Autism on the Job: Navigating Neurodiversity in the Workplace | DB Speaker Series

 

Neurodiversity in the Workplace

DifferentBrains.org is excited to present the live virtual panel: Autism on the Job: Navigating Neurodiversity in the Workplace. This virtual panel looks at topics related to autism in the workplace, including: tips and tools for navigating co-workers and supervisors, discussion on receiving accommodations, suggestions for how workplaces can do better, and a look at self-employment.

–OUR PANELISTS–

TIM GOLDSTEIN (Autism Self-Advocate / Speaker / Writer / Sr. consultant at Google / TimGoldstein.comLinkedIn.com/in/TimGoldstein )

PATRICIA LI (Practice Manager at Google / Tim’s previous supervisor / LinkedIn.com/in/patricia-li-13415633 )

MAISIE SOETANTYO, M. Ed. (Founder, Autism Career Pathways / autismcareerpathways.cominstagram.com/autismcareerpathways )

–OUR MODERATORS–

LYRIC (HUMAN FORMERLY KNOWN AS CHRISTA) HOLMANS (Autism Self-Advocate / ND Consultant /  NeuroDivergentRebel.comNeuroDivergentConsulting.org / FaceBook.com/NeuroDivergentRebelinstagram.com/NeuroDivergentRebel / Twitter.com/NeuroRebel )

J.R. REED (Autism Self-Advocate / Writer / Speaker / Autism Consultant / Certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapist / NotWeirdJustAutistic.com )


TRANSCRIPTION


SARAI WELCH (SW):

Welcome to our different brain Speaker Series installment for April, “autism on the job navigating neuro diversity in the workplace”. My name is Sarai Welch and I’m an intern at different brains. And I want to thank everyone for attending. We will start in just a minute but first, my fellow intern, Julia Futo is going to share some information about different brains.

 

JULIA FUTO (JF):

Good evening, everyone. Different Brains is a nonprofit organization that strives to encourage understanding and acceptance of individuals, who have a variation of brain function and social behaviors, known as neurodiversity. Our mission has three pillars: One to mention that diverse adults and maximizing their potential for employment and dependence; Two, to increase the awareness of neurodiversity by producing interactive media; and Three, to foster the new generation of neurodivergent self-advocates. To represent brains, we promote awareness through the production of a variety of neurodiverse media content, including our multiple web series, blogs, podcasts, movies, and documentaries, all available for free at differentbrains.org. All of our content have been worked on by those in our mentorship program, through which we aid individuals in taking the first step towards achieving their goal, finding their voice, expanding their social skills, and understanding of the professional world. Additionally, we have begun facilitating research projects to better understand the way people can maximize their potential. To find more information or make a tax-deductible donation, please visit our website at differentbrains.org. Back to you Sarai.

 

SW:

Thanks, Julia. Before we start, I want to invite everyone to send questions using the Q&A feature in zoom or by putting questions in the chat box. And now I’m going to hand it over to our moderators for this evening: Lyric Holmans and J.R. Reed.

 

LYRIC HOLMANS (LH):

Hi, I’m Lyric Holmans. I am a late diagnosed, multiple neurodivergent adult, meaning I have an autism diagnosis. I also have an ADHD diagnosis. But the late part is I didn’t find out I was autistic until I was 29 years old. I use “they/them” pronouns as I am also a non-binary human. And I am a light skinned mixed race human in my mid 30s with short green, purple and teal hair shaved on the sides and glasses. And I’m currently sitting in our RV and we are full time RVrs. currently we’ve been staying near Austin, Texas, and I’m going to pass to my fabulous co-host JR To do a brief introduction of himself as well.

 

JR REED (JR):

Lyric not that this is a competition but I’m also in late diagnosed person on the spectrum and I was 46. So I got you beat by 17 years living being shoved into a neurotypical world. I am an autism speaker, self-advocate and writer. And I just want to mention that lyric and I are starting a podcast here on different brains in Four to five weeks. It’s called examining neurodiversity. If you do not subscribe to the different brains newsletter, please do so that you can get informed when we start.

 

JR:

Let’s move on to– you just told me how to pronounce your name and I don’t…

 

MAISIE SOETANTYO (MS):

(Laughs) thank you so much for having me here. My name is Maisie Soetantyo and I think I’m gonna win. I was super, super late, diagnosed, I was diagnosed at the age of 50. So there you go super late. I also have sensory processing disorder and this Dyscalculia and other autistic conditions. I am the founder of a nonprofit in San Francisco Bay area called autism career pathways. And I’m very, very passionate to figure out employability for people who need higher level of support. Yeah, so there you go. Thank you for having me.

 

TIM GOLDSTEIN (TG):

Well, I’m Tim Goldstein. And I think I’m going to win the late diagnosis prize. I was diagnosed at 54 and prior to that I was just weird. Or so everybody, you know say. And Currently I work for Google as a technical trainer. Prior careers. I’ve been in retail. I’ve been in various business manufacturing, international supply chains, all those kinds of crazy things. And I’m a extremely active self-advocate. I think this is the, I don’t know, eighth event this month already that I’ve talked at. So that’s me.

 

JR:

And last, but finally not least, Patricia.

 

PATRICIA LI (PL):

Thanks. So I’m Patricia, I am a practice manager at Google Cloud. I was Tim’s former manager. And I am not on this. I’m a neurotypical as, as Tim told me. So, you know, and it’s been a really quite a fun journey and adventure about learning about the spectrum in my time working with Tim.

 

JR:

All right, well, let’s go to the board and take our first topic, which we’re going to throw to lyric, lyric, what was the path into your current career,

 

LH:

It has been a long and winding journey, and it has not been a traditional path. Try and condense it into a really quick bubble. I didn’t go through university because I struggled so much with the education system and not being diagnosed in school and just thinking I was completely incompetent and couldn’t learn anything. And so I went from car hop and fast food management, and then eventually to retail and eventually worked into corporate before going into HR and operations. And now I’ve landed in business consulting, and I think it’s my happy place, right, especially like now that I’ve gone on my own. And I’m in my own bubble to that self-employment journey. But it’s been, it’s been a long and winding process to get there. And I’ve done many different things and worn many hats, so to speak in my life and literally hats. Yes.

 

JR:

Yeah. Well, I’m with you have a whole education thing. I was out of high school for about 13 years before autism was diagnosed in kids. I went from job to job until I finally started freelance writing for over 20 years. And after my diagnosis, nine years ago, I decided to focus all the writing on autism, mental health and neuro diversity. And it’s just really morphed into the speaking into the podcasting and into the avenue advocacy work that I’m doing today.

 

LH:

Oh, we’re so glad it has.

 

JR:

And I’m glad that it has for you as well. So Maisie, which I got right this time. [yes you did] how about you?

 

MS:

Yeah. Well, um, when I was going to school, I had many, many different types of part time jobs. The ones that I was able to give my all was clearly when I was working with kids, I just love working with young people. And actually, when as I moved up and work in the bigger clinical setting and working for other people, and I became more of a supervisor and administrator and having to supervise other people, and I failed miserably, lots of tears long hours, because I didn’t actually get to work with the kids anymore.

 

So other employment that I failed miserably, was anything that has to do with taking care of cash register and giving people money back because I was horrible at counting, I had to look at my fingers to count. And I still do and yeah, so anything like that I didn’t do so well. And I just somehow came across the field of autism. And I’ve been I’ve been doing it for a long time for 30 years. So I’ve been really lucky. I quit working for a clinic and just develop my own branding and advocacy and consulting company. And I love it. I feel really, really lucky. That here I am. 30 years ago, as an diagnosed autistic adult, I’m still able to serve autistic people. So I feel really, really lucky.

 

LH:

Yeah, I’m a fan of your work and the great things you do. So yeah, I’d see over there. You’ve been busy out there doing amazing things. Let’s switch it up a little bit and throw it to Tim, before we jumped to Patricia, if that’s okay.

 

TG:

Sure. I also, like many of us had a weird and wild and wacky path to where I got to today. I’m a community college dropout, I don’t think you’ve dropped out of the lower-level college community college. And the reason I actually dropped out I was going as a business major, and I was also managing a very large sporting goods store at the same time, so it just didn’t seem to make sense to me at the time to pay money to go learn what I was getting paid to do. Followed that career on through till I was doing in the bicycle world international law supply chain, national sales teams, those kind of things. Then I got fired. And I went and looked for another career. And all of my careers have always been based on my special interest, which those of you that are familiar with, you know, autism, you’ll know what special interests are. And for those of you that don’t, they are the things we talk way, way too much about if you ask us about anything. From there a guide into eventually, after all bunch of those weird jobs, I think a lot of autistics have, vending machines and selling yellow page ads, and you know, anything to put, you know, money in the pocket. I then got into the tech world. And again, I was a geek, I love doing tech and that’s what attracted me. And I happen to do fairly well at it. While I was in my tech career, I also decided I wanted to start a manufacturing company. Yes, I had zero background in manufacturing. So I bought $200,000 worth of equipment and started manufacturing company that I ran for 10 years, with a full time career in IT at the same time. And that’s actually the story of how I got diagnosed, I finally burned out, broke down and ended up in the mental health system and found out I was autistic. So as far as Google ended up, there was acquisition, that’s when you get it if you’re a college dropout.

 

JR:

You know, Tim talking about the special interest that might explain the boxes, and boxes and boxes of comic books in my extra bedroom. Oh, Patricia why don’t you take it home for us.

 

PL:

Sure. So like everyone else on this panel, you know, I think everyone has a unique journey. And like mine was quite circuitous as well. So out of college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I ended up in investment banking, consulting, to form, you know, the background. And then I went into startups. And then I went to China and co founded a couple of startups. And then I decided it was time to come back to the Bay Area and deposit, you know, points in the karma bank. So I ended up working for social enterprise for a few years. And then I missed Silicon Valley. So I came back to Silicon Valley back to the tech world. And that’s where, you know, I met Tim, who I think in hindsight, you know, I’ve managed other neurodiverse people in the past on my teams, but Tim was the first person who actually taught me about the spectrum and proactively, you know, really opened my eyes to this world and help me understand it,. Thank you, Tim.

 

LH:

That’s, that’s great. And actually, that leads me into what I’d like to ask about next very nicely, is I’d love to hear from Tim and Patricia a bit about your story and your journey working together. So I guess maybe we’ll have Tim go first. I think that makes the most sense. And then we’ll have Patricia follow. So Tim, if you want to kind of share that bit?

 

TG:

Yeah. You know, I was working for at the time was a company called Looker. Prior to being acquired by Google, and the team had grown so large that they needed to hire a new manager and spoke the team. And Patricia was the wonderful hire, they found. And I was on Patricia’s team. And like, a lot of us, autistic individuals will say, communication was challenging. We were both trying really, really hard to communicate. But the words were kind of passing each other in never really quite connecting in spite of the fact that, you know, from both sides, we really wanted to make this work and make the communication work. But I think anybody who’s had poor communication, whether it’s with somebody that’s your partner, or whatever, bad communication tends to lead to more bad communication is everybody gets frustrated, even though you really want to make it work. And then we kind of hit a low point. And we’re both stubborn. That’s probably the best thing to say. And we just decided we were going to figure out how to do this. And that was that we finally figured out, you know, I explained about me and Patricia told me more about her, and we figured out a way to communicate well together, which is nothing unique. I mean, it’s really the stuff that all of us self advocates tend to teach anyways.

 

LH:

Alright, Patricia, yeah.

 

PL:

I think Tim really summed it up quite well. I would say, you know, like, day one, when, when Tim and I met, we sat down, had our one on one. And he came and I think the first thing he said to me was, “Hi, I’m Tim. I’m autistic. And here’s a bunch of resources that I’m going to send you. So you could do some homework and understand what autism is”. I, you know, it was the first time that anyone was so forthright, and, you know, told me about their needs, right, in the first meeting, and I was super appreciative of that, and also very much of the courage that, that it must have taken, you know, for Tim to say, in the first meeting, “Hi, I’m Tim, and I’m autistic”. And I think on my end, I said, “Hi, I’m Patricia, I’m going to be super direct with you, um, you know, we’re going to have communication issues, I think, right, we’re going to work, we’re going to learn how to work with each other, but I’m very direct communicator. And so any issues we have, let’s talk it out, and let’s work through it.” So I think that was the beginning of a really wonderful partnership, a lot of learning, but I think, in the end, a very valuable, you know, lifelong friend, that that we’ve earned. Right?

 

TG:

You know, I think that you’re saying, you know, that, you know, we’re speaking very direct, for speaking to neurotypicals, you were very direct, but I think you’ve learned a whole new level of being direct.

 

PL:

That’s true. It’s, and again, this is one of the things that we learned in our communications with each other, what do I mean by direct versus what Tim means by direct? Right? So I think what I mean by direct is I, I will say, what is on my mind , I will not sugarcoat it, I will tell you give you feedback in the moment, right? And I think, Tim, not to put words in your mouth, and you’ve given me this feedback a few times, is you want the actual very concrete, you know, details, and what does this actually mean? Whereas, you know, the way I process things, perhaps, is a little bit more high level, like, here’s the big picture, here’s the context. And there’s a lot of ambiguity and nuance, right.

 

TG:

So exactly, you know, at that point, I’m going okay, what does that really mean? sum it up for me combined? detail?

 

JR:

I’ve often said that communication is so important in any relationship. And between autistic and neurotypical, you have to develop your own language, in a way, it does take a little bit of time, and whether that’s business, school, social, family, friends, you know, whatever. Yeah. And I, I applaud you both for taking the time and making the effort to develop your language. So Sarai , you’re going to come back and join us here and share any questions that have come in?

 

SW:

Yes, absolutely. Okay, so our first question is, actually is two questions from Victoria Brenner. Her first question is for, both questions are for Tim. The first one is, what do you mean by technical trainer at Google?

 

TG:

Well, in the Google Cloud Division that I work for, a technical trainer means that we teach both companies and what we call training partners who then teach companies how to use the various Google products. The specialty is the Looker product that was a company that they acquired. So obviously, that was the one I know the best. So technical trainers, just teaching, teaching technical stuff do primarily companies.

 

SW:

Her Second question for you is as an engineer and a person in the tech industry, I want to ask, what do you manufacture at that company you had for 10 years?

 

TG:

Well what I manufactured again, it was it was for special interests. It was my hobbies that I got to carry away with. And what I made was two different things. One is going to sound almost semi normal, and that was you can buy a little manager, metalworking machines, lathes and Mills. And there’s very few accessories for that. So I just went through the catalogs of all the big accessories that you can buy for the big manufacturing machines, and I went and designed and marketed small versions. The other part of the business though same time was rubber band powered model airplanes and both an outdoor brand company and ones that you fly indoors.

 

SW:

Okay, our next question is, “I’m not sure if you’ll be taking questions. I was wondering if anyone could speak to workplace discrimination or trauma in the workplace. My career has been in state and local government, and I’ve had accommodations denied and withheld and have fought for acceptance in every job I’ve ever had in government and had to leave. The most awful experiences of discrimination and having to job hop has left me so strong. I don’t work in tech, I work in the field of public health. How do I change careers to find a more tolerant workplace?”

 

JR:

I think that’s got Lyrics’ name written all over it.

 

LH:

Yeah, I know. Ah it hurts because I’ve been there in a similar position is like what led to my discovery is I had needs I one first didn’t understand in the workplace. And then I thought I was thinking, oh, maybe I’m autistic, and they went through the diagnostic process, found out I was autistic and I was like, Okay, now I know, I’m autistic, I’m gonna be able to get my needs met, because I’m gonna, you know, it’s the law it’s protected. And I went to my employer and said, You know, I need you not a lot. But I asked to kind of work in a quiet corner of the office with natural lighting and not be in the busy noisy area, or potentially work remote more like I had been when I first started there. And they’re like, Well, everybody would like that. It’s not fair to give it to you. Which was so horrible, because it’s kind of the point, right? If everybody likes it, maybe your system is terrible, and you should fix it, because it’s, it stinks if everybody dislikes what you’ve got going on. But I ended up having to leave that workplace. And you know, it’s, to me, it should have been the flag that if they didn’t care about my needs, before I had the diagnosis, all of a sudden, now I had one, they weren’t going to magically start to care anymore.

 

And I had to do this career pivot, right. And so, you know, I thought that was my dream job. Which is why I burned myself out and made myself sick because I, I was like, I’m gonna conform, I’m going to be what they need me to be the square peg, round hole thing, you know, fit in the square peg into a round hole, damages and destroys the peg, they say, right, I was destroying myself as a peg. And so really, I had to go back to since discovering I was neurodivergent, evaluating, what it is, I’m good at what it is, I’m bad at stop trying to compare myself to neurotypical people and neurotypical standards, and embrace those weaknesses and say, Okay, these are things I probably shouldn’t do. They’re not my wheelhouse. And that’s okay, that these aren’t my skill set. What am I really good at? And what do I love doing and what is something you can do that, when you do it, it’s going to recharge you and invigorate you and it’s not going to drain you down and wear you out. Because you need to look especially for neurodivergent people, especially autistic people, like we need something that we can do that we’re going to be able to really immerse ourselves in and enjoy, and that’s going to give us energy, or we’re going to burn out really, really quickly. And if we’ve also got ADHD like [unintelligible] or if it doesn’t interest me, I cannot pay attention to it. It doesn’t matter. I can’t make my brain go there. If it’s boring to me. It doesn’t it doesn’t stick. So, yeah, a lot of autistic people are also ADHD. So that’s another level of neuro divergence that you got to consider.

 

JR:

I took my Adderall today.

 

TG:

That’s not to say, another thing that I actually did to cover will say, cover up the fact that, you know, I was autistic and neuro distinct. And what I didn’t know was, I was a consultant. And it being a consultant is really great. Because when you get fired, hey, you just go find another client. And I work for my own company. So I have 15 years of continuous work. I just happen to have worked for, I don’t know, 17 companies, 15 years. But consultant is another possible way to make things work as you’re kind of figuring it out.

 

LH:

Highly recommended that what I’m doing now. And I love it so much. You, you have to have a little bit of a tolerance for instability, I guess. But I’ve decided I rather have freedoms stability. At this point. I’m pretty good at living minimally with the RV life and all that.

 

JR:

Sarai Do we have any more questions for now?

 

 

 

SW:

Um, let’s see. I think we have time for one more for this segment. “How can colleges help students with ASD be better prepared for the work world?”

 

JR:

I can answer that because I just took two college classes a year ago. And the answer is they can help them with accommodations for their studies. For example, I’ve got a sensory processing problem. They loaned me an iPad that only had two things loaded on it, messenger and Skype. I sat in the front row turned on Skype. They had a transcriber listening to the lecture, they transcribed the whole lecture, and I had it within 24 hours, but they are not good at preparing somebody for the workplace. That’s not their job. Their job is to educate. It’s a sad truth.

 

LH:

Yah, Ouch. Um, so I want to make sure we do keep moving So that we can try to get through all of our questions. So the next question here? Would I just like to say “what are some of the common workplace challenges that you’ve experienced in the workplace?” Um, I just think I call on Maisie

 

MS:

workplace challenges, I think not being given the opportunities to ask for accommodations, and being given you know, that it’s lack of a two way open communication. So autistic people have to hide. I think that self-disclosure process for companies of all sizes is really, really important is just being open. As you get to know the job seeker, you just ask, what are your learning preferences, you know, or this is why I created the capable tool at autism career pathways, which is a skill base career screening tool for autistic people who communicate differently. And, and we want to look at one how they are able to best self regulate. Secondly, we want to look at what are the top type of task, or what kind of system that they’re really, really good at processing and being able to problem solve at their best, you know, it’s all activity based. And we want to help companies to actually customize their own ways of like career screening, neurodivergent people, and the output, it’s actually a five to seven minute of caption, edited video portfolio along with a very simple written summary, color coded, because I make sure that autistic people gave me input. Well, if you look at the video, how can you remember and understand there are definitely a strength of your special interests, the best way that the best type of support that you’re going to be able to excel in doing these assignments or roles. And everything is color coded. So that’s based on their input. So it was very important for me to create something that’s being put together by neurodivergent people because this for neurodiverse for neurodivergent people a different kind of manual and how to how to in a simple way for everyone. So did I answer your question? Like, yeah,

 

LH:

that’s, that’s great. And so I think that’s so important, like you mentioned, people that communicate differently, that the interview process just from the start is a stop for so many people because, like, for example, I attended a panel yesterday and there was a non speaker, and they were saying that they’ve applied for many jobs, but they went to one company that they work for now. And it was the first job they’ve ever been in where they were allowed to communicate fully in writing for their interview. And that wasn’t a problem because they are nonspeaking. And it’s like more companies needs to be willing to let people do interviews in writing and things like that. They did it through like slack chat, I think or something like that, right? Because like being willing to change these things.

 

JR:

Real quick, Maisie while you were talking, somebody asked a question and asked if you can put a link to autism career pathways in the chat.

 

MS:

Yes, I will put our website in there.

 

JR:

The common workplace challenge for me was just a lot like maze, you said the communication and I had a boss that called me Forrest Gump every day for almost 10 years. Not just to my face, in staff meetings, I was a sales manager, to my employees. And yeah, so and that’s, that was probably the last sraw. That’s why I said you know what, I know how to write. I’ve written you know, part time for different magazines and stuff. I’m going out full time as a freelance writer.

 

LH:

And so many of us have been bullied. And unfortunately, it doesn’t always stop when we reach adulthood or get into the workplace and it is so frustrating.

 

JR:

In fifth grade I had my teacher calling me weird, stupid and lazy.

 

LH:

Oh, yeah, some of my worst bullies growing up are teachers and then you go into the workplace and it’s like, thought that you know, a question early. Like, is there PTSD? Well, it’s like definitely reminiscent when you have a boss that bullies you the same way your teacher bullied you growing up. It’s not good. Ah Tim?

 

TG:

Yeah. For me, I think there’s two major areas that have always been challenges and one is the cultural norms of company, I don’t necessarily pick up on them. And most companies don’t explain what their norms are. And you just go about it the way that we do being brutally blunt about things, and you find out that you just violated 16 you know, cultural norms of the company, and you’re now the black sheep in communication is the other big, big thing. Even if you’re not violating a social norm of the company, and just using words in such being, as we tend to be precise, using accurate wording, without thinking about any emotional context that wording may have. So if two of us autistic individuals were chatting, we’d be perfectly fine. But other people are wondering, Why did you say that way? How could you even say that in front of somebody? But to me is like, Why? Why are you getting worked up? I just this is what the word means. Let’s look it up in the dictionary. So those are the big things for me is the culture of just understanding the cultural not violating it, and getting communication that people aren’t being offended by.

 

LH:

Yeah. And so Patricia, for you, it would be different, like, maybe a change in your management style, like, how was that for you? Cuz I’m sure there was like challenges.

 

PL:

Yeah, I think, you know, as Tim introduced our story, right, it was, it was quite a journey to getting both of us on the same page, right? So even with the best of intentions, as I said, day one, Timmy, equipped me with a lot of resources. You know, very upfront, here’s what you’re, here’s, here’s what it’s gonna be like, right? And best of intentions, you know, open minded, let me learn about this. Let me you know, I pored through all of those resources over the weekend. And best of intentions tried to put into practice, but, you know, we all have our different experiences, we all have the different ways that we’ve grown up and learn to communicate. And I think, you know, that that gap was just so wide and learning. What did Tim mean, when he said, x and 10? And Tim learning ehat did Patricia mean when she said y, right, and how do we communicate with each other? I think, you know, when we talk about developing our own language, Tim, and I, you know, got to the point where we had to add words for each other, like, that meant, you know, Hey, stop, let’s take five steps back, let’s explain what you meant by this phrase, because you’ve lost me here, or even in, you know, g chat, and we’re just ping each other. Right? Um, Tim had this wonderful way of putting these little tags around, like, I’m venting versus I need help, right? Because, you know, from a neurotypical standpoint, I can’t, you know, if someone is, you know, unloading the way that Tim would sometimes unload, I would be like, Oh, this person needs help. What do I do? You know, let me dig in. And let me, you know, problem solve. And oftentimes that wasn’t it. He was just venting, right? So you put these tags around venting, and I need help. So you know, developing that common language was super helpful.

 

JR:

Yeah, well, somebody just commented actually, that it would be nice to have a gold standard HR manual. I think that the five of us sat down on a weekend, we can probably come up with one. So the next question is going to start out with Tim, is Tim, just one or two communication tips for being in the workplace?

 

TG:

Gosh, it’s hard to only have one or two. But the first thing I would say is, as autistic individuals, I think we tend to try and give too much detail, because we need the detail to understand. So we think they need the detail also. And you then get the glazed eye look because you’re talking about details that you don’t address what they want to know they want to know about high level what’s going on that? Not what are all the little marbles you’re moving. So I’d say that would be a tip is learning to say the least amount and then ask was that enough? Or do you want to know more? And if they want to know more, they’ll say and more often not they say hallelujah now we can move on to something else. Then the other thing would be being very careful about picking words that are the words that are normal for that organization. So if you have a PhD education, don’t use your PhD words on everybody or they’ll think you’re an arrogant jerk. So the talk the language that everybody else talks. Okay, Patricia.

 

PL:

I would say you know, what was most helpful for me in terms of my relationship with Tim was just how upfront he was with his diagnosis and the open communication that that allowed us to have with each other, right. And that helped us navigate all of the challenges and build that trust with each other, even as things, you know, were really, really difficult. So I think that upfront communication really worked. For us, at least, being stubborn, was really good for both of us, Neither one of us wanted to give up because we could understand the positive intention the other person had, right. So with that insight, neither one of us was willing to give up on the other.

 

MS:

yeah, I think for me, because I work with many non speaking clients who would like to work, always presumed competence, and respect. And listen, and just because someone communicates differently, it doesn’t mean they’re not, they don’t have brilliance that you would be jealous, you know. So like, everyone has their own brilliance. And if you just actually listen to yourself, and how you speak, you don’t really realize what kind of implicit and explicit biases you might have, you know, if you are in that position, as a guide, and you have that position anyone can have, be given an opportunity to guide other people, whether you’re a parent or your mentor at work a teacher or therapist, you have to be really, really careful with your own personal biases, because you have this wonderful human being in front of you who might behave and communicate and have their own thoughts. They’re different than you. So I would say, be really aware of your own mindset to begin with, before you open your mouth. Because you’re gonna be the one missing out on that person’s talent.

 

LH:

Yeah, so one thing as an employee, or as anyone something, this is really great, simple thing, workplace and beyond is just a check for understanding with someone, if they say something to you, you can repeat back what they’ve said, and make sure that your understanding is not something totally different from what they imagined. There’s nothing lost in translation. It’s something I learned in my late 20s, early 30s. I don’t know why, but it was late in life. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, it’s so simple. So that’s one little thing. And then a little thing that’s more complex and towards businesses and managers is, as a manager, use SMART goals to direct your employees neurodivergent, neurotypical or not, and that is smart is going to be where they are very specific. And they’re going to be realistic and manageable, and something you are tracking. And they have a specific date and time. And the point of these smart goals is to set meetings and check in with people and like help them get towards their goal. And when you’re working with anyone trying to get them towards a goal in the workplace, it’s really important that you have a relationship with people you’re managing so that they can be honest and vulnerable, and come to you, especially if they’re struggling, or they are stuck with something as a manager, you need to be there safe person that they can go to and they need to know they can go to you and ask for help.

 

Unfortunately, with neurodivergent people, especially sometimes we have these workplaces where you have to put on this brave face and act like everything’s okay all the time. We can’t ask for help. And anybody who has a disability, whether it’s, you know, being neurodivergent, or something else, we need to be able to ask for help, because sometimes we’re going to struggle with things that the rest of the population isn’t going to struggle with. And if having a weakness is a shameful thing, we can’t speak up and ask for help, especially if we’re asking for help with something that other people would be like, “that’s easy. I don’t know why you’d need help with this simple thing.” And I put this in air quotes, because “simple” is very relative, depending on the perspective and who you ask. So that’s just something I’d say to consider. And, and I don’t know if there’s anything else want to add before we jump into next question.

 

JR:

I just have one Golden Nugget and that is just do not call people dumb.

 

MS:

Can I just also add something real quick, a lot of neurodivergent people, they have hidden needs that they don’t, they don’t know they’re not aware of like so they don’t know that they need help. They don’t know what things are helpful to them. So this is it will be wonderful if a supervisor or manager are trained differently to observe And to be able to pick up certain things, and be able to redirect an autistic employee to be able to have sensory breaks, for example. So one of the jobs that I really excel was actually in retail because I was on my feed, I had movement breaks all day long. And they had me it was an Italian clothing store. And my job was to fold the sweatshirts and all the bees have to line up on all the colors. And it was very easy to teach me because every time we have a new shipment, my manager would just have me memorize while this outfit go together. And I work really, really fast. But I was it was I had that job for two years, actually, because I didn’t know why I was able to hold that job for that long. Because I was able to line up with, you know, always moving around. And yeah, and they never had me close to the store. So I never I didn’t have to, you know, figure out the accounting and stuff. Which is great. Yeah.

 

LH:

Yeah, I mean, that’s so relatable too, because I feel similar. It’s like I could be exposed to environments I can’t tolerate in an office environment when I have to sit still, when I worked retail, and especially when I was in fast food, and I was rollerskating. All day when I was a car hop when I was in my teens, I was like one of my favorite jobs ever. And I always joke them to go back and do that again. Alright, I think we have time to jump into a question break, right? If we can have our wonderful helper pop up on here and read us questions, cuz I’m sure we’ve got some coming in.

 

SW:

Hello. Okay. So the first question is, “my ASD nine year old is having trouble finding the thing that interests him enough to pursue in a career. Any thoughts as to how to get him excited about something career wise?”

 

TG:

Well, I mean, as I say, to me, you just got to expose him to enough stuff that they find something that they like, and then not question what it is they like, it might be weird, but guess what? People make money at weird things?

 

 

MS:

I can probably jump in because I do work with families and parents of autistic young adults. One is that you can’t make somebody develop interests, you have to observe and encourage them. And that’s really, really important. So it could be anything really could be I’m trying to give an example. Like, my son really loves spinning things, he loves to watch anything that spins around. And we actually play the games with him when he was younger. And now it has evolved into watching stadiums, because it’s circular of different shapes, you know. So all we can do, I think as parents is really shared, make it shared experiences. And we as the adults can also share what we’re interested in. And maybe it could be, you know, our thing together, whatever that may be, you know, so I think a lot of autistic young adults, they don’t really want they, they push back a lot, because, like are all growing up, they just have a lot of people telling them what to do. So if they do have special interests, they don’t want to share it. If they just it’s just my thing in this my safe zone, which well, it makes sense to have that. So I think just my suggestion would be to be observant, and to just share your special interests too, and just hang out with your autistic family member.

 

JR:

Yeah, that type of consulting is what I do. And a lot of the things I asked right at first is, tell me about a typical day. What do you do? Because then you can kind of find out what their interests really are. They may not realize they have an interest. You know, maybe they spend the day cleaning their room or cleaning the house. Or maybe they sit around playing video games or, you know, maybe they spend the day reading? Well, those are interest in those you can find ways around all those. I mean, Tim, when you and I when you’re in our 20s and 30s. There was no way somebody can make a living playing video games. Now they can. You know. If you dig down you will find interests.

 

LH:

Yeah. And I’ll say to you can kind of think of it as it may not be the thing you think it is either. For example, my consulting business and my education and training is not because I love consulting. It’s because I am a writer, and I’ve always loved writing and I use the skill of writing to write and create content. And so I create these stories and I design these PowerPoints. So I’m an artist, I’m a writer, I’m a creative person. And so that is what I really am. But I use that to get into the door and do business consulting. I’m also obsessed with autism, and neurodiversity, and obsessed is not too strong of a word, in my case. So you know I’ve used that and like shoveled myself into the niche, because it’s all I’m thinking about any day, you might as well do something with that. If that’s all I’m gonna think about, you know.

 

SW:

We have time for one more question for this segment: “I am building a neuro diversity inclusion program for a tech company. What is your recommendation for neurotypical interviewers?”

 

TG:

Well, I guess I’ll throw something out there, right, because I taught that at Cornell, one session. And the big thing is, is they’ve got to not force the person to try and respond, answer and work with things that the person is challenged by, if the person is challenged, looking you in the eye, don’t go and decide that they’re not engaged with you, because they didn’t look you in the eye. So really, I think the primary thing interviewers need to learn is: what are the traits, the habits, the you know, the way people are that fall into the category they’re interviewing, so that they can respond appropriately, instead of making erroneous conclusions off of something that didn’t meet what they’re thinking that

 

LH:

I’ll add something just really quick and simple down and dirty. Job interviews don’t necessarily help you find the best candidate for your job, they help you find the person who’s good at job interviews, the way we’ve traditionally got them set up. So I’d love to challenge you to change the way you think and look at interviews, maybe even consider scrapping the interview altogether. One of the best jobs I was in most recently before being laid off for COVID, and being pushed into consulting on my own, which is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I did like this part time work trial, where I was working with them on a project base, and then they started to see what I could do. And then I had a full time job and like, a couple months, and then I went from working on this one project to marketing manager to VP of Marketing. And then, you know, I was designing and delivering training in that company before, you know, the world shifted, everything went into a different spin very suddenly last year. And here we are, which is you know, like I said, I can’t complain at all. But you know, it’s we got to change the way we do this. And some of these systems are so broken that maybe they could even be scrapped.

 

JR:

I’ve heard of some companies that are just having interviews on a neutral site, like they’re meeting at Starbucks or someplace to take a lot of the the fear out of the interviewer or interviewee, you know, so they’re, they’re not going into an office where they know they’re surrounded by the enemy.

 

LH:

And that can be good or bad. That could be a sensory nightmare to go ahead.

 

JR:

I agree. But I mean, but at least you know, it’s getting some of the fear away. And it is one thing to at least think about.

 

LH:

Yeah, oh, totally. And we’ve done those too, go ahead, please.

 

MS:

I was just gonna share that, as part of the career screening tool that we provide. All of the job seekers are told to start with an activity that they know they’re really really good at. So everyone actually comes into the interview, just doing their thing. And the feedback I got was a that was a game changer to be able to start with something that you’re really good at. So it’s really fun. Some people bring in their guitars, some people bring in, you know, they put together sets of reading cards that they sell Normally, you know, at gift shops. So we always start with that. And then we and then we do then newer activities, you know, and I think if all companies or businesses can just make that like okay, start with something positive or even tell the jobseekers bring something that you know you you can talk about really well or show us that you really believe that this is your thing. And that would really help people to just regulate better because you come in with confidence like I can start with this.

 

LH:

I love that.

 

JR:

Alright, right. We ready for the last question?

 

LH:

Yeah.

 

JR:

Last topic. All right. Traditional employment versus self employed Matt Maisie, let’s start it off, says you’ve been self employed for 30 years.

 

MS:

That’s a no brainer- self-employment, independent consulting. That’s the best way I feel like for me, it gives me what’s next for me, it gives my brain and my wild ideas, it could be as crazy as possible. But if it’s important enough for me, I will find people to to collaborate with, I’ll make it happen, you know. So I think for me, it’s self employment.

 

JR:

Patricia?

 

PL:

I think for me, having done both, it’s a trade off between freedom and stability. Right. So there’s, you know, it depends on your risk tolerance, and how much you’re willing to put out there. As well as resourcing. So oftentimes, when you’re going at it on your own, you’re very bootstrapped. Whereas if you work for another company that is well and dealt with resourcing, there’s a lot more you can do on a bigger scale.

 

JR:

Tim?

 

TG:

Well, I, you know, I very much like self employment. And I, you know, echo very much what Patricia just said, but big challenge, when I talk to a lot of people, not just you know, neuro distinct autistic people, just people in general, is they don’t understand what’s at all involved in being self employed. You have to understand marketing, you have to understand sales, you have to understand taxes, you have to understand legal, you have to understand accounting, you have to understand, you know, so many different things on top of whatever the business actually is. And I think that’s where a lot of people have challenges is they just don’t have that whole range of skills. And as Patricia said, you tend to be somewhat strapped financially when you’re self employed. So you can’t just go out and hire all the experts and you know, get yourself away or get yourself an accountant, get yourself a marketing agency. So you become a one person shop. And that can be, let’s say, a little draining at times.

 

JR:

Lyric we know your answer. But how about give us a reason?

 

LH:

Yeah, well, totally self employed at this point in my life. But you know, very much what push Patricia was saying is it does matter about your risk tolerance, or how much you can handle that there’s no stability, because there were two months out of this year since I’ve been on my own where I had no money coming in. And then there’s, you know, a month here, that’s really good. And so you don’t know, and it’s scary, and it’s stressful. And the last time I found myself laid off was in 2008, when we had that last big economy crash, and I was working for a big global community computer company that shall not be named. And they laid me and I was just some random number that had been pulled like my, they, my supervisor didn’t even know I’d been let go, it was just my I couldn’t log into the computer. And so they called down and found out from HR Oh, you don’t work here anymore. Sorry. And some stranger, let me go. It was horrible. And then, you know, I got laid off recently in a small business over zoom. And we cried together, and we’re still friends. And we still do work together. And I’m an independent consulting consultant for that company now, and we’re still going to be close. It’s like, you know, we’ve developed the relationship. But now, because I’m at a point in my life, where, you know, I don’t have a mortgage anymore. We had recently downsized and moved into an RV and decided we wanted to do this minimalist thing and live really small and not live, you know, extravagantly. We had made the choice before I was let go due to like, the first round of COVID layoffs that we tried for many months not to do that you just became event and inevitable eventually. And so I was pushed into the nest of being on my own It was like okay, well it’s it’s sink or swim. Now I’ve got to give it my all. And I’m so glad it happened. And now that I’ve tasted this someone was joking the other day on a zoom with me, because that’s all we do now zoom after zoom after zoom, is like “Oh, you’re completely unemployable. Now that you’ve tasted the poison the forbidden fruit of being your own boss”, but it’s just not having that pressure. Like for example, I was telling my partner today I’ve been I’ve been working since 5am this morning, and now it’s almost seven my time here that you know, I can go and I took a nap after my first or before my first large event this morning because it was a really big event with a lot of people. And then I took another break and then we went for a drive and went and got some snacks and drove around and took a mental break again before this one and if I was working in another company for someone else where we were responsible for bringing in revenue together to put, you know, food on everyone’s table, I would have felt guilty going off and taking some enough of a break between those things. Whereas I didn’t feel guilty because I’m like: I’m okay. I’m driven by making sure my mental and physical health is okay. And my needs are met. Whereas before I neglected all of my needs on behalf of my employer, because I just thought that’s what you did. Because that’s, that’s what a lot of us think, just want you to do. Right? It shouldn’t be.

 

JR:

Well, you know, and for me, I definitely say that self employment because just like you, when I speak to large groups, I can build in that downtime afterwards for my brain to reboot and for me to recharge. And just I was thinking while you were talking that for the podcast, is going to be kind of cool to have it coming from an RV in Texas and a log cabin in the Ozarks.

 

LH:

Oh, Gosh.

 

JR:

How cool is that?

 

LH:

It’ll be really cool once I start traveling, well, like where in the world? Oh,

 

JR:

There we go. Where the world is Lyric? All right,Sarai– we got some final questions?

 

SW:

Yes, we do. Okay, so for the first question: “any tips on how to navigate requesting specific word commendations, sensory issues, etc, without disclosing while not being seen as dramatic or high maintenance?”

 

LH:

That’s hard. So I mean, you can you can talk about sensory issues, not necessarily disclosing them. For example, in my case, fluorescent lighting and bright lighting gives me migraines, and headaches. And so I have a lighting sensitivity. And I would say, Hey, I in order to work in this space, because this type of lighting will make me sick, and I’ll get headaches from that, I need to turn that off, or modify it, so that I can show up and do my best work, you know, you know, you always got to kind of throw it what’s in it for my employer, like what, unfortunately, companies are always looking at the bottom line, right? Or, like with sound, it’s like, I you don’t want to out yourself and say I work best if I am able to work in a quiet space free from distractions, or with noise cancelling headphones. So you can describe the specific need you have. What it is that you know why you need it unnecessarily, like I have this diagnosis, but to help me so I’m less distracted, so that I can focus, so I don’t get a headache, you know, and describe why you need it. And then what it is that you’ll be able to do if you have your needs met, and very just simply outline your needs as a human versus These are my needs as someone with a disability or a diagnosis, because a lot of us may not even be diagnosed or if we even know were neurodivergent. Right? That because that’s that’s, you know, I didn’t you know, we talked about how late a lot of us found out earlier.

 

JR:

Well, and remind your employer that the average accommodation is between $250 to $300. So it’s not gonna affect their bottom line as much as they probably think it is.

 

LH:

Oh, yeah, especially like turning off a light that costs nothing that’s gonna save you money, right?

 

MS:

Or movement breaks, or stand up and do your work standing up, or wearing earplugs would really help me block out the noise sensory distractions, actually. So.

 

SW:

Okay, for the next question. Primarily for Tim or Patricia: “This week. And next, I happen to be in a pro in the preliminary stages of a neuro diversity hiring initiative, or the ultimate employer at the end would be in the tech industry, would you happen to have any advice or survive in order to successfully navigate the industry with opportunities for improvement in industry specific skills, like coding software, etc?”

 

TG:

Why does I would say first that whatever that particular company does, is obviously going to be what skills they need. If they’re a software firm, then coding skills might be a good way to go. If they’re an engineering firm and build hardware and microchips decides then that will be learned something different. I’d also say, you know, maybe we know that person who can put in a good word for you too. But really, it just comes down to every company is looking for something a little different, but mostly what they’re looking for in those programs is: are you a person that they can work with? More so than do you have a specific skill.

 

LH:

Yeah, I would agree with what Tim just said. I think although having specific skills are actually important that are role related, right? You have to be able to demonstrate that you have the foundational knowledge to be successful in the role. I think to add on to what you just said, Tim, and what I found so awesome with with our journey together is the cultural add aspect of it. Right? Um, I think you bring such a different perspective. And it’s, you know, sometimes lightbulbs go off, right? Because, you know, we think differently. So I may not necessarily have thought things through the way you think things through. And that’s a spike. And that’s something that any smart employer would lean into.

 

JR:

And that’s neurodiversity at its finest right there. Patricia is thinking one way, Tim as a neuro divergent thinking one way and then putting their heads together to find the solution.

 

LH:

Mm hmm. Neurodiversity includes all of our brains and the beauty that is our different strengths and different weaknesses and how those things complement each other.

 

JR:

You know, and to dispel one myth, I think, most people think that neurotypicals need to figure us out. But we need to figure them out just as much.

 

LH:

Oh we gotta meet in the middle. It goes both ways. Yes, I agree. Although we’ve been doing a lot of the stretching and the work to figure them out. So far, we’ve been doing more of the stretching. So we’re asking them to do a little bit to meet us halfway, I think. But it definitely does have to be a two way stretch, because neither way is right or wrong.

 

SW:

Okay, for our next question: “I’m a therapist in Florida. And often whenever I discussed neuro divergence, affirming care, I hear reasonable accommodations, quote, unquote, and how my requests are not reasonable. How do you all address that?”

 

JR:

Get a new therapist?

 

LH:

Yeah, I mean, that the therapist is supposed to be someone who listens to your needs, and actually takes them into consideration. And if you’re, you’ve explained clearly what something you need in order to be able to participate fully and they’re not willing to meet with you. And that that’s really unfortunate. I would be looking for new therapists. Right? isn’t anybody else disagree with that?

 

JR:

You find a new therapist.

 

LH:

I want you to understand neurodivergent humans and autistic people. They’re out there. There’s some nerds. They’re autistic, and they’re different therapists out there. For sure, that might you know, keep keep looking. That sounds like someone who’s not treating you, right?

 

TG:

I have a three visit rule of after three visits. I don’t feel like there’s a connection with that therapist, fire them and get a new one.

 

JR:

Same here.

 

SW:

For our next question: “As a neurotypical person, what was the biggest, biggest challenge you found when working with other neurodiverse people?”

 

JR:

That’s gotta be for Patricia.

 

PL:

I think we touched on it earlier, it comes down to communication and, you know, our different experiences, inform how we communicate and the context that we take away from the other person’s, you know, what, what is being said, right, so I think everyone, you know, whether or not you’re neurodiverse, we listen, and we bring our own context to the conversation. But I think between neurotypical and neurodiverse person, the communication, the context is, can be wildly different. I’ll give give a small example of that. And, Tim, I hope you don’t mind. I think just based on our experiences, I will say something that I think is completely just, you know, a clarifying question. There’s no — you know, there wasn’t any bias in that question. And Tim, based on his experiences, and you guys, you know, have all touched on it so far in terms of the challenges that you’ve faced in the past in the workplace, Tim had a different context to that question, and it came off to him as though I was doubting things, right. Um, so that’s, you know, it’s the same type of challenges that that you would have between neurotypical people communicating with each other but it’s amplified a little bit more in this dynamic I think.

 

TG:

Need to take your past being bullied and having bad experiences and all that and just put that aside. So, you know, I interpret it completely different than petitioner Matt, because my head was still with all these things that were not necessarily great outcomes.

 

JR:

Lyric somebody just posted a question on how they can reach you confidentially. There is a contact page on your site, right?

 

LH:

Yeah on neurodivergentrebel.com there’s a contact page on my site. My email is also info at neurodivergentconsulting.org. If that’s more handy for you,

 

JR:

Sorry Sarai I just saw that pop up and wanted to catch it.

 

SW:

No, no problem. Um the person who asked the question about the therapist, they clarified on what exactly they were asking. They said that “they are a therapist and therapist and their workplace not giving clients the accommodations that they want or need.”

 

JR:

Oh, okay. So my take my “fire the therapist” let’s pull that comment off the table.

 

LH:

So it’s the clinic that she works, or that they this person works in that they work in?

 

SW:

Yes, they are the therapist.

 

LH:

So they are the therapists.

 

SW:

Yes. And clients come to this therapist and are saying that, I guess workplaces aren’t providing the accommodations that they need when they come and see someone about it.

 

LH:

Yeah. I think I would have loved in that circumstance to have someone to help me draft up what it is, I need to say, to get that accommodation, because I’m pretty sure in hindsight, I was doing a terrible job saying what I needed and why I needed it, and how it would benefit the employer to accommodate me so that I could be more efficient as an employee. And so if you can help them try to word something official to help so that they can get that need met and describe what it is and why it matters to them. That would be helpful that they can take their employer and if not, maybe connecting them to someone if they want to pursue a legal avenue to take legal action. But honestly, I just thought it was easier to leave and find another job. But it depends on what how you want to go. If you really want to stay in something or not to get someone to kind of advocate in the workplace, maybe a work place advocate or a legal advocate. I think is there anything anyone would add to that?

 

TG:

I would want to know what the reason is you want Why is this unreasonable? And is there something around the same type of thing that would be reasonable to you? Maybe they don’t come back with a good answer. But, you know, it’s a place to start. Why? Why is this not reasonable?

 

SW:

Okay, um, so for the next question, we only have time for about two more questions. This question is for Lyric: “how do you embrace your weaknesses? And do you think any of them? Do you think of any of them as strengths?”

 

LH:

Ah, well, yeah, so embracing weaknesses. It’s really, it’s really, I really had to retrain myself and remind myself constantly that strengths and weaknesses are neither good nor bad. They are just part of the human experience. We’ve all got them. And they’re all different when you’re neurodivergent. Your profile of strengths and weaknesses tends to be a little bit askew, from the profiles of the strengths and weaknesses of the majority neuro majority neurotypical people around you. And like, for example, ones weakness that is totally Well, maybe it’s a two sided coin. Thank you. Most of them actually are two sided coin things if you look at them. For me as I am never going to be a good proofreader. I can’t and I had one job, and it killed my soul. Because every review, I’m a perfectionist, I’m an overachiever. And I was never getting in trouble at jobs for things but I would always have marks off for there was a typo in this email. We saw this typo here. There was this typo here. Because my neuro divergence, like I can’t see these I’m hyperlexia iq. So I literally digest things paragraph at a time I my brain corrects the typos, I don’t see them. I even took classes to try and fix this and learn to be a better proofreader, which did nothing. It was just a big waste of my time. And I was so anxious about the stinking typos that I got to the point where, Wow, now it’s better thinking about it’s better now, but four years after I left this job, I would send an email and panic and retract it and reread for typos and then send it again and then panic again and reread it again at least three times before I could send a dang email because I was so freaked out because of this little weakness. And now I know and maybe this is why I have peace. It doesn’t really matter that much because So many people are good at proofreading when I worked in a company that helped me kind of get over this, it was like, we had everyone on the team neurodivergent or not, if you were sending out an important document, it had to have a second set of eyes on it. And it was someone who was declared good at proofreading and loves to do that. And so we’ve operated in that organization based on our skills we had people do the things they’re good at, and the things they love to do. And people were honest about their weaknesses and what they hate doing at work. And so you would pair them up with people that liked to do the things they hate doing. And it was a great way to divide and conquer tasks in your workplace, especially in a small team of less than 10 people to have us really, really passionate about the things we’re doing. And I realized, like, okay, it doesn’t matter, you know that I have this one random weakness that other people don’t have. But then you talk about things that are double sided. So double edged, like my ability to not let things go. I will make myself a crazy person, if I am obsessing about a problem I can’t solve and that sucks a lot. Because I can’t let things go when I can’t let things go. So I’m also really good problem solver, because I can’t let things go. So a lot of the things have two sides to it, or they are small things that for a while in my brain, I had magnified them and I thought they were bigger deals than they actually were. And so I just try to focus more on what I’m good at and what I love doing now and not worry about so much about what I’m bad at. Even if people are trying to remind me I’m like, “Yeah, okay, that’s fine. I’m not gonna worry about what I’m not good at right now. I wanna be in the happy place.”

 

JR:

Lyric, let me ask you: the thing is you can’t let go. Do they come popping into your brain as soon as you lay down into bed?

 

LH:

Of course, isn’t that why we all have insomnia?

 

JR:

Yeah, same here. I went through a spell. That’s been over for two nights, but I slept three to four hours a night for five straight nights. Because I could not get those things out of my projects. I had to do articles I had to write speaking engagement I had last minute changes to a presentation, you know, all those things that I just had running through my head. And I could not stop them no matter what I did.

 

LH:

Yeah. You’ve got to, like, complete them to stop them.

 

JR:

Yes. And I actually got up at 2:45 in the morning and wrote a blog post. So I can hopefully go back to sleep.

 

LH:

That’s why I’m up at like, 3am every morning.

 

JR:

That’s why I’m falling asleep at three.

 

SW:

For the last question, we have from Preston Fitzgerald: “I’m interviewing for an internship tomorrow afternoon. How should How should I tell the interviewer the right way that I might need extra accommodations to do the job correctly?”

 

LH:

Let me say if you… I hate to say this, but I have changed my answer to this very recently. If you don’t need accommodations in your interview, I don’t know if I would reveal it. early in the process. I was fortunate to be lucky in a few jobs and disclose in the first round of interviews. But since I was let go from my my previous employer last fall, I did apply for a lot of jobs. And I just put a little note that I was autistic on the application. Before they got to meet me and know who I am really know me, I only got like, very small callbacks, like two, maybe three. And they were scammy companies that were like commission based pyramids gave me things. Nobody wanted to call me back when I told them I was neurodivergent. And I’ve never had that problem before. I feel like usually without that little stamp on there, my resume is pretty good. And I can do really well in the interview process and get a job. And it broke my heart to see how this note can scare people. But I would wait till if there’s a second or third interview or further on in the rounds if you’re not asking to change and accommodate your interview process. Because this is it sucks. But until we can change the preconceived stereotypes and ideas that people have about autistic and neurodivergent people telling them this information, it’s a loaded phrase because it comes with a lot of assumptions and preconceived ideas that may not be true for you. And I wish that wasn’t the truth.

 

JR:

Yeah, Maria just made a comment and I totally agree. And I actually say it quite a bit: “It’s about fear.” People don’t understand. Autism. People don’t understand the word neurodivergent and it’s a normal reaction to fear what we don’t understand.

 

LH:

Yeah.

 

JR:

Well, Sarai, thank you.

 

SW:

Thank you and thank you to our amazing moderators and panelists, and thank you to everyone for attending. We will be sharing links and contact information for everyone in the chat box and on the screen. A recording will be emailed to everyone once it is ready, including captions and a transcription. from everyone here at Different Brains. Good night!