don't like the steam. Grosses me out. But if I know that you're having a particularly hard day, I'm like, I'm going to empty the dishwasher. because I know that you will really appreciate it. I do really appreciate it. But it's things like when we go to restaurants, and you don't get the QR code menu, which I have to say is one of the greatest.

51:26Best parts of COVID. One of the greatest inventions of all time is not having to speak to anyone to go out for lunch. I mean, that's incredible. The big one for me is when someone brings your food over, and then two minutes later, someone else comes over and asks you if everything's okay. Yeah. If it wasn't, if it wasn't. And I'm there going like, I'm eating. I will tell you. Yeah. Yeah. Cough. If it wasn't okay, I would make it very clear. Yeah, I'll tell you. You know in Mondays where they have their little chicken and once they've come to ask you, they take the chicken away so they know. Like they have like a chicken on a stick.

52:03Sponsored by Peri Peri. Can I just take the chicken out if everything's fine? Like you don't need to ask me. Here's your chicken back. And if there is a problem, I'll leave the chicken in. Like let's take it a step further for neuro-inclusivity. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to be perceived. Just give me my food. I don't want to take my headphones off. Do you guys call each other on the phone? We FaceTime. FaceTime. Okay. I don't mind FaceTimes. This is another one of these weird kind of juxtapositions that I experience as an autistic person. You know, we're always told that autistic people can't read body language and they can't read facial expressions.

52:38And I think it's very much a learned behavior. but one of the reasons I don't like old school phone calls is because I can't see the other person so I can't see when I'm supposed to be like interjecting in the conversation like if they're in front of me and they stop talking I'm like it's clearly time for me to speak now and also I can read facial expressions because you learn don't you like if somebody's pissed off or somebody's like having a good time or whatever you can kind of tell I find video calls with people I don't know weirdly intimate. I like being on FaceTime too because I don't have to mask.

53:16I don't have to sit still. I think I've still got residual Zoom trauma from COVID when I'd have like 15 Zooms a day. Honestly, when I see Zoom loading up, I'm like, oh God, I have to sit still and I'm not allowed to stim. No, I make everybody Teams me. It's like, oh, let's just have a quick chat on the phone. Ban Microsoft Teams. No, no, no. No, I need to see your face because I just feel so horribly uncomfortable having this disembodied voice on the other end of the phone and not knowing what they're doing. It just freaks me out. But often we love a phone call. Is it because you can't make eye contact on a phone call?

53:54Yeah, I think it's one sense that I am working with for that person, for that comment. That does make total sense. So that's very sort of sectioned off. and it means I can walk. I was going to say, I do understand. From being able to multitask, I used to call my mum and put her in my headphones and tidy the house. Yep. Because I love doing two things at once. Yep. It's the only way I can get things done. But actually often when one of us is away, you have to go away for work or if I'm shooting or whatever, we won't call each other because we don't have capacity. Or I have nothing to say to you.

54:34Yeah, yeah. Well, no, but if you've been at work all day and you've been speaking. Yeah. You know, I used to. And if I've been texting you all day, which we do text a lot. We send photos of our faces. And send photos of our faces. Why do I need to talk to you? That's not because I don't love you. I love you dearly. But like, why do I need, why, why, why? And how much do you talk about this stuff in your day-to-day life? Quite often, I think. I think it's something that we don't necessarily. necessarily we won't say i'm going to talk to you about an autism thing but i will say you'll say oh does this happen to you sometimes and i'll go no or i'm oh yeah that does happen to me or something i find really hard is to figure out what i'm struggling with i'm exactly the same and it's easier sometimes if someone else is like hey have you noticed that you do this or that you seem to find like i'll say to you like oh i've noticed that this has been stressing you out recently do you want to talk about it so i think we talk about it more than we realize yeah but Hold on, hold on, because autistics can't be empathetic.

55:34I think I have the opposite problem. I think I have too much empathy. I feel other people's pain and other people's stress, and you especially. You are an absolute empath and an absolute justice sensitivity. You break your own heart 100 times a day looking at sad things on the internet. Sometimes I have to ban her from social media. God, that sounds really controlling. Don't put that in. Sometimes I have to ban her. I gently suggest that maybe don't go on Facebook first thing in the morning because everyone's saying horrible things. Because Laurie wakes up before me usually, so then by the time I wake up she's in like rage mode and I'm there with my coffee.

56:13There's a lot to be enraged about at the moment. She's like, have you seen this post? Let's just talk a little bit about your social media. It's amazing. Thank you. It's so good. It's so good what you do. I think it's a very unfortunate but also fortunate and also unexpected. It's a trait of some autistic people that we are deeply empathetic to the point that it causes us harm to the plight of other people, animals, the environment. And I mean, my Instagram just started as me just twatting about in my vintage clothes, really, didn't it? And then I hit perimenopause and my ability to mask went out the window, which I think is another quite common thing amongst AFAB people in kind of midlife.

57:14There's something that happens with your hormones similar to what happens in puberty when you start to struggle more with sensory stuff, with being able to kind of control your emotions, being able to mask. so I just started making videos about how I was feeling like without any makeup on in my pajamas like really kind of just raw emotional stuff about kind of how I was feeling as a human being and unfortunately since we've been together the political climate has never been great but it's become worse especially for queer people people of color migrants you know all of these marginalized communities are being scapegoated and there's something in me that feels like i have to single-handedly trawl the internet all times of day and night arguing with people and telling them why they're wrong because i don't understand how they don't understand that they are wrong they are wrong this isn't a matter of opinion you're wrong yeah then i get myself into a state and then I have a like complete and utter kind of mental breakdown.

58:24It's particularly difficult. I think if you were advocating on behalf of people and sometimes you are, but a lot of the time you are advocating on behalf of trans people or neurodivergent people or women and that's very personal. Yes. It's really hard. You know, every time you advocate for trans rights, you're thinking about me. It's a lot of energy, isn't it? It's a huge amount of energy. It's why I chose to take a break from that space as a trans person I was like I am exhausted yes because I don't get to walk away from this at the end of the day it's similar for you as as an autistic person running an autism charity you don't stop being autistic when the camera turns on no it's still a big part of your life and you're talking about these things but there's also a real emotional toll and I think you often don't realize until you're really deep in it and then you feel guilty Because I become hyper fixated and hyper focused on trying to change minds that can't be changed or trying to just make them see they're wrong.

59:23A lot of the time we talk about how little control we have. Yes. There are a lot of things, especially, I mean, I know for me as a trans person, there is so much stuff happening in the world that I get no say in. Yes. And dramatically impacts my life. Yes. So I understand that need to take a bit of autonomy and say, well, I can post this and I can say this out loud. Is that the same then when, and I know you don't compartmentalize it in this way, but if you're like trans, queer, neurodivergent, there are things in all of those areas that are happening that impact you as a couple, you as individuals, your work, and yet you've got no control over.

1:00:08it's hard it's hard it's really painful it's really painful it's 10 ton weight on you at all times to the point that quite a lot of the time i just have to disassociate from it because i will not get anything done okay because i will sit there thinking well if this happens then this is going to happen if these people get elected they are going to ban the health care that i depend on so i'm going to have to leave the country i wonder what countries take refugees on gender identity status i wonder what i need to do to get there we have been down so many rabbit holes on european citizenship we are actually yeah part of my family are lithuanian they uh fled lithuania the late 1800s we found out i don't know all the circumstances around it but we've been looking into the potential for a passport by descent okay prior to that we were looking at digital nomad visas because we are genuinely scared i think people think that we are being over dramatic but i'm like no if you look at this this is exactly the same as what's happened pattern recognition yeah it's how can nobody else see that like what is happening now is exactly what happened in like 19 goes germany i mean let's not go down that route but it's it's play by play except it's just disguised in slightly different ways and with different same tactics.

1:01:31Yeah I mean I'm Jewish as well so I like I see it and I'm like what they used to say about us is what they're saying about trans people and what they're saying about immigrants and what they're saying about Muslims and it's like why can nobody see that they're being played for idiots and turned against each other so the you know I mean I don't know let's not it's a definite problem for me we both have to struggle with this on a daily basis but I get far more involved in it I think because I'm a content creator and I have to be on Instagram a lot of the time I do find myself but I also think it's an advocacy on behalf of things as well I think you have been a lifelong ally and you feel especially because I'm talking specifically about trans stuff I think you feel almost more passionate about it because it is me and I at least get to say well I'm allowed to take a break from this and you deserve to but I've also said that to you because you are allowed to take a break from it but you feel like you can't but then it goes back to the justice sense of it and it's that the autistic need to know why the autistic need to understand I don't understand how you can possibly think this yes that is exactly what it is And I'm trying to make you understand why this is...

1:02:55Yeah, how can you not? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? You get enraged by it and you get so frustrated because you're just like, I literally don't understand how a person can get to that place where they hate somebody else because they are trans or because they are Muslim or because they are black or because they're like, I don't get it. Yeah. I get frustrated that other people can't see that they are being manipulated by an algorithm or manipulated by media or they can't see that something has been written with a specific bias. If you want to hold certain beliefs, hold them, but have a reason for them.

1:03:30Don't just base them on... But it's like confirmation bias, isn't it? It's like they're just seeing more of what they believe or they're seeing beliefs and adopting those as their own beliefs and then it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy of like, well, just show me more. Tell me more. Absolutely it is. Laurie, I know you... talk about this a lot with your content, which is amazing. How are you finding perimenopause and being all ADHD? I think that one of the key reasons behind seeking diagnosis was I started to get a lot more autistic as perimenopause crept in. Some of the traits that I'd managed to suppress especially around sensory stuff like that's been the biggest one for me became absolutely unmanageable as well as my kind of inability to mask there is something and I'm not a scientist but there will be research out there somewhere about the fluctuating hormones and the impact that has on your brain that does bring a lot of autistic traits if you have them to the forefront I found my capacity for just life became a lot less, didn't it, really?

1:04:49But you're not the first. Yeah, you are not. And I'm sure you hear this right. You're not the first person to say that. You know, and non-autistic people too. For non-autistic women, you know, perimenopause is a transitional time and they find things difficult that they might not have found difficult before. But again, for us, it is magnified. I certainly felt like the sensory stuff became a real issue. My tolerance for being out in the world diminished. How do you see neurodivergence in social media? I think that from a disability perspective and from an access needs perspective, we are going down a very dangerous road because the things that protect us, like the Equality Act, reform have come out and said they're going to repeal it.

1:05:34this idea of merit-based, because it's not merit-based, is it? But this idea of being merit-based and not giving everybody equity as opposed to equality, I think that we've gone through a period of time where we got a lot better at recognizing that everybody starts from a different place. And there are groups of people who want to slide to that backwards. I think bringing it to social media especially things like facebook i think things like instagram and and to a degree tiktok you you follow people you don't know so you can be influenced by people but i think it's particularly powerful and potent when it's people that you know who are sharing certain ideas and people that you respect or your parents and we get stuck in these bubbles where we think everybody thinks the same as us i think brexit's a really good example i remember when that happened and i was like how the because i existed my own bubble of people who did not want that to happen and i think that we're hyper personalizing social media now with the way that algorithms work and it's really dangerous we end up in echo chambers of our own beliefs of things that work for us and that means that people who are opposed to the kind of equal rights and the kind of access that we are trying to advocate for are also in echo chambers 100 % of the same thing and there's so much misinformation like you say if you fall down one of those misinformation rabbit holes you just become so convinced that it's kind of so quick it's so like donald trump saying that paracetamol causes autism and things like that like he will have said that there will be people that have run with that and now that they think that's just like absolute gospel yeah fact what i particularly worry about as well as young people because i think you know you you grew up slightly before the internet generation i grew up dead in it so i remember dial up but i also had myspace and i had msn and my space you know i i was a tumblr girly i miss tumblr i miss the good days of tumblr but we i used to like flicker yeah it's a bit after your time wasn't it yeah we're we're in our 40s i can't help being the youngest one i recognize because of those experiences the negative impact that social media can have and I've had experiences without it and I look at 8, 9, 10 year olds and this is where they get all their information from.

1:08:24But it's a bigger conversation and it's something that I know is being kind of looked at is if you get vulnerable neurodivergent people, autistic people who... Dopamine seeking people. Dopamine seeking people. But I think if you're a person that doesn't go out very much or is socially isolated, and this becomes your world you can very easily slip into but i don't think someone in that position believes they're socially isolated no i think there's a world now where we can feel incredibly sociable and incredibly connected globally to a lot of people without having to ever physically see someone or talk to someone yeah which is great for those autistic people who really struggle with actual in person like it's really great that there's this ability to make connections and not feel lonely and not feel like you don't have any friends but there's some very dark places on the internet yeah and i do fear that there are just certain groups of people who are more vulnerable to finding themselves on the wrong side of the internet.

1:09:40And I mean, you can find yourself on the right side of the internet. You can become radicalized in the way that, I mean, I'm not radicalized. I just believe in basic human decency, but like, you know, radical idea that, but it can be a force for good. And I know that there are a lot of neurodivergent people who are feeling very similarly to me who can't necessarily get out and protest in person or they don't feel comfortable to being big crowds so they can be politically engaged and feel like they're making a difference from the comfort of their safe space so it's not all bad but i know that there are a lot of neurodivergent people who are struggling similarly with me like it has become all consuming it's become more consuming to the point where people are making active choices to distance themselves from social media yeah but then if that's your point of community connection well exactly that's one reason why i find it really difficult to take breaks because i'm like it is a community my following i feel like they i do have a community there and i try and chat with everybody that messages me and it's lovely like for the majority it's lovely conversations with other mostly middle-aged ladies um you girlies with my girlies you know talking about really nice stuff and i hate to have to take a step back from it but i i have had probably four nervous breakdowns in the last like year right where i've like gone completely just i mean i don't even know how to describe it really because of what's going on on social i think it's a contributing factor just what's going on in the world just what's going on It's so heavy.

1:11:25It's so heavy. There's only so much you can pour your energy into. And unfortunately, pouring a lot of my energy into trying to single-handedly sort out all the world's ills, which is not possible. We know that. It's just pouring into an infinity hole. It is. It is. We have such limited energy. I hate the word spoons. I don't use the word spoons. choose something else yep nice my autism knives you have such limited capacity already and then you know i've been blocking social media a lot on my phone because otherwise i just mindlessly scroll yeah for hours so i've been using nfc tags to to block and unblock which i really recommend okay every now and again we'll unblock it in the morning and while I'm having coffee you know it's like 8am and I'll scroll through and I realized that my day was actively worse when I did that I couldn't concentrate as much I didn't get as much work done I'd be in a worse mood I usually wouldn't be able to go to the gym or go for a walk or do the things that make me feel better because I'd started off the day being bombarded with either how horrible the world is or the other side of Instagram which is look how well I'm doing I'm a photographer like you but I have all of these clients and I have done this and I am a 33 year old man like you and my body looks like this and I do this and I get up at 5am and do an ice bath it's like goff I don't need to see that I started to take a really active conscious choice of like there's sort of social media for work that's one part and then there's moments where I kind of go Well, I really love trees and I've trained my algorithm to also love trees.

1:13:19So I have five minutes, ten minutes and I'm not with the kids or whatever. I'm going to sit and I'm going to just dive into it, just entertain me. Yes, but that's what Instagram used to be like, right? Yeah. Yeah, you just get to look at like fashion and sighthounds and your mates. And now, yeah, I think it just realises that it can get more of a reaction from some of us. It rage baits you. Yeah. 100%. And I fall for it every single time. What advice for those, for people listening and watching, like good healthy behaviour around social media and being ND. Don't go on it. Don't use it. That wasn't going to be my finish, but like, yeah, don't go on it first thing in the morning.

1:14:09Wait at least like two hours until you're awake and you can cope with it. Train your algorithm. Like the things that you really want to see. That's what does it. Watch the things. Don't watch things you don't want to see. Use the toggle that says like not interested. Don't interact with anything that makes you angry because it will show you more of it. Limit how long you spend on it. If you can't limit it, delete the app or there is an app called Focus. F-O-Q-O-S. It is free. you can block your apps on it you can use various different things to unblock them i use nfc tags it's about four pounds on ebay for 15 nfc tags i stick them to different things you can lock you can unlock make it as difficult as possible for yourself i used to stick them on the fridge because then i had to get up and get to the fridge and i am so lazy that i will not unlock my phone yeah i think as well i i took a similar approach to drinking with social media i was like this is an addiction okay so i didn't go on it for maybe a month complete block and then you start to introduce it back into your life i didn't do that with drinking but it was the same sort of thing like how can i do this in a healthy way and actually notice what it's doing to you it's is this giving you any positivity whatsoever do you enjoy this do you come off an hour scrolling on social media and think oh that was really fun most of the time no like very rarely we'll sit in bed and we will watch like stupid reels with dogs together i really enjoy that yes that's funny it's really funny yeah it's a really nice way to end the day but actually the vast majority of the time we're on social media just like oh oh horrible horrible from an adhd perspective oh it feeds it dopamine is dopamine whether that's coming from something positive or negative yeah it's like anything that causes you to feel something yeah whether it's negative or positive But that's what I mean by that initial break, is it forces you to go and find something else.

1:16:02The amount of times I would find myself just reaching for my phone every time I got stuck on a work email or something, or I got bored, or I sat down to eat, and I was like, no, I'm going to do something else. I'd love to come on to some relationship advice. Sometimes I think that's how we're going to make... Max holds his breath, Laurie smiles. That's how I think we're going to make our millions sometimes. I'm like, you know, autistic relationship advice for non-autistic people. Like, just say what you mean, for Christ's sake. Just say what you mean, say what you feel, and everything will be way better than just like tippy-toeing around each other.

1:16:41I think the reason why I made a face is because I get really annoyed at people who pretend that they have perfect relationships. Yes. Because actually the opposite... A house is pretty perfect, though. I know, but people define a perfect relationship as like, oh we never argue and i'm like that's weird yeah that's so weird yeah that you don't disagree but i also think that we don't argue because we never get to the point where it becomes an argument because we will express our distaste or unhappiness in a situation way before it gets to the point where there's like enough resentment building up that it turns into an argument like i i can count on one hand the amount of times we've argued like honestly I can't I'm not an arguer anyway but define an argument right we disagree we disagree exactly but I think okay so here's a piece of relationship advice I can disagree with you and be frustrated about it but still treat you with love and respect correct like there's something that like often if we're having a difficult conversation I'll just like try and hold your hand because I'm like this is really hard like this conversation is really hard and we're both upset and we're both stressed but like i love you and we're on the same team we say that a lot we're on the same team like ultimately we want the same thing yes ultimately we both want to be happy and relaxed and figure this thing out and i know it's stressful and difficult but like i've been in so many relationships where you take the anger out on the other person and you get frustrated with them and their behavior and actually you have to stop and ask yourself like a firstly where is this coming from and as an autistic person that's a huge thing because i'm like oh i'm not actually angry at you i'm just too hot like you know we came we came in from the supermarket the other day and i was like so overstimulated like i hate supermarkets anyway and we'd been to the supermarket and it was dark it was raining we had to carry the bags in and i had loads of layers on and i went into the kitchen took both of my shirts off and was like i feel fine now but i was really annoyed at you for doing something you like i don't know you like shut the door really loudly and i was like no i'm not mad at you i'm just really hot and hungry and now i feel fine when i get overstimulated particularly when we're out and about and it might be that yeah I'm too hot or that my bag keeps sliding off my shoulder and my sock has fallen down inside my shoe and I'm going somewhere that I don't really want to go and I am trying to rehearse conversations in my head and just everything's too much and you'll say to me do you want me to take your coat and I'll say no and then you feel that I am not helping myself because you are offering me help and I am refusing it.

1:19:16And this thing came up and it said, this is what's actually going on when I refuse help. And it's you asking me if I need help is adding another thing, another decision to make, another choice to make, another question upon this person that is like overburdened with everything else. and it's not me refusing your help it's not me saying what you're offering me is irrelevant in this situation and like i'm not saying that what you're offering me is unhelpful or stupid in some way it's just giving me another thing to think about is too much upon my already overburdened psyche it's another demand isn't it it's another demand and i have terrible demand avoidance like like terrible I'm laughing because sometimes it is like having a toddler in the house because I'm like I need to ask you to do something but I know you're not going to want to do it so I'm like hey do you want to do this or this?

1:20:13you're going to pick one of them because we've got to do one or the other that's what I do with my three year olds that's what I mean and legging choices in the morning I'm like do you want to take the bins out or do you want to clean the kitchen? or do you want to take the bins out? do you want to hoover or do you want to dust? so I guess the relationship advice that comes from that a little anecdote I think it's having the patience to explore feelings with your partner and especially if you're both neurodivergent because sometimes we do not understand what our feelings are and one will ask their partner what's wrong and then get frustrated because they can't verbalize but sometimes emotions are difficult to like pin down because it can be anger but actually underneath that is like embarrassment or shame or whatever and as an autistic person or fear and as an autistic person that's even more difficult than a non-autistic person to figure out what that emotion is you know if you think of our lives thus far even though we've been autistic our whole lives we've only known for this very short amount of time so there's gonna be revelations coming constantly and i think the ability to sometimes have conversations where you're just like neither of you really know what the hell you're talking about but you've got to untangle it holding space it's holding space for not knowing and also i think a big part of that is not taking it personally yes you need to be able to say i am frustrated and upset but it's not you yeah i'm going to behave like that but it's not you what would you like to change for neurodivergent people like what would you like to see in the future i give you a magic wand what do we need to sort out i mean in a perfect world everybody would just give each other grace to exist in a way that they feel comfortable just to be themselves just to be themselves and that's not just neurodivergent people i feel that for all people like if you're not hurting anybody else what does it matter what you want to wear who you love whether you want to wear headphones when you're in a restaurant like whether you want to interact with other human beings as little as possible like what does it matter yes i would just if i could create a perfect world it would just be for no one to ever have to force themselves to behave in a way that made them feel uncomfortable because i have lived like that most of my life to some extent or another you probably even more so i think mine's very similar to yours well there's two of mine one is a reduction in shame and the shame that we all experience as being neurodivergent people and i think that comes from talking about it openly i think it comes from being on tv or screens with stim toys and not making eye contact and seeing that more normalized and and not infantilizing people for those needs you know i know made jokes about like being like a toddler and whatever and that's how i manage my own brain but actually neurodivergent adults are still adults we just might need more help with things it doesn't make us irresponsible or stupid we're just different our brains work differently and that's okay and i think the secondary element of that is i would love to see more recognition of that in a corporate sense because I used to work with a lot of companies around these kind of topics and they're just starting to understand it but there's a real inflexibility with what some of these reasonable adjustments may mean and I think there's a real fear that it will be looked at as somebody having an unfair advantage and actually firstly it's not an unfair advantage if someone needs it to work and secondly it might help everyone you know if you have a workplace policy that you're allowed to wear headphones there'll be an autistic person who's like yeah and there'll also be someone who just really likes listening to music while they work yeah who will also enjoy it it's like the drop curb theory right like you drop a curb and a wheelchair user and then someone with a pram and a delivery driver it there are very there are very very few neuro inclusive changes that negatively impact everyone yeah but they can really positively impact a lot of people and i'd love to see that recognized and i'd love to see an understanding that when an neurodivergent person asks for an adjustment it is not a oh i just don't like that it's a physical discomfort i don't ask for things to change i don't ask someone to turn down the music because i don't want to listen to it i was like i literally cannot hear yes i can't focus my brain hurts i need to be in here and i'm not saying that all spaces need to be neuro inclusive all the time i would love that sure but it's unreasonable and it's not going to happen in a capitalist society but we can work harder and give people the tools to advocate for themselves and allow people the grace to learn about that i just wanted to pick back up on something you said earlier max actually right at the beginning which was around masking and skills regression and I wanted you to just explain what you mean by that.

1:25:36I mean, I'm by no means an expert and by no means, I probably won't use the right words for this, but the second I started to understand how hard some of the things I was trying to do were for my brain, I couldn't do them anymore. And I couldn't, you know, if someone had a gun to my head, I could do it. But the pain and the stress and the time and the energy that it would take just felt impossible. You know, I went from doing 10 Zoom calls a day to getting stressed if I had one in a week because I had to sit still and pay attention and get ready for things. I worked in an office. I commuted to and from an office for eight, nine years of my life, Monday to Friday, in an open plan office with people talking.

1:26:21I wasn't even allowed to wear headphones. I had to answer the phone. What? That's like, it's like looking at a completely different person. I don't know how I did those things and I genuinely do not recognize how I did that and and that's the skill regression for me is going from someone who could function in a neurotypical society fairly well at least as I thought to being someone who really struggles just to order in a restaurant and it was a almost immediate thing that happened when I figured it out and suddenly I couldn't do these things anymore but i think it was also a i am not willing to put myself in this level of discomfort anymore there's a weird permission isn't there there's a i just don't have to and i just didn't want to feel like shit something that diagnosis has done for me is allowed me to be kinder to myself because i was quite mean to myself before like why can't you do this why do you find this so difficult why is going out and leaving the house such a bloody palaver there's something wrong with you that you find yourself frustrated in this situation or you find this situation hard why can't i just enjoy things i'm going on holiday everybody else will be happy i'm going out to something with my friends i should just be happy and instead it was like i literally feel like i'm gonna vomit from doing this thing that everybody else seems to find so fun like what is wrong with me as a When you're a divergent couple with varying layers and levels of intersection, at the stage in life and age in life that you are, how do you guys reset your nervous system?

1:28:05Go outside in nature. Yeah, 100%. Every time. That would be my answer every time. Straight off. Straight off. Go outside, smell the air, stop looking at your phone, leave your phone at home if you can. walk talk don't talk just breathe breathe and take it in and the more natural the better you know we have loops that we do kind of through town if we need to do a quick dog walk but we like to go out into the country park the wilderness the woods the trees there's something about nature you know we live by the sea so going to the beach is always a big one yeah just get outside get away like nothing ever seems as much of a big deal if you're looking at the sea yeah and sometimes i feel like i haven't breathed all day and then i go outside and i take a deep breath and i'm like okay yeah but that it always works oh you are making me want to literally go and be in it now yeah just lay down and just like look at the leaves and just nature is our happy place it's our grounding place isn't it there is so much that is keeping our nervous systems like switched on yes in life as queer people as neurodivergent people as a trans person there is a lot for our nervous systems to be working with.

1:29:15And if you can find the time, even 10 minutes of your day to get out, it sounds like such a cliche, but I know amongst a lot of autistic people, we know they all say the same thing. You did not hesitate. I asked the question, you both are like, nature, I mean, move on. Last question to each of you. You've each got green dots on. I'm going to give you another green dot each and ask you who you would like to give this one to I'm not going to physically give these to you until we finish but I'm going to ask you Max who would you give your second green dot badge to? My best friend Tay who is also autistic who has coached me through the process of realising that I'm autistic and on a daily basis makes my life better good answer he's otherwise known as my husband and I met him before Laurie he's the third person in our marriage fourth person if you count our relationship as the entity who are you giving yours to Laurie Jade I and this is probably like a really cringe answer but I don't care I'm going to say it anyway I would give mine to my mummy don't call her mummy that's weird if you do that why?

1:30:36because you're 43 because you're 43 The only people who call their mums mummies. Not your time, Max. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Start again. Okay, fine. Shut up, Max. You're so rude. I would give my green pin to my mother. Is that better? My mum. My mum is an icon anyway. She'd hate me to say this out loud, but she is 73. And she has been on my side always. and I have been a pain in her ass and I have caused her a lot of grief and I've caused her a lot of worry and she has always always been on my side and I just found out the other day because she asked me if we had a laptop she could borrow she has signed herself up to a free understanding autism course that gives you like a qualification at the end of it at 73 years old So she can better support Laurie and me.

1:31:36So she can better support me and you and probably her husband, my stepdad as well, because we're pretty sure that he is autistic also. Undiagnosed, but we're pretty sure. Undiagnosed, but there's something going on. But yes, she has always been very accepting of you and my identity, which has changed a lot throughout the years. Obviously, trying to figure out who I was and whatever, but she is the biggest trans ally. She is the biggest LGBTQ ally. It's ultimate proof that age has no better. Age has no better. No, no. So I will give my green dot to her because, yes, she is somebody who is going out of her way to understand autistic people more.

1:32:17I love it. Yeah, she's brilliant. Thank you. I love that. Thank you. We loved it. Thank you, Ben.

1:32:31That's it for today's episode of The Hidden 20%. But just before you go, a favor. The Hidden 20 % is a charity and we do this to bring you the truth, the latest research and the real stories that matter. So if this episode spoke to you, then please hit subscribe. And if you can, donate via the link below. finally a big shout out to you all for listening and our brilliant team who make this all happen phoebe charlie kristen james john and the guys at tyx studios we'll see you next time