 Right, here we go. So as I said, this is Taylor Heeson, mom on the spectrum being on the podcast if you wanna go check out the episode that I did with her. Very good episode, highly recommend. And yeah, autistic relationships, 10 tips for neurotypical partners in neurodiverse relationships. Very, very well-key worded that title. Well done, Taylor. It's Taylor with mom on the spectrum and we are back today with my favorite guest, the one and only Barack Obama. This is my husband, Scott, and he was in our first video that we did just last week. Is that like an in-jump? And if you watched that video at the very end, he had an idea in the video for another video and that's what we're shooting today. This is it. This is it. What was your idea? Talk 10 things not to do in a relationship with a neurodiverse spouse. I'm really interested to hear how this goes. It's gonna get cray. Do I get my own theme song? You should have different lefts. Cray. Cray, Cray, Cray, Cray, Cray, Cray. You should have one of those classic 90s intros or it's just me posing. Be true, Scott. Be true, Scott. Be true, Scott. Ah, it's a barraptor. Oh, please do, that would be so funny. Have you guys ever seen a touch of cloth? It's like a Mickey take, a parody of crime dramas. It's so funny. Or just typing on YouTube, touch of cloth, like intro sequence. It cracks me up so much. It's one of my favorite series. It's so funny. Cray button. That's the best way you can support me and help me continue creating free videos for you, which I love doing. Special shout out to Jared for all of your support and encouragement. I love your comments. Thank you so much for watching. Last thing you need to know before I turn it over to this guy. I am 32 years old. I received my autism diagnosis last year at 31 years old. And so it's been a year since my diagnosis and he already has so much wisdom and insight to share. I read the list that he came up with and I was like blown away. So with that said. So in first of all, there's a caveat. I'm an English teacher. So don't take any of this as gospel truth. These are just observations that I've had. And also, because I think you remind people frequently that if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. If some of these don't fit the bill, don't panic. This is what I wish. I wish that passed me from a year ago. Cute, young, little 32 year old Scott could have watched this video. Okay, so these are not- From a year ago, how long have they been together? Or maybe like it's just, oh, cause Taylor said that they were quite late diagnosed. Maybe that's like, maybe that's why they were saying that. I think as well that the point that that he was making about like it's not applying to everybody. I feel like I wish I could just have like a brackets or just like a flashing sign that just appeared on everything that I ever created. They just said, I'm generalizing. You know, cause if you talk about anything, anything in life, in a general sense, it's not gonna be applicable to everybody. And that's something that I struggle. I think that's something that some people struggle to comprehend because when something comes up about autism and it doesn't apply to, apply to them, they're like, oh no, this is not what autism looks like. You know, pretty much every generalized topic has some elements of that. So sometimes it's just, it's gonna be you that doesn't feel the same. And I'm the same as well. And I will say, if there's anything that I do not agree with, although this is typical partners. So let's have a look at, see if these tips, I feel would be helpful. I've talked to a lot of neurotypicals about their autistic relationships. So it'd be nice to, nice to hear. Importance. I don't think, I don't think maybe they are. Maybe it's like a Freudian. Anyway, here we go. Are you gonna do some kind of like drum roll or something like that? Number one, here we go. Top 10 things not to do with your neurodiverse spouse is speak in abstract terms while training or setting an expectation. Something I've learned is that if I speak in abstracts or roundabout terms, it's not like it blows up. It's not like it results in a fight. It just creates little, little tiny frustrations all around the place. I can feel your attention if I say, I'll be home soon. Something that Taylor likes if I give her very specific instructions, if I say, I am showering at the gym right now and I will be home in about 15 minutes. That helps me. I just like to know what to expect. Well, that is clarity, but also like, I don't think, I don't feel like that would be 100% expected, especially if I'm at home. And like my partner would come home. It's fine, like I don't really need to know the exact time and place and whatever. If it's like an actual organized thing, then it makes more sense, but you know, it's, I don't necessarily agree with that. I think it's good just in general to be a little bit more specific in language, but day to day, like if you're with someone for like, I think Jackie said about, they've been together 16 years, geez. Then probably like, I feel like after 16 years, you know, you could, I think I'd be very chill about it, but that's just me. So I am the exception, as I said, to this generalization. What do you guys think? Would that be helpful for you? Say like, I'm gonna go pick stuff up for dinner at the grocery store. I wanna know like what you're picking up so I can think about how to plan around that. This is a good tip, take this to heart. If you're asking me about something, how did the talk with the doctor go? You really like it when I give you like a bulleted list response. So if it's something like the doctor said X, Y, and Z, put them out in actual bullets on a text. This is what happened, boom, boom, boom, boom. We communicate a lot through texts, like we don't talk on the phone very much. I mean, obviously we live together, but like when you're out running errands and stuff, we mostly just communicate via text. In GIFs. In GIFs, oh my gosh. We say GIFs, I know some people say GIFs. Get over it. It is a GIF. It's a G. It tells me communicate emotions so much. So just a little snippet. Communicating in concrete terms, like 15 minutes, I'm showering right now. I definitely think that like tone indicators, whether it be GIFs, I'm staying strong on that one. Whether it be GIFs, whether it be emojis, whether it be actual like slash tone indicators, I think especially with texting, very, very important. Just helps you understand like how someone's saying something. So you imagine it like, you know how hard it is to be like sarcastic over text and not use any tone indicators. It's just a recipe for destruction. I'll be leaving the gym soon. It doesn't feel like, you know, Taylor's keeping tabs on me. It's me realizing that Taylor has a more difficult time with unknowns and that when I speak specifically, I'm calming that frustration or concern. It's a good analogy. That's really helpful. So don't see it as like keeping tabs, because it's not. It just helps bring calm, like you say. Yeah. All right, number two. Treating special interests or concerns as trivial or unimportant. If you're in a relationship with a neurodiverse person, chances are they have a special interest. Taylor's special interest range from health to psychology, basically any way to improve yourself. There's also certain things that Taylor likes in terms of rituals, safety and security, making sure doors are locked, shutting the blinds after the sun goes down, things like that. Those things, I think prior to your diagnosis, used to... Go for it. Try the crate. It would just be... This is a safe space. It's frustrating because it'd be like... You could tell just like the level of anxiousness. It's kind of like... I feel like the position that Taylor's in is very much the position that I was in when I was talking to my mom on my podcast. What are you going to say? What are you going to put out into the world? For many autistic people, if you're not direct, they won't get it. I wouldn't, for example. Yep. I can understand their direct communication quite well because I had like a fascination with neurotypicals. I didn't actually really mask very much when I was growing up, but I just found them really interesting. And so like a lot of the psychology and the stuff is based around neurotypical individuals. So I think just chilling, just like relaxing. Relaxing. I think if people are just direct with me, I pick up on it because if I'm relaxed and I'm not really thinking much about anything or I'm focusing on something else and someone tries to be indirect or is being indirect with me, I just don't clock it. I don't even just become anxious because I don't understand it. I just don't clock it. It's like I'm switched off, you know? Ready to sleep or like, and ready to chill for the evening, you know? Just as I'm an anti-girl, I'm never direct. I trust that my body language and how much I hang out with him speaks loud about how I feel about him romantically. I'd really recommend not doing that. For some autistic people, they may pick up on that stuff, but quite often it can be quite frustrating for us as autistic people when people are not direct with us. I know that for me, like it's kind of, I kind of just assume that people just don't like me or are interested in me unless they confirm it in some way verbally, like directly. I can sort of understand that they want to spend time with me but I don't really know what that translates to like how their body language is around me or like how much they want to spend time with me, you know? It's, so you've got to be, I think that you do have to have that element of directness. When I said to him, I really enjoy spending time with you. Is it clear to order them that's in a romantic way? Nope. It's not. I think to me, I think it might, I might be like, oh, okay. I get what that means. But no, because it's, we like direct communication. Saying you like spend time with us means saying you like spending time with us. We can have some thoughts around it, but because it's not expressed directly, we will never feel completely comfortable with sitting with any particular, like possible indirectness around it, if that makes sense. Yeah, Joe learned to be direct to me. I feel strange, but it's more effective. Yeah, and it's tough as well. Like even around the more intimate, kind of romantic aspects of relationships. If you're not used to it, it's gonna feel weird. If you're not used to talking about stuff, it's just gonna feel awkward and weird, but stepping out of your comfort zone, especially like and trying to meet someone where they are in terms of their communication style can often do a lot to like, you know, feel a lot more accommodating to us. It's not even that, you know, it's like, the way that I explain it is that, you know, we spend a lot of our life basically being told to fit in, understand people who aren't like us. We spend a lot of time, we understand more one way than other people do our way in general, unless they're like a specialist and they know lots of autistic people and they have a lot of knowledge on it. It tends to be that we need to make a lot of the communication ground up, but there are just some things that a love is just just find very difficult and the cognitive empathy in direct communication part of stuff is very, very common for us to find it, have a difficulty with. Not everybody. Thank you, friends. No, no worries at all. I hope my language isn't being too directive. But I just want to like definitely make sure that, you know, what you're trying to get across is coming across. This chicken in the maroon is a great wonder. What is her name? I want to follow her in the maroon. Who's in maroon? I don't know who the person in the maroon is. It's someone behind me. Okay. I would step out of the car and you'd be like, you locked the doors and like the door, the door's open. I'm not like that. I'm the opposite of Taylor on that side. I just don't care about that stuff. So I was treating the act of door locking as something that was trivial, not as important as I thought you were making it. What's this Bible reading? I was going to mention to you, like with the blinds for me, if you are neurodiverse, you might notice that lights have more effect on you. It's not necessarily even a privacy thing. If the lighting of the room is different where my eyes have to do a lot of adjusting, I can't hear what people are saying. I can't pretend to be in conversation. Contrast can be really difficult today, always. When the light changes in the room in the evening and it goes to dusk where there's not enough light to really like see, I cannot have a conversation. So closing the blinds and turning the lamps on, I have to do that in order to be able to shut off and be able to like relax for the evening. Oftentimes, I think for neurodiverse people, if there's a certain thing that they're fixated on, it's more than about just that fixation. I think that was number two just because it's helping me realize that oftentimes the actions that we see, there's way more behind them. Yeah, there's meaning to it. This stuff is awesome. You can like rip it apart. It's really cool and it changes colors. Weirdly. So after you... Weirdly, the things that we do and the way that we behave have a reason to them. Autistic men communicate different, but it is so worth to go the extra effort. 100%. Andrew Griffin, hello. Says the hard part about ambiguity and indirect romantic communication is that we can misinterpret what you mean. Saying, I like spending time with you could be taken as either friend-zoned or romantic. 100%. Yes. Unless you're like grabbing onto their arm, going like, I really love spending time with you and like just being really like over the top with that indirect communication. Yeah, probably best bet to be direct. What? Yeah. I'm in a very silly mood today. In the old sky. This is not an ad. Thinking. Number three. Alright, number three is expecting neurotypical social interaction if we have multiple social things on the calendar. Yes. Bad. It's not even like the event will go poorly. It's like the whole week. I realized that you're thinking about it. It's a dream. You're planning it. Taylor bakes and so everyone's always like, Taylor, you just make your cupcakes. Oh, we don't wish us just doing it. So you're thinking about making cupcakes all weekend, what's going on with the kids and just all the factors that lead up into- She's very organized, Taylor. And we're thinking about eating those things in that way as well. So that helps us a lot. And that's okay. You know, we do lots of social things independently too. Yeah, well you do social things independently while I stay home. Yes. And crochet. Yeah. And stay under my weighted blanket. I hang out with friends at night. But I think that's something that's really helpful and I think that prior to your diagnosis it would frustrate me. We don't do things. We don't go out and hang out with friends and things like that. And oftentimes in those situations it would lead to tension between us because you would have shutdowns when we would go out and then you wouldn't talk a whole lot. Yeah. Because we didn't really, we didn't realize- Then you have that cobalt effect. You know, it doesn't just impact the time that you're out. It can cross over into other parts of your life. Into situations with your partner. Like, they may just not want as much social interaction because they spent like a whole weekend seeing people and talking to people and they just don't want to interact or be around people. They kind of need some time to recharge their social battery. The sub point on this, but yeah, that was like one thing that we would argue about a lot is after we would leave a social situation I'd be really upset because I'd be like you aren't making room for me in the conversation. Because I mean he's very, like he's great at guiding conversation but he's also really good at creating space for other people. I didn't feel that. Not because he wasn't creating space for me. It's autistic. But I'm autistic. And so I don't know how to join a small group environment. I don't know how to- That is definitely something that I try to do a lot if I'm with, like if I spot that someone within a social gatherings could be autistic. They broke up, didn't they? I don't know. Oh God, I hope not. Did they? Can you check? Can you check for me, Kerry? Oh dear. I try very much to include people within conversations directly. Like it's not kind of just like this. Kind of looking at someone and being like, oh, I know somebody who does this thing. It's literally like, oh, hey guys, this is so-and-so. They're really good at this and this. And this is related to this. And you should ask them about this. You know, try and make some space for them. I think the issue with group conversations and the ways that sometimes neurotypical partners can help with this in terms of social situations, making sure first that they actually do want to join in. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're just happy listening. Like a lot of the time I'm like this. And other times, you know, I do kind of want to join in and it's really hard to find the breaks in the flow of conversation. It's not that I can't. It's just my processing is behind. It's behind the usual flow of people only by like a couple of seconds. But that's enough for someone else to jump in. You know, and then they end up like talking over somebody. So it's quite important sometimes, yeah. Oh, they got divorced this year. Oh, I don't like hearing bad stuff. I think there's some good stuff in here. Anyway, we're only like seven minutes through. I'm really sticking to my guns about like pausing it a lot on time. Join a small group discussion. That's another video for another day, but that was one thing that we had a lot of trouble about like we would leave a social situation and I'd be like, I didn't get to talk at all. But it wasn't his fault. It was because I didn't know how to do that. Now we know. Now we know. I'm sorry. No, it's okay. Number four things not to do in a relationship with a neurodiverse person is take it personally when you don't receive neuro-typical levels of interaction in terms of physical interaction that Taylor and I have, whether it's like hugs, affection, anything like that. I think a lot of tension that we've had in the past is that I have these expectations that have kind of been set really just by like culture and society and TV and movies. Whenever you aren't in those types of moods to reflect that type of interaction, often I would take it personally and immediately what I would think would be like, well, what's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? And the issue, the reason why this comes about, I think it comes about a lot through like masking from the autistic person because a lot of people, when they're starting to get to know somebody and that kind of start the relationship, sometimes they change how they are to fit that person. So perhaps sometimes like usually they might only reply to someone like once every two days or something, just for example, but with this person, they reply to them like every hour and they're talking to them every hour and they want to call all the time and like all of that kind of thing. So you kind of setting yourself up, like you're painting a picture of yourself which is different to how you usually are with people. So it doesn't really give people a good representation of about how much interaction you like, I guess. And that's one aspect of it. It's the same with affection. It's the same with compliments. It's the same with pretty much every aspect of it. It is good to try, especially in the early stages, but it is also really good to set a precedent to like who you are and like be yourself. Do your regular interaction that you would do with someone that you know quite well, to some degree. I hope that makes sense. Because then you get into situations, especially if you're masking and you're acting more, if you're acting not autistic, then they're gonna expect you not to be autistic as well. And that can cause like some tension, like quite a bit of tension. You do, you know, if, as you said, if they were together for like 16 years, there might be like 12, 13, 14 years of conditioning, and then as soon as you get a diagnosis, you start self-advocating a bit more, you start perhaps not taking as much time with each other or having that neurotypical levels of communication, then you have the issue. And you know, there's two sides to everything, you know? I think it's always good to put forward how you usually are. Emotional explanation, also a really good tip. If you're struggling to connect with an autistic partner, try explaining how you feel rather than expressing it. Or do both at the same time. Just make sure you get the explanation in there because that can often do a lot for like connection, I would say. That's making you not want to interact with me, whether that's talking or any type of physical affection. I'm like trying to be conversational. I've met my eye contact limit. Okay, we can just like look forward and back a little. I can do this, okay? So oftentimes I would take it personally when you wouldn't show affection or wouldn't seem to engage in conversation whenever we're sitting down at the dinner or something like that. And I would think that something was wrong with me. Saying things wrong, I forgot to do something. Something that's really been helpful for me through this whole process is realizing like I am not. And that is really annoying, isn't it? Like because we need the verbal conversation, it sometimes comes across as being needy, even though we're not. We just don't know much about the situation from what someone's saying. It's really annoying. It's the same with like confidence. You know, you could be very, very confident and just not like making as much eye contact with people. 100%, like there's a lot of aspects like that. I think they did a study on eye contact particularly. People are generally mistrustful and they think that people don't make eye contact to have like ulterior motives or intentions and they don't tend to trust them. And they just tend to be much of a kind of romancey, sparky vibe to conversations when there's less eye contact. I've definitely seen that in my time. Always friends, you know, a level of connection. It's tough and it's not always something that I think a lot of neurotypicals can or non-autistic people can break past, you know? It just, it's a large impact, like a large part of communication, I think, for them. There's people. Eye contacts. It's something that I tend to do variably. And if I don't know, the more I know someone, the more eye contacts I make with them. Up until the point where I just can just directly stare at them for like an hour if I wanted to. It's very strange. Doing wrong things. It's almost like I have self-talk. So I'll say, okay, based off of the history that I have with Taylor, I know for a fact that she loves me and wants to spend time with me and wants me to be around her. So mark off the list that she hates you and wants you to die. That's what he's saying about confirmation. That's not a thing at all. Instead, what I tell myself is, okay, this is about the way that Taylor's brain is wired. And for our situation, I know that oftentimes if you're going through like a shutdown, there's gonna be certain types of stressors that are going on. You have a really hard time calming down if there's a lot of dishes. So it's like understanding situations. What are the stressors and how can I eliminate those things? And those can kind of bring you back to more of a homeostasis. Number five, number five of the things that you should not do with your neurodiverse spouse is to try and change your spouse. That seems really simple. Don't do it, but let me back up first. Like I think that oftentimes we see a problem and we ask ourselves, what is the solution? What can I do to change the way things are? So something that's helped me through a lot of books that I've read is realizing my spouse is neurodiverse. That is reality. And there's no way that I can change the wiring of her brain or my brain. So these things that are causing us tension and that are difficult in our marriage, they're not just going to go away. It's not like you can change the way these things are. So instead, the question is, how can you move forward? And then what can we change? I would say that this is something that is kind of said a lot within advice that people give. That's the thing about you can't change a person. I think it's a little bit too much of a black and white statement because I think some people can take away from that statement that someone cannot shift how they are with you. They can't change how they are with you or how they view certain things, which is wrong because ideally, if you're with someone who is has kind of like a progressive mindset, like they want to improve themselves, they don't always see themselves as the perfect thing and that just an unchangeable thing person, then it's quite healthy actually, I think. Forcing someone to change, definitely like, not good. You should not force someone to change. You can ask, may not always happen, especially if they're not really up for it. I mean, it seemed very excited to do that change, but you can definitely ask. If it's something very core to them and who they are, of course not, like, you can't change like someone's personality, like that and just expect them to just flip up and also be okay with doing that. Imagine someone said that to you, but in a less, in a kind of a more gray sense, changing is good to some degree. And especially if you're changing for them and they're changing for you in certain specified ways and it benefits the relationship and it benefits both of you and it's good to work on and it would actually improve things for both of you, then why not, why not change things? Is it our expectations? Is it certain behaviors that we have? Is it the certain way that our schedule is organized? What is it that you and your spouse can control? So I think for me, a lot of it has been expectations and things like scheduling. A lot of the things that you want or desire in a particular relationship, you might have to grieve those things and let them go and that's really hard. That's incredibly difficult, but also it opens you up to the reality of what is and you can stay positive about those things and try to realize that there are other amazing aspects to the relationship that you didn't even realize weren't there. Okay. And that circles us back to the whole needs thing, you know? You don't have to get all your needs met by one person. I'm not doing this as an advert for like polyamory or anything. I just mean like, if you're not feeling like you have enough emotional kind of, I guess, talk about feelings and life and your partner's not providing you that, but they're providing you everything else. Why not talk to your friend about it, you know? Talk to your parents about it, talk to someone in your life about it. I think as well, just to start out on my point before about changing someone, I think if there is something that is inherent to an autistic person to do with autism, depends how much, how well they know themselves and depends on what exactly that changes, but there are just some things that they won't change. Like sometimes we'll have shutdowns, sometimes we'll have meltdowns. We can't stop our brain from being overloaded by social and sensory things. We can just prevent that input coming in. We can just regulate. Sometimes the emotional processing and the stuff around the lexifamia, it's gonna take a little bit longer to process that than usual. It's not gonna be snap your fingers kind of thing. Sometimes when we're relaxed, we're not focused on them, on the conversation interacting with somebody and we're not really picking up on indirect communication, that's probably not gonna change either. You could say the same for a lot of relationships. It's just the context, isn't it? And it depends exactly what that is. Perhaps one of my autistic traits is that I get really hyper-focused and I play a game for like the entire evening. Does that mean that other person needs to just deal with the fact that I'm always just gonna be gaming and just never have quality time with them? No, like, of course not. It's probably not a good thing. Like even if I need the time to regulate, it's probably like at least like spend some time with them and not be gaming all the time, you know? It's very gray. It's not so black and white, I would say. Number six of the top 10 things not to do in a relationship with a neurodiverse spouse is be flaky, don't be flaky. No, that's just good advice for like any human, don't be flaky, but it particularly agitates you when I flake out on something. I don't intend to be flaky about particular things. I just have this mindset of like, I'll get around to it. It's not that I didn't do it, I just haven't done it yet. I'm realizing that when Taylor needs help with something and she asked me to do it, first of all, that's difficult for you to do to say, hey, can you help me with next? It goes a long way to take care of it as soon as I can. Freeze up space in my mind. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, like freeze up bandwidth for you. And I feel like I can relate to you more easily when there's not like stuff in the middle that I'm trying to remember that gets done. Yeah, and I think like as a little side note here, so much of our relationship is realizing that your bandwidth is limited and like with the way that your brain functions, you're taking everything in. It's just information overload. I think that there is an aspect to this which I think things being a part of routines, like I can definitely see myself if I'm in a particular routine and that routine is broken. That can be very overloading for me. Usually changes, I can deal with it. I don't have a very like super high tolerance for flakiness, but I get it as well because I have executive functioning issues. I've not always got the best working memory. So I kind of have a bit of an understanding around that kind of thing. To some extent, autistic take things very seriously much of the time. I mean, I know that I generalize a lot and that you're generalizing, but I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that I take things seriously a lot of the time. I'm quite the opposite actually most times. I respond and communicate directly, but I'm definitely not like outside of doing streaming and doing podcasts and everything like that, I am definitely not a very serious person as in like, I like to have a bit of fun with life. And not be like so regimented all the time about everything and it's good to not take yourself too seriously as well. It's helped us in our relationship is identifying how can I free up some bandwidth for you? What is it that I can take care of to kind of free up your mind? You're not sleeping out and actually following through things that you've asked for help? I think more from, you know, just the image of a cup and let's say my cup is more for more autistic people, giving us bandwidth, especially with social interaction if you want to spend time with us. I'm just gonna use that metaphor later. Oh, later, okay. No, you need your fine, keep talking. Okay, once that cup starts pouring out, like if the kids have a school event or if we have a social event or whatever, like the cup starts being emptied really, really quickly. And so at the bottom of that cup, that's like meltdown or if it's prolonged, empty, then that's a shutdown. It takes you a really long time to come back from that. And so keeping it from emptying all the way out is really important. Venimos a siete? Number seven of things that you should not do with your neurodiverse, neurodiverse spouse is to ask questions while your spouse is doing something. Oh, don't do that. That fries my brain. Yeah, I've read in this book, it's called like the secret guide, secret rulebook to ask for kids. This is about an aspect of autism called autistic monotropism. And it's actually a neurodiversity affirming angle on autistic hyper-focusing. Realize that I'm using a lot of long words. I'm not doing it on purpose. Autistic monotropism, it's basically our tendency for objects, things, interests, things that are going on in the world to draw us in more than most people. And the reason why it's neurodiversity affirming is because it actually puts a lot of emphasis on other people for breaking us out of that hyper focus and the ensuing kind of reaction and feelings after because we do struggle with transitions and those transitions can be like physical transitions like moving from one place to another. It can be transitions from modes, work mode to sleep or we're meant to relaxing, relaxing to sleep, morning to work, that kind of thing. And it can also be our thoughts, what we're focusing on, what individual thing we're doing. And breaking us out of that really abruptly and like really strongly, it can have a lot of negative effects for us. It can like spike our like adrenaline and quarters a lot of quite a bit if that happens to us. It's more so you get a stronger reaction with kids, perhaps people who have relatively higher support needs than someone like myself. They would tend to perhaps react a little bit more negatively. For me, it's just kind of like a dysregulation kind of, you know, you've just had an ice bucket dumped on your head kind of feeling like it's like, oh, I was focusing on this thing and now I'm not and now I don't know where I am. Yeah. Isn't it Jennifer O'Toole? Hook? A hook? Hook? We should probably look it up. Jennifer could go tool. She has this really interesting book for kids that are on the spectrum, like social rules to follow. And it's a good book. I'll put the link in the description. And one of the rules that she has for kids that are on the spectrum, which works for adults too, is to keep in mind that if someone has a busy body, they have a busy mind. It's like for anyone that has kids, you know, this is true. It's like you're hunched over the oven. Yeah, yeah. Like, look at this. Look at this. You know, that's frustrating for anyone, but I'm realizing too with neurodiverse people, particularly my wife and my son, is that gear shifting? Like if they've got a gear shift from thinking, okay, I'm worried about, you know, the cat that I'm baking, and you're asking me about the water bill, it's just not a good situation. Just wait. And just to find autistic tidbit for you to know, the part of your brain that controls gear shifting is called the anterior cingulate gyrus, or the ACG. As long as you didn't realize it was the specific... Wow. Of course, it's the specific character. I would assume it is more like the prefrontal cortex. Sometimes you have to talk to your spouse when they're doing things, because it's a pressing matter. But if it can wait, just like... Or even just asking a question like, hey, do you have 30 seconds where I can ask you a question? Yeah, or like letting you know, hey, can I talk to you when you have a moment? Yeah. I think a better way of framing this that is perhaps a little bit less autism focused, would be, do not expect us to shift gears. I think that that's a better way of framing it. Do not force us, like if you can see that we're, you ask us something and we're just kind of keep doing what we're doing, just leave us be for that time. But if you do, like it's just part of life, you know, you both, especially if you're adults, you both doing things all the time, most of the time. Often if you are working, and I can imagine especially even more when you have kids or if you're living together and you've got bills and everything like that, like you're gonna have to have conversations and it's not always gonna be, there's not always gonna be time or the right time to talk about stuff. So I understand the neurotypical angle on this, to be honest. I do get it, definitely from the autistic perspective because I am autistic and I do experience the same thing. But I also don't think it's like necessarily, like it's, don't do this at all, like it's causing me ultimate stress. Like no, it's just try and if we do shift gears and talk to you and it's all good, then that's fine. And if we don't, just leave us be. Kat Lilly, how are you doing? Nice to see you. My autistic girlfriend just stops seeing me or talking to me for a month and why tell me what's going on. That can happen. Sometimes I've heard of people, that there's been some people who've come and joined my streams who have said similar things that they're like autistic partners not talking to them. I'd say that that's not good behavior on their part. I mean, what I went on prior to that, like there's been a lot of like emotional turmoil. Has there been anything going on around it? I think a lot of autistic people because of the experiences that we've had when we're younger, sometimes we can develop sort of, I hate to categorize it, but like perhaps sometimes a bit more in healthy attachment styles, whether it be anxious or avoidant. That's definitely happened to me. When I was quite young though, probably when I was about 16, I did like ignore someone for like, that I was seeing for like two months or something. But it's definitely not something that I've done in adulthood. And then again, like I have had, I think the first relationship that I had like proper one was when I was 14, you know. So I think I've had a lot more experience with relationships than most anyway. So it's a bit different, but I do know what you mean. It's that that has been talked about before. Might I watch your videos and hear about you understanding autistic people as an NT is hard. I hope you understand to know when I give her sympathy because she's autistic or when I could ask her or something. Yeah. I think that's an hesitation that a lot of people have. I think once you understand the ways that we're different, like you do, like it's not a free pass for us to act badly within a relationship. Sometimes we don't always have the best understanding of ourselves, which is okay. It's just something that we have to learn with time, just like anybody in life. But like, then that situation, you know, that it's not good. It's not good for you on your side. I don't know the full story, of course, but it's, yeah, it's, there's not really much more to say to that. We don't get a free pass for not being nice. That's what I would like to say. I imagine that they probably know that ignoring their partner for a month is not a good thing. It may be that they're struggling somewhat to know how to approach it after not talking to you for so long. That can be something that goes around in some people's heads, but they're still thinking about themselves, it's not thinking about you. The fairly bad light, like continuing with the video, I think it'd definitely be good to talk about it more, but we've got to get through the video tonight, or else I'm going to be up to, like, the very earlier hours of the morning. Thomas is like an autistic whisperer. Yeah, maybe. I mean, I'm autistic, so it's, you know, but thank you not trying to blurt your chat, it's all good, man, honestly, like. Ask away, like, I usually do some, if you want to talk about it more in detail, I do have live streams that I do on Fridays, usually 5.30 p.m. British Standard Time. If you want to go over onto one of those, you've run YouTube or Instagram. I can answer some more direct questions on that. Number eight of things not to do with your neurodiverse spouse is make sure that your neurodiverse spouse has little to no alone time. For a while, Taylor was stay-at-home mom. She was a homeschooling kid serving this crazy world course. I would go out to my office, get all my work done, and I would come home and... There's so many un-said things in the look. They've been said. Taylor would be in a place. That would make anyone anxiously attached. It just wasn't a very good place. It wasn't fun for anyone. Essentially, we've realized through a lot of... Taylor's therapist, especially too, is realizing that Taylor needs a lot of alone time to process and catch up. And this is something I was gonna go back to earlier with your metaphor about the cup. Something my therapist had taught me is that lots of times with neurodiverse people, in terms of their stimulation, whether it's physical or even just listening to things, it's like the day starts with an empty cup and each touch will start to fill up the cup a little bit more. You see, like, recoil when you touch it. Yeah, I do that. That cup is just, like, filling up so quickly. How I talk about it really, I think it makes even more sense when you think about spilling out the other way, because I rest and I get recharged and I have energy. And then I think, as the day goes, all of my energy just starts leaving. Like, I like thinking about it that way, because I only have so much to give. And then when it's empty, it's just completely empty. Oh, so we're coming at it from different angles. You're like a glasses-empty person, then. So, either way, there's just a limited amount of stimulation that you could have before you go into a shutdown or a knockdown. Stop talking. A long time is really helpful. We were talking about things that you can't control. We restructured our schedule, so it's either... I think a big tip that I would give is to understand how to notice the sensory environments that might cause your partner stress and just be aware of it and just notice that the sensory environment's quite a lot. If someone does that for me, it's really thinking about, I guess, you and how you experience the world. It's very nice. And also, as far as shutdowns and meltdowns, metism, always really good to have a conversation about what to do and what not to do during those times and how to tell. And you can approach it in the general sense. I've got a lot of content out there on these topics, whether it's on Instagram or YouTube. But there's always gonna be individual factors for each person. And it depends, you know. If you're trying to help someone who's going through a shutdown or a meltdown, and you don't know them very well, a little bit different to if you're in a long-term relationship with them. As the afternoons, by yourself, and that has been really helpful, I feel like. It's completely changing my life. I wake up and I have more excitement about the day. I know that I can commit to a morning of attention with the kids and taking care of their needs. And that's where I'm going. I'm going to the woods. Yeah, he's going to the woods. And then in the afternoon, I know, we're very lucky to be able to have worked the situation out right now and it's gonna change for us soon. But having an afternoon every weekday where I know that I can have some hours alone to myself, it makes completely just all the difference in the world. It's amazing. I love it. Yeah, alone time is like a reset button. Numero, you got it. Things you should not do. I would definitely highlight the alone time aspect of things. Some people, when they kind of think about their progression in a relationship, it's kind of like, they expect that the longer that you know someone, the more time that you spend with them. And you know, if I was just to give myself as an example, you know, probably like the max that I could realistically like spend in terms of like days with somebody, it's probably like two or three. Like not as in that I couldn't be around in their presence, but as in like interacting with them a lot, you know, alone time for me is very, very important because it does kind of, it doesn't really matter like how well you know somebody. Sometimes just like having some time alone to recharge is really important. How do you bring up how to help during shutdown without offending them? I mean, you would hope that if you were just asked, you know, you know, you could say, I was watching this autism streamer person and they said, you know, we should, you should talk about it beforehand and try and think about what would help so that I can help you better. You could bring it up that way. If that's something that they would want and if they don't want and they're like, no, I can deal with myself then don't, you know, I mean, I don't see anything offensive about that. You literally just like offering your help. They might find it offensive to like perhaps if you're drawing attention to autism, but that's the them thing. If that happens, it's not you. Also, if you are during the stream so far, make sure to, if you want to support my work, get me streaming a lot more than usual, you can become a member for as little as 99p, 99 cents in, I think. I can't remember what the conversion is. Would be much appreciated. And if not, subscribe, like, all that stuff really helpful. Don't do this. In a relationship with a neurodiverse spouse, we're significant. You don't have to be married. It's partner. Partner. Assume that your partner has not, does not, or will not mask around you. Something that Taylor has mentioned and that also she's spoken about with her therapist is that oftentimes people, especially people that are diagnosed later in life, say things like, I feel like I'm becoming more autistic. And essentially what that statement really means and you can correct me here is that you're not necessarily becoming more autistic, but you are learning more of who you really are and therefore are needing to mask less and less and presenting authentic self. You're not so worried about. You are becoming more autistic, but you've always been that autistic. The social norms and structures that society expects to be just be yourself. I think something that was surprising to me is that once Taylor learned she was autistic and we realized that she had been masking in social situations, it would lead to new types of behaviors. So whether that's understanding, she's not going to be in lots of social situations or she's not going to speak up as much in social situations. It would lead to different types of behaviors that if you are not expecting as the partner of a neurodiverse person can seem kind of jarring, you're thinking, wait, what the heck? This is different. This is a whole new set of behaviors that you're practicing here that I didn't foresee. It's not that you're a spouse. And some people see it as a negative thing, especially if you're fairly young and you're still with your parents or just around your parents, around your friends. If they start seeing you act more autistic, they say it's a bad thing. They're like, my God, you're becoming more autistic. And it's like, that's just one of those things that you have to deal with. Like, yes, I am acting more autistic, but this is good for me. It's necessarily changing because that's not what's happening. They're just stepping more into the person who they really are. So I think it's an expectation that as your partner is growing more in a sense of self, those things that have been masking behaviors, those start kind of falling away a little bit. So it's not that at any point your spouse has been authentic. They're just becoming. Well, there is some level to it where I guess masking is inauthentic, but it's not inauthentic in a bad way. It's like, we're trying to get on with people around us and live with people around us who are different. So it is being inauthentic, but it's not done in a malicious way, I guess. I don't guess, I don't know. Usually, if you're masking, it's usually something for other people. It does kind of help you protect yourself, perhaps help you sort of blend in a bit more, help you connect with neurotypicals a bit more in their eyes. You mask like a trooper. I didn't mask when I was younger, masked a lot in my early 20s. Nowadays, I don't mask. So the way that I am now, just imagine myself just a little bit quieter. That is just basically me. I'm like that in my situations. More authentic. Also something else that I think is important, but I feel like it's hard for me to explain, but I'll try. You got this. Hey, once you learn that your significant other is on the spectrum, is neurodiverse, and those masking behaviors start to kind of fall away, I think oftentimes when there are stressful situations for a neurodiverse person, particularly like a social situation, you might see traits coming up that you're like, you're masking a little bit. To whether you're like being like affectionate or touching someone or just more engaged and more expressive. Like you would follow me on my BS. We are like in the same thing. Right, and it's like it's not BS, but it's just, I think they're. Like a coping mechanism. They're more performative for you. And they would be for a neurotypical person. But also. That's really nice that he does that. Helping your autistic person, partner and mask. That's great. Oh, it's like our society is built for people that are neurotypical to where they're doing those things naturally. What I have noticed is that, especially in social situations, you'll tend to slip into those. Masking tendencies a bit more. Just support your partner in any way that you can and realize that it's gonna look different. Thank you, chair. You feel like you're masking behaviors like directed towards people. That makes me really happy. I'm sorry that you have to feel. Sometimes, I mean sometimes. I'm sorry that you feel like you have to survive though. That's, I'm glad that I can be of some help. Or so for other people. You're much more expressive. Yeah. In social situations. That's exhausting. But, and that's also because I just don't feel it. Like with you, I feel safe and I know that I don't have to mask. But like with other people, I haven't had that same practice of like I can just not have all this expression and everything. Right. Yeah, it's definitely social situations through everything in a blender. We made it to number 10. The last one. Number 10 of the top 10 things not to do in a relationship. Been a good video. The neurodiverse partner is assumed that your partner is a problem to fix. And that's going to seem, I think, pretty basic. But I think oftentimes, especially in the way that our culture thinks about mental health is to think that anyone who isn't neuro-typical is a problem. At the very beginning of the process of learning that you're autistic, my approach was more so like, well, how do we fix these behaviors or how do we fix these problems that are causing us tension? And that is the wrong way of approaching it. You're not going to fix the way that someone's brain is wired. And the longer that we've lived with your diagnosis, I feel like the more benefits we've seen from it and we have a really vibrant relationship because of your neuro-diversity. And instead of asking how do I fix my spouse, which is not something I think a lot of us would vocalize, instead we should be asking, how can I enjoy my neuro-diverse spouse? A neuro-diverse brain really is a gift. It's a completely different way of looking at the world that brings a lot of idiosyncrasies and differences, but definitely makes life interesting. I think that's a much better way of approaching it. If you are neuro-typical and you're watching this and you have a neuro-diverse spouse, give yourself lots of grace and stop putting so much weight on your shoulders to fix stuff because you're not going to fix it. What needs to happen is an acceptance of reality. I'm neuro-typical, my partner is neuro-diverse. What does that mean moving forward? It requires, I think oftentimes for neuro-typical people to let go of these expectations that culture has handed us because it's not realistic and honestly, it's not really what you want. You have to find what works. Social norms aspects of it is very strong, I would say. You know, I think a lot of people kind of have this idea of what a relationship should be like. Sometimes because a lot of autistic people can be very independent thinkers, kind of have their own kind of view on how life should be and how interactions should be. It sometimes doesn't always match up, I guess. I suppose it's the same with everybody, to some degree. It's good just to communicate about stuff. It's a bit of a cliche, like people say, oh, communication is key. It literally is, like if you can communicate, it removes most of the barriers that you can have in any human-to-human relationship or friendship or whatever. For your situation. For your situation. And don't be afraid to throw out the script, even if I've said things in this video that you're like, that doesn't fit me. Throw it out? I don't care. I'm an English teacher, right? Throw it out. Give yourself grace. Figure out what works in your relationship and do your best to enjoy your significant other without having to put the weight on your shoulders to fix anything. And I wanted to say too, as the neurodiverse partner, something that I would really love and is good for me is for you to give me really clear boundaries. You're talking about, I get stressed and there's dishes out and stuff. Well, just because I'm stressed, like you might have had a really hard day and you might not want to do this. You being able to say like, hey, I know there's dishes out. I just need to sit on the couch. I want to hear that from you because you work so hard for us. Direct communication. So that's really good for me to hear like, Hey, I know there's just something needs to be done, but right now, like I've kind of just hit my limit and I really need to sit down because that helps me know where you're at because again, it's kind of hard for me to read you because of autisticness. So as a neurodiverse partner, I just want to say like to the neurotypical people, please communicate clear boundaries because that's really helpful for us and you don't have to be responsible for keeping all of our stressors subdued. You know, that's a really, really full-time job and we appreciate all the help that we can get, but you can't put that on your shoulders either because that's an impossible job to constantly be managing. And then lastly, I just wanted to say the two of us here together, I feel like we've been communicating well during this video, but I want you to know that this is YouTube and he did plan this video. We talked about it a little bit, but like we definitely do have communication struggles in our life. I know this video might make it look like we're really put together and communicate really well. Yeah, we do in a lot of ways, but we also still do have a lot of hiccups. It's just, you know, a video that we wanted to make for y'all that we've spent some time- Open and honest. In the spirit of authenticity on the web, which is hard to come by. We just, I just always feel like letting you know, you know, the truth behind what's really happening. If you liked this video, if you could give it a thumbs up, that would be super awesome. Make sure that you subscribe to the channel. If you want to comment and leave a question for this guy, I'm sure that he'd be more than happy to write back with some more feedback. Thanks for making the list. Dead off the spectrum. Dots. Dots. Theme song in progress. Okay, thanks for watching. Bye. So that was Mom on the Spectrum. Autistic relationships, 10 tips for neurotypical partners and neurodiverse relationships. Really enjoyed that. By the way, please go and check Mom on the Spectrum out. Like and like the video if you can. Comment on it. And give them a subscribe. Because as I said before, as much as I try to produce my content and I add my own stuff, a lot of work goes into making these kinds of videos. And it's important to have them get like a slice of, you know, what we're doing over here.