 I think what Taylor's talking about now is related to like self-advocacy, which is also a really important part, you know, simply understanding or knowing about like differences or potential miscommunications really does sort of open you up to being able to like advocate for what you want. You know, we watched that video on from the the fourth spot talking about like ego death and things of that nature. I really like that example and I think it does, you know, sometimes feel like you're kind of like a leaf in the wind like you're trying to conform and, you know, it's just not working for you and you having all sorts of stresses around meeting certain expectations and, you know, and I think that you don't really have sort of the language or the terminology or the the awareness of your differences in order to like advocate for yourself in particular circumstances very much like feel like you're a kind of a boat on the ocean being like thrown all sorts of different directions, you don't really like have control of your end ship because you don't know how to like sort of communicate and advocate for yourself with other people. I don't think it's necessarily like you can't advocate for yourself, but I think it definitely helps a lot of us. Are you interested in learning more about the autistic experience as a late diagnosed individual? You may have found yourself perusing some of the social media or YouTube content out there on the web and thinking to yourself, you know, hey, what is this autism about? What is what is this all about? Am I autistic? I have no idea. It kind of seems a little bit more relatable now that I've watched some videos of autistic people, but I'm not too sure. And what exactly is the experience of going for a late diagnosis going to look like? Well, today we have a video from Mom on the Spectrum, Taylor Heaton, who has been on the podcast before. They're going to talk about why late autism diagnosis matters and what they wish their family and friends knew. There should be an interesting sort of angle to it. So I know that there is, you know, quite often quite a sort of social heavy component of sort of coming out as autistic as it be. Let's take a look. Hi, I'm Taylor with Mom on the Spectrum and I'm here today to talk about things that autistic adults either self or professionally diagnosed want their friends and family to know about their experiences. So if you're watching this and you're a family member or friend of someone who is self or professionally diagnosed as autistic, I would just ask that you keep an open mind throughout this video and come at it with a sense of curiosity. How can I better understand and appreciate the experiences of this person in my life who wants to share their life with me, right? That's pretty cool that they want to share their life with you. So I hope that you'll see this as an opportunity to learn and grow. And in the comments, maybe we can have some good discussion going on what this experience is like for both the autistic adult and the family and family members and friends. So this is my... We have watched a lot of videos, which has kind of gone into the aspects of sort of late diagnosis and such. But I don't think there's been any videos that we watched that necessarily putting a focus, I guess, on the reactions of other people. Because that is quite often one of the one of the big downsides of going through like a whole unmasking sort of journey and learning to be yourself. And, you know, the whole new adolescence kind of feel to it. There are some negatives to it. And those chiefly do come from like other people in your life that you know, you know, which is not the best. And people do have varying responses to when you tell them. Something along the lines of, oh, yeah, I knew this, but I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to take it the wrong way. Or you get people who are like, oh, no, I know you, you've always been like this. You're not different. You know, stop trying to do that. And then you got other people who would say, like, are you trying to get attention? I see you do get a variety of sort of responses when you do tell people. And it, you know, it's obviously going to be very different depending on who you're around. But also some good things. And I hope that Taylor does touch on some of the good things, some of the things that have been good about their autism journey. This is the vibe I'm going with today, robe and earrings. I don't know, it just happened and I'm rolling with it. So as I said, I'm Taylor. I was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 31 and almost 34 now. Since my diagnosis, I have spent time working with learning from the autistic community and creating resources to help us better, better understand and support ourselves and each other. So if that sounds like something that would be helpful to you or someone in your life, if you would subscribe to the channel, that would be a great gift that you could give to the channel and help extend our reach of services that we're able to provide to people around the world. So what do autistic adults want you to know about their experience? First of all, why do they need a diagnosis? Why do they need to keep talking about this? Why do they need to start talking about the fact that they think they're autistic when they're 35 or 40 and they've lived so much of their life without this diagnosis? What is it going to change now? My answer is everything, literally everything. Okay, you can go from one day like questioning who you are and not knowing why you're so different and why everything feels so hard for you and why you feel like a fake every single day to, you know, coming to understand that you're autistic and it's like your whole life just locks into focus. Totally. It's a sigh of relief. It's like coming home. It's like finally being able to breathe in your own body without feeling like an imposter. I'm kind of, I'm very against the sort of the idea that just because you're of a certain age, it's kind of like some people, they have like a cut off age in the head, whether like at this point, you're an adult, you are as you are, like, you know, you have a lot of sort of individuals online who, you know, say like, oh, in your 20s, as you work in years, you know, you've got to build yourself up and you should be at your maximum ultimate potential Super Saiyan sort of form once you get into like your 30s or something. And, you know, I definitely challenge that. I think self improvement can be important for everybody, really. And sort of staying engaged with that as you get older. I don't see anything like bad about that, but people do. Like that the label is like, oh, you're just having a quarter life crisis. Oh, you're just having a midlife crisis. You're just having a somewhat crisis, you know. And I don't think that's the best way of looking at it because a lot of the time that is just to kind of shame the person for making decisions that they want to make about their life. You know, it's good that Taylor's sort of talking up about that because that is definitely like, it's what I've seen. And it's just this feeling of like, wow, I can quit striving. Like I can quit fighting to figure out to like to be a person. Like I am a person. I'm whole. There's nothing wrong with me. I have a different way of doing things and experiencing the world and showing up in the world. It changes everything. It really does. For me, the greatest thing that it has added to my life is a feeling of self compassion and grace. And just being able to make tiny little accommodations for myself that actually add up to just be monumental differences. Like for example, I keep thinking putty with me all the time. This is not an ad. I'm not with them. But just I keep little stems with me all the time. I won't make this make sound because some of you don't like the way it sounds. But I just I keep fidgets with me all the time to help alleviate like excess tension that's in my body. I have earbuds that I wear out all the time. When I went to get my diagnosis from my in-laws, is that what they said? Are you trying to get disability? You try to get disability payments? None of my watch. No, I think Taylor's talking about, you know, like real positives to sort of autism diagnosis. And I want to highlight that I was diagnosed when I was younger. It was only really until my early 20s that I sort of went through this kind of self-discovery, you know, period of time that a lot of sort of late diagnosed individuals talk about. I did have, you know, I was aware that I was autistic when I was younger. But I don't think I was aware to the like extent of which that kind of made me like a different person, you know, in which ways, which sort of nuanced ways it sort of changed my perception and behaviour and how I related to other people and such. So I definitely went through something similar to that, even though I was diagnosed when I was younger. I think the important thing there is that, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean you know, you get a diagnosis and then you learn all of this stuff. It is very much like you do have to kind of like put the effort in and research and understand more about it in order to like get the the most bang for your buck sort of self-improvement wise, I would say. SmartRag says, hello, we found your channel today. Well, welcome to the club. Welcome to the team. All the time that lesson sensory overwhelm for me and they make just such a huge difference in everyday life. I schedule my days differently, just knowing how much an event will take out of me so that I can have recovery time afterwards. It helps me to show up more fully in the situations that I'm in, because I can better allocate my energy and resources knowing like what's coming up and how I best show up in those circumstances and environments. So there's two images that I like to mention whenever talking about autistic adults experiences, particularly high-masking autistic adults, which just means adults who have become particularly skilled at developing social behaviors and skills. They're the imposters living among the neurotypicals or the all-istic individuals, maybe. Yeah, I mean, what they're saying about like sensory supports and sort of routine and, you know, learning to better work with yourself, I think it's all like really genuinely like really impactful stuff. Even if it's just small things like that, to be honest, there's not everything in my life that I have ironed out and sorted out and whatever, but I'm still on that kind of like personal development journey. And I don't think there'll be a point in my future which I stop, to be honest. I think it's, you know, I'm very much the kind of person, like I don't assume that sort of maturity or development just comes with age. I think it's a lot to do with like how much you engage with your own personal growth. It feels like getting a BS on your own stuff when she started to figure out everything, watching YouTube lectures, etc. I do relate. I do relate. It feels to appear like you're not having a hard time. That was a little bit wordy, but hopefully you catch my drift. Okay, so the two pictures are one in iceberg. The struggles that you see us go through on the outside tip of the iceberg. Like there's just so much more beneath the surface that you have no idea about, which brings me to the second picture of just a duck swimming peacefully on a pond. So if you're sitting on the bank of the pond and watching this duck, they look so graceful and even and at peace. But under the water, their legs are just working like crazy to get them to where they're going. So for a lot of high masking individuals, that's what it feels like every day, working so freaking hard to make it appear that everything is okay. And that's the only way that we've known how to live for so long because we haven't had the word. We haven't had the word autistic or sensory overwhelm or meltdowns or shutdowns to be able to understand our experience. So we keep pushing, we keep striving to be better to do differently, to try to maybe be able to keep up with everyone else instead of realizing that maybe those standards aren't the ones that we need to be aiming for. And maybe our own standards are equally significant and important, and we can get there in a different, more supported, well-rounded way for us. What they were talking about with like neurotypical expectations, like that stuff is really like a, it's definitely a roadblock. It's not fun, especially since like the advent of like hustle culture online and such. It can definitely feel, at least for a lot of people I've talked to, and myself I would say, you know, we're never really reaching the expectations of the people around us, that a lot of the content out there kind of talks very simply and plainly about things that we find very difficult. And I think there's always, it's always worthwhile when you are, you know, listening to someone talk to sort of like a general audience, that the majority of that general audience and likely that individual too is not necessarily going to understand like being autistic in all of it, you know. You don't want to put yourself down just because some things you don't, you know, some aspects of your life you're not up to a certain standard by a certain age. Or, you know, and you could say even though those things are not necessarily up standard, there's lots of other areas, you know, that you do really, really, really well in and progress really, really well in. But it's not the thing that's always being talked about, you know. So there's aspects of neurotypical expectations. And I think Taylor was sort of drawing, you know, a line around sort of autistic masking, I would say as well. I do get a lot of questions from people like asking, you know, what exactly is masking? Well, how am I masking? How am I doing this? And it's always a very, very difficult thing to answer because it can be very, very subjective, I would say, you know, it's not always like cutting, cutting, drying, cleaning, going to a psychologist office and they say, okay, you're masking this way and this way and this way. Stop doing that, you know, it's not too clear. Social camouflage is sort of like an umbrella term that masking is under. It's basically anything that you do, any strategies, anything that you change about yourself, any things that you pay attention to, or change about yourself in the way that you express that you do in order to give the perception, like give the impression that you're not autistic. You know, these are all things to show that you're not different from other people. And it doesn't necessarily have to be about autism. It could just be as Taylor was talking about, you know, perhaps undiagnosed going through life. There will be things which you will start to hide from other people because you've realized that it's not necessarily, you know, what is perceived as being normal or something along those lines, you know. Paula says people who think someone would go through the process of getting autism diagnosis in order to get disability benefits clearly don't know how little money that is. It's not enough to live on. That is very true, Paula. What is the time there? What is your time zone? It is British standard time, so I am streaming very, very late and I know, and I'm aware I've been, I'm being a naughty boy. Apologies. I think it's hard for non-ASD people to recognize how much of a late diagnosis retroactively reframes your childhood and adolescent experiences and can shift your self-image 100%. 100%. Yeah. And that, that is one of the, one of the top things that I, you know, tell, say to the people who are sort of late diagnosed, go through your life with, with the autism comb, you know, you will undoubtedly change your life in various positive directions, I would say. It's not necessarily about, like, coming through it and going, okay, this isn't my responsibility. I didn't do anything wrong and you just kind of overwrite everything. It's, I think, you know, for most people, we understand, like, which are our decisions and which, you know, could be sort of autism related or related to, like, miscommunication and such. So I think it's always a really good, really good thing to do and also intermittently. Sometimes you go through something in your life and you forget that you're different to other people. And sometimes when you're giving yourself a hard time about something, just reminding yourself that you are just a little bit different, I think, can help reframe or re-understand situations where you would have perhaps taken a bit more of like a hit to yourself. I mentioned a little bit earlier, this can feel like we're faking it every day. It can lead to this tremendous feeling of imposter syndrome, where we don't feel like we're actually an authentic version of ourselves, that we're just faking it to get by, because essentially we've taught ourselves to do that, right? Like, this social situation feels uncomfortable. So I'm going to laugh at jokes that I don't understand. I'm going to talk when I don't want to talk. I'm going to wear clothes that make me extremely itchy and unable to focus on what anybody is saying. And so all of those decisions that we make to appear socially different actually come at a great cost. And that cost is our sense of self and our sense of being able to identify who we are and what we want and need and how we actually want to show up in the world. So that significant cost, it catches up to us, especially later in life. There's all of this huge cost to living the way that we have masking for so long. And many people will say, you know, whenever it gets to the point of them seeking a diagnosis, our demands have exceeded our capacity, our demands have exceeded our capacity. So for many, this is like a big life of it, like having kids, getting married, getting a new job, something like that will trigger this new experience of like, okay, I can no longer sustain what I was doing before, because the demands have now become too great. And there's just not enough emotional resources or not enough physical resources, psychological resources to be able to carry out these same demands that have been on my life. I think as well, like, I say that just as my brain goes completely blank. See, my brains, I know that I'm sitting in somewhat of a state of anxiety recently because my brain's just skipping out on me and going blank at very inopportune moments. So what happens at this stage is that we hit a crossroads where we have to decide, do we keep going forward living like the way we always have, masking, masking, masking, which leads to just intensely uncomfortable burnout that can shut us down for months or years. And that is one of, one of the sort of ignitions for a lot of people, I think, who are sort of undiagnosed, the more or less kind of get through life, you know, on their own terms, understanding life from perhaps not not the autism angle, but from their angle. And then comes a difficult times, difficult situations, some level of change, which, you know, as human beings, when we go through something that's difficult, we tend to try and figure out a way forward, you know, and sometimes we find that a lot of our symptoms of what we're going through might be a lot more akin to the idea of autistic burnout than perhaps a depression related thing. I think there is definitely like an air of uncertainty that comes with significant changes to your life. I think that that's that can sometimes be a very, very good thing. You know, obviously managing that whilst managing other things can be quite difficult, but it is very, you know, anything that has that I've done badly or has or had experiences where people have done something bad towards me. I've always had some learning, you know, to take away from it in some respects, you know, a new perspective or new idea, new sort of sort of contrasting thing in my head to try and understand all sorts of changes, you know, and getting an autism diagnosis is definitely one of those big changes, that is for sure. Sure, well, they do they do definitely speak. Taylor does definitely speak to a lot of people, that's for sure. It's a real honor to speak to her on my pod. Or trying to find a better way to cope and understand our experiences, which is leading many at this point to pursue an autism diagnosis. And what I find time and time again for people that are late diagnosed, it changes everything, just having more vocabulary to communicate about our experiences. You know, I mentioned some earlier sensory overwhelm meltdown shutdown, burnout, autistic inertia, demand avoidance, some of these you might be hearing for the first time, needing to step all of these pieces of language and vocabulary in terms can be so helpful puzzle pieces of understanding yourself and and putting your life together in a way that finally makes sense. And this can be a it is a very overwhelming experience, because all of a sudden you look back at the rest of your life and you're thinking, who am I? Who like who am I under the mask? And and what what am I really like? What do I really want? What do I really need? And the answer to that is it's going to take some time to find out. I mean, when you've yeah, there is definitely no like one size fits all kind of way of like unmasking or processing on autism, diagnosis or identity self identifying as autistic, everyone's going to have different experiences and different things to work through. And some of it might not even be related to autism, perhaps autism is kind of like the big sort of hitting thing. But you know, quite often we realize there are a lot of like co occurring things that tend to come come alongside. And I can imagine that if you're going through that process and start learning about more about autism, you're going to hear about these kind of co occurring things that happen, and it's going to spark you even even more intriguing to like whether whether that is something that is significant about you, anyone that I talk to who's gone through like the autism diagnosis process and got gone on their own autism journey. Eventually it does turn to be a big sort of net positive to them. But there are definitely like little negatives alongside, you know, difficult times, perhaps a bit of anger and upset kind of like the system for not helping you or not picking stuff out or you perhaps your parents for not realizing that you're different over kids and a whole host of like different like thoughts that you can get. And it's very difficult to sift through, but it is very worthwhile to sift through, I think. This is exactly how I felt for most of my life. And now I finally have the words to describe how I've been feeling. Thanks for being such a great resource is resource for learning about my diagnosis. Now, where is Jeremy? I'm glad to see it's been echoed by Taylor's experience being intensely burnt out and not understanding why is what drove me to find out how to get evaluated? Yeah, exactly. It's kind of like the ignition point. Something goes wrong that you can't necessarily fix. And you don't understand why you can't fix it. And you try really hard, you try for years and you mask just how much it's impacting you to the point where you're like, okay, there must be something different about me and you're going to go and find the old autism in yourself. You've spent a considerable amount of your life trying to blend in a way to make other people accept you that again, that comes at the cost of sacrificing your own wants and needs. And so to that to the to the autistic people watching, I would say, give yourself grace and patience as you figure out those wants and needs that starts by one decision at a time, voicing what you actually want, choosing to go this way to work instead of this way to work because you like the scenery better, just small little choices like that that you can make throughout the day that support things that actually feel good to you. Yeah, it's a very much like a trial and error kind of thing, because one thing that works for me will not work for another person. There is aspects of like stimming, which I think is really important. I think Taylor touched on that a little bit when they showed the stim toys that they had. That is definitely something that I was very late to adopt in my autism journey. I've had to make a real sort of cognitive effort in order to like make sure that I'm meeting my sensory needs. It's difficult, isn't it? Because it's kind of one of those things which, you know, it's very important for a regulation. And I would wish for a society where people would not sort of point it out and laugh or joke and make fun, but you know, we're not living in that world. And sometimes we do face a lot of stigma for, you know, those types of things, stimming and all that. I think like the idea of like just just knowing about certain concepts on knowing about autism, it inherently gives you like a ton of vocabulary to work with. Some pieces of vocabulary that just explain like so much of your experience that you just don't know about. Like for me, though, that was something that I talk about quite a lot, which is like suffine here. Absolutely, like the most transformative aspects of my autism journey was understanding what that was. Oh my god, this explains why I feel like my brain is split in two. And that my thinking brain and my emotional brain are sort of two distinct sort of annoying entities that fight each other. Yeah, I mean, that was definitely like really transformative for me. And I think what Taylor's talking about now is related to like self-advocacy, which is also a really important part. You know, simply understanding or knowing about like differences or potential miscommunications really does sort of open you up to being able to like advocate for what you want. You know, we watched that video on from the the fourth spot talking about like ego death and things of that nature. I really like that example. And I think it does, you know, sometimes feel like you're kind of like a leaf in the wind, like you're trying to conform. And, you know, it's just not working for you. And you're having all sorts of stresses around meeting certain expectations. And, you know, and I think that you don't really have sort of the language or the terminology or the, the, the awareness of your differences in order to like advocate for yourself in particular circumstances, very much like feel like you're kind of a boat on the ocean being like thrown all sorts of different directions. You don't really like have control of your own ship because you don't know how to like sort of communicate and advocate for yourself with other people. I don't think it's necessarily like you can't advocate for yourself, but I think it definitely helps a lot of us. If a guy says to know yourself is to find true comfort and bring cathartic release to your own self, to your own self to be true 100%. Chase says my whole life, I thought the autistic traits I had were moral failings. Yeah. And you break that is a really good point that you bring up, Joe, because like a lot of people that I've met who are undiagnosed. And I'm like, Hey, like, you know, I obviously start telling them about what I do. And they're like, Oh, I thought about maybe the fact that I'm autistic. And, you know, I kind of talk to them. And, you know, I say, you know, if it's something that seems right to you, don't let like the stigma and the stereotypes hold you back from exploring it more. But these these individuals tend to give themselves a really, really, really, really, really hard time. A really, really, really hard time about everything. You know, they can't cope at a specific social event. They think that they're an idiot. They think that they don't have the charisma or the sort of social power in order to do the job. It's really sad to see because it's, you know, with that little piece of information, that little, well, I mean, big sort of part of their life, you know, separated from them, it's very difficult to try and make sense of it all. And quite often when you do things wrong, because of a miscommunication, it's usually you who takes the blame for it because most people are not like, well, they're not autistic, most people. So being able to like, know it's that that is that and there is differences here and the communication differences here. I think it does a lot for somebody. That will be something to work on for the rest of your life that I think can be really exciting and kind of this brave new world of exploring who you are and what else life has to offer us. Also, you can stop gaslighting yourself. There's so many of us who feel like we've talked ourselves out of our own experiences because other people experience it differently. So like, you know, telling ourselves, why are you having such a hard time with us? It's not that hard. Just, you know, go to the event like everybody else is doing or, you know, just stay here in this uncomfortable situation, even though your skin feels like it's crawling and burning and itching. It's like, I think I think people can experience it that way. I think the majority of people that I talk to, they sort of express the opposite sentiment that they don't feel like the wavy of a diagnosis that they don't particularly struggle as hard as myself in certain areas. And so they're not wavy of like being called an autistic person. I think a lot of people express that sentiment too. We just gaslight ourselves into thinking that our experience is not as real or intense as it actually is. And so that can make you feel crazy, honestly. It can make you feel like I don't know whose life I'm living is what I am experiencing real. And that will completely wear you down to the point where you have nothing left to give yourself or others. So this ability to quit gaslighting yourself and to look at your experiences and say, no, that's real. That's that was a really intense experience. And it affected me differently than the other people for XYZ reasons. And it's hard, isn't it? Because as human beings, we do whether we like it or not, we do care about like our circle, what our circle thinks of us even. And when we confide in people about things that we find difficult, people don't have the capacity to necessarily empathize with like the intensity at which we can experience things, you know, people might not as take it as much of a big deal. Whereas, you know, if you talk to an autistic person, you explain the situation, they'll be like, Oh, I can understand why you are feeling such intense feelings around this. And in addition to gaslighting ourselves, there's also a tremendous mental burden that comes with just thinking so hard about every decision in our lives. Like, do we want to mask and do it this way? Or do we want to be honest about how we're really feeling? And then the the burden that comes with sifting through all the associated thoughts, it's like, sometimes I don't even know how I'm able to like show up in person and have a conversation because the mental chatter is is just so convoluted and something I've gotten used to over the years of trying to go back and forth and decide how do I want to show up in the world. And so I will say since my diagnosis that chatter has lessened significantly and continues to do so every day, as I learn how to better accommodate myself and speak up for my own wants and needs. And lastly, I would just say the major thing that this has helped me with is self care and accommodations. So I think I mentioned mentioned it earlier, but just tiny decisions throughout the day that helped me better support myself that helped me take better care of myself. You know, I know that a hot bath is going to be really soothing and regulating for me after, you know, a hard conversation or a school event with my kids. I know that certain meals are going to be really comforting to me and help me come down after stressful experiences. So all of these little discoveries really amount to a world of difference in my experience every single day. Yeah, it's like, you know, you see one thing, you make a change, you know, you make a little change, you see another thing, you make a little change, you realize something about yourself, you make a little change, like they all add up like over time, you know, and that's that's also what it makes what why it can be such a long experience. It's not that you do have all the answers immediately. It's all gives you the language and the terminology and like the ability to like search for for people who might be quite similar to you, whichever can help a lot. But yeah, it's those little changes and then they really do add up. I feel like for the first time that, you know, when I look in the mirror, I'm like, I know who that person is. Like I see me first and I don't see who I think I should be first. Like, why would you not want to give yourself that? And I guess the last thing I'll say is people aren't just, you know, so excited to use the term autism for their lives. I mean, it's a highly misunderstood and controversial word in a lot of ways. And so there there aren't just droves of people out here like, yes, I want to apply that to my life just for the heck of it, right? People in the autistic community genuinely, genuinely before they use this term, I mean, the vast majority of people that I get to work with, we go into a research hole and we learn every single thing we can about what it means to be autistic. And one really cool thing that I hear from people on the spectrum all the time, they don't want to use this label and take it away from other people who need it more. And so there's this empathetic response. Yeah, I mean, it is it is something that I hear as well. It's like people have more or less like more on the side of being hesitant to using the word autism, rather than, you know, being so sort of willy-nilly like a lot of, you know, YouTubers, people online think that, you know, this is, you know, the autism boom is coming through, through TikTok, and everyone's diagnosing themself based on TikToks. And, you know, you got all of that. And so I don't think I've ever talked to someone who's been like that as far as I know. But most people, they're quite hesitant to do so. And even if they are sort of self-identified as autistic, they don't necessarily, like, there's some like crazes and stuff like on Instagram that I've talked to. And they are self-identified autistic. And there's quite a few of them. And I've talked to them. I said, you want to come talk about autism on my podcast? And they've said, I'm going to wait, you know, until I get a sort of like a formal diagnosis. And it's, I understand that because there can be a lot of people who sort of don't don't necessarily, they have thoughts on it, that's for sure. You know, and people think that is very much this kind of flippant, fashionable kind of label that people apply themselves to. And I definitely don't think that that's the case for the majority of people. Helpful to know this is a process of little changes, less daunting, 100%. Yeah. It's not like a sprint, you know, it's a little marathon where you take little breaks now and again. Lots and a lot of ways were we're autistic adults are like, I don't want to appropriate this term, you know, I want to make sure that I'm using it correctly. And so I just say that again, to say there's not these hordes of people out here just saying, like, I'm autistic, I'm autistic, I'm autistic. The people who are using these terms that I've worked with, and that I get to work with every day, we take this seriously, we research the heck out of it, we want to make sure that we're respecting the autistic community in every way, shape and form. And to wrap up the video today, I just want to share one comment that was left by but one life. And I really think that this just beautifully encapsulates the importance of late diagnosis. They said, I'm only just processing the realization that I'm autistic, I'm 57. I always knew I was very different, but I never put two and two together to see the answer is autism. I'm in the mind blown stage. I feel incredible relief and a whole bunch of other things I've yet to parse. My life suddenly makes sense. All these things that have caused such psychological distress no longer do. All the things that made me feel so less than can now be filtered into another box, one with which I can be gentle, that I can look at without recoiling or despairing. I'm understanding the whys, and it feels amazing. So again, if you're watching this video as a family member or friend of someone who is late diagnosed autistic, either self or professionally diagnosed, I feel it's important to respect both of those. That's a topic for another video. Thank you for watching to better understand this person's experience. I just encourage you to continue to interact with them with curiosity, not judgment, but a place of being curious about what their experiences are like and stay open to learning new things. There's so much that we're all still learning about how autism really presents in adults and especially women. And it's important that we keep this conversation going by respecting each other, by asking questions, by honoring each other's values and experiences, and offering validation whenever we can. It really changes so much. It'll help strengthen your relationships. It will help you support one another. And I'd love to hear in the comments how these conversations are going for y'all between friends and family members, what y'all are learning about each other and what else you would add to the conversation. So again, if this video was helpful to you, if you could please give it a thumb. Lovely little round up to that. I mean that quote just kind of says it all, isn't it? I like the phrase understanding you're wise. I think that's definitely something that I'm going to store in my little communication card memory bank. I mean, and as well, to be honest, with the last thing that the mom on the spectrum was talking about, I think if you've got lived experience with things, you see things in your own life a certain way, don't let anyone tell you that you're wrong about your own experience. I think talking generally about things, that is kind of the point at which like debate and opinion is important when we're talking in generalities, but no one can really disagree with your lived experience, I would say. And so feel empowered to share that. So that has been Taylor Heaton, mom on the spectrum, why autism, diagnosis matters, what I wish my friends and family knew or family of friends. Very, very good video, as always, adding to the online archives and testimonials of late diagnosed individuals. Again, if you want to go check out Taylor Stuff, I highly recommend you do give the video a like, go check out the channel, maybe give it a subscribe and drop a comment and say that Thomas sent you and he wants to do another podcast.