Episode 12 - In Conversation with...Shari Söderström, PhD

Hello! Welcome to the Autism Wellbeing Project's new podcast, the Autism Wellbeing Podcast, which has been created by the community members who use the services that they provide to autistic adults in and around Cheshire and across the UK!

May the Fourth Be With You listeners! Joining Stephen on the sofa today is biochemical engineer and Star Wars enthusiast, Dr Shari Söderström. Brought up in a male-dominated South Asian society in southern India, Shari left the place where she spent her formative years masking and feeling like she had to be someone she wasn't, moving to the UK to pursue her Masters. In her thirties, she realised why so many of her experiences in her life made sense after receiving both an Autism & ADHD diagnosis.

Shari talks about her being on the podcast helps underrepresented voices like hers to be heard and hopes listeners hearing her story helps others accept who they are. 

We're excited to let our listeners know that the amazing social enterprise that funded our podcast, The Autism Wellbeing Project, is going to be at the National Neurodiversity Show in Wigan on the 11th June!

Come on down and meet the team, who can't wait to talk to you about the services they provide, the free activities they have available including our podcast and want to meet as many of you as possible. 

The show beings together a wide range of organisations, speakers and exhibitors all there to celebrate neurodiversity, share knowledge and to bring inspiration - sounds like a brilliant day to us!

Tickets are available now: click here to get your tickets!!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:12

It's not gonna be forcing you to speak or anything like that. Just take your time. Okay, you ready to go? Happy? Oh, it's gonna be good then. Three, two, one. Action. Good afternoon, everybody. I hope I find you well. My name's Stephen J. Holloran, and welcome to the AWP podcast on the AWP Autism Wellbeing project. How are you doing today? It's a lovely sunny day outside, the sun is beaming. It's so good, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

It is good.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Well, thank you so much everyone for downloading and liking and subscribing to the podcast. It's fantastic. We're doing really, really well. We're getting some really great guests coming thick and fast now through the forums. If you'd like to be a guest yourself, then the email is the autism wellbeing podcast at gmail.com. Or if you're on videography, if you can see me through YouTube as we're still getting that all that together, keep an eye on that. Then you can see it on right behind you here. Today is going to be a very interesting one because we've got a very, very interesting guest, haven't we?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hi yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

So before we go any further, introduce yourself to our audience.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

So my name is Shari Sudestrom, and a lot of people back in India, some of my older friends know me as Shiraja, which is a long name. I don't want to bother uh, you know, people here with my really long name. Thanks, Mom. So I was born and raised in India, in a city in South India called Hyderabad. My parents themselves had emigrated from another city deep down south and made a livelihood in a third city, so they were completely out of the culture as well. At the age of 22, I packed my life into two suitcases and moved to Manchester to study. And I've been here ever since. So I moved here about 2008, and I've been hung on here ever since. And now I live in this lovely bit of Warrington called Birchwood, and I've made my home in Birchwood along with my husband David and our two cats, Maya and Theo.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Oh, two cats as well. I got two cats. Mine's called Milo and Stout.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, but they don't get along with any theo.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Oh, don't they?

unknown 2:07

No.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

They hate each other.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

You're a cat person then?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

I am an animal person.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Animal person, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

But my lifestyle allows me to have cats because they can be left for a while because me and David do work full-time.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

And I cannot do justice to any other animal, like a dog or something like that. But um maybe a fish. Fish are messy. Too much water.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Oh, you have to clean the tank and all this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, there's too much cleaning. I mean, the litter box is more than we can handle. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

I rescued my cats.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Minor rescues as well. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Yeah. Oh, really? It is customary at this time to do a joke. So have you prepared a joke for us to break the ice?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Of course. Yeah. So yesterday I was reading a book on anti-gravity. Oh, right. Okay. I couldn't put it down. Was that the kind of joke you were looking for?

SPEAKER_02 3:00

I'm into Star Trek and science fiction, so that's wrapped up.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I'm a Star Wars person, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Do you go to conventions and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

No, no, not conventions, more like you know, movies, the series building Star Wars Lego, I guess, which I'm running out of space for.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Oh, it's gonna get on like a house on fire. Love Lego.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Still have two sets. David's gonna kill me because I haven't built one set. That's been for over two Christmases now.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

So you're too busy, aren't you? There's other things to do.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

The reason I can't build is because I need to do it in one breath. I can't start and stop. And I never seem to find that time to just do it in one go. I just need that bandwidth to do it. But then it's more like I've got to make dinner, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. I just keep getting interrupted, so I just don't bother.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

It's an autistic trait as well, being able to fully commit to something like that. Yeah, either you are or you're not, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

My husband David, who's also got ADHD, but he's not diagnosed yet, he would also say, you know, the demons take over. That needs to happen with me.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Well, if you could uh keep in touch with the progress of your Lego, that would be good. Oh, yeah, sure, sure. Actually, we've got quite a common theme here because I was late diagnosed. So yeah, I was in my 30s. So talk us through that. Why was it so long for you?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

One, I moved to Manchester, and you know, I was kind of like going through the motions of life, and I was married to this lovely guy back then who I've since divorced, and now I'm with David. So Vishnu, his name. So he basically noticed that I wasn't making eye contact with people, and you know, little little things like that that kept getting noticed. One day there was a news piece about a lady who got diagnosed with autism, and she was talking about her symptoms and what her life felt like, and it all made sense. Yeah, so that's what's happened all this time. Then, being the scientist I am, just dove straight first into research. Did get some pushback from my GP saying women don't get diagnosed with autism because I was fine, I had a stable job, I was highly qualified, I basically went through life like a normal person did. So there's probably nothing wrong with you. So then I paid privately for an assessor to do a pre-assessment to give me enough ammunition to go back to my GP. And they wrote a letter recommending a diagnosis, and then a couple of years on the diagnosis rolled, and they were like, Yeah, you're autistic.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

And it's strange that it's the same story all the time.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

And a couple of years down the line, something didn't add up with the autism as well. Yeah, ADHD.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Oh, so ADHD.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Oh wow, another one.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Another one. So it's autism and ADHD, and a lot of it cancels one another, but a lot of it also gets magnified because you've I've got both conditions.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

The talk of war between the two.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

And there's no middle ground until there is, and then it's gone.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

And then it's gone. And one puff of air, and it's just gone.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

And you you mentioned growing up in Indian society.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Difficulties therefore. So go into that a little more because this is the first time we've ever gone into that area of different cultures, different values.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

So I wouldn't say all of India is gonna be my experience. So that's a disclaimer. So it's exclusive to where and the circumstances that I grew up in. I'm not saying all of India is like this or all of Indian people are like this. It's not that most cultures in India are even now very patriarchal.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

A strong emphasis towards men, their needs, wants, entitlements. Women always take a backseat. She's expected to emotionally provide, sacrifice emotionally, even though she wants and needs things as well. Of course. This applies to every single aspect of a woman's life, including her career, her existence, her sexuality, everything. She's expected to put herself in the backseat and let her family, her husband, or her father or her male relatives take the center stage. Growing up as an autistic person with a strong sense of justice, that never made sense.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

I can imagine.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

And mom was the primary emotional provider. There was very strict gender roles, nothing like what we see today. It is very blurred these days. But back then, in the generation I grew up, it was all very structured. Dad provided monetarily, he went to work. His work was the most important thing in the whole world. Mom had a job because she needed the extra cash, and her job always took a vaccine. I was taught this is the way my mum was conditioned as well. You need to take a step back. You can't be this loud, you can't be this giggly, you can't be like this. There's a pressure to confirm as well. You've got to be like every other person. My act of rebellion was cutting my hair short, and that was a bit of a look what your daughter did. So it was one of those things where girls were expected to have long hair, and you know, they couldn't dress the way they wanted, they couldn't explore things around that, they couldn't explore what they wanted in terms of friendships or having any interaction with the opposite sex, nothing. If you ever asked why can't I do this, you always get an answer that because you're a girl. Growing up was extremely confusing.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Oh, yeah. And I was gonna go bring on to mask in here because you've got two masks then. Yeah, you've got the societal masks, the pressure's there and autism, and all the Audi HD, as we now know it.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Growing up, the ADHD made me super gregarious, super chatty, super social. I was the life and soul of a gathering. I always had a smile on my face, I always entertained people, but then for some reason, small things and the rejection would hit really hard, and you never understood why the highs were really high and the lows were really low.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah, and then all this kind of collided this societal mask and the autism mask and the ADHD mask during puberty. The fact a woman in my community in India is when you got your first period, things dramatically changed for you. Yeah, you're not allowed to go outside much, you're not allowed to play around much, you're not allowed to engage in much physical activity. But fortunately, my parents never gave a toss about that. They were like, You do whatever you want. But you could see that surrounding society. Your friends would just be like, Oh, I've I've got my period, I can't do this and I can't do that. And life changed overnight. You know, when your grandparents came over, they would talk things like, Oh, you're gonna get married in a few years. But I was shielded from a lot of that because my parents made a livelihood in a third place, they never had this external extended family pressure. Yeah, so they always encouraged me to be independent. My dad was amazing, and I need to point out that my dad's autistic as well. He's never got diagnosed, but he is autistic. He denies that he's got anything, but he is autistic.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Oh, so he still denies it.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

I mean, he denial in the sense that, oh, there's nothing wrong with me. Oh, yeah, there's nothing wrong with you, but you know how you're wired.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

And that's a societal pressure, too, maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yes. Dad was always different. When I grew up with my dad, he had this ritual, okay? He had a scooter, a vesper like thing as a primary mode of transport. Every Sunday afternoon, so we lived in a big uh block of flats, he used to go to the parking lot and he used to take it apart and put it back together. I was his loyal sidekick. So I grew up taking things apart and putting them back.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Because my dad did it. And that way, my dad was insanely different. He never took us out to the movies, or he never took us out shopping, or he never did standard dad things. But he did all this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

He had this bit of blindness because he, you know, myopic view of girls, this boys, that. You're 16, you can drive, start.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

If you didn't drive properly, you would get a smack to your hair going, what the heck? Drive properly. It was the same thing for my brother, it was the same thing for me. I was shielded a lot from this, but then there was society around me.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

So that kind of shaped your view as well. Yeah. Because when you're a teenager, you think your parents are ruining your life, you don't look up to them.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Oh, well, yeah, I know. I hate to admit it.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

I think even now that sense of justice has persisted with my dad. He he didn't agree with a lot of things that I've done in my life. Like, for example, I got divorced, I got married again. He didn't agree with that. He thought two people divorcing just because you decide you're incompatible is nonsense. You can make an effort. Now looking back, all 10, 11 years ago, could have made an effort. But at that time, this was probably the best decision. My parents disagreed with it. But my dad put his foot down and said, She's my daughter. I've got to support her in every way I can. Whatever decision she takes, she's still our daughter. If she's gonna be happy, great, I will support her. And that's a massive source of comfort for me. And my mum as well. My mom's the more emotional person, but she's also quite practical.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

If dad's on board, she's on board, if she's on board, dad's on board. So they've got that good equation between them now that they're able to be my strongest support.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

And it's thanks to them that you are the person you are, even before we knew it.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

There was, believe me, there was a lot of friction. I mean, like all of us, autistic ADHD people, we often spend lots of money and time in therapy trying to figure out and grieve for the life we could have had. So at that time, at that time, you know, in situations like that, I did go back to my mom and dad and I said, Why? What happened? Like, can you explain? Generally, when people face their parents, you know, asking difficult questions, they always say, Oh, I don't remember it this way, I don't remember it that way. All of that is your imagination. But my parents never said that.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Really?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

They said they me understand that they had issues when you know all of these things happened as well. They were also surrounded by problems. They were trying to do the best they can. And my mom directly asked for forgiveness. She grieved along with me, and she's a teacher, she was a teacher for many, many years. She came across kids who are different, but there was no labels. We didn't know of any labels back then. And she always said, I didn't know about these things.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

If I knew it was that sense that there was something there, something there, but no structure or framework.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yes, exactly. We don't we didn't know about these things. And my dad never openly asked for forgiveness. Yeah, I I was convinced in my early mid-20s that I would never have a proper relationship with my dad. But now my dad's one of my best friends, and my dad comes to me when his autistic brain cannot unpack. Yeah, he comes to me and he talks to me about things that mom doesn't have any patience for, and I patiently sit down and go.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Sounds like you've got such a great dynamic there.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

We work towards it, and I reached out and they reached out at the same time as well. And that's where I consider myself really lucky.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

I reckon that you've been basically parallel to each other for such a long time, and suddenly it just came together so nicely.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

It came together, and even now it's like oh my life and everything's just geared to spending as much time as I can with my parents because my dad's 76 and my mom's 70. They're coming over here. Yeah, they come over almost every summer if they've not got other things going on.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

How long for?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Just to they come for a couple of months.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Two or three months. Yeah, they're really they they really look forward to their time here. You go go traveling or no, we don't because mom's got mobility issues. They're more than happy to kind of come around, just hang out, stay with the cats. You know, it's summertime, so mum and dad will just do some gardening. We just do things together, really.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Dad goes on long walks, birchwood, wristly moss, he just goes around. He's very happy doing that.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Well, you mentioned your profession.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Oh gosh, okay. I started my life as a chemical engineer, and then I came here, did my masters, and then oh my god, bummed around basically everywhere that I can be a chemical engineer, and then I found work, flew vaccines, you know, in Speak.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

And I think I've just fell in love and I just stayed there. Yeah. So it's being a development scientist, it's great.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Is there any particular reason why you chose that in terms of study?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Or is it oh, there's no reason why I chose anything. I just fell into stuff, didn't like it.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

It wasn't like you had this sort of morality. Fell into something else, yeah, didn't like it, fell into something else.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Okay, I can't think I can do that for the rest of my life. And 10 years on, I'm still here. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

A lot of people with neurodivergence go into care, they go into something that's helping others, and I think that's what this kind of is in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Anyone asked me when I was five, six years old, what do you want to be? I always said I wanted to be a doctor.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

And that was very heartily vetoed by my entire family. Like, no, you are not doing this. Because this is where again the patriarchy comes into place. Doctors study for 10 or 15 years, you won't get married in time.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

The good thing is that we do Oliver McGowan, five Oliver McGowan training. Do you know his story?

SPEAKER_00 16:04

No, I I do mean to look it up every time I see it, but again, brain just forgets.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah, it's part of the training. We go out and train doctors, nurses about how to notice the signs of neurodivergence and stuff like that. And it's and it's so important, and people often and they're so open to learning doctors, nurses now. They didn't have a framework to work in, and now they do, and it piques their interests. What support have you had since diagnosis?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

I've not had any formal support, but I found that a lot of people with neurodivergence don't know how to articulate what they need.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

So if I stop someone on the street and I say, I'm autistic and I have ADHD, they're like, Okay. And in a workplace, if you kind of frame your things as so I'm autistic, if you tell me verbally, I won't understand it or I'll forget it straight away. You'll need to give me written instructions, you'll need to give me a straight message, you can't give me mixed messages.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

I get that.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Yeah so when you have a diagnosis, you know, the amount of research that you yourself would actually do around it, it kind of empowers you to say to other people what exactly you're looking for. You don't even have to attach a label to it, just like respect me and my mind as a person. Can you please work around me just like I work around you? That's the whole essence of it. There's some days where you will catch me at work flitting around, unable to start something. People know that it's just me struggling to start something. But if I put my mind to it, I will get it down and done. But it's a starting problem.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

So it's it's just being aware and you know, being understanding of how people work.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Yeah, having the tools as well in yourself and others.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

It's almost as if when you undergo your diagnosis, you're handed a manual on how your brain works, it becomes easier for you to express.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, I found that diagnosis in a lead up, I didn't want to know much about what autistic is or whatever like that. I just wanted to go into the diagnosis and let them decide. But I wish I'd known a bit more because it does, it puts a pin in the map to where you can assess yourself and say, ah, click. There it is. Was the one thing in particular that surprised you after diagnosis? Was there anything that sort of went, Oh, I didn't realise that.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Which diagnosis are you talking about?

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Well, autism for a start. Autism, but then they both got used to.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Oh my god. I think autism, I was not really surprised about how I was as a person. I'd always had issues communicating, I've always had those meltdowns, I've always had issues making friends, issues saying the right thing at the right time at the right place. I think a lot of eye-openers came with my ADHD diagnosis. I understood why the heck I was so sleepy all the time. That that was quite surprising because I remember clearly on my assessment, they had a clinician via video call because that's all they could do at that point. I said, I'm so sleepy when I come back from work. Well, yeah, of course, your brain's just exhausted itself. Oh, okay, I didn't know that. Then it's a sleepiness that I was surprised by. I had a reason. Finally, there's nothing wrong with me. Yeah, my thyroid's not out of whack. You know, nothing else is out of whack. It's just my ADHD, my brain's just exhausted. It allowed me to be a little bit more kind to myself regarding all the half-hearted hobbies that I have. One day I convince myself this is what I need, and I go ahead and you know, work hard and get everything. I go to hobby craft, just buy the whole shebang, and then the next day I've run out of steam, and that's not done anything on that. It's just that cupboard of shame you have.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

And you're not masking in that moment either.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

I'm not by masking, I mean I feel guilty that I've spent all this money to do this, and again, impulse purchases. I allow myself that one tiny impulse purchase just for that dopamine rush. Most of the time, I'm able to tell myself, you know what, it's just your brain craving for dopamine.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

So again, it becomes a rational thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah, you know yourself a little bit more. You're not constantly questioning yourself, what is wrong with me? Why am I like this? It's almost gotta like, oh okay, that's what's wrong with me.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Uh, I think a lot of the things that I've noticed, especially with particularly with women when it comes to masking, is like you say, society puts an expectation on. Yeah, it's a whole mindfield before you even get to cultural stuff and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

So that's exhausting.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

It is exhausting. And growing up, this was really, really strange for me because I never understood why I was not liked by people. You know, you you're this little six, seven, eight-year-old, you're really nice to everybody, you share all your things, you're very generous with your things, yeah. And you still feel like they leave you out.

unknown 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

And nothing explains it. No one's able to explain that to you. It's it's always like you're left out.

unknown 20:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

And I don't know what's with us autistic people and neurodivergence in general. We seem to be really susceptible to people taking advantage of us.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

You just don't understand why people take advantage of you.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

And that creates a whole brainstorm in your mind, doesn't it? Really does.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

That messaging is really mixed. So my dad, okay, he's generous, he shares everything, he cares about everybody deeply, but he still is lonely. No one reciprocates that. And there's this element of rejection as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

And in family gatherings, usually he's the butt of all jokes.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Oh, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

And he doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand banter. At least I'm a bit aware of the fact that okay, they are trying to spin this as banter, but it's passive aggressive. Dad doesn't understand it. And my mom has to step in and shoe these people away. But then growing up, my mom would shoe away these people for me as well. She would defend me, but then I would get punished for putting myself in that situation. Because can't you see those people are making fun of you? No, I can't. And am I supposed to know they're making fun of me? I don't. There's some things that are very universal experiences. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

It's so sad as well because this where you're having to find your way through in an almost traumatic way.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

And go through it until you get to the other side and then go, oh, that's what all those years of grief were and pain.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Yeah. Having ADHD at that point as well. I remember acutely that rejection and that feeling of abandonment. Being autistic, you're very sensitive to change. Once you kind of like clock into that change, the RSD kicks in. And you automatically just withdraw, you know, feeling that okay, I'm I'm probably useless here. And that partially explains the circumstances in which I left home in the first place. I felt like everyone just abandoned me. I just feel sad for my 20, 21-year-old self saying, you just left home because you thought you were not wanted there.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah, but that might have not been the case, but that's my perception.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Yeah, well, exactly. And you can't it's it's all well and good looking back and then thinking that, but that's what happens, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

You are where you are, and you make the choices based on that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

And you grow and you that's so much to talk about. I could go on and on, uh, honestly, but we'll wrap it up now, just before because I could talk another 10 minutes just on that alone.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

You wanted to come back to talk more.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

I can come back anytime because the thing is, the reason I want to do this and be candid about my experiences is that my background and my experiences are very underrepresented. It's a big Asian population here. And if my story can make a difference to at least one person, yeah, I'm happy to say it out loud. It's my way of being useful to the society. You know, even if one child, being neurodivergent, just kind of like screams into the air, like, what's wrong with me? And then you just want a kind voice to say, There's nothing wrong with you, dude. It's wrong with the world. Just yeah, we'll find a way to. It just needed that one kind voice when I was younger. So if I can be that one kind voice, why not?

SPEAKER_02 23:50

And you are now.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

But thank you for being that voice. And that's the aim of the podcast, is to get people in and do exactly what you're doing. It takes coverage sometimes as well. And you've done it. So thank you for coming and sharing your experiences. Welcome back anytime. And also Lego, all right. Remember.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Lego, yeah. I will now I'm beholden to it now.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

It's on someone's giving me a enjoy your break and say hello to your husband, and also thank you to your parents for all the support they've given you because you've molded such a great human being.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

And some great friends as well. Not mentioned that. So my husband David actually said, You need to mention me in the podcast because they need to understand how much I put up with you. I won't mention the podcast. Sorry, David.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

But anyway, thank you so much for coming. And go on and enjoy the sunshine. Yeah, of course. Yeah. For you lot, thank you for so much for listening. If you want to know more and want to get involved in the podcast and tell your story, then the autism wellbeing podcast at gmail.com and follow all the links in the descriptions as well. So thank you so much. And everyone, wave. Bye. Well done. That was great. That was fantastic.