What Does Empathy Look Like In Autism? | Pt 3

0:00Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applaud those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0, depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights, and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days. the National 48-day average. See if you could pay as a little as zero dollars for therapy in seconds

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2:05through the store or shopping online. And it's been this way since 1980. Their selectivity makes your shopping easier. Shop Whole Foods Market in store or online. Thank you. Hello and welcome to part three to the figuring out podcast. It's been a passionate one this week because one of the definitely rings close to home is at the wood. Something that relates or I relate to very heavily anyway. In part three we're going to be doing now our myth fact and it's complicated and of course it relates to the topic of this week. Right, the first one, are you ready, Catherine? The first one, Dr. Catherine. Autistic brains are filtering and contextualizing sensory information in a different way. This is interesting because I obviously at the start of this was talking about the kind of

3:05information and the processing and like an overwhelm of that. So it's really interesting or we'll be interesting to hear is that a true representation of what happens? Technically yes. So this is a fact there is filtering and contextualizing of sensory information in a different way. It's not necessarily that autistic people are absorbing more information. It's that the filtering system is not cancelling out the additional information that non-autistic people can filter out kind of automatically. So this comes from the fact that autistic people experience sensory overload and it's important to explain what's happening. So the evidence shows there are differences in filtering information but it's not about taking more information. So this filtering system that usually cancelling out an important sensory noise and it doesn't work in the same way. So if you give one example from the research studies have shown that simple physical touch for example can produce physiological stress responses that are roughly double the

4:08experience of a non-autistic adult. When someone touches my face I get like so annoyed. You can ask my mum because she always would insist on kissing my face and we've had near full on arguments. I think abs you've seen that haven't you? Isn't that true? My mum will kiss my face. I cannot explain to you like no one's like I would never have a face which I would no one's allowed to touch my face basically. I cannot I cannot tell you and that's been since I was very very small the level of like it's like a rage but it's not like I come from an angry and nasty place it's like I need to get out of here kind of rage horrible. I've never been able to explain that until until it's your year or so ago where I can't experience that touch and the sensory side of it. Where do you think my have a gas where my most hated places? I hate it but sounds noises and then over stimulation. Like a train station? That is definitely up there really high airport is that even level above that because you get patted down and for some reason I always get patted down. I can't control

5:09my environment I can't go anywhere quiet you get on a plane and people are bumping into the whole time like I get so overstimulated in fact Ellie says and she means this in the nicest way that it's she's like I see your autism all the time. You said it's the most that you are really like overwhelmed. So the most over autisticly overwhelmed I ever see using an airport like we have to plan for it. Yeah and this is just you trying to like navigate the world. And it's about like you would you would be I think you would be surprised to see me in an airport and how much like I can't like I like I function pretty well so like I can't I can't do it I'm literally like I can't think if they ask me to do something very simple like if you ask me like can you go on your phone and search something it would I'm overwhelmed I couldn't do that. I literally like sit there so put my headphones on and just have to like it's so strange I can't I wouldn't be able to cope. Yeah and then it changes the way you're able to like process information and interact in that environment. I get annoyed I get a thing there's so much sounds I can't like it's almost like it can't

6:13it's almost like you can't know if you imagine you're only like in a car sometimes where the sound noise comes on really loud at your back and it left the volume really high and you press play it's like that and like that's that never stops that's you it's like trying to think and have a conversation in your mind when the music is on like a full volume you're you're desperately scrambling to turn it down. Yeah it's like that but it doesn't go away. That kinds of comes into play of like researchers have explained this system or like this difference in the system as arguing that it can lead to hyper vigilance so your nervous system is biased towards the stress response because you're yeah struggling to filter filter on the panel. Even thinking about it makes me stress. I'm going to skip forward and come back because now that we're talking about sensory overload and this links to kind of a mental health point that I think is important to make and this is that autistic people are more likely to experience mental health issues this is a fact. Oh yeah. So mental health issues are more common in autistic people approximately 70%

7:17of autistic people experience co-occurring in conditions include them but not limited to depression, anxiety, OCD and ADHD and this can be for a variety of reasons so not getting timely or appropriate support can contribute to worse mental health. Our society and culture like we we just talked about with your with the airport example for example are not designed for autistic people and that can contribute to mental health issues as well and autistic people are more likely to experience bullying and abuse in development which can have a negative effect on people but the reason why I want to link it back to sensory overload is because I I listened to a great podcast episode in researching this from the Hidden 20% podcast with the charity and they interviewed a clinical psychologist and she explained about how anxiety, depression and low self-esteem play out for example in autistic people but she was linking it back to like meltdowns and sensory overload she

8:21was like these do not come from anywhere like there has we have to like talk to people or be able to communicate with people to find out like what's the root of these different causes of mental health issues like everything is linked together it's not like you have this sensory issues so you're overwhelmed and your mental health is separate like they're very like cluelink together. So it's all connected yeah I and even like OCD with that list OCD is a neurodevelopmental disorder in itself it's something that is like it's there as you're grabbing most people actually as I walk down my flat the other day and gentleman stop me was actually he's running the big half is it been or is it next week perhaps a good luck to him but he he mentioned to me that he discovered OCD through me talking about it and then discovered he was autistic as well and and and and stands now we're talking about how like people often don't realize that that actually is all kind of connected and and how all these things kind of overlap because in a way if you think about it this way the autistic brain is a great canvas for many struggles because all or nothing thinking is perfect

9:27for anxiety disorders like OCD black and white thinking you know this idea that you know you're either good or bad or you know you make overall overwhelming judgments on something if you turn that inwardly and you combine that with the anxious nervous disposition and so on all the sudden again perfect environment for these experiences things like we know that one of the biggest issues with someone who's isolated is the risk of depression so if you're someone that struggles with social issues then you're likely to have depression so much higher so you don't have to look far to understand why these experiences happen but it's not an inevitability so if you have if you have good self-understanding the right support network and you're able to understand what's going on in yourself but also you have people around you that help and support you you can have a very different experience and I can say that from my experience I I have yeah things aren't all perfect but through the better understand that I have and the people who understand around me my experience of my life is so my quality of life is so much better not just

10:27talking about again what I'm doing for work whatever relevant of that stuff and talking about my personal life and my ability to enjoy my life is so much better so I've lived that it's not an inevitability but the foundations are there and if you don't recognize that and you don't provide people with again diagnosis early support early then yeah the risk of having depression and like I said suicide is four or five times more likely and autistic people I think my brothers my for my brother the the barrier of I can't face going to university was too much and so if we'd have had that support for him would he still be here potentially lockdown what lockdown did to him I think particularly if you think you look at lockdown for some people was helpful for other people it wasn't and for him it was it was too much this is also where the conversation the direction of the conversation around diagnosis and self-diagnosis and people kind of complaining about increasing diagnostic rates is problematic because as you've said the appropriateness of support that suits people's needs

11:31but the timely way it's delivered or engaged with is completely vital to to to protect and empower someone if someone's even really cynical and they think to know I'm you know not necessarily massive interest about individual experience then you know not supporting people who are near the version is hugely expensive to the economy you know even for ADHD I was looking at NHS England's research and the cost to the UK economy is estimated to be 17 billion a year for unsupported ADHD 17 billion a year and that's across not just health and education but also the criminal justice system as well so you know even if you didn't think that those other moral arguments are important look at the the wider and bigger picture if you help people from a young age they can go out and be fantastic contributors in society and again going back to what we're saying about the can you be successful and autistic you want autistic people to be successful in their own definitions of whatever they want to do that's good for society you should celebrate that not say

12:34are well you can't be autistic because you've managed to get a job as a doctor yeah we talk so much about differences in the brain and in like mental health and in who we are in this podcast and we like we must be celebrating differences and not putting people down because of them therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in the smallest moments you bite your tongue instead of escalating you put your phone down instead of firing off that text you say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life that's what growing feels like and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for grow is therapy that works covered by insurance sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan there are no subscriptions no long-term commitments you just pay per session grow connects you with thousands

13:36of high quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends you can search by what matters like insurance specialty identity or availability and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days not the national 48 day average see if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash start now that's growtherapy.com slash start now growtherapy.com slash start now availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan hey this is Paige from Gagley Squad you know I love a seasonal closet refresh including my active wear and YPB by Abercrombie has me covered for fall the YPB studio flex sets are so soft and comfortable I'm wearing them everywhere from Pilates class to weekend brunches plus with colors like dark green navy and maroon it all says fall in the best way get your active wear ready for the changing seasons with YPB by Abercrombie

14:41shop in the app online and in stores let's go for the big one autistic people are empathetic fact yeah fact I can say that's absolutely this is one of the most damaging myths about all and it's not the autistic people lack empathy the evidence shows that they're diverse experiences of empathy across autistic people and non-autistic people the problem is is that there's a disconnect between autistic and non-autistic people struggling to intuitively read each other's cues and communication styles and emotions so this is a two way mismatch is more common it's not a one way deficit and there's a useful distinction because cognitive empathy which is actually something you touched on in part one is about intuiting what someone else is thinking and you mentioned that you find that difficult and effective empathy is feeling with someone so

15:41autistic people can sometimes struggle to intuit what someone else is thinking but there's evidence that shows that they can even have heightened effective empathy so you can really feel something with someone and like and and get into that I really feel like hugely I think that is exactly my experience you know I saw it was about like I saw few TikToks actually that were basically setting and had quite a high views that you should never date someone with autism because they'll never love you that's quite sad isn't it but they wasn't written it said from like a very bad place it was from like a genuine like missing like ignorance place but it's kind of really sad that idea that oh you shouldn't because they won't love you and now you can understand you can kind of understand where that comes from because it is this idea well if they don't have empathy then how can they love and that's why I think that's why it's so important that we do these because actually that's not true you know you can we can love you know in in a full and beautiful way it just might be a little bit different that's that's all right yeah definitely okay we'll go more finally autistic girls present differently to autistic boys

16:48this one is complicated studies have shown equal severity in symptoms between boys and girls it's not that one person is suffering more than another person but autistic girls are more likely to show social focus narrow interests and they tend to have stronger language and social attention abilities compared to boys this could be related to camouflaging or masking traits and social settings there's also sometimes differences in speech or body language mannerisms so the answer is likely yes but basically researchers haven't entangled why this might be the case it's not that it's necessarily a biological reason it could be that girls are learning to hide traits in a different way person we need to well as you've kind of highlight to be need to do more research and women and girls don't we yes definitely more than 0.5% of my health research I might help it should we wrap up we should what we've learned across this this has been a big episode yeah a lot of nuance a lot of depth but I I like that so I've done a lot of renting but no I think it's really helpful it's

17:48really important to to hear about your experience so autism is a lifelong complex new and developmental condition and it has no single biological cause but that makes sense it's a complex condition we've identified multiple genetic and biological pathways that also interact it emerges usually in early childhood and the reason why you might get late diagnosis and autism is not because it's just appeared it's likely because your traits or your needs were not picked up properly earlier in development autism on a spectrum is not about being a little bit autistic to very autistic it's about the degree to which a cluster of traits or different clusters of traits are persistent and it's not helpful to use the language I'm a bit autistic or he's a bit autistic and we should think about it can be helpful to relate to autism traits but it's important to to differentiate between those two

18:48also moving away from high or low functioning has been an important step in terms of not underestimating people or ignoring people with high levels high needs of support and now we think more about different levels of support and making sure that everyone's visible in the conversation several myths don't hold up to the evidence so since we overload more likely comes from differences in filtering and contextualizing information rather than absorbing more information but still obviously prominent and is there autistic girls present differently to boys and autistic people are empathetic there's just sometimes a two-way miscommunication between autistic people and non-autistic people thank you a brilliant summary just anyone that's affected by you know the car obviously the conversation will be a personal to many people not just those that are autistic I've ADHD but the family members and so on and if you want to see and find more support I'd point you in the direction of the National Autistic Society they've got some great bits of resources both for kind of parents and stuff but also people are autistic and ADHD UK have got

19:54fantastic stuff ADHD foundation as well they've got some brilliant support resources so check them out great thank you guys as always appreciate you and please do leave a review and click like if you're watching on YouTube you know subscribe to to us wherever you listen to podcasts because it really helps us and please tell people about this you know share it if you listen to this in the gosh this might be helpful to xy or zad person why not send it to them so they can have a listen and of course and you want to send a question send it to hello at figuring out pod.com great you know we've covered quite a lot about autism in this conversation we can't cover the whole topic so we will come back to it again without doubt so if there are things that you know oh gosh you didn't quite cover that or we'd love to hear more about that even sending emails about that we'll come back we'll loop back to this topic again thank you very much we'll see you in the next episode from us take care and goodbye during lows pro savings days save more on the products you count on to get the job done right

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