Lynn Davison 00:00
I'm so excited to introduce you to Wendy, who's become a friend. She is an amazing author of several books on adulting with with autism, and has personal experience, lived experience, as well as professional experience. So she brings a great perspective to all of us, so tell us about you.
Wendela Marsh 00:24
Well, I'd love to my lived experience is familial. I'm not autistic myself, although I've been called quirky, and I take it as a compliment. My late husband and two of our three children were all late diagnosed as autistic. I'd been working with preschool and toddlers who are autistic for years, testing them for the schools, and I did not recognize that I was living with autistic folk because it looks so different.
Lynn Davison 00:57
Well, it was our normal and it was it was our normal. So we didn't think about it as,
Wendela Marsh 01:02
yeah, we didn't think about it we were a autism majority family. Yes, myself and my daughter were the two neuro, you know, typical, whatever typical means, yeah, neuro majority, but in the minority. And then our youngest was diagnosed, and when they first suggested it, I thought, I don't think so, but I'm going to be the cool mom, and I'm going to say, I'll think about that. I'll consider it. And then we learned more about what they used to call Asperger's, and realized that, oh my gosh, it's not just the youngest, it's the oldest. And around the time, I'm wondering, What should I tell my husband? He's bringing out the listing. Well, this is me now. This was me as a child, this, and this, that was me as a child, totally. This is me now, and he just self identified, but we got everybody officially diagnosed and and there it was. So when I retired in 2016 I decided I didn't, you know, the kids are going to be okay. There are lots and lots of programs for autistic children, support for autistic children, books written for autistic, you know, for parenting autistic children, or teaching autistic children. So I decided to shift into the adult, because my kids were adults and and I thought I'd write a book, but then I ended up writing about 10 of them. I love writing and and I enjoyed that very much. And for a while, I started a group practice for assessing autistic adults, and I hired therapists from across the country, and most of them were autistic themselves, because they get it. And then I retired again, sold the practice, and, you know, moving on, and now I'm just focusing on the books and maybe doing some speaking. I love guesting on podcasts like yours, and I'm right about to launch my own podcast, which I hope you will come and be a guest on. It's called amplifying autism, and because I'm not autistic, I want to elevate and share the voices of actually autistic folk who know or neurodivergent folk, folk, yes, who know what you know from the inside. I can know as a spouse, as a parent, as a colleague, as a friend, but it is different when you are so those are the people I want to share. Their stories.
Lynn Davison 03:37
Wonderful idea, because there are, well, if you believe the statistics between what three and maybe 5% of the world's population is autistic, I it may be so that may
03:49
be more.
Lynn Davison 03:50
So there we are with our guest of what would that be? 240 to 400 million people? It's a lot. Yeah, range, and yet it remains a puzzle, and because, and I think there's some prejudice out there, like they should be different. Why are they giving me such a hard time? Why is life so much harder? Why does it seem so hard for them? Why, you know, why did they come up against these challenges and not navigate them like I did?
Wendela Marsh 04:28
That is so true. But you know, you can't treat autism by saying, Just do it. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Try harder. I mean, we wouldn't tell a blind person look more closely at those letters, if you tried hard enough, you'd be able to read it. Or someone in a wheelchair, you're just lazy, get up and walk. You know, use your legs. We we don't, because those are, those are disabilities that we're aware of and that we understand a little better. And yet, with autism, so many families and teachers and people working with autistic folk expect that they should be able to do better, yes, but yeah, you know, it's like, you can't will yourself out of being diabetic. You have to, you know, whatever it is that you're that your condition is you have to live with that and live the best life that you possibly can within your parameters. But you're not just going to say, Okay, I'll quit being autistic because it's not working for me.
Lynn Davison 05:34
I just thyroid pill every morning because I have that Hashimotos condition. You need it, but my mom had it, and I have it so, but without that, I would, I would dwindle into a puddle of no energy. So aren't we lucky that we can diagnose these things and recognize that they're there, that there are differences that are biological,
Wendela Marsh 06:03
yeah, and you can make your life better by taking whatever you need to take, yeah? But that doesn't mean you're going to snap your fingers and say, I don't have Hashimotos anymore. I mean, there are some things like you get a cold, you get over it, but autism is not like a cold, no.
Lynn Davison 06:19
It's just the way the brain came together in the genetic
Wendela Marsh 06:23
Yes, it's a different brain. Yes, it's only considered really a disability because it's in the minority there, and the world is set up to be the best possible world for the most majority brain. Yeah, and that setup does not work. For many people who are autistic,
Lynn Davison 06:45
no, that that middle of the bell shaped curve is very efficient and it's effective.
06:51
Yeah, for those middle people,
06:54
there are those of us on the edges, yeah,
Wendela Marsh 06:58
lots of us, it's true. It's true. And if, if we could flip that script, we might be able to have concerts or lectures or whatever, where, instead of clapping, people would, you know, show their appreciation silently. And it doesn't hurt anybody to do that instead of clapping, but loud applause is really painful for many people that I know. Excuse me,
Lynn Davison 07:28
that's why my daughter, you know, one of my children, always wears earplugs in any situation that could be loud, and I prepare. I have a set in my purse now, because if they forgot, I got, oh,
Wendela Marsh 07:42
mom's ready. I keep loop ear plugs in when I go to the movies. Yeah, it's July. For me, I don't have a sensory problem. I just don't want to listen to the music. Bell out, yes,
Lynn Davison 07:55
yeah, because when you walk out, your ears are ringing so you know something, yeah, it's not right. That's not good. No, no, okay, so then you, you lost your husband, though,
Wendela Marsh 08:09
right, yes, in 2009 he had a heart attack. Oh, damn Yeah, he was 54 only, yeah, it was a surprise, obviously. Dang.
Lynn Davison 08:24
So, um, what? What do you miss about him the most? What are the things that? What's the light that he brought brought to your life?
Wendela Marsh 08:38
It was as if he was the other part of me. You know, we, we had what I think you might call an enmeshed relationship. I mean, psychologists might say, oh, that's enmeshed. That's not healthy, but it totally worked for us until he died, and I didn't realize I have some like, what you might call borderline autistic characteristics, which do not make me autistic. I do not believe that we're all a little bit autistic. Yeah, that's just wrong. But the fact that I too prefer quiet, small gatherings instead of big, loud parties, and I too would rather, you know, spend time just alone together than whatever else we could do outside the house. Those were my preferences and his needs. And so we, you know, we just got along so well. For 27 years, we just got along so well. A friend of mine said it was like he was the lid to my teapot. You know, we just, we were a little matched set. Oh, and I knew that he would always have my back 100% he would be there for me, and I believe he knew the same about me. Now, loyalty is something I see in a lot of autistic people, and it comes out in different ways and the family. Lynn, he was just devoted to be a family and a husband and a father. That was that was something he'd always wanted and hoped for and thought that he might not ever get it. We didn't meet and fall in love until we were in our very late 20s. Okay, so he was already thinking, you know, maybe there's nobody for me. He didn't know he was autistic, but he didn't know that it was hard for him to make friends, it was hard for him to start relationships, but, but he so wanted to be a husband and father, and he just that was, that was everything to him. And when we had kids, and, you know, you try to work out all the, you know, like, who's who's gonna who's gonna do the childcare, who's gonna do what? We realized that my job, I was, I'd been a teacher for 20 years, a special ed teacher, before I went back to school and became a licensed educational psychologist. But so I my job had benefits, and it paid pretty well. I mean, it's the public school, so nobody goes there to get rich, but it was enough. You know, we did not have big needs. You know, it was, I will never complain about my public school income. I do believe that today, teachers are paid so much less than they should be. Yes, it's like the cost of living goes up and the salary doesn't, yeah, but, but it just made sense for him to stay home with the kids and me to keep going to work.
11:35
What a wonderful arrangement.
Wendela Marsh 11:37
It was lovely, and it just worked out for us, I didn't have to worry because I knew that he adored them and would never let harm befall them, you know, if you could help it, excuse me. And luckily, they were all teens or young adults by the time that he died, so they did get to spend their childhood with him.
Lynn Davison 12:00
I'm sure they made many marvelous memories.
Wendela Marsh 12:04
I think so. You know, we lived a quiet life, but it was the perfect life for us.
Lynn Davison 12:10
Yes, oh, that's so wonderful. And now you're writing about it in a way where you, I think, break things down. Let me ask this question because it's just top of mind for me in my situation, where, where did you see anxiety play a role in in your family,
Wendela Marsh 12:34
anxiety plays a huge role. And I learned even before I knew that he was autistic, I discovered one because I would go off to work and I would say, oh, you know, the phone company is still doing some weird thing without they won't fix it. They say it's it's an outside wire problem, and we've done the test, and we said, No, it's inside. You need to come fix it back when we didn't have cell phones. And I would go to work and say, Oh, could you call the phone company for me while, while we're gone? I mean, not for me, for our family. And he'd say, of course, I will do it. And by the time he spent any amount of time being put on hold, listening to a robot being put on hold, being transferred to someone else, it was so stressful for him he would go to bed for the rest of the day. It was just too much to cope with all that social but not, not really. It was, it was stressful. And once I found that out, I just said, Oh, you don't do that anymore. I'll do that. I mean, I can make a phone call on my lunch break and things like, he was an excellent driver, but I couldn't have like, a conversation that mattered while he was driving. You know, it was difficult for him to, you know, do more than one thing in that sort of a situation.
Lynn Davison 13:59
Figured out what the anxiety provoking triggers were, and then, yeah, take that on, or we'll figure out how to modify the demand. Yeah.
Wendela Marsh 14:10
And because anxiety is so prevalent still in our household, we just have to see how we can reduce the stress. Right now, we're not watching the news at all. The news is going to happen whether we see it or not, and if it's going to affect us. Somebody, you know, one of my sisters, is going to text me and tell me what's happening if I need to know. So it's better for us all if we don't watch the news on television, we'll watch, you know, Murder She Wrote, or midsummer murders. You know, it all ties up neatly at the end, and it's a little bit old fashioned, because it was from the 80s. And it just, we need low stress TV in our life.
14:53
It's that's a real smart strategy.
14:56
I'm sure my kids came up with.
Lynn Davison 14:58
They're smart and. Yeah. So I think that I see that reflected in your books, where you you, you go right to the practical in most of the books, in what I've read so far, yeah, because I haven't read them all, I would love
Wendela Marsh 15:15
to well, oh, well, ask your librarian. Yes, one thing that I enjoyed in writing the books was for every chapter that had like a topic. And, you know, these are non fiction books, so it's like, I have to put in stuff about whatever the subject is. So if it's dating while autistic or relating while autistic, for couples or parenting while autistic, there's so many books out there for parents of autistic kids, I couldn't find any books for autistic parents, so I wrote one, and every chapter has, you know, information, because that's my job. But then after I put out my here's the information, I create a number of fictional characters, and for each of those characters, I show how that situation might have affected them differently, or what strategies they used to handle that issue. And each one of the characters has maybe a different solution, or tries different things that don't work, and then find something that does work. And by including that, I'm hoping to give autistic folk ideas that you can solve problems on your own, like these did, and if these three don't work, maybe that one will work for you. But even more importantly, than my fictional characters, which I have fun writing, is at the end of every chapter, I have a little paragraph or an anecdote or something written by actually autistic folk. Because, you know, who knows so i And as someone who's not autistic, and sometimes people think I am, which is fine with me, except that I don't want to claim something you know that is not true. So I want to make sure that I am amplifying those voices and getting their exact feelings and responses and strategies and ideas and their wisdom out in the books.
Lynn Davison 17:06
How do you find those people? Well,
Wendela Marsh 17:10
I know some of them, yes, excuse me. I mean, some of them were people that I've worked with, and some are, you know, my kids, and some are friends of mine who happen to be autistic, and some are people that I had tested in the past. I have a newsletter, so if anybody wants my newsletter, you know, let me know. Okay, okay, but I would put it out there, and I would say, here's what I'm looking for, if you have a story about this topic or that topic, and you want to share it with me, then I'll send you a free, signed book. You know, after the book is published, if I use your your and I've used everybody who has offered me something, I have used, because they all have something good to say,
Lynn Davison 17:58
yes, so it's not just you as the authority you're saying. I think this might work. I think this could work with an a fictional character. But here's what you know, a real character says,
Wendela Marsh 18:11
yes, yeah. Real autistic person says, That's right, the actually autistic folk know what's true for them.
Lynn Davison 18:19
I love that approach. I love that approach. Um, yeah. So, okay, so, oh, wow. How do we? How do we find your books? Where do we,
Wendela Marsh 18:39
okay, well, if you search online, my the name that I write under is my full name, Wendell a quickcom. Marsh wendella has 1l, W, E, N, D, E, L, A. Quick come is W, H, I, T, C, O, M, B, and Marsh M, A, R, S, H, like marshmallow without the mellow. And if you search online, you'll find, you know, if you use Amazon, some people think Amazon has enough money already, or, you know, wherever you like to go to find books, you know, some of them are on Audible. And I always tell people, ask your librarian, because none of us has all the dollars and all the bookshelf space in the world to be able to buy every single book we want to read, but the library does, they have the bookshelf available. So if your librarian doesn't have any of my books, they might ask another library to, you know, send one over, or they might buy it, yeah, which is fine with me, yeah. I'm sure. I'm sure my publishers would rather have me saying, buy my books, then ask your librarian. Actually, they're they are not. They're not pushy about trying to make a lot of money. Their goal, like mine and like yours, is to put out information that helps. I just. Folk future rising publishing is like 100% autism, neurodiversity, sensory that's all they do. They're not just looking to publish any old book. They have a mission. And I love partnering with them.
Lynn Davison 20:16
Oh, that's, that's wonderful. And my copy is, a Kindle conversion.
20:22
Oh, okay, so Kindle has it.
Lynn Davison 20:24
Kindle, it's yes, which is lovely because I'm I don't want to have any more books to dust.
Wendela Marsh 20:31
I know the feeling there's only so many places to put new books.
Lynn Davison 20:36
I mean, there's over 2000 in this house. That's enough,
Wendela Marsh 20:40
that's enough. That's enough. But how many can you fit on your device? When you get a Kindle, it's like, it's it's unlimited,
Lynn C Davison 20:47
and you can search on the and you can highlight things, and you can download your highlights, and you it's just it gives me more flexibility that I really need, because I want to be able to find I want to be able to quote you or quote, you know, one of the people you quoted when I'm teaching, and have that at my fingertips, you know, literally, is really helpful to me.
Wendela Marsh 21:09
It makes it so easy. I've been doing auditory books because I've been having trouble with my eyes. You know, I'm getting older, although I just had some work, not work done, but like, I was having problems with my cornea, and they fixed it, so now I can read better, but for a while I could not read the small
Lynn Davison 21:30
print at all. Right? That's another advantage of the Kindles. You can make the printers,
Wendela Marsh 21:34
you can make it big, and with the audit, Audible books are auditory, you know, I it's not necessarily one, one type, but one brand, but different ways to get them in the audio. I can listen to them when I drive. It's just, you know, makes it a little easier to to get the books in that I want to get in.
Lynn Davison 21:56
Yes, yes. Because there are more than there are time right.
Wendela Marsh 22:00
There are, there are so many books out there. I love I love it.
Lynn Davison 22:04
So you have raised three autistic children now, young
Wendela Marsh 22:09
adult, actually, two are autistic, the other one is disabled, but not with autism. Okay, yeah, they
Lynn Davison 22:16
there's all kinds of ways brains come together. So what you know, give, give us parents, some, some words of wisdom that you've accumulated over the years.
Wendela Marsh 22:27
Well, I wish I were as wise as but I think for the most part, I would say to parents, you've got this, you know, you love your kids unconditionally, and that is the thing. There may be times when there's like a situation with your kid, when you think, I need to be the strong parent and I need to discipline them for this, but maybe it's more important to them that you just take a pause and just listen to them and not be the disciplinarian all the time. I mean, obviously, for safety, we can't let them do unsafe things. It's our job to keep them alive. But well, I was so blessed to have really good parents. I don't know how I lucked out, but when I was about 13, I was having a conversation with my dad that I can't remember what it was about, but he kept pressing me and asking me questions about something that I did not want to talk about. I just didn't and I finally blurted out, shut up, which was not something we ever said to it was like that was the S word. We did not say that to anyone, much less our parents, and then I stormed off, just devastated. What have I done? No one has ever done a worse thing than this, so I'm off sitting on the couch in the back room just thinking, what will be my punishment. This is the worst thing I've ever done in my life. And my dad eventually walked down just quietly sat down beside me, and he apologized. He said, I'm sorry. I didn't notice how strongly you felt about not talking about that. I should have been paying a better attention. I should have stopped sooner. And I'm sorry. And of course, I said, No, I'm sorry. I was wrong, you know. But, um, but to apologize when you were not in the wrong, that is such a gift that all these, you know, half a century later, I remember that so clearly. Wow. So parents, if there's a time that you can apologize to your child or to say I was wrong. You know, I made this rule because I thought this was important, and I didn't realize how difficult it would be for you. Let's work together to find a rule that works to, you know, keep you safe or to get the jobs done that we have to do in life. You know, you have to get up and. Get ready and go to school, but in a way that is supportive, not punishing, because the times that you didn't come down hard on them are the times that they will cherish.
Lynn Davison 25:14
Wow, that's a big lesson. Oh, thank you for sharing that I you just came alive because you could remember and picture the whole thing,
25:23
yeah, and that was a long time ago.
Lynn Davison 25:26
What an impact he had on you and that conversation had on you, wow.
Wendela Marsh 25:33
And parents do have that power. I've got one more story, please. When, when my oldest child, I did not know that they were autistic. I did not know that they did not have like, the kind of motor sensory of where you are in the world with your body. I thought maybe sometimes they were clumsy, and I had a cookie jar that was black with red cherries on it, and a little china lid that set on there. And I love that I had saved up to buy that cookie jar, because they were not cheap, and we weren't living on a, you know, a school teacher salary, so we did not buy. And one time when, when my oldest went to the kitchen to bring kids cookies in for us to eat. They moved too quickly, and the lid fell off and broke, and I was disappointed. But it's like, you know, accidents happen, and that then became the jar that I put, like wooden spoons and whisks and things in later on, it was my birthday the next year, and the jar was there again in the store. So I bought a new one to put cookies in with a lid. And, you know, this is like maybe a year later. It was not in recent memory, but the same oldest child went off to get that cookie jar, and I heard the crash again, and I thought, I can't afford to buy another one of those. And I went rushing in, and there there were big eyes holding the cookie jar, broken things on the phone, and I could feel a yell coming up. Now, we didn't usually yell at our kids. That was not our style, that was not our temperament. We were not yellers, but I could feel a yell coming up in my throat, and all I could do was shape it as it came out of my mouth. So I yelled, I love you more than cookie cookie jar lids. I love you more than cookie jar lids. And just the relief. And you know, it's like, are you okay? Did you get cut? Okay? We'll clean it up. We'll go on. And then I had two things that I could put my wooden spoons and whisks in. And the truth is, those things didn't matter. Cookie jars don't matter. People matter. And if we can manage to shape the yell before it gets onto the air, if we can keep it back until it can have kindness in it, because we know that our words hurt, because we've all been hurt by words. So that was my, my lesson in quick, don't say it, shape it, change it before it comes out.
Lynn Davison 28:14
Wow, oh, I can just, I can think of something I could have done this morning, or I could have shaped the words that's I will never forget that that just is an image of the words coming out and then shaping. I will never forget that, and the words hurt
Wendela Marsh 28:34
and and I just need to acknowledge that that may be that my temperament allowed me, and the fact that I had to run all the way to the kitchen, which bought me a little time, and who may have allowed for me to do that, yeah, and I wouldn't want to make parents feel bad when sometimes the yell comes out and they can't shape it, you know, the thing to do is, if you need to apologize, you apologize. Because sometimes people yell each other, sometimes people say hurtful words, but apologies after the hurtful whatever comes out, if it can't be shaped, mean a lot. And acknowledging, I was very upset and those words came out before I could pull them back, and I wish that I had said this instead, that can do it too.
Lynn Davison 29:23
Very powerful because we want to. I mean, my my connection with my kids and my and everyone in my family matters more to me than anything, yes, anything in this world. So that's always the first priority, always, yeah, the connection, the relationship, and it's not easy. It is not easy. Holy cow, there are a lot of things to learn that we don't get taught.
Wendela Marsh 30:00
Lynn, that is so true. And
Lynn Davison 30:03
we just finished 12 lessons in relationships inside the art of adults, and did a review yesterday of all of them, and we ranked ourselves. And it was like I was, you know, a scale of one to 10, the typical thing to do. And my son was so cute. He teaches with me. And he said, you know, very few of us are really that self aware, so maybe we ought to take any one of the numbers we did and move them back one. And I thought, you know, he's right. We all okay, a ton of room to Oh, and grace and grace to give yeah to ourselves, yes and yes to them,
Lynn Davison 30:49
and that's so important our in our caring circle. Wow. What a good lesson. Oh, thank you for sharing that. Wow. Okay. Oh, my goodness,
Lynn Davison 31:01
your your stories that you're telling us now are just like the stories that I read in your book. So pulls me right back into that book. Maybe I should just read each a chapter each night before I go to sleep, because they're so comforting.
31:14
They're Oh, I'm so glad we can figure
31:17
this out. Is the message we want to send?
Wendela Marsh 31:19
Yes, yes, yes, yes, we can. We can figure this out.
Lynn Davison 31:23
We can ease the anxiety together in a collaborative way, and then applaud and, you know, cheer each other on. Yeah, because we all deserve it, don't? We deserve it, and that's the best way that I know to move forward, and we're going to screw up, and that's when we will we do, gosh darn it. We're humans, you know, but I don't want to be a member of the matrix and have it all, you know, put into my brain. I want to be able to I want to be a person who will learn over and
32:01
over Yes until Yes,
Lynn Davison 32:03
my brain is just not ready to take anything else in this might happen. You know, oh, Wendy, What? What. What a tremendous storyteller you are, what a wonderful body of experience you've had to pull from, and what a commitment I sense in you to make this world work better for everyone, and especially autistic people. But it's amazing that no matter what we learn to help our autistic people, our autistic family members, and the people that we love and ourselves, that it's going to help other people too. Yes, yeah.
Wendela Marsh 32:43
And, and that's really what we're all about, is making the world a better place, a safer place, a more comfortable place, and a place where people can feel good about the progress they've made, about the contribution that they can make, even if it's not the contribution they thought they could make.
Lynn Davison 33:01
Yeah, yeah. I had no idea this is where it was going to go, you know, a long time ago. But nothing fits me or feels better than this ever. Yeah.
Wendela Marsh 33:12
I never thought I would write a book. Honestly, my husband was a writer. My late husband, he wasn't a sender. Out to publisher.
Lynn Davison 33:24
Yeah, I'm kind of stuck in that one right now, just saying, well, but I'm having trouble with is, is, is making it a priority. So I have to just make it a priority, because I'm so excited about what we're doing inside of those of my practice that writing about it is not, you know, it's not on the top of my mind.
33:46
When the time is right, it will be,
Lynn Davison 33:51
yes, I know, and I've got it outlined, and I know what I want to do, and I know, okay, so we're getting there, but yeah, and I just appreciate you leading the way on this so that I can thank you. I can be inspired by all of you what you've done, and then do my version of what works for me.
Wendela Marsh 34:10
Yes, go out there and and do it, because the world needs more of what you have to offer and what all of us have to share. So when the time is right for you, your your audience, your readers, will be so happy that you put it out there.
Lynn Davison 34:26
I'm just excited about getting it down because I've always wanted to write a book, but I didn't know what it was, and now I have a much better idea. Now you know, and now I know. Now I just gotta do. And isn't that part of life right there? Knowing yes or doing is the second Yeah,
Wendela Marsh 34:43
yeah, and I will say I love retirement. I was in a group the other day. We're talking sharing about different things, because one of the challenges was post something on tic tac one, tick tock, tick tock, once a day. 30 days, and I didn't even know how to tick tock. I said, Sure, I'll try that. So then I did that. And yeah, my tick tock handle is at wendelah 50 so, so I'm doing the tick tock, and next I'll try the Instagram. And somebody said, how can you manage to do all the things you do. And I'll tell you, I don't have a day job, and my kids are all grown. You have a day job, and young children
35:30
cut yourself some stuff. Those are big jobs,
Wendela Marsh 35:36
yes, and you have to do those jobs first. I had to do 40 years of working for other people, for school districts, and now I don't work for anybody but me. My kids had to grow up. Now they're grown up. You know? We we just in every season, there is time to do what needs to be done, but we always prioritize. And now i i can learn how to do Tiktok next.
36:02
Instagram. Good for you. Wow. Isn't that fun?
Wendela Marsh 36:07
That is, well, learning something new is fun, yeah,
Lynn Davison 36:11
yeah, yeah. Which we Yeah, then
Wendela Marsh 36:14
and you meet people, you know, you meet a lot of people online that are like, these are my kind of people, yes.
Lynn Davison 36:21
Well, here's the thing, we're going to be adults a lot longer than we were children.
Wendela Marsh 36:25
Yes, I never thought of that. That is so true. So adulting, the art of adulting, is so important,
Lynn Davison 36:33
it really is. And you know, those challenges that all humans have of getting things done, you know, dealing with feelings and handling the the people that we love and have to deal with, those are universal challenges. They seem to be harder, though, for they seem to just have an intensity difference. Maybe it's that, that anxiety that covers it anyway, that could be, it seems those are the things that are the hardest.
Wendela Marsh 37:05
There's a lot of anxiety, and sometimes the political climate or worrying about the planet. The people I know who are autistic have tremendous empathy. I mean, we've all heard that myth, oh, autistic people don't have empathy. I've never met a single autistic person, and I know hundreds. Yes, not one of them lacks empathy. Not one many have extreme, extreme empathy that can shut them down. Yes, many feel very deeply, but don't necessarily show it all on their face. They're not that kind of a person, right? And some people, I've heard of one or two who have empathy. Once they connect it to something in their own life, it's like, Oh, you. You know your dog lost. Your dog died. I remember when my cat died. Oh my gosh, I know how you feel, awful.
Lynn Davison 38:04
Yeah, terrible inside. Yeah, it's like losing a family member
Wendela Marsh 38:07
and some autistic folk. The way that they connect and show their empathy is by sharing a similar story, where they can say, I I feel what you're feeling. Because this happened to me, and far too often they get told, don't make everything about you. Yeah, don't, don't take over the conversation. It's like nobody was trying to
Lynn Davison 38:27
take over. I was trying to contribute. Yes, and
Wendela Marsh 38:31
it's it's difficult for them to understand how they how their expression of empathy is misunderstood and rejected. But I hear that from a lot of people, and I think that's a shame, because, you know, they're just trying to express their empathy. And I'm not sure if there's, like, a formula of how much you can say. If you can just say, Oh, I've experienced something similar. I know how you feel, but then don't tell them the story. Maybe that's but, you know, every situation is different,
Lynn Davison 39:03
isn't it, and that's what makes it so complex and difficult. Is this interacting with others? Is there's a lot of variables. Their preference on how recent it is, how much they understand about different minds? Yeah, is there's all those variables, I think such a challenge. Oh, wow, yes. So there just is so much of that. So how? Let me ask you this one question, that because I've created the peace process that works for me, where we pause, then we empathize, then we align, then we collaborate, then we experiment, right? Get yourself to pause.
39:50
How do I get myself to pause?
Lynn Davison 39:52
Yeah, what's how do we slow things down enough so that we can respond instead of react? What is. It. How do you not like you said, you shape that coming out of your mouth? How were you aware enough?
Wendela Marsh 40:08
That's hard. And you know, part of it is humans are so diverse, and some are on a fast cycle where the ideas come up fast, you know? And these are maybe our folk with ADHD, or ADHD, where it's just coming up really fast. And then for some of us, there's like a chance to pause. I might think of an idea quickly, but it's not triggered into then having to say it out loud. And I learned in my relationship with David that if there was something that I was unhappy about, and this was before I knew he was an autistic, but I thought, if I am, you know, it's like, should I be mad about this? What I would do was wait a couple days and a couple of days later it would either be, oh, that was nothing, or let's schedule a time to sit down and talk about it when we're both calm. And that was my temperament, my personal speed. I was able to do that. I'm not saying everybody can do that, but I also am not good at coming back quickly with the right thing to say the way somebody on a higher speed might be good at, you know, coming up with something to say, I'm like, Let me think about it, because that's my speed, and I don't have a secret of how to do that, but if you can make a determination of when I am mad, I will stop. It's like people always say, you know, count to 10, but I'm going to say, count to two days, unless it's immediate, like, this has to be solved right now because of, I don't safety issue or something, but most issues, like in a relationship, they can stand a couple days and then make an appointment when everybody's calm to say, let's have a cup of coffee. Let's talk about this thing. Yeah, and then listen,
Lynn Davison 41:59
yeah, yeah. Okay, so that's the strategy that will work so that we don't just say whatever on our minds at that moment, maybe it'll come out and we'll have to apologize and still set an appointment.
Wendela Marsh 42:15
You know, we're all so different from each other. Yes, yes,
Lynn Davison 42:19
we want to honor those differences, not, you know, just that there's anything wrong with them.
Wendela Marsh 42:26
That's a good point, honoring the differences. I like that.
Lynn Davison 42:29
Yeah, yeah, wow. It's, it's a lot. Well, you know, what else do you want to make sure that we cover together today? Is there anything else that you'd like to highlight?
Wendela Marsh 42:41
Well, I think the main thing that I would want to say to like late diagnosed autistic folk, is there's nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you. And you've probably spent your lifetime thinking there was but that was wrong. You have a different brain. It's not a worse brain, it's just a different brain. And you're living in a world that was set up by the majority brains. It was not set up for your comfort or your best ability. And you have been finding your way in this jungle of the neuro typical world set up, and you know, good for you. You've been amazing while autistic and and that just it, you know, honor that you've been doing very, very hard work, and to realize that it's not that hard for neurotypical people like me. It's harder for you, but you can do hard things. And I would love to someday have a world that was really accessible for all handicaps and understanding for all handicaps. And I acknowledge that we are not there yet or disabilities. And I might, you know, I'm old, I might say the wrong word. I don't know if that's, you know, no longer an acceptable term, and I apologize if it is not, but, um, but while we're on our way to a world that really works for everyone, give yourself a break. Give yourself permission to recover after a social event. It doesn't mean you're lazy. It means you have to recover because there was so much social going on the Thanksgiving dinner table, or whatever it is, that you might need two days staying in bed, and that's okay. That does not mean that you are lazy or broken. It just means that you are autistic and you need to honor what your body and your brain needs in order to keep going.
Lynn Davison 44:41
Yeah, because there's going to be just a stream of challenges.
Wendela Marsh 44:46
Yeah, that's true. I mean, we all have them, but it it is harder when one is different from the majority in any way. It just makes life harder. But, you know, we can do hard things.
Lynn Davison 45:00
We can we? Can we have, yes, been doing it all along, doing it all along. So let's just keep on, keeping on and figuring it out, one little piece at a time. And yeah, little bit of a bubble up. It says that not everything. They say I'm going to take in. It's gotta be good for us. Bubble because we do have to take stuff in. But yeah, we're going to open and sometimes we're going to close.
Wendela Marsh 45:24
Yeah, like, Glenda, yes. Bubble, you can, like, open it and then step on the thing and it closes around you a pink protective bubble and and forgive yourself. You know, you deserve that grace from yourself as much as from anybody else. And I know it's easy to say, oh, I should have said that. Oh, I should have done that. Oh, no, I ruined that. But no, forgive yourself as you would forgive a loved one who made a mistake that was not their fault. Forgive yourself with that same level of caring that you would give to someone else.
Lynn Davison 46:02
Yeah, yeah. That's, that's a challenge. I find that's a challenge in, you know, in that we, we're constantly appraising ourselves as to whether or not we're meeting our own expectations, and when we don't, it's awful. Yeah. It feels,
Wendela Marsh 46:21
yeah, it does. And it's hard to forgive yourself, but we can do hard things.
Lynn Davison 46:29
We've got to surf that wave of awful and then yes,
Wendela Marsh 46:35
and not go under it, but surf the top of it. Oh, I love that again, right?
46:41
Yeah, and it will, it will move along.
Lynn Davison 46:45
And that's our emotions are there to help us notice what's going on.
Wendela Marsh 46:53
And sometimes our brain doesn't know that we're not in danger. Our brain thinks Danger, danger, anxiety, anxiety. And we have to say, thank you for sharing brain, but there is no danger here. There is no tiger. This is just a social conversation. We will survive
Lynn Davison 47:09
when driving. Yes, accidents can happen, but they are not likely. They don't usually happen. Yeah, right, we can navigate, and it's a really good thing that we can because in this world, it's hard to get around. But we know people don't ever
Wendela Marsh 47:29
drive, but yeah, and that's okay too. They make the right choice for them
Lynn Davison 47:33
want, if it's something you want, then let's figure out how to surf the wave of the anxiety and still drive.
47:41
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Lynn Davison 47:44
It's, it's, there's a lot, there's a lot to this, and you have lived it professionally and personally. And I love that you can tell the stories about it, so that they come so alive for all. Thank you. That is, folks, very alive too. So I think that's where I've learned so much about people, is by reading so same, yes, I've read my whole life, and especially loved historical fiction. For that reason, I could put myself people's shoes in other cultures and
Wendela Marsh 48:19
understand and yeah, and really immerse yourself in that
Lynn Davison 48:23
yes, yes. And I think that's why this whole, you know, autism is its own world. Let's get in there. Let's figure out how that feels, yeah,
Wendela Marsh 48:33
and when, when the world has been harsh, when people have been mean, losing yourself in either a book, which is I find very easy to lose oneself in, or for some a video game. In a video game, you can win, you can save the planet, you can rescue the princess. And so I, you know, I don't tell parents, oh, don't let your kids play too much video games. It's like when they come home from school. Home from school, they might need that. Yeah, yeah. They have been working. They've been doing very, very hard work just being in school, and now let them be in whatever the world is of their video game not like all day and all night, but absolutely, yeah. Better to ask, How much time do you need to self regulate? You know, and it might be two hours. It might be, I don't know, when they're losing sleep, then it's a safety and health issue because people have to sleep, but, but I do think it's important to allow autistic folk to self regulate in the way that helps them, if it's just covering themselves up in the covers in their bed, or if it's playing video games, or if it's reading or re watching the same favorite movie or series again and again, these familiar things can really help us self regulate and like, put back on our armor to face a new day.
Lynn Davison 50:00
Okay, just we got to feel good again to go, yes, yes, yeah. Love that. Love that. Oh, you always, yeah. We could do this for a long time.
50:13
This is so much fun,
Lynn Davison 50:15
yes, well, I just so appreciate everything you've shared. And thank you. I really enjoy, enjoy being in your presence, because it's very calming and very including, inclusive and and tell that your heart is really in helping other people find what works for them.
Wendela Marsh 50:40
And I see that in you as well and in your work. I'm grateful for you and for all the people that you reach and help you know, in your world, in your courses. Thank you for doing that. It's wonderful.
Lynn Davison 50:53
It is truly my joy. I love it. I get that. We'll, we'll get this out to my to my folks, and wish you the very best, and I hope we we stay
Wendela Marsh 51:07
in touch. Oh, thank you. Let's do that. Okay, sounds good.
51:11
Bye for now, bye, bye, bye.
