 Good day, my lovely listeners! You are listening to The Forty Autie Podcast. Tune in every week to explore inspiring stories and insightful information that dive headfirst into the world of autism and mental health. With all those tantalising tongue twisters out of the way, let's get into the show. Today's podcast episode is proudly sponsored by Timo, the award-winning app designed to support neurodivergent people just like yourself with routine and scheduling. Head to your app store and type T-W-I-M-O to learn more. Good afternoon, good morning or good evening. Welcome back to The Forty Autie Podcast with your host, Mr Tom and Stanley of course. How are you doing? I am doing very well, the clocks have gone back and while that might have left me with little time to sleep, I am feeling good today. Today we're going to be doing things a little bit differently than normal. For any of you who have listened to the past episodes, a year or so ago I interviewed a girl called Lottie from Lott's voicing autism about her experiences being misdiagnosed and being sent to a psychiatric hospital. Very intense story but very eye-opening. Both of these podcasts are usually tried to focus on specific topics but today we will be diving deep into the past of a very inspirational woman. Francesca is a business owner, YouTuber and she's recently started up her own clothing brand with her partner. She goes under the alias of French fries. I think that's right isn't it? That's how you say it. But don't let the name deceive you. Francesca has had a really tough past. She's struggled against drug addiction and homelessness since a very, very young age but through her recovery she has really come a long, long way and has a lot to share from her autistic perspective. If you are under the age of 18 or have any particular triggers around talk about drugs please do not listen to this podcast. This is not for you. To anyone else I feel like it's very eye-opening stuff and I'm sure you will greatly enjoy it. Francesca, how are you doing today? Hi Thomas, good, good thank you. Excited and nervous and excited for being in your show definitely. We had a very long pre-chats a couple of days ago I think where you told me your entire story in one sitting and usually I'd get a bit tired and I'd get losing concentration but I thought your story was incredibly interesting and yeah, how have you been coping during COVID? Well, just try to stay positive, try to, you know, I feel like a lot of us have been from the beginning thinking this is going to be over soon, this is going to be over soon. Definitely I feel like I've been mourning and trying to mourn for everyone that's been really, really having a horrible time because I'm sure most of us have been having a tough time. It's definitely affected my business, it's definitely affected. I guess the only other thing that I can complain about because for the most part I'm really resilient I always try to find a look at the positive side of things. Yeah, when it's important. Yeah, try to stay optimistic, try to be like, like, oh well, you know, I can do this, you know, be like, when everything starts goes down, I'm like, okay, I can take a break from things, you know, I can use, it helped me to use the time to start working, actually start working on my YouTube channels, what kind of like, give me that push to be like, okay, Francesca, you have no excuses now. And it helped me to do a lot of things and save money on not going out and just, you know, try to focus on doing all these side projects that I want to do, which was mainly YouTube. It's interesting that you say that because one of the reasons why I put out my documentary was because of COVID, you know, like, when you go into such a massive change in society, you kind of have to, I think for artistic people especially, you kind of have to latch on to something to give you a bit of stretcher. Yeah. And editing the documentary was something that took a lot of my attention and stressed me out. But it was, I guess it was sort of like a little side project that I could latch on to. Yeah. You know, I feel like I was on that boat too. It was actually really stressful when I started YouTube because, well, it's a whole another story, but it was a lot of misinformation that I got. And then I purchased this program. There was like, kind of helped me kind of like how to navigate through YouTube and do it the right way. But it was not really, it was, it gave me all the wrong like tips and stuff. And it just wasted a lot of time. Because I'm not really good with social media, to be honest. I don't really spend a lot of time. I just don't understand social media, honestly. It's just something that I enjoy it on a very small little like doses of it. But I cannot be hours and hours on social media because it overwhelms me a lot. So starting YouTube, I was telling me that I have to do a lot of social media. And I was like, wow, that's one thing I didn't want to do. It's awful. It's literally the thing that I despise the most about podcasting and YouTubeing. Yeah. Especially because I'm dyslexic. So for me, reading a lot, I always read things, if I try to read really fast, I read things wrong. I type wrong. Like it's too much of the side of things that I like to write, but I like to take my time on it and social media to do it fast and realize it's just overwhelming. Yeah, I completely agree with you. I don't think it's particularly friendly for autistic people. I know a lot from speaking to other people. It's, I mean, I did a podcast of Andy Andy about it very recently. I don't know if you've heard of him. He's sort of an autism YouTuber. Yeah, I speak with him sometimes. Lovely guy. Yeah, he's very nice. But yeah, we talked about social media and stuff. And I don't, there's something about it that is sort of constant, especially when you're producing podcasts and videos and any sort of creative media that it kind of, kind of stresses you out because you feel like you always have to look at it and you just have to post something and do something and talk to people. One thing that you mentioned to me earlier was that you have been snowboarding quite a bit. That is like, being in the UK, we don't have a particularly large amount of snow other than sort of indoor snowboarding arenas and stuff. But anytime that I've done it, I really enjoy it. I can't do skiing for some reason because my legs just always just spread apart. But snowboarding is something that I think is really cool. How did you get into that? Okay, so yeah, so snowboarding is my drug of choice. I have to say it's really a good thing. But yeah, pretty much, I thought it was cool. We were going to go with some friends years ago and it was a really bad weather. So they didn't recommend us to go to spend money if it was going to be like really slippery bad weather, like it was raining. And the other guys still went for it because they kind of had a little bit of more experience. So I was like, I just stayed in the car and didn't do it. And then after that, well, because I had problems with my boyfriend at the time, I guess kind of like it was, we got on a really big fight that day and just never thought about snowboarding again. Like it was kind of like I, what do you call it? I paralleled with like a bad experience kind of like, I just never had, it just, I was, I got involved with other things. I just didn't think like, oh, whatever, you know, snowboarding, I don't think I'm going to be able to be good at it or anything. I just didn't know what I was missing. So my now boyfriend, fiance, and he's done something important. He mentioned a couple of times that he wanted to go and do more outdoor activities. He wanted to do, you know, go to the, to the, every time we'll go vacation, we'll go to Mexico. So we're like, oh, I would like to go, you know, say mountains, snowboarding one day. Like, and where I live specifically is a very suburban like, so it's like a small little, those little American like movies, stories, like, neighborhood. So it's really clean. It's really nice. All the houses look alike, which I particularly don't like, but I guess it makes the city look really uniformly. Right. That's crazy. That's crazy because in the UK, I don't have either of those in the, unlike the entire country. I love the UK. The entire country. Yeah, I've always been like, it'd be so cool to live in the UK or live in Spain or whatever. But then I, then I think about like, oh my God, now that I got into snowboard, it's like, wow, like can I go for years without ever going snowboarding and stuff like that, you know, let alone months. But it, he mentioned a couple of times and then I was like, well, you know what? Like I thought that's probably going to be really expensive and stuff. But I'm thinking, I promise you, I'm going to save up and I'm going to make it happen to, to go to do a winter trip together. I promise you, you know, like I wanted to do it, but I just didn't know like, like how much fun I was going to have. If I didn't know like how much worth it it was going to be like, I would have like literally made it happen like sooner, I guess, figure out the way. And so I did, we saved up, we got this, we got to even really hook that. We got this beautiful cabin and we got it at a great price. And it was just really great and everything. And I got a couple, a couple friends to, to join us and everything. And, and one of my friends, she was a pro snowboarder. So she, instead of taking me on the baby ride to talk how I get learning right there, she took me on the medium ride. On the big one. Oh, not a big one. It was like, like the intermediate, like one, like one, once you get the kind of like standing up and everything. Just push, push you down the hill. Push you down the hill. You can do it. And I, I promise you, it's not that hard. It's not hard at all. You'll be like fine. But because the very top of it is the more inclined one. It was way too hard for me to stand up on the board when you're downhill. Yeah. So one of the baby ride. And I'm going on the baby ride. I dropped my glove and it was like a really expensive glove. So I'm like, oh my God, my glove, wait, please. Oh my God. Oh my God. I think somebody grabbed her or something. And as soon as I got off the ride, I didn't think of anything else. I didn't think of nothing, but I needed to go get the glove. So I got on the board and I just, I'm just sliding down. And I was just kind of like, I feel like it was all my fears. It was all in my head. My fear of falling. I wasn't thinking about falling. I was thinking about getting my glove. And I slide all the way down. And it was such an amazing experience. I was like, oh my God, it feels so good. And I'm like, I can do it. Like I actually don't suck as much as I thought. Like I can just need more practice. I just need to hang in there and stuff. And I just kind of like, it was such a joyful experience as being in the snow with trees of forest. Such a great vibe. I was like, man, this feels so good. Like I don't remember feeling like no party in Mexico made me feel like that great of a feel of just being in nature and having that beautiful view. It was such such a such a different, such a different experience. That's one of the things that made me sad when COVID started. That was my first thing. I was like, no, I can't go snowboarding. They shut down the mountains early and everything. It sucks, doesn't it? Oh, it's so sad because of that. I've had to stop like some of the things that really, because I struggle quite badly with mental health. And I find it difficult to enjoy things at the best of times. But one of the things that I really enjoyed doing was very simple, just going to the local coffee shop, sitting in the exact same chair that I always sit in and writing, listening to music. But obviously when COVID came across that, that sort of went off the table. And again, as well with the gym as well, that was sort of a big hit to my routine. I know. Serks, can you do any tricks? I feel like anything with practice, you can get good at things. I have this friend who's a really good football player. And I suspect because of when we had a conversation, I taught him everything about the spectrum and stuff. And he was like, hmm, he was like, do you think I might be autistic? And I was like, Patrick, I think you are actually. Sometimes there's certain things I'm thinking like, oh, no, this person is really good at sports, so there's no way he's autistic, right? Yeah. But I think about like- There's a little bit of a stereotype around that. Yeah, there's a stereotype. And you think of like, wait a second, Patrick, you're kind of really odd, to be honest. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if it wasn't the fact that he never had the problems that I had. So every time we think like people that are autistic were like me, we're like always getting in trouble for things. But there's autistics that really don't have social, like they don't get in trouble a lot. Like they go under the radar a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. What about you? Okay, sorry. What about your snowboarding? No, it's okay, it's fine. As I mentioned, like, I don't actually, I don't think we've mentioned yet, but didn't you say that you had some sort of ADD kind of, ADHD? Yeah, I'm ADHD. I feel a lot of the stereotypical autistic traits, like I have ADHD, I have dyslexia. Well, I say I have, like I said, the season stuff. I don't think I have it, that's just how our brain is wired. But my brain is like wired, like the very stereotypical Aspergers, right? Like the little professors type of thing. One of my friends is very, is sort of on the ADHD side of life. I think he's actually got a diagnosis recently. Your dad? No, one of my friends. Oh, one of your friends? One of my friends, Jack. And he talks, he talks a lot. He talks very fast and he darts between things a lot. But we kind of, I don't know, there's something about like, the autism ADHD dynamic that works. Well, I mean, specifically for me, I'm quite direct and blunt. So sometimes that can be good because my friends are sort of, he goes off into different directions and I'm like, Jack, come back down. I like what people are direct with. I like it. I don't know why people have a problem with people being blunt and stuff. There's those kind of things in society have always confused me because I don't really think, a lot of the people in the autistic thing, there's the neurotypicals who make the norm. But I don't think that's true. But that's a whole other topic that I could probably talk to you about later on. One thing that I wanted to ask you is, when were you diagnosed or when did you first identify with being autistic? Well, I would have never in a million years think that I was autistic because when I was young, especially a Google was starting to get popular, not able to use it, I wouldn't even, my parents wouldn't even let me use the, I used to think that internet was the hardest thing. It was kind of more complicated back then. You know, you think of autistics, you think of like peaks and stuff, right? Yeah, separating from the stereotypes. When did you first come across autism as a thing? It was actually my mom because to me, autism was somebody who was intellectually challenged. That's what I thought autism was. Somebody who didn't speak actually. Like learning disabled. Yeah, to me, it was somebody who didn't speak. I once saw a video about an autistic, somebody who was getting autism. It was like one of those true story reenacted show. And to me, I was like, wow, that was like such a rare, like a very rare case of, like you would never meet somebody. Like you will hardly ever meet somebody without autism. Like that's what I thought it was. And somehow nobody in my city, especially nobody would ever talk about that ever. Like it was not something that, not even like I was sent to so many psychologists, none of them even thought about the possibility of autism. Like ever. Really? Yes, ever, no teacher, nothing. It's really bad for girls getting diagnosed. It's really hard for them to, yeah, even for boys. I had a neighbor actually who, you see him like he is the, like very, very stereotypical autistic too. Not like Raymond type, but he's very, you can see he's very different. He'll make space and be like, hmm, he makes spaces and he's very stubborn. And he's like a big kid and stuff in many ways. But yeah, so if people knew about autism, you would think like, oh, that kid is like other autistic or something, you know? But even he got diagnosed so like very later on, because psychologists in third world countries like Mexico were very, even to this day, they're very behind on new studies, on all these things that you actually, I heard that even like places like France and stuff like that, they don't know as much as thing and it's very nice to it. France is terrible. It's crazy because I was talking to Dr. Mordi very recently in the last episode. He's telling me about how France is just so behind on like scientific research because they just don't learn English or they don't learn it to a high degree. And English is like the main sort of scientific language. Oh, wow. Like I even have like an aunt who's a teacher and they now they're doing like courses on teaching them like the science, catch the science for autism and stuff like that. But even she like doesn't fully get what autism is because she actually was, I call her my aunt, but she was actually married. She's like my grandfather's wife. Yeah. So my grandfather, I know for a fact, like that's where I get him. Well, that's why I thought, I'm pretty sure that's where I get my autism. Because you can sell a car you with my dad. My dad is also on the spectrum, but for sure my grandpa, like my grandpa for sure, he's autistic. And it's so funny. Like she doesn't like when you like she got a course of explaining what autism is, but she doesn't think like, oh, yeah, that's my my late husband. Like that's how it is. Because I was told like, yeah, so my my YouTube channel, you know, it's about this, it's about that, you know, because that I don't like my experience with autism. She was like, you're not that. You don't have it. Don't don't say that. Don't think that of yourself. You know, she kind of says it like that. I'm like, um, I actually, I actually do, but do have it. I'm not joking, you know? How have you know? I'm not confused. I don't, I didn't create a whole YouTube channel just because I was like, maybe wondering if I was, you know? When did you, when did you like, was it something that your psychologist picked up or is it something that you researched yourself? So what I was going to say is that nobody ever, we talks about her or nothing, but somehow, uh, and this I found out very recently because at the time I just thought my mom just came across some video like randomly or somebody kind of like give her the hand to be like, hey, check out this video. And she was like, oh, that is Francesca. But no, it turns out that my mom was already suspecting for a while. I guess because all of like, I always, she always wondered like, what was so like, what was with me? Why was I so different? And like, she always, always wondered like, why was I so like, for example, like to stop was literal. Like there's a word in Mexico called Ibiatico. I forgot, I don't think it's a translation in English, it's kind of like meaning it's similar to, you know, idosyncratic or fussy. Like kind of like, it's kind of a word like that, which somebody has like very strong ideas about something. So like, I was very fussy about food, very fussy about sounds. Although my dad, I kind of built a high tolerance because my dad would always blast music in the car, so it was baby. But there were still certain songs that I just could not stand. There was just certain music, certain sounds and certain volumes that I would just want to puke. Like I remember, for example, like Mexican banda, like I cannot stand the type of music for my life. I think it's the worst music ever invented, but that's just me. Time music is not good for the old time. Yeah, it's pretty like what the trumpets and the chai, like what they call the ones, the things that clash and stuff. Things that are like screechy and really like the loud noises. Yeah, so if I'm in a club, like if I'm in a party and they put that music, like I'm out like goodbye, like no, I cannot stand it. One time I wanted, because I was, when you're drinking, you're kind of a little more tolerant to things. But with alcohol, I'll be more tolerant. And I will be at a party and my friends want to go to this one club where they play that. And I was like, fine, you know, I didn't want to be like the party pooper. So I was there and the entire time I was like with my ears, with my hands on my ears, so I could not stand it. And I just started feeling bad, worse and worse and worse. And so I finally walked out of the bar. I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't be here. So when was the turning point? Like, was it your mom that? It was my mom who just kind of like wanted to figure out what was, what was I always had? Like, it was just so many things. It was just always kind of like, I was like to hurt a problem child. Like I was, because I was always be called by, like she always, every year I'd be called by teachers, principles. I was always in the principal's office for one reason or another. So she was always trying to be like, like, there's no way that everyone else is wrong and she's right. Like there has to be something wrong with my daughter because like, why is that everyone is always saying those things? You know, that's how she. Did she go to a psychologist? So is it something that you did? No, actually. So when this happened, I was already, it was after me, already kind of like messing around with drugs. Which we're going to talk about in a bit. She just kind of like wanted to look up. Like somehow she just kind of thought, like maybe it's autism, maybe it is. Like she just kind of had that little idea in her head. That's what she thought. I don't know where did she get some small speck of information about autism. But that was something that she was. When I first moved to this country, she thought, oh, I know what you have. It's ADHD. That's the first thing she found out about ADHD. She just moved to this country. So I was like, oh yeah, attention deficit disorder, she said. And I'm like, yep, that sounds about right. That sounds like what I have. So the ADHD sort of came before the autism. Yeah, definitely way before. As soon as I moved to this country in 2004, she told me like, oh, it's ADHD. Somehow she just still wanted to look more because of my struggling with depression, everything. She kind of wanted to seek help. I wanted to ask her like really, really good. Like how did it happen? But she gives me very, very big answers. What do you have in autism? And then she told me this. I'm like, what the hell? Like, uh, no. Like what are you talking about? Like what would she even say that to me? You know, like what she thinks I mentally challenged. Like that's what I thought. And like, oh, okay. So now not only I have depression, ADHD, but now I guess I'm like doomed for life. I thought, right? Like that's how my mom sees me apparently. And she sold me this video. And then this video was, I guess like, aspirin syndrome was becoming popular. And the way that it was explained to, I guess most of these kids being diagnosed was that you were half autistic, half normal. And the way he said, he started talking about the sensory and about how his behavior issues with people. Like how people tend to misinterpret his bluntness. Social interaction. Social and one thing that, yeah, that he was rude, but he was, he never really meant to hurt people's feelings and stuff like that. So everything that he said, like he was describing me to a T. And I'm like, oh my God. It's crazy. It's crazy. What? How can somebody else feel the same way that I'm feeling? Like I could not, because for the longest time I felt like an alien. Like I feel like nobody feels like me. Like nobody understands how, how much, why I'm so fussy and I hate being fussy about things, but I just can't help being fussy because I rather not eat if I'm going to eat something that I don't like. I rather, you know, like literally pop my own ears and hear this obnoxious music, you know? Like it's just really, it was so hard for people to understand like how I would feel in this kid was explaining it. Okay. So from our pre-chats, I thought that instead of, I mean, I've already talked about this, but instead of exploring a specific topic, we would focus on you. We're going to be talking about your personal story. And from what I know, from what you've told, told me, it all started from your initial move from Mexico to the US. Your lack of support by the local authorities and eventually your battle with drug addiction. So let's start from the beginning. Okay. What was your experience of moving to the US like? And what challenges did you and your family face? Okay. So for the sake of not making this really, really long, I'm going to skip all the small little details because I do want to just state that there's a lot of little factors. And I'm all about the small details, like how did this happen? Like I'm all into details. I love to source with details. And I love hearing details in the story because that there's, I feel like there's missing pieces where like, it's like, how do you build a car? Well, first, I think I want a car like this and then the car is made, you know? And like, there's a bunch of, you know? So I like the US, but I must skip those details. So pretty much I started experimenting with drugs since before moving here. And that's because I was already experiencing depression. I struggled a lot with bullying growing up, especially when kids start getting more intense with the bullying is like junior high. Everybody was becoming more socially, like aware and everything. And I was a super late bloomer. I was still playing with Barbies and stuff like that. I was still very like in my, like I was spaced out and I would like draw, I was still like a little kid at 12, 13, 14 years old in so many ways. And kids noticed that. Kids noticed that. So kids like seeing reactions, right? You know, people in general. So to see that, see that vulnerability in you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was a really odd person to them in many ways. But now all of them are like my friends social media. They admire, they like, I don't want to say they admire me, but they look up to me in many ways. Like they like me. They didn't ever meant to like, hurt me, hurt me. They just, I guess they wanted me to interact with them. And that was kind of their way to try to call my attention. So teasing. Which at the, which at the time I didn't understand it that way. I don't notice that all my friends were trying to get boyfriends. And I was always kind of like a romantic type. And I was like, listen to romantic music and everything. And there's always like a boy that I like from school. But I'll be too shy to talk to him. And yeah. There's so much in, sorry, there's so much in your story already that I empathize with a lot. Yeah. Honestly, like it's, it's, it's very, it's very spooky sometimes when someone's experiences sort of align with yours. So similar. Yeah. And the fact that I started noticing or feeling that I was like the girl that no boy wanted to date, you know, like all of my friends were these cute preppy cute girls that just know how to behave around boys. And I did it and like, I will do the opposite. I'll be like, I'll try to do something to call their attention. It will be like super tomboyish or something, you know, like it would just be super weird. You know what, what really put me in depression, honestly, was my relationship with my dad. Like that, I feel like my relationship with kids, like I, I wouldn't take it as serious, I guess. But what really bothered me was that my dad, I was first child and my dad was just really, really hard on me. My dad, I feel like he's also on the spectrum. And after several conversations we've been having and, but I always thought, I used to think that he was bipolar. So he would have a lot of mood swings. He, he drinks, he's never done, he's never done drugs, but he's a drinker. So like, I guess when he'll be coming down on, like be on a hangover, hangover or something or just kind of not drinking, like he will get and really bad moods will be extremely negative. So he would like, my dad is the kind of person that dwells on a negative thought. He dwells on negative thought and he just keeps on like, you know, so he feels so negative with himself and he takes it out on other people. And many times I was at other people. That's something that, that my, I think up until actually quite recently, it's something that my dad struggled with, it's a sort of things, certain things just really got to him. And he was, to be honest, he was, it was a really good dad and he's a really good dad. But sometimes you can just be a bit emotionally cold and sometimes a bit dismissive of my feelings and what I'm experiencing and such. My dad's the same. We're both back too. It's like, I know that he has good intentions and that he loves me and I guess it's, it's difficult to, to grow up in a time where autism awareness was so remarkably different. Yeah. Like my dad lacks a lot of empathy, but when he cares, he cares, he really cares. So it was really weird because there was a lot of things that he would do to me that'd be like, oh my God, he is the coolest person I ever met. But then he will help other people. He will help a lot of people. So he just wasn't aware of the pain that he was inflicting on me. Yeah. If you know what I mean. So it was kind of, a lot of things were like, I don't understand how can my dad be nice to other people, be so cruel to me. You know, how does that work? Like, what kind of mind does he have? And, and, and everything that he will say to me, just like, if the kids will bother me in school, it didn't matter. But the fact that my dad will say really, really cool things to me. I'm not going to say that here because five times and I want to kill my dad if we say that. It was, it was just so down-putting. It was really down-putting. I felt like I was just the most, you know, disappointing person in the entire world, that if my dad didn't love me, like, who else was going to love me? You know, like, I was just, he always made me feel dumb. He always made me feel worthless. He always made me feel lazy, good for nothing. And honestly, like, I know there's some kids that are lazy. And in many ways, like, I was like, I put us in like chilling and just like doing nothing. But I wasn't really a lazy kid. Like, I would try really hard. Like, when I would chill, I would chill. But he would, like, maybe feel guilty for the moments that I just was at home doing nothing or whatever. Yes. Yes, I understand that. Yeah. So a lot of things. And that just, at 15, I was, to me, was really important to be a good kid and never do drugs, never drink, never go to, I go visit my dad and never go to like parties past 12 p.m. or something and just kind of be a really good kid. To me, that's something was like so important. And when he just kind of like destroyed that, you know, that I look up to like being this person for him, I just gave up like on, you know what, why even be a good kid? So I just went, it was like a sudden switch. One day I was in the car. He was yelling at me. He was calling me all kinds of names. And in that moment, I was just like, that's it. That's it. I'm done. The Francesca that I met to this day, it's done. It's over. And out of like art of magic, like I called something in the universe for like the very next day, I went to school and I was like late as usual. So I was there again and from all times that I've been late and they would just kind of make you wait outside and they'll kind of like mark or something. Everyone that was late that day, like they didn't, they got suspended. They didn't let, went. So usually I will go back home and watch cartoons and eat something, right? But that day, my friend, I was, it was me, one of my best friend, well actually my best friend at the time, who just, she was hardly ever late. Like we'll never be outside together. And that day she happened to be late. She was one of the popular bad girls in school. And we're not bad girl, but she was kind of the popular, like kind of like a bad ass kind of chick. Edgy. And hi Edgy, yeah. So we were outside and then my friend, she was all like, oh well, you know, I'm going with my homies then, by you know, or something like that. Like if you guys want to come with me and I'm like, I'm down, I'll go with you. She didn't believe me because I was such a goodie-goody. She was all like, Francesca, but if you're, we're going to smoke pot. Like if you come, you have to smoke. You can't just like not. Like she just told me that. And I was like, I'm down, I'll smoke. I don't care. And then she was all like, are you serious? I don't believe you. Yeah. That's like a complete 360. I guess, I guess it's sort of like in a world where it's like a self-fulfilling property. If you're down thinking that you're lazy and you don't do anything and you're not good. Yeah, I was like, okay, I'm going to prove you. I'm going to give you what you want. I'm going to give you that, you know, good for nothing daughter that you always think you have, you know, and that's how I just all started. And yeah, that was the first day I smoked weed and like literally on the way to the house, she pulled out a cigarette and she was all like, she was like, here you want some? And I was like, sure, you know, and I got this cigarette and I was like, I didn't even know how to smoke. And I'm like, yeah, totally me. I'm a smoker now. And she was like, damn, Francesca, what happened to you? And that's how it all started. And from there, like you said that drug to me, I would try it. Like I didn't care. And I just wanted to be like, I wanted to escape my reality, I guess. I just was feeling, I was so confused. I was being so many. I definitely didn't want to be me anymore. Like then I started kind of like dating. I wanted to get into dating and I finally dated this guy that I didn't like. He liked me and I kind of liked them, but I just wanted to have a boyfriend, I guess. And I dated him and I kind of started developing strong feelings for him. And then when I noticed that he didn't have the same feelings for me, that's where, that was the first time that I just, that was like the drop in my cup of like bad experiences where like after that, I went downhill to like literally crying myself to sleep every night. Yeah. I would cry myself to sleep. It was the first time that I was like, like, why am I crying to sleep? This is so weird, you know, that I'm crying every day. I'm sad every day. I have no motivation. Like I was just really, really sad all the time. Like everything that I will do, like if one day I wanted to get ready and change, like I would change myself and try to look good, thinking that maybe I would see him one day. Maybe he would see me and think that I was here. I was so narrowed down in a small little bubble of like, I wanted to have one, one single person that actually like care for me, you know. So it's time for a quick mention from our sponsors, Timo. If you love visual support in your scheduling, Timo is for you. The app was designed for people with ADHD and autism and helps empower users to schedule visual routines that work. Users say that Timo can help reduce stress and support executive function, which are both two things that I struggle with myself. Learn more at www.timoapp.com or just type in T-W-I-M-O into your search bar. Thank you so much to my Patreon supporters. Your support means the world. Anyway, let's get back into the show. Could you talk a little bit about your moving to the U.S.? Yeah, okay, so about moving to the U.S. So I was already starting to deal with depression and I was all about, you know, all about kind of like trying to figure out myself, figure myself and my friends and everything just kind of like having friends and just being a teenage, trying to figure out my way into being a teenager or what was to be a teenager, right? The last year of high school was actually really good. I moved high schools and this other high school, I made really good friends and it was really good time. We had a lot of really good adventures. And then all of a sudden my parents' business goes, they had to go bankrupt or whatever, close the business and decided to, they were going to either start something else there but then they got the opportunity, like they got one of our friends to be like, hey, why don't you guys just come over, ask someone like, you can stay here or you find a job, maybe like try to experience living here for a little bit. How did you feel about that? I was actually really excited because at that time, I was kind of like tired of living in that city. I felt like my life was going nowhere. I was about to finish high school and I'm like, where am I going to go? What university am I going to go? What am I going to study? Because I always wanted to do movies, films, that's what I wanted to do. So staying there was kind of like, okay, what can I study that would help me do films here? It was a very small city. Like what was the first couple of weeks like in the US? What was the place like? Was it what you thought it would be? No, so at first I was very excited, but once as we started actually going through the move, my mom moved and everything, those two months that my mom was already had moved over there, was she was trying to get us a place and get us a steady job. It was hell for me. Like me and my dad were like, my dad was at this worst depression, so we didn't get along and he put me through so much stress that I ended up actually running away from my house. I was on the streets for a whole week. And finally he, my mom figured out that I was staying with one of my friends and he found me. And then there was this whole like family meeting, da-da-da. He promised he was going to change and blah-blah-blah. And then after that another incident happened where on the day that we're supposed to leave, he let me sleep over on my friend's house one last time. But we were actually going to go to a party because my friends were trying to do me like a goodbye party. But it was kind of far away and we were moving in bus. So somehow it happened that we ended up there and the guys, because there was no cell phones or nothing. So the people got tired of waiting and they left and we were stranded there and we were trying to get our ride from this other person and they ended up taking forever to get this ride. So bottom line is that I never made it back home, got in trouble, my dad was so mad, and then he ended up leaving without me. And I say, you know, I was rumbling in this, somehow like I just got scared and I was rumbling in the streets. I didn't, like I feel so guilty. I didn't go back, like not even to my grandma's house or anything. My grandmas were so not nice. I never felt that I could just be like, grandma, I'm in a situation, can you help me? And it would just be like, of course, sweetie, come here. Like I'm here to support you. Except you have open arms. I never, yeah, I never felt that like I would literally feel more safe asking like a stranger for help than actually asking my grandma. Because it's simple feeling of somebody, like you go to somebody and this person is like, oh, what did you do now? Like how's that kind of reaction towards you? It makes you be like, never fucking mind. I'm sorry I even called you. Like, you know, it's just kind of like what's one of those things where like, I don't know, I don't even really think about it. I just felt like there's, I can't ask my grandmas for help at all. And it sounds like you just really didn't have someone to go to that understood or would help. I actually ended up staying at a drug dealer's house. Like this was like one of the heavy drug dealers in the city because my friend was connected. My friend was really connected with those people. And we stayed there and yeah, like it's funny that I will feel safe for a drug dealer's home that I didn't actually ask him my own family for help, which is really sad, right? But somehow I ended up like rumbling, rumbling, rumbling. My friend was with me for a little bit, but then she gets like, she didn't tell me she calls her mom and her mom picks her up. And she ends up like literally like bouncing on me. And so I'm always left all alone. At this drug dealers place. At this drug dealers place and then some other ladies house too who she was like, to what also how shelter people sometimes like. It was just one guy, it was just, it was one guy who was there who was claiming that he got in a fight and he actually killed a person. And I was just like, you're listening to him tripping out on that. As a good thing. Huh? As a good thing. No, no, no. Like he was flaunting about it. I think he was, no, he was actually really feeling really guilty about it. But he was trying to talk it out. Like he was trying to convince himself that, that what he did was like, what he had to do, you know? Cause otherwise this guy was going to beat him up or something. But there was just not a fight and there was no need to take out a knife. And he took out a knife or something. He stabbed them. And then he kind of like really like felt like, and then cause he'll be like, yeah. Like I said, I fucking killed the folks. Fuck with me. And then I, you know, and he was like, but I killed a person that he had kids. And then he started tripping out. And I was just like listening to him. And I just, I just couldn't really believe, you know, that this was really happening. And then finally ended up back in my cousin's house. My cousin who was my best friend. And we have been, well, I call it a, just distant for a while. And I ended up there, I forgot what I went there to ask her for something. And then when I was there, I was just kind of had nothing else to do. And I was there, like I was telling her what was happening with me and everything. And then my aunt, her mom comes over. She was like, Francesca, where have you been? And I was like, whoa, darada. And she was like, everybody like is looking for you. I need to take it to your, like to, they've been, they've been asking for you, darada. So I need to use your grandma's. You need to go back home. Did they call the police or anything? Or does, is the police not, doesn't really do anything in that area? I don't even know if they call the police to be honest. But, yeah, there were, I guess they just kind of like rumble the streets and not knowing that my parents actually want to be back in their lives or something. What was the actual like place that you were staying at? Lady, can you describe like what it was, how it was sort of built or, you know, sort of the communities around? Um, well, when I was the homeless, the first, this is right now. Where, when you came to the U.S., the place that you stayed at. When I moved to the U.S.? Yeah, because I think, like, when we had a preacher, you were saying about how there was like this big circle of people, big, big circle of like houses and stuff. You were saying? Big circle of houses. No, I think you're, I think you're confused when I talked to you about how you lived in this community. Oh, that guy. Oh, so that wasn't you. Yeah. Well, I did describe you. How there's this thing in Mexico where they're called like Bessinda. They're like these little communities in the buildings are all like around it. And there's like a middle patio and this kid lived in there. That's kind of like those little like pro, kind of like a project apartment, like a like very cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, more economic apartments that they have in Mexico is very common. They call it communities. They call it Bessinda communities where all the neighbors are pretty much kind of like really close to each other. Okay. Sorry. I miss had then. Okay. So when I moved to the U.S., the apartments were on the outside. They were really nice. They look really well compared to Mexico, any of our apartment, like they look actually really decent. They have flowers and they're all painted and they were cute. They kind of look like kind of like old school American apartments. And they actually, I actually, they were actually really well taken and cared of because I seen other apartments in LA, for example, and they are horrible and they charge so much money for them and they look broken. They look old. They look terrible. And these look really nice. You found a nice place then. Not really. And it just was like painted and have beautiful flowers but the community was terrible. Like the people that live in those places were just really, I don't know. I feel like all the horrible people in the world just kind of like lived in those apartments. Like it was a lot of drug dealing, gangsters. And at first to me, it was like, oh, cool. You know, gangsters. I thought it was so cool because in that time, early 2000s, right? Hip hop and rap and Eminem and Dr. Dre was really popping. Kind of popularized the look. Yeah, the style was to look like a gangster. And I felt like if somebody was a real gangster, that was so cool. So, and everybody was dressing up all baggy with their jerseys and streetwear clothes and everything. Big khaki pants or jeans. Big khaki pants, the corn tenses. All that stuff. And it just looks so cool. Like they actually dressed up pretty nice. But yeah, it was just a whole world of people who had nothing. I want to say nothing better also do but they could've done better things. They just choose not to. Sometimes you get involved in a little circle and you just follow what's around what you know and you don't want to learn more. You don't want to learn more than that. I guess the next thing that I'd want to talk about, if that's okay, if I switch topics again. So, when and how did you get involved with drug use? And what sort of negative impacts did it have on you and your family and the people around you? So, the one that I struggled with a lot, the one that became kind of like my drug of choice, I guess, was crystal meth. And that drug, I first tasted it in Mexico through a friend. That's because I had already been messing around here and there like every once in a blue moon with like weed and coke. So, when I heard of crystal meth, I heard that, oh, it makes you lose weight, right? Yeah, it makes you lose weight. It makes you concentrate and do housework. Yeah, it makes you feel so good. Uh-huh, it makes you feel so good and stuff. It makes you feel like on a good trip, type of thing and want to go on missions and stuff. And so, somebody told me about it, that they were doing it and they described it like that. And I'm like, well, what are the side effects? What are the, you know, like what is just going to happen with that? And they're like, no, nothing. You feel good? Like what after you feel good and that and that? Like there's no, there's no nothing wrong with it. You know, but like with weed, you would get really thirsty or you know what I mean? Like kind of like, I want to know what, what to expect. And yeah, since I was already in that boat of like, yeah, I don't care. Like I'll do any drug, whatever, you know, if I die tomorrow cares. Can you remember when was the first time that you took crystal meth? Yeah. Well, the first time I did it was literally there was like in that school that I was going, because I went from private school. I just left the private school because I was having a really hard time with bowling. And the only other in the middle of the semester. So the only other school that was equivalent to the same type of teaching with that private school was this public school all the way at the end. Like kind of like this side of town where I guess there was more drug dealing. Like where the drug dealers had their little houses. So there was a drug dealer's home really close to school. And one of my friends from school, yeah, one of my friends from school took me there. They were actually really young. Well, to me, they look older, but they were actually like in their 20s and stuff. And like early 20s and they were really hot. Yeah. I guess like there's a lot of sort of stereotypes around smet use like tea falling out and shrunken face and. Uh-huh. You think those are the ones that you're going to know, but that made it look like, oh, these guys look cute and they look cool. And you know, you feel like you can trust them, right? And we just hung out there. So I remember the first time I tasted it, I tried it. I was to smoke it through a foil. And the first hit was literally I felt every single cell in my brain just popping. And it was like a huge sensation of like, uh, like, uh, yeah, it was definitely euphoria, but it was like, I want to think about it and sense of sensation was more like electricity just going down my spine, down my whole body, like all the way to my limbs, like everything just felt like, like it was not the first hit, right? It just felt like that. And I just felt euphoria and I just felt such a great mood. And I just felt like my thoughts were like flowing like 20 for seven. And I just started talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking. Even more than you do now. Yes. If you think I talk a lot right now, you should see when I'm high. So I started talking and talking and talking. I just felt so good and it just felt really, it was something that felt really, really good at the beginning. Not only that, but, um, being on it, like my friends noticed a change. Like I'll be like one of my other friends who didn't do drugs from school. Like I hopped in the bus and I was like, Hey, what's up? What's up? You know, like I was all being Mr. Cool guy and they were like, Damn, Jessica, you look different. You look like, like they will say in Spanish, I'll leave you another. I'll leave you another, which means side you look like cooler now. You look like you kind of like, because I guess they will say a lot that I was always like in a cloud that will call me like, you're all like, you're like flies in your mouth. Like all the time, like off in your own world, bad when I was on. I'm better, I'm better, man. Like, yeah, that was like me grasping all my thoughts and thinking like really rapidly and just being all like, like sharp, right? Which that's why a lot of people get, that's what they think that amphetamines, that at all really, you know, helps your ADHD, helps your autism and stuff like that. But I don't really think it helps it. It just makes you feel something else that you're not used to feeling and it makes you think faster, it makes you concentrate faster. Well, it's a lot about, I mean, for anybody out there who doesn't really understand the action of crystal math, it's very much a dopaminergic drug. So dopamine is a lot to do with motivation. I think I saw a comparison or something. It was between what someone would expect, the amount of dopamine units that someone would expect for a release, let me say, is like a free, but smoking crystal math is like a 28. So it's something that your brain would never be able to produce to do on its own and sometimes with the dopamine gives you a lot of concentration and it gives you that euphoria. I think it also affects your adrenals as well. There's this guy that I watch called CG Kid. Because of my background in biomedical sciences, I'm quite interested in the action of recreational drugs, just as an interest. It's a very strange interest. They won't get really into it. But it's just a very insightful way into someone's experiences. This guy, CG Kid, he makes a lot of videos about rehabilitation and his particular drug of choice was crystal math. And he said that while he was on it, he wouldn't sleep for days and he'd get paranoid. But then he liked the paranoia and it was like something exciting. He'd do a lot of things that he wouldn't do when he was sober, a lot of bad things to get money. I got really into watching Intervention, which is somebody who's interested in learning more about drug addiction stuff. It's a really good show to watch and amazing how a lot of these people get so much support from their families and they still don't take advantage of it. When it comes down to it, it's just kind of the core person that you are on the inside. Because no matter what you can, this might be a strong point where you're like, you probably push these into things that you didn't think you would do. But then you won't do it again if it goes against what you value. But sometimes when you're in a state of depression and stuff, you start everything that you believe in and you think of yourself as destroying. So you think of yourself as nothing and then you start just doing whatever else wants you to do just so you can feel. The thing about drugs is that it made me feel something. I had no sense of direction at that time, no motivation. And I just didn't really understand anything about me, the world, why I have so much bad luck, what things always happen to me type of thing. And I felt that that was a really good feeling to be honored, to be cool. But then even though at the beginning, I didn't feel the strong effects of the side effects, the burnout, I wouldn't feel that at first. But I still felt that that was just not a good look for me, a good life to be like, oh, I'm on drugs. Because I just felt like there was a bad stigma to it. And something told me it was just against my morals to be like, okay, Francesca, enough, you don't want to do it again. Because it's sort of a bit sort of self-destructive to your confidence. Yeah. And you have your morals and... Yeah, I don't want to be like a person that did drugs. I wanted more than that. But then circus has just took me to do it again and do it again and do it again. When I was in Mexico, I was like done. I don't want to do it anymore. But then I moved to the US and I felt that I guess I have this unconscious need to want to fit in and hang out with these girls that were in the neighborhood and stuff. And when I saw them one time that they were smoking weed, I was like, oh, like, oh, I'll smoke with you guys. So I got high with them. This is the first time I tried chronic. And then the other time they were like, trying to do crystal meth. And I kind of had a few tricks already. So I was like, they were trying to do it with a foil. I was like, oh, do it like that. And then so yeah. So I just kind of be like, oh, like, oh, be like a good experiment to just get high with them. I thought I'd like to kind of get to know them or to hang out, you know, like those kind of something that we had in common. So I have like a method to connect with people, I guess. To connect with people, exactly. And then from there, it just started kind of like happening that that was the only way to connect with people. And there was this other guy who he became my best friend at the time. He was this like, like older African American guy, but he was really cool. I got that he was really cool. He's, you know, how to rap and stuff. So he was a good talker and everything. So I thought that just, I don't know, like, I was really attracted to his personality to like hang out with him. So when he will hang out and over and to kind of get me to hang out more with him, he'll be like, oh, I got, you know, I got a pookie and I got this. I got some, you know, I got some, we'll call it tweak. Tweak being crystal math. Yeah, that's what it is. Okay. And I'll be like, okay. So just kind of like, I guess having that feeling of being invited to do things was kind of like something that gave motivation. Now, one of the things that I was so, I got so unmotivated when I first moved here was, and it kind of gave me to just kind of like being a fuck and let's do, I guess, hang out with people and do drugs and stuff. But because when I tried to join high school, they didn't allow me. They didn't allow me to get in high school because I was about to turn 18 in three months. And that was their stupid rule. That was their excuse. It was such a ridiculous rule, such a ridiculous excuse. They gave me no, that was like, what am I supposed to do? Well, no, no, well, you can do homeschooling and then they never explained what homeschooling was. Or you can go to adult high school. And I'm like, what's that? Those guys school has a classroom with people where I can learn things. And they were like, yeah, I'm like, okay, that was a lie. That was completely not at all a classroom. It was just a place where you would sit down and do work for three hours, but nobody gave you any class. But anyway, that's like, you weren't receiving the support for your education as well. Yeah, I was having a really hard time trying to go to a regular school and get like the education that I was seeking for from the US, which was the number one thing I came here for, for an education. And the other thing was that when I, as soon as I got here, I tried to look for a job and everything tried to do everything right. And everything just went wrong for me. I tried to get as there was a new place, all new quizzes opening down the street from, from where I was living. I was like, oh, this is perfect. Uh, what should I call it? I applied and went to the interview and got the job and everything. And literally after the first day, like he was training me, he was training me and teaching me stuff. And I'm like, okay, I was like super nervous. I was my first job in the US ever. Like I had a job before, like I worked for my grandma in a restaurant, and I worked for my dad in his office, but it wasn't the same thing. I never worked for someone else. I got a job job. It was my first job in the US. And my English was still like not perfect. Like it was like, kind of like, it was basic pretty much, but I didn't know like a lot of words because I hadn't practiced it in many, many years. Yeah. So he was training me and then like literally like not even halfway through the shift or something, he calls me to the back and then he tells me like, Hey, you know what? I don't think this is going to work out. I don't think I'm going to be able to hire you. He didn't even give you a chance. He didn't give me no chance. Literally, this was an excuse. It was, I was walking around with hot things. And if you're not, I feel like you're too distracted. I feel like I saw you. I was talking to you and you were like, you know, looking everywhere, looking at the board. Yes. I contact. Yes. Also, he was like, you were looking at the board and just like not paying attention. And I feel like you're going to like be dropping stuff because you don't pay attention like that. That sucks. It's so horrible to hear stuff like that because it just further sort of emphasizes the problem that we have in wet places. Like he wanted to give me zero chances. Yeah, what a jerk. No chance whatsoever. I just moved to this country and you made me go through this. Right before this happened, right before I got the job and everything, that's when I had already gotten jumped by these girls. I got a job by six girls. I was hanging out with these two girls that I was trying to be friends with and stuff. And then like four girls come over who are friends with these girls. And then they start talking to them and they're saying blah, blah, blah. And they're like, what's up and blah, blah, blah. I don't know what they were talking about because I would just be in my own planet most of the time because I just didn't really know what was going on, neighborhood or anything. And then somehow, like all of a sudden, one of the girls comes to me and I'm just like in my own planet. And then one of the girls comes to me and I'm also observing them. Like in my own planet, but at the same time observing and pretending like I'm there with them, but I'm just thinking about something else. And then one of the girls comes to me and she literally tells me that she wants to get down. I didn't even know what the hell that word meant. I was like, what do you mean get down? She was like, let's get down. Let's fight. And I'm like, what? No. I'm like, I don't want to fight you. Like why? Why? What did I do? What was going on here? Like I got so, like my heart just started racing. Like, oh my God, my dad's going to kill me if I get in a fight here. He told me to not get in trouble. That's terrible. That's the first thing that you think about. Yes. That was the first thing that came to my mind. She's going to punch me. What's the big deal on that? Like what I was scared of my dad was going to kill me and probably return me back to Mexico, whatever, which I think at this point, now that I look and hint side to side, that should have been the best thing he could have done. Like return me back to Mexico because my first two years at US were the most horrible thing I could have experienced. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. And out of like anger when I was already like really upset and confused I'm mad. And I turned around and I was like, fat ass, like color fat ass. And then they started all running after me. They started all chasing me and then they finally found me. I was hiding in somebody's apartment and then one of the guys, one of the guys literally told me like, here for just what was going on. Let's talk. Come talk to me. And he guides me all the way to a parking lot and throws me outside and closes the door on me so I can get jumped by those six girls. Oh God. And all the girls started beating me. They all started kicking me, punching me. It was a lot of kicking for sure. One of the girls like literally threw a can of soda at my face, but she missed me by like a pear. That's a lot, that's a lot for one person to deal with. And that all happened I think within a month. You've got a lot of different sort of iron news of difficulty, you know, with your parents and I suppose with the drug use and with other people and getting bullied and work. It's a lot for someone to try and try and try and deal with. I mean, where did the drug use sort of come into all of this? Do you think that it caused any difficulty? Do you think it put a spanner in the works into you progressing and moving out of that place? Did I think that they put a what? A what? Did you think that the addiction and sort of cycles of withdrawal from crystal meth kept you in that situation and didn't let you progress? I guess it was like a combination of everything. To be honest, the drug use was just my link to hanging out. Like I was under the idea, I guess, that I needed to have friends and the only option for friends were those people in that hood. Like despite all the bad shit that happened to me, I don't know why there was still some people, some of the guys were really nice to me. And I guess when you're at a very low point in your life and there's just one person that is nice to you, you just attach to the idea of being friends of that person is so important to you. And I also have this huge crush on this one kid. There's one kid who moved away and then I started having another huge crush on this other kid. But all these kids like were they all within within the the circle of the circle of a group of friends. Well, they were actually young and these kids weren't even do drugs. When you do drugs, I don't know why I started doing more drugs or just hanging out with drugs because they were just kind of like available. And it was just kind of something to do, like kind of cutting it like, oh, like drinking, you know, like at first I was, I was able to go home and just pretend like to go to sleep or whatever. It was just something to do. I was so bored out of my mind to be honest. And drug use was the only thing that I had to do because I had nothing else to do. I had not a lot of money, you know, to go shopping towards them all or a friend to go some all with me. I didn't have a normal life. I wasn't going to school and have friends from school that I could hang out after afterwards. Like I was like a normal person. Drug use was your avenue to get to get the connection with people and to get, I guess, yeah, like that was kind of the motivation and the motivation, the excitement. When you're young, I think you kind of like see life like you kind of live like day by day. And I guess whatever occurs to you on that day is what you do. You know, there's not a lot of planning involved. I was not really, I never really been a good planner. I've been getting better at it now as a much as older as an adult. I mean, I had no direction and my parents were too busy trying to make ends meet to really even pay attention to me and know what the hell was going on with me. Yeah. And I think that's a story. That's the same case with most kids that have the lower class, the lower class in the US, people who, you know, whose parents make minimum wage and have to work two jobs to be able to survive make ends meet. I think they're just so busy working that they don't notice that their kids are doing drugs, that their kids are gangbanging. Yeah. And that was the case with most of these kids. Did you experience much withdrawal from crystal math? Yeah, eventually I started after a year, I think of messing around with it. I just want to start experiencing withdrawals where like, if I would do it one night, I will have to do it again. If I do it one day and I spend the whole night without sleeping, I will have to do it the next day in order for me to feel kind of like recover because otherwise my brain was just so drained. And I felt like I will have these huge like headaches and I will be dizzy and just feel like really bad and depressed and just kind of like, like I will have to level me up back to norm. I would never, it only happened a few times throughout my whole drug using period, which was kind of like three or four years that I actually went more than three days. I would always never go more than three days using it because after the third day I just felt so bad. I would just always be like, I need to crash and I will force myself to just kind of crash and go to sleep, which a lot of people don't like the crashing. They keep when I keep getting high so they don't crash. They don't understand like, okay, you need to go to sleep at some point and I don't do it. I guess that was smart enough in that sense to be like, I need to crash and I didn't care. I didn't care if I was in pain. Like I knew that those were the consequences and I kind of like feeling that there was pain involved. So I would be like, you need to stop doing this, but I wouldn't care. I would still do it again. The second it was like presented because I would just forget about the consequences and the moment it was like, I'll be in a fragile state of mind or something or my friends were like, hey dude, let's get high and I would just get excited about, you know, that moment of like, oh, you know, I'm hanging out with my friends and I'm part of something, right? I guess as well as the physical addiction, there is also the psychological dependency. The psychological dependency. As well, you know, you get habituated to if you see crystal meth, that this is good, like you're going to feel happy and. Yeah, one of the things that is very important to take note about this that I feel like another look back, I hung out with all kinds of people when all kinds of people when I was on this drug and everyone was just so different. Everybody was like on a different kind of like trip and it will affect them all differently. Yeah. That being autistic made the made the experience of the drug any different? I don't, I don't know. I don't know because I, maybe a lot of you can't tell. All of the things are different. One thing that I want to say, the correlation that I notice is that I guess a lot of people that do drugs in some way, I think what most of us had in common was that a lot of us were like social. Eneps, yeah. Socially, eneps, like we were just kind of like social rejects where like they all kind of like, I remember hearing this comment multiple times were like being on drugs is kind of like made like a middle ground to have something in common to be able to socialize because other than that, it was hard to be accepted in a regular social situation. If it wasn't drugs were like the drug made us all kind of being a very similar level and a similar trip and there was no judgment when I would hang around with people with, you know, with drug addicts. There was no real judgment. I could be weird. I could be all the weird I wanted and they would even they would disregard a lot of things like, oh, maybe that was a drug or maybe maybe she's weird. Who cares? You know, they, there wasn't a real judgment to be like, oh, you have to behave like this. Oh, you have to behave like that. Not saying that it's not important to learn how to behave in certain situations, but the way that sometimes people put it out there that make you feel like you're just not good enough. You're never going to be good enough to do this. You don't know how to do this. You don't know how to do that. I feel like if my entire life, if I would have cut off a lot of factors out of my life and just my leaving it, leaving it down to the only problem, my only problem in my life being the fact that I just behave socially a lot different than other people would have certain comments that we're not socially accepted in regards to it will make people uncomfortable or by the way I would eat. And for example, my grandfather will have this thing where like if somebody was eating something, he will pick on other people's plates, right? Which is uncomfortable because not that just for the neurotypicals, but I feel like people who some autistic people are very delicate. And if you touch their food, they'll be like really disgusted. So everybody has their own ideas. Well, that's why having, I was like having a norm and learning how to kind of like turn things that you don't do in public are important because they are important for other people too. Like some people might not, I wouldn't probably not mind my grandfather grabbing out of my plate, but some other autistic people might be very like OCD or very like- I would not, I would not be, I would not accept that with open arms. Here, yeah, you can have my entire- What the hell are you doing? Yeah, like what are you doing? And he will do it to anyone. Like he didn't care like, let me see, let me hit that up. Let me see, it's a good. He was just speaking like he wouldn't care, you know? And those kind of things is kind of like, like, yeah, some of us found it very funny and very charming, but some other people did not. Yeah. My grandfather had an amazing life. He didn't care. So I love them. I mean, I hate him. And it worked for him because he had an amazing, charming personality. So those who love them like them a lot. But for other people who don't have, you know, that kind of like- Social charisma. Yeah, that thing more like before you're going to have like, okay, at least I have some friends. I don't need to, I don't need everyone to like me, you know? And it's going to affect them to be like, you should care for other people. You should care how you behave because how you treat other people is how you should expect to be treated. Will you expect that you're able to not care how you feel? Will you expect other people to not care about you being uncomfortable? Then why do you make other people uncomfortable? I used to talk to, I used to have this kid that I wanted to help who got diagnosed with ADHD, but he, living with him, he was homeless because his family couldn't deal with him. I let him stay in my house for a couple months. He was a nightmare. He was a nightmare. And I know that he got misdiagnosed. I'm like, dude, you're not ADHD, you're autistic. Like you need to ask your doctor about that. You need to look into that. He had a lot of trouble with being, you know, learning how to follow rules and being, you know, how to behave socially. Although he had a certain charm to him at first, but then he will have a lot of problems with. He was just a person that you couldn't, you just couldn't be around. Like you couldn't help because it was all about what are you going to do for him? Never what he was going to do for other people. I don't understand sort of the, you know, some of the traits of autism sort of lend themselves to perhaps thinking about oneself more than other people. Like we really, we generally have a lack of cognitive empathy. There's like two types of empathy. One is cognitive, one is adaptive. Cognitive is the ability to know if someone's, what someone's feeling from what they're saying and what they're thinking about. Adaptive is when you know how that person is feeling, how do you act? Yeah. And autistic people don't struggle with adaptive empathy. It's just the cognitive side. So it's like, there's a lot of those different things that go on in social interactions and like, as well, being surrounded by people who don't understand you and don't seem to see it your way, you're likely to go the opposite direction and just fight against it. One thing that I would always tell this kid, his name was Julio, was like, I'm like, Julio, like, if you want to be this way, the way you are, that's fine. But you need to go and live in an island, like by yourself, like in a very small place where you hunt your own food, where you just do things on your own if you don't like being around people. But if you want to, but you do like being around people, you hate when we go out and we don't invite you because, like, first of all, we can't pay for you. You don't have money. And second of all, you, you cause scenes and you put us in a lot of trouble. Like you put us in trouble, like almost with the law and stuff. You do things that we just, your liability all the time to us. So we can't take you to places and you get mad when we don't take you to places. And but you don't put on your part. You, you don't want to miss out on things, but then again, you don't want to behave. So you, you, you are capable of changing your behavior. You're just very stubborn and you don't want to put your mind into that, making that extra effort. That's kind of it. It's, it's a bit, it's weird, isn't it? Because we, we are in sort of a time where we're putting a lot of effort and a lot of focus on accepting who you are. But I guess the, the sort of the flip side of accepting who you are is changing and adapting. Tension, adapting. And I think from what I've seen, people don't give that changing, adapting and working on yourself and improving yourself in ways that you want to improve and that ways it'll help you as important as that. And some people can get a bit caught up with that and a bit obsessed with you. Oh, well, if you don't accept how I behave or treat, treat you, then go away. Like you should, you should listen to me, you know? Yeah. And it's, I understand it because it's like, I mean, I used to have that sort of mentality. Me too. Me too. When you've had such bad experiences with life and with people and you've been treated so badly, of course, you're going to feel like that. Like you're going to fight back at it. I guess sort of another aspect of sort of getting, getting out of that place would be a change in your lifestyle. Like the things, the things that you love and I guess snowboarding to you as you said, it was, it's like your drug of choice. Yeah. And now I can do like, I go on the jumps on the, like the big hills, I'll put some more videos on my Instagram, but there's one right now if you want to check when we're done with this conversation, when I check the story, I put a little one, a little real rum. Let me have a look. Yeah. You can check that the reel that I, that I posted and you can see kind of like how much better I've gotten and, and I go on the jumps and everything. So that's something that I never, in a couple of years, I gotten so far on snowboarding, you know, just a couple of years of practicing and never in a million years of thought I would be able to do all that. So it's all about positive thinking too. I used to think like people tell me like, Oh, you're so negative. I will hear this comment once in a while. And I'll be like, no, I'm not. I'm like the opposite from negative. I'm like super optimistic, but I couldn't tell the, I couldn't differentiate the difference. How yes, I'm very, I'm a very optimistic person. Sometimes a little too much or like sometimes like the ideas that I have or the optimism that I have is unrealistic. And then I get disappointment and I get disappointed. I set myself for disappointment because of the high sense unrealistic, either ideas or expectations that I set myself to. So I set myself for disappointment. I find, I find, you know, the difficulties that you've been through, you know, it's, it's, it's a horrible ordeal and sequence of events that you've had to experience. And yet, you know, you've come out the other side and you've, you've found your passion and you spark for life and you've worked on yourself and you've developed yourself and gone for things that motivate you. And it's, it's incredibly inspiring, Francesca. Like, I think it's, it's, it's really important for people to hear stories like this because I guess when we, when we hear about, for example, drug use or alcohol use or addiction of any kind, we kind of superimpose an idea that this person is not a normal person, if that makes sense, you know, like I, what I find interesting is the, the humanity aspects to people who use drugs, just like everybody else, but circumstances and mental health and difficult places have caused them to, to fall or succumb to, to this substance. And I think it's really important to talk about things like this. Yeah. Yeah, I, I wish I would have met someone like me when I was younger, somebody would tell me like, hey Francesca, you know, I've been through where you are. The same thing happened to me, but I cut out the talks of things in my life and started looking for how to move forward, looking, you know, going, going forward and, and progress, you know, if you have goals in life, I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong with having a simple, simple life, you know, but even to have a simple life, it's, it's, it's a goal, right? Some people just want to, you know, get married and be a mom and have kids, you know, but it's like when your goal is to be a mom, I assume you want to be a good mom. So what a good mom be like, you know, would a good mom be the mom that does drugs and find other kids, you know? So all those things that you, you got to set yourself a goal and be like, how am I going to get to this point? It's a decision. Yeah. There's trauma from my past where like, you know, all this negative things that have been said to me throughout my life. Yeah. For example, doing YouTube has been hard for me because it's a tough audience out there. It's a very tough audience. Yes. Yes. I'm sure that it makes us, I get this little voice, you know, this negative, the negative me telling me like, like, Francesca, what are you thinking? Well, who are you? How could you possibly believe that people who are acting YouTube are actually going to like you? You? Okay. Like, no, you're a nobody. You're going to, you're a fraud. You're going to fail. Nothing that you do ever comes a ride. You're going to fail miserably. Francesca, you are, you are striking at the core here. Yeah. It's like any video that I upload out, obviously, I'm always sort of increasing my energy and trying to perform in some way, you know, make it sound good and make it more engaging. Yeah. And so anybody who doesn't know who I am and what I've been through, they come onto my YouTube channel and they say, like, well, who are you? You're not like, you're not like me. You don't understand. Here are all the things that you've said that are wrong in this video and the reasons why you're wrong and you should contemplate your life. And if I'm in a bad place, like, that is not the thing that I need to hit to hear. It's not going to encourage me to keep trying to make a difference. You know, like, I'm kind of, I'm feeling very happy because we have, in our little sort of ranty conversation, we have made our way through pretty much all of the questions without structure. I guess, right? We kind of like connected the dots. Yeah. Well, I mean, I did say that we were only going to have two hours to talk. It's been two hours? No, it's been, it's been nearly three hours, but. Oh my God. Are you serious? It's okay. It's fine. It's been good. I'm gonna, it's gonna be my first step towards becoming the Joe Rogan podcast. I'll be good. Yeah. Joe Rogan does, my boyfriend loves hearing to Joe Rogan. But I'm just going to make it long. Like, if people don't want to listen to it, they don't have to, but. You don't do like two parts or something like that? Because people can always listen to the other part later, right? Yeah, but people can always stop the podcast whenever they want as well. Yeah. I'm gonna try and keep in as much as possible because, you know, the people who do stick around and listen to it and want to listen to it, they're going to find a lot of use in your experiences and what you've taken from life. I definitely have and I'm, I'm very feeling very inspired by it. No matter what time it is, it doesn't matter that it's midnight and I've got work tomorrow, but. I'm so sorry. Is it really midnight over there? Yes. Yeah. Oh my God. I've enjoyed myself though. I appreciate you staying up, staying up this late. Well, what I want to ask you first is, throughout the entire podcast, what free main things do you want people to take away from it? Help me out here. What do you take out of our conversation? Ooh, nobody's turned it on me like that. I think that although it may be sort of glaringly obvious to both of us, I do think that it's important to listen to everybody without judgment. It's important to judge and judge people characters and it's not. It's something that we do naturally as human beings, but I feel like especially with things that are such so taboo like drug use, people sort of immediately place people into a category of not being a normal human being and not being relatable. Having issues. I think it's important to highlight that that's not the case and that there's some something brilliance and something inspiring to learn from every person that's been through something like that. Yeah. That's mine. You can go for the next one. I do. I think it's always good to give, to learn how to take constructive criticism, because that constructive criticism might help me. It can be pointing the two. Yeah. Some people don't like to give it because they feel like the other person is going to get offended. It's good to not take things offensively. Take it with a grain of salt. Take a step back. Rub it off your shoulder if it doesn't apply to you, but do appreciate the fact that that person is taking that matter into you. If they're taking their time to give you constructive criticism, they care to some degree. They care to be able to help you because they think that what they're going to tell you is going to help you better. Many of the tips that people will give me, I would just kind of put them back on my head and then I wouldn't apply them to later. Then I would understand them to later, later. Learning how to take constructive criticism is good and also giving constructive criticism is good. The other thing is don't dwell on the past. Don't dwell on negative things, things that happen to you that are painful to you or were some kind of traumatic to you and they hurt you to a certain degree. Learn from that and try to see how you find a way to never be in that situation again, to never put yourself in that situation again, but don't dwell on it. Don't make that define you. If you've been a victim of abuse, if you've been a victim of whatever, don't let that be like, oh, now I'm the person that was abused as a young person. I was the person that I was hit. I'm that person like, no, you don't have to be that person. That's something that happened to you. Unfortunately, this has happened to a lot of people, but you're alive today. You are passed the situation that's part of your past and that made you a stronger wiser woman and now you can use that experience to either help other people or advise other people on it. I like that. Learn from the past. Learn from the past but don't dwell on it. So we have the very, very last question and this is an open question. What does autism mean to you, Francesca? You know what? For the longest time, I got really obsessed with getting into the medi-greedy of like, okay, how did the whole autism thing started? Francesca. Okay, so what does autism mean to you? Okay, then I sidetracked, okay, so what I meant, what I was going to was that I don't think it's something that needs to be medicated pretty much. Like, I don't think it's something that needs to be medicated, it just needs to be understood. Well, Francesca, this comes to the very end of the podcast. Have you enjoyed your experience? Yes, very much. I feel like I needed to have this conversation with someone because when I have this conversation with regular people, they're like, oh my god, you all you're talking about autism? There are many people who have podcasts and do videos and stuff and I'm very happy to put you in contact with them so that you can spread your story and spread your work a bit easier. Is there about autism too? Yeah. Oh, wow, great, great, that'd be great. I very much enjoyed that conversation. It has been very long and it is very late, but I've enjoyed it. Thank you, thank you. Same here, I'm so grateful. Well, would you like to give out any links to your work? Well, my channel is called Neurodivergent French Fries. I first called it because I thought it'd be funny, but I don't know why I called that. French Fries and Aspergers. French Fries with Aspergers because that's what it always told me because I have people calling it French Fries and that was my nickname and then as a, you know, inside joke or whatever, I'd be like, I was wondering where it came from. Yeah, they were like, do you want some French Fries with your Aspergers? You know, they would always tell me that. So I'm thinking like, I'm going to call my channel that, but I don't think I'll ever thought it was that funny. And your social media, is that the same? Yeah, Neurodivergent French Fries, Neurodivergent French Fries and my business, one of my, my first business name is called Excellence Cleaning Pros and he clicks on the website, helps my SEO and also Sick for Trees with my partner. Sick for Trees. He's a creator on the, on the brains of the operation. Cool. And I will put all of those links down in the description. Awesome. So if you want to check out the Forty Autie podcast, anywhere else, you can always find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the Asperger's Growth YouTube channel. Or you can find it now on Google Podcasts as well. Very interesting. If you want to stay up to date with my work and what I'm doing, I've recently started a new job at a non-profits organization. And I'm doing a few things with the autistic community to raise awareness, specifically around Autism Awareness Week, which has been very interesting at the moment. It's, I think, an unappreciated side of my work, sort of working with organizations and interviews and stuff like that. But it would always mean a lot for you if you'd tune in. Maybe send me an email. Maybe send me a DM. Let me know if I'm, what I'm doing is good. And if you're enjoying it and what you don't like about it as well. I am rambling my head off. If you want to check out some videos around Autism, mental health, and dating and relationships, you can find all of those on the Asperger's Growth YouTube channel. Or if you want to just get a nice little overview of all of that stuff, you can go to my website, thomashenley.co.uk. Francesca, thank you very much for coming on today. I've had a really good chat with you and I'm sure that anybody listening is massively appreciative of how open you've been with your experiences and so emotionally vulnerable. I'm very lucky and I'm very honored to have spoken to you about this. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you for having me and taking interest in my story. Well, this comes to the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. We have Vinut. Have you got any parting words? Oh my god, did I prepare for this? Thank you so much to everyone for listening. If you guys listen all the way to the end, I really appreciate any support and just being understanding of the circumstances that each one of us goes through. I hope that my story in any way resonates to you guys. Any comments or questions you guys want to leave me on my social media or my YouTube, I'll be more than happy to answer because I hardly get any messages like that. Brilliant. Because that's it. I'm really honored to be here. Brilliant. See you later, folks. Thank you. Are you cutting right there? Yeah. Okay. All right. Cool. I don't know if you're going to turn off the screen right now and I'm just going to be like,