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Learning how to smile

Just a funny story from my (very autistic) youth

Today on “things that should have tipped us all off that I was autistic but didn’t” we have the fact that I painstakingly taught myself how to smile when I was in middle school. I don’t recall if there was an element of shame or external pressure for this. I don’t remember explicitly being told that I should learn to smile or that my smile was weird. It’s certainly possible that I was told that…

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Introducing Systems Hour

Many neurodivergent folks are either unemployed or underemployed meaning that many are struggling financially, and while they could use the help, they don't have the funds. That's why today I'm introducing my group sessions at only $5 per person.

I’ve been trying to find a way to make my coaching more accessible to neurodivergent folks. While the content of my coaching is designed for neurodivergent brains and with disability front & center, my prices were often a barrier. Many neurodivergent folks are either unemployed or underemployed meaning that many are struggling financially, and while they could use the help, they don’t have the…

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Returning to My Roots: Becoming a Small Business Owner

This month, I quit my job to dedicate myself full-time to my business: Expand Yu. To celebrate, I wanted to share a little story with you about my family.

This month, I quit my job to dedicate myself full-time to Expand Yu. To celebrate, I wanted to share a little story with you about my family. When my grandmother was young, she packed up her things and left the village where she grew up to try her luck in Mexico City. She lived with her brother and his wife for a few years, where she convinced him to start a laundry and dry cleaning business…

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stitch explains how using, "the sensation emotions wheel" made by Lindsay Brahman to understand our physical sensations as clues for our emotions, can help with a lack of interoception autistics have

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The Ideal Level of Engagement

How much of a mental or workload is right for you? It's not only the upper limit you have to worry about.

There’s a difference between being busy and being overwhelmed; just like there’s a difference between being bored and feeling listless. One is a mild state that may cause some discomfort but not distress; while the other can be painful and even harmful if it continues for too long. Like with many things, gradual changes are the hardest to notice. But if you’ve ever swung rapidly from drowning in…

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In Plain Sight: Invisible Neurodivergence

My experience growing up undiagnosed, the pros and the cons.

Normalized neurodivergence is invisible neurodivergence. That can look like acceptance, or it can look like denial. Often, it looks like both. I didn’t discover I was neurodivergent until my mid-twenties. Looking back, there were a lot of signs we missed, but it’s also very obvious why we missed them. Recently, I find myself thinking a lot about how I grew up in an undiagnosed neurodivergent…

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Focus on What You Keep

Originally posted Apr 2021.

What does Essentialism have in common with the KonMari Method of Tidying? Both works deliberately focus not on quantity, but on value. It’s not about how much or how little you have, it’s not about how much you get rid of, it’s about giving the things you truly value the proper time and space within your life. Both Greg McKeown and Marie Kondo urge us to focus not on what we’re getting rid of,…

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Mystery is Powerlessness

What we don't know, we have no power over. Originally published Feb 2021.

We are powerless against what we don’t understand. We call “mysterious” the things that exist outside our knowledge, our understanding, and our ability to influence. To call something “mysterious” is to walk away and accept our ignorance and powerlessness over that thing. On the other hand, when we engage with a mystery and seek knowledge, we expand our realm of influence. When I was in college,…

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Balance Within Chaos

How do we find balance amidst the chaos? Originally posted Dec 2020 but is still very relevant today.

We have agency over our lives: the power to act and create change that brings us closer to our dreams. But if this past year has taught us anything, it’s that there is still plenty that is out of our control. There are times when the things we cannot control overwhelm us and make us feel powerless. We lose our way, our momentum, and our balance. At times like these it’s hard to remember that we…

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Surprise! another special interest

I thought I knew myself and my special interests pretty well. Sure, I spent most of my life unaware of them until after my diagnosis when I realized I have had a life-long (yet evolving) interest in fiction and storytelling. But I had figured that out already. And I was aware of my interest in productivity since that inspired this blog and coaching business. Most other things were mere passing fancies... Or if my therapist is right, hyperfixations.

So I felt pretty confident that "autistic with a special interest in communication" while interesting and very understandable, did not describe me. That is, until I spent the evening of Thanksgiving practically giving a lecture to my uncle about different styles of conversation, and how people can have strong preferences for one or the other, and how that was showing up in our family dynamics. And then on the ride home I broke out laughing at the realization that boy, I was wrong. I definitely have a special interest in communication.

The thing that always trips me up is the stereotypes. Special interests are often represented by all-consuming and encyclopediadic knowledge on a particular subject, or alternatively, an ever growing collection of a particular thing. Or in many cases both. And for many autistics, that is pretty spot on. But my special interests have never looked like that (for a variety of reasons that I will speak with my therapist about).

I definitely do infodump on any unsuspecting person who humors me just a second too long about the current piece of fiction that I'm obsessed with, or my latest theory about why communicating is so damn difficult across neurotypes. Oh, there it is again. It seem so obvious now.

Part of why I never suspected it is because I've never really had much interest in studying it in any "serious" way. But the more I think about it, that probably has more to do with my ambivalence toward higher education and mainstream forms of study. Just like I considered going to graduate school for fiction writing and then decided against it, I've also in many ways rejected any kind of formal education around things that I am passionate about. Probably because it feels unnecessarily restrictive.

But I delight in learning from my peers, from first-hand accounts, especially in the realm of neurodivergence and particularly autism. Because theories cooked up by an autistic person are often incredibly insightful and well-thought out. Because on the topic of existing as an autistic person in a neurotypical world, who better to analyze it than an overly-analytic autistic person who's lived their whole life trying to figure it all out?

So I'm delighted to collect theories and models from other autistic people and slowly put together my own theories and models of how it all fits together. And it's beyond fascinating to apply these models to my everyday life and find that they fit and they shine light on things that made no sense before or that I'd never even thought about.

It makes sense that autism, communication, and productivity are things that I landed on as special interests. These are all things I've struggled to understand but needed to understand so badly. And now I'm just fascinated by what I've found.

It makes sense that I've rejected formal education about them, because the way I like to learn is immersion and application, and models instead of canon.

I was wrong about myself. How fun it is to learn something new about me.

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Posted originally on expandyu.com

Don’t See Me, Hear Me

I wonder sometimes, what communication must be like for Neurotypical people. Today I’m particularly curious about the way they feel about subtext in conversations. Does it feel good when someone is able to “read between the lines” and understand what you’re not saying? Do they feel seen when someone reads their body language and addresses what they may be feeling instead of only what they’re saying out loud?

Because I can imagine that in some cases it feels like a kindness for someone to understand what you want to say but can’t say due to the social conventions in play. But only if it’s something you actually want to communicate to that person.

And I can accept that that’s a whole realm of communication I may never fully understand. But here’s what it’s like for me:

It feels incredibly invasive to have someone try to read between the lines or read my body language to figure out what I’m not saying. I put a lot of effort into communicating exactly what I want to communicate, nothing more and nothing less. Because if I’m not saying it or communicating it, then maybe it’s not for you. Maybe I don’t want you to know that. Trust me, if I wanted you to know, I would make sure you knew.

I understand now what some of my fellow autistics mean when they say they find eye-contact invasive. Eye contact has always been a bit of a mystery to me, but not particularly uncomfortable. The idea that NT people actually are communicating information via the eyes is mind-blowing to this day, but if that’s the case then it makes perfect sense why some autistics would find that so invasive! It’s literally someone trying to read your mind through your eyes. Ew!

Especially lately, I rebel so hard against the idea that autistics have any inherent communication deficits. I’m actually excellent at communication, thank you very much. It’s other people’s insistence on creating additional meaning where there isn’t any that creates misunderstandings. I’m actually being completely clear in saying what I want to say.

So how about instead of trying to read between the lines and see past my words, you just listen to the message I’m actually trying to convey.

It makes me wonder if part of the intimacy of whispers is giving up the body language information to listen to what they’re saying, trusting that they’re telling you what they need you to hear.

[expandyu]

Don’t See Me, Hear Me

I wonder sometimes, what communication must be like for Neurotypical people. Today I'm particularly curious about the way they feel about subtext in conversations. Does it feel good when someone is able to "read between the lines" and understand what you're not saying? Do they feel seen when someone reads their body language and addresses what they may be feeling instead of only what they're saying out loud?

Because I can imagine that in some cases it feels like a kindness for someone to understand what you want to say but can't say due to the social conventions in play. But only if it's something you actually want to communicate to that person.

And I can accept that that's a whole realm of communication I may never fully understand. But here's what it's like for me:

It feels incredibly invasive to have someone try to read between the lines or read my body language to figure out what I'm not saying. I put a lot of effort into communicating exactly what I want to communicate, nothing more and nothing less. Because if I'm not saying it or communicating it, then maybe it's not for you. Maybe I don't want you to know that. Trust me, if I wanted you to know, I would make sure you knew.

I understand now what some of my fellow autistics mean when they say they find eye-contact invasive. Eye contact has always been a bit of a mystery to me, but not particularly uncomfortable. The idea that NT people actually are communicating information via the eyes is mind-blowing to this day, but if that's the case then it makes perfect sense why some autistics would find that so invasive! It's literally someone trying to read your mind through your eyes. Ew!

Especially lately, I rebel so hard against the idea that autistics have any inherent communication deficits. I'm actually excellent at communication, thank you very much. It's other people's insistence on creating additional meaning where there isn't any that creates misunderstandings. I'm actually being completely clear in saying what I want to say.

So how about instead of trying to read between the lines and see past my words, you just listen to the message I'm actually trying to convey.

It makes me wonder if part of the intimacy of whispers is giving up the body language information to listen to what they're saying, trusting that they're telling you what they need you to hear.

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ADHD isn’t about a lack of focus, but a difficulty controlling our focus.

(source: me on twitter (follow me, guys!))

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Coincidentally, this is how I found out -- after years of listening to music while I worked because that was the common advice growing up -- that I actually focus best in silence.

adhd culture is plugging in your headphones ready to bOp and then two hours later realising you haven’t actually pressed play

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Read on ExpandYu.com

The Need for Mid-Point Goals

According to Dr. Benjamin Hardy, PhD and the psychological concept of “prospection”, long-term goals define us, give us a sense of purpose, direction, and provide us with motivation and drive. I’m talking 20-30 year plans. I’m talking, what do you want to be known for when you die.

From personal experience, I know that a lack of direction can be incredibly detrimental to our mental health and enjoyment of life. And I agree that that large scale direction can help us make decisions in the present that are in line with our values, but long-term goals aren’t always enough.

Everyone has a natural focal point when it comes to thinking about the future. Dr. Hardy and David Allen (author of Getting Things Done) both maintain that we can improve our ability to dream and plan further ahead, but while we get there we still need something to focus on, something to motivate us. That’s where Mid-Point Goals come in..

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