 I genuinely don't think it's a good idea to talk about your diagnosis with someone unless you are somewhat comfortable with it first. I say this very carefully because I don't... I don't know, it's like, even if you're not comfortable with it, I think sometimes it's important for people to know, especially if you're getting into quite a romantic, sort of deep long-term relationship with somebody. I think it is, to some degree, something that they should know about. Even if you feel negatively about it or ashamed about it, if you feel those emotions that the right person will probably make you feel better about it or ask you questions, and at least that would be something for you to talk on if anything goes wrong or any kind of confrontation or topic of conversation comes up. Just being aware that it's there. Dating and relationships can be a complex thing, I think, for many people out there on the earth. There is a lot of content over on YouTube describing exactly how you should do things, and particularly when it comes to autism. There isn't a lot of content out there on dating, but as we are growing as a community, there seems to be some more stuff which is popping up here and there. So today we're going to be taking a look at the four spots video, Dating, when to tell someone you're autistic? Do you tell them on the dating site before you see them? You just have it in your profile. Do you tell them on the date? Do you wait a little bit? When are you supposed to do that? Who knows? Let us have a look. Let's see what. I believe Irene, maybe? Is it Irene? I think it's Irene. The Fault Spot. Let's see what the Fault Spot has to say. Once the right time to tell someone you're dating that you're autistic, let's talk about it. So I get this question quite often, and if it's not in the form of when do I tell someone I'm dating that I'm autistic, it's usually in the form of when do I tell someone I'm autistic in general? And this is a very valid concern or something for a newly diagnosed person to think about, if not just someone with a diagnosis period, whether that's BPD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD, and the list goes on. I think a lot of the reasons why this is such an important conversation is because we, as a society, kind of learn to have these very negative outlooks on those out there with mental health disorders or developmental disorders, even though I do genuinely and generally believe that everyone has some sort of disorder to some sort of capacity. I think it's pretty safe to say that most people live with some form of anxiety at least. I want us to start to think about mental health disorders as something that is just a part of the human experience. I don't think autism is a mental health disorder. It's neurodevelopmental condition, but yeah, she's looking very glam in this video, 100%. I think my particular outlook on this, I think it really depends, because you could go one way, you could say, I'm just gonna tell everybody. I'm just gonna put it on my profile, I'm just gonna tell people I'm autistic, and if they're not the type of person to be open-minded about it, it kind of weeds them out and that's a good thing. I think that's one thought, one kind of mindset that you may have when it comes to this. The other mindset is, hmm, maybe there are someone who is good for me and will like me, but they have these stereotypical stigmatized assumptions about what autistic people are like, and maybe I just need to give them time to know me and who I am before I tell them. I think those are the two kind of options there in my head. Are they non-binary? I apologize if I misgendered. I don't think the attitude everyone has a disorder is not, it's not great, yeah, I don't think it's, I mean, everyone doesn't, I mean, that's just, it's just not true, but like, nobody's perfect, I think it's a better sentence, you know. And it doesn't have to mean that you are a healthy person or not. Not saying that that means that autistic people, that's an imperfection, I'm not saying that. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Cheers to all, this is great to watch over a morning cup, though. Why have you have a lovely day, Jane? It's very late on for me. I'm just saying neurodivergent to keep them guessing. But they usually ask, like, if I was to say that, people would just ask me straight up and say, what do you mean? Or if they know, they'll ask me, oh, what kind of neurodivergency, you know. Well, it's true, isn't it? Like, nobody's perfect. Like, you don't really have to have anything diagnosed to have like an avoidant, anxious attachment style. You know, it's not, not the case that anything can be particularly boxed in as a diagnosis or anything like that. But I kind of get what they're saying, it's just like the sentiment is not true. But you know what I mean? Non-binary, I don't think so, I could be wrong. I just generally just say they, for most people these days, because I just, I don't want to upset anybody. It just grants my gears when autism is labeled as a mental health disorder, may cause mental health issues too, though. Yeah, I agree with you, Mumsie. It doesn't have to mean you're a good person or not. I do think there's a lot of people out there living with mental health disorders that are extremely empathetic, extremely healthy. Having one doesn't negate the other, you know? Likewise, people with mental health disorders can go on and live healthy, fulfilling and flourishing lives out there. But with that being said, let's get into some of the things that I think you should consider when you are in a position where you are debating whether or not you should tell someone that you're dating about your... I think at some point you should tell them. I think generally, like, if you've gone like months and months without telling them, I think there's probably a bad thing to do. Not only because it's, you're kind of hiding a part of yourself, but also because there may be things that come up due to your differences between you that wouldn't be very well understood and maybe seen as something negative about you. But if you have this difference, which is there and something that you can communicate on or something even to self-advocate with to a certain degree, then I think that can be good, you know? That's a good thing. Or else you just kind of flying in blind and they're just making assumptions about you based on your differences, which are just not true, you know? Yeah, I think at some point it's definitely important to tell people, that's for sure, but when, when is the question, you know? Your autism and that is something that you are currently working through. But before you even think about when you should tell someone about your autism or how you should tell someone about your diagnosis, I think it's important for you to understand how you feel about your diagnosis. I think it's so important for you to give yourself the time that you need to process your diagnosis, what it means to you and how it affects you. How can you convey or even? Yeah, I suppose in the lens of like, you're just late diagnosed and you're thinking about telling them. I think in the lens of that, I think I could understand if you want to spend more time understanding what it means to you before you say it, but, you know, I mean, for me, it's kind of, like in any dazing context for me, it's just part and part just because there's a lot of avenues of conversations which will eventually lead to me talking about autism. You know, someone asked me what I do for a job or I tell them I'm a content creator and they're like, oh, what kind of content? You know, so it's autism content. I was like, oh, why do you do that? It's just, you know, it's just interesting. I'm not autistic, of course. I mean, why would you, why do you make that assumption? I agree, maybe not the first meeting, but pretty soon. I mean, I tend to just tell people, like, like at some points, maybe when it came to my dating profiles, I just have that I'm autistic up there. But again, like people, people can make a lot of judgments based on those stignas and stereotypes. You know, I don't particularly want to like, I don't know, it's a hard one, isn't it? It's very personal to you how you want to do. Even communicate to someone about something if you yourself have not established how you feel and what you think about that exact thing to begin with. This also applies for those out there who have long been diagnosed as well. I think it's really normal and healthy for you to cyclically always reflect back on your diagnosis and how you feel about it. Sometimes you may think you established what your opinions are, but people are ever changing. Circumstances in your life are ever changing as well, so it would make sense that even though you were diagnosed way back when, you might have arrived at a time in your life where your viewpoints might have changed, you as a person might change, and so therefore how you understand and think about your autism may change as well. Do you feel free with your diagnosis? Do you feel ashamed about it? Do you feel proud of it? Do you feel indifferent about it? Does it not really make a difference to you? Maybe you have everything of each of those. I genuinely don't think it's a good idea to talk about your diagnosis with someone unless you are somewhat comfortable with it first. I say this very carefully because I don't know, it's like even if you're not comfortable with it, I think sometimes it's important for people to know especially if you're getting into quite a romantic sort of deep long-term relationship with somebody. I think it is, to some degree, something that they should know about. Like even if you feel negatively about it or ashamed about it, like if you feel those emotions that the right person will probably make you feel better about it or ask you questions, and at least it would be something for you to talk on if anything goes wrong or any kind of confrontation or topic of conversation comes up. Just being aware that it's that. I don't wanna encourage people out there to just keep things to themselves all the time and not share anything. There's a lot of benefits from sharing about your experiences and yourself to other people but the reason why I say to make sure you're comfortable with your diagnosis first is because that is a very sensitive topic, and that is something that is not going to change. You can't work on yourself and then all of a sudden the autism disappears. This is something that is just a part of you and will be a part of you till the day you're gone coupled with the fact that you cannot control what someone else thinks and feels about your diagnosis and you can't control how they react to it. If you yourself are not in a place where you have a very strong relationship with your diagnosis, it just is not going to be a fun experience if they say something that really hurts your feelings or shapes your viewpoint of yourself in a negative way. There's just certain times. Yeah, but if people are gonna do that, they would do it eventually anyway. Like, I don't know. I don't think it's good to hide that stuff but I can understand why people hide it. I get it. My fear of not saying is the whole masking, the new unmask and well, that does not go well. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely, it's not always a positive for a lot of people, I would say. Now they're particularly neuro-typicals but I think that's a lot to do the stereotypes and stigma. It's less so about you actually being autistic. They just don't really get it and people these days are very flaky with, you know, sort of the whole dating process anyway, you know, people can be pretty impulsive in making decisions based on whether they know that you're autistic or not because they have all these thoughts in the back of their head about what it exactly means for you, especially if you haven't talked to them, you know. There's a lot of factors in that. In your life where it's not about hiding that part of yourself, it's just having enough discernment as to whether or not you're in a good place to share that part of yourself and just cause you're not ready currently or maybe in the near future, doesn't mean you'll never be ready. Whether that's a week, whether that's a month, whether that's a year or a few years, give yourself the amount of time you need to solidify your relationship with your autism and feel comfort in it before you start to share it with those out there because, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions on autism. So in that sense, when you share your diagnosis with the other person, you kind of have to be ready to walk them through being able to... Yes, I'd agree with that. I think you do, like, it is good to be able to answer the questions or let them know about things. I think as well, one thing that is quite difficult is that you may tell someone that you're autistic, you may be aware of that, but they don't always... It's not like it just sticks in their brain. Like they don't immediately see you as an autistic person. Sometimes if they get that you're autistic, you kind of have to remind them. And some people... I've found that in general, if people are very... Like if they really feel like they want to ask you about it, it tends to be a good green flag for me because they're wanting to understand how you may be different and how you can work together and communicate together better. I think it's always good if people are intrigued and ask you questions about it. If they don't, well, they say that they already understand it and stuff. I would say it's the opposite. It's probably not a good thing. Process that diagnosis. Be ready to educate them on what this diagnosis means. Let's say you're comfortable with your diagnosis. What do you do then? Some things that you should really consider is what your relationship is like with this other person. Are your needs met within this connection or relationship? Do you guys have good communication? I feel like good communication is so essential in any sort of partnership. I know we hear that all the time, but sometimes cliches are really cliches for a reason. When we're talking about relationships, right? We're talking about two human beings who are choosing to be with one another, who are choosing to be in a partnership. And a lot of the times you and the other person are two completely different people, two different backgrounds, upbringings, thought processes, moral compasses, ways of communicating, ways of doing things. And so a lot of the times what that means is you guys are bound to clash. You guys are bound to have misunderstandings and even disagreements, right? But what makes all of that easier to deal with and what establishes a healthy relationship is just a baseline of good communication. I think as well, it may be worth highlighting that I think in general autistic people when it comes to direct communication we tend to be a bit better with that. But when it does come to the more emotional side, it can sometimes provide a little bit of a barrier, I think to, like especially when it comes to the ins and outs of our needs and our communication styles, it can sometimes cause some level of clashing. Also maybe if you're bad or you struggle with interpreting indirect communication and that person always uses that because they're neurotypical, a lot of them do, then that can be somewhat of a difficulty. Daniel says, odds and pickup lines, my weird and your weird should get together and see what weird things happen. Interesting. Good communication is key, but sometimes there's no words, yeah. I think what they're trying to say is the important thing in this situation is that if something does go wrong, which inevitably does or some kind of miscommunication does happen, that you're able to point it out exactly why and what and try to understand it from both sides and you can communicate about that. I think that's maybe what the kind of thing that they're trying to say is, because I would agree with that 100%. I know for myself, I've been in relationships where the communication was so bad that any little thing could literally explode into the biggest arguments for literally no reason. Like the type of arguments where later on when you're reflecting on it or venting about it to a friend and they ask you, what were you guys even fighting about to get to that point? And you try to your hardest to think back to what even started the argument and you just cannot seem to remember it because it was just so small and miniscule which is so upsetting me. I think one thing is brought to remember that, like even if in the circumstance where an argument is ignited by something, it's not always exactly that thing that is causing the argument. It could be feelings prior to the events. It could be other events that have happened before it. It could even be things that are unrelated to the whole relationship. And people have tendency of wanting to kind of vent that those feelings sometimes and it sometimes comes out in negative ways or like directed towards another person that you feel comfortable and safe with. Yeah. I have to tell people beforehand that sometimes you can't communicate even if I want to. That's another thing, yeah. The understanding the shutdowns 100%. Me and my autistic boyfriend are autistic, not yet diagnosed. We both fear miscommunication so much that we always over explained to each other and I found that really sweet. I understand that. I get that. Maz says, I have an ex who thought she knew what it means to be in a relationship with an autistic. She didn't, it was awful. She took issue with every autistic characterization. I have and made it like I had actual character flaws. I really relate to that experience, Maz. I'm sorry that you've had to go through that. Yeah, it tends to be people, like a really big red flag is when somebody doesn't ask you about, or she doesn't know how you work, but just assumes and thinks that they know. And yeah, like some people do quite often interpret autistic traits as character or personality traits, which is not the best way of viewing it either. I'm sorry, I've been through that. Because you guys got to a point of emotional distress, maybe even physical distress over, not being able to choose what to eat for dinner, for example. On the other hand, when you have a really good established communication with your partner, you guys are able to talk through the hardest things with so much ease. It truly makes such a big difference. But if you guys don't have a naturally compatible communication style, there at least has to be the want to become aligned in that communication style. If the other person's not willing to align in that sense, if you're not willing to align in this sense, it's just not gonna work. You guys can love each other as much as you want to, but it's just gonna be really hard. It's gonna feel like you're running upstream on a river and things are just constantly going to be pushing you down and you're gonna feel like you can never get rest. Autism is- Yeah. Nicholas asks, how can you communicate miscommunication? The problem is communication in the first place is so isn't sort of saying, just avoid having miscommunication by communicating, which is also the cause. I understand what you mean. I think it's having an awareness. It's not necessarily knowing why, but having awareness that miscommunications happen and usually if a miscommunication happens and there's an argument or a confrontation that follows on from that miscommunication, it's being able to kind of step back and try and reassess and try and delve into what the person was trying to communicate to you and what you were trying to communicate to them and what you were feeling and thinking and just trying to get over it in that sense. But I know what you mean, I understand. I have tried to communicate why something upset me in a clear direct ways, but it isn't always interpreted as me trying to, but then it's interpreted as me trying to excuse my reaction. I feel bad for reacting, but it takes so much to get there. It's going to be a subject matter in your relationship even outside of sharing your diagnosis. That is going to be an ongoing subject throughout the whole relationship because it's going to affect how you process things, how you relate to other people, how you operate within the world. So that's going to be something you're going to be touching on in so many different ways throughout the relationship. So good communication is going to be a baseline and a necessity. If you find that you are constantly having these fights with your partner, you guys cannot seem to work through conflict and resolution relatively smoothly. It's really not worth it in general and I don't think it's going to be worth it for you to share such an important aspect of yourself with this other person. Other than good communication skills. Yeah, this is something to be said about if that relationship, you feel uncomfortable and safe in that relationship. Yeah, sure. It's just something that you're just thinking about in the moment after being with them. I get that, I get that. See you later Rowan. Hope you have a good day. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, I think another aspect of that is sort of a mutual sense of patience and non-reactivity. Perhaps having a good reaction to try and understand before reacting. I think that's quite an important key thing from both sides. It's this whole thing about being aware that miscommunications will and do happen. Even between two neurotypicals, between two autistics, but especially between neurotypical and autistic or holistic rather. I think another baseline thing is whether or not you guys respect each other. And this kind of goes hand in hand with good communication, right? I feel like an aspect of having good communication with another person is just having a respect for the other person. Enough respect for them to be able to hear them out, to be able to listen, to be able to take into account what they're sharing with you, to be able to be open with them and to not feel the need to project your negativity onto them just because you're going through a hard time. There's ways to share things that are not always positive that could be a little bit heavier, right? In a way that still respects the other person. And so respect is a huge thing. You hear relationship therapists always talk about the aspects of relationships that are bound to lead to a breakup or divorce, things like contempt, resentment. And a lot of the times those attributes are linked to a baseline of not respecting the other person is what it ultimately is. I thought that this was a video particularly about when to tell someone that you're autistic and self-tying to that. I feel like, I mean, it's not incredibly off-putting for us to have a conversation about relationships. But I do think that, I don't know. I suppose that they're approaching the topic from like, so my eyes dating is kind of like the stuff that you do to get to a relationship and relationships are a bit different to the dating, if that makes sense. That's how I conceptualize it. Also giving people space, yeah. Being able to communicate that, and feeling okay with that, yeah. Something about, perhaps you would be able to advocate for your need for space in a way that they understand a bit better if you told them that you were autistic. Yeah, I think they're approaching it in sort of a way where it's maybe talking to people who are already in relationships, whereas I would approach it from the start, you know. But I suppose there will be people out there who know that they're autistic who may not have told their partner. I don't imagine there's a lot of people there. No worries, Monzy Wiggly. It's good to see you. I haven't seen you around in a while or at least not as far as I can remember. It's been good to have you on. Hope you have a good sleep. And respect and love is different. You can love someone. You can even be in love with someone, but you could also not respect them. Those two don't necessarily go hand in hand. The amount of times I've seen couples who are in these unhealthy relationships and they can't seem to be happy or satisfied, but they can't seem to break up either are usually people who are in love with each other or love each other so much, but they just don't respect each other. And that's why they're so unhappy. That's why they have horrible communication. That's why they're so unsatisfied and can't seem to just resolve any sort of conflicts that come up. Another thing you should consider is, do the both of you have the openness to learn and grow from each other and with each other? The reason why I say this is because there's certain people out there for whatever reason that are not open to growth. They're not open to learning about others, learning about themselves, integrating new lessons into their life. I think a lot of the times it could be because of trauma, right? A part of stability is keeping everything the same all the time, whether that's your physical environment or your mental and emotional state of being. And I'm sure this can work with someone who is also not really interested in expanding their viewpoints and how they do things. I'm not... No, I'd definitely say that when it comes to like green values looking for a partner, I think a degree of trait openness and perhaps not trait openness, but I remember what the other trait was. I think it is openness, yeah. Being able to approach things differently, being willing to do that, being willing to kind of grow and learn and sort of craft things. But there are some people out there who are not that at all and they really do want you to fit into their idea of what a relationship should look like. Those people don't tend to be the best for us because in order for us as autistic people to cohabitate with someone who isn't, there needs to be a degree of like push and pull or like a degree of like finding a middle ground on stuff because there's just some differences that you just need to do that with. And it's gonna lead, if you don't do that, there's gonna be at least one party or even both parties which have a pretty intense levels of resentment. If there's no respect there, I can't imagine love is there. Well, love is a very complex, subjective thing anyway, isn't it? Daniel says, one issue with the whole dating scene is a lot of fake people out there these days and those on the spectrum already have to mask and have to fake something, they're not to adapt. They may feel like they have to, you don't have to, it's just, it can be hard to find someone who is good. It can take quite a while, you know? Necessarily saying that's a wrong thing, I do think everyone has certain things that works for them and certain points in their lives for a reason. I know I've been through different points in my life where it was necessary for me to hunker down and not really look to grow. And there's other points in my life where all I do is growth and it's just this huge uprooting from what I'm used to. And this is kind of a good reminder that no matter what you're doing in your life, you should always be checking in on where you're at so that you can make a better decision as to what you need to look for in your other person. Once you are diagnosed with your autism, the journey has begun already. Like, it's already begun before you sought your diagnosis because there was this whole thing you had to go through to even realize I may have autism and it's a whole journey to get into that office for the assessment. And once you're actually diagnosed, it's like you now have to begin the ongoing journey of relearning about yourself and learning about how you can integrate your autism into your life. Because you're on this journey, right? It's necessary for your other person to be a person that is open to growth as well to learning about autism from you, open to learning about your autism in specific, what your needs are, how that affects your guys' connection and relationships, what you need from them, what they can ask from you. And also just be open in general that their relationship with you is most likely gonna be very different from what they had with past partners. And this also applies to- That's an important thing to highlight. Like, if they're just wanting something which is very socially normative, it might not be something that you indeed want in terms of how you envision a relationship progression, you know, things such as like living together, what you want for that. You know, perhaps you may not want to live together. You may want separate bedrooms. Me either part, you might not be very happy with either of them, you know? So you really need to like, they really need to have a sense of like, sort of molding how the relationship looks like together rather than sort of applying these sort of greater social rhetorics or maybe rhetorics, by the way. Frameworks, I suppose, the relationship. You, your relationship with them is most likely gonna be completely different when it comes to your past relationships. It's also important that you guys are in alignment with core values. The reason why I didn't put this higher up on the list is because of the communication thing and the openness thing. I feel like you guys don't necessarily have to align on every value if you guys have good communication and if you guys are open. And the reason why I say this is because as long as you respect another person, you're willing to listen to them. You're willing to communicate with them. They're willing to listen to you and communicate openly with you. You guys are open to learning from each other and growing from each other. A lot of the times, what that means is your core values may be open to change as well. And that is such a beautiful part of having a relationship with healthy communication. You guys have the freedom to change us people and learn from each other without feeling shame, without feeling guilt, without feeling this weird stubbornness to hold on to old ways of doing things and thinking about things. But with that being said, I do think there are core things you guys do have to align on in general, just cause I don't think you can necessarily convince someone to have kids if they don't wanna have kids or... Yeah, there's something that I was gonna bring up when they were talking about core values changing. Some things, yeah, you know, you've got to align on them for it to kind of go long and go quite long in the long term, I suppose. Go quite long in the long term. You can't really convince someone to get married if they don't wanna get married. There's just certain things where you can't convince someone and you shouldn't have to. Another thing you should really consider is do you feel safe with this person? Safety is a subjective and objective topic. I think a part of feeling safe with someone is whether or not everything I just talked about is being met within your relationship, but... I think it's important that the aspects of feeling emotionally safe is feeling able to voice how you feel and it not turn into like a shouting match or a confrontation necessarily. I mean, obviously if it's something that's quite impactful on the relationship, it's quite a serious topic, then it's obviously something that's gonna cause a certain degree of friction. But if you feel comfortable with sharing your thoughts and feelings and you don't feel like they're just gonna become very reactive to what you say, then I think that's a good sign, you know, because if people are very reactive, just in general, you know, when those miscommunications happen and they don't sort of dig to try and understand what you're saying a bit better or they sort of interpret things based on what you say and you feel as you like being negative or being toxic or anything like that, then that's gonna be a problem, I think. A partner and I will never get married. It's not really something that I'm wanting to do either to be honest. For autistic people, safety is a thing. No one that I am, though. Safety could also be your physical response to that person. Do you have a tendency to feel very anxious, very on edge or depleted or depressed? If you find yourself feeling physically unsafe or uncomfortable, it's a good time for you to reflect on why that is and where it comes from, right? Either way, how safe you feel with the person can kind of help you make a decision as to whether or not you wanna tell them about your diagnosis and when you wanna tell them about it, if you want to. Which kind of goes into the topic of when, if you do decide you wanna tell them about the diagnosis. This is going to be different for everyone, but I am going to take this time to share my personal experiences with this topic. With my ex-partner, I was not yet diagnosed with anything. I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD. I wasn't yet diagnosed with the autism. I wasn't yet diagnosed with the endometriosis. I was struggling with all of those things, but I wasn't diagnosed with them. And so when I was with my ex-partner, I was discovering so much about myself. And I think a lot of it has to do with COVID and being quarantined at home. You're kind of forced to face a lot of the things you struggle with and you don't have an excuse to turn away from it. I was first diagnosed with the ADHD and once I was medicated for it, my autism really started to come out in a very noticeable way. And so I went in to be assessed for autism and I was diagnosed a few months later with the autism. I think that taught me a lot to go through that process because what that really showed me is I had a good amount of time to build a relationship with my ex and we had a good opportunity and time to learn about each other and what our traits were outside of any sort of diagnosis. And so after I got diagnosed, it almost didn't really change things in many aspects. I was still Irene. It was just now we know why I flourish at certain things and why I struggled with different things and therefore we could figure out more quickly. It's kind of like having a name for things, you know? I think it can be useful in some platonic and romantic sort of relationships, I would say. But in general, like if people are just kind of adaptable and wanting to find middle grounds in general, I think it's still an okay thing. You know, you don't necessarily need to know but I think it can be helpful for a lot of people to know, especially when you are in a, when you need to self-advocate, I would say. We how to remedy that because we can learn about, okay, since this certain issue stems from autism, what are ways we could work through it. I think that's really affected how I approached opening up to my current partner about my diagnosis. With my current partner, we've been dating for about four months now. I'd say when I first met him, I was in a really good place with my diagnosis. As you can see, I have a whole channel where I talk about autism all the time. I feel very comfortable with it. I'm not ashamed of it in any sort of capacity but that isn't to say that other people wouldn't know how to process that information and understand it and I'm very aware of that. And so in that sense, in general, I don't just share my autism left and right all the time but you know, if someone in my personal life were to find me on social media and learn about my autism, I really don't care. I think that's great, whatever. If they're already looking for it, it's great that they find my content and if they have any negative thoughts, I really don't care either. I will share if someone's curious but other than that, I won't go out of my way to be like, I'm autistic, here it is. I know you didn't ask for it but I'm autistic, right? And so when I met my partner, what I really wanted was for us to just meet each other, see if we're compatible, see if we like each other but our communication was like whether that's compatible, whether that was smooth, what our conflict resolution was like. Regardless of marriage and all that stuff, is this someone I could see myself being with and someone I want to commit my time and energy to? They also had a good idea of who I was and what they felt about me. That's when I just casually introduced to them one day that I was autistic. Let me go into the detail. Wow, so it's kind of a long game kind of thing. I'm just straight up with it, to be honest, in most situations, I'm like, I'm fine talking about it but I mean, people do tend to have a negative reaction but not everybody, the right people don't. I'll give that a little bit more so that you guys can understand. I kind of eased him into learning about my diagnosis. The way I did that is by sharing that I had ADHD first. This is not just easier for them to understand because ADHD is just generally something people understand a little bit more. Yeah, same with anxiety, isn't it? I think people can better understand things like that but autism, it's not the most easily understood and relatable thing for a lot of people but I can understand that sort of mindset when it comes to ADHD, 100%. But he also had ADHD so he in many ways understood a lot of the things that I went through and how I process things and so we started to really talk about our ADHD and how that affects us, what our ADHD looks like and so once that topic was established, I started to talk about neurodiversity in general. I would talk about autistic type of traits without the label of autism. I would talk about flat affect, I would talk about stimming and to him it was just under the umbrella of neurodiversity and maybe he might have even thought of it as me talking about ADHD, which I mean, I'm kind of am. The next level for me was to talk about my job so I would talk about what it was like for me to work with autistic adults with helping coach them through certain aspects of their life, relationships, work, routines, things like that and I would educate him on what autism means to these people. I got him to really understand that autism isn't what he thought it was. He had preconceived notions of autism like everyone but also his mother works with autistic adults. Her idea of autism and how she taught him what autism was might have been a little bit stereotyped and so it was... Yeah, you get that with some people and then like when you try to tell them about your experiences, it's kind of, it's a bit more difficult to kind of get them to understand. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance between what you're explaining, how they sort of view you and their original understanding of what autism is. Yeah, it can be quite hard for people to kind of digest, I would say. I don't like it when I'm triggered, yeah. I said I was autistic so I went a few months back and she came out with, oh, you are very high-functioning. Oh my gosh, I can imagine why you're annoyed. You have ADHD. It's not something that's related to me but I'm autistic a lot. Is Irene studying psychology? She strikes me as someone who did but I don't remember if she did. I think they are, yeah. It's kind of like reshaping his idea of autism, educating him more on what autism means. Once we had a really good dialogue around the topic of ADHD, neurodiversity and autism, that's when I finally shared with him that I myself was autistic and was diagnosed only like a year ago. Because we built such a good dialogue around neurodiversity in general and we had such a strong, healthy connection and communication established, when I finally shared this information of autism, it really wasn't a big deal. That is kind of like how I dealt with sharing my autism and that is what felt right with me. It was very smooth. I didn't have any issues. The only thing that was hard to deal with was what comes after the fact of like, those little, my new details of needing to figure out what works for me and what doesn't but that applies to any relationship honestly. After he learned about my diagnosis, I had to go through these moments of educating him on what an autistic shutdown was, what a meltdown was and that's kind of hard to do in the moment when they were happening. So in that aspect, you know, it was hard to... Yes, you need to communicate about it beforehand. Especially if you have the tendency of going mute. So it took me, well, not selectively, I don't like that phrase, but if you have the tendency of going mute or shutting down, it's good to talk about that beforehand or give people any indicators of how to tell, you know. Get him to learn about that kind of stuff in real time as we were learning about each other and still getting used to each other. But the act of sharing my diagnosis with him in and of itself was really smooth and I wouldn't change anything about it. I hope that by me sharing my experience and how I dealt with this and also sharing some of the things that you should be going through in your own mind, this can help you begin to reflect on when is the right time for you to share your diagnosis with your loved one. I wish you guys luck on your journey in sharing your autism. I know you guys will do great. There's a lot of people out there that are a lot more open to learning about you. Just have good intuition, listen to that inner voice, listen to how your body responds to another person. Know when to walk away from certain partnerships that are not necessarily healthy or good for you and know when you could begin to open up and share. More about yourself to those out there who are good for you and are going to be open to learning about you and growing with you. Other than that, I will see you guys on next week's episode. Bye guys. I love the music, the music in the background. It's just like, it's my jam. I love it, it's great. Well, that was a video from Irene, the Thought Spot, dating when to tell someone you're autistic. Very interesting video and definitely brought up a few things, a few talking points that we could speak on. I think in general, there's a lot of content out there that needs to be fleshed out in terms of autistic relationships. I'm glad to see some more stuff out there. If you want to support the Thought Spot, go check out the video in the description. Give the video a like, perhaps send a subscribe, maybe comment down below, tell her that I sent you and yeah, like and subscribe mine as well, that would be helpful. Consider becoming a member for the lowest amounts of money that I could put as.