Lynn Davison 0:00
So Caroline, I am so excited that you're here, because I have been a fan of yours for a number of years. Well, I met you through TFOS, the Executive Function Online Summit with Seth Perler.
Speaker 1 0:18
Yeah,
Lynn Davison 0:19
and I was, I would take, I would listen to everything he had to say, and then translate it into how I could help autistic young adults, and then you came out with a book for autistic young, autistic neurodiversity adults. Yes, it's not easy to find, and I'm just thrilled that you are paying attention to this segment of the population because they deserve all they all deserve really great lives, and it's not so easy to figure out how to do that when you're neurodivergent. So, here's what I'd like to do: is go to the next slide, because this is how we're going to do our interview. We're going to use the Peace Practice, which is the coaching framework that I use, is a self-coaching framework. So, the idea is that we all embrace it, parents and young adults alike, and we just pause, so we slow things down, we empathize, so we notice what's happening inside both of us, we align with what we want, we collaborate where we take turns offering options, and then the person who's going to do the doing picks the step that makes you're going to be doing the doing, you're the one that gets to choose, right?
Speaker 1 1:32
Yeah, that no, that makes total sense, and it really fits with the with the curiosity model that ADHD life coaching has that I teach at the Add Coach Academy, so it really fits with that. Yeah,
Lynn Davison 1:44
I, you know, I don't think I know any enough about that, so maybe I'll have to follow up on that afterwards. Alright, well, so the first thing that I noticed when I was reading your book was that you follow this process too,
Lynn Davison 1:58
yeah?
Lynn Davison 1:59
Right, so you pause, and this is what I saw first off in chapter one, and I love this. You said, "Let's slow down and write down one or two of your whys. Why do you want to do this? I thought that was so smart. So tell me about how you got there.
Speaker 1 2:16
I got there because I have the opinion that many of our adults who are over 30, over 20, over 40, 5060, on, we weren't given choice in friendship, we were told to go make friends, we were told to fit in rather than to belong, and to fit ourselves into a box, and to change ourselves, and I also think we were told to accept less, just make friends, instead of, are these people your people, and do they treat you decently? And so, when I really wanted to present this book, I really wanted people to figure out what fills their social cup, not what fills my social cup. What did they individually need and want? We know connection helps with our health. We know that it's beneficial, but I think it's not been considered enough. You know, how much energy does it take when you know what situations are just too much? And then you, the environment isn't right, but also it's just it's more socialization than you need or want, and then it, it causes you to mask, or it causes you to, to just feel burned out, right, and so I wanted people to think about what's in it for me, and then why, and I have, in the first chapter, a whole thing about, you know, what do you get out of this for the cynics? Because there are people who are cynical, people DM me, and they say, "I like you, Caroline, but I wish you'd stop talking about this, because it's the hardest thing in my life, and I don't really want to look at it, basically. And I get that, so I wanted to sort of talk about and have people have that introspection of why, and I don't think, as a population, I can say this as a neurodivergent woman, I don't think this is something we've really done so much, because it just wasn't the thought process in like the 80s and 90s and early 2000s the
Lynn Davison 4:21
process was, how can you change yourself to fit in?
Speaker 1 4:25
How can you change yourself to fit in, and like you're lucky to have a friend, they don't treat you well, maybe they run you down that, but you have someone, so accept that, and that's not the way I want us to go forward. I want us to have our people, and I want us to be treated well. That's why I have an entire chapter of what. How do you know if someone is going to be a good friend? Yeah, and red flags, and also green flags, signs that someone is going to be a good friend. And I want people to have choice, and that's just. Not an element that we had before, and I talk a lot about it in the first chapters, like you get to choose, you get to choose if someone fits with you, if someone is interesting to you, and I just don't think that's the way we were taught, at least it's not my experience, and it's not my client's experience,
Lynn Davison 5:18
not at all, and so when this topic comes up, a lot of the members of the art of adulting say they're just not interested.
Speaker 1 5:27
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I mean, I think this is, you know, this is going back and looking at something that didn't necessarily work and asking you to look at something again that you feel like you, you just didn't have the skills, or you didn't know how to do, and it's painful, but my argument is we didn't know about our brains. We either didn't have a diagnosis, or we were taught this other model that doesn't work for us, or we were told not to consider our neurodivergent traits. Right, don't think about your sensory needs. Don't think about what makes you, you know, feel uncomfortable. And so I get that this didn't work in the past, but my argument is it didn't work because we weren't considering our neurology or honoring our own needs,
Lynn Davison 6:15
so we didn't understand what was going on and accept that we had every every right in the world to to advocate for what we need,
Speaker 1 6:26
absolutely, and to say, you know, and I do a lot of, so some people love scripts, some people hate scripts, right? Some people feel like scripts are oppressive and they are the vehicle, you know, of oppression, and some people love them. I love scripts, not for you to memorize and regurgitate, but as a jumping off point. So, I have a lot of scripts around communication and just being able to say to people, you know, I will go to x, y, and z place with you, but I really am uncomfortable in that environment that you're proposing, and I'd rather do something else, or I will stay home this time and join you next time, because I think that whole, what do I need, and you know, where do I work best? And by the way, we know environment affects our nerd virgin traits. Oh yeah, that whole thing has never.. I mean, you read all the books on friendship, that's just not there, and it's just not a mindset that we were, we were given,
Lynn Davison 7:29
and of course, why wouldn't it, right? Why wouldn't.. what were we thinking?
Speaker 1 7:37
I think some of this is the typical people were writing the books and writing the curriculum for autistic children, right, and ADHD children to some extent, although mostly we didn't even have books, and then on social skills, and then they didn't understand well enough. I think it was a mindset that was was just not understanding that, like, environment matters so much to
Lynn Davison 8:07
us. Oh, yeah. Oh, it affects the nervous system.
Speaker 1 8:10
Yes,
Lynn Davison 8:11
environment affects the nervous system, therefore it affects how we react. Period.
Speaker 1 8:15
Absolutely, and also you don't have to endure,
Lynn Davison 8:20
no,
Speaker 1 8:21
an environment that doesn't work for you in every social engagement in order to have friends.
Lynn Davison 8:28
Well, and I'm just going to take it one more step. We do not have to endure work environments that don't support.
Speaker 1 8:34
Yes, yes, 100%
Lynn Davison 8:37
because work is social.
Speaker 1 8:39
Work is social, I mean, Gallup still shows after all these years that what people want out of the workplace is a friend, and I have a chapter on the workplace and friendship in the workplace, and how to make friends in the workplace, and by the way, this isn't all prescriptive, so a lot of, a lot of books written for us were very prescriptive,
Lynn Davison 9:03
not at all,
Speaker 1 9:04
and this is not.
Lynn Davison 9:05
I found it to be incredibly thorough in the explanation, so that I understood what was going on better. And then, hey, here are some suggestions of things you could consider trying.
Speaker 1 9:20
Yes,
Lynn Davison 9:20
one thing you can try, but not you ought to do this
Speaker 1 9:25
right, because I wanted to stay away from the ought to do this model, because that was the way things were in the past, and many adults who went through that are very sensitive to that, which I totally get, because I watched it as a, as a person training back then, I went against the mold. I wasn't popular with certain practitioners because of it, but I also just, as an adult with ADHD, I knew I couldn't, I couldn't stop needing certain things, so I never expected my clients to do that.
Lynn Davison 10:00
Exactly, that makes perfect sense. That makes so much sense. All right, so that's the first thing that I noticed was let's figure out what's in it for me before we go any further. Yep, then I noticed that we went to the empathize step. You talked about reading the room inside of you. What a wonderful visual I I love that, and that's empathy steps. So, if we can not only read the room inside of us, but also whoever we're trying to be in friendship with or work with, look at, look at our power, look at how, how, how much better we'll get along.
Speaker 1 10:39
Absolutely, and I want to say, I know that there are folks listening who have a hard time with that mind body connection and have a hard time and have a lexicymia and just can't in the moment identify their emotions, and I have many clients like that,
Lynn Davison 10:53
my most of them, yeah,
Speaker 1 10:54
most of my clients, but what I would say is you can do these exercises where you're aware of something that you want to think about, and then you know you can use tools that I offer, if you, if you find that you need more, email me, and I will happily help you, but you know, I thought of this also as not just an exercise I'm doing, or something I'm doing in the moment, but something I'm becoming aware of, right? So, even just that awareness that how I enter a social situation, and my emotions and my feelings about something affect how I react, how I show up. So, you know, to me it was every exercise was also to be, to be done or not done, right? Like I say over and over in the book, like, take what you want and leave the rest. It's a tool, not a rule. So I'm not saying you must do every exercise, and I'm not saying every exercise must resonate with you,
Lynn Davison 11:58
because they don't all,
Speaker 1 11:59
because they don't all.
Lynn Davison 12:00
No, no, it's nice to have a smorgasbord, though, of options.
Speaker 1 12:05
It is nice. It's so funny because some people have been putting some things on Instagram, and I read the comments, and some of the comments are like, I could never do this, and then someone else will be like, well, I found it really helpful, you know. And that's the thing, it's not one size fits all, and I think, I think sometimes when we've been raised with a do every single thing that's put in front of you, I just, that's why I say over and over and over again in the book, like do what you want and leave the rest.
Lynn Davison 12:31
Yeah, yeah, this is a choose your own adventure. Choose
Speaker 1 12:35
your own adventure. I love that phrase. Yes,
Lynn Davison 12:37
so when you're reading the room inside of you, I like to think of it, am I comfortable or uncomfortable? Do I have high or low energy, and I just get into that, into that framework, and then I don't have to be a poet and know exactly the emotion I'm experiencing. If I'm uncomfortable or not, high energy or low, I can, I can usually get there,
Speaker 1 13:00
and I think that anticipatory dread, too, you know, if you start to think, if you always think I don't want to go, which I will out myself and say I always complain on my way to anything, and then have a good time once I'm there, so if you're that person, this advice is not for you, but if you are having anticipatory dread about something, and you usually don't, or you can't pinpoint what is it, right? You can't read the room inside you, you just know. Then make a mental note of that, right? And then, if you had a good time, okay, maybe it wasn't, it was just fear, right? But if you didn't have a good time, start to try to think why, right? What was that dread? What was those feelings inside me? You know, and and just make note of it, right? That's the other thing. I think a lot of times we don't pause to make note, right, and maybe we don't know the answers for a while, but just to say, and you know, one of my clients had this recently, where it, she couldn't pinpoint, and she's an autistic adult, she couldn't pinpoint an environment that worked versus an environment that didn't.
Lynn Davison 14:19
Oh,
Speaker 1 14:20
but one day she got into an environment that was great for her, and then that helped, so she done all this thought work that I'm suggesting, but then when she, she got into an environment that really worked, then she was able to say, this is why this didn't work, this is why this did work, this is what I need, so I also want to encourage people to know that sometimes things evolve over time, and it takes a few outings, or it takes a few engagements to read the room beside you.
Lynn Davison 14:51
So the more experiences we get, the better we'll understand.
Speaker 1 14:58
Yeah, it just sometimes you're like I. Have this feeling, but I can't really pinpoint it, and I'm like, that's okay.
Lynn Davison 15:03
Yeah, yeah, it is okay. It is okay. We don't have to have words for it all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 15:08
No.
Lynn Davison 15:09
And then on the align step, I love this. Write down one affirmation that embraces abundance and balance in relationships. So that's chapter seven. So that's when we align on what we really want. This is what we're after.
Speaker 1 15:24
This is what we're after, and I really have a lot in the book about self-talk.
Lynn Davison 15:30
Yes,
Speaker 1 15:30
because our self-talk can really be negative, and it can really be critical, and I find with my clients that they are so critical of themselves, and I really want people to celebrate even the smallest win. You showed up, ly, you went, you thought of going, you did an exercise in the book, and you know one thing that I have often been. I don't know, noted for was that I really celebrate people. I will clap from people from a ballroom stage, you know, hundreds of people in the ballroom. Someone says something, I'm like, give them a round of applause. I'm a very positive person, and I think I know my self-talk as an, as a neurodivergent woman has been horrendous and and I come from a family of origin that was very critical, so I want people to think about these kind of affirmations, look at, you know, reframing things and self-talk, because I think that helps us align. I don't know if that's part of your align step, but it feels like it would be because I know you a little bit now,
Lynn Davison 16:42
yeah. It's notice what it is that you're saying to yourself, and yeah, I really want this, and I really want a great life. And part of a great life is the relationships that the circle of support that helped me make better decisions, and then the circle of fun that helped me enjoy life, too. I mean, we want all of that. We want all of that.
Speaker 1 17:06
Yep. And, and I think this, the thing is, you know, would you talk to a friend the way you talk to yourself? And most of my clients are so kind and so wonderful, and they would never talk to me that way, they would never talk to a friend that way, they wouldn't talk to the barista that they get their coffee from. So I am like, let's reframe that self-talk, and let's look at that self-talk, and also give yourself a break, right? Like, you went, you tried your best, it's a practice, and it is practicing, is one of the things I say, like getting into a practice mindset where not everything is going to turn out, it's all an experiment, so we're trying different things,
Lynn Davison 17:53
it is, and I love that, because we have to just keep trying till we figure out what works for
Lynn Davison 17:59
us,
Speaker 1 18:00
totally, and a lot of my clients will have black and white thinking, and I totally resemble this remark. So, I'm not,
Lynn Davison 18:08
yes,
Speaker 1 18:08
running anyone down, and if something doesn't work, they see it as a failure.
Lynn Davison 18:15
Yes,
Speaker 1 18:16
and I wanted to say this. I know not everyone's going to hear me and believe me, but if you're listening to this, I just want to say, if you're in the practice and experiment mindset, nothing is a failure. It's a learning that environment didn't work for me. Those people weren't my people. The situation wasn't great. I didn't get to talk to anybody. It's all an experiment, and you're learning from it, it's, it's not requiring that it always works out. I love it when it works out. I want it to work out for everybody. I wish that I could, you know, know everything, and then just say, you know, Lylynn, the place you want to go is here, these are your people, here's the, here's the yellow brick road, go ahead. What I really, I think that that feeling, that it didn't work out, and so I failed. No, the environment failed, right? The environment wasn't the right environment, the people weren't the right people. You didn't do anything wrong.
Lynn Davison 19:13
No, you did your best,
Speaker 1 19:17
did their best.
Lynn Davison 19:18
That's all you can ask of yourself.
Speaker 1 19:21
It's all you can ask, and even typical people have hard time sometimes, and go places, and it doesn't work out. So, this isn't just a you thing,
Lynn Davison 19:36
no, just, you know, allistic people and autistic people struggle. It just seems like this is a bigger struggle for autistic people.
Speaker 1 19:44
It is, and we've had a hard time. So, I know there's people who are, you know, like we've had a harder time. Yes, and I totally acknowledge that. That's why I wrote the book. We've had a harder time. Yes, and also the advice we were. Given
Lynn Davison 20:01
right
Speaker 1 20:01
wasn't great advice,
Lynn Davison 20:03
wasn't well informed,
Speaker 1 20:04
wasn't well, it wasn't neurologically informed,
Lynn Davison 20:07
not at all, not at all. And that's what I mean, that's what I was amazed by in your writing, that you literally tackled everything, you tackled all of the topics that could get you know that could be the hurdles that you have to get through in order to get to a friendship that works for you. There's a there I just think that the thoroughness with which you considered the autistic experience is admirable.
Speaker 1 20:40
Oh, thank you. Well, I know something that really helped. I mean, a, I've been working with this population for 21 years, but I interviewed a ton of people for this book, and not everyone is named in the book, because some people were like, I'll talk to you, Caroline, but I don't want to be named in that book, right? Okay, but I also was fortunate that Jessica McCabe, how to ADHD channel, allowed me to put a survey in her communities that she has, and so people, I think, like hundreds of people, wrote in surveys to me, and I read everyone, and you know, I asked a bunch of questions, but then I was able to hear about the things questions people needed answered, and so I kept checking the book throughout the year and a half or two years I was writing it to see if we were answering all those questions, because I wanted to make sure, and I'm sure there's things not in there, but I wanted to make sure
Lynn Davison 21:38
that the
Speaker 1 21:38
majority, right, the majority
Lynn Davison 21:40
was there because there's a lot in there. It's very thorough, and it's very respectful the way that you approach it. Now, this may be, have been your experience, and that makes perfect sense. And let's revisit it, because it, you know, if we do, we might find a way.
Speaker 1 21:56
Yeah, yeah, and trying to make it the least painful. Right, so one of the things we were told as children, I just want to call out is be really uncomfortable and do it anyway. And I think that advice comes from people who've never really been uncomfortable, or never been bullied, or never been in tough social situations, and I have. I was bullied. I didn't have friends as a child, so I just always looked at that advice and thought, have you ever been uncomfortable? Do you know what that's like? And so what I'm also offering are some ideas that are dipping your toe in the water that are not asking you to do everything right, it's to try a couple of things, or read something, or even consider it, or buy the book. You don't have to read it today, right. So that's another piece, Lynn, that I really wanted to stress, because I just have always had issue with this advice that was like, you know, twist yourself into a pretzel and be really, really uncomfortable and kind of slash miserable, and like walk across a hallway to a group of people you've never met and introduce yourself, and I was like, that's bananas,
Lynn Davison 23:14
no, no, that's way too big a step,
Speaker 1 23:17
way too big a step, too
Lynn Davison 23:18
big a step, which takes us to the next, the next part of the peace practice, which is to collaborate. Now, I don't know if you're, you know, how, how you've.. if that internal family systems analogy of, we have lots of parts in our thinking about things that I think has been helpful to me. It's definitely been helpful to me, and they suggest that it's particularly helpful to the autistic population. Yes, so when I go into the collaborate step, I like to collaborate with all those different parts of me, the absolutely avoidant part, the hyper vigilant part, the extra logical part, the the just plain old scared part. You know, I want to have a conversation with all of those parts in this step. So, if I'm doing this with somebody else, I want to go back and forth. If I'm just doing it with myself, I want to go back and forth with all the parts of me
Speaker 1 24:25
that makes total sense, and all those parts matter, and there there are exercises in the book where I talk about that 14 year old, 12 year old, 10 year old, whatever age self that you have that had a really hard time, and you know, writing a letter to that part of yourself, and then also I talk about, you know, 14 year old Caroline is not a really reliable narrator, right? She's, she's super guarded, she's been wounded and hurt, she's been left out, and that part of myself I. Have to know, because she, I talk about this, this technique, more mindset fortressing, so she has a tower, and she's a drawbridge, she lets the drawbridge down, but if you mess up, even once, she's pulling that drawbridge back up, so that is a part of myself that I have to know and acknowledge as I go into social situations, and I have to know whether or not she is driving things right, like, is this a real rejection, or is it 14 year old Caroline making sure we don't get rejected anymore,
Lynn Davison 25:37
preventing,
Speaker 1 25:38
preventing, guarding,
Lynn Davison 25:40
mm hmm. Well, and that's so allied in my, in my experience. And okay, so what we need to put more of my socialization into autopilot. Can you help me understand a little bit more about what that means?
Speaker 1 25:58
Yeah, so a lot of times, for us with executive function weaknesses, the management system of the brain, the planning, the prioritizing, the future thinking of socialization is really hard.
Lynn Davison 26:12
Oh yeah,
Speaker 1 26:13
it becomes the last thing on your list, right? And it, instead of being the central thing, which it really is, it's the reason why we have happiness. We know this from an 85 year Harvard study. It becomes like an extra thing, and it's so hard sometimes to keep up with people, genuinely very hard. And I feel like the more we can operationalize our socialization,
Lynn Davison 26:44
yes,
Speaker 1 26:45
and put it so that instead of it being I have to text back, I have to arrange this, I have to manually seek these things, right? So there's, you know, manual mode and auto mode, and if I have to constantly catch up with these things and think about them, remember them, right? Some people have great memories who are listening, some of us don't have great memories, right? It just becomes this feeling of burden, and it also becomes something we can become hyper vigilant about.
Lynn Davison 27:17
Yes,
Speaker 1 27:18
right. And, and, and then feel a lot of shame about which is the absolute last thing we need, so I want to find ways to make sure things are on what I call autopilot, which is it's every Thursday and you just go, you just show up on there's a, you know, there's a place you have to be, and it's prearranged for the next six weeks, right. When you're leaving the coffee with a friend, you're scheduling the next one, right. And I also have scripts for communication, if you really like a group of people, let's say you join an activity. I know I had a book club once where they wanted to move the night all the time, and I was like, guys, my schedule is so crazy, I.. it has to be.. it can.. it can move a little bit, but it has to be a little bit automatic. I can't every month have a different night of the week, and so I have scripts to communicate. I'm an anxious person, and I like to know when things are. I'm a person who struggles to keep up. So, if we could make this a regular meeting, that would really be helpful. And to just help people get on track,
Lynn Davison 28:35
what you just did there was a perfect advocacy. You said, 'Here's my situation,
Speaker 1 28:40
right,
Lynn Davison 28:41
and here's what I need.
Speaker 1 28:43
Yes, I know
Lynn Davison 28:44
this.
Lynn Davison 28:45
You didn't have to use any clinical terms in there.
Speaker 1 28:47
No, because when I started 21 years ago, Lynn, we really couldn't in the workplace. I mean, sometimes we can't still now, but when I started as a coach 21 years ago, my clients really couldn't disclose, and so I always say in everything, and I say this, I, what I call this technique, is it's a communist relation, it's an explanation, and it's communicating your needs. I always say use a diagnostic label or don't, right? You don't have to say, you know, I'm autistic, and therefore I like to have things this way. You can just say I'm a person who struggles when there's no routine, you know, which I am too. I am, I am that person too. And so the idea here is that now listen, people can say that they love to move around, and they don't want to set a date, and you know it can happen, but my experience with my clients is that when we advocate and try to make things a regular meetup, or when we seek groups and activities that have that regularity, that it can happen, so the. That's one of my other things, is you know, when you're looking for something to join to meet people, to pick high interest, highly interactive activities, where you're finding people who share your interests, and check out, how does this work, right? Is this something that's, you know, moving around all the time, or is this something where they say we always meet on this day at this time? So you
Lynn Davison 30:30
find the match,
Speaker 1 30:32
find the match
Lynn Davison 30:32
by doing your research,
Speaker 1 30:34
by doing your research, and also I want to say this, Lynn, we used to really run down online social activities as a society, I think
Lynn Davison 30:43
we still do,
Speaker 1 30:44
I think we still do, but I think it's better since the pandemic.
Lynn Davison 30:47
Yes, that's true. There has been a shift. Yes,
Speaker 1 30:51
I want to say that if you feel anxious about the advice in this book, and I do cover this topic, I think online activities are a great way to achieve the autopilot, and also to start out.
Lynn Davison 31:07
Yes, yes, because it's something we can imagine doing, because we do it all day.
Speaker 1 31:14
We do it all day. The social norms are very clear, and very, you know, apparent, and even written down right, so that it's not as fuzzy, and we have so many interests as neurodivergent people, and if we go with our interests and try to meet people through our interests, we're more likely to have success because there's a shared language, we're talking about something we both love, we can instantly talk about it. We have a shared language, therefore we have shared experiences, and the online world is full of groups that are for these different interests, and it's also very socially accepted in my experience with these online groups, to come and hang back a little bit, like you don't have to come and always talk, talk, talk, if you need to sort of warm up, see what it's like, go a few times without contributing, it's totally acceptable,
Lynn Davison 32:18
absolutely, because we need you to be in these groups as you,
Speaker 1 32:24
as you, and some people take a little while to warm up.
Lynn Davison 32:28
Absolutely,
Speaker 1 32:29
and also you're checking them out, maybe it's maybe you're going to go twice and say this isn't the group for me.
Lynn Davison 32:33
Yep, yep. Okay, so we clarify what we need through, at, through, you know, explain what it is, explain how we are and what we want. It's just that, yeah, okay, all right. And then putting systems in place, I think that's what you mean about autopilot, like, like system or checklists. This is what I do. Yeah, this is what we're looking for.
Speaker 1 32:57
Yeah, and, and if possible, it's just a regular meeting, you don't even have to think about, you know, the date and the time, it doesn't move around, it's automatic, and you've created an infrastructure that helps you make connection, so that you don't have to constantly think about how to make that connection,
Lynn Davison 33:20
cuz that takes a lot of energy,
Speaker 1 33:22
takes a lot of energy. I'm not a huge fan. I've taught myself to do it, but I don't love
Lynn Davison 33:28
it, and it brings up a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 1 33:32
The moving book club brought up a lot of anxiety for me. Let me tell you, I was like, I can't do this.
Lynn Davison 33:37
No, this is not a match. This just is not a match, you guys. Go ahead, I'll see ya.
Speaker 1 33:44
Well, and it was good for me, though, Lynn, because I was like, okay, this is how my clients feel.
Lynn Davison 33:49
Yeah, oh yeah, I hate unscheduled, but we could go on about that. So, yeah, I'm definitely with you, definitely with you. All right, so after the collaboration step, then we have the experiment step, and this is where I love these words: find the includers, the connectors, and the facilitators. That's in chapter 15 as well.
Speaker 1 34:10
Yes,
Lynn Davison 34:11
I love that. Tell me more about that.
Speaker 1 34:13
Okay, well, I'm of the opinion, and my personal experience for the past 21 years has been that there are people who are includers, there are people who are great at networking, and there are people who help you include and connect and organize things and invite you, right? And I think that sometimes it is actually you. So, another tip that I have is be the organizer, and a lot of people resist this advice and hate this advice, so you don't have to take it, but if people aren't coming together around something you're interested in, if you organize and you offer that right, you go and you organize it through your community. To your town or your church, or wherever you actually have an excuse and a role to talk to people.
Lynn Davison 35:10
My one of my children did this in high school. They started the Doctor Who club.
Speaker 1 35:15
Oh, I love that
Lynn Davison 35:16
with a with a teacher who was into Doctor Who and had all of the videos that they wanted to watch together. I was blown away. I never saw that one coming, and it really helped.
Speaker 1 35:28
Yeah, because you know, when you go to a barbecue, if you run the barbecue, you're talking to everyone, but you have something to do with your body, you have something to do with yourself, right? If you're the bartender, if you take the coats as people enter, right? And it's the same with activities, if you are the, you know, the secretary for the club. If you are the person organizing it, you have something to do, right? You, you know everybody too, by the way. So, your son knew everybody in the Doctor Who, because he was promoting it, talking about
Lynn Davison 36:01
it was actually my daughter,
Speaker 1 36:02
daughter, so sorry. And then you don't have to feel so awkward, as like, what do I do with my body, what do I do with my voice, what do I talk about.
Lynn Davison 36:12
And you know, I just, as a segway, or just as an aside, I just realized that that's why I overeat in groups, because I'm nervous about thinking about what to say and I'm using the food as a stem,
Speaker 1 36:26
yep, totally understandable, totally understandable
Lynn Davison 36:31
discomfort, we don't like it, and we run to the patterns that we've had to try to feel better,
Speaker 1 36:38
yep, and so a lot of my tips are about how do we eliminate that discomfort, right? So, if you don't feel comfortable being the organizer, find the includers and the connectors and the facilitators. If you, you know, if you need advice, I talk about find your social Yoda, right? Find that person who you can talk to, and you can get advice from, or you can just talk through social scenarios, right? But I think it's really important for us to know that there is this awkwardness, and like, how do we make it less potent, right? And that's one reason interest is so powerful when we're in our place of our happy place, right around our interests. We know everything, right? We are the experts,
Lynn Davison 37:31
we know a lot.
Speaker 1 37:32
We talk to other people who know a lot. We have a common language and a shared experience, and we can instantly connect about that instead of making small talk about the weather.
Lynn Davison 37:45
Yes, so I'm just thinking of a couple of our members, and and figuring out maybe what is the next, like what is the next? I like to call it a right size step for them, and the right size step could be joining a group that meets on a regular basis, that could be it, it could be finding their people online in their interest,
Speaker 1 38:11
yep, right, it
Lynn Davison 38:12
could be what else could be a step that a lot of our, our neurodivergent adults could see themselves taking, what, what other ideas
Speaker 1 38:21
I would say investigating these groups. Yes, it's a step,
Lynn Davison 38:25
researching
Speaker 1 38:26
right, just saying, okay, what are my interests, right? And not blocking them out, because online, for instance, there's everything, right? Right, there's,
Lynn Davison 38:38
you know,
Lynn Davison 38:38
literally every,
Lynn Davison 38:39
there's
Speaker 1 38:39
literally everything. Yeah, you want to talk about drawing Avengers characters, it's there. I had somebody join that, like it's it's there. So, doing a little research, and I have in the book some criteria to think about, and you could, that could be your next step, you know? Or even backing up even further, what are my interests? That's a step,
Lynn Davison 39:02
right, right, right. Okay, okay. Then I think I have better, because I know, like, the easy suggestion is, go to a game, go to a store where they play games, because you could find neurodivergent people there, but some people go, they want to play games, right?
Speaker 1 39:22
Right? Or they're like, I can't do the one night of the game that I'm most fond of, but like, if, if you're.. I don't play tabletop role-play games, but I'm very aware of them because of my clients, right? So, again, people forgive me if I say something wrong, I do sometimes, and then I get DMs that are like, you've misunderstood that, but like, if we, if we love Magic the Gathering, right? And, and you're like, well, the thing is, like, the store that the, that offers that, it's, it's Friday night, and I have to work on Friday nights, right, then the internet. Now opens that up, because there's people playing in groups all the time,
Lynn Davison 40:07
all the time. Oh, okay, okay, because I hear, and this is the part I hear, they're so lonely, or I hear the parents say, I, they have no friends, so I guess that's what your book is addressing.
Speaker 1 40:28
Yes, yes, it's.. I mean, I've been lonely, I know what it's like. It's.. it's very hard, and the book is meant to help people who have been historically lonely, right, and it's meant to keep our neurology in mind. That's why it's called friendship skills for neurodivergent adults, because, and I know the word social skills has a bad name for a lot of people, and it was forced upon them, and I'm fully, I fully know, but skills, I hope, isn't such a bad word. Yeah,
Lynn Davison 41:04
no, I get you. Yeah,
Speaker 1 41:05
because I think the word, like, the fact is, we can build these skills. It's a skill we can build, and it's.. it takes practice, but it wasn't a skill we were given, and it isn't a skill that necessarily everybody has even typical people have to build this skill. This is what business books and everything are about.
Lynn Davison 41:26
Yes,
Speaker 1 41:27
so the idea here is it's it's a skill that can be built. It's not necessarily comes easily to everyone, and you didn't get advice that kept your neurology in mind.
Lynn Davison 41:39
No, no. not at all. The middle of the bell-shaped curve was addressed, but the people that you know, the 20% of people, let's be real, one out of five have some form that of neurodivergent that affects the way they live. What is that? You know, that's 20% of 80 billion 8 billion people is 101 point 6 million, you know, billion people are neurodivergent in this world, and they've been marginalized because my theory is that our brains are designed to notice who's not similar, because it could be a possible threat to the group, so it just came with our biology. How do you think about that?
Speaker 1 42:25
Well, I think that could be why, and also there's a lot of studies coming out now that go against the model that it is our skills that keep us out, that our social skills we have to mask, and we have to be with everybody, and we have to fit in, and we have to do what everyone else does. There's a lot of research coming out that it's mismatched expectations. So, if I'm a typical person, I expect certain things, right? Neurodivergent people don't do those things, or we do them differently,
Lynn Davison 43:00
right,
Speaker 1 43:01
but that, and the cynics are going to call me on this, but I promise, promise, there's research. Dr. Megan Anna Neff, I think, has a whole thing on her website about this, so, and she vetted this, you know, part, and, and I talked to her about it. What the research shows is that if you use, like, a communist relation, and you explain your mindset, if you explain your needs, if you explain your perspective. I don't mean to disappear, but I, you can say I, you don't even say I have ADHD. My brain means that I just really struggle keeping up with people. I know I sometimes fall off the radar. I don't mean to, right? It's really tough for me, that the typical people it helps align things. They weren't, they were wondering why does Caroline do this? Right,
Lynn Davison 43:48
right,
Speaker 1 43:49
by explaining now there's less of that mismatched communication and mismatched expectations.
Lynn Davison 43:56
Oh, isn't that a beautiful thing?
Speaker 1 43:58
And so I think there's many reasons why we were marginalized, but I do think one of them was that a people are selfish, people don't always act with kindness, people don't always reach out, they sometimes stay with their group, and then I also think there were these mismatched expectations,
Lynn Davison 44:27
and that that can cause us to be disappointed in ourselves, because we expect ourselves to have friends, and when, if that particular friendship didn't work out, we're always looking at what did we do wrong, right?
Speaker 1 44:44
Right, and that's part of what I wanted to address in the book, is that you may have done nothing wrong, right? And I know that that's a big shift, and, and I know that some people are going to say that I'm being, you know, I'm being too optimistic. Stick, but I do think there are times when people just aren't looking for friends. I think there are times when people are oblivious to other people's pain. I think there's times when people are busy and they don't know how much it means to you, so you meet someone in a group, you have a great time, you enjoy them, they might be happy to just keep you as an activity friend. You follow my advice, which is to offer them a next step to see them outside the group. They say, "Oh, I'm good. You take it as a huge rejection about something you did,
Lynn Davison 45:40
right? It
Speaker 1 45:41
could have nothing to do with that,
Lynn Davison 45:42
nothing to do. Yes,
Speaker 1 45:46
I have clients who literally come to me and say, you know, I don't have my people, I don't have anybody who loves the outdoors in my life. What I want out of this coaching is to find other people who love the outdoors, and so that I can create a community around that, that community becomes just their outdoor friends, right? They're not looking to make those outdoor friends a best friend, an all-encompassing person, they're looking to have just that, and so that really opened my eyes to it, because I think one of the things that we, as neurodivergent people, do is because we've had a hard time, and because we've looked up from the outside in. Right, we've watched other people, and we've wanted what they have. I think we are looking often for a best friend, or an all-encompassing friend, and I want to say this is, and people can disagree with me, there are many times when you have different friends for different reasons and different seasons.
Lynn Davison 46:47
Oh, yes, yes, that is very true. And for a while there I was trying to make it more than that, and I was getting pushed back, and it was like, oh, but that took me a while to figure out. They just want me for this kind of friend,
Speaker 1 47:07
and that isn't an insult, right? And also, you get two or three best friends across your lifetime, right? So, if you think about it, also, a lot of times I find neurodivergent people meet someone, and we click, and we are so just wanting that click,
Lynn Davison 47:27
right,
Speaker 1 47:27
that we instantly start to talk about that person as a friend.
Lynn Davison 47:32
Yeah,
Speaker 1 47:33
and they're not a friend, they're an acquaintance,
Lynn Davison 47:35
they are,
Speaker 1 47:36
they're an activity buddy. Then we expect them to reciprocate and treat us like a friend, and we feel such rejection, disappointment when they don't. So, I talk a lot in the book about the levels of friendship and about thinking about that, because that's not a rejection. They're treating you like an activity buddy or an acquaintance, that's not that they don't like you, it's just they are not the emotional support of a very close friend. Yet,
Lynn Davison 48:04
okay, you know, you've done so well, really taken this whole cake and sliced it up and really examined every part of it, I think every family who has neurodivergent adults in their family should get a copy. What's the best way? Then it's arrived. What do I do now? What's the best way for me to appreciate what you've, you know, the resource you've developed?
Speaker 1 48:40
Well, there's a couple things we love. Audio books, so the book is has been on sale on Audible since it dropped. I have no idea why, but we'll take advantage for as long as we can, right? Yeah, and you can use those Audible points to get it. The other thing is that it is a Kindle, right? And
Lynn Davison 49:00
so the version I have,
Speaker 1 49:01
okay, yeah, and then there's the hard, the hardcover book, um, in each of them, by the way, there is a QR code at the back with book bonuses, more additional resources, so I, I actually didn't even have to fight them, but I was like, you guys have to include this in the audio book and stuff, and they were like, of course, so if you hit the QR code, you can get the book bonuses. But my advice would be, whatever works with your brain to consume, right? If you are an audiobook person, then go get the audiobook. There's a PDF with the audiobook too. So some of the exercises they've included as a PDF, not all, but some more than a lot of audio books.
Lynn Davison 49:46
Yeah, so you think that maybe if they just got the books, the book's bonus tools and start it, that could be a place to start.
Speaker 1 49:55
Well, everybody who buys the book can get the bonus tools, so I'm just saying. They're out there, but I would say that I would start with chapter one. I would start at the beginning, because the bonus tools are really, they're good for journaling, they're good for thought exercises, so you can use them alongside the book. But I would start with, like, chapter one, and especially if you're cynical, if you're like, "I'm doing this because I love Lynn, and I trust Lynn's advice, but like I don't know,
Lynn Davison 50:22
yeah, you
Speaker 1 50:23
know
Lynn Davison 50:25
it's going to happen.
Speaker 1 50:27
Read chapter one, because chapter one really addresses that whole thing of this has been hard for
Lynn Davison 50:34
us. Yes, it's just so good to see it in writing and experienced it, but it's very rare, and you mentioned Dr. Neff. She's really good at.. she's the best describer I've found, and I think you really dove deeply into the friendship part and really described it well.
Speaker 1 50:52
Thank you. Thank you. I really tried.
Lynn Davison 50:57
Yes. Okay, so there's a lot of ways to get in and get the value from this book.
Speaker 1 51:04
Yeah, I think there is, and I think that, you know, just take one little piece at a time, right? You know, in every chapter, there's one thing you can try today, and if you feel overwhelmed by reading a whole chapter, just just read the one thing you can try today box, and that could be the what you do, you know. And I think you know, I think for me sometimes I do need a hard copy. I'm dyslexic, so I just, you know, I have to have the physical book, but some people really love audio books. It's like, whatever works for your brain is what you should do.
Lynn Davison 51:44
Yeah, well, that's why I have the Kindle version, because then I can copy paste it, and I can do all kinds of things with the material that you have, and I don't have to dust it. Just saying. Well, what a gift you have given to neuro, a lot neurodivergent adults, and the people who love them. It's just such a gift.
Speaker 1 52:09
Thank you.
Lynn Davison 52:10
I cannot wait to get some feedback on this podcast episode, and I'm going to be teaching it inside of the art of adulting in the relationship piece, which we're only a few weeks away, so
Speaker 1 52:24
thank you,
Lynn Davison 52:24
referring to your book and suggesting that you know a copy is a smart thing to have as a family with a neurodivergent adult.
Speaker 1 52:32
Thank you so much, I appreciate that.
Lynn Davison 52:34
Yeah, yeah, well, what a pleasure. You, this is lived experience that you're sharing with us 21 years of this work, and I know I'll just drop one other name that you work with, Ned Hallowell, isn't he the best, another one of the best explainers?
Speaker 1 52:53
He is a great explainer, and he is great for my confidence, because there were times during this book journey when I really felt unconfident, and I really struggled, and he literally would be like, "Go call them now and call me back, and he really helped me. He helped me get a new literary agent. He helped me with the publishing process. I had already written a book. I wrote a book called "Why Will Know and Play with Me. Yes, but I needed a new team. I tell the story in the book of my unmasking and my journey, and he was immensely helpful, and continues to be helpful, and tells me things that I sometimes don't do, like stop checking how many books you've sold and your numbers, because then you obsess over it, and then I don't do what he suggests.
Lynn Davison 53:38
Yeah, and the number of news on your videos, and whatever, just do the best you can, and let the universe go from there, because you don't have any control over that, and my dog, in my, we have a copy of the Why Will No One Play with Me in our family as well.
Speaker 1 53:54
Oh, thank you very much.
Lynn Davison 53:55
Yeah, we have that for sure, and it's really helpful for anyone that's in that school age, which can start from pre-kindergarten to all the way that whole time, because that social piece is a big part of education.
Speaker 1 54:08
It is, and everybody deserves to have friends. I think that's also a shift. It's not you should have friends, you deserve to have friends.
Lynn Davison 54:16
Oh, I like that. That language feels a lot more comfortable.
Speaker 1 54:20
Yeah.
Lynn Davison 54:21
Well, thank you for Carolyn for being who you are, and for doing what you do, and for being here today. I really appreciate
Speaker 1 54:30
it. No, thank you. This has been a great chat. I'm so excited to have this interview, and, like, you know, share, share on on social media.
Lynn Davison 54:38
You bet, we'll be doing that too. Alrighty, thanks again. Bye bye.
