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Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
I Host 2 Podcasts. Life Is Crazy and The Buckeye Battle Cry Show. The Life Is Crazy podcast is designed to help with suicide prevention. That is the #1 goal! This is also a Podcast of perseverance, self-help, self-Improvement, becoming a better person, making it through struggles and not only surviving, but thriving! In this Podcast the first 25 episodes detail my life's downs and ups. A story that shows you can overcome poverty, abusive environments, drug and alcoholic environments, difficult bosses, being laid-off from work, losing your family, and being on the brink of suicide. Listen and find a place to share life stories and experiences. Allow everyone to learn from each other to reinforce our place in this world. To grow and be better people and help build a better more understanding society.
The early podcast episodes are a story of the journey of my life. The start from poor, drug and alcohol stricken life, to choices that lead to success. Discusses my own suicide ideations and attempt that I struggled with for most of my life. Being raised by essentially only my mother with good intentions, but didn't know how to teach me to be a man. About learning life's lessons and how to become a man on this journey and sharing those lessons and experiences with others whom hopefully can benefit from my successes and failures.
Hosting guests who have overcome suicide attempts/suicide ideations/trauma/hardships/difficult situations to fight through it, rise up, and live their best life. Real life stories to help others that are going through difficult times or stuck without a path forward, understand and learn there is a path forward.
The Buckeye Battle Cry Show is a weekly show about the greatest sport in the world, college football, and specializing in discussing the greatest team in the world, THE Ohio State Buckeyes,
Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld
Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
Episode 61: When Your Teen Has Autism: A Conversation That Matters with Dr. Kristen Williamson
Dr. Kristen Williamson shares her journey as a late-diagnosed autistic professional and offers insights for parents raising neurodivergent children. Her personal experiences reveal how understanding neurodiversity can transform shame into self-acceptance and help families navigate the challenges of raising teens on the spectrum.
• Diagnosed with autism and ADHD at age 39 despite having a doctorate in behavioral health
• Growing up as "the weird kid" who struggled with executive functioning and social norms
• Understanding "spicy brains" and how neurodivergent individuals process the world differently
• Why autistic teens may resist driving and strategies for gradual exposure therapy
• Recognizing that autistic brains develop 7-10 years later than neurotypical ones
• How to encourage independence without creating shame
• Finding accommodations and supports like Vocational Rehabilitation services
• The importance of celebrating small victories in skill development
• Addressing suicide prevention and mental health support for neurodivergent individuals
• Resources including warm lines, workbooks, and online communities
Visit Dr. Kristen Williamson at empowermysolutions.com or find her on Instagram and TikTok @dr.kristen for more resources on living as a neurodivergent person in a neurotypical world.
Developed by a team of Practitioners, men's health scientists, neuroscientists and peak performers. MNLY harnesses the power of blood analysis, machine learning, and AI to evaluate data from four essential components: Biological, Environmental, Nutritional, and Clinical analysis. By leveraging this advanced technology, we develop precise, evidence-based solutions that are tailored uniquely to each individual.
https://www.getmnly.com/
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Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld
Their supplements have been developed by a team of Practitioners, men's health scientists, neuroscientists and peak performers. MNLY harnesses the power of blood analysis, machine learning, and AI to evaluate data from four essential components: Biological, Environmental, Nutritional, and Clinical analysis. By leveraging this advanced technology, they develop precise, evidence-based solutions that are tailored uniquely to each individual.
https://www.getmnly.com/
Welcome. Welcome back to Brandon Held. Life is Crazy and in today's podcast it's a podcast I've very much been looking forward to, because I have Dr Kristen Williamson on the show today, and you know she's a licensed professional counselor, a neurodivergent advocate and a proud ring leader of a NeuroSpicy family. The reason I really want to talk to you today and you know this is because I have a 17-year-old son that I recently learned has a form of autism and I know very little to nothing about autism. So welcome to the show, dr Williamson.
Speaker 1:Hi, thank you so much for having me. Please just call me Kristen.
Speaker 2:Okay, I will do that. Yes, I want to give you the respect you've earned. Until you say otherwise, I feel people deserve that. So, yeah, so let's just get into it so we can get to the meat and juicy good stuff and just tell everyone a little bit about yourself and who you are.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I've been thinking about this and I try to get it down to just a few sentences, but life in a few sentences can be tough.
Speaker 1:I am a professional counselor. I have my doctorate in behavioral health management. I did not get diagnosed with autism or ADHD until I was 39. Wow, and it has really helped me come in and rewrite the guilt and shame narrative that was in my brain, and I've been doing that for a couple of years beforehand. But I tell you what being able to rewrite it into my brain's not broken, it's just different night and day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's good. I think it's funny because and we'll get into this later but just based off of what you're saying, my son, when he was 16, started talking to this girl through Snapchat and, I don't know, he developed a crush on her, he started liking her or whatever, and she said to him I think you're autistic, I think you have some form of autism, and that thought had never crossed my mind. About him, like I know he's socially awkward, he doesn't really like being out in public or dealing with people too much. He's really intelligent and all other aspects of life he does pretty well, except he doesn't care about a lot of things. So, but based off of her recommendation or whatever she said to him, he's the one that came to me and said I want to get tested for autism. So yeah, of course we took him and tested him and he does have some, and I'll get more into that with you later.
Speaker 2:Let's just start with your youth, in your childhood, and you didn't know you had autism. Then let's talk about that. How did that go for you?
Speaker 1:Holy moly, I was raised in a military family family. My dad was in the air force so we moved every four to five years and I was definitely the weird kid growing up. I was that quirky girl that I really wanted to make friends. But I would come in and let's talk about dinosaurs here's my cat, look at this or this and I didn't quite catch on that not everybody was super interested in the same thing that I was.
Speaker 1:And I went back and looked at my report cards that my beautiful mother saved for so long and it says she's really chatty, she talks about inappropriate things, has to sit in the back of the room. Talks to wallpaper. I'm of the room. Talks to wallpaper. I'm like yep that was me.
Speaker 2:Did you get in trouble from your parents because of that behavior, or they just blow it off because it's you?
Speaker 1:I feel like a little bit of both. Okay, I had this weird thing in elementary school and middle school where I would do the homework but I wouldn't turn it in, and so I would get continuously busted for not turning it. They're like we know you did this. What's going on? I couldn't give them an answer. I had no idea that finishing the work to turning it in there was just something so hard.
Speaker 2:It's a disconnect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and had we known then what we know now, I would have been maybe looked into to ask for accommodations, to have hey teacher check, to see if Kristen will turn this in that little bit of extra work. But it didn't happen.
Speaker 2:So I was a solid C student for most of my life, even though I did all the work, even though I did all the work, no that's, and now you have a doctorate. So that's coming a long way and we'll get to that, but I'm sure getting older and learning more about yourself and understanding yourself better probably helps.
Speaker 1:I feel like I learned how to work the system Okay. And that's probably not the nicest answer to say but you learn what teachers will accept work turn in late. I learned from my brain if I did all the work in the syllabus in the first two and a half weeks of school I could turn it in week by week and it's already done. But I had the dopamine of that. I can get this done and just get it done because it was interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so when my brain stopped finding it interesting, I'd already completed it.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, we all do that in some way. I was never book smart at all when I was young and what I learned to do was adapt. So I learned how to learn things in a different way and where that really helped me was common sense. How does that make sense? So if you would ask me a problem or a question, maybe I couldn't get in the book and read it and figure it out, but my brain would work, it would do its own when I would come up with answers just from my own brain of what made sense to me and it really helped me in life.
Speaker 1:I have learned and I've seen this with my 15 year old, who is on the spectrum and ADHD, and he can come in with math. He can tell you the answer to these intricate problems, but cannot tell you how he got the answer, and that drives his teachers absolutely bonkers.
Speaker 2:I bet Because they love showing work. Yes, they do, and they're like are you cheating. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But they can watch him do it. It's just the way that his brain can identify, but can't describe how he got to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is wild. All right, so let's finish getting through your life. So you had this childhood where you were chatty and full of energy. I guess the way you're I yep, Everything was interesting.
Speaker 1:I wanted to learn all of the things. My brain would come in and hyper fixate on whatever sounded interesting for that time and then I would learn everything I could about it to just a grossly overly large hyper fixation. And this was before the days of the internet yeah, oh yeah, imagine, yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:But when we got the internet it was game on. I could learn even more, and my brain never shut off, but it wasn't ever not really in a negative oh, you're so bad, you're so this, you're so this. It was like, oh, let you're so this. It was like, oh, let's think about the universe. Let's think about this or this or what book can I stay up late reading and try to hide that I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess we're jumping the shark here, but do you feel lucky that you manifested that into positive things? Cause I feel like you could that could go a negative way as well yes, it can, and I've seen it through my clients.
Speaker 1:I am so incredibly lucky that I have adapted this positive mindset and I can trace that back to my dad, who was just a perpetual optimist, and my aunts and my family members, who choose to see the positive more than even the reality of what could be perceived as negative. Yeah, and I tried to adapt my behaviors to with the people really really felt connected to, and it's funny because my mom was not overly optimistic, but she is so based in reality and strength that I'm able to take her lessons from an entirely different level.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, that's good that you had that kind of influence around you. I grew up around a lot of negativity. Everyone was negative around me. Everyone was an alcoholic or a drug addict or whatever the case was, and when I say everyone, I mean my whole family. That doesn't exclude anyone, except for my grandmother my grandmother's the only one that wouldn't be true for and somehow I maintained a positive attitude. I maintained a belief that I was going to have a better life than the rest of these people, and I was just able to keep that in my mind. And people, even my own family, would ask me where does this positive attitude come from? And I don't know where it came from. I just refused to be like them and they were so negative and so down, so I just went the opposite direction.
Speaker 1:That pendulum really swang in the opposite direction, that pendulum really swang in the opposite direction. I've seen that with people who grow up in really in harder atmospheres, they can go down the same pathway as the people who are influencing their upbringing, or they go drastically in a different direction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's what I'm saying. My other family members my sister, my brother, my uncles they all just followed in line with the family became alcoholics or drug addicts or maybe both, whatever. But I was the only one and, like you say, that pendulum swing in complete opposite. I've still at I'm almost 52, never drank alcohol, never had any drugs, that kind of stuff, never smoked. So it's so cool. Yeah, thank you, I'm proud of that and and it's not anything I would see changing in my lifetime- you know it's funny.
Speaker 1:You say that I've never done drugs either. Alcohol in college is a different story, but it was that human that was. Nope, I'm not 21, I can't break the rules yeah, yeah and part of my brain said no, let's break the rules. You're in college, you can drink, and the other part's like but I don't want to get in trouble or people to come by. And it was just. My brain is very much.
Speaker 2:It follows the rules that I see as established there's something to be said about people like that, honestly, because we could argue this all day long and we're going way off path here. This is a natural conversation, so that's the way it's going. I feel like when you're dealing with people who are willing to break what most society considers small rules, insignificant rules like drinking before 21 or whatever the case is, to me that shows that they have the kind of personality that decides what's right and what's not right, and not what society or everyone else thinks is right or not right, and that makes them a questionable person to me. That's how I see it.
Speaker 1:I'm curious what you think about that. I think it all depends and I say this very loosely it all depends. There are certain rules that I will never, ever break. I will wear my seatbelt till the day I die.
Speaker 1:But then there's other things. I've definitely caught myself going 35 or 40 and a 30 and I have paid for it. Cops have definitely. And that's where I drive. My whole family makes fun of me. I drive well within the speed limit now because I've learned my lesson, but it's still. It's really hard because those kind of things my brain's like, oh, I could go faster, this is fine. That's like, oh, nope, I am, and I am just, I'm lucky enough that I have been caught before it's continued.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I got caught speeding once too and funny story, with that in the army I had bought a new Nissan three 50 Z. I don't know if you know what those are. It's a little two door sports car goes fast as hell. And one night I was like you know what. I've had this car like five months. I've never seen how fast it could go.
Speaker 2:let me see how fast it can go and so I sped up right and I actually got all the way up to 130 and it happened like really fast it was, so it's a sports car. So it happened really within seconds. So I looked and I was all like holy shit, I'm going 130. So I started to slow down and right when I was slowing down at 100 miles an hour, a cop saw me.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness yeah, so I paid for that one for sure. Luckily I was in the army. He's like I can arrest you for going to that speed because I'm in Arizona and anything over 85 is considered felony speeding or something like that, I'm not sure. And he told me straight out that he was cutting me a break because I was in the military.
Speaker 1:My husband was on submarines for 20 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's a veteran.
Speaker 1:Oh, he is.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I love my veterans.
Speaker 1:I do too, but holy moly, I know this is a totally different segue. Y'all's military brains or something else. Yeah, but okay.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that too. I grew up in chaos, right, and the first thing I did at 17 was join the Air Force, and super early I joined when it was the second semester People were starting the second semester of high school and I finished basic training, I finished my security police school and I was at my first duty station when my classmates were walking for their high school graduation. So I did it super early and I just loved the structure of the military. I loved it. I loved things having to be done just right, being put in their place, and you have to be at a certain place at a certain time. I loved when I got up in the morning I didn't have to think about what I wanted to wear. I had to put this uniform on on. Whether I liked it or not, it didn't bother me. I loved wearing a uniform. So yeah, military structure, just really stuck with me.
Speaker 1:You know what's funny about that? Spicy brains. And I say spicy neuro-spicy versus neurodivergent or autistic, because I fully believe we've got the spice of life yeah spicy brains love the structure of the military. That's one of their. Like, the military has caught on that autism does well in the military yeah, yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 1:I could see, because it's you don't have to question, you don't have to have that indecision, paralysis of what do I wear today, what do I do, where are my choices? Because you know what to do. You're being told what to do yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:So you went through life, you got your ph, your doctor's, so we're just gonna we're just gonna bypass the rest, unless there's something specific you wanted to say about it.
Speaker 1:No, just that. I love that the military is finally starting to come in and see that's not a bad thing right, yeah, oh you're gonna be in a group home forever.
Speaker 2:No, they're awesome so, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to. I was trying for the longest to get my ex-wife to send me information on my son's autism test, and it literally took her like two months to finally give me something. She said that uh, maximus, which is my son's name, he struggles with communication, social interaction. He has functional limitation in expressive language learning and substantial functional limitation in self-direction. Oh god, isn't that the truth? He meets the criteria for deficits in social, emotional reciprocity and non-verbal communicative behaviors in developing, maintaining and understanding relationships. So this is what he was found to have. What do you know about that?
Speaker 1:I know so much about that, holy moly. Have you ever heard of a term called alexithymia?
Speaker 2:Not at all.
Speaker 1:It a l e x a t h y m I a and I may be pronouncing that wrong, it is. Basically there is a disconnect between our brain, body, with sensations, emotions, all of the things. So imagine if you know someone your kiddo or others who you give them a gift and they're like yay, thank you and their face doesn't change, they don't look like oh my gosh, I've been given a gift. This is awesome, and your immediate thought might be man, what a jerk, he's not even being so thankful.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right and really they're feeling just as much like they're happy about it, but they don't have that level of emotional understanding of. This is really exciting. This is really great. And alexithymia can show up. It shows up in 70 80 percent of people who are on the spectrum. It is where you don't. It struggles in areas of understanding emotions, describing your emotions.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you this I totally get that. So this is what is so hard for me to understand where this come from. My son so he was like the golden child, right, he was such a perfect kid and he had ranges of emotion. When he was happy he showed happiness, when he was sad he showed sadness. So he had all the things. But he was so well behaved and such a good kid and then somewhere along the way while he was growing up, that went away, it disappeared, it went from. This kid who had these ranges of emotions to now has no deep feeling about anything, good or bad, Like he literally just doesn't care about anything. And he says that with his words and I see that in his actions. But I know like he loves me and his mother and his brother and all that stuff, but is it? Is this something that can happen to him during childhood?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there can be a regression.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Absolutely can, and they have testing now all the way as young as 18 months, because that's where we can see a lot of the regression can start okay, and then that can continue on and oh, the idea of that, the okay, they're really good and they didn't cause trouble, they didn't do this. A lot of it is I can. In putting myself in those shoes, I have felt like an alien wearing a human disguise my entire life that that's what I was going to ask you.
Speaker 2:So do you think he was going away faking it because it was expected?
Speaker 1:of him. It could be. Yeah, and this is. We are trained with social norms from such a young age and, okay, don't get in trouble doing this or this.
Speaker 2:And people like it when I do this and don't like it when I do this.
Speaker 1:And so it's spicy brains. We are studying human behavior from a young age and, okay, if I walk like this or I make my face look like this, people respond better. And I think it's funny you say this as we get older, we sometimes start to care less. Once we start understanding about our brain, then we're like why do I want to put on this show for other people when I don't really care?
Speaker 2:yeah, so it scares me. It scares me a lot and I'll tell you why because because of his lack of caring for things, that puts as a father before I even knew he had autism. I think I've chilled a little bit, but I'm still also trying to be a father that gets him to understand he still needs to try to live the best life that he can live.
Speaker 2:So I think he feels pressure from me to do something with his life and become something, because he literally says I don't want to do anything. Nothing sounds good to me. I just want to play video games, watch YouTube, not do anything for a living. And these are endless conversations we've had, and sometimes during the conversation it comes up that he feels bad for being my son, because he's going to disappoint me and let me down. And he's even talked about suicidal thoughts before, and so I wanted to bring all that up because that scares me. The last thing I would ever want him to do in the world, obviously, is commit suicide.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:At the same time, where do I draw the line? As a father of, I still need you to push yourself and go out there and try to be a part of the world and make something of yourself.
Speaker 1:Let me use it, possibly create an example that you would understand. When you were in the military, did you have to do things you didn't want to do?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But you had to do it anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I did it.
Speaker 1:That's the thing. He doesn't have to be in the military. People don't have to be in the military to know and to be told we have to do things we don't want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've said that a thousand times, and that is it could be the way that things are phrased and that perception, and I don't ever want someone to feel as though they don't have value and worth and want to remove themselves from the world, because that's the least thing ever I want. Working with people on the autism spectrum, I am especially the younger adults. I work with ones going into college and then all the way up through any age possible from.
Speaker 1:there into college and then all the way up through any age possible from there, sure, and these covid kids are having a much harder time finding their identity because they were going through these times when the world shut down, yeah, and then they started going online, or more online, because they couldn't go out. And for a spicy, spicy human, that's great. It's like I can make friends online, I can interact with people online, and creating friends online, making friends online, it is absolutely a wonderful thing for people on the spectrum, and it's not any less of a friendship because they're online. Like, it makes it easier because you don't have to meet each other's eyes.
Speaker 1:You don't have to respond at a very specific time, and so that's where they feel safer online. So going out and doing things in person is harder to do not impossible, but harder. And that's where, in having conversations with your kiddo, or for any parent listening having conversations with their kids, it's yeah, you can, you don't have to like this or you don't have to be in love with this, but we are going to go and we're going to get out of the house and you're going to go get food and you're going to order it, or you're going to come in and you're going to pay for the groceries and here's the card. And it's almost like exposure therapy, having them do these things in tinier increments to get used to the idea of okay, you are going to go talk with someone and you don't have to work 40 hours, but you do have to work three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the thing. I'm using my son here in this situation as an open sample of, maybe things other people are experiencing as well. So I am hoping other people are maybe identifying with this, either through their own life experience or someone they know. And he's not afraid to go out in the world when he's with me or his mother and do any of the things that you just said and just suggested and we talked about this briefly before you and I, but we didn't talk about it here.
Speaker 2:He is terrified to get his driver's license. He just has a 0% interest in doing it. He thinks driving is scary and where we live in Tucson, arizona, it's everywhere you go. The roads are pretty packed and especially if you get on the interstate, to him crazy to even get on the interstate and drive. All these things just create problems and difficulty on trying to get him to become an independent young man. And oh, by the way, he did get pulled out of school when covid started, right by his mother, and he went back very briefly after COVID started and somehow he had convinced her to let him not go to school and so she just pulled him out of school and he didn't. He quit going to school. So for five years now he hasn't really had to deal with the public.
Speaker 1:So then imagine not having to deal with it for five years. And then the idea of going in and, oh my gosh, getting a job at a coffee shop where you have to go say hello and take orders and do these things. You already have a harder time coming out and having those scripts, but okay. So a couple things to this. I have so many different examples. I want to give, I'm trying to find the right ones.
Speaker 2:Go for it.
Speaker 1:One of my college age clients. She works at a restaurant that they use scripts every time, so she likes going there because when someone comes in she uses a specific script and she doesn't have to deviate. She likes working in specific areas and her bosses know this and they understand they work with her in it so she doesn't have to make that exhausting small talk. How are you? How's your day? How's everything?
Speaker 1:that's just draining, yeah she just goes on the script and for her I think it's working like in the drive-through, because she doesn't have to come in and have a whole bunch of conversations. So she found a way to accommodate her struggles yeah, talking on the phone is an entirely different issue.
Speaker 1:And another client of mine with driving I've actually heard this through multiple clients age range 18 to 40. They don't drive, they don't drive, or if they do and they're just now working on driving they won't go on highways, they won't go fast. The visual chaos of other cars driving, of cars going faster, of people walking by and just the scenery going by really quickly. It's an overwhelming sensory issue and so their brain shuts down.
Speaker 1:And that anxiety of feeling so overwhelmed and then being behind the wheel of this giant metal car, it just the anxiety can almost feel debilitating you know who I feel like you're describing to me.
Speaker 2:Did you ever watch the big bang theory? Sheldon yeah, yeah yes yeah, it sounds just like sheldon and they never came out and said he was autistic.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say that, talking about shame and diagnoses, yeah, sheldon was weird. He's not crazy. His mom had him tested. Oh, what a way to invalidate everybody who's on the spectrum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish they would have just came out with it and said he is autistic, because it was pretty clear to everyone that he was.
Speaker 1:Think about it If they came out and said he's autistic, he'd won a Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah, he had his doctorate, he had friends, he was able to get married. Like how cool would that have been for representation for the autism world.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:To say we can do all these things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we might be quirky. Yeah, and I even used you to my son. I said she has autism and she's a doctor, so you know what's holding you back. You can do it too. So funny yesterday we went to the grocery store and the bagger wasn't there. You know, and I often talk about him like starting small, like maybe being a bagger at a grocery store and so.
Speaker 2:So he went down and I, when we were checking out, I said hey, you need to bag the groceries. And so he did it and without saying it me saying anything to him when we were walking out he goes that wasn't bad. I think I could do that if I was getting paid and I was like all right, that's progress. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is where I want you to come in and celebrate the small things. Oh, I did, I did and that's for everybody and anyone who's celebrating the small things, because, oh my gosh, it feels so good to be seen and heard. Wow, that was really great. I'm glad you could do that. I'm glad you see where that's at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's not coming in with that shame mentality of oh you think you don't think you can do more yeah, no definitely not starting off small I guess the biggest hurdle is always going to be him not being able to drive himself places, because him, his mother and I live so opposite of each other. We're like 30 plus minutes apart and he spends currently 50 of the time with each of us and if he were to get a job somewhere, it'd be like where would he work because it's so far apart? Yep so that's a hurdle. We're gonna have to figure out how to deal with have you ever heard of something called vocational rehab?
Speaker 2:I have not no.
Speaker 1:I want to tell you this and for everybody listening, it's just vocational rehab is offered, I believe, in every state. It is something that is set up through the states. It's free and it's helping to find jobs or training or things to get certification for people with disabilities, autism, adhd, depression, anxiety, like blind deaf, all kinds of different things. They'll help to help you get the training needed. They'll help to find placement. If he has a hard time, the idea of driving or going somewhere, not that I want to dissuade him driving but, there may be jobs to be found to do online.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me write this down Vocational rehab. I'm writing this down as we speak.
Speaker 1:States like it, they like offering this, and I'm speaking for all States here and you know I'm saying that I know the brain of every state. They like it because if they help to get someone working, that person's making money paying taxes, so it helps feed into the economy.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, because that's his thing. There's not really anything I want in life. He's like I already have an Xbox, I already have a phone. You and mom give me food, you feed me. I have a roof over my head. He's like I already have an Xbox, I already have a phone. You and mom give me food, you feed me. I have a roof over my head. He's like I don't really want anything else. And I just look at him and I say that's sad for me that you don't want a life where you have a wife and kids and a family. I would hope you would want that out of your life.
Speaker 1:And with that a lot of them don't, a lot of non-neuro spicy. Humans don't want that anymore this next generation.
Speaker 1:They are hard passing all of those things, and it's if they don't want a career, okay, don't have a career, but you will have a job. That, if mom and I pass, you will be able to live with a roommate, you will be able to do this or that. You don't have to be in a relationship, you don't have to do anything. You can sit and play video games, but you still have to make sure you know how to pay bills. You still have to make sure you know this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he definitely has to learn how to be independent and self-sufficient and I'm not going to give up on that, I'm going to keep working on that. And I even went the other direction because I know he he loves his mother and myself and I say, the longer we have to take care of you, the more burden you're putting on us because that's a financial burden for us. We have to save to retire and prepare for our golden years and everything that we take away from that to give to you. You're putting that burden back on us.
Speaker 1:Careful with that. That's true that builds into that, potentially can build into a shame mindset. Which think of it? If you have that identification of I'm a burden?
Speaker 2:It's not an identification, that he's a burden. I'm trying to get him to see like he needs to do something for himself, because not only is he doing it for himself, he's doing it for me and his mother as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, I totally see where you're coming from. I want to put in that black and white thinking that a lot of spicy brains have If I'm not this, I'm this. If I'm not doing this for myself, I'm a burden. If I'm not this, I'm this. And that's also a wonderful way to come in and talk about things is that you may not be a burden, but these things can build into something that is not going to be helping any of us later on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get it, so I'll be careful with that for sure. Thanks for that warning. I do everything in my power to make it clear to him that I love him more than anything, and there's no way I would ever want to just your dad. I'm just trying to motivate you. I'm trying to help you live your best life. That's all I want is for you to live your best life.
Speaker 1:I feel like he's going to understand that more as he gets older. I did not understand anything my mom was saying because, again, she wasn't that eternal. She was one who kept me grounded in reality. More, and that sucked. That was like oh well, she's against me, she's this. And then, as, of course, as I've gotten older and my brain has fully developed which spicy brains don't fully develop a solid seven to ten years later than your typical brains?
Speaker 2:oh wow, that's good information. I did not know.
Speaker 1:So it's feeling like a kid way longer, feeling like you don't have your stuff together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he definitely feels. I know that. He feels that and I have been trying to be as balanced and as delicate as I can be with you know. Give them an, an edge to do something and be something, but also not be like, ah, you know what I mean my, my husband, because he did 20 years, I think he signed up.
Speaker 1:He was 18 years old when he went into the navy, so by the time he was I think he had his first kiddo one of my bonus kids when he was 20, maybe 21, and so now he sees other kids like 18, 19. He's like I was already in the navy at this. I was in power school, I was this and this and I'm like. You cannot compare yourself. You cannot I'm guilty.
Speaker 2:I'm guilty, I just said it too. Oh, when I was your age, I was already living on my own in the air force when I was your age, so I was here don't you love that?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, that's the. We are now of that generation that we walked uphill both ways in the snow.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's funny because you see these things in adults, when you're younger, and then now you become the adult and you see yourself feeling. Feeling and saying these things not because you heard them, but because you really feel them. Like you feel, this is the truth for me and you say it and then you're like, oh crap, this is what people said to me when I was young.
Speaker 1:So once we say it, we're like, oh, all right. But, when we're young and dumb, of course brains are gonna think we are infallible yeah, yeah and it's for the driving. One thing, and this is therapy brain go into exposure therapy. Sit in the car, have him sit in the front seat, don't turn the car on. Sit in it until he gets uncomfortable. Then the next day do it longer or longer, until he gets comfortable being uncomfortable, until the thing that makes him uncomfortable, thing that makes him anxious, starts to become the mundane.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's how we take away fear.
Speaker 2:That's good advice Okay.
Speaker 1:Thank you. If it seems too big, step it down, and it's I've had people stair-step their way into. Okay, I'm in the car Now I turned it on. Now I put it in drive.
Speaker 2:That'll have to wait a few months. No offense, but it's Tucson, Arizona in summertime. There's no getting in the car and sitting in the car.
Speaker 1:Fair enough. Fair enough, you're not wrong. This could be okay. Let's sit in the car and turn it on.
Speaker 2:So the AC is blowing. Yeah, at at least we don't need to drive anywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good idea just getting comfortable sitting in the driver's seat, putting on a seat belt, learning what these routines are before you even make the car drive no, when you say it, it's so, going back to the way I was talking about I was when I was younger, it's so duh.
Speaker 2:Common sense, right, like that makes sense what you should do it that way, baby steps right. Baby steps, yeah, but it just didn't cross my mind, it just didn't sit in the car.
Speaker 1:That's where I love doing these podcasts and talking to the world, because it's connecting ideas and saying holy moly. I think of it like eating a steak and we have this beautiful, glorious steak for my meat eaters. We don't eat it in one bite, we cut it down and if it's too big a bite, we cut it down more. I was a vegan for four years.
Speaker 2:You know what got me back A steak.
Speaker 1:I learned Oreos are vegan and I can't unlearn that fact yeah.
Speaker 2:I knew that when I was a vegan. So, yeah, I was like I can eat these. But yeah, I'm somewhat of a meat eater. Now I'm not like a full-time carnivore again or anything, but I definitely have meat on occasion. Now, when I first became a vegan this is a complete side topic I was dealing with swollen limbs and all that and I was having a hard time even moving. So I tried veganism because supposedly what meat does to your cells, which helps with swelling and all that and it really did help me, like it got me off the couch, it got me back into the gym, it got me, got my life headed in the right direction again. But at some point my intestines were paying the price. Like, my intestines did not like veganism, my, my other body parts did, but my intestines didn't. So, yeah, so I realized I have to do. I'll call it now vegetarian most of the time and then throw some meat in every now and then and my body seems to like that better. I'm not sure why.
Speaker 1:I have learned in a completely different way that eating fast food and processed food very much upsets my GI tract, way more than making a chicken wrap at home. Making things at home Like it makes my stomach feel better. But I want to eat McDonald's so bad I'm like. I know I'm going to pay for it, but this is what I want.
Speaker 2:I haven't had McDonald's since I was a teenager.
Speaker 1:I haven't had it since last week. Counting All right.
Speaker 2:So we're running out of time here. This has been phenomenal information. I feel like I could do a two-hour podcast with you easy. But we do have a serious topic we wanted to talk about and that was suicide, and as my podcast is about suicide prevention, it's one of the main things if not the main thing that I want to serve with this podcast is anyone in a place where they're considering suicide or thinking about suicide and helping them understand that it's temporary and they can get through it and life can and will be much better when you get through this stage. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to speak on that from your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much. This is a topic that's very near and dear to my heart. I, because I work in the professional counseling world, I get to see the family members who have lost loved ones, the friends who have lost friends and loved ones. It sucks because they're coming in with a lifetime of pain and it's a hundred percent wrong. That pain that you are experiencing, it bleeds off onto others and they will carry that weight, and they would much. I can say this with full certainty. They would rather talk to you, even if you feel like you are burdening them more than they want to go to your funeral even if you feel like you are burdening them more than they want to go to your funeral?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, for sure, yeah, so how? What would you say to someone if they came to you in that situation? Would you just say what you just said, or would you say, or would you try to get inside of what's going on with them and what they're going through? How would you help? Someone.
Speaker 1:In the immediacy of it. It's checking to make sure that you're safe. It's hey, I feel like I'm going to go off myself today. It's like, all right, let's start asking some more questions. What's going on? Did something happen? Has it been sitting in your brain for a while? Are these thoughts getting louder? Here are some phone numbers. I work a lot within the LGBTQIA plus community and so we have lifelines and warm lines. Warm lines are actually national and they're not just for the queer community. Warm lines are not crisis lines. They're run by people who've had similar experiences and you just want to talk to someone, and those you can find them online. We I can give you those warm lines If you want to bring them out to other people. It's knowing that you're not alone.
Speaker 1:And if you don't feel as though you can talk to your friends or family because you feel like you're going to be judged. There are people you can talk to. It doesn't have to be a therapist. It can be using one of these phone numbers. There's numbers that you can just text them and it's. It makes me actually talked about this last week. Asking for help is really hard. It's really hard being vulnerable. Our society has not put that as an easy thing to do and I want to normalize telling your friends you love them, telling our people you love them, and make it weird and I'm here for you and it's okay. If you're not okay, you're allowed to be not okay. Let me sit with you. I don't need to make it better, but I can sit with you in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good, because I feel like sometimes when people are going through it themselves, just alone, they have to find the inner strength and inner willpower to not do it. Because for me personally, when I had suicidal thoughts, the hardest part for me was not following through. Some people say they don't have the strength to actually go through with it and actually attempt the suicide. The attempting the suicide wouldn't have been the hard part for me. It's the fallout effect of how it would affect everyone around me that loved me and I had to have the strength to recognize that and realize that, and it's you being a veteran, I get it.
Speaker 1:The military is not easy on those who have struggles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not at all.
Speaker 1:Rub some dirt on it yeah, like that, we're gonna browbeat it out of you and give you an 800 milligram ibuprofen yep, yeah, yeah, they love the ivy. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Like you're feeling down, here's some ibuprofen yeah, yeah, oh man I've been given 800 milligram ibuprofens to me so many times.
Speaker 1:It's not even funny my husband has some in just a chunk yeah, yeah, that's a thing yeah, and that's where where I want to make sure the world knows If you're not okay, that's not an unheard of thing, that's not an abnormal thing. Yeah, there are people out there who are okay to hold that information. You aren't a burden. Yeah, and checking in with people and talking to your spouse or your family or your best friend hey, I'm having a hard day can we talk about it? If they are not in a mindset to help, then it's. We can have the other numbers for you to talk to that. Just because if they are not, if they don't have the ability to help in that moment, that doesn't mean that they won't be willing to tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Do you have Instagram or social media of any type?
Speaker 1:I do. I have TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. I'd like to think I'm good at all of these. I'm not, but I'm trying.
Speaker 2:So two things. One, you and I need to follow each other on Instagram, because it's the only one I have. I would love to get information from you that I could share with people as well, and you, if you give me that information, I'll put it in the the text of this podcast when I released this podcast, for people to have that information available and to please share everyone, your whatever media you want people to follow, you want to find you, whichever is most important, let everyone know.
Speaker 1:If you look me up on Instagram or TikTok those are the two I use probably more often, dr Kristen, you're going to find this blonde haired, multi-colored dyed hair Underneath, talking, probably with cats in the background. I also have some workbooks on amazon for being autistic and living in a neurotypical world and it's got. I've got their prompts and things to work through and scripts for talking to people. Just being spicy brains hard. I want to make it a little bit easier.
Speaker 2:And don't forget about your awesome website. I actually love it. Your empower, my solutions LLCcom. You don't when you get to your website, you don't forget that website. That's, it's really cool. I don't want to tell people what it is, cause I want people to go check it out, so you have to go see her website and what it looks like. It's cool, it's memorable.
Speaker 1:If you go to my website, all my social media is there.
Speaker 2:There you go, there you go, and I'll put your website link in the chat as well. Thank you so much for being on my show and giving all this information. We may have to do this again, cause I feel like I'm here for it. We barely covered anything Like we barely scratched the surface and we got a lot of good information.
Speaker 1:So I thank you for giving me the space to normalize being weird. To be normalized being quirky.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need to normalize that. We need to normalize even the talk of suicide and depression, because, oh, there's too much shame in it, and shame is really what holds people back and lets them hide it and keep it to themselves, because they don't want to be shamed, they don't want to be embarrassed. And I'm not saying it was easy for me to first come out and admit that I've attempted suicide and I've had suicidal ideations most of my life. When you get older, it's just something you realize hey, maybe I can help other people with this. And so you put that shame, potential shame and embarrassment to the sides.
Speaker 1:It's vulnerability. Yeah, like realizing that we can be vulnerable and that doesn't make us weak, but that's totally a rabbit hole for another day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, legitimately. We'll have to talk about you coming back sometime.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. So Dr Kristen Williamson, she's awesome and make sure you go to her website. I will have it down there. And Make sure you go to her website. I will have it down there. And if you want to follow her for her great information on all of her social medias, you can find that from her website as well. For me, please go to my website. I forgot my own website. I was so wrapped up in yours.
Speaker 2:It's Brandon heldcom and just click subscribe to podcast, please. It's, it is a subscription. It's 10 bucks a month, but it's 10 bucks a month. But for that 10 bucks a month, a you're supporting the show and B I throw in a couple bonus episodes a month of a podcast that I don't release to the public, so only subscribers can listen to it. So check it out and go to pod matchcom If you are interested in being a guest on podcasts. It's a great site and it's a great way, if you have a platform or something you want to get out to the world, to meet other podcasters, that can help you get out your information, like we did here today, here today. So again, as always, I thank you for listening and giving us your most valuable asset, which is your time, and I'll talk to you next time. Outro Music.
