[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Shining Through Inspiring Forces of Autism with show host Jennifer Dantzler. My name is Sarah and I have autism. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about the world of autism. If you enjoy what you hear today and don't forget to follow this podcast.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Hey, everyone, this is Jennifer Dantzler, and I'm the executive director and founder of inspirend, a nonprofit whose mission is to create truly inclusive communities through education and engagement. The goal of this podcast is to shine a light on real people and their stories in hopes of inspiring others who are on this journey of autism. Either themselves, their child, their loved one, their co worker. I truly believe ignorance is not bliss and we cannot be inclusive communities if we do not understand the people in the community.
With autism now affecting 1 in 31 people, we need to get louder about this topic. We recognize that autism is a spectrum. There are a lot of people with a lot of different needs, a lot of resources available or none available. And we know that in every episode, we can't meet everyone's needs for their specific interest. However, we hope that in each episode you do gleam some kind of insight as to how you can help your
[00:01:10] Speaker C: child or yourself be a better advocate.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: And as we go through our podcast, our goal really is to address the entire spectrum, the various needs, the various environments that we're going to be in. And we hope that there's something in every episode for each one of you.
[00:01:23] Speaker C: So let's get started.
We are back today with a very special guest and friend of mine. Her name is Amelia. I actually met Amelia in spring of 2024, thanks to her mom, who conn.
And then in the summer of 2024, she actually did an internship for Inspire and we loved having her there. So we're so excited to talk to you today. Amelia, thank you for being here.
[00:01:45] Speaker D: Yeah, of course. I'm excited to be here.
[00:01:47] Speaker C: That's awesome.
[00:01:48] Speaker D: Happy to see you again.
[00:01:49] Speaker C: Yes. I always love seeing you. Occasionally we see each other at church too, right?
[00:01:52] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: Let's start back to when you were younger. I'm very excited to get to what you're doing now, but let's kind of, for the listeners, go back and sort of start from the beginning, as they say. But you actually have a little bit of a different story. When were you diagnosed with autism?
[00:02:04] Speaker D: Right around when I turned 16.
[00:02:06] Speaker E: I was assessed all of my year
[00:02:08] Speaker D: of my 15th year of life, if you will.
[00:02:10] Speaker E: Maybe a month or two after I
[00:02:12] Speaker D: turned 16, I got the diagnosis back because it took like four months for some reason for them to get it back to me. So I wasn't diagnosed early in life, like a lot of people are.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: What prompted that assessment and that diagnosis?
[00:02:23] Speaker D: I saw myself in a.
[00:02:24] Speaker E: Relating to a lot of characters in media.
So I don't know if you know who Spencer Reed is or what Criminal Minds is, or if you know what the good doctor is.
[00:02:35] Speaker C: I do.
[00:02:36] Speaker D: Although they tend to be stereotypes of autism, just with like the genius trope and such.
[00:02:41] Speaker E: A lot of the non genius aspects
[00:02:43] Speaker D: of these characters were weirdly relatable to me, and they should not have been because they're not relatable to most people who aren't autistic.
[00:02:51] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:02:52] Speaker D: At least in my opinion.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:02:54] Speaker D: Through social media, I started relating to other people and their stories, like, of
[00:02:58] Speaker E: what they go through, really.
[00:03:00] Speaker D: I felt it internally, like I didn't necessarily show all of the like, quote unquote, normal symptoms of autism.
[00:03:06] Speaker E: I felt it very strongly. And then my mother, what she noticed was in school and with my peers,
[00:03:13] Speaker D: I was not catching up socially.
[00:03:16] Speaker E: Like most people would have that social gap. It wasn't getting any better.
[00:03:20] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:03:21] Speaker E: And so at that point, she brought it up to my therapist in a separate call. And it's funny because at a similar time, probably either the call after the meeting I had with my therapist, at the time I mentioned it to my
[00:03:31] Speaker D: therapist, we both were just like, okay,
[00:03:34] Speaker E: let's go get you assessed. And then they were like, yeah, you're definitely autistic.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: Okay.
So that's fascinating because we are learning more and more about women, high functioning women on the spectrum. Because you're considered technically a level one, right?
[00:03:46] Speaker D: Level one, yes.
[00:03:47] Speaker C: Which is what they do now, how they categorize it now. And more and more women are getting diagnosed later, right. 16 is not later in life, but later, meaning not three years old.
[00:03:56] Speaker D: Yes, Correct.
[00:03:57] Speaker C: And because symptoms, I guess just. Or characteristics look a little different, right? Yeah. And so how did you feel when you got that diagnosis?
[00:04:06] Speaker D: Relieved. I think that was the first thing I felt. I was like, there is an explanation
[00:04:11] Speaker E: for how I am so different from my peers and struggle with so many things that none of my peers do. And the peers that did, they were
[00:04:19] Speaker D: very few and far between, now that I look back, that they definitely were on the spectrum.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: The peers that you connected with.
[00:04:24] Speaker D: Yeah, the peers that I connected with. I only really ever connected with peers on the spectrum.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:04:29] Speaker D: My brain likes explanations to things. Like, I like there to be an explanation for something.
So when there was an explanation for all my struggles, I felt relieved because now I could advocate for myself and be like, this is why this is happening and here is what I need.
[00:04:42] Speaker E: And it wasn't just me being sensitive or socially awkward. Like, it was like. Like I'm actually neurologically different.
[00:04:50] Speaker D: So, yes, that's how I felt. I want to speak on behalf of
[00:04:53] Speaker E: my lovely mother, who I love dearly. I think she felt relieved and guilty she didn't see it. And I think it's because media in
[00:05:01] Speaker D: general portrays autism one specific way.
[00:05:04] Speaker E: And it really only recently has started to really expand out onto representation of the whole spectrum. And so she didn't know that that's what autism looked like.
[00:05:13] Speaker C: The examples you gave of people were all males. Right. Like the Dr. Spencer, all those people, it's still males. I don't know that there are any female level 1 autism people in popular media, at least.
[00:05:26] Speaker D: I can't think.
[00:05:27] Speaker E: Women being represented as autistic and shows is just not something that's in very popular media at the moment.
[00:05:33] Speaker C: So we're getting better about more people.
[00:05:35] Speaker D: We're getting better. Yeah, we're getting way better.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: Still not with the females.
[00:05:38] Speaker D: Yeah, definitely still not.
[00:05:39] Speaker C: Right. So were you able to comfort your mother or how. What did you say to your mother when she was had. She had expressed to you.
[00:05:47] Speaker D: It's been so long, I don't think I could. I think she expressed later, like a couple years later, that that's how she felt. Because I was again, 15, 16, as my mother, she didn't want to put that burden on me.
[00:05:59] Speaker C: Right. It's a lot.
[00:06:00] Speaker D: I understood.
[00:06:01] Speaker E: I get it.
[00:06:01] Speaker D: Like, if I hadn't been told something that this looks like how it looks
[00:06:06] Speaker E: like, and then my child gets diagnosed, I'm like, how did I not see
[00:06:10] Speaker D: it with my mom?
[00:06:11] Speaker E: Once she understood what it was, she started seeing it everywhere. Right.
[00:06:15] Speaker D: In all of my friends. Right. She could tell when she met someone, it wasn't just that they were a little weird or different. She could see. See these specific symptoms. Does that make sense?
[00:06:24] Speaker E: The specific traits of autism, and it
[00:06:27] Speaker D: made her far more like, understanding of people. Not that she wasn't. It gave her that explanation.
[00:06:34] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:34] Speaker D: I definitely comforted her because I was like, I think anyone would have made that who wasn't an expert in autism would have made that mistake too.
[00:06:41] Speaker C: Yes. You have many skills and are brilliant in so many ways. So I could see how it could be overlooked. And to your point, though, in high school, the social aspect, the friendships, the navigating social nuance in the world gets so much harder. And so you don't know what you don't know. And you don't know why you weren't connecting, but you just knew you weren't connecting.
[00:07:00] Speaker D: Exactly.
[00:07:01] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So what did you do after you were diagnosed? Did you go get different services? Did you read books? What did you do?
[00:07:09] Speaker E: I think we went in to get me a 504 plan.
[00:07:12] Speaker D: It included a couple of different things. Now in college it includes extra time on tests. And I'll get into that later, but
[00:07:19] Speaker E: earlier, you know, in high school, it was just things like if I needed
[00:07:23] Speaker D: a break from class, like I go
[00:07:25] Speaker E: and take a walk, take a five minute break. The biggest help, the thing I use
[00:07:29] Speaker D: the most were the headphones because my school did not like if students were wearing headphones. If a student wants to wear headphones
[00:07:36] Speaker E: in the hallway, you know, let them.
[00:07:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:38] Speaker E: But it was just that they didn't like that the students couldn't hear them. And obviously in an emergency, if something is going wrong, you want to be able to hear the world around you.
[00:07:45] Speaker D: And I get that. But just sometimes it felt a little, almost a little unnecessary that they didn't like that you weren't wearing headphones. But I got that accommodation where I could wear them in class. I was so lucky. My teachers were extremely understanding, very chill.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: What made the headphones so useful? What happened?
[00:08:02] Speaker D: It just like it blocked. It didn't block out all sound, but it just blocked out like a little
[00:08:06] Speaker E: bit of extra noise.
[00:08:08] Speaker D: And all of a sudden I could actually focus a little bit better. Now I've always been a straight A, essentially straight A student up until college,
[00:08:16] Speaker C: as with most people. Yes.
[00:08:17] Speaker D: But I don't know, I could actually focus.
[00:08:19] Speaker E: I had been doing my hardest to focus at that point, but with all that a lot of extra sound blocked out, it was just. It was like 10 times easier.
[00:08:26] Speaker D: I didn't have to work so hard at focusing.
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:29] Speaker D: And it made things a lot easier for me.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Well, and I've had, you know, several other self advocates on and they've all said the same thing, that the accommodations and supports were a lot of what helped them be successful.
[00:08:39] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:08:39] Speaker C: And I know you're gonna talk a little bit about time on tests, but that's a big one.
[00:08:42] Speaker D: Right.
[00:08:42] Speaker C: And so I think for parents, sometimes they're hesitant to get accommodations because they don't want to lower the bar for their child.
[00:08:51] Speaker D: Right. Can I tell you a college story?
[00:08:52] Speaker E: Sure.
[00:08:53] Speaker D: In response to that, in college, I took History of Texas. Like the, the first history of Texas, the easy one. I don't remember what it was. I am not a history Buff, I
[00:09:03] Speaker E: sucked at that class.
[00:09:04] Speaker D: I got a C overall, but specifically for that class, their tests were 50 multiple choice questions and then an essay.
[00:09:11] Speaker E: All supposed to be done in the hour 15 that they allot you. Now I am an expert in multiple choice tests.
[00:09:18] Speaker D: I am very good at it.
[00:09:20] Speaker E: When I went to the do that essay, which I'm also very good at,
[00:09:23] Speaker D: I had already had like 1.25 extra time. So it wasn't like a ton, but
[00:09:29] Speaker E: just a little bit just in case I used it all up right doing the essay. I like to really think things out when I do essays and if I
[00:09:37] Speaker D: have to write it by hand, it takes me forever.
[00:09:38] Speaker E: So I had to bump up my extra time to 1.75 because if I
[00:09:43] Speaker D: ever ran into a situation where a
[00:09:45] Speaker E: test had an essay on it, there
[00:09:47] Speaker D: was no way I was going to
[00:09:48] Speaker E: be able to complete it in the number amount of time.
[00:09:50] Speaker D: Now since then I haven't had one. The extra time for someone even as brilliant, which I'm not stroking my own
[00:09:56] Speaker E: ego, but I am saying objectively, as
[00:09:58] Speaker D: brilliant as me is so useful. Especially in those worst case scenarios.
[00:10:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:10:04] Speaker D: Where it's like the very thing that
[00:10:08] Speaker E: is extremely hard for you comes up.
[00:10:11] Speaker D: For example, also short answers, like if I have to write out like not so like paragraph, but like have to write out answers on a test, it takes me a little longer to do.
[00:10:19] Speaker E: It's so, so useful.
[00:10:21] Speaker D: I think it can take the pressure off for a lot of people. But for me, I needed it.
[00:10:25] Speaker E: I needed it like badly. The extra time.
[00:10:27] Speaker C: Right. Well, it just helped you then be able to reduce the anxiety and show what you actually knew. Which is the whole purpose of tests.
[00:10:35] Speaker D: Exactly.
[00:10:36] Speaker C: To see whether you've learned, see whether
[00:10:37] Speaker D: you've learned it or not. And so I get the, the worry
[00:10:40] Speaker E: that it's like almost special treatment. But some students do really need it
[00:10:46] Speaker D: for, especially for certain circumstances. I was already really smart and really
[00:10:50] Speaker E: good at most tests. It just made me able to do the thing I was not good at
[00:10:56] Speaker D: doing in the short amount of time that I had left.
[00:10:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:59] Speaker E: So I, I really think that these
[00:11:02] Speaker D: accommodations were really useful. I think another thing I had in high school that I don't use as much was written copies of verbal instructions. Okay.
[00:11:11] Speaker E: I can struggle when someone tells me to do something verbally. And there's more than one like step to it.
[00:11:16] Speaker D: Okay. Because my brain is like, okay, what did they say? And I have to go back and
[00:11:21] Speaker E: make sure that what they said was what I thought it was. Right.
[00:11:24] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:25] Speaker E: I haven't used it a ton because
[00:11:26] Speaker D: most instructions are honestly written down anyways nowadays.
[00:11:30] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:30] Speaker E: It's so useful if I just need something. If you've told the class something and I need it in front of me so that I can like refer back to it when I go home.
[00:11:40] Speaker D: Especially like in college, like after a long day of classes, I may not remember what the teacher may have said on this particular topic.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:47] Speaker D: So it can be really helpful.
[00:11:48] Speaker C: Right. Neurodiversity now is one in four people. Right. So that's not just autism, that's add. That's a lot of other ways the brain work different that that need a lot of those supports. And that's a lot of what we even try to talk about in our neurodiversity in the workplace training is stop sending these three page emails and write everything down in multiple step. And don't like stand there in the beginning of the day in like a standup meeting and say here's all the 50 things you're going to do today. Because most people will not remember even
[00:12:16] Speaker D: not neurodiverse people won't remember that.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: Absolutely. It's exactly right. So I really appreciate what you're saying about getting those supports and accommodations. I think it's getting better, but I think for some people there's still like this stigma to it and because your degree, which we're going to go into next when you graduate is not going to have listed on with the accommodations that you.
[00:12:34] Speaker D: No, it won't.
[00:12:35] Speaker C: No, it will. Listen, your grade and if I had to guess, magna cum laude or something
[00:12:39] Speaker D: along those lines, I don't even know what that means.
[00:12:41] Speaker C: And so that's like your, your gpa, that's like ratings of stuff. But anyway, so let's talk a little bit about you now and what you're doing now.
[00:12:49] Speaker E: Well, now I'm in college.
[00:12:51] Speaker D: I'm in my third year, second semester. I'll graduate in December of this year. I'm a neuroscience student. Behavioral cognitive is the track they have me on. So there's like two different or three different I think tracks, but I can't remember what the third one was.
[00:13:05] Speaker E: It's behavioral cognitive and cellular molecular.
And I'm a bit more of a behavioral cognitive side of things.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: So what does that mean? What do you want to do for a job?
[00:13:13] Speaker D: My thing is research.
[00:13:14] Speaker E: I love, love, love research.
[00:13:17] Speaker D: I fell in love with it in high school. I've been to like three different schools because I had, I transferred out for Covid and then I moved down to Texas from Virginia.
[00:13:25] Speaker E: The school that I was in, in Virginia, the non online school, they had like maybe five AP classes total versus
[00:13:32] Speaker D: my high school, my senior year, high school in Texas, they had like, I don't know, 15 billion APs. Yep.
[00:13:39] Speaker E: And one of them was something called
[00:13:40] Speaker D: AP seminar, essentially a two year course because you had. The first class was AP seminar and the second was AP research, learning how to do research and learning how to present that research.
[00:13:50] Speaker E: And I fell in love with it.
[00:13:51] Speaker D: I am someone who loves to learn. So being able to gather information and then being able to tell other people about what I have just learned, my favorite thing. Absolutely my favorite thing in the world. So I want to go into research. I'm not exactly sure where in autism I want to research.
[00:14:08] Speaker E: I am still thinking about that, but
[00:14:10] Speaker D: I definitely want to research autism. It's just the thing that I know the most about and the thing I have the most experience with. I also might want to do a little bit of side research. And I have been doing side research on pcos, which is polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is what I'm actually presenting Student Research Week.
[00:14:29] Speaker E: It's a thing my university puts on every year.
[00:14:32] Speaker D: And you get to present your research to a bunch of people and you can put it on your cv. It's a whole thing. Okay. So that's what I want to do is research and then I might actually go into diagnostics for like teens and adults in the spectrum. This is because when I went to get diagnosed, they told me this is
[00:14:46] Speaker E: like the latest we diagnose was like 15.
[00:14:50] Speaker D: We don't diagnose above this.
[00:14:52] Speaker E: And I was like, what?
[00:14:54] Speaker D: Apparently it's because they just don't specialize in it. Like, if you don't learn about what autism presents, like in late teens to adulthood, you're not really qualified to diagnose it.
[00:15:02] Speaker C: Right. They're not comfortable saying you do or don't have a diagnosis if they don't understand what it truly looks like.
[00:15:07] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:15:07] Speaker D: In that age group. And so I was like, well, well, that's where I'm gonna go.
[00:15:10] Speaker C: Right. Because you know when you meet people or you go to places, do you self disclose? And if, like why or why not?
[00:15:16] Speaker D: It depends if it's relevant.
[00:15:18] Speaker E: I would, I will.
[00:15:19] Speaker D: If I'm telling a story and it
[00:15:21] Speaker E: involves me being autistic, I do.
[00:15:23] Speaker D: I just kind of throw it into conversation.
[00:15:26] Speaker E: Most people my age, they don't care.
[00:15:28] Speaker D: They're very like, okay, right, like, yeah, sure. You know, and then it's, it's not like they didn't process it because later they'll mention it that she reminded me of something from work. But it's. It's a whole thing. I can't go into it. One of my co workers made a joke about me being autistic, and I was like, ah, so you did remember I said that my peers typically don't care if I throw in the conversation, you know, the people my age. And I think it's just because our generation has done a great job of destigmatizing autism for the most part. I had this one weird reaction, but I was at church. I told this, like, older lady, I don't want to say maybe your age, because I'm not trying to insult you, but like, middle aged lady, that I was on the autism spectrum. I don't remember why it was relevant. But then she looked at me and went, wow, really? You know, you don't look autistic. And I was like, oh, yep. I mean, okay, Just keep thinking to myself, if someone says that to me, I could just be like, thanks, it's because I'm hot.
[00:16:22] Speaker E: You know, that would be really.
[00:16:25] Speaker C: Exactly right.
[00:16:26] Speaker D: Back then I was like, okay, yeah. Like, yeah, Is that a comp? Like what?
It's a compliment. And I was like, okay, all right.
[00:16:34] Speaker E: Well, yeah.
[00:16:34] Speaker C: And I just. She couldn't dug herself out of that.
[00:16:36] Speaker D: Yeah. I didn't engage in the conversation for much longer, but nowadays I might have made a joke out of it.
[00:16:43] Speaker C: Okay, so with all that said too, I know there's a lot of discussion and controversy in the world, mainly in social media. Some people will say autism is a superpower, and some people will say it's a disability. What are your thoughts on that discussion?
[00:16:56] Speaker D: When people say autism is a superpower, I think that they very much have a very skewed idea of what autism really is. It isn't a superpower in the sense that. That autistic people can do what others can't. It's just that sometimes autistic people have very specific and niche interests, and sometimes those interests tend to be things of academic quality, which makes you seem like a genius. Every time I say neuroscience, people look at me like, oh, my gosh, wow. And I'm just like, well, that's just my special interest.
Like I said, my first ever C was in history in college.
Yeah. Like, that's the thing that I specialize in. And it's not even like I specialize in all neuroscience. Right now I'm taking a neural development class, and it's essentially Just neural biology. And it's been a struggle because that's not necessarily my specialty. It's very much behavior, the cognition of neuroscience.
[00:17:53] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:54] Speaker D: It's definitely a disability.
I'm more someone who leans on the side of maybe don't call it necessarily a superpower, but I get where that people who call autism a superpower are coming from.
[00:18:05] Speaker E: They often want to just see the silver lining to something that can seem. So I want to say, damning in the sense that, like, well, stereotypical judgments.
[00:18:15] Speaker D: Right, Stereotypical judgments. You. You now have an explanation for why your whole life has been different and what you need going forward isn't the same as what everyone else needs. And so I get wanting there to be a silver lining. And there is. But there are ways to talk about that that aren't making autism a monolith, if that makes sense. Yes.
[00:18:34] Speaker E: Saying that autism is a superpower would essentially be that there are those who are level three who I would say
[00:18:41] Speaker D: would not agree with that at all
[00:18:43] Speaker E: because of how much their disability impacts them.
[00:18:46] Speaker D: I get where people are coming from. Again, as someone who special interests is in neuroscience, but it's definitely disabling.
[00:18:54] Speaker E: I think autism is good in that it has.
I have found a community I would not have otherwise of other autistic people,
[00:19:03] Speaker D: but also just of other people who are very. Just chill.
I think my autism tends to ward off really weird and bad people. I don't have a ton of friends, but, like, the friends I do have, they're all very good and kind people.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:17] Speaker D: I think of my brother's friends in high school, and they were not great people. Not at all great people. And nowadays he has better friends. But, like, people just don't want to
[00:19:26] Speaker E: be friends with me if I don't put up with their bullcrap.
[00:19:29] Speaker D: Essentially.
[00:19:30] Speaker E: It weeds out all the bad ones.
[00:19:32] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:19:32] Speaker E: It tends to.
[00:19:33] Speaker C: And I would say there's definitely an art to that, because people cannot do that well. Right?
[00:19:37] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:19:37] Speaker C: And they're buttons for punishment.
[00:19:39] Speaker D: I don't even do it intentionally. It's just my. I.
[00:19:42] Speaker E: Both autism and my personality.
[00:19:45] Speaker D: I'm very much what you would call father's daughter. Some anger issues. I'm a little blunt, a little brash,
[00:19:52] Speaker E: a little spiky on the edges.
[00:19:54] Speaker C: I love how you just described. Awesome. I love that. Spiky on the edges. I'm gonna have to use that one.
[00:19:59] Speaker D: A little bit spiky on the edges.
[00:20:00] Speaker E: But some people don't care. Typically, guys don't care too much.
[00:20:05] Speaker D: As long as you're chill with Their crazy, then they're chill with your crazy. I'm friends with a lot of men. It's just because they're chill. If they do have a crush on me, they don't have the nerve to ask me out, which is the best part, because then we can just stay friends and I don't have to think about the possibility that any of my guy friends like me. It's perfect.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: Okay. There you go. I love it. I absolutely love it. Okay. What's something you're most proud of?
[00:20:25] Speaker D: The more recent thing is the research I've been doing on PCOS essentially discovered
[00:20:29] Speaker E: a gap in research. People with PCOS have been implied to have lowered. Okay, I'm going to speak in scientific terms.
[00:20:37] Speaker D: I'll try to be as layman as possible dopamine tone.
[00:20:39] Speaker E: Now, dopamine is, you know, your reward mechanism.
[00:20:43] Speaker D: Okay. And dopamine is also related to motivation. Okay. And so they may have lower dopamine tone in a specific area of the brain. It's called the vta, we're going to call it, which is more so responsible for internal and external motivation to do tasks.
[00:20:58] Speaker E: As someone with pcos, I have definitely struggled with executive function and having the motivation to even just take care of myself or get out of the bed in the morning, which I don't think anyone wants to, but it's definitely like a major struggle.
[00:21:12] Speaker D: And so I wondered if that was hormonally related. And so, like, there's this gap. Like, it's possible that people with PCOS could literally just have a brain structure where they have less dopamine or specifically
[00:21:23] Speaker E: would be dopamine receptors.
[00:21:24] Speaker D: But that's a whole thing of semantics I'm not going to get into. That's what I'm proud of and that I'm presenting it at Research Week.
[00:21:30] Speaker C: That is fascinating.
[00:21:32] Speaker D: I love that I have found true gap in research which I didn't think really existed beforehand. When I would do, like, research projects, it'd be like, oh, find a gap in this. And I'd be like, I don't know if I can do that. There's so many research papers and researchers out there. But women's health is so understudied. I'm telling you, I'm now. Now I'm not so surprised I found a gap in it.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:52] Speaker D: But I'm excited to present that research. It's just a hypothetical study for now.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:56] Speaker D: Because I don't have the funding to actually do an actual study.
[00:22:00] Speaker E: But that's what I'm proud of now.
[00:22:01] Speaker D: And then the thing I'm proud of from high school, which would be the second thing I'm most proud of, I
[00:22:06] Speaker E: did a blip where I was extremely
[00:22:08] Speaker D: interested in something called dissociative identity disorder. It used to be called multiple personality disorder, but they changed it because it's technically less than one personality instead of more than one. Okay.
[00:22:20] Speaker E: In any case, I grew fond of,
[00:22:22] Speaker D: like, learning about it because it was abnormal psychology. Right. It was something where I was interested in it, and one of my friends at the time, I realized, was exhibiting symptoms of it, and I was like, hey, maybe go talk to a psychiatrist about this. Because this memory loss you're experiencing and being told that you're acting one way
[00:22:41] Speaker E: and you don't remember it, not normal.
[00:22:44] Speaker D: So she went and got. Actually got diagnosed with DID And I was like, wow. Like, I actually made a difference in someone's life and she could actually get treatment for this disorder she has. So that's incredible.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: Yes. That should absolutely. Both of those things are two things that you should absolutely be incredibly proud of. And I wonder with your friend, Right. Because again, the way your brain works and like, the characteristics, the symptoms, like, you're. You're looking at the practicality. And someone else might have been hesitant to say that because, oh, would that offend them? Would that hurt their feelings?
[00:23:15] Speaker D: Right.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: And part of you.
[00:23:16] Speaker D: Oh, and I'm not afraid.
[00:23:18] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:18] Speaker D: I'm not afraid to offend somebody or hurt their feelings in that aspect, especially
[00:23:22] Speaker C: because it's to help.
[00:23:23] Speaker D: I'm not a mean person.
[00:23:24] Speaker C: No, but it was to help them.
[00:23:25] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:23:25] Speaker D: If it's to help somebody, I'll. I'll talk about it. Like, I'll. Especially with, like, diagnoses and stuff. And I'm not trying to armchair diagnose someone because I'm not a professional just yet. But.
[00:23:36] Speaker C: But you will be. I guarantee you.
[00:23:37] Speaker D: Absolutely I will be. But, you know, I can be like, hey, I genuinely think you have, especially when it comes to autism. Like, genuinely. One of my ex boyfriends, for example, definitely autistic, which most of them were. But that's a whole nother thing.
[00:23:52] Speaker C: It's a whole nother podcast.
[00:23:53] Speaker D: It's a whole nother podcast.
[00:23:55] Speaker E: But he definitely was on the spectrum,
[00:23:57] Speaker D: but his parents didn't want to go get him diagnosed and didn't really think of him as on the spectrum because his brother was like, level three. Okay. And it was like, like taking care of at home, that kind of thing.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:08] Speaker D: And so it almost. His brother being level three almost masked his own autism. But I could Tell. I could tell. My mom could tell. I think anyone with eyes could tell. If you listen to him talk for more than about 10 seconds, you're like, he's probably autistic.
[00:24:23] Speaker E: Like, you can tell, right?
[00:24:25] Speaker D: Like, it's things like that where it's like, well, it helps you hyper focus. But, yeah, helps. But yeah, also just like, I can recognize it.
[00:24:31] Speaker C: Yeah, well. And back to your point about gaps in research, you know, to be selfish as you get into all of this for level three, or what we're starting to call profound autism, approximately a quarter of the population is profoundly autistic, but they're only represented in research between a 6 and 11% of the time of research.
So there's a gap right there. You don't even have to go look for it. It's there. Come join us in that research. And there's. There's just not enough research to know what to do and how to help our level three guys. When it comes to medication, when it comes to other supports, whatever we need, there's just no research out there. So I'm going to make a little plea to move in that direction if I have any say on this, Amelia. And then the last thing is, what piece of advice would you give to a parent of a newly diagnosed child
[00:25:16] Speaker D: who might be listening for parents who had children diagnosed later in life, especially if you were not exposed to it, it's not your fault for not knowing. If it's just not in front of you. You can't recognize it. You're not told about it. You're simply ignorant to it. And that's not your fault. That's society's fault.
[00:25:35] Speaker E: What you can do now is do
[00:25:37] Speaker D: as much research as you possibly can into your child's level of autism and bring them the supports that they need.
[00:25:44] Speaker C: About a parent of a newly diagnosed little child.
[00:25:47] Speaker D: Little child. It's not the end of the world. I know it can probably feel like it is.
Like, this is something I'm going to have to deal with for the rest
[00:25:54] Speaker E: of my life and that my child is disabled. And like, this isn't what I dreamed it would be.
[00:26:00] Speaker D: It's not going to be the end of the world. Your child will, as long as you
[00:26:05] Speaker E: provide them with your love and your support and with whatever supports they need, whether that's academic or just in life in general.
[00:26:14] Speaker D: It doesn't matter whether or not they'll be able to become a quote unquote
[00:26:18] Speaker E: functioning member of society as society deems it.
[00:26:21] Speaker D: They'll be able to live a happy
[00:26:23] Speaker E: life, and as long as you stick
[00:26:24] Speaker D: by their side, they will.
[00:26:26] Speaker C: Well, there you go. I couldn't have said it any better. That was amazing. Amelia, I'm so excited that you were here. Thank you for taking your time while you're home on spring break to come see me and help share with our listeners. I think you've given some incredible insight and I would love to have you back another time to talk about dating on the spectrum, because I know that is probably a topic talked about even less in life and I know dating in general is complicated. Much less.
[00:26:49] Speaker D: I have so much to say on that. I promise.
[00:26:51] Speaker C: Well, we will definitely do that. Again, thank you so much for being
[00:26:54] Speaker F: here at McAlpine Interests we believe strong communities grow when everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Based in the Lake Houston area, we specialize in commercial real estate, brokerage and property management across Greater Houston, helping businesses lease, buy and sell the spaces where they can succeed. We're proud to support inspirend and their mission to increase awareness of understanding and inclusion for the neurodiverse community. Learn
[email protected] McAlpine interests looking after your best interests if you need help or resources.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Whether you're a parent, someone on the spectrum, a business or a community organization who want to know more or need help or want to share resources, please reach out to
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[00:27:45] Speaker A: us on Shining Through Inspiration Inspiring Forces of Baltis. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow us, leave a review and share it with others who want to celebrate non diversity. Until next time, keep Shining.
