 I'm Mel Hauser, I use Shibae pronouns. I'm executive director here at AllBrain's Belong. Let me share screen and get us oriented to our program and our topic. Bridging the double empathy problems. We're going to talk about what that even is in just a second, but first, BrainClub. So as most of you are returning BrainClub participants, but not everybody. So if you're in a BrainClub, welcome. BrainClub is our intentionally created education space for the collective ABB community to provide education about neurodiversity and related topics of inclusion. This is an education space. It's not for medical or mental health advice, and it's not a support group. ABB does have all of those programs, but this one is our education space. All forms of participation are okay here. As many of you have figured out, you can have your video on or off, and even if it's on, we don't expect anything of you. We certainly don't need you to sit still or like look at the camera or anything, so be feel free to walk and move and fidget and stim and eat and you know anything else that needs doing. Everyone's welcome and you know all, all, all ways of participating are welcome, including observation. Observation is a completely valid form of participation, but you know when we get into our discussion section, we also do want to create space for everyone to share their ideas. Speaking of sharing ideas, all formats of communication are welcome here too, so you can unmute and use mouth words. Today will be a little bit different in that we have a little bit of a longer video or a prerecorded segment, and we will, that's the main, the main activity, but the chat box as always will be running alongside. The chat box is kind of, and we'll talk about this today related to the double empathy problem related to access needs and conflicting access needs. So the chat box is a great way of expressing ideas when they come up, like to your brain. So that you don't have to wait until the, you know, discussion part to get your ideas out. The, the tradeoff is that there's lots of people, lots of ideas. So the chat box runs kind of fast sometimes. So I just want to name that you can like opt out of the chat box. The main activity is the, the prerecorded part that's playing. So if the chat's like making it dizzy because it's going so fast, just give yourself permission to close the window. And I will read out selections at the end to like get us, get us at the, all together on the same page. But please don't feel like you are missing out if, if you are choosing to like, you know, watch the video and not think about the chat. All right. So our premise here is that we all have different brains and bodies and there's no one correct type of brain or body. And it's really important to us that we cue safety by affirming all aspects of identity and that we really work to protect the group's collective access needs through intentionally facilitating to cue safety. Because what we really want to do right from the first experience is to create a space where people can collectively learn and unlearn together in such a way that they feel safe and experience something different from, for many people from the outside world. All right. Last bit of access. Close captioning is enabled. You just have to toggle it on if you'd like to use it. So depending on your version of Zoom, you might see the live transcript, close captioning icon. And if not, look for the more and choose show subtitles. You can do the same and choose hide subtitles if you want to turn them off. And that's my visual support to actually open the chat box to now, if anybody's using it, I can see. And direct messaging is also enabled so you're welcome to send private chat messages. And if you ask a question that way, I won't read your name or anything like that. All right. So we are kicking off our new theme. Just as we did last year, December of a greatest hits collection from the year, we're going to be taking a look at some of the most salient themes that what our staff thought was the most salient themes from the year, themes that we visited, we revisited many, many times throughout the year. And we'll be, you know, it's interesting comes when you come back to a theme after, you know, after a certain amount of time has passed, it like means something or lands in a slightly different way, you know, with the perspective that's been acquired over the months that have passed. So these are the themes. We'll also have a bonus brain club this month because on New Year's Eve, we have our annual virtual New Year's Eve celebration, which will start off with a New Year's brain club. And then several breakout rooms with parallel play for all ages and live music. So we would love for you to join us. All right. So this is my sweet little love. When they were five, right before I did a training, a neurodiversity training for some professionals, I said, Hey, I'm going to go do a neurocultural competency training. What do you think I should tell the people? And at five years old, they like knew what that was and said, Mama, tell them there's no one right way to be a person. That's my sweet little love. And that's really what is the premise for a conversation about the double empathy problem. So this is a term coined by Dr. Damien Milton, who is an autistic social scientist in the UK, that really names the thing that it's not that there's one right type of social skills. And then there's the autistic people over here. It's that when there is a mismatch of worldview, of communication style, that is where miscommunication happens. That's where communication breakdowns happen. So it's really about perspective taking, you know, whether someone is autistic or ADHD and has a particular way of seeing the world and communication style that goes with that versus someone who doesn't. It's really about like coming to understand how someone else sees the world and vice versa. And that's what bridging the double empathy problem is about. And we're going to take a look at a video, a collection of videos from past brain clubs looking at this theme, the double empathy problem in relationships, the double empathy problem in health care, the double empathy problem at the workplace. And so Gabby, take it away whenever you're ready. In this video, we'll run 41 minutes. And again, we'll have the chat box running as we watch. All right. See, make sure the sound is going to work. I always forget to check the sound box when I share. We tried it earlier, but I didn't know if it would like stay on. So it's good. Offering everything. Yeah. Sweet. So before I like define the double empathy problem, let's talk about neurodiversity. So the concept being that we all have different brains, we all have different brains that do things differently, that take in information through our senses, process, learn, think, communicate, experience the world differently. We all have unique patterns of strengths and challenges, which is why something called universal design, offering everything you do in multiple flexible different ways and giving people freedom and choice to pick what works best for them. That is best practice. Short of that, it's about designing accommodations and supports to meet people's needs. Unfortunately, in 2023, universal design is not present in most scenarios. And I'm sorry that somehow that text turned black. I feel the need to fix that from an accessibility standpoint. Okay, there we go. You know, any import slides from other slides, things get all changed. Anyway, so what we know is that at least one in five brains learns, thinks, and or communicates differently than the so-called typical brain. I don't think there is such a thing as a typical brain. Because I just showed you neurodiversity, we all do the things differently. But at least one in five people's brains work in such a way that significantly departs from the majority of brains or the type of brain that society most usually caters to. And so some of us have specific, you know, diagnostic labels, autism, ADHD, dyslexia, but many people do not. It's just that for those at least one in five people, our needs are less likely to be met by the defaults of society. And we may not know why. And the thing is, there is no one right way to think. There is no one right way to communicate. There is no one right way to experience the world. When my child was five, she said this. I told her that I was about to go do a neurocultural competency training for professionals. She knows what that term means because she's been around this her whole life. And I said, well, should I tell the people? Well, tell them there's no right way to be a person. Yes, that's my sweet little love. So all that being said, what is the double empathy problem? So the double empathy problem is a term coined by an autistic social scientist in the UK named Dr. Danian Milton. And what this comes from is repeatedly found in studies that autistic people communicate better with other autistic people and non-autistic people communicate better with non-autistic people. And both groups fail in perspective taking. When there's a mismatch between worldview, a mismatch of communication style, that's where communication breakdowns occur. So it's not that there is one normal type of communication skill, and then there's like us autistic people. It's that it's this bidirectional difficulty with perspective taking. And when we think about those defaults in society, I think society does send the message that there is a default communication and a default way of like seeing the world. Just act in this way, communicate in this way, or you will go unheard. And not everybody can make that adjustment. And so those are the those are the people that are staying away from healthcare because it's overwhelming or confusing or uncomfortable or unsafe to them. How this connects to access needs are that we all have access needs. Access needs are anything that is required to meaningfully participate in one's environment or community. And as I said, we all have them. This might be physical access needs, emotional communication, all different types of access needs. And so often we get the message that if we have needs, we are in some way needy, and explicitly or implicitly sometimes often people get the message that we shouldn't have needs that it's selfish to have me like that's not a thing. That's a myth. And that is really hard. Because when we think about full participation in our world and our lives, the social model of disability is about the barriers in the environment between the person and full participation. It's not about there being something wrong with the individual. It's about those barriers being placed. And so we want to have as few barriers to full participation as possible. And when we think about how this plays out in interpersonal relationships, I'm going to throw in a little excerpt from a brain club we did in January called Everyone Flips Their Leg, where there's things that make us stress that are going to differ person to person and context specific. If there's something in the physical environment allowed sound, if I'm well hydrated and well rested, I might not be as stressed as if I haven't done those things or have a huge cognitive load or whatever, like with this business of the Zoom and the link and the whatever and all the switching between things. If a motorcycle drives by my house right now, I'm going to flip my load, whereas I might have been okay a couple hours ago. So when we get triggered, when I'm borrowing from a model from Dr. Dan Siegel, Dr. Kingupin Brayson from the Whole Brain Child, Upstairs Brain and Downstairs Brain, when Downstairs Brain gets triggered, we don't get to pick what triggers us. And sometimes we forget that we have interpersonal access needs. It's not just about sensory processing or like how we learn. It's about access needs in a relationship. What does it mean for Downstairs Brain to feel safe? And so when we think about, since we all have access needs, often those access needs conflict. Then leave. My family, the way that I return to regulation, the way that I and bring my nervous system back into reading other people's attunement, reading other people's nervous system, instead of being overwhelmed by my own, whatever it is going on, the way that the best way for me to do that is to get down on the ground. Again, this is me and this is experiments of years of knowing how to attune. For me, it's squatting down close. It's putting both my hands on the ground for a second, the floor. So I squat and I'm low. There's something about the proprioceptive work, like I think because my glutes kick in so much, I'm like, oh, here's my body. And because I'm getting deflection, I'm like, oh, here I am. This is my contained little nervous system. Putting my hands on the ground feels strong. I feel like, yep, I am strong. I am a strong person. I can do this. So I'm building from the sensory system back into regulation. And I've practiced it enough over the years that I can do it fairly quickly in my nervous system. Those cues kick in safety for my for my neuroception. And it's subconscious. It is something our brains are always doing all the time, scanning the environment, scanning the interrelationships, scanning the internal relationship, the internal environment for safety. And we are geared for it. So once we feel it, once we find it, it's, it's what our system wants to go to, that homeostasis is where we want to be cellularly, right? Yes. So for my nervous system, it's that it's getting low, it's getting grounded. It's softening my face, like actively saying, let your eyes soften. Don't create some expected emotion. So that like, that shame fear response might might create this expected like, oh, I'm okay. Right. Like, everything's fine. Can you tell this isn't really a smile? Like, but it's what we do because it's what we've been socialized to do. So actively neutralizing, softening my face. And then like, something about the environment for me usually helps find the horizon, look at a tree root, some sort of cue to me that's like, there's no sabertooth tiger here. There's no gaping hole that's going to suck you into the hot molten lava of the middle of the earth. This is solid ground. So you're describing that you begin with a bottom up strategy, you get into your body, and you ground yourself, whatever that means to you, you ground yourself, and then you have access to your cortex, where you are cordically mediating your limbic response. Because now you have access to your cortex, because you did that initial bottom up, get softening, take the edge off to like, bring your cortex back online, and then you go to that. I think a lot of people skip right to that, or they try to skip right to that, and they don't have access to their cortex. And they you can't skip it, you have to do something to access your cortex. And there's an element of like, when you're in the thick of it, even if you're like already screaming and like actively flipping your lid, you, you don't have access to the impulse control to stop. This feeling of failure, like, I'm having a hard time adulting, like as though there's right way to be an adult, or like, you know, I'm having a hard time like paying my bills, or like, I can't, I can't cook for myself. I anyway, like all these things that there's a lot of self judgment and a lot of internalized ableism that goes on, because sometimes there's like this mythical narrative that being an adult means that you have a certain amount of executive functioning skills as though like executive functioning equals adulting. I don't know if if that resonates with anyone else, but that is a that is a struggle for a lot of people. So I just want to name that for anyone in the audience who is feeling that today. Connie. Hello. Hi, thanks for having me. This is my first brain club, and I'm so glad to be part of this. And I guess, let's just think how what can I share with you without going on too long. So Mel, like, give me the the hook if I go on and on, because my brain is making lots of connections right now. And I'm kind of that like idea person where I'll just go off because I see all these connections. But I actually did that with Mel recently on a call. And everything that's being talked about today really comes together for me with the work that our team of resource coordinators do and working bridges through United Way's workplace based team, both on a on a was like a supervisor level like working with our team and the people that show up to do the work of being a resource coordinator in very diverse workplaces. We actually resource coordinators go to workplaces to work with employees that are within specific companies and and they go to companies that are essential jobs. So these are kinds of jobs where many functions, many job functions that are in these companies don't have remote capabilities, even through COVID and some of the initial challenges that we we faced, where we work with employees that have to show up to their job, you know, in manufacturing settings and in healthcare settings. And so I think a lot about neuro inclusion and diversity of all of how our brains work as far as how the resource coordinators do their work, because we have lots of different tools available to us, but not everybody works with those tools in the same way or wants those tools in their job. I think about it just from an organizational perspective, you know, United Way Northwest Vermont had the chance to connect with Mel through our staff training and start to really think about how that how does this happen? How does neuro inclusion impact our workplace and our work styles and the way we show up fully at work? So that's one perspective. But then I also see in our workplaces where we provide resource coordination. So with the employers that we work with, this feels sort of cutting edge. You know, it's kind of interesting because I think many of you here, you've been talking about this for some time, you know this, you know the work, but employers aren't, you know, this hasn't really been discussed. I don't think employers have had the chance to even have some frame around this or have some understanding about what this means and how they can look at jobs and look at individual needs and really see where options can be where flexibility can be. One of my teammates met with an employee at a manufacturing company who was feeling really frustrated and really undervalued in their work and disclosed to the resource coordinator who is a confidential support that their person on the autism spectrum and that what they really want to do is organize that darn warehouse. But they're in a completely different position that's not really like speaking to them, right? It's not grabbing the way they want to work, right? And so I think there's just there's so much stigma still that employees come to their resource coordinator and will share these things and yet they don't feel safe sharing with their employer. I didn't get my autism diagnosis until I was like 54 years old. That meant that I spent most of my life. I'm 55, 56 now, I forget, but I spent way more of my life not knowing that I was autistic in a neurotypical environment than I have knowing that I am neurotypical. And unfortunately, because of where the lack of information comes regarding neurodiversity, the complex PTSD that I have actually is as a result predominantly of my employment scenarios. So some of the stuff I'm going to share isn't going to be really happy stuff. And I'm sorry about that. But it's also real. And I'm also not super sorry about that. So the first question was what kinds of access needs do you have at work? I wrote down a couple notes about executive functioning and organization. I want to give an example of how the company came in, had a consultant come in, was working with us all for things on like organization and things like that. At that point, I had been in the business for 25, 30 years, I was holding high level professional roles, and I couldn't manage things. And all of the suggestions that were given were neurotypical suggestions. They're all the ones that you find in the books. They're all the ones that I had tried before. And none of them worked for me because they weren't built for my brain. But unfortunately, what winds up happening is I just came off like I was resistant to any kind of help. Because the help that I was getting wasn't actually conducive to the problems I was trying to solve. The problem was nobody knew that I was autistic at that time. Another thing that came into play regarding access needs is top down processing. Clem, you were talking about working different hours. I can't work when there's sound around me. I can't block out that sound. And so I would go into the office at six o'clock when it was quiet, work until it was nine, not be able to get anything done between nine and four o'clock with interruptions. And then I would work until seven, eight, nine o'clock every day. And I wound up getting fired in spite of unprecedented results because they needed somebody who could do the job in 40 hours a week. I was on salary, so it cost them nothing more. And I was putting in the time and getting unprecedented industry results. And fundamentally, what wound up happening is I wound up getting kicked out of the company for political reasons. They use 360 degree reviews. And fundamentally, none of the people who were reviewing me were actually qualified to review me. So that's just a little bit about the access. I don't want to go on too long, but the part about making it hard to communicate the access needs really comes down to the fact that 3% of the research that goes into autism goes into adult autism as opposed to pediatric autism. I've been declined for medical services because the physician or the therapist doesn't know what to do with me. If the therapist or the physician doesn't know what to do with me, how can I expect the employers to know what to do with me? If the scientists aren't doing the research to inform me what help I need, how can I be informed to help an employer be informed as to what kind. So it turns into like this vicious circle. The last thing I want to address, and I'll make this really, really quick about how the concepts of access needs and perspective taking play out in the workplace. The one thing I want to note is because most people make an assumption that everybody else is neurotypical. They do not have it in their thought constructs that, oh, this person might be autistic, this person might be neurodivergent. And so what happens when some of our neurodivergent features like rigidity or pathological demand avoidance show up, those kinds of features are often conflated as personality traits when they're actually hurdles that we are trying to get over in order to do our job and get the results that the company expects us to get. So that's my kind of little brief and thank you. Thank you, Zeph. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I hear on the state house so many people nodding their head along while you were speaking. Connie. Zeph, what you just said made me think of something I just wanted to share. I think, oh, there goes my hand. Sorry, I was like, my hand's still up. Where's my hand? Oh, but what you just said, I saw this happen in a workplace with, there was an employee that came to meet with me as a resource coordinator, right? So the employee came in, was crying and clearly really escalated and really upset by their supervisor on a production line having yelled at them to do the job and do something a certain way. And so they came to me and they disclosed that they had experienced a lot of trauma and having been previously incarcerated and that they were experiencing that flight fight, you know, kind of that just the flood you could tell that person in it. But that team lead, that supervisor, essentially that was a trigger, right? That person triggered that. And so the supervisor team lead, I, you know, this is days later, I came to find out the company let that employee go and what I have come to learn since what I think happened there. And I don't know for sure. But what I think was happening is a team lead in the company, you know, perceived that employee had that perception, right? That idea that, you know, this person just being difficult, not following the rules and, you know, creating this problem. When I know, because I got to talk to that person, I recognize no, no, that what's happening right now is that way a person's communicating is triggering your brain to go somewhere else. Your brain's not here at work, right? Right. That team lead who, you know, wasn't supported to approach that situation with those types of tools or with that thinking, right? We didn't, we hadn't set that team lead up to be able to communicate in a way that would, that would really have de-escalated the situation. It could have made that work totally differently. That I will never forget because I sat, I knew what was happening, but the company didn't have any steps or any practice or any support for the employees that are in it day to day, right? Right. Yeah. And if I could also point out, because Connie, what you're really reminding me of is you're really like a cultural broker, you know, you are an interpreter where you are taking what you've seen, the communication, the nonverbal communication that you have perceived, and you're now translating it or interpreting it through a lens of understanding nervous system regulation. And it is not, it's not a common practice that we can even identify when people are dysregulated. It's like when I do trainings on neuro-inclusive employment, that is the first thing I do is what I do for you guys because, because I think if we cease overtly flipping their lid and throwing things, like we can maybe recognize that's not a calm person right now, but that's not the only manifestation of dysregulation. So if somebody is the tone of voice, the flood of ideas, the pace of speech, the rapid pace, like there's all different ways that a nervous system manifests dysregulation. And so I think one of the most helpful steps for an employer to be investing in neuro-inclusive culture is to get some training around recognizing dysregulation in your employees and not attributing things to like a conscious cortical like, yeah, I really thought this out and I thought this was the way I was going to handle this. Like this is limbic and voluntary automatic responses dysregulation. And so I think the issue is that these things are not on people's radar that because it's not being taught. Right, so let's start there. So what do you remember if anything about what you were taught about autism and ADHD? Nothing. I had no idea they coexist. Yeah, I was never taught that they coexist despite they almost like they coexist more often than they don't. Right. Yeah, I feel like for me, autism education was like developmental milestones and mchat and that type of stuff for kids. And then ADHD was as this happens in kids and we use stimulants to treat it. And then yeah, they were very, they were separate. I mean, I was not taught that autistic physiology was different than non-autistic people's physiology. Like I was taught, I mean, like, so, I mean, there was there, there was like, so, you know, the deficit based paradigm of like, you know, here are the things that are wrong. And we call this autism. In kids, there's never a discussion about autistic adults. I don't know, like, I don't think that I had any ideas about autistic adults, despite being one and not knowing. But like, I, like, like, it was just never on the radar that like, there were autistic adults, let alone the medical conditions that people have. So, like, when the list of all the co-occurring conditions, these are all things that kids had. Um, there was also like, you know, the, the, the medical conditions that all the autistic kids had, they were, it was very strongly implied, if not explicitly taught to me, that there was, it was like patient blaming, you know, like you have gastrointestinal things because you, you only eat chicken nuggets and pasta and you don't exercise. So that's why you're constipated. Like, not that you have stretchy colons that get all, get all stretched out. Right. Per, increase periodontal disease because of not doing oral hygiene. Right. Right. Right. I mean, and this is, this is more systemic, right? In the, in the healthcare system, but the, the zoomed in style of teaching, like, you know, there's psych, psychiatry and there's gastroenterology and there are all these things that are separated in, but in reality, there are so many things that are interconnected that it's, it's silly that we're not taught more of a like zoomed out picture. This is like a, an entire being that is, has multiple systems that actually work together and rely on each other. I think that's what prime's primary care providers for doing this type of work is because theoretically they're the ones who are already doing that kind of like a look at the full body and the full patient and they're the ones who are seeing all the different things that are going on and know the patient longitudinally, longitudinally enough to theoretically be able to kind of see the connection between everything. But what I would say is that even though we have a population of clinicians who are ideally poised to spot the pattern, we have a medical system, a healthcare system that is thwarting primary care clinicians to have full access to their cortex, right? Like, so we have this, like, this healthcare system that is forcing primary care clinicians to see, you know, a patient every 10 minutes, you know, 10, 15 minutes and most practices are 15 minute visits for follow ups, 30 minute visits for new patients or, you know, wellness exams or whatever. And on top of that, you're managing an electronic medical record system and paperwork and interpersonal work stuff. It's like, you have, you have five, five or 10 jobs within one job already. And so not, not, I don't want to, there's no, the blame is the system. I don't think that people go into medicine intentionally wanting to dismiss people at all. But it's just, it's something that ends up happening, you know, you're exhausted, you're tired, you, you didn't eat breakfast, you didn't have time to eat lunch. And then you're, and then you just, you lose, what's it called? You get dysregulated. There's, there's a line that, that happens. And you're like backed up against the wall and feel like you, you know, in some, some ways, it may be the provider kind of advocating for their own access needs by saying, okay, we don't have time to talk about this today, but not knowing that that, that's how that makes someone feel. You don't have the cognitive resources to do what needs doing in that moment because the system is sporting you. And so you, you're anyway, you don't have the ability in that moment to zoom out because that's an executive function. It's like a higher order brain skill to zoom out, to self monitor, to know like what you're saying, how you're saying, your tone, your body language, all of this stuff. And I think that there's a lot of, you know, really inadvertent communication breakdowns. Yeah, unintentional dismissiveness. Yeah. I think like what we, what I hear a lot, like when we have new patients, you know, the overwhelming majority of our patients have this pattern right of neuroimmune conditions that, that there is physiology that explains these multi-organ system symptoms. People show up and they have like this laundry list of diagnoses and like, why would it make sense that a human being would have like 40 things wrong with them? You know, turns out, you know, their connective tissue is different. It's, it's just a different way of being wired. And it just so happens that these physical health conditions, which, you know, are, are, are exacerbated by dysregulation. And when your access needs are thwarted by like, you know, all of the systems, this actually drives like a worsening of neuroimmune conditions. But people don't know that. Nobody knows that. They just like feel broken and they're told that they are broken and they're like shamed for seeking help. So like, anyway, shame for seeking help, shamed for seeking help in the way that you authentically communicate when you seek help. And shamed for not complying with recommendations that don't work for your brain. Right. When, when, when we hear their story, they can trace this back for like decades, right? Like decades. Yeah. And it's about having the opportunity to share your story in the way that works for you. So some people need to info dump their story with mouth words. Some people need to bring a list. Yes. Right. Right. Right. They're the patient with the list, right? The one that's like shamed and other by the healthcare system. They go, that list is incredibly important because it has all the information in it. Like, anyway, there's some people like, you know, we, we have a patient who I'll never forget new patient visit, you know, brought a mind map that showed me like, you know, all the things that like this makes it worse, this makes it better. And I'm like, I know that pattern. Right. So like, if you get the, if you get the patient's information in like their, so to say, like in their native tongue, like in their, in their way that they, that's communicate, you get a ton more information. But the system works patients from communicating. That people come in. I think the other thing that I often see, especially with kids coming in with their different kids, especially is just that they have not been able to access pair in other settings. Just due to the like sensory overload of the specific setting. And so, whether it's like providers not knowing their sensory needs beforehand, before actually coming into the visit or like just before walking into the room, whether it's like the fluorescent lights, whether it's thinking that they're going to need a vaccine the entire visit and being anxious and not interacting the entire visit until they know they don't need one of the end. And that's why I like having the like information before a visit of what somebody needs, what their sensory needs are because starting off the visit that way makes such a huge difference. And if we didn't have that, I wouldn't know necessarily. Well, you locked something out. How do we have that information? We asked, right? Like that's the thing, right? So, if you ask people what makes them comfortable and you ask and like you try to do those things, they usually have a better healthcare experience. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's just the systems within the systems already have like their right, their standard expectation. Like, this is how you communicate. This is how you take information. Like, you know, people, people teach you how to how to take notes. Like, when you're in when you're in school, here's how here's how you study something without ever knowing how your brain works. Part of the, you know, a huge part of the problem is is simply that there's a giant percentage of the adult population that has no idea that that that there's some that neurodiversity is so common. And so, you know, and I'm and I say that, including myself, right, they'll say to me a long time ago, what do you think happens to all those kids who were diagnosed with this when they were little? They turn into adults and we just don't learn anything about that. And it's not just physicians. It's like everybody, right? So, so there is so little knowledge and therefore interest in in getting an interpreter or being an interpreter, you know, the other thought. The other thing I'm thinking, though, is there are certain, I mean, you tell me what you think about this, but there are certain kinds of jobs where you being regulated is a necessity. You can't just accommodate everything for every job. I love that you're bringing that up. So two things I would say. So one is, the idea is that many times when people are dysregulated, it would be helpful to like wonder why? Why are you dysregulated? And so like to prevent dysregulation. So when I when I think back to my medical training, I can think, Hi, when I can think back to like, being a resident and like breaking down like crying in the in the resident call room, it was always in the context of my computer doing something terrible to me that was like really interfering with my ability to do my job. I had no idea that I had visual processing and visual motor differences. I had no idea. I just knew that I felt terrible and I was flipping my lid about it. Like this happens all the time these like subtle ways in which the environment and the bandwidth tax depletes one's nervous system. And so like the idea would be that, yeah, we should we should we should all know about our brains so that we can design a life that's meant for our brain, you know, like I didn't know about assistive technology until I was 37 years old. It made a huge difference. Now my five year old has already had an assistive technology console. Like this is this is what happens when you can learn about your brain, you have incredible power up, you know, offered to you and and the most important thing is to not internalize a narrative of being broken and defective. Like, yeah, this is a thing. This like zoom, it's so hard to work it. It's not my fault. It's the way the program was designed. So like that that that subtle shift makes a huge difference, you know, over over someone's lifespan. Because what I would say to Zef's point about or actually, I'll also just just just to add on directly to Rachel's point about, you know, autistic, or, you know, otherwise neurodivergent kids become neurodivergent adults. We have, you know, here at all brains belong. We have, you know, almost 200 neurodivergent adults who were not identified as children. You know, the people that come to our practice may or may not, you know, be neurodivergent or identify as neurodivergent. But by and large, the people come here because their needs were not met by the traditional health care system. And we're offering something different. And in so doing, what many not all but many people have in common is that, you know, growing up with a brain that thinks learns or communicates differently than that so called typical brain, whatever that means, is that there's just a lot of internalized ableism and and just like impact on agency and self esteem and self concept from being told explicitly or implicitly that there's something wrong with you and that there's something broken about you. When that that's that's not true. It was a brain rule. It was a package. It was a myth that was that's that's been fed to so many people, you know, from you know, infancy toddler hood onwards, like the myth that there's a right type of brain, like we tell toddlers that like, you know, this is this is how you play, you can't just play the same thing over and over again. That's pathological like plays the pursuit of joy. Like, who are we to, you know, like, that makes no sense. But yeah, that's what kind of goes on. That's the narrative. Go ahead. Hold on. I want to give you a microphone. Here you go. Oh, cool. Yeah, you got your own microphone. Here you go. There's a I think we're up against something that's also that's bigger than just sort of informing people about like and getting people to buy into the idea of that that there are access needs and that it would be really great if there were sort of a universal design or a universal design approach. Because when I think about the cultural context in which people come into employment, first of all, I mean, this is the means of for me to make a living and support my family. So already anybody who's like needs to be in the job market is stressed about their employment. So they're coming in that fight. So they already have their fight flight stuff going up up in arms when it comes to retaining employment. So someone else gets an advantage that that, you know, is if all of a sudden that pool of potential employees becomes larger, that's a scary thing for the people who are already the even the neuro the neurotypical people who are like, wait, this is my pool. Now somebody else is getting an advantage. And then and also you've got not only that, but you've got the companies that are in competition with each other. And they're in fight flight with each other. So so we have a whole culture where employment is a fight flight thing that's sort of bringing out the worst of us as far as how how we each secure our own private little advantages or our own little advantage nooks, rather than how we open access and and and and share resources. And so I don't I don't know how to deal with that. But I think we're coming into something that has to be that that is better recognized and and addressed intentionally as a part of like how do we how do we make this better for everybody in a way that that like and how do we make clear the stress the impact that the stress is having on everybody that it's like that the way that we're doing employment right now is bad for everybody. So it would be good for us to begin to change. I would say that I mean this is an opportunity to zoom out and say the way that we're doing a lot of things in society is not working for a lot of people. The way we're doing healthcare the way that we're doing education the way that we're doing employment like it's like and and and and this this this is the work that we're trying to take on here at all brains belong in terms of like like can we zoom out and reimagine what's possible because like this not working. So one of the things that I just noticed on that video that I remember from real life was there was someone on the lawn who was texting who was texting to the zoom chat and we read it out loud like it was such a beautiful capturing of like what's on here of creating spaces for people to show up however however they're most comfortable and just show up authentically. Thanks Gabby. No problem. So there we have it so um love to just open this up to any any comments any wonderings any anything that's standing out for anyone. I was shocked when Gabe said that she literally learned nothing about the association of it was that specific question was by the association with ADHD and autism but I mean I can't imagine if the question had just been the autism that it would have been again much more than pediatric you know considerations. I was like literally instead of jaw drop my my eyebrows were into the ceiling but I was just like wow that's incredible incredibly sad. Yeah and so in in and I can I can send you the link to the original interview um from from which that clip came from but the question was actually what did you learn about autism and ADHD at all not even just that these things are related to what did you learn about at all nothing was and that was that that was that was the response to that so so it's I mean relatively speaking um there's this huge huge problem I mean so there's like the narrative of the the deficit based narrative of autism of ADHD of all these like you know quote disorders that the healthcare narrative you know defines as such and that gets propagated over time that professionals you know are trained in that way and and you know kind of reinforce that to to the people they interact with um but but you know medical education often has not um caught up but still like the 1900s narrative. Can I ask a maybe potentially sensitive question you can let me know if it's if it's too much or whatever for the brain club but I listen I listen to um a podcast the science communication podcast and today I was talking about neurotransmitters and a bunch of different things like gut brain health and um one of the protocols that he referenced in some research was um proven to quote unquote ease symptoms of autism and I just um you know and he's a pretty like science backed guy like I I respect him a lot but of course like all doctors and providers like make mistakes or whatever um and I was just like what what do you think about that language like like what what would you what would be your response to that language. What a great question I think that's a perfect question for brain club um you know I think and you know I I think that for many people um there's all kinds of ways that safety is cued and like un-safety is cued and I think that um language often is connected to the lens through which someone sees the world so if someone has a lens that they see the world through that is we all have different brains that do things differently autism for example is just a different way of being wired this is a you know neurologically based um differences in thinking process and communicating and you know this has all you know has strengths this has challenges but mostly challenges that get extra challenging when the environment is a mismatch for one's needs like if you have that lens do you understand the world through that way the language that you use kind of flows from there so um I think when professionals use terms that are reflective of the paradigm they were trained in um a lot of people would say not all people but a lot of people would say I feel unsafe around you yeah when you use those words that phrase that cues the opposite of safety for me and I and and and is that because of the language or is that because of the energy you're giving off into the world because of the way you see the world I don't know that we would be able to distinguish that per se um I think that um I and I'm shooting serious comment I also think that mindset also comes from the focus on pediatric autism so much focusing on kids being easier to deal with for parents versus empowering people to understand learn about their brains and their access needs and how they can design a life that works for their access needs um like Dr. Thomas Armstrong talks about in in he's going to book the power of neurodiversity niche construction you learn about your brain and you design a life based on your needs and yeah there are challenges yeah there are some things that like really are really hard um and um that doesn't mean that I am trying to change change anything about that person and if there is a professional who's like it's one thing to say like I am trying to alleviate suffering but that's not what the person said um so you know ease the symptoms of um what does that what does that mean um and uh does what came out is that reflective of an underlying paradigm that you know a particular person might be operating in is how I um how I might answer that question and I love I love Steve's comments I want the symptoms of my situational dysphoria ameliorated my autism doesn't have symptoms yeah yeah I think that's uh that that is so so so so well said yeah um yeah um uh so Caitlin's comments and and uh Lizzie if it's if it's readily accessible otherwise um I'll just I'll I'll look for it later and send it to Caitlin um I'll link to the 2023 stigma of the autism narrative from April it was like it was like April Brain Club and the Brain Club director from 2023 um uh I I get I I I've given a talk a past couple of April's about um the the stigma of the autism narrative specifically and like how autism got into the DSM and like what the history of that is and the quote that um that uh that comes to mind that relates to um to what Caitlin's uh comment says is like it's um it's gross it's really it's it's it's really gross and people I think you know don't know they don't know the story of that I didn't know the story of that was certainly not part of my medical training um because had I known the story of how the autism narrative got perpetuated over time um I think I would have mistrusted that story I think as a trainee I would have been like wait what as opposed to just like oh that's how it is that's great thanks Lizzie yeah that was that was that was really that was really impressive um yeah um so so with that it's you know it's really about you know and I think a couple people shared in the chat um during some of the healthcare clips about like oh it's it's helpful to hear that like clinicians are struggling that the system is thwarting people because it like you know it influences my perception of how they're interacting with me I think that's what the double empathy problem is all about it's it's really about you know um uh the emotional impact on me is different when I um I'm imagining someone else's worldview but often um when it comes to um neurodivergent people um there's not that perspective taking being offered and we saw like all those examples in the workplace of you know it's just assumed that you know this person's lazy and they don't want the job and they you know they're whatever they don't care um as opposed to like this this person is dysregulated because they don't have their axis needs met all right so um just just to give you a preview of what's ahead next week as we continue on our journey of brain club 2023 greatest hits we'll be revisiting the theme of the culture of interdependence um the idea of unlearning the myths of independence because there is nothing wrong um with being connected to and relying on other people in fact that is like what the point is so with that we look forward to seeing you next Tuesday thanks everybody bye