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Welcome back to the Autism Podcast and today, we've got a bit of a special episode for you today as per usual, we're going to be talking all about autism and gaslighting, what the difference between unintentional and intentional gaslighting is, what the aspects of gaslighting are quite applicable to autistic people like stereotyping, infantilization. Some stuff about why we may be more prone to gaslighting as well as what make crime is and what it looks like, and lastly, we're going to end up chatting about the different red and green flags that you can look for in romantic relationships or within friendships. So before I introduce my guest, I just want to give a little bit of a backstory. I met Joely at the autism show in Manchester, I believe, and this for anyone who doesn't know is kind of like a speaking event where they have lots of different organisations who come and sort of demonstrate their products or the services that they offer, but it's also an opportunity to hear from both experts as well as experts by experience, which is where me and Joely came into chat about things. So, Joely, how are you doing today? Hi. I'm very good. Thank you. How are you? Not too bad. As I said before, it's been a bit of a crazy week. I was supporting a residential for disabled young people for about three days this week, so it was very lovely and rewarding, and I really enjoyed it. Also, my social battery is pretty much or has been pretty much flat for the past two days. Me too. It's starting to climb back up. Yeah, I've been in Wales for conference and things, and I'm pretty exhausted too. But yeah, like you said, climbing up. Yeah. Yeah. So you do a lot of public speaking, then? I do. I travel, I'm a national and international public speaker. I do motivational speeches about mental health and autism, disability. Yeah, I try to empower understanding in a shame-free way of all of autism's hidden depths and quirks and the hardships that sometimes, you know, it's hard to miss. So yeah, I really, I love what I do and it's so rewarding. So how did you get into like the world of public speaking? And is that, do you do any of stuff alongside that with your sort of career? Yeah, so I started volunteering with a disability youth action team called The Chatterboxes and we sort of helped, we sort of designed like a magazine for other disabled people, bi-disabled people, and then we were like running workshops and that's the charity group, like my career and my volunteering group. So I started doing speeches at different events and then sort of from there it sort of snowballed. Yeah. And yeah, I love what I do and I'm just very, very blessed and lucky that I'm able to do it. What did you start off with doing? Like how? Like, because I know you mentioned about how you got into that area. What were you doing beforehand and how did you kind of fall into such a, well, I mean, for a lot of people that I talked to, they found it quite anxiety provoking to get up on stage or get in front of an audience online and chat. Yeah, so for me, I find it easier to talk in front of hundreds of people that I do talking one to one, because I suppose one to one, there's very much that to and fro and I find it really hard to like start or maintain or finish a conversation. And because we're talking about something of interest to me, something that I'm passionate about, I can talk about it and I don't seem like I have that many difficulties. But in reality, one to one conversation is a lot harder for me than it is talking about something I've monologued and practiced to perfection. Like, there's no interruptions, there's nothing that will change. And it's, for me, it's easier. But yeah, when I was at school, I never could have imagined I'd ever be able to do anything like this. Like before I started volunteering, I just I was at like an arts university. And I didn't really know where I was going. Like, I sort of always knew I wanted to help people. But I didn't really know how I especially as a disabled autistic person could do that. Like I've always loved my autism, I've always seen it as a gift. But it is a disability for me. It does. It's very hard. And I do have like 16 out of 100 average life skills. So I did always wonder like how, how do I make that dream of helping people a reality when I can't do basic things? And it was, yeah, volunteering sort of showed me the way really, just sort of showing a light on all of those hidden skills and helped me understand the hardships enough to actually learn how to thrive with them and not in spite of them. And I think that's the beautiful part of it. And I try to sort of convey that message in my own work as a speaker. And fingers crossed, fingers crossed out. I relate quite a lot to the, the one to one kind of thing. Because I started with the own like my own online stuff through, you know, similar areas like I used to create videos on YouTube. And then, you know, I think at one point I was, I was kind of going through a very big, like self improvement journey. And I wanted to improve how well I could talk to other people. Because it, you know, I relate as well to, you know, being extremely quiet and nervous and shy, particularly in secondary school. So when, when I actually started the podcast, my one of my goals was to become better at one to one conversation. So we're gonna about, we're gonna just over 60 episodes at the moment. So it seems to be going well. I think looking back on like my first episode, I think a lot of people find it quite funny, just to like see how different I am now to how it was. How much you've grown. True. I also used to do way, way much more editing than I do now. So I think that's a big factor. So like when we were chatting before, in our pre interview chat, we were talking about a little bit about music therapy, and a little little bit about party and nightlife culture. Would you like to tell us a little bit more about like the music therapy angle of this? I can't remember exactly what, what we were saying about it. Okay, so I love music. See, I'm, I don't know how to describe it, but I'm someone who can be both a sensory seeker and someone who's like sensory avoiding. So like, I love music and I can be at a festival and I can be in a mosh pit and I can be dancing all night listening to really loud music, you know, and other times I will need to just have absolute sensory calm and have no, no sounds at all. But I think for me, in terms of music therapy, is that obviously, we like the music, but it's also part of the stim dance, you know, like you can systemize the data and means sensory seeking with that music and the movement as a part of these like mind wandering stimulations of how you process backgrounds information. So music therapy for me is not just therapeutic, but it does help me process like problems in my life. I'm going through in a background way without me over internalizing and shutting down and getting really anxious. So I do get very anxious. I find specifically for me, like, a lot of the ways that music's helped me is it kind of, it's kind of doing it in a lot of different ways. Like, I think sometimes when you're Alexa Vimec, it can be quite difficult to understand what your emotional state is like. And I have lots and lots and lots of different playlists on my on my Spotify. And I just I have I have some that are a bit more kind of kind of dancy and upbeat and I have some that are quite depressing and sad. And a lot of the time I can sort of tell where my moods at by how much I want like want to listen to a certain playlist, which is strange. And then I guess at the same time, sometimes listening to that music allows me to feel a bit more and kind of process things a bit more that I'm feeling. I totally relate to that. Absolutely. And I'm quite sensitive as well. So if I listen to like something really like I quite like metal sometimes, but sometimes my sensitivity and I'll just get really angry for no reason, even though I could be perfectly happy before, I think it very much depends on my mood and what sort of sensitivities I'm feeling at the time. Yeah. But if you listen to the right playlist, it really helps. Yeah, yeah. I have a very eclectic to taste in music. Like, I like, I like anything from electro swing to I love electro swing caravan playlist. Yeah. BB Bella Bella do something something like that. I can't remember that. But then I listen to some like, like American, like 19, I don't know what 19 is, but this is some American swing and like, all the time music, but then I listen to metal listen to like dark traffic listen to a little bit of mainstream music. I have a very wide like, liking of things. The only thing that I don't tend to listen to is country. Yeah, so much. Yeah. I don't I don't know why I think it's because of the instruments that they use. It just doesn't. Sometimes it's a bit too, I don't know how to describe. Yes, I was going to say like pingy but yeah, 20 years to forget messes with my brain a bit. Yeah. Lots of different, different notes that have different twangs. So I think maybe that's the complication of noise that I my brain can't handle it. So I tell you what you were saying about sort of going to festivals and going to mosh pits and stuff and like, I mean, I like music, but I don't tend to like going to the live music unless I can like sit down. So I'd be interested to know what your experiences are like in in those kind of atmospheres as a as an autistic person. So I adore festivals. I I think I started going to festivals when I was like 12 or something. Like my first big festival was Glastonbury and I went every year for like a decade or something. Very lucky because it's all so hard to get tickets. But yeah, and we we were just party all night. And when I say party, I'm not talking about drinking or or anything like that. But like, I would be dancing and listening to music all night because I just felt so at peace in those situations. Like, when I first passed that pyramid stage, I was looking all around me and there's all these dancing strangers and like, two Jews and weird hats and stuff. And I was like, I'm at home like these people are just like me, a little bit strange, but absolutely owning it. And I just felt so at peace there. And I think the music and what the mosh pits and things kind of made me feel at home too. But yeah, it's different for everyone. Yeah, I do like to go out to the nightclubs now and again on occasion. Just not not a lot is the time I'm much more of a like, plug in my headphones and listen to music on my own kind of person. Yeah, I used to go out a lot more, but I think I got old. I think to be honest, I would like to go out a bit more. I think it's more like you kind of it's, it's hard to organize sometimes in adult life, like when you're just going like exiting from school, or you're just at university, it's it's so much easier to like have those things just readily available to play. Oh, they're going out, they're going out. Oh, I can join them. Can join these people. Yeah, I could never organize it on my own. No, totally. Totally. I'm the same. Well, I know that we're not here to talk about music and party life and stuff like that. We're here to talk about gas lighting, which I think is a is a term that perhaps many people will recognize or at least know it know a certain amount about. So I guess like that there are particularly two types of of gas lighting that spring to mind. In unintentional and intentional gas lighting. So I'd really want to understand like what do those two types of things look like in different in real life in different situations? It's a very good question. So for me, I've been talking about gas lighting for like a decade now. So I like to think I was talking about it before it became cool. Yes. Gas lighting is a very, very difficult topic to talk about because it is very complicated. And I think there's many different types, but the two that I know most is unintentional and intentional. So generally gas lighting is when someone manipulates us using psychological means into making us doubt our own sanity, live to reality, experiences or self and our memory too. And we can people can gaslight us in numerous ways, like they can gaslight us intentionally with an intention to cause harm and gain control over us, or it can be unintentional, where the intention and this is where it gets complicated. The intention is sometimes to actually help us in particularly if we are autistic. Yeah, yeah. And if we are autistic, we can be gaslighted by anyone, you know, it can be our family, our friends, bosses, peers, teachers or doctors. And often it comes about because people just don't know how to help us because autism is so misunderstood. And it's an invisible disability a lot of the time. We can't see those hardships that we have. And there's always this ableist sort of perfection, obsessed society that's like everyone needs to act a certain way to be good. And there's all of these things. So people try to help us by making us change our perceptions of ourselves and our reality to mold us into what they think would help us. And it doesn't always work because it doesn't help us because they don't understand what will help us and they don't understand our hardships enough to know that these things really cannot help us. So like, as you said, sort of the the intentional one is kind of, it's used as a way to kind of manipulate people into feeling a certain way about certain things or feeling about feeling a certain way about themselves or their partner. Yeah, I've experienced intentional gas lighting before, which is it's it's it's kind of a tricky one because I think when we think of any kind of social emotional thing, we kind of like to think about it and sort of like the moment or the the time at which it happens. Whereas a lot of the time, these types of things tend to be very, very like background and kind of just now and again. And they just kind of like it's not processed. Yeah, it's not it's not like, oh, right, your gaslight. I mean, you know, it's like, it seems to be like a like a growing thing that just you don't really pick up on at the time. But when you look back on things, it's it's a lot more apparent. I think that's what makes us so vulnerable to it as well, because if we do as autistic people, if we do struggle to process information and make connections like that, it does mean that what could be really obvious to other people is just not that apparent to us. Like, I could I could feel the rain on my skin and not process that it's raining. Like, I sometimes I can't even process what my own name is if I'm really shut down. So if someone's treating me badly, and they're taking advantage of me, like I, you know, for instance, if someone was to like, move, like move my keys, and then I would be like, I know I left them on the table, but the person moved the keys and they're like, no, you definitely didn't leave on the table. Or they take money of your person be like, no, you never had that money to begin with. You're, you're, you're not right in the head sort of thing. And it's not, it's not right. It's not, it's not nice. But it does. It makes you doubt every every little fiber of your own self belief. And then it just snowballs into you just not really understanding or knowing or trusting any part of your own judgment into your just. Yeah, I don't know how to explain it. But that processing is a big part of it. Because I think, you know, that that kind of intentional gas lighting is something that people can perhaps, like, understand to a certain extent. But I think one, one area that I've, I believe is, you know, it's a little bit harder to like, for me to wrap my head around is like the unintentional aspect of it. Like, how does how does that happen? Like, in what kind of context would that would that be a thing? So like for autistic people in general, like what I was saying to do, like trying to help us. Yeah, okay. So for example, people have or society has an idea of how autistic people should behave. And they think that it will help us. So they think we should maybe stop stimming, you know, and they might say, stop stimming, and stop stimming in itself is not unintentional gas lighting. But if you add on the psychological manipulation, which is stop stimming, there's no reason why you need to stim, it does not help you. And, you know, you can control it if you tried. That's the unintentional gas lighting. That's the psychological manipulation because it's like, I mean, it does help me. That's why I'm doing it. It's not easy to control. That's why I'm doing it. Because believe me, I'd be masking it if I could. And it does help me. And, you know, those judgments, you know, based on what society thinks would help us and also make us maybe easier to deal with, to other people. So it's kind of like, neglecting someone's like lived experience and perceptions, just because you don't believe that that is something that people can, yeah, that they's right. Like, yes, maybe if it's because our lived reality is so different, like for other people, like, a hug might not burn them. And they'd be like, why are you having such why why not just hug them? Why not just shake their hands? Yeah, you know, and they might gas not a big issue. It's not a big issue to them because they've never experienced it. They could never perceive a reality different to their own. Because they've been sort of taught by society will help autistic people, which is generally making us mask our autism, pretend that we're not autistic, which of course, doesn't help us in any way. They could use the psychological manipulation, the part of the gaslighting, which would be like, there's no reason why you don't hug people that this feeling you have isn't real. There's, you know, it's impossible to feel it, that sort of thing. And like, I used to get gaslighted, untensionally by like doctors and teachers for my shutdowns. And just as a background, my shutdowns, I can lose the ability to walk and talk. And like I said earlier, sometimes I just, I don't even I can't even access my own name. Like, I'm so shut down. I'm not the person I used to be. And when this would happen at school, it would be just, I'd be totally unable to do anything. But the doctors would be like, whoa, it's all in your head. It's all easily within your control if you wanted to change it. And it's an overreaction like that is impossible. So basically, the fault is then with me for something that I cannot control. And yes, because the lived reality is just so different, they could never perceive it to be real. And they teach us that to make us be less autistic, almost. Selective metasim definitely is a thing. And it happens. Absolutely. For me, most of the time when I have a shutdown, I think that's that's a really difficult part. Because I think some people, you know, as you said, they don't really get it. And at the same time, like, I think some people can have like personal, like reactions to like if they've contributed towards you having a shutdown, and you're not speaking to them, and you're not replying to them, they can be like an air of like, being annoyed at you. They can take it personally. Taking it personally exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing I like to sort of remember is that it is unintentional gaslighting is an intention to help. So if there is no shame when people want intentionally gaslighters because they are trying to help, they just don't know how to. And it's not really like, you know, parents and teachers will probably save the stuff to their children and their students all the time, you know, stop stimming, make eye contact, you know, with all the psychological manipulation that make people change their reality to actually do what they think would help them. And but it's not their fault that they, sorry, that's not a word. It's not their fault that they were taught by society of what a toxic way of what would actually help us. And I think as long as everyone is challenging themselves and in a healthy way, not invalidating, you know, their feelings is, it's okay that we can all sort of keep growing together because it is a learning journey. Sure. Sure. Although there is, I suppose, an aspect of gaslighting that I think is very just from my own personal experiences, but from, you know, just thinking about it, the aspects of stereotyping and infantilization. Do you have do you have any any experiences with those two or ways of ways of explaining, explaining it that might be helpful? Okay, so I get infantilized a lot. And it's because it's often because of my shutdowns and because sometimes it is stereotypes that autistic people aren't really adults. Like autistic adults aren't really adults. And we're just really like children or, you know, whatever, which obviously is not the case. And I do get infantilized a lot, especially when I'm because I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user. So I have a wheelchair, so especially when I'm in my wheelchair. But like recently I went to get a vaccine. And there was a nurse who she infantilized me so much. She was she made me she treated me like I was an actual toddler. Like she was there like, oh, you're here for your ouchie vaccine. You don't know what a vaccine is, do you? Oh, okay. How about I give you a lolly? And I'm like, I don't want a lolly. She was like, how about I give you a treat? You could have a sticker book. And I was like, Oh my God. They'd like know that you were autistic. The thing is, she knew I was autistic, but she was treating me perfectly fine until the moment she knew I was autistic. I was like, Oh, so yeah, hi, I'm autistic. So just Yeah, it tends to be that way. That's why I'm doing this. But while I'm stimming, I can still is helping me focus on what you're saying. And it's, you know, I just carry on, you know, I can understand what you're saying because I'm stimming. But then it was like a curtain dropped and she was like treating me like a baby all of a sudden. And it was massive example of infantilization. And I have to say it's not usually that bad. That's a very worst case scenario sort of thing. Most professionals know a lot better. But these things do happen because there's a very, there's a big misconception of what it means when we are stimming, but it can look childish to some people when we're stimming. Yeah. Like it can look like it's really interesting sort of like the dynamic between how we are when we like what people say about us when we're younger, as opposed to what people say about us when we're older, like when we're younger, we're kind of characterizes this like little professor kind of, you know, interesting child that doesn't seem to be able to communicate with people their own age and prefers to talk to adults and like, so sort of this kind of like old soul mentality of what we're like when we get older. It's like it's the opposite. It's like, you know, I think I have been thinking about it a lot. And I think it's a lot to do with, you know, just the fact that we don't necessarily apply ourselves to those social norms at any age really. And so people always don't necessarily know where to put us. And when we don't fit those particular stereotypes of what adults should be like and what adults should say and what kind of life skills they have, then they kind of will automatically put us into this box of like, oh, they're not proper adult yet. They're immature, like. Yeah. And that's it. It's like I'm still a capable, mature adult, even when I'm stimming, I'm still a capable mature adult, even when I'm non-verbal, like I can still, I can still make choices. I can still, you know, I'm still an independent adult. These things don't change just because I'm shut down or because I'm autistic. Yeah, especially if I've been empowered with one-to-one support to be independent. Like I find that interesting too, because it's some people think that being independent on care and support is like the opposite of independence. And I get that. I understand why, because on the face of it, that's exactly what it sounds like. But the definition of independence is to be outside of, or like outside of other people's control so that you can make your own choices, you can have your own freedom to do things. And I think with me in particular, I have 16 out of 100 average life skills. I need like a lot of life skills and self-care help and independence from carers and things. But that care support helps me be independent and make those choices and I would never be independent without it. Like I could never do anything like this. And I think part of that is that people look at autistic people and they think, oh, they infantilise us and they're like, well, they need all of this care support, they're not independent adults. Whereas actually, if you empower us properly, we can still be independent. It's just different to how society expects it to be. Yeah. I think that that's a really good point. And also the idea of independence is very funny anyway because it's never a black and white thing. It's very much like a grey sliding scale kind of thing. Yeah. Like everyone's dependent on some human for well, actually for quite a lot of things in life. Like the people who make all the furniture and the equipment that you have, people who provide water and take out the garbage and produce food that you can consume and sell the food to you. Yeah, exactly. And with support, it's pretty much exactly the same thing. Like someone's providing you a service in order for you to, you know, get through life a little bit easier or be able to, I guess, reach a level where you're able to feel happy and fulfilled with your needs and stuff. Yeah. See, I see it like that. I see it as like everyone else is that like a baseline where they can thrive and be independent and disabled people to see people might be here and we just sort of need that little bit of extra help to get to that baseline. And that's all that care is. It helps us get to the same baseline as everyone else, you know, we can still thrive and be independent and be mature adults. And yeah, I forgot what I was going to say. Trainer 4 just disappeared. There is an aspect of like that particularly the stereotyping thing that I feel has been the most harmful for me and relationships. And particularly stereotyping around competence in social situations and empathy, which, you know, that's something that I've experienced a lot about, you know, particularly intentional gaslighting about me lacking empathy or me not being able to understand particular social situations or perhaps situations within a friendship or a relationship. Yeah. That seems to be something that's quite coherent with the type of gas lighting that I've experienced in life. And it's weird because like, you know, you only have to like watch some of the content that I produce or the podcast that I make to understand that I'm definitely not lacking. I'm definitely not lacking in empathy. I'm not lacking in the ability to understand social context and situations. In fact, you know, I'd say that I probably am better at it than most net neurotypicals that I've gone across. But anyway, it's I feel like that's that's quite a big thing because it's like some people just have an inherent, like, superiority over us or they just they can't, like, accept that we're mature, but we're just mature in a different way. And that we do understand things, but we just navigate that in a different way. Yeah. And also, I feel part of my autism helps me sort of delve deep into the psychological details of like every person I meet. So yeah, whatever they do or say, like I've got this little psychological thing in my brain going, oh, I know why they're saying that I know why they're doing that. Like I passed my child psychology NVQ for Cambridge University. I started it at like seven in the morning and I finished it by like 10 at night, like every module, every exam, like I passed it, aced it. And a lot of it and the tutor sort of said it was because it was online, by the way, in a sort of learning environment that suited me. But the tutor said it was because she thought it was my autism that could help me dive in, dive into that psychological detail and work out. And she said, actually, like, you're more empathetic than maybe some neurotypical people are because you have been taught to sort of fight to understand people because you're always misunderstood and you're always people always claiming that you're misunderstanding them. So and I think that's a big part of it. Like, like you, I'm hugely empathetic. Like, to the point that it hurts, but that empathy can also shut me down. So it can appear like I have no empathy. You can feel like it can look like I'm really cold or I'm not responding. But that's because I'm so shut down with the emotional pain of it. Like my entire body will be on fire with like volcanoes. I'll be itchy everywhere. I'll be in pain and it will shut me down. And I don't know how to understand those situations. Yeah, I like I've been in those. Sorry, I've been in those kind of situations where I've like, had people tell me something that's really emotional. And, you know, I relate to what you're saying because I like I make like less eye contact. I kind of look into the distance. I'm really trying to process and understand what someone's saying. Yeah. And some people take that as me not being interested and not being caring. Whereas I'm just really trying to understand where they're coming from and what they're experiencing. That's sad. No, so it's like it's partly like a defense mechanism because we've a lot of autistic people would have been told off and sort of shamed and invalidated and unintentionally isolated so often about not being empathetic and not reacting properly in certain social situations where like emotional values are really high. And that can create this trauma defense mode where we're like, actively hiding from it because our body already expects to be in trouble and we shut down. And for me, I soon learn like very quickly at a young age that I was the problem. But I made that whatever emotional situation was going on, I made it worse. So I would run away and hide in like wherever it was, but I distanced myself from them because I believed and I truly believed this, that if I was out the way, their problem would go away. But that just made it worse because they thought I didn't care and I had no empathy and I was just being selfish and that can be further from the truth. And it's a huge stereotype which again has a big impact on the whole infertilization and also it links back into the unintentional gaslighting. It makes relationships quite difficult. It's putting it, putting it lightly. Well, I think I think it's good that we've kind of tried a lot about like what it can look like and perhaps a little bit more about the specifics of what it might look like for autistic people. I suppose like, do you have anything, any aspects that you think autistic people show that might make us a lot more prone to gaslighting? This is my processing stem. Look a bit like Mr. Bert. Yeah, I was going to say, hmm, smithers. OK, got it. So I think one of the main parts is obviously we're very vulnerable and we do misread situations and we do shut down. But also I think it's partly how we process information so I think autistic people process information in like a fact first manner. So everything is processed as a fact first. And then if we've got the capability, we then can process like the emotional the emotions and the memory and the logic that sort of ties in with that fact. So it's for things like this just as so it makes a bit more sense. Like if someone wants to say, oh, it's raining cats and dogs like my I will process that as fact and be looking out the window for the cats and dogs because I haven't yet processed the logic and the emotional memories to be like, nah, that's not possible. Well, not anymore now that we don't have fact roots or whatever. But I do think we do process things in a fact first manner. So. And the problem with that is that with these relationships, everyone around us is always right. Everyone else is the correct person. Everyone else is the right model. We're always taught to be invalidated and ashamed of who we are and that we should change no matter what. And part of it is also the justice seeking. We want to change and be good because that's part of our brain. Like everything has to be processed fact first as a justice sort of way. And this does mean that anyone who wants to take advantage of us more or less can because we're processing their their behavior and their mistreatment of us as a fact. This is something that should happen. Like this is OK and I deserve it. But also I'm just seeking to make it a reality. And because we get shut down at the fact processing stage, we don't always process the next bit with the emotions, the logic and the memories of past experiences that could otherwise teach us that this fact isn't right. Yeah, just I don't know if that makes sense. It's kind of how I sense how I process it in my brain. No, it's I think like the way that I think about is a bit bit kind of different. Like I kind of I take on board what people say to me directly and I don't always compare that to the way that they're saying the thing or the context of the situation. And if I'm in a relationship where I trust another person and I feel strongly towards another person. You know, it's it's more likely that I'll take on board what what people tell me then than I won't. There's been lots of situations as well from you know, that happened to a lot of autistic people in terms of like bullying or you know, difficult situations at school and not not and having a lot of memories of not really understanding social situations and saying the right thing or or doing the right thing with within friendships and relationships and school life. And I think sometimes that combination of us really focusing on the direct language it allows us to be manipulated a bit more easily. Yeah. And at the same time like we're less likely to take what we think and what we feel is as seriously because of the like the past bias, the past kind of experiences that we've had. We've been taught to invalidate every feeling or thought that we've ever had because we've always been told they're wrong anyway. So why would we believe our own thoughts that are like, hey, this isn't right. What you said was what I was trying to say. I think I think there's there's also the aspects of Alexifamir as well that can make and complicate things because definitely like if you say something and you you believe that it's right, like if someone sort of disregards that and and either intentionally or unintentionally gaslights you into thinking that it isn't. You know, you don't necessarily have like the immediate emotional response of being able to like put a boundary in place and say, like, no, don't tell me what I thought. Like, I know what I thought. You don't necessarily have that. And it's it's more of a thing where you kind of just go along with it and then you kind of think about it in a week or a few days and you're like, you know, I did feel too good about that situation. I felt like they weren't really listening to me. And then you go back flips over. We say that. Sorry. It's totally true, though, isn't it? It's no, I forgot what I was going to say. Sorry, I'm sorry about that. It's some. Yes, so. Well, when you come back and when you try to approach something that happened before that kind of seem to be something that both parties agreed on, people don't tend to respond very well to that. So, you know, sometimes when you come back after a couple of days, a few weeks and say, actually, hey, this wasn't right. And, you know, you try to put that boundary in place after the fact. It's not always the easiest thing to do. And it's it's that background processing because it takes such a long time sometimes. Yeah. And I feel that's what I was sort of talking about earlier, that mind wandering stimulation, like music, therapy and art therapy and sort of daydreaming. It sort of helps us with those background processes. It's not always just problems that we're solving in like real time, but it can be the experiences that we had with relationships where we sort of social situations where we know something was a quite quite right, but we don't have a quite process what it is and what boundaries to set, if any. And it does. It takes a long time because there's always such there's like a chronic overwhelm when you are you are autistic. It's complicated. And then it's not to mention like the mental health difficulties that we can have around anxiety, like Oh, my goodness. Anxiety makes you question makes you question yourself anyway. Yeah. So it's when you're so anxious and when you're feeling down about yourself, you might be like depressed or something. Someone comes up to you and says that hey, this is actually the reality of things. She more likely to go like, oh, actually, my head's all over the place. I actually don't know. Like I'm so just regulated. Like I, you know, so it kind of I think that's another aspect that can make us feel a bit more or be a bit more vulnerable to that thing. It's so true because I'm always the first to be like, oh, no, I'm 100% in the room. Even if I probably wasn't and didn't have anything to do with me, I always assume that I'm the person who did the wrong thing and said the wrong thing. And I will always be the one who agonize over it and try and work out why and it will just stay with me for months, years, eternity. She's always processing it. And that is partly why it makes me very vulnerable to this sort of like the main crimes and the unintentional gaslighting because I can't always tell. Well, that's that's an interesting part because I know that the main crime is something that a lot of autistic people might experience. Just just as a baseline for people who don't understand what main crime is, it's basically when an allistic or neurotypical individual befriends an autistic person or starts dating an autistic person with the intention of using and manipulating someone for money, for, you know, any any kind of romantic intimacy type thing or to do with giving them access to their property and and their spaces. And it's something that a lot of autistic people are quite can be quite vulnerable to to because of the statistics around loneliness, isolation that a lot of us experience. So with that, I mean, do you have much experience with with this jolly? Like, do you think that there's any aspect to guess what we're talking about? They make it make us more vulnerable. Yeah, so yeah, main crime is similar to a hate crime in that it's also illegal and it is punishable by the law, but it is something that's really hard to sort of pinpoint and actually take action because, well, it's complicated. So like a main crime is the grooming of autistic, autistic or disabled, elderly, otherwise vulnerable people befriending them with the intention of manipulating them for personal gain and that can be like physical, sexual emotion. You put it better than me. But yeah, because it is complicated, it's very difficult to spot, but it's even harder to report. So like, yeah, I may could sort of borrow possessions and like never give them back or they could convince you to lend them money and they have no intention of paying you back. They could you could be like, oh, I'm I've been paid and suddenly you're doing a pub crawl and you're paying for everything because they conveniently forgot their parts or whatever. Or it could be more sinister. And the thing is they often start small because they're testing your boundaries to how much they can take advantage of you. So it will seem like nothing's happening. And then suddenly it's like they're taking advantage of you. Like maybe like not all cases, but maybe with like sexual favours or they're moving the relationship on too quickly than than what is actually comfortable. But they're sort of coercing and pressuring your consent to make you feel like it was actually your idea when. It wasn't. And because, you know, pressured consent is not true consent and coerced consent isn't consent. And it's very hard to process that when you're autistic and your consent is so routinely trampled anyway in terms of like unintentional gaslighting where we're taught to sort of mold our consent into whatever people see or see fit. Like, yeah, like I'm not consenting to masking all the time or making eye contact. Well, I don't feel like I've got a choice and that's not true consent, you know. And it's a similar thing for make crime. Like I'm not, I wouldn't ordinarily be consenting to this sort of treatment, but I don't realise it's happening because it is so, so slow and it builds up. And also, like you said, the whole loneliness thing the isolation factor, we are so happy to have friends. Like when it happened to me, I was there like grinning all the time like I have friends finally. Why do I feel so alone? So isolated, why do I feel like I don't actually have any friends and it's because I didn't? I was scared, I was alone, I was isolated, but they trick you into thinking that actually this is the best thing ever and you'd be lost without them. But of course you'd be much better off without them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, I've experienced it. I think the way that I could probably add to that is it's always been things related to work for me, like with neurotypicals that I've worked with. That tends to be the case, but it's never like, it doesn't tend to be quite avert in that way, it's, it tends to be kind of like a lack of respect or a lack of respect of my autonomy where in relationships that have that aspect to it. So I remember lots of times where I've put a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of everything into a certain project and they've kind of just kept it they've kind of just kept expecting me to put more and more of my time into it. And then when I kind of turn back and say, this is, you're not really respecting my time and this wasn't agreed to and things like that, they kind of brush under the rug or they may not value exactly and take seriously any issues that I might have as it's something that some, you know, an autistic man who doesn't understand the situation is being like, so I've had that happen to me in that sense and then perhaps some instances where I was at school and people have befriended me or got into a romantic relationship or not really and just used me as kind of like a sense of humour like to make fun of them. And that's part of it. Like they all like mates will often use your autism against you and they will take advantage of you, they will push those boundaries and it will be for personal gain and that can also look like laughing at you because you're autistic and sort of putting you in those situations that make you like shut down or melt down and be like, look at the weird autistic person and it's just, it's not nice and that's often how it starts and if it's allowed to continue and sometimes it is because we don't realise it's happening which is so grateful to our friends. Yeah, it can get worse, it can get a lot worse. Hey up, just popping on to say thank you for listening to this podcast thus far. If you could do me a real solid, please make sure to rate the podcast if you're in a podcasting streaming service and do all that like, subscribe, comment stuff on YouTube. Don't even send a heart in the comments if you don't feel like typing. Make sure to check out my link tree which is always down below in the description or head over to my Instagram page at Thomas Henley UK for daily blogs, podcast updates and weekly lives. This podcast is sponsored by my favourite noise, cancelling, noise reducing earbuds that you can adjust the volume on. Really, really great thing. They're called D-Buds and you can find the affiliate link down in the description of this podcast. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the rest of the podcast. That's all from me. Well, we talked about kind of like gaslighting and why we may be a bit more prone to it some of the things that I guess might be more applicable to autistic people as well as talking a little bit about make crime which is I think something that needs to be talked about a lot more and it's definitely reflective of the the negative experiences that we have with the world. You know, perhaps if we had a lot more of a good social emotional education for us and also for our peers at school then these types of things wouldn't happen so much and we had some good kind of post-18 support social support and that would be something that I feel would help a lot in those situations or even just being aware of these kind of behaviors that we might come across and that would be really valuable in my opinion. I need an actual checklist of it so I know what's going on. There's lots of things that we need to change but I guess in terms of like the practical kind of take away things that we could think about for individuals who may be struggling to I guess identify whether someone's not being particularly good and upfront and kind towards you and what in situations where perhaps they are good for you and that stuff so it would be good to talk about some kind of green flags for relationships so maybe you have some of my own but I think it would be cool to talk about the kind of like the red flags like what red flags do you find in relationships when you just start them and how do you go about identifying those? I think yeah, I think a big red flag like we mentioned is when they use your autism and your differences against you. Your attitudes might change really quickly and they will switch back to being nice with no effort if they think it will control you in a way that gets them what they want. Like there would be me to control you to get what they want but they would switch on the nice the moment they think you're like threatening to leave or they think that they're going to lose control of you and if you leave they lose control of you so they will switch on the charm and they will love bomb you until you're back in their arms metaphorically or physically and yeah but they will use out your autism against you so they could yeah they could put you in situations of like loud noises even though they know that you're really struggling with sensory issues and then they might blame you for the fallout or they might invalidate it or shame you and if you ever made a little mistake or a misunderstanding in a social situation they will never let you forget it it will be brought up time and time again until fraternity and it'll just if you needed help with something and you know they're really great and they're really helpful but they're now holding it over your head and it's now sort of a false word not a scapegoat they're using it as a reason to coerce you into something else like I did this really helpful thing for you you should do this for me and that's not how consent works and it's also not very respectful of boundaries so that's a big red flag too I'd say that if I could add something that perhaps you know kind of one of the big red flags that has come up with any relationships that I've had that I mean too good is that they kind of give an air of understanding about what autism is and what you experience without actually knowing or asking what you're like and what you experience it's kind of like they feel like they've already understood the whole autism thing they don't need to ask any questions and it can often come across as quite like nice you're like oh hey this person understands me I don't have to make any effort to help them understand but it tends to be very like stereotypical and it tends to be very like yeah well they're not necessarily listening to who you are and what you experience they understand autism in general but they're not making any effort to understand you as an individual and that is also a red flag 100% but even just in general I think if they're working like social care if they're like a teacher or they're working there with charities or they work for parents and they kind of they feel like they've got it all sussed out and they just don't have that kind of natural curiosity in who you are I think that's definitely a red flag because you are a risk of being stereotyped by them I think also a red flag could be when they sort of they put you on a pedestal and they think you're so wonderful and you're perfect in every way and there can't be any conflicts there can't be any you know they've rushed you off your feet there's a world with robots and everything's perfect and we should get married next week and all that silly stuff is some I think that's a red flag because well there's many reasons actually if you're put on a pedestal very much similar to what you were just saying they have an idea of you and they're not willing to change it in favour of what their ego needs and what their wounded inner child needs from their past they need to believe that you are the perfect person because they can't handle it if you're not and that means that they're not actually listening to you they're not understanding you they're not they're not willing to admit that anything is wrong and that also means that there's no conflict either and I know that sounds strange but every healthy relationship has conflict there's always arguments the difference is how we learn how to healthy argue and communicate in a healthy way so like if you're pretending there's issues and that person's on a pedestal you're just sweeping everything under the rug you're not listening to their needs it's not particularly healthy and sometimes it's a defence mode like we're so traumatised maybe from past experiences that we don't want to be hurt and we avoid the conflict I mean it makes sense it's understandable and some of these red flags can even be just like some people have red flags because they haven't been taught how to handle their emotions and their trauma and communicate in a healthy way and that's not necessarily their fault so I think there's red flags for unhealthy relationships but there's also toxic toxic red flags so this one has hope the red flags where people actively they want to try and improve they're aware that there's a learning journey and they need to try and listen and communicate and help healthy learn how to improve but this one is all about the intention this one the toxic traits they have no intention of improving they are literally just there to manipulate you and control you and to feeding their own ego so they can feel better about themselves and I think it's really important to establish which one is which I kind of feel like to a certain degree saying that autistic people are like perfect and these kind of angelic benevolent creatures like I think to some degree like I understand that it's like a reactionary kind of approach to the ideas that people have put out in the past about us being unempathic and being perhaps not understanding in social situations and stuff but it still is to a certain degree infantilizing and as you said if people have this kind of pedicelized idea about what you're like and they don't really I guess take on board what you say or aspects to your personality that are true to you then at some point they're going to become like annoyed at you that you don't meet this this pedicelized expectation it's impossible to realistically meet it no matter what you do because it's not real yeah absolutely yeah but also I think what you said about sort of the pedestal thing a lot of people put autistic people on a pedestal in terms of like our savant abilities or whatever and I think that's got plays a part in it too because for so long autistic people were treated really badly and you know we were dehumanizing we were invalidated we were seen as worthless and barely even human and that's horrific horrific and advocates like us in the past would be like hey autistic people are just like you but they have gifts and they have quirks and they're savants and they have all of these wonderful good things about them so humanize them you know they're real they're human and I think that has held on to a lot of people today like they and it's not their fault as just all societies taught them but like people also put autistic people on a pedestal like if they're not that savant they're not real and they're not worthy of respect and I think that's partly going off on a bit of a tangent but it's partly why I see my disability as a gift like I'm autistic but I don't have any of these savant abilities I'm not the person that autistic advocates of the past would point to me like hey this is you know I was diagnosed at two like I didn't learn to speak until I was eight and all of this other stuff like I'm definitely autistic and my disability impacts me so severely like I can't always walk or talk and you know all these things so then while that's really hard that's the reality it doesn't take away my humanity and it doesn't take away my quirks it doesn't take away my me being a worthwhile like a worthy person of good things and I think we need to remove that pedestal because of that because we can still still be like there's no reason aside from ableism why in my eyes why autism can't also be a disability and a gift and I think people in order to learn to understand autism and autistic people better especially in romantic relationships from a school we do need to learn to understand those hidden depths and those hardships to be like to humanize us and validate every part of what makes us tick so that we can be like yes we understand how to help them without unintentionally gaslighting them and yeah bit of a tangent I think the train sort of went whoa sorry I don't know if that was relevant I think also a big red flag is probably aspects around expectations because if someone does something for you they expect you to be sort of amenable to what they want you to do or they expect you to repay their favor like every single time you know I feel like that's the red flag because in life and in relationships as you were talking about having 16 of the 106 life skills or something I can't remember like there's going to be some things that my partner will have to do in order to help help me with what my needs are and I can help in different other situations but I think when people have done things and then expected a specific way of behaving around them or a specific outcome that it's become difficult in that sense like it's almost like expected of me like I help you with this stuff so you do what I say or you do these things you help me with this and not necessarily something that comes from me it's very manipulative and it's also pushes the boundaries sort of perverses your consent because that expectation is that you've got to do the thing that they're asking you of you to do because they were like oh I was so hopeful and they use it against you and that can that sort of thing it can also drive a wedge between actual healthy members good people that you know like it can drive a wedge because they can see these red flags and they try to communicate with you and I suppose another red flag is that the person who's toxic will try to drive that wedge and they will make it bigger between you and the healthy people they will try to cut you off from your support network and gaslight you so that you believe that they're right the toxic person's right and the healthy people who are trying to help you like genuinely trying to help you they're wrong and they don't understand you and only only the toxic person understands you and that wedge gets even bigger and especially when it's so obvious that all these red flags are happening and they're trying to help you the wedge it's like a little ocean you can't jump you can't swim back definitely now I understand that I think it's something that I've experienced as well you know I would I'd say that perhaps in other aspects to it is if the person is very over-willing almost to a point which it's crossing your boundaries to help you with life and things like you know perhaps coming around and supporting you when you haven't asked it or doing certain things for you when you haven't asked them to and you know like over time sort of diminishing your ability to look after yourself because of you know they've filled in certain aspects to your life that you feel okay with managing yourself but they've kind of taken over everything and you know there's that kind of element of control on their part and if you say that it's not something that you want and something that it makes you feel bad and you actually really want to do it yourself it's like oh well I've been helping you out that's a bit ungrateful and you know it's relating a lot sorry yeah there's a certain amount of it's not quite but nearly learnt helplessness because they are doing everything for you all the time and they're controlling all the aspects that you think you could probably do but they're like nah I'm gonna do it all for you and I guess they do it's something that you didn't want them to do they then tell you to do something that you don't want to do it's really weird and you kind of just go with it because it's just I guess they did help me with this certain thing I probably should do that do I want to no did I want them to tell me in the first place no not really and it seems it seems very innocent and that's the problem with red flags because a lot of it can seem really innocent and I suppose it's then delving into the psychological sort of the intention behind their behaviours and sort of understanding their actions speak louder than words apologising and saying oh it's so difficult but yeah like someone's saying especially when you're a direct communicator just it breaks your heart doesn't it just realise that people are lying to you straight to your face yeah yay innocent I don't think there's anything else I think those are definitely the ones that I would put forward because I know you can think of like any we can think of loads and loads of different things that are probably not good ideas and relationships and you know probably could be considered not a positive sign but I think just by the nature of how relationships are it can always be very difficult to give those kind of definitive ideas it's so complicated because working out the intentions behind all of these little things it's a constant guessing game and it takes so long to process well life's very complicated in itself sometimes I'm overwhelmed of like a million things going on like I don't know my disability or my illness or like work or like just like with everyone there's so much going on the processing of healthy relationships and what's actually going on sometimes it goes on the back burner because we're just trying to survive the day we're just trying to get through all of the stress and the strain of general adult living because being an adult is difficult it's never a do honestly I wouldn't change it but maybe that's part of it too because like if you feel like you want to change your partner maybe that's the red flag too in the sense that maybe they're not treating you right yeah do you know what I mean no I do I might get them to understand you better or take you seriously I think that could be something I think a lot of the things that we said that I think they're very applicable to kind of the like of the autistic experience of these red flags because I feel as I said we could talk about a lot of the different red flags in situations like someone who just lets you monologue and lets you tell them all of your intimate details about your life and then doesn't provide any of theirs or doesn't put a boundary and say like this is not this is too much for me so we could talk about the normal red flags but I think it would be really cool to talk about perhaps some of the green flags things to give a contrast do you know of any green flags in a potential healthy friendship or relationship so sort of I'm spiralling from what I was saying earlier like if you think you want to change someone I think also like the feelings inside that make you want to do that so like if you've got if you're calm inside like there's no adrenaline do you know what I mean the media has sort of twisted all of our perceptions of what healthy love looks like especially when you first meet and they're like oh you should have butterflies in your tummy you should feel all excited your heart should be pounding and I think actually that's not quite true I think if you have calmness inside and you feel at home and you feel safe with them then that's a far better response yeah I think that's a far better response because the butterflies and the heart thumping that's an adrenaline response that's your past self saying hey there's a there's a warning you know your past self I forget what I was saying it's okay I get what you mean I think there is a very there is a very heavy like emphasis on like this kind of rollercoaster of emotions and like adventure style of communication or style of having a relationship which I know it can be something that is exciting and it plays on your mind and you know it's up and down and it can be good and then it's bad and there's all these different circumstances that really draw you into that person or that relationship and I think that's something that both men and women do or non-binary individuals do it is something that I feel draws a lot of us in and I also think it's one of it's kind of this big kind of lie that our brain enforces that if we don't feel that kind of somewhat strain or difficulty within a relationship then it's not worth pursuing or it's not right or it doesn't feel right to like just feel like able to talk to someone and feel open talk to somebody it's interesting people nowadays they get turned off by people who are very direct in how they feel about people how they feel about you oh my gosh yes you know I think you're nice and I just want to let you know I do like you and it would be cool to do something people don't like that this kind of weird indirect like game that you've got to play of like oh I sort of like you but maybe not too much you've got to fight and you've got to convince me but I think that's another really like a green flag is that a relationship might actually feel boring because if you grew up associating love with like violence or shaming drama, arguments even if they were good intentions or good efforts you know you grew up learning how to love on that survival mode and you know it's not your fault but it does mean that love that looks and feels calm that is direct and emotionally regulated can be so boring that you confuse this as something bad because it's not matching the love that you were taught to be real extreme fighting and shouting thrown objects sudden declarations of hate passion and care because the emotions are so strong but it's not real like extreme highs and lows of insecure relationships can bring excitement or feelings of passion and you know it is easy to mistake those feelings for the strength of healthy love and that's that's the problem because being with someone who you can depend on someone who is straightforward and direct someone you can trust of your whole being it will feel a bit boring at times because that unpredictability isn't there your adrenaline is not firing all over the place wondering why you're walking on eggshells and it's so easy if you're not getting that in a healthy relationship to be like I just go online or download an app like I'll go find this excitement somewhere else or like it's just so much of an easier thing to do if you're not feeling stimulated enough in a relationship people will find other ways to seek it out I guess yeah it's funny because I have quite a few female friends they tell me about their dating life relationships and stuff and almost always if they go with the people who don't provide them this rollercoaster of emotion and stuff they actually find that over the long term it's a really happy fulfilling relationship it's not like this crazy rollercoaster kind of passionate journey but relationships are not about that really it's about finding someone who meets your needs and is willing to compromise on your needs and you're willing to compromise on their needs it's like it's funny because the idea of love it's very much like it's like a self-sacrificing kind of defeatist emotion and like love is best expressed when you are giving up being around that person for that other person's own benefit I think that's it's got a completely feeling happy for the person and having the person's best intentions are and it's not always conducive to what a relationship is which is it might sound cold to me to say but it's like you are crafting something that's kind of like an agreement or like somewhat set of rules somewhat things that you help them with things that you help them with they help you with rather and I think part of it is also that like the green flag that if things do go wrong and even if there are some unhealthy little things that you might shout at each other or you might not listen straight away but I think the green flag is the intention and the recovery afterwards so like if you if there's good intentions even though they're screaming at you they still love you and they're still going to treat you kindly and they're still going to respect your boundaries but also that recovery afterwards you know they're not going to sort of have such an ego or whatever that they don't apologize that you know that apology will be sincere and they will mean it and they have all the good intentions there and also like you sort of said sort of spiralling off the excitement bit is that the emotional regulation also needs to be challenged to in the sense that the media has this idea of what love is people think that they need to meet someone and that person is going to fix all of their problems like that person is responsible for their happiness and their emotional growth and that's not true like that still yeah yeah and it's um and it's you know we need to look after our own emotional health and learn how to challenge ourselves and learn how to communicate properly so that we can treat them better and they need to do the same so they can treat us better and it's both of us knowing that so that we can fry I forgot what I was saying no no no that's great I would also add that you know that there are some key like personality kind of traits or ways of communicating that I think is helpful there's a green flag in a relationship because so like non-reactivity is one that I feel is quite important because it's one I'm really bad at but I try in any neurodiverse relationship there will always be some elements of miscommunication particularly when it comes to confrontational or emotional things and if your first reaction is to blow everything out of proportion and it's like you know if if this person is someone to be like oh hey actually you know did you mean that in that way or you kind of could you explain that in a different way or there's less of that they're flicking the switch and just going like crazy at them it's taking the step back and saying oh actually is this something that is just a miscommunication and quite often it is because if someone two people have the best intentions for each other it's yeah me sorry have you finished yeah yeah go for it me a year ago not a year ago it's like a decade ago you know I argued completely differently and I would get very reactive and I would assume things that weren't right and you know I was young and I think we all do that to some extent and I think the main things that consciously like while you're in the midst of arguing you have to consciously be like this person might not intend the bad thing that I'm assuming I need to get their actual intentions to be like when you say this what do you actually mean and you need to like openly communicate and it's taking a breather so that you're not actually screaming at them and doing all of that emotional reactivity stuff and I do think if you are very in if you understand your partners in good intentions and you validate them it diffuses the tension and it makes you know because once you both feel heard and understood you know like that person is talking you're not there sort of boiling and sort of knowing exactly what you're going to say the moment they stop talking like they're talking you listen they stop talking you think of what you're going to say yeah so that you know it aligns with your values and what you love about your partner like and getting to that stage of not responding while they're talking not thinking of your answer you know and it's also it's like we need to sort of get out of the habit of fighting to win and fighting to prove a point do you know what I mean and I think me a decade ago wasn't so good at that and I think a lot of people a lot of people have not many of us will admit it and I think if there is that good intention that people want to grow there's no shame in that because we'll have these trauma you know defence modes from gaslighting from being growing up and having to panic explain everything because you're autistic and no one understands what you're anything about you and you know and you know it's all understandable and there's no shame but I do think we do need to adapt to like a growth mindset where we are actively trying to step back and understand then approach rather than sorry it's almost like you know it's definitely that aspect of non-reactivity and being able to talk about things and get over miscommunications is pretty much the make and break in a lot of friendships and relationships that I've had because it is a common thing and some people do it right for a while and then they forget that you're autistic or forget that you're different and you have different communication styles and then it becomes an issue in times of high stress that defence mechanism comes back and you end up going back to that self so it's a very conscious very conscious decision every time something happens that you need to push back the defence mechanism not shaming yourself, not shaming them I just realised I'm so sorry no it's fine I think another aspect for me would be like we had that aspect when I was talking about just because they think that they understand autism isn't necessarily like a good thing if they haven't understood you personally I think having a natural curiosity in you or autism in general is always going to be good because there is a lot of there is a big communication and empathy barrier between you and that person and if they have the curiosity to explore that with you I think that tends to be quite productive green flaggy kind of thing they're genuinely interested in what you're about and how you think and feel and perceive open mindedness I'd say there could be part and part there like are they willing to take on board your experiences with an open mind and not be able to kind of try and put themselves in your shoes are you able to do that with them I think that could definitely be a green flag as well I don't think there is anything else that I could really say if you just generally feel calm and then we feel quite stable you don't need to be chasing this idea of happiness but if you are content and you're calm and you're stable and you feel valued and you feel like sort of you feel respected and you feel like safe I'd say that's a pretty good green flag although it can not always be the most exciting passionate kind of adventurey journey kind of thing but who would want that it's exhausting for at some point you're going to get exhausted by it and people do it's like I suppose this also recognising that no relationship is perfect and like comparison to other relationships will not help anyone if you're trying to be like what are they called like an Instagram like model or whatever if you're trying to be like their relationship it's simply going to cause more problems because again it's that pedestal isn't it you need to sort of have listen to your partner's boundaries and understand their story and what you were just saying you need to learn about them like you can't have this wedding or whatever because it has nothing to do with you and your partner it's always like tailored it's like the whole thing about you don't see the athletes in training you and you see them on the podium you don't see the failures you just see the success that they had and that's a really good point because every failure can help you learn how to grow together if it's a healthy relationship with good intentions it will be a little bit red flaggy and it does make it complicated but if you can ascertain the intention behind behind it like we were talking about oh my gosh I totally forgot what I was saying what were you saying what were you saying I think the difficulty for me is like the intention can be like hard to figure out sometimes when you're autistic I guess we can say what their intentions are but as you said as much as you can you have to look at the long run you have to look at situations or relationships and kind of like a zoomed out approach like is these perhaps red flaggy toxic behaviours just kind of a drop in the ocean or do they seem to be like existent at many sort of different parts during the relationship how often is your adrenaline firing up how often are you feeling like sick or jittery or in pain or poorly it's all part and parcel of it sometimes even when your emotions don't know or your mind might not know if your body might and listening to your body is a very good way to ascertain those red flags because if something's not feeling right and you feel disrespected your body will tell you it's true it's true or a case if you're a lexifier make it might tell you a few days or a week or so later I was about to say that make it by connection and then you can have the fun conversation where you send a long, long, long, long message after saying that it's okay which is always fun if you relate to that oh my god well it's been really great to talk about these things and I feel like we've gone over a lot of both personal and informational based things and hopefully for anyone listening they will have a bit more of an idea of what to look for and what to avoid finding a healthy stable relationship as an autistic person as I said as we have said throughout this is not a holistic guide to everything to do relationships a lot of times it's very individual it's very transient, it's hard to pick up on it's not necessarily something usually the best way to understand it is to work for it with a professional or someone who has who can actually talk to you about your individual experiences but I feel like we've gone through some good stuff Charlie good well do you have we're kind of running up at the end of the podcast now do you have any like social medias, links, websites things that people can go to um so I do know the answer I promise me accessing the answer yes it's been a long we've been chatting for like an hour and a half and the half an hour before that we were trying to set off the the audio so it's you know my brain is also a bit fried at the moment so I got it I am my autistic wings so you can find me on www.myautisticwings.co.uk oh gosh how do you spell it M-Y-A-U-T I-S-T-I-C W-I-M-G-S I hope I spelled that right it will be down in the description so um you know I think we'll be good but yeah you can find me um I'm publishing a book later this year and actually a lot of what we talked about today I wrote a whole chapter on relationships and sort of the society on people's impact on autistic people and yeah what's your what's your book called? My Autistic Wings yeah some brands you got it yeah it's all about um it's an empowering and educational autism resource book partly autobiographical and it's very cool yeah it's a sort of the follow-up from my first book as Fudge World which was all about childhood to teenage years and this one is teenage to adulthood sort of the transitions, independence training work and career and lots of funny little stories a bit strange um yeah I'm really I'm so excited I'm so looking forward to it like I was really blessed that my first book helped so many people and I was you know that was my dream that was one of the first things you asked me you know what did you do before we started speaking and that's what I was doing I was writing my book I was writing my book I was diagnosed as autistic at two years old I found out when I was 13 because that's when I processed I was different to other people and when my parents told me at 13 years old I read every book out there and there was nothing from a female perspective that was positive it was that was empowering and I basically wrote the book that I desperately needed and I've done the same again for the second book so fingers crossed it helps people because like you know that's my dream that's my dream yeah awesome awesome and if you have enjoyed this episode of the 4to2 podcast make sure to like, subscribe, rate it if you could be so kind over on any of the podcast and streaming services if you want to check out some more stuff about how my life is going and the things that I go to maybe you want to check out my daily blogs over on Instagram that is at Tom & Stanley UK and if you want to get in touch there is always a link treat down below with all of my links podcast clips coaching my website things like that they're all down there so yeah, Jolie do you have a song of the day do you have a song that means something to you that you could that you could give that something related to the podcast or something that you particularly like at the moment I feel really daft because I've prepped for this interview a lot and I've got pages of notes in front of me I kind of forgot about this song it's okay I think you might have put it in your huge music level but I find it so hard to just pick one one song but at the moment I am really liking Madeline Bailey's cover of Flowers by Miley Cyrus which is unusual because I don't usually like that sort of pop music but I like Madeline Bailey's cover of things so Madeline Bailey's kind of on topic because it's about relationships I guess Madeline Bailey's she's a very pretty lady she's really nice yeah awesome that is added to the Fortuity song of the day playlist which is always down in the description right at the bottom if you want to go check that out and I've got one last question for you Joly have you enjoyed your Fortuity audio experience? I have it's been brilliant it's really good to discuss these things with another like-minded person which doesn't happen often so yeah I've had a great time thank you so much for inviting me in honor awesome well it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on Joly after so long I think it was it's been like a few years, a couple of years since we first met each other and we're only just getting into doing the episodes so it's cool I think it was June or something like that yeah I think quite sure well um I'm gonna do like an outro sequence and just don't click off the call because it has to like process and stuff at the end so when we say bye don't click off someone's done that before and it's like really nerve recording yeah can you say in the chat when I can click off would that help? I'll end the recording and then I'll let you know when it's done so I hope you have enjoyed this episode of the 40 Autie Podcast make sure to tune in next week where we talk about another autism, neurodiversity related subjects usually Monday 1pm over on Spotify, Apple Podcast and about 5pm over on YouTube so hope you have a good day hope you have a good week and I'll see you in another episode of the 40 Autie Podcast see you later guys