I Got Expert Advice On Aspergers Relationships (YOU NEED TO WATCH)

really want a partner i really want to partner and they've watched a lot of either like romantic comedies or anime and when they go to try to like impose that on real life it doesn't fit right because it is made up hey guys so today i am interviewing i have a guest obviously on these podcast shows these saturday lives i'm really enjoying these actually so um yeah give a thumbs up if you're enjoying this type of kind of podcast episodes i'm doing they're really fun and i get to have awesome people on like dr ali and so this is doctor this is my friend um we've known each other for a little while now maybe like i don't know six or six months or so maybe i think sometimes and um and and she's super awesome so so ali do you want to kind of explain who you are and what you do and then we'll get into some questions yeah so i'm ally um and i am a speech therapist and a behavior analyst and then i use both of those things and i went and got my doctorate and i looked at the intricacies of dating on the autism spectrum um and when i did that i really looked i interviewed a bunch of people on the spectrum about what was hard and then i also journaled as a therapist on what like i thought people were gonna say but that there was a little bit of a mismatch which was really helpful for me as a therapist to say oh okay just because i think something is hard doesn't mean the person that i'm working with actually wants to work on this so now i have a private practice where i see um teenage kids we play a lot of minecraft we do a lot of social skills social communication and then adults who are interested in just forming more relationships either romantic business friendship um just sort of those higher level social skills dude that's so sick and this is one of the things that really kind of i i wanted you on my my channel and my podcast because i was like whoa there's somebody who's got a phd in literary relationships and autism i mean this is one of the most sought after questions so like i have people all the time saying you know like asperger's and dating or autism and dating like you know does this work does it help so basically you know is there okay let me put this away what's the what's the kind of percentage would you say people who uh uh are not in relationships but want to be in relationships on the spectrum so would you say it's like a quite a low percentage or would you say it's a high percentage who want to be oh high very high i think my focus group for research i think was like 60 people and there were two that didn't want to be in a relationship but just at the moment because they felt like they had too many responsibilities like not that it wasn't something they wanted long term so yes very high that's super interesting what would you say the most um the most common issue that autistic people have with relationships like when they come to you and they say like you know i want a day men and women or whatever and uh i have this issue what's the biggest boundary that they come to you with so some of them who have been in a relationship unfortunately have gotten like burnt or taking advantage of taken advantage of so there's that um i would also say the fear of rejection really comes in heavy and then also there's there's this mismatch of kind of like reality and expectation so a lot of people grow up being like i really want a partner i really want to partner and they've watched a lot of either like romantic comedies or anime and when they go to try to like impose that on real life it doesn't fit right because it it is made up so that kind of like how do i even do this what am i supposed to do what are the rules sure sure that is a very interesting uh concept because like there is no there is no rules of relationships there they're basically that it's a it's a partnership that grows and learns as you go you know so you you know each other you know briefly and then you kind of enter a relationship and then that relationship grows and you learn more about each other and then you know it can either blossom into something more romantic or it can just stay as a friendship relationship and i think um it's it's one of the most difficult parts like you hit the nail on the head they're saying that like you know you see something on tv or on a com and you almo you kind of absorb that which is why my accent is almost american it's kind of a little bit british american because like i i learned a lot of my lexicon and vocabulary from tv and a lot of tv is american right so um a lot of how we behave in our day-to-day life especially growing up when i was a lot younger um i i took a lot of my characteristics of behaviors because i didn't know how to behave in front of people from from movies like star wars and stuff so i just like take on like han solo's kind of persona and do all that kind of stuff people like what is going on i remember trying to um joke with with with the kids in school and i i was really a big fan of beetlejuice and i love beetlejuice so i i kind of just thought well people are laughing at this part of beetlejuice i'll just do this the scene from beetlejuice and people just like whatnot do you do you know i had no i was like how does this not work and so it's really funny that you yeah people are kind of adopt a script and see it as a scenario like oh this is this is how it should be but in reality it should be something that they create themselves so how do you how do you come by that like what do you say to them when they when they like okay i know it's a very difficult topic and it's your forte and you know you spent years talking to people but you know what what's the typical process of trying to help someone in a situation well the first thing you said about relationships right and wanting rules so i've been trying to write a rule book but because a person on the spectrum's brain is typically black and white right relationships are so gray because it's dependent and it's kind of flowing right right i'll go to write a rule and then i realize i have like eight caveats underneath so i'm like is this even a rule at this point i'm kind of you know there's some basic ones but it's hard um and then the the helping to move past movies so i do a lot of normalizing when i work with people i am now happily engaged but i did it for a long time and it was awful so i do a lot of like it's dating in reality can be kind of difficult people you know not just on the spectrum get rejected on apps and not to be pessimistic but just to sort of say like this is kind of how it is and you are not you know doing something wrong necessarily that's making this not happen for you yeah i mean it's just math isn't it i mean you crank the numbers you've got like seven billion people on the planet you're trying to find one person so you're gonna have to go through a lot of churn to to figure out where you sit right i think to me it's mathematics there's a great app actually called hickey which i did it yeah it's great isn't it right and the guy's from new york i think and he's such a cool dude like i i hadn't i i i want to get him on the show i should get him on the show interview he's such a cool guy and he's really nice and uh we did a a brand deal partnership on instagram it was kind of really really cool and we did a youtube uh i think we did blog posts as well and i kind of advertised that app because i was just so blown away by having a dating app specifically people on the spectrum and what really threw me i was like well how do they regulate this how do they and they literally monitor it they have some guy that sits there and there's soul purposes to make sure everyone's genuine and nobody's taking advantage of it's crazy but i think it's another thing that a lot of apps have an issue with especially when they grow to large sizes like how do you moderate that many individuals on an app you know you'd have a team for everyone who joined you i was like you have like one person for every 10 members it's it's nuts but um i think that's really good and it's a good insight to people who who are feeling the same that's what i felt found about it like you know you'll have someone on the spectrum and another personal inspection when they're looking for people and it kind of matches up and then you can talk about like you're both shy or you you know you there is there is light in that but you know what's funny about this is they are actually working with love on the spectrum season two which is cool r okay that's awesome yeah yeah and i was like i was like wow this is cool because you know that was a good insight and a good window into it and i think that like the two biggest things is making friends and uh making friends and relationships and then having a job right they're the two biggest kind of areas that my audience always asks me questions about and you guys watching right now you'll sit there nodding and give this video a thumbs up if you agree that you know finding a job for someone inspection is difficult and then finding a relationship be it a friend friendship relationship or romantic relationship those are two difficult things so do you have a lot of people who are just trying to make friendships who come to you and seek for advice yeah i do um i definitely do i mean so a lot of people that i'm working with are like mid 20s into 30s so they definitely have maintained like a childhood friend of some kind and then they have a lot of friends that they'll either game with or they'll do an activity with um and i always say like that's great some of them i think again comparing to movies want to have this group of like five best friends and we all ride around on bikes and like kind of like and i'm like most people don't have that though don't like don't put that pressure on yourself like if you're finding people to go do activities with and you have a consistent group to do that with that's awesome um and then the other thing going into romantic relationships is kind of what you were talking about and this is why i did really like love on the spectrum and this is why i also really like hiki he is such a nice guy i talked to him once um and i i'm also from the east coast and i was like i you're the best like he just gets his hair so much so one of the things that i really like about that is that like people um you you want to be with someone that has a common interest but also is gonna get you in some way so like going for like a supermodel that works in hollywood and like i don't know parties all night probably isn't a good match but maybe someone who also has a little bit of adhd and can totally understand when you're having a moment where like i can't pitch like i flake out on my fiance sometimes and i'm like i'm sorry i'm having like an adhd moment but you need someone who can empathize or know what that is and like gets it yeah 100 like this is one of the things that i speak about a lot when i speak about relationships um you know i'm lucky that i mean i've friendships right i have i have one best friend like my best friend is my cousin and you know we grew up together so like that's why we're best friends right he's cool he's super creative and uh and that's how we get along we play music together and stuff and but you know in terms of romantic relationships i've only ever had like three romantic relationships one was like high school um and then the other was um when i was in college but it's not university ecologists think before you go to university in the uk anyway and then um yeah when i started when i started working and then i in the relationship i'm in now you know and uh the lucky thing is um i'm naomi who i'm with now she has a uh first honors degree in childhood studies and development and autism so she had she comes from a background understanding but she also i think she has add as well so she she uh she has a lot of like anxiety issues so it's kind of cool you know we we kind of get along really well and we have you know we both flake at the same things which is kind of fun um and and that's how we get along i think that you know the reasons that those other relationships i was in didn't work out was because they didn't understand you know they didn't have that kind of interest and you're absolutely right the caliber of person you should go for you have to think logically like you can't be going after somebody who yeah it's gonna be you know going to parties and like doing crazy stuff all the time because they're just that's not that's not your lifestyle you know you gotta find something that fits your lifestyle and that's what i you know the people who um have been a relationship maybe been like burnt i noticed a big pattern of trying to adjust to their partner's lifestyle or their partner's need and the partner maybe you've been even asking too much right whereas a person on the spectrum thrives on their schedule and knowing what's expected and and once that starts to get thrown continuously that's not you know it's not a good feeling yeah no 100 um i mean yeah i've had oh goodness me i did i date i tried i was kind of dating um a girl um before before i met the only just for anyone and she was kind of like that person you know she she got with all the work friends and then you know she'd drink wine and do all this stuff and like to go to dinner parties that is not my scene like that is not me at all so that just never that did not work it just fell apart straight away and and you're thinking and then you doubt yourself did it did it fall back because i'm a weirdo and it's not it's just because you've got to find people who click with you you've got to find people that kind of like get you you know and you because i like i know a lot of people who are on the spectrum um like a friend of mine patrick his wife uh he he met because that gamers are both like obsessed gamers like i think he works uh with games like he he reviews games and so he met his wife because they're gamers you know and that's cool because that makes sense so i think it is there is that much about it but um but talking about like education and stuff ali was awesome enough to sit my course which is called inside autism so this is super exclusive guys the course is uh currently in it's uh it's beta test and it will be available within a month or so but you can actually i think you can go to uh my site now sign up for the pre-reg which is learnautism.net you can go there now read about it and go on the pre-reg waiting list so when the course is available you get notified but uh ali was awesome enough to say yeah i'll take the course i'll check it out and i wanted her feedback so ali you took the course inside autism so from from your perspective like what would you say if someone said you're like what's the cost about what would you say to them i mean so to me it was talking about autism from a person with autism like there were times where you were saying things where i'm like oh yeah i teach that but you just said it's so much easier to break down like you really you talk about it in a very simple but effective way like the way that you bring up um you talk about sensory diet right and making sure that your sensory system is in line you know i've heard an occupational therapy talk about that and i get it and i think it's amazing you just broke it down in a way of hey this is how it worked for me this is exactly what i do here's some other recommendations and i just think it's so valuable for especially parents of kids on the spectrum they don't have you know hours to sit through like research articles like i do right like they don't they don't do that yeah yeah and even an adult on the spectrum you know they're there to work through their day again they don't want to sit and read there's plenty of books that you know have other information like this but you really break down hey this works for me like i remember one sentence you said you were like um a pause in conversation is when you can start talking and i was like yeah that's so simple and so true but i feel like a lot of times that gets um there's like we add as therapists or whoever we add in all these other layers but it really is like and then go absolutely and it was really funny you know so for anybody watching right now i'm listening i created this course to be a course that people who were on the spectrum could take and people who are parents or carers or people on the spectrum or even therapists could take this course to learn more about it because what i wanted to do was show the inside of autism right that was the idea of of this course so how do you feel it was portrayed like you know you took the course how did you feel as a therapist watching this like did you think that you know it was well balanced or did you think that was more for like parents or for people on spectrum like what were your thoughts no i and you and i had talked off camera and i did say like you beautifully talked to three audiences which i think is really hard to do to be talking to parents people on the spectrum and therapist so as a therapist again you know i got a doctorate in this right so i like you know tout myself as being pretty versed when you sort of go over concepts that i already talk about but again in a much more manageable way was so helpful like i've been implementing it now into what i'm doing with the people i work with and it's clicking better so i think even for therapists a really nice add-on to probably what they're already doing dude that's that's crazy good to know and you know the reason that there's a secret behind how i did it and it's very simple and you can take this one um and anybody watching this uh so the average uh understanding age of a person is three years old so we understand things on a perspective of someone who's three years old so you might be thinking oh my goodness and that goes for anybody who is how how big your your intelligent supporter is or how many doctors you've got and it's simply this when you read like news headlines and stuff like that it's like man dies in car it doesn't tell you much more than that right but that's like a child's book like a three-year-old's book right would say that but that's how we as a society digest information because it's easier to understand so when i was making this course i was like i have to explain this so anybody can get it and say oh yeah i understand the information because when you when you start layering on complex like notions and characteristics then you go ah yeah i'm lost already you know it becomes this like encyclopedia or something and and i think that that's a lot i've seen a lot of autism kind of related courses um that are a little bit smaller than mine and they they just they just over complicate things they go through references and they show screenshots of like journals i'm thinking what nobody cares about this stuff they just want to be able to go can i take this to practical advice and kind of use it so that was my question could did would you say that the course gives you practical advice yeah like i i hear just like one sentence things that i've been applying so yes like um everything was very it's actionable like you explain it and then you're like here is something you can directly do to now use this so yeah extremely valuable excellent so how so here's another thing how i know a lot of people when i say like oh i've launched the course people say like ooh i'm not very technically minded how easy did you find the okay apart from the fact that we had a bit of issues getting your account set up because that was because it was a beta test but in terms of once we had your account set up how easy did you find the flow of the actual tech of the course extremely easy and i am not technically mine there i actually work with someone on the spectrum and he does all of my tech and all of marketing because i just i'm not i can't okay good that was one of my biggest concerns i didn't want parents and grandparents to think like oh my goodness you know i i can literally go on facebook on my ipad or go on on youtube and watch dance videos but you know i wouldn't be able to use this but i tried to make it as super easy as possible like tech friendly and like you just let you sign up um and so if if you were to um if you were to sum it up like you know what would be what parts were the most kind of like like mind-blowing paths like those patterns that you thought were like really valuable because what i tried to do was put stuff in this course that people don't even talk about people not even talking about this stuff right and so i just wanted to know did you have a something that you learned from this you think like holy smokes i've got a phd and i didn't even know this i think sorry i want to make a joke this keeps reminding me of like a blues clue like my handy dandy blue notebook but like i mean so you compared how on the spectrum might feel out and putting in um like working on their sensory system like it's like jet lag and like that really sat with me like i was like whoa because you know youtube videos where they try to show what it's like for a person with adhd at the mall i don't know if you've ever seen that one but i have i have but that to me like jet lag is awful so like to that was just such a good comparison and then um you also talked about and i think this is so i'll say add value to the conversation and you said it's important to be helpful again that's just a much easier way of saying like people want to be around people that are going to help them or that are adding something that they're interested in right as opposed to maybe just talking about straight facts if you can and you also were saying it's a really nice way to even start a conversation with someone like oh i can pick that up for you or let me help you with that it's just a nice opening and again i think that's a strategy that to me i was kind of like oh yeah duh but i'm not teaching it so yeah yeah because a lot of uh the the course kind of like focuses on a lot of different things from relationships to making friends to work life you know um and and trying to get your kids to follow tasks trying to you know to gauge the follow tasks and all those kind of things and so um it was really fun to try and put that together i think that was that was a difficult task to try and put it together in a in a manner where you could understand what i was saying without it being too kind of like basic right um so i'm glad that you i'm glad that you enjoyed my terminology because that was something i was kind of uh scared about but but yeah i mean if this is super cool i love the fact that you took the course i think you are the first person ever to take the course on beta i think i realized that wow okay so like we so you know a few people helped me with the course i think it's seven hours i think roughly i think it's about seven hours um and the cool thing is like you could take it you can sit there for seven hours do it in one sitting um or you could just like literally take take it you know and then log back in and whatever and you could go back on now actually i think you can just log in anytime you want and review it right but there was also some download documents did you get those as well i think there was some downloads that go with it trying to remember right now i know one of them was um a letter to be able to ask for accommodation and in some way which again super helpful you did also talk about this too just the you know the advocacy component that needs to come with do on the spectrum or as a parent ways that you can advocate yeah yeah that was very helpful i actually have shared that with a few of the people i work with because that's awesome because one of the things like i i feel like a lot of the this is the reason i started the course right and and it's because i have so many parents against me in desperation and they're like i need some help and and then you say to them okay you need to do all these things and they say oh my gosh you know i'm trying to look after this kid you know i'm trying to run a house i have like two jobs um i'm also putting myself through college like how do i even how do i even begin to just do all these things so i say okay well look i've done it i've done it all for you you know i've made the templates that you just fill in the blanks to send it into the school or whatever and that was kind of one of the one of the main aims is i wanted to do all of the work and like you said like reading all those books sitting through all those bloody lectures and getting all that stuff together put it into a course and say okay look i've extracted the stuff that's actually useful here you go take it and i hope that kind of came across yes actually i know what you did do and i didn't realize it till now so like when i'm presenting or i'm talking or whatever it's from a speech brain it's from that like social communication brain what you did was holistically talk about hey these are all the parts of a person with autism that are going to be affected this is how i would address each of them i don't know if that really exists there's a lot of like high level this is what autism is but then normally a specialist talks about their thing yeah yeah and this is another thing i don't know of any other autistic people who are running courses from autistic people like all of the courses i've come across have been therapists and it's like well how how you know this is one of the things that i if you have a therapist telling you something about somebody that they don't have a condition of well it's a bit weird isn't it it's like a guy telling a woman like a man telling a woman all about the woman's female reproductive system and telling her all about the menstrual cycles you're thinking well yeah mate i'm you know it'd be back home for a woman because she lives day in day out so it's kind of like that you know i i found this huge issue where there was like there was no there was no there was no autistic people putting this stuff out and i was like i've got to do it i've got to do it because the parents are just literally begging for this so if anybody is interested and you want to be on that pre-launch list um you can go to learnautism.net right now and you can download the free pdf book that i give away and then you can get yourself on the registration list and when the webinar is available and stuff like that you can get onto the webinar because the first part of the course the part you didn't have access to ali is i do a uh the first part of the course is free we do like uh a three kind of uh uh three issues or three ways to improve life for people as a spectrum or for parents on the autism spectrum right and so i do that class for free it's like a webinar and so that is available i'll send you a link for that because then you can you can get into that and watch that as well because i think you'll find that value in it but i gave you straight into the juicy goods i could give you access to the cost straight away so um but yeah everybody's interested in that leave a comment as well or something email if you can't find the website or anything like that um ali's been super super awesome how do people find you if they want to talk to you more about stuff and what you do yeah thank you um so i am on ali arena communications that's my website or my instagram is connecting with ali and it's ali for ally yeah cool so connecting with ali awesome i'll try and leave a link if you can uh text me your uh you know socials and stuff like that i'll put them into the description this video as well so we can get into that um but yeah this is super fun anybody listening on the podcast um i will try and leave it in the uh the show notes so if you go to the whichever app you're using listen to the show there should be some hyperlinks in there if not um everything will be on the aspiewworld.com because this will be turned into a blog as well and in terms of the course you can definitely go to learnautism.net and check that out ali thank you so much for coming on today yeah thank you so much

Channel: The Aspie World

Views: 21,538

Keywords: aspergers relationships, aspergers relationships anger, Aspergers Relationships arguments, Aspergers Relationships impossible, aspergers relationships problems, autism aspergers relationships, aspergers and love, aspergers and nt relationships, Aspergers and Relationships, aspergers in love relationships, Aspergers in Relationships, aspergers intimate relationships, aspergers love, Aspergers love Relationships, Aspergers Relationship advice, Aspergers romantic Relationships

Id: NHCIIA5QxN0

Length: 25min 36sec (1536 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2021