Episode 7- Transcript
[Theme plays]
ZACK: Hello Mr. and Mrs. Autism and all the ships at sea! You’re listening to Stim4Stim, the relationship podcast by and for autistic people. I’m one of your co-hosts, Zack Budryk. Who else is with me here tonight?
CHARLIE [YouTuber voice]: What’s up YouTube? Charlie Stern, Paris Geller Stern, and introducing Mr. Bird!
ZACK: Hello, Mr. Bird!
CHARLIE: No one liked that goof! No one liked that gaff! Anyway… [laughs]
ZACK: I liked it! I just, you know, the–the nature of the beast…
CHARLIE: What’s up? We haven’t done this in a while, we really haven’t…
ZACK: We haven’t done this in a while. You know how people in our situation are with variations on the script.
CHARLIE: Oh, absolutely.
ZACK: But I appreciated recognizing it for what it was now.
CHARLIE: Yeah. 01:05*
ZACK: And tonight on the podcast, we are really excited to have A.J. Link, the co-president and co-founder of the National Disabled Law Students Association. He’s got a whole lot of other cool stuff going on as well, including…
CHARLIE: Like, so many accolades.
ZACK: Absolutely, yeah. And A.J., we don’t wanna talk over you. If you wanna go into any of that as well you can go ahead and take it away.
A.J.: Thanks! I probably won’t go into that — if people are interested in knowing some of the projects and stuff I’ve been working on, or some of the awards or accolades or whatever I’ve gotten, they can find it on my LinkedIn or find it on one of my bios somewhere. That’s out on the internet, you know, just surf the interwebs — or I guess they could find me, DM me, send me an email and I’ll send them over my bio, they can read it that way — but no, I’m happy to be here, thank you so much for having me! Yeah, I’m just really excited to get to be a part of Stim4Stim today.
ZACK: Sure, sure. And one more bit of housekeeping before we fully launch into things: we have, as we promised when we reached 1,000 Twitter followers, we have launched our Patreon, finally! You can find that at patreon.com/stim4stim, the title of the podcast. And, you know… anything you want to help out with is very much appreciated!
CHARLIE: Yeah, we have a general support tier, $2. General support, you get nothing except for a heartwarming feeling month to month when you give us $2. And then $5 tiers, that starts a monthly print from yours truly, and then up and up and up, many different dollars upwards from there. But we really want someone to take our highest tier — maybe multiple people — because that is where we’re going to do a monthly stream, and you can be on our stream. So we’re gonna Twitch stream, we’re gonna do Q&A’s, we’re gonna hang out, and all the lovely people who’ve asked to be guests on the show… like, we can’t fit all of you. So we want to do sort of like informal hangs every month. And, you know, if you pledge enough money — I think I set it for $50 a month — you know, no pressure, but you get to hang out with us.
ZACK: Yup! Absolutely. And so, we’re especially excited to have A.J. on tonight, because in our fairly lengthy absence — which, you know, we feel like everybody understands this has been a very “life happens” couple of months, so thank you all for being patient with us — but we’re back! And we’ve gotten a couple of really good questions through both the email and the Twitter account, and we felt like A.J. was exactly the kind of person who could help us talk about some of the stuff. So, we are gonna abridge some of these for length, but I think the first one we’re gonna talk about is from a user on the Twitter account, who says:
“I only got my diagnosis last autumn. I was placed on the spectrum and having “mild ADHD” as well as comorbidities like depression, anxiety + PTSD from trauma related to an abusive relationship. I’m a cis bi woman, 30 years. I’m dorky and have a nice STEM job, live in Charlotte, NC, so not a giant city, but full of young professionals. I seem to attract lots of guys with the idea of having a “quirky nerd girl”, which caused problems with me being able to relate to guys, and I’m so shy when talking to girls, who all seem to be more confident and self-assured. On the other hand, when I date less dorky guys, they find me sweet, smart, and way too passionate about “random things” — my special interests — and if I disclose, they kinda get a weird ableism thing going on. I feel like damaged goods, when my differences actually make me a great scientist and many other things. So I either lean in to describing how I’m weird and I love how I am in hopes of finding someone happy for that, or I disclose *5:50 a variety of responses but am *5:52 infantilized, taken less seriously, or dismissed as an acceptable partner before they even know me, is my biggest worry. I also worry if I don’t disclose, they won’t know why I’m different, and feel like I lied to them about something so personal and so defining.”
ZACK: So yeah, disclosure is obviously a big one, and, I mean, I can go first.
CHARLIE: Yeah!
ZACK: Rachel, my wife, has known since the beginning of our relationship that I was autistic, and has, in fact… I just recently found out that she was kind of my advocate behind my back when a lot of people in the school organization that we met through weren’t entirely sure what my “deal” was. So yeah, I mean, it’s definitely been useful in my relationship having disclosed early. But, you know, no two people are the same, and… I don’t know. Do we think that can be part of taking it slow, not talking to a person about that necessarily?
CHARLIE: Yeah, so I recently saw sort of an infographic about modeling and pacing disclosing trauma. And so, basically, it was like first week in, one sentence. “This bad thing happened to me.” And then three weeks in, “here are some things about this trauma that stick with me.” And then, you know, if the person asks for more, you kind of parcel it out so you’re not trauma dumping and venting, and telling someone from Tinder the first time you meet them all of your worst traits. And that’s not dishonest, that’s just being careful to not overwhelm. However, it is very noticeable to men especially that I am autistic, because I am very blunt and forward and sort of don’t have an innate sense of self-preservation. So, you know, I’ve also gotten into physical fights, and I’m not afraid to yell at a man sexually harassing me on the street, and that’s so, so dangerous. Yeah, especially when I’m dating men, they know something is off, but they don’t understand what it is. So our listener is saying that she’s shy and taken more as a manic pixie dream girl. You know, she’s maybe not angry and hot-headed like I am, but there is still something about her where that’s always going to be a personal journey of when you disclose, and I wish we had an answer, but we don’t have an answer, because it’s completely dependent on each and every individual.
ZACK: And I remember, A.J., we talked about what your journey has been as far as disclosure beforehand about this, so if you wanna talk about your perspective on this at all…
A.J.: Yeah, so I think I agree with Zack and Charlie about disclosure being deeply personal, right? I also think my experience is gonna be slightly different cause I’m a cisgender male, I’m masc-presenting, and so the way I move through the world tends to be a lot different, and there’s kind of not the same concerns. I know for me disclosure is just kind of easy, it usually comes up some way or another really early on. It’s just, like, “I’m autistic, these are some of the things that set 10:18* me off, or, you know, these are some of the things that I stim,” or sometimes I’m really fixated on things, it can be a little bit annoying, and… you know, that’s just me. And I think it’s kind of easy for me because I was diagnosed later in life, right? So I’ve dated people before where I didn’t have to disclose because I didn’t know, and it was kind of weird when things would come up and I’d be like “well, this is just who I am,” you know? Kind of take it as it is — where now I can say, preemptively, “hey, sometimes these things may happen,” right? And so I think in that way, disclosure is really important and powerful for me to let my potential partners know what they’re getting in terms of having to be around me, and having to deal with certain things, right? So, I know… [chuckles] the listener is kind of asking how to disclose or when to disclose, but it’s really personal. I know that’s not a great answer, but I think, more often than not, disclosure’s really important, and you should do it whenever you feel comfortable. If that’s early on, if that’s after a few weeks or a few months or a few dates or whatever… this is just me speaking, I think, but it’s a lot more beneficial to disclose so people know than trying to mask or hide it.
ZACK: Sure, yeah. I mean, one of the reasons why I always try to disclose as early as I can organically is because I really don’t wanna find myself in the position where it seems like an excuse, because it’s not an excuse, cause it is part of who I am. But at the same time, I feel like it works better when it comes as part of someone’s introduction to me, rather than after something has happened, like I freaked out about something, or having 12:27 *… I hope I’m making sense here. Like, I don’t wanna seem like…
CHARLIE: Oh, absolutely! Yeah, you never wanna put it out of your back pocket when someone is already mad at you.
ZACK: Mhm. And our listeners can’t see this, but Paris just did a picturesque eliding 12:49 * right on Charlie’s head, and this is a very good discussion, but it still made me smile really big, so…
CHARLIE: Yeah, I’m currently covered in birds. I have so many birds now.
ZACK: Mhm!
CHARLIE: I just wanna say, like–you know, so Zack is on the one end of sort of always knowing in his relationship that has been going on for over a decade that he’s autistic, but A.J. and I have dated pre-diagnosis/self-revelation and post-revelation. So, for me, it was sort of a clicking into place when everything sort of lined up, but, you know, at the same time, before I got properly medicated for my other things — bipolar and fibromyalgia — I was really shooting from the hip. Just kind of reacting in the moment to things, which is not necessarily what you should do, so I was completely not careful as a person, especially in my relationships. And, you know, doing this podcast has made it easier to be introducing myself to people and be open about “here are my projects, this is my work, here’s my photography portfolio.” It’s much easier, but yeah. I have no idea what would have happened had I been diagnosed as a child, and that’s a theme for both this listener question and the other one. So, I do want to hear thoughts — A.J., what do you think…? I don’t want to say “what would have happened had you been diagnosed earlier?” but what would have been your ideal timeline?
A.J.: I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about an ideal timeline. I think I’ve been really fortunate in that I had a childhood and a young adulthood that wasn’t extremely negatively impacted by being autistic. So, growing up, I had behavioral problems and things like that in school, but it was never anything that was super detrimental, or something that derailed my life, right? So when it comes to an ideal timeline, I’m really kind of content with when I found out I was autistic. I had a chance to live life not knowing I was autistic, and having an opportunity to learn about how my actions and behaviors negatively affected other people, especially in terms of relationships right? I’m learning my strengths and weaknesses as a person, and I think that’s been really helpful to me as an adult, after my diagnosis, right? So yeah; I’m really fortunate in that regard. I think that getting to experience life and relationships pre-diagnosis really helped me. I will say that I had a history of depression growing up, and part of that depression stemmed from not fully understanding myself and kind of the way that I was thinking and feeling because I was autistic, and I didn’t really fit into the world. So, maybe diagnosis would’ve helped with that regard, maybe would have helped a little bit in understanding my depression. But as I was working through that and going to therapy and things like that, that’s how I actually found out I was autistic, because I was doing so much therapy and so much work and, you know, he was like “well, maybe you should get tested, right? Maybe you have Aspberger’s or something like that.” If I was diagnosed any earlier maybe I wouldn’t be who I am today, so… yeah. I would say I’m pretty content with the current timeline. You know, everyone’s different, and diagnoses or self-realizations happen at different times for different people.
ZACK: Yeah, I’m always encouraging people to either… cause diagnosis — formal diagnosis — is not within everybody’s means, but I am always encouraging people to either get a diagnosis or do some deep thinking and research into yourself, because either way, I think that being able to put a name to this part of yourself, it’s one of the most freeing experiences that I have ever had, and just made me feel like I had an explanation for so much that defied explanation earlier in my life, and it’s just extremely liberating. Like, it’s retroactively liberating as well. So I definitely feel where you’re coming from on there, even though I was diagnosed earlier in life than you, and this is not like a diagnosis supremacy thing either, because that is absolutely not what we’re about with the podcast.
A.J. [chuckling]: I think calling it “diagnosis supremacy” is absolutely, really accurate and really funny. Like, if you’re diagnosed earlier in life, you have more cred, or something like that.
ZACK: Mhm. [laughs] I was diagnosed in the 90’s, back when Autism was only playing this one little club in Minneapolis.
CHARLIE: [laughs wholeheartedly] Shut–! 19:00 * [continues laughing]
A.J.: [laughs] I don’t wanna give too much of a shoutout to South Park, or too much credit to South Park, because I think they are a gateway into a lot of bad political positions and social positions, but it reminds me of the episode of the Crips and the Bloods…
ZACK: Yes! Yes, yes!
A.J.: …when they had the group who was disabled from birth, and then the group who became disabled later in life.
ZACK: [laughs wholeheartedly] God, yes!
CHARLIE: I do wanna say, though, that the diagnostic criteria for autism diagnosis is… I mean, they are completely based on white male children. So, you know, I’m totally pro-self-diagnosis. Like, I am self-diagnosed because no one knows you better than your own self. And for me to be gaslit and weighed and experimented on by various psychiatrists for many, many years before I even got equilibrium on my medication, not even having to do with autism, I absolutely don’t trust, you know. My entire history of school counselors and teachers and therapists and pediatricians et cetera et cetera… they never caught this!
ZACK: Yeah.
CHARLIE: And, you know, it’s only now when I advocate for myself and say to my newer practitioners, “hey, I have autism and OCD and bipolar disorder,” they’re like, “oh my god, wow! That’s so astute, you’re so right! You’re so well-spoken and very self-aware,” and it’s so fucking weird. It’s so fucking weird. And while I’m saying this, I also know that many of us do not have the energy or wherewithal to advocate for ourselves at all times.
[Zack makes noise of agreement]
CHARLIE: So it’s such a trap, it’s such a trap, and I don’t blame anyone out there who doesn’t wanna get a formal diagnosis, because doctors are ableist and fatphobic and racist and classist.
ZACK: Sure. Sure, yeah. That’s what I meant as well in terms of not being about the diagnosis supremacy as well. I didn’t wanna seem like this was just a conversation between myself as someone formally diagnosed in childhood and A.J. as someone formally diagnosed in adulthood either, so…
CHARLIE: Yeah.
A.J.: Yeah, I definitely think self-diagnosis is valid, so… we’re all about that.
ZACK: Sure, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. And I think some of our best listener insights have been from self-diagnosed people as well as how much of the project Charlie has spearheaded as well. So, you know, I think that this is not just some thing that we’re saying to be nice, or whatever. Like, we’ve seen, in action, the (?) 22:30 * self-diagnosis, and we’ve seen how it contributes to community.
CHARLIE: Yeah, and I wanna say that we have a lot of people who write in who feel really guilty that they are self-identifying as autistic, and, you know, they are confiding in us, like they’ve done something wrong. And they are prefacing their questions about dating and relationships where they’re clearly having issues interpersonally because they are autistic, but they are so sorry. They are absolutely so sorry for, you know, “appropriating” this label. And they’re sort of self-flagellating in our DM’s because they see us as an authority…
ZACK: Yeah.
CHARLIE: …and that is–that is so godawful.
ZACK: And there’s this popular stereotype of self-diagnosis as something that people do when they wanna say “ope 23:36 *, now you’re not allowed to get mad at me!” or “ope 23:40 *, now you gotta give me a discount” or whatever, and, you know, these people who talk to us, they’re afraid to be public about it at all! Like, that they want our blessing as people they perceive as having come by it legitimately, so that popular perception is the opposite of reality, just in our experience.
CHARLIE: Do you guys mind if I ask what ages you were?
A.J.: Yeah, I was maybe 21 or 22.
ZACK: I was 15. Or–no, 14, cause it was my freshman year of high school. But at the same time I feel like it’s weird; I feel like it wasn’t something I really thought about much — like, as part of my identity — until adulthood, maybe because… I guess I perceived having no idea what I was doing or how I was supposed to talk to people as sort of coming with the territory through most of high school anyway, so I never really properly parsed out that being part of my neurotype, as well as that being part of my age group and milieu.
A.J.: Yeah, even for me, I think growing up, I was kind of just the weird kid who didn’t understand some things. Like, I didn’t understand when not to talk sometimes, or I didn’t understand when you couldn’t use profanity, or, you know, things like that. Just little small things where people were kind of like, “what the fuck is wrong with you?”
ZACK: Mmm.
A.J. And now I know that there’s nothing wrong with me, I’m just autistic and those things don’t process for me like they do other people. Like, the example I gave the other day when I was giving this presentation was followup emails, and this is something that I argue with my partner with all the time — I don’t understand the concept of emailing someone you just got off a call with to say “thank you for being on a call with me.” Like, I…
CHARLIE: Oh my god, yeah.
ZACK: [laughs] Yeah!
A.J.: I just don’t understand it! And, you know, we have small26:02 *–our fights are kind of just disagreements, she was like, “well, it’s just how it’s done!” and I go, “but why? What’s the purpose?”
ZACK: Yup.
A.J.: “What 26:08 *is it serving? Like everyone says, this is just what you’re supposed to do, but why?” I don’t understand it. I can’t do it, you know?
ZACK: Oh god, and god do they hate when a kid takes that attitude.
A.J.: Yeah…
ZACK: And so it’s even harder growing up… and from personal experience, they don’t like it when diagnosed autistic kids do that either. [chuckling] They very much try to train that inquisitive nature out of people.
A.J.: I wouldn’t even say I’m all that inquisitive. It’s more of just, like, I don’t understand. I would do it if I understood its purpose, but I can say “thank you for talking to me” on the call before I hang up!
[Charlie and Zack agree]
CHARLIE: Yeah, I recently had a consulting call with a more established photographer, and then she gave me all of the software names to use on the call, and then she sent me an email right after and she was like, “thank you so much for doing a consult with me, here are all the links!” And I didn’t respond to her, because immediately when I got off the call I just did several hours of cleaning and dishes, cause I was like “okay, that’s done. Now I do the rest of my day.” And then I felt so bad because I hadn’t thanked her for her thank you, you know?
[Zack27:46 * and A.J. laugh]
CHARLIE: It took me many days to actually, like, get back to her, cause I just forgot about it. And I felt so bad when I finally crawled back to her, and I was like “hey! Sorry for the delay!” You know?
ZACK: Sure. Oh, I have written so many “sorry for the delay”s.
[Charlie and A.J. laugh]
A.J.: I was just gonna say, I’m kind of the exact opposite. I’m one of the people who 28:10 * the first thing I do in the morning is zero my email inbox, and then before I go to sleep I try to zero it out. So, just personally and professionally…
CHARLIE: Wow.
A.J.: …even in, like, text messages, I try to have everything looped back within 24 hours. I dunno, I hate the notification icons. I’m an Apple user, so all my shit has the little red thing when it’s not cleared, and it honestly just makes me wanna punch something. So I have to clear those things constantly, so I’m never one of those “sorry it took so long to get to the response” 28:48 *. If I don’t get back to you, it’s cause you got lost in the shuffle and I opened up to clear the notification and then I didn’t go back to it, and I’m not sorry for that.
[Theme plays]
CHARLIE: So, I wanna talk about ages, because my sort of self-revelation happened at… 23, I guess? Or 22? The summer where everybody fuckin’ died.
ZACK: Oh god, yeah.
CHARLIE: That was when I really realized that I was autistic, and when Caroline died I remember reaching out to Zack about my sensory overload when trying to sleep at night after her funeral and everything. So we’ve got a range of diagnosis ages and self-revelation ages, and we have a question from someone who is 21, and he feels like he is way too late in his life to have gone without an autism diagnosis. And this next question is really about resentment towards your parents for not having had the wisdom or responsibility to do an early intervention. Zack, take it away and read us part of this question!
ZACK: Sure! And once again, this is edited for length a little, and because we tend to get fairly long questions — which is fine, please do not feel bad if you have sent us a long question or are considering sending us one, we just condense them so that we are able to get right into helping you out — so, what we in journalism call the nut graf of this, I guess, is:
I’m just having a lot of feelings right now and I haven’t had a therapist in a few years, and I can’t get one without my parents knowing because I’m on their insurance, and I can’t get off their insurance because I have other very expensive medical conditions that most plans do not cover as generously as the one I’m on. I have a crushing fear of people thinking I’m full of it because I left out a tiny detail or something. My brain is not just a probably-on-the-spectrum brain, it’s also a garbage brain. Is there a right way to approach it if I ever do talk with my parents about it? Unrelated, but how do I get neurotypicals I’m currently living with (currently my parents, in the future it’ll be anyone but) to make the household less of a 24/7 sensory torture chamber? Also, good god, adult diagnosis is a nightmare, how do I do it? I’ve read that it’s expensive and not covered by insurance.
ZACK So, yeah! This is some big stuff, obviously. It’s okay to think it sucks, first of all, because it does suck like so much of navigating being a human and figuring out part of your identity after high school when we are, like, culturally trained to think we have to have a crystal-clear idea of the human being we’ll be for the rest of our lives. And I think that this is–I’m gonna step back a little since I feel like the least qualified to answer this as someone who got a childhood diagnosis, but I think that both A.J. and Charlie both have some insights into this one.
CHARLIE: Yeah! I’m trying to scroll through — because, again, this is super long — but what I’m seeing… so, this person is 21, and he’s actually bound for law school, so I’m really proud of this person for, like, despite their parenting, getting it the fuck together.
ZACK: Mhm. Yeah.
CHARLIE: Yeah, because that’s a huge deal. But what they’re saying is that they’re listing all of these things that were obvious tells during childhood. And they were sort of responded to with minimizing. You know, nowadays they definitely have resentment that none of this was caught and none of this was dealt with compassionately, and this absolutely resonates with me because I am of the belief that, had my parents known I was autistic as a child and had my parents then become Autism Parents33:50 *, the abuse I suffered at their hands and at the hands of our extended family would have been much, much worse. I also believe that the level of advanced or normal or special ed tracks — whatever track you are put into — that determines your trajectory for life. So if I had received the special ed I needed and therefore not been in the accelerated classes, I think I would have come out of childhood with even more trauma. And the one fucking good thing about me is that I believe in myself and I love myself, and if that was even harder to win as an adult after a shitty fuckin’ childhood… you know, I am doing so poorly already. I would be doing much, much more poorly if I was told instead of “you’re so smart and you can change the world”, I had received ABA, and quiet hands, and detention, and more severe punishment, and, at home, guilting, I’m sure.35:31 * And, you know, probably worse physical abuse as well.
ZACK: And I think that, in particular, the law school thing is really something to hang your hat on if you’re worried about your path in life. That’s an amazing thing, an amazing point to have gotten to, I think.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
ZACK: And my brother, who I sort of drifted apart from over the years but he has been way more in my life since his little girl was born a couple years ago, he was saying something to me — and a few months ago I was in a bad place, it really stuck with me — “sometime, when you have a chance, just sit down and think about all the things that you have done that you supposedly ‘can’t do’, and just keep that in your back pocket.” And I don’t wanna sound like a self-help guy or anything, because that kind of makes it seem like the problem is entirely in your head here, and that’s not what you’re describing, but I think that remembering what you have done despite these external forces can be really liberating, in my experience.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
A.J.: Yeah, I think… first, I’ll plug the National Disabled Law Students for this person, you can hit them up for resources and things like that. There are tons of disabled people in law school, doing law school, practicing the law, all that cool shit, so you’re not alone in doing that. So, if that’s something you wanna pursue, do it. I’ll also say that if you want to become an attorney — you don’t have to be an attorney or a lawyer if you go to law school, like, I’m not one after I went to law school — to take the bar, they still use a medical model of disability, so if you want accommodations and things like that, you probably should go get checked out. There’s also a ton of services, and neurological testing can be expensive, but there are also lots of ways it can become more affordable. I’m not gonna tell this person how to live their life, they can do whatever they want, but I think the benefit of getting evaluated while you have insurance and your parents are paying for it probably outweighs the repercussions they may have, or the repercussions of waiting and having to do it out of pocket yourself. I don’t know the relationship this person has with their parents, and maybe that’s just something that they can’t do. I know if it was me, I’d be like, “I’m sorry, I’m on your insurance. That means I get insurance, and this is what I’m doing.” But I think when you talk about resentment — I don’t have any resentment towards my parents, I think (not to get too deep into it) there’s also racial aspects of being neuroatypical or having mental health issues or developmental disabilities, or even intellectual disabilities, and things like that. And, you know, a lot of the developmental things that I have were major detriments to my life, right? I was just kind of socially awkward and not super well-behaved in class. Like, Charlie was talking about detention. I got detention a ton of times, right? I got suspended a ton of times. I had to be with the teacher on field trips instead of going with the parent chaperone cause they didn’t trust me with a non-teacher. Or like, I didn’t get to go on field trips at all cause I didn’t earn it or whatever, cause of my behavior. But I think… I don’t begrudge my parents, I think my parents gave me a really great life. I think my parents may have struggled a lot to kind of know what to do with me if I was diagnosed as autistic as a kid, right? I don’t know if they would’ve had the resources or the knowledge or the education to kind of give me that, that really decent life that I had growing up. So, no… I’m also someone — and again, not giving this person advice for their life — it’s 40:00 * kind of like “where are you now?” I guess it’s really easy for me because that’s kind of how I think and how I live, but where are you now and where can you go? I don’t really think too much about grudges or things that have happened in the past. It’s kind of just like “I’m in a really good place now,” and “what can I do from there?” Fortunately, it’s always “I’m in a really good place right now.” I have a really decent life, so it’s easy for me to kind of be present and look ahead instead of looking backwards. But yeah, if you want to be successful in law school, definitely find community, find other disabled folks. Hopefully wherever you go to school there’s an NDLS 40:36 * chapter there, we got 35 chapters, 36? Something like that. So hopefully you go to one of those 36 schools and you have support and community, cause that’s always really super beneficial when you’re trying to do something like law school.
ZACK: Mhm.
CHARLIE: Yeah, totally. And you know, even just, like… you don’t have to reveal yourself to the disability offices of your undergrad. This person is 21, so I don’t know if they’re finishing college and then going to law school, but I’m taking some classes this semester online, and even not having doctors, documentations, or not coming out as autistic to every single faculty member I come into contact with… this is such a weird time in the world, and everybody’s trauma and grief are so compounded that even just telling a professor “hey, I need extra time for this, and I talked to the ADA office about this, blah blah blah” — they’re not gonna ask too many questions, oftentimes. They’re going to just treat you like a human who has some off days, or is a good student but with an asterisk. I think it’s really powerful to (not even if you have formal documentation) just start a paper trail via email with professors and the disability office of whatever college you’re at, just because that will benefit you.
ZACK: Sure. And I think that, obviously, you’ll encounter a lot of (and probably already have encountered a lot of) less-than-sympathetic administrators or educators or what have you. And that sucks, but I also think that you might be surprised how many people empathize, considering what a year all of us have had.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
ZACK: Particularly at this time, there’s a quote by the author Robert Anton Wilson that I really like:
“Every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. We have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. We have never seen a totally sane human being.”
So, I think that that is particularly true right now, and I think that maybe there is some comfort to be derived from that as you ask for help as you need it.
A.J.: Yeah. Just–how does one even measure sanity, right? Is sanity a spectrum, like autism is? “How sane are you?” 43:45 * That’s what people say. “I’m going insane.” Where’s the line? Where’s the cutoff? Is it arbitrary? You know?
ZACK: Sure, sure.
A.J.: Who’s measuring this? I don’t know, that quote just made me think about it. Yeah.
ZACK: Oh, no no no, that’s fine. I think that makes total sense.
CHARLIE: Yeah, and the final paragraph of this person’s submission is that they are on the parents’ insurance, but it doesn’t cover everything, and also they don’t want their parents knowing about further therapy or further diagnosis or anything like that. So I hope that they hear all of our perspectives on this and do something that works for them — especially during this pandemic that isn’t even ending yet even though some of us are vaccinated, it’s not even over! Yeah, the least the professors and administration that you come into contact can do is just, like, treat you kindly.
ZACK: Sure.
A.J.: Again, not giving advice, but maybe there needs to be kind of a sit-down with the parents as an adult saying “yo, I don’t know what’s going on, but I probably need to just get checked out and hear an expert opinion right now. I don’t know if y’all are down for that, but at the same time, do you care about me and my health and well-being? Cause it’s getting to that point.”
CHARLIE: Right.
ZACK: Yeah.
A.J.: Obviously, I don’t think this person is in a position to do that from the question, but I would always advice people to kind of just be straightforward, especially with your parents, right? I feel as though your parents are the people you should be able to be the most honest and straightforward with. I know that’s not the case for everyone, and I know that there’s, like, tons of dynamics for garbage parents, abusive parents, and all that, but ideally there’s other people who should know you from the beginning of your life to the end of your life, right? Generally speaking, I know parents come in all types and forms, but yeah, that should be the one group of people, the one person where you can just go and maybe not feel safe, but at least be 100% honest, right?
[Paris chirps] 46:07 *
CHARLIE: Yeah!
A.J.: I don’t know, maybe that’s weird and I come from just a really lucky situation. But like, even if you don’t love and like your parents, I feel like my parents are the people I can be the absolute most honest with. Even if we disagree, even if they don’t like the things I do or I don’t like the things they do, at least I can be honest with them. I don’t have to keep things from them. I don’t know, that’s weird. That’s just me.
CHARLIE: Oh yeah, and part of that expectation of honesty is, like, I hope this person isn’t afraid for their safety if this becomes more of a confrontation. Because yes, your parents are the people who you should be honest with and they should be honest with you, and if it comes to more of an argument — because this person is feeling very, very wounded — I’m hoping that that argument and that confrontation lead to a better future for everyone.
A.J.: Yeah, that’s all we can hope for us. 47:10 *
ZACK: Sure.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
ZACK: And don’t sell yourself short for having the nerve to ask people for help on this either, because that’s not always an easy thing to do, and I think you deserve credit for that.
CHARLIE: Yeah, and I really wish that all of us were qualified therapists, and I wish we had the money to fund scholarships and stuff, because all of these people trust us so much, because no one else is listening to them. And that’s why they write to us, and that’s why they sort of stream-of-consciousness type out their essays to us, because no one else has given them the chance to speak freely like this. Yeah, I wish I could write all the documentation that these people — usually pretty young people — require. Like, I wish I had institutional power.
ZACK: Sure.
A.J.: Yeah, another thing, too — I think we’re gonna jump off this in a second — but once you go to law school, a lot of times they provide school insurance…
CHARLIE: Oh, yeah!
A.J.: …and a lot of schools now provide at least free evals, like free therapy evals or free therapy sessions to get you in the door. I know a lot of schools are doing that. I don’t know if they’ll keep doing that post-pandemic, but a lot of times when you go to school (and maybe this person’s undergrad doesn’t do it) you can get the school insurance or some type of substitute insurance, and then the school also provides psychological services. You can probably check those out for a discount, and that might be able to help you out.
[Theme plays]
CHARLIE: Now’s the part where I talk about the downside of academic institutions caring for the emotional wellness of students, because I am finishing up my undergrad degree, finally. The pandemic has made online education an actual possibility for me. As a disabled person, I did have to drop out of undergrad because of various illnesses, and so I am just finishing up these measly 7 credits. I’m zooming into classes from out of state. I’m using my parents’ address for in-state tuition, and I’m nowhere near any of the rest of my classmates. So, recently, my friend Carly (who actually was also a disabled law student), she died in a car accident, and it really took all of us just by complete surprise. She always had the worst luck… the worst luck of anyone I have ever met. And one of her medications may have caused to her to either fall asleep at the wheel or have a seizure, we don’t know yet. So I have been beyond distraught, and this one professor has been trying to sit backwards in his chair and have heart-to-hearts with me, so I did tell him, you know, “I don’t know how to be me without her. I don’t know how to live without her.” And that somehow escalated into suicide red flags and the chair of the humanities department calling the fucking police to my parents’ house! And these cops, like, woke up my mom and her chihuahua and they were both fucking pissed, and luckily nothing happened and my mom wasn’t mad at me, but we know that calling the cops — especially on a disabled person — is like ordering a hit. It’s a tax-funded, free-on-the-surface way to make someone go away, either hospital, jail, or death. And that’s what I can’t seem to communicate to these administrators who are absolutely out of depths.52:15 * So, you know, with everything that will improve for this person, once they get further into their education and away from their childhood home, you do have to be careful sometimes telling things to people who either are mandated reporters or take it upon themselves to overstep. Because, yeah, you don’t wanna get the cops called on you, and there is a liberal buy-in that has not given up its stronghold in terms of academics still investing in policing, and still investing in the carceral state.
[Silence.] 53:10 *
CHARLIE: Anyway, thoughts? Concerns, questions?
A.J.: I think the law school gun are 53:24 * stereotypical responses. This is more of a comment than a question. I think… [giggles] I think that, one, I don’t really fux with the police, so I’ll just get that disclosure out of the way for individuals. I’m a Black man who lives in America, so the police are not on my favorites list. But when you talk about wellness checks and well-being, it’s one of those things where I don’t know if it’s ableism and paternalistic in the way that maybe someone sees a person who’s a wheelchair user and automatically reacts to try to push them — which is a complete violation, right? — but it comes from a decent place, I guess, of wanting to help. I don’t know if it’s sincerity or charity or whatever. But yeah, wellness checks are just really fucking dangerous, especially when it’s done by police officers, right? I know some school systems, they have kind of, like… student self-reporting things, where your friends can say they’re worried about you and then they send an RA or something maybe to check on you? Or something like that. Obviously, your parents’ house isn’t on campus, so that’s not possible. But I think having these other outlets besides calling the fucking cops on students is really important. Yeah, that’s kind of difficult now when it’s virtual and things are spread out all over the state, all over the country, all over the town, whatever. But I think having measures where it doesn’t escalate so quickly — and I think mandatory reporters kind of having that just out there. I know whenever you’re in a safe space, a mandatory reporter will go “hey, just to let you know, I’m a mandatory reporter, so if you say something wild, I have to report it.” But having them openly identified55:16 * I guess, so students know, “hey, this particular professor is a mandatory reporter, so I’m not gonna talk to them about me just feeling shitty and eventually being able to move on, but the shittiness that I’m feeling now is really, really deep, so maybe they’ll overstep,” right? I think any way that we can help students without involving The Police State is better than involving the police state. I know that’s broad and general, but I 100% believe that. And, you know, I guess people can bring examples to show me where I’m wrong, but very rarely do cops — especially untrained university-style cops, not even full 55:58 * law enforcement — benefit students in an emergency situation, right? Even, like… not to be extreme, and I guess content warning for those who have experienced school shootings, but even in school shootings, in high school shootings, and even the Virginia Tech shootings, the rent-a-cops there weren’t super helpful in those emergencies, right?
CHARLIE: Right.
A.J.: So, yeah! Especially if it’s just a wellness check, I don’t think it should ever be a cop or a police officer. Like, where are the EMTs? Where are the firefighters? Where’s EMS, right? Anyone who doesn’t have a gun and a baton to beat people. I don’t know. I’m not an expert in law enforcement, I just know I don’t like cops, so that’ll end my rant on “you shouldn’t be calling cops on students who aren’t grossly breaking the law”, and even then it’s kind of up in the air if I’m calling the cops. But yeah, that’s just my take.
CHARLIE: Yeah, if someone is drunk on a rooftop and then they fall and they need an ambulance, like, that’s when you call whomever. But in my case, this obviously wasn’t campus police because it’s a community college and everybody’s online, so this was the actual city police going to my parents’ house. And, like… how does a man with a gun help me on this grief journey that is going to last for years? How is the threat of this man killing me going to help me and my community?
A.J.: Yeah. That’s not even getting into the statistics of cops killing disabled people disproportionately, or people experiencing mental health episodes disproportionately.
CHARLIE: Yeah, I’ve had to send all of these fucking articles and statistics to the department chair and the professor who started this situation. White, non-disabled people with income and positions at universities really don’t understand that they live in a bubble. And that, for the rest of us, cops are dangerous, and those of us in criminalized populations never get a break from being criminalized 24/7. We are a criminalized population, especially, especially disabled people, and especially during crisis events where wellness checks are called.
A.J.: They’re the ultimate fuckin’ NIMBYs.
CHARLIE: Yes.
A.J.: I’ve used that word multiple times today. I rarely ever use that word, but today I’ve used it multiple times, so I’m really proud of myself.
CHARLIE: I mean, it’s really useful!
ZACK: Mhm! Yeah, absolutely. I’ve joined the–and Charlie and I were talking in one of our early episodes about how great for finding community joining Facebook shitposting groups can be, and I just recently joined the New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens one, and of course they hate NIMBYs with every fiber of their beings, so…
CHARLIE: For our younger listeners, can y’all define the acronym of NIMBY?
A.J.: Yeah. NIMBYs are not-in-my-backyard liberals, so they’re the ones who have all the really, really colorful signs about equality and all that, but still call the cops on people just wandering around. They do horrible stuff, like, they still do blockbusting but also gentrifying (which is, I guess, reverse blockbusting), and generally they’re just not helpful. They’re fake helpful.
CHARLIE: Yeah, when my mom called me immediately after the cops left, I did call my white cis man arts professor a “pronouns-ass bitch”, and me as a trans person saying that means that they are going to be violent in these insidious, state-backed ways, but they are going to be hiding under a mask of respectability and niceness, as opposed to kindness, which is not the same thing as niceness.
A.J.: I have a question. As a cisgender male, am I allowed to call someone a “pronouns-ass bitch” if I don’t like what they’re doing?
CHARLIE: Oh, no. That’s specifically reserved for trans people. But, there are so many other…
A.J.: Well, that’s disappointing.
[Everyone laughs]
CHARLIE: No, I know, I know, because so many people are pronouns-ass bitches! It’s just a thing, you know, the gentrifiers who push out Black residents but have Black Lives Matter signs. Those are a kind of person adjacent to a pronouns-ass bitch. But yeah, maybe we should coin something that y’all can use as cis dudes who are interested in doing the work and pointing out hypocrisy.
ZACK: Yesterday, I believe, was the king Stephen Sondheim’s birthday, and one of my absolute favorite lyrics of his from Into the Woods is “nice is different than good”.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
A.J.: Yeah! It’s deep, man.
ZACK: Mhm.
A.J.: Yeah, just not a huge fan of NIMBYs or cops, or NIMBYs who use cops to continue to by NIMBYs. But also, just as a general thing of goodness and kindness, check on your homies, right? Everyone’s going through some things, right?
CHARLIE: Yeah. Yeah.
A.J.: Just a quick “yo homie, you good?” Super helpful sometimes.
ZACK: Mhm. And check on the ones who always seem happy, too, cause it doesn’t manifest the same way in everybody. But I frankly don’t wanna meet the person who has not had kind of a rough time of it lately, cause that person has gotta be, like, removed from things to the point of that guy that was in (I think) the New York Times a few years ago who lived in some remote, rural area and didn’t know Donald Trump had been elected president.
[Theme plays]
CHARLIE: Yeah, so this is the end of the episode, and we usually have a segment where we ask “what is your current special interest?”, “what is your least favorite texture right now?”… what is our fun, sort of tension-breaking question for this week?
ZACK: How about “what is the most autistic thing you’re gonna do when we’ve got herd immunity?”
CHARLIE: Oh yeah, okay. I have to think of mine, but that’s a really good one. You guys go first.
ZACK: Okay. So, I don’t know if anyone here has seen Michael Clayton, the 2007 legal thriller with George Clooney…
CHARLIE: No.
ZACK: …but yeah, it’s one of those movies that nobody really thinks about after the Oscars it’s eligible for. But the final scene is George Clooney’s character having resolved everything. He just get in the back seat of a taxi and tells the driver “just drive,” and the credits are just over his placid face in the back seat of this cab going through New York City. And I am going to do that, but for an Amtrak.
CHARLIE: Ooh, I love that!
ZACK: I know, I know. My dad is gonna visit his parents on the Cape at the end of May, and normally he’d fly, but flights are all inky1:05:03 * now in terms of layovers, even if it’s something as simple as Richmond to Boston, so he’s taking the train instead, and I’m probably gonna do the same thing. So, I guess that’ll be my shot at that.
CHARLIE: Yeah!
A.J.: I’m really upset and also really happy he took the train-related content with the first answer, because mine was probably going to be just ride on the Metro for a day. Just circle around on the Metro. I don’t know if it’s a super autistic thing, but I am fairly obsessed with museums, so I don’t know if it counts as autistic but I will probably try to cycle through every Smithsonian within a week or two weeks or something like that, because I love museums. And yeah, maybe that’s a normal people thing, but I will also ride the Metro to these places. Yeah, those are kind of like my two things. And bookstores! I like going to bookstores and just touching books. This sounds really weird…
ZACK: No, no, no, I totally get that.
A.J.: …and now that we live in COVID times and germs spreading, I’ll probably have to bring some extra Lysol. But kind of just, like, touching books… I don’t know, that sounds like I’m violating the books, but I love books.
[Charlie laughs]
A.J.: I’ve obviously had to order my books online lately — Haymarket Books, y’all, they have a great collection.
ZACK: Oh, yes.
CHARLIE: Oh, absolutely!
A.J.: But yes: going to bookstores, touching books, but then also riding the Metro to museums, cause I love museums.
ZACK: Mhm. Sounds amazing!
CHARLIE: I wanna preface this with: don’t DM us about this, don’t email us about this, I don’t wanna know what you’re feeling, but now that I’m fully vaccinated, I am back on Hinge, and I am so looking forward to having as much sex as I want. Because I don’t do drugs, I don’t really have hobbies, I just need other people to touch me in a way that I can control. So, as a dom, and as someone who is doing this recording, like, literally in leatherwear1:07:30 * right now, other people are my drug in very, very, very specific ways. And I love that I’m vaccinated and all my Twitter crushes are getting vaccinated, and I just wanna fuckin’ roll around. I just wanna roll around in the streets, in piles of people. And I know… [laughs] I know that this is so, so not autistic — or one would think — but the subsection, the subculture and niche of BDSM is full of autistic people, and you wouldn’t know if you didn’t talk to us. So, please don’t email us about this, because it is not an open mic.
[Zack chuckles]
CHARLIE: It is a booked list. You will NOT get on the list.
A.J.: I have a personal question, Charlie, if that’s okay.
CHARLIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A.J.: How long until you either, like, host a vaccination orgy, or you get invited to a vaccination orgy?
CHARLIE: Okay, so before WrestleMania Weekend 2020 got canceled, I was hoping to do some male-heavy threesomes and foursomes. And my ideal would be to throw a gangbang, but I don’t wanna organize it because I have such bad grief brain from this pandemic and from… you know, my friend recently dying, so I would love for something like that to just happen out of the ether, you know?
A.J. [overlapping]: I mean, vaccination orgies are definitely gonna happen. I’m not sure when, but they’re definitely happening.
CHARLIE: They definitely are gonna happen, but are all of these people gonna be hot enough for me?
[A.J. laughs]
CHARLIE: And are all of these people, like, gonna be that certain intersection of weird and queer and subby that I need?
A.J.: Well, I think for the first one about “hot enough”, if it’s a safe vaccination orgy, people would still be wearing masks, so maybe the hotness threshold drops. And also, I’ve had this question a lot: what is the threshold for an orgy? Is it 5 people? Is it 6 people? When do you go from, like, a foursome to an orgy? What’s the cutoff? How do we know it’s an orgy, officially?
CHARLIE: So, like, when people picture orgies, it’s like a pile of people. But that doesn’t really happen as much as play parties happen, where it’s like various people sort of around a room, and you can kind of come and go as you please. Like, that’s definitely more common than an orgy, where it’s, like, you know, 5, 6, 7+ people on the same bed. You know? Does that help?
A.J.: Not really.
[Charlie laughs wholeheartedly]
A.J.: I have never been to an orgy. I mean, that’s why I asked. Threesomes? Yeah. Foursomes? Okay. But I don’t think I’ve ever been to an orgy orgy. Also, if you’re having a vaccination orgy, please let me know! I don’t wanna come, but I just wanna know that’s happening.
[Zack giggles]
CHARLIE: Yeah, yeah.
ZACK: Feels like the Supreme Court decision. All you can say is “you know it when you see it.”
CHARLIE: Honestly? Yeah.
A.J.: Also, just a last point, I need to know if your vaccination orgy is masks required or not. So yeah, if anyone has one of those, let me know.
CHARLIE: Yeah, yeah, add him to the email list!
ZACK: Absolutely.
CHARLIE: Yeah, add him to the Google Calendar. Like, make sure you know that he’s not coming, but he just, like… in the planning process, just send him a notification on Slack, or something.
ZACK: Hell yeah.
CHARLIE: Yeah. Okay, that’ll do it for this episode! And let me be perfectly clear: do not email me about this. Please.
ZACK: Do not. Do not. I’ll start a whole CC chain, just asking Charlie if this guy is bothering them. We’ll just go on for hours.
[Charlie laughs]
ZACK: But yeah! Thank you all so much for listening. A.J., thank you so much for being with us. We will have the link to the National Disabled Law Students Association in the show notes as well as the Patreon. We hope to be back to a semi-regular schedule as of this episode, so we hope to see you again soon! Take care!
CHARLIE: Thank you guys, bye!
A.J.: Bye, thank you so much for having me!
ZACK: Bye!
[Theme plays]
