Our deep dive into ABA and autism continues in this episode. Today’s guest recently finished her Ph.D. in Education, focusing on disability studies and related research in the world of DEI. Dr. Robin Roscigno helps educate parents about neurodiversity to create a more inclusive world for neurodiverse individuals. She posts frequently on social media platforms about autism and autism therapies. Her studies and life experiences give her both a professional and personal relationship to this topic because of her brother’s childhood diagnosis of autism. Robin was also diagnosed with autism along with her young daughter and began navigating the therapy world as a parent who struggled to find therapies that are affirming. After leaving teaching to pursue her Ph.D., she now focuses on autism intervention and challenging the dominant paradigms. 

Show Highlights:

• Understanding what ABA therapy is and why there is such controversy around this topic

• The dilemma for parents in the “explosive landscape” of ABA

• Understanding behaviorism as a therapeutic approach

• The old-school ABA therapy and its focus on eye contact

• How current autism therapies are designed to make people appear “less autistic” and “fit in more” in the world

• The need for wisdom and a harm-reduction approach in therapies

• Choosing a school program for your child based on goals and techniques and not a binary (ABA:good or ABA: bad) approach

• The foundation of neurotypical norms (like eye contact) in connection, relationships, and social referencing—-which we ALL need

• Teaching social referencing in affirming ways that help develop skills

• Looking for red/green flags in assessing specific goals and techniques from an advocacy perspective

• Unrealistic expectations of autistic kids and their parents

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dr. Robin Roscigno: Website, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TEDx Talk: “Your Autistic Child Can Have a Great Life. Here’s How”
Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:00

  Hi Robin, thank you for being here. I've got Robin Rossignol here in the studio with me, and why don't you just introduce yourself and tell us what your area of study is?

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 0:15

  Sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Robin Ristic. No, I do a number of things. I just finished my PhD in education theory, organization and policy, do disability studies related research around disability equity and inclusion. And I am on various social media platforms, educating parents about neurodiversity, and helping to kind of create a more inclusive world for neurodivergent people.

  KC 0:41

  So you're very close to us being able to call you doctor.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 0:44

  You can actually call me Doctor I just defended. Oh my gosh, okay.

  KC 0:48

  record scratch. Hello, I have Dr. Robin Rossignol in the studio today. Incredible. Well, Robin, congratulations. That's really cool. You and I connected over tick tock because you were posting a lot about autism. And I really wanted to talk to you today about autism and autism therapies, and just some questions that I have as a mom, and that I know other people have as well. So first of all, can you that's kind of your professional relationship to this topic. Do you mind sharing your personal relationship to this topic? Sure.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:25

  Yeah. So I mean, I started as a special education teacher years ago, my brother was diagnosed with autism when I was a child. And I went into that kind of with that as my frame of reference. And my mom was a big floor time person, dir floor time, which is a kind of play based therapy for autism and was very critical of other therapies at the time. So I had this kind of frame of reference, became a special education teacher. And then I saw some things that were shocking to me, honestly, because I just didn't grow up around that type of treatment or therapy. I'm very rigid kind of rope, strict therapy kind of approach. So I kind of worked in special education. For a while then I myself was diagnosed with autism, right around the same time as my daughter, they did a twofer first. And which happens a lot actually, because you know, sitting in all these doctor's appointments like I do that, I do that too. She was diagnosed. And then I started kind of navigating the therapy world as a parent, and was really struggling to find therapy that I felt was affirming to my child's kind of individual ways of being. And so that prompted me to leave teaching actually to pursue my PhD and I focused specifically on autism intervention, the history of autism intervention, and kind of challenging some of the dominant paradigms that we use to think about intervention. And that's kind of where I am now just finishing up with that.

  KC 2:48

  So I have a daughter that's autistic as well. And my experience was immediately upon diagnosis. The first therapy that was recommended to me was ABA, which is applied behavioral analysis. And interestingly enough, because I had been on Tik Tok and listening to autistic advocates, I had heard people be really critical of ABA as a therapy. And yet it was the first thing recommended to me and spoken really highly of by the pediatrician by the developmental psychologist. So I remember being kind of confused, because that was like, being presented as definitely what you know, we all need to be doing. But then I was also hearing criticism. Turns out there's actually some controversy around ABA. And I'm wondering if for the people listening that maybe don't know anything about this. If we could first talk a little bit about what ABA therapy is, and then maybe you can help give a synopsis of like, what the current controversy is around ABA.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 3:46

  Sure, yeah. So actually, my dissertation is about the autism wars and kind of parents position in that. So really the controversy so ABA therapy, broadly speaking, for autism is the application of behaviorism to treatment of autism. So it's using contingent Rhian rewards and punishments, right consequences to manipulate behavior. And in the context of therapy for autism, we're doing that to kind of reduce visible kind of signs of autism. Right? The problem is right is on the experience side of it, the people experiencing the therapy is that those things don't really go away. We're just learning kind of, and being incentivized right, to suppress them to do them less to do it less visibly to do it differently to act this way, as opposed to this way. And so what's happened is that many, many people who have experienced this form of therapy or this approach to therapy had very negative experiences on the kind of internal sense and one of the limitations of behaviorism is it studies observable behavior, it doesn't study internal experiences. So there isn't really a lot of data about what it's like for the person experiencing this therapy and it's deemed if Effective, right? Because we see, you know, Johnny's flapped his hands 30 times yesterday and he did 20. Today. Effective, right. But we're not actually studying what that's doing right to Johnny on the inside. And so that's kind of the controversy now, it's become very kind of heated. And there's a bit a lot of misconceptions really on both sides. I think that, you know, on the kind of artistic side, there's a lot of kind of rhetoric around that ABA was created specifically to normalize autistic people. That's not exactly true. They were really interested in normalizing kind of everybody in the beginning, LGBTQ conversion therapy kind of treatment for addiction at risk youth, there's a lot of kind of areas, it just turned out that over time, autism came really the most lucrative, so they kind of moved into that arena on the parents side, right is the parents are really in the middle, as you said, right? Being told on one side, right by doctors, that it's the most evidence based treatment for autism, if you don't do it, your child won't have a future, right. And then on the other side, if they even consider it, their child abusers. And so it puts parents in a really tough spot because they want to do right by their kids. And they're getting such conflicting information, and yet have to navigate a system that's heavily rooted in behaviorism. Right? So how do we do that, and that's really where my work comes in, is trying to help parents navigate this very complicated, and really explosive landscape, right, which is, can be very, very hard, especially for parents that are new to this right, that are walking into like a 15 year public visible, dragged out, smack down fight, and are just like, I just want my kid to get some help. Why are you yelling at me? So that's kind of where I come in, I guess.

  KC 6:39

  So for someone listening that maybe has never heard about some of these terms? How would you describe behaviorism as a therapeutic approach?

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 6:48

  Okay, so behaviorism starts with kind of observing somebody, right, and then saying, I want to change x behavior. There's a lot of kind of technical jargon around it, right. But really, the idea is that all behaviors have a purpose, right? And their estimation, that's really boils down to like four of them, escape attention, tangible, and then automatic or sensory, it feels good to do it, right. And then they use kind of rewards and consequences to manipulate that behavior. So let's say someone is, you know, calling out to get the teachers attention, right, a behaviorist may say, we want to reduce the number of times that so and so calls out in class. And so what the teacher is going to do is ignore the calling out, and then only pay attention to that child when they elicit the desired response of raising their hand, right. And so it's kind of uses that science right of operant conditioning to increase the amount of times that so and so does this desired behavior. So it's really using kind of those techniques to reduce or increase particular behaviors, but basically, using rewards and consequences to do it, as opposed to other approaches that may work kind of more developmentally, are kind of involve more internal processes.

  KC 8:06

  So it makes me think of like star charts, because I'm trying to think of like examples that don't have anything to do with autism that might help people understand, like, if I have a child that, you know, you mentioned, like maybe they're calling out in class without raising their hand, and they're supposed to be raising their hand. And one way that you're describing is like, the teacher might just not respond to that child so that they kind of get the message like, Oh, this is not the behavior that is like acceptable in this context. And so if I want to get what I'm looking for, I have to change my behavior. And then there's like this aspect of the star chart, right, which is like every time Johnny raises his hand, maybe he gets like a star on his chart. Yep, exactly.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 8:49

  Right. So we're going to reward the desire behavior, ignore the ones that we don't want to say the problem is, right, is that it sounds good in theory, right. But we don't know why this particular child is raising their hand is calling out so much, right? They may have an impulse control issue, right? They may have, you know, not be getting a lot of attention at home, they might have kind of attachment issues, they may have trauma, right? They may be struggling with the academic work, right, and trying to get help and not knowing like the right way to go about it. And so when we kind of just focus on Well, they did it this many times, and now they did it less, we miss opportunities for really deep skill development. And it becomes a bit of a band aid, I guess. Yeah.

  KC 9:31

  So I was gonna say you're saying that the risk of behaviorism is that we fix the behavior without addressing like the underlying problem or issue or need. I'm curious, would you say that there are any instances where behaviorism is okay, or helpful or not harmful?

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 9:50

  So it's tricky, right? Because if you criticize anything about behaviorism, right, that kind of response as well. We all do. Behaviorism all the time. Right? Right, that's how our world works is, you know what you go to work without a paycheck. And there is an element of that that's true, right is that we do have kind of naturally occurring rewards and consequences in our daily lives. Right. So we can't actually avoid behaviorism entirely. I think the issue with ABA therapy is it's a very concentrated, constant, specific, intentional application to a very niche group of people only long periods of time, right. So we have kids that are getting 40 hours a week of intensive behavioral therapy, where are these kinds of rewards and consequences are intentionally manipulated all the time? Right. So as opposed to a kind of naturally occurring consequence, right? So we can't say that we can never ever do behaviorism right? I do. You know, I do a behaviorism. All the time. I say, if you get in the car, we'll put your favorite song on. Alright, that's behaviorism.

  KC 10:57

  Yeah. And I'm thinking about my, like, my kids have had speech therapy before. And especially when they were really young, they often had this sense of like, okay, here's the Mr. Potatohead toy. And like, for every word that you repeat to me, you get like another little, like, hand, or here's the whatever. And it really like would motivate my girls to want because like, there would be three and like, no three year old wants to like repeat words to learn pronunciation with speech therapy, but they'd get really excited to like, it's almost like they enjoyed the game of it. Like I say the word, I get the potato head piece, I say the word I get the potato head piece. And so in that context, like it happened once a week, it was you don't know, I'm trying to like, kind of, like, put that into perspective of like, where, like, is it? Anytime I see behaviorism? I should be like, Oh, my God, we're peppering over behavior? Or is it specific to like what you said? Like, there's not like an underlying need for like, why my child, you know, has a hard time pronouncing her B's. So we're not necessarily like papering over something. Yes.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 12:03

  So I think one, I always tell parents, you will know if it is bad, it's not subtle. When therapy is going bad, it's bad. It's they're crying, they don't want to go. Right, they shut down, it will not be a surprise to you. I think there's this kind of narrative, especially among, you know, like, kind of autistic people on the internet is that, you know, parents can be abusing their kids and not know, and I think in some cases, maybe, but in most cases, if therapy is truly distressing, your child, you'll have some sense of it right? In that case, right? When I would say it would be bad would be, let's say that she can't say it. She doesn't say it, right? And she says, Oh, well, I'll just wait. No Potatohead for you, right child gets more and more frustrated, and angry. And she says, Well, next time you can turn behind a potato head, and then just holds the piece of the potato head in front of her face, right? While she cries and screams. And I've seen this in therapy hundreds of times, right? If we're using something as an incentive, what happens when they don't earn it? And so we have to kind of, if we're following a kind of strict behavior analytic protocol, we're really not supposed to give it to her unless she does the desired response. Right. So what happens? And so that's kind of what we're talking about. It's not all behaviorism, you it's really impossible to do any kind of teaching or therapy that has no behaviorism. In it, I really don't know what that would even look like because anyone could look at any teaching and say that's some behaviorism when you praise someone, right, that's social reinforcement. But I think what we're talking about is the more kind of crueler applications of it, and not kind of just like bringing in other things like relationship like self advocacy, understanding, trauma informed types of approaches, right? When we only do behaviorism, if you do this, you get this, right, then we kind of miss how we could be supporting kids in the kind of broader, deeper ways. Whenever

  KC 14:01

  I hear people talk about ABA, you know, I've never experienced ABA, but whenever I hear people describe behaviorism, and some of the risks with behaviorism, I'm always taken aback to my experience going through teen rehab, because they had this approach called therapeutic community. And it was like heavily in fact, the entire thing was just, you know, you came in, you're a level one. And you had to do certain behaviors and complete certain assignments to get to a different level to get these three privileges. And then if you did a behavior they didn't want you could be knocked down a level. And you know, it was literally everything from you know, how you cleaned your room, to how you shared in group to how you dress like if you there were a lot of rules. And if you broke the rules, you got privileges taken away or you got consequences. And then if you follow the rules, they would slowly add in more and more incentives more and more rewards more and more praise you And, you know, the idea was like, let's take these young girls who are having mental health issues having addictions and like, Let's form them into different people that don't have those issues. And what happened was this really bizarre experience where, like, I can't say that nothing good came from it, like I did learn a lot. There was some other therapy there. But there was also a very bizarre trauma that I feel like I experienced, because like you said, there were a lot of behaviors that got extinguished. But the like, the reason those behaviors were happening, wasn't ever addressed.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 15:42

  Right? It's kind of like an addiction treatment, right is you can, you know, kind of get someone to stop drinking, if you'd hide all the alcohol, right? And put them in a program where there's no alcohol. But did we kind of address the trauma that makes them want to drink all the time? Right? Did we get to the kind of root cause of these things? Did we give them tools that they can use to, you know, navigate the world? Maybe not? Right? And so what happens is when we take away that oftentimes, a lot of those behaviors come back. Because when we're kind of taking away the carrot and the stick, what did we actually learn? Right? And we didn't fix the kind of root cause of them. I have, you know, an example I use a lot, is it a student in my class, and it's my student was living in a shelter, right? Was Was housing insecure, and had very little things, right. And so another student touched his hat, and he punched him square in the face. And, you know, a behavior analytic approach would say, what was the antecedent someone took his hat? What was the behavior? He punched? Someone? What should be the consequence? Right? He should apologize. He should, you know, not be able to play at recess, whatever it was, right. The reason he punched him, because he took the hat is because he lives in a shelter, right? And he only has a few things, and people steal his stuff all the time. It's coming from a deep seated, very significant trauma, right? And so we can get him to stop punching people. Sure, right, I could, you know, give him a consequence and say, you can't you have no recess for the week. And maybe you wouldn't punch someone again in my class, but we're not dealing with the kind of emotional reasons for it, those are not being addressed. And so it's going to come out in a different way. Same way, when people stop drinking, and they don't actually deal with the root, the kind of emotional pain, they become addicted to exercise, addicted to social media, right? It's we're not actually getting at the root, we're just kind of, you know, stopping one particular behavior, and then it kind of morphs, right, and then we have different problems. So it's really, I think, a missed opportunity. When we only focus on what's observable, we miss so much of what's true for people's experiences for children's experiences. Um, that's really my critique. Yeah.

  KC 17:45

  So if somebody's listening, and they don't know anybody autistic, they've never seen ABA therapy, like, what kinds of things do you see in ABA therapy? And like, what is the goal of ABA therapy?

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 17:55

  So I mean, there's kind of like old school ABA therapy, and there's some people still practicing like that, where it's very, they call it a discrete trial, right? Where I sit across from the child, and I say, I give them a direction, they either do it or they don't do it. And then if they don't do it, I kind of guide them. By me either picking up their hands and having them select the right answer, or, you know, reducing options until they get the right answer, then they get the right answer. I give them some reinforcement, I say, Great job, here's the sticker. Great job. Here's a gummy bear. And we just keep doing it like that, right? I'm gonna have to like train it. So that's one way. And

  KC 18:28

  what kind of things would you be trying to get them to say or do you

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 18:32

  know, sometimes it's around kind of social skills. Sometimes it's like, you know, eye contact using particular phrases. Sometimes it is learning actual skills, colors, shapes, numbers, those kinds of things. Sometimes it is selecting a, you know, particular social skill or using a social skill. It's all different kinds of things, that it could be a lot of ABA, things focus on reducing things that look autistic. So things like stimming, hand flapping, vocal stimming dheireadh IPI, which is what they call a kind of, you know, that's what they call stimming, echolalia, repeating certain words. So I've seen behavior plans that are for every 10 seconds, that so and so doesn't script echolalia, and then they'll get a reward for that. So sometimes it's about reducing those things. I can't say it's all the time that is that. So that's what I tell parents a lot to look out for is what is the goal? And what is the technique we're using to get there? I think the biggest problem is when we have bad techniques and bad goals. The more subtle, right is when we have good techniques and bad goals, or we have bad techniques and good goals. And really we want to be in that kind of good techniques and good goals, area, goals that are affirming and supportive to the child and techniques that are gentle and, you know, inclusive and fun and flexible. And I think you know if you can find something that's ABA that does that, I don't see. It's not always a problem. So

  KC 19:59

  let's talk about it. Eye contact in particular, because that's what I hear a lot about when people talk about ABA therapy, I guess old school ABA therapy used to focus on eye contact, requiring eye contact, encouraging eye contact, and getting children to basically respond more by making eye contact. And that same like, you know, when you make eye contact, you're gonna get a Skittle or you're gonna get one thing that I saw a lot is that if a child has like a favorite toy, whether it's their iPad, or like a lovey, like taking that away from them, and then being like, you get it back, when you make eye contact,

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 20:35

  one of the things they do right is they'll have a parents do what's called a reinforcement inventory, which they'll have them. I don't know if you had to do one, but we used to have parents do it all the time. And I see them a lot. It's a kind of checklist of what is your child? Like? What's motivating to them? They like game, so they like songs? Do they like Peppa Pig? Do they like whatever, and then you use that as the reward. But oftentimes, they don't want them having access to that other times because it reduces its power. Right? So if I can have my iPad, when I leave therapy, that I'm not going to work that hard for the iPad in therapy, right? So the logic is that if you take it away, or reduce access to it to only specific times, then it raises the importance of that item, which is particularly cruel, right? Because then we have kids who are very attached to certain things that now have to perform these desired behaviors to gain access to them. And oftentimes those behaviors are antithetical to what their disability, you know, allows them to do. Imagine, like, Hey, see, you can only have chocolate if you do brain surgery. Sorry. Right. Like, and you would be like I say, Well, I guess you just don't want to do that. Maybe try harder. Right? And I only allowed you to have that right? All right, only allowed like and people do they do it with affection, even right? We're only hugging them when they do what we want, right? Imagine if like your partner could only hug you if you were a good wife that day. Right? It's terrible. Not to say that all people that do ABA are doing this, but there are some that are. And that's one of the things I kind of have parents look out for is are we using a child's you know, sacred items as behavioral incentives. And I think that veers into a kind of cruelty that I can't support.

  KC 22:24

  One of the things that I have sort of observed as I've looked at this landscape, because I don't know when ABA started becoming really controversial, or like when people began kind of speaking out in mass against ABA. But I think people forget that the first person to ever be diagnosed with autism is still alive. Right. And so like the first generation of people that had to, quote unquote, address, autism, were parents that suddenly we have this diagnosis, and we were identifying these children, and they're autistic. And so you know, it was parents having to and I think at the beginning, the diagnosis of autism was really only being afforded to people that were clearly and visibly and obviously, autistic by a certain sort of set of criteria. And so that often included nonverbal children that weren't saying, Oh, it's so distressing when you take my thing away. And I'm not really alert, right? Like, I mean, children don't say that in general, right. And so you have these parents who love their child, and want their child to have a good life, for the most part, I think. And there's this therapy that seems to be making them less autistic, right? Like, oh, she's making more eye contact. She's not flapping her hands as much. And I think also, and we'll get into this, but like, autism is not all hand flapping. Like some people stem by banging their head against the wall, right? Like some people stem by biting. We have these meltdowns where we can't do anything for hours. And so parents are seeing these things that are distressing to their kids and going ABA therapy is making these distressing behaviors, less obvious, right? And then all those children grew up. And for the first time, we're hearing the generation that went through this kind of old school ABA. And I remember hearing autistic adults who had gone through ABA, talk about their experience and say things I remember one girl in particular, saying, like, I've been seeing my therapist, because I'm really trying to, like implement some different like habits for my mental health, and I can't seem to sustain anything. And I really want to journal but I can't journal and she said, I saw my therapist today. And we had a breakthrough. And I realized that because so many of my formative years were spent with 40 hours a week in ABA therapy. When I did what they wanted. I got something I wanted, that I now don't have the ability to have like intrinsic motivation for something like I only feel I can't create my own structure. And people talking about, you know, the reason that I don't make eye contact is because it's painful to make eye contact, and I can't focus when I'm making eye contact. And if I'm looking at you in the face, I'm taking in every detail of your face, and I can't hear what you're saying. And so you're forcing me to look you in the eyes, it's painful for me. And then I'm being reprimanded because I'm not responding correctly, because I can't understand the question. And so it was like, we didn't recognize that there was a reason why autistic children were doing the things they were doing.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 25:43

  Yeah, I mean, I think autism is always filtered through the lens of deficit and pathology, right, is everything that autistic people do is wrong. And so a lot of those therapies right are the focus is on kind of identifying the things that are different about autistic people and making them not big. And, you know, a lot of the rationale right is that we're helping these children fit in to the world. In some ways, that's true. But I think, you know, we can dream of a better world, right? And we can create a better world for our kids, by empowering our kids to advocate for themselves, and to not be so controlled right in those very specific ways, and to kind of be more kind of CO creators with us. Now, I, to your point, there are kids who have really significant severe behaviors, right? We can't say that we never have to intervene. I got dragged all over the internet, because I said kids have to brush their teeth, that's not negotiable. And people said, Well, what if it's sensor really uncomfortable for me? And I said, well, is dental surgery less so really overwhelming for you, because when you don't brush your kid's teeth, you know what happens? They put them under anesthesia, and they have to get done to work, which is much worse. And so there are times when we do have to intervene in behaviors. And some of the tools available that are kind of rooted in behavior are effective in a short term capacity, right? But it's not all the time. It's not everything. It's not 40 hours a week, it's a kind of supplement to deep relationship building and kind of skill building work that happens on a kind of relational basis. Does that make sense?

  KC 27:17

  Yeah, it almost seems like there's also it's also just like an issue of triage. Like, I think sometimes when I hear people speak out against ABA, I often hear autistic adults with like, low support needs. And like, you know, they're talking about like, hey, you know, being forced to make eye contact or being told I can't flat my hands like stems and behaviors that really aren't hurting anyone. And I think we would mostly agree like, yeah, like, if it's not hurting anyone, there's no need to have this heavy hand of like, we need to extinguish this behavior. But then you hear parents of children who are autistic that are severely disabled. And I don't say severely autistic, like, there's no such thing as severely or mildly autistic, like it's all autism. But you could certainly be more or less disabled in the way that it hinders your daily functioning in the way you interact with the world. And so then there's these parents going, okay, but my child isn't just like not making eye contact and flapping their hands, they're getting up in the middle the night and running out the front door into the street, they are banging their wrists on the table until they have bruises and bleeding, they are picking out their cuticles, they are you know, if I try to make them brush their teeth, we have a three hour meltdown. And, you know, it does seem like there's a triage component to this where we have to keep people safe.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 28:42

  Yes. And so I help parents a lot navigate the system, right? Because right now, the only therapy that's covered for insurance by insurance for autism is ABA. And they can get a lot of hours, they can get up to 40 hours a week. And a lot of people are using that as like a kind of off label one to one assistant. And they need the extra pair of hands, because that's the only way their family is functioning, no judgement, right? What I do is say, Okay, let's look at your behavior plan. What are the goals? How are we getting there? How is your child being supported in other ways? How can we supplement that with other kind of approaches? I'm never going to scream at a parent for trying to get their kid help. Right? And a lot of people you're right, right, that are saying, you know, never, ever, ever, you know, just let your kids run free. Okay, well, like sometimes people have to go to work. That's a very kind of, you know, privilege take because not everyone can homeschool their kid. You know, people have to go to work. People have to go in the community. So I've seen kids who have stems that are popping their eyeballs out of their eye sockets, gnawing absolute gashes into their arms that then become like infected and they become septic right? So there are times right where we have to use the resources that are available to us. And if that is ABA therapy, you're not a bad parent for going that route. My own child has been you No ABA therapy, I had a heavy, heavy, heavy hand and what the behavior plan was, there are certain techniques that I said no to I won't have or do extinction plans, for example. But there are that is what is available to a lot to most parents. And so I've always had a kind of harm reduction approach to that, as opposed to never ever ever do ABA. Because what does it mean to do ABA, there's ABA in every other therapy too. So it's not like oh, only do speech therapy, some of these speech therapists are just as bad so and some of these behaviorist and newer ones are really trying to change it. So it's got to be, you need to know who your kid is working with. Do you trust that therapist, not the industry of ABA? Not every ABA ever, not the ABA that someone on the internet went through? What's happening in your home? Do you feel okay with it? Do you have enough knowledge to actually look at a behavior plan and say, yes, no, yes, no. And that's, I think, where we can make some real change as opposed to kind of just screaming at parents on the internet, like not to put their kids in ABA, when many parents don't have a choice, particularly when we're talking about, you know, black and brown parents who are getting typhus called on them for educational neglect for not doing ABA. Right, or their kids are in really, you know, serious physical danger if they do some of those behaviors around a police officer, right. So we really have to have a kind of nuanced intersectional way of thinking about this, as opposed to these kind of, you know, binaries of good parents don't do ABA and bad parents do ABA, it's a little bit more complicated than that.

  KC 31:32

  One of the things that I ran into was that when I started looking at schools, I found that the schools that were just like nice little private preschools and things like that, like they are so afraid of the word autism, that I was being told left and right, like, oh, not a good fit, not a good fit. I had someone call and say we can't take her because she has autism, and they've never even met my child. And I'm looking and I'm looking, and I'm looking, and even the places that were like, oh, yeah, you know, we would definitely accept her. And then I go in, and it's like, it's a class of 27, three year olds, with two teachers, nobody, the atmosphere itself was not going to be able to meet my child's needs, they weren't going to be able to give her individual attention, they weren't going to be able to give her physical affection, they weren't going to be able to, you know, like, some autistic kids are hypersensitive, emotionally, and some of them are shut down and get real quiet. And some of them, you know, might get overwhelmed and freak out and fall on the floor. And it was like, Okay, I'm looking at these like environments. And the ones that I think might be a good fit won't take her. The ones that will take her are not a good invite, like they would be traumatizing in and of themselves. And as I go down the list of like trying to find her a place. The only places that were willing and set up to offer accommodations were the places that were like quote unquote, disability schools or special needs programs, and most of them if not all of them were ABA based. And I remember thinking like, I remember just like coming home and crying because like I was so dead set on like, we will never use ABA because I have heard autistic person after autistic person talk about traumatizing it was and I don't want to traumatize my child. And I myself went through a very conflicting experience with behaviorism, where it's like, okay, on the one hand, like I was using cocaine at 15 years old, like I could have died multiple times, like, there were some triage that needed to happen, there were some behaviors that needed to be extinguished, that we could not wait around for some five year relationship therapeutically to develop, right, like I needed to be contained things needed to be extinguished. But the behaviorism went so far, that it ended up also causing damage. And so I'm sitting here going, Okay, well, how do I navigate a system that is like deeply ablest? And the people who are saying, like, we are getting trained in disability, we understand autism, some of them have such an old school view of autism. And it really is difficult as a parent to go in and go, Okay. And then what I realized was because I had heard so many people say, Never ABA, never ABA, ABA is abuse. I realized that I didn't even understand what ABA was behind like, it makes them conform. And so I would go into places and they would say, Oh, we're not ABA, and then they'd be doing things that basically were ABA. And then there were other, you know, daycares or centers that would say like, Oh, we're an ABA center, and you'd go in, but they weren't really doing what I understood to be a VA and so you can't like go off of the term anymore. You That's what I

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 35:00

  tell parents to do. And I know like, there's people that will tell you, Oh, if it's called ABA, it's bad. If it's not called ABA, it's good. But without really identifying what those practices are and what the problem is. And so what happens is, is that they, you know, aren't in ABA or not ABA, but they go to a school and the whole school is ABA. They just don't realize it, right? It's rooted in behavior, analytic principles. There are other school that's not ABA, but it's not called that. So it's okay. I really think we need to kind of get out of the mindset of like, the labels are accurate, because they're not always accurate. My daughter went to an ABA preschool too, because her public school wouldn't take her she was, you know, half a point shy of the threshold for preschool. But I gotten kicked out of her general education, preschool for like kicking kids in the circle. So I didn't know what to do. I was working, I was like, What am I going to do, and I was working for this agency that did some ABA and some floor time, I was doing floor time for them, and, you know, lovely Orthodox Jewish family. And they were like, listen, we have this little preschool here, it's all Orthodox kids. But you know, she can come here in their ABA center. And I was like, I mean, I know their program. I know, their center, I know, the therapist, I work with them. And I trusted them. And I was in the building, and they were collaborative and amazing. And she had nothing, you know, I'm me, I'm the most vocal critic of some of this stuff. And I was completely 100% comfortable the entire time with every single thing that they did. And they had cameras, I could watch it any time. I mean, it was lovely. And people probably, you know, would be very angry at me if I said that my kids who may be a preschool or call me a hypocrite, but it's not, we need to look at the practices. The only practice that matters about ABA is the one that your kid is experiencing. If you're a parent, that's really what you need to look at. Are you okay with this person with this behavior plan, with this therapist with this practice, there are structural things that need to happen. But for the average everyday parent, they're not trying to do ABA reform, they're trying to just get them their kids have health. And so if you look at just what they're doing, right, I can give you some tools to kind of look at that and say, Yes, to this, and no to this, or how to speak to a therapist to say I'm really not comfortable with this aspect. Can we try something else. And that's a lot of what I do is kind of give parents the tools to make things workable, even if they're not, you know, on paper, you know, called the right thing, it doesn't matter at the end of the day, as long as the techniques that they're using, and the goals that they have are affirming. I don't care if you call it ABA, that's

  KC 37:30

  really what I'm hearing you say is that, like, what matters is that you have the right goals, and the right techniques. And, you know, whatever they're calling, whatever therapy they're using, whatever they're calling that center, that that's what you're looking for. And I do want to get into, like what you would consider like some red flags for goals and techniques. But one thing that came to mind for me is that I remember hearing the thing about like withholding, someone said like, you know, that's not right to withhold a toy from a child until they do what you want. And that's, that's really like a two dimensional statement. Because I had two completely opposite experiences that really made me understand this. Okay, so I saw a video of someone doing ABA, and they were sitting at the table, the child was on one end, the practitioner was on the other. And they had like some blocks, and the child wanted a block and the child was saying block. And before the child's hand got to the block, she pulled it up out of range. And when I want the block, I want the block, and she went block block. And she held it even higher. And when I say I want the block, say I want the block, and then the child goes out, but she was good and like handed the child the blog, and I even showed it to my husband and he was like, I don't something about that, like rubs me wrong for some way, right? And it just didn't sit right with me. Right. But then, like, My child has an occupational therapist that does a floor time approach was a type of therapy. And I started watching. And I started noticing that like there were times where technically it was, quote unquote, withholding. But they're on the ground. They're playing with each other. She put in a lot of work, understanding how she connects and connected with her in that way to where every day she walks in every time that she walks in. My daughter's like, Oh, yay, she's here and they play and you know, so my daughter would come up with her paw patrol because she loves Paw Patrol, and they play together and she'd have the little paw patrol and she'd be running around. And then she'd like, hover, go up, and my daughter would reach for it and she'd go, Oh, he's flying. He's flying. Where is he? Where is he? And she would like me Make it this like playful, quote unquote game to see if she could elicit whether it was a verbal response or behavior response from my daughter. And then but no matter what, then she gave her the toy. Yes. And she would explain like, it's not like I don't want to induce a distress, what I want to do is give her opportunities where I'm pausing and allowing her to practice something. And that was to me such a lightbulb moment, because you're right, like, it's not about like, withholding understanding what withholding is, it was all these other nuances about like, are they playing? Is there a relationship? What's the even down to like, the tone of voice that each practitioner was speaking to the child in?

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 40:44

  Yeah. And it's like, you know, in the first example, if she's trying to teach requesting, right, she's teaching that she requested, she did the thing, right, she just didn't do it in this very prescribed kind of neurotypical way of this full sentence, right, in this particular tone of voice. But she requested the block, she said, I want the block in so many words, right? She said, the block pointing and asking for it. If we're trying to extend the length of an utterance, there's lots of ways that we can do that we can embed that in play, and I can, you know, make the Paw Patrol say that, and I could say, but I want the block, right? Like and be like, silly and like make them fight so that they're hearing that language over and over again, right? That's totally fine, right. But sitting in front of them and saying, I want say I want and like dangling it in front of them, right is just dressing, any child would be distressed by that. So this is also nuanced. And I think people want a list of like, This is bad. And this is good. And that's I think that's where we fall into that kind of binary of ABA, bad, everything else good when actually we have to kind of train ourselves to understand, you know, actually to be more kind of empathetic, right? of, you know, you can look at your child's experience playing with other therapists and realize she's not distressed, she's not upset by that. It's a opportunity to learn and practice a skill that is well within her kind of zone of proximal development, right to use her for teachers out there. But kotsky. But in the other example, you know, she can one it's not a skill she has, right, so she's asking her to do something, you know, she can't do and then like, how is she teaching her? What does she teaching her? Right? Testing is not teaching. And that's a lot of the problem I have with ABA is instead of giving her opportunities, it's constant assessment, Do this, do this, do this, you do that at the end? Right? Once they've learned it, but how are you teaching them? How to say a longer sentence? are you modeling it for them? How would they know to say I want the block besides you just saying, say I want the block? Right? How are you embedding that in your everyday interactions is really a bigger question. So to me, it's kind of too simplistic on the teaching end, and also really creating a kind of distressing upsetting environment for the kids, because they're not actually being taught to do the skill. They're just being tested on it. And then, you know, motivated to do it in air quotes.

  KC 43:01

  Yeah, it really seemed like in one instance, like, if I was that child, like in the one with like, say, I want the block. What, like what that seems like it's teaching a child is like, if I want to be taken care of, I need to figure out what people want and give it to them. It creates a lot of whereas in the other, yeah, like, but like in the other instance, it seemed like what she was learning was, if I want connection with a person, I need to learn what types of things are connecting for me and for that person.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 43:38

  The other thing was eye contact, right? It's like people are so focused on eye contacting eye contact, right, but the skill of eye contact is actually about social referencing, right? We need to reference other people, and we need to show other people that we're paying attention to them. And we need to look at other people and see what they're doing because that's what you know, kind of existing in the world looks like right? As we observe other people, we connect to other people. We find ways to, you know, speak to other people and have relationships with them. And

  KC 44:05

  because we want relationships like I will never forget, like listening to an autistic adult on Tik Tok say, there's this myth that autistic people like to be alone. And I always spent time alone and my whole family, we just oh, that's just Maggie. Like, she likes to be alone. She prefers to be alone. The truth is I don't, I am deeply lonely. But I learned very early in my life, that I was just too much. I was just too much of a burden that people were irritated with me people were aggravated with me that I was awkward. And so I just learned to withdrawal. And I think to your point of talking about goals is like, is my goal that I want my child to do social referencing, because like that's what a person should do? Or is my goal like, I know my child wants relationships, and I don't want to change who she is, but I want her to have the skills and the knowledge to know how to engage in a relationship. So she's not Somebody who's lonely and hostile withdrawal. It's so

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 45:02

  true. And, you know, teaching people skills is not a bad thing, right? There's this kind of idea that like, any kind of, you know, teaching of neurotypical norms is bad. But we all have to navigate the world in a lot of different ways. And we have relationships with autistic people, and we have relationships with with neurotypical people, my daughter is nine, and she wants, you know, she has friends. And sometimes there's times where, like, you know, she's trying to do something socially, and it's not panning out the way she intended it to, right. She's not getting the effect that she wants. Am I an ableist? If I say, Hmm, I think you know, could we try it a different way? Maybe don't, you know, maybe don't yell it like that? Or maybe, you know, pushing them is not the right answer. What else could we try? Right? Because she wants to have relationships with kids, she wants to be included. And sometimes something she's doing is bothering somebody. Right? I would be failing her. Right? If I didn't say, I think your approach is a little off in this case. And maybe we could try something different. Let's practice it, right. So here's some things that you can try to say tomorrow, and I'm going to teach her something right. I'm not just going to say, Stop yelling, here's a gummy bear. Right. If you stop yelling for 10 minutes, I'll give you a gummy bear, I'm going to say that really hurts people's ears. And I know you want to be friends with these people, and you're talking really loudly, and maybe it's bothering them. So maybe we can try practicing. Let's do at home. Right lowering our voice and conversations or let's practice how much is the right amount of talking when you're talking to people? Or how do we ask a question about other people? You know, so it's helping her get the effects that she wants. But it's I'm taking my cues from her. I'm not saying everything you do is wrong. And here's how we can make you better I am I kind of looking at her and saying, Yeah, this is not going how she wants to go. And I it's you know, some of it is some autistic stuff that's rubbing people the wrong way. And here's how you can kind of, you know, adjust your behavior to get the result that you want, if you so choose, right. So

  KC 47:05

  when you were talking about social referencing, I don't want to miss that point. Like, can you talk a little bit more about like, what social referencing is? And like, how can we teach that to a child in a way that like is affirming of their, their, like autism versus something that's like dis affirming, like forcing the eye contact? Yeah, so

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 47:25

  like, Okay, so let's take an example of a kid who you know, are hug eponymous is right, the kids who love to hug and touch and you know, hugging people without asking that kind of stuff. I'm touching people's hair. That's a big thing. Like little kids, let's say you have a child who's extremely touchy with other people. And it kind of old school ABA approach might be okay, sit down, quiet Hands, hands to side. Good hands to side. Good job, like, you know what I mean? Like teaching like a kind of behavioral response, right? How I would teach it as I was like, Oh, hold on, look at our friend, her face. Not happy. She doesn't like that. You see she her face? Her mouth is like this. She's going away from you. I don't think she likes you touching her body. How can we say hello? Why don't you show her your toy? Right and giving them options to try and say, Well, I think you're in her bubble. I don't think she wants you to be in her bubble. Right. So giving them kind of cueing them into the signs that it's not going well, right. And kind of doing that think aloud, speak aloud, cueing them to look at the things that are cues that it's not going well, and then giving them tools to do something else, right and say, Oh, if we want to talk to a friend, we can show them a toy. We can tell them a story. We can ask them to play. Maybe I'm even would make like a little visual of like three things to try. And I was like, well, let's check our chart. What could we try? And your maybe I would pre plan it with them? Oh, we're gonna go to recess today? Which one do you want to try today? You want to practice with me first? Right? And then having them try one. And then afterwards being like, did that work? How did it feel? That kind of stuff, right? So I could get any kid to Stop hugging people. Right? Stop hugging people. I'll give you a gummy bear. But what did we actually teach? And how did we help that child to reproduce that result in novel situations?

  KC 49:21

  Okay, and so in the instance, like, with eye contact and social referencing, like, it seems like the point of making eye contact with someone is to signify I'm listening to you, I hear you and I care about what you're saying. Like I'm tuned in. And what I hear you saying is like, hey, there are other ways that people can indicate that they are listening, that, you know, especially if we understand like, there's a reason that they're not making eye contact, either it's uncomfortable for them or something like that, but like, is there a different way that we can signify listening so that you can maintain those relationships Whether it's you know, with a teacher with a friend, right, so

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 50:02

  you know what I do, I'm not a great eye contact or myself, I sit off to the side and I like kind of do like quick eye contact, but I, you know, oftentimes will say, I am listening to you, I just can't make eye contact and listen, at the same time, I don't want to think I'm rude. But I am listening intently to what you're saying. And then I respond in a way that shows that I've listened, right. And so you know, it's also kind of training other people that like, eye contact is a very particular thing that we like look for, to mean like paying attention, but maybe other things mean paying attention, right? So it's not just that it's a kind of both sides need to learn each other's interactional styles, and not always kind of going towards, you know, what neurotypical people do is the right way. You know, what I mean? So

  KC 50:47

  if a parent is listening, and then they're kind of hearing saying, like, the right goals, the right techniques, like what are some things that you would suggest for, like, what would be appropriate goals? And then what in your mind would kind of maybe raise a red flag for you in terms of goals?

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 51:02

  Okay, so goals that are compliance for compliance sake, right? So and so we'll, you know, respond verbally within three seconds with, you know, the desired response of blah, blah, blah, right, where it's adult directed, I decided you should learn this. And so you're going to learn it. And the goal is for you to comply. For what reason? I don't know, right? We create kids that are just so dependent. A good goal comes from a kind of advocacy perspective, right? Is, okay, so this is a behavior that is inhibiting my child from participating in, you know, society life, the things they want to participate in family life, how can we address that goal in a way that is like workable for both people? So you want the goals to be truly beneficial for your child, and not beneficial for the teachers, for you, for everyone around you? Right? I mean, you know, sometimes kids really like to talk about the same thing over and over and over again, right. And I saw a study recently where the behaviors were trying to get the child to stop talking about what they like to talk about topics that the parents had selected. The irony, and that is the now the adult is doing exactly what they just said that the kid was doing wrong. Also,

  KC 52:14

  like what child wants to do that like neurotypical or otherwise,

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 52:18

  what are we going to talk about when we talk about like taxes with my six year old? So now we've just said, No, you doing it? As long as you're autistic? You should talk what I like because I'm not autistic. And my things are right. Okay, like little apple tree situation here. Right? So in that case, right, if a child is dominating a conversation, it's because they're excited about something. Right? And a different approach might be, I see, you're really excited about this. Not everybody likes Minecraft, what do we talk about with other people who don't like Minecraft? Right? What are some topics that you like that they also like, and helping them to kind of navigate that in a more kind of skillful way. As opposed to just saying, if you talk about what I like, you know, I'll give you a token, or you can have an iPad or whatever, it's kind of deeper learning of how do we relate to other people? It's not a triage approach, right? It takes a lot longer to kind of teach these complex social skills, but it's worthwhile work. So I think that that would be the goal. Yeah,

  KC 53:16

  it reminds me of like, I mean, I feel like this is applicable to like, all types of neuro divergence, obviously, not just autism. I mean, so for me, you know, I have ADHD. And one of the question, there's, like, on your self assessment about social stuff is like, do you interrupt people a lot? Do you have trouble taking turns? Do you finish people, sentences and correct people. And when I first took the self assessment, I remember being like, Oh, I don't do that. But then when somebody really dug into it with me, and what I recognized was, I may not do those behaviors. But internally, what drives those behaviors is still happening in me, I'm not listening to you, I'm waiting for my turn to talk. You said something wrong. And that's all I'm thinking about. And so I can't hear you. But the reason why I wasn't doing those behaviors anymore is because when I went through 18 months of behavior, therapy, intensive behavioral therapy, every time I interrupted it was pointed out, and I was told I was being selfish, and I was shamed, and I was punished. And you know, when I listened to people, I was really praised. And they literally extinguished the behavior of correcting and interrupting and not waiting my turn through a system of rewards and punishments. And I came to believe that not only was that behavior bad, but that that's a bad thing about me, that that is my natural tendency. And what I wish would have happened because this is where like, you and I talked about how we get so black and white about it, where we feel like the only it's like, either you extinguish the behavior, it's not right, or you don't get to say anything about the fact I constantly interrupt and correct people, right. But what I wish would have happened because again, like I wanted relationships and like that particular behavior was having an impact. I found people that I didn't recognize and was damaging the connections I really wanted, I wish somebody could have sat me down and say like, Hey, here's these behaviors, like, that's the way your brain works, it's moving really fast that you, that's your style of communication that you enjoy. But not everyone enjoys it. And here's how it's impacting the people that don't enjoy it. And so like, let's think of some ways to, like use different methods of communication for people when you're wanting to have that relationship. And the cool thing about as an adult, I kind of just got to that place by myself. And actually my best friend's autistic, and she will absolutely be bulldozed by that type of communication. And it does not serve our connection to each other for me to communicate with her that way. But I also got to learn that I find people that do like that communication, I find other people that love that overlapping style of communication, and I just let it rip. And I, you know what I mean, and we sit there and we interrupt each other, and we correct each other, and we talk over each other, and everybody around us thinks we're fighting. But it's like, from this place of I understand my behaviors, I don't have shame about my brain, but I understand the impact. And I'm able to choose different things when I need to reach my goals. And that's kind of what it like, reminds me of, yeah,

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 56:21

  it's a toolbox, right? It's a kind of like, it's not exactly the same concept, right? It's totally different routes. But it's analogous, I guess, to the concept kind of, of code switching, right. And I talked to my daughter about social skills, I say, we do it here at like this at our house, because we're all autistic. And so we like to do it like this. Other people don't do it like that, right? Like when you're at people's houses, you know who aren't autistic, right? They want to have like, we just take turns info dumping at my house, basically, it just nonstop of just people. My husband just talks about guitars, I talked about autism and research. And my daughter talks about Minecraft, we just talk at each other, and we are fine with that. But it was just going somewhere else, I'll say, you know, they are not autistic. So they are expecting more of you asking them about their stuff. Right? Here's some questions right? Or maybe say try and say like four sentences about Minecraft, and then pause and ask a question. So I give her like real tools to do if you want that result, if you want to go and you know something about Minecraft and see what happens. That's, that's on you. But I'm going to like, give you the tools to do it and not shame you for that being the way that you want to do it. It's just a different way of doing things. You know, and that's not the case with all behaviors are some that like you just genuinely cannot do, right. It's not just like a preference, whether or not you want to pop your eyeballs out of your socket. But some things are like that. So when we're looking at goals, right, I would say safety, hygiene, there's things that are non negotiable, right, we got to work on those things. And we can work on them in gentle ways, sometimes, but in some cases, we got to kind of get to the root of it very, very quickly, you know, and stop something from happening, that's truly dangerous. That's one case. But there's a lot of cases where it's this kind of these, like, neurotypical way of doing things versus neuro divergent way of doing things. And, you know, people are being pushed into one as if it's just right. When it's really there's different ways of interacting in the world. And people who skillfully can navigate that, you know, are better off.

  KC 58:26

  And when you are talking about like just addressing the behavior and not like the underlying roots, I often see a big difference between like, let's say you have a child that's like grinding their teeth, like so hard and so intensely, like the whole room can hear it. And you're thinking like, Okay, number one, this sounds like nails on a chalkboard number two, like this can't be good for her teeth, or his teeth, right? Instead of having this approach of like, okay, for every, like, five minutes you go without grinding your teeth, you get a reward, or if you grind your teeth while we're playing, we're gonna stop playing and hold until you stop. It's almost like, Okay, why are they grinding their teeth? Like is that giving them a sense of like, sensory input that's important to them? And how can we redirect that like, legitimate need to a more like, conducive way of doing that? So, you know, do they need a chewy to chew on? Do they want crunchy food? Can we offer you know, if a child is old enough? Like, can we offer gum like those type of techniques, I've noticed a difference between someone's approach of like, validating the need, but underneath the behavior, while acknowledging like the behavior itself is either like, not safe, or it's not going to get like it's going to get in the way of that child's goals. And so can you talk a little bit more about like, kind of technique, green flags and red flags that you see?

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 59:46

  Yeah, so I mean, red flags, I would say are things that are unnecessarily physical. There's a technique called errorless teaching where basically let's say I give you three things and you're supposed to pick one of them and you pick the wrong one people will do Physical, the physical prompting, will they'll either take their hand they do hand over hand or whatever, and say, No, it's this one touch red, right? Oh, good touching red, right? So anything that has physical prompting in it, in the beginning, I think is something that I would be is kind of a red flag, it's a soft red, there are cases where we have to kind of physically guide someone because they're learning how to hold a pencil, etc. But if we're using physical prompting for compliance purposes, that's a no for me. Because when we have kids that are getting conditioned to allow people to manipulate their body, it's creates a really dangerous situation, this sexual assault statistics for disabled women are horrific, truly, I mean, it's a majority of women with disabilities that will be sexually assaulted by in their lifetime. And so I truly cannot support a child being conditioned that their body can be manipulated by literally anyone around them. Right for compliance purposes, that creates a very dangerous situation. And so I am against having kids have that be normalized, right, that their bodily autonomy is that they don't have any, I just really can't get behind that. And I would say another one is kind of extinction plans. And there's a small, very, very small, he's like very, very, very dangerous behaviors. But generally speaking, we're doing extinction plans for things that are just minor annoyances, extinction plans are traumatic, you know, when someone is ignoring you, oftentimes they have they call it an extinction burst, that behavior gets a lot worse, right. So if a child is trying to get your attention and you start ignoring them, then oftentimes they'll do something worse, right? They'll get on top of the table, they'll climb on top of the furniture, throw something, right, and then they'll do escalate until you can ignore them because they're unsafe. And that then you have to give them attention at the very apex of the behavior. And actually, you're reinforcing a much worse behavior. So I generally do not support extinction plans. I also don't really like things that are like exposure. So I had a childhood that was working with a family and the child had struggled with changes in their schedule. And so their solution was that every day they were going to purposely mess with the schedule to desensitize them to it. Why, right? Like, that's not helping him. It was just making him a nervous wreck. And he didn't want to go to school because they would purposely tell him he was going to do something and then not do it just to like, help him get over his thing with schedules. You know, he did he need some coping skills. Yeah. But are we going to get coping skills by purposely upsetting the child every day? No. So it mean things that are like kind of intentionally distressing, also overcorrection. That's when they give them like an extra punishment. Like let's say you scribbled on one desk, and now you gotta wash 100 desks or something that's, you know, overly punitive things like restraint, seclusion, conditioning, affection, using a parental affection as a reinforcer or a consequence, period, end of story, making kind of social approval or inclusion contingent on behavior, right? You can't sit with us unless those kinds of things, right these like shame based punitive things you'll know them when you see them truly, I mean, it's not subtle.

  KC 1:03:09

  Let me ask you this around technique. So when it comes to sensory stuff, this is one that I have a question on because it's like, okay, there's nothing wrong with like having a sensory aversion to random things. But I also can see how, like, it could really impair your day to day functioning, right? Like if you don't like to feel certain things, you know, whether Okay, now you can't shower, or maybe you want to play but you don't want to play and things like that. And so how do you feel about when there are sensory goals? Like, okay, we're gonna get the shaving cream out, because this child doesn't, you know, like, fluffy feelings or you know what I mean? Or they don't like wet so let's do water play like, is that like a black and white always this always that? Or is that? Is that a technique issue? Is it a goal issue? What are your thoughts on that?

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:04:00

  I think it's a goal issue, right? So you have to think about is this a life skill or not? Showering, you got to shower. So if you have a thing with water, right, we have to do something about that. And that may involve like, you know, slow introductions and to playing with water, etc. Plus maybe some deep pressure before they go in the shower, using a timer favorite. So like, there's all different things that you can do is going to be the kind of holistic approach right? Shaving cream can generally avoid shaving cream. I don't think that touching shaving cream is a life skill. I don't touch shaving cream ever. I don't shave a shaving cream. I don't need to touch shaving cream. So I don't understand that's always a goal for kids that they touch shaving cream. I'm like, Are these kids like becoming barbers? Like I don't? Why? So to me like that. The goal needs to make sense. If it's unavoidable, then yes, you have to do something about it. But if it's just like you think they should for what reason? I don't know. I mean, I had a kid in my class I was petrified of mascots, like drop stopped mascots. And they wanted to desensitize them to mascots. And I was like, I don't know, guys, like, I'm pretty sure we know where they're going to be like, he could just avoid them, like forever indefinitely. He could just not go to Six Flags or parades. And I think he'd be fine. Like, I don't think that this is like a worthy goal. Like we have bigger fish to fry. So my metric is like, is this a thing that is actually impeding them? Or it's just a thing you think they should do? For what reason? And so showering? Yes, we got it. You got to do something with water. My brother used to be petrified of the wind, you couldn't walk outside the door? Yeah, we have to do something about not being able to leave your house because we're petrified of the wind, you know, we got to come up with something that you can put on maybe get a little bit, you know, put a fan practice of putting your face by a fan. But mascots, I'm not going to die on the on that hill. So I think that's what I get, if parents look at and therapists look at is like, what is this goal for? Is this actually helping this child? Why are we doing this as opposed to other things? Like when I see kids, the firt, where speech therapists are drilling that they say mommy, right first, right? Say, mommy say, Mommy, I love you, right? Because the moms want to hear it. That's really sweet. And I hope that all mothers hear that in the way that their child can communicate it. But if we have a child that can has to go to the bathroom, or can't tell, tell that something that someone's abusing them at school, right, then that's what we should be teaching first, like a focus on functional communication, right? If they can't say they're sick or in pain, but they can say, I love you, Mommy, we haven't done our jobs, right? Because that's for the mom. That's so that the parents can say this is good therapy, because they said I love you, Mommy. And I've always wanted to hear that. That's really sweet. But also, this child does not have functional communication. And that's what we're here to teach. Right? And so we have to actually think what is benefiting this child truly, and not at what is not just a thing we wished our child would do if they were neurotypical.

  KC 1:07:00

  I had another question. I want to know if you have any thoughts about this scenario. When I talked to other parents of autistic children, one of the things that happens, you know, cuz there's a lot of therapies, you know, ABA is one therapy, but there's also like occupational therapy, floor time, speech therapy, equine therapy, play there, like all sorts of things. One of our experiences as I talk to other parents, especially with things like OT, like occupational therapy is, so when you talk about like, is there a real life goal, sometimes I feel like occupational therapists will have a goal, that doesn't make sense, where it's like, we want to get them on a swing, and your kid hates swings. And so like, according to what you're saying, it's like, okay, if I can just avoid swings, but they'll have an explanation for how like, the skill of being on a swing will affect other skills or other abilities or other something abilities down the line. And what I find as a parent that's really difficult is that, because I don't know anything about the words and what they're, you know, they're talking about the limbic system. And, you know, your ability to, I don't know, your ability to hold a fork is really about the way the left brain is talking to the right brain. And we learn that with the inner ear, and how gravity affects the blah, blah, blah. And so, you know, getting on the swing will affect their ability to hold a fork, right? It'll be something like, and I'll be listening and be like, I have no idea whether you're full of shit or not, like, this could be like your expertise, and I don't really know anything about it. And like, all these things are interconnected. Or it could be just like, nothingness or could be weird. It could be like, woowoo stuff that people say, I have no idea how to approach those things.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:08:41

  Yeah, I mean, okay, so swinging, that's not Yeah, that is actually true. So it has to do with like core stability, postural insecurity. So if kids can't be on a swing, right, it's vestibular just kind of dysfunction. And that will impact anytime that they feel that they're on shaky ground, right. And it has to do with underlying kind of core strength issues, vestibular regulation, so that's not nonsense. That actually is true. I would say OTs, generally speaking, they have a really scientific, it's a different field, right? They behaviorists training wise, take six classes on a test. It's not a very extensive training. They're not trained in autism. They're trained in behavior and reducing behavior and the techniques of behavior analysis. So they have a very different approach. OTs go through like a lot, a lot of school and it's scientific. So generally speaking, they know what they're talking about. Sometimes they'll get on like weird stuff with like this shaving cream and stuff. I

  KC 1:09:37

  don't know about the brushing either. Like at one point, we had an OT tell us like, you need to brush her skin every two hours with this brush and like, mica doesn't like that. And then I'm going like, I buy this like, okay, the swing thing doesn't make sense. But okay, I trust you. But then it's like things get like, I have no idea. Like, is the brush thing the same as the swing thing? Yeah, that's totally connected, or is it like not,

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:09:59

  I mean, it's hard. I just say I can't give like a, you know, every it's kind of a case by case basis. Right? Which is why I think it's important to have like to develop community around you. The brush thing is meant to help regulate them if it's not regulating them. It's not working right, but I think I remember when you texted me you were like, so telling me to brush my kid, that normal? And I was like their hair. You were like, No, it was like, Oh, yeah. Okay, I got you. But I think you can ask, right? What is the purpose of this? What is this doing for her and see what they say? They say, Well, you know, it's just getting her to touch other textures. You say? Does this texture impact her touching other textures? Because this isn't a texture, she encounters a lot. So I'm just curious why we're focusing on shaving cream, when we're actually having a bigger issue with water. Maybe we could focus on that just a thought you can ask like the swinging I'm having trouble understanding is this like developmental skill that she's learning that she like, need to do this to do other things? Or is this more about a preference for swinging or not swinging? I'm just I'm not really understanding what the purpose of this is. And they should be able to give you a competent answer. If the answer is something like, so other kids will like her, so she won't stand out. So she'll fit in better. So your life will you know, so that you can go to do shaving? You can go to shaving cream, um, because kids their age, like shaving cream, those are all kind of like not great answers, right? We don't do therapy things just because other so that other kids won't bully them, right? We address bullies, we for bullying, we don't make our kids have to not get bullied by their behavior. So I definitely ask there's not a hard and fast list, right? Because people can say one thing, they can do something that I say is a good technique for weird reason. So it's go over your behavior plan, like fine tooth comb, and anything that you're like, I don't get why she's got to do that. Then ask right and say, What is the purpose behind this do a little bit of research, right? Like what you know, type and swinging and whatever words they say vestibular system, and learn a little bit about it, the more you know, the more of an advocate you can be for your child. And knowing a little bit about autism really does help. Alright, so

  KC 1:12:12

  my last question that I want to kind of pose to you is, I find that a lot of parents when their kid gets diagnosed, and they first start seeing therapists and being in therapy, there's this really overwhelming amount of like homework that that we are given, that seems unrealistic, where they're like, Okay, they need and I haven't experienced all of this, but I've talked to other parents that do where it's like, okay, they need to be in 40 hours a week of this kind of therapy, they need speech three times a week, they need to you to brush them their skin every two hours every night before they go to bed, put the headphones on and listen to this music therapy thing. And I'm wondering, like, if you can speak to that at all, because as a parent, you know, like, you have this fear of, I have to do everything so that my kid is going to be okay. And it's kind of hard to know what to do when you get hit with that. And you're thinking I have a job I have other children I have like, how do I how is this? How is this manageable?

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:13:11

  So I'll tell you what, I don't do any of it. And I'll tell you why. Because her home is her home, she lives here. This is her home, where she lives. And my home where I live, I don't want my boss yelling, I you know that I'm not doing this thing I don't want to be doing, you know, any of that. I just, I want to be relaxing with my family. And that's where I unmask and I spend time with my family. And so I really don't do any of it. I don't allow behavior charts in my house period. If they're like, you know, give her a thing every time she whatever. I'm just not going to do that. Right. So I just don't the way I explained therapy to parents is it's like making a pie crust. If you've ever made a pie crust is you got your like water that you're going to add in, you've got your flour and your butter together. If you add therapy that starts to make it fall apart again, right? Your kid is tired, you're overwhelmed, you're stressed, they're stressed, it's too much, right? You added too much, right? So it's literally just add a little bit at a time. It's not going to you know, fix them, they're going to still be able to stick at the end of it. It's enough to support them that things are going reasonably well and then you can stop. It's okay to leave stones unturned. You don't need to find every weird therapy. There's no therapy, that itself is a magic pill. It is sustained effort over time. That's it, right. And so there's no magic element that's going to really change it. It's creating that supportive environment, getting them some skills and some help in the areas that they need it just enough that they still have a childhood, right. We want kids to have a space where they are not being you know, earning things Write that they can just be. And if your child has no space, and every hour of their leisure time is taken off with therapy, right, then we're denying our kids an opportunity actually one to apply things that they're learning in therapy, and to to have a childhood. And so I think our kids really do have a right to some time, that's not therapeutic parents are told all the time, you should be doing this all the time. I don't, when my kid is nine years old, and I tie her shoes every day, I don't care if she can tie your own shoes. I know she can. And she ties in when she's at school. But she wants me to do it, because she has a heavy mental load navigating her day, and she wants that little bit of connection and care for me. All right, I can make my own coffee, but it's nice when my husband does. And so I'm not going to make her use her skills all the time, I'm going to mother her, because she deserves that. Just because she's autistic doesn't mean she doesn't deserve me caring for her my reinforcing her bad shoe tying behavior, probably I don't care. Because

  KC 1:15:59

  that's been like a big red flag for me, though, is that I have noticed that sometimes there will be expectations on an autistic child that you would never put on a non autistic yet. Yep, like to use full sentences to, you know, never sit a certain way. And I kind of like so like one example is like W sitting. And if people don't know what that it's when you sit on your bottom and you will explai your feet out so that your knees are together and your heels are separate and a little W and it can definitely cause issues in your body if you sit like that forever and ever, right. And so when it comes to like, okay, correcting that like teaching them a different way to sit helping what their core strength, you know, when you talk about, like, letting her have a space that she just gets to be. That's like one tiny example of like, the ways that I've been trying to do that, where it's like, okay, I get that, yes, it's important. And I do if I see it, you know, hey, fix your feet, let's sit crisscross applesauce, let's do it. But I'm also not doing it. Like every time I see it. And there are like specific times where I'm not doing it. Like, if we're in the middle of, you know, a speech session, sit however you want, you've got one thing to focus on at this moment. Or if we're, you know, maybe if we're doing storytime together, it's like, it doesn't have to be corrected every single second of the day.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:17:21

  I mean, it's so true, right? It's like, we all need some downtime. And so it's good to like, let it go. Sometimes. I mean, I talked to schools about this all the time, because they'll be working on you know, a kid learning some scale or whatever. And then at recess, they want to have the speech therapist go follow them around recess to go have them keep doing it at recess. What are the other kids doing at recess? Are they doing schoolwork? No, they're running around. Right? So everyone, recess is leisure time for children at school. It's not more school time, it is actually a break from school. And so if all of the other kids are getting a break from schoolwork, the autistic kids should too. Right? That's why I don't like Lunch Bunch any of this nonsense, right? They deserve a break too. And I don't care what they do. My kids when I was teaching, they would do the weirdest stuff outside, spinning around, sitting under stuff, making piles of wood chips. And you know, people would be like, aren't you going to stop them are going to teach them how to play more appropriately. I was like, He's happy. He likes doing that. If he came to me and said, I want to play with a friend. Or if he was wandering around looking like he wanted to play with someone, then yeah, I would jump in and say, Hey, let's go talk to somebody. But he doesn't want to do that. He wants to do what he's doing right now. And he gets half an hour a day at school to do what he likes to do. Far be it for me to say that that's not a good way to spend your time that looks actually kind of fun. So I'm gonna just let him be because all the other kids are playing. Right? So it's like those kinds of things. Like if other kids are getting that time, right time to just kind of lay on the couch and sit weird and be upside down and you know, stim on the videos or watch this, whatever, I'm not going to take that away from my kid because he's autistic. Right? Not everything has to be a teachable moment. That's my other thing with like these Lego therapy, Minecraft therapy, let's not make everything they like into therapy. Just because they like it. Can they just have a hobby, like something that they like? So it's like, I'm kind of against like therapy using like, literally everything, like, just let them have a break.

  KC 1:19:20

  There's a lot of I find like environmental changes you can do at home to like, let your kid be your kid like, okay, yes. Maybe we don't want them jumping on the couch because they're gonna eventually jump themselves on top of their head and crack their skull open. But like, Can we get a little trampoline? Is there a smaller thing they can jump on? Like jump to your heart's content, right? Like there's a lot of things that I find that we can change about and I feel like this is true for any child like the degree to which you can change the environment first,

  so that there isn't this constant. Don't touch that. Don't do this. Don't go up there. Sit down at the bottom.

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:19:54

  I mean, I when parents are like, Oh yeah, when parents are like, oh, like they keep touching the whatever. I'm like, Well, why put it away, like, put it somewhere else, and then they can't touch it. It's like we could solve some of these problems, I think we want to put everything on the kids because people want to like they start thinking autism is the problem, right? We're all united against our common enemy of autism, when actually like, we could solve a lot of these problems, we could just not have an access to that, right, we could just not put that in there I view change our environments quite a bit, we could, you know, I didn't have a coffee table for years, like no coffee table, because she would jump off the couch, and she's gonna crack your head open. So I just moved it. And then I had like, a little like crash pad thing that I would drag out from the garage every once in a while and like, throw in between our sectional and she jumped off the sectional under the cushion. You know, now she's nine. She does want to do that, though. I can, you know, have a coffee table. But make your like, as you you know, you're so amazing at teaching people, like make your space work for you. Make your holidays work for you make your parties work for you. Like just do it in the way that works for you, and for your family and not the way that you think it should be done. That is like the enemy of a lot of people's happiness. You know? Yeah.

  KC 1:21:08

  Well, thank you so much. Dr. Robin, this has been amazing. Can you give your own shout out? Like where can people find you? What kind of things do you do that are accessible to the public? Do you have any recommendations for resources for maybe parents that are looking to understand more? Yeah,

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:21:24

  so um, you can find me on Tik Tok, as I'll teach and on Instagram is all teacher official. I'm also on LinkedIn, all teachers on there. And then on there as my regular name there, I do content about like hiring there. And I also have a business or teach. I do consulting for parents, parent courses, education, I'm kind of building some new stuff right now. So I'm gonna have some new announcements soon, some different courses and things for parents. And people can always reach out to me if they want kind of individual support. I do individual consulting for families also. So lots of ways to connect. And I really appreciate it.

  KC 1:22:00

  You also have a really awesome TEDx talk that you can watch on YouTube. Tell everybody the title of it, your

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:22:06

  autistic child can have a great life. Here's how. And I talk a lot about a lot of the things we talked about today about letting our children have childhood and you know, how we can accommodate our kids and have a much easier experience kind of with the diagnosis.

  KC 1:22:21

  So awesome. And then I will I'll get with you offline and get maybe any recommendations for like books or podcasts that you have and we'll make sure to drop those in the show notes for sure. So every person that I interview for this series, this episode will make sure that those are all in the show notes for you guys. Super

  Dr. Robin Roscigno 1:22:36

  awesome. Thanks, KC. You have so nice chatting. Thank you.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

For several recent episodes, I’ve been interviewing people with autism about their perspectives and experiences. We are discussing the DSM criteria, stereotypes about autism, and how autism affects the lives of both children and adults. An autism diagnosis can have many different nuances, and there is so much more to autism than the DSM criteria. Today’s guest, Kerry Magro, shares his experience in this episode. Join us to learn more!

Show Highlights:

• Kerry’s growing up years with mostly communication and sensory-based challenges, love and support from his family, and his success as a professional certified speaker

• Kerry’s various college and graduate degrees

• Stereotypes about autism

• Understanding autism as a true spectrum with a wide range of complexities and strengths

• Kerry’s challenges with eye contact and other social norms

• Understanding “autism burnout,” masking, representation, and “honoring” the disability

• Kerry’s perspective on autism and relationships

• “Repetitive and restricted behaviors” in adulthood

• Kerry’s experience as an adult, dealing with sensory sensitivities and learning to speak up for accommodations

• Kerry’s experience with autism and physical touch

• Advice for parents

Resources and Links:

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  So basically what I have been doing is interviewing people. And the goal of the podcast is to talk about what autism is from the perspective of what it feels like or the experience of having autism from autistic individuals. And so going through the I know, there's much more autism than the DSM criteria. But I also know that when parents are looking at the DSM criteria, they can only really imagine what that looks like. And so what I've been doing is going through the various pieces of the DSM criteria, and asking people, you know, what is this particular piece look like in your life? How does that feel? How do you experience that? Like, what insight can you give us about that part of the experience? Will you start by telling me a little bit about what you were like growing up?

  Kerry Magro 0:57

  Sure. So growing up, I had a lot of challenges. I was nonspeaking, till I was two and a half, I diagnosed with autism at four and Spencer speak in complete sentences till I was seven. So most of my challenges growing up were communication and sensory based, there was still a lot when I was young, that people really just had no clue about autism, everyone just assumed everyone with autism was going to be great at math, that they would have a photogenic memory, they would all be white males. And when they turned 21, they wouldn't be able to when you add $1,000, on the blackjack tables. So we now I think, some of my biggest challenges so we're about those unconscious biases. And then also those people who stereotypically tried to fit autism into a box didn't meet me where I was in my own development. And that became very challenging at times. But thankfully, I had the love and support of my family who helped me reach all my developmental milestones through 15 years of occupational physical speech, music and theatre therapy to get me to where I am today is one of the first openly autistic professionally certified speakers in the country.

  KC 2:03

  That is wonderful. And you have a doctorate Tell me about that.

  Kerry Magro 2:08

  Sure. So growing up, I had some extreme key interest I grew up wanting to be the next Larry Bird. So I got my degree in sport management at Seton Hall University to do something in sports. I later got my Master's in strategic communications also from Seton Hall University. So I could be find a full time career in public speaking, speaking in K through 12 schools, but then also to companies about the IRI benefits of hiring neuro diverse and talented individuals with disabilities and understanding undiscovered talent that we have in many of our companies. And then I went back for my doctorate in education, because I realized that I want to do something to educate young people about those with disabilities, because I wish so much time when I was growing up, I had that education. So I got my doctorate in educational technology leadership from New Jersey City University. So hopefully one day I could teach at the college level as an adjunct professor, while continuing my full time work, professional speaking.

  KC 3:13

  That's amazing. One of the things that you mentioned when you were talking about some of the stereotypes out there, kind of like the rain, man stereotypes, of assuming that, you know, everyone's gonna have photogenic memory, and everybody who's autistic is, you know, going to be able to, you know, recite pi to the 33rd number, or whatever it is. One of my daughters is autistic. And we've just gotten into the age of looking at schools and talking to teachers. And one of the things that I have noticed, and I've remarked to friends of mine is that it seems like everybody over estimates and underestimates her at the same time. I don't know how that's even possible, but it seems like people do both at the same time. They underestimate what you're capable of and sort of infantilize or want to do very heavy, you know, kind of controlling interventions, but then also, there's this overestimation of, well, well, you should be able to do that. Now, that must be just like a behavior issue, or she doesn't need those accommodations, things like that. And so I'm curious what your thoughts are on that, because it's interesting to hear you go right to the stereotypes of sort of like the over expectation, right?

  Kerry Magro 4:20

  Yeah. And I feel like a lot of the times, we really don't take the time to really think about the spectrum of disability, not only autism, but the perspectives of that there are going to be some individuals who are going to have full time jobs, they're going to be other individuals who are going to need 24/7 care for their entire lives. And that is why when I go into schools, and I do staff development, one of the things I really highlight is the importance of inclusive classrooms and curriculum strategies that meet each student where they are in their own development. Being able to get that type of education outdoor educators, I hopefully A Help with what you're talking about that whole over emphasizing and then under emphasizing at the same time, because again, when we really do come down to what universally will help our kids is meeting them where they are. And having that those reports and dialogues with them to be able to help them reach as many developmental milestones as possible. Because we often say in the communities that early intervention is the key, I don't think earlier pension ends, when somebody turns five, I mean, the DSM five talks about that. But when we're talking about our educational system, I think truly that every single day, we should be working towards that progress, nurturing strengths, and then working on those weaknesses also, at the same time,

  KC 5:46

  thank you. Okay, so getting into some of these questions. The first part of the DSM criteria talks about these persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction. So do you feel like that sentence describes you? And would you if you were to write the DSM? Would you write that differently? Well,

  Kerry Magro 6:03

  I think there's still so much debate around the DSM five, I mean, there was so much debate when the DSM four came out. And there are five different diagnosis of autism. And now there's this whole umbrella diagnosis, I think, when we just look at autism, we have to understand that it is a spectrum disorder, it's nothing where I feel like a lot of the times, we, especially with the continuing increasing numbers, we need to really emphasize that spectrum because we pigeonhole our community when we still just realize that communication, social, I mean, especially with the whole rising girls who have autism, girls are more likely to mask different characteristics they have. And you may never know that they are on the spectrum. Like, for example, it made people come up to me today. And they are shocked that I'm on the spectrum because even though I dealt with challenges with communication growing up, I don't have those same challenges anymore. So I think when we talk about the DSM five, we just need to consider it a spectrum disorder or condition and really just emphasize that there are a wide range of complexities and strengths that come along with this condition.

  KC 7:21

  So when the DSM talks about these examples of like, trouble with the back and forth flow of conversation, trouble with nonverbal communication, do you feel like you know, I think when people read that, they sort of immediately go to eye contact, as sort of the number one thing we think of, and then maybe we automatically go to we talk about back and forth flow of conversation, maybe some of that just kind of monologues at you. Those are sort of the two, I think, more prominent examples that people think of, I'm curious, from your experience, is that what it looks like for you? Or are there other experiences that you've had under those sorts of umbrellas? Yeah,

  Kerry Magro 8:02

  I had so many different challenges with eye contact. And that's actually why theater therapy was so beneficial for me growing up, I think that it's way more complex than that. It's it's when we talk about autism and associated challenges. I mean, no babbling before six months are everything from the whole aspect of early access to care to what we have today. I mean, there's so many different major major highlights reputation stemming that can be included, and should be included in our conversations. Because I feel like we as a society, I think we've gone a little bit away from eye contact, and F kind of started now, thankfully, talking about more of those physical movements, the stimming, the meltdowns, the overloads, the sensory challenges, and I definitely hope it will continue to have larger conversations around that because eye contact was so challenging, but all the friends that I have who are on the autism spectrum, have perfect eye contact, you would never even know that they had any associated challenges on the surface. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have challenges. All my friends have that quote unquote, like myself and invisible disability where we get that whole, you must not have autism, you're faking that all this nonsense, so Well,

  KC 9:21

  you know, I've heard from so many people who have taken their child into the doctor to say, Hey, I'm really seeing some autistic traits here, that kind of get dismissed out of hand only on eye contact. Oh, no, they make up they make great eye contact, they make great eye contact. You know, I definitely think that it's good for us to begin to see a wider range, because I think a lot of people also I mean, the DSM is not light reading, and it's not the be all and end all. But even when it does say sometimes, we mistake the examples to be criteria. And a lot of people don't realize that when it says trouble with nonverbal community Asian, it's not just talking about eye contact, like you said, you get a perfect eye contact and struggle more with tone of voice or body language or those sorts of things. So do you recall from when you were younger, and you struggled with eye contact, you know, what was the struggle for you?

  Kerry Magro 10:16

  The struggle was living by the expectations, the social norms of having to go about that, that actual eye contact, I feel like a lot of the times in our society, if somebody's not looking you in the eye, you just say that they're not paying attention, and they're not interested. When I listen fast growing up, it was when I didn't have to look somebody in the eye. That was the time when my active listening was at its highest rate. And I feel like as a society, you know, these social norms that we have can be very, very challenging in our autism community, we I mean, I still see so many different therapies that talk about, like, there's so much backlash around certain therapies because they're talking about taking away somebody's autistic traits with neurotypical ones. And I just keep thinking to myself, it's like, as a community, I feel like should get to the point where we should just embrace some of what makes us who we are, because many of us in the Autistic community consider autism a huge part of our DNA. But like growing up when I was having those challenges, wasn't necessarily any challenge that I was having. Specifically, I mean, obviously, I didn't look people in the eye right away. But once I started theater and started doing that, I was able to do so much better with it. And that was really the key towards some of my progress. But it was very challenging, though, when people would say like, Carrie, pay attention to me. And I'm just like, I?

  KC 11:56

  Yeah, so I've heard some people describe some autistic people will describe eye contact as feeling painful, almost, for you. Was it painful? Or was it more that it just wasn't intuitively what you were, would normally do if you were thinking and it was like someone was asking you to kind of do something counter intuitive all the time,

  Kerry Magro 12:15

  I dealt with burnout quite a bit, especially when I was forced into eye contact, which I was rather frequently until a few years into grade school, it started becoming more of like, I was going into special programs. When I was in mainstream, it was very, look me in the eye versus when I joined a district school for kids with disabilities, it was more just the idea of succeeding in class, regardless of you look someone and I my burnout, because I would consciously and unconsciously, at times, mask my autistic traits by having perfect eye contact. And literally, I would have the goal of looking at somebody in their forehead. Because when you look at somebody, and I learned this in theater, that if you look somebody in the forehead, it's like almost looking them in the eye. But when I was doing that, I would still deal with the same challenges I would have to face that burnout. And I know so many individuals who have so much trouble with that, even to this day, not only in the autism community, but also in the ADHD community as well.

  KC 13:22

  Yeah, so I have ADHD, and I've experienced the ADHD burnout. What I think is really interesting when I listen to people talk about burnout, and really some other things is that there's a lot of things that we observe, an autistic individual experiencing or struggling with, that really isn't necessarily an autistic thing. It's just a autistic person doing a human thing, right, like anyone can burn out if they are asked to, you know, if you told me that I wasn't allowed to speak unless I was balancing a plate on my head. And so I had to use, you know, five times the amount of concentration to do this thing that everybody else is able to do, you know, with a little concentration, I will eventually burn out. And one of the things that I hear a lot is, that's a human experience. But if you force an autistic person to make eye contact, and to have to engage in that masking, which takes so much energy, they're going to have a very normal human experience to

  Kerry Magro 14:20

  that. Yeah, I'd have to agree to an except for the perspective that I feel like a lot of the times when we talk about eye contact, when we talk about all these different things, even though some might associate more as an autistic trait. I feel like it my talks I talk a lot about normalizing the human condition. And I say that because a lot of the challenges that I have are just challenges that a lot of people face regardless of ABA disability now don't get me wrong. I'm not like saying that autism is a disability. It is a disability. Whenever somebody says autism is a superpower, I I kind of get a little I like shiver a little bit because it's like, even though some of my core strengths laser focuses are my autism is the reason I have my career today. It's still a disability. So I definitely get what you're saying, from that perspective from some of us just do it because it's it, we're human. Well,

  KC 15:18

  and I think that we're in that shift right now, where it's been the medical model of, you know, it's a disease, it's pathology for so long, that there's this really empowering shift to looking at a social model of disability where no, you know, everybody, there's neurodiversity. Everybody is different brains are naturally different. It's not about pathology. It's just about differences. And I think one of the things that I'm now learning is that the social model of disability was never meant to replace a medical model, right? Like there, it actually is kind of both and like you're saying, like, there are strengths that come from being autistic from being ADHD from, like, there are ways in which we maybe we don't need to fix someone's eye contact. Right. But like you said, you still have a disability. And I think it's important to honor both sides of that. Yeah, I

  Kerry Magro 16:11

  agree, I think we can spend a much better time in our schools now, really just trying to figure out what type of learner our kids are versus whether they make perfect eye contact, or they follow every social norm in the world. Because at the end of the day, it's like, finding whether or not our students are kinetic learners, where they learn through movement, or they are facial learners and learn through what they say, are auditory learners, from what they hear, I think that should be our goal. I mean, that's why I do in so many staff developments, especially around this time, when schools are getting ready to go back in is that I educate them about the idea of like, let's focus a little less time on that type of information, let's focus more on trying to find how they can learn the best and help them thrive. And through that transition for every single year for the rest of their lives and academia, and then hopefully after academia. Yeah.

  KC 17:11

  So when you mentioned earlier masking, and I know from learning from people, that masking is sort of acting neurotypical or suppressing traits and kind of trying to go along with the way everybody else is acting and maybe fly under the radar a bit. And so I know what it looks like, and I know what it entails. But I'm curious for you personally, what does it feel like?

  Kerry Magro 17:32

  It feels I've always had hypersensitivity. So I've always whenever I mask, it feels like the hypersensitivity goes to an even higher extent, for example, when not necessarily as much anymore, but when I was a kid and I would mask and try to look people in the eyes, I would not be able to pay attention as well because I was always thinking about even those like little noises that would be happening in my classroom people chattering people Becker, egg, people just whispering to one another, and it would feel like all my attention would be going into a million places all at once. And that got very, very frustrating. I had emotional challenges. My parents tried to read diagnose me with a not really diagnosed but tried to diagnose me with an emotional disorder when I was six, when masking kinda was like a new concept that I was learning about because my parents were like, watching all these movies about autism. Now, I like heard the word masking. I was like, oh, okay, I've never heard that. And then I kind of realized even as a six year old child, like, Oh, my God, I'm doing that. It felt so frustrating. It still feels frustrating, even to this day, at some points. For example, if I'm at a speaking engagement for like, a keynote, where like, we have, like 303 150 people, and then they want to do a meet and greet afterwards. And I'm just thinking to myself, like, I actually love getting to meet new people, but the aspect of like, some people, they're there, it's like, don't look them in the eye. And they're like, Oh, he's being standoffish, and then we'll write that as part of their feedback on their form. And I'm just like, it still can get very frustrating when I feel like I have to try to mask to be somebody I'm not especially to stay, even though I don't do it. Like maybe like two 3% of my life is focused on that doubt. And everything really just comes naturally as part of who I am today.

  KC 19:27

  Okay, so last question about the social aspect. I feel like there's this stereotype that autistic people don't want relationships, or that they don't need relationships. And you know, what are your thoughts and experiences in that?

  Kerry Magro 19:41

  So this is really funny, because I actually wrote a book on called Autism and falling in love on Amazon, where I talk about my ongoing pursuit of trying to find meaningful relationships in terms of romantic relationships I have seen especially in the past few years In a real shift, we're learning so much more about autism and asexuality, we're also learning for the perspective of that there are a lot of people in the autism community such as the Temple Grandin, so the world went the leading autism experts in the world whose love of their lives, or their work, and their passions and their careers, and they've never sought out any form of romantic relationship. So I think we have to play it a little bit more under the microscope. Because when I give talks, especially towards adult crowds, we're talking about like the future, a lot of the times his focus on housing, employment, post secondary and guardianship. But what about finding those who are meant to relationships? What about helping individuals find love one day, I was so blessed to have the opportunity to work on the first US season of Netflix series love on the spectrum. And especially in terms of our media representation, it's been nice to see a pivot towards more disabled individuals getting the opportunity to be highlight in entertainment, because representation does matter. But I think it's also helped inspire more upper educators to really think about, like, how we can go about building in social skills programming into our curriculum, or more, if you will, because some do the very bare minimum to really help because we are realizing that more people are wanting to be social and either find romantic relationships or even meaningful friendships.

  KC 21:30

  So you mentioned how important representation is. And I'm curious what your thoughts are, I feel like there's been a lot of representation online, especially recently about autism, and people who are autistic kind of having their own platforms and talking about their experience talking about being autistic. And now more than ever, you can really learn about autism from autistic individuals directly. I'm curious when it comes to the spectrum of autism, one of the things that obviously happens is that if you are very disabled, where you can't use the internet, if you are non speaking, and that section of the community doesn't have an online presence, at least not from a first person perspective, and their caregivers might have an account or something. Do you think that that affects the dialogue and the learning and awkward global understanding of autism?

  Kerry Magro 22:25

  Yeah, it's tough, because at the end of the day, for those who can't speak for themselves, what I try to do is, I try to continue to emphasize the spectrum because there is, and especially in the, I would say about the past year, this term profound autism has becoming a larger conversation that we're talking about when we were talking about autism spectrum disorders. And the idea of talking about those who have high support challenges, we go into all this language conversation about how you're not supposed to say high functioning, and well functioning. And all this talk now about profound autism. So I think it's important when we talk about representation, people should realize that they are the experts most of the time, and there's a great autism advocate. Her name is Eileen Lam herself is autistic and has autistic child. And she says that something similar to this, most people who are artistic, who are advocating are the experts just in their own autism. And I found that so fascinating. Like what it's a great quote, because it's, I can tell you, from my personal perspective, I'm the expert in my own journey, but every individual is going to be an expert in their journey toe. So when we talk about representation, I really hope, especially in the future, not only in the media and entertainment perspective, that we have more self advocates addressing the entire spectrum, to highlight that it's not just those individuals who can speak up, but there are so many individuals who can't today who need to be represented as well. And

  KC 24:03

  I think as a parent, that's really helpful information because you want to learn about autism, and you want to learn about it from anybody that knows about it. And you're right, it's not a one to one correlation of Oh, because this autistic person said that ABC was helpful to them or that they experience something in this way. It's not going to necessarily mean okay, I can copy and paste that for my own child or for my own self even

  Kerry Magro 24:29

  know exactly, I couldn't agree more. So the second

  KC 24:32

  part of the DSM talks about this Restricted Repetitive patterns of behavior interest in activities. One of the reasons why I'm really excited to talk about this section of it is because one of the things I've noticed in the sort of dialogue about autism, especially on social media, where people are talking about, you know, investigating, maybe they are autistic or learning more about how that autism shows up. There's really heavy emphasis on the social experiences where As whenever we talk about repetitive and restrictive patterns of behavior, I noticed that all of the examples that come up are always of children, or children of child, how a child stems or how a child, you know, maybe lines up their toys or how a child does this. And so I'm curious, you know, what does that aspect of your autism look like today as an adult?

  Kerry Magro 25:23

  Yeah, I appreciate you so much for mentioning the whole aspect of the child. Because we see this in so many, even academia, manuals and guides and journals to this day, where it's still focused primarily on not only children, but often the time stat K through three or three through five, where it's still focused very primarily on early intervention, where we're not getting to hear a lot of opportunities for education on not only younger children, but then also those tweens, teens and young adults from the ages of 16 to 24. So I think when I think about the adult perspective, versus the child perspective, it's, there is a huge lack of true, there's so many different misconceptions about the perspective of being an adult, because a lot of the times, if you see, for example, if you see a kid stemming, or a kid who is limited socially, you might think that is a late bloomer, you might think something like on that case, but if it's an adult, you just go, it's like, oh, there's something wrong with that individual. There's two different ways of thinking because of the kid and that adult correlation. And you know, it's challenging, especially as a adult today. I mean, I would not, I mean, my challenges as an adult today are still dealing with challenges with transitions at times, still dealing with challenges making friends at time, as well. And then also some sensory sensitivities, I still wear sunglasses in some indoor locations because of fluorescent lights and bright lights. So but that was always what I dealt with as a child, there's still so much lack of understanding for our adults out there who are going through challenges.

  KC 27:19

  So you mentioned growing up with a special interest in sports is that still your special interest or have there been other ones in your life as well,

  Kerry Magro 27:25

  as sports was definitely one of the biggest ones I grew up wanting to be the next Larry Bird, I could tell you all 30 NBA teams, and every single player or one of those students greyed out. So sports have continued. I'm a diehard Laker fan, even though we're kind of in the middle of the running right now, hopefully towards a championship hopefully, and LeBrons last few years. But my second love is just music. Even though there is something about sensory and loud noises that bothered me there is always something soothing about music. So I still love music, that's still a special interest of mine, and then also theater. That's kind of how I led to finding a way to go into consulting roles, whether your entertainment world from the love on the spectrums to Joyful Noise film that came out to that 11. Jamie wants a boyfriend in 2013, and two upcoming projects that will hopefully be at the end of this year. So this I think we'd probably I would say are my three special interests that you

  KC 28:22

  mentioned, struggles with transitions, even as an adult, one of the things that I've wondered about is, as I've been interviewing people, and hearing about their experiences as a child versus their experience as an adult, is that a lot of the behaviors that maybe a lot of the struggles that we see as an outpouring, as a child come along with those struggles with transitions, those sensory issues. And as people get older, one of the things that happens is they get more and more autonomy, and control over their schedule, over their space over their own clothing over their diet. I mean, you just you kind of grow up and you get more control. And so it changes, right like a child who's sitting in a classroom who doesn't have a choice, but to be there that doesn't have a choice of the lighting doesn't have a choice of the ticking clock that the way that that that their autism manifests in that moment, is not going to be maybe the way that it manifests when they are older sitting in their own apartment where they have lamps, and they're choosing to be there and they have a silent clock and a hit right. And so there's this difference in the way that an adult experiences those things or even the way those things look in adults. I'm curious if you have any thoughts or even really experiences like what are the things that you're able to do now as an adult to accommodate yourself that you weren't able to do as a child?

  Kerry Magro 29:44

  Yeah, I mean, the biggest things are really just being able to speak up about accommodations when needed, for example, such as that I'm going to have to wear sunglasses indoors when there are challenges with bright lights. I mean that that's me talking to them. perspective of when I was very, very young and still minimally speaking to the point where I got a little bit older, and then I was able to speak up and understand that. So I think that's one of the big things, I mean, the other things in terms of those accommodations, being able to go into a company, and I think it's all based on just when getting older, my accommodations now are very, very easier because I'm not in therapy anymore. If when I was in the workplace, working for several different digital marketing companies, I would always have to ask about reasonable combinations, I would always have to ask about this stuff. And sometimes those transitions are very, very challenging. But why I will say about, one of the things I see Well a lot of adults is that even though I mean, they have the ability to have their choices now, especially in our young adult kids who, after the COVID 19 pandemic, it's been really, really hard to help them with those transitions towards making choices because of the social skills that were hindered during the COVID 19 pandemic. And even today, even though we're three years out of COVID-19, it's still quite a challenge for many of our young adults towards making those choices, but then also dealing with the transition of how to go about those choices as well.

  KC 31:25

  Well, I can't help but think that as an adult, people are more likely to believe you when you say that you need something versus I think as a culture, we have some skepticism. You know, when a child says that they want to do something different than what the rules say, are different than what they're being asked to do. We sort of I feel like perpetually believe that children are, you know, manipulative? And we're so afraid that, you know, what if we enable them or what afford this? And so I can imagine that it's much easier for society at large to trust an adult when they say, Yes, I'll come to this speaking engagement that you're paying me for, but here are some things that I need. So it's interesting to hear how that changes as you grow. Okay, so you mentioned sensory sensitivities. I'm curious, what does that feel like? Because ball, it looks like from the outside, you know, sometimes is someone saying I'm uncomfortable, or some people just kind of having a full meltdown over a sensory sensitivity, but I'm curious what the experience is, whether it's pain or irritation or distraction, or kind of, how could you help me understand from the inside out what that experience is like? Well, it's

  Kerry Magro 32:32

  gonna look different for everyone. But from my perspective, it feels like it never feels any pain, but it is a ongoing uncomfort going on. In my head. For example, when I deal with bright lights, that hypersensitivity, makes the world around me feel very, very misplaced. My attention goes almost clearly off the rails. And it just makes it very, very hard time for myself. There are some individuals I know who have low sensitivity, where they have very high pain thresholds where they can deal with any form of pain. But when it comes to sensory, they, especially the idea of not feeling pain, it's like all of a sudden, when they are in an emergency situation, dealing with things that they never knew that they could have expected, where there are some situations that really, really have challenges for them. So my sensory sensitivities, it always just felt like the ability to focus but then also just being uncomfortable, it's really hard to like, put like a scale of what that looks like. But I can tell you, it just feels the uncomfort the inability to focus, the if I'm having a challenge with bright lights, then I'll also feel like my hearing will go very often on it will feel like if there are bright lights, then that one moment, things will be very, very loud, then everything will be really, really soft. And it will never be the same thing twice. So it is very surreal and very just challenging experience. But luckily, a lot of those challenges have been overcome today. To a great extent.

  KC 34:21

  It's interesting to think about what you describe what the audio kind of brings new understanding to the word dysregulate. Like it quite literally the volume doesn't regulate. So I think another kind of stereotype about people with autism is that they that nobody who's autistic likes physical touch. That's like one of the big representations. So I'm curious your experience with that. Yeah,

  Kerry Magro 34:47

  my love language is physical touch. So I can tell you as a kid, the sensory brush that I would carry around which is basically the size of the palm of my hand, that would use for five to 10 minutes at a time because I never liked paint I just people thought that I lacked empathy, because simply I just didn't want to be touched by other people, when in fact, I was one of the most empathetic children you would ever meet a huge misconception that still impacts so many people in our autism community, because many of the kids and adults I know, are artistic aren't the most empathetic people I know. So from the perspective of physical touch, and everything, when it comes to our community, it's, I feel like this is great now that we live in 2023, that it feels like a lot of the time when all of us were growing up, if somebody will come up and give you a hug, it would be no big deal. It's even if you didn't know them that well, if that was okay. But now, we live in a time where it's like, you have to be very, very mindful of if you don't know somebody, even a tap on the shoulder can be very, very triggering for them, especially as we kind of look at our, the me tube movement, especially over the past few years, and the importance of open communication, and the benefits of open communication, because that's how I see so many of the kids I work with thrive and being able to be concise and being able to have open and honest conversations about their wants, their needs, and whether or not they prefer to be touched or not.

  KC 36:15

  There's really several things that you said that made me think about the idea of universal design, where, you know, if we design education, if we design accommodations, if we design technology, if we design things, with people in mind that are disabled, it improves the lives of everyone, even people who are not disabled. You were talking about education and how kids learn. And there are like you said, there are a lot of kids that probably concentrate better when they're not, you know, feet on the floor, eyes forward. And it's kind of that what is the phrase about the tide? That raises all ships? I don't know. But it just is going to improve everyone's life. Okay, so my last question is, so I talked to a lot of families of young children who are seeing some things that they think could be autistic traits. And one of the things that I run into is that a lot of those families feel hesitant to seek out a diagnosis. They one family I talked to talked about, you know, I'm just worried about them getting a label, or I'm worried that they'll be mistreated, or I'm worried that they will think they're different. I'm worried that you know, they will, you know, they they're worried about sort of a negative impact of what a diagnosis would do. And I'm curious if you had any advice for parents who we're seeing some of those traits who were wondering, you know, do I get the diagnosis? Do I not get the diagnosis? Do I push for an assessment? Curious if you have any advice for them, or experience or just thoughts?

  Kerry Magro 37:52

  Yeah, my ongoing comment will be get the diagnosis, as soon as possible. I earlier intervention is the key, I continue to just be amazed by how many people in our society and don't get me wrong, I mean, who wants the best for their child, and when parent is my doctorate, my qualitative research did for my dissertation was focused on early access to care, and how parents went about that formal diagnosis. And what I learned from the qualitative research from semi structured interviews was the fact that, you know, it took a lot of time for some parents to go about getting that diagnosis, because they were looking for a second opinion, say we're looking through all these different research about the developmental milestones when a child should start babbling when they should start speaking in one to three word sentences, or one word and three word sentences. And, again, I can't stress enough we can diagnose autism as early as 18 months. If you are a parent who might be watching or listening to this, definitely think about your child's entire future when you go about that. Getting a quick diagnosis because those first five years are critical, but then also being open and mindful with that child about their diagnosis and never hiding that diagnosis. Because there were so many years when I was growing up that I do not know I had autism, and I feel like it would have been life changing to have known about a little bit sooner. So I could have learned more about my week's strengths and challenges and how I was how that was a part of my learning. Growing up as a kid in school.

  KC 39:48

  I think there's this misconception that if we don't tell kids that they are different than they won't feel like they're different. When in reality, every person that I've spoken to who's autistic has said I knew I was different.

  Kerry Magro 40:01

  Yeah, there is a huge misconception about how we look at that whole difference. I mean, I think that's when we talk about neuro diversity, it's realizing that differences aren't necessarily a bad thing. And if we kind of go on that, I think we could definitely as a society, be able to hopefully have those earlier conversations about those diagnosis. So

  KC 40:25

  last thing I'll say is, I really appreciate you talking about the amount of intervention and therapy that you received and how helpful that's been to your quality of life as an adult. Because we're having I think, some important conversations about what kinds of therapies young kids are receiving. I know, there's a lot of controversy around ABA, for example. And I've seen some people kind of swing maybe too far into, you know, your kid is fine. They don't need anything. They don't need any interventions, leave them alone. They're perfect as they are, right. But the truth is, is that there are interventions that can increase someone's quality of life. And so if you have any sort of closing thoughts on that, I'd love to hear it.

  Kerry Magro 41:06

  Yeah, I still see people considering like, challenges as a rite of passage that all kids have to go through, regardless if they receive a diagnosis or not. I think we just need to do a it's funny, you mentioned ABA, because on my Facebook page today carries autism journey, I was commenting on the fact that somebody wrote a comment about how they were calling that ABA obedience training. And I was just so like, I've never had ABA. I know so many BCBAs, who do a tremendous job who focused primarily on not necessarily turning autistic behaviors into neurotypical behaviors by just trying to help individuals succeed, being able to help them with life skills, being able to help them with their own communication and building communication and helping them succeed in school. I think we also society just need to promote kindness a little bit more. And I think by doing that, and just listening to each other, and always getting the perspectives of others, self advocates and professionals alike, I think we'll be able to evolve as a society to be able to approach things in a better, more unique way, our rising community because we have one in five Americans who have some form of disability today, one of the largest minorities in not only United States, but the world. But we're often one of the most underserved still to this day. And that's really a shame. I think we as a society can if we embrace one another a little bit more, and listen to each what each other after the sad thing will will definitely have a brighter future than the future we currently have right now.

  KC 42:48

  Wonderful. Well, thank you. I really appreciate your time and everything that you've shared. Thank

  Kerry Magro 42:53

  you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

If you heard our episode from a couple of weeks ago, you know we discussed Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Today, we are looking at the controversy surrounding ABA, why many people are in favor of it, and why many people oppose it. My guest, Taylor, is a BCBA, a board-certified behavior analyst, so let’s discuss this topic and learn more from her.

Show Highlights:

• An explanation of ABA and the role of a BCBA

• The language of ABA: desired behaviors, undesired behaviors, behavior contrast, punishment, replacement behaviors, injurious behaviors, tantrum behaviors, etc.

• Taylor’s story about going to an ABA conference

• The historical harm that ABA has done to autistic children

• The dehumanizing aspects of ABA

• Is the goal of ABA to make an autistic child seem less autistic?

• Therapies covered by health insurance for an autistic child: speech, occupational, and ABA

• The side of ABa that no one talks about

• ABA: helpful, traumatizing, or distressing?

• Taylor’s path to becoming a BCBA

• An autism diagnosis does NOT mean that you need ABA.

• A look at a typical ABA session (even though each session is highly individualized to the needs of each person)

• Taylor’s top three things that can be done to better serve autistic people

Resources and Links:

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Okay, so hi,

  Taylor 0:06

  Taylor. Hello.

  KC 0:08

  Okay, Taylor, I asked you to be on the show because you're a BCBA. And actually, somebody recommended you, because in talking about autism, one of the things that I want to kind of cover in the landscape of things was ABA because like, as a parent, it's kind of the first thing that you're given. After that it's like, here's the diagnosis of autism. Here's a pamphlet for ABA. And because I have spent so much time on tick tock around other like autistic adults, I had heard of ABA before and almost always in a negative light. And so I was sort of pushed into this situation where, okay, there's kind of almost like two sides of people talking about this. And I kind of wanted to give like a little bit of a layout in these conversations of, of that landscape. But one of the things that occurred to me is that I don't really even know what ABA is, like, I know what it is in terms of how people have talked about it. Like I've heard people talk about it that love it. And I've heard people talk about it that hate it. But when they describe it, they describe results. So they'll say I love ABA, because my son used to not talk at all. And now he can ask for a glass of water, or you'll have people say, I can't stand ABA, because it's really traumatic. And at the end of my ABA, you know, I couldn't do anything unless, you know, I was on a rewards chart, and I was so afraid of making mistakes. But I realized that I don't even really know, just from an objective standpoint, what ABA is and what it looks like. And that's kind of what I'm hoping that you can talk to us about today.

  Taylor 1:44

  Yeah, so roots of ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis, but at the root of it, it's the science of learning and behavior, right. And so when people say, Oh, I don't like ABA, they really mean the application of ABA and how people are applying it. If you get pulled over by police officer get a ticket. That's ABA, right? Our job pays us money. That's positive reinforcement. That's ABA. So ABA happens whether we want it to or not. So when people are saying that they don't like ABA, they really just mean the way an individual applied. There are sites of applied behavior analysis. And it's effective, because if we take data on everything on the behavior, so there's always a graph, we always are supposed to put, you know, the behavior, right, and so and to be a BCBA, right, we were trained in it, we studied it, we had to pass this really difficult tests, do it and be certified to be able to do it with health insurance and everything like that. But it's just the science of behavior. So it was hard getting on tick tock, I've considered getting off tick tock because it has such a negative stigma, and I get so many comments and just negative energy. And I want to talk about how you can be ethical and kind while practicing a pay behavior analysis. But I see the same thing. I see a wall people that had really bad experiences.

  KC 2:56

  So how long have you been a BCBA?

  Taylor 2:59

  I've been in the space in 2021. So just hit two years in January. And

  KC 3:03

  what is BCBA stands for? Yes. BCBA stands for board certified

  Taylor 3:07

  behavior analysis. So it's the highest level you can be a BCBA D, which is somebody that has a doctorate, but BCBA is the person that can assess. So what happens is an individual gets a autism diagnosis, and then they get sent to a BCBA that person can assess the individual and then say whether or not they need ABA or not how many hours they need, what programs, we should be working on stuff like that. I think the key is that just because you've been recommended to get ABA does not necessarily mean that you need ABA, I think that's a big issue. Doctors kind of just say, hey, go get a slice, you know, see what they say. And a lot of these students will just automatically start doing services. And a lot of the time I turned kids away, I'm like, You know what, they're fine. Like, they don't need help. They're perfectly capable, you know, they're not engaging in any behavior that's injured to themselves or others, or attending school. Like there's no issues. And a lot of times, sometimes parents are the ones that fight me to want ABA. And they'll be like, you know, he does this, like when please tell me that he's having a lot. And I was like, well, he's allowed to harm like, and so a lot of the thing is, are we targeting a behavior because somebody finds it annoying? Or are we targeting a behavior because it really is going to benefit that individual, and it's going to get them to be more independent. And I think that's where a lot of the issue is, is that BCBA says target behaviors that may seem annoying or frustrating. But their kids like my son is two and oh my gosh, he is frustrating, but he's too like that's it's typical kids are supposed to be frustrating.

  KC 4:43

  Okay, and how much schooling did you have to get to be a BCBA? Oh, my You have to have a bachelor's degree. It doesn't have to be in anything specific or just a bachelor's degree.

  Taylor 4:53

  Do you have to have a bachelor's degree but your master's degree is what really matters. There has to be something correlated. There's a few of them I listen psychology, it can be in psychology, education, I think social work. And then of course, applied behavior analysis. So my degree is in psychology. So then if it's not in ABA, you didn't have to go to coursework. So I had to do a year of coursework after I received my master's in psychology just in straight applied behavior analysis. And then after, while you were doing your coursework, they just upped the hour. So when I did it, you only had to get 1500 hours of supervision. Now you have to get 2000 hours of supervision under a BCBA. After you do all of that, then you submit your package, they review everything, and then you have to take this very difficult test. It's like four hours, I think the pass rate, I think is like 60%. And if people pass it the first time, after you do that, if you pass, and you get your certification, and then every two years, you have to restart, you don't have to test but you have to have it's called CPUs, do you have to get 32 continuing education units for the rest of the time that you want to hold your certification?

  KC 5:57

  And when a kid goes to an ABA clinic or center? Is it always BCBAs administering ABA? Or is there like a lower level of people that do that also?

  Taylor 6:09

  Yes, so there's a lower level, the registered behavior technicians RBTs. This is another issue that a lot of people have with this field. And then RBT can literally just, it's just 40 hours of training, they have to have a competency exam done by a BCBA. And then they have to pass a test as well. It's not as an extensive test, it's I think the test is like 90 minutes or something. And then they have to be supervised by BCBA. But it's only 20% of their total hours worked. They need to be supervised by BCBA. That is the minimum by the board. So a lot of the issue in this field is when I was an RVT, I'll be completely honest, it was in 2019. I never saw my BCBA I had to figure everything

  KC 6:48

  out. That was my next question is like what is supervision mean? Does it mean because so like, I'm a master's level, licensed professional counselor, and supervision, I think when people hear the term supervision, they think about like, literal, like the other person's in the room, but what I know of supervision is like, No, I was in the room alone with clients, I just like somebody was technically over me, that I had to consult with and things like that, okay, so. So

  Taylor 7:13

  they do mean, you have to have at least two face to face meetings, and one of them has to be a direct observation of you interacting with the clients. So there is seminars around that, it's just, it doesn't happen that much from what I've seen. So whenever I call out to do supervision for an RBT, they're like, Wow, I'm so surprised to see you. Because I know my last PCB Aidells. Like this is literally like what we're supposed to be doing. And then the fact that the RBT is just, it's just a high school level individual, there's a lot of treatment. infidelity is what we call it in terms of what the BCBA says, and then how the plan is administered. So for a lot of my cases, I don't RB keys are hard to come by, especially out here in California. So for a lot of cases where you're doing the programming, which is nice, because then I know what's being done the way I can tell, but it's hard because a lot of health insurance doesn't allow you to work on things outside of the session. So like, if I want to graph something, I have to actually go to the kids home and just sit on my computer, or I have to do outside of the session and paid because I think it's a little cruel to show up to a kid's house and then just ignore them and be on my computer.

  KC 8:18

  And let me tell you, tailor, I think that what we're talking about now, it's an issue that I've had for a long time and not just related to ABA, there are a lot of industries. And situations where I see this, I see it in an occupational therapy where like, you'll go to occupational therapy, and you'll have an occupational therapist do this huge robust assessment. And then you'll come back for a session, and it's somebody else, and then that person's working with you. And then I sort of realized, this person is not an occupational therapist, they haven't been trained as an occupational therapist, they don't have the education as an occupational therapist, they've not been tested as an occupational therapist, they're like, a different. And when I say lower level, I don't mean it in a derogatory term, like, Oh, you're underneath, but I just mean in terms of education and training, a lower it's like a technician who has been taught how to do the exercises. This also shows up in addiction recovery, where you go to rehab, and you're gonna have maybe one hour a week with a licensed therapist. And then you're gonna have lots of groups that if there are clinical group, they're supposed to be run by a licensed therapist, but your day to day interactions with staff that are sort of running the daily flow are typically technicians meaning they have maybe a high school diploma, they don't have any special training outside of what that job on site gave them. And I feel like there's a lot of issues in the addiction world that really break down to the people administering some of these interventions are not equipped to do so. So that's interesting thing that you bring up. Okay, more questions. So If I was a parent coming to you saying like, Hey, I kind of understand what you've said the purpose of ABA is, which is like to extinguish behaviors that we don't want to see anymore. And is it also true that we want to increase behaviors? We're not seeing? Is that part of it?

  Taylor 10:16

  Absolutely. Yes. Yes. So we want to essentially, we want to increase behaviors that we call them desired behaviors. I don't really like the term desired. But that's just kind of the language that we've been using. So we want to increase desired behaviors and decrease undesired behaviors. Now by undesired behaviors me personally as a BCBA. I mean, injurious behaviors, you know, I have clients that bite themselves, bang their head against the wall, stuff like that, I'm not going to I know we have this whole argument on tick tock about eye contact, I don't care if a client makes eye contact with me, I just hear if you're responding to your name, in terms of if I call you, there's some indication that you heard me whether you cheat turns your head, something like that, because that's a safety concern for little kids, especially, you know, self stimulatory behavior, and all of that I don't target it, unless it's something that's interest, something that's really serious or dangerous. So hand flapping, rocking, humming all of that. I don't target but some BCBAs do, because some of them consider it quote unquote, undesired behavior. So that is, the issue is that there's no parameters when we become a BCBA. And it's interesting because ABA has been tied to autism. But really, it's just behavior in general, it's just been so tied to autism, when you're receiving your education and applied behavior analysis. They're not teaching you about developmental disabilities, I'm not teaching you about autism and this and that they're just teaching you about the science of ABA. So individuals applying it sometimes don't understand, like, they don't understand child development, they don't understand ASD, and they need to research it a little bit more, I think. And I wish it was kind of in our coursework a little bit, because you could literally get an undergrad in ABA, a master's in ABA, go take the test and be fine, and not have any education,

  KC 12:01

  and never have any education on what autism is. Unless

  Taylor 12:06

  you took it as an elective, or you took it in. So I thought I'd have like a really good path because my undergrad is in child development, my master's in psychology, and then I have, honestly, ironically, the least amount of education I have is in applied behavior analysis. I only have a year of it. Wow,

  KC 12:21

  I'm gonna have to sit with that. But I mean, that's also I think, true of some other places, too. Like, I don't know, how many occupational therapists have education and autism. Yeah, right. Well, and it's something that I've noticed sometimes is like, we the training and techniques, but not necessarily in the disorder that you're treating. Okay, so I have so many questions that I'm trying to like shell for a different time, because there are other questions I have now. Okay, so that was one of them. So if I were to say to you, okay, if all ABA is is like behaviorism, like offering rewards for desired behavior, and punishments, or consequences for undesirable behavior, well, that just sounds like a like parenting, like what a lot of people do for parenting, right? Like, hey, you know, if you don't clean up the dishes, you can't have TV today. So what is ABA doing that parents can't do, right? Because I could do that at home, like, Oh, if you bang your head, I'm not going to give you your iPad, like, so how is that any different.

  Taylor 13:19

  So a lot of the time, what I've seen is parents are worn out and tired, and they need a lot of more specialized, like structured information. So a lot of the clients I work with, it has to be very artistic, very literally. So you can't say, oh, you know, make sure that you're good at school today. Like what does good mean? Right? Like, I don't know what God I feel like I'm good, or you need to. So it's a lot of us first and statements. So you need to do this. And to do this, um, a lot of visual schedules is what a lot of my clients need an example. I'm working with one client that are working on community outings. The last time we had a community outing, he went up to this pregnant woman said, Why is your belly so fat, and then touched her? Which, you know, thankfully, she was nice about it. But you know, it's not we're trying to teach them to not go up to strangers, because we'll go up to strangers say hi, I'm so and so I live here, this is my phone number, right? It's a safety issue. And also not to touch other. So I had to make a whole visual of, you know, keeping your hands to yourself all of that. So a lot of the time, a lot of the parents I've worked with kind of feel like, well, I shouldn't have to tell them that. It's like, well, you have to, and a lot of my clients need additional praise, more praise than a neurotypical child would need, which is also fine. But a lot of the time they're siblings, right? And they're comparing the two Well, I didn't have to do this with child a, why do I have to do the child B and explain to them like, you're gonna have to do a little bit extra to help them and honestly, half the time when I'm telling the parents this, they're just like, Oh, that makes sense. And I'm like, Wow, I'm getting paid to tell you this. Like yeah, it's, it's what I'm telling is not some super complex thing. It's, hey, every time your kiddo you know, cries for candy at the store and you gave them that candy, you actually just reinforced them. And so now When you stop doing it, they're going to have a huge behavior and you can't give in. And you can't care about what other people are saying or how other people are looking at you. Because, you know, you can't give them candy every single time you go to the store, things like that, or a lot of the time, a lot of parents don't think about negative attention. So some kiddos who engage in behavior to get a verbal reprimand, and they do it more and more, and their parents are like, I keep yelling at them. Why do they keep doing this? I'm like, because they want you to yell at them. They want that. I mean, clearly, if you keep doing it, and you keep yelling at them, and they keep engaging the behavior, you're actually reinforcing it. So actually, you have to take that verbal reprimand away, it really comes down to the way other people were parented. I go through this all the time with my son, we don't like to, we don't spank our kids or anything like that. But I was saved a lot as a child and rewiring yourself while you're parenting is a lot and then rewire yourself while you're parenting. A child that's on the spectrum is probably even a lot more. But it is really just helping them be parent. So

  KC 15:57

  you mentioned spanking, and that's something that I have experienced with as well. We don't spank our kids. And I feel like that's been like a kind of a parenting hot topic lately, especially around, you know, whether or not parents should be spanking. And so my question about it is like, from what you're describing right now, like, it seems like spanking should work, though. Like if the goal is to put in a consequence, to like, make the person not do an undesired behavior. Like let's talk about just any kid, right? Like, let's say your kid is, you know, writing on the walls, right? And you spank them, like, eventually that kid would stop. So then why would we say that spanking is not? Okay, good to do that got the result? Yeah,

  Taylor 16:44

  I have two reasons. My first reason is that personally, I just think it's a little cruel to hit somebody that's smaller than you that can't hit you back. Don't allow them hit you back. And a lot of the time, it's called behavior contrast. You know, we you spank a kid at home, you know, they listen at home, go to school, when the teacher is going to do right, the teachers can't spank them. So then you see a contrast, you see them being really well behaved at home, because they know hey, you know, if I get caught, mom and dad are gonna spank me at school, I can do whatever I want. Nobody can sneak me here. And then we always use we call it punishment in the field of ABA. But in terms of punishment, it's something that decreases the frequency of the behavior, it doesn't necessarily have to be spanking or something like that. It just means it decreased the feature frequency. And so that is a last last last resort in the field of ABA. Because for one for it to be effective, you have to punish every single instance of the behavior. And it's impossible to catch every single instance, let's say drawing on the wall, right? There's going to be times when they sneak away draw on the wall, and you never saw it. And then they got away with it. So they kids and not even catch us adults, they learn to do it in situations where they're not going to receive that punishment. There's a lot of issues to with spanking is are you spanking the child? Because you're trying to get them to stop doing it? Or are you spanking them because you're so angry, you're actually relieving your frustration on the child, which then would technically be free and positive reinforcement. Every time I'm angry with my kid, I spank them. I'm no longer angry. So now I'm more likely to spank my kid because it makes me less angry. So spanking is a lot more about parents and adults not processing their emotions correctly, and then taking it out on their children. In my opinion, I'm not shaming we spank their kids. I'm just saying, in my opinion, that's what it is. Because I do I touch myself. And I think that I'm like, Wow, if I was younger, and wasn't, if I was like five years younger, I would spank you right now. Because I'm so angry. And that's how I was raised. That's what I saw my parents do. But I'm like, Nope, we're not going to do that. Like, it's okay, I need to take a deep breath and walk away a lot of the times. Again, with ABA, I'm teaching the parents coping skills along with their kids, because yeah, you need to take

  KC 18:56

  a deep breath walk away. And it also seems like you know, if you spank a kid, like, clearly, you could make anyone do anything if the punishment was harsh enough, but if they're then going to school, and like, you know, they do the behavior there or whatever. It also seems like there's a difference between like a quote unquote, punishment that just makes them not do the behavior, versus something that like teaches them a skill that makes them not do the behavior.

  Taylor 19:27

  Exactly. That's that we call those replacement behaviors. But yeah, so our goal is we can't decrease their behavior without creating another behavior in terms of behavior. A lot of the time in this field, we say behavior in terms of we really mean maladaptive behavior and desired behavior. But if I'm going to teach somebody, you know, stop screaming for attention. I also need to teach them what to do instead of screaming for attention, you know, raise your hand tap on their shoulder call someone's name instead of screaming, so we can't just look at a bat I'd say this is gonna go down. And we're going to kind of Schmidt like, we can't just do that you need to replace it with something else,

  KC 20:06

  I have to say like, I'm really struck by, first of all, I really appreciate you in this conversation and you sound like a really wonderful provider. Thank you what. And I would need to say that first because I don't want what I'm about to say to seem like it's about you. But one of the things that I'm really struck by is the difference in language between the things that I've learned in my own continuing education, journey around behavior, and just the language that ABA uses when you talk about punishment. So you talk about maladaptive behavior, and you talk about undesirable behavior, you know, I kind of come from the school of thought, where like behavior is communication, and that there's a valid need behind almost every behavior, and that we really have to understand the need and get the need met, and focus on like a relationship that allows that child to do something else so that they don't have to do this other behavior. And I also come from a very, like neurodiversity affirming context. And like, I still remember going through the process of autism diagnosis for one of my kids and the amount of clinicians that when they began to talk about it would say, doctors, clinicians, whatever would say like, Well, I see some red flags. Well, there's definitely concerns. Well, there's a little bit to be worried about, like every behavior, every word, every term that described her autism was, yeah, it was like, it's all bad, it's all desirable. And it kind of also gives the sense like the wording about like, punishments and maladaptive and thing, and I might be alone in this, but like, it makes me feel like we're talking about a child, that's just a bad seed. Like, they're just a bad kid. And we need to, like, intervene and make them not be able to do these behaviors anymore, so that they won't do these behaviors anymore.

  Taylor 22:08

  Yeah, I don't really like the language we use in terms of it's just very clinical is what it it's very objective.

  KC 22:18

  But it's not it's not objective, because I'm using clinical language too. And I would say that that language is not objective.

  Taylor 22:26

  Yes, it's, I would say it's lack of emotion, really. And that's like, what we're taught is when, like, at the end of every session, we have to do notes of what happened. And we're not really even supposed to say the client was happy, or the client was sad, because that's like, you know, how do you know how do you know like, when he was smiling all day, we have to say, you know, client was smiling throughout session, and our client, you know, was falling asleep throughout session client had an increase of tantrum behavior. It's just very, I don't know, like lack of emotion. It's like, when I read a book, I'm like, wow, this is great. And then when I go to work, I just feel very, like doctory, almost about how I have to describe things.

  KC 23:03

  Well, even like the word tantrum, like, the word tantrum has, like very specific connotations for people that are different than meltdown, or different than sensory overload. Right? And like, I know, like, so when you said injurious behavior, I felt like that was a perfect example of like a truly objective descriptive like, yeah, it's just injurious behavior, like something that leads to danger or even like unsafe behavior, like a behavior that's unsafe. So I'm curious, like knowing the sort of some of the pushback that people have had about ABA. Do you think that some of it is that you get providers that are not trained on autism, and trained on behaviorism applied behavioral analysis? We have always seen in our culture, I think autism through the lens of deficit, you know, what's wrong with this kid? And so you know, you're going in with this sort of cultural idea what's wrong with this kid? That's not really being challenged, but you're not learning anything else about autism, you get trained and how to do behavioral analysis. And then most of the interventions kind of get pushed on to somebody that maybe has a high school degree or diploma. And then the language being used is sort of reinforcing that. Like, my job is to, like, fix these bad behaviors. I mean, it's sort of like it seems like those variables put together can be a pretty dangerous combination. Yeah,

  Taylor 24:38

  and I think it really has to do with how the because the BCBA is basically like the leader in terms of this treatment program, I think, has to go off of how that BCBA presents the case to the RBT. And really what the BCBA expects, because I just got a new RBT on a case and I've never worked with them before and I was like, My kiddo, she's only three. And I don't know how you operate. I'm very naturalistic. I'm very Playland. Back in the seat at the table, she's not going to be like food is not going to be used as like a reinforcer or anything like that.

  KC 25:13

  Is that common with ABA? To use food as a reward? From what

  Taylor 25:17

  I've seen, typically No, I usually don't use food for anything. The only thing I've ever used it for is really like an m&m for like, pooping on the potty or something like that, which is pretty, at least from my understanding typical that parents do. From what I've seen, no, and it's even in our taxes, like you shouldn't use food as a reinforcer, because for one, it's creating an unhealthy relationship with food, you know, you shouldn't think that food is reporting in that term.

  KC 25:40

  That's wild, because I feel like anecdotally, I hear that all the time. I

  Taylor 25:44

  know. And so that's why it's hard for me, because I see people talk about it online. But then when I'm out here, and I mean, I'm only exposed to so many BCBAs. So I don't know what is happening. But it says, you know, don't use food as a reinforcer. Also, it's like, you could have some weight issues as well, as you're keeping you give them like candy and all this stuff. I do remember when I had speech therapy in the early 2000s. And yeah, they gave me gummy worms for when I said are right. So it just depends. But yeah, I do think it has to go back to how the BCBA presents the case and what they expect. And if they have a history of even working with kids, because I see a lot of I get a case from like the BCBA left, and I get the I take over the case, I look at the goals and it's like a three year old and the expectation is that they're complying with 100% of instructions. And I'm just like, what, three year old? What human being complies with 100% of instructions? Like nobody does,

  KC 26:38

  I see that like, we end up holding an autistic child to a higher standard, we would even hold a neurotypical child like, especially with like language, like it's normal for little kids to say want milk instead of like, I would like the milk.

  Taylor 26:52

  Yes, yes. Like, you know what they mean? Just

  KC 26:56

  give them the milk. Yeah. And it's unfortunate that it comes down to how the BCBA is presenting the information because it doesn't sound like there's anything in their education that would teach them how to present it in like a person centered way. Like you seem kind of like the exception. Like it's people who step out and take it upon themselves to learn about neurodiversity to learn about autism. Was it you that had the really interesting Tiktok? Where you'd gone to a conference?

  Taylor 27:23

  Oh, my gosh, yes.

  KC 27:26

  Will you tell that story? Because it was kind of an eye opening thing from you. So

  Taylor 27:31

  I went it's called kalaba. I've never been the first one happened. I think on my son's birthday, my first my son's first birthday, so I wasn't going to go. And then so this was the second one that I was a BCBA that I could go to. It's in SoCal. Well, it changes every year, but this year was in SoCal. And it's about like 500 bucks just to get in the door, like 100 bucks to get your CEUs versus continuing education units that we were talking about. So this

  KC 27:54

  is just an ABA conference. Yes.

  Taylor 27:55

  Yeah. So they open to everybody, like there was other people that weren't, you don't have to be a BCBA to go, anybody can go but But who's gonna pay that much money, right? So we go and the first guy, so they have like these keynote speakers, and then there's like other little speakers that you can go see, and you have to pick which one but the keynote speakers everybody's seeing at the same time. And the first guy was like, Hey, guys, I guess he was the president. And he said, Hey, guys, don't make any of the volunteers cry this year, because you guys make them cry every year. And I immediately start looking around, like, who am I next to? Why are you guys making people cry? What are you doing to the volunteers that make them cry every year? I was like, Okay, this is weird. The next keynote speaker talked about how, you know, African Americans have a harder time basically, in the United States, and specifically talking about education. And you know, how children aren't learning how to read and people were blaming the kids, you know, it's their fault. They're not learning how to read. No, nobody's teaching them how to read. And I'm just sitting there like, and people are like, looking like very intently. I'm just like, Okay, another keynote speaker was talking about self stem, and talking about how we should stop targeting self stimulatory behavior and how you know, the autism population is saying, Stop making us do this. There's a function to this behavior. And I'm just sitting here like, yeah, like ABA. It's called the four functions of behavior. And essentially, every behavior has a reason for it. And so easiest one is C. So it's sensory, which is the self stem. I like the way it feels escape or avoidance, which means I'm trying to get out of something, a tension, obviously, I want the tension and tangible which is like candy, food, money, anything that's like something I can physically hold. So we already know that there's a function to the self stimulatory behavior. So why would you try to decrease it? I don't understand. But they're saying that and then I remember he said something along the lines of autism or people with autism are whole people, and they should be treated as such. And I'm telling you, everybody stood up and it was like a standing ovation. Like he said, like he just explained like the, like gravity. And I'm just like, yeah, they've always been hold people. And I just keep looking around like, I paid this much money. For this information, this is not just common sense to you guys. It was alarming to me and I was I felt bamboozle people were saying other BCBAs were commenting and saying, you know, there's other ones that actually teach you stuff like actually show you studies. And there were some, like keen, like other speakers that were giving me some studies about things. But the fact that the keynote speakers that was the narrative kind of shows that this is what the BAC B, which is our board is trying to tell provides what to do, essentially. And the fact that that wasn't common sense. It almost reaffirmed everything people are saying on Tik Tok that I haven't experienced because, you know, I see a lot of comments about some really bad BCBAs. I'm just like, are you making this up? And then when I had to go to that conference, and then that was the narrative, I was like, no, they're probably telling

  KC 30:53

  the truth. It made me really emotional to hear that because like, the idea that somebody would be giving services to my kid, and like, not see her as a whole person with like, valid needs, and that she's some sort of like, not human like it, that's really stunning to me, like, first of all, I applaud even the idea that they're trying to listen to the Autistic community in saying that, but you're right, like, why isn't that the basis of I mean, master's degrees? That's what was, yeah, you shouldn't go through a whole master's degree and then have to be told at some CTU like autistic people are real human people hold people. That's wild.

  Taylor 31:38

  Yeah, I was like, why is this news to you guys, so

  KC 31:43

  and then let me also say, I think that even the word attention, like really grates on me, and that's from my own experience working in addiction, because like, we in the addiction industry, are notorious for, I think, dehumanizing clients, by way of Oh, they're so entitled, they're just attention seeking. When in reality, like you said, like, there's very real human needs going on behind those behaviors, they just have ways of trying to get those needs met, that are not working for them, and that are creating problems in their lives and kind of staying in the way. And I once heard someone say, and it was actually a teacher, because they're talking about kids, because that language gets thrown around with kids a lot. Oh, she just wants attention. She just wants attention. And if you give her that attention, she'll keep doing it. So you should ignore them. Oh, she just wants attention. And I heard this teacher say one time that like, the word attention has a now has like a derogatory connotation. And she challenged the teachers to replace the word attention with the word connection. And she would not let them use the word attention anymore. And so instead of saying, like, today, Jeremy, like, threw his chair across the room. Well, why do you think he did that? Well, I think he was just looking for attention. She required them to say, Well, I think he must have been looking for connection, and like, humanized those kids. Yes,

  Taylor 33:07

  yeah. The language is very dehumanizing. And I had a someone that was pursuing their BCBA. And I was working with me when I worked at a clinic, and one of the kids was upset, and it was at the clinic, and he was younger, and I was upset, and he was crying. And I picked him up, and I gave him a hug. And like, let him sit on my lap and like we talked and stuff, and she was like, I have never seen a BCBA ever do that. And I was like how the child you've never seen it before you have the child. She's like, well, he's seeking attention. And I was like, Yeah, and you can give it to him. Like if he's a child who's upset his caregiver is on their way. But they're not here. Yeah, I think the caregiver was like running late. And so he saw all the other kids leave and was waiting. So he's a kid that's upset. And then she was like, Well, I was always taught, you know, if they're seeking attention, you and it's not appropriate, then they have to ignore it. And I was like, it's appropriate for a child to be crying when their caregiver is late, and they're waiting for them. And you know, they might not understand that they're on their way. Because it didn't have a high level of functional communication, like vocal communication. And then she was like, oh, and then like, not just being a human being, I've been told so much. Oh, you're just soft, because you're a mom. That's what they would tell me. Like, that's why you're so nice to the kids. And I was like, No, I'm nice to the kids because they're kids. And they're going to be adults soon. And they deserve hugs. It's okay to hug. Like I've had people say, Is it okay, if I give the kid a hug? Like RBTs? And I'm like, yeah, why would you lie? I don't understand their kids. Yeah. So yeah. So I

  KC 34:39

  don't know how much you have, like learned about this. But I did want to ask you the question like, What is your understanding of like the historical harm that ABA has done to autistic children, and now autistic adults? Yes.

  Taylor 34:52

  There's one big case I think it's in Florida that they teach us about where they just it was almost is like an institution kind of thing. I think it was like decades ago. That's the number one. That's one that they talk about. But I've heard of old old school, referred BCBAs, where even BCBAs right, because the board is new, I think it came out in like the 90s. So it's new. But before that when people were treating children with autism, you know, hand flopping, they would tie their hands to the table, or they would tie them to the chair. I think this is also back in the day where they were also literally allowed to, like hit kids with rulers and stuff like that as well. They did stuff where they would like physically restrain the kids for engaging in self stimulatory behavior. And so I think that slowly faded to terms of you know, don't restrain kids. But from what I've seen, it's a lot of people almost call it like, over programming, where you made this kid do this so many times that it's like, embedded into their head, like they respond like, like you teach them greetings, and the child would be like, Hi, my name is so and so. And then you'd be like, Okay, how's your day? Hi, my name is so and so like, you did it so many times for that kid that they just, that's all they know, they just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it because a lot of the field unfortunately is tied to health insurance. And health insurance doesn't want to pay for things. Unless they're seeing a change in a lot of language, especially TRICARE I can't I work with TRICARE. And I can't stand the way they describe their the clients and the assessment tools that they have to make me and the parents fill out. The questions are so derogatory, one of them is like this the child repeat things annoyingly, like a parent's is what they have. And we have to say like yes or no, does the client have tantrums for no reason. And I was like, nobody does anything for no reason. So just the language that TRICARE uses.

  KC 36:49

  It's it sounds like a really like dehumanizing system, like you take someone, you put them through school, they learn about behavior, they don't get any education on autism, they don't see autism as whole people. And then they have to fill out assessments that compare them to animals, and say that they do things for no reason. And you know, you're sitting with this child who maybe does have behaviors that you find annoying, that you find frustrating. And one of the problems that we had a lot in the addiction treatment centers that I worked for is that, you know, you get someone who has a high school diploma, and maybe they themselves just got sober recently, and like they themselves don't have great emotional regulation skills. And now they're in charge of giving interventions to someone else who doesn't have good regulation skills, but one of them is in a place of power. And just like you sort of talked about with the spanking like, it seemed to me like so many times, they were enacting an intervention that looked correct on paper, but they were coming from a place of like, I'm frustrated, you aren't supposed to be doing this. And I have more power than you. So I'm not going to allow you to have this thing. There was a story one time that I saw on Tik Tok of a woman who had asked that her child and the like special education plan, she had put like no food rewards. Like she didn't want that as a part of his education. And there was a teacher that ignored that. And she didn't know it. And for during this semester, or for several weeks, every time he would get a question, right, she'd give him a Skittle. And if he stayed in his chair, he'd get a Skittle. And like, that was the easy way for her to manage this autistic child. And once the mom found out about it, she put a stop to it. And it only happened for a few weeks. And she says that, to this day, four years later, when her son makes a mistake, she hears him under his breath. When you talked about being like over programmed. That's what it made me think of,

  Taylor 38:57

  I think people don't realize how I guess important, but how easily we could influence a child and how that's going to last like the rest of their lives. And you have to make a choice, like, yeah, there's some of my clients, I could do a program that's gonna be effective, and it's gonna decrease something or increase something. Sure. And it's going to look great on paper health, and TRICARE is going to be so happy with me, but it's going to have damaging effects for the rest of that child's life. And as a BCBA, you have to choose, you have to pick your battles, you have to choose what's really important and something that we have to target no matter what. And for me, that's that injurious behavior because I worked with group homes as well of that adults who didn't get ABA who people let you know, engage in, obviously, and now it takes three people to restrain the guy because he's trying to knock himself out by beating his head against the wall. So there's certain things that we have to target but as a BCBA, you have to figure out which ones are the most important and what might have damaging effects. And looking at you know, 10 years ago would I have thought Have forcing people to make eye contact would have had damaging effects. No. But now research shows and everybody's saying it does. So then stop doing it. Like that's it. It's easy. So,

  KC 40:08

  So research is now showing that forcing autistic children to make eye contact when they don't want to is harmful. Yes, I've

  Taylor 40:16

  read articles. I don't know if they've been peer reviewed. But I've read articles, it's saying that it triggers a flight, a fight or flight response and the individual and forcing them to do it. So I'm like, Okay, well, what then?

  KC 40:27

  So one of the more like, strong wording, things you'll hear people criticize ABA is that they will say ABA is abuse. And that is a very loaded term. And I don't want to go into that right now. But particularly because I often hear it from people that never went through ABA, so I'm like, Let's just hang on. That's, it's a lot to say that I'm not even necessarily saying it's not true in some cases that it created trauma. But it just, that's what I thought of when you said that where it was like, Okay, so the goal was to get this child to make more eye contact, which to me just kind of sounds like let's make this autistic kids seem less autistic. But maybe there was a different goal that somebody thought was a more noble goal than that. But so for people that don't know, like, the reason, you know, when we experience something, and that fight or flight kicks in, that is ripe ground for trauma, it doesn't mean that you get traumatized every time your fight or flight goes on. But every time there is trauma, there is fight or flight. And it kind of made sense to me for the first time, because obviously, when you talk about tying a kid's hands down, I'm like, well, that's abusive, but even the more subtle aspects of like, I'm forcing you to do this behavior, that is creating fight or flight. And also like creating you, like forcing you not to trust yourself, like do this thing that is harmful for you internally, because there's this external pressure on you. So it's either I don't want to look, but I don't want to lose my iPad, or I don't want to look but I do want that m&m. And it's like this weird splitting that you can really create in someone. And that fight or flight is going off. And I can see how that would be traumatic for someone and I can see how that would be abusive for someone, even though that was not the intention of probably the person giving that intervention. Okay, so going back to the other thing, I felt like you mentioned those two things together. And I feel like that illustrates almost perfectly like the two sort of sides. One of which is like you said, you know, the goal of ABA is about behavior. What behavior do we want? What behavior do we not want? There are many times where that over emphasis on just the behavior misses, like something more important. And so you know, we're applying these sort of like heavy rewards and punishments to try and elicit a behavior we want. And we end up harming the child, or we end up targeting a behavior that doesn't, why did we do that. And that makes sense to me why we would say like, there are other ways we can help this child with communication, there are other ways we can help this child with a stimulation or social skills or making friends. Because that's the other part is like, for a child that already has difficulty understanding social cues and using communication. And so you put that together, and that may be a child that struggles to connect, but then we put them in an environment where all the connection is based on doing the right thing, performing the right thing. And maybe I'm projecting a little because I went through such heavy behaviorism therapy as a child where that was kind of the result for me. And it seems like that's kind of what the criticism boils down to, is, you know, has heavy emphasis on just seeming normal at the expense of a child having quality of life. Yeah,

  Taylor 44:04

  and I so the one of the main things I teach now, the first thing I tried to teach a kid and call it the gate, told me no. And I took over a case and I was trying to go over a greetings with one of my clients and I was at their home and he was getting out of his chair, he walked to his caregiver, things just kind of clearly antsy. And I was like, if you don't want to do this, just say missing, I don't want to do this right now. And he repeated me and I was like, okay, and then we moved on in the mom was like, you're allowed to do that. And she was like all of the ABA have ever received, he would have had to sit at that chair and go through those greetings to get out of his chair. And I was like, why? If he doesn't feel comfortable with me doing the greetings and that goes back to what you were saying is I don't have a good relationship with with him right now. And we need to film that we need to focus on pairing and building that relationship and it goes back again. The issue is like, TRICARE sees it at Oregon I always say TRICARE cuz I'm Working with TRICARE but health insurance sees it yeah.

  KC 44:59

  But insurance, that's what the other part is like to get access to. So a lot of people don't know this. But if you have commercial health insurance in the US, and you have a child with an autism diagnosis, typically what that gives you access to the insurance will cover is speech therapy, occupational therapy and ABA. And what a lot of people don't know is that like your speech therapy is anywhere from one to maybe five hours a week, your ot could be anywhere between one to five hours a week. But ABA, you can get up to 40 hours a week. And so if you have a child that can't really go to school, or you know, can't function can't, you know, is hurting themselves, and they need that much therapy, that's your only option unless you are able to pay out of pocket for a different kind of therapy. So I just wanted to mention that because it's the health insurance that I think I don't think created the problem, but certainly keeps the problem going. Because their emphasis on show me the behavior change, not show me how this child is better able to communicate their needs, show me how this child made a friend today. So that's interesting. But then I want to go to the other side of it, because you said something that I think is really poignant. And I think sometimes gets lost in this conversation. You said, you know, there are adult autistic adults that maybe they're living at home, maybe they're living in a group home. And because they did not get access to anything that helped them either extinguish or redirect injurious behavior. They are now 35 year old 250 pound men who are being restrained by three people, because they can't not bash their head on the wall until they become unconscious.

  Taylor 46:59

  Yeah, and I think that's the side of ABA that nobody talks about, especially on tick tock is what happens when somebody becomes an adult, right, and what happens, like, you know, parents, typically, you know, the kids outlive the parents, too. So I understand, like, you know, every beaver doesn't need to be targeted. But we do need to do our best to make these visuals as independent as possible. Because eventually, they're gonna get pushed out to the real world, or they're going to be in these group homes. And the group hubs are lovely, I go, when I give them consulting advice, I help them out. But it's hard for some of them because their parents come and visit them, and then they leave. And then you know, the person is still there, because they can't handle their behaviors anymore. Like they can't push like, I can't have you be that aggressive, and my home, and you outweigh me at this point. And it is sad. It is sad. And it's hard. I've had some clients that are 56 years old, that still nobody took the time to teach them to go to the bathroom, and they're still in diapers at this point. And it's so much we call it a history of reinforcement. But it's so difficult at this point, to try to teach them how to use the bathroom when it's been six years of them in diapers. So it's difficult. And I guess in California, what's happening is they weren't in state hospitals, and the husband explained to me is there's been so much trauma associated with the state hospitals, that the governor has started shutting them down. And they're pushing them out to the community, because what was happening is, you know, they're isolating these individuals, instead of allowing them to be within the community. And that happened to me when I was a kid in school. I never saw any of those special needs students, they were in the back corners, like segregated, basically, from everybody. And I think a lot is changing in the world. And people are way more accepting of individuals that have any type of neurodiversity than we're trying to give them like all of my clients have community out of goals, where they just go out into the community, whether it's a park, Target, whatever, they just go out once a week, get out of the house, stop segregating people. But yeah, it does happen. And it's hard. And I don't like to talk about because I don't want to scare parents into it thinking that their kids going to end up in a group home. And I don't want to scare them into receiving, quote unquote, bad ABA or bad providers either. Because you have to pick as a parent, you have to pick and you have to see, hey, is my kid gonna benefit from ABA? Or are they going to be traumatized by the ABA, and it really depends on the provider. And I tell families do not pick the first provider just because they gave it to you. If you don't like them, tell them you want a different one, if you don't agree with them.

  KC 49:25

  You know what I also asked myself as a parent, though, and this is something that I think about with, you know, my own experience with behaviorism. But I've heard that before of that question about like, okay, is ABA going to be helpful to them? Or is it going to be traumatizing to them? And I think there's even like a third door, which is like, maybe it will be distressing to them. But it's the only way to prevent them from hurting themselves or running into the street or being killed. And I don't know that that's the case. Right? So maybe there are other ways but You know, I have to say, like, especially I think when we bring in issues of race, you know, a black autistic boy is not in the same situation socially when it comes to danger as a white autistic girl. And we unfortunately saw with Elijah that, you know, if you're going to be black boy acting strange in front of police that could get you killed. And I think that there's a lot of this space that sometimes I think there's a lot of very vocal things coming from the sort of low support needs adult autistic community, a lot of the late diagnosed community. And I think it's really valid. Like, I can't overemphasize how much that has helped me listening to autistic adults, but I think it does just by the nature of who can communicate and who struggles to communicate doesn't quite give you the big picture about like, what does the spectrum look like. And if you're a family, and I think also, it's like, we can have theoretical conversations about like, this is ideal for a child, this is not ideal for a child. But then as a parent, you go in go, oh, wait, but my insurance will only pay for ABA. And, you know, we're a family of color, and my child is already at high risk of violence, and they're biting themselves until they bleed every time, you know, they have to be around the sound they don't like. And, you know, like, it's kind of like the realities of it are a little more nuanced. And as a parent, it's difficult to engage in those realities, when sort of like everyone's screaming at you from both sides, both saying like ABA is abuse, and then people being like you're abusing your kid by not putting them in ABA. And so let me ask you this. How do you and you've, I feel like you've answered this all along. But you know, when you're practicing? Well, first of all, knowing all of that, what made you want to be a BCBA?

  Taylor 51:59

  So it's a good question. So actually, one of my he's my cousin, but it's almost like my dad's best friend, not blood related, but his kid anyways, he's autistic. And so I think he's maybe like four or five years younger than me, I spent so much time with him. I always knew I wanted to work with kids. And I always wanted to work with kids that have developmental disabilities. So when I was doing my undergrad, I was looking at being a special ed teacher. And I'll be frank, I looked at how much they got paid. And I was like, I don't know, if the amount of work I'm going to have to do is worth that much money, because it wasn't that much. And we call that ratio strain in this field, but the amount of work and the amount of reward that I was going to get, I was looking at it, and I was like, that's not it. So then I was like, maybe I'll do you know, child psychology. So that's why I then started doing psychology during this time that was in the military. And so I did my time I got out of the military. And I was on indeed looking for entry level jobs. Because when I was in the military, I was a police officer, right, that doesn't translate. So I need an entry level job to restart. And I found RBT. And I literally had my master's degree already. And I applied to be an RVT. And I was like, Oh, this is great. I love this. And then I started pursuing it. It was great working under so many BCBAs because I saw what was really good. And I saw some really, really not great BCBAs. And I really learned very quickly, what kind of BCBA I want it to be and what things we could do, but they're just choosing not to do because of some weird rule that they kind of made up like, you know, you have to ignore all the attention seeking behaviors. I was like, but nobody said that nobody, nobody, the text didn't say that. The test didn't say that. Nobody said that. So it's almost like the stigma in this culture that some PCBs have and they call them bcva holes is what some people refer to us as because they can be very cold, clinical and unkind to kids. So yeah, that's how I got here.

  KC 53:54

  Okay, I have another question. But before, you know, one of the things that happens a lot when you talk about ABA is people who are pro ABA will often say, Well, you know, yeah, there are some bad BCBAs out there. But there are also some good ones like the issue isn't the system of ABA. The issue isn't the philosophy of ABA, like the issue is just, it's like any profession, there are good doctors and bad doctors, there are good therapists and bad therapists. To me. That seems like an oversimplification. Like I would agree that there are definitely I mean, I think one is right here on with me on the phone, right like there are BCBAs, who have made it their job to be informed to not do harm to understand autism. But I don't know Do you agree with me like is that too much of a simplification? I

  Taylor 54:44

  think a better comparison, honestly, as an African American, I'm going to say this would be to compare us to police officers. I think there are some really good police officers. And I think there's some really bad police officers and based off of the culture of being a police officer and And then we go back to the power that police officers have, some of them choose to do good with it. And some of them treat and dehumanize human beings and treat them like like trash. And I feel I don't even like telling people I'm obese, I took my tick tock down for like a month, and then I went to kalaba. And people were coming up to me, and they were like, You should bring it back, blah, blah, blah. And because I just didn't even want to tell people I was a BCBA. Because I don't even want to be associated with this like, negative segment. Like I have autistic adults coming in my I had to block one because she's like, you're an ableist this out in the third. And I'm like, I don't think you've watched three of my videos, you would know, I'm not an analyst, but they just assume because I am a BCBA. Just like when I see a police officer, I tense up and I get nervous around them. That's the comparison I would make. I wouldn't compare us the teachers or doctors because there's not a culture like there is at least to my understanding about teachers and doctors like there is for BCBAs Yeah, I

  KC 55:55

  think that what I've been learning feels like a really apt and frankly, I think it is kind of a nuanced comparison. Because, yes, like, I can find individual police officers that aren't going to be black people. And the police officer that stands outside of my kid's school and directs traffic is like a real human being. And you know, he might be doing the best he can to, you know, be just in whatever, whatever. And I know I'm oversimplifying the metaphor, so forgive me for that. But right, the system itself tends to create, like, you have to go so against the grain. And I think when you describe like, the way that BCBAs get trained the way things that they're not trained on the language that gets used the dehumanizing language, the gaps in skills, the lack of sort of affirming neurodiversity, and then the influence of the insurances. Like, it creates bad actors. But I also think that, you know, a lot of parents might be in the situation where ABA is the only kind of therapy they can access. And I think to your point, though, is that like, all hope is not lost. Right? And that there might be a time when a family decides the most important thing right now is that we extinguish this behavior, because it is so dangerous to this child, or to my other children, or whatever. And they might choose to use ABA. And it sounds like, you know, you can definitely find someone who can operate within that framework, with respect and without trauma. And so you were talking about some of the ways that you mitigate harm that you try to do those sort of things. So tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, so

  Taylor 57:43

  when I get a new client, the first thing is I try to so by the time I get a parent, I already know that they had to talk to the doctor about everything that their kids going through, they had to then talk to the the case manager, they've had to fill out all these questionnaires. So the first thing I ask is, what are your child's strengths? What are some things you're really proud about your child? What are some things you know, that you're really happy about? Like, try to frame that conversation to be a little positive? What's something that you want to see more of? Right? And then I explained to them whether I can or cannot work on that one of my most recent clients, the parents say, hey, you know, is she ever gonna talk? Right? And I'm like, I can't tell you yes or no, I can't give you that information. I can tell you, I can do my best to like reinforcer for speaking. But I recommend you know, you get a speech therapist and a lot of people on Tik Tok don't realize that, like you're saying, a lot of families don't have access to all these providers, especially in California, my client, she's too, she didn't get speech therapy until she turned three. She's on the waitlist for a year. And we know how crucial language development is, at these early years, there is a waitlist for everything and California. It's like

  KC 58:51

  that here to tailor like I'm trying to get we moved to a different county. So I'm trying to get this county to do an assessment so that my kid can go to school, and they're telling me they're on a year long way.

  Taylor 59:02

  So that's what I do first, and then we talk about, you know, things that need we call them maladaptive behaviors, so anything, you know, behaviors that are occurring that you would like to see less of, and this is where as a DC, I have some tough conversations, some of the behaviors, I'm like, hey, look, I'm not concerned with that. And I tell them, and they're like, Well, I don't want to see it anymore. And I was like, I have had I told my mother, I was like, my job isn't to make your child neurotypical passing, right. That's not my job to teach your child all the skills that can make them as independent as possible for them specifically, right if your kids humming weather watching their iPad in the comfort of their home now I can target that because she was like very annoyed by like

  KC 59:43

  tell them to go to just weird because like kids are annoying kids are an omen on my like that is not a trait of autistic children. Okay, kids are annoying. My son

  Taylor 59:53

  is in the mama face. He will not stop saying mama and it drives me up a wall. I get overstimulated by noise the mama Ma'am, I'm so yeah, I have to have some real conversations. And I think this is the part as a BCBA. Where somebody CPAs but yeah, we're target that. Yeah, we'll target that for change, right. And you have to say no as a BCBA. Yeah. Can I target that for change? Sure. And can I create a program that's going to make that decrease? Sure, is not going to be frustrating, because there was some type of function and probably a self stimulatory function that I just removed from that client. So now I need to replace it. But why do I need to replace it? Right? Just let them be. So for me, less is more. I've seen reports had like 40 goals for kids. That's insane to me, like no more than like, 15 to 20 goals. And that's like a max, for me. Less is more. And honestly, the less goals you put on for health insurance, then the less work you have to really do as long as you're making progress on these little amount of goals. But BCBAs they like big numbers, big progress, and it's too much, it's too much while you're not going to teach a three year old 40 things in six months. That's a lot like why are you putting that pressure on yourself? So yeah, it's a lot of conversation. And it's a lot of back and forth. Sometimes I'm like, Hey, your kids fine. And I like while he does this, he has tantrums. And I was like, does he have tantrums and near typical level, right? Because kids have tantrums. Kids have outbursts, kids have meltdowns. They're human beings, they have emotions. And like, or is it happening at a high frequency? Is it happening five times an hour? Or is it happening for like six hours in a row? Right, where he's just upset all day long? Or is he having is he upset because you said he can revise things for dinner? Five minutes later, he's fine. If so that's pretty typical. Like I'm not going to. So I also don't hold on a lot of these days will hold on to kids just to Bill, I'm not going to do that. If a kid doesn't need ABA, the kid doesn't need ABA, I had a 15 year old, he came up to me was an assessment and I was doing this assessment in school pletely vocal doesn't have any mouth, self interest behaviors. And the parents were like, well, we just want him to make friends. And I was like, wouldn't take into a social skills group are

  KC 1:02:07

  taken to the park or taken

  Taylor 1:02:08

  to the mall I was like, and then the 15 year old was like, I don't really want to make friends. And I was like, well, then he doesn't have to, if he doesn't want to make friends right now, I'm not going to provide an ABA therapy as a woman and take him somewhere and force him to go talk to somebody and make a friend. Like that's just inhumane. Like if he wants to be a recluse and play his games and be left alone. Let him be. So a lot of the times it's parents putting expectations on their kids for what they want them to be,

  KC 1:02:37

  instead of just letting like the therapist and me is like, Okay, why don't you want to make friends because maybe he does not feel a need for those connections. He's got got enough connections in my life, or maybe, right, because he's a 15 year old, he does want friends. But he's now had so many negative distressing interactions with kids that have pushed him back picked on him, not including him, that he's just decided it's more simple to not want friends than to get my heart broken over and over and over and feel so weird, right? And it's like, Okay, if that's really the issue, then like you said, taking him to a mall and giving him praise every time he talks to someone is not going to

  Taylor 1:03:20

  solve that issue. And it's gonna be awkward and just weird like for me to do that with him. And I was like, go and I was like, as a parent, you can enroll him in something that he might not want to participate in. He really I really liked video games, and they like card games. And they have those like, gatherings where they play like Magic the Gathering and stuff. So those are the recommendations I made. I was like, enroll them in something, maybe haven't go see like a psychological therapist, but I was like, and it was at a clinic and all the kids at the clinic were like five and below. And I was like, I'm not gonna like he's not gonna sit here with five year old 15 year old and make friends. Like that's just not we call it client. That's not maintaining client dignity at that point in forcing him to walk around a mall with me is also not maintaining his dignity, because it's just weird. Stuff like that. So I do I turn families away. I'm like, I understand you've got an autism diagnosis, and the doctor said ABA, but it's literally just an assessment. It doesn't mean that you need ABA.

  KC 1:04:13

  What does a typical ABA session look like? Like if somebody has no idea they've never seen it? Or is there a typical, like what kinds of things might I see in an ABA session? So

  Taylor 1:04:24

  there should not be a go ABA session.

  KC 1:04:26

  There isn't ABA, as you said, there should not be a typical, yeah, it's

  Taylor 1:04:30

  individualized. So every child, every setting is going to be different. But I can talk about the three main setting. So the first is in home, right? So the that means the RBT and PCA, they come into your home and they run the session. Typically the first couple sessions, we call it pairing and that just means I'm not reading any program. I'm not seeing any demands. I'm just getting to know the kid right? We'll just play it's basically play pairing in other words,

  KC 1:04:57

  why don't have to call it something so we yours. Listen, when

  Taylor 1:05:01

  I'm teaching RVTs about ABA, I literally say I'm like a bunch of older, highly educated, Caucasian men came up with all this jargon, to overcomplicate

  KC 1:05:12

  it pairing pairing. It's like, okay, it blows my mind that like, we think that the problem is like autistic kids ability to interact with people, when clearly someone with no social skills at all was like, Hello, I'd like to pair with you just pair it with the specimen. So

  Taylor 1:05:35

  it's so much jargon. It's so much jargon, but it basically just means playing and getting to know the kid, right? That's gonna be with the

  KC 1:05:41

  first time God, why can't they just call it playing or rapport building

  Taylor 1:05:45

  rapport building as well, they call it rapport building.

  KC 1:05:47

  They're not a Bluetooth device. Yeah, I know. I know. But that's what

  Taylor 1:05:50

  it typically looks like. So it's just playing, right? Yeah.

  KC 1:05:57

  I have to have one other outburst about this. It is so bizarre to take something as natural and human as trust and connection and turn it into this cold clinical transaction is very transactional, the language I don't want you to pair with my kid, I want you to think she's cool. And like her and enjoy her and have you know, and I want you to connect with her not she's not a project. She's not a Bluetooth device. Yeah, that's

  Taylor 1:06:31

  why people say ABA can be manipulative. And I think it's based off that language. Like I'm playing with you. I'm pairing with your for the intent that you're like me. And after then we can work on these things later. But yeah, so that's what it will look like. It's basically playing and then your start running session. So I always advocate for net, which is natural environment teaching. That just means you continue to play with the kid, but you find natural opportunities to run certain targets. So let's say I'm teaching the kid to identify No, I'm sorry. I'm teaching the kid. Let's say I'm teaching the kid identify blue, right? We're teaching colors, natural environment teaching, I'd be like, Hey, can you hear me the blue dinosaur? And then they have a good time. So Oh, thanks. Yeah, that's cool. Cool. Done. Right. The other one is called dTT, which is discrete trial teaching. This is the one the internet hates, I am strongly opposed to it. And this is the one that internet hates. But it's basically I wish to have any stimuli. It's called stimuli. But usually, the kid I was sitting at the table was a token board associated, they have to earn a certain amount of tokens. And then it's very clinical. So there might be two pictures, ones, blue ones green, and it's like touch blue. They touch blue. Oh, that's blue. You got to token. It's very like you're saying it's actual, it's not as natural. No clinic should be all dTT are on that. Because some kids I've worked on, they don't want me to ask them questions. When they're playing. They're literally say I don't want it. They're literally say, Can we do this, and then I can play by myself, right? Some kids can do it naturally. And they want to actually just be playing the whole time. Some of them really want to earn a token really want to be done and left alone.

  KC 1:08:09

  Like for my kids, I don't want token boards used. But my kids love a quiz see exactly like they would love to sit there and be like, Hmm, flashcards, like I don't know, we're just kind of a nerdy family. But like, they genuinely really enjoy that. And they don't need a token board. They don't need like, extra stuff. They just think it's fun to learn stuff. And so they'll sit there with flashcards and go, Oh, that's the blue one, two, and three. I mean, you know what I mean, I've got a kid, like, Let's do math games. So I see what you're saying where it's like, some kids might like that, or might enjoy that some kids might get frustrated if you try to do it via play. Because they're kind of like, no, that's you're not letting me lead the play or whatever, right. And then some kids might be more frustrated at the table. So that makes sense to me.

  Taylor 1:08:55

  So yeah, that's why it should be individualized. So I've worked at clinics where it was straight dTT at the table, and you're causing more behaviors that way, like the kids having a meltdown, because you have these little kids who a neurotypical child would not be sitting at a table for four hours, but you expect a child with autism to be sitting at the table for this long, and they get to leave the table to play. And it's like they have to earn the right to play, which I don't prove up. So typically what I do if I'm doing in home, and if I happen to be doing dTT, I bring my own toys that I paid for, right? I control these toys that are mine, if you want to play with my toys, and we have to do this, if you don't want to play with my toys, that's fine. We'll come play with something that you want to play with, right? So that way, it's not like I can't control your stuff in your house. Like it's your stuff. You're not

  KC 1:09:39

  taking away their toy and saying you get it back when you tell me what blue is. That makes sense.

  Taylor 1:09:44

  I control access to my stuff. And if they're if they call it negate if they say for me if they say I don't want to do that, okay, what do you want to do instead? Well, I want to play with this. Oh, well, if you want to play this, then we have to do that. But if you don't want to, that's fine. We can go do something else. Right? And a lot of people have a You heard that, but it really comes down to if you want to get paid, you have to go to work, you can call out and do whatever you want. But if you will get paid and get a paycheck, you have to go to work. So it's just, it's teaching them like you have options.

  KC 1:10:13

  Well, my I will say that like, occupational therapists, will do that as well, like, you know, when they're working on maybe encouraging flexible thinking, and, and a child's doing the same thing over and over and over, you know, I've seen that occupational therapists say, Okay, let's say the kids putting the Paw Patrol under the hat, and then going to the kitchen, and then coming back over drawing on a board and then coming over and taking it out and putting it into the hat and kind of doing that over and over, I've seen occupational therapist go, Okay, I'm gonna take it out from under the hat. And I'm going to put it over here, like, I'm going to make a small adjustment. And let's see how she does with that. Let's see if that distresses her. And if it doesn't, cool, let's try introducing small changes to work on that flexible thinking to work on that emotional regulation. And they do it in a really respectful way. Like, I think, to your point of saying, like, there, it's not that anytime we're seeing behavior reinforcement, it's like, oh, that's bad, and traumatizing, you know, but you're saying that we're finding a way to work on the skills that will, you know, increase their quality of life, and we can do it in a way that

  Taylor 1:11:21

  different in not snatching things out of their hands. I always have never said anything, unless it's like scissors. You know, unless it's dangerous, of course. But you're not, you need to figure out another way to get something or get them engaged or take a break, like let kids have breaks. And I just remember being trained as an RVT. There, it's called a trial or trial is I'm presenting whatever it is that I'm working on. And I were being trained that I had to present, whatever I'm working on, like I target one time per minutes of a session. So if it's an hour session, I have to ask them something 60 times, which is insane. Don't ask me something 60 times at an hour, and I'm 29 years old. That's how I was classically trained. And I had to rewire myself to be like, this is a lot of questions like, can we just chill out for a little bit?

  KC 1:12:14

  So going back to let's like, okay, you can find good BCAAs. But what makes them good is that they're completely negating their training as a BCBA. So I know that's an oversimplification. But yeah,

  Taylor 1:12:25

  but again, I'm looking at my textbook right now, that was never in the text. Nobody ever said to do a trial a minute. Nobody ever said that somewhere, or somebody said that. And that was that was the culture of that job that it worked out. But I was like, who said that? That when he said you had to do that. So again, it's like when somebody somewhere made up all these roles that don't even exist, and now everybody's following them, will

  KC 1:12:48

  tell you this has been a really great conversation. Let me ask you this as your sort of parting question. What do you see as, like, give me like three things that you think that the industry as a whole needs to do to better serve autistic people? I

  Taylor 1:13:06

  think the first thing is RVTs needs to either be supervised more frequently in terms of the minimum requirement needs to increase. Right now it's at 20%, which is not that much, I honestly feel like it should be at 50 over 50%, that would be my first thing and in the education, whether or not to say that they need a higher level of education. But in terms of more training, 40 hours is not a lot of time, that's all they need is 40 hours. And that's not a lot of time, I think there needs to be a lot more training for RBTs. If these are the people that are actually implementing the programming, they need a lot of training. That's the first thing I would say needs to change. The second thing I think, is some type of different education required for BCBAs in terms of working with this population of individuals needs to be a requirement to I know it requires ABA coursework, I think it needs to require if you're going to work in the field with people with developmental disabilities, you need to have some type of education on that maybe some empathy classes to I'm not sure, I don't know, maybe I feel like everybody just needs to study a little bit of psychology to be a little bit, you know, more empathetic, that would be the next thing, I would say new change, and then just some type of education where BCBAs to identify biases within themselves. And to understand if they're targeting a behavior for change, like we said, because I find it annoying, or am I targeting a behavior for change, because it's going to benefit the individual. And I think we have to look at ourselves as BCBAs as human beings because there's certain things that we expect other people to behave in and other people to be, but we need to take that out and look at this individual and say isn't going to benefit them yes or not? Or am I just pushing on my bias onto them and what I think they should be what I think they should act, but I think they should like you know, or is it going to benefit them? And I think we would learn as a field. There's a lot of stuff that we don't need to be working on. We don't.

  KC 1:15:04

  That's such a hard one. Because like, especially when you think about the eye contact, like, I totally can picture what the reasoning was when the when it started, right? Well, well, it's about that we want them to have relationships. And you know, in order to have relationships, you have to learn to look at people, because that's how you know what I mean. Like, I can totally see the justifications you really do have to, like you said, be trained on looking for that bias, and keeping up with current research about, like, what are the effects of some of these applications?

  Taylor 1:15:37

  Definitely, yeah, I definitely think just being aware, looking into these things, and just kind of just being a nice person, I don't know how to tell people to be good people, but just be a good, nice person and just treat people with respect and kindness. And just be nice. I think it's weird when people say I have an a progressive approach to providing ABA, because I just feel like, it makes the most sense to me. I don't understand why you would do it differently. Yeah, people say you're very liberal. And it's like, well, am I liberal? Or am I just being nice to people in

  KC 1:16:10

  general by just showing basic respect to other human beings? Yeah.

  Taylor 1:16:14

  So it's odd to me that it's such a negative stigma. So yeah, I've literally like after that conference, I was like, what else can I do? I was literally contemplating just leaving the field. Because I was like, I don't want to be associated with these people. But then I was like, again, I'm just, I'm not trying to be the, you know, the change, you know, if I just leave, because I was like, I could go back to school and do something else. Because I was like, how do we even be a BCBA? Afterwards, those people.

  KC 1:16:41

  And to be fair, like the attitudes that you're describing, they could be anywhere, like, you could have someone who's an occupational therapist, who has all those biases, who is using punishments and rewards, who is targeting the wrong behaviors, I think it does seem to be more prevalent, with BCBAs and with ABA, but I also think that, you know, the other confusing thing is like, because insurance will only do ABA, I think, now you have a bunch of clinics and settings that are calling themselves ABA, but you go in there, and they're not really doing ABA. And so it's like, oh, this is maybe an environment that is going to be helpful to my kid. And then you could go to a place that says all we do is, you know, floor time or whatever, and you go in, and it's like, these are all the same interventions and approaches and biases and goals. And you know, so it's difficult, especially as a parent when you just hear ABA is great. Aba is abuse. And you're going oh, not only is that confusing, but then if you even come to your own conclusion about what isn't isn't good for your kid. You can't even go based on what they're calling themselves.

  Taylor 1:17:50

  I agree. Yeah. And I think a lot of the issue with ABA is like we call it socially significant behavior, right? That's what we're looking, what does that mean? There's no definition. And so with speech, right, it's literally like they have, like, whatever, I don't know if it's syntax or whatever. But speech, it's very clear cut what you should be working on, it's very clear cut, there's a speech delay or a speech impediment, and how to change that. And there's no type of issue with changing that, like you're trying to change their speech, maybe the way you do it. But for us, we're doing socially significant behavior. And that's so gray. And it's so weird, because they in ABA, they're always like, you need to be objective, you need to be measurable, but then they tell us to target socially significant behavior. And that's the greatest thing possible. So yeah, I think back in like the 80s and 90s, you know, eye contact was a big deal. And now we're seeing these autistic adults saying stop doing that, because that was really significant back then. And so I think just the way we treat people with disabilities has changed as well. And we're much more accepting and I think that's why the field has changed since then. I'm assuming it's hard because I'm so new. So. So it's also funny because people like, You're the problem with ABM like I just got here. I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't do all of that stuff. I was in school. I was in high school when that happened. So it's hard but yeah, I feel like people like my friends are like, you're the martyr of tick tock for BCBA it sounds like I'll be it if I need to be it's fine. Because I don't want parents to go on tick tock type and ABA see all the negativity and then they're like, I'm not gonna do it. Right. And if they just see one of my videos and say, Oh, it can be nice, you know, I might be changing a child's life. I've never even in a meet moving in to see you when I was a parent and I went on tick tock and research ABA. I would not put my son in it if I didn't know any better. Yeah, it's scary. Well,

  KC 1:19:41

  this has been a great conversation. I thank you so much for your time. I know it took him an hour and a half of your time, but it was such a good conversation.

  Taylor 1:19:48

  Thank you so much.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

As we continue with our series on autism, I’m joined by Kathleen Walker for today’s bonus episode. We discuss the basic criteria for autism, her experience as a child with an early diagnosis, what it’s like for an autistic person to “play by the rules” of business etiquette in the workplace, and her advice for parents of autistic children. Join us to learn more from Kathleen!

Show Highlights:

• The first criteria for autism: “persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction”

• Kathleen’s perspective on her social communication and interactions as an early-diagnosed child

• Examples of how an autistic person might “miss things” in interaction and communication

• Challenges for the autistic person in a professional career vs. in personal relationships

• Masking and modified behaviors to be accepted

• Kathleen’s suggestion for rewriting the DSM criteria based on communication/interaction

• Helping autistic kids feel comfortable and navigate the world in their own ways

• Kathleen’s experience with social difficulties around conversations, nonverbal cues, and anxiety

• For an autistic person, connection in relationships might not be a top priority in life.

• Kathleen’s experience with “repetitive and restrictive interests, rituals, and schedules

• Kathleen’s advice for parents of autistic children

Resources and Links:

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:10

  The first criteria for autism is persistent deficits and social communication and social interaction. So just taking that statement like at face value, do you feel like that applies to you.

  Kathleen 0:25

  So I do feel like there are ways that I communicate differently from allistic people or neurotypical people. And I've always felt that other people have some sort of internal programming in their head that is kind of telling them what the rules are, and what the boundaries are, and the social interactions that I just don't have that programming. But for me, personally, it's really hard to tell how much of that is really true. And how much of that is really based in my experience growing up as an autistic child, because I was diagnosed so early and put into social skills focused training so early, that it was kind of drilled into me that there are these things around you that you don't know about, you have to be on the lookout for them all the time. Be hyper aware of everyone's emotions, and however, what is reacting to you and then be able to adapt your behavior according to that. And so it's really hard to say, because that was so early on, for me how much I would feel that way, you know, without having had that training. But I know it is a really common experience, especially for autistic women and people who are assigned female at birth to grow up feeling like, you know, there's an aspect of these interactions that I'm just missing. And I think another piece of that is, I think a lot of the DSM criteria are framed in terms of deficits, obviously, because they're kind of clinical symptoms. And I work in health communications. So I have that perspective on some of this language, too, which has been really interesting to unpack some of my childhood experiences, you know, in terms of that language over the past few years. But I think the deficit framing makes it seem like there is a correct way to have these social interactions and a correct mode of communication, and you're not doing it correctly. And so that's the criteria for the diagnosis, when if you look at it objectively, at least in for my experience, just speaking for myself, I think one way of communicating is not more correct than the other, it's just that I'm being asked to assimilate into what the expectations are of people around me. And I think some people that pressure is put on them more than others. And because of my family situation that came pretty early in life. So

  KC 2:36

  you do feel like sometimes there's maybe something in the conversation that you're missing, but you're not really sure, like, am I feeling that because I was so conditioned to look for it, or to be anxious about it, or to expect there to not be something there? Or how much of this would I be feeling if I hadn't had that kind of programming?

  Kathleen 2:58

  That's exactly it is I know, at this point, and it's interesting, I've been going through therapy the past few years, and really learning about myself as an autistic person. And now that I have that perspective, I understand what that is, well, I was trained to look for these things. And sometimes there are things that part of it for me is when there's a lot of things going on, it takes me longer to process the stimuli that are happening. And there are times that I miss things, but also, why does that have to be the end of the world for everyone around me? And why do I need to be made to feel like I have to cover that. And so I think being really aware of that now I'm in a much different place that I was for most of my 20s I just felt anxious all the time and didn't understand why it was happening. Because I had this treating and this awareness of being different. But I'd point I just wanted to run away from being autistic. Because it was so much the focus of everything growing up that it was like, I can't acknowledge that nothing is about that. I'm just anxious all the time in these social situations. And there's no reason to have any context around that. And so it's really interesting now, looking back and understanding, you know where that conditioning comes in. And also, there are this aspects of how I process things differently. And both of those things can be true. And I think for a long time, it was hard to hold that both of those things can be true, if that makes sense. So

  KC 4:17

  can you give an example like if someone's listening, and they're like, Well, what do you mean miss things? And like they miss things socially? Like do you have maybe an example that you could give that might sort of illustrate that for us? I

  Kathleen 4:31

  think there's a few situations where I tend to feel more self conscious of these type of traits. And there's a lot of situations where you know, people might be just implying, I think it honestly it comes up most often in work situations for me because that's where I tend to be really most self conscious of these things. Often there's an implication of oh, we're not supposed to tell this person this thing or this person isn't supposed to have this information or we're just all going with this polite fiction, but we're not going to acknowledge that or say what we're doing. And and I think I've learned to recognize is patterns of the way people communicate, especially within organizations. I think that's tricky for me. Because my instinct is to say, well, everyone needs all the information, or else we're wasting time. And that doesn't make sense to me. And I feel like I know a more logical way to do things. I ran into trouble earlier in my career, because I would just say what I thought the problem was, and you weren't supposed to acknowledge the problem, or things like that, depending on your job, it can be a big gray area, and there can be situations that would be challenging for anyone to navigate. But for me, it feels like I'm coming into that situation without understanding what these unspoken boundaries are. And as I've learned to advocate for myself more and actually share my opinion as part of my job. I think there's this interesting thing that happens, where when you're not making every decision based out of fear or trying to hide or cover up, then you have to decide, well, then what is it worth it to speak up about these things? And you know, when is it worth it to take the risk and know that people might think I'm annoying, because I'm pointing out the elephant in the room, the

  KC 6:17

  professional world would be harder, because at least in personal relationships, there's like a degree of intimacy you can get with someone where you're speaking really freely, whereas professionally, there really are so many unwritten rules about what you do out what you don't talk about, I have worked in a couple of places where I was an executive, and it really hit me when you were talking about like, oh, this person isn't supposed to know that. Because you could talk about somebody's job performance. And it's like, understood that you're not going to walk out of this room and talk to that person about it, right? might become an official thing at some point, or like, Hey, we're really thinking that this person is not gonna make it or like, Hey, we're gonna make some internal chefs. But obviously, you're gonna do a bunch of work in the background before, you know, six months later, roll that out to whatever staff, it totally makes sense to me. I mean, we're just so over the top I think it workplaces with being with with etiquette,

  Kathleen 7:13

  I think it's interesting the ways that that shows up because it leaves out a lot of people. And it's not only autistic people, though, I think that's a big part of it. But people that didn't get socialized into the the corporate etiquette or business etiquette or, you know, people that didn't have that internship experience that is often unpaid in college, or all of those things. We're not giving everyone the rulebook. And that's really frustrating to me, I think I do have a pet peeve about kind of unspoken expectations. And that's a thing that shows up and showed up for me when I was growing up as well, I think my family often just expected me to kind of pick up on things and you know, guess when I'm supposed to go help out with the tours or something like that. And when it didn't happen, I would be lazy, or, you know, I'm not complying with the rules or, and, and it's so weird to me looking back on it, because they were so hyper aware of autism. And yet, it's like, they didn't understand the internal experience of that, to the point that they're just focusing on, you're not coming to wash the dishes, you know, you're you're focused on your buck, and you don't want to get up and interact with B or whatever it is,

  KC 8:26

  you know, it's when you're talking about that, you know, I took both of my girls to the pool yesterday, we have like a neighborhood pool. And, you know, trying to help your kids learn social skills is really nuanced. Like, yeah, you know, my, my five year old is not autistic. But even then it's like, okay, so you know, she's playing with a friend. And there's another kid that's kind of like, doing the what I call like, the distance, which is like, Okay, I want to be close enough that you can see that I want to play, but not so close that you feel like I'm intruding. I'm just hoping you notice me and tell me I can, right? And so sort of letting her know, like, hey, when you see someone kind of standing there and just looking at you, they're probably waiting for you to ask them if they want to play. So she's like, okay, great. So we talk about like, oh, including, including, including, but then like, you know, there'll be a little girl that will start being kind of mean, I'll be like, Okay, so when someone's mean to you, we don't You don't have to play with them. And then you can see her like looking at me like yeah, so that gave me one instruction, like always be inclusive. But then there's this other instruction about like, don't play people that are mean, you can just like see her

  Kathleen 9:39

  being like, like, how do those two How do I reconcile these two things? Yeah, exactly.

  KC 9:45

  Because for I think for many non autistic adults, there's a part of understanding how those two quote unquote rules go together. That's just intuitive. Yeah,

  Kathleen 9:54

  totally. Yeah.

  KC 10:00

  For kids, it's not intuitive, but I could see how it never becomes intuitive.

  Kathleen 10:05

  So early in childhood, I think I kind of learned to build a really sophisticated mask is that I think a lot of people pick up masking just, you know, naturally in terms of oh, people respond better to me when I do XYZ behaviors. But for me, that was explicitly taught. And so that was very much, you know, you have to pick up on all these rules, and you need to be constantly watching what other people are doing and modifying your behavior. And it's, so it feels like such a double edged sword, because I think, you know, I can't guess where I would be, if I didn't learn those skills, you know, I might not be able to basketball enough to have a full time job, because there are so many pieces of the workplace that are those type of expectations, just in terms of culture, and understanding how to navigate the workplace. And, you know, I might not be able to do a lot of the things that I've done if I haven't, hadn't had that sort of training. But at the same time, it really was traumatic in a certain way, that has caused a lot of problems. For me with being able to maintain relationships and being able to maintain communication, I think I was just alienated from myself, in a really profound way that is hard to really explain. It's so interesting, watching kind of the dialogue about masking the last couple of years, especially on social media, I don't think we really had that term. When I was younger, I know people used to talk about, you know, imitating other people or social rules and all of that, but I don't, I wasn't aware of the term masking, you know, as a kid. And it's so interesting to watch the ways that people talk about it. But it's also a really complex choice. Because, you know, once you're no longer making every decision out of this subconscious, like, I have to cover everything up and not let anybody know that I have these certain traits, then it becomes kind of this complex decision process of is it okay, if this person thinks that I'm a little strange? And you know, is it okay that I'm, they don't like my body language, or whatever it is. And that's a different calculus for everybody. And I think I'm seeing a lot more nuanced conversation about it now, which is great. Because I think, you know, I do have certain privilege that protects me, just being a white woman out in the world that other people have a lot greater risks, if they were to look unusual, or behave in certain ways. But there is a risk for me just especially, you know, going back to the workplace, like, a few people know that I'm autistic, I haven't officially disclosed and, you know, I, I ended up kind of having opportunities to share my perspective on disability topics at work working in health communication. And people seem to really appreciate that perspective, but then they often don't realize when they're perpetuating kind of the invisible rules of the workplace in the same moment. So yeah, it can be tricky, because, you know, I've gotten feedback on things that I'm like, Well, that's an autistic trait, and I don't know how much I'll be able to change that. And, you know, I can learn, but I've already been learning for 30 years. So you know, I don't know if that's really going to improve. And so there can be this reality that you can be really good at your job. And, you know, in certain situations, if people don't like you, that's going to be a problem. And, you know, you have to figure out how to respond to that. So it can be really complicated.

  KC 13:28

  How would you write that statement differently? Like, as I'm listening to, you kind of describe, like, how you experience maybe like, that different form of communication and trying to interact with that, like, neurotypical sort of prevailing culture, you know, if if you had to write like that line of the DSM, you know, what would it like? How could you rewrite that that would better describe your, whether their difficulties or your relationships or your interaction with that aspect of your autism?

  Kathleen 14:01

  I would say it's a direct communication style. It's a way of communicating that focuses on content, rather than subjective emotional responses or context, I would say it's just a different communication style, rather than, you know, necessarily being a worse communication style than the norm.

  KC 14:25

  What I find sort of interesting whenever I talk to people who are autistic, and there's there really is that heavy emphasis on like, you know, something that's literal, something that's concrete, the content of what we're talking about, I'm not really tuned in to the emotional aspect. And one of the things that I've noticed I noticed this more with like younger autistic people, is that they'll say like, I'm not, you know, the the emotional stuff doesn't make sense to me. I only care about the content and only focus on the content. And sometimes that almost morphs into this. I idea that like, I'm above irrational emotional experiences. Yeah, the truth is like, even if you're autistic, you have emotions and emotions are always logged on. So like, you might experience some of that dysregulation or defensiveness or feeling uncomfortable or awkward, like any of those things that don't make sense. And so I'm curious from your perspective, like, if you've seen that on maybe on social media, or with other artistic brands, or even in yourself, and kind of how do those two things play where it's like, well, you know, I just prefer content, but at the same time, it doesn't make you not an emotional human being.

  Kathleen 15:44

  There's a couple of sides to that. And I think one is, I also feel like I'm a really intuitive person, and I do pick up on people's emotions really strongly. And I think, especially when I was growing up, you know, I was born in 1991. And that was really the beginning of the public understanding of autism. And a lot of ways in there was this perception of autistic people just don't have feelings. I think there's been a little bit more nuance with that over time, but it's still kind of a stereotype. And I felt kind of confused by that, because I felt like I was picking up the emotions of everyone around me, and I'm really, you know, strongly connecting with whatever is going on in the household, I'm feeling those emotions. So to me, it seems like they're almost two different systems, like there's an emotional system, and I might really connect with how someone is feeling. But there's the separate system of communication in terms of the words and the content of speech. And I guess, things are just kind of in two different buckets. For me, it's, it's not always the same pathway. Because of of having that social skills training, I

  KC 16:45

  think I do pick up on a lot of emotional cues and conversation, it's really interesting that you say that, because I think that your that's you like hit the nail on the head in terms of, it's not that you don't possess the emotional aspect of it, where you have emotions, you see emotions, you understand emotions, you pick up, there is that intuitive, emotional stuff. But I think for like a neurotypical person, those pathways are like entwined, right, the content, you know, pathways. And so the ability to kind of understand something in like this big kind of bundled up wire that has all those different wires in it, like the communication is going through all of that at once. And it's interesting, your description of it's not that I can't do both of those things. It's that like, they are in two separate wires. And I'm not really processing a piece of information through both of those channels simultaneously, like other people sometimes appear to be,

  Kathleen 17:45

  it feels like kind of two separate processes for me. And I can understand what you mean about people maybe having a kind of a sense of superiority or a sense of, oh, I'm rational, I'm not emotional. And, you know, I think sometimes that can go to a place that's not productive. And I can see how that could lead to, you know, really dangerous thinking. And I do see that sometimes on social media. But I think I had a little bit of that perspective, when I was a teenager, probably, because I think the way that I reacted to, you know, learning, Oh, you, you really have to watch out for all these things and take care of other people's emotions all the time and make sure everyone else is comfortable. And it wasn't about me at all. The way I reacted to that was, well, I'm different. And I'm going to be who I am and to claim any type of autonomy that I could have. And one way that that showed up was, you know, I always love learning. And, you know, I'm not as great at memorization, which is one way that I think that's common among some autistic people that I was, quote, unquote, gifted in certain areas. And I'm a writer, and I would get a lot of commentary from teachers and students about my writing and how talented I was, and etc. And I think that was something I really clung on to because it was like that something positive about my self identity that I can build, you know, my sense of self around, and I didn't feel like well, other people are stupid, why are they communicating this way?

  KC 19:21

  Every teenager, you know, has this, here's what I'm good at. And so let's lean into that, because that feels good. And so, yeah, I appreciate that perspective. And I wonder too, like, when you talk about having an intuitive sense of people's emotions, how much of that do you feel like is maybe inherently intuitive? And how much of that do you feel like was perhaps a result of, for lack of a better term and some low grade trauma where it was almost like a survival like you had to sort of pattern recognition, things that are happening? anything so that you could kind of keep a hold of what was happening? Yeah, I

  Kathleen 20:04

  think that's intertwined in an interesting way for me, because it's, I do think I've always just had an intuitive sense of what other people are feeling. But I think what I really learned to recognize was those external cues in terms of how was this person responding to me? You know, how is this person? What face are they making? What behaviors are they doing, etc. And that almost comes down to maybe the split between content and emotion too, because it's kind of like that's the third thing is recognizing the body language cues, or, you know, how this person is acting. Whereas I think the way that I maybe naturally feel emotions is more just really intuitive in terms of picking up on their, almost their vibe, I know a better word for it, but just picking up on their energy, and their vibe, and maybe not necessarily being able to label that. But feeling like I'm on their wavelength, and I'm feeling what they're feeling. versus, you know, I think what I really learned how to do was to pick up on those cues that they're giving off. And I think what was really interesting when you mentioned, you know, teaching kids to understand social skills, is I do think that's important for all kids. And I think everybody was doing what they could with information they had, I look at it as kind of a bad game of telephone, in that it was very early. And like our cultural understanding of autism, they were really damaging messages out there, you've probably heard like some of the Autism Speaks commercials with the scary voiceover like that's what was out there. And these vaccine claims that were being legitimized about vaccines causing autism, which is fascinating from a public health perspective to me now. But all of that was kind of what was circulating out there. And then based on my mother basically raised me almost as as almost as a single parent, and based on her own context, and her own, you know, emotional situation and personality, the way that she interpreted those things was, you have to give this child a normal life, which is, I think, a thing that a lot of parents of disabled kids think, but to her that meant, everything has to be about that kind of masking and presenting to a social standard and behaving normally. And I think that's just what was out there in the water at that time. And she wasn't alone in that. But the way that she interpreted those things through her own lens, was what caused a lot of that damage. And so it's really hard to put your finger on, you know, oh, there's this, of course, I shouldn't have gone to speech therapy or something like that, because I'm sure aspects of that were helpful. But it also, you know, that's where that that double edged sword comes in of, you know, I think, looking back on it now, and seeing a lot of the messaging that's out there today, I think a lot of it could have been presented more as let's help this child be successful in the way that they want to be successful, or maybe be independent, which is even a loaded concept in and of itself. I think a

  KC 23:08

  lot about that, well, how can I teach my daughter to understand the people around her so that she has the information without imparting that she needs to conform to the people around? Yeah, I think because, you know, you want to them to understand, but you also don't want to give this message that, you know, you can't be who you are,

  Kathleen 23:35

  I actually enjoy reading young adult and middle grade books. And you know, I've read some some of those books recently that are by autistic authors and about, you know, autistic kids stories. And one thing that I've noticed is a common theme is when you see supportive parents in the story, they're kind of playing this role of, you know, how can I help this kid be successful? And also, you know, help them feel comfortable in the world and help them navigate the world on their own terms, but also, you know, walk this line of teaching the social skills. And I think it's really about the framing, and that, you know, is it we're trying to support this child and help this child or are we help trying to help them fit in, and I think that's really a mindset. But at the same time, I know, it's such a gray area, because until that bias leaves our society and I think that's really hard to accomplish. Kids are when they grow up, they're going to have to navigate you know, if they want to work in a corporate environment, or if they want to, you know, fit into certain parts of society. They do have to navigate like, these are the ways that people are going to respond to you and you need to pick up on some of these behaviors. To me,

  KC 24:47

  I sort of think of it as the difference between communicating, you should say thank you versus when neurotypical people interact, and they give you something they typically expect to hear. Thank you. And if they don't, they typically read that as, as you're not seeing gratitude. Like you could explain what's going on without making it like you're a new shoe holder is wrong if you don't do this, but that's such a high level of thinking that it's like, okay, you could have that conversation with a 12 year old problem. Yeah, like Canada. Meantime, how do you help your four year old, though? So it gets really tricky. Did you do ABA?

  Kathleen 25:25

  So the therapies that I went to were not my family doesn't remember them being labeled as ABA, I had speech therapy that was very social skills focused, and then occupational therapy. But just based on the time period, I think it's really unlikely that there were not aspects of ABA in that, you know, I think that's that's also an interesting distinction that I think a lot of the narratives that I see, you know, from autistic adults today are either late diagnosed, which is, I think it's really important to share those experiences and focus on you know, the trauma of not knowing that you're autistic is really important. And then there's people who are survivors of ABA. And I don't see a lot of people me that, you know, were harmed by these systems, but it wasn't explicitly called ABA. I've definitely learning about people's experiences in ABA, I think that's, it's kind of a similar conditioning, if that makes sense. Well, and

  KC 26:24

  it sounds like, at the end of the day, being an autistic person and interacting in a neurotypical world is inherently traumatic. And so yeah, I think that's there's, there's no like, perfect parental response or perfect therapy or perfect, like, oh, and so there's this sort of like, okay, well, even even when you get maybe the best out that that's possible, as far as a parental response, or a therapy or an environment or whatever, there's still going to be trauma and difficulty and they're still going to be and I don't mean, like life ending trauma, but like, you're still going to look back and go. It's unfortunate, like, there just was no way for a for me to get shepherded into this particular world, in a way that wasn't going to leave some, like, significant bumps and bruises in my psyche.

  Kathleen 27:23

  I think for me, just because of the time period that I grew up, it was so unusual for girls to be diagnosed at that time, and I was diagnosed as a toddler really early. I have wondered, you know, what would have happened if I just wasn't identified? And that's a sliding doors moment that we can't know. Yeah, I see a lot of people that were late diagnosing, Oh, if only I knew, you know, everything would have been better. It would have been this great experience of knowing myself, it is traumatic not to know yourself. And I can only imagine, it's also a really hard experience to have people reacting to you negatively and not understand the reason why or not understand where those differences are coming from. That's just a different type of trauma to unpack. But there's also I think a lot of people don't realize the ways that diagnosis can cause harm, and especially in the historical context of Yeah, what information did parents really have at that time? And you know, what was really going on in her culture at that time? That was like, just a lot more bald faced ableism, then, you know, we're not, I think now, you know, a lot of organizations are kind of trying to look, clean up their image or look like, Oh, we're listening to disabled people. And there, we weren't there yet. There was none of that. It was very much just, you know, how are we going to save these kids? And like, I think about, you know, what, I would love to do a study on, like, what does it do to people to just screw up with that on the TV? You know, knowing that this is a disability that you have, and that was just the background noise of like, Oh, why? Why do all these kids exist? And is it vaccines and like, what do we need to do about it? And not really even processing? You know, what that means at the time, but looking back on it, and now working in public health and like, oh my gosh, that was the most communication

  KC 29:22

  nightmare. Okay, so let me ask you this when it comes to the what the DSM says about their examples of social difficulties, quote on you, they mentioned a trouble with the back and forth flow of conversations, trouble with nonverbal communication, eye contact, tone of voice, body language and difficulty making and maintaining relationships. So do you relate to any of those examples? And if so, what is that like?

  Kathleen 29:52

  Yeah, I think the back and forth is something that I struggled with and that's probably the one thing that is most straightforward. As an autistic treat, rather than the conditioning, because I think that's something that I've always kind of struggled with. And it's just really, I think, again, it's kind of picking up on those nonverbal cues and like, those signs that someone's not done talking and things like that, that can be hard to pick up on. The other part that I can relate to is definitely the difficulty maintaining relationships. And I think that's where it's harder to tell, you know, how much of that is autism, and how much is just my experience. And, you know, I thought of myself as somebody that had social anxiety starting as a teenager. And now I've learned that a lot of those anxiety symptoms that show up are symptoms of complex trauma that are showing up and how I interact with people. I've had for a long time, I've kind of struggled with this pattern of ghosting, or, you know, just kind of disappearing from people's lives because I want to make those connections. And, you know, I've had some really deep friendships in my life, and I've had that level of, of intimacy. And then it's like, I get to a certain point, and I think, oh, no, people can see me, and you know, I can't live with that. And I can't let people see who I am. And I just have this pattern of running away. And so that's really the, the cycle that I'm working on now. And trying to understand that and try to figure out, you know, a better way to live with that. Well, when you

  KC 31:35

  think about like, difficulty in relationships, the more I talk to people, the more I wonder, like, you know, it's not like they're some objective autism, God that, you know, imparted this DSM criteria and all of its infallibility, right, like this was clinicians observing autistic people, and autistic children. And it's interesting because this one in particular difficulty maintaining relationships, it's written as if the difficulty is inherent in the autistic person. And not that the difficulty comes from the broader society, not understanding autism, not tolerating autism, not understanding autism, because so many people that I talk to when they talk about their difficulty in maintaining relationships, it's very commonly the same pattern of the idea that autistic people don't want relationships is a stereotype. I do want relationships, I do need connection. But the ways in which I have attempted to make connection with people are so often rejected so often traumatic, so often have become obvious to me that I'm a burden or that somebody doesn't want to put up with it, that it's just easier to give up, it's just easier to pull back, it hurts to know that real friendships kind of fall out, or someone gets in and sees me and I kind of back up a little because I don't know what to do. And then those become difficult. And it's like, you know, is this really a trait of autism? Or is this a commentary on the autistic experience?

  Kathleen 33:13

  That's another one of those things where it's saying the trade has difficulty in relationships, but a relationship is a two way communication. And you're looking at one side of that, there's a way that you know, humans are inherently social creatures, or that's the narrative that we hear all the time. And I do, I feel like I need connections, maybe maybe less than some neurotypical people, but I still need social connection to. But I think there's a way that that autistic people kind of challenge the expectations of what it means to be human. Because we may experience that connection differently. Or, you know, maybe it's not our top priority in life, maybe our interests are more of a top priority. And connection shows a different place in our life. I think when people have these biases, they don't realize that their biases because they're, it's like, that person just seems weird, or that person, you know, rubs me the wrong way. Or they have they seem shady, or whatever it is, can show up in funny ways. It can also be really dangerous because that bias can come up in dangerous ways depending on who is who is judging the interaction. I've seen some people saying online like people will say like, I'm such a great ally, and I support autistic people and then make fun of that

  KC 34:33

  even the things that people are making fun of on their face be something you would see in an autistic exactly especially like they're not recognizing that after learning about autism, looking back at my childhood and thinking about those students that were always picked on or those students that were always seen as weird. Not a one of them. Can I now think is neurotypical like when you look back at Oh, yeah, yeah, that's always just reading books. It's never talking to anybody just sitting in the corner at recess and girls would go, and you'll invite her to learn a dance. And then she wouldn't realize they were actually making fun of her like, and so then she would go back to her book. And that's all she did. It's like, oh, she was probably autistic, following the pack of kids around and, you know, didn't really catch the social cues, and it was talking way too much. And it's like, oh, it really does challenge those ideas of like, who is weird? And who can we just put out and who can we write off and, and who's okay to think that about

  Kathleen 35:33

  one thing I found really interesting in, you know, going back, and really kind of starting to accept myself as an autistic person, and reflecting on my childhood, and all of that is reading other people's experiences, there are traits or you know, common experiences that autistic people share, that I never picked up on as a part of autism or a common trait until I heard other people describe their own experience, even though my family grew up with, like all the books of the house, and you know, all the all the education. And, you know, learning about that, in the early days of the internet was a whole other thing. We had all the information that would have been available to parents pretty much at that time. And yeah, a lot of it was that focused on how to train your kid. Like, that's a piece of it. But I didn't really get that sense of, you know, other people's internal experience until I started, you know, reading memoirs and reading fiction and in reading, you know, social media accounts by other autistic people with understanding like, oh, that's what this is what I'm having, you know, I think, Have you have you seen Helen Hwang's? She's a romance author, autistic author that writes about autistic characters. And I think her books were some of the first that kind of broke through as like, pretty popular like fiction books with autistic characters. And there was a scene in one of her books where the main character, when he gets bad news, he kind of gets overwhelmed and he becomes clumsier. Like, he starts dropping things. And, you know, he's not able to complete these like tasks that require manual dexterity. And that's a part of how he's shutting down. And I had always heard the term shut down growing up. And I think there's, maybe the language is evolving a little bit around that. But we used to say, You're shutting down if you're like, not capable of interacting or not capable of doing what you need to do. That's kind of an artistic shutdown. And that's what this character was going through. But I had never recognized like, oh, yeah, I do start dropping things. And like, it's harder for me to focus on those type of manual tasks. When I'm upset or overwhelmed, or, you know, I get lost more easily. When I'm overwhelmed. I have no sound direction. So that's already not great. But I didn't recognize that until I heard that description of that character's experience. And it's so interesting, like how shifting that perspective can change the way you think about your own internal experience. Okay,

  KC 38:11

  I want to be respectful of your time and close on time. So I just have one more question. In the DSM, it talks about repetitive and restrictive interests, rituals, schedules, things like that, tell me if and how you relate to that, or see that in your life.

  Kathleen 38:28

  The main way that that shows up for me is if I get interested in a topic, I just want to learn everything about it. So I'll do a real deep dive, and I'll learn everything that I can about that topic. And usually those things will go on for months or years at a time. So I have some things that are kind of lifelong, like, I've always had a really strong connection with animals, and especially cats. And so that's something that's really stuck with me, throughout my life. And I also get into just random, random topics for a long period of time now. So especially now, I love podcasts, you know, I love reading and learning new things. Recently, I've gotten really into learning about multilevel marketing, and that has no relevance to my life at all. It's just psychologically fascinating to me,

  KC 39:14

  and talk about that, yeah, we're ever by the way. What about like flexibility and in flexibility in your life? Do you have things in your life that have to be the same every day or activities that need to be the same that you get distressed if they're different?

  Kathleen 39:28

  I benefit from having a consistent routine. I don't think I have as much of a strict routine as as some autistic people that I've heard. Some people really need to do things at the same time every day. I think that's not as much a piece of it for me. Sometimes people might see me as rigid in the way I communicate or my thought process and that's something that is really difficult for me, because it doesn't feel that way. internally. It's just, you know, expressing the way that I'm processing information. You know, for example, just the other day, I was talking to a friend, and we kind of had a different perspective on a certain topic, basically, it was, you know, I saw two categories is really mutually exclusive. And she was more Well, obviously, those are connected, and they're part of the same thing. And I thought, well, I just never saw it that way. And some people will look at that and say, That's rigid, that's black and white thinking, you know, and that's automatically lessor. And I don't, I don't know that it is, I think it's just a different way of looking at concepts. But people perceive that as being rigid or being inflexible. And I think that can be really frustrating for me, because I caught myself kind of getting nervous and thinking, Oh, is this person going to notice that I'm not flexible enough, or I'm thinking about this in a black and white way. And that doesn't really matter. But that's just that, you know, that hyper vigilance, it's been kind of ingrained that I'm focused on that. So there's a part of that that's really rewarding to recognize those moments and unpack it and say, Okay, in this discussion, it doesn't matter. But there are some situations in life where you might be people might look down on you, or, or, you know, treat you differently because of that. So I think that's more where the rigidity aspect shows up for me. So

  KC 41:16

  in closing, do you have any advice that you would give parents of autistic children?

  Kathleen 41:22

  One thing I've seen a lot more in the past few years is just Parents Learning from autistic adults. And I think that communication really didn't exist when I was a kid. And that's honestly the the best thing to start with is just be willing to learn from people and learn from autistic adults with very different experiences. It doesn't have to be all people that were diagnosed when they were two, in the order, you know, people in a certain group, I think it's important to learn from people with very different experiences and perspectives. As somebody that works in health communication, I see, there can be a big divide between parents and autistic adults. And I completely understand the reasons for that I think a lot of it is rooted in traumatic experiences, and on both sides really, in the fact that the information that parents are getting is still largely that medical model, you know, very strict definition of these external facing behaviors. And for parents who are not autistic, I think it can be hard to relate to that internal experience, if what you're hearing is, oh, they talk too long about this topic, or they're not playing with the other kids appropriately at school, or whatever it might be. So I really have empathy for parents and for the autistic adults who have experienced harm. And for the autistic kids that are growing up today, with the world changing as fast as it is, and our perspective on autism changing as fast as it is. What I would say to parents is just be willing to listen to different perspectives, and don't immediately get defensive or stop listening. If someone acts in a way that seems rude or seems like they're angry. And I think it's important to be willing to listen to people who are not speaking to you politely or, you know, expressing themselves in a politically correct way. Because that will that's kind of a artistic experience to be speaking in a way that people don't expect that's outside of the norm. But also, all the sides are coming from a place of having had some negative experience or some difficult experience. And I think the more self aware everyone can be in that conversation, the better. Because it gets worse when people don't understand where they're coming from, if they don't understand like, Oh, I'm reacting this way, because I really had a hard time growing up or I'm reacting this way because my child was diagnosed and all I've seen about autism is raised man and I don't know what to do about it for a period understanding where autistic adults are coming from and being willing to listen to those uncomfortable conversations or statements is a really good place to start.

  KC 44:09

  Well, thank you so much again for being willing to talk to me and Stuart, thank

  Kathleen 44:13

  you so much.

In this episode Psychologist Lesley PsyD discusses Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy, particularly in the context of autism, during Autism Awareness Month. This conversation aims to provide a neutral and factual overview of ABA, exploring its principles, applications, and the diverse perspectives surrounding it. Lesley explains ABA's focus on understanding and modifying behavior through reinforcement and environmental adjustments. They address the benefits and risks of ABA, emphasizing the importance of individualized approaches and naturalistic learning.

Show Highlights:

• Overview of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy and its relevance to autism.

• Clarification of ABA terminology and its practical applications.

• Discussion of the emotional and controversial nature of ABA therapy.

• Examination of the challenges parents face in accessing appropriate therapies for children with autism.

• Importance of understanding behavior in context, including antecedents and consequences.

• Exploration of the benefits and risks associated with ABA practices.

• Critique of the focus on compliance and neurotypical standards in ABA.

• The role of reinforcement in behavior modification and its implications for intrinsic motivation.

• Discussion of the need for individualized approaches to therapy that respect children's unique experiences.

• Advocacy for a compassionate and nuanced understanding of autism and behavior analysis.

Resources and Links:

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze

  KC Davis 00:00:05 Hello, sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to Struggle Care. I'm your host, KC Davis. And welcome to the best worst little podcast. I sometimes see people on TikTok and they have, like, clips of their podcasts, and they're sitting in, like, real studios with, like, makeup on. And, like, I'll talk to other people that have podcasts and they'll be like, oh, I'll have my assistant and my producer and my this and my that talk to you. And I'm like, I am still a lady in a closet. It's it's such an amateur hour here. And I hope that you guys still enjoy enough of the content that you'll stick around. For my amateur hour, I'm here with Lesley, my favorite psychologist. By the way, do you consider yourself a child psychologist? No.

  Lesley PsyD 00:00:44 I mean, that's a good question. Actually. Not necessarily. My training is clinical, so it's all over the lifespan. I, I tend to focus on issues related to kids, but actually because of that, I work a lot with adults, so I don't know what I am.

  Lesley PsyD 00:00:57 I'm just here existing.

  KC Davis 00:00:59 Well, I'm so glad you're here and you're one of my favorite guests. And as you know, it is Autism Awareness Month. And I just wanted to do a quick little chat about ABA therapy. I'm going to get into it with some other people, but I just it's such a big topic, and it is such an emotionally charged topic that I want us to just sort of like, lay out what it is in a very like, matter of fact, neutral way so that people have an understanding of what we mean when we say ABBA therapy. so that some of the opinions and perspectives that I'm going to present later will make more sense. And so that's kind of our goal here. Are you up for it?

  Lesley PsyD 00:01:48 That sounds great.

  KC Davis 00:01:49 Okay. So first, can you regale us with your expertise in this area? Sure.

  Lesley PsyD 00:01:55 So as a part of clinical psych, which is just our fancy way of saying, I learned about all the different parts of psychology before specializing, we talk about the different lenses that we can look at behaviour or existence through.

  Lesley PsyD 00:02:09 And so some people would look at things through this lens of like understanding your earliest relationships. And some people would look really at emotions. And in the process of my training I did a lot of work understanding behaviour. So I started in neuropsychology, understanding brain based behaviour. And then I worked actually in ABA. Now I worked a long time ago. It's a very different field back then, but I worked in ABA both one on one with kids, and then I went on to supervise other people who worked with kids. I did that for about 8 to 10 years somewhere in there.

  KC Davis 00:02:43 And then also, I think I feel like this is relevant, like somewhere along there. You also have worked closely with people doing like special education and IEPs. And even I think you said you were also like an expert witness. Tell me about that.

  Lesley PsyD 00:03:00 Yes. That makes me sound very fancy. you are so fancy. In the process of doing all of my neuropsychology training, what really ended up happening is most of the kids that I was working with were also interfacing in the educational system, so they were coming to us for testing, but they needed someone to then explain what we were finding with their schools and with their families.

  Lesley PsyD 00:03:21 And so over many years, I got a lot of practice working inside of schools, so on teams, working with special education teams. And then for a few years, I really hyper specialized in working with families who had had difficulty getting their children's needs met. And so we're now in litigation. They had lawsuits pending against schools. And so I would learn about a case, a situation that was happening with a child and all of their history. And then I would make some expert witness recommendations to the court. And I did that for about five years.

  KC Davis 00:03:54 Excellent. Okay. So what is ABA.

  Lesley PsyD 00:03:59 That sounds like such a deceptively simple question. So we'll start there. So ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis and it is exactly what it says. It is the applied version. So the real world version of a field of psychology called behavior analysis.

  KC Davis 00:04:15 So behavior analysis is a theory like a way of thinking about something.

  Lesley PsyD 00:04:24 Yes.

  KC Davis 00:04:24 Is that what you're saying. And applied behavioral analysis refers to the techniques of how that, like theory turns into an actual therapy that gets delivered to people.

  Lesley PsyD 00:04:40 That is correct. Yep.

  KC Davis 00:04:42 Can you give us a is there a metaphor that that people at home might be more familiar with using other kinds of like therapy language?

  Lesley PsyD 00:04:51 That is a great question. in terms of something being like a theory and then applied.

  KC Davis 00:05:01 Oh, we thought about one like, like what's what's the theory where we talk about, like how the brain processes trauma, like literal, like the physical places in the brain and like, having to, like, reconnect neurons and things like that.

  Lesley PsyD 00:05:16 So there is a theory actually, this is I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but I'm gonna talk about neuroplasticity. So neuroplasticity is is an idea is a thing that we understand is happening where if you have an insult or a trauma to the brain or an emotional trauma that we used to believe that that was use it or lose it. So if those neurons are or pathways are damaged, you're done. That's it. And over time we've learned that actually that those patterns can regrow.

  Lesley PsyD 00:05:42 So that would be an idea process that we see. But when we want to say, well, how do we what do we do about that in real life, then we move into things that we can do with children to encourage neuroplasticity or post-traumatic growth therapy that can encourage us to reconnect. so it's a way to take that idea and then apply it.

  KC Davis 00:06:01 So like, would eMDR be an example of like. It's based on the ideas in like neuroplasticity theory. But then there's this like specific technique in eMDR where you sit down and there's like a light and the person puts the light back and forth and like your your eye follows the light and you may or may not talk about traumas. And is that kind of like a decent enough metaphor?

  Lesley PsyD 00:06:30 I think so, and I think that that's a great way to think about it, too, because eMDR as a practice is something that is very specific and it comes from this larger concept, and that is what we talk about with behavior analysis, where behavior analysis actually is a huge field of research and thought and theory.

  Lesley PsyD 00:06:51 But ABA is a very narrow scope of procedures and activities that are done with a therapist.

  KC Davis 00:07:00 And I think that's important because when you hear someone talk about like, does ABA work? Or maybe they have criticisms of ABA, I oftentimes feel like people don't necessarily get specific about what it is they're criticizing. Like are they criticizing the practice of ABA or are they criticizing like the theory behind how and why people work according to like, behavior analysis theories?

  Lesley PsyD 00:07:30 Yeah, I would agree. And I also think that that's not people's faults either. One of the challenges with ABA is that it is we don't think of it in this way, but it is relatively young in the scope of therapies. It's not that old. And ABBA is still growing and changing, and so is applied very differently depending on the individual circumstances. The company you work for, the philosophical lens through which they view things. And so it can be really hard to talk about it. And I think that's why this conversation is so helpful. And it is important if people have criticisms or positive things they want to talk about with ABA to be incredibly specific, because it's a really big umbrella.

  KC Davis 00:08:14 And I think one of the most important reasons why this is important is because, I mean, the reality is there are a ABA is like what was quoted to me right when we got our diagnosis, it's like, this is the number one therapy for autistic kids, and it's often one of the only therapies that insurance will cover. And even when insurance covers things like speech therapy and occupational therapy, those are typically 1 to 2 to three hours a week, whereas private insurance companies will cover sometimes up to 40 hours a week of ABA. Yeah. And what this means is that if you are a parent and you have to work to live, but your child is disabled in such a way that private preschools will not take them and they are not old enough for public school. It may be that the only choice that you have in order to pay your bills is to find an ABBA center for your child to go to as a form of child care. And so I think that that's important to keep in mind for the audience and for everyone listening.

  KC Davis 00:09:32 And and people have really strong feelings about it. And there are people that have had their own personal experiences with ABA that are positive. And a lot of people that have had personal experiences with ABBA that are really negative and and might feel some trauma about it and might feel very activated and triggered by conversations about how to engage with ABBA. And so I just like to put that out there. That part of part of discussions about psychology and therapies is like what I call like coffee house talk, which is just like, yeah, it would be great if we did this and it would be great if we did that and this, that and the other. But then, like, it's very different when you look at it from a harm reduction standpoint where you look at like, okay, but if a person has no other options, how do they reduce harm or how do they get the best experience and things like that? So I just wanted to throw that out there. Okay. So if you had to teach me what like the theory of behavioral analysis is if you had a cliff note for me, what would you say?

  Lesley PsyD 00:10:28 So that's another great question.

  Lesley PsyD 00:10:29 So behavioral analysis always starts with with the basics of how we think behavior is initiated and maintained. Increase or decrease. And remember as we're talking about this, this is a lens through which you can view behavior. This is no longer even the way that I the lens that I use at work. But it is one of the lenses through which we can view things. So in basic.

  KC Davis 00:10:52 What do we mean by behavior by the way?

  Lesley PsyD 00:10:54 Yeah. So. And everything. Everything. If you're if you're alive, if your heart is beating, you're behaving. I think that's also one of the things that can make it challenging for new parents of newly diagnosed kids to understand what we're talking about in this area, because Ava has its own language, they have their own terms and their words that we use, but they don't mean the same thing. So in that case, behavior is really anything an organism does. And there are also, you know, internal behaviors, including thoughts and feelings and emotions.

  KC Davis 00:11:27 Weight, thoughts and feelings are considered behaviors.

  Lesley PsyD 00:11:31 Depending on the field of behaviorism that you were to ask. There are some folks that are pure behaviors that would say something has to be observable to be a behavior for an organism to engage in a behavior. But there are lots of fields within behavior analysis that include everything in all the internal experiences as well.

  KC Davis 00:11:53 That makes sense to me. I do remember one of the first things I learned was like, you know, so you have like a kid sitting at a desk and he's like jumping up out of the desk and he's standing up, I think. Calling that a behavior like the behavior of standing up is like, yeah, of course the behavior. But what I had to learn was that, like the kid not standing up is also a behavior. Like, that's the behavior of not standing up, the behavior of sitting. And so it's like the not doing something is just as much of a behavior as the doing something.

  Lesley PsyD 00:12:26 Yeah. And if, if we can skip ahead and then come back for a second, that's one of the keys to knowing whether if, if your best option is utilizing an ABA service, providers that understand that are one of the biggest green flags, that not all behavior is easily observable.

  Lesley PsyD 00:12:47 And we will have to kind of enter into the experience or try to connect with the experience of the child that you're working with. Viewing children in this very black and white manner of only behaviors that are observable matter is falling out of favor, even within behavioral circles. But if we're thinking about it in that way. To start, the idea behind behavior analysis is that some behavior changes frequency or intensity and goes up and some goes down. And the reason that that happens is the things that come before that behavior and the things that come after. And basically these series of events that happen a million times a day are slowly shaping our behavior and developing patterns. And sometimes the patterns that we get into are not helpful to us. And it would be helpful to change that pattern by changing what comes before or after. That's the cliff notes.

  KC Davis 00:13:43 Okay, so if a kid is standing up from their desk over and over and over and over, then that lens would say, okay, the behavior is standing up over and over and over and that whereas some other fields of psychology might focus more on, they stand up because when they were a child, standing up was the best way to get their mother's attention.

  KC Davis 00:14:03 Right? Or they're standing up because, you know, they went through something traumatic and the neural pathways are now, you know, standing up is this response whatever. But when you look at it through this lens, it's interesting because you could obviously use more than one lens at a time, like kind of like an overlapping microscope. But this lens would say the kid is standing up because something happened right before that action that led to the standing up. So the kid felt restless, and so they stood up, or the kid felt uncomfortable, so they stood up, or the kid wanted to had to go to the bathroom. So they stood up. Is that kind of.

  Lesley PsyD 00:14:44 Part of it? Yeah, that could be one of the more theoretical lenses to view it through in behaviourism. And ABA practitioner would do even more. So they would take data. So ABA is incredibly data centric and focused, which we could talk about has positives and negatives to it. So the the ABA practitioner might observe that child in that class for seven days, and they might make little tick marks whenever that child was standing up and they would say, what is the pattern? I'm seeing what's coming right before standing up and what happens as a direct result.

  Lesley PsyD 00:15:15 And so maybe what we're going to see is that the child is only standing up out of their seat in math and is only standing up in their seat in math two minutes before the bell goes off. And when they stand up, the teacher is doing something or saying something, and then the next day they stand up even sooner. So now we're seeing a pattern of there's something called an antecedent that's coming right before. And in that case, it would be something about being in math or being right close to the end of the bow, and then something's happening afterwards to make that behavior more, frequent. And we would say that that's reinforcing that behavior because it's making it happen more often. So if we don't want to see that, then we would have to break that chain somehow.

  KC Davis 00:16:02 Okay. All right. So that makes sense. It's sort of like I've always heard people talk about. It's like this. It's a theory about how people learn. which is confusing to a layperson's ears because we think of learning as like learning facts.

  KC Davis 00:16:19 Yeah. but when we talk about how people learn in an applied behavioral analysis perspective, we're talking about how people learn to choose behaviors, right?

  Lesley PsyD 00:16:30 We're yes. And we're we're talking about learning that is happening outside of the awareness of the person. We're talking about learning and context, more modern applications. So that was really simplistic way to look at it. More modern applications in behavioral science take into account a bunch of things, including like what is the evolutionary benefit of this behavior and what language has become a cue for that behavior. So one of the ways to think about how ABA views behavior is almost like math equations. They very much will view things as discoverable patterns that we can figure out and change. And that's a very unique, different way compared to other parts of psychology, which would maybe talk about we need to connect so that kids can get their needs met. we're not necessarily trying to hack the puzzle. ABBA is very much about figuring out that puzzle and breaking that chain.

  KC Davis 00:17:27 So like, if I'm trying to potty train my child and I'm noticing that, like, they're not getting it, they're not getting it, and they're not getting it.

  KC Davis 00:17:37 And in some ways, do we as parents or teachers, kind of like intuitively sometimes do this where we're going, okay, well, you know, maybe it's because they're still wearing the diaper, maybe wearing the diaper, like, prevents them from like learning to go to the potty. And so like, let's change this antecedent of like, wearing the diaper. And then we look at the back end and we go, well, what if we changed the reinforcement. And we had a sticker chart where they got a sticker every time they went to the potty. And maybe if we changed this antecedent and this reinforcement like that would change this middle behavior of like going potty in a diaper versus going potty on the potty.

  Lesley PsyD 00:18:14 Yeah. And that's another way of talking about that. Behaviorism is not necessarily doing something different. It's about viewing what's already happening in a different way. So behaviorists or ABA practitioners would view What you're doing through their own lens. So they would break down that sequence and say, great job, mom here.

  Lesley PsyD 00:18:37 But what we're noticing, I'll give you a really good example of how this happens. My oldest daughter, who would be horrified if I if she knew I was telling you this story, or maybe not when she was potty training, was super into princess things and she was too small to get up on the potty. So I bought her a princess potty and the first time she went in there, she was so excited. And then she was going to go in there when she used the potty. I didn't know that the potty made a loud fanfare noise yay! When you actually went potty! So she went willingly on to the potty, went to the bathroom, and when that loud noise happened, she was horrified, jumped off off the potty and didn't go back on it for another three months. So there's lots of ways to look at that. But an ABA practitioner might say she engaged in a target behavior, a behavior we want to see sit on the potty. But what happened afterwards was a punishing event.

  Lesley PsyD 00:19:33 So something happened and it made that behavior go down in frequency. So it's just their way of viewing it. So they would say, if we want her to go back to the body, we might have to provide reinforcement for smaller steps. Like she came in the room. Great job. Little sticker or praise. And then we might have to shape that behavior back up and also take the batteries out of the body.

  KC Davis 00:19:55 Okay, so I have two questions. And I don't want to forget either one of them because I want to ask you what are some of the like, positives to that kind of thinking about behavior and then like what are some drawbacks or what are some things we could miss about that kind of thinking. And then but the first thing I want to ask is that so if thinking that way about getting my kid to go to the potty is thinking through a lens of behavior analysis, does that mean that the act of taking off the diaper and using a sticker chart is me doing ABBA with my child?

  Lesley PsyD 00:20:33 That depends on who you ask.

  Lesley PsyD 00:20:35 So one of the challenges about communicating about ABBA is that an ABBA practitioner would likely say everything is ABBA. That's a very common thing we hear from that field. In my opinion, no, because ABBA itself is is an actual skill that you have to get training on. And it's a it's not just doing a thing, it's about taking data. It's about understanding the reason you're choosing a procedure and measuring change. So it's not really doing ABBA, but someone might look at that and say, well, you're using the principles of behavior analysis. And in that case we you know, I guess we all are all the time.

  KC Davis 00:21:16 And it's funny that we picked eMDR as our metaphor earlier because this fits right in. I actually read the other day that when you experience a traumatic event or a high stress event, one of the best things that you can do is as quickly as possible, go and play Tetris. Because there's something about the way that the game of Tetris causes your eyes to move. that stimulates that, like neuroplasticity in the two parts of your brain sort of talking to each other.

  KC Davis 00:21:49 And it's similar to the same types of things we're trying to accomplish with eMDR. Right? Interesting. So, to me, that kind of lays over perfectly where it's like, okay, so is going to do Tetris, doing something through the thinking lens of neuroplasticity? Yes. Would we ever say that playing Tetris is doing eMDR? No, no. You have to go through so much certification to do eMDR because it's a very technical thing. And it's not just like this intuitive, I understand this, so I'm going to go do this like it's very technical. you have to go through certain phases. You have to have certain markers and feedback and all those sort of things. And so I kind of feel like that's a good like just because you're making informed decisions based on a way of thinking about something doesn't mean you're engaging in like the therapy of that thing. Yeah. So I feel comfortable saying like when people say everything is ABA that I, I, I'm going gonna, I'm gonna rule on that and say, no, it's not okay.

  KC Davis 00:22:58 So that's helpful. So that's the way of thinking about things. So what are the positives or what can be helpful about thinking behavior in this way? If we have and we can use some real life examples if we if we have a child, an autistic child that is running into the road or we have an autistic child, that is, you know, not making eye contact or an autistic child who is maybe hitting themselves, or maybe they, you know, won't sit down in a classroom environment. Those are just going to throw out some behaviors there. I have no commentary on those behaviors except that they are behaviors. What are some helpful things that could come from thinking that way? And what are some risks that could come? Yeah.

  Lesley PsyD 00:23:43 And I think this perhaps may be one of the most important questions we talk about, because we often don't slow down and had to have this conversation in public forums. In my opinion, the most positive thing about thinking in this way, especially about children's behaviors, but also about adults, is that ideally it takes blame and shame out.

  Lesley PsyD 00:24:06 So it removes the idea that what's wrong with you? Why would you do this? It takes that away and it says every behavior makes sense. Everything is adaptive. The reason things happen is because they've been set into motion to happen. And so if we want them to be different, we don't lambaste the individual. We change the environment to assist them to get to where they need to go.

  KC Davis 00:24:32 So this is you know, it's not that they're a problem child, right? It's not that they're disrespectful or rebellious. It's not that, you know, and I also can see where people get tripped up on like the word punishment because like it that has a very technical therapeutic term, but it also has like a layman's term. And I want to talk about the layman's term for a minute. There's this idea that if I punish someone, which is just I bring them pain and discomfort. They will not want to do that thing again because that pain and discomfort is so awful. And I think, like the sloppy, layperson's way of applying that is like, if I shame this child, if I yell at them, if I lecture them, if I embarrass them in front of the class, like that will make that will like dissuade them from doing that behavior again.

  KC Davis 00:25:24 Right. And I think what I hear you saying is that one of the benefits to thinking about behavior analysis is to go, okay, but if you're not looking at the antecedent, if you're not looking at what's coming before this behavior, if you're not looking at ways that there are other like reinforcing factors happening in this behavior, then like you're not going to actually help that kid change their behavior or learn something different, right? Would you say that's accurate?

  Lesley PsyD 00:25:57 Yes. Like, theoretically speaking, it should release us from the need to find blame inside of the child, because a core foundation of behavioral analysis and ABA is that all behavior makes sense. So it should help us remove that. And we'll get to the we'll get to the downsides of why that doesn't always happen.

  KC Davis 00:26:20 Is it it does it. It almost seems like in theory that behavior is just this puzzle. Right. And if you figure out how to manipulate the what comes before, whether that's the environment or the emotion or the stressors or what somebody else is doing, and if you figure out exactly what to do afterwards to like, reinforce or not reinforce, you know, whatever, then you could change anything, right? Yes.

  KC Davis 00:26:53 And certainly when we're talking about my kid running out into the road and really dangerous situations, like as a parent, like I want that the idea that there is a formula that if we just figured out the formula, we can stop that behavior from happening is very much something that, as a parent, I would want.

  Lesley PsyD 00:27:10 Yes. And and for certain things, it's incredibly powerful. Like when I work with teachers, one of the most simple things that we talk about is I want this kid to speak up more in class. Great. What I want you to do is take some data this week on every time they make an attempt. And what happens right after. And many, many, many times teachers will come back and say they get sneered at. They'll try or they'll and they'll stutter or they'll say the wrong thing. And so we can talk about in that very simplistic scenario. What else would you expect that child to do? They behave a certain way. Something happens that causes an internal experience.

  Lesley PsyD 00:27:49 They pull away and then they're safe. Of course, they're not going to speak up. So we can't keep expecting them to do something that's being punished in their environment. We have to create. So in that way, it's it's a very lovely formula and it can be very helpful as long as the behaviors are straightforward.

  KC Davis 00:28:08 Okay, so that being said, let's move into what are the risks in thinking about everything in this way.

  Lesley PsyD 00:28:17 So I think the biggest liability, with thinking from a very purely ABA lens is the oversimplification of behavior. And at this point, you know, I'm not shy when I talk about this field, that there was a reason I left this field. There's a reason that I no longer work in this field. That does not mean that there are not incredible ABA practitioners. I have several friends who, if I needed to, if I would, they would work with my kid in a second. But I have chosen to move away. And one of the one of the risks that we run is to oversimplify behavior down into just a simple ABC format and antecedent, a behavior and a consequence.

  Lesley PsyD 00:28:54 When we do that, we can miss very important things like internal experiences, like histories of trauma, and we can run into a scenario where a slippery slope happens. And what we're reinforcing is actually compliance training. That is one of the risks is that we ABA can sometimes over develop compliant children rather than regulated children if applied in that way.

  KC Davis 00:29:22 Yeah. It also occurs to me like, you know, there's a reason I chose those, like for behavior examples of like running into the street, like hitting yourself, not sitting down in school and eye contact. Right. Because it seems like one of the risks is like how you're even identifying the behaviors to target. Because one of the bigger criticisms about ABA is that for a very long time and and in much of ABA today, there was a lot of focus on things like eye contact and not stimming. Right? Like not doing hand flapping, things like that. And so people were applying this and everybody keep in mind we have not even gotten into the therapies.

  KC Davis 00:30:07 So we don't know what ABA looks like yet. We just know about the thinking that we're applying to it. Right. So you go into, okay, this kid's not looking at people in the eyes. We want this kid to look at people in the eyes because that's what people do. And we want them to listen, right? Because how could you listen if you're not looking people in the eyes, and we want you to look more normal so that, you know, you can, you know, function in society. And so. Okay, well, why aren't they looking in the eyes and then like, what can we do to either reinforce someone looking in the eyes or like clinical term here punish or, you know, try to influence someone to not look in your eyes. Right. So it's it's not that you couldn't get the correct formula to force that kid to change that behavior, it's that the whole thinking process of why that behavior was chosen to be targeted. So can you tell us, like what? What is some of the fallout that has happened historically with ABA when it comes to what behaviors they choose to try and modify or change?

  Lesley PsyD 00:31:09 So there's a strong history in, in ABA itself of encouraging behavior to move towards what we would call the neurotypical.

  Lesley PsyD 00:31:19 So if it's typical for a 12 month old to be saying one word and to be able to hold eye contact for 20s and to be able to exchange a toy back and forth, then historically, Ava would take the child that is not doing that and view that as the goal. And we're going to move the behavior towards that, which for many children is not only inappropriate, it can actually set them back emotionally. Not all children can develop in that way. the suppression of stims is a is a major one that we've seen for many, many decades now that when ABA is applied to suppression of traits that are associated with autism, the long term emotional effects aren't great. We get more anxious kids, or we get overly compliant adults who then are not able to advocate for themselves, who are not able to say no. That would be another risk, I think, of using a pure ABA intervention. Is there is a risk there that what we are teaching children is that when the adults manipulate your environment, you follow the directions, period.

  Lesley PsyD 00:32:28 And that is not helpful for a lot of our kids who struggle with self-advocacy and communication.

  KC Davis 00:32:33 Yeah, because if you're, you know, if you're stimming because you feel anxious or because you're under stimulated or because you're overstimulated or because it's a self-soothing behavior or something like that, if you you absolutely could manipulate environments and reinforcements and punishments to get a kid to stop those behaviors. But if those behaviors were serving an important purpose and you don't like, give them any other way to serve that purpose, then it seems like you're making the internal experience of the child's distress even worse. And they're almost like learning, okay, stuff the discomfort and give the behavior.

  Lesley PsyD 00:33:21 Yeah. And it can in certain circumstances, especially for children who are not verbally able, who don't have access to spoken language, it can create new behaviors that are much more serious, like self-injurious behavior, hitting self, biting self. And so we have to be so careful with a therapy or even just a thinking process that encourages us to manipulate the environment.

  Lesley PsyD 00:33:46 We can do that. We do that to ourselves all the time. But when we're doing that as our primary way of changing things, we have almost taken the agency of that person out. So that is one of the risks that we have to be vigilant for when your child is in, in a therapy.

  KC Davis 00:34:04 I remember learning from autistic adults about like their individual experiences with eye contact and and hearing stories like, you know, when I look at someone in the face, there are so many details in the face that I'm overwhelmed and I can't hear what they're saying. I remember hearing stories about them, about people saying like, it is physically painful for me to look at somebody in the eyes. And, you know, if you're a young child that can't verbalize that because even if you're a speaking child, like there's a level of introspection and language that that requires that you usually don't get till you're an adult to, like, put those things into words. Right. That is, is a little backwards, right?

  Lesley PsyD 00:34:45 Yeah.

  KC Davis 00:34:45 And we have this like emotional fallout. So well let's let's kind of summarize some of the, the benefits is taking the blame off of the child, trying to, you know, change environments that are best adapted to the child for them to make choices and learn things. And some of the risk factors or liabilities is oversimplified. First of all, the decision process on what behaviors are chosen. So choosing a behavior because it needs to look more normal, or choosing a behavior because like it's going to decrease distress for this kid or it's going to increase their quality of life. It's almost like the difference between choosing what will increase this child's experience versus like what will bring convenience to adults. What will make the what will make them easier to manage, will be less taxing or easier to manage in a in a classroom setting or whatever. So there's like the how we choose the behaviors. And then it also seems like there's a lot of risk in how you are sort of taking your data. Like, I remember reading a book about ABA and it was trying to say like, it's simple, you know, like when Susie goes outside and it rains, you know, she gets cold.

  KC Davis 00:35:57 And then, you know, Susie learns that she needs to take a raincoat the next time she goes out. And if we look at the antecedents of of Susie being cold, right. And that like, went through. And I remember reading that and being like, it's not that that's necessarily a wrong way to think about it, but it's that you're missing a bunch of these antecedents here, like observable. You're going, well, if we wanted to teach. So it's like, okay, Susie goes out into the outside and it rains and she gets cold. And so she makes a choice to bring a raincoat next time. And so if we look at that and then we go, okay, so if we have a kid that we want to teach to choose the behavior of bringing a raincoat with us, all we have to do.

  Lesley PsyD 00:36:49 Is.

  KC Davis 00:36:49 Create a scenario that mimics the way a person might naturally learn this. So when Susie goes into this room without her, raincoat will turn the air conditioning down to 50 degrees where it's so cold, Susie will receive this reinforcement, reinforcing or dis enforcing information, and she will go and choose a, you know, raincoat.

  KC Davis 00:37:19 And I remember reading that and thinking, but there there are so many variables that we just skipped over. Chief among them, the difference between rain falling from the sky and looking at a caregiver. Inflict discomfort upon you on purpose, like children can understand the difference And that is a completely different antecedent than rain.

  Lesley PsyD 00:37:47 Yeah. And there's there's even more when when we get into talking about the actual therapy, there's even more than antecedents. There's setting events and there's language that functions as an antecedent, and there's so many complex behavioral phenomena that are happening. And the more contrived the scenario, the less applicable that will be to the outside world. And so one of the other risks, especially if your child is is attending ABBA center based activities, is what they're learning generalizable at all. So are they going to bring those skills out? So are we teaching them to be quiet, compliant participants in their class, or are we teaching them to self-regulate so they can engage in groups? That's very different. And so that when we talk more specifically, we'll talk about that.

  Lesley PsyD 00:38:34 But that's one of the risk factors is there's a lot, unfortunately, that caregivers need to be vigilant for and aware of to know what quality of ABA their child is receiving.

  KC Davis 00:38:43 So let's talk about the therapies for a minute, because the reason I bring up the raincoat example is because one of the things that I saw a lot in ABA are things like, okay, what is a possession this child really values? And let's bring it into the session and then let's ask them to do something and let's withhold that item until they do it. So whether it's we're learning colors today or we're learning to make eye contact today, or even something that might be a more quote unquote noble pursuit, we're learning how to not self injure today, or we're learning how to stay and hold a hand before we run across the street today. And so like, here's this thing you really want, and I will withhold it from you until you do the thing, and then you get the reward. Right. And that's that's why I think about, like, how different this contrived scenario where an adult withholding from you is a variable in and of itself that's not there with something like I learned that in order to watch TV, I must turn the TV on.

  KC Davis 00:39:41 Right. Those are different variables. Then I learned that in order to watch TV, I must do this task that this adult has asked me to do. So talk to me about what the actual therapies looked like. Like, I know some of the terms, but I don't know what they mean. So like, I know the term discrete trial teaching. What is that? Yes.

  Lesley PsyD 00:39:59 So ABA can take many formats. It can be in a group setting. It can be one on one with a therapist. It can be in a center. It can be with mom and dad, with the therapist at home and the I don't want to say older, but it is older. DTT discrete trial training is a way. It's actually a method of teaching. It's not specific to ABA and it's not specific to autistic individuals. It is a rapid presentation of these tasks to learn something new. And there's a lot of nuance and detail, but the way that we present things reinforce. And sometimes I don't think punishment is used as much, or response cost is another thing that can happen anymore.

  Lesley PsyD 00:40:40 But in the past, and certainly when I started, there was a lot of rapid shaping of this learning behavior. And that occurs at a table. So it might look something like, look at me and there might be a visual prompt. And if they look great job. And then there would be some kind of reinforcement. So some sometimes it's something to eat, like an M&M, which again I think we've moved away from somewhat, but it's still in use. Or it could be a sticker or they could be earning stars for a break. And so it is a very DTT is incredibly contrived, but it's purposefully done so and that I think it's best utilized for skill acquisition. So for learning actual little skills, sometimes it's over applied.

  KC Davis 00:41:20 So when I when I got diagnosed with dyslexia, one of the things that happened, like the summer after I got diagnosed was my parents took me to this center where for like a few hours a day, I would sit with a, I guess, a tutor, and I would do like workbooks, like phonics workbooks and writing workbooks.

  KC Davis 00:41:37 And every time I finished one, I got a gold star. And then when I had a certain number of gold stars, like, I got to go to the prize box. Is that discrete trial teaching?

  Lesley PsyD 00:41:48 So that would that is a phenomenon that is used in discrete trial training. But that's just reinforcement. So that is reinforcement which means you something happens and then something occurs after. And that makes the behavior more likely to occur. And once you've learned this symbology of like star five stars equals this thing I want, then you can hold that in your brain and the little sticker becomes reinforcing. But you have to be trained to get to that point.

  KC Davis 00:42:16 So let me pause for just a second, because I don't want us to forget this question. I do want to talk about reinforcers and the benefits and risks of like you, because my understanding and you can correct me as like ABA is very heavy on reinforcers and I want to talk about benefits and liabilities of this idea of do it, get a star, do it, get a star like these kind of disconnected value ads, versus something that's a little more innate, like, you know, learn how to use a straw, get to drink something really delicious because, like, that's literally how you access the delicious drink or something.

  KC Davis 00:42:50 Okay. So so what's what is it about discrete trial teaching that makes it unique? Then?

  Lesley PsyD 00:42:56 It's unique because it is at a table. So it's table based and it's based on a skill. It's not very relational. It's not really focused on a lot of external environmentally appropriate skills. And if you ask somebody else, you may get a different answer than me. I'm kind of meta processing what I'm saying and hearing them say, yes, it is, but it's unique because it's a rapid style of teaching. It's at a table. And DTT is typically only used for new skill acquisition. So usually younger kids or adults with more significant disabilities and they need to acquire what are colors. Sometimes DTT is used to train safety signs so that there's this rapid recognition of what that means. The downside, I think, of DTT is that it's very difficult to generalize skills learned at a table to anything. So many kids and adults participating in DTT are going to effectively learn what they're being taught, they're going to learn it, but they're going to learn it at the table with that individual with this reinforcement system.

  KC Davis 00:43:58 Is it like heavy on the flashcards? Because I feel like that's what I see where you'll have like a flashcard with a stop sign. And we're learning that the stop sign means to stop. But what we're doing is just like showing that card and having the kids say stop, and then they get like a cheerio, and then we show a different one and that one's go. And then they get a cheerio or like colors, like, what color is this? Tell me what color this is. Tell me what color this is.

  Lesley PsyD 00:44:19 Yeah. And they can use the method of DTT. Can be used to then build skills. So at first we might start with put with same which is like match the color. And then we could use you know find the blue or we could have other distracting things there. So it can it's, it's an effective way to learn skills, to learn brief skills. You might see a lot of PT in speech. So it's not only in ABA therapy. You may see it in speech therapy and you may see it with speech sounds.

  Lesley PsyD 00:44:47 So you may have a speech therapist saying, make your mouth look like mine. Oh, and then if they do it, great job and try again. It's a very rapid way of skill acquisition. It's not the only thing you would see in ABA. So ABA you would also see usually hopefully naturalistic skills too. So let's say if there is one of the challenges is the child is really afraid to join circle time. They are not doing it. In fact, they're running away. There might be something in the environment. And let's just use the example of again, using like stickers is assuming the sticker is reinforcing to the child where if they get close, they get a sticker, and then they'll get to have a break and come back. And then if they go and sit with their friends and they might shape their behavior in that way in an ABA session.

  KC Davis 00:45:36 Okay. And so what is the benefit of like what does that help with. You said just like rapid like it's just more helpful because someone is like going over the same thing over and over and over with you.

  KC Davis 00:45:49 Yes.

  Lesley PsyD 00:45:51 This is a tough one for me to answer because the true, honest answer for me, the psychologist person, is, I think it's very useful for a very limited amount of things. DDT is most useful when we are talking about a very small skill that needs to be acquired before we can build to other things, but beyond that, it's so not naturalistic that it is not something. If I was referring a client, I would say use DTT minimally in your ABA sessions.

  KC Davis 00:46:20 And then so that's like that's like the issue with the practice when it's done perfectly. Yeah. What are the issues that you see with the practice. Because it's rarely done perfectly.

  Lesley PsyD 00:46:32 So I think the easiest way for me to explain this is again, the behavior analysis is this field of study. It's a scientific field and it has progressed way past basic ABA. There's things called relational frame theory, functional contextual ism. There's things ahead of where we were meaning.

  KC Davis 00:46:51 That there's a better way of understanding behavior and how to change behavior.

  Lesley PsyD 00:46:55 Oh yes.

  KC Davis 00:46:56 Oh yeah. Like the the literal psychological science has advanced past everything we were talking about right now.

  Lesley PsyD 00:47:03 Absolutely. But what happened is insurance companies latched on to ABA because it is an evidence based practice. It comes with data. So that's helpful for insurance companies. And they made it reimbursable. And it was really the first therapy that was kind of taken. It wasn't developed for autistic people. It was just a theory of science, but it was applied to autistic children. And because that happened, it has become a way to make a lot of money. And unfortunately, what we see happening, not in all ABA but in some, is that the bcba you might hear that term, those are the supervisors. Those folks have a master's degree or a doctorate. They are typically very educated. They've been doing this a long time. Are not the ones actually delivering the therapy. It is maybe bachelor's level folks, maybe master's level folks, but rarely who have received training. That is highly inconsistent depending on where you live.

  Lesley PsyD 00:48:02 And so when you are taught the very basics of how to manipulate a child's environment, but you don't have all of the education and all of the other mental health education, you could end up just basically manipulating a child's environment for your own benefit.

  KC Davis 00:48:19 Yeah. So we call them Bill Mills, where it's like the quality is it's not really about the quality. It's about like how many services can we get with people that we can pay? Not a lot so that we can reimburse a ton. And you know, you've also mentioned to me, you know, when I've asked questions about like, kids sitting at tables for hours on end and that it's just not developmentally appropriate. And I'll never forget listening to an autistic man on TikTok one time. And I wish I could remember who it was, but he was non-speaking as a child, but then was able to communicate through speaking as an adult. And one of the things he said was I hated ABBA because I was nine, ten, 11, 12, and they kept forcing me to do these elementary tasks pick the colors, pick the colors, pick the colors.

  KC Davis 00:49:10 And I was bored out of my mind. And he said, it wasn't that I didn't know the colors, it was that I couldn't communicate to my limbs on where to put my hand at the right time. And there were other variables. I'm overstimulated. There's something else happening. There's something else that I'm experiencing. And I know what you're asking, and I know what the answer is. And I'm bored out of my fucking mind that you're asking me questions that you would ask a baby, but I can't make my body cooperate with what you're asking me to do. And I can't demonstrate my competence with this information. And that's like, seared into my memory.

  Lesley PsyD 00:49:57 And unfortunately, a lot of times. And we can talk about well applied ABA as well. But poorly applied ABA often happens because the folks that are delivering the services again don't have the experience and background to understand all that nuance. And so they're also set up to fail. These aren't, you know, evil people. They're just don't have what you would need to truly understand.

  Lesley PsyD 00:50:20 And so they're doing what they're supposed to do in their mind, and it's not working or it is working, but the child's not getting better. And that's when we see these very overly restrictive, overly simplified. So that would be one of the red flags to watch out for if you have your child in ABA, is that the team has a very simplistic, clear explanation for all of your child's behavior that seems like it should be a green flag. No child's behavior is that simple, and no one, no one knows all the things. That's just not how humans work.

  KC Davis 00:50:51 So then talk to me about like, there's a couple other things that I've heard about ABA. Like they talk about like hand over hand and full body prompting. What are those things?

  Lesley PsyD 00:51:00 So there are some things that we used to use quite a bit in this field that have not only fallen out of fashion, but, you know, legitimately, I really probably should not be utilizing one of those is edible reinforcement unless absolutely necessary, which is like giving kids food when they do something that we want them to do.

  Lesley PsyD 00:51:18 Another one is hand over hand modeling or support, which is like I want them to touch the blue square, so I'm going to pick up their hand. Apologies for the motorcycle. I'm going to pick up their hand and physically touch the blue and then say, good job and reinforce that behavior. There's some gray area in there because there are kids with physical disabilities who perhaps need in an occupational therapy session, they they might need the hand over hand. So we're not talking about kids that need that. We're talking about kids who don't want to do it. Forcing a child's body to do anything and then giving a contrived reinforcement sticker or high five really has the potential to have very negative outcomes. They're losing the autonomy of their body and then being praised for giving that over.

  KC Davis 00:52:07 Okay. What other things would we see like in an ABA therapy. Like that's always the hardest part for me is that there's a lot of discussion about it. But I always like, okay, what does that mean? What does it look like.

  KC Davis 00:52:20 And then I kind of understand, like I understand what hand of a hand is. Now I understand about the reinforcements and I understand about the discrete trial teachings. And and let's talk about reinforcements for a minute, which is like what is the risk?

  Lesley PsyD 00:52:36 There's a couple of big risks, and one of them is we have to be really clear that reinforcement is an idea. It's not a thing. So anything could be a reinforcer of of a rock, could be a reinforcer. If they did something I presented a rock and then they did that thing more often or more intensely. Then that rock is a reinforcer. The more contrived object that we tie to that behavior as reinforcement, the more difficulty that child is going to have. Doing it for any other reason. So if our goal is we're going to greet people and I'm just using this as a random example. So we're going to teach the skill of greeting people. But the only thing we ever reinforce that with is a sticker chart to earn a break.

  Lesley PsyD 00:53:21 Then we may end up creating a very frantic child who says hi, hello, hi. Because we're just worried about getting to the break we want. Ideally, we want reinforcement to occur in the most naturalistic way possible. We we don't want to have to do an extra procedure to generalize this out into the real world and that, unfortunately, Sticker charts are notorious for that. Also, kids get bored of sticker charts, disabled or not, and so they often will satiate. And then when a child is bored and acting out, that's a brand new behavior we have to fix now.

  KC Davis 00:53:53 So what is the difference between, like what happens in an ABA center or an ABA therapy session? And just like general classroom management in a first grade class, because sometimes it seems similar. And so it's hard when people are talking about like the, the risks and benefits and, and it seems like, well, okay, well, gosh, my neurotypical kid has a sticker chart in her kindergarten class. You know what? You know, I think a lot of times people will almost like deflect criticisms by being like, well, they do it in schools too.

  KC Davis 00:54:26 And it's every time you give your kid a consequence, you're doing ABA, you know,

  Lesley PsyD 00:54:31 So the biggest difference is that ABA is a purposeful thing that tracks data and has targets that everything that's occurring, ideally, everything that's occurring in an ABA center is all therapeutic. So it's not, in a classroom classroom is happening. And then we also have things like a sticker chart or fist bumps or a color chart. But those are like things that happen in the classroom. We're not necessarily the teacher is not taking data on whether your child's responding to that. In fact, that's why I hate sticker charts and, and clip charts and color charts and classrooms. And I wish we could get rid of all of them in an Ava center. That's all planned. So the interventions they're going to use are, are thought through in advance, ideally, and matched with your child rather than just part of their environment.

  KC Davis 00:55:18 So is part of it just like the intensity level of some of these, like tech behavioral modification techniques?

  Lesley PsyD 00:55:28 Yes.

  Lesley PsyD 00:55:28 So it would be ABA is where everything that happens in the center is done for a reason specified by the team. Data is taken and the plan is adjusted. Everything is purposeful in a classroom. Those things may co-occur, but they're not. It's not for that purpose necessarily. The other thing.

  KC Davis 00:55:48 Why is that? Why is that important? Because I can't put my finger on it. But something about that seems really significant, like it seems significant to be in an environment as a developing child Where I'm learning, I'm learning how to learn in other ways, or like I'm learning how to be. I'm learning how to exist. I'm learning how to relate in a way where I don't. Not every moment is this targeted emphasis of me trying to figure out what is expected next, or I don't know, am I on to something here?

  Lesley PsyD 00:56:42 Yes. And and as always, I'll leave a little caveat in that. Every child is different. So these are generalizations. There are absolutely kids who benefit from being in an Eva Ava center and doing that very contrived work.

  Lesley PsyD 00:56:56 There are kids who benefit. I don't want to dismiss or minimize the families that need that service. But in general, yeah, there's more. And that, again, that's one of the criticisms of ABA as it's applied today, is that it's this idea that doing everything in this way is better, but there are naturalistic learning opportunities for children. And also children's success is not always where learning happens, so sometimes doing things in the wrong way naturalistically results in learning too. And also, I think this expectation that all the kids are moving towards gaining competence in all these areas is not super realistic for anybody.

  KC Davis 00:57:44 Yeah. Here's the last thing I want to ask, because when you said that, what I thought about is how like in a lot of like preschools, you know, you'll have like they're teaching kids how to color in the lines, but that's not developmentally appropriate. And there's a lot of really important learning on a neurological level, on a spatial visual level, on a like all these other even cognitive level that happens when a child colors without having to figure out how to put it in the lines.

  KC Davis 00:58:15 Right? Yeah. which we just some of the stuff we just mess up about childhood in general, but also like, where does the influence of just ableism come in? Because sometimes I feel like things are expected of autistic children that aren't even expected of non-autistic children. Like my. My non-autistic child could not sit at a desk for that long. She could not drill colors like that. She could not color in the lines all the time.

  Lesley PsyD 00:58:49 And I think that's one of the challenges also that I have with the language that ABA tends to use and not just them. We see this in other areas too sometimes in education is that things like, oh, Billy, he just he just shouts out all the time. He's so excited becomes for a child who is autistic with the same behavior, one of Billy's target behaviors is waiting on his turn to be called, where we tend to medical eyes and symptom wise things that are part of being a human being. and with Billy the fifth grader, the goal is not to eliminate all aberrant behavior.

  Lesley PsyD 00:59:26 We don't talk about non-disabled kids that way, but sometimes in therapeutic settings, we do. As soon as someone is disabled, then we immediately talk about, well, how are we going to rid them of all their problem behaviors and fill in their skill gaps? And I think, I think it raises a lot of the humanity of our kids, and then it causes them to reach adulthood and have to try to rediscover that, they don't, you know, one of the criticisms, that a lot of autistic adults who become verbally able after being nonverbal for so long is that they speak robotically. And I think some of that is, is diagnostic. We can see that in some, people with autism. But a lot of folks gain that from therapy because they're taught to speak in this very rote, singsong way, and then they have to spend years undoing that. Yeah.

  KC Davis 01:00:17 I will never forget to watch the young lady that I saw. She was like 18 or 19 making a video, and she was talking about how, like, she was going to therapy and she was trying to, like, I forgot what it was.

  KC Davis 01:00:30 There was something she wanted to do that was like a self-care act. She wanted to either journal or she wanted to, like, utilize a planner. And she made this video where she was like, I had an epiphany. You know, I, I realized I can't make myself do anything when there's not a sticker, when there's nobody there to give this, like extra reinforcement. I like my motivation. Systems are broken. I never learned how to have, like, innate motivation in a way that mattered to me because I was just conditioned. And she's like crying on the video of like, I really now struggle as an adult because not enough people paid attention to other ways of learning that might have set me up better for long term success versus just sort of like short term behavioral modification.

  Lesley PsyD 01:01:23 Yeah. And so people forget sometimes that these things that seem like they're naturally occurring to us, we most of us learned you have to be exposed to open ended learning opportunities that don't have a goal to develop internal motivation.

  Lesley PsyD 01:01:37 That's that's part we need that it doesn't just happen overnight. And so it's one thing to say well this child's learning mechanisms are not functioning. So we're going to teach them this very specialized way so they can get the skill. But you can't then ignore opportunities for naturalistic exploration. And you know playing with playing making messes. Frankly, a lot of kids who get diagnosed with autism in their therapies, I've seen over the years, there's a huge emphasis on, like, always cleaning up, always being clean. Don't make a mess. And it's not what kids are meant to be anyway. and I so I think on a positive note, if you're looking for high quality services, if you're if you're saying to yourself, well, then what the heck, what would good, you know, good therapy look like, it's always going to be high and warmth and high and naturalism, it's going to be in kids natural environments using the toys that they already own or things in their environment. It's going to include their caregivers.

  Lesley PsyD 01:02:34 It's going to include regular sounding voices, not something like this we don't like unless we're talking to very young children, which that's a normal speech tone. Yeah. and ABA can occur in those settings. It doesn't have to become to table point to same. It can be this other version.

  KC Davis 01:02:52 Well, Leslie, this was very enlightening and very helpful. Do you know of any like, next steps for someone that's listening, that's a parent or maybe even an adult that went through ABA, or someone who is just trying to make sense of all of this, like where they could learn more or where they can read about it, something that is maybe a layperson's level.

  Lesley PsyD 01:03:12 Yeah, I think a lot of that those connections are still at the local level and they are still on the good old Facebook. There are a lot of good Facebook groups looking for groups of former folks that have gone through ABA, or just looking for adults on the spectrum. Some folks can connect to larger organizations, but I will tell you that big organizations like Autism Speaks and some of the other ones are still not autistic led.

  Lesley PsyD 01:03:36 And so a lot of times people will try to connect to those and not really vibe and not find people that have gone through what they've gone through. So typically starting I think very locally and usually on Facebook, maybe Instagram, I'm getting old, maybe that's old info.

  KC Davis 01:03:52 Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much Leslie. Thank you.

In today’s episode, you’ll hear from three guests about their autism experience and their perspectives on common stereotypes about autism around communication, relationships, and more. This is a bonus follow-up to our most recent episode about autism with Kaelynn Partlow. Join us as we explore autism further with Syd, Atlas, and Sapphire. I’m happy to have them here to share their insights. 

Show Highlights:

• Meet Syd, a 22-year-old post-grad student who is self-diagnosed as autistic and ADHD:

• Thoughts on relationships, unmasking, and “quality over quantity” 

• Being yourself in a world that isn’t always welcoming to your kind

• Cultivating a special (and rare!) interest in learning and education

• Meet Atlas, who was self-diagnosed at age 16:

• Identifying with autistic characters on a favorite TV show

• What it’s like to pick up on other people’s perceptions of your weirdness

• Autistic traits that Atlas recognized from childhood about obsessive routines

• Meet Sapphire, who was identified as autistic in 5th grade but not diagnosed until age 19:

• Nuances around communication, conversations, and awkward silences

• The common misunderstandings about what a relationship with an autistic person can be like

• Using an “Excel spreadsheet in my brain” to catalog each person

• Relationships and the need for “alone time” to decompress

• Sapphire’s advice to parents who are hesitant to have their child tested/diagnosed

Resources and Links:

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  Syd 0:00

  Hi. I'm Sid, I'm 22. college grad is post grad. Actually, it's been a year since my graduation and I self diagnosed. I want to say almost exactly maybe two or two and a half years ago. Now,

  KC 0:18

  what was it that brought you to diagnosing? Oh, it was actually

  Atlas 0:21

  my partner. When we met, I was identifying as like cisgender. I was identifying as queer, but we kind of met each other just as friends. We were best friends, like six months before we started dating. And like, they would be like, oh, yeah, well, like I kind of do this and that sites and neurodivergent behavior. I was like, Oh, cool. I do that too. And then like, they just kept doing it over and over again. And I was like, oh, obviously, you mean me too. And so it was kind of that like, co realization moment. And that was really cool. Yeah. And I've self diagnosed as autistic in ADHD. And I had a therapist who, like, didn't want to put anything in my chart, because we all know how that can get by. She was like, Yeah, I can see kind of be like emotional patterns and different cycles to kind of confirm that. And that was as official as I needed anything to

  KC 1:11

  be. Okay. So I feel like there's this stereotype that autistic people don't want relationships or don't need relationships. Do you feel like that's true for you? Oh,

  Atlas 1:21

  not at all, like not even in the slightest bit. Like I especially recently graduated, like, I would love to be able to have some of the more fulfilling relationships that I feel like we all point back to in our youth in like high school and middle school, like we have those best friends we play with, or hours or hang out with, like, for like a whole weekend. But what I've noticed more as I unmasked is I don't want to be in a friendship or relationship with anyone where I either can, like I have to like almost like halfway show my intent. Like, if I feel really strongly towards someone, I want to celebrate them, and I want to give them gifts, and I want to go to all of their like, if they're performer, I'll go to all their games, all that stuff. But like to them that's like weird, I feel it doesn't feel true to myself to be in those types of friendships. So it's more like quite literally quality over quantity, where I think more autistic people in general are willing to not have friendships where we have to over mask and over compensate for things and feel like we can't just be ourselves or say what we want to say. And so therefore we're around people. So it's almost like switching the cause and the effect around I think, with that stereotype, there's plenty of people I want to connect with, I'd love to but if like, for example, like COVID has made this really real for a lot of people, if someone's not being as safe as I feel like safety should be held, I won't spend my time there. Because it would be like a constant battle, or I would have like over masks that I'm okay when they said they did something that felt dangerous to me. And so it's just, it's kind of like you win some you lose some. And I'd rather lose out on those half hearted friendships and really put my time and energy to people who can share my special interests, you can do parallel play with me, you can deal with some of my like, very funny organizational systems and like really appreciate that. Because then like, for some of the rare times, I feel like I can fully just be I don't feel like I'm pressing the buttons in the background. I don't feel like I'm doing anything else. And so that's really, I think what it comes down to is wanting those quality relationships where you can unmask And just finally, be yourself in a world that doesn't seem very welcoming to that. Now

  KC 3:36

  that you know that you're autistic. Are there things that you look back on in your childhood, that at the time, you didn't maybe rethink they were about autism. But now you look back and you're like, Oh, that was the autism. And can you can you tell us about it? Yeah, I

  Atlas 3:51

  think the biggest thing are my special interests. I think that because this is something again, my partner and I have talked about a lot. We both had a strong aptitude for education for like learning and things like that. Like one thing I said, I graduated, I have four degrees, it's a major in three minors. And I didn't do any summer classes. I did like the normal four year track and ended up with all that and everyone's apparently my GPA is really good. Again, I just was kind of just doing what I just do in education. I never even felt like I struggled there'd be interpersonal struggles between teachers and me, or there'd be like kind of a learning curve and then I figured it out but I never like had that experience of like, oh, I had to study so late because I had to understand this thing or like I had to go to office hours over and over again because I didn't get it. And now that kind of like that first chunk of my educational career has come to a close. It's like Oh, my special interest is learning. Like one thing about me to all my friends though is I will make a PowerPoint. It doesn't have to be about anything like official or serious I will just make a PowerPoint I made a my friends were picking a new apartment and I they kind of like took pictures or anything else. Here, here's a PowerPoint like it's 17 slides, like, you have your pick of the litter, basically. And I would like show everything and realizing that that was my, like that learning and school in that process was really interesting to me. It made me understand the world so much better, because I could barely understand what like when people say, I Oh, I didn't like schools like What is there to not like, but it's because my brain just really worked really well with those systems. Like, for example, my biggest special interest, I would say, is marine biology. And I had been interested in it, since I was about, like, six or seven. And I wanted to read like high school level nonfiction books about marine biology, because I had to learn about my sharks, like how else was I going to learn about them? And I had teachers who would push back like, they were like, refusing to let me read it. And I had one amazing teacher who was like, No, you want to read it, read it, if you're not gonna understand it, you're not gonna enjoy it, you're gonna stop. But I understood it and really loved that learning process. And it's something that I went on to do a ton of subway that I'm continuing to do stuff with, even though it's not my like main, like career aspiration, and like, taking the time to like pause and realize that it's like, wow, that explains so much like, I wouldn't be the person I am. If I didn't have that special interest or education. I watched documentaries for fun. I love to read a good old Google Scholar, anything Google Scholar, I will go on there for fun, that's not normal. And so this really taking the time to process that out and seeing how that's informed, like my choices and decisions has made me as a human make a lot more sense to myself, because a lot of people will say like, oh, autism is a superpower, which, like back can give very touchy very quickly. And I like to kind of stay away from that language. But when you don't understand it, it does feel like a mystical thing. True, like it feels almost like magical or otherworldly, because you don't get it. And by looking back in my childhood and being but identify like, Oh, this is a special interest. And the reason I like will choreograph songs like dances to songs while listening to them, is because of autism. It's this the way I STEM is. So I process just makes me feel like a lot of self understanding is really what it's been. I think I would love to be able to communicate this understanding one outside myself, which I feel like I've been able to being an adult and finding other autistic friends. But even outside of that, now that I feel like I have a good grasp on that understanding, I'd love to go further, I'd love to take it to that next level and spread it and share it now. But the huge piece was realizing what was going on.

  So I'm Alice, and I first realized, like I started self diagnosing when I was 16. And I realized, because one of my comfort shows is a show called community. And one of the characters I relate to a lot, I didn't know at the time, but it's very autism coded. And I wanted to find more shows with characters like him because I was like, I want more shows with characters I relate to. So I googled shows with characters like Abed, and I got nothing but top 10 autistic characters in TV show list, which gave me maybe I should look into this moment. So I started doing a lot of my own research. And I was coming to the realization that a lot of stuff applied to me. And then I've been to multiple doctors for like an official diagnosis. And just with like being older, and also a fab, I was kind of like having to rip diagnoses from these doctors, because they were very reluctant. I don't even know if the official diagnoses that I got ended up on my actual file, because it was such a hassle. But I can't be bothered to check or like try again, if it's not, you talked about how, you know you do maintain relationships now but because you've been able to like seek out people that you understand that they understand you better. And you made this comment where you said, you know, as a kid in elementary school, like you didn't have as many relationships because other children saw you as like weird or off putting.

  KC 9:17

  I'm curious, is that something that you can pick up from people like when they're thinking that

  Atlas 9:24

  I think I'm better at it now that I'm older and I've like, had experience but it was definitely a real struggle growing up as a kid when I was in elementary school for like the first few grades I had a friend group and I didn't realize this until after I had changed schools. But that friend group was not a friend group. I was there to be like the one that they picked on. And even after that I would find friend groups but it was kind of this thing where like when people first meet me they're really interested in me and they think I'm fun and like they think of that'll be weird, but like, I'm entertaining, I'm a good time. And the more they get to know me and the more like, My lack in certain areas shows, the less interested people are in sticking around long term.

  KC 10:15

  What does that like?

  Atlas 10:17

  I mean, it's not great. It sucks to have people that you have a good time with. And then once they get to know you better, they're like, Oh, actually, you're too weird for me to keep hanging out with, I often kind of felt like, in school, I was like, it was like, all the different friend groups were playing like hot potato, or I just kind of being passed around from group to group and like, I'd always find a new group. But how long was I going to stick around?

  KC 10:43

  So my last question is really about like thinking back to your childhood. Were there things that you now recognize that were autistic traits, or like that were things that come from your autism? What kind of thing,

  Atlas 10:56

  one of the ones that I always it's like, I don't have like a flood and party story. I used to use a separate utensil for every food item. So if I had a plate of food, and I had three things on the plate that needed a fork, I needed three forms. Because I couldn't have the food from one fork touching the other food. I was a nightmare at restaurants because my parents would have to ask for, you know, a million utensils. And I definitely had like a lot of quote unquote temper tantrums as a kid that were definitely not temper tantrums, they were belt downs, but I no one realized, again, with my like, I need to keep with my routines. One time we went up to cottage for like a fun weekend at the beach. But it interrupted my morning routine as a kid of getting up and drinking warm milk while watching Dora the Explorer. So I just flat out refused to do anything they made. My mom made me my milk, I refuse to drink it because I couldn't drink it in my house in my chair with my show. And then because I hadn't had my morning routine, I couldn't do anything else I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't do anything. I was just sitting there and being miserable. And I got to the point where I hadn't eaten all day, they took me to a doctor, and he was like, kid you gonna fucking eat me to eat eventually is one of the doctors was like, if you don't eat at some point, within the next hour, I'm gonna have to like force feed you. And I was like, Okay. And I sat there and I ate whatever it was they gave me. Wow. But yeah, I was like, I either needed that thing to happen in my routine. Or I needed to like a threat to break that. Yeah.

  KC 12:46

  And it wasn't that same experience of like this one thing can't happen. Like now everything is off. Everything is wrong.

  Atlas 12:54

  Yeah, like nothing else could happen until I had done that first step. And if I tried to keep going, I'm sure I would have. It was distressing to try and do things without having done that first piece of my routine.

  KC 13:08

  Yeah. And so did your parents ever suspect that you were autistic? Or is that you mentioned that you kind of came to that conclusion yourself when you were 16? Yeah,

  Atlas 13:17

  no, they never had that. I do think now that I'm older. I definitely think I get it from my dad. So I think he didn't notice because I'm like him. And my I don't know if my mom didn't notice or she ignored it. Because now that I'm older and I can look into these things myself, I again, I definitely think this has also impacted my diagnostic issues is that one doctor who like oh, you're funny. He also at one point, asked my mom's opinion. And she said she thought I was fine. Which I mean, maybe she does. But I do think at least part of it is kind of that thing of like, parents have an idea of how their kids are or who their kids are. And I think like to her in my I feel like she doesn't like admitting that I'm disabled. Yeah,

  KC 14:12

  I've come across that with a lot of parents where they're hesitant to seek out a diagnosis, or they have this like, oh, well, it's just, you know, they're just like all the other kids like, that's normal. That's normal kid behavior. That's normal kid behavior. Or that just a little odd, you know, and, and they, even if they sort of notice, hey, that seems different than other children. They're really they feel almost afraid of their being a diagnosis. And for that reason, they don't seek one out. They don't get one. I'm curious, like if you could talk to parents that are starting to notice things in their children, and they're feeling that fear and apprehension. I wonder if you have any insight or that you could offer them about what you think a diagnosis would or would not have done for you. Yeah,

  Atlas 14:55

  I definitely think having a diagnosis would have made my life easier. Uh, I think I couldn't articulate why I was having the problems I was having as a kid, I can articulate them now because I understand what's going on. But when I was like, at the cottage when my routine was interrupted, I couldn't, I didn't know that that's what the problem was, I was just upset. And I think if, as a parent, as someone with more experience, you could see your child's like having a meltdown and be like, Oh, we didn't do that step in the routine, or this is off, it would have solved or not solved. But like, in that moment, you know, if my parents had looked at me and been like, Oh, my God, we didn't do the regular routine, or find a way to adapt the routine. So we can do it at this cottage, I think they wouldn't have had to have like a full day of me melting down because they would have been able to solve the problem.

  KC 16:00

  So when the DSM talks about the difficulties and social communication, they give some examples, and one of the examples is trouble with the back and forth flow of conversation, and difficulty making and maintaining friendships. I'm curious about that trouble with the back and forth flow, like, is that something that you resonate with? Or that that you would you identify

  Sapphire 16:22

  with? Oh, definitely, I, as I've gotten older, I've been able to learn more, but I have a hard time knowing when it's my time to talk. But also, I stayed thing that I think fit perfectly into what we're talking about. And then sometimes the other person will look at me, like I just said something completely crazy. And I'm like, oh, no, I misunderstood something, or, like, I didn't get the vibes. And like, now, there's awkward silence. So I don't know what to do with awkward silence. And sometimes I just don't talk when when I'm like having conversation, I personally, I prefer to listen. Because the longer I listen longer, I can get the vibe for the conversation that we're having. But if I don't have to talk, I really don't want to,

  KC 17:05

  and is and when you say we, if I don't have to talk I don't want to, is that because of that experience of not really being able to, quote unquote, like, read the room and know what to do. Or if is it just, you know, I just find listening more enjoyable than talking like, I don't necessarily need to talk to someone to feel connected to them. It's a bit of both.

  Sapphire 17:25

  I don't talk when I was a kid, I was, um, select their speaking health, my family members would say that I was shy that I didn't talk. But that's not it, I just, I had nothing to say. And I have nothing to say, I'm not gonna come up with something to say. And also, if I do have something to say, I'm too anxious about where it might fit in the conversation. I just won't.

  KC 17:45

  It's funny when I hear you talk. And I think about myself, I feel almost like the exact opposite. Like, if I have a thought that's not shared with someone, I feel extremely lonely. There's like, it almost like creates a shared reality for me to say that thought or that feeling outside. Like for someone to witness that,

  Sapphire 18:04

  you know, my wife is very similar. They like they connect with people through talking, which is why they share like all the things that they info up about with me it feels like we're connecting in this moment with the thing is with my head, which is really cool.

  KC 18:25

  So I think there's the stereotype that autistic people don't want relationships, or they don't need them. What is your reaction to that?

  Sapphire 18:33

  I think that comes from a neurotypical misunderstanding of what relationship with an autistic person can be like, like, the way we show love and affection can be totally different than the way and a sick person could show love and affection. I think a lot of autistic people are just lost and with social interaction, when you when the person doesn't understand you, or when you don't see in them. It's a lot of the way I see my brain is like a supercomputer. And I don't like being compared to computers from people who are autistic. But for me, it's true. I've cataloged everything. I love Excel spreadsheets. So when I meet any person, they automatically getting a new Excel spreadsheet in my head, and all the things about that, and the things that they like, don't like all their favorites, the way that they choose. Like, it's exhausting to learn to one. And it's exhausting when that person doesn't know you. And so, and we I just know a lot of autistic people have had a hard time with friendships and relationships since they were a kid. So you also get the it's hard to make friends. It's hard to have relationships, so I'm going to not try. I think it's what it is. It's not that we don't want it. It's just that it's incredibly difficult and the way that society is structured right now, when it comes

  KC 19:43

  to relationships, do you enjoy having relationships?

  Sapphire 19:49

  I do. There's always a bit of a learning curve low because like no matter if the other person is autistic or listing. Autistic people are very different as well. And so if there's another autistic person who also enjoys quiet and alone time Vive, we've I've immediately, but my wife is not like that they are the type of autistic person that needs to like, info dump all the time, they watch video essays, and then they pause it so they can talk to me about it. And like, I decompress by myself. That's how I call my bogging. And it's not the same for everybody else. I enjoy relationships with people, I also just need private and to meet. I don't know what that is. But I like to, I need to like go inward to calm down.

  KC 20:34

  So if you had to describe like, let's say that a friend was coming over for two hours, what would be like, your dream way of spending two hours with a good friend?

  Sapphire 20:46

  That's a hard question. Because I've wanted to ask you like a bunch of questions like what typical? What's the budget? Like? Where are we hanging out? Adam?

  KC 20:54

  Let's say that a friend is coming over to your house. And so you're going to do something over at your house? Oh,

  Sapphire 21:00

  dream two hours, probably watching TV. I'm really into parallel play, we would watch the same movie, I would be playing Candy Crush at the same time. And we would pause it make commentary. Have some snacks, you know, maybe that's it. And how old were you when you were diagnosed? So technically, I wasn't because I got evaluated as a child. And my parents were like, No. And then I have an OT for a little bit. And then I remember seeing the paperwork on my mom's side of the bed. And she just decided not to fill it out. He was like, No, you don't need it. And I didn't know that I was being evaluated. And it wasn't until I was 19. Sorry, can I tell this story real quick. When I was 19, I was working at Barnes and Noble. And we had like, a teacher discount at Barnes and Noble. And I was talking to someone a customer and she said she was a teacher. I told her about it. She told me she was no tea. I was like, Oh, I had no tea when I was a kid. And she was like, if you don't mind me asking, like, why did you need to know tea was like, Oh, I have dysgraphia. And she was like, No way. She told me that dysgraphia is actually part of something called Ireland syndrome. And I own syndrome affects like 50% of autistic adults. And I should probably take this test and I took it and it was like, Hey, you might have autism. I called one of my moms. I was like, Hey, I think I'm autistic. And she's like, Yeah, what do you mean? Yeah. And she's like doing we're like, we thought you were in it. We got an elementary school, we took you like three different places. But like, we just decided, like, you were good and social interactions one on one. But like it was when we were with your peer group that you had a hard ride. And I was like, so that just just disqualify me from being autistic. Because I was good one on one shouldn't have been a bigger qualifier. I didn't talk, I had a hard time chewing food. And there were so many things. And so I would say it technically fifth grade, but truly like 19 year old, which is just so ridiculous. So

  KC 22:59

  you were identified in the fifth grade, but you didn't really get like a diagnosis in your chart until later. Interesting. What would you say to parents who are maybe seeing or they're told by people like, Hey, we're seeing some signs that your child might be autistic and a parent that feels apprehensive. In moving forward and getting that diagnosis,

  Sapphire 23:22

  I understand the way it can make a parent feel like the first thought is, I don't want there to be something wrong with my kid. But I don't think that being autistic means that there's anything wrong with your kid, it just means that your kid's brain is wired a little bit differently. And that's okay, I know that it can be scary about what that diagnosis can mean for them for the rest of their life. But getting the diagnosis in the long run, ended up having a better quality of life for their kid because I know a lot of autistic adults who asked children thought that there was something wrong with them. And it just turned out that a lot of the deficits that we're having were autism, and that they were solutions to it. And your kid is going to be amazing regardless, and getting them the help that they need is not to a detriment. I know my parents were worried about that, too. They didn't want there to be like, there's something wrong with me. But it can only be a good thing for your child to know more things about themselves and get the resources that they need to properly and have a thriving life. You know, your child can thrive if they're autistic. And if they could not just a diagnosis, that means that they can thrive. Did you feel that

  KC 24:31

  growing up like there was something wrong with you? Oh, I don't think I was software when

  Sapphire 24:37

  there was probably something wrong with me. It wasn't until end of middle school high school where I was really smart. What Not to toot my own horn. I'm really smart. But I was having a hard time. I was having a hard time and I couldn't figure out why I just like thought I have another routine. I also have ADHD. So I was thinking like if I have another routine, I'll just stick to it. This this time. I'll stick to it. I promise and everything will be great. And I couldn't figure out why my parents were frustrated, because they were like, you're really smart. But I cannot tell that. And I couldn't figure out why I said things that were wrong, and why people didn't like being around me, I think I'm pretty cool. I know, I'm pretty cool. But I just, I couldn't figure out what it was about me. And that made people like, want to be around me, but not closely. You know,

  KC 25:29

  it's interesting, because, you know, you mentioned that you think some parents are worried that if they give their kids a bunch of services, that that might make the kid feel like there's something wrong with them, or like, you know, tip them off to like, Oh, I'm not normal, or whatever. And, you know, the more that I talk to autistic people, the more I hear kind of what you said, which is this thing of, you know, well, but I already knew that there was something different, like, I grew up thinking there was something different. And because I didn't know what it was, a lot of people say, like, I had nothing else to assume, because except maybe I was just wrong, or, or not good enough, or just bad or broken in some way, you know, versus, you know, having the information of like, Oh, it's this diagnosis, which means that my brain just works differently. And that's going to bring up some difficulties and interacting with the world because the world isn't made for my brain. And so I think it's interesting that you bring that up, because I do think that that's something that parents need to hear is that you're not going to, and, you know, I totally resonate as a parent with I want, I don't want my child to feel like they're not good enough. And so I think it's interesting to hear like, there are I don't want my child to feel different. It's like your child is going to know they're different.

  Sapphire 26:47

  The Autism is there, whether or not you have it in writing or not, your child is autistic. And so I think it would be in mice in my brain, it makes a little bit more sense to have that answer and then have all the tools other than just like sending them out into the world and not giving them the resources because they're about being autistic is traumatic, especially when you don't know and so the all that trauma in their body cannot be good in the long run. And if they find out that they're autistic, when they're older, it's like, okay, well now I have to deal with all of that baggage from my childhood plus now trying to function as an adult, you know, and there aren't that many. There is any services for autistic adult

Happy Autism Awareness Month! Yes–I know that was in April, but I have ADHD and am easily distracted. I’ve procrastinated for more than a year on doing some really great episodes about autism because I want to do justice to this topic. I’m starting with an amazing TikTokker, Kaelynn Partlow. I’ve followed her for quite a while, but you might know Kaelynn from Netflix’s Love on the Spectrum. Kaelynn shares about autism from her personal experience and her professional work with autistic kids. She was diagnosed at age 10 with autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. Her background provides a unique perspective on advocacy that is worth our attention. Join us!

Show Highlights:

• Specific criteria (from the DSM) for autism—and Kaelynn’s experience with each one

• Persistent deficits in social communication and interaction

• Restrictive or repeated behavior

• Kaelynn’s experience in making and maintaining friendships while growing up and now

• Masking: What it is and what it feels like

• The nuances of eye contact: not enough or too much?

• All autistic behaviors ARE human behaviors.

• Stimming from an autistic perspective and a non-autistic perspective

• Kaelynn’s special interests, routines, and self-imposed “rules”

• Kaelynn’s experience with sensory issues: noises, fabrics, etc. 

• Kaelynn’s perspective on physical touch (Most autistic people don’t like physical touch.)

• Kaelynn’s diagnosis at age 10 (after the assumption that she was genius-level intelligent.)

• Autism is NOT an invisible disability!

• Kaelynn’s reflection on her childhood and helpful therapies and treatments

• Kaelynn’s thoughts on common ADA controversies

• Kaelynn’s advice to those who might fear being “labeled” if they pursue testing for themselves or their child

• What Kaelynn sees as the biggest misunderstanding about autism today

Resources and Links:

Connect with Kaelynn Partlow: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook

**Look for Kaelynn’s book, Life on the Bridge, to be released this summer!

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello, you Sentient Balls of Stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis. And I want to say Happy Autism Awareness Month. And you might be thinking to yourself, Casey, that wasn't April. Yes, it is. However, I have ADHD. And I started planning for doing some episodes about autism last January of 2023. Thinking, I'll just get it ready for April, and then I didn't, and then I thought, I'll get it ready for next April. And then I still didn't. So welcome to me now talking about autism, I wanted to do it justice. And we're going to start off this string of episodes with a really, really great guest, Kaelynn Partlow, who I know as an amazing TIG talker that I have followed for a long time, you might know her from Netflix's love on the spectrum. Caitlin, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. And we were just chatting before the recording about how I've been excited to talk to you because you're one of those few people that can talk about autism from your own experience. But you also work professionally with autistic kids and with kids that have even higher needs than you do. And I feel like that gives you a really unique perspective, when it comes to kind of at least online discourse about autism.

  Kaelynn Partlow 1:15

  Yeah, I think a lot of people use their personal experience to advocate which is fantastic. But I've got that added clinical experience. So I'm speaking from my perspective, but my perspective is influenced by the perspective of others. So I think it brings something unique to the table when it comes to advocacy.

  KC 1:30

  So what inspired me to want to interview you and kind of talk about this is that I have a daughter that is autistic. And I began to see some traits in her when she was as early as you know, a year old, 15 months old. But if you go and google like signs of autism and kids and babies, it'll give you like a pretty like, it's pretty consistent the little list they give you they talk about avoiding eye contact, not liking to be held, you know, spinning arm flapping, well, my kid wasn't doing any of those things. And yet, there was something about the way she was experiencing the world that seems different. And the only reason that I picked up on it is because be through my book, How to keep house while drowning and talking about neuro divergence, and like how to clean house when you have executive functioning issues, I had gathered such a huge audience of autistic people. And then I started following a lot of autistic adults. And when I started to listen to autistic adults talk about how they experienced the world and what it felt like to be autistic. I felt like that gave me a different way of understanding autism than just sort of like the list the pediatrician gives you. And what was interesting is that as my daughter got older, she did start to do some of those things on the list. But some of the first things I experienced about her, I almost like couldn't even verbalize and for a long time, I was the only person in my family that was like advocating for like, Hey, I think that there's some neuro divergence here. And I think it might be autism. And I was like, no, no, no, she makes eye contact. She is really cuddly Is she right? But I don't know how to explain it. It was just that something about the way that autistic adult talked about the way that they experienced the world looked like the way she was experiencing it even that young. And so for that reason, I wanted to bring some of that, like that was such a blessing to me, I wanted to bring that to my audience, and give everyone the experience of hearing that firsthand. And so I want to just, first of all, to thank you for making time and your schedule. And I hope that you know, your experience will be that same kind of level of helpfulness and blessing to kids and parents and adults out there as well. I want to talk about the criteria for autism. And for the listeners who aren't familiar, there is like a very specific list of criteria in the DSM, which is our diagnostics and statistics manual. And I want to kind of go through it and just ask you like how you relate to that, how you experienced that? Or how maybe you would even change it according to how you experience it and even how you maybe see it in some of the kids you work with. So the first one is persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction. So just that statement and of itself, do you feel like that describes you? That's

  Kaelynn Partlow 4:06

  a tricky one. I feel like yes and no on my evaluation report, which was kind of tough to read, you know, going back as an adult, because I was diagnosed when I was 10. And of course, I couldn't read it at that point. But looking back at it now, they had noted that I did not struggle with expressive or receptive language in the traditional sense in what you might expect, you know, the way that they describe, but I struggled with the pragmatic use of language, how to apply it, the example they gave, which I kind of disagreed with. The example they gave was that I didn't know how to construct an apology. I knew what an apology was. I knew when somebody might apologize. But on their account, I could not construct an apology that sounded appropriate given a hypothetical situation. And so that is one that I don't know about that specific example. But the pragmatic use of language, you know, in terms of it being a deficit is something that does kind of resonate with me just because in my adult life, I get a lot of support that probably kind of hinges on that stroke. With a pragmatic use of language, I need support, answering my own emails, or preparing my thoughts for meetings, just the constructing of the language sometimes, especially when it's a challenging social situation, that can still be kind of a struggle for me.

  KC 5:12

  So let me ask you this, when I'm somebody who like, I almost can't process anything internally, like, I don't know what I'm feeling until I'm saying it out loud. And there's no transition or difference between what I'm feeling and a verbal expression of what I'm saying or feeling. And like, I have sometimes found that with some of my friends that are on the spectrum, there's this, like, they experience what they want to say, or what they're feeling, but they have a difficult time figuring out what the correct words would be for it. That's like a poor way to explain it. But I just in thinking about my own experience of you know, the words come really quickly. And in fact, I have to put words for that thing to be real to me. Is that your experience, like when you're talking about the pragmatic use of language? Or would you explain that differently than that? Sure,

  Kaelynn Partlow 6:04

  I think well, and so the other piece of the diagnostic criteria, specifically about language that doesn't particularly fit me or fits me differently, is that I did not have delayed speech, I actually had early speech, I spoke in sentences at length of time of eight months, which was insane. And it was intelligible speech. And it really threw off just about everybody. And I think when I say I struggle with the pragmatic use of language, it's in my head, I'm very smart. But what comes out of my mouth is sometimes not always representative of how I wanted it to come out of my mouth. And so I can make it come out of my mouth, but you probably aren't going to like when it comes out. It's probably going to be rude. Yeah. But if I had given the chance to think about it, or to type it, you know, I can make it sound a lot more palatable, whatever it is, especially if it's in a conflict scenario. That

  KC 6:52

  makes sense. Okay. Do you personally? Do you have any feelings about the use of the word deficit?

  Kaelynn Partlow 6:59

  I don't know. I feel like if I had feelings, they wouldn't be strong ones. I think that is sometimes a fitting word. But I also see how sometimes it can be not the most helpful

  KC 7:09

  word. Yeah, that makes sense. So when you talk about how like, Okay, I fit it in, but I fit it in a different way. If you had to write like a personal criteria, or if like you were the one in charge of writing that criteria, is there like a more accurate way that you would state that if someone were to ask you sort of like, Hey, what are your struggles in social interactions? Or how does your autism show up in the area of social interactions,

  Kaelynn Partlow 7:30

  just as it pertains to language or socially just in general,

  KC 7:34

  let's go with social communication specifically.

  Kaelynn Partlow 7:37

  That's a hard I guess I've never really thought about that. I think if I were just going to answer for myself, personally, I would say I just keep coming back to that words are the pragmatic use of language, I don't have any issues understanding language, I don't have any issues using language. But to use the language that is best reflective of my inner thoughts and feelings that is challenging, especially when the situation is difficult or is novel or is something I'm kind of unsure about.

  KC 8:02

  That makes sense to me, one of the things that I don't share a ton about my kid, besides the fact that I have a child that's autistic, and I'll share a little bit that I think is appropriately generalized, for the sake of being helpful. And one of the things that I noticed with my daughter is that she, how do I say like, though, it's really the word pragmatic use of language. And what was so funny about so much of her autism report, when it talked about like, all these things, were like, can she do whatever? Can she do eye contact? Can she talk, can she do this, can she, every single one of them was like if she wants to. And when it came to that, it's like, it's not that she can't she's she is verbal, she is speaking, and she doesn't even have a delay anymore. However, her use of language is different than her peers. And what I have found, it's that her use of language is like overly pragmatic. So whereas like my other daughter, at this age, would be talking more about thoughts and feelings and processes, hers is a little more pragmatic, based about kind of concretely what's happening in front of us and things like that. And I know that she's still having the same level of internal experiences, because I just know her really well. But she's not at this point, you know, using language to describe those inner experiences as much, which just kind of reminded me a little bit of what you were talking about. And I do think that sometimes people have a very black and white view of like, Oh, it's a speech delay, or like, oh, it means they can't talk. And there's so many different ways that like an autistic brain could be processing and using verbal language. Okay, so some of the examples, let's talk about some of the examples that the DSM gives. And sometimes examples are helpful. And then sometimes they're not helpful because you read it, you're like, wow, none of that applies, but there's just like, the trouble with the back end flow, like have conversations, trouble with body language or nonverbal communications. Do you experience any of those?

  Kaelynn Partlow 9:57

  I think I did more. So when I was younger, my mom said I remember this a little bit that a lot of my conversations with her like I was capable of a reciprocal kind of back and forth with her where, you know, she'd asked the question, I'd ask the question, and we kind of have this back and forth. But a lot of times I spent kind of lecturing her about whatever it is that I was interested in, you know, it'd be the Lion King or birdwatching or dog shows, and really, you know, her thoughts, opinions or beliefs did not matter to me as much, I was just really excited to share mine. And so I think that's an area that I've definitely improved. Although I will still say that I sometimes do not value other people's thoughts and opinions on different subjects, if I have to tell you what it is that I'm talking about, I don't care what you think about it, because it means you don't know enough to contribute, and I really don't care for your opinion. So there is that.

  KC 10:47

  You know, it's funny, like, I think people would hear that, and it would seem like harsh, or it would seem like, oh, it's unfeeling. But at the same time, like there's aspects of that, that I almost relate to, for different reasons. I mean, I am kind of like a verbose ADHD person. And when I'm excited about something, I will talk with someone about it in such a way that the people around me think that I'm arguing or debating or being, like, contentious, and I'm like, and so if I get with someone else, who's kind of like that, we'll be in a petty, you know, a book club, and we'll be disagreeing and we'll be like going out and people like, Let's not fight guys. And we'd be like, we're not fighting. This is fun. But that being said, that sometimes I would do that with someone who like, that wasn't their personality. And so they'd be like, Why are you like bullying me? Like, why are you being so aggressive about this? And my point to all of that is that sometimes the way that communication looked to people was like, different than the way I was experiencing it, because, yes, I'm being like, contentious, but I experienced that as very connecting. Like, I'm enjoying that person right now. And I'm enjoying them. And I wonder if it's same for you, like when you say, like, you know, when I'm talking about something I really enjoy at someone, and it's a little more of a lecture, and I don't really care, like what they think about it. Is that because you don't care about that person, or is it because that just feels so connecting, you don't need their input for that like moment of relationship,

  Kaelynn Partlow 12:11

  I think the second one, and I've definitely kind of grown out of that move past that is the right way to put it, but just grown to see the value in other people's perspectives. And kind of like what you were saying, I like to be I like to express opinions passionately. And I also have this really kind of terrible quality that I also really like to argue. And so I have a colleague who also enjoys arguing, and we almost had the two of us almost had to go to an HR meeting, because we were screaming at each other across the table. But we were both just so passionate about what we were talking about. We both enjoy arguing, we were having a phenomenal time. Nobody was like actually screaming or actually, I mean, we were screaming, but nobody was upset. And to us it wasn't inappropriate, because, you know, we're just sharing our passions about a subject that happened to be on two opposite sides. And I was having a great time. I

  KC 12:57

  don't know if you experienced this, but I feel like it was a long journey for me to get to a place where you know, I can only relate from having like ADHD, but where like parts of what is neurodivergent about me were just became like, morally neutral in my head. Like as a child, they were very much kind of demonized, like, oh, you interrupt people because you're arrogant. You don't listen to people because you're self centered, right? And so I had a lot of shame about aspects of my personality that really kind of stemmed from ADHD. And then I swung to the other side, right in response, where it's like, no, these are my superpowers, I get to interrupt anytime I want. If you don't like when I interrupt, you're being ablest. Right, like you go through that like kind of reclaiming and respondents to kind of how you were treated younger. And then I feel like I kind of evened out a little bit to actually it's just like a neutral thing about me that I communicate this way. And because it's neutral, there's nothing wrong with it or shameful about it. And it can impact people in a way that hurts their feelings. And yeah, two things can be true, right. And I can navigate that, while like owning it and enjoying it. And like you said, like actually having to stretch myself to learn about how other people experience it and being more aware of it. And having that balance of I don't have to totally pretend to be someone else and feel ashamed. And I don't have to like bulldoze over people in our social interactions. And I feel like I hear that kind of in your is that your experience too?

  Kaelynn Partlow 14:22

  Yeah, absolutely. Just because, you know, like, self acceptance is fantastic. But I think it can certainly be taken to an egotistical standpoint, if I'm being honest. And I really try and be aware of that in myself that, you know, we can accept ourselves for the neurodivergent traits that we have. But at the same time, if we value relationships with other people, we've got to show them that we value that and sometimes our way of communicating value and their way of receiving value can be completely opposite. And so working with them to kind of find a happy medium where I can, you know, have value in our interactions. But so can you is the only way for those interactions to be able to continue in a meaningful way

  KC 14:58

  which is funny because one of the Other examples of social difficulty is difficulty making and maintaining friendships. Which, you know, we're kind of talking about getting to a place with your own neurodivergent, where it's, it would be easier to make and maintain friendships. So I sometimes wonder like, how much of that criteria is really something inherent about autism, and how much of it is more about growing and being young and, you know, having to learn how to live in this world with the brain that you have, how what was your experience in like making and maintaining friendships growing up,

  Kaelynn Partlow 15:38

  I still don't really have very many friends I have, I'm very close with my roommate. And I have a couple of friends at work. And by a couple, I mean, like one, maybe two. And it's always really been that way. For me, when I was younger, you know, I was socially motivated, I wanted to interact with my peers, and very, very little, you know, there's playgroups or their school, or there's things where it doesn't matter how weird you are, they have to take you if your parents are gonna pay for you to be there. And, you know, I was weird enough to that it was noticed, but not weird enough that I was bullied necessarily. I was just a little bit different. And I had friendships, but they always seemed to fizzle out. And that's still true today that I don't really have very many friends. I think I would be a good friend to somebody. But I'm not particularly friendly in terms of those like, initial interactions. And I think that's part of what holds me back from making friends.

  KC 16:30

  Do you wish you had more friends? Yes, I am profoundly

  Kaelynn Partlow 16:33

  lonely, which a lot of people would not realize because of my social media stuff. And you can hang out with anybody you want. But it's those parasocial relationships. You know, everybody wants something from me. So it's not like you could just hang out with one of your followers. That is not even remotely an option. And I can't stand. I mean, it sounds awful. And I know that they just don't understand. But it really bothers me when they think that that's a viable options. Oh, just hang out with me. I live locally to you, we could meet in public, I promise. I'm not a serial killer. I got one of those emails last night, I live in your same area. And I promise I'm not a serial killer. And like, that's great. And probably you aren't a serial killer, statistically speaking, but like, you got to understand that that is not a viable option. This is not an even I know nothing about you, and you know everything about me. And on top of that, you probably want something from me, which is fine in a professional capacity, but I just want a friend. And it's been even harder to find those relationships now that I'm internet famous, basically, yeah,

  KC 17:30

  I get a lot of those messages to have like, oh, I live locally, we can be mom friends. And it's like, it's so weird. We couldn't. There's like, there's literally one person I met who recognized me. And we started talking and actually became good friends. But like, she also like outside of the initial like, Hey, I think I'll recognize you like, there wasn't this like, and you're so wonderful. And you're so great. And it's like, okay, plus, I wonder also, if somebody wants to be your friend in response to hearing you talk about being lonely, if there's like a weird ik feeling to it of like,

  Kaelynn Partlow 18:02

  Oh, it's a pity friendship. Yeah. Or like I can

  KC 18:05

  save you or it's kind of like a little infantilizing. Right? Yeah. Okay. So moving on to this idea of masking. Masking refers to you know, modulating your speech and your facial expressions and your behavior in social situations away from maybe what you would naturally intuitively do and into sort of what you believe to be the socially correct way of behaving? Do you engage in masking? And if you do, can you talk to us about what it feels like?

  Kaelynn Partlow 18:35

  I wrote some notes for this hold on. And maybe there's they're not going to be the most thought out notes. But I don't even know if that makes sense. What if I just read to you what I wrote, and then maybe we expand on it, or you tell me that doesn't make any sense? Because it might not make any sense. But so I was looking over your questions yesterday. And, you know, I was sitting there thinking about the masking one and so apparently what I wrote yesterday was masking feels like trying to exercise when you really have to poop but there's no bathroom. you're exerting yourself in many cases for your own best interest long term. And so you must constantly be monitoring your own progress and behavior as well as your environment if you want to meet your goal, which is in the case of masking to be seen as neurotypical but you're doing all this when you really have to poop. It's uncomfortable, but not excruciating. Sometimes you can hold it for longer, and it's not difficult. Other times you really gotta go masking is much like holding it when you need to go to the bathroom and requires a certain amount of inhibition.

  KC 19:30

  Hmm. So okay, this is interesting, because this morning, I was like rushing to get my kid out the door to go to school, but I really had to pee. And I was like, I can just hold it. And what I take from that metaphor is that like, which is funny also because of my ADHD, I'm often ignoring that I have to go to the bathroom because I'm like an hyperfocus. But it becomes this like, low grade awareness in the back of my head that like takes up space in my brain, and therefore takes like, not necessarily like active attention, but like passive energy and management and awareness to just like be aware that that need is like pressing, no matter what I'm doing. So that's what I hear. And that metaphor, is that what you were going for? Is there a slightly different aspect of it that feels true to you? I

  Kaelynn Partlow 20:20

  think so I think it's that and that, that you like, I guess it's varying degrees. Like sometimes it's not always the worst, most terrible thing ever. Like, sometimes you kind of gotta go a little bit or like you could go, but you don't really, really have to, and then other times, you are about to explode, and you need the toilet right now. And you just can't make it any longer. And you know, it's not always this terrible, horrible thing, every single time that it occurs, it's not always the same degree of terrible horribleness.

  KC 20:46

  Yeah. And so when you are masking, so that's kind of what it feels like, what are you like, literally do when you're masking,

  Kaelynn Partlow 20:53

  I think, and I mean, I've seen enough B roll video of myself to like, know that I'm not particularly good at it. And I feel like I'm somebody with a fair amount of social skills. And I also feel like if I'm not particularly good at it, when I think that I am I wondering if that might be true for a lot of other people as well, where they say, you know, I'm working so hard to mask and, you know, it's exhausting, which, you know, I believe that that is true. But I also believe that our version of masking as autistic people is like not, we're really not very good at it. We like to think that we are and like, Oh, we're pretending to be normal, whatever. And people believe that they don't, they don't believe that you're normal. You don't look normal, you don't act normal, you're trying really hard. But I've just seen enough like B roll footage of myself that it has been taken by other people that I'm just like, that's what I look like when I walk around, like, Why do I walk like Bigfoot? I thought I was like, walking like a normal person. I was like, I remember walking here. And I was intentionally trying to not do that. And here I am doing that. So you think you're doing one thing, but I promise it looks different, which is kinda like, disappointing. If you think about it.

  KC 21:54

  Yeah. It reminds me of like, one time, I was talking on my tic tock channel about eye contact. And I was thinking about how a lot of autistic people have a different pattern of eye contact than neurotypical people do. And I would hear from people like, you know, there's almost like two experiences when it comes to eye contact of when I interact with an autistic person. And not every autistic person has like differences in eye contact, but a lot do. And so sometimes when I'm interacting with someone who's autistic, and this is often how I like clock autistic people, is that you see that they're not making as much eye contact with you, as you would expect. But the other way that I often will clock autistic people is that they're making more eye contact than you otherwise expect. There's lots of like, direct staring and into your soul, right? And one time somebody asked on my channel, like, you know, I'm what, how am I doing it wrong, like I'm looking into their eyes. And I realized that, when because I'm someone that makes intuitive eye contact in the way that like neurotypical people do. But when I'm doing that, I'm not actually looking like into your cornea. Like I'm glancing into one eye for a second. And then I'm glancing like down at your mouth and up at your nose and into the other eye, and then onto your forehead and into the other eye, and then down at your chin. And like I started kind of paying attention to like, where my eyes were literally like flitting about someone's face, and that I was taking in someone's face as like one whole big unit, like I'm looking at your face. I don't experience that as looking at parts of your face. But it's almost like the computer chip in my brain takes those different visual data points, and then creates one image and then that's what I see. And I realized that thinking about that, like, top down, bottom up thinking, and because one of the things that I had read is that a lot of autistic people have that. Now I can't remember which ones which, but the opposite one, right? And that they they've actually done studies about where autistic people versus non autistic people look on the face and done like little maps, and they're like, completely different. Right? It's interesting, right? And so what I realized is that a lot of the people that I knew that were autistic, when they heard, Hey, make eye contact, they took it really literally, and, you know, as someone who, like I didn't even if you said like, Well, why wouldn't you explain like, Well, I wouldn't even have known to explain, like I, you know, I wouldn't have even known to say don't actually stare in someone's eyes. And I'm sorry, this is such a convoluted explanation right now. But and so there's almost this like overcorrection where someone would kind of like stared deeply and somebody asked me like, why is it people think that I'm like, unsettling, or I'm intense, or you know, and I'm like, Well, it's because typically speaking, when non autistic people make eye contact, they're like, kind of looking in several different places. Unless we are trying to like communicate something romantic, or something like intense And then I got this comment in all capital letters from this woman that said, Is this why everyone always thinks I'm flirting with them? Oh, my God. And I was like, yes, yes. This is why, and I'm so sorry. I forgot why I even started that conversation. But oh, it was when you were saying like, sometimes you don't think you do it? Well, is that I was like, that was what came up was this idea of like, okay, I try so hard to make eye contact, I think about it, I'm paying attention. I'm not staring off, you know, to the left or the right. But it's like that sometimes that intensity of trying to mask even reads as not blended as autistic. Right,

  Kaelynn Partlow 25:35

  right. I've worked with learners who, you know, very, very young children who, from a young age naturally make very intense eye contact, but were diagnosed autistic. And so sometimes it's not even necessarily an attempt to mask but that's just their natural way of interacting, which is kind of unexpected. When we think about autism. You know, the stereotype is that people struggle with eye contact, and most you know, do I would say, but there are certainly several people who make very, very intense eye contact, whether that be you know, in an attempt to mask or, you know, maybe that is just their natural style of interacting with others. Yeah,

  KC 26:10

  and I always think like, it seems like the difference isn't, because I've heard people say, like, oh, eye contact is intuitive to people that are not autistic, but it's just not intuitive to autistic people. And it seems to me like that's not really accurate. It just seems like it's a different intuition. Like, if you're not masking, are you thinking about where your eyes are? Or they're just like going where they want to go?

  Kaelynn Partlow 26:30

  There just go in places? No, they're not going where people might expect them to, but they are going places. Right?

  KC 26:35

  And I feel like I mean, like, that's my experience. Like, I don't have to think about where my eyes are going. But it just so it's just like, it's just a different, like, my intuitive, like, pattern of looking is just different than your intuitive pattern of looking, but it's still intuitive. Okay, so I kind of you kind of answered this question, but I'll we'll revisit it. But there's this stereotype that autistic people don't want relationships, or that they don't need them. And I feel like you kind of already answered that that wasn't true for you. And you talked about being lonely. And I'll never forget, like listening to an autistic person say that. People always assumed that they wanted to be alone, that autistic people like to be alone and don't like to be around others. And they were sharing their own experience. And they said, I never wanted to be alone. I just it became really obvious to me at an early age that I was like, people didn't know what to do with me. And I had such difficulty. And I felt like I was a burden. And so I just learned it was easier to be alone.

  Kaelynn Partlow 27:30

  It's easier, but it's not better. But it is easy. Okay, so

  KC 27:33

  let's move to the next diagnostic category, which is restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interest in activities. This is the one that I think people are as familiar with when it comes to autism, like we think about sort of like maybe some social differences and maybe speaking differences. But when you read the phrase restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interest or activities, do you feel like that describes you?

  Kaelynn Partlow 27:56

  Yes, but only because I've got a pretty in depth knowledge of what that means and what that can look like for other people. But I think when most people read that, you know, if they've got a just basic understanding of autism, they think, well, that means stimming. And that means routines. And that's it. That's all they think. And that's all it but it's so much more than that. And when you kind of really dig deep into it, I think more people will find that they do probably relate to those things, but because of their limited understanding, they might say that they don't. Yeah,

  KC 28:24

  so for the audience, I want to give like some definitions, right. So when we say stemming STEM is like, quote, is short handed for like, basically self stimulatory behavior. So this would be things that people might think of, like flapping hands rocking, those are like, sort of classic stems. And then but under this category of restrictive, repetitive patterns of behavior, yes, we also have, as you talked about, like routines where like, maybe things need to be the same, but also special interests fall under restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior. So let's start with STEM. So do you have any, by the way?

  Kaelynn Partlow 29:02

  Yeah, I think I say that I've got like a set of stems that are what I might call work appropriate, you know, ones that I would do that are kind of covert, you wouldn't really notice it. Unless you're really looking and even then you might not. And then I've got some that are more, you know, for at home or for around people who I'm very familiar with, or for ones, you know, where I'm completely by myself. Yeah.

  KC 29:23

  And are they the same as when you were young? Like, Have you always had the same ones? Or have they changed throughout your life?

  Kaelynn Partlow 29:28

  They've definitely changed. When I was really little, there was a lot of hand flapping. And then when I was an adolescent, there was a lot of pacing, and it's just kind of evolved into just a larger variety, I would say,

  KC 29:39

  yeah, what does it feel like when you stem

  Kaelynn Partlow 29:42

  sometimes, a lot of times it's out of boredom, or to kind of release an emotion so to inhibit it can sometimes feel a little bit sweaty or kind of like nothing, just depending, you know, kind of like the half to poop analogy. Sometimes you really gotta go and sometimes you can cold it and it's not a big deal. It's a lot of that and I don't really experience Strong urges to stem especially when I'm engaged in an activity or like a social activity when I'm around other people, I don't really feel the need to do it very often. But that said, I do feel the need on occasion.

  KC 30:10

  And I mean, when we talk about like, stimming, like, there is, I mean, all autistic behavior is human behavior, right? Like, to an extent that because everyone's like, Well, I kind of relate to that, well, I kind of like me, and you hear people that like, well, maybe I'm a little and it's like, no, like, these are all human behaviors. But when they're experienced, at a certain intensity, or a certain frequency, in a constellation of other traits, right, that's when we're looking at like, a neuro type different than what most people experience. So like, everyone can probably relate to, oh, I shake my knee, you know, or I pace or like, we all probably engage in some sort of stimming behavior, what would you say is the difference between like, the autistic experience of stemming for you, or even for some of the kids, you know, versus like a non autistic experience of stemming, I've

  Kaelynn Partlow 31:05

  said, you know, kind of like, what you have just said, just the difference is intensity quantity. And I like to joke that the difference, there's a difference in quality as well, mine is going to be better than yours. So I think those would be just the defining features, just as it is more intense, it is more frequent, a lot of times it's going to be more overt. And it's not going to be things that are considered what you might typically think of as socially acceptable, it's going to be a little bit more intense than just bouncing your knee or twirling your hair or biting your fingernails, it's going to be something that's maybe a little bit unexpected, there's going to be maybe finger flicking or playing in saliva. I mean, there's so many different options, really. And they all have varying levels of social acceptance, unfortunately. So

  KC 31:45

  you mentioned a couple of kind of like experiential reasons about like, maybe releasing an emotion or boredom, but you touched there on like playing in saliva. I feel like a lot of them are also like sensory experiences, like being I know sometimes when you feel overstimulated, sometimes that makes one to stem but also being under stimulated. There's no that's like craving that sensory experience. My daughter is actually extremely cuddly and touchy. It which was kind of like one of my cue offs, I realized that, you know, there's something about this that is like regulating to her in a way that feels Lala terribly different than the way that like, just Oh, yeah, every kid regulates with a hug. And I've also noticed, like, Do you think there's a difference between like, there's like stems, there's like, this is kind of funny, but like, I call them like, limb stems, right? So finger flicking or arm flapping, or, you know, shaking your leg or even pacing, but then they're the type of stems that seem to have something, at least when I think about my daughter, they seem to specifically have something to do with like moving her head and her brain because it's like soothing, or it's helpful. And the way that I think about it is like, I feel like anyone, well, maybe I don't know if I'm about to discover something about myself. But like, everyone knows that feeling of being in a hammock and rocking. And it's like, it's like this really soothing feeling literally in your head. Like literally in your brain, it feels like your brain is in like a warm bowl of water. And it's just like, slightly sloshing in the spirit. Which makes sense, because I feel like that's like this primal thing from when we were babies. And there's a reason that babies we rock them back and forth, or we bounce them lightly, because there's something about that brain movement that's very calming. And I experienced that even as an adult, like swinging in a hammock. But that being said, I don't feel like a drive to go swing in a hammock, right? Like, that's not like a tool that I need to calm down. It's just like a thing that feels good. So I've noticed that sometimes with stems, like that's what it is. So it's like the need to jump or to spin or to rock. I don't know if you've noticed that like in some of the kids that they work with, or in yourself that like, it seems like so I just joke, like, Oh, those are limb stems. And then there's like the brain, the whole head brain movement? Yeah, I don't know. Do you see that with kids?

  Kaelynn Partlow 34:00

  Sometimes I think a lot of times online, I've seen people talk about stimming in the way that you know, stimming is this wonderful Self Help tool. And if you're having a meltdown, it's okay go stim about it, that'll fix it. And I've never on a personal or on a professional level experience, that just free access to being able to stim in a judgment free place is going to fix all your problems, because I have access to that and so to my clients, and that, unfortunately, has not been enough to stop meltdowns or even prevent meltdowns in myself and the people I work with, which kind of sucks because I think we like to talk about online, you know, if the world were only more accepting than X, Y, and Z would happen and I work in the very most accepting tiny little bubble in, you know, a very conservative area and I've got this tiny little bubble of accepting people were stereotypy and all of that is welcomed, and even then, sometimes it is not enough to regulate ourselves. stimming is a really helpful tool and I really like how you just described it. but it's not always the magical self help, you know, cure all your problems that people sometimes think that it is. And maybe it is for some people, but those people just aren't me. They are the people that I work with. Yeah.

  KC 35:13

  Well, I have two thoughts to that. One is as a parent, that is just such a relief to me, because I do think sometimes there's this there can be this messaging from the Autistic community. And I understand why and, and where some of it comes from is that like, if people would just be more accepting, I wouldn't be in so much distress. And I totally, sometimes that's 100% True. But as a parent, it can be really difficult to watch your kid be in distress and have that message of like, okay, I must be screwing up. Like, if I could have been more, if I could have just figured it out, if I could have just right, like somehow that I could have been the perfect accommodating parent and prevented this meltdown or this distress or this frustration. And so it's, it's actually really, I think, beneficial to say that, and for people to hear that. And I would imagine that even if a person was autistic hearing that like, this isn't some failure of them to manage their autism. Yeah. And I also think that like, that doesn't even touch this issue of sometimes, like, there are people whose self stimulating behavior is inherently dangerous, whether we're talking about running into the street, which is sometimes just the self stem of running, whether we're talking about banging their head on the wall or chewing on their fingers or things like that. I mean, I'm sure that you know, having worked with kids and knowing people that it's not as simple as Oh, it's just this wonderful free expression. Let's let it

  Kaelynn Partlow 36:35

  rip. Yeah, there are definitely stems that can be dangerous or unsanitary. You know, playing with feces is not a sanitary way to engage in sensory seeking behavior. And that does need to be soft. Now, when I say stopped, I don't mean punished, I mean, replaced, you know, we can play and shaving cream, we can play with food substances, but we cannot play in the bathroom with our hands. And so the end that's present in a lot of people, that's how a lot of people experience autism. And and unfortunately, those are the individuals who can't describe their experiences on tick tock, and on Instagram and on Facebook. And so stimming has just got this reputation for being this magical self regulating tool, and it is helpful, but it is not magical. It does not fix everything. It can maybe help you calm down a little bit, but it's not going to fix your issue. At least not for me. Yeah.

  KC 37:25

  And I like that you talk about like, if you suppress it. So it's like it's both and right, like, it's not some magical if we could all just Do you know, you could all just do the same thing would you just regulate perfectly. And it's also true that like, you know, stopping a STEM is not necessarily stopping whatever the distress, the internal distress is, or just the internal need. That's like, you don't want to suppress it, but also, you may want to replace it. And also, you know, you want to have a level of acceptance, but also like a reasonable understanding about what its function and limitations are

  Kaelynn Partlow 37:57

  when the other thing we like to talk about online is how, you know, I don't have social deficits, I don't have problems with social skills, I get along perfectly wonderful with autistic people it's neurotypical people I don't get along with and that has also not been my experience, I experienced far more conflict with autistic adults than I do with neurotypical adults. And working in a school that only accepts autistic students. Let me tell you, there is a lot of conflict Across Ages and across ability levels. And, you know, you might think looking online that everybody's stems would be accepted by each other and that it is not the therapists, the neurotypical therapists who ever have a problem with stimming we all recognize that it is self regulation, it is frequently the other autistic students who say, Stop that, what are you doing? That's so weird, you're being annoying with the, you know, the other child STEM is just different than their own. And so we act like this is just like some big, you know, ableist thing that all neurotypical people do, but autistic people do it.

  KC 38:56

  Yeah. So let's talk about special interests. This is what we would say like restricted under the that thing. Do you have special interests?

  Kaelynn Partlow 39:03

  Yeah, I always have, I would say right now, you know, autism is a big one. The treatment of autism and all that could be possibly related to that is the big one philosophy as it relates to autism and the treatment of autism. And if I weren't so damn dyslexic, I think I would really like etymology to. Okay.

  KC 39:22

  And then let's talk about, let's see, oh, yeah, routines is the other one. I think there's this kind of stereotype of you think about someone that maybe needs to do something exactly the same every time. Is that how you experience things? Or how would you experience anything around like maybe like restricted patterns, or routines or any of those kinds of things.

  Kaelynn Partlow 39:40

  I've definitely got some like routines that I like to stick to, but mostly those are surrounding like morning and bedtime routines, and mostly just on workdays and I can be a little bit more flexible on the weekends. But for me, that manifests in a lot of what I call rules, and they're self made self inflicted self imposed rules, although I joke lots of times that I don't make the rules. I just follow the rules, although I am the one who makes the rules. And sometimes they make sense. And they're for a logical reason. And other times, maybe not so much depending on who you ask. And so for me that, you know, flexibility kind of comes in or in flexibility rather when, you know, there are situations where I am asked to maybe bend on some of those rules, and I can't because I haven't not because I don't want to, but I can't do that. Because I've never done that, therefore, I cannot.

  KC 40:22

  And can you give me an example of like one of your rules? Yeah, I

  Kaelynn Partlow 40:26

  think I wrote some of them down, because there's a lot and I don't think about them until they come up. So I won't eat certain foods in certain locations, or on certain days, I refuse to work from home not because I can't work from home, but because I don't work from home. So you know, I can't I have Bluetooth headphones that I could connect to my laptop into my iPad, but I've only ever connected them to my iPhone. So they will only ever then be connected to the iPhone. There's some of them are weirder than others. Like, you know, I travel a lot. And every time I get picked up from the airport, we go home. But there was one day that my roommate really wanted to stop at Wendy's. And I could not handle that I had to be dropped off at home because we've never driven from the airport to anywhere other than home. And so I had to be driven home not because I didn't want Wendy's I did. I did want her to get me something from Wendy's, but I did not want to be in the car or when it was driving to Wendy's from there.

  KC 41:16

  You know, what's interesting about you describing that experience is I think of two things I think of like, okay, we have a stereotypical idea that it's about routine. But a lot of what I'm hearing you talk about is it seems like sometimes the heart of the issue is actually prediction. And the reason I say that is because one of the other things with my daughter is like she never was super rigid about routine. But we would notice a couple things we would notice we call them her loops. When she would play it wasn't so repetitive that anybody else noticed it. Like if you were just watching her play, it wasn't like oh in out in I'm or I'm doing back forth. I'm not just like she didn't like sit and spin the wheels of a car. But if you watched her for 10 minutes, you would notice that we're talking the dolly in, we're kissing the dolly goodnight, we're running down the hallway, doing three spins, coming to mom and going Hi, mom going over to the easel and scribbling. And then we're going to the dolly and we're tucking the dolly in. And then we're running down the hallway, we're doing a spin. And it wasn't like she did that all day. It wasn't even like she did it every day. But it was frequent enough that I would notice. And we would just sort of say like, Oh, she's on our loops, right. And it wasn't until we got with an assessor that was like, yeah, that's an example of like, repetitive, repetitive. But the other thing that happened, because I don't have a kid that like has to have everything be the same. But when she was younger, when my other daughter was learning to potty train, we would have these experiences where like, let's say we stopped at IHOP. And we ate breakfast. And then we were after breakfast, we were going to go to the zoo, and we'd be going to the car and we'd be like almost to the car or maybe even already in the car. And then my older would be like, I have to go the bathroom. I was like, Okay, well, let's now we gotta get out of the car, we got to go back into the iPad, go to the bathroom. And when I would tell her like sometimes she was younger, and I wouldn't tell her because I just wouldn't I just like, No, you don't. I mean, we're getting out now. And she would get really upset. I mean, wouldn't get out of the car, she would, you know, sit in the road had you had to pick her up and drag her kicking and screaming back in. And no matter how many times I said, we're just going inside to potty. We're just going inside. It's like she couldn't process

  Kaelynn Partlow 43:20

  that. Right. That's not how this normally goes.

  KC 43:23

  Yeah, that that's not how this normally goes. And sometimes it wasn't even about like how it normally goes. It was like that's not how I had this setup in my head. Like there was an order of events. And those events are not happening. And I noticed that because she was the littler kid when they're babies, you're so used to just like take it in places and moving on places. And you know, and I hadn't yet caught up to the fact that like, if I don't explain to her first, even though she wasn't speaking much, there's that misconception about if they don't speak you, like mistakenly think that the level of verbal verbal illness is related to like level of understanding or like comprehension or thinking, right? If I don't explain first, like before the change happen very clearly, we are going to the zoo, but we need to go inside to go to the bathroom. And not that that would always work. But there was a lot less frustration resistance than me like making everyone start moving, waiting until she was upset and then trying to explain. It's like I don't understand why you're still upset. If I've explained to you, you're getting the thing you want. And I think that's an example of sometimes what parents will be engaging with, but because it doesn't fit like a stereotypical, you know, repetitive behavior. We don't recognize it as what it is or we recognize it as Oh, it's willfulness or it's a kid that just you know, won't cooperate. And like that's sometimes I think, a hard space for autistic kids to be where it's like the behavior isn't so stereotypical that it's immediately recognizable as neuro divergence, but it's different enough that it causes friction, and so people respond to it as if Maybe it's a behavioral problem anyways. Okay, so and then the other thing that sort of comes under this umbrella of restrictive repetitive behavior are sensory issues. I don't think people realize that sensory issues falls under this umbrella of the criteria. And so, you know, do you have sensory issues? And can you share some of them with us?

  Kaelynn Partlow 45:20

  Sure, I am very sensitive to sound, although it's like, it's not all the sounds you would think. So like screaming kids doesn't particularly bother me, especially at work just because like, usually, if someone is very upset, and they're screaming, or they're crying, especially if it's somebody I'm working with, or somebody around, like, I figured out, you know, what was the trigger for this? You know, why are they screaming? How can I help them to, you know, regulate themselves and kind of return back to that baseline of calm, and so I can kind of predict what started it and how to make it stop and when it might stop. And so that doesn't bother me, but like screaming kids in public that bothers me, screaming babies that bothers me. Um, that kinda like level of unpredictability attached to a distressing noise can make it that much worse, or like the fire alarm, you know, when we do fire drills, that sucks, and it's loud, but like, you know, it's coming. And you know, as soon as you get outside, it's gonna stop. But like, my roommates, snoring, there's no stopping that, that's just gonna suck forever, or like somebody's random baby crying, that's gonna just suck forever live music, that's gonna suck for a really long time, too. And so that kind of compounds that that kind of like what we were just talking about that predictability, it just kind of makes those sensory issues worse. And then the other one that I deal with quite a lot is just an overall sensitivity to clothing. I really hate polyester and how it's, you know, staticky, and it's clingy. And so my mom will, you know, say, Well, why don't you wear this, or we should go shopping and get you one of these, you know, because so and so wore this, and it looks so cute, and it would look so cute on you. And I hate that idea. Because probably it's itchy, and it's terrible. And so my clothing options are pretty limited by my sensory issues, unfortunately.

  KC 46:57

  But what does it feel like when you have to be submitted to one of those sensory experiences,

  Kaelynn Partlow 47:03

  it depends on which one I would say in terms of noise, I typically describe that as feeling very sharp, in a really uncomfortable and unpleasant kind of brain way. Regardless of how high pitch it has nothing to do with like pitch of it necessarily. It's just sharp and spiky in my brain. And in terms of clothing, I would, you know, probably attribute similar characteristics that it feels sharp. And that's not something that you can kind of ignore, your brain can't just be like, oh, you know, it's a little there's a scratchy tag or you know, that the lace on the sleeves that's kind of bothering me, or the elastic on the sleeve that's kind of bothering me, but it's not hurting me. And so I'm just gonna continue on with what I'm doing. That doesn't happen. It's a persistent, it's like, you know, when you get a text in your phone, like buzzes, it's that, but it's over and over and over, and it does not stop. So you try to get something done while your phone is buzzing. You can't. And that's what a lot of people don't understand.

  KC 47:51

  Yeah, like, what would you say is like the qualitative difference between like, if somebody were like, well, you know, nobody likes loud noises, or like, oh, I don't like certain feelings, but like, what is it about, like, your autistic experience of like a sensory aversion that you would say is like qualitatively different than maybe what a non autistic person would experience as if they were to hear a bothersome noise or a distracting noise or an overwhelming noise. One way

  Kaelynn Partlow 48:18

  I like to describe it to people is that it's not necessarily that I have better hearing than you do, you know, been to the doctor several times, I have a normal amount of hearing. But it's not that it's that my brain interprets the sound as pain. So it's not that I'm hearing it better than you. It's that the way it's being processed is what's really kind of incorrect. And it's being signaled as pain rather than just stimuli itself. It's not neutral. It's,

  KC 48:42

  that's really insightful to me, because, you know, I get overwhelmed by sensory input, especially sound and but my experience of being overwhelmed from a sensory sound perspective, is the feeling of overwhelm. It's like the feeling of stress, and the feeling of like, kind of like feeling like bottled up and about to pop, but the pop will be me yelling, or me kind of like being snapping at someone. But I would never say that the experience is pain. I would only say that it's stress, or it's overwhelmed, or it's like too much from an emotional standpoint, if that makes sense. Yeah,

  Kaelynn Partlow 49:21

  that makes sense. I would say I experienced that sometimes. It just depends on what it is.

  KC 49:26

  So what about physical touch? Like are you someone that likes or dislikes physical touch,

  Kaelynn Partlow 49:30

  I generally dislike it as a baby, I did not want to be held, I did not want to be hugged. I did not want to be kissed I was that, you know, the reason they made the autism checklist is like that, I guess I don't know. And, you know, as an adult who works with kids who maybe don't understand social boundaries, or are still learning social boundaries, there's going to be touch and there's going to be unexpected touch. And you know, we can work on social boundaries, and we can work on understanding other people's differing preferences, but that's not an immediate thing. And so It's something that I've kind of grown to tolerate. And there are certain clients that I'm just not a good match with those who need high rates of physical sensory input. You know, I can tolerate it for, you know, a session or two, but long term, it's not going to be a good fit.

  KC 50:14

  Yeah. What does it feel like? When you talk about like, I don't like physical touch? What how do you experience that discomfort?

  Kaelynn Partlow 50:20

  I guess I haven't thought about it. I think with other adults, you know, how people say online, where it's like, oh, it gives me the IQ, I would say it gives me the IQ in a very literal sense in like a crawl out of your skin type of sense. Yeah, like, kind of like a repulsion where it's just like, really uncomfortable. But I wouldn't say that that's always the case. You know, I don't mind hugging my mom, I don't mind, you know, playfully holding hands with my friend or, you know, very quick, silly types of interaction like that. It's just the prolonged, I guess, or repeated physical interactions that I'm not particularly fond of. Okay,

  KC 50:57

  so here's some other questions. That's kind of like the end of my questions about the diagnostic criteria. And then I want to just ask some other questions about your childhood and getting diagnosed. And so what was it that led your family to seek out an assessment for you?

  Kaelynn Partlow 51:10

  You said, You were 10? Yeah, I was 10. It's really kind of like, I didn't know this part until they told me fairly recently, apparently, when I was very, very young, like toddler infant stage, they thought I was a genius. And so they took me to get tested there, because my expressive language was just so unusual. I had an advanced vocabulary, my speech was intelligible, it was complete sentences. It was very thoughtful, it was very insightful for, you know, being as young as I was. And so they were seeking to get me tested for some kind of genius IQ. And they met with the school when it was time for kindergarten. And they said, Hey, this kids a genius, you know, we don't think kindergarten is appropriate, we'd like you to move her up in this school said, you know, we'll try kindergarten, and we'll see how it goes. And it went terribly, because I might be intelligent. But I'm also I've got a lot of learning disabilities, like a really long list of specific learning disabilities, and have been illiterate for probably half my life, which is kind of unfortunate. And so they quickly learned that not only did I not have a genius, IQ, I had learning disabilities. And in the third grade, you know, as time went on, and you still can't really read, that's a problem. And so they kind of pursued some specialized testing. And I got really, really lucky, I really don't think I life would have had the trajectory that it did. My uncle paid for an autism assessment that came with very, very intensive assessments for learning disabilities down in Orlando, we drove down there, and back in 2007. That was a $10,000 evaluation for the course of five days that I spent with every professional you could ever think of. They went to Disney, and I played with a nice ladies. And that's how that and that is, I got my diagnosis.

  KC 52:49

  It's always interesting to me, like I've thought about my daughter a lot, and how grateful I am for having exposure to autistic adults, because it wasn't until I had my daughter that I realized, like, Oh, God, I see it, I see how someone could fall through the cracks, I see how you could be autistic, and nobody see it or catch it. Or you could think it's this, you could think it's that and whenever people are around my daughter, one of the things that I hear frequently is, she doesn't seem autistic. And sometimes they say it just as a neutral thing. Sometimes people mistakenly think that that's a compliment. Sometimes people are just kind of curious. And one of the things that I've reflected on that I think is interesting is that my daughter only doesn't seem autistic to people that don't have any experience in autism, right. Like, as someone who now knows, a lot of autistic people knows exactly what autism is and what looks like it is so obvious to me. And I just think there's it's an interesting gap in like what the public at large assumes, like they really have this one specific place on the spectrum that they think of when they think of an autistic kid. And yet again, like we said, like there, you if you knew autism, you would not say that.

  Kaelynn Partlow 53:58

  That's why I take such issue with the statement, you know, or the phrase, invisible disability, there is no such thing as an invisible disability. If you lost your keys, you wouldn't say oh my god, my keys are invisible, you'd say I don't know where my keys are. If you don't know where to look for something, it means you don't know where it is not that it's invisible. And if you don't know where or how to look for autism, it doesn't mean that it isn't there, it means you don't know where to find it.

  KC 54:19

  And there's this weird thing about operating in that like place where like you have this disability, you have this neuro type, but you're not necessarily like reaching the area of like, overly stereotypical recognizable deficits from moment to moment basis, where it seems like people and institutions simultaneously underestimate her and overestimate her at the same time. So it's like, oh, she doesn't need those supports, but at the same time, it's like, oh, but she's autistic and we shouldn't know if she could do do XYZ and it's like, no, you haven't even met her yet. Like we've had schools say like, oh, we won't take her because of that. And it's like you haven't even met her, you just have an idea of what autism is in your head, and you think you can handle that, but you have no idea or her personal functioning is. Okay, so when you think back to your childhood, are there things that you now recognize were autistic traits that weren't recognized as such at the time?

  Kaelynn Partlow 55:24

  Yeah, I think we just like maybe didn't have the language for it. So for my special interests, I used to call them obsessions. And I had a really negative self view, for a large portion of elementary school and a large portion of middle school as well, where, you know, I had these academic struggles, but I also had these really, you know, high level of interest in these other completely not related to academic topics, you know, I really liked birds. And I really liked bird watching and dogs and dog training and dog shows. And I used to tell my mom, you know, I really wish I could change my obsession. If I could just be obsessed with math or be obsessed with reading, then I could do those things, the way that I can do bird watching and dog training, and nobody cares about bird watching and dog training. I wish I could be obsessed with something I care about or something that other people care about. And we just did not have the language of special interests because you inherently associate the word obsession with something kind of negative. And it wasn't it just it was different. And if we had had that language, I think that might have been helpful. Yeah. And

  KC 56:25

  I also think, as a woman, the term obsession even has more teeth to it, because we think about like things that women are interested in are obsessed with as like, oh, how superficial how frivolous? How unserious? Right? Okay, so did you get any therapies or treatments prior or post diagnosis that you think were helpful to you? Yeah, I

  Kaelynn Partlow 56:47

  kind of had a mixed bag of things. So I had occupational therapy to be able to drive, I was more self aware in high school, and realize that I was kind of behind my peers in terms of social relationships and academic ability. And I decided that driving was not going to be one of those things that I was going to get my driver's license on time, just like everybody else. And I did. I had to cooperate with several months of occupational therapy in order to do that. But I did it as much as I hated it. And I complained, and I argued, and I was a teenager, and I was the worst. And I one time kept my therapist past closed, because we were in some argument, and I wouldn't let it go. And so I held up the entire office so that we could figure out, you know, so it was not an easy path. I was not particularly cooperative, but I did it. I had specialized tutoring to be able to read for several years, I don't know that it's fair to say that I had ABA in a formal sense, because they did not bill my insurance in the way that that typically works. However, I did have providers, ABA providers who worked with me to develop systems and applied behavioral principles to help me succeed. So in a sense, I more or less was a recipient of ABA. And that was really helpful as well, when I was a teenager.

  KC 58:01

  Do you obviously it's gonna be a whole other podcast. And you don't even have to answer this question if you don't want to get into it. But what are your thoughts on like the ABA controversies?

  Kaelynn Partlow 58:10

  It is a whole nother podcast.

  KC 58:13

  Which by the way, if you would like to do another podcast, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. But if you had a short thing you wanted to say now you're welcome to it's hard

  Kaelynn Partlow 58:20

  to summarize, typically, you know, my short answer is just that the field is moving in a progressive direction. And it's not a yes, but it's not Oh, well, ABA caused harm in the past, but it's yes. And it's yes, a lot of horrible things happened. And, you know, progression is happening as well. I was recently invited to speak at CAST, which is the Council of autism service providers. I was the keynote, and an audience of 800 people where I talk and they're all ABA providers. And I talked extensively about, you know, the disgusting history of ABA, I made them watch some videos that made them ridiculously uncomfortable, both from autistic adults, as well as some really poor examples of bad quality treatment. And they cried, and they laughed with me and I got a standing ovation. People care providers care a lot, doesn't mean they're good at it. It doesn't mean they know what they're doing. It doesn't mean they even shouldn't be doing it. But they care. And progress is happening. It's a nuanced discussion, for sure. And I definitely have been on the receiving end of ABA, and it's been helpful in my personal experience.

  KC 59:24

  And then my last question for you. Well, actually, I'm sorry, I have two questions. The first is, I've met lots of parents who find that there is something going on with their kid, usually a young kid, and they think maybe it's autism, and they're on the fence about whether to pursue official assessment and diagnosis, especially if that kid maybe operates that space between okay, there's some obvious differences, but maybe there's nothing like overly distressing happening. They're kind of getting on Okay, do you have an opinion? On like, what you would say to a friend that came to you and said, I'm kind of seeing something but I'm just not sure you know, I'm afraid that if I get the diagnosis, they'll be labeled or it'll, they'll think that people will think they're weird or, you know, will inhibit them, or they'll think something about themselves. But I'm also afraid like, what if I don't get it and they need this? And that, like, what thoughts do you have on that,

  Kaelynn Partlow 1:00:16

  as it pertains to people's fear of being labeled, especially for you know, for their child to be labeled, I would say that either you can pursue the label of autism potentially, or the world will call them something else. And that's your choice. The world will either call them weird, or, you know, stupid, obnoxious, difficult, egotistical, narcissistic, the R word, I mean, take your pick, there's a bunch of a whole host of really horrific names, that autistic people are called for their natural autistic traits. And so if you can replace that with I'm not selfish, I'm not self absorbed, I'm not weird. I'm not, you know, whatever, I'm autistic, that doesn't hurt your self esteem that tells you who you are. And it kind of helps you navigate the world, whether or not you're going to seek out support, because the only way to get that, especially as a kid is to have a diagnosis. But even that aside, even if you're not interested in any sort of services, or supports, which is kind of silly, if that were somebody's opinion, even if that were, you know, you're either going to be labeled autistic, or they're going to call you something else. And that's, it's unfortunate that that's how that works. But that's how that works. And

  KC 1:01:24

  is it your experience that kids understand that difference? Even if they're not verbalizing it to their parents?

  Kaelynn Partlow 1:01:31

  I did. I don't know if all kids do, it's something I think about a lot, because I'm in this unique position where I work at a school that only accepts autistic students. And so they don't really have the experience that I did, where they're different from everybody else, because you know, they are because they're an individual and they variants, autism is, of course, unique to them. But they're not alone in these experiences. Everybody around them also engages in stimming. And, you know, it has some difficulties every now and then with self regulation. And so it's really interesting to watch people grow up in an environment where they're not really the odd ones out. And it's kind of healing in a way I think,

  KC 1:02:09

  which they are only there because they have that quote, unquote, label, I think that's like speaks to what we're talking about, which is there's more than just access to services, I think sometimes the identity portion, like you're saying, and then the knowledge of like, I'm not broken, like even access to a community like that is contingent on getting the label, quote, quote, right.

  Kaelynn Partlow 1:02:30

  And I mean, I think, you know, when they say an autism diagnosis saves lives, I think that's true. I recently I attended a talk about suicide in autism, and how I want to say the rate for suicide for autistic people, they said it was like nine times the average, which is really, really distressing. And I think having that label, which gives you access to understanding your identity, and also potentially a community of people who understand your identity and relate to it on a very personal level can potentially, you know, be life saving.

  KC 1:03:00

  Alright, last question. What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding has like some huge, this is such a huge, impossible question to answer. But what do you think is the biggest misunderstanding of autism that you see right now,

  Kaelynn Partlow 1:03:12

  I think the easiest answer to that is the biggest misconception is the wideness. Or the variety of the spectrum itself, that we're only seeing a certain type of autistic person, online or in media, whether that's, for better or worse is up for debate. But, you know, we're there's certain populations that we are not seeing, for example, we don't see a lot of experiences from people of color, who are on the spectrum. And so, you know, their specific manifestations of autism don't really get talked about as it relates to the cultural differences they might experience. And so yeah, I would say just how wide the spectrum could be, is the biggest misconception that people have a very narrow viewpoint.

  KC 1:03:54

  Yeah, it seems like there's this representation of like a young white boy child with high support needs, like that's kind of like what everybody pictures. And then like, as we think about adults, you know, if you're in the autism spaces online, it seems like once again, there's usually one representation, but it's like, yeah, it's like it's white women, often late diagnosed with lower support needs. And so it's makes sense that if that's the only kind of two pictures you see that, you know, it's hard for us to know what it looks like outside of that. Caitlin, thank you so much. Again, this was such a great conversation. Is there any thing that you would like to plug for yourself that you know, if people want to follow you online or resources that you like,

  Kaelynn Partlow 1:04:39

  I mean, yeah, follow me online. Follow me on Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, I'm kind of everywhere. If you search my name, I'll kind of pop up wherever it is that you use social media, and also, supposedly, I have a book coming out this summer, if all the things go, you know, the way they're supposed to go is called Life on the bridge and hopefully, like I said, it will be released summer 2024

  KC 1:04:59

  Oh, that's so excited. I was just thinking as you were talking like, gosh, I hope you write a book one day. Yeah. Okay, well, you'll have to come back when it's out and we'll talk about it and plug it and get people to yeah to go buy it in droves. Wonderful. All right. Well, thank you so much. And you guys go and follow Caitlin. She has wonderful, wonderful content and you will learn so much. And if you work for an organization that would love a speaker who is autistic talking about autism. I also recommend that you check her out. Alright, thanks, Caitlin. Thank you

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

We are back for Part 2 of a fascinating discussion with Derrick Hoard, a licensed marriage and family therapist, TikTokker, and video game aficionado. We left off in last week’s episode talking about how some people rely too heavily on gaming for their coping skills in life and how “mindful gaming” can go beyond simply pushing buttons and help in many ways. The conflict over video games extends beyond partner relationships and definitely leads to challenges for parents and their kids. Let’s explore this topic with Derrick!

Show Highlights:

• Myths and misconceptions about video games from a parent’s perspective

• Being mindful means using as many of the five senses as possible and being purposeful.

• Video games can lead to emotional connection, learning, and many problem-solving skills.

• Derrick’s perspective on gamers who play a variety of games: good or bad?

• Thoughts on the benefits of games like Skyrim and Mass Effect

• The value of a collaborative approach by parents who get involved in a child’s gaming life respectfully and appropriately

• The benefits of video games for neurodivergent kids, overall mental health, and therapeutic approaches

• The key for parents of gamers: accepting video games as ways to promote mindfulness, deep conversations, true interest, growth, skill development, curiosity, and maturity

Resources and Links:

Connect with Derrick Hoard: Website, TikTok, and the Mindful Gaming Podcast

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:00

  Hey hello sentient balls of stardust, welcome to struggle care where we talk about all things individual and systemic that affect your mental health and well being. And I am back today with Derrick cord, who is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a gamer. Derek, thank you for coming back.

  Derrick 0:20

  Thank you for having me back. I'm glad to be here.

  KC 0:22

  So we hit this really interesting point at the end of our last discussion about how, you know, when someone is maybe struggling and they're needing some new coping skills, and they feel like maybe they're like over relying on gaming, that the answer doesn't necessarily need to be, oh, do less gaming as much as it maybe needs to be this move towards mindful gaming, where they can try to challenge themselves through gaming, learn new skills, through gaming, kind of fill some of those skill gaps with gaming. And I wanted to kind of talk about that some more and specifically kind of transition into talking about like, kids and parents, because I think that, although I've seen gaming be an issue between partners, it's also often a conflict between kids and their parents. So, you know, tell me what you see as maybe some of the myths or misconceptions about video games from a parent's perspective.

  Derrick 1:20

  Yeah, I think that sometimes, you know, I know for me growing up, my mom did not like that I played so many video games, so a variety of reasons why she didn't like it. But yeah, and I think one of the biggest problems is that people think that gaming is lazy and a waste of time, and you're not doing anything valuable. You're just sitting staring at a screen pressing buttons. And like, I can understand how on the outside looking in, it might look like that. Just like if you look at someone's house who might be a little bit cluttered, I can understand if your first thought might be, well, they need to clean their house, or why are they not doing it. But if you could just take a moment and understand. And if we valued mental work as much as we value physical labor, I think that people wouldn't have that viewpoint of it. Video games are one of the most immersive forms of storytelling that you can experience in any medium period. I like to tell people when they ask me, and when I talk with parents about it to try to help flip their mind, I'm like, your child is living 1000 different lives. I heard this at a TED conference, when your child is living 1000 different lives. They're hearing 1000 different stories. They're learning about empathy, they're putting themselves in other people's shoes. So trying to make that that switch and show that there is a narrative being told here, instead of you're just sitting pressing buttons, I think is one of the biggest shifts that I like to make.

  KC 2:42

  It's interesting, because you know, if I think about other like hobbies, that produce results that are a little more visual, like if I'm into crocheting, or quilting, it'd be like, oh, all you do is sit at a table all day in front of a sewing machine. But because I'm producing maybe like quilt after quilt after quilter outfit after outfit after outfit, it's like, oh, you're creating art. So it's interesting, my brain kind of went to that parallel. Yeah, it's

  Derrick 3:07

  something where they feel like you have to be providing some sort of value or productivity, something that you're producing, even though there are some streamers making in central figures and hours to play video games, but that's another story. Yeah,

  KC 3:21

  well, I mean, we have universities now that have, like, Esports teams, which, you know, if you think about how many of us, you know, like we think about, like, people letting their kids play football, it's like, well, I don't know, that like rattling our brain around is like that much more admirable than sitting in front of a video game while you're

  Derrick 3:42

  developing fine motor skills. You know, just saying, yeah.

  KC 3:47

  So I think that, you know, as when I remember being a kid, I think what was hard for me was if I found something that I was good at, it became like, like, I used to talk about how things would be like a driftwood in a sea of insecurity. Where like, all I wanted to do was that one thing I was good at that one thing that made me feel competent, that one thing that made me feel, you know, comfortable. And as a kid, you know, I'm kind of shying away from other experiences that might be helping me gain different kinds of skills. I think that's a lot of parents, like, you know, you have the parents that are like, Oh, it's a stupid thing to like, but I think even outside of that, I think some parents worry, okay, if my kid is really into this, if this is all they do, you know, are they going to miss some skills that they need some social skills they need or maybe some like relationship skills, or emotional regulation skills, you know, if I see maybe my kid is always into this one game, that's always a competition, and he's always really angry, you know, when they're not winning. And you know how I think, you see a lot of people talk about how we can get a kid to do something else than game but I love this idea that you You have about mindful gaming? Like how could a professional or a parent who might see that kind of kid enter into that interest of video gaming to help them gain more skills? Yeah.

  Derrick 5:11

  So before I say that, I did want to speak to something when you were talking about, you know, social interaction with games, and can you gain social skills, some of the best friends I've ever met in my life have been people that I play games online with. And when I say best friends, I mean, will call and check on me, you know, like, weekly, you know, like friends that like, I will remember that, like, every gamer, I guess I just want to speak to the social aspect, because that is the biggest myth is some of the biggest communities are online, or in that the party chats that we have together. And yeah, you got to be careful, because there's definitely some radicalization that happens in the wrong sort of groups, like you really need to monitor who your child is talking to, and knowing you know, who their friends are. But you know, you can create and cultivate, and they have to solve problems, they have to do all of these things you're talking about, like solving, you know, interpersonal problems with other kids. We have those same conversations, it just sounds like, hey, that weapon dropped for me. You've been picking up this one the entire time, can we discuss why it is that I never get any of the good loot? But like all of those conversations and things happen in like, I know, I need to answer your other question. But this is just coming up. Like sometimes, you know, I've heard of like kids suddenly becoming depressed, you know, after playing video games and their parents, you know, they're trying to talk to them. And like, when you lose friends online, like if you have someone that you used to play with all the time, and then they stop getting on, and you look and see it's been 20, you know, days since they last logged on, or you know that there's a lot of like, deep emotions that you feel around the hobby of gaming. And I think if again, people knew a little bit more about it, they might understand. And so I guess moving on to the mindful gaming perspective, which is really important. Yeah, you can do a lot of things mindfully, you can watch a movie mindfully, you can read a book mindfully, you can listen to music mindfully. And you can also do those things while claiming to be multitasking, and not really giving any one thing the attention that it deserves. So when we talk about being mindful, we're discussing doing things with including as many of our five senses as possible, and cutting out all distractions and being immersed in the process. And while doing that, while being immersed in that process. That's where we can do things like problem, solve, learn and refine new skills. And even just, you know, everything doesn't have to always be fixing something even just for pure enjoyment, because that in and of itself, can help rejuvenate your body. And there are some gamers that play mindful. And there's some gamers that play mindlessly, where they're not paying attention to the story. They're not taking in the scenery around them. There was one time I was playing a game called Detroit Become Human. And there were people that had played it forever. And they were watching me play. And as I was playing, I don't run fast in the game. It's a beautiful game about a future where androids take over everything. And everyone has an Android in their home, and the Android start to become sentient that is aware of the fact that they're Androids and just the stories in that game, how people have lost their jobs, how people turn to violence, the way that they treat their animals, like all of it's super interesting, but it's a very, very beautiful game. And as I was walking through, I kind of stopped during my gameplay. And I started looking at the window signs because for sale, they had a jacket that was like an AI jacket that automatically adjusted to your heat and temperature. And it was like $79 I was like, why is that jacket so cheap in the game. And the people in the party were like, I have never, ever even noticed that I never even stopped to take a look at that. I'm like, if you're not paying attention to small stuff like that, imagine what other parts of the story and things that you're missing. And so when you play mindfully, you're playing with intent, you're playing with purpose. It's not just something you're not doing it on autopilot. And you can stop me when I say too much. But when you get on you can is that a stopping point? Am I going to great. So when you're playing when you're playing on autopilot, this happens a lot in the fighting game community, which, if you do have a child that plays video games, one of the best ways to teach them anything is to teach them a fighting game. Like that's a whole other story. But there's this thing called being on autopilot. And you see it a lot in fighting games where people are fighting one another. And you're not really thinking you're just going through the motions of what you normally do. And yeah, it'll work for a little bit. But eventually, I as the other fighter am going to catch on to that and I'm going to start doing things differently. And if you don't know how to be mindful and see that the last time you did that move there. I did this it's like playing Rock Paper Scissors the last time you chose rock and every time it's the third round of Rock Paper Scissors, you choose rock if you're not being mindful while you're playing rock, paper, scissors and it's just a habit that you have. Someone else can take advantage of that and exploit it so you don't want to play video games on autopilot. You want to have a purpose, a reason and then Tension settling before you start playing, and then just play, play for real play.

  KC 10:10

  You mentioned like different kinds of games having different strengths and being helpful in different ways. Do you think it's important as a gamer or as a mindful gamer? To have like a variety of games that you engage in?

  Derrick 10:23

  Yes, and no, but mostly Yes. Sometimes there are games that are just complete games that will contain like, all of the aspects of everything that you need to engage in the various aspects of mindfulness. For example, I think Skyrim is one of those games, I think everyone might not know how to play Skyrim. I've never played it, but I think people have heard of Skyrim, I would hope. But if you have it, it is a game by Bethesda Game Studios. It's set in this massive fantasy world. And if you don't play video games, I can't express to you what massive is, it's like sitting down playing a video game of all of the Lord of the Rings, movies, and having access to all those places. And you can go to them at any time and talk to anyone that you want to, and everyone has something for you to do. Like, it's very difficult to really express that. But in that game, there's a variety of things you can do. You can go on quests, you can you know, go search for armor, you can go through dungeons, you can do those things. And also you can set up a house, and you can cook meals, and you can prepare meals to take with you on the road. There are several books in the game legitimate books that you can sit down and read in the game, while you're playing. You can go pick flowers, if you'd like to, so that you can create potions for yourself. Or if you want to, you can just walk through the world and listen to the music on your horse, you can go do things that like that you would do in regular life and may not be able to for some reason, or maybe it's a rainy day, so you can't go for a walk. And so I do think that games that are complete like that, mostly, an open world RPG is what they're called games that are complete like that, you can use that game. And sometimes you just find a world and you want to stay in it. That's how I feel about the Mass Effect series. I love that game, I replay it at least six or seven times. It just I think about it, and I just get an edge and I start over again. It's basically Star Trek, but you can find a game that fits those needs for you. And let's say you need to work on the skill of getting outside of your comfort zone, maybe you have a tendency to go to the same places in your area all the time. Or maybe you have a tendency to eat the same foods, or maybe you have a tendency to listen to the same music and you're starting to feel like your life is a little bit boring, or you're starting to feel like your life doesn't have been a guess where it typically gets to. It's hard to make meaning when you're not introducing anything new in your life to make meaning with. And so sometimes it's important to branch out and play a type of video game that you wouldn't normally play. And when you do that, it gives you an opportunity to experience what you're like when you're frustrated when you're good at something or when you have to learn or all of those things that you never really have an opportunity to look at. Most of the time, whenever you want to have those skills of being able to make mistakes, being able to take correction, being able to be frustrated, you get in situations that you wish you had the skills already to use that you're trying to practice. But in video games, you get so many opportunities to practice so many skills in so many different situations. And one of those skills is trying something new on a relatively easy basis. Like it's a new thing. So like yeah, if you play shooters all the time, try racing games, you play racing game all the time. Try realtime strategy. I think everyone should play fighting games. And that is I'm going to die on that hill, everyone. Everyone, well, there's

  KC 13:48

  a lot about safe risk. And I'm thinking about parents who, you know, maybe worry about oh, my kids isolating and you know, you already brought up the social aspect of it. Because a lot of this seems like before you go to your kid with concerns, you we should listen to them about what is it about gaming for them that they're enjoying, that is helping that feels helpful to them that feels comforting to them. It also brings up a question for me of you know, how many parents out there have tried the tactic of sitting down with their kid and saying, you know, can you teach me how to play this game? You know, I hear parents, you know, oh, I want to spend time with my kid. But they're always on their video games. But I'm wondering if maybe a tactic to try is to see if you can be interested in what your kid is interested in.

  Derrick 14:34

  Right? Yeah. And I think that you know, no child should have a video game system that their parent hasn't thoroughly inspected and looked at and enabled parental controls to control how long you're on the game for automatic shut off to make sure that there are certain games that they can't play. Like I would hope that every single time their child buys a video game or gets into a video game with the parent is going through, doing research on the game looking at it, seeing who makes it, seeing what it's rated Seeing who they're talking to randomly checking in listening. I hope that that's happening all the time. You know, I think that's a really important first step. Before we even talk about any of it. I can't believe I missed it. But I do that sometimes I miss important first steps. Yeah. But

  KC 15:13

  the way that you talk about it, Derek sounds more like I am interested, and I want to be involved. And I want to parent you. And I think sometimes parents come at it almost from like a policing standpoint, of I'm kind of looking down at gaming. And this is so inappropriate, and this is going to rot your brain. And let me make sure this is okay for you. And it strikes me as that there's a way to be involved in a child's gaming life that is respectful, like you're still being a parent, like you said, you're still making sure that they're sleeping, and you're still, you know, trying to make sure that maybe hyper focus is, you know, not getting too much in the way of sleeping and eating and caring for themselves and making sure that content is appropriate for their age level. And that who they're talking to is safe, it strikes me that there's a way to do that. That is like a true interest versus like a policing. Because when I think about like baseball families, right, like, I think we all know, a family who's like their kids really into baseball, they play club baseball, and like, that's what that family does. Like, that's what they do on the weekends, despite the fact that like, it's just the kid playing. And yet there's this involvement and this respect. And yes, they want to be there with their kid. And yes, they're going to make sure that coach is respectful. And yes, they want to monitor how they're getting along with their teammates. And yes, they want to help them with skills development. But it strikes me that parents could take that maybe it would be more beneficial to take that kind of like stance when their kid is really into video games. But

  Derrick 16:41

  yes, no. So take a more collaborative approach with your children with gaming would be super helpful, it'd be really great to just even even you would be amazed at how happy some children would be. If you just sat next to them, you don't even have to understand what's going on. You don't even have to know this make sense, you know, make comments on it. Kind of like you know how, when you're on a date with someone and they show you a movie, you're not really super into it, but you like them and you don't want you know, like you show interest in that you can do the same thing with a video game. And what I promise is going to happen is some of you are going to be like I didn't know these stories were like that, like, there are some man some movies don't have anything on the stories that are in games. But yes, taking that collaborative approach. Showing that is something that you want to be a part of, it doesn't have to be policed, it's not going to steal them, or take them away from you or take them away from other interests or ruin their prospects that getting in college might actually make them better now, you know, but there's a lot of like, demonization of video games, it has been, it's an easy scapegoat. It really is, it's very easy. It's an easy thing for sometimes politicians to point to, and say this is what's causing the problems in our youth and society. Like there's a lot of, you know, just misconceptions about it. But if you really sit down and take the time to understand and even just watch your child play, and see the emotions that they go through. And even that can be helpful for, you know, being able to talk to them about how they express anger or how they express joy, all of those things. So yeah, I think that collaborative approach to describing is definitely the one that we should look at

  KC 18:04

  now my yard, people are making noise outside. So we're even one of the things you mentioned on the last episode we did together that I really appreciate it was talking about how like, when you're experiencing stressors in life, it's you know, what makes video games so immersive. And sometimes all consuming is like sometimes it's the only place that you feel competent, the only place that you feel accepted. And I think sometimes when I think about kids that are ADHD or otherwise neurodivergent or maybe just struggling in academically or socially, you know if it's the situation where like, Okay, I think that my kid is maybe relying a little too heavily on video games, and they're missing some skills. I think when we go straight to how can we make them play less video games, we really put the cart before the horse because it seems like if we could find ways to support them in the real world scenarios, or like the outer the out of game scenarios where there is struggle that might, you know, and teach them like a mindful video game approach. I wonder how much of that would just kind of write itself like if I struggle academically? Because and I'm always putting off academics in order to go play video games? Well, at some level that makes sense. Like why would I want to engage in something I'm struggling when I could go engage in something I'm really competent at. And when you don't have a prefrontal cortex completely developed. It's kind of too much to ask a child to make that choice themselves without any structure, you know, and I'm just thinking like, there's probably ways that we can help our kids and they might need more help than we think like, I never did homework growing up and even though I went to like an after school program that had like, Okay, now this is your hour to do homework, like I still like even that wasn't enough structure. Like I truly needed someone to sit down next to me and be like, Let's get your journal out. What subjects do you have Okay, in what thing could we do first like, I think if I had someone that had done that, for me, I wouldn't have had so much trouble procrastinating schoolwork. And I probably could have gotten schoolwork done quicker. And then if I was a gamer, it probably would have just led to a better balanced life because I could have gotten work done. And as you know, amount of time, I probably wouldn't have felt that stressed out by it. And then I could have gone and engaged in gaming in a way that was fun and entertaining. And I didn't feel guilty because I wasn't avoiding something, but also wasn't the only place that I had to go like numb out because I was feeling a little more helped and supported with my homework. I don't know, what do you think about that? Yeah,

  Derrick 20:38

  I think that you know, if Did you for example, we were talking about maybe your child struggling in school, and they decided to go to video games to cope with so that they can feel competent. I think that yeah, it's that is a big reason why a lot of people play video games just for that feeling of competency, especially ADHD, or children that are struggling on children that were somewhere on the spectrum of neuro divergence. Video games, for me have been that place where I go to feel confident. And the one thing that and again, this, I don't upset anybody. But for me, the thing that I love the most about it is that there wasn't like the video games would tell me when I'm doing a good job. It just would even my worst attempts, it would say you can do it again, would you like to play again, would you like to try again like and the tutorials and video games they are step by step they take you through every unless it has a bad tutorial, it takes you through everything that you need to know to succeed. It says here are the tools. This is how you use them go out and play. And if you make a mistake, we'll help you. But we're not going to make it easy on you. We're not going to make I mean, you can change difficulty level but you will understand and learn the core language you need to speak in order to enjoy this game. And we're going to teach it to you. And you're either going to learn the language that we're teaching you or you're going to be frustrated the entire time, but we're going to keep teaching you. And so like every time you have an achievement or a milestone or get to the next level, there's flashing lights, there's a level of sign there's excitement, there's you get an achievement that you can go back and look at. And I just I didn't really receive a lot of that growing up, it was a lot of expectation, this is what we expected you to do. Or this is how you know like you don't get a gold star. And there are reasons for that. I'm not definitely some systemic reasons that go into that. But what I'm saying is, is an there was a lot of expectation, and I just when I played a video game, I knew that I would walk away. If it was if I weren't like playing it mindlessly, it just meant that the world, I knew I would walk away having achieved something. And all of my efforts seem to be even the failures were appreciated. You know, and I think sometimes in the world that we live in, it can be difficult to have that same level of like, it's just difficult to maintain that when you have a lot of other things going on. But yeah, I think that's a big reason why we go back,

  KC 22:55

  I wish that there were more mental health professionals that were gamers that could come up with a way of providing counseling, to and support to kids through gaming. Like I think about, like, I know, I made the metaphor or like the comparison last time about like how I'm really into fantasy books, and how similarly a lot of people like to look down on like, you know, booktalk fantasy books, especially if there's like, smart scenes or whatever. And there's kind of this eye roll that can go with Oh, middle aged women reading fantasy books, or whatever. Or like women reading romance books. And what I think is interesting, though, is that, like if you've ever been to a book club, when people are coming together, and they're talking about a book that they really like, there's some similarity overlap with like video gaming, where it's like, well, that's not real. Those people aren't real, right? But what if you have ever sat in the middle of a book club, and heard people talk about, well, why did this character do this? And well, I think they were good because of this. Well, I think they were bad because of this. No, you don't understand this was happening. It's like the conversations are about the most human topics. And the most, I mean, like topics about mental health. And, you know, one of the big series that's really viral right now is A Court of Thorns and Roses. And and it's not like it's not going to win a Pulitzer Prize. Right? It's fairies, and there are certainly are some smart scenes in there. And there's certainly some questionable writing and maybe some silly plot points, but at the same time, there are characters that go through like these massive mental health battles. And I have seen more than one more than a few, you know, young women like teenagers and young 20s Like making tic TOCs where they're like, you know, Ivan, this character makes me feel seen. And if this character can find redemption, maybe I can too. And I'm just thinking about book clubs and how we ended up talking about such human experiences, and we almost use those as a proxy to make an understanding of our world. And I, it makes me think, you know, I wish that there were people out there putting together groups or resources where people kids could do that same thing with video games, it's like, not only playing mindfully, but engaging in the chat mindfully, or having a space to talk about that video game in a way that you know, like a book club for a video game. You know what

  Derrick 25:31

  I'm trying not to laugh like, you have no clue it's just in Mass Effect, the you can get the whole fandom to get shout out to the Mass Effect fandom, you can get the whole fandom together, we can all meet at a convention or something like that. Or you can just you can pop a question and just ask them, What color did they choose at the end of Mass Effect three, and you will start such a not even just that did you overwhelm like I don't even want to get into I don't want to spoil if you put like, because everyone has such a different experience. But we regularly talk about the deep lore and stories and things and have divisive arguments over the last of us this might make it a little easier because they're so I'm so glad they're making video game shows now. But the last of us was a show that came out and everybody was into it. And like this discussion about the creative direction, the way that the second video game took from the first like just even that is a topic of discussion. So we regularly have discussions and we get to see people go through miraculous changes in like the empathy and the way that you can relate to some of the character stories, not all of them, but like all of us know what it feels like to be down. And I feel like we're fighting against something. But like, there's so many like characters that you can relate with and interact with that. Yeah, it is just like a book club. Like, and yeah, we have the same arguments we really do. And discussions and we laugh and cry, don't talk about what happened to anyway, long story short, yes, this is a perfect analogy for it,

  KC 26:59

  it just seems like it would take so little for one or two people that really new gaming in new mental health, right? To host conversations like that intentionally, for people to talk about certain topics that they were struggling with, right. Or to intentionally connect with a kid that you know, maybe is struggling with social skills or struggling with anger or struggling with empathy or struggling with their parents going through a divorce. You know, like, the reason that play therapy is so helpful for younger kids is, you know, we go in, we pick up a board game and you start playing this board game with this, you know, therapist, and all sudden, you're talking and you're using parts of the board game to talk about parts of your life. And it's almost a little strange to me that we haven't like taken that thought to its natural conclusion when it comes to like teenagers and video games.

  Derrick 27:49

  The play therapy with video games is definitely something that I have done in my practice before. And it really is, it's just amazing, you get to see it. Like I tell people all the time, the way that you do anything, is the way that you'll do everything. And the way that you play video games is the way that you play your life. And like I have just seen people go into situations where you know, before we started talking about it, where let's say you're playing a shooting game, like why are you just running around in the middle of the map everywhere? Why do you reload? After every single time you pull the trigger? Why are you using a sniper rifle on the stage? That's really small. Why are you using a pistol on the stage? That's really big. Why did you go right instead of left? Why didn't you wait like what all of these things come up? And you can, it's easily translated into the way that you do behaviors in real life. And it's such a one to one, like translation. And also it's like, it's not a guilt or shame thing. You just did it like there's no other. There's no other answer to it. You can talk about why you did it, which is how we get to the therapy part. Why did you run around that corner like that? Well, because I really wanted to get him let's talk about patience. And holding on a moment. It's really, really, it's really evident in fighting games. I was playing a person one time and he just kept jumping. He just kept on jumping. And I never did anything about it. I let him jump. And then in the last match, when I knew things were getting heated, we both had the same amount of health. And he jumped at me and I hit him and like he lost and he got so upset that when we played again he started doing more and more jumping. And at the end of it he was just mad. I was like man, do you realize that every time I knock you down and you have low health, the next thing you do is a joke. You do it every time. It's like I wonder do you jump to conclusions in your life a lot. A really great conversation anyway. Yeah, it's so wonderful.

  KC 29:44

  It's funny because it reminds me of when I used to do workshops at Drug Rehabs for families, like we'd have like family weekend and they come and part of the weekend was always done with equine therapy. And I didn't really appreciate like equine therapy, which is what Horses for those of you don't know, like how it worked. And like one of the things that we would do is we would take a family like out into this big round pin, and we'd have this horse there. And the thing that's really cool about horses is that because they are prey animals, they are very sensitive to other people's nervous systems, because that's how they survive. They have to be able to read people's heartbeats and anxiety levels and things like that. Because if you think about like, a predator who is stalking you who's like moving slow, will slow is usually calm and calm is usually safe, but not when it's a wolf stalking you. And so you have to be able to differentiate between an animal moving slow because they're calm and safe and animal moving slow because they are stalking you and trying to kill you. And so horses are very good at kind of reading congruence, like nervous system congruence and people and we would tell them, like, okay, family, like your job is to take this horse and like walk it down to the other side of the pen, and then like take it through these cones, but there'd be no bridle on the horse at all. So like no bridle, no saddle, no nothing. And the family would immediately like, try to get this horse to move. And every single time, the way that that family like the role that they played in their family, they would do with the horse, so there'd always be the mom, not always this is gonna be general, but like, you'd have mom that was like, come on, come on, sweet horse. Come on. Here's some grass, right? And then like, the horse would like bite at them. And you'd be like, Oh, no, come on, come on. And you'd be like, alright, mom. So like, let's talk about this. Like, do you typically like think being sweet and bribing is, like how you try to get people to motivate. And like when you get bid and your boundaries get pushed, you just double down with the sweetness, because that doesn't seem to work, right? And then you'd have dad, they'd be like, let's go, let's go move. Let's go. Let's go. And you're like, Hey, Dad, is that working? Like you being a bully, you push and everyone around, you turn, whatever, you'd have a sibling. This just like doesn't do anything. It's just like, I'm just going to sit back and watch you right? And like, they would just do their dynamics around this horse, and this horse would not move. And even more, the horse would leave them and be like, Y'all are gross. And but it's that same like, the way you do anything is the way you do everything. And again, it's like it's a horse. A horse is just a horse. A video game is just a video game. A book is just a book. But I think that when you allow something that is of natural interest to someone, you can engage in those kind of conversations about like, alright, dad, like we like the dad that always would get frustrated and quit. It would like always mirror exactly how he operated and his family. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you'd always you know, then you have like the Peacekeeper who's trying to like, Okay, guys, guys, guys, we just need to figure out a plan. And as they would have to learn to change their roles in that like safe risk with the horse, it would like help them think about changing those roles. And to your point, like, it's the same thing with how somebody operates in a video game or around video games or in chats in video games. And I think I just think there's so much untapped potential there.

  Derrick 33:02

  I agree with you, I'm gonna get my pickaxe and start whacking at it. No, I think that there are people out here talking about it, though the tax community therapeutic applied gaming Summit is a place that I went one time. And it's definitely a connection, a collection of really geeky and nerdy therapists that are using Dungeons and Dragons using some are using video games. Some are using animated movies, television shows. And you know, whenever you said, you know, a book is just a book of game, it's just a game of movies, just a movie, what came to my mind, and therapy is just talking, right? Like, you could look at it like that. But when you really get into the core of what's going on the quite literal magic that has to happen sometimes with the way that we use words. And even in my own experience in therapy, the magic that my therapist has had to perform in the way that she asked questions, the situation, she puts me in the thoughts that you get, like, it's so much more when you allow yourself to see it is so much more. Same thing with dynamics in the family, you know, you can see it as one person. And when you allow yourself to expand it more, you can see how all of us are playing a role in some way in the problem that our family has. And yeah, it just takes opening up your mind to that which can be really hard. Sometimes if you don't have anyone to show you how to see it.

  KC 34:14

  I was thinking back to the similarity between like books and fantasy books. And one of the things that people will talk about a lot is, oh, you know, a lot of those fantasy books have such problematic, like, gender dynamics, right? Like, it's always a guy that's like, Oh, he's so protective, and like borderline abusive, and she's such a damsel in distress, and those are such problematic and, and there's this like simplistic conclusion of jumping to like you, no one should read these because they have problematic dynamics. And I think it's much more interesting to ask, I wonder what it is in us that feels so drawn to that. And do we have to shame ourselves for why we're drawn to it or can we get curious about it? And is there a way to look at these days dynamics and get curious about these dynamics. And also like, Fine, like, it doesn't mean that we're going to enact those dynamics in the real world. Like, can I mindfully engage in reading books about those dynamics where I kind of I understand what I'm why I'm drawn to them. And I'm not trying to make it be something that it's not. And it's not, you know, it's like serving me in real life. But maybe it's the safe container for me to explore this part of myself. And it strikes me that video games are the same way, if you're mindful about them.

  Derrick 35:32

  Yeah, but it's intense. It's way more intense, because in this situation, you're the person doing those things. And sometimes you have a choice. If you're playing like a choice based game, you can decide let's why I love Mass Effect so much, because there's a paragon renegade system, neither one is inherently better than the other. Okay, and now, I just got half the community mad at me. What I'm saying is like, it doesn't say anything about you as a person again, but it might depend on some of the choices

  Unknown Speaker 35:58

  that you make, like,

  Derrick 36:02

  really? And so like, Yeah, okay. It does say a lot about who you are, depending on what you choose, but like, there's some games where like, there's this I'm not going to spoil it. But the people that No, no, but anyway, there's this game called Spec Ops The Line where you're playing as a soldier, and there is a pivotal point in this game where something happens, and you can go look it up. Now, Spec Ops don't like people that play video games, they always tell people you have to play this game. So another game called Bioshock, where it's you're living in a let me not get it wrong. It's one of those utopias it's a utopia I need to replay it is what I'm saying. But it's one of those utopias where science will fix everything and every you know, and it's a brave new world. There it is. It's not great. But then again, there's a pivotal point in the narrative, where you realize something, and like, yeah, it's strange to realize how much you know, your freewill can be taken away. But yeah, in those situations, you can work through a lot of stuff. I know that there are a lot of gamers, me included, I have difficulty making the bad choice in video games, which has really what I perceived to be the bad choice, which has really resulted in some consequences and ultimately taught me that at some point, you have to choose a side. But yeah, I don't think we should be afraid to engage with those things or interact with them. It's real. What's what really happens, and there's no reason to like, you know, I mean, you want to make it age appropriate, but there's no reason to sanitize the things that we go through the experiences that real families have, and we ended up talking about them, but like, we never really named them, we'll name everything else. We'll name borderline personality disorder, we'll name ADHD, we'll name everything else, except for the difficult experiences that we go through living with each other. And the interesting thing is, it's not a name, it's a conversation. And yeah, I really think that those things are very important in the media and literature that we read and play

  KC 37:51

  music, we can spend so much time and effort trying to pull kids and young adults away from video games. Or we could spend a fraction of that effort pushing them farther into video games with mindfulness and deep conversations and true interest in curiosity, and probably get a far better result for our growth and our skill development and our maturity.

  Speaker 1 38:15

  I agree. I don't really have anything to add. Well, this has been such

  KC 38:19

  a great conversation in such a great follow up to our first conversation would drop some plug yourself to if people want to find you or follow you. Absolutely.

  Derrick 38:27

  So you can find me at the situational therapist.com. I also have a YouTube channel, Derek the mindful gamer. It is geared more towards gamers. So if you're not a super hardcore gamer, it might not be that great. I also have a podcast called the mindful gaming podcast. And sometimes I'll talk about video games. Sometimes I talk about being neurodivergent. I talk about quite a few things. So those are the places that you can find me. Derek, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Welcome to Struggle Care, where we talk about all things individual and systemic that affect your life, wellness, and mental health. Joining me is Derrick Hoard, a licensed marriage and family therapist, TikTokker, and video game aficionado. I’ve followed him since 2020, and I love his thoughts and perspectives. Today’s topic, video games and relationships, stirs up some strong reactions and opinions, but you will walk away from this episode with a fresh and thoughtful view of the hobbies we all enjoy in our lives. Let’s get into it!

Show Highlights:

• Video games are misunderstood and not recognized for what they are—the most beautiful, immersive forms of storytelling that exist.

• Men can get in touch with emotions through playing video games.

• Video games get unjustly blamed for communication problems in relationships.

• Video games comprise a safe space of non-judgment where one can feel confident and competent. 

• Thoughts about men in therapy, gender dynamics, and emotional labor

• Consideration and honesty in relationships about our hobbies

• Society’s expectation of productivity leads us to feel shame and guilt about our hobbies. This is so wrong!

• Understanding how to have honest and authenticity in our relationships—from the start

• Red flags to look for when video games (or other obsessive hobbies) become our ONLY coping skills in life3

Resources and Links:

Connect with Derrick Hoard: Website, TikTok, and the Mindful Gaming Podcast

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello, I'm sentient balls of startups. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis, where we talk about all things individual and systemic that affect your life, your wellness, your mental health. After 100 episodes, I finally settled on a tagline that I like, I hope you like it. I am here with Derek cord, who is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a tech talker. And also a video game aficionado. Would you say that's accurate? Derek,

  Derrick 0:29

  I would say that's very accurate, I would have listed the video games first. But that's okay, that's fine.

  KC 0:36

  I have followed you since literally, I think 2020 Like you were one of the first people that I followed, oddly enough. And I love your content. I love your thoughts and perspective. And you have recently or within the last year, sort of changed your content trajectory from talking about parenting and things like that to talking about video games, which I love. Because as you know, I've had a bit of a pivot in my own content. And what I wanted to talk to you about today, sort of a mirror of the two subject matters in which you are an expert, which is video gaming, and relationships. Because I love the way that you talk about this topic. And I relate to it as a someone with ADHD who is really messy, because oftentimes, if you just look at, you know, what's advice for a couple who one of them is so frustrated, because they're the only one doing all the cleaning and the other ones really messy? We go immediately to this like, well, the messy person is the one in the wrong. Like, they're the ones that need to change their standard. And they're the ones who are engaging in weaponized incompetence. They're the ones who are, you know, in being entitled and being lazy and all these kinds of things. And I'm not saying that like that dynamic doesn't exist in couples, obviously, it does. But as the messy person, I sometimes have like, a slightly different take of like, oh, I don't know, I don't know. And for some reason I really, that it reminds me of the way I've heard you talk about gaming, because I think when we talk about, Oh, I'm so frustrated, because all my boyfriend does is play games, it's really easy for our knee jerk reaction to be like, well, he needs to get a life he needs to grow up. He needs to, you know, pay more attention to you. And there was this tic toc that came out recently where and actually I've seen several of these where a girlfriend will walk in and just turn off.

  Derrick 2:33

  Oh my god, oh my god, I'm sorry. Or one

  KC 2:38

  of them. Actually, she deleted us. Oh, my God. Okay. Yeah, like all of his gaming. And he had a very big reaction he did as he should, as he should. And the response was so quick to go. He must be ignoring her. Maybe she has been pleading for love and attention. And he's just been immature. And so she finally got a Yatta. And I really liked what you said about it. And so tell me this different way of thinking about video gaming, and what questions should we be asking ourselves when video gaming seems to be an issue in relationships?

  Derrick 3:17

  Those are all wonderful questions. Thank you so much for having me. First and foremost, like video games for me have saved my life more times than once. And I think that there is a little bit of a like misunderstanding about what video games are, what's actually happening and what's going on. Because all people who don't play video games see is someone sitting down staring at a screen for hours, pressing buttons, and randomly hooting and hollering for no reason. And that's really not what's going on video games are one of the most beautiful, immersive forms of storytelling that exist. And we go through so many emotions playing video games. And so I think that, you know, if we go back, if we go back into the past, we can get to a place where when video games first came out, it was seen as a waste of time. And then in the 90s, we had the Satanic Panic where it was like video games are gateways into the demonic. But what it really happens is it's video games usually get scapegoated for a lot of things. It's just an easy thing to blame, when in reality, you're just you're being it's so hard to explain let me call myself because I just get so overwhelmed by it because I've played so many games I've lived 1000 different lives is what I heard once at a tax Convention, which is a video game kind of community for therapists or someone said I've lived 1000 different lives. Video games are just Okay, calm down. Mr. Horn. Let me back up because you have to explain it. That's what it is. It's really hard. I think sometimes for people who do play video games to like, explain to others why we find enjoy it because it's so obvious to us. And it's not obvious to them, because there is a little bit of a barrier to entry. So I think that, you know, when it comes to let's just go right into that situation that you were talking about, for example, where the person's video game got deleted, or your husband is just sitting around all day playing video games, I'm not trying to speak for all men, because I cannot. But for men, there are very few places where we are allowed to experience the full breadth of our emotions without being shamed for it. We don't even have access to things that even let us get in touch with our emotions. And what you're not seeing when we as men are sitting down and playing video games, is the ability to be able to vicariously experience those emotions that otherwise we are locked away from experiencing. I know that many nights I have been not, you know, outwardly in tears, because that's not manly. But there have been several times where I have played video games that have allowed me to get in touch with parts of myself that I'm not otherwise allowed to, I get to experience things that otherwise would. And so, you know, when we talk about how, you know, for example, my partner sits around and plays video games all day, you know, he doesn't care, he's shirking responsibilities. How is it that he can be every single boss in Elgin ring, but can't pick up a broom and continuously clean or do anything consistently? I think what you know, and that dynamic exists, but I think what we're missing is, if we don't, you know, take the worst possible way of looking at a situation, which is something that is common now, because of the internet and social media, we have all been entrenched on one side or the other, if we don't look at it in the worst possible way, for men, specifically, but also other people play video games, too, I want to just know, but for men specifically, it's really one of the only places where we have peace. So I would say, when it comes to understanding video games differently, if you would think about it more like a book that is just alive that you can play with, I think that it makes more sense, if you would think about it like a storytelling device, that it's the same thing as reading, except instead of reading, I'm actually the character and I get to control and decide where they're going. So when you brought up, you know, the sometimes how girlfriends who might feel neglected, will walk into a room and unplug a console, you don't understand what you did. It's I'm trying to think of a good metaphor, but it would be like if you were reading a book, and your husband came in and ripped out all the pages and burn them up, but it's still not the same thing. Because you can always go buy another book, your husband cannot get back or boyfriend cannot get back those experiences that have been deleted forever. Like there's stories that have been told there's the way in which he got to where he was in his game, like, it's just people don't really understand. And then when you have that big reaction to what is ultimately a loss that you can't get back, people judge the reaction, you know, he's bipolar needs to have emotional management, emotional regulation, with actuality, you've taken away something from him, that he'll never be able to get back. So might have to ask me a more specific question, because my ADHD brain will talk about this forever.

  KC 8:22

  But as you're describing it, I understand because everything you're saying is exactly my experience when I read books when I read fantasy, because like, I will read pretty intensely for hours at a time, and I have lived 1000 lives. And it is this way of experiencing the realest parts of being human, that I might not otherwise get to experience and the best parts of being human that I get to go back and experience over and over and over. And, you know, it's not to say that there hasn't ever been a time where Okay, probably I should have done the laundry, but I wanted to read the book instead. Right. But I think that, to your point, like when we start out by saying the problem is, you know, we should demonize video games as immature and silly and pointless like that we're already starting off on the wrong foot. There's a really great video that you have where someone commented and said like, okay, but when someone's playing eight to 10 hours a day, and you know, they're ignoring you, you know, that's a different thing. And I love your response because you said, I mean, the thing is, is like it doesn't really have to do with the video game. inconsiderate people are inconsiderate. And so you know, if someone is struggling with this, if they have a partner that plays a lot of video games, and this partner and you and let's say I have concerns about hey, I don't I don't feel like I'm spending enough time with you or I really need more help with the various labor of our lives. What's a better way to Have that conversation that might be more effective with my partner?

  Derrick 10:03

  What's a really good question? So I do I want to say this when again, because I'm so used to like the extreme size being on the internet, there is no nuance it just doesn't exist. In nuance internet is where nuance ghosts die. But I do want to say this, if that because this is really important, if there are already communication problems, your relationship, I'm just Oh, I feel so free now, because there's a podcast and I can say what's on my mind, if they're already problems in your relationship. A lot of the times when there are two people who are in a relationship with each other, you live in the same house, you share a lease together, there are so many things that are keeping you together outside of just the we're going to be with each other freely. It is very difficult to actually sit down and say we are in a relationship with each other, that is just not working for us. And when you have that when it is too dangerous to look at your relationship. And honestly consider that again, sometimes not everybody is a narcissist, not everybody is out trying to hurt you. It's none of that a relationship between two people is very unique. And sometimes that relationship, the problem is the way that you're interacting with each other. But if that is too dangerous to look at denial, again, is the biggest problem. There are things I'm in denial about, like how many people my platform has touched me when you said for years, I was like oh my god. But when you're in denial about that, you will find anything and everything else to focus on other than the problem. Anything else. So video games, again, they have the unfortunate honor of being scapegoated by society at large. And so if you're in a relationship with someone who is a gamer, it is very easy to say, well, those video games are the problem, not necessarily the way in which we're interacting with each other. But if it's not video games, it will be him playing football, it will be a you know watching football, it'll be the car collection, it'll be his he was just too much anime, it will be whatever it needs to be other than Yes, it'll be golfing, it'll be hunting. Yeah, I'm sorry. You can tell him not a manly man. But yeah, it is those things that people do for enjoyment other than we have a problem with communicating with each other. And with that being said, Now that that is taken care of, if you're in a situation where you feel like you know, and again, this is that middle ground where there is room for change. But the only problem is the way in which we've been trying to change it. Like if you're in that area, one thing you don't want to do is demonize the hobby. I think having a little bit of understanding and asking, what role is this game serving, there are a lot of different ways. This is just one of them. I'm sure we'll talk about more later. But one of the things that I have noticed with this dynamic is that usually whenever the person is complaining, you don't help out around the house, you don't do enough. What I hear from men very often is that one I have tried, I really have I have done my best you asked me to clean up the kitchen, I tried to clean up the kitchen, you asked me to do the dishes, I tried doing it. And then when I did it, not only did you come behind me with a fine tooth comb and point out every single thing that I did wrong, even when I tried to do it, it wasn't like you were happy, you're proud or, you know, good job husband, it was that's what I expect you to do. And then what I often hear from the other side is, well, I shouldn't have to ask you to do it. And I shouldn't have to tell you good job for doing it. And I get that I understand there is a dynamic that exists that leads to men who have that issue. I have tried to talk about it before when I tell you they almost ran me off the internet. So I'm very careful about it. But there's a very specific experience that men go through that leads to them behaving that way. I'm not blaming anybody, it is what it is. But when they ask you know when they say that, and then they wonder why their husband goes back to the video game. One thing that I think even men themselves don't realize it is that when you play video games I know when I do if I make a mistake in the video game, it doesn't yell at me. It doesn't nag me it doesn't tell me how incompetent I am. It doesn't tell me how you know I could have done better It points out the mistake and then it very specifically guides me on the path to get where I need to go. When I do something good. Not only are there flashing lights and sounds and points and reminders, it continues to motivate me to continue to want to do it and the most important thing that a video game does that sometimes again, people who feel like I shouldn't have to explain that to my partner do is that video games guide you step by step they give you specific instruction and it does not change. It is consistent. It is reliable. I know that all I have to do is is connect continue to practice, continue to keep going. And eventually I will get it. The instructions are super clear. And there isn't any judgment of me, it's a place where I feel safe and competent. I know what the rules are, they aren't going to change, they aren't going to fluctuate, I understand that people are human, and they have emotions. And I'm asking a lot of you, I'm just simply saying sometimes if the choice is between, you know, doing an outside task, and no matter what I do, it's never good enough, versus going to a situation or a video game where I know that when I play this game, I know that I'm going to be able to be competent, I feel competent. And it continues to reinforce that. It's really no wonder why men sometimes choose to retreat into those things instead of being present in the moment. In fact, I would love there. I know, there are a lot of simulator games, if there were a cleaning simulator, I promise you that people will probably be super frustrated at how well made the game.

  KC 15:59

  That's what you need to make, though. Okay, but here's why. Because I can feel the ancestral collective female rage happening through the audio devices of everyone listening. But here's what I think the difference is, and why you often get, you know, run off the internet, because you are not talking like a researcher, or like a thought leader, or like someone who is making commentary on the systemic issues, gender, you're talking like a therapist, and specifically, you're talking like a therapist who is seeing this man in therapy. And I think people really forget this is that oftentimes, you know, when we talk about labor, specifically, like labor split, and Eve broadsky, does this really well, the book, How to not hate your husband, after kids does this really well. There's a difference between, hey, you know, men are often socialized in this way, women are often socialized in this way, and it creates these conflicts. And here is the barrier for both of them. And when you talk about, hey, you know, I shouldn't have to say XYZ. It's like, you're right, you shouldn't have to You are correct. But the fact that you shouldn't have to that truth does not change your relationship. Like when we're actually in the therapy office, we have to talk about functionally, what can help make some movement? And it's not that it's like, it's to truth, right? Like, it is the truth that yes, it is unfair, that, you know, let's say are the theoretical couple. And, and that's kind of what his issue is, and the woman's going, well, I don't want to be your mom, I don't want to have to say good boy, right. Like, I don't want to have to do that. That's unfair. And you're right, it is unfair, it is systemically a shitty situation to be in. And if you are this guy's therapist, you have this empathy of I understand why this is difficult. And it is valid, that this is difficult. And I think that, regardless of what the issue is, like, That's always where you have to start if you're going to help an individual person or an individual couple, create change,

  Derrick 18:09

  right. And I do want to say this, like, I do speak to the other side, often as well, and you bring up some really important points, you know, I do sometimes not talk like a researcher. But that's partly because I'm neurodivergent. And partly because I feel like, you know, sometimes we like, we really like hide the issues in research and language. And another thing is, again, besides what you pointed out previously, I'm also speaking on behalf of men who don't have the privilege to be as emotionally intelligent as I am. And so there are a lot of times where we bring these concepts to men that they can't even begin to conceptualize like emotional labor. Like they don't even know what that means. And like you're trying to teach them something new at the same time. And yes, you get it. But there is a privilege to being able to have access to that knowledge is a privilege to that, you know, I hear a lot of things like men need to go to therapy, that is true. But therapy, again, doesn't even feel like a safe place for me. And like there's so many times I've talked to men who have come and said, I am in therapy, because someone in my life told me that I needed to be here, and it would be good for me. And I don't even know what to do. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I just know, I'm tired of my wife being upset with me, I'm really trying. But whenever I do speak about this issue, because I can put on the researcher hat and get real deep and down and dirty with it. I've just found that that makes me more tired as a person when I'm really like getting in there talking about the systemic issues, especially if I'm just working with the wife by herself. Because I've done that before. We do talk about the fact that men are socialized into the society to believe like they don't have to do these things. You know, their men think that that's just woman's work. And this, that and other. And when I'll talk about if I don't want to get too bogged down in again, yes, the systemic factors are there. I'm not saying they don't exist. But if I don't want to get bogged down into it, I have to find a way to explain how we got where we are in a way that allows us for change because just the truth of the matter is I'm not going to change the patriarchy in my office with one light couple like I can change the dynamic for them. But I'm not changing the whole world. So the way that I'll usually explain it is, you know, at some point in your relationship, I don't know when it happen. But at some point, if you understand that's another thing a lot of people don't understand relationship, like they cannot see it. Like it's a privilege to be able to see relationship, when you really understand that then you your language changes about the way that you talk about things. And one way that I found really helpful is to say, simply, at some point in your relationship, you start I'll talk about the relationship between supply and demand. But at some point in your relationship, you started doing more around the house, and your husband started doing less. And then the less he did, the more you had to do, which is the less he had to do, which is the more you had to do, right? Like, we can talk about the systemic factors that contributed to that we can talk about how, you know, maybe he got a new job, we can talk about how maybe there were some days where you didn't mind doing more, because you had the energy, we can go through all of those things. But eventually, we got to that dynamic. That's what we need to change. And we can't do that. If we're just consistently talking about why it is the way that it is, okay, now we know why it's happening. What are we going to do about it, but I do understand why people get upset, because again, on the internet, there's no time for nuance. And I'm just speaking from the perspective of a man. And what it's like to be on the other side of the dynamic is so difficult to see what it's like to be the recipient of no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, it's not good enough. And it does get you to a place where eventually you shut down because whether I do it, you're going to be upset, or if I don't do what you're going to be upset, and it's a lot easier to just not do. It's just It doesn't matter. You know, and I think there are a lot of men that really want to be seen as competent by their partners. And yeah, no, I'm asking a lot of you, I'm asking you on top of everything else that you have to do in the relationship, you also have to tell him good job. But like, the thing is, you know, it really doesn't have to be that a lot like you could kiss a man on the cheek. And like that's one of the techniques I use when you catch him doing something that you like, I remember this, I read a book, Michelle Weiner Davis, how to get through to the man that you love. I don't know if people could probably tolerate that she talks. I don't think it would fly nowadays, I really don't

  KC 22:28

  quite here's why I don't hate that. Because, number one, I relate to this as being that messy person and also thinking to myself, like I would hate to live in a home where somebody was constantly telling me that like, I wasn't allowed to rest when I wanted to that like I had to be up if they were up and I had to clean to their standards, and this, that and the other. But the other reason that I relate to it is like I think as a woman who experiences like a high like I don't experience that high need for like feeling competent, I do experience a high need for feeling like desired and wanted. And it kind of feels at least I'm personally relating to it. Because when you say like, oh, kiss a man on the cheek when they bumped like, I'm like, Yeah, I would also like to be kissed on the forehead and smacked on the ass. If you think I look nice. And that might not be what you would naturally do that might you might be frustrated that I have such a high level of need of reassurance for that. and think, Well, what I told you, you know, we went on a date seven days ago, why do I need to continuously? You know, I shouldn't have to cater to your insecurity. And yes, guys, obviously, we know that there are extreme examples of this. But I think sometimes we typecast the extreme as making every other request unreasonable. And I think that sometimes, you know, giving someone a kiss on the cheek and telling them like, thank you for doing that, or you did a good job isn't all that different from saying, I just want to be smacked on the ass every time you think I look really nice, you know? Because yeah, okay, it's not great. Sure, I could go to therapy and self actualized where I never need your reassurance or whatever. But like, probably I can't. And I'm also interested in I mean, listen, there's an interesting dynamic that I don't think we have time for, like how men tend to have hobbies that take up hours and hours and hours, whether it's like hunting, or golf, or marathon running, or whatever. But I also want to kind of back up and talk about You talk a lot to men who are not in relationships that are big gamers and women too. It's not just men, but you kind of talk about also like part of your responsibility is being honest with yourself about like, this is my hobby. This is the time constraint like this is the time that my hobby takes up and if I'm not interested in suddenly having a different hobby, I need to be honest and authentic with the relationships I'm entering because sometimes that's part of it too is you get with someone at oh they like video games and she's thinking okay, but that's not going to be what it is when we yeah he'll grow up when we settle down when we this when we that And I love you talking about that, because that's something I've never heard talked about. And this is true, whether you're a gamer or a hunter or whatever, like, how do you practice consideration even as a single person in pursuing relationships when it comes to relationships, and maybe also when it comes to children, like being honest with yourself about what you are willing or wanting to do around your hobby that obviously takes up much of your time,

  Derrick 25:23

  right? I think just me personally, I've decided from now on, and I think this is just me being a little neuro spicy, I am not getting in another relationship with someone who does not have a hobby, or something that they enjoy in a way that we might even call a little bit obsessive. You know, there are certain things in society that are allowed to be experienced longer than others without us demonizing it. You know, one of the first things that I even talked about whenever I started getting those comments about the eight to 10 hours, you know that I play video games, sometimes not all the time, but there are definitely times, for example, my favorite game is Mass Effect. And sometimes I just get an itch, and it'll be a Friday, I'll start, and I will clear out my weekend. And I will play that game from Friday to Sunday until it's time for me to go to work again, because I really just get so lost in the experience. But I think that, you know, sometimes there are people who don't have anything that they can like, say that this is something that brings me joy, like if we lived in a world where we weren't born into a society that we had to pay for basic necessities and resources, you know, the Star Trek universe, like what would you do with your time? Like, what would you do with it? And so yeah, whenever I was getting comments, they were saying like, eight to 10 hours is so long. I remember one of the fastest ways that I got that comment to shut down was, can I please see your screentime report this week? What does it say? Because you just don't realize it whether you sit down, and you have a long streak for eight to 10 hours, or you know, that cumulative, the amount of time that you spend on social media and things like that, it's the same thing. But I think that you know, as people with hobbies, whether it's gaming, or knitting, or reading, or whatever it might be, I think, because we feel so guilty about it, because there's this societal expectation of productivity and doing something that provides value or is making money, which again, there are some people who are playing video games making quite a bit of money, I'm hoping to get their own day, you know, we're not honest with ourselves about it. And then we're not honest with the people that we're getting into a relationship with, like will downplay it, like, it might sound weird to say that, yeah, sometimes I will sit down and play video games for eight to 10 hours. And that's why I've chosen if I'm going to be with someone, you got to have a hobbit, you have to have something that you're doing, because then what happens is we can have adult parallel play, you can be doing your thing, I'll be doing my thing. And I know that my relationship is okay, even if we're not up under each other. Just honestly what happens, pretending to go through the motions of what we think a healthy relationship looks like. A lot of us grew up in families, with parents who were going through the motions for us. And we and this is not a controversial thing to say, How many times have you heard parents say I stay together for the kids, like people can see that it's obvious, you don't interact with each other, you don't do your own thing with each other. And you have all of these moments, like sitting down for dinner, sitting down and watching a movie together, we're gonna go out to the park, and it's just going through the motions. There's no actual, like, interaction between that. And so yeah, I tell people to, you know, be honest with the people that you're getting with and letting them know that like, this is something that I enjoy. And for me, sometimes it's video games, sometimes I get on a kick, where I will go see a movies, like I'll go watch movies all week, I'll go to the movie theater. And I'll just spend the day at the movies and see everything in it. Like it just it changed. So I think learning how to be honest with one yourself and removing that guilt and shame from having a hobby that isn't seen as productive or not doing anything productive, so that you can be honest with your partner, and then to making sure that the person that you're getting with that they have a hobby other than being in a relationship because when being in a relationship is your hobby, then whenever you're not engaged in that hobby, right, like you feel like there's something wrong. So I think that that's probably a really important way to look at it too.

  KC 29:25

  It also seems like there are probably people to which Oh, I love video games. But I don't feel like it's this passionate hobby. And so when I did find a relationship and decide to get married, have kids like it was no big deal to turn it off to like, I mean, my husband sold his Xbox when he was in law school because he was like, I'm sorry. Yeah. Because he was like, I just don't think that I'm gonna like do well in law school if I like have the ability to play games, but it wasn't that's not it wasn't like this hobby that he was like, really, really passionate about. And I think that there's also a degree to which as you mentioned, like I have to address this shame that I feel about, oh, I'm not supposed to have this hobby or let me just downplay it. And there's this responsibility to date to not date someone in a way that is so radically different than how you live day to day like, because I could see that as a woman, you know, if someone is mostly taking me out to dinner, and taking me out to do XYZ, and I'm going, Oh, this is great. And it isn't until I move in with you that I realize, Oh, that's not what like it actually is going to look like to live together. And I'm not saying like, you know, your first date should be them watching you game. But I do think they're sorry,

  Derrick 30:35

  because that's what mine is.

  KC 30:41

  And actually, that's fine. But like, there should be this level of authenticity of this is what my life looks like. And I have to be honest enough to either look for someone that I know is going to want to live that type of lifestyle, or if I meet someone, and I think that oh my god, this is my soulmate, and they don't want that kind of lifestyle, I need to have a very honest discussion with myself, not just sort of deny it and be like, Oh, it'll be fine. It'll be we'll make it work. It'll be fine. Like, we have to really be honest about, you know, what we are. And that's a very practical thing. It's non judgement. It's not what you should or shouldn't like that you should or shouldn't, whatever. Now, let me ask you one last thing, I think with anything, whether it's books or video games, or hunting or whatever, like, how do we as someone who's really into that kind of hobby, what are flags that we can look for? That might tell us? Okay, I wonder if I actually need to work on my like, toolbelt of coping skills, like not that there's anything wrong with my hobby. But what are some signs that can tell me, maybe I'm spending time in this hobby to overcompensate for some things, that I would be better served with different coping skills so that I can have a more enjoyable life?

  Derrick 32:06

  That's really hard for me, because, again, I know that there's an answer to this question, I might not be the one to give the answer for it simply because I mean, I am neuro divergent. And I have not found anything else besides mindfulness and deep breathing. But I haven't found anything else that allows me to deal with how confusing the real world can be. Other than video games, I'm not saying that those things don't exist. And I do practice other coping skills. But I feel like all of those coping skills that I practice, I can do them a lot quicker and a lot faster. In video games, like mindfulness, for example, you know, being able to be in the present moment, I think it does, you know, sometimes depend on your particular situation. You know, if I'm in a relationship, and every time, you know, we get upset my coping skills to go straight to a video game, and I don't know how to talk to my partner or communicate my feelings to them, then I think, you know, that definitely does get into a place where there is some issue, but just for me, specifically, and I'm kind of thinking about how I represent neurodivergent gamers and I kind of speak to their experience, it's a little bit difficult for me to conceptualize, I'm not saying it's not there. You know, I know there are two minds, and they're probably some other professionals getting really upset with me right now. But I do think that if people understood and I have to do a better job of explaining it, I really think if people understood that video games are not just it's not just entertainment, like the amount of competency and things that you can practice, not just hand eye coordination. But even empathy. There was a game that I was playing, where it's called St. Louis saga Hellblade. And she is a Viking warrior who also hears voices. And sometimes those voices in the way that the game uses, like binaural audio, like the voices sound like they're coming from different places, but sometimes they're helpful. And then sometimes they're really critical. And when I first played that, like, I teared up, because I was like, this is exactly what it feels like to be someone who is neurodivergent and have these negative inner critical thoughts mixed with these other thoughts that are sometimes positive. And in the game, I had to actually practice tuning out the negativity and only focusing on the things that were positive. And when I stopped playing, it instantly became easier for me to do in my regular life. When it comes to things like coping with feeling like I'm not good enough. I'm never gonna make me I'm never gonna be able to succeed. I was playing Elden ring in the boxes in that game are notoriously hard. And even the sense of community around it. We didn't even get to that part. Like most people don't play video games by themselves. They're playing with their friends. I have made a community of friends on the internet that some I've met in pub in real life will go into conventions together, but like beyond what some people don't see, like yeah, you're just late night playing Call of Duty. There have been times in that Call of Duty chat with my friends, where I have talked them Through I went through a divorce my friends on the internet are the reason why I'm here right now. Like they talked me through it, they would check in on me they'd send me messages on my phone Hey, man, how you doing? You know, man is.

  KC 35:11

  But Derek that's groundbreaking like your answer here is that there is a mindful way to use your video games. And you don't have to go, Okay, I need to do something other than video games to cope, it's I need to learn how to engage with my games in such a way where I am learning and growing and experiencing the parts of being human that stretch my comfort zone, and build my competence and my confidence and my community and my connection. And I think you gave the perfect example, you know, there's a big difference between every time we have a conflict, I have to go play a video game that, you know, allows me to numb out those feelings and not think about it versus I'm thinking about the kinds of games I like, and I'm challenging myself with games that challenge my empathy, and connect me to other people and teach me how to handle when I lose a competition. Or when I win a competition. I think the answer is that we probably need more people like you talking to, you know, people who are really into gaming about how they can be better humans through their favorite hobby, as opposed to this binary that everybody else sets up, which is if you want to be a better human, leave that hobby behind. All right. All right, Derek, we're right at time. But I would love to continue this conversation. Maybe we can do like a little part two, where we can talk a little bit more about that. And I also eventually want to do talking about maybe for some parents whose kids are really into games and how we can help facilitate that. If people want to follow you. They want to know more about you, where can they find you. So

  Derrick 36:50

  you can find me at the situational therapist.com That's my legacy website. And then you can also find me on Tik Tok at the situational therapist. Those would be the two primary places right now. I'm hoping to have some a few more things and also have a gaming podcast called the mindful gaming podcasts where I kind of talk about some of my experiences with gaming, definitely putting a lot more effort into that as well. Derek,

  KC 37:13

  this is so great. I wish we had more time. I'm gonna invite you back to talk more about this if you will come.

  Derrick 37:18

  For sure. Absolutely. I would love to awesome.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Do you want to bring sexy back into your life? This concept encompasses much more than actual sex, but it reaches to the inner depths of a woman’s core identity, vitality, and attitudes about life. This episode was prompted by the response to a recent TikTok in which I commented about how I’ve rediscovered things about myself here in my late 30s as my kids are a bit older and I have more time to myself. The response was big, with many questions about what I’ve done. I hate to say that there really is no big secret, but this topic is well worth exploring, so I’m bringing in my good friend, Lindley Gentile, a licensed marriage and family therapist. She is an expert who works specifically with women around rediscovering their sexiness, or perhaps, learning to discover it for the first time. 

Show Highlights:

• Contributing factors to why women lose their individuality and sexiness

• The roles women fall into throughout life’s phases—without any renegotiation with their partner

• Sexiness in identity is about MUCH more than having sex.

• Being “turned on” is about aliveness, vitality, positivity, and a vibration of your soul.

• Care tasks create a barrier to pleasure.

• Sex is like a playground for fun and pleasure, and the aging woman can have more fun at the playground.

• Aging women, what they wear, and feeling sexy

• Sexiness is about energy and how you feel.

• False messages from society around fatphobia, suppression, and ideology

• Fantasy is a gift and a power that can overcome our tendency to overthink.

• Lindley’s starting point with women who want to rediscover their sexiness

• Lindley’s recommended reading for every woman: Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski

Resources and Links:

Connect with Lindley Gentile: Website, TikTok, and Austin Couples Concierge Counseling

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:04

  Hello Sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to Struggle Sare. I'm your host, KC Davis, where we talk about all things individual and systemic that impact our health, our well being our happiness, and where I hyper fixate on topics that intersect with mental health, depending on how I'm feeling that week. And I recently did a tic toc where somebody who set like made a comment to me that they felt like I was like glowing from the inside. And I shared that I feel like I'm in this part of my life. I'm 37, where I'm kind of like rediscovering sexy in my late 30s, my kids are four and six, they're starting to go to school, I have a little bit more time to myself, and like rediscovering my identity and things like that. And there was such a response to that. Tiktok. And one of the big responses was like, Oh, my gosh, how did you do it? Tell me about that journey. Tell me about how I do it. And I feel like I just was am woefully inadequate to tell you anything about it, because I've just stumbled into it. So what I've done is, so I brought on an expert, my good friend, Lindley, Gentile, she is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. And she has been working with women specifically around this idea of rediscovering sexiness or perhaps discovering it for the first time. And would you say that the majority of your clients that you work with this kind of stuff are mothers,

  Lindley 1:22

  they are the majority, I would say 95% of the clients I work with are moms. And that can be any stage new mothers, mothers who have children going off to college, anywhere in that aging mother journey, who say, Oh, my goodness, I've lost connection to the woman, behind mom, behind wife behind whatever career I do, right? Like, I don't know who I am anymore. I've lost connection to my individuality. And what typically goes hand in hand with that is I no longer feel sexy.

  KC 1:56

  And what do you think contributes to getting to that place? Like a couple of things? What do you think contributes to getting to that place in the first place? And then what is it about women? Like, is it a certain age or a certain stage? Like, what is it that's like kind of waking them up to like, Wait, I don't want to let go of this part of life yet. So two part question. Yeah.

  Lindley 2:17

  So I think what contributes to it is we are socialized as women from a time we are very little girls to believe that our worth is how much we can do. For others. We are the mass nurturers, caretakers solvers Give it to me one more thing on my back, I can take it to the finish line. And it's almost like whoever can be the most exhausted or have the most balls in the air has that biggest badge of honor and self worth? Right. And so I think that the reason we lose connection to our individuality is because we have been socialized to believe we must pour all of ourselves into taking care of everyone else in order to have self worth.

  KC 2:58

  Yeah, I feel like I really resonate with the idea that the more I was consumed by my role in caretaking, particularly with my children, the farther away I felt from that woman who used to think herself sexy, it was kind of two things there was like, there's the physical component of like, I was getting older. You know, I had had two babies who I weighed more, you start to get lines on your face. I mean, I just wasn't a 24 year old, nor could I pass is one, which I had been told my whole life that you know, sexiness and your desirability to men is a part of that worth and what like sexy is that one specific look of like, a young, thin tan girl in their 20s. And like, physically, I was moving farther and farther away from that. But also internally, like, you're just you're wiping butts and dealing with throw up and caretaking people and even like, I think a lot of us, we're caretaking our partners. Mm hmm. And then you wake up one day, and you're like, What happened to that woman that felt sexy? Yeah, that's

  Lindley 4:07

  typically when they reach out, right? And you're like, what is happening? I'm overwhelmed, I'm resentful. I'm miserable. I've lost connection to self. And they realize I have to diversify the way that I build worth. Because this way, this pouring myself into everyone else endlessly is not sustainable. And what

  KC 4:29

  role do when women come to you? What role does their partner typically play in that? Like, do you find that women are mostly just kind of, you know, doing it to themselves? Or are is there like a dynamic with their partners where like, the partner isn't stepping up to the plate when it comes to home labor, and it's like contributing to kind of that feeling of, I just can't help but think of that, like the men that you've told me about that. Like, they're going through a divorce. And they say like, well, she just she used to be so interesting. She used to be so fun. and used to be so sexy, and then you dig into and it's like, okay, but you've also like refused to pick up your kids from school for the past 12 years.

  Lindley 5:10

  You know, it's an honest mix, I really can't blame them in and you know how much I love that book, how not to hate your husband? After kids, right? She really has women take a large responsibility and role in their over functioning. And so I think it's a good mix. I do think there are a lot of cases in which it has been has under functioned for many years voluntarily, right. Like, he knows he's doing this, he doesn't want to change, and the woman is exhausted. Honestly, though, in the bulk of cases that I work with, I think that men and women fell into roles, right? And they just fell to renegotiate over the years, right? They fell into certain roles, or for certain care tasks, splits, and they just didn't renegotiate. Right? They didn't do that week to week or month to month, or as they added more children or as jobs changed and fluctuated. And a lot of times, I think it's unintentional. And they do want their wife to seek this help. And they do themselves want to learn how do I step up and do more so that my wife can have more of a buffer away from care task to connect to her individuality? And when

  KC 6:20

  we talk about sexiness, like maybe we should stop for a minute and just talk about like what that even means because I can see someone in the audience being like, so are you talking about just like having sex more often? Are you talking about getting turned on? Like, what are we talking about here? Because we're not actually just talking about the act of sex, right? We're talking about something much bigger than that when it comes to identity.

  Lindley 6:46

  Yeah, the way that I love to talk about this concept is sharing a story of going to hear a stair Pearl speak in person a handful years ago. And you know, a stair Pro, very famous writer therapist focuses a lot on sexuality throughout our lives. And she really blew my mind. This is where the start of me focusing on women's sexuality. This is where it happened. She said, You know what the feeling of being turned on? Right? The two words turned on. It really is a feeling of aliveness. liveness of vitality, right? It's like this electricity that moves through your body and you feel this surge, this rush this positivity. And that feeling is so vital to our health as females and especially as aging females, it's so vital to our health. Why would we outsource that? Why would we outsource that to our partners? Why would we outsource that to what the world thinks is sexy, right? The feeling of being turned on right is such a powerful electric aliveness, we need to own that we need to own the feeling of being turned on a feeling sexy. So she did this really cool thing where she said, I'm going to walk around the audience. And I'm going to pass this microphone around. And I'm going to ask you to say I turn myself on when? Okay, so she's actively having us, reframe our mind about we own this nobody else and so she starts to ask people and you know, the first one says when I kick ass at on a project at work, or someone else says when I take a risk when I learn a new hobby, when I buy those sexy red heels when I buy that vibrant, beautiful outfit, that was way too much money and wear it to dinner, right? And then this woman I swear she had to be 7580 years old, and I loved every bit of it. She grabbed the microphone from a stare pulled it in her hands and said when I get naked in the hot tub. And I just love this idea of it doesn't matter if it's, you know our appearance with heels or some fun, crazy new outfit. It doesn't matter if it's moving our body or sweating or learning a new hobby or taking a risk or, you know, getting in the hot tub naked. It's different for everybody but what makes your soul vibrate. What makes you feel electric, what makes you feel alive and to me? That's how I want to focus on sexiness as I age.

  KC 9:30

  And it strikes me as a couple of things strike me as you as you talk. One. It's like there's this playfulness. It's like the Innit for me. It's the intersection of my gender and playfulness, if that makes sense. And I don't think it doesn't have to do with like, where on the gender spectrum you feel like you are, but it's just kind of like going to that place wherever it is, and being playful with it and And when you talk about like being turned on, this was another thing that really came to be obvious to me in my late 30s. It's like, there's a really big difference between being like, turned on in my brain and being turned on in my pants. Do you know what I mean? Like a arousal like the literal physiological arousal of one's like, in the pants bits is like a part of sexiness. But like, there's also like, I just did a podcast episode about kink, and the kink educator talked about, like the brain tinglies and the pants tinglies and how they're different.

  Lindley 10:31

  Oh, my gosh, kink educators are the absolute best. Yes,

  KC 10:35

  and they work together. But like it, that to me is what it is. It's like those brain tinglies and sometimes that's in conjunction with the pants tinglies. And sometimes it's on its own. And when I accomplish something, I can feel good about it. But when I accomplish something, and I'm in this intersecting headspace of, like, part of my identity is where my gender lies. And I feel so playful about that. And also, I just kicked acid that like, it's like it all kind of comes crashing together. And is it I think it's Astaire Perella she the one that talks about how like, sexiness and like familiarity or like something about how like caregiving is the opposite of eroticism?

  Lindley 11:19

  It is, it absolutely is. And a female's brain cannot engage in both at the same time, we need a significant buffer away from care tasks in order to turn ourselves on opened ourselves up for an even create that possibility, right? We have to be able to connect to our individuality and have that buffer in order to seek or want pleasure or feel sexy. Yeah,

  KC 11:42

  and I think sometimes in those like early years of postpartum and young kids, and like, I think because of the way society has structure, because of the way gender roles are, I mean, like, I just felt like I was underwater all the time. And, you know, sometimes just the physical labor required to take care of babies is like, there is no room for anything else. And if you do something 24 hours a day, it is going to be your identity. And it takes years, I feel like to get to the point in parenthood where, yes, I am a mother, but I now have some time to experience my other identities. Like I don't always have to be in the mother identity, even though it is obviously an important part of me.

  Lindley 12:25

  Yeah, and when you talk about time, what comes up for me is prioritizing. Before I understood the concept that I could own My pleasure, I could own my aliveness and my feeling sexy and how important it was to my aging process. Right? My vitality, before I understood that I just didn't make time for it. Even if I could have it was the last thing on the list because I didn't realize, hey, this is so important in my health. I want to prioritize it. And you know how I feel about this. Casey, we talked about this a lot, right? But I teach women constantly that sex is not about meeting your partner's needs. It is not about caretaking. It is not about confirming love. Sex is like a playground that we go to, to have fun to seek pleasure for ourselves and Astaire parole talks a lot about if you understand it in that way, sex and feeling sexy. And the idea of being turned on can truly be a fountain of youth they can it can be a fountain of youth you visit in your 30s 40s and 50s. To feel that sense of vitality, and youthfulness again, when I made that connection, then it became something I wanted to prioritize on the to do list.

  KC 13:55

  It interesting, you bring up the idea of youth because I feel like one of the things that is a barrier to like feeling sexy when you are late 30s, early 40s into your 50s and 60s, is this idea that like sexy is a young woman's game, right? That sexy is sin, young, sexually submissive, you know someone that with a very flat tummy that looks really good and revealing clothing or whatever you have. And I think that there's this, like, I sometimes will see women and I recognize that there's like an element of judgment to this. But like women who I feel like are like clinging to the ability to operate in that space. Right. So like, they will do anything possible to not look their age, they will do anything possible to continue to dress in those styles or date men of that age or make you know, whatever. And there was a part of that to me that I didn't want to do that. Because it always kind of seemed like it was run by fear, right? Like this idea that if I'm not sexy, I'm nothing if I'm not attractive to men that I'm nothing And a big part of me like, wants to let go of that wants to unpack that, like I hear sometimes older women talking about how freeing it is to be past the age where men find them sexually attractive, because they just get left alone, and they can move on. And they're bigger, better things in life than, you know, doing that. And so there's this part of me that's like, Okay, I don't want to just be continuously trying to shape and contort my body, my personality, my sexuality to like, you know, continue to try and be sexy, like a 23 year old. And yes, I want to unpack the idea that if I'm not sexually attractive, I'm not worthy. But one time, you said to me something really interesting where you said, listen, Casey, like, the 40s is when women hit their sexual peak. And I feel like they're sexual prime. And I was like, that's so different than the world saying that like a woman's sexual prime is in their 20s, because that's when they look, you know, the way that people want them to look. And yet, okay, so we're hitting our sexual prime in our 40s. And there's not really a lot of women I feel like to show us like, what does being sexy in your 40s look like? If it doesn't look like just trying to look like you're 20? Or act like you're 20 I

  Lindley 16:15

  think what you just said kind of reinforces that ideas in our 20s we don't own our sexuality, we believe it's for other people, we believe it's about meeting needs. We believe our parents needs to look pleasing to other people, we don't own it. And therefore we don't feel as free. We feel freer in our 40s Because we're like, fuck other people. Fuck with a cat. I've been too much through too much adversity to care anymore, right? I own. I own the way I look, I own the way I feel. And then sex becomes freeing because if you go to the playground with all out all of that package, of course, you're gonna have more fun at the playground.

  KC 16:50

  Well, I also think that there's this aspect of like that, like puritanical culture where women are expected to be sexy, but not act like they want to be seen as sexy. And you can almost feel like embarrassed to do something sexy, or to dress a way that you think is sexy, or to let anybody know you're trying to be sexy. And there is even like a societal, like, push back on look at this old lady trying to be sexy, or trying to be right. And so I think that there's a part at which like, rediscovering, sexy, for me has also been about, like, rejecting the idea that I'm not allowed to want that. And that it's okay. It not even just in the like, oh, internally, I'm alive and playful. But like, I do want to figure out a way to do my hair that I think looks really good. And my makeup that looks really good. And I want to have clothes that I think look really good on me. And I want to like how do we unpack those feelings around like, I want to look sexy. And I don't want to do it in the way that it has to be like the way that I don't want to you know what I mean? I don't want to be fat phobic, and ages and all these things. But I still want to look sexy. What does that even supposed to be at this age?

  Lindley 18:08

  It's such an interesting question, because I think it's different for everyone. But maybe you can help me unpack this. I went to a waterpark the other day with my daughter. And there were probably 30 Other moms there. And most of them were fully dressed. The waterpark is very hot, very hot. And most of them were fully dressed. And they looked pretty uncomfortable sitting all at a table together. And I was like, It's my birthday, like I'm gonna sit fully dressed at a hot water park. For my daughter's, you know, end of Year party, like, Whatever, I'm gonna throw my bathing suit and play in the wave pool with my husband and my son. And so I throw my bathing suit, which was a two piece. And it's not like it's not revealing it's not super crazy. It's just like this comfortable, sporty, two piece halter top type suit. And I am buzzing all around that waterpark. Because energetically I feel so good. Energetically, I feel good. And I just want to be vibrant and swim and play and have fun. And I could tell that was not pleasing to quite a few women at that table. And even me as a therapist who teaches right like where are the things that make you feel energetically aligned and fun and vibrant and vital. Even a woman who teaches that and has been teaching that for a decade I got home and I called my girlfriend I was like am I too old to wear two piece? Am I not supposed to be wearing a two piece anymore? Just like did I miss that? Like truly I had a moment where I was like Wait, should I not be doing that anymore? Do I look desperate wearing a two piece because I made other people uncomfortable? What are your thoughts on that?

  KC 19:54

  Well, it's interesting because I bought a two piece for the first time in like 10 years this year. And because We have a pool in our backyard now. And I think that there's, it's like, for me, it's been about moving through the fear. Because there's fear on both sides, right? I'm afraid that if I don't look sexy and a two piece and looks sexually attractive to everyone around me, that's embarrassing, and I won't be worthy. And I sometimes even felt embarrassed and a one piece because it's like, I'm embarrassed that I don't think I look good enough for a two piece. And then I'm embarrassed and a one piece because I feel like it just screams to everybody. That girl's too embarrassed to be in a two piece. And so it was like, okay, yeah, I have this fear on both sides. I don't want to you know, be that woman that people are like, Oh, look at her clinging on to youth with her cold dead hands

  Lindley 20:55

  are just a little bit how I felt at the end of the waterpark, even though I know better. I know.

  KC 20:58

  But I also don't want to make the mistake of like, being so principled. Like, you know, Oh, I'm so judgmental about people to get Botox because they're just trying to look 20s. And I am so enlightened, I've unpacked my, you know, views about the patriarchy and ageism. And so, you know, now I've like, gotten myself into a corner where like, my worst is now about how I'm too good to fall for any of those societal messages. And so now I'm afraid if I want to get Botox, or if I want to put on a two piece, or if I want to straighten my hair or learn how to do my mate, like, it's like, I think it's about moving from fear to playfulness.

  Lindley 21:43

  It really is. That's what we're talking about. It's sexiness is the energy. It's the energy you feel, I felt so playful at the waterpark, it's playfulness, it really is, I think you hit the nail on the head.

  KC 21:59

  And I also think that there's, and we've talked about this before, like whether it comes to like erotic map stuff, which I don't have time to unpack, or like societal messages or whatever some of that stuff is, we know that it's like not helpful. And it's it can be really harmful. And it's used systemically for oppression and suppression and all those kinds of things. And so it is important that we become aware, it is important that we don't allow those things to be the harbored, like, carry all of our worth. And it might be impossible to like 100% root out every beauty ideal you've ever had that's ever been touched or shaped by you know, society, like I know, that like thinking I look better and long, straight hair is like a societal message that is gleaned from patriarchy, and white supremacy, and yada, yada, yada, and I have curly hair. And so like I did go through this process of like, I'm going to learn how to take care of my curly hair, I'm gonna learn how to love my curly hair. And I did that for a long time. And, you know, at the end of the day, I still feel sexier in my long straight hair. I just do. And I know that that's like, you know, okay, that's not ideal, but I think that sometimes for some of us, that's where we get stuck, where it's like, I don't want to participate in these kinds of beauty standards to the level where like, I'm losing my soul, or I'm running on fear, or I'm like, you know, contributing to some harmful belief. But then we get almost like perfectionistic, or like, like, the purity of how enlightened we are. And it's like, I mean, there's gotta be a level at which like, I've done the work as best I can. I'm being aware as best I can. I'm not, you know, but like, at the end of the day, like, maybe the more empowering move is like, man, I've looked at it, I get it, I'm not going to be shitty to other people about it. And also like, I'm going to straighten my hair and keep it long when I want to feel sexy back.

  Lindley 23:54

  Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think we get caught up in mental gymnastics, and we overthink it to death. And if we would just kick it down to our chest and feel it and take a deep breath in. Ah, what would make me feel most energetic and playful today would be rockin some long mermaid hair. Awesome. Rock the mermaid hair today.

  KC 24:15

  And like recognizing things that are truly harmful, like, it's hard for me to completely unpack. Like the messages of fatphobia around like, the smaller you are the sexier. Like that's a very common message. And I know that dieting is harmful. And so I'm unwilling to do it. Like I just am unwilling to do it. And because the risk factor there is like, obvious to me. But I also like I might favor an outfit that I think makes me look a little slimmer. And I can also recognize like man, that's probably problematic, like that's a problematic viewpoint that like I have a hard time getting rid of 100%. But I also think like, it's one thing to be like, I refuse to go on diets, because I'm not going to put my health at risk for this beauty ideal. And I'm going to refuse to allow myself to buy this outfit that I think, you know, it's flattering when I know the reason I think it looks flattering is because it kind of makes me looks slimmer. And that's so problematic. So I can't allow myself to have that outfit. Do you? And I mean, like, that's kind of what I mean about like, it's both and you're only human. We don't have to, like shame ourselves into not being these ideologically pure women. It's both.

  Lindley 25:31

  It's both. And I really think when we get caught up overthinking, it's just, it is a distraction. It is a method and not to feel anytime I'm overthinking like but what if but what if, but maybe I'm doing it because that reason or this reason, or that reason that maybe I shouldn't because of this societal thing, and that anytime I'm there, it is an immediate flag. Oops, I'm trying not to feel something. And if I just push it right on down to my chest, and I'm like, what is it? What's the thing I don't want to feel right now. Let me feel it. All of that overthinking naturally goes away.

  KC 26:14

  Here's another question like so I have been reading a lot of fantasy romance books lately. And a lot of people were commenting on my ticket back like, oh, it's the books. You're rediscovering Cisely because of the books. And I had to be like, Listen, this is actually a process that's been going on way longer than the books. However, I feel like that is like a really common Avenue, where women will like circle back around to like, oh, maybe I'm not dead. They're like, maybe I do want to like, re experienced this. Maybe I don't want to put that part of myself to bed. And so I'm curious if you have thoughts about like, what is it about? like reading a really good book that's got some like nice sex scenes that like, particularly for women like wakes that back up for them sometimes? Well,

  Lindley 27:00

  I mean, we don't go to the movies to watch a story about our own lives, we would be incredibly bored. Right? Like all of this fairy Smite and all these different mythical creatures and erotic novels, we have forgotten the power in fantasy. Fantasy is a gift. It is a place for us to escape and play and get rid of all that overthinking you were just saying you were just talking about right you were talking about but what if but what if but what if? And society thinks this and maybe I shouldn't? That's, that's all that overthinking. We're talking about and I think these fantasy books do so well for women, because they allow you to get out of your head quit overthinking. And just feel and reengage with fantasy fantasy is a gift, it is an escape for us to be playful. And of course, the Wilder the book is the more it's about a creature or a vampire or a fairy, it's even better, right? Because that's how we're entertained. We're at nor not entertained by things that are so similar to our own lives. And I think one

  KC 28:07

  of the things that had that also really helped me was when it came to my social media. Like following a diverse group of people that were diverse, and that were like, closer to my age and older and had like a diverse, like body types. And diverse racially like that's huge, right? And nationality and all this kind of stuff. Because there's so much of that, like, inner oppression of like, I'm not sexy enough because I don't look this because I don't look like that because I don't like is delivered by being constantly bombarded by the one type of beauty that you said. Yeah, exactly. And like it has done wonders for my confidence and my like willingness to reengage in sexy to like, follow women and go Well, I think she's sexy. Like, holy shit, she's sexy, and following women that aren't straight. Some

  Lindley 29:07

  of the women I think are sexiest to me, look nothing like me. They look nothing like me. They are many different races. They are many different sizes. It is its energy. It really is the women that I follow that I'm like, Oh good. God, she's sexy. It is that energy. It's her connecting. It's like she is head down doing what makes her feel happy and feel vibrant and dammit, I want to be closer to that. I want more of that.

  KC 29:39

  It's interesting, too, because like it's turning on its head kind of the patriarchal rule about like women must be competition. And women must be the other enemy and you know another and like, I feel like at this point, like I'm attracted to men, in terms of like sexual and romantic attraction, but like I'm inspired by sexy women in their late 30s 40s 50s. Like, when I watched them, and that helps me because like, I have never looked at a woman and been like, see, not sexy, because of her body size, or her body type or her hair type, like, I will be like, Wow, that is sexy. And then it'll give me that moment of like, so why do I think that I can't be sexy because of ABC. But clearly, I think that she is. And it helps with that like, those like misbeliefs and lies that I have to kind of unpack and leave at the door.

  Lindley 30:36

  1,000% You set the nail on the head.

  KC 30:41

  So what are some things that you tell women, when they say like, I want to rediscover this part of my identity, like in terms of like going forward, like things that have worked well for them to rediscover that? I usually

  Lindley 30:53

  start by asking what cultivates aliveness for you? What makes your soul vibrate? When do you feel plugged in to the universe? When do you feel most playful? If they can start answering questions like that, we're getting them to feel sexy energetically.

  KC 31:17

  So do you mean like sexual situations or just anything like when I have a project at work, when I sing

  Lindley 31:26

  no anything in life, right? Like, when I travel to other countries, when I go hiking next to water when I take a risk at work when I give a public speech or presentation in front of a huge crowd, right? Whenever I challenged my brain, it is so different for so many women, and I love to hear their answers. But rarely is it when I weigh a certain weight, I've never heard that when I look a certain way. When I start asking women, when are you cultivating aliveness? When do you feel plugged into the universe? When is your soul vibrating? When do you feel most playful? Never do they answer anything about their looks?

  KC 32:10

  All right. So if so if they they begin to identify like these are the areas that sounds like you're saying, like step one is to do those things more, or try to weave those things into your life more.

  Lindley 32:25

  And I might also ask, How do you turn yourself off? How do you close yourself down to sex to sexiness to aliveness? Right? What are you doing to shut that part of you down, and they'll start telling me a list of those things, right? When I don't move my body. When I watch hours and hours and hours of TV every night, it may be different for everyone, when I pass up the opportunity for a promotion at work, because I just wasn't brave enough to put my name in the hat. It's different for everyone. But when I start asking them to make the list of what turns themselves on, what turns themselves off, and I say, Okay, how many of these are you doing? Right? It can often be shocking. It's like, Well, shit, I'm doing every one of them, I turned myself off when and maybe only one of the I turned myself on. So it's really trying to get those in balance and being aware of the activities they're doing that are connected to them feeling sexy or not.

  KC 33:26

  And then I also wonder, like, when we come to the actual act of like, doing the deed, I wonder too, if like, the reason so many women start to rediscover sexy through books is because they are engaging their mind. And you know, you talked about fantasy, but there's this, for a lot of people, there's a romance element there, or there's a fantasy element, or maybe it's some like kink element, or there is there's this like, long, like, there's this preheating like a long preheat, right? And elevate you just call it a preheating the oven. Right? And I think that when you are at least for me, like when I was younger, you know, so often participate in sex as a performance. Do I look sexy to this person? Are they desiring me? Am I making the right noises? Am I making the right basis? Are they you know, do they find me satisfying? Like,

  Lindley 34:22

  am I making this person feel good? Yeah. Am I

  KC 34:27

  good enough at this? Are they going to like that, like it's, we can really put on a performance. And you know, you get older and all of a sudden it's like, okay, I'm kind of sick of the performance. And also like, just biologically, you know, you could go from you can turn on the pants tinglies pretty fast and easy, even if you're not 100% pre heated. And then the older you get all the sudden it's like, Hey, man, like, I actually can't, like get into this or find this pleasurable. On pants tinglies alone, if there's no brain tinglies happening, and I wonder how much of this is, like, you mentioned, like renegotiating labor but like how much of us how many of us have never like stopped to renegotiate? Like, our sex lives with our partner and what isn't isn't working for us and what we haven't haven't been speaking up about or asking for or, and just like getting comfortable with what it takes to truly communicate about those things with our partner. I

  Lindley 35:30

  think it's a lot of that I think you sort of brought up to two or three important parts. I think fantasy novels are helping so much because they're about females pleasure. They're largely about females pleasure, and then exploding an orgasms and Oh, my goodness, he did XYZ to get me to come right. It's so much about female pleasure. And it connects to you because in your 40s, because you realize sex is not about my partner's pleasure. It's about me taking pleasure for myself, I've got to own my own pleasure. So I think that that really speaks to women, the preheating part, I love Astaire pearls quote on foreplay starts the moment the previous orgasm ends, right? That's when we start foreplay, that's when we should be right like doing this non sexual intimacy and preheating the oven with romance and things like that. And I think that that happens really often in fantasy books.

  KC 36:28

  Yeah, well, let's say this has been a great conversation. Do you have any thing that you want to add? or kind of like, in conclusion, or important things that we didn't mention? No,

  Lindley 36:39

  I love it. I'm so excited for your audience to be taking on this journey with you. I love that you mentioned it. And I think that women are raving to think about sexuality and feeling turned on and feeling feeling alive so differently. So good for you for leading the charge. Are

  KC 36:57

  there any books that you would recommend if someone hears this they're like, Okay, I want to read more about this. Absolutely.

  Lindley 37:01

  I think that every female should be required reading to read, come as you are. Right by Emily Nagurski. I think that that is a female Bible for sexuality. All

  KC 37:16

  right, Lindley. Well, thank you so much. And before you go, where can people find you online if they want to follow you?

  Lindley 37:20

  Yes. So I am relaunching my Tiktok I'm excited about that. They can always find me on tick tock, and they can check out my website at Lynley gentile.com or Austin couples concierge.com. That is where I help couples with their sex lives.

  KC 37:38

  And what is your tick tock handle?

  Lindley 37:40

  Literally Gentile. All right, thank you mumbling alright. Byla

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

As usual, we are talking about all things mental health, wellness, and topics that matter to us both individually and systemically. I’m excited to be joined by Parker Bushman, the founder and CEO of Ecoinclusive Strategies and the Inclusive Journeys Guide. Ecoinclusive Strategies is a consulting firm that works with conservation-based organizations, environmental organizations, and nonprofits around diversity, equality, and inclusion. Join us!

Show Highlights:

• Nature should be free and accessible to ALL!

• The existing disparities in neighborhoods, tree cover, park access, and open spaces

• Racist roots of the conservation movement

• Messages of elitism among “outdoorsy” people

• Things that have been baked into our ideas about who gets to be outside and enjoy it–We need to break down the barriers!

• Thoughts about able-ism and outdoor spaces

• Parker’s consulting work with organizations doing wildland restoration, community engagement, and DEI work

• Building community through engagement, information, collaboration, and empowerment

• Systemic issues that prevent outdoor access

• Parker’s advice to everyone about finding outdoor activities that you enjoy

Resources and Links:

Connect with Parker Bushman and Ecoinclusive Strategies: Website, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello Sentient balls of Stardust. Welcome back to Struggle Care, your favorite podcast. I'm sure. I'm your host, KC Davis. And we're going to talk about things that we usually talk about mental health, wellness, things that matter to us both individually and systemically. And I'm excited about my guest today I have Parker Bushman with me, who is the founder of eco inclusive strategies, and also inclusive journeys. That's right, correct. Yes,

  Parker 0:31

  that's correct.

  KC 0:32

  Okay. So Parker, will you just tell us a little bit about yourself? So we kind of orient and then I'm going to hit you with some question.

  Parker 0:38

  Okay. Yeah. So hello, everybody out there. I'm so excited to be here today. My name is Parker, I use a she pronouns located in Denver, Colorado. I am the CEO of eco inclusive strategies, which is a consulting org, which works primarily with conservation based organizations, environmental org, and nonprofits around their diversity, equity and inclusion issues. I also the co founder of the inclusive guide of inclusive journeys is the company inclusive guide, is our first product list of guide is kind of like a, it's like Yelp, but for inclusion. So people write places and spaces based on how they felt they were treated in relation to their identity. And then we look for trends on the back end, maybe a place is great for Asian men, but white women who use wheelchairs have trouble when they go into that space, we can see those demographic trends and then provide feedback to the businesses. And then of course, you can find me on social media under the handle Queen work, which is actually spelled K WENWE, R K. And Queen A stands for keep widening environmental engagement narratives. And I use my platform to provide representation for folks who usually aren't represented in a conversation about the outdoors, but also my platforms kind of eclectic, because I also talk about social justice issues. You also might see me out with friends. So yep, that's me.

  KC 2:15

  I am so glad to have you here. And we know when we kind of met for like our little brainstorming session about kind of what we're going to talk about one of the questions that's been in my mind since then, because I like to think about things individually and systemically. And, you know, I talk a lot about mental health. And I recently was meeting with my doctor, and one of the things that she kept pushing was, I really want you to get outside, I want you to get outside and just walk 15 minutes, just get outside for a little bit, I want you to get the sunlight, I want you to get the exercise. And that's not a new thing. And it made me think about how common that advice is from both mental health professionals, and physical health professionals. And I feel like one of the things that we don't consider is that there's a lot of baggage with that advice when it comes to who you're if you're talking about anyone except for a stable, you know, middle to upper class person living in a safe, walkable neighborhood with access to the leisure time that they have to take those walks with even the geographic location to be able to do that in the kind of weather that would where that would be appropriate and the family structure to which you don't have small children or you and I just I've been thinking about that so much since we talked and so I kind of wanted to start there with this idea that, you know, I think when people first hear you being dedicated to making the outdoors more inclusive, it's kind of like, oh, well, I wonder why that's why is that so

  Parker 3:52

  important of goodness, you brought up so many good points. And, you know, I'm trying to think of where I want to start. The outdoors has really been commodified. I'll start there. Like our we've been around for a long time as a species. We spent most the majority of our evolution connected to nature and to the outdoors. And nature is something that should be free and easily accessible. There's been a lot of research around how people's brains have developed, how our bodies have developed. And if you show people certain even like showing them pictures of the outdoors, like aI helps to boost your brain, your mental energy helps to lower blood pressure helps, like has all of these good things attached to it. We are supposed to be outside, you know, we're supposed to be connected to the outdoors. And we now live in a society especially if you're in an urban area where that is not really something that everyone has equal access. That's too. And it's been a long time. And a lot of history there, that has gotten us to this point where not everybody has equal access to right back in the day. It was seen as a, you were seen as a lower caste person and lower class person. If you had to work outside, right, there were people who were enslaved and were forced to work outside, so other people didn't have to. And when we no longer had, that there are still people who are forced to work outside, I shouldn't say that. It's over, because it's not. But what we did is we industrialize, we moved to cities. And then within urban environments, it became a commodity to be in an area where there was outdoors, we had traditional, you know, historical redlining and other things that made it so that certain neighborhoods didn't have the same things as other neighborhoods didn't have the same amenities as other neighborhoods. I live in Denver, Colorado, we have a you know, lots of different neighborhoods in the city, there is one neighborhood that is traditionally historically redlined. And has on average, a 2%. tree cover is located next to the state's only oil refinery. Meanwhile, we have a really an A is predominantly people of color. Meanwhile, we have a really wealthy, predominantly white neighborhood at South in the city that has on average, a 60%. tree cover has lots of parks, easy access, to get out to that nature. And you can see the differences not only in like the way the neighborhoods look. But also there's a difference in the quality of life. Because when you go to the CDC life expectancy map for the state of Colorado, the average state life expectancy is 80 years, in that first neighborhood that I mentioned, with little access to outdoors, near a big pollution source, their life expectancy is an average of 72 years. Now the other neighborhood that has a lot of tree cover access to parks and open space, more wealthy, their average life expectancy is 85 years. And so we're not just talking about like, Oh, it's a nice to have, but like our environment, the outdoors, those are all connected to our health and connected to our mental health, our physical health. And when you don't have as much access, you have a lower quality of life. And it shouldn't be that just wealthy people with money has that access, right? It should be for everyone because we're made to be connected to that.

  KC 7:55

  I think it's interesting when you think about like the flip of who used to when was being inside of privilege versus when it's being outside as a privilege, and how it also mirrors beauty standards. So you know, when we have a society where people are forced to work outside, and you're in a lower class, when you work outside, that's when you see that bigger bodies, more voluptuous bodies and fairer pale skin is the beauty standard, because that's who can afford to eat as much as they want. And that too can afford to be inside and out of the sun. And now that we've done a, you know, as you mentioned, it's a generalization. But now that we've done a flip, it's the opposite. So now we people who are the lower, you know, we still have people that will work outside, but the general public, you know, when you're inside a building when you work, right, so you're in an office all day, or you're in a restaurant, or you're in a retail store. And it's only the upper class, who has the leisure time to go out and be on the yacht to go out into the festival to not have to work. And so now we have and they can afford the diet foods and the trainers. And so now the beauty standard has flipped to be thinness, and Tam and the bleached blonde hair and it's like it really does even the beauty standards follow the money.

  Parker 9:15

  Yep. And it really is interesting, because, you know, everyone deserves that access. And we spent a good bit of our history trying to keep people from having that access. Like you know, I'm you're listening in and don't know who I am. I am a black, non binary fam. Plus Size and pansexual and my history right my ancestry. I hear a lot from people like black people don't do that. Like people don't go outside fat people I hear you know from the plus size community fat people. I didn't I we can't do that those aren't things that we're capable of doing it and none of that none of those things are true. But those are the messages we've gotten. And as far as black people being outside, there's a history there. Like I didn't visit my first national park until I was well into my 20s. But there's a history there, Jim Crow laws in the United States, were in effect until 1965. My father was born in 1950, Jim Crow laws, mandated segregation, especially in places of the former Confederacy, and in all places, including parks. And a lot of times what would happen is Park superintendents would get this pot of money. And they would say, Well, before we build a separate but equal facility for black residents, we need to see that they really want to be outside. And then lo and behold, they would say, actually, they don't have any interests. We don't need to, you know, build the separate facility. So there literally weren't a ton of spaces that black people could recreate outside safely. Here in Colorado, they actually created a black fly fishing resort called Lincoln Hills that kind of answer that because if you were black, and you went into the wrong place, recreating outdoors, you might lose your life. Right. And so Lincoln Hills was this historic black fight fly fishing resort that sold these plots of land, but it was the only thing of its kind west of the Mississippi River. Now in these other states that we'd like to say are well, there weren't segregation there, you know, so people could recreate in those areas was not true. Because even though segregation here in Colorado, it was against the law, to have segregation. It was illegal. But Colorado was also a hotbed for the KK. And people would there's been documentation of people going to like Rocky Mountain National Park, trying to visit black people and being turned away told that they could not recreate and visit in those spaces. And so we have this history of not being allowed into public lands, we have our forefathers who created the public land system, like Teddy Roosevelt, who was known as the conservation president, but had very racist views towards a black people and indigenous people and said, really racist things like democracy was a product of the Anglo Saxon race, that it was the white man's responsibility to Christianize and civilize other races. People like John Mayer, who we got our, you know, thinking about the wilderness from John Mayer describes wilderness as being these far off empty spaces. And that is actually until, you know, we kind of created that definition of wilderness. That's how we thought of wilderness, we were a part of it, we were a part of the nature, it wasn't something that was separate from us. And that's how indigenous people and a lot of people of the global majority that are still in indigenous spaces, feel about nature that they are a part of it. But John Mears writings and the writing of other people like him, were made to expel indigenous people from public lands that were then made into national parks like Yosemite, then we've got people like Madison Grant, who is known as one of the fathers of the conservation movement created, the red would save the redwoods leagues help save the Prague, horned antelope. And lots of other species, wrote the book, the passing of The Great Race where he described what he thought of as the passing of the white races decline due to these people of color, and that we needed to save the white race, like we needed to save the redwood trees. So he linked them together. And Teddy Roosevelt loved that book. You know who else loved that book, Adolf Hitler said that it was his Bible, right. And so we have these racist roots of the conservation movement that excluded groups of people from being able to recreate get outdoors, then we had that compounded compounded with systemic discrimination, like redlining. And then we have the stories that we're being told that we don't need to build these sites because black people and other they don't even want to be here has led to this lack of access, and now we get what black people don't like going outside, you know, they don't even want to be there. And that's not our thing. And we've internalized that message that that's not our thing when it's not true.

  KC 14:34

  You talked about the commodification, you know, I used to live in Austin, which is one of the like bigger cities in Texas that boasts probably the most green space and you know, people live there because they want to go to the hot springs and they want to, you know, do stand up paddleboarding, and they want to do the hiking and all that kind of stuff. And so it's kind of this hotbed of that which is interesting because it that rise comes alongside a lot of the gentrification of Austin And but in my experience like anytime that I have sort of dipped my toe in any sort of like outdoor sports or not necessarily sports, but like leisure things, if I think about like rock climbing or I think about hiking or camping, there's also this like intimidation factor where even I, you know, I'm a little bit afraid, like, well, what if I go and I look silly, because like, there are people that take this so seriously, and they have all this gear and you have to have a certain kind of shoes and a certain kind of clothing and a certain kind of am I gonna get sneered at if I do this? And what if I go? And I'm not good at it? Like, what if I want to take a hike, but I can't go very fast. And you know, I think about that there's like this elitism, sometimes amongst people.

  Parker 15:45

  Well, that's the message that we've been told, right? Like, I didn't think of myself as being very outdoorsy until I got older. Because all of the representation that I had seen of people who were outdoorsy, were predominantly white, predominantly male, predominantly straight size, and all of these things that I wasn't. And so, you know, I felt like, and every picture that I saw someone enjoying the outdoors was like climbing a mountain, I like doing all these things that like, I felt like I couldn't really do. And so it took me a long time to realize that actually, I was outdoorsy that I'd been outdoorsy for a while, because the only thing it takes for something to be an outdoor activity is very apt to be happening outside. Right. And I, you know, I think about now when people ask me about where my environmentalism comes from, and where my love of the outdoors come from, I point correctly to my family, you know, my grandmother, was it conservation if she didn't have all of the like, little, you know, doohickeys and things needed to like get down to zero raised waste to have all of your waste in a mayonnaise jar for a year like the challenge that people have been doing. But she was a conservation is and sustainability expert because of being very poor. Right? And so did things like reduce, reuse, reuse, reuse, you know, that T shirt became a sham became a dust rag became a like, on and on and on and utilize those things. She washed her clothes by hand, hung them up on the line, she had a garden, she did all of these sustainable actions, right? My mom took me on, on walks on trips on picnics. We like there was nothing to do, but walk around outside. Right? And we did that, you know, but it wasn't what was shown. And so often, you know, that's why I'm fighting for this representation. Because if you can't see it, it's hard to think that yeah, I can do that to that. It's okay. It's hard to believe that being outside is something that is fun. And I know a lot of people have those doubts about it. And my advice always is to start slow. And to just give it a try, you know, you don't have to set your own personal Summit. You don't have to get to the top of a fourteener. Right, get to what feels comfortable and feel comfortable turning around it. At any time walk a flat trail, it doesn't have to be about elevation, right? It's just about finding what feels good to you and connecting in a way that feels good and authentic to you.

  KC 18:34

  I saw this girl one time that talked about the outdoors. And I this is always stuck with me because she goes you know, I'm not outdoorsy, but I realized like I'm not outdoorsy, but I'm outside. See? Yes. All right, like I'm not that stereotypical, like, I don't want to go lightweight, backpacking, or I have to like saw my toothbrush and half so that I can walk, you know, days and days. She's like, but I love being outside. I want to sit on a blanket in a park and read a book, I want to walk a flat trail I want and that has always stuck with me. And I mean, obviously, it's the same word, but just it really highlighted for me like how much implied meaning we have with that term? Are you outdoorsy? Are you outdoorsy? And I saw a tick tock the other day of a woman who was talking about being on dating sites like like Bumble and those and she was like, you know, every time I see a man say that what he's looking for is a woman that's outdoorsy, that's fit and active, and outdoorsy, she's like it has become a red flag to me, because they don't mean someone who enjoys nature, who enjoys the outside that wants to go into nature. They mean a thin white woman who will never put on any weight and who will never have like high maintenance needs. And it's crazy how much of that is baked into our ideas about who gets to be outside who gets to enjoy outside And the other thing that I think is interesting about it is like I'm a person who it is like a running joke in my family that I have a very low tolerance for being physically uncomfortable. Like, I don't like to be hot, I don't like to be cold, I don't want to sleep on the ground. And I think there is a lot of black and white thinking, at least in my own mind about how being in the outdoors has to be like roughing it has to be high aerobic exercise has to be, you know, these things. And I just, I don't even know where I got that idea, and how I can begin to unpack it,

  Parker 20:36

  everybody. Everybody has that idea. You know, it's because of what we see in the media. It's what we see represented to us. And it's not the truth. Like I love a cabin stay, I love car camping, I love bringing my big old blow up off the ground below an air mattress that has a frame on it. So I'm up off the ground, right? Like those things, I think, really add to my experience in my enjoyment, I love cooking in the outdoors. And I bring a whole bunch of stuff cooking with me. But we've been fed these traditional images of what it means to be outside who gets outside, you know, and people carry those biases with them. I remember in so I've worked for many years as an environmental educator, it's actually been my whole career, but I fell into it, I didn't even know it was an option. Going into my career. And people never assumed that I was educated. I never assumed that I was the kayak lead, I used to lead kayaking tours, we will never assume that I was a kayaking guy, I'd be standing there with a bunch of boats waiting for people to show up. And they would get there and they'd look around and then like, Look everywhere eventually come up to me and be like, so who's leading our trip today, you know, and I'd be like, Oh, it's me, or, you know, I guess it's me, I don't know, I'm here with all these boats. I used to lead biking tours. And I noticed, you know, we had, we would take a group, we would have a sweep and a leader on the tour and then this group in between. And when the group got to spread out, the sweep would radio up to the leader that they needed to slow down so the group could get back together again. And whenever I was leading, if I slowed down, I would inevitably have someone write up to me and be like, Oh, are you getting tired, maybe you need to switch out with the person in the back. However, when some of my more slimmer, people were in the lead, and they slowed down, it would be like, Oh, those slow pokes in the back, I guess we got to slow down for them. So like the perception of who belongs in these spaces who can do what right is just deeply baked into our society, which is why we have to break down these barriers and show people representation, that they can do it too. And they do not have to be that traditional picture of what has been shown to us.

  KC 23:04

  I wonder too, if there's a correlation between cities and their public transit, because like, so I grew up in Dallas, and we just like historically have a really crappy public transit. Like we have the dark bus, which honestly, was really probably only established to bring people from South Dallas up to North Dallas to work as domestic workers. Like that's really the purpose of our transit. And so it doesn't work. Well. It's all bus systems. It's very, I thought it was kind of confusing when I tried to use it a few times. And in Dallas, at least it is. So if you're listening to this, and you're from a city that does public transit, you're from New York, you'd like I cannot emphasize how in a lot of the southern cities like no one rides public transit, unless you are poor, you just don't do it. And it will take you so long to get somewhere Oh my It will take you hours just to get to work. And you will spend a lot of time standing outside in very hot weather or in very cold weather. And I wonder if there's this like inverse relationship to like, the more you force people to be outside, just trying to get somewhere where you're uncomfortable, you're in your work clothes, you know, it's eating up your time so that you're tired and you're hot or you're cold or you're all this who would then want to go outside for leisure. Like if I do that all day when I get home when I'm getting in bed, I'm turning on the TV I want to run right like I wonder if those things are connected versus Oh, I'm I'm at home all day or I can quickly do a car ride and so I have energy and motivation and time to go out and do a quick bike ride.

  Parker 24:48

  energy, motivation and time are set are huge things you know, and you know, it's just so funny to wear society and not funny. It's intentional the way our society has been set it up and it really keeps people on the lower end of it, it just so pressed and abused and without the opportunities to have that time, you know, if you are working, I hear people talking about, oh, poor people, they just don't want to work. And then I'm like, I have several friends that are working multiple jobs, you know, oh, work harder, work smarter, not harder, right is then what comes back. But this like idea that, if you, you know, are on the lower socio economic class, that's all you should get to do just work and sleep. And if you, you know, and it's your fault, if you're in that space, rather than it society and the way that our society has been set up. Also, when you talked about the public transportation, it really clicked something in my brain, I have a friend who was working in LA, and they have a program really trying to help get families of color, low income families of color into the outdoors. And the way the program worked is that they would partner with groups that were already working with those families that families already trusted, and say, hey, we'll take your group out on this trip to these public lands, we'll give a little lesson environmental lesson. But we also will give you maps for how they can get back using public transportation and vouchers for public transportation to be able to get back to those spaces. And as they were designing those maps and trying to figure those things out, what they found was that man, and some of these neighborhoods that have like lots of green space, there are no bus lines, the bus goes pass it, but doesn't stop at it. And when they tried to inquire about it, they found a couple of different things. And it had to do with class. So people on the end of the line where there was a bus stop was a very wealthy neighborhood who could afford domestic workers. And so they were made lines going from in, you know, the middle of the city, out to these areas where domestic workers were working in the homes, people along the way, were middle class, and they didn't have the money for domestic workers. And so they petition that like, okay, you can have your line put in but they can't stop in our neighborhoods, we don't want that element in our neighborhoods. And if public transportation is supposed to be for the people who need it, why are the people who don't use it, right, influencing how where bus stops go, where, who has access to public transportation and as access to things that are supposed to be considered public lands right. In Denver, what we see a lot of and I'm sure it's in other places is we have really amazing public parks, in the middle of neighborhoods that have no parking around them. So if you are, if you live in a neighborhood, you can add in their wealthy neighborhoods, you can have easy access to this lamp. But if you are outside of the neighborhood, it is not easy to come in and find a place to park and go and enjoy those places. So yet another level of gatekeeping for who gets to go and experience those spots and who does not.

  KC 28:20

  One of the other things that I have learned and this is like a slightly different, you know, demographic, but in talking about all the isms, I think when we think about ableism, and outdoor spaces, I didn't really appreciate how much or how challenging it can be when you have outdoor spaces because there is this idea that like it's the outdoors, it's not supposed to be accessible. What do you mean, we should think about people, you know, being able to do that. And what when people talk about, you know, I've been reading up on like inclusive playgrounds and inclusive parks and making sure that children of all abilities and people of all abilities can access public parks. And there's a lot of emphasis on the playground equipment and you know, whether a wheelchair can get on and whether you're doing a flat surface or the woodchips as the mom of an autistic child. One of the things that gets overlooked the most when it comes to accessibility to public places for my kid is fencing. Like a lot of autistic children. They run as a way of stimming they don't have the same social like cueing to know, hey, stop, hey, stay in this area, hey, this is where kids are playing right where they want to go touch the trees and things like that or they go run and, and it was amazing how much our outdoor spaces shrunk for what was safe for us. Especially because I have two kids, right? So you're trying to keep an eye on two kids, one of which might be a runner, and we could truly only go to parks that were fenced in, and even then you have to post up at the fence line at the gate. because parents are not good about closing it behind them, but it's things like that, that

  Parker 30:04

  I feel that said why I've got two kids with autism of two of my three kids have been diagnosed with autism. And yes, it's something that I do that I never even thought ahead voice, right put word words to, but that access is so important and making a space, we went to a wonderful playground the other day that had those some of those accessibility things, things for kids with neurodivergent things for kids with wheelchairs and other mobility disabilities. And that was really cool to be in that space, and to be a place where I felt safe having my kids in that place because the things were designed for them.

  KC 30:50

  So let me take a slight shift to you know, when you do consulting for organizations, what kind of organizations you know, come to you, and what does that look like? I mean, if I run a park, if I run a national park, if I run any kind of outdoor space, you know, what kinds of things are you looking at for them? That maybe they thought, oh, I never even thought about that being an access issue.

  Parker 31:12

  Yeah, it's been a variety of organizations that I've worked with primarily orgs that are trying to do like either restoration of public lands I've worked with, you know, even the National Park Service, and different folks within the National Park Service, I've worked with, you know, volunteer organizations that go out and do wildland restoration. So a variety of organizations, and, you know, sometimes orgs, when they come in, and they're like, hey, we want to do some some types of trainings, we want to talk about, you know, the history of public lands, and how we can have a better understanding of kind of where we are today. But how we got here, right? Some organizations are like, we need help with community engagement, and how do we really clue into communities and build with them in a way that is really inclusive? Sometimes folks are working on strategic plans, or, you know, sometimes I get brought in for like a keynote, I was in Texas last year for the children and nature, Texas Children and nature conference to do their keynote, and talk about some of these issues. So it really depends on the organization, and what they are hoping for as to kind of where our journey takes us.

  KC 32:31

  So when people would do like restoration, or what let's go with, like the community engagement, one, if someone comes to you, and they're saying, hey, like, we can't seem to get our community engaged, like what kinds of things should we be looking at? What are some of the things that you are able to like point out to them that maybe wouldn't be intuitive to them? Because obviously, it's not intuitive to them, or they wouldn't have come to you? Right? Yeah,

  Parker 32:52

  you know, it's funny community engagement is not as easy as people think it is. Because they don't realize that they have to build with community, a lot of times, you know, folks go with kind of this top down approach. They're like, yes, we have this thing. We have this park, we have this space, and you all should want to come and be a part of it, right. But they don't realize that community engagement is a process of relationship. Building, you have to build community, you have to think about also community as centering the people who are part of the community in order to engage them, you have to find out what the community wants, what gifts the community are bringing to the table, because a lot of times folks go from a deficient, they think that communities are deficient, and they are the ones that are bringing what the community needs at a table. But rather than defining community by like a deficiency, and try to fix them, folks need to think about the assets of a community, the knowledge, the skills, the talents, the passions, and the relationships, and how those things can be used to help solve complex issues within the community. Oftentimes, rather than asking, what can the community do itself? What do they need some help in from the organization? The organization starts with? What do we do best? And how can we bring that to the community, but the community doesn't even you know, sometimes need it or want it. And there's like a spectrum of that collaboration, right? One end of the spectrum is informing the community, right? Hey, this is what we're doing. We want to come to this event, right. The next is consulting the community like, this is what we're doing, but we need some feedback from you. Right? The next is like involving the community. So hey, we have this idea. We want to involve you in the decision making process. And then we have the collaborative approach, which is how do we create a long term partnership with the stakeholders, and figure out how they need to help create the solutions. And then we will implement the solutions that they create. And then the last is empower. And that's like, how do you have the community take leadership by implementing the actions themselves to address the issues within the community. And a lot of times organizations are at the inform, they're like, We have a great idea. We're a great organization, and here is what we want to bring to you. And then they're like, why we only have one group of people that are always showing up, and we're not representative of our community. And we don't know why Well, you haven't connected with the community, you know, the people who show up are the ones you've connected with this whole time. And you haven't taken the process to collaborate and empower other community members. When I

  KC 36:05

  wonder how many times you know, you can be an expert in whatever outdoor issue or space you're trying to bring into a community, whether it's, oh, we want to get a program going, or we want to put a park in here, or we want to start a you know, a service, we want to clean this up. And we want to do some conservation in this area of this, whatever. But like, how much if you think of community engagement primarily in terms of informing how do we get the word out? How do we get people to listen to us getting the word out? You know, and it reminds them, but like, there's so many reasons why something may not be quote, unquote, working, or the community may not be engaging, where like, your expertise was not informed by the issues? Like, what am I trying to say, I'm trying to say that like, the reason people may or may not be utilizing an outdoor space or service or offering might have nothing to do with your particular expertise in that space. And you know, what it reminds me of, and I cannot for the life of me remember what movie this is, or maybe it was a TV show where there was a it was a lower income neighborhood, and there was a park and the park was like chained shut, and this guy was like, Oh, I'm going to this is so sad, these kids should be able to play, I'm going to make a difference. And he went and unchained to the park. And he noticed that the lights were out in the like, the lighting would be like, Oh, I'm gonna fix these lights. And he was so proud of himself for like, giving this access back to the community. And what he did not realize is that there were so many systemic issues of poverty, that the residents themselves, were shooting out the lights and chaining them shut, because people were moving into the park to use drugs and people were moving into the park and using it for purposes that was making it not safe for the residents that wanted to be there. And it was like, if you don't stop and ask, you know, and you go, Well, how do we get the word out? How do we get them involved? That's all and it's just like, it has very much that sort of like white savior feeling of we'll just give this access this thing, as opposed to stopping and going. What are the other systemic issues? overlaying this access issue?

  Parker 38:11

  Yes, that part. And you know, that's such a huge thing. A lot of times folks will ask me, when I'm talking about the outdoors, they're like, you know, it's just nature and like, what are you trying to say? Like, nature is oppressive nature is racist, or sexist, or fat phobic or whatever. It's just trees. I'm like, No, the trees aren't oppressive, right. But there are people who manage those spaces and their social issues that are involved in people's access. And like during COVID, we told everybody to go outside, right, like go outside, it's healthier, get outside there. It's a huge message of how you could safely not go stir crazy, you know, you get to get outside. And what they neglected to say like in the neighborhood I talked about earlier, right? There is gang violence, there is other things that are going on also being that it's close to the state's only oil refinery, it has terrible air quality, right. Also, there's been studies on so you know, lead poisoning is big, what has been big in our nation's history, and we've done a lot of work around taking it out of kids toys and out of paint and homes. We're still working. There are still so many houses that have lead pipes and they don't even know it. But another area that lead is coming in is through the exhaust from traffic, right and from fuel. And what they are finding in neighborhoods like that one that I was mentioning is that when there is a lot of road traffic, it's gotten major highways that go by it and lots of diesel fuel and other fuels coming out. What happens is that lead from the fuel settles down in the dust and the dirt on the ground. And then we tell kids to go outside and play in these neighborhoods, they go outside, and they kick up that dirt and they breathe in lead, which is why even though lead poisoning levels went down across the nation for our nation's kids, it went down much less for black and Latin they children because of their exposure in other ways. So it can sometimes it's a they get outside, right, and we address those issues. We have to address all of these other issues and not just say, What are you trying to say? Anyone can walk outside? Are the trees racist? No, there are bigger issues there.

  KC 40:44

  No, but the ground might poison you.

  Parker 40:45

  They're gonna poison you. Or like, I have a friend who takes kids of color up into the mountains, they are a white person, and they are regularly told things like, I come here to get away from the urban element, I come here, why don't you bring them up here? You know, it's already crowded enough. Why would you bring that kind of those kinds of kids to this area, right. So they get messages like, they're also as the messages that the people who have traditionally had the privilege of being in this space is feel like it's theirs. And when other people come in, you know, they get told, like you don't belong there. I remember going to visit as in LA, I was visiting a friend who said, Let's do a sunrise hike, meet at this park, I drive up to the park. And they neglected to tell me that if you arrive before sunrise, the gates aren't actually open. And so I pulled up unknowing behind another vehicle who was going in, and this gentleman got out the unlock the gate was a white guy comes up to me and he's like, look, you know that it's not open yet. You're not allowed to come in and use the I'm going in, but you're not allowed to come in and use the parking lot until after nine. And I was like, okay, that's okay. I just, you know, can you access the park though? Before that time, you know, I'm supposed to be meeting someone. And he looked at me looked at my rental car and looked at me and said, Well, yes, technically you can access the park. If you're not doing anything nefarious, right. Later in the day, I saw that person who was a park ranger, right? And so they like I was like, do you say that to everyone? If I had shown up and I was like a thin, white male with like a backpack in my side seat, but you've been like, oh, yeah, you know, you just can't access it. Or would you have told him? Oh, well, technically, you can access it. If you're not doing anything nefarious. And these spaces, we get these messages that we don't belong. And then people are like, Why don't people have access? They can just go, you know? Well, Parker,

  KC 42:51

  thank you so much for your time today. Can you share again, if people want to learn more about you, or they want to follow you on socials where they can do that?

  Parker 42:58

  Yeah, thank you so much for having me here today. And you know, well, first thing I want to say is, I want to encourage people if you haven't tried getting outdoors, the outdoors is for everyone. And it is a special place. And if you can find the activity or the thing that resonates with you, you know, do that it doesn't have to be climbing up fourteener or skiing or any of the other things because you know the outdoors is for everyone in any way that you choose to connect. If people want to find me They can find me on social media under the handle Queen work on Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok queen is spelled K WENWER K. They can also look up eco inclusive strategies at Eco inclusive.org Awesome.

  KC 43:48

  Thank you so much.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

We are continuing with the topic of trad wives, but we are taking a different angle in this conversation. I’m joined by Professor Neil Shyminsky, who is an English professor at Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario. He doesn’t teach a lot about literature but likes to focus on media studies, gender/sexuality studies, and socio-political thought. We begin with a clip of Professor Neil explaining the concept of the “leisure class” as it relates to trad wife content. Join us!

Show Highlights:

• The “other” side of trad wife content: an idealized performance of domesticity and romanticization of a woman’s role

• Professor Neil defines “the leisure class.”

• Don’t always believe the story the camera shows! (It’s all carefully curated content!)

• Social signals in how we “perform” our gender

• Trad wives as the moral purity status symbol of their husband’s godliness and enjoyers of God’s richest blessings from living a life of submission

• Thinking critically is key to understanding the truth about the values they promote.

• The difference between liking traditionally feminine things and being a content creator who makes active choices about how they present their enjoyment of traditionally feminine things

• The comparison between trad wife content and MLMs

• Professor Neil’s advice: “Be thoughtful and self-reflective in what you consume.”

Resources and Links:

Connect with Professor Neil Shyminsky: TikTok, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello you Cynthia balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, Casey Davis. And we've been talking about Trad wives on the podcast recently. And I wanted to share with you a tick tock that I found that talks about an angle of Trad wives that we haven't really covered yet.

  Neil Shyminsky 0:23

  This looks at cereal so cereal It was started right away. Have you ever asked yourself why it is that Trad wives and other conservative female influencers who promote traditional gender roles have all the time in the world to make cereal from scratch, but somehow never seem to record themselves doing essential domestic labor like vacuuming trying to get a particularly nasty stain out of a shirt or scrubbing a toilet? When they are performing labor in these videos. It's always something that strictly speaking is unnecessary and they are doing it the hardest way possible, because the answer is that it is for show it is all a performance. And he's remarkably prescient at 99 booklet theory of the leisure class, Thorstein Veblen coined the terms conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure suggesting that those with wealth and power no longer having any economic production to contribute themselves, instead contribute to the production and consumption of leisure. And those consumption practices. Those leisure activities are conspicuous precisely because that is how the leisure class signals their difference from the working class signals their exceptionality and their superiority they're not better than us because they can make their children's cereal from scratch. They're better than us because they are so wealthy and well off that they have nothing more important to worry about. And if we were to ever see Trad wives perform essential productive domestic labor or see their husbands perform any domestic labor at all, that would in fact mark them as failures as Trad wives stapling wrote in 1899. Again, he could have written it yesterday. Application productive labor is a mark of poverty and subjection, it becomes inconsistent with a reputable standing in the community. Because these videos are not instructional. They're maybe inspirational, but they are always performative. This is not real labor. This is symbolically It is nothing more than social signaling that this woman and her family and belong to the leisure class and it is also how she builds and signals her value if you are the sort of person who operates within an exchange economy that assigns high and low value to human beings because her value to her husband is not in her ability to care for the home or care for the children, right. Anyone who is able to engage in this level of conspicuous leisure has somebody that they are paid to do all of those things know her value is instead in her ability to perform the role of trophy wife and to be the ultimate realization and personification of her husband's socio economic prowess. Because Trad wives are conspicuous consumers, yes, but it is the audience's consumption of grad wives that truly makes them valuable to their husbands. Okay,

  KC 3:04

  so there's a lot to unpack there. And that Tiktok, by the way, was by a Creator called Professor Neil and I actually have Professor Neil with me here in my online studio. Professor Neil Szymanski. Hello, thanks

  Neil Shyminsky 3:18

  for having me.

  KC 3:19

  Yeah. Thank you for coming on. Okay, so you're a professor of English and you told me where but I forgotten

  Neil Shyminsky 3:24

  it said Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario. Excellent, separate.

  KC 3:28

  I only know where Sudbury is or what Sudbury is because of Letterkenny.

  Neil Shyminsky 3:34

  That is totally fair. I think most people know us for that reason.

  KC 3:39

  So first of all, I want to thank you for the time that you came, you know, are taking out of your time to come and talk about this. Tell me a little bit about like, why did this pique your interest? Why is this even like an area of interest to you?

  Neil Shyminsky 3:50

  Sure. Well, despite my job title, being English professor, I don't teach a whole lot of literature. So even this past year, I've been teaching things like media studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies. My graduate training is actually in social and political thought, which, you know, a lot of people think that, don't you just teach people about books? Why is it that you talk about these topics and in fairness at that, but I'm actually much more interested in sort of socio cultural phenomenon and so Trad wives are just such odd little duck and the way that I actually originally came to it was through I don't know if you're familiar with this creator on tick tock, I don't even know if she's still around, but she would do it videos and ask is this fetish content?

  KC 4:38

  Yes, because there's all those weird videos of people doing like cooking, but it's like the worst recipe ever. And the nails are always done really nice.

  Neil Shyminsky 4:47

  Yeah. And you only ever see their hands in extreme close up and there's a lot of squishy and crunchy things. So this particular creator started dueting travel activity to ask, you know, what? Is this just a performance for, you know the benefit of people that like this sort of over the top costuming and vocal effect and these very demonstrative sort of recipes and cooking experiences, or is this actually a sincere act? And so that was how I came to actually discover these and I think she was making videos on I think it was yesterday with her her Marilyn Monroe ask aesthetic, which absolutely like it. I also question with you this a costume or is this actually sincere? And then I just sort of dove into this wild wild world of Trad, wife influencers? Yeah,

  KC 5:49

  I mentioned on other episodes, kind of like can, everyone might have a slightly different definition of Trad wife, for me as someone who you know, I'm an extra angelical. And so like, I first came on to Trad wife as a concept in the context of like, American fundamentalist Christian world, right. And it was kind of like this OG woman who had a big Facebook group that would talk about how like sinful It was to be a working mom and, and all this stuff. And she put out all this weird propaganda. And so I had seen that 15 years ago, and so when it started popping back up on Tik Tok, I was like, Oh, I know what this is. And for me, because I knew that the actual term Trad wife came from a religious, Christian religious background, I sort of consider like being conservatively religious and specific, conservatively Christian to be like a very key part of the criteria. But there's certainly lots of like Trad wife adjacent, like women out there, but it kind of comes down to like this performance of domesticity and this romanticization of like a woman's role in the family and society as being home and being caretakers and having children and how great that is. And some of them, I think are more overtly religious, and others aren't like the one that you're talking about in this video that I played. She doesn't have like, overt religious messaging in her actual content. But we do know, because she has told us that she is Mormon, which we know most Mormons have some pretty conservative gendered beliefs and roles. And what's kind of like behind the curtain for some of them and explicitly stated and others is this idea that like, as a woman, we will be most happy when we embrace the role that God has given us, which is to be in the home. Now, that being said, I think what's funny about that is that as someone who has been making content about like home labor for a few years, no part of my content is like luxuriously romantic, like, it's pretty much about how much laundry fucking sucks and how hard it is to get the dishes done. It's like no part of that looks anything like the way that this gets kind of glamorized. And part of what was so interesting about your stitch that I wanted to talk about today is this idea of this sort of echelon of Trad, wife influencers that are in the leisure class, because they aren't all right. So let's start with like, What do you mean when you say leisure class, because like, I'm familiar with like, lower class, middle class, upper class, but I'm not sure where leisure class lays on top of those understandings.

  Neil Shyminsky 8:27

  That's a very appropriate use of words, because it does lay on top of all of the rest. So the leisure class, it's this term that was developed at the end of the 19th century by the Economist Thorstein Veblen. And what he says is that the leisure class is this small subsection of the upper class that is so wealthy, so privileged that they are totally exempted from having to produce any, they don't need to perform productive labor. They don't need to be useful at all. So what can they possibly do with their lives, they can produce leisure, they can perform leisure, they are aspirational figures, they perform something that is, in a very literal sense, unattainable for 99% of us because they're above all of it. And they need to show us that they are above all of it. So

  KC 9:22

  is this stuff like philanthropy and ribbon cutting and you know, just going on a yacht for the summer? Like, is that what you mean by like, not having to produce anything or by like producing leisure? It could

  Neil Shyminsky 9:35

  be I think, in the context of these Trad wife influencers that we're talking about. It is something like Nora Smith in that video, who spends however many hours making cereal from scratch, which is totally unrealistic for the large majority of us especially because at the beginning of her video, she says that our children are hungry. Obviously they are not eating that cereal because They will be kicking and screaming in the background, unless you

  KC 10:04

  stay quiet long enough for me to like open the string cheese they've asked.

  Neil Shyminsky 10:09

  Exactly. So unless there is somebody you know off camera, who is feeding them while she goes through the motions of preparing food for them, so somebody is doing that necessary productive labor and he or she is walking us through this demo of you know what it could be like to feed them if you know there was actually any chance that this food they would be so it's this leisure class. Conspicuous labor is the pageantry of work in a lot of cases. So it could also just be hanging out on a yacht Yes, like travel influencers? Absolutely. Performing this leisure class work too.

  KC 10:54

  So I kind of also thinking about like Jane Austen books, were like, we're having balls, we're going on hunts. We're like, but like, they're not like scrubbing the fireplaces or cooking the food. Right? That's interesting. Or like even like there are some homesteader content creators that like there are people that are like really homesteading and but then like, there are people that you find out like, are like Van life where it's like, you find out like, no, like, they actually have very wealthy parents, they bought this van with their money or like, they actually hire people in town to come and build this chicken coop for them so that they can then film videos of them going out to pick the fresh eggs to make their breakfast. And talk about like how quaint and lovely homesteading is, right?

  Neil Shyminsky 11:38

  Right. When all of the you know, the real, the dirty work is happening somewhere just off camera being taken care of by somebody else who is enabling them to live this lifestyle. We don't get to see any of that. Yeah. Okay.

  KC 11:53

  So and does it have to be both? Like, this is so fun. I don't know why I'm like really drilling down on trying to understand this, because some of what you're under, but some of what you have said, I'm going to be so honest, I've been like, am I the leisure class?

  Neil Shyminsky 12:09

  I don't think I know enough about your life to be able to answer that question.

  KC 12:12

  I think I might be. But I mean, my husband works. He has a job. He's a lawyer. We're not we don't have trust funds. We don't have to not work. So I mean, I don't think but like at the same time? I don't have to he does, but I don't Sure. I

  Neil Shyminsky 12:25

  mean, I think the fact that one of you has to that one of you has to perform productive labor at the leisure classes is a much smaller sliver of the population than I think most of us would get, oh,

  KC 12:37

  you're talking about like the 1% 1%. Like, truly, I have enough money in the bank to live off interest for the rest of my life in wealth apps. Well, okay. But what that brings up for me is how many people are trying to give the impression that they are the leisure class because I even thinking like, okay, Nora is like a working model. And I think her husband was a working model. I don't know if they also have family money. And yet, like their performance of being the leisure class is probably like pretty pervasive as just like its own phenomenon. Oh, definitely.

  Neil Shyminsky 13:12

  Like this is where it starts to intersect with that prosperity, gospel sort of rhetoric, right, like the sort of conspicuous consumption that we see happening in these videos, like, look at all of my amazing things, look at the way that I can spend my time because I don't need to be toiling and working the way that all of you do. That's also a way of like manifesting the sort of existence that they're showcasing because it's very possible that yeah, there is work that has to be happening, but it's not on camera, that it's not on camera, and maybe if you know, if we wish this life this existence, if we sell it hard enough, then we can bring it into being full time to

  KC 13:57

  Well, it's interesting when you overlay the religious aspect with the leisure class because I think when I think leisure class in kind of the US maybe like I think Kim Kardashian is like probably what comes to my mind is like one of the most prominent examples and yet her consumption of wealth or her like demonstration of wealth, whether it's jewels or brand names, or whatever, like it's very different than someone like Nora Smith or something like another big one is ballerina farms. So ballerina Farms is another content creator on tick tock who is often called a Trad wife because a lot of her content is her I guess it's a farmhouse but not like Chip and Joanna Gaines farmhouse, like true looking farmhouse. And she's wearing like a linen apron. This is not videotape but don't tell anybody. I am currently wearing linen apron. She's wearing a linen apron and she's making like sourdough bread from scratch and there's like an old timey stove behind her and her kid They're also in like sad beige kid clothing like running around barefoot, right? And there's like a smattering of aesthetic flower around, she's doing this and there's like some sort of garden or chickens or something out front. And it wasn't very long before people discovered she was married to like the heir to the Jet Blue fortune, and that the old timey stove was an Agha stove, which is like a $30,000 stove. So I just thought it was really interesting how it's like the sometimes the same level of wealth as someone that we would think of as being like leisure class, but like their performance of it specifically as women is very niche, I think.

  Neil Shyminsky 15:37

  Sure, yeah. And can manifest in, you know, a variety of ways. Like you were saying, I think the important thing here is this idea that it's always very carefully curated. And that's what we can miss if if we're not, we're approaching it critically, even as you were just saying, you know, I don't know whether Nora Smith is still a working model, but there is the job there behind all of it. And I don't know that any of us are aware of just how wealthy they are. Could they could they retire tomorrow? I'm not sure there. I actually wanted to go back ever so briefly to an earlier question where you're asking, like, am I part of the leisure class, and I think any of us, you know, it's not just, you know, the 1% of the 1%, who can, in moments participate in that sort of conspicuous consumptive practice, because any of us with any access to privilege and wealth can do it in moments, even if it's just, you know, to show off something that you bought, or somewhere that you went to post, you know, pictures from your vacation on Instagram, we are participating in that in moments? No, we're being you know, a little showy and ostentatious about where we've gone, and what we've done and the things that we have. And we are also, I mean, I would certainly also not like posting video, where I'm like vacuuming or washing the dishes. Although I will say that when I used to go on lives, I would make a point of going on lives. While I was ironing clothes, I wanted to be doing something domestic. I mean, in part because I wanted to multitask. But also, I wanted to make a point of doing something that was feminine coded, every time I would be on a live just so that people would know visually what it was that I would be doing. That is

  KC 17:29

  so fascinating, because I was literally just about to ask you like when you brought up the idea that like keeping in mind this is all curated is like, you know, I mentioned that, you know, my content for many years was specifically about domestic care tasks. And you know, me cooking and cleaning all this. But that was also curated. And I'm not saying it was not true, or it was inauthentic or it was but it's like, realistically, like every single thing we put online is curated. And those of us who I think have large accounts or kind of do it professionally, like we are altra curated, like we know exactly what we are trying to shape and give. And then even as you're talking about, like I am thinking about, you know, doing something feminine coded like that is a curated moment. So what is the difference? Because sometimes when we talk about like it's all curated, we talk about like, I think some people talk about, like that's a bad thing, or that's a disingenuous or a lie or it's wrong or whatever. But it's not just that Trad wives who are engaging in conspicuous consumption and sort of flashing those signifiers of the leisure class, it's not just that they are curating, right, because we're all curating I curate. But there's something else happening, though, that makes it it's about like, what are we curating? And why right, yes,

  Neil Shyminsky 18:49

  absolutely. The way that I saw I have these discussions in classrooms to know so we talk about, you know, how his gender perform. And so I asked students to think about how they socially signify what is it that you are trying to communicate to others with the way that you dress the way that you style yourself? Because we are all trying to communicate something even if all you're trying to communicate is I don't care, I am indifferent. And so then you're right. It's not just a matter of pointing out like this is curated choices. Okay, what are those choices? And why? What is it that they are trying to communicate? What are they trying to signify? And I think that you don't have to look very far below the surface of what Trad wives are signifying to get the curious way. And you know, the one part of the video that you played that I made where I listened to it, and I'm like, I wish I had those, in my words better there because I use the phrase that I think that my attention is clear enough, but I said trophy wives, and it just it has a connotation that I don't like. I mean, it's the sort of phrase that would be used by the People that I don't want to find myself in agreement with. But the point there being that I think a lot of Trad wives do see that part of their role is to be an indication of their husband success, they realize that they are a status symbol for their husband. And so they need to be able to show that he is making enough money to keep me from having to work that he can afford the clothes that want the lifestyle that I am leading. And so she herself becomes a sort of luxury commodity that he possesses. And I think that is where this conversation can go in sort of an interesting way that is beyond just, you know, she's carefully curating her life. Well, she is also trying to show the world like, look at how successful my family and my husband are, because He enables me to do all of these things.

  KC 20:57

  And I think that's again, where that cross section of like leisure class versus like, the religious propaganda props up because there's this, you know, I mean, listen, both ballerina farms and Nora Smith are beautiful, and it's a far cry from the jean skirts, and Bumble bangs of the Duggars. And which was like, that's kind of the ilk that had previously represented in media, this idea of a woman should be at home, a woman should be modest, or whatever. So like, they're a pretty powerful apologetic for that. But I mean, in a religion, which I would even say a socio religious political movement that says, you know, there are strict gender roles, and women are best at home, I think that a woman performing that labor and curating it in such a way that she is happy and peaceful, and has all this time. And it's such a luxury like that, in and of itself is a pretty powerful religious propaganda to oh, you know, this idea that we as women are subjugated and abused, because what the church loves to do is to say, when you point to abuses and women being you know, subjugated, or abused, or a man sort of lording over a woman, they'll say, Well, that's not an issue with the system. That's not an issue with gender roles. That's an issue of individual sin, a man acting that way is in sin, and they shouldn't do that bad man don't do that you should love and honor and like they, there's this apologetic of like, it's an individual failing, of a divinely good order. And if we could just reach everybody, and sort of convinced them to sanctify themselves into good godly men will then the women would be protected. And I think that at the same time, they become the status symbol of their husbands. Well, there's also this idea that they're, I think, like the moral purity status symbol of how godly their husband is, right? He's such a good man, he cares. He serves, he protects. Yes, he's the leader. And I submit to him, but I love to submit to Him, because I just know he's going to care for me. And that submission, he still listens to my opinions. But Ah, what a wonderful load off of the mental load I carry, to not have to worry about all these things, which I think is like a fascinating cross section of, you know, and you mentioned prosperity gospel, and I think that's a big part of it is like, hey, if we were to lean into God's ordained order of things, you know, might he bless us in this way? And they don't come out and say that maybe those will be financial blessings. But I think it's pretty obvious. And

  Neil Shyminsky 23:45

  I think this gets at the whole question of why it is important for us to be sort of spoilsports and say, like, No, you really got to look critically at this. There's a real danger in saying, well, but the people are so pretty, and their homes are so beautiful. And they're nice. Yeah. And they seem like so sweet. And when their husbands do appear, you know, it's like, coming into the background and hugging them and kissing them on the neck and then disappearing. And yeah, it's so easy to just get sucked into me know, okay, I can't consume the luxury that they have, but I can consume them consuming it. You know, I have that vicarious experience. And then I think it's a very short jump to Well, I wish I could have that life, mate. Maybe I can find some of those signifiers myself. Maybe I should look for a partner like that one, you know, and is it realistic? Is it attainable? Almost certainly not.

  KC 24:49

  Do you think that's what the choices come down to like when we talked about how we're all curating but it's about we all know intentional choices are being made with the display in Mind, but I wonder if that's what it comes down to is like whether or not the display is intended to give the impression that what they have or they're doing or they're proposing is attainable by you. Because as you said, like this labor is being done off screen. Like when I watch Maurice Smith make cereal, I feel warm and fuzzy. I feel like maybe I would like to wake up tomorrow and make some sourdough, right. But like, that doesn't matter. Like the feeling I get when I watch her cook, is not the feeling I experience when I try to cook for my family. Right, like, and she knows that we all know that. But like, when you decide to iron during a live, because you want to signify, you know that whatever it is, you're trying like, this is a safe place, or I'm not going to shame you or I'm a man who, you know, doesn't adhere to these roles, like that is something that someone could go, oh, I trust this person. And they think this and maybe that inspires me, or, Oh, he feels competent to do this. And maybe I could emulate that. Like, you know what I mean, on my own content, when I'm like, I'm Yes, I'm curating my you know, you people genuinely have no idea what the inside of my house looks like on a day to day basis. They just know what I put online. But I'm still curating with the aim of creating something that is helpful and model knowable. And imitatable, if that makes sense.

  Neil Shyminsky 26:33

  Yeah. So I think actually, the you brought it back to the example that I gave about ironing on alive, which I think allows me to explain what I think they are going for what aiming for because your rights. Realistically, I can't imagine that a Trad wife the influencer that Nora Smith thinks that we're gonna go away and try to bake what she baked. Like, what took her three hours, but

  KC 26:58

  I think she made like cinnamon toast crunch from scratch. Like, I think the only thing she didn't do was go like tear the wheat or like, whatever that part of it is, right? But she truly Yeah, like when she makes it. If people don't know, when she makes like a pizza, she makes the cheese. Like I'm not talking Oh, she bakes the bread and puts the nut like she like is making cheese in her kitchen. And then like baking the bread from scratch, and then like probably in like squishing the tomatoes. Like it's a whole thing. Sure.

  Neil Shyminsky 27:27

  And it's you know, how likely is it to just reduce you to tears if you attempt to recreate it, right? Like it's she's not converting anyone who is attempting to to actually duplicate that. But I also, you know, when I was ironing on lives, it wasn't with the idea that somebody would come to me looking for pointers about you know, how do I get, you know, such a crisp look in my collared shirt? No, it was, I'm signaling that like, this is a safe space, that I am the kind of man who is doing this domestic labor. And so then you can make certain assumptions about what is that you can ask and what I might say it I think it tells you a little something about, you know, like my ethos, my moral values. And I think that is what is happening with the activities that they're undertaking. It's not that they literally think that you're going to come to them with advice, or you'll attempt to duplicate the recipe that they're working on. But they are saying something about who they are and what is safe to talk to them about what sort of information they'll supply you with. And so that recipe is just a bit of a lure to really, if you stick around for the lifestyle stuff, then maybe you'll start to absorb some of the deeper potentially religious but certainly moral and ethical teaching that they would like you to actually absorb.

  KC 28:54

  Yeah, it's interesting because I'm kind of thinking back even to like the homesteader content, which I think could have some parallels here is that like, I have seen homesteader content of, you know, young, beautiful girls who again, right, like they hired someone in town to make the chicken coop so that they can film the video of them going to the ag and we know then they stay at a hotel sometimes and all this kind of stuff. And it's like what is the value that they are trying to say, Hey, this is what I value, but also this is what my value is. And I think about like I have one mutual on Tiktok who owns a farm her and her husband bought a farm and like they do the exact same tasks that these homesteaders talk about, they go get their eggs, they go herd their sheep, the choices that my mutual makes about how she like displays what it's like to live her lifestyle are completely different. Like it's not she's never She's always got her hair pulled back. She's always a little sweaty. She'll come on and tell the story about how they lost some money on the goats or how like, oh my god, this is so much work and sometimes I wear worry about XYZ. And again, like she's still curating what she chooses to share. But it is a completely different value set and a completely different like she's making a completely different commentary on what is valuable, what she believes is valuable about her. I don't know, I haven't like fully flushed this out yet.

  Neil Shyminsky 30:19

  No, I see the point that you're making though, we could also make the comparison between you know that those videos of Trad wives making sourdough bread versus somebody who's actually trying to teach us how to make whatever recipe it is they're following. And it's also very honest about, you know, everything that is required everything that you'll need to have in your cupboard in your kitchen, if you even want to undertake this in the first place. Like I remember buying the very first cookbook that I bought, and living as a single guy who wanted to have, you know, the bare essentials in my kitchen, and I was looking at this Jamie Oliver cookbook. And he had like, you know, all of the essential spices, and it was like 35 different things that I needed to have. And I'm like, I can't even afford to buy the bare minimum. How am I supposed to do anything? And don't get that impression when you're just watching them on TV? Right? Yeah,

  KC 31:18

  well, okay, and so, with, let's talk about bread, because I don't know if you follow Hannah bread talk. Okay, so Hannah bread talk makes bread, literally, the entire thing is bread. And it's not about how to bake bread. I mean, she is like, some of them are kind of thirst Trappy. And but like, but not in a hyper feminine way. Not in a Trad wife way, in a almost like queer coded lots of sort of like not taking yourself seriously. They're really funny. And so, you know, when we think about, you know, going back to this question of like, what is the danger of consuming this or any type of content without thinking critically? And if we are thinking critically, is there something that makes art so like, had a bread talk is not trying to teach you how to make bread, either. She's also curating her content, she's also making a statement about who she is or what she values or what she finds valuable in the world, which may be, you know, a number of things, what should if I'm just like a consumer, right, maybe I'm your 21 year old niece, and you're telling me like things that I need to be thinking about as I'm consuming content. If I'm looking at Nora Smith, or ballerina farms, and I'm looking at Hannah bread talking, I'm going okay, they're both baking bread, neither of them are trying to teach me how to bake bread. Both of them are curating this content and making choices and showing me what they value, you know, what makes one something I should you know, critique or look down on or what makes, you know, a Trad wife presentation of their values, you know, better or worse or different or more critical than Hannah's you know, curating of around baking bread, because I think that there is something there like why we all feel so critical of Trad, wife content,

  Neil Shyminsky 33:01

  I wish I'm gonna have to look this up as soon as we finish the call, because now I really want to watch and read talk, I think the short answer is that we need to be critical of all of it. You know, being critical of you know, even this red talk account is how you would realize, I think, you know, that she's, you know, she's also performative, but in a way that is not stereotypically feminine, or even in a way that reads as as queer or gender bending. So it's that criticality that allows us to get out okay, well, what is the messaging? What, what are they trying to communicate to me values underlie their performance. And to the extent though, that you know, what, we land on it as well, and much harsher and more negative in my evaluation of Trad wives, it would be their performance is restrictive, that it implies judgment of people who don't adhere to it. And that, you know, reduces the women that we are seeing in many ways to sort of secondary figures in their own lives because it's sure we're getting a peek behind the scenes, but the sphere in which they operate is very small, very limiting, in a way that you know, somebody who is having fun with gender roles and expectations and can have fun in in a variety of different ways is not limited is not restricted.

  KC 34:33

  And how is that different? If I am someone who would say in defense well, but this is how I enjoy my gender role. I like hyper femininity, I like you know, the LaCie pajamas I wear when I bake the bread I like Like what would be the response if it to that kind of defense?

  Neil Shyminsky 34:52

  Sure in that response is one that you know, to take it back to the discussion of the leisure class. That's the way that people have been raised bonding to Thorstein Veblen and his criticisms for 100 years now, why can't I just like what I like I like caviar? Yes. Why do you have to pull politics into it? And you know, I'm totally sympathetic to that. I like some conservatively masculine coded activities to like, I played baseball. I like fantasy sports. I don't think it gets much more like, white dude, bro.

  KC 35:31

  Well, and to add to that, I am attracted to those type of like, traditionally coat masculine coded, like, I don't have beliefs about a man being better or worse because of it. Or that I think, you know, oh, if you have feelings, you know, that's a threat to you're like, I don't have that kind of toxic masculinity. But at the same time, like, oh, I don't, I am actually attracted to some of these things, which I think goes kind of hand in hand with what you're talking about. We

  Neil Shyminsky 35:59

  grew up in this culture, we're going to absorb some of this, whether we like it or not. And we can only be so hard on ourselves, because you know, how much control do we truly have. So if you're watching a Tredway video, and you're like, and Ashley, I like the frilly aprons, I like to cook for my family, the difference is that you've come to that is something that you have actively chosen, knowing that other choices are available to you that nobody is compelling, you is requiring you to make those choices, which is different, fundamentally different from living in a world where this is the only choice available to you, or this is the only right choice that is available to you.

  KC 36:45

  This is the only right choice is a big one. Well, that and like, and you've

  Neil Shyminsky 36:49

  just got to find a way to be cool. Yeah. Well, and

  KC 36:53

  if I mean, there's a big difference between being someone who likes traditionally feminine things and being a content creator, who is making active choices about how they present their enjoyment of traditionally feminine things, a huge difference, because I like traditionally feminine things. And I will make intentional choices, with the knowledge of the political realities about like, there are people out there who want women to only be able to perform X, Y, Z, or whatever. And I think that's what it came down to, for me, which is like, you know, content creators are making active choices. And so what are those choices that they're making, and the track wife stick, remind, and even Trad wife adjacent stuff, where it's a lot of romanticization an aesthetic performance of femininity? Just as a side note, I think it's interesting how Trad wives are performing, what femininity is, quote, unquote, supposed to look like at their wealth level. Right? Like they can still be beautiful, and wear makeup and do all these things. But they're meek and they're humble, and they don't they even turn, you know, they're not going to tell you the Augusto is $30,000. But they'll put it in the background of the video and somebody will figure it out. Anyways, point is, the trapway thing feels like an MLM to me, it feels like and the reason for that is that when women get involved with MLMs, which is multilevel marketing, where they're selling Herbalife or Plexus or whatever, there's this presentation of like, the marketing is their life, like look how successful the business is, and look how much we can afford now that business is so successful, but it doesn't match the reality of what the majority of people experience that are trying to sell multilevel marketing products like we know the majority of people trying to sell multi level marketing are either not making money and many of them are losing money that like 90% are not successful at that and go through significant stress and hardships. And yet there are these intentional choices whether because you know it and are ignoring it or because you maybe don't know all of it. To present as though this value set will lead to financial freedom and happiness and comfort and the leisure class and I feel like that's the same way that I look at Trad wife content where it's like, there's this intentional choices to say, hey, this value set it will lead to this kind of life like me this happiness like me this piece like me this leisure, class access like me, but we know that's not true. Like we know that women living in like overly gendered cultures where they are not allowed autonomy or access or like we know that that doesn't lead to happiness and peace and prosperity for women.

  Neil Shyminsky 39:49

  We know right? It's the the mere possibility, I think is enough for so many people because you can tell people You know, there's only a 10% chance that you are ever going to make money on this venture. But we all like to think that we're in that 10%. You know that? Yeah, you're describing me, when you say it's the same sort of lofty goals that so many people set when you know, they start becoming content creators on apps, thinking like, I have as much to say, or I am as intelligent or I am as attractive as A, B and C creators. Surely, I can also get a million followers, how hard can it be? So I can certainly see how and why that's not necessarily good enough. And in terms of an argument to dissuade people from attempting to follow that lifestyle. And it's a remarkably similar complaint to the one that I make of, you know, these manosphere dating coaches who promise all kinds of success if you listen to them. And we know that that simply is not going to be true. But the people who are paying them for advice, who are paying them for their coaching services certainly seem to be convinced that you know, like, No, I am one of the 10% that will be wildly successful, we may all just be very bad at math.

  KC 41:21

  Yeah, that's interesting. So where do we land this plane with, you know, kind of going back to that, like, Am I not allowed to just enjoy things, right? Like, I think I would guess correctly that neither you nor I has some sort of prescriptive proclamation at the end of this about what people should or shouldn't watch or engage in or enjoy or whatever. I mean, I think for me, like, you know, not Trad wife, ducks, I don't even enjoy watching that. But when it came to like, I always the trap for me was always like outdoorsy content, like somebody cooking something over a fire with snow in the background in a tent, I'd be like, Oh, that makes me feel so peaceful to watch that is like, realizing that like I would not be peaceful if I was experiencing. And then just being like, that's so I get it, that's fine, I still look at it. I still enjoy the warm, fuzzy feeling it gives me but I don't delude myself into thinking that I need to go buy a tent. And I even do that sometimes with like feminine aesthetic content, like I do sometimes like to watch that someone cook something beautiful, or someone shows something really well organized. And I just tried to remind myself like, I'm consuming this as art that makes me feel good. Same thing with my fantasy books. Like sometimes I'll read a book, a fantasy book, and you know, you're really into the romance plot. And what makes the romance so passionate is like they might die. And there's a part of you that's like, I just I wish I could live in a fantasy book. And then I will literally be like, actually, like if I was genuinely and I'm looking over at my husband and like if we were genuinely in a position where like we like the fate of the fairy world rested on our shoulders, and one of us might die. We would not be having fun. Like we would be giving anything to trade places with a couple of boring humans, like get to lay in bed on a Sunday morning and live the rest of their lives in peace and safety. Let you know what I mean. But there's this weird thing that our brain does that I have to like be aware of. So I don't become a wistful for a reality that doesn't exist. Yeah,

  Neil Shyminsky 43:13

  that's the the fantasy world example. It's funny. I love the horror genre. I love horror movies. I love being scared half to death. I also have acknowledged many times that you know, if I were truly a character in horror movie, like I am the first person who is dying. I am the guy who's like, Whoa, there's, there's a spooky looking cave over there. Let's go check it out. And then I never come back. And I think actually that the way you've described it is the nearest that we can get to like to a prescription here it is to be thoughtful with whatever it is that we're consuming and to be self reflective, but to also open dialogue with other people. So when you like something and you're not sure what part of your brain what itch, is it scratching and that's when I like to reach out to other people send videos to my friends on tick tock and say like, have you seen this? I don't know what it is that either I love about it, or what is it that is rubbing me the wrong way because I can't put my finger on it. You know, it's like when people share videos where they talk about ridges, that and I'm like, Oh, this one really works for me. But this one like I am freaked out. And do you have it? Are you having a similar reaction? Like what's the difference because superficially look really similar. So it's to have that conversation into not just sort of as tempting as it can sometimes be like mindlessly scroll it, even at the risk of you know that because it's always a risk. You could ruin it for yourself, right?

  KC 44:47

  It's a balance like we don't want to mindlessly scroll. And this is like a gentle curiosity. We're not trying to be to where like we have this very perfectionistic I can never enjoy this because there it's not Oh I'm 100% ethical, you don't I mean, like that kind of like perfectionism, that kind of perfectionism that will just like make you freeze.

  Neil Shyminsky 45:06

  And you know, ideally, when you go through this critical process frequently enough, you can still sometimes enjoy the things that you recognize are problematic. As long as you you know, you know why it is that you enjoy. I really like watching videos of people performing like extreme sports and horribly hurting themselves. I watched one with somebody on a scooter who was like riding rail, and then he faced planted into a stone barrier, and like, it looked awful, and I could not help but laugh, and maybe not something that I should be admitting publicly. But maybe there will be somebody who's like, oh, okay, well, maybe we can talk about,

  KC 45:46

  I mean, listen, I would never let my kids play football, but I still like to watch it. I think that's also a good example of like, I don't have I mean, there are some things that I've been like, I will not consume this because it is problematic, but like, everything is problematic to an extent. And so I don't have like a perfectionist. I mean, I've gotten so good at the like, especially when it comes to media, about like hero journeys, because there's always a part of me that's like, I want to go on a hero's journey. But I've gotten almost too good at it now. Because like when I watch things like Lord of the Rings, all I can think about is how cold Frodo is the entire time. I don't like to be cold or uncomfortable in any way. And so my husband is always like, you could never go on our hero's journey. And in every book that I every fantasy book I read, there's always a scene where they come to like a body of water and they go bathe themselves, and they'd take their clothes off, and they get wet. And then they get out and put their dry clothes back on. And all I can think about is how I would be miserable having to put My wet body back into dry clothes. Anyways, that's neither here nor there. But I feel like similar like, I want you to I mean, check with reality that I am consuming art, that art is more than art. And that it does not mean that I would enjoy that experience. And it maybe means that I don't want to be in support of art that might lead people to embrace an experience that would harm them. Sure. Yes,

  Neil Shyminsky 47:07

  I think that's a wonderful note to end on right there. Awesome.

  KC 47:12

  Well, Professor Neil, tell people where they can find you if they want to hear some more of your excellent commentary on the world. Thank

  Neil Shyminsky 47:19

  you. You can find me on Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook. Unfortunately, I had to spell Professor Neil a little differently on each one with underscores dots. But I think if you look for Professor Neil and EI L, you'll find me pretty easily, Jules. Awesome.

  KC 47:35

  Well, thank you so much for your time, and this has been a great conversation. Thanks for having me

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Buckle up for this one! We are discussing the interesting topic of trad wives, the psychology of anti-feminism, and the pushback/feedback we are seeing on TikTok. If you aren’t sure what any of that means, stay with us, and we will explain. I’m joined by my good friend and frequent guest on the show, clinical psychologist, Dr. Lesley Cook. 

Show Highlights:

• A montage of trad wife audio content

• The overriding philosophy of trad wife content: the good way vs. the bad way (with no in-between)

• KC’s definition of a trad wife: “a woman who chooses to stay home, submit to her husband, and embrace traditional gender roles because they believe God says they will be happier” (usually with undertones of homeschooling, homesteading, and political/religious agendas)

• The correlation between mainstream marketing, multi-level marketing, and trad wife philosophy: they all create the myth around what they are trying to sell

• The psychology of instability, isolation, loneliness, vulnerability, and a lack of belonging common in the trad wife movement

• Too much feminism OR not enough feminism??

• Our responsibility as a global community of women to the problems of patriarchy

• Patriarchy, the myth, and the marketing campaign

• Scenarios in which a trad wife is trapped, isolated, overtaxed, and overwhelmed—but still believes the myth

• Traps that pop up in many areas with exploitive systems that can all be tied to money

• How we are consuming trad wife content with a romanticized view of the false narrative

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dr. Lesley Cook: TikTok

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to Struggle Care. I'm your host, KC Davis. And today, I am with my good friend, Dr. Leslie Cook, who is a psychologist. And we're going to talk about Trad wives, and specifically kind of like the psychology of anti feminism. And so like, as to mental health professionals with ADHD, we're probably going to go all over the place. But I'm going to do a couple of episodes about Trad wives, and if you don't know what they are, we're going to tell you, so don't worry, and then just talk about that and see where it goes. So Leslie, thank you for being here.

  Lesley PsyD 0:38

  Thanks for having me, as always, so

  KC 0:39

  I have done quite a bit of TiC TOCs talking about Trad wives. And there's always a lot of pushback on how I'm criticizing women on how I'm criticizing stay at home moms. And so I want to start just by playing a little montage of like, actual Trad wife content. So people are super clear, like who and what we are discussing. This is like a little montage super cut, okay, before

  feminism, and winged women, until leaving their homes in droves. The majority of women were at home, caring for their children, and their homes, while their husbands worked hard to provide for them. Then the radical feminist leaders came along and convinced women that they were being oppressed by men. So women believed it. And they left their homes in droves. And they went to work for other men. And they let other people raise her children. And they threw off their clothes. And they started sleeping around with multiple men. And you think about that, how is this freedom, taking off your clothes being sexually promiscuous, to me that satisfying men's fantasy that's giving in demand and what they want. It's completely opposite of how women were before feminism, hoodwinked women, women were safe and protected when they were in their homes, dressing modestly, only having sexual intimacy with their husbands, officer safety for women, elite hoodwinked, you stop believing the lies, go back to the old paths that God has ordained for you.

  Speaker 1 2:25

  So the first one is, I don't leave the house after dark by myself, Oxford sex friendships, I don't think a woman needs to have a male best friend, there's, I submit, and I serve my husband. This is a biblical thing. So don't twist this into something. And it's not. It is a blessing to be my husband helped me. And the Bible has the man of the household, not the woman. So he leads. Number four, we don't involve any outsiders or family members into our disputes. So with my hair and clothes, I like to wear the things that he likes. A lot of Western women don't sit here and think, What can I do to make my men happy? No, they think what is he going to do to make me happy? You guys don't understand the benefits that you reap. When you think about your partner before yourself.

  Speaker 2 3:17

  culture tells women, that it's honorable to sacrifice everything for your job. But it's unfair to sacrifice everything for your family, that it's liberating, to be sexually used by men who are not committed to you. But it's oppressive to love and respect is that it's somehow empowering to rely on the system to educate your kids, feed your family and keep you alive. Rather than have the skills to do it yourself. I said culture is full of

  KC 3:47

  baby. So that one by the way, what often say it to you because it was just words on the screen. But it was a tweet. It was a picture of a tweet. And in it. It said, Let me pull it up for you. It says I used to be really into politics, but now I just relaxed while my husband tells me what to think.

  Speaker 1 4:14

  Woman can and ought to be judged by the criteria of femininity, for it is in their femininity that they participate in the human race, and femininity has its limitations.

  Speaker 1 4:24

  We live in a day and age where traditional homemaking has been forgotten about and even looked down on where women are fighting to be in the same positions as men indoctrinated to focus more on their careers and less on the home. When God created men and women more than just biologically different. Our roles are meant to complement each other not to compete. Our husbands are to be the breadwinners as we are to be the bread makers. Somewhere along the line feminine has been replaced with feminism with the sole purpose of keeping women out of the home, which forces those to rely on the government to teach and raise our children. marriage is falling apart because the God who created it is being left out of it and an overall discussion To the home because the one created to nurture it has been empowered to neglect.

  Speaker 2 5:03

  This is an oppression at all this is freedom.

  KC 5:08

  Okay, so shall we take a moment to calm our rolling nausea. So there's a lot going on there. And let me just describe for the audience at home like visually what's happening in these videos. So one of these women first of all, is old. Like she's much older than me. And she's been doing this kind of content for 20 plus years. I mean, before Tik Tok, she was on Facebook before Facebook, she had a blog. She has gone viral a few times for her like lists about like a working mom versus a stay at home mom and how much better they are. And then another one of them is, I mean, she's beautiful. Like she has like Marilyn Monroe hair. She's dressed in kind of like 50s housewife esque things that was the one that was talking about, like her rules. And then the rest of them are like montages of women doing women things with that kind of like narrative over the top. And so it's like women in dresses and not like Duggar dresses, like cute, like weird, maybe just that weird. One weird season of target that did the prairie dresses are like very sweet, cute, like crossback linen aprons. The women are really pretty, they're all thin. They're all their hair is done. Their makeup is done to varying degrees. They're holding children and talking about homeschooling, one of them's baking bread. They're all like taking bread out of the oven as they're like talking about these things. So there's a lot of overlap visually with sort of like that really aesthetic picture of like womanhood and motherhood, what else? What else can we share about like what we're seeing here?

  Lesley PsyD 6:48

  It seems like also, there's a black and white view of what is being presented versus what the alternative is. So this is the this whole view is the right way, the good way. And anything in opposition to that is the bad way the wrong way. Yeah. And you can add in the good way, we're happy in the bad way. We're not happy.

  KC 7:06

  And you can hear the overlapping topics like homeschooling relying on the government, you hear some like homesteading verbiage in there. There's a lot of there's a lot of like ways that people get in this like weird Trad wife pipeline, and one is just through religion, straight religion, right. But you can see the cross sections of other ones like there's a lot of homeschooling, homesteading, a lot of political issues that align with it. And I personally like having gone through the evangelical church that taught these sort of like gender roles about like men are supposed to lead and provide and women are supposed to nurture and follow and submit. I have like kind of a strict criteria for what I consider a Trad wife, because when Trad wife started to kind of blow up on the internet again, people started throwing that around like oh, so and so's a trap wife so and so's a Trad wife so as a Trad wife and I have kind of like a strict criteria for my personal view because Trad wife originated specifically in the context of conservative Christian like movements. Trad wives really are content creators, who are either implicitly or explicitly like their like choice to stay at home and submit to their husbands is like religiously based. So we're not talking about like stay at home parents or women who wanted to stay at home or women that maybe had to stay at home or women who were just like doing the best they can under patriarchy. Like I am very specifically talking about women who embrace quote, unquote, traditional gender roles, because they believe God says this is how it should be, as you mentioned, this idea that if we do it the way God said to, we'll be happier. And there's always this emphasis on like submitting to a man. And so like that is specifically what I'm talking about. And there's this line of anti feminism. Feminism was really the lie. Feminism is really the oppression feminism is really the whatever, whatever. And that to me is like marketing genius. Yeah.

  Lesley PsyD 9:05

  And so much of this is as I'm like taking some notes as we're talking. So much of this follows kind of traditional, not only mainstream marketing, but also like multi level marketing. And it's might seem like those are completely different topics, but they're actually not there's a very cohesive psychology that goes along with maintaining these cycles. And a lot of that has to do with creating the myth around the thing that you're trying to sell. Which is

  KC 9:31

  funny because you know, where multilevel marketing is biggest

  Lesley PsyD 9:35

  den Chad wise,

  KC 9:36

  do you know what state though? Oh, no, Utah, where there's a lot of Mormons, and specifically the more conservative Mormons who are going to do move towards like Trad wife type ideals. So I want to read you so one of the women that was talking in that got interviewed and she said something in the interview that I want to read and I want to talk about and I want to talk about how it is because I think it's really easy to think like, Oh, these women are stupid, or these women are brainwashed or like I could never be like how, but like, a lot of these women did not grow up religious. And so you're kind of thinking like, how did they get there? So this was like a fascinating, fascinating quote, okay, ready? Okay. And I think her name is pronounced SD, E. Ste, St. Williams grew up in a broken household and realized quickly, she didn't want to repeat the mistakes of her parents. I didn't grow up traditional, she says, and I think that does play a big part in my decision to move towards this lifestyle. I grew up in a very hectic household, and my parents got divorced when I was younger, Williams watched her mother work all hours of the day, and then come home and cook and clean for her family. I just knew I didn't want to be that wife or mother that went to work full time and came home and still had to do the cooking and cleaning. She says, I really admired different families around me who had more of a traditional mother at home doing all of these things. Bless her heart, I don't think she understands how, like how much she gave away in that answer. I'm curious, your thoughts from like, a psychology perspective of like, what is drawing her to this?

  Lesley PsyD 11:08

  Yeah, I think I mean, there's a couple of things that come to mind pretty immediately. And that is one of the crises that we have in, I guess, modern times, but maybe forever is a lack of belonging and a sense of stability for vulnerable populations. So in this case, we're talking about women as it like sis women, as opposed to sis men, that the culture that we have does not foster belongingness safety balance, I hear in that answer, like I'm okay with working hard, I don't want to work doubly hard, with no ability to be recognized for that or feel like I've done enough, and I can rest. And that is a cultural phenomenon, this rugged independence, individualism, like this capitalist mindset that I do think ends up people feel exhausted. And then they see the shining city on the hill, right? They see this oasis in this desert of individualism. And maybe they think, Gosh, for a moment, I wouldn't have to make a decision could be with my children and be relaxed. I think there's a draw for folks that have experienced instability or isolation or loneliness.

  KC 12:17

  I think it's really interesting that what she considers a failure of feminism is actually like, she sees that like, oh, women, now they have the right to work now. And this is a really big Trad wife propaganda line is like, what were you fighting for? So you fought and fought and fought to go to work great, good for you. Now you go to work, and you do all of the housekeeping. Now you go to work, and you come home and have to do all the childcare. And that's presented as though it's a problem of too much feminism, when, in reality, that's a problem of not enough feminism. Like the fact that women are still societally expected to do the lion's share of the domestic labor, even though they go to work is not something that feminism created. It's like something feminism has not yet conquered, because like, what are the men in those homes doing? Like these like individual relationship dynamics, where like, men are not caring enough of the home labor like that feminism didn't do that. Right.

  Lesley PsyD 13:20

  And I think that's if you listen to a lot of the TRad wave content, it's these wives are these content creators talking about women and why they benefit and why they don't if they're not, you know, a part of it and then getting mad at other women and those women get who's not present in that conversation, the men, because this isn't in some ways, I mean, in some ways, this is very much about the man, right? That underneath all of this is this giant fabric of how we treat women in society, but also it makes these assumptions and then those assumptions are implied immediately. And so a lot of women that are vulnerable can get drawn to that and not really realize that they've skipped over that step, not them but the folks presenting this idea with them. There is no like, wait a minute, are those my only two options. And so then they are entering this kind of agreement or way of being without all the information.

  KC 14:11

  When I read her little snippet there. It honestly made me think about people that join cults, and how like we like to think that people who join cults must be like weak or stupid or ignorant and that's not true. It has more to do with like the cult finding that person at like a very specific time in their life where they're vulnerable. And like you said, like they're seeking belonging, they're seeking identity. They're already disillusioned with one idea that was presented to them right so Oh, look, I saw my mom do this. I experienced divorce I did it like I'm already disillusioned with a and the cult sweeps in and offers belonging offers identity and like you said, offers this like well, but here's option B, and it's very black or white and you just kind of Got scooped up in it? Like that's what I honestly thought about when I read that.

  Lesley PsyD 15:03

  And I think for many women, that is the experience initially, initially it is this relief, there is a sense of belonging is there a very tight knit groups that subscribe to these belief patterns that do, we'll get there in a second, I'll talk about interdependence. But what happens is eventually that breaks down. And when that breaks down, there is another psychological phenomenon happen happening is called sunk costs, which means if I have believed in this, and then I've initially experienced that, it's so great, and I now invested my whole life in it, because now I'm financially dependent, I no longer have any, I can't just get out, I can't just stop doing this, I'd have to turn everything over. If I think I want to maybe say this is not what I thought it was going to be, I have to do two things, I have to admit publicly that this thing that I was so adamant about I was wrong. And that's very challenging. And then I have to give up my interdependence, and my belongingness to do that, but I've invested too much. So sometimes, then you'll double down. And what you see sometimes in this content creators is, you find out later that they haven't any, that they order those groceries to come to the house, that that's not what they put out that maybe initially it was, but they reach a point where they can't sustain it, but they're not willing to let that be seen. They have to keep up now this image because it would be losing too much of themselves.

  KC 16:25

  Yeah, like the, you're saying that the picture of like domestic bliss, that they've held up to say, look how much happier I am, even as you know, the longer they go in that role, the less satisfying it is. Because you'll notice like never in these pictures are these women scrubbing toilets. It's always like baking bread, or like walking in the creek with their kids. And like those are like the parts of motherhood that like do look really good in a montage with like some music in the background. But like, those are not the parts of motherhood that take up the majority of my experience in motherhood. And I also think what interests me is what I experience when I watch these women and when I read these is that I feel like I vacillate between empathy for these women as people who were first disenfranchised by patriarchy, and then swept back up on the back end by patriarchy, pretending that they're going to lick their wounds for them and promise them all these things and then like, you know, throw them headfirst into the same problems. And I find myself really, really angry and disgusted with them for participating in the further manipulation and indoctrination and disenfranchisement of other women.

  Lesley PsyD 17:49

  I think that's where, as you know, use this word loosely, but as a community, a global community of women, we owe it to ourselves and each other to keep talking about issues like this. This is not the only way this is expresses itself, where patriarchy makes that full circle, especially within white womanhood. I mean, this has been a repeated pattern over generations of us, you know, fighting the power and then joining the power and then maintaining the power while saying we're not maintaining the power and wanting to stay in proximity to whoever is has the privilege. I wrote that down initially to that, in addition to belongingness, there is power in these relationships, a power dynamic and staying in close proximity to that benefits us in a way that would not benefit other people. And yet we're presenting it as if it would, that anyone can do this. And that's just not the case. Well, it

  KC 18:43

  is hyper individualized, like, the reason why you can't stay at home and like nurture your babies, if that's what you want to do, is not a failure feminism. It's a failure of like, it's patriarchy, like we have, especially in the USA, like we have no maternity leave, we have no like support for new mothers, we don't have those things. We don't have universal health care. And so it's like, it's like it's offering a solution to the problems that it created, especially with that nonsense about like women used to be safe. At what point in history were women safe, and they should be in their homes in their homes safe. I'm sorry, but like the majority of women that I know that are not safe from men are not safe from men in their own homes. Yes.

  Lesley PsyD 19:26

  And that I think is one of the other important parts that distinguishes we're not talking about stay at home parents. I homeschooled my kids for two years I would do it again. I've been in close knit interdependent female groups. I love it that's different than what we're speaking about. There is a mythology that comes with the TRad wife movement that even they know isn't the case. And that's the part that is dangerous for women is that it is enticing and bringing in women with the promise of this myth that if you follow this you will be safe They've, which then further isolate some of these very vulnerable women. And then that is passed down and passed down and passed down. There is not much that is safe about being utterly financially dependent in every way, and physically dependent with someone who is not physically or emotionally safe with you. And yet, that is where a lot of these relationships end up.

  KC 20:20

  You know, there's this, this idea, this concept called the No True Scotsman fallacy. And I'm almost afraid to like, give an explanation, because I don't know that I could get it exactly right. But it's basically like, if you point out that a certain idea, like if you criticize a certain idea, then people will just say, well, that idea that you're criticizing isn't really what the idea is, you see, if people were actually doing the idea, it would look like ABC, and I find as someone who so I didn't actually grow up in evangelicalism, I joined when I was 19, hot off the back of a troubled teen industry stay of being institutionalized. So I went from like one a high control group to like, oh, look, this is much more comfortable. And one of the things that they did was, first of all, it was one of the most loving places I'd ever been, everyone was kind to me, everyone was very generous. And when they talked about men and women, and the idea that men should lead and women should submit, it was done with the most like, and I don't mean apologetic, like apology. I mean, like, they made it sound really good. They would say things like when we say, when women when the Bible says that women are, you know, fragile, we don't mean fragile, we mean delicate, we mean that she should be prized, she should be, you know, listened to and when we say that a woman should submit and a man should lead. We don't mean that a man should just do whatever he wants, without listening to his wife, he should listen and he should serve and he should seek her counsel, and he should did it. And if you ever talk to somebody that has or believes in this dynamic and says, I submit to their husband, and you genuinely try to get them to drill down and verbalize what does that practically look like? It's a nothing burger. It's truly a nothing burger. It's, well, I let him make the final decision vote on what for how long? And what does that process look like? Well, we sit down and we talk about it, and he listens to my thoughts. And I listened to his thoughts and we come to a conclusion. But at the end of the day, if we can't agree, his word goes, and it's like, that's the only thing really at the end. And so when you point, this idea that you know, men should lead or whatever, when you point to the myriad of ways in which that goes wrong and is abusive and is unfair to women, the response from the like new Evangelical Church is always that's not a problem with men leading that's a problem with men being sinful. As long as you marry a godly man, you will be protected from that a godly man who's trying to be godly, like that's how you'll be safe. And I think it's so interesting how it refocuses the marginalization of women from a systemic issue into just an individual issue. As long as you're married to the right, man, it's safe for you to put all your eggs in that basket, it's safe for you to submit, it's safe for you to have no career, it's safe for you to not have your own money, it's safe for you to not make your own choices. And I just think that's fascinating. And

  Lesley PsyD 23:20

  that's part of patriarchy as like a system almost if we were thinking about it, like a marketing campaign, it's to create the myth that you belonging to this belongingness to this group is going to protect you because the system itself is what's good. But if you fail, that's on you. Or that's on him. That's not the system. So the system is only responsible for good things and never responsible for bad things. And that you see in cults in MLMs in just in big corrupt systems themselves and governments, right, so we can have a system that makes it almost impossible to live. And yet when people can't afford their rent, what the first questions we ask like, Well, how did you get a second job? And it's a very similar process and it is a trap some of the women I think not I think some of the women in the TRad wife movement, the official movement, know what's happening, know what they're doing. It's literally a myth that they're creating and curating for validation and benefit financially. Unfortunately, though, a large amount of the folks that are brought in by that myth are not entering under those pre taxes and then are getting stuck. And it's very scary for women we know across history, once we get stuck in a place where our choices are binary, and they have to do with fleeing. That is not a good place to be.

  KC 24:36

  And I do want to mention like there's so much about Trad wives and we couldn't possibly talk about all of it in this episode. Like we're barely and not even touching like the white supremacy sort of dog whistles that happen and origins we're not really even touching the issues around capitalism like so I just wanted to say and we're not touching even the issues around racism and I don't I'm the only reason I'm deleting that from white supremacy is the issues have like the history of labor, home labor who's actually doing the home labor inside these homes. So I just mentioned that to say we're not skipping over that we just like, only have so much time. And so we're going to talk about that on a different episode. Because I really was interested in drilling down into sort of like the individual psychology of what's going on, and maybe even the psychology of what how we feel when we respond to this. Here's the other thing, it reminds me of two things come to mind. One, it makes me think of pastors that were or like church staff. And it makes me think of people who work for Drug Rehabs, and here's why, because I've been sober a long time. And I lived and worked in the treatment world for a very long time. And I also worked for a church for a little bit. There's this interesting phenomenon that happens in both of those industries, where your personal life and belief system and identity and like private behavior is inextricably melded to your professional career. So much so that if you deviate from the ideology of your group, you will not have a living anymore, you will not have a job and maybe maybe not a home. So like, I would see this in, you know, church where like a staff, if they were to do XYZ, like they wouldn't, it wouldn't just be like, oh, man, that was sinful, let's go through a process, it would be like, Oh, now you can't work here, which, like you mentioned, like compounds that sort of like I'm trapped, but I can't get out, I have to keep going. And in the treatment world, it would happen a lot. Because if you relapse and any kind of relapse, not just the kind of relapse where oh, I've like turned my life into shit. And I can't show up for work. But even just oops, I went out and drank last night, you probably aren't keeping your job. And I feel like that's so similar, right? It's like, okay, my identity, and my belonging is like wrapped up in my livelihood and my survival such that like, I can't just change my mind about a few things. Imagine

  Lesley PsyD 27:03

  that you are a Trad wife, who is homeschooling one child, and then you decide to have a second child and your child has significant disabilities, and makes it almost impossible to meet that child's needs and your other child and homeschool and run the home, you are now in a position where you can't any longer say this is not working for me in this way, I need either extra help, or I need to be able to work outside the home so that we can afford. And you can't do that. Not for practical reasons. But because you would lose all of the surrounding supports, if you did that. And so you have to, ironically, stay isolated, and overtaxed and overwhelmed in your own space.

  KC 27:45

  There's also this aspect of like, nothing makes a person feel like they belong more than to belong to a group that is now experiencing like pushback, or that has enemies or naysayers or whatever like this like persecution process. Like I wonder sometimes like, Why do some of these women like in the montage, like even the way that they're talking about I mean, just from a communication study standpoint, you think, Who is this winning over? Like, this is not Hey, like, let me talk to some of the problems you're experiencing and how this might be the answer. Like they're certainly Trad wives that talk like that. But the ones that are almost like aggressive in their like delivery, where it's like, like almost self righteous. I mean, it's like, there's this aspect of Trad wife content that's almost rage, baiting, and it's like instant belonging, people have my back, I'm right, they're wrong, I'm being sought out. And then you like you feel so righteous.

  Lesley PsyD 28:48

  And that I think is a good place for when those of us who can't imagine being in that spot, this is a point of connection to say, Oh, this is something that's feeding something that all of us to some extent experience, and that's how insidious it is, is that it will find that spot in vulnerable women and give them not only a sense of belonging, but in quantity and a quality that they've never had. And it seems so extreme and all encompassing and yeah, it's a it's a dopamine hit. It's this is what I've always wanted. If you know we're not even talking about trauma responses that Hi, I wonder how many women in the TRad wife, the movement side that are really pushing the content or folks who need that, to regulate they need that fight because it reinforces the idea that I'm safe in this controlled high control group. I'm not vulnerable anymore to the I hear that a lot in the talk about what did we fight for? We were overwhelmed and so we retreated to this insular area. I think I think there's so many layers of control and mythmaking and power and identity. It's all wrapped up together.

  KC 29:59

  Part of This also like, whenever you talk about this, there's always people who will say, you know, why can't they just do what they want? Like, why do you care? So much? Like, aren't they just women making their own choices? Isn't that what feminism is about? And we won't even get into choice feminism in this episode, but the idea of like, you know, their choice to live this way, like, why do they not get to do that? Like, why is that open for criticism? Why is that any different than your choice to live differently? And this is something that even Trad wives themselves will deploy as defense, they'll come out and say, I'm not saying that you have to live this way. I'm just saying, This is what works for me. And I'm curious, like, how you think that that's different? Like, yeah, then someone else saying, Oh, I do I work and I do this? And that's what I do. And so who cares? Yeah,

  Lesley PsyD 30:52

  well, I would first reject that binary choice, right? So it can be both it can be both your choice and totally okay to make that choice. And not beyond criticism, not BBN criticism, it can be both of those things. And I think the answer to that is, once something is systemic, and it is harmful, and we see that over and over, and it's a pattern of behavior, and people are being harmed. That's not just a choice that that can be a choice on some level. But then we also are creating things that become then not choices. So this would be akin to everyone has a choice on how to parent their child. Yes. Everyone has a choice whether to spank their kid or not. Okay, technically, yes. But we're getting closer to everybody has a choice whether they're going to hit their kid in the face. Now we're at a point where you could say, I guess, physically, that's a fact. But like, we definitely shouldn't be hitting kids in the face. Here's a better way that doesn't harm this vulnerable population. It's a similar discussion, technically, yeah. But it's harming people. So we're going to talk about it.

  KC 32:06

  And I also think about like, I think, sometimes the like parasocial aspect, or like the fourth wall of social media, it's so good at disappearing, that we genuinely forget that like we're criticizing a content creator. Like if somebody is living a Trad wife life, and that is what they believe. I mean, I still have some criticisms, and some concerns, especially because children will be, you know, raised up that way, and they're probably proselytizing. But I think most of my ire is toward like, this person has a ring light out, that she's not just baking in her home. And we're like magically Truman showing in her home. And like hearing the thoughts in her head, like, this woman got out a ring light, in order to make a video to put on the internet, about with literal lies about that speak to vulnerable, hurting marginalized women, giving them miss information about why it is there, they feel broken and marginalized, lying to them knowingly or unknowingly about what the best answer might be snaring people into this ideology that we know doesn't end well. And we know that because I am the mother. I mean, I'm the daughter of a divorce attorney.

  Lesley PsyD 33:36

  And because we can, we can look back on history, right, this is not a new concept, a new way of speaking. I also think that it's important to make that distinction that it's folks who are curating things that they know to be at least not the whole truth, not folks. Living life, right. And there's a difference I think between let's say, like, I'm someone who makes parenting content sometimes. I'm not showing the worst parts of parenting. But I will say I am not showing the worst parts of parenting. Right? So I've tried to be very clear, because I will get tons of comments about you're the best mother you're the best mother ever. I wish I could be your mom and I will be very clear with people not on every day right that this is I don't want to create a false sense that if you do follow me and all things will be the same for you because that is a trap. And it's not a fair thing to tell people especially if it's not then financially motivated, which a lot of these accounts are

  KC 34:45

  Yeah, and even outside the world of like Trad with three I don't know if that's a word but that meets this like criteria right of submission to a man and the man should be Eat, you know, working and we have a biblical Christian religious reason for doing so there's a focus on modesty and purity culture. Even outside of that, I feel like there are a lot of ways in which that type of culture, which is like, first of all, the idea that it's like, let's go back to the 1950s. It's like, okay, we don't even have the time to talk about how wrong that is. But there are so many other I feel like trends and groups. And I think this is why this is important to talk about is because these kinds of traps, I feel like pop up in other areas.

  Lesley PsyD 35:43

  Absolutely, I think you see it, the the easiest one to see it right is is multilevel marketing. And I see it a lot because of my job, for cures for things that are not curable. So we see the same logic, you know, take your kids out of schools, stop their vaccines, connect with this community, take this supplement, drink the silver, and then you know, defend it so much. But at the root of exploitive systems is always money. So if you can tie, like if you're hearing Trad wife content, and it's really enticing, and you have that moment of like, how is their life really like that? Ask yourself if you can tie that rhetoric back to money? Is that how they're making their money? And if so, that's a big red flag. And that's, that's so for supplements, I think we could find a ton of things that that would, in some ways, parts of the mental health system can be like that. Certainly, the troubled teen industry has aspects of that, where they're beyond reproach, it's just something I think we're drawn to as humans. I

  KC 36:42

  also think that like, even if we would like other ourselves with you know, I would never be a Trad wife, I could never fall for that I could never, I feel like that part of what's happening there, which is like, definitely patriarchy is Mo is like an over identification with your gender, like your gender is important. And it is obviously an you know, one of our identity pillars or whatever. But there's this over identification with the performance of like, what that group says gender ought to be, or what that group says wife ought to be, or mother ought to be. It's like, there's this only one way to do this thing.

  Lesley PsyD 37:21

  And I think in a world where it is exhausting to be a woman, or a femme presenting person, it can be organizing and grounding, to have a set of rules where I now don't have to think, at least initially, and that that will typically stop that will wear off. But I do think that we're exhausted, it's an exhausting world to live in. And to get to play female to play that role can sometimes feel easier than trying to exist as an authentic woman in the

  KC 37:49

  world. It's funny, because I think a lot of listeners know that I've been like reading a lot of fantasy books, a lot of fantasy romance books. And so like, I'm relating so many things to that in my head. And one of the things that I've been like giggling about is just kind of like the joke, We all tell ourselves where like, we will read characters of these men that like if they were real life, men, they would be so problematic. The possessiveness and the violence and the sometimes even like some questionable consent stuff, right, like and the language that they use, and the sexualization and object and like, if that was a real person, we would not want that. And yet, there's something about it appearing in a book that is so enticing, and I genuinely think sometimes people are authentically confused at why they feel that way. And I feel as though it's actually a very interesting thing to talk about. And it really relates, and it really relates to Trad, wives, because there is something that is alluring, like you said, as a woman who is always a little bit exhausted, like a soul level at trying to be a woman in this world at the idea of just relax, have just it's taken care of. You don't have to be in control you don't have right but like the reason that nice in a book is because it's not the real world, literally, like we maintain full consent and autonomy while sort of vicariously experiencing whatever little emotional catharsis is like speaking to the parts of us that patriarchy broke, right? Or exhausts, and I feel like there's nothing wrong with that. I don't think especially if you're just you know, you're like, Oh, I know that's what's happening. But I feel like Trad wife content is a lot like that. But the difference is, is that like, it's genuinely trying to promise people that this will feel good. This dynamic will feel good. Look how pretty we make it. Look how romanticized we are. And you know, it'll just do it. It'll feel good and I feel like that ties into what you were talking about where it's like but it's not real,

  Lesley PsyD 40:01

  not a real thing. And if you don't feel good, you're doing it wrong. Yeah, something's wrong with you. So then, you know, that's where the marginalization of folks comes into is that you can't, you're selling a myth. And eventually people realize that that's what they've bought. So they have to either become a part of the myth, or they have to reject the myth, and it's very soul crushing to reject something that you thought was going to be what saved you in the long run. Yeah.

  KC 40:24

  And it also makes me think about like, there's a lot of ways in which even if you think you're not consuming Trad wife content, I feel like I could look back and be like, oh, man, like there. And this is not like a condemnation, necessarily, of people that would like make this content but like, really a lot of content about motherhood that does this very romanticized, like picture of, Wow, look how fulfilling this is, look how fulfilling this is a lot of people that do and listen, that's not just motherhood stuff. I mean, like, I think that there's a lot of people who will make content about other people will make content about sex work and gush about how fulfilling it is. And the reality is, is that like sex work, like motherhood is not inherently one or the other. Right? Like it is nuanced. There's lots there, the issue is painting it with this very generalized, all good, all bad stroke in order to like lure people in to this idea that like, you should step into this thing. And listen, if you want to be a mom, be a mom, if you want to be a sex worker, be a sex worker, but let's not allow ourselves nor allow ourselves to lure others into those kinds of decisions with these absolutely false narratives about what they're going to get. And

  Lesley PsyD 41:40

  do you ever does it ever strike you to that at the core of what we're talking about in terms of like specifically Trad wives is this idea that feminists are isolated, angry, overworked people, but that the actual solution to that would just be interdependence and community and you don't need to go to an extreme to do that. But we have to build community. And that is harder, and it would be sure you sure be nice if the men would help us build community as well. So the Treadway thing almost deletes the males, responsibility, and again, puts everything back on us to create this dynamic. But in reality, if we just were more interdependent with each other than all of the ways of being a woman would have room in that space. Yeah.

  KC 42:24

  And I mean, ideally, it is like such great propaganda, because if you can get women to believe that their exhaustion isn't the problem with capitalism, it's a problem with not being feminine enough, and they're being overworked isn't an issue with gender roles or sexism, it's an issue with not being feminine enough. If they're, you know, their health problems aren't a result of, you know, systemic in accessible health care, it's an issue with like, not, you know, living a life that God has ordained for you like all of that, right? Like, if you can get and people who are not familiar with this content may not appreciate how dangerous it is, but like the natural in point of these things, and you can find people saying this is women saying with their full chest, I don't vote, I don't believe women should vote, I don't believe women should have access to birth control. I don't believe women should work. I don't believe women should be able to wear XYZ or travel like that. And not in a dystopian, we're not talking Oh, this could go though. They're like it already is there. That's not the part they're going to publicize. But it is already there. That's what all that entails. And that obviously is a danger to all women. But yeah, if you can convince women to be more concerned with that individual issue and being quiet and staying at home and not like then yes, that would be that's like an excellent political agenda.

  Lesley PsyD 43:45

  And it's a great way to feel in control of a world that is out of control and a way for us to absolve ourselves from the responsibility of being activists for other women who are not able to be Trad wives, right. What about the women who are single mothers working three jobs because they absolutely have to, you know, it allows us to step away, create this little bubble and absolve ourselves of having to do anything for anybody else.

  KC 44:11

  And I want to end on this point that you made about community where you said, like, you know, we would have to create community because you know, lots of Trad wives, that's why they got kind of sucked into this community is this promise, but I think that to your point, we would actually be forced to create a community that isn't like homogeneous, like our homogenous however you pronounce that. I don't know. I've only ever read it but like, we would have to actually contend with people have different lives and beliefs and thoughts and feelings, as opposed to creating a community where like you believe like we do, or you get no community like we would actually have to listen, like hold on to our own identities in the face of other people's identities, which is like not what any of those sort of like pseudo communities are. are capable of doing so which is why eventually you will be forced to choose between your individuality and your community because you can't have both of those kinds of communities. Well, let's see. This has been fascinating. Thank you for delving into some of the psychology behind Trad wives with people like you and want to follow you. Where can they follow you? Currently

  Lesley PsyD 45:20

  just on the tick tock at Leslie, sidey, ls l EY, Psy, D. I'm hoping to be more active on Instagram in the future, but that's where you can find me for now. Awesome.

  KC 45:29

  Thank you. Thank you.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Please be advised that today’s episode is adult content; it’s not safe for work or little ears. We are talking all things kink with Sunny Megatron, a clinical sexologist, kink educator, and consultant. Join us for an interesting and informative conversation!

Show Highlights:

• Understanding what kink really is—and how it measures up to the assumptions we have

• The difference between kink and a fetish

• Sunny explains “kink done well” and “kink done wrong”

• The concept of “aftercare” in kink

• Societal messages around sex that lead to shame, embarrassment, and an overall lack of open communication

• We don’t understand our sexual motivations.

• Stigma busting around sexual assault, trauma, and fantasy

• Red flags to look for in sexual power dynamics

• The slippery slope of fear (of what kink may lead to)

• Problems in kink relationships are the SAME problems in “vanilla sex” relationships! 

Resources and Links:

Connect with Sunny Megatron: Website, TikTok, and Instagram 

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:00

  Hey hello sentient balls of Stardust and welcome to struggle care where we're going to talk about all things mental health and wellness and just life in general. And today's episode is not safe for work, and probably not safe for minor little years. Because today we're going to be talking about kink. And stick around, because it's going to be an interesting conversation. I'm here with Sonny Megatron. She's a clinical sexologist, she's a kink educator, and consultant. And Sandy, I'm so excited to get into this conversation.

  Sunny 0:37

  I am to this is my passion, my geek out spot. And I love talking to you. So we've covered all the bases. Let's do it.

  KC 0:46

  So I want to start with just this question of why is it that when we think of the term kink, it feels like we're referring to something dirty and perverse, and like maybe morally questionable. Like, that's kind of like my knee jerk reaction, if I just sort of think about like a societal, whatever. And when I came across your content, not that I ever had, like shame for people that like we're into kink, but when I came across your content was one of the first times I heard someone talking about kink in such a way where I began to think, I don't know, some of that sounds more healthy than the way the rest of society is doing sex.

  So can you give us like a definition? And then talk about like that, maybe that assumption about kink? Okay.

  Sunny 1:41

  Okay. Yeah, there is a whole lot there. And I do want to give a caveat that when we're talking about kink, especially the kink that sounds a whole lot healthier than vanilla stuff, we're talking about kink done. Well, the way we quote should be doing it, do we see it manifest that way? In real life situations? Not always, frequently? Not always. So just want to throw that out there. So kink the technical definition of kink is anything that turns you on that falls outside of the, quote, sexual norm? And when we look at okay, well, what is the sexual norm? That's really subjective based on the culture, you're in the social group you're in, you know, gave the warning that this is not safe for work. So for some folks, a blow job is super kinky. And for other people, it's like, I do that all the time. That's nothing that's just sex, right? So kink covers a lot of vast things. And when we hear kink on social media, we generally tend to equate kink with BDSM, bondage and discipline, domination, submission, sadomasochism.

  KC 2:54

  Okay, and what is the difference between kink and fetish? Okay,

  Sunny 2:58

  so kink is anything that falls outside of sexual norm a fetish is something that turns you on sexually that isn't normally a sexual thing. So we hear a feet fetish, you know, we don't normally associate that part of the body. It could be latex, it could be upholstered chairs. I mean, really, a fetish can be anything. And I also want to give one other caveat that I think is important for listeners of this conversation, especially ones that are new to kink. When I say sexually turns you on, that's kind of a misnomer a little bit. For some people. Yes, it's a sexual turned on. I call that the pants tangles. But for a lot of us a big part of the draw and not just kinky things. But sex in general, is the brain tangles. And sometimes we can just be after those brain tangles. So when I say sexually, it encompasses a lot.

  KC 3:55

  Oh, my gosh, so my head's going in so many directions right now. Especially around like when people talk about like enthusiastic consent and pleasure. And anyways, but that's a whole different podcast. So here's my question, right? What? Like, what do you when you talk about like, kink done? Well, and kink done wrong? Talk about that for a second. Like, what are some things that maybe people have seen out in the wild? That you would consider like, kink done? Not well. Okay.

  Sunny 4:24

  And I love to give comparisons. So as you're grokking this and thinking about it, think about a romantic relationship done well, and not done? Well, we know what those two things look like. So when we're talking about kink, not done well, we don't have full consent of our partner and that goes a lot deeper than just like, can I touch you here? Yes, no, we may have some sort of ulterior motive or manipulation to get what we want and disregard what their desires or boundaries are. We may have a fundamental misunderstanding thing of what kink is or what domination and submission is. So, we may be taking that play acting of oppressive power, like Get on your knees and write about it. and translating that back into the real default world. Or we might be using that to reinforce real damaging traumatizing power dynamics that exist outside in that real world, you know, as humans, and I know, you know, this, and I know the listeners know this too, maybe on paper, and then textbooks, we know like what we should this we should, you know, healthy relationship looks like XYZ. But put us in that situation with all of our messy humaneness, and we screw that up all the time. And kink is no different than any other human relationship or human interaction. But with kink, we've got the stigma that's attached to it. We've got people out there thinking, Oh, kinky, people are reckless and out of control abusers, and they do drugs, and they step on kittens, and you know, all of this ridiculous stuff, right? So not only do we not have good role modeling just for our general vanilla relationships, whether that be romantic or familiar, or friends or whatever, we really don't have good modeling for kink, and then all that stigma gets in the way as well. Yeah,

  KC 6:32

  one of the things that I've heard you talk about on your channel before is a couple of different things. It's kind of like you've talked about consent. And you've also talked about, like aftercare, and I never heard the term aftercare before. And people were talking about, you know, when you're done having a sexual encounter, or a kink scene, what do you do afterwards to feel good about what just happened? Or to kind of get closure or to like, come back around and do some, like soothing or repair, like, there's just so many ways people talked about it, and the only thing I could think was like, that's like, isn't that what everyone wants after every sexual encounter? And yet, like in what we call kind of vanilla sex, or just kind of run of the mill, like, how many of us complain about not being cuddled afterwards, or not feeling loved afterwards, or not being tended to afterwards and feeling a little empty, feeling a little raw. And so that was the first time that was like, Oh, shit, like, that sounds healthier than what people talk about as like, normal, healthy sex.

  Sunny 7:33

  Yeah. And, you know, with humans, when you boil us down to our lowest common emotional denominators, and our needs and what we want and what we fear, and all of those things, they're the same. We just happen to be playing in an erotic way, a little bit differently. But really, when you boil it down, we are no different vanilla kinky. excetera. So you know, just like when in vanilla sex, right, let's say after, let's say you had one of those encounters, right? That you're like, This is sex. I'm gonna remember for the rest of my life. This was amazing. I didn't know orgasms could be that good. And I did some things who I did some real dirty things. And I'm kind of I can't believe I acted that way. I can't believe I called you those things or did those things. And even though it was great afterwards, I might feel like, holy shit. What does this mean about me? Am I like a weirdo? Pervert? Do you think I'm a weirdo? Pervert? Should I be embarrassed right now? Does this change our relationship? Like, whoa, how do I feel about everything? And so one of the things that aftercare can do is give you that reassurance that even though you went to this uninhibited place where you did some wacky stuff and tapped into a part of yourself that maybe you didn't even know you had, that your partner still loves you that it's okay, that that doesn't suddenly make you you know, a whore or a slot or a terrible person and being a quote, horror and slept. There's nothing wrong with that, but we attach a lot of baggage, you know, to those concepts. So aftercare can do that. When we are playing with kink, or even that really hot sex that gets you know, physiologically, all of our our neurotransmitters and our dopamine and all of the things going we get that that chemical cocktail natural high, we go to a altered state of consciousness really, and coming down from that can be really difficult. So again, let's equate that to a vanilla situation. Maybe you went on a fun weekend with your friends and did some like wacky stuff, had a great vacation, had some very new experiences. And now it's Monday and you have to go back to work and go back to your real life. And you experience that drop. You know, it may come out as like a depression, a tiredness, just an overall funk. After care can help with that type of thing as well,

  KC 10:17

  when I think about the things that people like we all experience or that people talk about, you know, and they're not talking about kink, but even like, there's sort of that joke or sort of like running commentary about, like, you know, mostly I hear men talk about like, Okay, you're watching porn, and you're really into it, and you have the next video, next video next to you, and then you orgasm. And then you immediately feel like disgusted with yourself, you slam the computer down, and you're like, how could I have gotten into that? Or oh, I, and there's almost like this little depression afterwards. And I one time heard this was so interesting to me, because I've heard men talk about like that. Well, I mean, sometimes they'll say, like, post not clarity. But or, but the joke is that like there is there was genuinely like a dip in mood and a little feeling of shame and depression right after orgasm. And I was one time listening to someone, and they asked that person that I think they were psychologist or sexologist, like, why do we experience that? And they thought they were going to get an answer about like hormones and the way that like hormones work in our brains, and he was like, listen, yeah, there's a little bit of a hormone thing. But honestly, the majority of the reason why we experienced that is the ingrained purity culture of our society, like, we are told, it's double, you know, if you come from a purity culture, like a church or something, it's really strong. But even if you don't grow up that way, our culture still very much double speaks about sex. So masturbation is normal. And yet, you know, if you get caught masturbating, it's shameful and embarrassing, and you don't want anyone to know you do it. And this, that the other, and he and they were talking about how like, when you are in that adolescent phase, and you're exploring sex for the first time, and you're exploring it under this understanding of who this is something I really shouldn't be doing that you go into that like heightened experience, that heightened state of sexual arousal where you're a little bit fuzzy, and you're genuine, like you said, there's an altered state of consciousness. And then afterwards, the shame that you experience is mostly like societal messaging that you've given yourself for so many years. And that's why we experienced that I was like, Oh, my God. And it's true, like all of us, I think, have experienced that, and had that little fear of like, what does this mean about me, and the thing that really hit me about the way that you talk about kink is how explicit everything is because the messages that we get about sex through media, is that it is supposed like, in order for it to be real or passionate, it's supposed to be spontaneous. And you're just supposed to know what to do. And changing positions is natural. And no one's ever fumbling with any of their bits. And there's never like a height problem or a fit problem. There's never anyone being like, hey, actually, can we change positions. And so I feel like, particularly as a woman, when I started to actually have sex, you know, it's like, the reality doesn't fit what you see in the media. And so you're trying to just act as if, like, okay, like, I'm not supposed to ask, I'm not supposed to, you know, negotiate anything beforehand. And and so like, sex becomes kind of not all that, that it's cracked up to be. And then I started listening to you talk about kink where you're like, Yeah, people will talk about what do you like, and what do I like? And they'll talk in the middle of scenes, and they'll and like, the idea that you could do that and still experience like, all of the good parts. I was like, Wait a second, they might be on to something. Yeah,

  Sunny 13:40

  yeah. And like fun fact, the reason I'm in this industry, this is a second career for me. I was in corporate advertising for almost 20 years. And I was that person you just described that sex isn't all it's cracked up to be? How are we communicating in like Winky eyes and nudges? And like, we're not talking about this stuff? And why am I expected to be so raunchy and dirty and nasty? And then I'm shamed for it. I was like, there is a big piece of all of this missing. And when I stumbled upon King and I, of course, I was attracted to kinky things and my deepest, deepest thoughts that I felt ashamed about, you know, and when I discovered there was a whole community behind it, and a whole philosophy and of communication and consent and frameworks. I was like, Oh, this is what I missing. And all of these frameworks that we have in kink, dunwell are transferable tools that we can take anywhere and overlay into any relationship. Take the you know, kinky erotic sex out of it, and how I communicate and negotiate my needs with my teenage children. My boss, my mother, The person who was arguing with me in line at the store thing they were here first. Those are all the same skills. And that just blew my damn mind. And hi career change. Here I am.

  KC 15:12

  We were talking the other week about about something and I was I shared the story with you, but I want to share it with the audience. So I just finished all of the books of A Court of Thorns and Roses. I've been on like a real tear of like, romanticize it. And my favorite kind of romantic it is all the same trope. It's all this like, touch her and you die. That's my wife, sort of like playing with elements of you know, domination where the men are really violent, but they take care of you. And I've always sort of joke as I reading, it'd be like, Yes, I have trauma, leave me alone. Like, that's why this, I really love this. And there's this tick tock. I saw the other day, where it said, if your real life boyfriend talks to you the way your book boyfriend did, and the comments were so funny, because it was like your mind, brother in Oh, get on your knees. Excuse me, sir. And it was just like women talking about or kind of laughing to themselves that like if anyone actually ever spoke to them this way, they probably wouldn't like it. But yet they read it in the book. And they're like, holy shit, my panties are wet. And I had this thought, and I'm gonna make this Tiktok one point, but I was like, oh, like, she's, that's because you're not into men like that. You're into kink. You like it in the book, because it's safe. It's in the book. It's this fantasy world where a man can be those things. And that's not an indicator that he's a misogynist piece of shit, that doesn't respect you. Yes, in the book, you're reading the book, you're in control, you feel safe, it is wanted, you can put that book down. You know, it's not real. You're never in any actual real danger. Except for the edge of excitement, the idea of that domination gives you and I was like, ladies, it's because you're into kink. That's what it is. It's a safe container full of consent, where somebody can be dominant. And it doesn't mean that they disrespect you. And it doesn't mean that you're engaging in actual toxic relationships. To get that naughty little itch scratched. Yes,

  Sunny 17:09

  yes. I often say that kink. dunwell can be a consensual and intentional healthy outlet for the toxic situations and relationships that we romanticize. Because that stuff, who that gets us off, you know, and for those thinking, like, I don't get it, right. Okay, fine. If I dropped you off of a 30 storey building, you'd be terrified, you wouldn't want that. But you know what, you're on a roller coaster on that big hill, and you're like, let's do it. Again. It's in a safe container. You're doing it for fun and recreation. And you know that ultimately, you have that control. And that safety net, you are playing pretend when you're on a roller coaster, you're playing pretend fall off a 30 story building for fun. And we're doing the same thing and kink whether it's like a very physical thing, or it's that like, I'm romanticizing that guy who's bossing me around.

  KC 18:17

  Yeah, and I often think like when we I mean, as a therapist, you know, I'm totally familiar with this idea of like, we can get into relationship dynamics that are toxic and not good for us and that end up having consequences and destructive behavior and all this stuff and that we end up heartbroken and sometimes there's so like, I'm just gonna go broad stereotype, let's say, you know, a woman that continues to seek out men that are maybe controlling or dominant or not emotionally available, whatever, because they really like that protective feeling or that like, Oh, he's so masculine, like it really gets you go. And that idea of that, like alpha male feel, right? Quotation marks, but I also sometimes think about like podcast bros, that are like, really misogynistic, and kind of obsessed with this idea of like, Ooh, you know, a girl who is virginal and naive and that like both of those things are not if you believe those things as genuine worldviews I'm not just talking about sexual attractive, just genuine worldviews. It is toxic for you. It is toxic for the person you're engaging with, it is bad for the world, it is creates and reinforces power dynamics that are oppressive, right. And oftentimes, when people will engage with those types of people, whether they want it or they're really trying to get help, it's always like, how do we get you to want something different? How do we get you to see people different and not and want something different? Yada, yada, yada? And I had this thought before when I listen to like podcast bros, where it's like, you know, I feel like if you could just get into kink, like that might be like a path for you to be a better person, because there is an extent to which the way there's this concept called The erotic map which talks about like, basically how and what you find erotic and arousing, and it's slightly different for everyone. And yes, it can be meddled with a little. But in general, what we know from psychological research is that your psychological map is stamped by your childhood and adolescent experiences, and often doesn't waver much from where that from what it was. And I sometimes wonder, like, Has anyone told these men or these women like, you know, like, you could, because sometimes when they're being really honest, they'll be like, the thing is, is like, I'm genuinely not attracted to men that don't like and I know, that's horrible of me. I know, I should want them to cry and, and do these things. Like I'm genuinely not attracted, you know, and I feel like probably podcast bros would say the same. And some of me is like, Okay, but what if you could, like learn to respect people as people and not require that they live up to this thing on a daily day or day to day basis, and have a container where a person that you see as a person that you allow to be a full person will like, put on a schoolboy schoolgirl uniform for you, or like some man who treats you well, and is lovely to you and isn't toxic, but who will like go in the bedroom and tell you to get on your study fucking knees. Like, maybe that's where these people need to go.

  Sunny 21:21

  I mean, I honestly believe that I think that would help a hell of a lot of people I look at my own life when, you know, I didn't get into kink until I was in my mid 30s. And I looked at the relationships and situations that I was drawn to, and ooh, the situations I ended up being in were awful. And I'm like, you know, part of that attraction there to you know, that particular person that ended up being abusive, and I'm not victim blaming, or saying this is my fault, or, you know, anyone in similar situations fall, but like, that really explained a lot of the attraction for me when like, schicke are toxic, and my nipples are like, even though the rest of my brain was like, like, oh, okay, we I can control this in a safe container. And I think for a lot of folks, not, you know, being afraid of our sexual selves, and like, what does this mean about me and all that stuff? And then the societal message that we're given about sex and really, you know, when people are like, Ah, it's just sex, it doesn't matter. I firmly believe that the personal is political. And you know, when we are playing with kink in these power dynamics, we are perverting social norms and hierarchies for our pleasure. So it's like we are seeking out Lea, let's say, we're, I'm that stereotypical heterosexual, submissive woman who's seeking out that dominant man, right? What things have I been told from society and the way our world works about that power dynamic in the real world? How does it confuse the fuck out of me? How does it you know, do I have that subconscious? Like, I know that's wrong in my logical brain, but my subconscious mind is like, that's hot, go after that. Right? Why? Well, because this is what we've been told what we've been fed in every movie, etc. And then when it comes to our erotic selves, like, we don't understand our sexual motivations, and we're shamed by them. So things that in my logical everyday brain I go into, that's gross, that's morally wrong, I would never stand for that. For some reason, when I'm horny, that those things become the hottest things in the world. I crave disgusting, dirty, gross things. I crave toxic situations, maybe I maybe I'm a feminist, and I would never let a man bossed me around, I would never make him muffins and give him his slippers when he arrives home. God damn for sex, I do that in a heartbeat. And I don't understand why I think that makes me a horrible person. So I'm just going to suppress it, suppress it, suppress it, and it's going to keep coming out because like you were saying, you know, there's certain things it's like, we like what we like, and sometimes we can't explain it. It's, you know, for it's for a lot of reasons, and we can over psychoanalyze it to death.

  KC 24:12

  And you can even recognize, like, maybe it didn't come from a great place. Like maybe it didn't come from a great place. Maybe it is toxic messages from society. But you know what, that's how it fucking got stamped at an early age, when I was sharing about the books that I liked. And I made a Tiktok where I said, you know, like, I this I know, this is a reflection of my trauma. And there's a big controversy in fantasy books about the use of sexual assault and fantasy books, because authors will often use it as like a quick way to character development or like an easy way to Oh, and I heard this really great tech talk the other day where she was talking about, like, sometimes fantasy writers will use sexual assault as an easy way to character development, but also, it's the setup to show which men are bad men and which men are good men because like everyone's kind of morally gray and doing the same kind of violence are the same kind of danger. But then there are some willing to cross that line. And then there are others that will come and rescue your protagonist from that. And that's really the only way in those books we know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. And they were criticizing or not really criticizing, they were asking authors to be more aware of, you know, how appropriate is it, to use a woman's sexual trauma, as you're centering men, like, it's just used as a flag for men, it's not used as a part of this woman's story or a product, right. And so, but it was a great conversation. And as someone who loves fantasy and who like writes fantasy, as a hobby, what I commented on, it was, this is such an interesting conversation, because as a writer, I agree with you, as a reader. I love that shit. Like, I know, it's problematic, and for all the reasons, and I like when books have sexual assault, and she's moments away from being assaulted, and a man rescues her. And I understand why that's problematic. And I understand that my early childhood experiences with sexual violation, set up a situation for me where like part of the way that I dealt with that as a kid, and I'm talking third grade, fourth, very young, was maladaptive daydreaming. And the Daydream was always the same, it was always I'm about to be sexually assaulted. And a man walks in and stops it. And then I used to always, like, really, really wish I had brothers. And so there wasn't even like a sexual component. It was this protective man component. So like, the daddy issues, met the sexual violation, trauma met the and like, that is what I thought about and wished for as a child and you grow up, you're 37, it's like that shit is like, I've done so much healing. This is not something I'm trying to work out in my everyday like, who I'm attracted to, and who I go for, you know, in relationship, but it's still there. And I can judge it and say how wrong it is and how it came from such a, you know, backwards place and suppress it like you're talking about. But there's this idea that like, you know, people can talk about, how, what do we do with that? And I feel like part of kink is this idea that like, what if it was morally neutral? Yes. Or what if we could express it in a way that was morally neutral, like, like, there's a way to express it, where you're, it's almost subconscious, and you're trying to, you know, do something within your real relationships and the people you're attracted to, and you're creating toxicity, and you're creating self destruction? And like, you're, and maybe you're hurting other people, and you're hurting yourself? But maybe the answer isn't just make yourself stop, you know, letting your nipples get hard when you think about being rescued from sexual Yes. Yeah, right. Or when you think about, you know, I am strong, powerful woman. And yet the idea when I read those scenes in the books, where she's forced to be humiliated, right, or forced to wear the dress where you could see everything, and she can't control herself, like, why does that turn me on? Instead of shaming ourselves for that? Maybe we can do both. Like maybe we can say, I don't want this in the driver's seat of my life, right? But I don't have to bound it and gag it and put it in the trunk. Right?

  Sunny 28:20

  I want to take it out and play with it in a controlled environment. And you know, and there's a couple points I want to make, because this is like some heavy stuff we're getting at and for listeners, who might be in and this is this is very much stigma busting, which is what we have to do constantly when we're thinking about this stuff. So a lot of people's knee jerk reaction hearing, what we just talked about was like, you know, first of all, who how can people fantasize about sexual assault, especially people who are who have been victims or survivors of sexual assault? And it is a thing you know, amongst all genders granted, it is largest among people who are assigned female at birth, but amongst all genders, there are lots of evidence and studies that this is a huge fantasy as for sex, right? And then the second point I want to make is people listening going, Oh, see, here's the trauma. All these kinky people are fucked up, because they're working out their trauma and kink. First of all, studies time and time again, say like people who are kinky are no more or less quote, fucked up than the average person like, we're human. We've all got shit. Secondly, sometimes things have a source and trauma, and sometimes they don't. And guess what those things that do have that are grounded in our trauma or from our trauma that doesn't just come out in sex. Let's go back to the line at the grocery store. Some asshole butts right in front of me obvious like it's the audacity and I go to open my mouth. How can be like, hey, Buster got a song Hey Buster again, you got to the back of the line. And I go to my mouth and I can't. And I'm like, oh, and I know like, I need to fucking say something to this jerk, but I can't do it. And then I start to feel small. And then I start to feel anxiety, right? We might be able to take that back to our childhood where we couldn't stand up for ourselves, or we did and we were shut down and something bad happened. Guess what, we bring our trauma with us everywhere. So because it's coming up in sex and kink, what do you do that doesn't make it wrong, it comes up everywhere. And sometimes it's not about trauma at all. So I want to throw that destigmatizing out there. So we can get past those thoughts as we're listening, and like really dig into what this is about. And you know, when it comes to kink, and we're playing with this stuff in a safe container, we boil things down to their tropes, like to their biggest characteristic, so I am a dominance, I am good. And I you know, my archetype is very authoritarian, put my foot down, because I said, so I'm threatening you, right? I'm not a full dimensional human being at that point, I am playing a role and a character that like, I have taken those defining characteristics about that archetype. And I have blown them up to like a cartoonish, ridiculous bigness, right? That's what we're doing. So when we're boiling things down, like you were talking about boiling down the storylines to these, like, really stereotypical tropes that in some contexts can be damaging. When we're fantasizing, and we're playing with them. Yeah, we boil things down to those stereotypical tropes, we're perverting social norms and hierarchies for our pleasure, we are playing with or semi reenacting what we know. Well,

  KC 31:57

  and that is one of the things that just in psychology in general, we know that people do is that, you know, when someone comes to me as a client, and they go, you know, I don't know why I keep seeking out the same romantic partner, and it never ends well, for me, and it's like the same, the same, the same. And, you know, I don't want to be like, too, over simplistic about it. But oftentimes, a person is able to say, oh, I can see where this comes from, I can see that the way that my father behaved, the way my mother behaved, or something that happened to us as children or whatever like, and what we find is, we will often subconsciously try and recreate the situations that traumatized us, because we are hoping for a different ending. So to be overly simplistic, you know, you have a dad that's maybe violent and mean or something like that, right. And you find yourself attracted to those men who are kind of big and macho, and this and that. And there's a part of it, that kind of goes, this is familiar, and the protective pneus. And the possessiveness feels good, because this is who would have protected me. But in the real world, some of those personality characteristics, nine times out of 10 come with other baggage and personality issues that are not going to end well for your heart and your safety and your emotional wellness. But there's something about us, and this is anything right? Like it, let's say, you know, someone might talk about how they try to push people away a lot, they push people away, they push people away, they push people away. And you know, it's this, you know, let me do this before you can do this. And but we secretly wish there would be a different ending, we wish somebody would stay, even though we're pushing them away. Because then we wouldn't feel maybe we would know that we're there. And I think that there's this real interesting power of kink that gives you a safe place to have those corrective experiences. Because when we think about I mean, my big maladaptive daydream, when I was a kid always involved. And I guess if you're related to me, this is gonna make you feel weird. Log right off, literally involved being chained to a wall. And all of the kids in my class are chained to a wall naked, and all the kids in my class walking by and they were able to do whatever they wanted to me until somebody comes in and saves me. And the truth is, is like, if I was in that actual situation, the actual experience of being on that wall would be scary and miserable and traumatizing. And I wouldn't be enjoying it. But when the maladaptive Daydream happens, that's not the emotional part that I'm savoring. It's the feeling when somebody busts in and says, No, she's worth saving. That's the emotional part I want to experience but when I'm not tuned in to all of those things, and I'm not self aware of those things, I go about my life looking subconsciously for the men, or the women and the situation. means that I can recreate this dynamic because I want that cathartic feeling. But in the real world, I have to feel all the feelings of being chained to the wall, which aren't good ones to get that one little someone busts in. And but I can, when I'm self aware about it, I can go well, but in kink, like I can work through the healing of what's happening in my life outside of the safe container. And yet still, like that itch, to feel that feeling of protection, like might not ever get go away, no matter how quote unquote, healed, I

  Sunny 35:31

  am, right. Yeah. And, you know, I can imagine a lot of people listen to this to thinking like, Well, okay, in order to be kinky, and do all this stuff, I have to like, go through 15 years of therapy first to really understand my motivations and why you don't have to understand why like, this is our jobs and where we geek out. So we like to talk about why and me and my personal life as a kinky person. Part of it for me is digging into the why and psychoanalyzing and for other people, they're like, there is no bigger turnoff than thinking about how all this should I feel in the bedroom, it's attached to my childhood, in my experience, like fuck that, like, that's got sexy, you don't have to think about the why. And I'm going to put a pin in a caveat there, I'll come back to it. But you have to trust and at least know that like, this is coming from someplace, right? It's a need you have doesn't matter why it's an emotional need that you have, it's something you want to explore, there is something wrong with you because of it, there are a number of ways to explore it, one could be like you were talking about a very unhealthy way in the real world in real dynamics. Or another way can be in a controlled consensual environment like kink, where if you're, if you set it up, and you talk about it, negotiate, you're like, This is gonna be great. And you get five minutes into it, you're like, I was wrong, you have a safe word. And you can say, No, you're always in control. And we don't have say forth on roller coasters either. So I'm going to put kink above roller coasters. So you know, that is really as much as you need to know, it's kind of like trust in yourself trust in like the process, I equate it to kink being like a background operating systems download on your computer. So I'm playing World of Warcraft, right? I'm having a good old time a pop up comes up like, we are updating to a new version of Windows 10, and blah, blah, blah, but this is gonna happen in the background, you can keep playing your game, you won't even know that this new processing and improvement is happening. It just is. So I think of that as kinked. Like, we don't need to know exactly what's happening, and why are being control of it. But no, like, we're working shit out when we're having fun. And the caveat I put in that is if you are a person who is dominant, you know, this is an example. But like dominant, not only in kink, but dominant in the real world hierarchy. Let's say you are like a white sis male who dates women, and maybe your current partner is younger than you. So there's a power dynamic there, maybe you know, you're white, and they're a person of color. There's a real world power, dynamic difference there. When you are playing with that person in that safe container, you can sometimes enact some things that really dip into real world trauma and reinforce real world oppression, negative shit, you know, think of those podcasts, bro, it's like we were talking about. So if you are in that situation, there's my caveat, it is your responsibility to dig deep enough into the why of what you are doing and why you weren't doing it. And to make sure that doesn't cause harm to the person that you're playing with.

  KC 39:06

  I think that's a really good caveat, especially earlier when I was saying like maybe podcast bros need to get into kink. I mean, obviously, they don't need to just like, suddenly start trying to do this. But the idea would be to unpack and be different in the real world and still have that safe container. I think that's important to bring up because, you know, I think sometimes when we talk about not like kink being like morally neutral, whatever we often are thinking towards, like, sort of your classic stereotypical, like, Okay, I'm a woman who wants to be dominant, or I'm a man, I think that it's easier for us to think about, you know, a woman or a man who wants to be dominated or a woman who wants to dominate. But then when it comes to like a man that wants to dominate, it's so close to what the real world power structures are. That I think sometimes and I've had this thought where it's like, I don't think there's anything wrong with a woman who wants to be choked In a consensual, kinky relationship, and sometimes men, I'll hear talk about like, listen, like that's, I'm not a bad guy, she, that's what she wants. I'm giving her what she wants. But there's always the thought of like, right, but like, what kind of man is like, aroused by choking a woman? And what does that mean about you? And what's going on? And so can you kind of talk maybe about like, what are those dynamics? And like, how can one tell? Or how could a partner tell like, hey, you know, why is there a situation in which someone who would normally align themselves with power? would want to play out power in a sexual context? That shouldn't be like just a giant red flag? Yeah, yeah.

  Sunny 40:45

  And this is, you know, not either not understanding this from outsiders looking in, or from people doing kink is, you know, one of the big reasons we have a lot of stigma about kink, and it's also a pretty big contributor to kink not done well. Right. So let's say I am a, you know, sis, man, and I dominate women and like you were saying, there's many other configurations, you know, you can be submissive man, this is just like, we're going with the stereotype. We're going with a common trope, right? So why would I want to do that? Yeah, I need to examine to make sure if I'm, you know, spanking and tying up my girlfriends, that I'm not doing it to reinforce what society tells me a man is in my masculinity and my power over another person, right? So that's the first step. The second step, why might I actually genuinely like it for a not toxic reason? Well, maybe I look at it as I'm kind of providing a service, I'm doing something for my partner, they need this for a certain reason. And I want to help facilitate that. I want to help give it to them. Maybe I'm working out some of my own stuff. You know, perhaps I have a history where maybe I did some bad shit. Maybe I wasn't asshole, right. And I never had that corrective experience. I just remained an asshole and had to deal with that. And now I have, I'm doing it in a controlled environment with a partner. That's like, guess what, I still love you. At the end of the day, we're having our aftercare. And we've talked about it. And I've reassured you that you did exactly what I wanted. And it was perfect. It was hot, and it was sexy. There's my corrective experience. Right there, right? Maybe, you know, I think of myself because I play the role of a dominant most of the time these days. And for me, it's very much like I get to access parts of myself that I'm not allowed to be in the real world. Less I be called, you know, a bitch. People don't like me, I'm domineering. And I'm a No at all. I'm no fun, can I be fun, and be the boss and have people kiss my ass, and, you know, tell everybody what to do. And I'm not the best, or maybe I am the bitch, but they love me for it. I don't have those negative consequences at the end, you know, and it's like, we could keep going down that rabbit hole of reasons why we might look like we're doing something horrible and abusive look like maybe even though we're doing it in a controlled environment, it's reinforcing toxicity outside of that bedroom. But there are many reasons that can be done in a healthy way. So when I talk about, you know, that misunderstanding, or unknowing contributing to the stigma, it's because we don't know, somebody flogging somebody else, and tying them up while they're crying looks exactly the same when it's done horribly, and in an abusive way. And when it's done with intention, and consent, and consensually, and for all the right reasons, it doesn't look any different. And we can't tell the difference. The only people that know that difference are the people involved. And that's hard for us as humans to accept, we look at other people and we think we know their situation better than they do. Well, that guy's dominant because he's just a misogynistic asshole, that no man in his right mind would want to choke a woman. Hence, here we are.

  KC 44:32

  So let me ask you this. I have two things that are coming up for me is one of what do you ever talk to people about? I feel like there's this like slippery slope fear that people have around like anything taboo and arousal. And I've heard people talk about this from personal experience, and I've heard people talk about this from fear where it's like, typically the story goes, it's usually like someone watching porn. And it's like, okay, well, this doesn't do it for me. So I need something, you know, more extreme. And then they do that. And then that doesn't do it for they need something more extreme and more extreme. And it almost sets up this like, fear. And some people have, I don't want to like dip my toes in anything taboo or anything kink because like, what if it opens up this thing where, and now I just need more and more and more and more extreme stuff to get aroused? Or to orgasm? Like, how do you talk about that within a healthy kink?

  Sunny 45:31

  So, you know, it's kind of that concept that we have, in other areas, that belief system, like, almost like we're gonna burn out our horny receptors. So we have to keep getting more and more extreme, because we're becoming desensitized. And, you know, that's a common sort of belief or line of thinking we have in lots of ways. So first of all, I'm going to address like, first the elephant in the room, like, can in some instances that happen? Yeah. You know, is it rare? Yes, absolutely. Most of the time, when we're doing kink done well, in a healthy way, that is not going to happen. Because it's not just we're satisfying a thing. We've checked it off. Now we're going up the ladder, the hierarchy, right? Things aren't as hierarchical as we think they are. We live in a hierarchical based society, right? However, are there, you know, you hear about there was a case. years ago, it was a guy who was frequenting kink websites who was into cannibalism like fantasy cannibalism. And the way his communication with other people went, looked like he was gearing up towards like, actually doing it. Right. And I don't think and I can't remember the details of the case, offhand. But I don't I don't know if he ever actually did. But it got to the point of prosecution. And yes, he has this intent. It's attempted that either that or that, you know, and it's like, do some people go that far? Yeah, we'll never know. If this guy would have gotten that far. Right. Doesn't happen. Something. Yeah. extreme cases. But there's that trust again, of like, you know, it's almost like yes, people can be horrible drivers. Right? And they might crash their car, they might crash a car on purpose. Maybe they're, you know, suicidal, they're gonna, does that mean, we're gonna take away licenses and the ability to drive for every human being? Because somebody might go rogue? And do something horrible? No. Right?

  KC 47:38

  When I wonder if that's more likely to happen in isolation, like, I wonder, because that when I talk to people who, you know, every once awhile, I've talked someone who has to kind of, they feel like they've experienced that little like, Oh, it's getting darker and darker and darker. It's always like very isolated, like, I'm alone with my computer, or I'm alone with a partner. And there's no like, like ownership of, yeah, like, I'm into kink. And that's fine. It's there. It's kind of like shame driven. And there's like other things going on, that they probably shouldn't be trying to work out via this route. And so I wonder if it's like a misunderstand, I mean, and to be clear, for the audience, like, kink can happen, just with your monogamous partner, that you're also in relationship. And that's just what you'd like to do. And then, you know, there's a whole other world of kink where you might enter into a relationship with another person just for a kink experience. Right. And so like, there's a wide spectrum there. But I do wonder if there's something about the shame driven isolation experience, and it also seems to be like orgasm centric, versus like, when I hear people that are into health and a kinky way, they're talking a lot more globally, about the brain tingles and about the relationship and about the after care and about the, the relational awareness,

  Sunny 49:02

  if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely.

  KC 49:04

  I just, I think some people listening might have this fear of like, you know, I can't tap into that darkness because I don't know where it will take me.

  Sunny 49:11

  Right. Right. And a lot of that is is very valid, you know, and this is why I do what I do. Because I really believe taking away the stigma, the shame, and also those misconceptions, just having the misconception like wow, I've been like orgasming to this thing. That's kind of weird for a while. Now, I must climb the ladder, right? That fear of like, oh, no, I'm going to climb the ladder. The shame, the misunderstanding that it's like all about the sex, the misunderstanding that the more kinky you are, the more fucked up you are, and not having an outlet to talk about it. Understand it excetera you know, that can kind of become a self fulfilling prophecy. And I'm not, you know, not to say, Oh, that's it all instances. But that's a scenario that's, that's really valid. And you know, talking about, for instance, the brain tangles or going like, what is behind this? Like, why do I like this fantasy? Is it just about the orgasm? Or is it something else? So like, I'll talk to people who have really extreme fantasies, right, that they, if they actually did would be dangerous, like, so let's find a way to reenact that where you get that feeling. But it's smoke and mirrors it's play act, and you're not actually doing the bad thing, right? Or even couples that come to me for coaching that they're like, Yeah, we're both kinky, but we, you know, one partner has this fantasy that they all they can't get another. And the other partner is like, I can't get down with that. I cannot get down with that. So then we dig down. What is that lowest common denominator? Like? What is the feeling that you're going after? You know, and I have tools for people that negotiate kinky experiences, and one of them is an emotional map, like you pick out like, okay, during the scene, I want to feel this that miss my outcome, I want to feel this that Miss at the end. That's my goal. Now, how can we build around that? Right? So an example is, let's say someone's into age play. And the other person's like, can't go there? Nope. can't pretend, you know, you're like dressing a little kid clothes. That is not my thing. It freaks me out. It's traumatizing. No. Okay. Person who has that fantasy? What are you going after? Maybe it's been cared for not having responsibilities, the ability to feel silly, you know, all of those things. So we dig that down. Okay, what other scenario or kink or activity? Can we overlay to get to those same things? And maybe this is just theoretical, maybe for that person, pet play, you know, I'm gonna pretend to be a puppy, because I get the same so I can be silly and goofy. Maybe I could, you know, they like, correct me and spank me kind of like playfully, they care take for me, I get the same things. Great. You know, so I feel like those people who have all these misconceptions and shame about kink that think they're going down that rabbit hole would benefit from knowing some of that stuff, and also not to discount. Sometimes the rabbit hole is the fantasy. Oh, it's an addiction. Oh, my God, it's overtaking me, I'm just going to become perverted, more perverted and perverted. I'm just going to become like, a big ball of jackoff sitting on the bed, that's my whole being is going to become perverse. And oh, no, maybe that's the fantasy. But you think it's real? Yeah.

  KC 52:50

  And it strikes me that like, you know, everything, when we think about like, okay, ways that could go wrong, it's all the same ways that vanilla sex goes wrong, too, when it comes to, you know, lack of consent or abuse, or like working out, you know, something that you haven't really looked at, or reading engaging in harmful dynamics, or, you know, all those things. And, you know, I think about how it really isn't about one type of sex being more, you know, more or less or good or bad or like, and compared to the other as much as looking at how, regardless of whether you think that you're into kinky things, or you just think, man, vanilla sex does it for me, I think that the things that good kink does well, is the same thing we could benefit from even in vanilla sex when we talk about sort of negotiation and consent and aftercare and not feeling shame and trust and safety, and acknowledging that erotic self, as you know, allowing that erotic self to come out to play. And also, like, I think, especially for people who sort of navigate the world, as a woman, like, also like the expectation of your own pleasure, which is oftentimes absent in at least heteronormative types of sex for a lot of women. And so you know, even vanilla sex can get dark and dangerous and scary and not healthy. It's really a kind of how you go about it.

  Sunny 54:31

  And this is where we come back to like the distinction of kink. dunwell versus kink not done well. When we look at, you know, just kink out in the wild. There are many, many, many, many instances of people thinking while I'm doing kink and kink is healthy, right? And the kink world and kink relationships are rife with abuse, manipulate Shannon excetera. And I'll tell you why it's not because kinky people are bad or anything like that, right? But especially in this day and age of social media where, you know, kink used to be a very close community, where people really talked about, like, these are principles, and you know, what we believe in and what we stand up. I know, we've got social media, and everyone's connected in weird ways. And there are people who are like, Yeah, I'm really kinky, and they don't even know what consent is, you know what I mean? So those lines become really blurry. So let's say you get yourself into a kink relationship with somebody and you know, we'll go with the stereotype again, I'm a submissive, my dominant tells me like, oh, well, I'm dominant, and you're submissive, and, and you know, that, like submissives have to be put to the test, they have to earn privileges, like you have to earn your safe words, you don't get a safe word right away, because that's the way it goes, because I'm the dominant. So I tell you what to do. That sounds really logical. If we believe the stereotypes about kink like, Well, yeah, that is my dominant, I guess. That is horrible. That is not that is taking away your consent. So it's like those lines become really blurry. When you know, just in the mainstream, we encounter kink, because we can't recognize kink done well. And kink done not well, is everywhere.

  KC 56:20

  I think it sounds like sex in general, not done well, is also everywhere. Because all the problems you just listed, that could be with kink. I was like, Yeah, I mean, there's also plenty of that in just regular vanilla sex.

  Sunny 56:30

  Yeah. And take it back to like, you know, what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like? Can you count? Do you have enough fingers on one hand to count how many relationships listener that you know, in your real life? Nope. And that has nothing to do with like, Well, it's because relationships are bad, nobody should ever get together. And it's just like, it's not because kink is bad. It's because we're humans. And we're fucked up. And society has done a horrible job at teaching us to be self aware, to being emotionally competent, being empathetic, and compassionate. Like we all got dealt a raw hand, and we didn't get taught any of this stuff. And you know, at least when I look at kink, dunwell, and I look at those frameworks, and I look at the intent behind it. We are trying to correct for that shitty hand we've been dealt as humans and taught nothing. I

  KC 57:29

  do feel like in the kink world, like when I've watched your content, when I've watched some other people's content, at least, there is a lot of explicit talk about kink, gone wrong and kinked unwell. And even though it's big, and it's wide, and anyone can get on, it still feels like there's this protective Enos of people to call out when they see and it's like, it's very clear, if you listen to people talk about when it goes right when it goes wrong. And I don't see that same thing in vanilla sex. I don't see just random people being like, let's talk about and I'm not saying it's not out there. There are lots of great sexologist, it'll talk about healthy sex, but it's not as from a community standpoint, from a society standpoint, we're not as closely watching. Okay, we see these two over here. What's this dynamic light because we just assume, Oh, they're just you know, they'll figure it out. Oh, you know, it's sex. It's not you know, it's not dark. Certainly, this has been such a great conversation and I know that you and I could go on forever about this. But if people you know if they want to know more, if they want to follow you, you know, where can they find you on social media, where can they What do you have website resources? Go ahead and plug yourself?

  Sunny 58:42

  Yeah, easy peasy. I am sunny Megatron everywhere. So su NY Megatron. So today megatron.com. For my website, Sunny Megatron on Tik Tok, Instagram, you know, all the places where you can find me, I also have on demand classes, you can, you know, find me on Gumroad or just linked to it from any of my stuff. And I teach as well, I coach as well. And I try to do what I can to give education for free because this conversation, I know there are people listening right now, who had like, mind exploding lightbulb moments like, Oh, my goodness, the stuff that I just put together doesn't just apply to me in the bedroom. It is, you know, transferable across so many relationships. So I firmly believe that everyone should have access to these kinds of conversations, unfortunately, capitalism. So I try to do as much as I can on social media. I also have a Patreon as well. So yeah, follow along, start listening to the conversations, getting into the conversations and see where it takes you. So I think it'll be super

  KC 59:56

  awesome. We'll say thank you so much.

  Sunny 59:58

  Thank you

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

If you have felt the pressure to put meals on the table that adhere to the expectations of others, even when you could barely function in life, this episode is for you. I’m joined by Amy G.S.A. Brooks of Wandering Ames. She’s one of my favorite content creators who posts about the OK Kitchen. There is more to life than succumbing to societal pressure to prepare perfect, five-star meals. Join us!

Show Highlights: 

●      The beginnings of the OK Kitchen and the forming of a new community

●      Food insecurity and diet culture during the pandemic

●      Messages surround us everywhere about how we feed ourselves and fuel our bodies.

●      Thinking about preparing food for three meals every day seems like never-ending labor!

●      Meal plans can be a helpful tool–but should be set aside when needed.

●      Wasteful in food or wasteful in being unkind to ourselves? Which is worse?

●      Be willing to break the rules: dinner doesn’t have to be a big meal or a fancy production, and food plans should be simple and flexible.

●      The point of meals is to get what our bodies need.

Resources and Links:

Connect with Amy G.S.A. Brooks: TikTok

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:00

  Oh

  Amy 0:04

  Hello, you Sentient Balls of Stardust, excuse my tight throat. This week, I have a little bit of laryngitis. But we are pushing forward. Because today we're talking to Amy G. S, A brooks of wandering Ames. And one of my favorite content creators who posts about the OK, kitchen. Amy, thank you for being here. It is my pleasure to be here, I stumbled upon your content because of your okay kitchen videos, which if the audience hasn't heard them, it's it literally opens with you saying welcome back to the okay kitchen, and then you make a meal. And it is a simple meal. It's a very accessible meal. Tell me how this started? Yeah, I need to take you back to the dark times of the early pandemic. To do that. It was very much an accidental journey in that, as with many of us, the walls were closing in around me. And I needed to continue feeding myself anyway, which is just absolutely the worst. But basically, in my house, we had leftover french fries, which is a concept that even I struggled to understand. I mean, to add some context, my wife and I went grocery shopping only once every four weeks at the time. And so the food available to me to make meals was limited in terms of freshness, at least as he got towards the end of that time. And some chaotic combinations followed. But the beginning of the story is that I had leftover french fries, and some assorted vegetables in the fridge and just thought, I'm just going to put this on a tray and sprinkle some cheese on it and were lifted up off the tray, it's going to be all gooey and delicious. Like, like a slice of joy and happiness. And what happened instead, cheese had I looked at it and I went, you know what, it's okay, I guess I'm eating this today.

  And the thing is, I put that online because I thought everyone needs to just laugh at my aspirations versus the reality. And it turned out that I wasn't the only person here. So the walls were closing in and making the decision to feed myself daily, sometimes more than once a day was one of the struggles of the moment, people really responded. And a little community formed,

  KC 2:19

  it really reminds me of kind of my journey during the pandemic of trying to get my house, you know, cleaned and organized. And really putting it online was a way of staying motivated to do it. So I resonated with that part of your story. And here's the thing, there are accounts out there about how to cook about how to make meals, there are really great dietitians, and really great chefs, but there's just something so different about listening to someone who is in a similar place that you feel like you're in, but also like maybe has closer to what you one would consider like their own skills. Tell me about the response and the community that has built up around the Okay, kitchen.

  Amy 3:05

  Yeah, what always surprises me is I'm here for laughs most of the time. I'm very sincere in what I do. I'm not making bad meals on purpose for views, you know that those accounts do exist. I'm making food with the intent of eating it. And because our budget is limited, I will be eating it, no matter how disappointing the result. And, you know, it turns out, there's a lot of us out there, my journey over the last few years has included a diagnosis of ADHD and autism and part of the food piece has been learning to honor my own needs and how they differ perhaps from others. And that is people were I was astonished to find really enthusiastic about and, you know, to get really serious for a minute, every week, sometimes more often than a week, I have someone who comments or messages me and says thank you. You reminded me to eat today?

  KC 4:09

  Yeah, there's so much messaging out there. I mean, we live in a world that is primarily fueled by diet culture. And even if you're not in a diet culture by way of like, oh, you know, restrict your food and go on a diet. There's so many messages around eating and I found myself on more than several occasions kind of standing in my kitchen and thinking okay, I need to eat and having this idea in my head about what I should be eating and either not having access, like the either I don't have those kinds of foods or I don't know how to cook those kinds of foods or I don't have the energy to cook, whatever that could be and sort of feeling as though okay, I guess I'll eat nothing like I can't hit this like ideal version of like, whether it's, you know, the type of calories or the type of macros or the type of nutrients that I should be eating and so Because I can't get that sometimes it would happen in my house. Sometimes it would happen when I was out, right? And I think about like, Oh, I could go to this, you know, the three fast food places, but oh gosh, what would I get there that, you know, my dietician would be proud of. And so I just don't eat at all.

  Amy 5:13

  And I want to be real clear that I'm not a dietician. And I'm not coming to this with a medical background, I am just a human person. Part of the work I do professionally, outside of tic toc is working with human people. And I have my limit, and some of those limits around how I feed myself, for those of us and for many of us, who particularly those who are socialized, as women, we have received loud and clear the messages that externally, there are others who are allowed to dictate how we fuel our bodies. And I'm certainly not advocating for forget what your medical needs are, and just eat what you want. And I do believe that there is a balance between what my body needs, and what I can access on my body at this time. And a lot of the times, those are the same things. So some of the humor, in my kitchen videos, is putting random things together and calling it a different meal. So a bowl of cherry tomatoes with some chips on top, and calling a tomato salad with croutons. You know, it's not what you learned in school for the food pyramid, but it's got vitamins in it. And you know, enough of a carb to keep you going until maybe you do have capacity for something more involved.

  KC 6:30

  There's a gap, I feel like for the community that you are speaking to, because, yes, there's a time and a place for, you know, sitting down and really digging into, you know, what is the best combination of nutrients that you could put together for every meal. And you know, if maybe if you have some health issues or some energy issues, you know, how can you optimize, you know, those things through the way that you're eating, like, there's a time and place for that, and for the dietitians, and for the medical doctors and for the coaches and all of those people. But the reality is, I mean, like you I found myself in a place for years, where that's just not where I was. And there weren't a lot of places that were going, Hey, like it's just eat, like, if you can't get the quote unquote, right kind of meal, you should still be eating, like, I don't know how as, like, as a woman, I was convinced that, you know, the best option is the meal you should be eating, the next best option is to eat nothing. And the worst option is to eat something bad or something wrong or something that's you know, not quote unquote good for you. But that is how many of us approach sort of like our pyramid of moral priorities in eating. And, you know, the I've made a few videos about eating, I'm actually in the midst of writing a cookbook, and it's, it's similar, there's not a lot speaking to who you are speaking to, which is sometimes we don't have access or capability or energy levels, or budget or whatever. And the next best thing to just waking up with a completely different life is just to put any kind of food in your body. In reality, all food has nutrients,

  Amy 8:04

  right and food, there's a whole conversation. We raise our farm animals over whether people embrace veganism or vegetarianism. I'm not saying no ethical considerations for food, but food has no moral value, and particularly those of us who who have been sucked deep, deep down into the whirlpool of diet culture. And as someone who is invested in the work of liberation, for me, that includes fat liberation. So as a fat woman, getting to continue to feed my body as it is, and to love my body enough to feed it as it is, is feels like a revolutionary Atomy.

  KC 8:46

  I would imagine it does for a lot of people because there is an aspect of denying ourselves food. And sometimes we do it because we feel frozen or because of executive functioning or because of access. But I think oftentimes one finds themselves denying themselves food as a form of punishment. Yes. Yeah. You know, when you said you were going to read a poem, and it reminded me of one of my favorite ones that I hear in my head all the time, which kind of ties into like my background and troubled teen industry and evangelicalism. And but there's this really beautiful poem by Mary Oliver. And just the very beginning of it, I hear in my head all the time that says you do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. And that part of that poem just like lives in my brain rent free about everything. And I feel like in this conversation we're having about food and how many of us sometimes deny ourselves food as a form of punishment? That just feels like such a bomb?

  Amy 9:50

  Yeah, yeah, I definitely. I feel the power of like a Putin those words that speaks to me particularly as a poet, but also as someone who has As moved out of evangelical mindset, just understanding ourselves as human animals who have needs, and wants and aspirations and limitations is such an important part of living this life that we live. And we all have different values. And sometimes there are values that are shoved upon us that we might not hold to, if we really looked deeply at them. And one of those values in our society where white supremacy culture is so present ever present, one of those values is that the premium way of living, particularly again, as a woman is to be the Incredible Shrinking person to not take up space to not have needs or demands to not see the shredded cheese packet in the drawer and think I'm just gonna have a little crate. And that's okay.

  KC 11:09

  Have you seen the, there's a tick tock sound going around right now, this woman who made Tiktok, where she says, As a woman, you should not be eating plain z's. So I'm just going to have a quick quick midnight snack, a quick, quick snack, and it goes to her play it it's like this huge plate of food. And so many people have been using that audio. And I just for some reason, it's like my favorite audio right now. Because the amount of times that I've gotten up at like 1030, my husband, I'll be sitting in reading in bed, and I'll be like, I'm kind of hungry, and I'll get up and make up like, eat a full meal, or come back with some giant plate. And it's like, just a quick, quick snack that you should not be eating plane seats as a woman.

  Amy 11:46

  I love that. Oh, and it does take it does take me back to bedtime very early in locked down when my wife's a morning person, and I am very much not. And we would like greet each other as ships passing in the night. You know, I would be making myself a full meal at three o'clock in the morning. Because, you know, that was my supper time. You know, I had no reason to leave my house. My work had gone online, you know, time has no meaning anymore, all of that stuff. So yeah, I'm just gonna have, I'm just gonna make an entire meal today in the morning and eat it. Because that's what I need right now.

  KC 12:23

  Or what are some times when you make meals, I wonder if what some people respond to is that like, sometimes we just need permission to like, put things on a plate that seem good, even if they don't match. Like I know, that seems really simple. But like, when I first got married, and for several years into my marriage, I'm making dinner and it's like, okay, to kind of cook a meat, I have to cook two sides. And they all have to kind of coordinate and then I just kind of like burnt out. And so then over a long time, I was just cooking like a meat, then my husband would come home and I'd be like, here's the pork loin, there's nothing else with it. And he was like, cool, like he didn't care at all. And then, like, our kids got to an age where they needed to eat a dinner. And so you know, I was feeding the kids earlier before he got home and I would often eat with them and he'd get home and and then I'd have to cook a second meal. And finally, like fast forward to now like I don't actually make a grownup dinner anymore. And my husband comes home and like eats a bowl of cereal or makes himself a sandwich. And I'm Amy I'm 10 years in it took me this long to realize a shit if I make dinner, and I don't need I'm happy to eat a bowl of cereal for dinner. Like no one in my family ever needed me to be making this like idea of adult dinner every night at seven, which I did for years. Nobody wanted it. Nobody cared, everybody is fine. The kids get their meal at six, I feed myself whatever I want to feed myself. He comes home and feeds himself whatever he wants to feed himself. And it's just so freeing and it's taken off so much energy and labor off my shoulders that nobody expected but me but just even like the combination of like sometimes I want a pork loin and I don't have to make sides or sometimes I want to side and I don't have to make a meal. Sometimes I can put chips with cherry tomatoes. They don't have to match. They don't have to be the salad.

  Amy 14:13

  And that's awesome salad. Anything you put

  KC 14:15

  together to be as a salad. Like if the food is touching if they're like, intermingled it's a salad. Yeah,

  Amy 14:22

  yeah. I mean, I do feel like we I mean a lot of syrup. They're middle class or lower income, you know, subsistence type minimum wage jobs, trying to prepare meals, like we've got kitchen staff, you know, like, I just put this together, but my actual professional chef chef did most of the work, you know, and that's not the reality. For most of us. We're working harder at our jobs than we have before and we're doing so for less income and income has less buying power than it had before. So the classism involved, either open an account of Chef Boyardee Eat or drive through and get takeaway on the way home, you know, that's time for rest and time to be with your family or your pets or to water your plants or whatever is meaningful to

  KC 15:12

  you. Yeah. How do you deal with because what I find that most difficult is that, you know, I know that I need to eat. And I know I need to put a meal together, but I just it's like, the energy to put it together and then the energy it's going to take to clean up after myself. And of course, you know, I make myself do it. But sometimes honestly, like, thinking about how I have to feed myself, and my kids like three meals a day, and then I have to wake up and do it again tomorrow. It's like this never ending labor. And maybe that sounds silly to some people. But like, There have been days where I've been like, God, I have to do this every day for the rest of my life. Like just give me a kibble, give me a human kibble.

  Amy 15:55

  Why can't we take tons in water?

  KC 15:59

  Just hang me up a gerbil. Even somebody's making a glass of water when I was in a really bad spot like somebody get me a gerbil feeder, like a water gerbil feeder, and I can just lean over to the side of my bed to just suckle some drops of water out of it. Yeah.

  Amy 16:13

  Why is it all for this? Oh, you know, I think all our households function differently for us because we have some food sensitivity issues. And then because again, wherever a limited budget, so the way we deal with that is we have a meal plan. And that's a really strict meal plan only covers evening meals, because my wife has so far resisted the let's do this for breakfast and lunch movement that my autism would like us to do, we have a really strict meal plan. And we always stick to it. And we always have exactly what is on the plan, we definitely do say I don't have the energy for that. And giving yourself permission to put the tools in place that you need is, I think really important. And just as important is giving yourself permission to set those tools down when you don't have one. So last week, we baked potatoes turned out the member of our household he was meant to be baking, the baked potatoes had an unlimited meaning we didn't need the baked potatoes, potatoes are fine in the cupboard for a while.

  KC 17:21

  That's such a hack to like I have found that trying to gravitate towards foods that will keep if I decide not to eat them. And it takes a little bit of brainpower, but you know, I can leave a potato in the cupboard for a day or two. Whereas you know, if I bought a fresh chicken breast might be a little bit more difficult. So sometimes I'll opt for the frozen chicken breast and try to find, you know, the meal that I can cook it from Frozen because then if I do find that that day, I can't, you know, I haven't wasted the food that I may not be able to, you know, somebody may not be able to revive Oh

  Amy 17:56

  yeah. And that's another thing. But the little waste of shame in our heads is that but if I don't eat this, I'm going to be wasting food. And that is true. At times I have sometimes renamed my you know the drawer in the fridge where you keep your vegetables, not a vegetable crisper it is often the vegetable decomposer throw out last week's bad letters and put the new good letters in at the end of the day is more wasteful, to be unkind to ourselves. Like that's it. That's the whole thought it is more wasteful to be unkind to ourselves. And I'm going to throw away a couple of cherry tomatoes I didn't get around to eating but I'm not throwing away my sense of what I deserve as a person and how I deserve to be treated, including in the kitchen and at the dining table, then rip the cherry tomatoes, I'm fine with it. I'm

  KC 18:45

  with you. I also want a second, like your idea of having a little food menu but having it be like flexible. I recently did the same thing just for my kids, where I just sat down because my kids you know, they've got a limited number of things that they'll eat and trying to think about, like a fresh combination of those things every day was difficult. And I just finally sat down with them even and was like tell me the things you will eat. And we came up with you know, and just five, five days like you know, I think you made a good point that you do not have to have some really fancy all three meals seven days a week. I mean for me just having something on the fridge that has a dinner idea for my kids for the for Monday through Friday is a huge load off my shoulders. And it's not like we have to follow it every week and or every day, right? There's a whole weeks where I didn't follow it. But when I find myself in that place of like okay, they need dinner. Okay, what am I supposed to oh, I can just I can just go look at the fridge, you

  Amy 19:39

  know? Yeah. And the end of the day when you're at your like limits, you know, typically by the end of the day, your energy is at the lowest and everyone's tolerance for each other's quirks and they also have very low you know, we're queer house or the field joke that lesbians can't make a decision together is less a joke and more fat So, knowing I'm absolutely exhausted, but I don't have to make a choice right now, you know, what is the meal plan? Say, Yeah, I can probably make box mac and cheese. That is something I capacity for, or but I didn't have to call a family meeting, bring everyone together, put all the cards on the table, spend 45 minutes debating which of the Welch's, we would like to grace with our dining presents that evening, what the ingredients are, that we may or may not have, you know, all of that decision making is exhausting. And sometimes even with, yeah, you know, and to your point about how sometimes even with a meal plan, you just end up standing at the door of the fridge and going, I'm gonna eat this cheese stick and call it good.

  KC 20:44

  Yeah, and I think to your point about how you know, towards the end of the day, we often find ourselves with less energy, less decision making ability, this idea that like dinner has to be the big meal, I think is like a rule that nobody is obligated to follow, you know, it's totally fine. If you want, you know, if you do want to have a bigger meal in the day for that to be breakfast, or to be lunch, you know, but to be breakfast, maybe that's the meal that you cook, and you make sure that there's lots of nutritional options and things like that. And then by the time dinner rolls around, everybody has a bowl of cereal, right, some cheese sticks, or you're doing snack platters. I mean, I think that people, there's a lot of rules that we can break to give ourselves some slack.

  Amy 21:25

  Right, right. And then I believe it was from your Tiktok content that I first moving your jaws into the vegetable drawer and your vegetables up the so you know fruits and vegetables. So they're more the first thing your eye hits. And that was lacking for me, maybe I don't have a plate that has fruits and vegetables and protein and carbs on it. I'm snacking on the grapes that are in the you know, the shelf in the fridge door. So this rule that all the things you eat in your meal have to be presented on your plate versus what what you might graze through the day is another thing that I'm glad to let

  KC 22:06

  go. I worked with like a nutritionist. She wasn't a dietitian, but just a nutritionist recently. And one of the things that she was talking about was, you know, trying to get more protein into my meals. And she was like, you know, ideally, you get enough protein in your meals that you're not really snacking a lot afterwards. And she's very nice. And there's things that she's very helpful about, but in my head, I was like I'm not, I don't care, I don't care. There's nothing wrong with snacking, and I'm going to continue to snack all day long. Like I'm not going to push myself into this like picture of how I should be eating. I'm totally down for like getting more protein. And it has been really helpful to me, but I just kind of like let other stuff just pass on through like no, like, I don't have to force myself into somebody that only eats three times a day.

  Amy 22:42

  Yeah. And there are people for whom that works really well. They enjoy that God is bless them. That's not for everyone. I have a really good friend who one of her children is tube fed. So she has tubes than a formula that is made meals. So it's tubes that are surgically implanted in her intestines, basically. And the point is not to meet a benchmark of what meals should look like. The point is to make sure that we have what we need. And sometimes what we need is delivered by tubes medically determined by our body.

  KC 23:17

  So me You said you had a poem that you wanted to read? Yeah, true

  Amy 23:20

  fans of the okay kitchen scene that my content goes beyond badly named meals. And that I do write some poetry this one is titled A Manifesto. It's a clever poem that you cannot fully appreciate as I'm speaking it instead of saying it in text, but I am saying manner as in like, you know the Bible story of manna in the desert and manifesto, as in the declaration of beliefs, and the poem goes like this. Welcome to the ok kitchen where we eat the food we can access. Food is leftovers. Food is takeout food comes from gardens, freezers, packets and cans, we know that we can save time or money, but we can't save both. And that's okay. Welcome to the ok kitchen where we eat to fuel our sentient skinsuit where we understand our neuro brain. We eat our safe food we eat with the small spoon, we eat shredded cheese from the packet. We know that some days remembering to eat is an achievement. And that's okay. Welcome to the ok kitchen, where we eat in defiance of our disorders where we understand that food is just food. It is not good or bad. It has no moral value, it is not a reward to be earned. We know that divesting from the cult of wellness is a work in progress and that Okay, welcome to the okay kitchen, where we have our fill of food gratefully faithfully, courageously without shame and mats. Okay, that's

  KC 25:01

  beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Amy if people want to follow you online, tell them where they can do that and plug anything else that you've got going on.

  Amy 25:09

  I am on tick tock as wandering aims mispronounce wandering games, but that's fine. I don't mind. I'm also scram and Twitter with the same title but with much less enthusiasm is one way to put it.

  KC 25:26

  And aims as a m e. S. Amy, thank you so much for your time, and I appreciate everything that you've shared with us today.

  Amy 25:33

  Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

I’m joined today by Monica Packer, host of the About Progress podcast, as we talk about habits. Specifically, our discussion focuses on why the habit-forming advice out there written by men does not work for women. Join us!

Show Highlights: 

●      Monica’s background as a blogger and podcaster who had to “learn how to fail”

●      Understanding that perfectionism is a spectrum that affects our ability to form “good habits”

●      Monica’s lightbulb moment: “Maybe our methods are broken.”

●      The biggest difference between men’s and women’s habits: invisible labor

●      How invisible labor is defined–and what the statistics show

●      Examples of the mental load that women carry

●      Popular culture advice (about forming habits) that DOES NOT work

●      Monica’s tips for forming habits: redefine consistency, shift your view of habits, and start with the smallest and simplest form of the ideal

●      Bedtime Revenge Procrastination is real for many women!

●      The goal of habits is to support you—so do it YOUR way!

●      Understanding trade-offs and how they work for most women

Resources and Links:

Connect with Monica Packer: Website, About Progress Podcast, Instagram, and The Sticky Habit Intensive Course

Books mentioned by Monica: Fair Play by Eve Rodsky and Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

 Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:00

  Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, Casey Davis. And today I'm with Monica packer, who is the host of the about progress podcast. And we're going to be talking about habits today, and specifically why it is that all of the habit forming advice out there written by men doesn't really work for women. So Monica, thank you so much for being here. Happy to be here to discuss this light topic.

  Right? So tell the audience a little bit about yourself. You know, I know that you have this podcast, but it actually started as a blog write. Well,

  Monica Parker 0:37

  it kind of started as a blog, the blog was more me having an early midlife crisis and trying to rediscover who I was again. And as part of that I made this list of 30 things I wanted to do before I turned 30. So that's why it was an early midlife crisis. I'm now approaching 40. So I can officially have another one. And at that time, while my list was started blog, because I thought about it for eight years, and it was just one of those things I always thought about doing and finally tried. And it was not a success. I mean, nobody read it. And what it did, though, Casey is it gave me this weird kind of confidence in the failing of it, and then the trying and then the doing. And that's why my podcast started because I was already in that place of it's okay to not be like amazing at things. And for you to not be an overnight success is in the doing that you find joy and fulfillment. And now I've been a podcaster primarily for eight years, just about I love

  KC 1:25

  that story. Because I feel like when we fail at something, however you want to define fail, right? Like in our mind, it's so discouraging. And like, that's not parts of our story that we like to tell. But I love the idea that failing at something can be really freeing.

  Monica Parker 1:41

  And that was for me then and it has been ever since. And actually this all goes back to why I started that list in the first place is I realized that I was on the sidelines of my own life as a perfectionist. And I didn't think I was a perfectionist because I thought I was too lazy to be one. And that was actually something I realized was perfectionism. I was waiting for the perfect time the perfect energy, or I just wanted to be an overnight success or be good at things I did. So I just waited. So that whole list was partly me discovering who I was, but it was also me challenging myself to be mediocre at things and that be okay, I actually almost called my blog and then my podcast mediocre Monica, but it became something much bigger, it was more about like, wow, how can we actually grow and progress outside of perfectionism? Like how can we leave the all or nothing model that is served up to us all day, every day by social media and the personal development influencers? Which I guess I am one now, you know, how can we grow outside of that model? And that's been the experiment the whole time. You know, I

  KC 2:36

  don't remember where I heard this, nor do I know if it's even accurate but it's always stuck in my head somebody because I'm like you like I thought oh, I'm not a perfectionist, because I'm you know, like you said like, Oh, I'm too lazy. I don't start things. And I heard someone one time say that a perfection they're talking about like perfectionists and idealists. And they said both of them want things to be perfect. And they said they're the difference was that a perfectionist? Never stops, because they want it to be perfect. And an idealist never starts because they want it to be perfect. That's like a snap. And I was like, oh, that's me. Like, you know, a perfectionist is the one that like works on their homework for hours and hours and goes back and goes back in and really won't stop like tooling with it. And like I was an idealist, though, like I wouldn't even start the homework because what if I didn't get it? Right. But like, that's still perfectionism

  Monica Parker 3:24

  it is. And that's one thing that has been so eliminating both for myself, but so many women in my community that there's a spectrum to perfectionism. I think we talked about this in other ways. There's a spectrum to so many things like everything, honestly. And to be able to identify yourself as a perfectionist, even if you are the underachieving kind is very freeing because you get yourself better you understand why you are working the way you are. And a lot of times people find they're the kind of going to pendulum swing of this to like, they can be the overachieving and then they get burnt out and then go to the underachieving to kind of stay safe, you can be all across that spectrum and apply to you. So

  KC 3:56

  where when we talk about like habit forming, which I don't know about you, but like, I even just like hate the term. There's so many things in the like, personal development therapy world that like I have just like gotten a sour taste in my mouth about and maybe it's that perfectionism, like maybe it's that like, Oh, this is always just this thing that's been used to like, bludgeon me about like, how I'm not good enough, or, you know, things that people keep insisting I need that I can't seem to get the hang of, and I know now that my ADHD plays a really big part in a lot of my struggle to form habits. But what part does perfectionism play in, in our ability to perform due habits? Well, I'm

  Monica Parker 4:35

  just gonna say that block kind of feeling is what I shared. And mostly because I thought in order to have in quotes, good habits, it had to look certain ways like in order to be an exerciser, I knew what that looked like. It looked like a certain amount of days, a certain amount of time, a certain amount of activities. Same thing with journaling, meditating, getting up early, going to bed like the list is long, right? And because of that, I never thought I quantified as a habit person, because here I was not de planning or meditating or journaling and doing all those things, when really it was because that standard was so impossible that I really think I was just smart. Like, I was just smarter about it to realize that's not practical. And that's not sustainable for my life as is. And this whole experiment, which really started as an identity thing, and experimenting outside of perfectionism, I really grew a lot like internally, I really came to a better sense of knowing who I am. And I know you as a therapist, you know, just how important a sense of self is. And I was really getting clear about that in ways that I had long neglected, and it was so transformative. But then I reach this point in that progress, where I hit a big plateau. And it was because my values like who I am, was not in alignment with how my life was all day, every day, my life was almost getting in the way of that. And that for me was primarily with lack of sleep, you know, prioritizing my sleep was one of the biggest habits that I struggled with forever. So me as a non habit person. And also in this on this place of trying to experiment outside of perfectionism. I kind of tried this on as a next level of an experiment like so how can I try to look at habit formation in ways that line up with everything else I've learned about progress outside of perfectionism. And at this time, there were so many best sellers. And I think we can all let you know, name them off, I typically don't, but you can if you want, but I mean, they're all the ones we think of Kay that we all read, and they're very helpful. They're all in the airport. They're all in the airport, still. I mean, and they're still huge. And I like I read those books, I dug it, I highlighted, you know, I did all the things, and I practiced it. And I kept failing at them even then, and it was so demoralizing. And at the same time, because I was in this place of already trying to be in this mediocre Monica place. I just kept trying to think well, how can I play with us a little bit more. And the weird thing for me, Casey, and I'm sorry, this is turning into story is what was helpful is I was coaching women on more about fulfillment and hobbies and trying to get a better sense of like, Well, who am I now after all these years of neglecting myself, and they similarly had the same experience of hitting a plateau and it being coming so obvious that in order to feel more like themselves regularly, they had to have habits that help them do that. And so we tried to do the same methods that we were learning from these books, you know, as a good student, I was trying to pass on those things. And they were also failing. And what was so interesting to me is that this was true for all the women I worked with whether they had children in the home or didn't, some of these women were retired grandmas, others were single, never married. Others were the typical stay at home mom, others were working moms like it was all across the board. And that's when I had that lightbulb moment that all these books on my nightstand like my Bibles for habit formation, were written by men. And that's when I thought maybe this isn't me. And maybe it's not these women, maybe it's the methods that are broken. And the biggest reason why that was and is still the same today is because women's lives are different from men's lives. And we can talk about this in so many different ways. I mean, hormones alone, is a huge factor. And there's so many great people who are very skilled at knowing how to teach the cycle. And I'm not one of those people, but that is one but the biggest one that unifies all women is invisible labor. And that's why we have to do habits differently. That's the bomb. That's a bomb right there.

  KC 8:26

  Yeah, I mean, that really is like, that's the spoiler, right? Like, habit formation is different for women. And in your saying that the biggest difference is the invisible labor. So tell me that like that resonates with me like as a mom and a wife. But you mentioned that like you were seeing this difference between all the spent like single women and retired women. And so tell me about how it's different. Even if we're looking at like single women. Yeah,

  Monica Parker 8:52

  how it's not just those in the caregiving position, right. And this is what's fascinating to me, I love to learn, I love to read so I went on this years long binge of materials on invisible labor, mental load, whatever you want to call it. And I you know, there's decades of research on this. I'm not the first to be interested in it. I think two good books for people to consider are a Brodsky's fair play and Caroline criado Perez, invisible women. And from there, what we see is that invisible labor transcends culture, it transcends politics. It transcends whether or not women have children in the home or they work or not, because this is what invisible labor is. And I'm going to give you my definition, which is kind of like a conglomeration of everyone else's invisible labor is the literal and mental, emotional labor performed to keep homes, communities and institutions afloat that is largely undervalued, underpaid, and unseen. And one of the things that comes up from that is like even if you are that like single working woman climbing the career ladder, just ask yourself who plans your work parties. If you are a churchgoer? Who is making sure that the church is being maintained that the social events are going on, you know, this is everywhere. It's in our schools, it's in our workplaces, it's in our institutions is in our neighborhoods. I mean, I'm thinking about two years ago, I hired childcare, childcare for the day. So I was off the childcare clock, right, went up to my office and was just sitting down. And I get this text from my elderly neighbor, who was deaf and needed some help with some rodent issues she was having. So I went over and I was so happy to help her. But by the time I got back, you know, it had taken an hour of the three hour block I had. And this is what we deal with as women all the time. It's everything that has to do with home maintenance, and beyond that make it so we have less time we have lower energy. And we also have limited support. And that means a lot of things.

  KC 10:47

  Yeah, and I'm also thinking about, like families, like family isn't just if you have children and a partner, like it's your parents, it's your siblings, it's your nieces and nephews, it's all of those things. I mean, I literally got chills when you read that, because you know, I talked so much about home labor, that I think we forget that even if you don't have other people living in your home that like as women, it is also about the community and society in general like that, it demands a lot more of that labor, and that a lot, not all of us, but a lot of us are even raised differently. And you know, to think about our spaces differently, I know men that are kind of neat freaks and things like that. But at the same time, I also know that like a woman living alone in their home probably is spending more time and energy and money on making their home their home than perhaps the average man that is living by themselves.

  Monica Parker 11:42

  You are right. And actually how about I share a couple of stats. And these are the ones that I like hold on to. And I'll tell you the story in just a second about this. It's making me chuckle as I remember it. But let's start first with if we're thinking about this as a societal thing, not just the childcare thing. So the New York Times did a study on this, and it was in 2019. And they came up with this number of if we were to put a price tag on what women do to make homes and communities run including workplaces, right? It would be a $10.9 trillion a year industry. And that number is based on $7.25 an hour, which we know is already undervaluing what that work entails. Right? So that's one stat. And another one. This is fascinating. In the US. This is from a Mashable article. But the US alone, married mothers spend nearly double the time on housework and childcare than American fathers do. The average number that Melinda Gates discovered in her research is four and a half hours is what we do on household chores. So if we're going back to the household route, that is it. And men spend less than half as much time now I have a very supportive husband. And I believe you have a supportive partner too. And even then, like there is disparity, and it's one that we've chosen because I'm primarily the stay at home parent, you know, and that's okay. So it's less about trying to split hairs. It's and it's not about like men are the worst, although there's a case for that. It's more about let's validate why women are struggling, let's really honor that this isn't because they're broken or weak. It's because they are set up to fail.

  KC 13:12

  You know, this reminds me of I don't know if you saw it, but I did a tech talk recently that I want to play for you because I feel like this is like 100% exactly what we're talking about. And it got a lot of views. And it really resonated with people. I mean greens every day, at least once. It's at work, yes. And at least 20 grams of protein with every meal. Excellent. So take those meds once a day. And I'll send you the list of breathing exercises and just do that once a day, like 15 minutes. You can handle that, right? Yeah, that's not. That's not to

  Monica Parker 13:46

  say I'm gonna just prescribe a cream. You'll just put on the effective area twice a day for her. It's really important that that happens. And it's time I can put your mouth once a week. This is totally fixable, actually to do these exercises twice a day and we'll check in. Oh, honey, you just need to get in the habit of doing one small load of laundry a day that we will be overwhelming. It's just and just every time you leave a room, take a minute to look back and see what you can put away before you go. So just do that three times a week. That way she gets the most out of our sessions here. skincare routine. It doesn't have to be complicated. Just three simple steps to them every night and then twice a week exfoliate.

  KC 14:33

  So, this Tik Tok got 382,000 views and that is exactly like what I was trying to describe in that tick tock is what you just said where it's like there's all of these like little things to like, make life and family and society and every community like move and by themselves. They all seem small. And it's like I Having some sort of framework to like make those things happen as habits feels like it just doesn't exist for me. And I know some of that is ADHD. But I also know that there are so so many women that don't have ADHD or executive dysfunction going, Okay, I'm still having this problem. And

  Monica Parker 15:20

  I would say that is reflective in the woman I've worked with, I've worked with women who are neuro diverse and neurotypical, and they all have issues with this. And I think your Tiktok they're so expertly highlighted just the mental load that takes and one of the biggest reasons why that can make it hard for us to form consistent habits is because even the things we're carrying around mentally require so much energy for us to constantly trying to be remembering and being on on top of and reminding other people to do, like we talked about having your family contribute. But most women report that they have to then be the director of the ship, like they have to captain the ship, rather, they have to make sure like who's doing what and direct. And that is, so energy draining. So even the small habits that you shared in that video require energy, and it's the energy that a lot of us just may not have very much of if at all, by the time we're done with all of our responsibilities or even trying to keep up. So what are some of the like,

  KC 16:13

  big habit forming advices out there in like popular culture that you have found, like, do not work for women?

  Monica Parker 16:22

  So the biggest one, to me is this whole idea of consistency? And I'm gonna say it the way that they often define it, as you know, let me have you answered this question. Just said whatever number comes to mind, how many days does it take to form a habit? Gosh,

  KC 16:37

  I feel like popular culture, like the eat the mythos is like 30 days. So

  Monica Parker 16:44

  I almost always hear 2128 30, or sometimes very rarely 100 days. But the point there is, we all have a number, right. And we also know that that number means we have a habit, we start on day one. And we do it every day, in the same way for just that certain amount of days. And by the end, we have the habit. But for women, that doesn't work, because our lives are different. Our lives demand so much flexibility from us, we are in more reactionary roles. And again, this is true for even if you don't have kids, and you work outside of the home, we are in more reactionary roles, because of the nature of the gender roles that we are a part of right. And so this is how we're gonna re reframe this because we've kind of been leaning into the pain a little bit. And I know many women are listening, and they're finally feeling validated. But they may also be feeling overwhelmed like, well, then what do I do? Just give up? And my answer is no. And let's start with that first one I just shared, I want us to redefine consistency, because it is true that habits still live and die by consistency, but not in the way that we're taught, which is basically perfection, you have an ideal habit, even if it's small and simple. And you do that same habit every day. And you have the habit no instead this is what consistency is consistency is doing your best most of the time over time. And what we're going for women here in particular, is we are creating flexible habits that make it so we can be consistent. And I can break that down more in just a moment. I bring this up because this is what this is like the poll we beat ourselves over the head is with that consistency thing the most I find women being like I just I did it for 21 days, and then I stopped and then I couldn't. And it's because that 21 days took superhuman energy and willpower to do because it wasn't realistic. It was so it wasn't sustainable. It was too rigid. It was too idealized. Instead, we need to have our habits to be designed to be flexible so that on some days, we can do the same habit in certain ways. And other days, we can do the same habit in different ways, depending on our life circumstances. And that doesn't mean we don't have consistency. No flexibility is what makes that consistency possible. So let's start with redefining consistency.

  KC 18:56

  I feel like I accidentally did this. Like when I started doing like closing duties, which was like this little practice of like, you know, right when my kids went to bed at seven, I would do like this small list of things right? Like I would do the dishes, I would clear the counter, I would take out the trash, I would like to set the coffee or whatever. And you know, but the way that I did it, it was the first time in my life I did something different where like I had those things and I wanted to do it at that time. But I also had like the second list that I called my like survival day closing duties where it was like, if I don't have it in me or if I'm tired or if the schedule was weird or someone is sick or I'm too overwhelmed like then all I had to do was go and find like the milk cups from the day and like shove them into the clean dishwasher and rerun it. Yes. And then like because it gets those get gross. That was smart. Yeah. And like it's not like there was some rule like I'm bad if I don't do it, but it was like having something that was like doable on Barrowman. I'm on energy, that was still me participating in the like habit, like allowed me to flex for that day. And I did the same thing when I came up with my first like, quote unquote, like cleaning schedule where I was like, I was a stay at home mom and I was okay. Every day, I have something on the schedule. So it'd be like Mondays bathroom, Tuesdays kitchen. But I, what I basically made up for myself is that like what I was supposed to do on that day, I had, I think, three bathrooms in my house. So like, on bathroom day, I was just supposed to clean something in a bathroom, like there was no prescription for like, clean all of them clean one of them, rotate them every Monday, it was just whatever, because some Mondays, I could clean all of them, and some Monday's I could clean one of them. And some Mondays, I could go in and take a piece of toilet paper and wet it and wipe the like toothpaste out of the sink. And that was it. But it allowed me to like repeat the same thing while giving me the flexibility to meet my like energy needs and levels and like meet myself where I was for that day. Whereas before if it was like it has to be these three things. And if you can't do those three things, and you just don't do it, and then you have like that feeling of like, Oh, I'm not consistent. I'm not doing it.

  Monica Parker 21:15

  Well, this is amazing. I love that you came to this on your own, especially because a lot of us don't give ourselves permission to do that. We just think we're failing. And so we lean into thinking like, I'm bad at this. I'm not a habit person. And I would say it was one of them for sure. But changing the way we view habits will also help us show up to them differently, which means we can maintain them better. And that's actually something maybe another thing I have two more that I think this is what we're told, and this is what actually works versus women is it okay if I go through those, and they relate to what you just shared. Okay, so the first is that we are given prescriptions, I talked about exercise, right, that when we're told exercise regularly, we all could say what that looks like. And that's a prescription. And this kind of goes into this idea that habits are balls and chains, they are metrics that we have to meet in order to prove that we are a good person. And we all know what those metrics are without even people having to be so direct and telling us it's just in the air we breathe. But instead of looking at habits as balls and chains, we need to look as habits as the small and simple ways we support ourselves. Another way to work this is habits are supportive. That's their only purpose, they are there to support us not the other way around. And when we shift that view of habits, that means we can go from looking at habits as prescriptions to personalizing habits. So that means we can choose what a good nighttime routine looks like, for us my nighttime routine. I like my ideal one that is personal to me is watching Netflix, that is an amazing way for me to wind down at night. You know what I'm sure other people be like, that's a bad habit. No, for me, it's a good habit, because that supports me and helping me detach and get my brain to slow down. So let's do that. Let's move from prescriptions to personalization. That's one of them.

  KC 23:01

  I love that that habit is about just your pleasure and recreation. Because I think you know, you mentioned like we think of habits as ball in chains. Like we think of habits as just the things we don't want to do, or those things that are like good for us, but not fun to do or whatever. And I love that you include like all things that are supportive to you. That's really cool. So what's the third one?

  Monica Parker 23:22

  So the third one, and I mean, I could talk about this for hours. So I think we'll just kind of focus on those three. The third one really connects to what you just did organically and you shared with us about your nighttime cleanup routine is we often think as part of those prescriptions that we start with the ideal. So this is where we get the toxic positivity in the universe, right? We're saying, today's your day you decide only you can make this life work for you, your habits are reflective of who you are. And we think okay, well that means I'm going to start exercising on Monday, and I'm going to make this simple, I'll just do a 30 minute walk. This is actually even if you think it's small and simple, it's actually an ideal version of your habits still, it's where you want to go. And the problem is is that we are taught to start there on Monday you do 30 minutes and then you do that for 30 days and you have the habit if you aren't walking 30 minutes that is going to require a lot of energy and for some time some habits there are things that you do need to start with that ideal and I want to honor that that is that can be very true for certain things like when your kids start school and suddenly you do have to wake up earlier like the whole family. So you just have to start with the ideal because you can gradually till the school will just be coming to school five minutes earlier day for the next month. So thanks. No, sometimes you do have to start with ideal but actually most of the time instead of starting with the ideal you start with the smallest and simplest version of the ideal and this is what becomes what I call is the baseline and this is the foundation to your habit so that you can be flexible with it and still have the consistency you need both to have the support you need from the habit but also to build because baselines Bill Old, where you start with a baseline habit doesn't mean you will stay there, it gives you the consistency, you need to also build over time, and actually quicker towards your ideal. I have been working with the client on exercise, and she has this habit that she wanted to have for here. So it wasn't like a prescription like I told her, Well, you need to have exercise in there, it was more of a habit that makes her feel like herself feel in her body. And she had not been doing it because she wanted to do strength training. You know, she just said three days a week, I just want to do strength training for like, I don't know, maybe 20 or 30 minutes. And what we did is that was a great ideal. But we started with the baseline, which was for her still three days a week. But it was a 10 Minute. And that was the smallest and simplest version she could do meeting the version of the habit that she could do on her worst of day, maybe when her energy was the lowest she homeschools her child, so maybe when her child needed something from her, she could still do 10 minutes. And let me tell you, not only did she have that habit, she's now up to five days a week of at least having a baseline and more times than not, she's doing 20 minutes. And here's the thing though, baselines might actually show you, that's all you need. I had this other woman tell me I have been putting off journaling forever. I have wanted this habit desperately helps me reflect and makes me better make sense of what's going on in my life. And I have been wanting to do it forever. But I've been telling myself I have to write a full page. And when I taught her that baseline, she decided she would just write one line a day in the doing of that. It turned to like into like one paragraph pretty soon. But she told me actually, Monica, you know what I discovered? I don't need to write the page. I just need the baseline most days. That's all I need.

  KC 26:37

  Yeah, that to me is like one of the bigger breakthroughs about like people talk about like habit stacking where they're like, start small, and then make your way up. But I think what always tripped me up was like, I would start small. But then you feel as though like that's still not good enough, like everything you do is just a ladder up to the platform of good enough. Or, you know what I mean?

  Monica Parker 27:00

  Yes, you're always climbing. I mean, that sounds so exhausting. But like

  KC 27:03

  this idea that like do the smallest possible steps not as one step towards always a larger goal. And like you said, sometimes there's things that we have to get to a certain goal, but like, you know, if you start with walking five minutes, once a week, or whatever, instead of having in your head, like, okay, so how when do I need to go to the next level? When do I need to go 10 minutes, what ends like, well, maybe just chill, like, we've got so much going on in our life, if you could manage to walk five minutes for a week, like, I find that when I make that step like enough in itself, instead of just a leapfrog to a next step, then my body and my life almost like organically lets me know, when I have the capacity to push more instead of being like, well, when do I do that, like push, it's just like, one day I'll be walking and then be like, I'm gonna go another two minutes, because I have the time and the energy and the desire and that organic, like slow push forward, I think is so key, especially for women, because we're so conditioned to, you know, look at everything as a step towards whatever that goal is.

  Let me ask you one more question. I think all three of those were like, perfect, like tips or steps. And I want to tell you like, what I kept thinking about, as you were talking about them is that I feel like one of the things that gets floated around with talking about habits when men talk about habits, they're always talking about waking up early, always it's like I wake up at four, I would have three, I wake up at 11pm Like, you know, this idea that like that's when they go and do their cold plunges and journal and run and whatever. And I was thinking about you saying, like, women are giving so much more and connected it to this idea of like how a lot of times we will procrastinate going to bed. And it's called like revenge, procrastination, because for a lot of women, nighttime is like the only free time that they get, right. And so for me, it's like after my kids go to bed, but even if you don't have kids, it's like you have this whole, you know, you're working. And then you have things you have to get done. And then there's things that maybe are involved in your community. And then at night, it's like there's even if we're tired, it's like we're pushing and pushing and pushing, because we're like trying desperately to reclaim some time that we can just be and that's one of the reasons why I find myself like going to bed really late and being tired. And I just connected those two things in my head of men being like, yeah, man, just wake up at 4am and do XYZ. Well, that doesn't take into account the fact that like, I'm not I can't go to bed early enough like my brain won't turn off. And I don't I won't get any free time to myself if I do that. It's

  Monica Parker 29:41

  funny you brought this up because this is I am literally in the middle of preparing a workshop called How to Beat bedtime revenge procrastination, because it was such an issue for so many women and I would count myself among them. I mean, this is why sleep was such a huge habit that I had to start with, because that's what I was doing. And that's still the habit I can easily get sucked into. So with that, are you wondering like, what does that mean about habits? Or what does it mean about bedtime?

  KC 30:06

  Yeah, I'm kind of thinking about like, you know, okay, if we're not going to listen to the men saying that it's like the golden rule is you wake up at four to, like, reclaim time, then like, how do we as women reclaim that time or energy or whatever

  Monica Parker 30:17

  it is? Okay, so I want to start by saying, sometimes it gets really hard for me to not Yuck, a man's yam. Like that. When I see that, you know, it just reminds me of this ad that I saw that, oh, my gosh, it was an Instagram post where a man was like, I have six kids and I have a multimillion dollar business. Do you want to know why? Join me my workshop. And then like, all the comments are women like it's a wife. So I don't want to get people's Yemen's like, if going to bed early and waking up early is your thing. That's how you reclaim your time, then Yum, that like that is amazing. And actually, to be honest, that's is where I am right now, it hasn't always been the case. But that the morning is My reclaim time, because that's the easiest for me to do with my family life. But let's just say the point of habits, again, is to support you. So if you need that time, the goal is to do it in ways that match your season and your life. And if that means it's nighttime, or it's in the middle of the day, or it's in the morning, you get to choose where you're going to claim that time to give back to yourself. And there's a huger I mean, I don't even know if that's a word, there's a much bigger discussion on this in terms of self care and how that's often taught to, but to me, self care is just showing respect to ourselves, it's about giving back to ourselves. And oftentimes, the number one way to do that is with time, so it's trying to find other smaller pockets of time earlier in the day, I think a large part of why we lean into revenge, bedtime, procrastination is because we're not just an empty well, we are an empty, leaking well. So at nighttime, we're trying to pour in pour in pour in. And the reason why it's not helping is because it's all kind of going through the cracks there. So I like to try to encourage women, and I know this may seem hard, but I'm not talking about huge habits, I'm talking about small moments, where you are giving back to yourself in some way where you are kind of putting concrete on those cracks, so that later on or if your time is afternoon, or morning, or whatever it is that you're giving yourself more of a space of a chunk of time, you actually are filling the well. So it's not just leaking right away. And that again, that's good, bigger discussion, but

  KC 32:29

  it's not just triage what you say? Yeah, and listen, when you said like, reclaiming time during the day, like it immediately rocked back around to me to perfectionism. I bet. Yeah, we're so hardwired for it. Right? Yeah. And there are things I mean, admittedly, like there are there are things in our lives that can't be changed that are because of larger power structures and things like that. I mean, we're not even touching, you know, marginalization, disenfranchisement, poverty, things like that. So I don't want it to sound like we're just saying, Oh, just like, you know, be less of a profession show up all this time. But I don't want to ignore the fact that for many of us, like, the only way to reclaim some time is to start making some things in our life, like, just good enough.

  Monica Parker 33:11

  Yeah, making trade offs. And that's actually one of the biggest things I that's one of the biggest threads, and all of my coaching, when I help women is coming to terms with trade offs. The thing that really helps me and other women, the most of them are considering trade offs is that no matter what they're happening, and when we're not choosing what trade off it is, it's usually means a trade off is us. And we can choose to make ourselves a trade off. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's the choosing, that makes a difference when we say okay, right now I have this need, but this family member, or this part of my home, or this workplace thing has this need, I'm going to choose that, but I'm choosing it and that feels different. It doesn't feel as depleting. Not that it's going to be that way all the time. But that can

  KC 33:54

  help. Well, that is that's super helpful. Monica and I really appreciate your feedback on this if people want to hear more about you and I mentioned your podcast at the beginning, but can you just plug yourself for a minute, like where can people find you online and your podcast and all those things? Well,

  Monica Parker 34:08

  I'll say I'm not normally so fiery. Like what people don't know like typically people say I'm there my approach is gentle. And but this is the topic I just get like 10 out of 10 Fiery about, but I would love for them to come and join me on my podcast is called about progress. And I'm also on Instagram at about progress. And one of the things I've been doing is teaching a live habit course it's a 21 day course and it's a very supportive community. We do live weekly lesson than a what a live coaching call and you have a private community. It's called the sticky habit intensive so they can look into that get on the waitlist if it's not open at about progress.com/intensive Awesome.

  KC 34:47

  Well, thank you again, Monica. This was really wonderful conversation.

  Monica Parker 34:50

  Well, thanks for letting me get nice and passionate today. It was nice to be here.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Today’s episode is all about mental health, therapy, and being online as a therapist. We are diving in with my guest, DeeDee Wednesday, who has created a space for intentional healing and empowerment through therapy and leadership coaching. Join us to learn more!

Show Highlights:

●      An overview of DeeDee’s work as a therapist in Louisiana

●      Traditional therapy is NOT today’s therapy.

●      An open mind, a balancing act, and showing up as an authentic therapist

●      Navigating the tricky world of TikTok (or any social media platform) as a therapist

●      DeeDee’s work to show up as a therapist when entitlement, racism, and white supremacy are at play

●      Understanding how moral perfectionism causes some people to act

●      Having a line that you won’t cross to “do no harm”

●      What it means to be self-aware

●      Dealing with difficult people

●      “Power is really the ability to choose.”

Resources and Links:

Connect with DeeDee Wednesday: Website, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest

 Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello you Sentient ball of stardust. Welcome back to struggle care. I am your host, KC Davis. And we're going to talk about mental health and therapy and being online. And being a therapist online and we're going to have that discussion. We're going to see where it goes. I'm here with therapist DeeDee Wednesday, and she's a licensed professional counselor supervisor. And we have decided, listen, there are two types of guests. Okay, there are preparers, and there are those that shoot from the hip and DD and I have had zero pre conversation about what we're going to talk about. Because we are both to shoot from that people DeeDee. That's my favorite kind of guest, and welcome to the podcast.

  DeeDee 0:42

  Thank you. Absolutely, I am definitely a shoot from the hip kind of girl. If I plan, it always feels fake, and disingenuous and non authentic. So it is so much easier for me to just like I told you earlier just to run my fucking mouth, and let's get it out.

  KC 0:58

  So and I learned that the hard way, because some people are not like that, and I'd get on the podcast. And I could tell they were kind of struggling. And I'd be like, Oh, this isn't as good of an interview as that could be. And so then I started having like, pre meetings with people. And then some people would end up giving a much better interview because we had a pre meeting. But then I noticed other people, it was like a worse interview if we did a pre meeting. And I was like, huh, there's a big difference here. Right? Like, let's see the different personality types and how you need to rock this out. Like what do you need? Yeah, because I'd end up having pre meetings with people on Zoom, and the conversation would be amazing. And I'd be like, Okay, this is gonna be a great interview, but then we go the interview, and it would feel like stale. And I was like, I should have recorded the free meeting. Right, right. Yeah. It's like you drop all the gyms and they've got nothing left. Exactly. So okay, share a little bit about your background. So the audience kind of knows who you are, where you're coming from.

  DeeDee 1:45

  Okay, I am a small town girl from Mirage, Louisiana population of less than 500. I am a therapist here in Louisiana, I practice with predominantly black clients. I also use ancestral practices. I'm a hoodoo practitioner, I do things that work for my community, with my community in practice, and I try not to break any ethical laws, or at least not get caught.

  KC 2:09

  I love that. So you know, one of you've talked about, like decolonizing therapy and your tick tock channel, and I've talked about that on the podcast before as well. And one of the things that I thought we could kind of talk about and use that as a jumping off point is, I feel like therapists being on social media, specifically on tick tock is like a very new thing. Absolutely. And I feel like there's a connection here, because I feel like white western therapy very much coming from that like, you know, IRL, early, sort of like Freud, you know, aspect of like, okay, the therapist is a blank slate, you know, they don't disclose anything about themselves. It's Uber professional, you know, there's really strict boundaries, like you're really almost taught like, you have no identity, when you go into that room, you're just a mirror, this that any other. And that's very, very white western therapy. And so I wonder if some of what people are really struggling with to see therapists online, or even as a white therapist, like what I'm struggling with is like that weird balance of what we've been taught a therapist should be. And here we are online. And we're not doing therapy online. But it isn't, it isn't just a personal like, we're talking about mental health, where we're bringing our expertise to the table, and the audience doesn't know what to do with that, like some of them are upset of what they're seeing. And I feel like there's a connection there, other peers, but it comes from this individualistic lens of like, everyone for themselves. And what being online and open to the broader community does is it does just that it opens this kind of community of like, okay, I'm not your therapist. But here I am to, like, give insight and feedback and information and education. And it's like, you can't do that. You're supposed to be no one. I remember Dr. Miller, shout out to Dr. Miller, he was one of my favorite professors and grad school, he used to have a saying you have to leave your person at the door when you walk into session. And a lot of us were taught that. And if I'm just going to be transparent, that doesn't work, right. A lot of the progress that I see with clients comes in because they can relate to me as a person, right? That leaves your personality or leave your humanistic traits at the door. It doesn't work anymore. I'm not really sure it actually ever really did. Because you also had people in session and in treatment for five years, 10 years talking to these blank slates. That relatability that people feel when they can see you as a person. Because we're not just giving advice or education or all that stuff online. We're also talking about our real lives right online. I talk about coming out in my 30s as a lesbian, marrying a woman and incorporating my head into that and what that looks like I talk about, you know, being a hoodoo practitioner and all of those things. All of those things are part of me as a person, not necessarily only a part of who I am as a therapy

  DeeDee 5:00

  And those things bring forth so much relatability. And I get to show up as a person, and it really does piss people off. Because I think a lot of old school therapist, they didn't get to do that, right. And I think that some of it is a little bit of envy. But also, they don't know what that looks like. And it just feels wrong because of what is taught. But I still go back to community, right and creating what we're doing online is creating communities. And that goes against everything that colonization stands for, even in therapy. And I wonder too, if like, so the way I came into my graduate degree is like, I got sober at 16. And I was really involved in 12 Step groups, and I was doing like sponsoring, like, what, whereas mentoring a lot of people and I was involved with my church and like a mentor capacity. And they're like recovery ministry. And I was going out to different like treatment centers and like telling my story and talking to people who are trying to get sober. And so before I ever got my graduate degree, I was operating a more like community centered, almost like really counseling, where it's like, you brought your whole self and identity. And so I think that because of coming into it that way, I had a slightly different perspective when I went in, and I was sort of told, like, leave it at the door, leave it at the door. Now, that being said, I remember approaching the, like the head of our department, he was a psychiatrist, and he was one of the few psychiatrists that also did therapy, right, because they don't typically do it. i Yeah, he did both because he thought that was really important. And he had, I was trying to bypass a prerequisite to get into my, like, practicum. And he told me that his concern was that usually when he gets people that had come through, like 12 Step groups that were really strong, like a sponsor mentors, they struggle with the counseling, like the graduate degree counseling stuff, because they're used to only sharing their perspective. Like, it's like, if it worked for me, it'll work for you. And he was like, if you're going to take that leap into being a professional counselor, like, you have to be able to see people as something different than just your own experience. And so, you know, I feel like it's almost like there's this way to thread the needle, where like, it doesn't work to check your whole self at the door. And there's something that we do have to do of like opening our, like getting outside of our own box. Does that make sense? And I feel like I mean, surely we can teach people that without telling them to like, check their identity, right? It's a balancing act, right. So I can't show up blank, because I'm not blank on an actual piece of paper. So I have to bring some of me in. And I have to bring that in. Also, in order to make clients feel comfortable. No one is coming to you with their deepest, darkest shit. And you're sitting there looking like perfect, Patti, they can't relate to that, right? That's why I have clients and they come in and like, Oh, my God, I feel like I know you, I can just tell you anything. Well, sometimes you do feel like you know me, because you've been watching TED talks, or because when you come in, we have this conversation, or we have this consultation, and I'm rattling on about whatever's going on in my life, but also to speak to what you said, and being able to have an open mind right and not being closed off to understand that if this works for me, then this will work for you. And that's where the balancing act comes in. And knowing that like, Okay, I have to be relatable, I have to be a person, right? I expect you to show up authentically, I have to do that too. And also, I have to have enough understanding to know you are not me. Right. And I think that comes from one thing that's really important is consultation, but also just knowing it, we do a lot of like trainings and like we were just talking about like ACA and like CEUs, and all of those things, but you're a person and you can't do this work without understanding that people aren't you? Right. And I don't think that that's something that we have to spend a semester teaching kids or teaching, you know, therapists in training, either you have that understanding or you don't.

  So I'm curious, like, from the time that you've been on tick tock like, what has it been like for you to sort of think through like, Okay, what is this platform mean? And how much of this is me as a professional? And how much of this is me as a person? And how much? You know, it's a weird balance for me that I don't even know if I know exactly where I am with it. Yeah. Tick tock is scary for me, sometimes people the board for anything. Yeah, the balance for me is, I'm going to be honest, I got to a place where I just can't worry about it. I'm just showing up and giving my content for whatever it is today. And that just has to be because if I can, I'm going to be honest. When I first started, I was really rigid about what to say and how much to say and what are the rules saying What does ethics say? And the content was bad? Yeah, it sucked the content was bad. And it was rigid content. And I had to decide, okay, I know me, I'm not gonna break any ethics. And if I do, it won't be intentional. It won't be that great of a deal. I just have to show up as a content creator also. And I don't know if you'll like this, but I also came to the conclusion that I don't really care if I lose my life.

  KC 10:00

  This is I mean, listen, I'm in a similar boat. I mean, I hope that I keep it because it benefits me. But especially as someone who doesn't do any client services, like people who get mad at me online love to threaten my license and say they're gonna go to the board and all this. And there's always a part of me that's like, it's like when you call someone's boss and find out that they're self employed. And I'm like, Yeah, that would suck, because like, it is really nice to be able to say that I'm a therapist, there's some credibility there. And like, if I lose my license, that just, it gives the impression that I've done something wrong, even if I have it, but also, it's not gonna stop me from writing books and making tic TOCs and doing podcasts like it's not, and I have a private practice, and I see clients for a living, but also they're gonna show up with, I get to call myself a therapist or coach anyway, because the work is good. And I also have gotten to a place where I feel like the license kind of holds me back more than it benefits me, right? It benefits me to say I'm a therapist, like if I have to, you know, go to a conference and do a training or be a panelist, they can say, well, here's duty, and these are her credentials. And that's nice and also worked for and spent a lot of money for it. I like to keep it but it's just not worth it to me not to be myself and the license. I also feel like they need to revamp it. Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the things I talk about my other therapists, friends is like, the boards have not caught up to social media, they don't know what to do with social media, most of the ethics are about your clients. And so so many of my friends that have been reported to the Board with the board will turn around tell people is like, it's your client, it will be like, No, and they'll be like, then, okay, like, but at the same time, like, again, it's this weird for those of us that have platforms where it's like, sometimes it's just me walking around with my dog and telling people to go fuck themselves when they're mean to me. And but then like, sometimes it's me talking about genuine like giving psychoeducation and saying, like, I'm a therapist here, some psychoeducation and like attempting to be a therapeutic presence. And I do think it's interesting, like psycho education and interpersonal therapy have been and for those of you don't know what those terms are, psycho education is basically just the like, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's education around like psychological and mental health principles, and counselors, get a lot counselors, therapists, you know, psychologist get a lot of training about the way the mind works, the best way to go about things from a psychological perspective. And so when you go to therapy, there's a good bit of the therapist just kind of telling you and educating you on things and how things work in the mind. That's called psycho education. And then interpersonal therapy is like the processing part, right? Where they're talking to you and you're talking to them. And we're like, they're having feelings about things that you say, as a therapist, and you use that at like, you're the what did they used to say where it's like, it's like, your therapist is like the test relationship, right? And you're like talking about things, and there's transference and countertransference, and all that. But like, that part is the interpersonal therapy. And for so long, the therapist, like go paying for an individual session was the only way that you got both of those things, they came from both of those things, right. And now we're seeing this divide, where like, none of us are trying to give interpersonal therapy online, like through like social media, but we do want to show up authentically, as with our credentials, and give psychoeducation because I think a lot of us feel like that should be more free. You know what I mean? Like, it should be free. And I mean, not that we shouldn't be able to make money from it, but like, people shouldn't have to go pay, you know, 100 $200 an hour just to hear some information. But I do think that like, the public doesn't know what to do with that. If it's like, I can give you psychoeducation that does not bound me to certain ethics around like how I must interact with you as a person, right? Because there's also that entitlement, right? People feel entitled to you as a whole, right? So if I'm giving psycho educational information, if I'm just giving information about what makes something diagnoseable if I'm just talking about ADHD, or even if I'm just talking about my ADHD and how that works, and how that shows up, people feel very entitled to all of you, right, so even if I'm just providing the information, if I'm just giving the psycho ed the sock aid, they feel entitled to a session they feel entitled to the interpersonal parts of that and even if you're not providing it, they feel like they're getting it and they're entitled to it and if you do something to this them off, they will use all of that as a whole to punish you. Yes, I feel like that's one of the hardest things for me to navigate as a therapist on tick tock is when people will sometimes say like you go after anyone that disagrees with you, which is ridiculous because if you've ever seen me interact with people in my comment sections that disagree with me, it's always civil if they're truly just saying like, I don't know about this or like see, I have a different perspective on this or here's what I think we should think about like I love those kinds of conversations. But after three years online, my tolerance level for any type of like derision or snark around life.

  cuz, you know, you're wrong, and you're shitty for it, because people act like they don't know they're really up to sometimes or they're really intentionally obtuse. There's a huge difference between disagreeing and being disrespectful, right? You can disagree with me, that's fine. She's sometimes I disagree with things that I've said before. You can disagree with me, you can communicate that. But what I'm never going to tolerate is you being disrespectful. And people feel like because you're a therapist, because you have this title that I can disrespect you. And I can say whatever I want to you, and you're not allowed to say anything back, you're not allowed to match my disrespect. You're not allowed to be snarky back with me. You're not allowed to say anything, you're not allowed to match my energy, right? You just have to take whatever I'm spewing at you, because you're a therapist, and you're supposed to your only job is to help people. You know, what's interesting about that is that like, if you're in a session with me, and you are disrespectful to me, sometimes I think people don't realize what they're paying for. Because like, part of what you're paying for is not the right to be disrespectful to me, but and especially because I worked in addiction for so long. So I'm used to what we would call resistant clients, right? I don't love the term, but clients that are gonna be mean and rude and disrespectful to you and all sorts of things. But like part of that work, the reason why it's so difficult is that like you do take on the responsibility to absorb some of that. And it's not that you don't address it. It's not that you don't confront it, but you confront it with their needs at the top of your mind, how can I best communicate this in a way you will understand. So I'm not looking to communicate it in a way that feels like a slam dunk to me, right? Like, that's not what I'm here for, like, I have to have the skills to like check that put it on the backburner and deal with that somewhere else, like this client is paying for this room to be a place where we put their learning process be above me, right. And so I have to do a lot of emotional labor in that moment to sort of absorb whatever kind of ridiculous mistreatment you're giving me. And help you work through that in a way that can make you a better person and maintain a positive attitude towards you in that process, even as I'm being very honest with you. And you know, that might be uncomfortable. I think maybe people don't understand that process. Because I feel like that's what some people expect from you online. But that process is work, right. And that's what makes the session work. Because I'm intentionally I'm holding you accountable and being present in the moment. But I'm also holding back a part of me that still a person that wants to say fuck you, right? And that work, it's effort. And outside of that, on social media, this isn't work, this isn't my job, I don't have to do that. And I don't owe you that level of work that you just because you feel entitled to it. I don't owe you that. And I think that's like the true like, instead of teaching people like check your whole identity at the door, that's like the real truth to like, checking yourself, right, or like holding back parts of your real self is that like, in a friendship, you know, we're on equal footing. And my needs matter just as much as yours. And I you know, but it's different when I'm, like ethically bound, and I'm accepting money, like I'm being paid to be less than a whole person in that room for your good because you need a practice relationship. Right. And and I think that's like, kind of almost like even the part that feels triggering to me is like, the entitlement, like you mentioned, of like, you will be this less than a person for me, because I'm entitled to it, as opposed to this almost like more respectful, like, you will pay me for this. And I have trained for this, and I can do this. Yeah. And for me, it's triggering, because it's one of those things where it's like, you're always expecting me to be less than and to show up less. And, you know, I make a lot of content about race. And like, the ways in which racism and white supremacy, shows up in therapy and the ways in which it just shows up in the world. And when I have people who are still entitled to this idea that I'm supposed to show up as their therapist, I'm supposed to put a portion of me on the back end for them. For me, it's triggering, because it's like, you still see me as less than a human as a full human. Because you don't not only do you see me as a therapist, but you also see me as this little black girl who has no right to talk to you this way or no right to hold you and your community accountable. And it's Be quiet, right? And so when I hear it's like, oh, I'm less than a human or I'm not showing up as my full self or I don't get those same rights just as a full human. It's super triggering because it's like you don't think I'm a person anyway. You don't think I'm a human anyway to the same degree in which you are do you find that like some people are very quick to go there as soon as they get triggered to go to work to go to that space of like, like if someone online are like okay, now I'm upset with DD for some things

  She said, and so I'm going to immediately go to this place where I'm going to attempt to make her feel less than I'm going to show my power differential or I'm going to, like, show you that you're just a product to me. Yeah, because it's easy, right. And when you say something that creates, you know, actual thought, or is triggering to someone else, or hold a mirror to them, or accountability, sometimes it makes them feel small. And they go to what makes them feel big, right, which is going to be there. By making you feel something which is going to be their privilege, right? I'm bigger than you because my race is bigger than yours. Right. And so I have privilege and power here. And you can be a smarty pants and you can know this fancy words, and you can say whatever, but my race Trump's yours. And I'm going to make you feel small because you made me feel small, and I can make you feel small here automatically. Or at least try to, it makes me also think about how like times that I have like snapped back at people. And I get those comments that are like, I can't believe this is how a mental health professional acts, you know, and it's again, it's that unawareness of how much labor goes into being that like sounding, you know, neutral sounding board for someone and but it also kind of goes hand in hand with what I feel like is like my, like the culmination of a lot of my journey through being institutionalized and a troubled teen rehab through going through like a cult like 12 Step environment and evangelical church where like, there was this and it's interesting, because this shows up in a lot of different areas like this shows up in like fundamentalist Christian spaces, but it shows up in a lot of new age spaces, and it shows up and a lot of social justice spaces. And it's this like moral perfectionism or like ethical perfectionism, sometimes even it shows up in therapy, like, we've been doing therapy our whole life, because we had a lot of trauma. And we get to this place where it's like, we feel like, you know, every moment we are beholden to being the most moral, the most ethical, the most Integritas the most like, Okay, what is the healthy thing to do at this moment? And I mean, I'm not telling anybody just like, go postal on people. Like, obviously, I do feel like we are beholden to learn and grow and, you know, not harm the people around us, but like, at what point like, as therapists, like, is it okay, and important to say like, yeah, or sometimes you can just tell someone online to go fuck themselves, right? Kind of a messy business of being human like, and I feel that, you know, for two years straight, I made this very particular content about cleaning house and self compassion and being that compassionate space. And what I found happened is that anytime I stepped out of that role, people were very quick to try and shame me back into it like, no, no, I want the nice white lady who talks about cleaning,

  DeeDee 22:45

  yes. Right. Because I'm comfortable with her. And she makes me feel comfortable in my life. So bring her back, because that's what I want. I found parts of myself almost like rebelling against that. And I don't even quite know like what that is, but it was like, the more people tried to shove me into that box with an air of entitlement of like, no, no, no, get back in that box, something in me rebelled, was still there, where people tried to tell her what to do. And we're always telling her what she had to do. And the more she still there shouldn't go away. We treat her she's in a better place. She's got her healing hat on, but she's still there. And you can't tell her what to do, especially from a place of entitlement. Yeah. Especially if you're using things that feel familiar like shame. Sometimes it amazes me like how simple things like that don't occur to me, even though I'm also a therapist, you know what I mean? Like, sometimes it just takes someone else in for me, I had this conversation yesterday on live with Nikhil and I was saying, you know, a large, what therapy sometimes is, is just looking at the picture, just being able to stand outside of the picture and see it for its wholeness. I can't see my picture, I'm in my picture. I can only look to my left to my right. And up and down. There are things that are outside of my scope and my picture. Yeah, I think in some ways, it's been really healing to be in this space. Because like part of what happens in troubled teen, a cold Evangelical, it's very much a high control environment where like you what you're allowed to do and your worth and your reality are dictated by like the social pressures coming at you and what other people are saying. And I had to learn really quickly on like a big tick tock platform that like you can't win for losing, like no matter what you do, like people will be mad if you share a hack that cost money, but then they'll be mad if you share a hack that's not eco friendly. And you realize, like, oh, I literally can't please everyone. So how do I develop but at the same time, like I know, it's important to listen to people. And so it really made me have to rethink a lens by which How do I listen without being dictated by right like at some point, I have to look at a comment and go it's important that I listened to this or It's important that I don't listen to this. And people want it to be black and white.

  It's not it's not how does government make you feel? Right? And so that's how I operate, like, whatever I have the capacity for today is what you're gonna get from me. And depending on how your comment makes me feel, that's how I respond to it. Right? And energy and discernment is real. And I don't have to have data to prove Well, I know you're being an asshole to me. Yeah. And I feel like that's why I do have like, and there is like a line of integrity in my mind, like, I will be blunt, I will be sarcastic, I will clap back. But like, I have a line by which for my own integrity, I don't cross right. But I've got a lot of room to play before I get to that line. Here's the thing for me it is I got one rule, do no harm.

  And that's it. And there's a lot of playroom between me being snarky back with you and me being harmful. Yeah, my own morals in the things that I believe are right are always going to trump ethics. And I'm not going to cause you harm, but I'm also not going to let you cause me harm either, and take no shit. We need that on the shirt, do no harm and take my shit like, and that's who I am as a person also, right? That's who I am. In my real life. That's who I am professionally to, I'm not taking it from clients, not harmful shit, I'm not gonna let you harm me, because then I'm no good to the people that have to come after you. That's true. Like I have discontinued client relationships, because, you know, I know what I'm being paid to do. And what they are giving me surpasses my ability to maintain healthy in the room. Yeah, and I am a therapist, and your mental health is important to me. But mine is still more important. I'm not going to let you put my mental health in jeopardy ever. You can have your money back. It's funny. Like there's this process where like, I think about where I was, before I went to rehab where I had like, zero self awareness about the kind of person I was being in the world and the way I was impacting other people. And I was always thinking about myself and what I wanted and what I needed. And I was pretty manipulative. And I went through this process where I opened my eyes to like, wow, this is how I'm impacting the people around me. And I want to be different than this. And and I am now aware of my motives and my intentions and ways that I may be manipulating people in ways that may be being disingenuous. And then like, so it's like, it's important that we become self aware. But then there's this point, we end that we really commit to growth, and we commit to doing better and we commit to being intentional about what we're doing and why. But there's this point at which we have to start then looking back out. Otherwise, we just become as self absorbed as we were when we weren't self aware. And it becomes about like, oh, did I do the most healthy thing in the world there? Did I did that do the most honest thing in the world there. And then we're like in a whole other different type. And it's like, that's that process of like, sometimes, like, yes, we don't want to be so like blind or unaware that we're hurting people. But once we wake up inside and become aware and have some insight into our behavior, and are trying really hard to do different, like, at some point, we also just have to go, okay, also live and just like be a normal and just be a person and just, like be messy and make some mistakes and don't like feel like every single decision has to be like, you know, how could I have done that better? Yeah, and that's two sides of the same coin. And it's hard to do. And I am along the belief system that like, that's not something we can teach in a classroom that has to be learned through experience, because I can speak for me, I remember, you know, getting my cap and gown and my degree and my little provisional license to practice and screwing up shit because I wanted it to be perfect. Because I wanted it to be right, I wanted to be about only the client and show up for the client and do what was best for them. And sometimes that was hurtful to them too, right? Because sometimes what our clients need is a person in totality, right? Not just some of me some ops, sometimes all of me does have to show up because you're going to meet all of other people outside of this room. And you need to know how to deal with them and how to cope with their behaviors and how to form relationships and how to be healthy with them in their totality also, yeah, the best like the best advice I ever got from my supervisor when I would deal with quote unquote difficult clients and I just mean clients that were like really kind of intentionally throwing jabs and things, right? Is like I would go in I'm like, Okay, I've got one client, which comes into group and I'm just like, genuinely scared of her like she's got such a sharp tongue. She's got to dress me down. Like I almost like don't want to hold her accountable for anything because I know it's gonna go blow back out and overheard her saying like, the way you feel about a client is the best information that you could have to help them instead of trying to figure out what to you

  KC 30:00

  Do what that feeling, just take a step back and bring that feeling as a way of working with that client. And I'll never forget, like that particular client, like she said something to me in group one time. And she was like, I don't even know why you are here. I was the executive director of a treatment center, and I do in a group, but she was like, why are you even here? Like, you are not our therapist. And I feel like you just like to dip into groups. So you can like feel good about yourself, like you are some great therapist. And it was like, all like, starkly cruel. And so but finally, I like remember what her said, what she said about, like, what you feel about the client is the best information you can give them. Because what she said was the way you feel about a client is probably the way most people feel about them. Right? Absolutely. And that's how they're going through the world. So I just like calmly was able to look at her and I was like, Can I can I give you some feedback about how experienced you just like, Yeah, I was like, Man, I'm, I'm scared of you, I'm scared of you. Because a lot of times when I interact with you, I know you're going to like find some weakness in me and exploit it and makes me not want to, you know, hold you accountable or get close to you. And I just, I can't help but think and maybe that's the way you've been dealing with a lot of people in your life. And if other if people are really too afraid to get close to you, it just makes me wonder how lonely you must be right? And all of a sudden, it's like the wind went out of her sails. And it was like, okay, like, and I remember being like, I finally understand what my supervisors been trying to tell me like what my job is, as the therapist, it's not to deal with like, Oh, my feelings are hurt. But it's not to ignore that my feelings are hurt or take it or whatever it's to, like use that as a way of like compassionately being honest with them. Anyways, I forgot who I told that story, but, and reflecting it. Like oftentimes, people have no idea how they're perceived by other people. They just know how they feel once people perceive them, right. And so reflecting that back and saying, Hey, like, this is how you make me feel. I'm sure this is how other people may feel, too. And what I love to do is give a hypothesis as to like, why you do that, right? Yeah, because a lot of times you want to punch me before I can punch you, God isn't that all of us. I mean, most of us walk through life. And it's like, that's our Mo i want to punch you before you punch us. And I do feel like most of my growth can be summed up by learning not to punch people before they punch me. Yeah, because most people are gonna punch you. Yeah. And then not being afraid to punch back when they do. Like there's a big difference. And people don't know the difference. So they see any kind of punch. And they're like, Oh, that was so unenlightened of you how could a therapist ever do that? Like, there's a really big difference. There's a big difference, right? And knowing that is the key, right? I try, I had a lot of anger, like growing up and into like early adulthood into my 20s. And so I was just walking around punching people just assuming that they were going to punch me, right, and punching, and not just a punch, like beating up like full on, here we go, here's the secret, because I don't want you to hurt me at all. I'm terrified that you're going because one blow from you is going to knock the wind out of me. So I'm going to kick your ass before you can even think about it, right. But that's just hurt in trauma, and understanding that and getting to a place where it's like, I'm not going to punch you, I hope you don't punch me first. And knowing that for me, it's knowing that if you punch me, I'm going to lay yourself, right, I'm going to trust you not to punch me and trust me that if you punch me that I have the ability, the skill to know how in the world to punch you back. And then if I choose not to, that was a choice, that was my choice. And it came from my power, not you. I don't know about everybody else. But I feel like the majority of my like, struggles with things come down to situations where I feel like I've been made to feel powerless. And how hard that is to cope with feeling powerless is the paralyzing, right? And I think that we've all had some experience where we felt paralyzed by our lack of power. And it brings so much fear in us. When I feel like I don't have any power. I also get to a point where I feel like I don't have a bunch of hope. And I can't move I can't speak well. I can't articulate my thoughts. My thoughts are disheveled and they're all over the place. And that place scares me right? Because you instantly go back to when it was true right so the idea of pedal power right now when I'm a powerful person terrifies me because now I have to go in my brain. It goes back to 13 year old chick with an eating disorder that no one believes can be depressed because she's black and she's smart and she's gifted so she has to be perfect and feeling powerless. That's what automatically goes back to and so it creates paralyzing fear in the moment even when you've got some power and it's terrifying.

  That is what it is and like that there's like, I feel like distress tolerance is like not centered enough in therapy and talked about enough. Like I will say, with everything that was kind of screwed up about my experience in troubled teen industry, part of what I did learn there was distress tolerance, like we had to have these groups where people would quote unquote, confront you and tell you like things you were doing wrong. And sometimes it was obviously just like other clients that didn't like you that were just like dressing you down. And sometimes it was legitimate mirror to your shitty behavior that was really painful to look at. But we had this rule that you were not allowed to respond. You couldn't argue you couldn't give feedback, you couldn't respond for 24 hours now and 24 hours, you can come back to group and be like, I thought about this. And here's what I think. And here's whatever, whatever. And I will say that I'm not suggesting that anybody implement that, because I think there's some problematic and some nuance to that. But I will say because it increases the feelings of powerlessness in a lot of really problematic ways. But I will say one of the things that I had a therapist that was really helpful that I did walk away with is that like, in those moments where you feel powerless, it kicks on your fight or flight. And it feels like if I do not do something, now I'm going to die. If I do not do something now something horrible is going to happen. And learning that that is not true, that you can feel the war rage in your chest. And no, actually, I'm going to be okay, like this hurts. This sucks. This feels bad. And it is survivable it is and reminding yourself of that in the moment, because I have survived this before. Right? I have to tell myself at my I'm 37. And there are times when I have to tell myself, this is not the worst shit I've ever experienced. Right? It's been worse than this and that and I survived it. And I don't actually have to do anything. I mean, I can I don't have to. I can't if I choose to, but I don't have to. And I'm still going to be okay. I don't have to completely retreat into depression. And I also don't have to fight my way out using rage. I can just simply be and that's really different than shut down, do the right thing. respond appropriately. Like there's a big difference between like, Okay, now do the healthy thing now do the mature response now. And Whoo, I have rage swirling inside of me. But it's not going to hurt me. It hurts. But it's not going to hurt me. It's not going to damage me it's a tornado inside a glass bottle. And it actually can't get out unless I break the bottle. Right? I have to allow it out. And it'll die and it'll go away. And I will still be standing. Yeah, I get to choose, right. And that's what power really is the ability to choose. Like, I get to choose whether I let the tornado out. And I also get to choose to suffocate it in the bottle. Right? Because through that suffocation it's going to die cut. Isn't that such a more honoring way of being human? Like you're neither beholden to being this perfect mature therapist all the time. Nor are you beholden to being completely reactive all the time like that there is something there is like a third option. And I think especially as women like that's important, like there is a third option of being wholly I guess, in your power, for lack of a better term that looks neither like being reactive all the time. Nor like being silent or always mature, quote unquote, yeah, getting to a place where you react, how you want to, and not how you have to that to me is my power. Maybe that's the third way right? Like there's this how you have to but then there's also the how you should and when you can get to the where you want. That's cool. And where I want to not based in my trauma, and not based in my fear, but just how I did he Priscilla Wednesday how I want to respond to this. That's where my power is not how you expect me to fuck your expectations. What do I want from this? And so when we get the negative comments in, you know, in the comments section of our posts, how do I want to respond? Right? Sometimes it does look like, whatever I'm gonna block them and move on. Sometimes it does like this look like I'm gonna just you down back. Sometimes it looks like nothing. And sometimes it looks like I see, like, sometimes it is this compassionate response. Yeah, because that's where I am today. That's where I am today. And that's what I have the capacity for. I'm in a place of compassion. I've had a couple of sessions. I had my own therapy session today, and that's where I'm at. And that's how I want to respond. Yeah, like sometimes I want to respond and educate and compassionately sometimes I want to respond and stand up for myself. Sometimes I want to respond and be funny, or sometimes I want to respond and say, you know, I'm not even really responding to you. But this is a great opportunity to talk about XYZ and it's just it's wild to walk. Like no matter what you do, you're going to hear from people about how that didn't meet their expectations,

  DeeDee 40:03

  right, and coming to the conclusion that that's not my problem, like, and that doesn't actually mean anything, right? Oh, you shouldn't talk like that. Because you're a therapist, I'm disappointed in you, that doesn't actually mean anything to me. Right? You're a disappointment in my ability to communicate in ways that in to levels that in expectations that you have set as a stranger for me, doesn't mean anything to me. I said that to someone just yesterday, and I literally stopped because they were like, I'm so disappointed in you as a creator. And that's the one that really gets under my skin when people say they're disappointed in me, because I feel sad that to hurt you. Yeah. I mean, that's really what it is. Right? Like, and people will say a lot. Like, if you know something's not true, then why did you react to it? It'd be like, oh, like, if you react emotionally, if you'd like, see, I think I triggered something. Because you know, it's true. It's like, Okay, listen, yes, there is a degree to which if somebody like levels and insulted me, and that's like, I know that's not true. Sometimes it's like, it doesn't even bother me, because I know that's not true. But what people miss is that you can say something to me, that I know is not true. But that's not the only hurtful things that exist, like it's still hurtful, that there is a human being sitting in front of their phone thinking to themselves, how can I hurt this person? It doesn't matter whether what you're saying is true or not true, you still feel it deep in your soul, right? Sometimes I'm responding to your intention, not your words, you intended to hurt me, and to cause me harm. I'm responding to the hat. Not necessarily what you said is, it's untrue. And it doesn't hold any actual validity. Sometimes I'm responding to your intention to hurt me. Yeah. And I will say that, like, I don't get it. Like, I know that I have said some really, really direct blunt, sarcastic things to people that probably hurt their feelings as we know. Yeah. But I've never just like stumbled upon someone not harming me and thought to myself, I want to hurt this person ever. Well, people see us as punching bags. And I don't know if this is a good analogy, but it's how I see it. Like, you have pastors and therapists and helpers, and nurses, and people whose job it is to help you right. And when they see us, they oftentimes see us as people with our hands tied behind our backs, right, and I have the ability to hurt you, because I'm hurting the people that I really would like to punch on. I can't really punch on them. But you've got your hands tied behind your back, and I can beat the snot out of you. And that's gonna make me feel that it's like people who are mean to servers, and like service workers. Yeah, yeah. And yes. And then they're so offended when they realize that my hands aren't actually tied behind my back. Yeah, yeah. And you're offended, like, oh, how do you speak to me that way? Or how dare you hit me back? You slapped me in the mouth girl?

  Like, what did you want me to do? I know. So I That's why I responded today, when someone said, I'm so disappointed you as a creator. And I said, this is just a reminder that if you are not my mother, my lover or my friend, telling me that you are disappointed in me is a wildly concerning unhinged thing to say to another adult? Because how are you disappointed in me, because your disappointment and me has nothing to do with me, we don't know each other. Like, I get that like, who you thought I was, or who you wanted me to be like that. I'm not that and you're experiencing the emotion of disappointment. But I do require that you have enough self awareness to realize that you need to deal with that on your own time and not bring it to me because the only reason you're bringing it to me is to shame me. That's it. That's it to shame and cause harm and to hurt me. And for me, parasocial relationships are so strange, because sometimes I think that a specific brand of person, they forget that you exist outside of their phone. And it's like, you do know, this 92nd that you see me a day, I only post once a day, and sometimes I don't post that all. So for that 90 seconds of my day, you know, there's 23 hours in several minutes that exist outside of the what, when you experience me, right, and there are people that I experience life with that I value who don't agree with your sentiments in me that make your data skewed, right, so it doesn't weigh as much because you're basing that off of 90 seconds of my day. That doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme doesn't mean a whole bunch. And the real relationships in my life, none of them require that I'd be perfect. None of them. And if I step too far out, someone will tell me someone I'm an actual real life community with and I don't have a echo chamber, like I do know, someone will tell me, right, you know, I have other people in my life who will check me if need be. And especially now we'll say I give a little bit more leeway to people who are actually a part of my online community people that I'm actually in conversation with and that I talk to on a regular basis, you know, whether it's in LA

  Our lives or in comment sections and we have a relationship but a stranger that I've never seen before and that I don't know what you say doesn't mean anything to me not for real and even if I respond that's just 60 more seconds of my day. I still get to go on duty. I can't tell you what how much life this conversation has breathed into me this morning and I'm so glad that we had it can you share where people can find you if they want to come follow you? Yeah, I am DD Wednesday everywhere and give you Wednesday on Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and now I'm on YouTube. I just created my YouTube page on DD Wednesday, everywhere. That's how you can find me you can find me on all of the socials. Did you Wednesday, and it's d E d E, D E D Ds for ease. And you said you're in Louisiana Correct? I am I mean Louisiana. Nice. Do you do virtual counseling at all? I do virtual counseling and I do live coaching for everyone everywhere that that looks a little bit different but absolutely great. So if people in Louisiana are listening or if people are interested in coaching you know please check out Didi I love your content. I love everything that you bring to the table and I'm glad to know you. Thank you. And thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this conversation. It was really great. Thank you. Oh, this has nothing to do with anything but I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to be promoting my own shit. So guys, as most of you know, I wrote a book. It's called How to keep house while drowning. If you don't know go by it. It's an Amazon. It's all the bookstores. Yeah, give it as a gift. This is like my 77 podcast episode. I'm just like, I almost never mentioned my own book. So there you go. You have to be reasonable about yourself. Awesome.

Every mother needs to hear this conversation. It just doesn’t make sense that we put so much undue pressure on ourselves and are quick to criticize and judge other moms for their parenting styles. I’m joined today by Erica Djossa, the author of Releasing the Mother Load: How to Carry Less and Enjoy Motherhood More. We are talking about all things motherhood and expectations, why I’ve been blasted over a couple of recent TikToks, and Erica’s parenting wisdom from her book. Join us to learn more!

Show Highlights:

●      One of KC’s videos about how she “doesn’t play” with her kids—and the flurry of negative responses over parenting choices

●      The intensive mothering ideation: motherhood equals martyrdom, mothers must put everyone else’s needs about their own, shelve all their interests, and be self-sacrificial in every way

●      The second of KC’s videos about sending her dog away from home for training—and the flurry of anger and shame over her inadequacies as a dog owner

●      Mainstay pillars of the intensive mothering ideology and the BS that is promoted as healthy attachment and “good mothering”

●      Giving less can sometimes mean giving more.

●      The truth that shows up in the bedtime routine (“Are you holding space for yourself, mom?”)

●      The scope, dynamic, and importance of “independent play,” creativity, and solving problems

●      Healthy attachment: safety, security, reliability, and dependability

●      The space for moms to have unique and different personalities and mothering styles, like bedroom parents vs. living room parents

●      Projecting our mother wounds on other moms (Why do we do it?)

●      Understanding why not all NOs are equal

●      The disparity in expectations and judgment for moms and dads

●      Motherhood expectations, boundaries, and the stories we tell ourselves

Resources and Links:

Connect with Erica Djossa: Website, Instagram, Momwell Podcast, and Releasing the Mother Load book

                       Mentioned by Erica: Needy by Mara Glatzel

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello you Sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. This is the podcast where I talk about mental health and wellness all in ways that hopefully doesn't make you want to run screaming from the room. I am your host, KC Davis. Did I say that? I'm not sure. Listen, Vyvanse I took one today for the first time in four weeks, it's been on backorder. So I'm ready to go. But I'm stuttering to a Start Here. Okay, I'm here with Erica jossa. She is the author of a book called releasing the mother lode Christina leaned out of the she is an author of the book called releasing the mother lode and tell me the subtitle again,

  Erica Djossa 0:35

  how to carry less and enjoy motherhood more.

  KC 0:39

  Let me tell you that this conversation we're about to have, which to the audience, I have not prepared Erica at all for what I'm about to ask or what I'm about to say. But it's just so timely, because I've been having an interesting go of it on my tick tock channel, and I wanted to give a theory to you. And I wanted you to tell me what you thought about it and then maybe share some of your knowledge from writing that book about what you think might be going on. Okay.

  Erica Djossa 1:04

  I'm excited. Yeah,

  KC 1:07

  so I've had two videos go pretty big recently. The first is one where I talk about how I don't play with my kids. Mm hmm. Now that's the clickbait title. The nuance of the video basically says that I don't play pretend I have extricated myself as a pretend playmate of my children. We still are playful together, we read books, and we go on walks, and we go to the backyard and we'll play games and you know, do all sorts of fun things together. And we are playful, right? Like I tickle them. I yesterday, I was hosing them off in the backyard. And we were like making a game of it. So people were very angry. And there's a subset of people who were really angry because they had some childhood trauma around their parents not being interested in them not playing with them. That's not who I'm talking about. Right now. There are some people kind of misunderstood what I said, which is fair, I made it clickbait for a reason. But there was this interesting, like third category of people who were irate on Twitter on Tik Tok. One of the things that I said in the video is I talked about my that my day that day, and I said, you know, my kids have been interested in the solar system. So we spent this morning talking about the solar system. And then we I took them to Michael's and we bought a bunch of craft supplies. And we came home and we painted like a scale of a model of the solar system altogether. And then we hung it up from the ceiling. And we talked about how we went and turn the lights off on one of our rooms with a flashlight, we talked about how day and night happens. And then that afternoon, their dad took them to a bookstore and bought them a book about the solar system. And I talked about how that happened that day. And I said and now like their dad just set them up a science experiment in the shower, they're going to take a shower, and when they're done, they're going to be expected to go play independently, and me and my husband are gonna get in bed and eat some Indian food. And I'm gonna read a book for a couple hours. And part of the response that was really interesting to me were people that were really angry specifically about the idea that I was going to read a book, one tweet in particular retweeted me and was like, this is that woman that would rather eat Indian food and bed then play with her kids. That woman, that woman Yeah, comments on videos like future videos that have nothing to do with that about where I would like review a book. And they'd be like, Oh, so this is what she'd rather read these books. And they're like, fantasy books that had sex scenes, or like, she's just reading porn instead of playing with our kids. And what's so interesting is like, some of those digs were people that were like, she's gonna go eat Indian food and bed instead of play with her kid. And I'm like, I'm sorry, you're angry at me for eating lunch, eating lunch and reading a book, like those were the things I was doing when I said like, No, I won't play with my kids. And but I've like established a culture where I can read a book. And I started to realize, like, wow, there's like a subset of people. And I don't want to discount there are people that just had disagreements about parenting philosophy, but there was like a strong subset of people, many of the men who were just irate that I would do something for myself if it meant telling my children No. Which

  Erica Djossa 3:56

  is mind boggling and exactly how we find ourselves in this crux of maternal mental health crisis. And yet, look at the way that people are trying to police us back into this intensive mothering ideation, right? When it comes from a lot of other moms. It's like it makes others who have really hook line and sinker bought into the idea that motherhood equals martyrdom and I have to put everybody's needs above my own and I've shelved all my interest. I haven't been able to read a book I've been so self sacrificing and put everybody else first so to see somebody have something for themselves to see somebody carve out boundaries and say no, this next 45 minutes or hour or whatever is mine and I'm going to do what I want with it. Well, you independently play it look great on the anger and loss of all those unmet needs that we've had to shelf and put aside and then when we see other people kind of like living in their freedom and motherhood, we don't know how to process that right because we think motherhood equals self more to them. And when we see somebody that is not operating in that way, it's we almost like attack to defend ourselves and our position and being right.

  KC 5:07

  And what was interesting is like, if I just said like my kids independent play while I read a book, most people will be like, Oh, wow, like, I wish I had that. I wish I could do that. I'm drowning. But the moment that I said that, like, the way that I got there was by saying no, like, they would come and say, we play with me. And I'd say, No, thank you. I'm gonna sit and read a book. And they go and go, Well, can I sit with you? And sometimes I say yes. And sometimes they say, No, thanks. Like, I want to sit by myself. Like when they hear that the actual process. I mean, they're young kids, like they will take up every second of your day, if you let that, right. Like when you tell them that that process involves your children being uncomfortable or feeling a momentary discomfort, like that's when people lose their minds. Because a lot of people project that like if that child feels discomfort in that moment, it's going to be some lifelong trauma about their mom doesn't want them. And that I think is what gets our hooks into us is like what? Right, and but then the second video that I've been getting a lot of flack for there. And again, there's a good portion of people that I'm not talking about was it was about training my dog, right. So we have a Rottweiler mix, she's 10 months old, we sent her away to boarding train for six weeks. Now, the real reason we did this was because we had two vacations in that six week period, and we were constructing a pool in our backyard, and she was anxious mass, and we didn't want to border with people we didn't know or do dogs that are so you know, my trainer who doesn't even do boarding trains was like, Well, okay, I'll do this for you. And so she came back. So she came back. And a lot of people hated that approach. Because, you know, we use an E collar and they don't like E collars and things like that. That's fine. That's just like legitimate differences in dog training philosophy. However, I want to talk about this subset of responses I got from people that were like, How dare you send your dog away, you are a lazy person. If you didn't train your dog yourself, I can't believe you didn't train them yourself. You don't know what happened to them. When you said that it was like this. I was so surprised at the amount of people they weren't mad at the E collar. They weren't mad that they were mad that I sent her to board and train and I didn't do it myself. And for some reason I just connected the to where it was like, This feels like the same thing. Like, it's not just anger. It's shame, like Shame on you for not doing it all yourself, shame on you. Like you're taking the easy way out. You're lazy. And I was like, This is how it happens. Like moms get this message that anything they don't do. It's not Oh, I just didn't prefer it. It's not right. Like if my husband decides he doesn't like to mow the lawn and hires a yard person. Nobody tells him like you're such a lazy dad, right. And yet, if you read a book during the day, or you send your dog to board and train so that you're not doing, you know, hours and hours and hours of dog training, not that I actually do hours of dog training, but you don't I'm saying like you get help. I was like God, this is how it happens. It's really interesting,

  Speaker 1 7:59

  the parallel between the two and I do think that there is this mothering or parenting role in being a dog owner that people sort of project on to you. And when we talk about intensive mothering being a set of ideology, or like the norms that we are sort of breathing and living in in motherhood, there's a couple of them that are really woven in here put placing a child's wants needs desires above our own is one of them, like a child's needs should always come before our own is a pillar in the intensive mothering ideology. And then the other is that being a good mom means I have to give all of my emotional and mental psychological and physical energy towards my children and my role. So this is where we see a real shift towards all of the most labor intensive practices being glorified and looking as though they are what make us a good mother like sourdough bread.

  KC 8:56

  I'm looking at you making your own baby puree because I fell into that trap for a week. Right?

  Erica Djossa 9:01

  And it's there's this like falsehood, this myth in there that the more time constraining or the more time sucking it is, or the more labor intensive it is, the better it is for my child, or the more it shows I love them or the more it makes me a good mom. And that's just some bullshit like that is just not at all what the research says makes a strong healthy attachment which you know, you're like, deep in this research right now. Nothing about pouring from an empty cup literally trying to wring out blood, sweat and tears equals being a good mother. And that's not what our children need. Because when we are operating from that place, I am snippy I am Rayji I am not someone you want to be around, I can't be present for our we do like our five to 10 minutes of really just independent I've got three boys they're always talking over each other. So we get our tuck ins that bed and we talk about the day we recap and body questions from questions, all the questions and I can show them be present during that time. I'm if I haven't taken care of myself made sure I've had a bit of a breather going into bedtime routine because I'm just going to want to hightail it out of there which some nights we do, because motherhood, but I don't have anything left to give. No,

  KC 10:12

  that's such a huge thing that I noticed too is like when I was in that burnout period, in that give everything period, what happens is that like you start like shorting out emotionally where you can't be present, and you're irritated. And then though I would feel guilty that I wasn't giving enough, and I'd be like, my kids need me. They need me to show up. I'm not and they need more. So what would happen is I would think, because I'm not giving enough, I need to give more, and I would just keep pushing myself, show up, show up. Don't check out don't check out show up. Stop yelling, stop yelling show up. You want to play? Yes, you want to play? I should say yes. Yes. Do you want to play? Yes, I should say yes. Can I help in the kitchen? Yes, I should say yes. And it's like you feel like because you know, you're not giving enough emotionally or by way of attachment, you should be getting more, but you're just like pushing and pushing. And I remember when it flipped, realizing that I actually needed to give less, and that if I gave less, I could give more, if that makes sense. Like I could give more meaningfully in ways and the other thing you said that you talked about how like we're not going to show up before snapping and snapping all these things. That's the other thing is that people come up with these false choices where they say, you know, you're not like being your kids pretend playmate, you're not like, you've pretty much decided you're not like their playmate at all and like, but wouldn't it be so nice. Like, it's so nice when parent when your child can experience that and it's like they act like my choices or be the mom that says yes, all the time, be the mom, that is the fun playmate all the time, and not be that mom and go read a book like that those were the two choices that I had. And I chose the one that meant I wasn't a fun mom play playmate, right, and people don't really like that those were not my choices. Like my choices were the burnt out mom trying so hard to be the playmate that hated it. Because I felt like I couldn't concentrate. Like I couldn't connect like I was pouring from an empty cup, or be the mom with really strong boundaries, who instead of showing up at 30% capacity 100% of the time now can show up at 90% capacity 50% of the time.

  Erica Djossa 12:20

  Mm hmm. And it really is this all or nothing thinking of you are you equal this because of one singular decision that you made. That is shame that says in this one moment, I made this bad choice therefore I the being and bad i the whole mother and bad versus operating out of more of a constructive guilt that says wait a minute, I made a bad choice in this situation. And I can try and do better next time. So when somebody takes a look one isolated situation, which happens on social media all the time and attributed to your entire character and being we are operating in this all or nothing shameful space. And my question to people is really, what is it that we are trying to accomplish here? Is it that we have to be 100% on 100% of the time, like what is the goal or the expectation? Is they nobody

  KC 13:15

  would say oh yes, all the time. But then beyond that, everyone thinks that whatever percentage or time is like golden, and anyone under that is like the worst mom ever. And I want to go back to when you talked about bedtime, because bedtime has become my barometer, my best feedback loop because I went from experiencing teken bedtime, like I was, I saw this cartoon one time, and it was a woman talking about she's an autistic mom, she has an autistic child. And she talked about how when she gets done with bedtime, it's gonna make me cry, she said, that's when I break for the surface. Like, that's when I like I swim for the surface so I can finally breathe because of how hard it is to be an autistic mom and to meet all of the needs of a child, you know, as they need it. And I remember that feeling where you're just like, you don't want to be there and you're rushing through it and you're trying to hold it together. And you're snippy and you're snappy, and you just want to get them to pet so you can break for the surface. And what happened when I started having some really strong boundaries, even ones that I kind of felt a little guilty about was that all of a sudden, I would get to the end of the day, and I was 100% calm during bedtime. I could put in the minutes that they needed. I could read the extra book, I could ask them about their day. I could remain patient as they struggled to fall asleep and that has become my like barometer for like how I'm doing and how I'm holding boundaries for myself is that like I need to make it to the end of the day being a good enough mother. And like you said, we're all moms like it doesn't mean that I'm never at the end of the day stressed or frustrated because life is life. Yeah.

  Erica Djossa 14:56

  And it's very much the same for me. I haven't Taking care of my needs throughout the day, or if I've had a stressful day or if I've been in meetings or I'm on a crunch line or like, you know, all the contributing factors, I wear that into the bedtime routine. And like this isn't to get confused with I was a mom at home for 12 to 18 months with three boys three and a half and under I clawed my way to naptime and bedtime, right like that, like that was a different stage in parenting, where it was like even just a shower or feel remotely human, I would, you know, that is a different experience than still, you know, as we start to gain some independence and our children can independently play or they can entertain themselves. And they're, you know, more more independent, that we are still sacrificing that time or we are still constantly in that self martyrdom. So I follow a similar pattern to you being able to just stop and reflect at the end of the day and see what the contributing factors were, I actually had a really, really interesting conversation with Susie from busy toddler, I don't know if you know, she's all play. And she was on the podcast. And she was describing to me like these kind of like different wars and things that break out in the play community and all that's all the philosophies, and there's all the opinions, and she focuses a lot of independent play. And that's what we were talking about. And we made the connection between playing intensive mothering during that time, like we do not have to curate all the experiences, we do not have to read a story every single night, we do not have to accept every invitation to play or constantly be setting up invitations to play and even be ahead of our children. Because they're capable of doing it on their own, they can find like a stick and a rock on the ground and go into independent play. Like it's not something we need to curate and facilitate for them. And it's not something that needs to involve us in that when it does actually involve us like it changes the dynamic of the play, like their imagination and their creativity doesn't get to like they're looking at us and like asking for reassurance and the whole dynamic changes for them. So coming out of that conversation was really interesting, where it kind of gave the audience and everyone myself even permission to be like, wait a minute, I can say no, right. And I'm the type of mom like you, I will curate all the slime making experiences, I will play all the like structured board games, I will plan an adventure all day long. But like independent or pretend play with Paw Patrol figures all day long is just not my jam, you know. So there's so much in there that we can do our own way.

  KC 17:32

  One of the things that I have started playing around with is, you know, I'll sometimes take extended periods to do something where I'll say, Okay, I'll, I'll do that in a minute. I'll do that in a minute. So I don't like I don't think that we need to be jumping up every three minutes, just because the kid says something, however, like, so we've been going out in the backyard to play because the weather is beautiful. And my kids go play and I bring a book with me. And one of the balances that I've been playing with is that if you come to me while I'm reading my book, and you want to show me something, or you want to tell me something about your play, I focus on being like really responsive to that. Like, I feel like I click the book that Kindle off, I put it down and I get on my knees and I look at it. Or if you say come look at the I get up and I go look at it right. And again, I'm not talking about like being beholden to every three minutes or whatever, right? And I come look.

  Erica Djossa 18:15

  And I like every interruption. It's not every interaction. Yeah, right.

  KC 18:19

  But I can be excited. I feel and I'm genuinely excited of like, wow, cool. Oh my gosh, and let me ask questions. And then when that little moments over like I go back to my book, but when my kid comes to me with play problems, like she has a map and I don't have a map, sometimes I will do like, Hmm, well, maybe you could get that. Or maybe you could get that. But more and more what I've started to say is like, you know what, you're so creative. I bet you'll figure it out. And then she'll go, but I don't know what to do. I know. But you know what, go play. I say it playfully. But yesterday uttered this phrase. And I was like, oh, maybe that's my phrase. If she was saying like, I really want the Paw Patrol to have a scooper. But this doesn't work as a scooper. What can I use as a scooper. And I just looked at her and I like very lovingly said, Baby, I don't solve plate problems. You are one of the most creative person I know goes off your plate problems, okay. And she went and turned around. And then you know what, she sold her play problem. She found something and then ran back to me with excitement in her eyes and went, Mom, I can use this as a scooper. And I was and I again, I get give her that 100% attention that genuine response of like, see, that is such a good idea. And then she turned tail and ran back to her sister to play and I was like, Ooh, this might be a balance that works for me. Like I don't need to solve your play problems. I don't need to solve your boredom. I don't need to say yes to all the invitations to come and join. But I will make it a habit to say yes to as many invitations to look observe wonder bask be proud. Demonstrate. Like I'll say yeah, I can say yes, enthusiastically to those things. If I'm saying no confidently to these other bids.

  Erica Djossa 20:02

  And I will frontload that time where we maybe spend five minutes or 10 minutes to play a game something you know, and then send off to play because it feels like it's filled their cup first. So they're less prone for those constant bids and asking you to join. But it's so important I used to work in children and family practice with kids before I got in the whole motherhood niche. And lay is one of the places that our children learn how to solve problems as you're describing. It's also a place where they learn distress tolerance, and how to manage their frustration and their big feelings. And if a parent is always involved in their play, and they're always seeking their parents to solve their problem for them, they actually don't build coping skills to manage their distress. Like if we're constantly alleviating, and stepping in and fixing and taking every bit and all of that it doesn't create a safe environment to allow the space to learn the skills and you to be able to model and say I believe in you, I'm confident in your ability to see this through, I'm here to support you always. And I know you can figure it out, that is such a healthy space to create, to make mistakes, to ask questions, to figure out how to deal with our frustration when this freaking Tower just keeps falling over. And we can't figure out how to get that piece to just fit in there correctly. And this is where I start to see a lot in my like eight plus years going into tween teenage years, when we've had parents who have really been overly involved the anxiety and lack of confidence that their children would then bring in to me in later years because they didn't have the experience or the practice of building that confidence. Look, mom with beaming pride, I solved this problem for myself building confidence in her ability to solve issues for herself, right. And when we don't practice that, then we get you know, down the road. And I'm working with kids and teenagers who want to call their parents between every break at high school because they can't, you know, independently cope through a distressing situation. One of

  KC 22:12

  the things that you said earlier was you talked about how a lot of this comes from a misunderstanding of what creates a healthy attachment. So I wondered if you could talk for a minute about what do we know does create healthy attachment? And how is that different from some of the societal messages? And then the second question I want to ask is, I'll forget is where's the room in this for us as moms to have unique and different personalities, because there's a lot of people that would say, I love to play with my kids. And there's a lot of people that would say, that's not my favorite part of motherhood. And then there's some that would say, you know, I am fine with being I love to be touched a lot. And then there's some that say like, I really dislike touch. And so those are kind of my two questions for that. One is like, you know, if you are the parent, like like, we're not all carbon copies of each other? And how do we do that? And then I will have a third question, which I might also forget. So I'm gonna say it too. Mm hmm. Which is, when we talk about being over involved in motherhood, do you think that some of that comes from like, we don't have good models for how we're supposed to grow as a mom. So like, when I have a newborn, that is 24/7 365, all through the night, I am giving every ounce of myself, I quite literally cannot even get a bite to eat some days, right? And then they grow a little bit more, and it's still it's 24/7. Now I can maybe get a bite to eat, but I can't get a shower. And then they're independent. Now it's I cannot take my eyes off of them. So I'm hyper vigilant all day long. And I do need to play and I do need to interact. And I do need to do these things all the time. And what it seems like is it's like, we stay in that space, right? Like, I'm not trying to deny that there is a time in early early childhood where you are on 24/7 Because you have to be but it seems like the disagreement comes like when can you begin to differentiate like buy back that space and those boundaries and reassert your own identity and all those sorts of things. So those are my three things. I feel free to any order you'd like to take them. Yeah,

  Erica Djossa 24:21

  I actually think like the overinvolved and the attachment ones are kind of woven together because there is this measuring stick or criteria by which sort of society or we or social media think makes a good mom overly attentive. You know, again, the self sacrificing we've been talking about accepts every bid doesn't set boundaries with her own children does the most labor intensive tasks like all of that, and we've got this measuring stick also, like children sleep perfectly and behave perfectly and all of that and we think that if we can check off those boxes, that's what's going to create these Thrive Being healthy children down the road. But really the things that form a healthy attachment according to research are safety, security, reliability, dependability, over a duration, like a long duration of time, like consistently knowing you have a safe home and somebody that you can come to and that they will always show up for you. I asked my oldest actually, like, what does love feel like we have these? He's at this fun age, we get to have these like philosophical conversations, like, what does love mean? Or what does it feel like? Or how do you know you're loved, and he's like, love feels like, you know, like, knowing that you're always going to be there for me when I need you, or that I can tell you anything. And like, you will accept me and it will be okay. You know. And so we have this idea that our attachment with our children is fragile, and any little decision we make will just shatter it to the ground and traumatize them forever. But it's actually so much more like a rubber band that has a lot of give and pull and room for error and room for mistakes. And when I do get snippy and cranky, I come back around the next day, and I repair and have a conversation with you. And that model is how we can mend relationships and all of that. So those are the things that's really start to build a secure attachment, like openness to repair, being emotionally attuned, that doesn't mean being overly attuned to every micro movement of the day, it means just like being able to see needs and be responsive to those needs, emotionally and otherwise. So I think that really evaluating our measuring stick. And what we think is building a healthy, secure relationship with our child right now is being available every second one of those things, playing with them whenever they want one of those things, because we need to reevaluate it. And one of the things that I think plays into the differing moms and the different expressions of motherhood is we create our own measuring sticks according to our values. And I walk through this in the book with a value sort and a values list like I am kind of on this crux of a motherhood book and a parenting book, because I'm trying to undo all of the myths and beliefs and you know, societal norms that you have learned and allow you to fill the vacuum with things that you actually value versus things that have been prescribed to you by like a philosophy or things you see on social media. And in order to do that, we have to tune into our values as a parent, and build our own criteria for what it means to be a good mom and evaluate ourself by that. And this is where I'm trying to understand when they're saying, you know, you don't play or like what what is the goal? Like, what are they trying to accomplish here? Because there's usually like a value underneath the things that we are sort of criticizing of others, or we're seeing so for example, family dinners, and whether people sit in front of the TV or they sit up to the table, what are we trying to accomplish? What is the value of sitting up to a family dinner? Is it connection? Is it presence? Is it you know, attunement, or check in for the day, like, what is it and the expression of that value doesn't equal family dinner, it doesn't have to be that so when I know, for example, as a mom that I value slowness in my family life, because my business life is crazy, and I value openness and acceptance, you know, to talk about anything and to feel supported, and I value adventure. And you know, I get a little like itch and Twitch, when we haven't gone and done something experiential as a family in a while, then I start to build out my own expression of motherhood to suit that image and that measuring stick and then when I see somebody cooking, I don't know, I saw something on tick tock where it was like, it's gonna take, I don't know how many days to make this entire meal from scratch. And it was like bread and all the fixings and all the jams and all the thing that went into the burger or the sandwich was like all homemade, and it took them like a week, and it was glorified, that it took this long to make this meal when I look at that, and I see that that's being sort of glorified as being a good mom, I can tune back into my measuring stick in my value system and say, Listen, I actually really value convenience because of the lifestyle that I live. And I am more than happy to buy that loaf of sourdough from the bread or from the bakery. But it doesn't mean that you can't do you because that's what you value and that's what is important to you. And this is the nuance that gets so smothered and stifled out in social media is that there's no room for these various expressions like there's no we don't allow space for people just show up differently in their own way. It's policing people back into these norms constantly. I saw it

  KC 29:38

  tick tock where somebody said did you have bedroom parents or living room parents? And she was like, you know, I just recently realized like, you know, I had bedroom parents like, that's where they hung out like they were in their bedroom. And you know, my friends have living room parents like their parents in the living room, and they were more of a like, let's all hang together whereas my parents were bedroom parents like they would be in their bedroom. I'm reading a book or watching TV or do whatever like that was their like place that they children like we would be in our room or in our playroom. And it wasn't. And it was interesting because she wasn't sharing it as the one was better than the other. She was like, I love my bedroom parents, like we went in there all the time and snuggled with them. And then we went and played and they'd come out and you know, make some lunch and blah, blah, blah. And it got me thinking about that idea. Because I was like, I mean, I'm kind of a bedroom parent on Saturdays. Like, that's what my husband like. That's what we like to do. And we have a large bedroom, and it's downstairs. So like, the other thing we don't we don't talk about enough is how the layout of your home affects what kind of mother you are, and how people interpret what kind of mom you are. Because if I say I read a book in bed, while my kids played in the playroom, or I slept in, while my kids played in the playroom, and you have a home where your bedroom is upstairs and your kids, you're picturing them playing downstairs by that, like, that's a totally different thing than understanding that, like my bedroom is a full suite that is Off the living room that opens to the living room, right, it's

  Erica Djossa 31:00

  on the main level, and any of the bedroom parents that I can think about that I knew growing up and like friends and whatever, had rooms off the main level, like bungalow style living, right, whereas I My bedroom is on the second floor was kind of tucked in the back of the house, I wouldn't like here, the kids mind you, they're at an age now where I'm like, Go find yourself some cereal and stop fighting and making noise like now that's fine. And they can do that. But like there's so many different values. Like I also we have a rule that our kids don't exit their room before. 7am do not show up to me before 7am. Like, unless you need to, you can come out and go pee or if there's like an issue or whatever, of course, but it's like you can play quietly, you can whatever. And it's just set a norm in our house. And it's just kind of expected it's not harsh. It's not mean they know they sleep in it gives them time they do whatever like it is okay for us have different expressions. And this is when we don't allow that. And when we criticize so heavily. And I really see it as like surveilling and policing back into these, whether it's gender norms, or intensive mothering norms, when we don't allow space for this, we are all drowning in plain sight. And we're not allow it like anyone who tries to wait like swim ashore or like, like, do something differently to like, get some help. We're gonna burried them and like force them to drown alongside of us, like, what are we doing, you know,

  KC 32:20

  there's so much freedom in the idea that like, you could be a good bedroom parent, and you could be a good living room parent, and not to this extreme of like, like you can do that and be like, and I also make an effort to make sure that there are parts of the day that I go out and make sure that I'm sitting in the living room, even though maybe I wouldn't otherwise, or that I'm sitting with my kids or that we're doing that. Like it doesn't mean you stop making an effort or that you're only thinking of yourself, but I just have found so much freedom and leaning into my own personality and finding ways that my personality can be the best mom. Like my favorite phrase, when when people try to hate on me online is like I'm called to be the best mom that I can be not the best mom you can be. And like it really helps me when I hear people adults talk about their mom, like they'll say things like, you know, my mom was a bedroom mom, and she was a great mom. Or they say like my mom, like was a mom that needed her space sometimes. And sometimes she would go outside and she would say nobody follow me and she would sit and we just knew that about our mom, we just knew that our mom was a mom that needed space, but they say it with this full throated healthy attachment. And I'm like, that's a mom that worked with her brain and with her personality to be a good mom and form a good attachment. Like my mom was an attorney. And like I went from like, I went to school at eight and she picked me up at 6pm every day of my childhood, right? But then we went to Chili's and had a meal together and talked and came home. And my mom also was not a playmate, mom, but my mom was also the mom who like when I wanted to know what all the lyrics were too part of your world from Not that that's Ariel, whatever the song is in Aladdin, and back then, like we only had VCRs right and no Internet, and she would have to play it, pause it write down what we could hear and then rewind it and do it again. And I mean, it took us an hour to write down every lyric, but like that's the memory and I'm so grateful that I had a mom that went I'm not the playmate, Mom, I'm not the I'm waiting at home with cookies when you get off the bus at 330 mom like I am the I value my career Mom, I am the I value financial stability mom, which is why she went to law school at 33 Right? I am the I want to talk to you and be your confidant mom I am like and she was able to be the best mom she can be and it was absolutely good enough. Like I didn't I don't have this heartache or trauma that nobody was home when I got off the bus or you know, she never played with me. And it also makes me wonder of all of those comments that I did get because it was like 5050 The people who would be like my mom never played with me and I'm fine and we have a great relationship my best friend and then the ones that were like my mom never played with me and to this day I don't talk to her or my mom never played to me and it was deeply traumatizing. And my mom never put in house Like, this is so interesting, this is so interesting,

  Erica Djossa 35:03

  as if the play was what was traumatizing. Let's unpack probably all the other emotional things that were there like, because if your mom didn't have the capacity to sit down on the floor and be present with you, I highly suspect there were other stressors and things in her life like, and I work in the maternal mental health space with the prevalence of undiagnosed mental health challenges and anxiety and depression that we can't show up as moms because we are suffering ourselves. So it's not, it's like the play equals the trauma. I'm gonna call my own thing. So on that one, let's just you know,

  KC 35:38

  and what's interesting about that is that I had this moment. And I want to be careful here because mother wounds are deep, and they deserve kindness, and they deserve a gentle touch. And I'm going to do my best to speak the truth gently. If you are an adult with mother wounds, and you are allowing those mother wounds to project shame onto mothers that you don't know, you have become the part of society that we're talking about that upholds these types of rules, like you are participating in the patriarchy when you see it mom somewhere, and you let your own triggered trauma or your own projection of what you experience out into. You're a bad mom, you should feel shame for this because my mom didn't meet my needs. And something you're doing reminds me of something my mom did like we become like society is not some maskless mask like faceless people like it's us, and wounded grown up children were some of the most vehement haters in my comment section. And it wasn't just wow, this makes me feel something. Wow, this is really bringing up something for me, it's this immediate grab to your shitty mom. And you'll regret this one day

  Erica Djossa 36:53

  over, saying that you say no to imaginary play, like it is mind boggling. But when we carry those traumas, or those unresolved issues into adulthood, or into motherhood, we carry around this like unmet need that we expect others to soothe for us. And I've talked about this so many times on the podcast and things because when we enter into parenthood, whether we think we've resolved our issues or not, right, we end up like straddling our past in a way that is so in parallel with our present and our future. And how could my mom do this? Or how can my dad do this? Or how I'm looking at this human? And how could I have experienced this trauma and like we relive it from a different vantage point. And sometimes I see this come out in unmet needs and not being cared for. We martyr ourselves for love and acceptance, and then our partner doesn't meet our needs or care for us in the way that we care for everybody else, and we hope to be cared for. And it's like, we have to radically meet our own needs and not put this responsibility on others. And actually, Maura Gladstone wrote a book called needy talking about this very concept of like, needs are healthy, it is great to be needy, but like we need to be an advocate and like a radically take responsibility for those needs and getting them met not say, Hey, Casey, you because of my trauma, you need to adhere to what I think a good mom looks like. Because this is painful for me to watch, right? And these traumas, start to set our rules for how we live as parents ourselves. So I had TV watching dinner parents, now I want to be the sit at the table and eat parents. And it's like, because of like a trauma, we set these rules, or we set these values or we set these expectations for our sounds. And my question always is, okay, why and what is the purpose? What is the value here, if you've adopted a value out of your experience that is important to you, then that's great. We tack that into our criteria by which we make decisions, but it is not rigid. And it is not, you know, I must accept every invitation to play like, that's just not how values get translated out into our lives.

  KC 39:18

  I also think like the most powerful advice I ever got was like, it's not your job to be the parent that you needed growing up. It's your job to be the parent your kids need. And you know, I find that there's this interesting phrase where people say protect your piece, and it makes it seem like life is coming at you and all you have to do is hold the line and my experience as a mom who is neurodivergent who hit burnout who had to Mother through the pandemic with a newborn my experience now for where I am, is that like I there was no peace to protect. Like I have to voraciously, intensely unapologetically claim my peace

  Erica Djossa 39:58

  pursue it see can't protect it. Yeah.

  KC 40:01

  And that means requiring that the other people in my family compromise, and that it's not just me compromising, and I'm not asking anyone to do anything that hurts them or damages them, but like there's a big difference between something that damages and something that is uncomfortable, you know, and like, Yeah, I'm gonna require that my kids know how to play independently and that they know that their mom's not the playmate mom, and I'm going to use all the energy that that gives me to be the best kind of caregiving mom that I can be and I'm going to you know, require that my dog is trained in such a way that it knows how to do nothing in the house and it gives my kids space and it's not a super high maintenance animal because that's what I need and I think it makes people very uncomfortable to watch a mother do that

  Erica Djossa 40:56

  well, and I think that how we do that like is sort of assumed or deducted like oh you're so mean you're so whatever I turn down and say no to more play invitations and I say yes to and it's I really would love to play with you right now. Mommy has to make lunches for school but we're gonna get our time to play X like I am the we have structure you know when you can expect time with mommy again type of Mom You know what I mean? Like you can have it at bedtime you know, over the weekend the kids are always like okay, what's on the like, what are we doing? Are we making slime? Are we coloring are we work what's going on this weekend, so they know when they will get time with me next and what that will look like and we collaboratively discuss what that will look like and in the in between they know that I also multifaceted person that has a book coming out in a company to run and a relationship and three siblings to try to you know, give attention to we've got hockey, like all of the things and so there's something here about how not all noes are equal either like your traumatic no or your mom who was checked out who didn't play with you or your mom who was at capacity is struggling with mental health. And you know, you felt neglected is not the same as a honey, I would love to play with you right now. But Mommy has to make lunches so you've got food in your tummy at school, those things are not equal, you know. And so how we set boundaries and how we have these conversations to bring structure in matters. And it's so freakin healthy for our families and our kids to do this.

  KC 42:29

  And I feel like that same with touch. Like a lot of moms, we struggle with being touched out, like getting more comfortable with when you know the question like, can I sit in your lap being? No, no thanks. Just a warm like No thanks, not now. So that when they do crawl in my lap, it's not just okay, they can be on my lap, it's you can be my lap. And I'm going to put down what's in my hand, and I'm going to sneak my little arms around you and I'm going to give you kisses. I'm going to lean back and I'm going to tickle you and tease you or I'm going to put down what I have while you're in my lap. And let's read a book together. Like that's what people don't get. It's it's like it's a balance. It's an ongoing experiment, right? Because as soon as you think you've nailed it, your kids get older and they have different needs. But it's like this ongoing experience of how much space do I need to claim for myself in order to show up as the best mom that I can be? And I think the part that's been so like tender for me is the realization that like, I might have to claim more space for myself than other moms. And that sometimes makes me sad. And some of that might be personality. I think some of that is trauma. I think some of that is still recovering from burnout two years later. But again, that's when I go back to my choices like what are my realistic choices? Because push through and try to be the best mom, someone else can be I know is not a choice, right? I know what that leads to. And so yes, you have to deal with all the feelings of Oh, are they getting? Do I say no, too much? Are they going to be sad? Are they going to insist what they're going to talk about on the therapy? Like, that's the thing about being a therapist, right? You're always like, is this gonna be what they talk about. But the reality is, is that like I have real human limitations, and they are different than what I thought they would be when I dreamed about being a mom. And they might be different a year from now. But right now, like being excited when my kids come home, and you know, paying 100% attention and asking them about their day and making a snack together and sitting outside and eating that snack together. And then having an expectation like a warm, competent expectation that now you go run and play while I watch you play on your play house or whatever. And I'll stop what I'm doing when you want to direct my attention to something cool. But you know, we'll do that for a while and then we'll head inside and we'll sit and do something together. And then I'll probably ask you to go play in your playroom and you'll run off and play and I'll sit and do what I need to do and then we'll come back together for a bedtime or a bath time and then you'll get 100% of me for that bedtime routine that you know. Yeah, I mean, could I flip a switch and be a mom that could do more? Like I guess if I had that magic I would but I just I don't

  Erica Djossa 44:56

  and it's real life like I'm also neurodivergent and it is ADHD and I was like 34, a couple of years ago. I also struggle with chronic migraines that we've been trying to troubleshoot, like chronic pain stuff. So my oldest will be like, Mommy, why are you always the one that gets sick and daddy doesn't get sick. And like he makes these like comments sometimes, right? Because there is just a different capacity that I can't push myself to or like routines that I have to try and keep to be proactive, and that it doesn't allow me to maybe show up the way that I would want to show up sometimes that we have these different expectations for how maybe we hoped or thought motherhood would be. And when it's not that the gap the size of the gap between that expectation and that reality really, you know, can create a lot of distress. But the thing when it comes back to the healthy attachment that we were talking about is really your child just wants to know when they're gonna get you to themselves next, and that they will get you to themselves tonight, and then they'll get you again tomorrow, and they'll get you again, the next day doesn't have to be right now in this very moment, you're juggling a billion things and you or I feel, you know, this can be a pain point for me, I have work insane hours in the day, the kids come home, I let them have tablet with their dinner because I need to decompress my brain before I can be a functioning human for my day. Because I work from home and their schools two minutes away, there's no decompress time in the in between there. And then that's a reset. And then we all kind of come alive again and do our evening routine. But then knowing there's something about this reliability, security, dependability, safety, I can't do it right now. But you know, we're going to do it later and building it into the routine starts to soften those nose over time to the point that my kids know and sort of expect what that routine looks like now, like it's not even something that really has to be vocalized anymore, which is

  KC 46:43

  really what I meant when I say I just said no for years, and they stopped asking exactly.

  And people are like you which people

  are like that you broke them. You broke them. And I'm like, No, they just, they're okay. And even if it hurts their feelings sometimes like, believe it or not like getting your feelings hurt by your parent is an important part of childhood. Like there's a difference between hurting and damaging. And, you know, it's wild, especially like the amount of comments that I got about like, my mom didn't play with me and I was traumatized. You know how many I got that said my dad didn't play with me. And I was traumatized.

  Erica Djossa 47:13

  I know. I know. That was one of my questions here. Yeah, like when

  KC 47:18

  we feel those wounds. It's like so one of my favorite podcasts is celebrity memoir book club. And they read celebrity memoirs, and then talk about it. And one of the things that they have observed and all the ones that they read is that people get really angry with their mom for like, whatever the mom didn't do, right? So it's valid a lot of the times like their mom did shitty horrible things. But they don't have that same anger for a dad. That wasn't present enough. And it's interesting, right? Because it's like, Dad, even if dad didn't show up enough dad didn't shoulder enough dad didn't do enough. Like, you have to be there enough to actually fuck up to create like that. And so unless it was a dad that like completely abandon, and there's like this abandonment wound, it's like, you can operate this space as a father Where You Are there enough to like check society's dad boxes, but not there enough to ever deal with feeling overwhelmed, over touched not knowing what to do burnt out, like so there's this weird like, because it was mom who heard us having to look at Ooh, but where was dad's play in that? And how different would mom have been if she had had a partner that could have shouldered some of that mother lode? Right? Yeah,

  Erica Djossa 48:32

  cuz I'm hearing about these like, bids for play and all these interruptions, and I'm like, there are two parents, and well, maybe there aren't. But in homes where there are, you know, my kids will leave her home on the weekend for the holiday. And the amount of times I heard mom in a two hour span of time, I'm like, I don't think I've heard dad yet. I think Daddy looks really comfy over there on the couch, maybe he wants to wrestle and cuddle like you know, and just trying to shift some of that ownership. And that's another part of this, when we free ourselves of these expectations. This is like really the crux of what my book gets that then we can actually give ownership to our partner in a different way and expect them to carry those pieces because I am not the sole responsible parent in this home to nurture play, to nurture and foster their emotional well being to field every freaking question that comes throughout the day, you know, but when we feel that the has to be so well you reinforce this and we hold on to it and it just it becomes a beast unto itself. Right? And it can really, really take over that. Yeah, well the

  KC 49:37

  last thing I want to say is for like, you know, when you were talking about migraines, and I actually developed chronic fatigue after my second and one of the things that I think about a lot is that people every day there are children and grownups with healthy attachments to their Disabled Parents. Hmm. Right like you can have a healthy attachment to a disabled parent that is not able to do it. What your minds view of parenting should look like and parenting? I think I would say motherhood is a mass disabling event. That's not I'm not being facetious like the amount of women who develop disabilities as a result of pregnancy and birth and child rearing is not something we talk about enough. But I think it helps me to remember that like, it soothes that voice that's like, if you make one wrong move, if you can't be everything to everybody, you know, you you can't lean into your personality, you got to do it the way that like whatever Suzy homemaker you're looking at, does it? It's like, that's not real life.

  Erica Djossa 50:33

  And like, what expectations like what makes us think that these are our kids expectations of us? Like, these are the stories we're telling ourselves, they're just asking, they will ask for everything, they will ask you to ship them to the moon, like they will ask for anything under the sun that they could possibly have. And that doesn't mean that this is now an expectation that we have to try to adhere to like what stories

  KC 50:54

  that's that confident knows part. Like when I'm saying anxious, knows, I'm telling them? Oh, this is something I should have said yes to, but I'm not gonna say it. And then they get this they have feelings about and it's like, yeah, they don't know,

  Erica Djossa 51:06

  right? I'm just telling myself a story about oh, they're gonna think that I'm the most awful because I turned down this pretend play session. No, like, they will ask for chocolate in the middle of the night, they will ask to go to Disneyland every week. Like they will ask for all of the things because they ask for things. They test boundaries. And this is how they learn. And this is what they do. And so I think also fact checking our stories like our we teach our children what motherhood should be and look like through our interactions with them. And so their expectations are largely formed by our expectations and how we show up and the boundaries and things that we set in our home. Right. So checking those stories that we tell ourselves that this is going to be some catastrophic, lifelong event and unpacking that and why we think that

  KC 51:55

  Erica, thank you so much for this conversation. It was so well timed, and I really appreciate it and it I think even brought some healing to me to have this conversation. And can you tell people where they can find you where they can get the book, all the good things about you?

  Erica Djossa 52:08

  Yeah, so I'm at Manuel on Instagram all.com on while podcast and that is a like a wraparound maternal mental health platform that helps support your transition to motherhood, all things emotional well being and support and the book is releasing the motherlode and it's all about these expectations and myths and beliefs that we've been talking about today that are so ingrained in us and our patterns and how we try to show up as good mums and motherhood and it's really debunking these assumptions and allowing you to build your own criteria for what is important to you and motherhood and that's really seeing the mother lode and it's anywhere anywhere books are sold Amazon the book website is Erica jossa DJO ssa.com lots of free companion things to pair with it as well. Thank

  KC 52:55

  you Erica so much

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

I recently came across the content of Dr. Andrew Bauman, a licensed mental health counselor whose mission is to provide high-quality experiential, narrative-based psychotherapy from a Christian worldview. His writings display eye-opening perspectives on religion and relationships that we aren’t used to hearing from a male Christian leader. I’m joined by Dr. Andrew to discuss how the church gaslights women and much more. Join us!

Show Highlights:

●      Dr. Andrew’s path from Southern Baptist Church pastor to therapist as he deconstructed his faith and faced stark realizations

●      The big, red-flag problems in what some churches teach and practice about women, leadership, sexism, and abuse

●      The facts about sexism and abuse experienced by women in the church

●      “How we are in our sexuality is how we are in our spirituality.”

●      Many churches demonstrate benevolent or ambivalent sexism.

●      Thoughts and feelings about I Timothy 2:11-12 being weaponized against women

●      Dr. Andrew’s thoughts on how the church weaponizes forgiveness

●      The correlation between pornography and violence against women

●      The biblical account of Jesus and the woman at the well—and how He broke decades of prejudices and sexism in His own culture

●      Other examples in scripture of how Jesus valued women—and how the church “gets it wrong” so often

●      Understanding sexuality and consent

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dr. Andrew Bauman: Website/Blog/Resources, The Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health & Trauma

Recommended Reading: books by Natalie Hoffman, Sarah McDugal, and Sheila Gregoire

 Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello you Sentient ball of stardust . Welcome back to struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis. And today we are going to talk about when the church gaslights, women, I'm here with Dr. Andrew Bowman, Andrew, I came across your stuff. The other day, as I was sort of looking at things, I'm currently writing a book about relationships for myself, I guess I would consider myself a deconstructed Christian. And here's what kind of hit me as very different than the things that I've seen before. Like, I'm just kind of scrolling through your page about some blog posts. And the first thing that comes up is on weaponizing forgiveness. And I had literally just written a chapter about this. So I was like, Oh, interesting. And then, of course, the next thing is marriage, no matter what is idolatry, and then a picture of equality, and then abuse in the Protestant church and practicing full consent. And I mean, just kind of odd, you know, having boundaries against spiritual manipulation. And these are, to me very refreshing things to hear. But I think you would admit, it's not something we are used to hearing from someone who is a self proclaimed Christian, especially a male Christian leader.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 1:17

  Yes, no doubt, no doubt, yeah, I've kind of came at this conversation a little differently. I was a pastor before I was a therapist. And so I was on the other side, I was, in a sense, on the other team, part of the Southern Baptist Church are the boys club. And we kind of held the keys to the kingdom, right, I held the power, and I liked it. It felt good until I began my studies as a therapist and began to deconstruct my own faith until I began to deconstruct scripture more fully, and then realizing my own power, my own depravity, my own darkness, and then even undoing my own kind of sexuality in my own history, of kind of pornography, objectification of women, and then really lysing patriarchy, and how much my theology had been intertwined with subjugation of women. And just like, Oh, my, I've got a lot of work to do, I've got a lot of things I need to untangle, right, because who we are sexually is who we are spiritually, and vice versa. And so I had a lot of work to do. So that's kind of what I've been doing the last 20 years of my life kind of untangling all this, and then realizing, wow, like, I've done a lot of harm. I don't want to be an abuser of women, too. I want to be an advocate of women. So I came to this conversation kind of differently than most. But now I feel like yeah, it is my calling is what I do as a therapist, working with kind of at the intersection of abuse and unwanted sexual behaviors and all those forms, and currently finishing up a book called Safe church, how to guard against sexism and abuse, Christian communities. Well,

  KC 3:02

  that's really powerful. And I just, I have so many thoughts that kind of hit me all at once, you know, you say, you know, you came to it differently. But it seems so similar to some of my experience. I mean, I came to the church, I got sober when I was 16. So I didn't grow up a believer at all, I had this kind of intense spiritual experience when I was 16, while I was institutionalized, and I got sober after that, and then fell into a church and converted to Christianity. And that church was very heavy on the idea that, you know, Wives, submit to your husbands and things like that, and women shouldn't lead and all this, which was a weird position to be in with a woman of my personality, because I had done nothing but lead everywhere I went as a because that's my personality. That's just what always happened. And I went to seminary. And people underestimate how radicalizing conservative Seminary is because, you know, you get there and you expect these people to be like, yes, it says this, maybe like now we don't really know. Yep, no, it probably doesn't say that. And you have people at the church level that will take phrases or things like you know, okay, Wives, submit to your husbands. And they'll kind of, they'll explain it in a way where they'll explain away all the problematic parts of it. They'll be like, no, no, no, what Paul really meant is this. And look, see the Greek word for submit is this. And we can also see this over here is actually what it is, and they'll totally, like, redefine the word into something that seems more godly. And I was like, yes. Okay, that makes sense. I love it. Right? And then I get to seminary to like a real biblical scholar, who will be like, Nah, man, that's not what he meant. He for sure meant obey. He for sure meant you were property and you'll be like, Wait, so what does that mean? And like, and some of the more honest scholars would just like look at me with like, fucking No, dude. I don't know. I don't know what we do with that. And so it was a weird to come back to church and be like, Hey, guys, that's not what this means. And then also to see the fruits of that belief like I saw many families and couples go into counseling where the woman was just battered. I don't mean from her husband, I mean by the church tried to do church discipline, and she comes out wounded and leaves the church completely because they mistreated her. And they and I remember looking at this and being like, I can't help but think that, to be fair, the church that I would come out constantly and apologize, like the church I went to, I think, was trying to do the right thing. And then they would recognize they had been a little too rough in the handling. They hadn't done it right. And they come out apologize. And I remember just thinking like, you know, guys, like at what point are you going to realize that this may not keep happening over and over? If you were to put women in positions of leadership? Representation?

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 5:44

  Yes, no doubt, no doubt. So part of my studies for the last three years was I did a questionnaire of over 2800 women who worked in the church and their experience of sexism and abuse. And so we have now we have some hard data of what their experience is sexism abuse. And what I found was over 82% of women experienced some form of abuse, sexism or abuse in their church experience. 62% would not be surprised if they heard a sexist joke from the pulpit. Right? So this is I mean, this is we've got we've got a lot of those little stats now of like, this is rampid. Right. The stories that I heard from the in depth interviews that I did, are horrific, horrific, horrific. I mean, just nauseating stories of what these women experienced the comments on their bodies, right, the comments on basically just the sexualization of their bodies, blaming them, right for what they're wearing, versus the pastors dealing with their own sexuality, their own arousal structures, right, just blaming the women for their own arousal. These stories are everywhere. It is truly just absurd how women have been gaslighted blamed when this I truly believe this is a male issue, right? 90% of churches are led by men over 90%. And I

  KC 7:16

  think even the good ones, like I always tell people that, you know, I didn't go to a church that talked poorly about women from the pulpit, like they were doing all sorts of, you know, mental gymnastics to make these problematic thing, you know, to, okay, men need to be respectful, they need to be this, you need to be that. And so like, but I think that makes my stories important, because it's easy to say, oh, that's just the churches that are bad. That's just the churches that are abusive. And like, that's not that wasn't my experience, like my experience was like, I remember I had taken a trip to Guatemala City, because there was a partner church down there. And the pastor that was leading the, you know, the trip, he and I became friends. And we had really complementary personalities. We were joking all the time. We were friends, we really respect each other. I had, I think, more seminary experience than he did at that point, I did like five years of an M div, and then switched to a counseling degree. So I ended up being a therapist as well. And Guatemalan churches don't take the whole, like, women can't teach thing as seriously. And so they had asked me to put together a Bible study. I was living down there at the time. And I wrote this whole study this course on how to study the Bible. And he had come down on a trip, and he sat into one of my classes, and I asked him what he thought. And I'll never forget his response to me was, it was the material was so good. And your teaching is so great. And I just couldn't get past how uncomfortable I was being taught by a woman. And I asked him, Are you uncomfortable? Because you feel like you are doing something unbiblical, or are you uncomfortable, because it feels emasculating to be taught by a woman or something like that. And he was able to honestly say to me, like, No, it has nothing to do with with like, conviction. I just like it just feels weird and uncomfortable. And I don't like it. And I was like, oh, oh, I can never be actually respected in this environment.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 9:18

  Exactly. Exactly. And like your story is probably so many women's stories, and it sounds like you have been able to leave that behind and step into that. And yet so many women most likely have not had the strength that you had to leave that behind where you have now developed the platform and you've been able to speak and step into your glory and into your strength and yet so many women have had a battle for that to be seen to step into their goodness. And it's so sad. I mean, it's so

  KC 9:54

  you know what's interesting, though, is like I don't even think it was about me being strong. Like I will say this and this is like a weird thing to say, around this narrative, but like, when I married my husband, he was pretty devout, but he was not churched. He didn't like church, he didn't like any of that stuff. And he was really the one that gave me this picture of you can hold on to your faith, and walk away from this church nonsense, from the way this is being structured. And I think that that's has more to do with it than like strength because people don't have that lighthouse, people think that their choices are to leave the faith completely. Right, or shoot whole. And I think that's why it's so important that people like you exist, because, yes, there are lots of really great therapists out there that you can go to that will say to you and validate, like, I want to leave this faith or like this faith is toxic, and this, that and the other. And I'm not even saying that that's not true. And I think that people who deconstruct to the point of leaving the faith completely are valid. And there are people who don't want to leave the faith completely. And I think it's important that people stay in the faith so that they have somewhere to go holy.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 11:08

  Well, I remember when I was working at the church, and my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, came to the church to meet my pastor, buddies, and my wife was in seminary, at the time very strong, articulate woman, she comes meet everybody. And I remember my pastor buddy says, well, Andrew, don't you want more of like, you know, help me be somebody who will support your ministry, you know, your dreams? And I was like, huh, like, What? What? Why do I have to somehow like, why does she have to be less? Why do I have to be that insecure, I wanted an equal. I wanted a partner who will inspire me, right, and my wife, as her PhDs, written multiple books. And like, that's what I wanted, because that's what I wanted in my life, too. And I have that as well. Right? And so and we're both running very fast. So we both have a lot of like, that I wanted to be inspired by my partner, right? I didn't like I

  KC 12:02

  mean, that person said the quiet part out loud, didn't they? Because they'll say all day long know that men and women are equal. It's just a different role. But you are so right. I literally remember asking one time I was in a conservative seminary, there was a guy that I liked, just like as a friend. And I remember asking him, Hey, why is it that y'all never date? seminary students, you never date the female seminary students like you guys. I was like, I don't mean to be rude. But like, it seems like you guys tend to only date like, very under educated church girls. And he was like, well, think of it this way. This conversation will be etched into my brain forever. Andrew, if you play football for a living, and you just play football all day, you leave it out on the field, you don't really want to come home and play more football, you know what I mean? And I was like, Oh, you genuinely like, don't want a smart woman. Like, he was trying to say that, like, you know, I'm doing this intellectually rigorous, you know, thinking in theology, and then at another in the day, and like, I don't want to do that. I want that in a partner, which was like so, so hard for me because like, no matter what, like I am extroverted, I am a theater major. I have ADHD, like I was never going to be less intelligent, less out loud, less of a strong personality. And I love to look back on that now because my husband now is like Mensa level, freakish, Goodwill Hunting smart. Like so much smarter than any guy I've ever met. in seminary. We're talking like, graduate. first in his class from the top 50. In law school smart, like the smartest man I've ever met, like, find quadratic equations scribbled on napkins, smart, but like you. He wanted that he wanted a person that was equal to him. He wanted a person that could challenge him that he could admire. He didn't want to just be admired totally.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 14:01

  And I knew my darkness, meaning like, I have a very strong personality, right. And I know I can, in a sense, dominate, I can power over like, that's part of my darkness. I don't want to do that. I don't want to abuse my strength or abuse my power. I want someone who can take me on, because I have propensity to dominate or power over and I don't want to do that. So I want another strong personality that I know I won't be able to do that. Like if we know our darkness if we know who we are. In a sense, we can know like, Yes, this is what I need in my life. Because this I don't want to I want to continue to stay well, I need a good partner. I need a partner.

  KC 14:41

  I want to go back to something you said earlier that I kind of bookmarked is you. You said something to the effect of how we are in our sexuality is how we are in our spirituality. What was that phrase?

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 14:52

  Yeah, just basically, you know, we can't split ourselves. Basically, I feel like who we are sexually represents who we are in every area of life who we are spiritually, right. We can't be. We can't say, oh, I'm super healthy emotionally and then we're super unhealthy spiritually or I'm super spiritually healthy. And then you're super emotionally unhealthy. They all tie together, they all we can't just split, we try to, you know, somehow you have a secret sexual life and then we're you know this really good Christian like, No, we are a human we are one. We can't just split off,

  KC 15:29

  because the reason I bookmarked it is because I felt like you could hear it either way. Like it sounded like it could be similar to what people have heard where, where it's like, Hey, your sexuality is the most important thing about you, and it's gonna Damn you to hell and like, you cannot be a Christian if you don't have a certain sexuality, but I didn't think you meant it that way. But I did want to clarify, because I could hear somebody hearing it that way. Because what but what I hear you saying is you cannot mask your derision of half of the people of God under this like convenient theological structure, and think that's not going to affect your emotional spiritual health. Exactly.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 16:09

  Yes, well set exactly. No, I mean, the men that I work with who have hidden many of them have hidden sexual lives are cheating on their partners are having these extramarital affairs, and they're, you know, going into acting like they're great Christian guys. And, you know, they have these separate lives in their thinking that there's somehow these good guys, you know, and it's like, no, like you are what you hide your secrets do define who you are in your character. And so what does it mean to have full integrity is to be fully integrated? And so that's kind of what I mean in that. I mean, I did want to revisit what you're talking about around the sexism in the church, you know, what you're describing as hostile sexism? I think it's important. Basically, most churches do not demonstrate the hostile form of sexism and which is basically this blatant Am I remember this pastor in 2001, he made some comment about it was in the news, but some Melania Trump, he said something about, you know, every woman can't be a big trophy wife like Melania Trump, he said, it's from the pulpit. Anyway, some gross thing, like that's like just straight up hostile sexism, right? That's a debt. Most churches aren't going to do that. Right. And so don't just dismiss Oh, my church doesn't say that. So they're not sexist. Most many, many churches, I'm not going to say most, but they demonstrate a benevolent sexism or an ambivalent sexist. So there's a difference, or it's much more passive, which makes it much more difficult to for women to see or men to see, because it's not well, though, they're not basically, you know, actively hostile towards women. And so it's just important to define what that is. But if you're if women are not in leadership, or they're defining certain scriptures in a certain way that's blatantly sexist. And so there are a few problem scriptures that outright they seem quite sexist, outright. And I just wanted to address a few of those if you feel like that would be helpful to your audience, a couple of kind of the most problematic scriptures. So what kind of what I would like to do, if it would be helpful for you is to kind of as an emotional exercise, I just want to read a couple of these scriptures. And I just want you to kind of take a few deep breaths and then just we'll check in with your body. And I'd like just to see what you feel emotionally in your body physically, just from feeling these scriptures. Okay, take a few deep breaths in through your nose out through your mouth. We'll start with a classic one First Timothy 211 through 12 A woman is to learn quietly with full submission, I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man instead, she is to remain quiet. Take a deep breath, breathe out what has come up for you

  KC 19:01

  you what feelings or thoughts start with feelings

  betrayal but I think that's the biggest one and sadness.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 19:18

  If you read that, just in that context, right that I mean, that can be so weaponized, right? What do you feel like betrays you with that verse.

  KC 19:30

  I think one of the things that I always struggled with before I kind of found my space is that there is a cultural prescription from first century Judaism and before that shows up in the Scriptures about what makes a woman a worthy person, and it's always connected to her femininity, and her femininity is always narrowly described. I act as being submissive and quiet, and meek and gentle. And I have never naturally been any of those

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 20:10

  things. Which means and true, then somehow you had missed the mark on you. Yeah, being an authentic woman or something.

  KC 20:17

  Yeah. And it's one of those. It's like this deep shame that a man is wrong by what he does. But a woman is wrong by what she is. And I'm fundamentally undesirable as a woman. And so if you connect that to the large emphasis on marriage, and how we all need to be getting married, and that's like the most the best thing you could do, you know, okay, well, who's gonna want me if I'm not those things, and many of them didn't, because I wasn't those things. And so there's this weird disconnect of, okay, like, I got sober sitting on a bench in Oklahoma, staring out at the sunset, feeling as though even though I didn't believe in God, I was being visited by the presence of God. Like, that's what won me over was this, like tenderness? And this realization of, I feel so unworthy. And that's okay. Not even like, No, you're good enough. It's like, oh, mean, maybe you aren't, but you're so loved. And that love will make you feel enough. And it'll be okay to be not perfect. And it'll be okay to be not broken. And it'll be okay to be not, you know, perfect, like everybody else, or like everybody else. And so this felt experience of what it felt like to encounter God on my own terms, and in my own way, was radically different than the way that I encountered those scriptures that I encountered the men using those scriptures, to say, actually, the core of who you are, is undesirable. And

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 21:49

  there's, again, so much pain and grief in that for in your journey, I just feel the grief, and so glad that's not where you landed, like, that's not the end of the story. And

  KC 22:00

  like some of it, I feel this sort of like, you know, now that I have left the church, and, you know, I, it's funny, I became a stay at home mom, and just wanted to stay at home with my babies. And I ended up just starting a little tic tock channel and talking. And then all of a sudden, the TIC tock channel blew up, and I was talking about mental health. And then I wrote a book. And then I got a book deal with another, I did a TED talk. And then I did every time I walk on stage, I think back to my church, and I think you could have had this, I could have been doing this for you. But you didn't want it. There was no place for me to go. There was no place for me to go. And so now I'm doing it out here. Like there was no life in which I wasn't going to be on a stage. And I don't mean that egotistical. There was no life in which I wasn't going to have a loud voice and a strong leadership and an intelligence that wanted to speak to people, but you didn't want it.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 22:52

  And what Pastor What's your pastor buddy felt right of being uncomfortable is because you were so damn good, is because you were so skilled. And he was like, blown away and felt so insecure, most likely.

  KC 23:07

  And it's weird to feel like you've had like, people laugh all the time, I made a tech talk recently where I talked about how I pick and choose which parts of the Bible I believe are accurate. And everyone was like, Well, you can't do that. And I was like, no, no, what you need to understand is that everyone does the most like sola scriptura. We only go by the tax like they're doing it to like anyone who tells you that Paul didn't mean submit, to be obey is lying. Anyone that tells you that rape is not seen in the Old Testament as a property crime against a man is being disingenuous, that is what they that is what the author's meant. And so like we're all picking and choosing, I'm just going to choose to pick and choose by a different metric. And it's weird to have this like so anyways, but so people will always be like, so then why do you believe and like, then if you can admit how problematic the religion is, why do you still believe in a Christian God? And every time I answer, because I met him on a bench once I can no more make myself disbelieve in him, then, you know, probably somebody listening could make themselves believe.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 24:10

  Yes, it's well said. Well, sir, I just wanted to thank you for sharing that. I wanted to go back to the first Timothy passage that's so triggering has been used to weaponize so much. And just a few things I wanted to add there, which became part of the translation that is so screwed up that we've added the word quietly in that passage. Again, my Greek is not good has shuaa it actually doesn't mean silence. It means stillness. Do you see how different a peacefulness a stillness rather than silence, women should learn in still like to be still be still not silence, not silencing women for all time, but we should learn in stillness, the word authoritative mean authority, authority and is what the word means of solution. Translation Greek word, the origin of the word relates to abusing one's power or misusing authority. This is the only time this word was used in the Bible in relation to unique position that Paul was addressing directly in the letter to Timothy, basically, as you go on, and you see some of the early church, some of the contexts, a lot of scholars will say, a few women because the early church was going against the patriarchal culture, some of the women were so excited, they were finally being given a voice, they were going against the norm, that they were disrupting some of the early services, that there were a couple of women that were so pumped because they could finally have a voice. And they were being disruptive. And they were writing Paul was writing to that church. Hey, stop it, you two ladies that are so pumped that you can finally talk and be respected. And I love that version of that of like, Hey, you to women, like stop being so disruptive, go home, talk to your husbands about it, because you guys are equals, like, discuss it with them, versus silencing all women of all time to be quiet. Like I love that little shift of like, what if that is actually the intent of that original passage of just like, hey, you to women, and yet what we've taken it how it's been translated, I've like, all like, what if we actually have gotten it all wrong? But if we've got it all wrong, I love some of those unique scripture, just looking at scripture in a different way. And that Paul, though, yes, some of his things are a big, but like, I actually think some of the study that I've done in the early church women, the churches, I mean, if we just look at Jesus in the way Jesus engages women, it's so opposite of what the culture at that time does the women

  KC 26:49

  do you think? So? When I listened to that, and I've never looked into those words, it doesn't sound less sexist to me. Like, which is fine. And I think if I were to put that together with like, the other things that Paul says, even even when you can, like dial down the intensity a bit by like, understanding context, what I have found freeing is the idea that like, the idea that this man would, I mean, like your own story about how much unpacking you had to do from like, the cultural both inside and outside the church, like the cultural misogyny and the cultural patriarchy. Like we don't have any indication of Paul, we like doing that. Except around a few cases, you know, neither Greek nor do kind of thing neither man nor woman, like certainly within the equality before God. He does that.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 27:39

  And then, you know, other women, Juna Phoebe, calling them, co workers, you know, that sort of thing, basically fighting for equality. But yes, in other ways, he's calling them equals.

  KC 27:53

  Yeah, I just wonder like, is there not space for us to say, these words are important, they are important testimony. And there are probably ways in which culturally, we have progressed farther than Paul himself. Yep. And to be like, yeah, man, like that is what Paul said, here's the context. It's not quite what you think it is. But even so, what the hell does that have to do with you trying to shepherd the women in your church? Right?

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 28:19

  And could Paul have still been sexist? And could Paul still be awesome? Both can be true.

  KC 28:28

  So let me ask you about a few points that you have talked about before. And one is this idea of weaponizing forgiveness. Can you talk a bit about how forgiveness gets weaponized in church? Yeah,

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 28:40

  basically, it's so common, right? A wife will go to her pastor, and talk about an affair talk about the secret porn use talk about this. And the immediate response will be Have you forgiven him as somehow the deceptive sexuality, the line, the lack of integrity is not the issue. I'm not going to focus on the deception, or the lack of integrity. I'm going to focus on the forgiveness, I'm going to make it the woman's fault. Right? I'm gonna make it about what you're wearing. And make it rather than confronting the actual issue rather than confronting the man. Right? And I think there's a lot around that one Barna did a study 2014 That showed like 50% of pastors had some type of relationship with porn, which means they have some type of relationship with shame, most likely, because some most that's hidden. Right? So then what do they do instead of amid their own shame, they're going to project that onto women, right? Make it about modesty. Make it about other things, right? I'm not going to make it about my own shame and be honest with my own darkness, my own lies, my own lack of integrity. I'm not going to confront other men. I'm going to projected outward and blame women, I'm going to make women. I'm going to make women the issue. Right. So that's, you

  KC 30:05

  know, what's interesting about that, too, is that it doesn't even touch the idea that the vast majority of pornography that's put out specifically is misogynist, like, the amount of pornography that is very heavy towards infantilizing the woman towards humiliating or degrading a woman. All the way down to one of the things that I noticed is like the noises that women make in like 85% of pornography that is directed towards men are indistinguishable, from sounds of pain, and discomfort, and like non consensus, like, I have noticed that where I'm like, I don't sound like that during sex. Yeah, like, you know what I mean? Like this sort of little girl. I don't like it. But oh, the baby, I do, like, even all the way down to the kind of grunting that's used, well, is specific to this, like little girl being violated. And that can't not shape your view of women.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 31:12

  zactly. Exactly. So it creates a pornographic mindset. It creates what I call a pornographic style of relating, and Dr. Anna bridges at Arkansas. But University of Arkansas did a study that showed they studied the over 300 most popular porn videos, and they showed it was like 85% of them showed violence against women. Right? Out of those 85% 90% of those videos showed women either enjoying the violence, or being passive, being not like either, you know, either enjoying it or being complacent about the violence. Right. So what is that teaching us? Right? And then so back to the church, then you have church and pastors, some engaging in that, right. So of course, that's going to impact how they engage femininity, how they engage masculinity, how they talk about domestic violence, right? It's like all going to so you're not you're not hearing lots of sermons about domestic violence. And yet, one out of three women experience some type of sexual violence, one out of four women experience some type of domestic violence, right? And so but if it's coming from a male lens, while I'm not experiencing domestic violence, well, I've not experienced sexual violence at that rate. So I'm not going to talk about it. Right. And when you don't have the representation, when you don't have women in leadership, right. And so I remember one of the women from my study who was sexually abused by a church leader, you know, she went, as she was a teenager, she went to the church leadership to, you know, say, what happened, and the sexual abuse? And the pastor said, Well, you know, why did you seduce him? You know, you're 18, he's, you know, married and 40. But why did you have sex with him? You know, calling it six, it was raid, right? It was, what we have to name it, what it actually is, you know, have to begin to, that's why I'm so passionate about this work. So passionate about actually beginning to tear down some of these systems, calling it for what it is, and it's hard as a man, I have to do my own work. First, I have to do my own deconstruction around my own sexuality, my own issues, before I'm actually going to see it clearly. Elsewhere, I have to realize that I am part of the problem, right? I'm like, I objectify women, I have to clean that up inside of me my own pornographic mindset, like I have to do that work first before I'm actually going to have integrity and to work moving forward.

  KC 33:52

  Well, and it's the interesting part to me is that if you claim to follow Jesus, one of the most striking things about the story of Jesus is the inversion of the power dynamic between God and quote, unquote, God's subjects, right? And coming and being a servant and coming in washing feet and coming and saying, I'm not above you. And I feel like that is like the core from which all of this starts is that men can't see the power dynamic that they're operating in, and even men who are trying to be good and they're trying to be godly and they're trying to like I've known men to genuinely look at the Scripture and go okay, it says that it's wrong that he did this, but it also says that we have to forgive so like we have to be exactly what the Scriptures say like we have to we have to be and there's this sense of like, we're so obsessed with being quote unquote, biblically accurate, that if there was one woman in the room to just go, Can y'all just zoom the Fuck out for a minute. Like, you don't even see what you don't see, you don't see that like, even if it's in black and white, the application of that, in the context of a power dynamic changes what you should be saying and doing to people, which to me, is so brilliantly illustrated in the picture of Jesus. I mean, the amount of times, you know, like, my favorite story, of course, and whether you know, when it got added is debatable, but is the woman at the well, right? Jesus shows up, and everyone's got their stones, and it's like, well, she's an adulterer. And like, the text says, the Scripture says to stone her, and I love that, like, his response isn't like, no, no, that's not what it says. Or like, no, no, you've misinterpreted it. His response is like, yeah, that's what it says. And if you think following that text right now is the godly thing to do. Once you stone yourself idiots. I'm like, that seems so clear to me. Like why do you not feel that that would be the appropriate way to approach any text when it comes to looking at a situation and using your God given common sense? To go? How do we handle this?

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 36:09

  Yeah, that story, it's um, and that, to me, that story partly makes me just continue to be a Christian. I mean, that story, to me just blows my mind. I love that story, breaking decades of prejudices and sexism in his own culture. Literally, real quick, I want to just read this quote about that story. This is from Catholic priest and blogger Angela Meyer, the rabbinic warning against contact with a woman of any kind was extreme. If speaking with a woman can cast one into hell, how much more drinking from the same cup during a woman's period, any ritual objects she touches becomes impure, and those she encounters will also become unpure. Basically, saying that, because even Jesus literally shared spirit, because he asked for a drink, like even sharing spirit with this woman. So not only did he engage, you know, from a Samaritan woman, literally shared spirit with her. I mean, how wild is that? Yeah, the

  KC 37:07

  other one that I love is the Martha and Mary story where Jesus is teaching. And Mary is sitting at his feet to learn, which is like where disciples sit to learn from a master, right, and Martha is running around fulfilling her feminine duty, like she is fulfilling her culturally prescribed religiously prescribed gender role. She's getting the food ready, she's getting the drink. She's getting this, just getting that and Jesus stops her. So she gets onto her sister, right? Like, get up, like, I am doing this all by myself, like you're sitting there and listening. Like, we gotta get snacks or whatever, right? And Jesus's response is like, no, no, no. She's doing the better thing, which is so countercultural. Oh, much? So? Yes, um, that she is allowed to be there that she's allowed to listen, that she's allowed to learn that she's allowed to do those things, and she doesn't have to get up and get snacks for the men.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 37:57

  Totally Jesus's example, the woman in the alabaster jar, the Canaanite woman, Mary Magdalene. I mean, all of these examples of the way Jesus valued women to me sets an example of how us as a church, right? I mean, literally, who does Jesus show up to first? Yeah,

  KC 38:15

  like the first women, the first people to notice that he's risen from the grave as women and the women go and tell the rest of them. And if you don't know that, at the time, a woman could not be a witness in court, because they're not deemed as reliable witnesses. That story isn't quite as astounding as it is. I mean, these are the reasons that I stay like outside the fact I could probably make myself unbelief if I wanted to, but like, those are the reasons I stay. Those are the reasons I claim, like those are the parts of sacredness that like my heart beats and says, Yes, that's true. Yes, that's true.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 38:47

  And it's like, we can't escape Jesus's value of women. And again, where he was at culturally, did not value women. In that way.

  KC 38:57

  Let me ask you this. One of the other things that you talk about is consent. And that is different than I've seen. Pastors talk about and even, even God help us Christian counselors, the amount of Christian men counselors that will approach the sex topic with couples with well, you know, men need sex and like you need to give up yourself and Scripture says, and I'm curious, like, what your approach with couples is when it comes to that, yeah,

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 39:29

  healthy sex. And again, when I'm speaking of sex, I'll speak to directly towards intercourse whereas for me Sex is a much broader category than just intercourse, but we'll talk specifically towards intercourse. That should be an overflow of the connectedness, of emotionality, emotional intimacy, of connectedness, versus using sex as a way to connect intimately. Right so you see, so many people say, Well, we're so disconnected. Let's have sex. Well, no should be the The opposite. Let's intimately connect. And then we'll see if that leads to more, you know, physical connection right versus no more. You know, you hear this excusable men connect sexually No, we don't. We connect emotionally as well, we just are unpracticed, right. And so we can't use that as an excuse. We don't need sex, we don't sorry, you want it. And you actually use it as a way to escape, doing the hard work of emotional labor. And you just use it as a way, a cheap form of connection, right, just kind of getting off rather than actually connecting. So what we do in our men's work and our retreats, like we'll, you know, literally start on the first day, and we'll put men six inches face to face. Right. And so we'll start there, and we do what's called sentence stems. So I see in your eyes, and then they answer the question, I see fear, I see uncomfortableness. I see, you know, whatever, right. And we do that. And over the course of the weekend, you know, my deepest shame is we practice eye contact, we practice these intense, quick sentences of getting quickly deep into and by the end of the retreat, you know, we're doing it for forever, eye contact, and we're very comfortable with intimacy and connection, and then realizing, Oh, I've been so terrified of just being still with myself. I've just been so terrified of sitting and looking at my partner's eyes. But at the end of the retreats, men are so hungry for genuine intimacy, they no longer hunger for the false thing. They can't wait to get home and be with their partners, and just like be with them, and pursue them. And not just sexually, right, we've we've somehow replaced it and made this kind of cheap replacement of an orgasm as somehow the epitome of connection when really men are craving deep intimacy, and we're really just unpracticed but I truly believe men are so much, you know, we'd like to treat them as little cavemen rather than like, no, actually. There's no difference between men and women. As far as our craving. We just I truly believe we're unpracticed that yeah,

  KC 42:16

  they get told that they're going to be too gay if they're emotionally intimate.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 42:21

  Yeah, the weaponizing of the word gay is something you know, I mean, growing up, that was like the biggest, you know, in the early 90s. That was like the biggest curse. Oh, you're gay. And so what are we learned? Whenever we face men, the men it's it's about competition, right? It's about dukes up rather than like, no, actually, I want to connect. I'm hungry for connection. I'm lonely. I'm craving connection.

  KC 42:41

  Yeah. And that's if you are a straight person, not to mention the layers of shame that if you are actually gay, and you hear it as an insult your whole life.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 42:51

  Exactly, exactly. And that doesn't change. If you are gay, you are craving connection. So

  KC 42:58

  Andrew, where would you send people? If someone's listening to this? And they're thinking, oh, goodness, I think maybe my church is gaslighting me or I'm worried that maybe I you know, I'm not getting good information about my relationships. But they are wanting to still hear something from a faith perspective. You know, where would you send them? Do you have some resources?

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 43:21

  Yeah, love Sheila Gregoire. Its work is great. Her work is fabulous, really research based. So follow her work. And let's see who else there's there's so many great people online now. Natalie Hoffman, Sarah McDougal, as far as abuse informed work, and

  KC 43:38

  your website is Andrew J.

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 43:41

  Yeah, my blog, Andrew J. Bowman, and our business is we run my wife and I run the Christian Counseling Center for sexual health and trauma. And you can find us at WWE dot Christian cc.org and I blog at Andrew J. bowman.com. Yeah,

  KC 43:54

  you've got some great resources on here. And we'll put those in the show notes as well so that people can find the way to get there. Well, Andrew, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate your time. Yeah,

  Dr. Andrew Bauman 44:06

  thank you for having me.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Joining me today is Sarah (pronounced SAH-rah) Casper, Consent Educator and the founder of Comprehensive Consent. We connected over a recent TikTok about sexual coercion, sexual assault, and consent, which, as you can imagine, prompted very strong reactions. There is a new social space around the whole idea of consent, even to the point that new terminology is being created, as with the term “enthusiastic consent.” With the overall goal of education and empowerment, Sarah and I tackle this very nuanced topic in today’s show. Join us!

Show Highlights: 

●      Consent is full of black, white, and LOTS of gray areas.

●      The truth: “Consent is not simple, and the same rules don’t apply across all contexts.”

●      Understanding the difference between spontaneous desire and responsive desire and the opt-in model vs. the opt-out model

●      Common questions Sarah is asked about people’s experiences

●      Everyone deserves care, all feelings are valid, and your feelings don’t have to be labeled.

●      Not all assault is sexual coercion, and not all sexual coercion is assault.

●      Sexual ethics is much more than consent.

●      Watch out for red flags in a partner wanting to “check all the boxes” for consent.

Resources and Links:

Connect with Sarah Casper and Comprehensive Consent: Website, Instagram, and TikTok

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I am your host, KC Davis. Welcome to the least most professional podcast in the world and consent. Am I right? It's so black and white, or is it? I'm going to talk about consent today. And I've brought on Sarah Casper, who is a consent educator. And she is the founder of comprehensive consent. And she and I crossed paths recently, because I had done a tick talk about sexual coercion. And we were talking about what is sexual coercion and what is sexual assault and is all coercion assault? And is, you know, this, that the other and it there were some very strong reactions online naturally, understandably. And so I ended up seeing some of saurez content we connected and I wanted to bring that conversation here, because I think you'll agree, sorry, it's a conversation that really needs to happen over a longer than 60 seconds. 100%. Yeah. So I want to start by just kind of hit that place of we're in kind of a new social space in terms of how we talk about consent. You know, it used to be that consent was, you know, can I do this to you checkbox? Yes, no. And now we've sort of moved into talking a little bit more about consent and how important consent is, there's this new term that floats around now called enthusiastic consent. And people say, Oh, that's what's important. What I thought was interesting, in this conversation, I had made this tick, talk about sexual coercion. And people who are not who are listening who are not familiar with the term, it's a term that you can see defined on a lot of major organizations, you can see it on government organizations, the, you know, national hotline for domestic violence and crisis and family violence. There are several other like large organizations that will give you a sort of a rundown a definition. And basically, it talks about pressure, force, threat intimidation, that somebody gives you to have sex, and it's a spectrum, right? So we can go all the way so far as I'll kill your family if you don't have sex with me, because it's basically in any kind of non physical force or pressure. But on the other end of it, we have more social pressure, like, Come on, baby, it's my birthday. Come on, please come on. And it sparked a really interesting conversation about what is consent? Because people said, well, you know, coercion is not consent. Coercion is not consent. And I didn't say this because I knew I could never explored enough in a tick tock, but I was like, I mean, sometimes it is, and that makes me cringe, because there's all these butts, butts, butts nuance, Nuance nuance. But let's so let's just start with this is consent, because this came up a lot in my comment section. Consent is black and white consent is black and white. So what would you say? Is consent, black and white?

  Sarah Casper 2:52

  No, easy? No, that's an easy now. And at the same time, that doesn't mean that sometimes it's not. There are some times when it's clear that a situation was not consensual. And also what is consent and what falls into the bucket of consent. And what what falls into the bucket of non consent is not always clear. You

  KC 3:11

  know, one of the things that I don't know how you like feel about this when you have this conversation, but one of the things that comes up for me is this fear of you know, if we talk about how sometimes a person might not be consenting, but the other person may not realize they're not consenting, or sometimes there's not consent, but you said yes. And this that the there's this fear of we all know, there are situations in which one party is intentionally coercing the other one, and they know that they are not gaining consent, or they're at least not they at least know they're not gaining enthusiastic consent, right. And none of us want to be the person that feels like we're giving liberty to someone to go, Well, I didn't know. I mean, just because you experienced it as assault doesn't mean I assaulted you, because there are obviously situations where 100% That person assaulted that other person. And so I just wanted to kind of start with that, like, I understand that that's the great fear that I have about this conversation. I also want to start with an important caveat that I am not ever interested in telling someone how they have to refer to their own Mistreatment to their own violation. And so that's not what this conversation is about at all. Like my goal in this conversation is empowerment to those who have experienced assault and coercion is clarity to those who want to have sort of aboveboard sexual ethics. I don't know. Do you share any of those fears when you talk about this kind of stuff? Yeah.

  Unknown Speaker 4:45

  100% Especially because I work in the prevention space, unless in the response space, so I'm not typically actually working with survivors. And so the way I talk about consent is how do you do your best and navigate conflict heated situations that are to come. Now I do assume there's a survivor in every room just because statistically, that is correct. And also, that's not the frame of the conversation. So there are times where I'm going to how I'm going to talk about consent, because it is a concept. It's not like, Sure, you can look at the definition in the dictionary, but we can conceptualize it in so many different ways. And we have throughout history, so I'm going to be very thoughtful about how am I talking about consent, how am I approaching this and so sometimes, there are moments where someone who is really hard trauma from sexual assault will see my content, where I'm talking about the nuances of body language, and they're gonna have a big reaction. And I fully understand that, and I also, I hope they understand who I'm talking to, in that moment, and I'm meeting them where they're, I used

  KC 5:47

  to run a drug rehab, and one of the things that I did when I started working there was start a sexual health class, because it's just it gets very entwined, right, like our sexual behavior, and our addiction can get very intertwined. And as we're trying to kind of change our addiction and things we have to kind of look at this bagel. I mean, it's been affected by and it affects a lot of that stuff. So one of the things when we would talk about consent is I love to ask the people in the audience like questions like, oh, is consent, black and white? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And we'd sit and we kind of throw them some easy softballs, like, you know, can somebody consent when they're drunk, and everyone knows the right answer. So they're like, no, no, of course not. And you're like, Okay, great. All right. So what if you take a girl out on a date, and she gets really drunk? Can she consent? No, no, of course, she can't. We're like, Yeah, we're like, it's easy questions, right? And then I say, Okay, what if, and in this scenario, let's pretend like I'm not in recovery. What if my husband of 10 years takes me out for New Year's Eve? And I get really drunk? And we go home and have sex? Can I consent to that? And people like? Maybe, like, well, I thought you just said, What do you think? It? Certainly, certainly we would agree, it doesn't mean that I can't not consent. But has my husband assaulted me? What if he's also drunk? What if he's drunker than me? But he's the one that initiates what level of drunkenness? Must we be to determine who's the assaulter? And who's the assault? IE? Is it how we feel afterwards? Is it what we did in the moment? Is that the level of intoxication, he's twice the size that I am? What if we're the same level of intoxication, but it has a way bigger effect on me? Right? And that's always the one where people are like, Oh, right.

  Sarah Casper 7:30

  Yeah, I do this with high schoolers. And with usually with seniors in high school, or with college students, we play a game where I say a statement about consent, they go to one side, if they agree, once, I'd say disagreeing anywhere in between. And again, I'm coming in under the title consent educator. And so they think they know the answer, when I say consent need to be enthusiastic. And they all say, yeah, and then I'm like, Well, you know, what, if I say, you know, I'm willing to try that is that can I not consent, and then all of a sudden, without even me like, giving them permission to they start, like shifting where they are, I also find that a lot of the time, if there are students on different sides, they're actually saying the same thing, they just have a different story in their mind of what's happening. So again, you know, if you say, you know, you can consent to sex, if you've been drinking, one person assumes that in this scenario, the person has passed out. And another student assumes that the person has had like two drinks and is an adult and like, has experience with like managing their alcohol before because again, like a 16 year old, being drunk is very different, or having two drinks is very different than a 30 year old having two drinks. And it's exactly this like idea that consent is simple. And the same rules apply across all contexts that I think is really difficult. Another question that I asked her like statement, I say, is coercion is the same thing as convincing, and students who not know what to do with that. And they tried to define like, what's the difference between convincing and coercing? And they struggle? And I don't have an answer for them I struggled to.

  KC 8:52

  That's another thing that came up a lot when we were talking about coercion. And somebody was like, well, sometimes I don't think I'm in the mood until my husband coerces me or until my wife coerces me and it was like, Oh, well, let's slow down for a second. Because that's not what I mean. But here's some interesting thing is I have found it very helpful for adults to talk about the difference between spontaneous desire and responsive desire because sometimes that clarifies for someone that's not the focus of our conversation. But just as an aside, one of the things we know from just a sexual health perspective is that there are people that have what's called spontaneous desire, which means out of nowhere, boom, body is ready to go, right? They feel turned on their body is physiologically aroused, and they want to have sex. And this is someone who maybe they see something sexy, or they think something sexy or whatever. There are other people that have more of a responsive desire, meaning if I just asked you right now, hey, do you wanna have sex? I'd be like, no, no, they might be someone who doesn't initiate often, but once someone initiates with them, they go, Okay, well, you know what, this actually does feel kind of nice. And so to them, I think It gets a harder conversation because they go, Well, I'm never in the mood. But once my partner kind of gets my gears going, once they put the idea in my head, once they kind of start to turn me on, then I feel like I'm ready to go. And so to them, I think it's a harder conversation because they always experience sexual desire in the context of quote, unquote, being convinced. Here's the part that I think is interesting that with that is what I brought up was, you know, when we talk about consent, though, everyone's always going to penis and vagina or, you know, whatever that like hand to genitals like what you know, like, that's the moment you need consent for. And what I think is interesting is okay, but would you say that if you took a girl on a date, you needed consent to grab her boob? And people were like, well, yes, obviously. And I'm like, Okay, does my husband need consent to grab my boat? 10 years and lots of sex? Will? Does he? Does he need to ask Does he verbally need to ask every time to slap my butt? Well, I guess not. Okay. So does that mean he gets to does that mean, he just has just implied consent that he gets to do that anytime he wants, I don't have autonomy over my own body. Now. People like wait, wait, backup backup, right? Because, you know, and I don't have a great answer for this. But I do know that when I experience, quote, unquote, convincing, I experience that even in that moment, like, let's say, I'm trying to convince my partner to have sex is not really in the mood. But I'm also seeking consent to do the convincing, right? Like, if he's like, No, I'm not in the mood. I'm going, but could you be? Could you be convinced I'll literally say those words? Or maybe I'll put on like, some something sexy and kind of walk around be like, Are you sure? Right? And to me that if I get a No? Or if I read that body language of like, no, like, I genuinely don't want you to try and convince me, that's like, there's almost two layers there. Right? Like there's this consent layer of engaging, but there's also this consent layer of I don't want you to keep trying, and even that's really complex, because how much of that is verbal? And how much of that is nonverbal?

  Sarah Casper 12:04

  Yeah, this is bringing up two interesting things. For me. The first is that consent is personal, right? To some degree, there are like if you're in a organization of school, there's there's going to be policy on consent. If you're whatever state country you're in, there's going to be laws about consent, and also within your personal relationships, like you're not, you know, if you were like, well, my husband grabbed my butt. So I'm going to try to prosecute, you'd be locked out of a court room, you can establish for yourself and your own relationship, hey, you know what, I am really cool with you just grabbing my boat whenever you want. And I'll tell you, I'm putting that burden on myself to tell you if I don't want you to because a you know me pretty well. And I trust your general gauge of it. And if you get it wrong, for whatever reason, I trust myself to tell you, I'm not in the mood, and I trust you receive that well. And so that would be kind of like the opt out model. And then there's like the opt in model, which would be like, Listen, if you're gonna put something in my but I need to say Yes, first, like, I think you're gonna get a verbal confirmation on that one. Confirmation. Do not just do that. Right? Like, and different. People are going to have different standards for what they want or don't want. I'm a consent educator, trust me. I've been told I am asking too many questions. In which case, I will say, Okay, well, how do you feel about me doing mostly without asking, and how do you feel about having the burden of no on you? And they'll say, yes, then they'll say, okay, there might be some things also, for my sake, I still need to ask and hear a verbal yes, because I won't feel comfortable, like doing that. But I can definitely reduce the questions I'm asking. And so we're not we're switching the model. But it's just within that specific relationship. Because we've talked

  KC 13:36

  about it, those are really helpful concepts, the opt in model versus the opt out model. And I will say this, I feel like what your content does so well, is that you're not answering questions, really, you're not giving answers, you're giving better terms, better concepts for people to have this conversation and navigate this issue. Because you're right, when I'm dating someone new, everything's an opt in model to a certain point, right? Even personally, I don't even like to be kissed, until I'm like ready to be kissed. Now, not everybody feels that way. Right. And but then at some point in my relationships, it does switch to an opt out model. And, and I mean, this is probably TMI, and I'm sorry for my failures, but like, I'm a very big opt out person. Like, it wouldn't bother me if I woke up in the middle of sex, that would not bother me, that would be so awful and traumatizing to a lot of people. And they would feel like oh, my god, that was a soul. That was a rate that would not bother me one second. But that's just like my own personal history and own personal like foundation of consent and things like this. One of the other things that you said that I thought was so powerful, because so I'm writing this book on relationships right now. And I actually recently made the very hard decision to cut out the chapter on sex. Because I realized I could not do it enough justice and nuance and I didn't want the book to get huge. Maybe I'll write a book at another time about it. But when I was sort of dallying in that chapter, one of the things that that, you know, came up that I wanted to write about is like, I know that I have a lot of followers that are ace that are asexual that are people that maybe they don't experience sexual attraction. And among those who don't experience sexual attraction, some of them like there's a whole wide range of how they experience sexual arousal, right? Because attraction is something that you kind of feel energetically, arousal are the like physiological changes happening in your body that are getting ready for sex. And so what's come up on my page anytime I've talked about consent, which is people who identify as asexual going, so I can never consent enthusiastically to sex because I don't ever really want it for myself. And that's hard, because there's this huge demographic of and it's primarily women, but it's not only women, where we talk about how important enthusiastic consent is because of how many people are having obligation sex? Oh, I feel like I should I feel like I must, I feel like that makes me a good partner, or they're making me feel guilty or have a lot of religious circles, where it's like, well, I'm supposed to be, you know, did the meeting their needs and things like that. And so you start talking about that concept of enthusiastic consent, which I think is helpful for lots of reasons, and is not helpful enough for a lot of other reasons, right? Because, yes, you should want it for yourself. But then you have people not only who are asexual, but people who have been married for a long time going. Sometimes I don't, though, but I'm more than happy to give it like, where does that leave me there? And how is that different than obligation? Sex? And I think one of the more powerful things that you brought up was, the reason why that conversation gets so convoluted is because people have two fundamentally different ideas about what consent is, and you have this bucket of people to whom consent means agreement, I agree to do this. And then you have this other bucket of people to whom consent means desire, I want this and I was like, Oh, my God, that is exactly what's happening, because and that's why the compute the conversation about coercion was so difficult because people were like, well, you can't consent if you're coerce. And it was like, I mean, sometimes you can, like you can give someone permission to do something, even if you don't want it. And permission is a type of consent. But at the same time, sometimes consent is I want to do this. And so if I'm just letting you do it, but I don't want to do it. But what if I'm letting you do it? And I don't really want to do it. I don't have a big feeling. I mean, like that, to me was just it blew the conversation wide open for me. Yeah, this

  Sarah Casper 17:33

  is very connected to the other thing that I was going to mention, which is like one of my favorite concepts that I teach all the time, it comes from the wheel of consent. And it's this idea of wanting wheeling and enduring, which describe like these interstates of were wanting is like, I would choose it like this is my number one choice. This is what I want wheeling is a you would like it. And I have availability for that. I have genuine Yeah, I can pick you up from the airport. And then I don't want to, but yeah, and then enduring is if I do this, something in me will not feel good. I am beyond and so you can be in any of those spaces with either a yes or no, because it's not about what you say. It's about how you feel. So when people are really good at differentiating for themselves, what is where they are unwilling and when they are an enduring, especially, you can say yes to sex, you don't crave want desire, and it is totally okay. And actually, it feels really nice sometimes to be able to give that gift to someone to be able to say Yeah, can we go from the airport? I'm so glad I get to do this for you. And I have availability for that. But yeah, if you asked me to pick up from the airport at 3am, like that's just not that's beyond my limits. And I'm not going to feel good doing that and comparing sex to driving to the airport. Yes, it's a comparison. It's an analogy. It's not a one to one. But there is no it is such a high bar that both people are craving, not just sex, but the exact kind of sex and touch at some point, you're like, Yeah, this isn't my favorite position, but it's my partner for your position, and I'm cool with it. And we need space for that. Well, and

  KC 19:06

  it's like there's different levels of enjoyment to like, there's an enjoyment that comes from a purely physical, you know, arousal and orgasm. There's an enjoyment that comes from a an emotional intimacy, and there's an enjoyment that comes from giving pleasure to someone else. And I think, you know, what happens is it's kind of similar to forgiveness honestly, like forgiveness that comes organically from you can be really powerful and healing, but when someone tries to impose forgiveness about and tells you like you should forgive, you need to forgive him. You would think of all these good Bennett healing benefits that come when people forgive that kind of like outward pressure. To me, it has a lot of similarities where it's like someone telling you like, well, but you should want to please your partner, you know, like, you know, you're in a monogamous relationship where also they're gonna like you You'd want to give that gift, you know, Sally, what have you just thought of it as finding enjoyment in serving, you know, I mean, it's like it gets real gross real quickly. But it's that difference between an authentic versus a non authentic. And sometimes I think that's more helpful than the word enthusiastic is like, isn't an authentic consent, the way that I had written about it before I struck the chapter was trying to address that idea of like, well, what if I don't want the sex, and I use this example of like, you know, sometimes I'll be sitting there, I'll be sitting reading a book on the couch with my husband, and he'll get up and I'll be like, you know, I'm gonna go to the store and get a drink, do you want to come and I listed all these scenarios. So like, the first scenario was like, I really want something from the store, like, I also want a beverage from the store. And you know what, like, it's really fun to ride in the car with my husband, like, well, the we'll put the windows down, we'll turn the music up, like, we'll talk, I'll enjoy His company on the way there like I can authentically and enthusiastically consent to that. And then the second scenario is like, you know, I don't actually need anything from the store, I don't want anything from the store, the store is not like a miserable place to be or anything like, and I might not go in once we get there, right? Like I but I'm more than happy to go with him, like, it'll still be enjoyable to take the car ride with him, I'll enjoy the music, I'll enjoy the connection, I'll join the conversation, but I don't want anything from the store. And I probably just stay in the car. Now, I might just enjoy the conversation so much that by the time we get to the store, I do go in and maybe I see that drink and change my mind, right? Like, all those things might happen. Or you might just wait in the car, or might go with them and not get anything, whatever. And then that's a situation where I can authentically and or enthusiastically consent. Now it might be that I think to myself, you know, I really would like a drink, but I hate driving in the car with you. So like, so I can't really consent to that, like if you you know, if you're someone else, or you know, you're gonna you're gonna fart in the car the whole way, or we just got an argument or whatever, like, I can't do that, whatever. And then there is this idea that well, what if you know, going wouldn't be that bad. Or I could take it or leave it. You know, I don't need anything from the store. And although riding in the car was usually pleasant, I'm actually like, I'd be pretty fine. Just like staying here with my book, I'm really into my book. But I also know that he really enjoys that car ride with me, he's asking for my company. And so I can decide either way, look great, I'd love to go with you. And I know that's gonna be fun for you. And I'll enjoy that connection or whatever. Or I can decide no, I'd rather read the book, like there's no right or wrong, but I could consent to that, right. And then, you know, if it was, hey, I don't not only do I not need anything from the store, I don't want to go to the store. In fact, stores make me very uncomfortable. They're overwhelming. They're overstimulating, I typically feel like I'm gonna have a panic attack when I'm there, right? Like, I couldn't consent to that. And then if I just kind of felt like I don't really want to go, it's raining outside, I'm really happy here like, and so it kind of it helped me to look at almost like it's oversimplifying, but kind of like two different parts, there's like, even if I don't need anything, or want anything from the store, sometimes it's like the ride there, or the person or the conversation or the like the act of getting there that I would find enjoyable, or vice versa. But that was kind of one thing that I broke down because it was like, you know, you can still give an authentic consent, even if you're not like jonesing for the orgasm, or whatever it is. I

  Sarah Casper 23:22

  joke a lot about how I'm a consent educator who hates the word consent, because that entire story that you told, I would say instead of like, you can genuinely consent to it, I would say you won't be an enduring, right? Because that gets gets to like the root of the feeling, which is if I say yes to this, like I can say yes to this, but I will be an enduring. Yes, I am genuinely willing, as opposed to like this very, like heavy and multifaceted word of consent, but like, what will being in this experience actually be like? And then I can decide, okay, I might not love it, but I am willing versus this is going to be horrible. I am not willing, versus it might be okay. I'm willing versus Yeah, you want to go to the store? I'm totally willing to come with you. And it's almost how you said that your husband like potentially asked this question is would you like to go to the store? And sometimes that is the question, which is if you loved car rides, and you loved this store, that would be a question of, would you Casey like to go to the store because I have a feeling that this is something you would like to do. So I am going to offer this to you versus Wes, which is will you come to the store with me because I would really like your company because this is for me versus this is for you. And shaping it. It's just that slight language change really keeps you in integrity of who is like do you want to pick me up from the airport? It's like, don't ask no. It's would you be willing to and like own that you are asking for something for yourself? Versus Are you genuinely offering something? Oh my god. Like two years ago when you made a video about your daughter, you wanted to bake something and then your daughter asked if she could Big with you. And you were like, oof, I need to reorient because this was going to be like what was like maybe organizing a closet?

  KC 25:06

  Yes, I remember that as I was already organizing the pantry, and all of a sudden, she was like two or three issues like, can I help and I was like, Oh, God, I don't want you to help. But I know that it would be like the good thing to do to let you participate. But I need to reorient my frame of mind away from a task oriented goal into a relationship oriented goal. Because if I let her help, and I remain that this is a task oriented goal, and I need to get this done, she's gonna make it worse, I'm gonna get frustrated, she's gonna get in the way. But if I change it to, if I kind of let go of that, like, you know what, it's not going to actually get organized the way I want. And there's probably going to be a bigger mess at the end. But relationship wise, like, that's going to be original to have a different goal. That's what that one was. Exactly. And

  Sarah Casper 25:51

  we'll have consent would say like, Who is it for it started off as a task for you to organize your whatever, then it became a task, which was like more about what does she want out of this? Or what does our like, what's kind of driving that relationship? Not the task? And that helped. And that like slight shift of like, would you versus like, what do you want this? Versus Can I have this right? It was about what your daughter was wanting in that moment. And it works the reverse. Also, when a parent is like to their child, like, Would you like to put on your coat? Nope, the child would not like to put on their coat, but it's like, will you please put on your coat, it will help me so that I can go do whatever and being in their integrity of the kid is doing something to make your life easier. It's really

  KC 26:35

  helpful to think of those like wanting wheeling and enduring. And what I've noticed is that so much of this conversation starts with the person who is having to give or not give consent, like a lot of when we talk about consent, we're talking about the importance of getting it. But there's so much in our work. And I think that kind of circles back to what I was talking about the beginning, which is what makes it a little bit of a tenuous conversation is that like, I never want to open up this like opportunity for a bad actor to be like I was above board, you need to do your own in our work, right. But at the same time, there are instances where we engage in sexual activity, and then we feel really bad about it. Afterwards, we realized I didn't want to do this, we realized that felt like a violation to me. And the other person did not engage in a violating intention or violating act. But and I think this is particularly true of women, we have so many cultural messages about you know, what we should do sexually. And there's also like a protective factor of If I say yes, or I engage sexually because I'm afraid to say no. Sometimes I'm afraid to say no, because that person has done something wrong. They have done something intimidating, sometimes, I'm afraid to say no, because the last person did something intimidating, because I have my own fear and my own trauma, or my own, you know, whatever it is, and that person has no idea what's going on inside of my mind, right. And I can come away from a situation feeling like oh my god, that felt violating. And there's this whole aspect of it that we've been talking about up to this point of like we I think first have to understand consent for ourselves, which doesn't take away from other people's responsibility to do make a good faith effort to find consent, or to not violate us or any of those things. Right. I like to say that, you know, every everything, like every person should absolutely approach you with an opt in mentality of consent. And if they don't, that's on them, not you. That being said, Where does this conversation and the other part is, this is like going back to kind of like, do I do it just for someone else, and willing, there's a difference between I don't have a lot of sexual desire, or even just in this moment, I don't have sexual desire, but I love you and I love to meet you in this place. There's a big difference between that and a partner who has deep, genuine sexual desires that are always having to be suppressed because of a multitude of reasons. Because the communication is not great, because there's some trauma there because they don't feel comfortable because their partner is selfish in bed, whatever it is, right? Like there's a difference between I'm always enduring and I think sometimes you could think like, Oh, I'm not I'm not enduring. I'm willing, I'm not under I'm willing. But if you have genuine sexual desires that are never at the seat of the table, they're never the receiving end of someone else's willingness. That's valid to look at and go oh shit, if it's always one person engaging in the quote, unquote, enduring are willing and always one person wanting Well, if you truly would say I'm just a person that doesn't have a lot of sexual drive, and that dynamic works fine for me that's different than someone going No, I actually probably am a very sexual person, but I always feel like I have to shove and suppress my own sexual needs. then Preferences and desires and my orgasm, just to be on deck for this other person's wants.

  Sarah Casper 30:05

  Yeah. And that goes into mutuality. And that doesn't make those individual instances, non consensual. But in terms of like what you said in the beginning about sexual ethics, which is like consent now has this like overlap where it's like somewhat legal and permissible and somewhat like ethic, it's like, I would imagine you want to be in a relationship that's mutual, that doesn't mean it's a one to one. But it means that sometimes they're getting what they want. Sometimes you're getting what you want. Sometimes you're both getting what you want. Yeah,

  KC 30:32

  you want that balance. And it's interesting when you talk about like wanting wheeling and enduring, I think when we were having that conversation online about, you know, well, if you don't really want to do it, then there's no consent. And if there's no consent, then it's assault. Like it's this very specific formula. And one of the like, demographics that popped up in the comment section of which I am a part of, were couples that had struggled with fertility, because when you are trying to get pregnant, there's only a certain amount of days in the month, and sometimes you're taking medications around those days. I'm like, you have to have sex on those days to get pregnant. What I am not saying is that it's okay for someone to override your consent just because you're trying to get pregnant, not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that those of us in situations where it was that day, and we both are looking each other going about Tinder this or like, I'm willing, I guess, right? I guess that's technically willing. Like, it's like I Okay, like I am consenting. I am like, none of that's why a lot of us were like, no one would say that, like we assaulted each other, just because clearly, we were like, This is a fucking bummer. Neither one of us want to be doing this. But like, we do want a child, we do want this thing. We want the outcome, right. And so I just thought that was another like, interesting. And I didn't have enough nuance to throw into the mix online. But it was like, I mean, talk about consent, like,

  Sarah Casper 31:52

  so is that consent or not? Right? And it's that instinct to, like, define it as a, in a way that can be communicated through like one word of like, was it right or wrong? It's very binary, as opposed to like, how are people feeling on it about it was it talked about where ethics like violated according to the people in this situation, that's a much different conversation, and someone else can look at your situation and say, that wouldn't be okay with me. And that is totally valid for them to say, in no way. I don't care how badly I want a child, if I am not aroused and excited about sex, that would feel like sexual assault to me, that is so valid, that doesn't mean that that person gets to look at your situation and say, that wasn't consent. That was sexual assault. Yeah,

  KC 32:38

  that's a great point. Like if you and I were in the same situation, but to me, like, I did not feel violated, I didn't feel like nobody has the right to then say I was assaulted or I assaulted someone. On the same token, if you are in the exact same situation, and you say, that felt like a violation to me. Nobody has the right to say, Well, that wasn't a violation because you consented. Talk to me a little bit about when people ask you to like judge their personal situation. They describe a situation that happened between them and a sexual partner, and they say was that assault? Was that consent? How do you handle those conversations? And what do you think people are really asking?

  Sarah Casper 33:17

  Yeah, that is one of the most common questions I get, especially on college campuses is either a hypothetical, or guys like in disguise as a hypothetical or an actual, like, this happened to me. And I can usually tell how they're feeling or they say how they're feeling. And I'm like, that must have sucked so much. That sounds horrible. Yeah, I've had a similar thing happened to me. If you are looking to see if this like meets criteria at your school for sexual misconduct, I can provide you some resources, like here's the person to talk to also if you are looking for like, is it okay that you feel hurt by this? And does this person? Does it make sense that you're like, No, this person needs to be accountable. This person like something needs to happen on this person's and they need to be responsible, like 100% Regardless of what any title nine what any book, Code of Conduct tells you like, of course, you're going to feel hurt in that situation. And like, here's the Counseling Center, here are some resources for that because this people sometimes say it was not consent. But but when we set up that paradigm of if it wasn't consented with sexual assault, then all of a sudden you're calling someone's experience sexual assault, which like, again, in the case of you have sex because you want to get pregnant, right? Someone calls calling it non consensual, can someone imply that that was sexual assault, and that's a weird thing to put on someone else and

  KC 34:34

  a dangerous thing, especially when you consider other marginalization and identities that might be involved. Right? Like probably my like, white husband will survive that. But if I didn't have a white husband, if I was married to a person of color, you know if he was a sexual minority, right, like there are people that don't survive those types of loosely thrown around things Exactly,

  Sarah Casper 35:00

  yeah. And then on the other side of that, there's that. Will you said yes. So it's not sexual assault. So what are you complaining about? And that's also not and that happens. Those are the people who come to me more often. And that's like it for if you want to look at legal action action with the school, great shark, here's the resources. But what I want to make sure you know, is that yeah, it was messed up, that that happened. And it totally makes sense. You feel that way? And how can we help you, you know, heal and feel okay, moving forward from here, regardless of what the label is, like,

  KC 35:36

  you deserve care? Like the answer is yes. Like your feelings are valid. Yep. And we don't have to label your feelings are valid. We

  Sarah Casper 35:44

  don't have to label in order for it to be valid. And nope, no one else that you don't look at me to, to, like, tell you it was sexual assault or not, if what you're really asking is, is it doesn't make sense that I feel this way. And

  KC 35:57

  that's one of the things that I you know, when we talk about sexual coercion, as this pressure along a continuum that can be light social pressure, all the way up to intimidation and threat, yes, you can act like sexual coercion can be assault, not all assault is sexual coercion, and not all sexual coercion is assault. And I think that people who have experienced sexual coercion know it to be so deeply violating that, that there's this tendency of, I feel like I have to bring the bar, like I have to make it where any type of coercion is assault for people to take this seriously, or for me to feel valid and how violated I feel, I feel just as violated as if I had been assaulted. And I think your important message is like, listen, there's no, it doesn't have to meet certain term criteria for it to feel violating and be violating. And sometimes, it might even I mean, I genuinely have known people that engage in sexual coercion, that didn't even really recognize that that's what they were doing, they probably should have recognized they were maybe being a little shitty, but just like, socially, culturally so acceptable to kind of badger their partner, they would never hurt their partner, they wouldn't, but just, you know, but it doesn't mean they were assaulting their partner at that level. Right. So taking a turn now from if we've talked a lot about sort of talking to someone from the perspective of giving quote, unquote, consent, this now even more nebulous term, it's like we've made the term less clear. But I think we've made the concept more clear. How do you talk to people who are I mean, this is all of us, we're all not only having to decide how we're going to give that consent, but also how we are going to elicit or judge or determine whether that consent is being given?

  Sarah Casper 37:44

  Again, this is where I'm going to shift away from the term consent, because

  KC 37:47

  consent is the conversation really, like it's not the it's

  Sarah Casper 37:50

  not this, like when we use the terms actually, really rarely use the terms giving and getting consent, I talked about the practice of consent, kind of like the practice of kindness, where you can say, Please, and thank you, and you don't get to mark that interaction as kind, just because you did that part. And you don't get to call yourself like a kind person, you don't just get call yourself a kind person, say I did this thing. And that was kind. So check the box, part of it depends on did that person experience your interaction as kind, not just did you do the things that you believe make you a kind of person, and then also on top of

  KC 38:23

  which is like, in and of itself kind of hard? Because you could be being kind and somebody else's issues might might be like, Oh, it's so rude. You're like, what? Exactly,

  Sarah Casper 38:32

  you're gonna have different experiences of that situation. And then on top of that, you can also and this is a really tricky thing, but you can have a an hour long conversation, and someone can have an hour long conversation with me walk away from the conversation being like, sorry, I was really kind and I could have some done something rude within that conversation. One of the things that really frustrates me with the way we approach consent education is that there is no room for the reality that we will make mistakes, when it comes to boundaries, we will make mistakes, body language, we will misunderstand, we will make assumptions. And that doesn't mean that doing that is okay. But also when we look at a situation say well, was that content or was that not, you know, one person is going to point to the one moment that wasn't okay, the other person is going to point to the 30 moments that were okay. And they're going to become really divided where instead, it can be a moment of oh, I did these things, right. But that thing was wrong. And that didn't feel good to you. And I'm really sorry. And here's what I'm gonna do. Or here's like a system we can put in place or an opt in opt out thing or, you know, maybe instead of a safe word, we can have a safe gesture. You know, like if you do a double tap, maybe you can't access your words at the moment, but that means something's not right. You know, and so that doesn't happen again. And so it's less about was that or was that not consensual? But how are people walking away from that interaction? And that would be like the practice of consent, as I call it, rather than just the giving and getting of consent. So great that you asked that one Question about you want it sucks? But like, if that's all you did I want to talk to your partner and be like, Was that enough? And how else were you tuning into them while you were doing it? And again, I'm not asking these questions necessarily to determine consent or not, but to determine where is their lack of skills? And where do you need to take responsibility.

  KC 40:25

  And there's also more to sexual ethics than consent. I had a woman who had asked me, and she asked in the comment section, so it was public. And she said, you know, my boyfriend, you know, I told him that I didn't like this certain sex act. And he was kind of upset that I had never told him, I said, I feel horrible that we've been doing this and you've never spoken up, it makes me feel so horrible. But then like, some time went on, and he did that sex act again, together. And he said, Is this okay? And I said, yes. But it was really painful. And he could tell I was in pain. But then I don't know if I'm allowed to be upset because I feel like it like, was that consensual? Was that not? And it comes back to what you were saying? Where it's like, we go right to the is it consensual as of consent? Number one is simple, right? Well, did you agree to it? Or did you want it? And if you did agree to it, to what degree should that person have been able to read that that agreement was not wholehearted? Or that agreement was enduring? Or that agreement was whatever? And I think sometimes we lose sight of other important variables, right, which is, you know, cuz she was so bundled up in there, like, did I consent? Did I not? Do I have a right to be upset about this. And I just remember thinking, and I said this to her, a partner that can watch you be in pain for their own pleasure when that pain was not an agreed upon kink dynamic like this isn't it really gets me off. I really meant to do that, right, like a partner that can watch you be in pain and continue to gain sexual gratification in that moment is wrong and violating and it doesn't matter that you said yes, it doesn't matter that you thought it was okay, that's not acceptable. And there are people out there who have enough integrity in their sexual ethics that even if you said, yes, they saw you in pain would stop and not just stopped because they were doing the right thing would stop because they're uncomfortable, holy. I'm not this doesn't do it for me, like, I'm not I care about you too much. I can't continue to get off while you're in pain, consent, like genuinely the consent part doesn't even matter at this point, unless you have had an extensive conversation around a kink dynamic that you are intentionally consenting to, and that conversation you would not have had on accident. That is a long conversation with very specific principles.

  Sarah Casper 42:58

  Again, one of my frustrations with the word consent is that it is that it becomes a standard for right and wrong. And yeah, was it consensual was like was Did I do it? Right? Did I check the box of like, good, and that can be really dangerous for exactly that reason.

  KC 43:16

  And I think also that, you know, one of the other things about consent that people will talk about when they want to point out it's not as black and white as people think they are, is I think when you talk about like, can you can an adult have sex with a 17 year old? No, why 17 year old can't consent? Okay, well, legally, they can't consent. But like what changes emotionally and mentally on that girl's 18th birthday? As far as like if you took away the legal component, so is the legal issue, the only ethical issue involved? So he's unethical yesterday, or she's unethical yesterday. She's ethical today. Yeah. It's like well, no, there's some other things involved. Okay. What are they?

  Sarah Casper 43:54

  I am cracking up right now because Joseph Fishel wrote a book called screw consent and he has a chapter called on horses and corpses where yeah, oh, yeah. Um, and one of the things he says is when if someone says like, why can't you have sex with a horse people say because they can't consent and it's like wait, wait, wait, wait pull it back for a second because we

  KC 44:15

  horses consent with other horses I guess

  Sarah Casper 44:17

  we're using the term consent to apply to this doesn't even make sense because we kill horses, right? Yeah. Like they don't consent to that like so why are you putting these like body rights onto horses? Sudden it's because we've defined that as like, whether consent is right or wrong is based on this thing about consent, but if you start poking at it, it all falls apart. The reason is because if you have like power over an animal then like that is the problem is the power dynamic and like its ability to like run away and like stay in that position. Spoiler alert. He then suggests that perhaps it would be ethical for a horse to fuck a man like a human which has

  KC 44:57

  happened. Trigger warning has happened and The man died. Yikes.

  Sarah Casper 45:00

  Yes, but that if there is not like if both beings are willingly there perhaps that is actually ethical, more so than if like a horse is being restrained so that a man can get his rocks off. While chapter philosophy really gets into some things, but I do. What

  KC 45:17

  was his point with the dead bodies? Same thing like dead, the dead body doesn't have consent, like consents not even the point. And

  Sarah Casper 45:24

  I think it's kind of like yeah, like consent, like they're just

  KC 45:26

  other fucking X besides consent. Don't do. Someone recently

  Sarah Casper 45:30

  in the comments this week also said, If you rob a store legally drunk, does that mean you consent it? And I was like, Okay, this question doesn't even make sense. First of all, legally drunk isn't a concept. Like if you're just sitting at home, you can be as pice drunk as you want. It's not illegal. So first of all that but second of all, why are you bringing the term consent into robbing a store? Like, it just doesn't apply? But people use it as this new word to mean like, either like, Are you responsible? Or was it right or wrong? And again, like

  KC 45:54

  justified or unjustified, ethical or unethical, 17

  Sarah Casper 45:58

  year old and 364 days versus 18?

  KC 46:02

  And here's the thing with that one, it's not like yes, there are some ethical issues besides consent around like power dynamic stuff that isn't like, technically, like, she can still consent. But she may not have the same, you know, whatever. She may not have the same like foresight. But she doesn't have that foresight, if she's with another 17 year old like that, that issue is still there, right? But beyond that, it's like this question of which we all realize, when we get to that age, I'm 37. Now we go, what the hell what I even have in common with a 17. Like, that is weird. You get to the age of the people that you hung out with in high school that you thought were so cool. And you were like, why were they hanging out with high schoolers? And I do think that sometimes we stopped dead at the consent conversation and missed the likelihood even if it was legal, it's weird. And there's something wrong with you. There's something not right, if that dynamic is something you desire, there's something like unhealthy and one way and not humanizing about your desire to only be with very, very young children slash young adults.

  Sarah Casper 47:06

  And I would also say that like the answer for the if, you know, a 17 year old, if your consent educator, teacher, parent and a 17 year old is coming to you and telling you, you know that they're dating a 37 year old or hooking up with a 37 year old there, and it's in a state where that is legal. The response isn't just Well, that's not consensual, because that doesn't do anything. It reminds me a very, I feel like you'll appreciate this like a very, I come from a religious background as well, like from a very like, well, that's a sin like you can't as opposed to, as opposed to like the actual issues, which is like, okay, let's talk about where this is coming from what's going on for you? What do you think you're getting out of it? What do you think they're getting out of it? I'm like a conversation as opposed to just like right or wrong.

  KC 47:48

  Also, if you lead with the like, that's not consensual. It's like, well, because you're too dumb money. You're too immature. You just do we do baby, you can't think you can't think it's like any teenager is going to push back against that any teenager is gonna be like, Yes, I am. I did hear this thing the other day that I thought was hysterical. And I can't take credit for it. But that it was a tick tock and someone said, Whenever you see somebody who's with someone who's way, way, way, way, way younger, it's always there so mature for their age, and never I'm so immature for my age. It's no real. It's so weird. Like, that's the reality. You're so immature for your age. Yeah, well, listen, this has been like one of the better conversations I've had around this for a long time. Because I think it is very difficult to kind of thread the needle through these concepts in a way that is actually helpful for people that are trying to navigate this knowing that there's kind of minefields all around of people with their very valid hurts and reactions and feelings and fears and all of that. And I think it's really admirable the way that you have kind of gone about this kind of education and and I appreciate it Where Where can people find you online if they want to follow you or hire you even?

  Sarah Casper 48:56

  Yeah, on Instagram and on Tik Tok, I'm at comprehensive consent, all puffer I technically have a YouTube, it's just the same content that's on Instagram and Tiktok. And then comprehensive consent.com. I do education with kids, teens and the adults on their team. And then also adults, what else? Oh, I have a book coming out in hopefully August. That's going to be lesson plans for teachers who want to teach consent skills to like eight to 13 year olds. So stay tuned for that. And also subscribe to my newsletter on my website. That's where I you know, share big things. First,

  KC 49:28

  it made me think of something to like, when we are trying to teach young kids about consent, especially around like, okay, don't touch people's bodies without consent. And I think about how like, you know, if my kid is like touching a kid on the playground is like, hey, like, don't touch people's body without consent. And at the same time, like, my kid can come up to me and hug me and it's fine. Snuggle up to me, and it's fine. And then but I can say no, and they have to get off and it's like it's kind of that opt in opt out. But like that's not intuitive for kids and I'm laughing because my youngest daughter Reese gently has started coming up to me and gone. Ahead. Yeah, baby. Okay, thank you. And then she just touches my head. And this is a kid who body slams me daily, right? Like they have a very like physical relationship but it's just so funny to see her like connect those dots and be like, and I don't know, there's no way to explain like you don't have a you don't actually have to ask me before every time you put a finger on me, but you do have to stop when I say stop. It's just a funny that we think it's so simple and it's really not. Yep,

  Sarah Casper 50:29

  it is it is complicated. And it is it is also not easy, right? Just ask, just say no, just like here. They're like, these are skills we need to build. And so if it doesn't come easy to people to switch the way that they're or to, like adjust the way they're operating and thinking about the ethics around touch and permission and agreement. Yeah, it's work.

  KC 50:51

  You know what the, here's the last thing I want to close with is thinking back to when you were talking about, you know, people who want to say like, well, if I've, if I've checked these boxes, you know, and I think obviously someone not getting your consent is a huge red flag. But it is also a red flag when someone doesn't care if they don't, they're not interested in making sure like someone who would say like you said, Yes, like, I can guarantee that, like if I went to my partner today and was like, Hey, I don't feel like that encounter. We had, you know, last night or whatever it was conceptual. Their first thought would not be No, no, I did everything right. Their first thought would be anguish, oh, my God, what happened? What What made you feel that way? You know, because they don't have a desire that I would ever feel that way. Right. And so I think also like backing up that like everybody deserves to be with someone that cares about their consent, even if they don't always get it right. They care about it. Because even if they're technically getting it right, there are ways that they can disregard your feelings and your pleasure and and all of these things right. And so it's been a great conversation. Sarah, thank you so much. And you guys know where to find her and you know where to find me and I always keep forgetting to mention to you guys that I do have a book called How to keep house while drowning has nothing to do with the subject matter. But I'm very bad at promoting myself and I'll let you know when the new book on relationships comes out too. Thank you so much.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai