Good day my lovely listeners. You are listening to The Forty Autie Podcast. Tune in every week to explore inspiring stories and insightful information that dive headfirst into the world of autism and mental health. With all those tantalizing tongue twisters out of the way, let's get into the show. Hello everybody and welcome back to The Forty Autie Podcast with me Thomas Henley from the Asperger's Grove channel and of course more importantly The Forty Autie Podcast. How are you guys doing? It's great to have you back on the podcast ready for another little chat. I hope you've got your pajamas on and you're cosying up on the sofa or I don't know maybe maybe you're at work or doing some cleaning. Probably not if you're autistic but Thomas is rambling. Anyway today we're talking about autism and relationships. The reason why we're laughing about it is because we've already done a take of this and for some reason the podcasting website that I'm using has been a bit rubbish so. But anyway I am joined today by BB aka Asperger. How are you BB? I'm doing I'm doing really well round two. It's gonna be the best time. I love that you blamed it on the website and not on the fact that I live in the Arctic and it was probably my shitty internet connection that made the whole thing just disintegrate. It is minus 30 Celsius and when I went down to just get some water in between takes there's like a major blizzard outside.  Yeah I haven't left the house today I'm still in my pajamas and yeah I'm excited to talk to you again. Again. It's a new it's the first time we're talking. That's right it's all new this has never happened before everybody get ready.  Yeah absolutely my name is BB. I am a comedian slash writer slash just whatever. I need to be kind of person. I live in Iqaluit Nunavut which is the capital of the territory of Nunavut and it's in Canada and I'm 63 degrees north. It's a fly-in only community on Baffin Island which is near Greenland. So it's a very remote place and I'm absolutely loving it and I lived here for seven years. How I got into comedy is just because there was really a need for it in our community and the rest of Canada was asking what's going on in Nunavut so we started just doing our own thing. I also I love writing so right now I'm doing strategic planning and communications for our college in town which is really fun and I also volunteer and run the youth pride or LGBTQ society at the high school and work with a lot of the queer youth who keep me young and fresh and yeah so I'm all over the place and yeah I started Aspergerl my Instagram account about opening up my life of it being autistic and I started that three months ago and it's going pretty great so I'm just sort of going with my autistic flow on that and yeah in a couple of weeks I will be traveling a lot and sort of getting entering the busy time of my of my year so yeah I'm just excited to have this week to yeah get out of my pajama hole and talk to you and kind of get back on track so cool so why why did you choose to start up your your social media page I think it's page isn't it yeah and what what sort of drove you to do it and what do you have to do with it it was really not a conscious decision almost being in in comedy and one of the reasons why I actually like as a writer I have been hesitant in the past about performing and actually doing my own stand-up is because of social media and you know the pressure to just even when you're not on stage you still have to be on and promoting yourself and interacting with people and being this sort of persona and you know for many autistics we spend our lives just trying to be ourselves that the thought of having to you know share publicly who you are even on that journey of trying to figure it out was really nerve-wracking so I actually debated just shutting off all of my social media accounts pretty recently and it was in that moment where I just thought you know what like I'm having this negative reaction to social media and mainly because as an autistic person and having a lot of success in my life that I feel people think that my life is very easy or that it's perfect so that really bothered me that I didn't have a way to articulate how much I've struggled and how much every moment is is crazy and weird and challenging and you know my interior monologue is not anything but but perfect so it was in that moment that I felt you know what like let's give this a try let me be brutally open and and that's sort of what inspired me to do it was that it was just really really scary and it was you know something that I hadn't considered and then just had to do it and I have no doubt in saying that you you have been sort of a social media hit if I can say that you definitely you definitely have like gained quite a lot of following in in three months I I have like no nowhere near like the kind of following that you have on on Instagram of course I've got no idea how you do it but it's pretty cool I think we do put a lot of I think we put a lot of emphasis on especially like in the arts community or putting yourself out there I don't know where this whole idea of whoever developed social media was a genius to have this whole idea of like followers and and in number forms everybody can see it's basically like let's just take our worst high school experience and like put it out there as a way to like track success so I know a lot of people because again I work with with comedians and other artists who are quite successful and have a big following and I you know even with that comes just as much anxiety and pressure and in no way indicates is like social or emotional success so one thing actually that has happened like when I first started the account I had a very different approach I kind of almost posted in this way they're like nobody's following me so nobody's gonna see this and it was almost just cathartic and then as I started you know realizing like this I'm not the first person to do this like there's a lot of autistics out there who are listening to you who are memeing and who have all these different styles and and who are really like communicating these are real people I always felt like social media was just like ads and jargon and this yeah like perfect poison that we're all like trying to swallow so yeah it was crazy to see like how the the autistic community like these are real people and the stories that they're sharing are actually really really special and raw because people are just sharing so that's what sort of inspired me like oh I want to do memes or this is funny or I have thoughts on this and then once they started communicating with people and and it built from and then people were asking me questions so I would turn them into posts and stuff like that yeah so that's kind of where I like asked for girl came from but in when I did started it was more just like I don't think anybody's gonna look at this and and I and I didn't really think much of it other than I do work with a lot of youth in town and Nuna Boots are really interesting territory in that we're the only indigenous run a territory in Canada and 90% of the population is Inuit I'm not in you know I'm a basic white girl that just moved up here but but I do relate as an autistic person I do really really relate to the struggles of really you know wanting to be recognized and wanting to be heard and working with a lot of queer youth and being a mentor and being an advocate for their not only their sexual health but their mental health and them just fighting to reclaim their stories and their history and their language it really resonated with me and we have the highest suicide rates in the world in Nuna Boots and I I know a lot actually a friend of mine passed away recently and I just again this was triggered by the fact why I just knew that if I was gonna be able to continue to be the strong person I was gonna who people look to for support that I was gonna need to sort of dig down deeper and find my own ways of of coping because autistics also have a high suicide rate like we it's important that we find our voices that we find each other because you know I think every autistic person can say that they have thoughts really just not even suicide but just feeling like I wish I didn't exist existing is just so hard you know so it's important that we don't exist it's paid it's important that we we don't get lost in that and that's why my approach is always really really positive because it's important that you get out of your head and out of those those cycles and again I've I have achieved a lot of success in my life and I do attribute it to the fact that I'm autistic so I want to be open about that and yeah I think that a lot of as you just you know you open the floodgates you just never know what's gonna happen and I'm seeing that instead of me being like the one person out there it's like oh see does he say something other people will will join you or at least maybe listen or I do have a lot of followers who are neurotypical and also resonates so I think again we're all trying to like swallow this pill of perfection and it's the people that are that are being real who are all of a sudden yeah the ones who other people are like you know what that sounds better than what the media or what our governments or what our doctors and professionals are saying so yeah it's good that's awesome and I very much respect and like that you sort of pitch your your posts and your ideas towards neurotypical people as well so I feel like although sort of like posts and things for autistic people are great and they you know give give people autistic people a lot of ways of coping and ways of viewing things and come again over struggles and realizing their own sort of potential there is there is always a very heavy influence from the outside world on autistic people and I think I think everywhere in the world to be honest even the UK was such a good sort of special needs system in place there is a very large disconnect in what people view as autism they don't really understand it they can sort of pick upon the the negatives but they don't really get to the core of it and I really like that you you know you pitch your stuff towards neurotypical people to help them understand as well I think that's really great and also you're also I very much like your Instagram name you sound like a last ago the Incredibles yes that's I'm a last ago yes I'm going for the bionic superpower approach I was surprised that like ask again I was just kind of doing it to be funny and I'm like really ask for girls not taken well I think this is my calling but I will tell you a little secret and I actually do not believe that there's really a difference between neurotypical and neurodivergent I think it is a big spectrum there's one standard that in specially in you know post-colonial Western society that we're sort of pitched and then it kind of goes like who fits that mold and then everybody who who doesn't outside outside outside of that you know labels are good sometimes but also you know not great over time and I've lived in many different cultures I before I lived here I've lived in Nunavut for seven years before that I lived in in Ghana for four years and growing up in downtown Toronto there's people from all over the world and you know I think it's really important to acknowledge that our thinking and how our thinking is labeled is largely reflected on you know the the perspectives of the people in power and that if you don't fit in and if you're really struggling in one situation often if you go and find the other people who are oppressed or off who are also experiencing difference and othering and if you learn from them and share their stories and you realize there's so many different ways of thinking and there's so many different approaches to life and there are spaces where you will feel perfectly normal and perfectly capable so my approach really is like I don't think people should have to like leave their their jobs or leave their families to go and on this pilgrimage to find a place that they are welcome but how can we make those little changes in our lives to make our our space and our mind and our environments a sanctuary that respects us and that's pretty much what I've done with my life and as somebody who looks very very straight and who looks very very neurotypical you know I don't like when people judge me and I remember what it used to be if you had told I remember somebody asked me when I was in grade seven when I said I really don't like boys they're gross and somebody asked me well do you like girls do you think you're gay and I wish I could go to that moment and be like maybe I am and that would have like totally changed the direction of my life because you know from the next 10 years it came out when it was 21 I was just another straight neurotypical person too so you never know who this neurotypical person that you might be doubting or assuming that they're not going to respect you is and what they're going through because maybe you speaking out about your experiences or you acknowledging them with respect might make them go oh my gosh me I might be autistic too and that is just like the key now to my life and then you'll forever be that person who you know covering them yeah so I think it's a two-way it's a two-way street because I still remember uh that my first girlfriend who you know we were working at Starbucks together and we ended up like making out in the back room and she was like you're totally gay I'm like no I'm not and then like that just changed the rest of my life so I'm so glad that she took a chance on me this really awkward asexual straight girl and was like no this girl's a badass dyke I know it and I'm gonna bring that out of her and she did so you know we got to save the neurotypicals free them save them that's that's ask for girl's mission I'm gonna find you so but yeah I never I never make assumptions everybody's on the spectrum somewhere whether against gender or sexuality you know I think one thing's beautiful about the autistic mind is it's very fluid we we have been conditioned to try and make these like label ableist connections but really we don't think that way and that's what makes us different so if we're going to try and promote that or try and say acknowledge our difference we also have to be respectful to other people as well yeah I think um I I get where you're coming from with the whole um you know like with the labels and all of that kind of stuff like I think one way which we may be slightly different is that so I went to I went to uni and I studied a lot of um stuff to do with like neuroscience and and like and a little bit of psychology and stuff and um my my you know sort of my dissertation and all of that kind of stuff was centered around differences in autistic and neurotypical brains um according to when they're diagnosed and and all that and um I think I think what one of one of the difficulties with anything that is diagnosed based on things like you know what they would call traits or ways of behaving behaving can be a very sort of difficult thing to navigate from from the research that I've looked at and the the things that I've dived into there does there does appear to be a lot of so genetic and brain structural differences between um autistic and neurotypical people the ones that are you know the ones that are diagnosed autistic and I I do think I understand about the whole you know spectrum thing but I feel like I feel like people are either they have um autistic genetics but anybody from the neurotypical spectrum to the autism spectrum can have any number of traits that people would classify as being autistic traits does that make sense absolutely oh for sure I'm also I do study um neuropsychology on the side and one of the reasons why I was diagnosed how I was diagnosed is that I was originally diagnosed as borderline personality disorder as many of us young women are and um when I and I wanted to get that expunged from my record because I just didn't believe it was true and so I participated because I was at University of Toronto and I participated in a borderline personality disorder study in which they had to um interview us but also there was a lot of things that were going to measure our brain functions and how and observe us doing tasks and stuff and it was during then that they said I don't think did you have you ever been tested for autism and I was like I knew I wasn't bpd but then I was like wait what but I'm not a young man who likes math like I can't be autistic and then uh so then all of a sudden I'm like wait a minute so now I'm not borderline but I'm this I'm out of here did they did they like throw a deck of cards on the floor and ask you how many like or matchsticks on the floor uh no but I had to do I had to do a lot of like building towers and like little IQ tests and um other fine motor skills I can't remember all the specific ones that I had to do because it was over three days of testing and I remember I just come back from seeing my girlfriend who uh well ex-girlfriend but she's still my best friend who is actually on the spectrum as well so it was funny that uh and I was so tired so I don't really remember all the things that that happened to me because I was so jet lagged um and also she's a musician so I had been like you know doing touring and doing like music stuff and then had to do this like three days of very intense like psychological psychology of evaluation but it's funny that she's actually on the spectrum as well and at the time again going back to my neurotypical labels I was like okay I'm you know I'm just crazy like I'm not autistic I'm just weird and crazy um we're not the same but we are so I'm from a different planet that's it I'm a different species I know I think a lot of us have those those things so I think my I guess what I meant was as autistics our approach to life is fundamentally different because of the way that our brain is structured but how we process and how we identify ourselves that has been conditioned largely by the context in which we've we've grown up in yeah for example my favorite comedy reference to ever make is that here I am like always wondering and worrying about my social approach and how I'm going to fit into a situation meanwhile like Bob the like you know fat lazy you know neurotypical like dude that likes hockey just like smashes around a party offending everyone doesn't care usually I end up in a corner talking to that guy and he doesn't care that I'm not enjoying myself or that you know so it's it's I just mean that in terms of like how we edit ourselves really it depends on the context that we're in you know and so as a gay person on the spectrum you know I'm technically expected to edit myself more because the mainstream is a neurotypical heteronormative culture so I'm aware that if I were to just go out you know loud and proud you know just hyper-focusing at a bus stop on something stimming away I'll get looks right meanwhile a neurotypical abrasive man could walk around belly hanging out drinking a beer nobody would care right even though so that's what I meant in terms of like the spectrum it's it's not so much that our brains are the same it's how we're choosing to present ourselves in public and what word or an awareness of what is right and what's wrong yeah I get that cool so you did mention that you um you've you've had a relationship with an autistic person like what was your experience with neurotypical and autistic relation what did you say before it was like nd and nd and nd and nd and nd and nd and nd and nd and nd and nds yes yeah now we're getting into like the meat of the discussion the love so we say we're going to just like not why I was invited why wasn't the real the real stuff now that you you know how I think let's get into how I feel just kidding um yes I have I have had relationships uh being an artist and in the arts community um you know there's a lot of different brains out there that I'm exposed to so I've had both like nd nd relationships and now I'm in a really amazing nd nd partnership um and so there's there's pros and cons to both but I think um the relationship structure in general and it is you know is always challenging because everybody has an idea of what they think or want their perfect relationship to be in general and everybody combats loneliness like I'm an only child that that grew up in a big city who to be honest like I never really cared too much about friendships or put that much effort in I went to a small school and I was always I always had friends I was always pretty well liked people really liked my ideas I was a activist kid I relate a lot to Greta Thunberg in terms of I skipped school a lot with my friends to you know protest for equal pay for women and uh you know I went to a feminist school so teachers were like super supportive of that and I was always treated like you know uh it's almost like the go to girl of the school and uh one day I came back from my christmas vacation and grade 10 I'll never forget this and all of my friends literally felt like overnight where all of a sudden interested in boys and makeup and watching days of our lives and didn't want to protest or be rowdy crazy fun free young girls anymore and that's when my struggle finding connection and finding relationships really really really I guess heightened because I always had the awareness that that I was different but I was in such an environment that it never really bothered me or always found a way to use my difference and my my brain power to unite people around me and then when I couldn't do that anymore it would I just felt so lonely like I was looking at the world from a fish tank and you know everyone's around me and I can see all these people in front of me but I can't I can't connect with them and then it was even worse when you know I was trying to date men and that's when I would have these great connections but then there was no physical connection because I was terrified and I didn't want to be touched so I just thought like okay I guess I'm asexual so being able to come out first as gay and then you know five years later as a gay autistic woman that's really changed my approach to relationships and I would say it's only since coming or discovering my autistic mind that I've actually been able to like delve in and have really full and meaningful relationships I kind of was just always skimming the surface before or yeah I wasn't able to like I was either coming off as like way too distant or I never knew that if people liked me and I didn't even know the first step to dating or it was the opposite where I thought someone liked me so I was like bringing them flowers and being so romantic and then they were just like stop following me like why are you one of the best people who googles google about it like like oh yeah I googled like yeah how would she like me how to tell if somebody likes me psychological signs of affection and all that kind of stuff oh absolutely like that was me a hundred percent and again it's funny that I look at there yeah if I would say to call up some of my past relationships there are relationships where girls I'm sure were like oh my gosh bb was like such a bitch and she was like so cold and not interested and there is a flip side of girls who I'm sure have blocked me on social media so like this girl's crazy so it's funny how it's like how could I be both people you know like um I suppose I suppose it's kind of like it's it's difficult especially I mean I usually refer to it as the the terror of teenage hood because I've never met anybody who is on the autistic spectrum who has enjoyed their teenage hood I know it's not particularly great for everybody because of the hormones and stuff but there's a lot of difficulties with teenage hood with all the hormones in there people change when they when they start getting those puberty hormones running through them and yeah I really I like the idea of the fishbowl looking out because there's always sort of like this wall up between well there was a wall up between me and other people where I couldn't believe that anybody could really get what I'm saying and get why I feel something and it was yeah it was really difficult and I think that was a big barrier in terms of relationships as well but I was I was I'd be very cold and I'd be out that sort of yeah as you said looking for a fishbowl and um but then if you know there's been some times in my life when I've found someone that I really like and and sometimes I get too emotionally involved because I'm like oh oh no like they actually want to listen to me and they they want to understand me that's that's mad and um I get very overexcited and then suddenly my emotions are all all invested into it so I get that sort of flip-flopping those those two different sides because I feel like I'm sort of similar in that way it's um yeah I get that and the incessant you know chasing of people who most people would you know see as not being interested in you when sort of not really picking up that someone's interested in you as well like oh it's um I think we we don't bring that like that and that comes to do with again with our with our social approach I think you know again neurotypicals usually enter a situation kind of with an idea in mind and then just kind of go from there and they have um more like set up boundaries or expectations whereas we're we're such feelers we're more instinctual um but our instincts are different than what neurotypicals are so we're so focused on these little details that the other people don't see and that what is obvious to other people isn't obvious to us so we need things kind of spoken or directly stated to us and that's definitely not the approach in in at least western world I really loved living in Ghana where which is in west Africa and the culture is so direct like most of my friends in town um where I live there's a lot of west africans and I like love living near them and hanging out with them so much because it's so direct it's just hey I like you will you date me sure let's do it like it is oh everything is direct if there's an argument it's like a yelling match and then as soon as it is resolved everybody like is happy like goes their separate ways um a contractor will be better time set up like could you send just send at the bottom if you agree to this and uh you can get started on the uh relationship absolutely yes I would so yeah and I think that's another thing that's really challenging with with autistics and non-autistic relationships is that autistics we like to have as much information up front as possible we want to like we like to it's almost like once we know where the boundaries is are then we can almost like orient ourselves and relax whereas a lot of neurotypical people yeah and we can relax whereas I had this experience recently where you know the person or she didn't really know what she wanted and she was out of a big relationship and you know she wanted to just sort of go with the flow and that was really overwhelming and stressful for me because I felt like our quote unquote non-relationship was really really intense and it was hard for me to commit and and match and just like you know throw myself into her arms even though we were having a really good time it was hard for me to uh go with it when I really didn't understand where things were going and that when we decided to like okay let's cool it off and just sort of be friends I didn't really know what that meant like how to just okay like you know I think those little separations are hard and and and sometimes I think for autistics we expect expectations then to be clearly communicated to us and sometimes those subtleties like you can't right and I think it's important to have um yeah they're just uh both people need to compromise to each other and I think the problem for autistics and this is what gets really challenging um for us to think about again having to sort of the idea that we also have to listen to neurotypicals because we're so used to doing that all of the time but that um what was I saying oh yeah it's yeah it's important that um we get in this habit of letting them know or letting our neurotypical partner know of the times that we're uncomfortable or unclear rather than just like going with it because then when the times where we shut down or we hit our breaking point and we feel like we need to be accommodated without question often the neurotypical person all they see is us melting down they don't understand why and what's happening and all they see is this meltdown and then when we come to and say hey like I had this one meltdown but all of these other times I've been like sort of bending or masking or going along with this yeah and it's really important that it doesn't get to the point where then you have to like prove all the times that you were doing x y z and that you know that they now should just accommodate you because you've been accommodating them that comes off to a neurotypical person as you being manipulative or you being stubborn and it's hard for you to articulate no if you just knew how much I was doing for you or how you never call me stubborn you'd never call me unfeeling you'd never call me rigid so I always tell that to parents as well it's like you really need to start giving your children and helping them find the vocabulary or I have a friend whose daughter like communicates in sign language and then I have other friends who whose kids you know use tiktok or other find help them find a medium that they can start articulating their real feelings and needs and times that they feel in distress rather than encouraging them to sort of mask or repress it because the best what my current partner who's neurotypical we have a great relationship because we're constantly checking in with each other and I I now know that I can stay stuff like this isn't going to be a good situation for me or I'm feeling this way or when she says I you're be bb you're talking way too loud keep your voice down I don't have to take it personally anymore like we just are coming from we're coming at each other with not making any assumptions and we're also responsive to each other's needs rather than like you know freaking out when when there's a big episode because I've been in relationships where you know I was just like okay I'm just gonna do whatever they say and everything's gonna be okay and it's gonna be the best relationship ever there'll be no conflict so we'd go for months where there's no conflict I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to do orienting myself in between what that person's needs are and then I hit my breaking point then I have a huge meltdown and then what then you can never sort of recover from that and then the next relationship I get into and I just go okay this time I'm just not gonna melt down no matter what I won't melt down and this was obviously before I actually knew that I was autistic and now I know that there's no way that I can say I'm not gonna melt down shut down whatever the the whole point though is how can you are you know advocate for yourself and start creating conditions and finding people who will support you and what you need so that you know meltdowns are unavoidable but you know they're at least gonna be small and they're gonna be something you can laugh about afterwards and something you go okay you know I learned from this and it wasn't a big deal and the partner is like yeah that's you know you had every right to react that way yeah cool so you've given quite like like a lot of sort of your sort of experiences with dating dating neurotypicals and also also a little bit of advice for an autistic person dating a neurotypical and there was this this like something that I picked I picked up on and I think you know when you sort of come into like the early stages of relationships there seems to be a lot more relaxation on the the sort of the neurotypical side of the relationship like they like to they enjoy sort of feeling things out and testing boundaries and and sort of trying to figure out what the expectations are rather than just stating them up front and I think a lot of the time when when autistic people get into relationships they will try not try not to be like that because sometimes it comes comes across to people who don't understand autism as being quite intense maybe for some people which is not but it's there's a lot more of like tension and stress and anxiety um surrounding by the constant trying to test boundaries because obviously like we struggle a little bit trying to pick up on that stuff and and in terms of like give like advice for autistic people dating neurotypicals it's um yeah I do I do agree with you know the whole being communicative and stuff and I do you know now that you've sort of brought it to brought it's light and you've chatted about it a little bit communicating what you need on a regular basis is is more ideal than letting all of it brew up and then and loading it on people because as as much as your partner may want to understand you and trying to accommodate you they're not particularly aware of all the ways that you're sort of applying yourself to the your so-called normal framework of relationships and ways of communicating and stuff like that and and being able to even although it may be sort of a ball like it first like um regularly sort of communicating that stuff is quite important no matter if you know if you say I think I think one of one of the examples is you know I need some need some time away I need some alone time just to recharge my social battery that can be quite hard for people who don't understand what a social battery is like people usually like neurotypical people have like power banks and charging outlets on every single street corner it's what whereas for us we have to like retreat to either a a bedroom or a toilet and just plug it into one of the only outlets that we have that's a very weird analogy but definitely yeah no I agree um but I think that again that goes back to the whole like idea of what you you need in a relationship and what you sort of want or expect from just a beautiful you know Hollywood movie relationship like oh take me in your arms kiss me passionately yeah and then or once you get once you get through the like you know courting and like honeymoon stage oh everything's gonna be amazing and that's actually when like the real work begins but I feel like nobody in Western society is really given the tools you know for how to do it that's why a lot of the time everyone's going on Instagram for like advice from these like influencers because there's like everybody's just sort of desperate for tips on how to orient themselves because nobody learned how but I think like one thing you know in terms of communication like everybody communicates really really differently so the you know neurotypicals have a more basic or basic for us view of like communication terms of like most of it is verbal or um you know and you tell somebody or you write it down but a lot of us communicate in really different ways and that we feel like we're sort of showing or articulating ourselves yeah or I know like when you know I see if because I've dated neuro neurodivergence and these before like I know and my partner is like stimming or you know I can recognize some of her behaviors that she doesn't even need to say anything to me I know she might be in distress or she's happy or you know we got to get out of here and we can leave a situation or you know she doesn't have to give me any I can just look at her and know and one of my best friends who used to date or we still check in with each other and stuff all of the time and it still is when we are in our room together people will think that we are twins and we can I could you not communicate with each other without saying anything um my current partner loves watching us together she's like you guys are like little fairies often your own often your own dreamland which again one thing which was it was great for the communication factor to be in a relationship with an autistic woman but on the flip side we did you know there are struggles too where you know when you're in a neurotypical relationship it almost forces you sometimes to become better in different aspects of communication likewise with when an autistic person's able to educate a neurotypical person that there's different ways of communicating and there's different signs and things to look out for rather than just words and you can get away from that but you never told me right you can you see like but I'm showing you all of the time and you need to be more observant but one thing that was really hard that can be hard with dating an autistic person is that you can almost get like too lost in yourselves and you know forget that there is a whole reality out there that you need to partake in and that you know somebody needs to clean the house and somebody needs to be organized and and if you both kind of laugh the time yes the executive functioning it can be a battle and one thing that you know I appreciate so much about my partner she's a very organized and very very clean and we have almost like a system where she's like I will clean and cook and keep the house nice if you like entertain me and you know come up with I'm I love planning trips and going on vacations and and stuff and I'm really really good at coming up with like creative things to do because I'm a very social person and I'm a very wild person but not very conventional and I love that it's like we have a system where I will yeah or I'll make the house a home in terms of providing the creative touches and making the space really engaging and special and she will clean it and make sure that my needs are met so that I can continue creating because ultimately like if the house gets to a point where it's gross and smelly and uninhabitable I can't autistic people we cannot function as well and I think a lot of people forget about that they think like they don't understand why they're in bad moods or they're shutting down or they're distraught or unable to regulate their emotions and a lot of that it's to do with like if you're not drinking enough water if you're not eating properly if your space especially your creative space is cluttered and you can't get on top of that and I mean I know once I get to a point I call it the point of no return once my like office space gets too disorganized I don't even know organizing it and then I'll just be like I'm just going to shut the door and like work on the couch until that becomes uninhabitable so just to get it for as much as I think it is yeah just I'll just buy a new I'll just move you know I'll just move to a new city that's when I know it's time for me to move to a new country when I've like exhausted all of my spaces um with cookie crumbs and writing materials I no longer need but anyway just kidding um yeah I think that's one of the pros to dating uh somebody who's different brain than you different brain especially again my current partner different brain she we are completely complimentary we even did like our Myers-Briggs and and we've done some other personality tests and we are always the 16 personality one on the other end yes um I am the INFP it's always in with very autistic people in my experience well it's funny because I I used I used to be very extroverted and I think it's important for people to check in with themselves and their personalities over time because as a kid I was quite extroverted and now I'm an introvert and that and I was really shocked to like find that out about myself but I think in the last 10 years I'd say actually especially since becoming being diagnosed I a lot of my extroversion came from feeling like I had to be social and especially I was an actor as a kid and then trying to break into like the writing and um comedy industries you know a lot of the time that oh I hate this word networking happens at the parties or after the shows or you know being seen so it wasn't an option like when I look back at my childhood and my early adulthood I mean no wonder I was such a mess because I was basically like forcing social and super heavy-duty unnatural partying on myself for the sake of I want this so bad and so I will literally do anything so I came up with a lot of tricks to help me cope like you know I used to I didn't drink and didn't smoke I always um drink uh like soda water and pretend that I was having like avada casota but really I was you know not like at all drunk and it's funny because I love being what's actually that's another one of my tricks is that I don't drink a lot and um a lot of people do and that's another thing with especially in comedy where you know my shows will be at night time by the time the show's over everybody's drunk and you know if you're sober and everybody's drunk you can unmask and behave however the frick you want because nobody will notice and nobody will remember so that's actually one of my health chips is just don't drink and hang around I drunk artist I like doing that as well I find it really I find it really pleasant to be around like even if I'm not drunk I find it really nice to be around people like that because it's it's kind of like you can see because their expressions are obviously like enhanced and you can see what emotion they're feeling so it's a lot more clear um with with their signs and stuff and also the yeah the the alcohol like the alcohol and any kind of drug what it does is it just limits like yours you know it allows you to relax and I think most of the time nobody you know that's why you know people drink so many people are alcoholics or addicts is because everybody is socially neurotic and it's uncomfortable these social settings are I think well I know from doing comedy whenever I say who the fuck oh sorry I don't know if I'm allowed to who here doesn't like small talk the whole audience will like erupt and like thank you for it like nobody actually likes it it's more just it's it's just things that we have to do and um some people are more tolerant than others and yeah for us it's our biology that makes us like so intolerant to it but there are a lot of um like commonalities you know between like introverts and autistic so even if your date like my partner actually is is introverted and you know there are a lot of things that she naturally likes to do like I'd actually say that I'm more social than she is because because for comedy I need to be like interacting with people and it's almost now like I enjoy going to parties because people know that I'm sort of out there and they do enjoy my approach to life and I am sort of like unmasked that I do enjoy like playing with people I like I need to get material or I do like kind of going and you know pushing the envelope or like um you know if we're you know just doing yeah just if we're like having a cocktail or a dinner party or like to at a dinner party or something you know I like to just be silly or like start drinking it weird or like make a weird comment and see people's reactions so I would say that I'm actually more social than my partner it's really interesting when you find somebody yeah like with um your uh you know like you're saying about how you're used to be extroverted and now you're introverted to some to some degree um whereas like it's it's sort of been like the opposite for me so I've always I crave interaction with people a lot um and it's not not not even just people I know very well I very much I like going and networking and stuff I really enjoy it and um I think when I was younger the reason why I was so introverted is because I just people wouldn't sort of give me the time of day when I was that age when I was younger whereas like now people are a bit more open to what you've got to say and they don't really neglect your differences and just push you to the side because you're the weird kid um but yeah I used to be like the the analyst and now I am I'm still I'm sort of I'm in the middle of extroversion and introversion and I'm just I like I like doing that kind of thing and um yeah I think I think I think definitely as as you sort of get older you you you sit into sit into what you like more and I think that stage of understanding what you want comes a bit later um for autistic people because you're always you're always sort of lagging a little bit behind because you just feel like everyone's just not growing up faster but the progressing faster socially and you can't keep up so you're always sort of trailing behind and then once you get to a certain age and you realize oh you know what I am actually different and then you start to like understand yourself a bit more but yeah cool um so yeah there is there is some differences in sort of autistic relationships and and uh neurotypical in terms of like the approach to it and also you know there are some benefits to dating someone who has as you said like the same same sort of brain stuff and um also some downsides in terms of like the main difficulties autistic people face in relationships do you know of like the like the main things that are sort of bog standard for any sort of relationships in terms of what makes them challenging yeah what what the common common things that you know we we slip up on as as uh autistic people yeah I think um well one thing that's really important we are all individuals but again we're just coming back to like our approach our approach to life and a lot of that has to do with our like sensory reactions and also the way that we experience time and uh how we interpret things is so different for then for neurotypical people um and I think you know just one thing that I always struggle with again is like verbal and emotional cues and also again needing the space to recharge and I think there is um like as a one thing that's interesting and fun about being queer is that it's the same thing with autistics in terms of like because there isn't really like a standard queer relationships have only been in the mainstream for the last really I'd say like 20 years um and and there's only a few tv shows like for lesbians there really is only like the L word that like actually shows lesbian women having relationships and and dating and and still that's very like stylized because they're all rich and live in Hollywood so um there's this great book that I have called Sex from Scratch creating your own relationship rules and I think that's really important for all relationships to like start off like that you come into it knowing that like I'm an individual you're an individual what do you need and how can I what do you want and then going going from there because I think one thing that's really customary with autistics is that we do need that like time and space to recharge to hyper focus to sort of just like I'm doing this and I don't know when I'm gonna yes I don't know when I'm gonna resurface you do you we need it we need it and I think that's hard for neurotypicals to sort of comprehend because they might say like well when are you gonna come out or when is this and you have to be like yeah or or that like quality time has to be like cuddling on the couch doing this and that whereas that's usually like their downtime isn't it it's just yeah and for me I'm like well we're not really doing anything we're just like like stewing in our energy juices and I'm hot and like I don't I don't want you to touch me right now and I have my mind I need to move my legs miles a minute I need to go yeah I need to go right or I need to go outside and I don't need you to be around me and that's like and that's so funny because I think especially in heteron normative relationships there's that need to like do stuff together all the time and if you're not or you know actually because me and my partner are both so independent we're also like I wouldn't say we're open but we're definitely like you know monogamish and I do travel a lot and stuff so we and she knows like when I'm traveling and I'm doing comedy if she's gonna if she sends me a million messages like how are you what's going on blah blah like that will stress me out because I'm usually really focused on comedy and getting my bearings that having the pull to like think about home when I'm trying to do my job is is is too much I can't handle it it does like sort of like pull you out pull you out of your own little head space and it takes a while to sort of get back into it even even just like yeah I think that's like an autistic thing where yeah I think that's an autistic thing where we're like very I used to live with a Buddhist monk when I lived in Ghana and I spent a lot of time in silence and and I've done like some pretty hardcore retreats and and one thing that I've never struggled with as an autistic person is like being present when I like when I have a task or when whatever I'm always really present it's you know obviously the my anxiety and my hyper awareness of you know about neurotypical things can really shut me down or or distract me from what I'm presently doing but when I'm happy and when things are going well in my life the ability to be sort of present and hyper engaged is is something that comes very naturally to autistics and like neurotypical people like strive it's called flow or I guess flow state flow state autistics we can get to that flow state and some people will I kid you not like they you know will pay people thousands of dollars to try and get them into this flow state so it's like self-help stuff and things about like flow states and how to get into it and how to stay concentrated and I think like I I definitely can't get into those like little flow states where I really enjoy stuff and I don't want to get out of them like I think there was one time where I was writing a dissertation and it was the one about like autism and mental health and I you know I could go for like days like I think I went for like two days once where I I didn't eat and I even like would you know probably like go to the bathroom like once a day and just because I was so engaged in what I was doing and I didn't want to pull myself away from it and it is really bad like you know that that's when having a I think actually that's when having like a neurotypical partner can help well big time so I was going to say like transitioning is really really hard for autistic so we get like stuck into something and hyper flowing like even though just going from like the bathroom to brush our teeth back to getting ready to like those little transition executive functioning skills are really hard and and they can be quite jarring like I have to set a timer in the morning when I'm getting ready to go to work or if I have a deadline because I it could take like I could like be brushing my teeth and think like it's been 30 seconds and then you know my partner is like you gotta go to the bathroom for like 17 minutes like what are you doing and I'm like oh my god now I'm like looking at this material that's on you know my towel and wondering what kind of material that is and now like oh wait there's like something that I missed in the bathtub like what's this new article yeah oh yeah I should post about this on instagram so yeah like that it's yeah it's and it's something that drives us crazy because we want to just be able to be in one state for a day and then sleep and then be in another state when we wake up yeah yeah I I do think like transitioning between places is really difficult because it's like my my partner will just you know she'll get out get out from the living room she'll go up and do stuff and then she'll come back and she'll go oh I've got to do that and she'll get up and she'll come back and she'll be she'll seemingly be in the same state I mean she'll just switch into this relaxation state whereas it takes me like 10 15 20 minutes even like half an hour sometimes just to get back into relax relaxing and it's really hard like I really struggle with brushing my teeth for that reason like I sometimes quite embarrassingly I sometimes take like a glass with me to bed on my toothbrush because I know that it's gonna be a task to try and get my butt out of bed and down and do hygienic adulting things and don't like it don't like it it's not great yeah big big time yeah I think like that's one thing that's really important in or like a good thing to be aware of within relationships is like how can you help each other achieve like your tasks and stuff and that even with like nd nd like two autistics in a relationship again not everybody in autistics are all different so we all struggle with similar things but our reactions are different as well so I've definitely been in relationships with autistics where for an autistic where um yeah like I am almost like better I've become the person who's like better at the transitions or I'm the one and that it's almost like being around somebody who um struggles with like the same thing but more um intensely all of a sudden I can understand like how to do it because I'm noticing I'm like and there's you sort of have to see it outside of myself someone someone has to do it and I can obviously I like I've never been in a relationship with an autistic person um but I you know if if the environment around you does start to get a bit clitted and stuff I can imagine that some one of you will have to do it and um yeah one of you does and then it can usually be like the same thing it's like a battle definitely yeah I can see that but like what qualities of autistic individuals do you think make them good partners because you know we talk a lot about the difficulties and the the struggles of it but there are a lot of positives to it and what what kind of positives do you think like autistic people bring well I mean who who wouldn't want to date me so no uh you're shining star no I think I'm perfect we're perfect we're just we're just misunderstood we're totally perfect you just need to like take a closer look and your problems will be solved with autistics I'm joking um I think there's all many qualities that we've kind of already already kind of touched on but just one thing uh we're very loyal and uh I think we that empathy and our our ability to feel really under the surface and that autistic intuition and instincts that we have when we trust them uh we're like you know natural I feel like we're almost like the quality of all of the like Harry Potter houses you know we have that like Hufflepuff like loyalty um we when we are in a situation where we're supported and able to give it our all and research we are extremely fierce and we'll stand up against you know the powers that be like courage we got that Gryffindor like Greta Thunberg like you know a bit of Ravenclaw intelligence mixed in there oh and of course I think I don't know one autistic person who you know isn't highly highly intelligent which again is why I think often we don't get diagnosed right away is that we think that autistics are only highly intelligent and math but I mean again I cannot do math to save my life yeah shattering stereotypes but I was right I I was writing essays it's so annoying like I was writing essays when I was in grade two unlike you know to basically argue out of getting at a homework stuff I wrote this essay so I don't believe I need to do homework and then I was still like you know oh she's just average you know or like we're not really sure she's just class clown we're not sure what's up there yeah class yeah we're extremely extremely intelligent we're funny I think one of the qualities I think is the best and again like I'm in a more like non-traditional sort of like open structure and the quality and I a lot of my friends are this is like the big thing in the gay community is the whole like polyamory non-monogamy I don't even know I'll be again more labels but I think one thing that's really amazing about us is that because we feel so many different things and we have different emotions our reactions are not like they're more in-depth and someone almost had to like teach me like what jealousy means I think like once we kind of we're we're we're good learners but in general I think like we're more accepting and we're when allowed to sort of think freely and naturally and we need a lot of like explanation love like yeah we need an explanation to like yeah but I think like it's almost like sometimes these concepts are almost like too simple and when someone I remember when somebody explained like jealousy to me and I was just like well that's dumb you know like people actually like obviously experience jealousy but it's it's much deeper and it's different and I think like it's important and one thing that we can really learn from autistics is that like our emotions are so complex like it's not just like oh you know this person's better at something than me I feel bad like we just don't have these such like emotions and feelings that can be categorized and these little need to write an essay they're really always we really need to write an essay but I think sometimes we like learn those quick reactions like I learned like if somebody takes something from you you make an angry face and act angry so I think a lot of the time I was like becoming you know what I mean like a lot of the time I didn't actually want to react the way I was quote unquote supposed to so but I felt like I had to like same with like crying or like you know my uncle passed away a few months ago and I lost a friend recently and you know it's not just you look bad or you look crazy if you're not reacting and actually my my family is I'm sure all on the spectrum are all weirdos my mom was a clown just genetic to a large degree definitely I 100% in my family but I think both of my parents are on the spectrum I hope they don't listen to this actually hope they do you're on the spectrum get over it also if my dad's listening to this yeah definitely not as well to say there we go my dad stems like non-stop and I'm always like dad like what are you doing with your arms like I'm not doing anything with my arms they're just arming so I'm like no that's not what arms do but anyway uh yeah so I think like when we listen to autistics in terms of the how there can be many different reactions and responses to different situations that every situation is unlike any other situation it must be treated as something new not not something that you can like our biggest gift not something that you can like crossover into it has to have its own definition it has to have its own things linking to other things that you can say if this yeah I think neurotypical society operates on this thing of if if if a then b if c then d if d then x go back to a and like that's not life isn't like that and we're I think I understand why society is organized like that because you know there's a lot of freaking people in this world we have we do have to have some rules it's the understanding though that um yes situations look like other situations but to autistics they do not feel like the same situations I can be like especially like I've had sexual relationships that are like super intense and super sexual and super intimate and touching and all that because that boundary with that person allowed me to go really deep and I've had other relationships where if someone tried to like you know if I brush against somebody who has weird energy I'm like wow don't like get away you know I think you like we're very yeah but I'm like I like them as a person you know and I think too that's one thing I do really like but again in queer relationships that there's a lot more emphasis on different intimacy like again asexual is a thing it doesn't mean that they don't want intimacy it's just different and I think that in neurotypical especially heterosexual relationships um you have to be so much more secretive about like your kinks or about what makes you don't want to nobody wants to admit that they're different whereas in queer relationships we're all like well we're already different it's like try and find a relationship that is the same and that's really true for autistics you have to like go into that going like this relationship is about me and you nobody else forget what you've learned forget what anybody has told you it's about me and you and what do we each need and for me I need a lot of alone time and I need a lot of space to explore myself and also become grounded again and uh yeah when I travel I need to be present doing what I'm doing and I don't like you know being reminded of home because we also love our routines and we love that so I need to be able to get into new routine wherever I go so almost sometimes having my partner with me or having my partner you know call me and stuff like that can be like a reminder that I'm not at home in my routine I'm somewhere new and it's too much for me to handle but I also need to know that if I need to call her and if she needs to call me like I'm not gonna be like we don't remember we have rules where we don't call each other when we're away it's like you still need to no wait you signed it this is over so yeah it's tough and that also again with expectations where you know neurotypicals you know have this whole thing where they're not thinking about us in the same way because they're thinking about themselves and we're so used to thinking about other people that we orient ourselves off what other people are are doing and it's a good reminder to remember that like it's okay to think about ourselves and that expectations are not always you know somebody doesn't know what they want all the time and so neurotypicals and this happened to me recently where you know somebody just really wanted to just see how like really like what was happening let's just feel it out and for me I just didn't understand what that meant and uh that the anxiety of where is this going or how do you use your emotions to navigate the world what what is this yeah and it was the most intense relationship I'd had so it's like how is this like just feeling it out non-relationship it's not chill it's not chill don't like it more intense than like yeah like monogamous like we're together sort of thing and that made me yeah I had too much anxiety it made me shut down a lot because I just really couldn't process it and uh yeah then when we were gonna be friends same thing I was like I didn't even know how to go about like being friends because I feel like you're still acting the same way like you know and that yeah it ended up kind of just like falling apart in terms of more just we were approaching things like so different cross cross wise her view of just like let's just let's just go with the flow but it was if her flow was very very intense so although we were extremely like combata compatible yeah and though we were really compatible and like our energies were really really good it was just like we kept missing each other in terms of like communication and uh yeah ultimately it was just too overwhelming for for me and then for her and then so what what kind of bye Felicia my my little tardigrades have you seen my tardigrad on my youtube video yeah have you Felicia um what do you call them my tardigrad it's a little microscopic what about Felicia tardigrad Felicia I love that you named her that so we've pretty much gone over everything so far apart from what advice would you give to neurotypicals dating an autistic person for the first time like if they have no experience of intimate relationships with autistic people oh dear I wish I had told this to so many people yeah just but then to out um before this is like this is triggering for me and i'm kidding um I think one thing that's really important um is that you know your daily yeah don't approach them as this person is an autistic just like an autistic person like they're not just their quote unquote um mind there's so much more to them and that they are human with the same needs as you we all want love we all with respect we all want to achieve our goals if you come at it with that approach is just how can I support my partner and then in terms of understanding the the fundamentals of um just what it's like to be neurodivergent um I was seeing this person who was a psychologist and they did a lot of research actually I didn't even know how much research they did because they didn't tell me they were doing any research but I was like how is this person just know how to talk to me and read me and etc and it's because they really had done their homework and I had like gone and asked autistics and gone and gone on social media and I think that's really important to be open personal aspect to it as well as like the research behind it and that don't expect your partner to just like tell you everything because a lot of the time especially if you live in like a rural place which I do like kind of off the grid where people who have been diagnosed with with autism like they might not be getting any supports maybe all the things that they're learning are from social media too or or online or in books so you know learn together use that as an opportunity to um bring yourself closer together and like be like hey babe I read this book and it said you know that hyper-focusing uh was an autistic trait and yeah I totally recognize that in you so now when you go and just read like a book for 17 hours like you're not ignoring me that's just you you know or like when you're always like one thing I asked my my partner all the time is like are you okay are you okay are you okay and you know she gets so annoyed like I'm fine yes or stop asking me that but now she knows that it's like when she's laying on the couch just not doing or saying anything like I don't know how she's doing I know that I'm not trying to bother her I'm literally like I'm genuinely like are you okay like can you move your limbs are you mad I don't know you there's so many things that that you could be so it just kind of yeah the the awareness of of the foundations of the autistic mind is is important but then also to be able to like acknowledge your person's individuality as well because I mean sometimes I've had fights with my partner before where she'll just say oh you're acting autistic or you're you're being autistic now as though like I read the book I'm like huh I could get my way if I have a mouth down I'm like no that's not how it works like and again just because I know how my mind works doesn't mean that now I'm like okay cool like I read the rule book and now I can be and I'm good to go forever right and then I also have to say too like your your standard is not the standard like yeah it's really that's a lot about as we said as we said before about um getting an appreciation for just how much we are sort of that sounds kind of kind of bad and a little bit angry but it's not it's definitely not meant in this way but it's it's getting appreciation for just how much we change how we communicate and how we accommodate differences in you as well I think that's that's really important because I think a lot of the time it can sort of feel like you know as we said things come out of nowhere and knowing that we are trying on you know like a near constant basis to try and do that kind of thing especially in an initial relationship where neurotypical doesn't have any experience of it we are trying very hard and sometimes it can be quite taxing as well um especially in the early days and stuff but awesome um I think we should probably try and round it up I'm getting very lost in this I'm very hyper-focused I don't want to stop talking me too and I'm definitely not going to edit any of this because I know we did stray off topic a lot but it's been fun and it's been good um super fun but here's like this is the hard part um what three main things do you want people to take away from this podcast out of everything that we've talked about oh dear wait um it's so funny I'm not joking like over the last hour the weather here has like deteriorated so much it was like actually a full-on like blizzard going on outside my house and I've just been sitting here in the dark like watching sort of the storm unfold so I just turned on my light so I can actually like I hadn't done some like three three main takeaways to like take away one thing okay here are my three things be open-minded relationships are painful enough but pain only heals by sort of moving on with it being open-minded um and finding the funny that's my other thing too if you are hurt or if there's a misunderstanding which are extremely extremely hurtful please just like try and get to a point where you can laugh about it and that just comes with like talking about it and just making fun of yourself for sure um and I'm lucky that I have a big stage that I can often talk about all of these things with a live audience and then all of a sudden I realized this is not just an autistic thing this is a human thing so open your mind um much of what I learned I've learned in my life is by taking risks that comes with like actually opening that social media aspergerl account was one of the biggest risks I've ever taken I've lived in a lot of countries and I've put myself in places that I think most autistics would describe I think a lot of people would doubt that I'm autistic because of the things that I do and have done um and my background so I always tell people if I can do it you can do it whereas my West African Ghanaian dance teacher said if somebody else can do it you can also do it why because you are somebody so always try and remember that if I see somebody else doing something I can do it too because I'm just somebody so that's another thing to remember in your relationships that there's there really isn't on both sides any excuses to not do something or not try and if you're in that mindset if you're too negative and you really feel like there's nothing for you there then then leave the relationship don't try any further you need to work on yourself so that's my finding the funny in that moment okay and then the last one is challenges aren't just because you're autistic find your strength and trust them and then you'll start attracting good people and that again has been my number one lesson is that there are so many things that you can do because your autistics if you keep focusing on the things that you'll never be able to do or that you're just not good at like if I really wanted to you know become a mathematician and a math professor or you know programmer it's just gonna make my life challenging so instead I'm gonna focus on the things that I'm amazing at which is writing and connecting and podcasting with people and finding the details and I guess podcasting. You can have that one. Yeah so just do that and then the good people who are right for you will come rather than constantly beating yourself up or conforming to a standard or a person that is just not good for you. It was a brilliant I'm really glad that you did so I'll make a list because it's always been a difficult part of the podcast because I can't remember what we talked about so yeah that's good I might ask people in the future to make those little lists beforehand just for a little bit of a you know get getting out what you want to say that's the main thing. Yeah I think that's something I didn't say in my thing was like yeah it is really important if you are and as a comedian too if you have a thought in your mind that you cannot articulate or that might come off as mean or whatever just write it down and come back to it later because A you will forget if it's a good thought and B you can always rearrange your thoughts and make them better for comedy. Your joke is never good the first time it takes like 30 000 times of telling it. Yeah cool um should we have a crack at the last question? I don't yeah let's give it a go um what does autism mean to you? I think oh gosh um it means everything and nothing no um it's definitely a spectrum for sure uh I think what I've touched on that before or yes it is obviously like there's a genetic component and is our brain structure and how our brain and our senses um are wired and how we are born but it's also largely how we choose to label ourselves and and and it's reflective of like the culture that we live in and who we're interacting with so it's really important to like continue to put yourself out there and explore new ways of thinking so to me I guess autism means freedom to see and feel differently and it's a powerful gift I wrote that down. Difference definitely is a powerful gift and I think we need more of that in the world more people who are willing to express what they feel and what they think and the ways that they view the world I think it's a really great and amazing thing and that's probably I mean I can take a guess that that's probably one of the reasons why you know you're so successful in the world of comedy it's just you know you'll pick up on things and patterns and behavior that other people won't take a second look at and I think that's an amazing skill brilliant like we've talked about a lot today and I'm very happy with the stuff that we've uh we've got so far um we've had a lot of difficulties haven't we with this podcast. It's it's definitely been a journey and a testament to autistic perseverance we could have quit but we did not. No we've had to redo like a half an hour's get rid of a half an hour's we've had to trail across the internet and try and find ways to recover files all of that good stuff and that's um that's okay I've just been making memes for the last few minutes okay that's that's good I'm good entertaining yourself while I while I struggle um cool so it's um it's been really great to talk to you and I'm sure everyone that's listening will want to know where they can find you so do you want to give us a few little social media links a few little uh links that you can give people so they can check out your work stuff you do. Sure well if you're not already following me and no pressure um I you can find Aspergerl at Aspergerl A-S-P-E-R-G-I-R-L I think on Instagram um and my real name is BB Billidow uh B-I-L-O-D-E-A-U is my last name so B-I-B-I-B-I-L-O-D-E-A-U I'm really bad at spelling things out loud um and that's my so you can find me at bbbillido.com that's uh for my personal website with some of my work and comedy stuff I'm taking a break from my regular social media duties um at this time I have a few shows coming up I will be traveling um in Canada in Saskatchewan and Ontario and Quebec I think so I have to figure out when those dates are but yeah I'm still taking a little bit of break from my personal social media um at this time I wanted to take December and January off completely from being on the radar and just catching up on some writing and preparing myself which is always good to do so if you want to get in touch the best way is through Aspergerl and then I can sort of direct you on to other things that might interest you cool and um yeah and if you're around and if you're in town or in country uh go check out her comedy and tell me how it is give me an email um because I would love to go soon and I will be posting up my well I'll be posting my show dates on my website soon and uh yeah I have some videos and stuff like on my website but I need to add some more and I'm going to be filming some stuff coming up in the next few months as well so I'll have more things to post and just we'll see what happens I'm always that's one of my things that I'm getting over is I hate watching myself on camera or knowing that I'm being filmed because I was telling Thomas earlier my persona on screen it's like this really awkward British person so yeah I have to try and get over this like if I know there's like a film crew around stopping this mechanical like ultra masking British lady that seems to come up but people seem to really think she's funny so maybe I can explore that more we'll see to be continued awesome well baby thank you so much for coming on to the podcast and dealing with all of this technical nonsense it's it is much appreciated and it's been really great to talk to you it's been very insightful and I love these little intellectual conversations about life and emotions and people it's been really great have you enjoyed it I have a lot and this is my first time actually doing a podcast I've always wanted to so I can cross it off my bucket list and yeah I'm happy to help out and love your work and hopefully we can inspire some folks to get out there and do their autistic thing yeah okay so if you want to check out any of my other stuff any of my videos you can always find that on the youtube channel Ask Burgess Grove and if you want to check out the podcast on different mediums I have it on youtube and Spotify and a few other places if you're in doubt go on to anchor type in 40 or two podcast and it will come up with a lot of different links to different places that you can listen to me and my guests but apart from that if you want to get in contact if you want to be on the show maybe you have some ideas of what you want to talk about and you've got some insight and some cool things that we can explore please let me know at Ask Burgess Grove at gmail.com and I will get back to you pronto all said and done thank you everybody for watching watching listening thank you everybody for listening and I hope you're having a great day stay fresh stay cool stay autistic see you later bye bye my god i think that might be an outro oh no i've already ruined it oh no it's perfect you did well thank you


Could doctors one day prescribe electrical stimulation to fight a bacterial infection? Work by an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Ames suggests that might be possible. In line with the goals of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda, researchers at Ames are dedicated to promoting good health and well-being by achieving a better understanding of bacterial infections and the body's defenses against them. Some of their latest findings reveal a new aspect of host-pathogen interactions. In addition to the cascade of chemical signals that are activated when bacteria invade, the body might also conduct electrical signals across nerves, enabling the infected organ to call distant parts of the body to action. The team uncovered this form of biological telecommunication by studying rats with kidney infections caused by strains of E. coli. Within as little as four hours of infection, they could detect an immune response all the way in the spleen. Follow-up experiments confirmed that the detected response was not triggered by inflammation originating in the spleen. The short window of time during which these organs communicate raised the question, how does the spleen know so quickly that the kidney is infected? That inspired the team to look beyond chemical signaling and explore the possible role of nerve cells. Messaging through nerve cells is considerably faster than through chemical delivery, and growing evidence suggests that the nervous system plays an important role in the immune response. So-called neuroimmune communication explains how the immune system and the nervous system interact, and how bacteria and bacterial products can activate sensory neurons and modulate pain and local inflammation. But never before had researchers examine the functional outcomes of the neuroimmune communication pathway between the kidney and the spleen. The team from AIMS showed that a specific toxin expressed by E. coli, called alpha hemolysin, could trigger nerve signals that traveled through the splinic nerve and into the spleen. The spleen responded by producing interferon gamma, a signaling molecule critical to the immune response. In models designed to mimic the tubular structure of the kidneys, interferon gamma could help modulate inflammation in infected kidney cells. As new knowledge often leads to new questions, more work is needed to understand how this form of neuroimmune communication occurs in humans during kidney infection. Working out those details could open up entirely new forms of medical treatment based on nerve stimulation instead of conventional drugs. With antibiotic resistance becoming a growing public health problem around the world, non-pharmaceutical treatment options would be a welcome addition in the fight against infection.


Yeah, yeah, yeah.  So, I've recently, I had to make a testament. I'm buying a house, so I needed to make up a testament. And my notarist in Dutch, the guy who made our testament, he was asking solicitor, notary. Yeah, notar. Yes, go, what are you going to do in all the different scenarios that can happen after you die?  And in the case of a freelancer, apparently, when I die, my business goes to my parents. And because as a freelancer, your business is coupled to you as a person. So that was an interesting thought. And I thought, Hey, well, I don't know how my parents are gonna design WordPress websites, or talk to my clients or do anything productive with my business. And because I'm also a hosting company. And of course, clients have their own logins. But if I don't pay the bills, at some point, if I die or something happens to me, for example, I can't work or I get sick and I can't go behind my computer. It's really important to think about what will happen to your work. And also to get new work as a freelancer, there are definitely bigger clients that are really concerned like, Oh, I don't want to hire you because if something goes wrong, like the whole project is doomed. So thinking maybe have like a little discussion. I found online just now some tools. For example, Facebook has a trusted survivor. So in case you die, there's one person you are you can now assign. So maybe if you walk out of this session, assign on Facebook a person who takes over your social media. Because also your social media is part of your digital assets. So what I'd love to have a discussion about how to manage your digital assets, for example, social media, but also your cloud accounts or your professional logins. What happens to them when you don't have you thought about how it will impact your, yeah, your clients. And of course, all the people around you. I don't care. I want to, you know, make sure that my clients. Yeah. So Facebook and Google, I just found out they have a person you can assign or they have ways to do that. And I think more bigger companies will have that. But for example, if I now tell my lawyer, I guess, that he, to give him my last past password, I'm not going to change it for them until I die. Of course, I'm going to change my password. So that's not really a feasible thing to do. So you guys have other ideas. And I also want to have Remkes come up and talk a little bit about how he took over the business of someone who died. Yeah. So maybe you, maybe you can like talk a little bit about how that went and what he had arranged or she or, okay, so please, yeah, so tell your story. You can do it there or here. Wow. So multi sites even more complex. Yeah. Yeah. Like those one and all things. Yeah. It's just not a simple way to start. So he attempted to do it at first and made it worse. And at the end, they came to me asking how to, how to fix this. So the things you run into are flown to the main. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you did get the login for the main multi site from the sun. So do you know, do you know what they went to the server and or the people who managed the server and they said, Hey, this person died and where the airs. Okay. How did they know to approach that? That was a server. Okay. Okay. So you do have access to email. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So it's, yeah, it's also how to make sure continuity. Yeah. So so far we have, well, you needed to have access to email. Maybe you don't need that. So maybe like think about who can access your email when you die and, and who can look into that? Who do you trust to look into your emails? Maybe if that's necessary server? Yeah. What do you host? What's your hosting? And, and so this is more about a maintenance thing. But could you, what information did you need to take over such a, such a website? Like practical stuff, domain, where the domain is registered login of the domain register. Um, what else? So domain names? Yeah. Licenses. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So think about like X theme.  I don't know, like random things that you use, but then to have it in one place and have all the passwords in one place might not be safe. Yeah. So that might be, and how do you, so you share it so people at all times can look into your passwords. Yeah. Exactly. So, so maybe you're thinking about this, what's going to happen when I die? Make sure you have a separate, maybe like a private fault, maybe for your parents, children, husband, wife, so they can access maybe your social media, etc. And also if you have two factor authentication. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But maybe you car crash and your phone is dead. Scenarios. Yeah. Scenarios. It's all about scenarios. Yeah. I think continue continuity. So maybe think about when you do this, think about two factor authentication and maybe write down what your method is or they'll find out, they'll find out when they try to log in. That's a great idea. Yeah. Like in default to have, yeah, to have the notes there. Yeah. Yeah. It's great advice. Yeah, exactly. Cause people do have to take it over and sometimes they're legally obliged to, if they're to your errors and your freelancer, at least in the Netherlands, I don't know how this works in Germany, for example. Anyone ever wrote up a testament? Who has a testament in this room? Like a half a testament? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With banks, so with establishing such as a bank, there are really nice protocols.   Like if you don't pay Dropbox and there's a lot of data on there and it expires, what happens? And is that client data? Yes or no? Of course, double backups. Yeah. Yeah. Last pass has it. Oh, wow. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So last pass and then exporting that to an offline location, make sure your notes are there, emergency access, where you were saying creating the separate fault shared with someone and hope they don't die at the same time as you do. Maya? Well, I read online on some forums that people say like, oh, in my contract, there's like this clause. If I don't answer to something within this many hours, they can set in, well, yeah, 70, like, I mean, 100 hours or, yeah. So a couple of days and they can, you know, find someone or request access to someone else. So you can have that in a contract. You're going to have your emergency access in a contract. Sorry, Maya. So with GDPR, it's personal data. So as long as you don't store IP addresses, names, addresses of people there, I mean, you can still do that if it's necessary for the services you deliver. So I would say that making sure your business can continue is a ground to save data somewhere. And as long as you make sure it's safe, then you should be okay. But you can, of course, in your contract with your clients say, hey, if you work with me, maybe just check here to agree that your data will be start somewhere in case something goes wrong. As long as you document that in GDPR, it's more about making sure everything you have, yeah, people accept that you use their data. But this is, so far, I haven't heard storing personal data from other people yet. It's licenses. It's your own logins. So I don't think it's that big of a problem yet. I don't know if anyone has a, yeah, exactly. But it's also doing business. You need there, you can store it somewhere. And if you store it in last pass, encrypted, and only someone can access this after you die, that's a, no judge is going to be like, hey, this is messing with personal data. Yeah, also, yeah, you don't get the fine, but maybe, yeah.   Yeah, so a one person freelancing thing is bound to your person. If you're, yeah, in the Netherlands, we have all these things like, if your corporation and the corporation is separate from you as a person, then of course it lives on without you. So it depends a little bit on if you're incorporated or not, and how it works in different countries, because I don't know anything outside of the Netherlands. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So take home message. Don't have one single password for Yeah. Yeah. My clients sometimes share their passwords with me, and it's always donkey five. It's, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So it's really important. And also maybe what you're saying, like misuse of passwords, how to make sure that after you die, passwords are not misused. So I read somewhere as a, this was old advice, I guess, in your testament, they, in some testament advice, they said, well, you should write down all your passwords somewhere and then put it somewhere where your relatives when you die can easily find it. So they can, you know, make sure that your business continues. So this was, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Or I think these are a couple of things to realize when you work. Anyone else has, who has stuff in place for after they die? Like, like, who do you have?  That's a really good way. Yeah. Exactly. Or when you register domain names, do it on the names of your clients and just make sure that all the things in the licenses are in their name. That's good practice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That really makes a difference because then, you know, not a lot of things can go wrong because they can give it to the next developer or WordPress management and you don't have all these issues. Oh yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, this is really, I mean, this is really good best practices. So share best practices among each other. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we can develop one. That would be interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What would you like to know? Just a set of best practices. How to run your business if you make a website. Like, how do you register a domain name and then say, like, hey, it's best practice to do it in the name of your client.  Roadmap. Oh, roadmap. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So maybe just general best practices in how to document stuff is really good. Yeah. Yeah. And no one has time tomorrow. So yeah. Yeah. No. Is it what I started doing quite recently is to put in the dashboard of WordPress when my clients log in, I have like a kind of like a help section, like go here, go to posts if you want to change a post. But also if you need help, here's like my details and maybe like in that help section, you can also write, Hey, if you just logged in, you realize I'm not there anymore. Go to this person and they can help you out in case something, you know, you can't get hold of me or maybe I'm just suggesting something. Does anyone else do things like that? Like help their clients in different ways. Yeah. So what I do if I have a new client when their site goes live, I send them kind of like a PDF with information about their account. Hey, hey, you have access to a C panel. Yay. You have access to your WordPress. Your domain name is either self registered or I've registered it for you.  And let me ask another question.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Where passwords are. For normal people. Yeah. But like, yeah, so it's a hassle for you to go to a court, make sure you can access also for. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Well, just, yeah, just talk to the people around you and just make sure like, Hey, have you done anything and to, you know, start the discussion like what I'm doing now? What's up? Yeah. Exactly. Hey, dinner's over. Let's discuss what happens when we die. Yeah. Last pass. Oh, yes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But like, but like Facebook, you might know of someone else, but I had a zillion logins of random bank accounts. People might not know I have. So from bank accounts to frivolous social media or random accounts for licenses of some software. And yeah, so one last pass. Yeah. So we had have your account in last pass or one pass. Um, just document everything you have. Make sure you do best practices and make sure that everyone who owns stuff actually has access to it. What else? I miss anything. Yeah, don't share too much. Yeah, start a discussion. Yeah. Yeah. So, and with all this kind of stuff like safety, there's, I mean, if you really want to make sure that, oh, if the Netherlands goes underwater, so all your Dutch friends die, like, I mean, so there's always risk versus effort. And you can do maximum effort and there's going to be no risk. And you have a million people who you have, who will have your password in case something goes wrong. But just think about the risks that are actually going to happen. And yeah, maybe don't do it with the person. They're always at the same, take the same flights with maybe, or maybe you know someone. Yeah. Or for example, if my heirs are my mom and dad right now, and they wouldn't have any idea what to do with my password. So maybe you assign someone within the WordPress community who you fully trust, like Remkes. So everyone, everyone gives their password to Remkes. And so they know what to give it to.  Yeah, like Dropbox sync. Yes. Yeah. So these are all just normal best practices.  Yeah, swap it. Okay, so who else stores backups in a bank? Because I wonder how many of us stored them in a bank? Yeah, yeah, yeah, somewhere else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But you can do two hard drives at different locations, maybe a cloud. So you have like, there are several cloud backup sources. Exactly. So another city, another country outside of Ukraine, like also important. I want to wrap this up. Does anyone have any additional thoughts that they didn't have the opportunity to ask? Say, yeah, Mars. Exactly. Exactly. So maybe we can build something on the moon or like with the seed bank underneath the sheath of ice in Norway, I guess, to store all our data separately. If you have any coming thoughts the coming day, let me know. I would love to write something down about this so people can access the best practices that we shared. Thanks for coming to my improvised talk.