343 - Autism, Neurodiversity and Relationships with Stevie Lang
Neurodiversity in polyamory
This week we’re joined by Stevie Lang! Stevie is an Autistic writer from Australia. He is completing a PhD focusing on care, gender and the family - with particular reference to mothers in prison. Throughout this episode Stevie answers several questions from our Patrons, split into two categories. For those who are neurodivergent, he answers the following:
Do you feel like there are aspects of being neurodivergent that make it easier to be polyamorous? Do you feel like there are aspects of being neurodivergent that make it more difficult to be polyamorous?
What kind of access needs do you have in your relationships? How do you discuss those with partners or possible partners?
There are many of us neurodivergent folks in the ENM community. How much effort to educate non-ND folks falls on the ND partners shoulders, vs how much should the non-ND partner work on educating themselves?
Does neurodivergence impact the way one experiences NRE, and if it does, are there any strategies that help other neurodivergent folk and their partners navigate this?
For those who are neurotypical:
What are some things that Neurotypical people in the polyam community can do to be better allies?
What is some input on establishing and maintaining boundaries with ND folks, knowing that sometimes a “reasonable” boundary may cause an upset?
It seems that for the neurodivergent face to face communication is often difficult. How does one best navigate consent and the four F’s (fight flight freeze and fawn) with ND partners?
I’m dating someone who says their ADHD contributes to their struggles with time management and communication. Trying to figure out ways to navigate this. Trying to figure out ways to be supportive, but also feel like there needs to be accountability around learning the tools to help improve. I’m not sure if it makes sense to address neurodivergence as being innately part of one’s personality or not. What’s a good balance?
Find more of Stevie’s writing about Autism, non-monogamy, kink, trans experience and sexuality on his instagram, @_steviewrites.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're going to talk about neurodivergence and relationships with special guest Stevie Lang. Stevie is an autistic writer from Australia. He's completing a PhD focusing on Care, Gender, and the Family with particular reference to mothers in prison. Stevie writes about autism, non-monogamy, kink, the trans experience, and sexuality on his Instagram @_steviewrites. Stevie, thank you so much for joining us today.
Stevie: Thank you for having me. Really excited to be here.
Emily: All righty, Stevie. Well, we would love to hear a little more about you and your writing on Instagram because your writing is just so beautiful, and vulnerable, and it's really educational as well. How did you begin your writing journey and what do you hope to achieve with your writing?
Stevie: That's a really interesting question, and it's nice just to do some reflection on that. I started that Instagram last year just as the pandemic was kicking off and we were all stuck in our houses. I noticed that there was a real lack in discussions about things like kink and non-monogamy of perspectives that took into consideration experiences like my own, so being autistic. At the same time, I noticed that non-monogamy and kink communities were completely full of autistic and neurodivergent people. It seemed like there was really a need for almost a project of translation.
Some of the amazing ideas that you find in kink spaces is about communication, and consent, and how to navigate those kinds of complex social relations, and a similar thing in non-monogamy spaces, where you have all of these amazing ideas about relationship boundaries, and agreements, and all of these stuff that can be so helpful for neurodivergent people in navigating any kind of relationship, not just ones that are involved non-monogamy. That it made me think, "Why isn't someone already talking about this?" I started talking about it, and yes, there was definitely an audience for it. It's been a lot of fun to develop those ideas with other people who have similar experiences.
Dedeker: That was interesting that you call it a translation, I guess experience or approach. That's often how I thought about what a lot of the non-monogamous community has done in general, which is translating what is traditional relationship wisdom that feels that it can still apply to us, and is still healthy, and still work. Translating that for non-traditional relationships, and then people like you take that even further to then translate to my experience. Then, also translating back to people who are neurodivergent like me in a traditionally relationship. It's almost like the translation goes full circle, like we're putting a translation singularity.
Emily: Amazing. That's lovely.
Dedeker: We have a lot of Patreons, a lot of listeners who are really interested in this, in relationship advice, wisdom that does speak to their own experience all across the spectrum of neurodiversity. Let's start on the one-on-one level. Can you begin by telling us what neurodivergent means? Maybe include some examples as well.
Stevie: Yes, sure. Neurodiversity, that word is distinct from neurodivergent. Neurodiversity is an approach to neurodevelopmental conditions like autism, and a whole range of others. ADHD, Tourette's, sensory processing disorder, a whole range of conditions along those lines. It's an application of what's called the social model of disability to understanding those kinds of conditions.
What that means a bit more clearly is that, neurodiversity is, basically, accepting that there's a whole range of different ways that human brains work. Human brains do things like communicate, process information, learn, interact socially with other human brains. There's a whole range of ways that that can happen.
That rather than understanding human processes like learning, or communicating, or even thinking, as something whether it's like the ideal way of doing that, and then a series of disordered ways of doing that. It's acknowledging that that picture of diversity actually is a normal part of human experience. That it's normal for different brains to work in different ways. That that actually is a source of strength and resilience in being humans. That that something that we can understand as part of the picture of how it needs to be a normal human.
Neurodivergent and neurotypical, which is like the complement to that term, are ways of within that neurodiversity framework. Understanding that some people's brains develop in a way that's typical, which doesn't necessarily mean that they're more normal or better at doing anything. Just that if you go and open the child development textbook, you're going to see a pattern of development that is described typical. It's also privileged in lots of different ways.
If you develop along that trajectory, then you're probably not going to be disabled in our society. You're probably not going to have a bunch of experiences that undermine your reality, or make you really question what's going on with you. You're probably going to have a fairly smooth run of things, at least neurodevelopmentally.
On the flipside, those people who are neurodivergent, which means that for whatever reason, they have an experience that's not necessarily going to be reflected in that typi-pattern of development, or typical pattern of communication, and thinking, and processing. As a result, people who have those experiences might find that they need different accommodations to do a lot of the things that we like to do in our lives. That's probably, I guess the most top level way of explaining it that I can, but I'm happy to take some more detailed questions on that if you want.
Dedeker: Yes, I'm wondering about the journey for you. We've had a lot of guest on this show, from all across the neurodiverse spectrum. When I was very young, I got maybe a diagnosis, or I suspected a diagnosis, or my parents talked about the way my brain worked in a particular way, and so I've known that about myself.
Versus people have come to realizing things about the way their brain works much later in life like, "Oh, my goodness. I got an autism diagnosis at 30, or an OCD diagnosis much later in life. " I guess I'm wondering for you. Since this is something that's both part of who you are, and your identity, and also part of your work. What has been your journey towards getting to know the way that your own brain works, and coming to terms with that?
Stevie: Yes, that's a really interesting question. I think that there's a lot of different reasons why people do have that experience of getting to 30-years-old. I think especially over the last couple of years with the pandemic, a lot of people had been in their houses, really coming up against, "Wow, I really don't do well with change." Whatever it is that kind of leads them to think, "Maybe there is something about my experience that's different from how other people are experiencing this same challenges."
For me, I was diagnosed when I was 28, so I was late diagnosed. That wasn't because I was particularly good at not letting people know that I was autistic until then. As a kid, there were a lot of really obvious signs. That when I reflect back over that with my mom, she'll often say, "It was the '90s. Girls didn't have autism in the '90s." Obviously, I was brought up as a girl. There was no real acknowledgment that autism could look like anything other than being a small white boy with a lot of traits.
I think a lot of people had similar challenges. There was also a real pattern in the '90s and early 2000's of people not wanting to give autism diagnosis to people who were seen as being able to integrate and function in society. Function in scare quotes there, because that was seen as something that would potentially hold people back. Whereas I think now, we're getting to a broader acceptance that actually having words for your experience isn't necessarily something that's going to take anything away from your ability to go and do the things that you want to do, but rather is going to give you the tools to do that in a way that's more sustainable.
Jase: That thing you just said is so interesting because I remember at different points when I was struggling with things like anxiety, or whatever, and wanting to go to a doctor, and maybe try to figure out what that was. I remember that for my mom because part of her reaction was like, "Well, just be careful because once they diagnose you, then that's on your record and maybe that could affect you negatively later in life or something." I do think that there was more of that concept of that, "Well, I don't know." I guess just that companies are all going to get access to your medical records somehow and then not hire you or discriminate against you.
Dedeker: Then the joke is that we're all millennials and all of us have an anxiety disorder.
Emily: Wel, sure.
Stevie: I was going to say, they like chatting on that thought.
Dedeker: Right. If you do not have one, you are the odd person out.
Jase: It sounds maybe in some form that same thing was going on more broadly. It wasn't just my family, but in general, there's more fear of that.
Stevie: Yes, absolutely. I really think that's been a real obstacle to a lot of people getting the kinds of help and support that they need that almost to acknowledge that a diagnostic label for one of a better word is something that can help you understand your experience. That that's admitting this complete failure as a person rather than just, "Oh no I have a different aspect to my experience." These are the words and these are the concepts that actually help me understand that in a way that lets me do the things that I want to do but in a way that isn't detrimental or is going to be sustainable.
Emily: I went on to our Patreon group, shout out to our Patreons again for helping us with our episodes. Really appreciate that they were super excited about us having you on the show. I tried to break down their questions into two categories for people who are neurodivergent and then for those who potentially have partners or want to know more about how they can be better allies to people who are neurodivergent.
Let's start with the side that for those who are neurodivergent. We got a question that said, "Do you feel there are aspects of being neurodivergent that make it easier to be polyamorous? "Then, on the flip side, are their aspects of being neurodivergent that make it more difficult to be polyamorous?
Stevie: I love that question, but I'm just going to start with a bit of a clarification, which is that neurodivergent is a really big term that includes a whole range of different experiences.
Dedeker: Well, I mean also includes things like PTSD.
Stevie: Yes, exactly. Something like two rats, for example, I can't speak to that from any degree of experience. I can speak about my experiences as an autistic person. I also have ADHD, got a whole little collection. When I went to get my autism diagnosis, I got a social anxiety disorder diagnosis just like a little bonus episode or something.
No, I can speak to my own experiences. I think that often what people who are in neurodivergent spaces and communities find is that, often some of the tools on that more meta-level of meta communication about how to share what accommodations you need with someone that is often useful for people right across a whole range of conditions.
In terms of being autistic and non-monogamous, I think that it definitely is a style of relating that I find is quite fitting in the sense that it requires a level of communication about the terms of the relationship, which often gets skipped in relationships that don't have that aspect of non-monogamy in them. Because that framing around the relationship itself is happening out in the open, I find that it's both easier to ask for the things that I might specifically need, but also easier just to ask, to understand what terrain I'm on just to know where the boundaries are.
Because so often in something you all talk about in this podcast a lot, so often in monogamous culture, those boundaries or the whole framing of the relationship is often silent, and you're expected to infer that from cues and social intuition. As an autistic person, my social intuition is not great. Just being able to have that communication and that clarity, I think is really, really helpful for me just in being even able to relax into a relationship and feel there's enough space for me to have an experience that isn't constantly looking around for where the boundaries might be and not knowing where they are.
In terms of making it more difficult I think there's a lot of reasons why being in relationships as a neurodivergent person just can be hard. I think that it can be a real tendency and I've definitely fallen into this to be, "Oh, we're just so amazing at communication because we have to constantly be letting people know what we need."
I think on the one hand being autistic in a world that's mostly populated by people who aren't, does force you in a lot of ways to learn to translate your experiences and learn to understand not everyone sees the world the same way as you, which is very helpful life skills.
On the flip side, it can just be hard to have an experience it's quite different from what you're going to see reflected back to you in any source of relationship, wisdom, and guidance, or any media representations of relationships and that kind of that thing. That can just be a real challenge. I think that's probably the main thing I'd have to say on that.
Dedeker: I think that's actually a good jumping-off point. On your Instagram, you relatively recently were also talking about masking and the mental labor cost of masking. For the sake of our listeners can you explain what that is?
Stevie: Yes, sure. Masking is a strategy that a lot of neurodivergent people use to integrate socially. It involves a process of doing what you can to diminish the impact that different aspects of neurodivergence is going to have on the way that you're able to engage with other people socially. To unpack that, a lot of the ways that I mask involve the use of my voice and things body language and just speaking with my hands, that kind of thing, that stuff doesn't actually come naturally to me at all.
If you don't do it and you just speak to people in the one-tone voice that might be the easiest way for me to communicate, then there's going to be barriers to social integration that come from that because we do live in a society that isn't particularly accepting of different ways of communicating. When I'm doing things modulating my tone of voice, or even making eye contact, or trying to convey the appropriate emotional responses to different things, a lot of that comes from actually cognitively thinking about like, "Oh, okay, hang on what am I supposed to be doing here?"
I've gotten pretty well practiced at it in the 30 years that I've been living, but it still is more of a cognitive process than an intuitive process. As a result, that is exhausting. I will probably finish this podcast interview and need to go and curl up and not interact with anyone for the rest of the day. I'm very happy to be here, don't get me wrong, but that is just because we're doing business-
Emily: We so appreciate it.
Stevie: -when the way that we communicate isn't the intuitive way that that comes naturally to me. I think that probably more people do that than they've realized. It's something that I wasn't 21 and thinking, "Oh, wow, I'm really cognitively making my way through this party at university." It was something that I came to gradually realize as I unpacked, "Why do I feel so anxious about these situations? What is going on with me getting all of these physical symptoms after doing this social interaction?" What is it that makes this unsustainable for me? Then learning from other autistic people's experience.
Jase: It's all making me think about to this thing to go back to what you were talking about earlier on about maybe not getting diagnosed until later, is this thing of none of us have any frame of reference, but our own. It is this thing of, "Is this just what everyone feels and they just deal with it better than me? Or am I different? Or how different am I? Or what other people are like me?" I feel like all of that that you're talking about, I feel even people like myself who would probably identify as neurotypical, it's like, "Yes, but I can also really relate to certain parts of that." I think that goes back to this neurodiversity thing you were talking about of just even typical isn't actually as typical as we think, I guess.
Stevie: Yes, totally. No, I completely agree with that. I'm constantly saying this to people that like, "autistic people aren't aliens." We are humans and we have a human experience, and I think that perhaps even more certain aspects as a human experience, we're just particularly sensitive to. Often what people will describe as autistic experience is stuff that everyone's had that feeling of being in the small talk conversation and just suddenly you're 30 feet over your head being like, "What do I say?"
Everyone's been there, it's just that might be something that's more complicated or more common or more debilitating for someone who's autistic. My kid is autistic and I've been through this process recently of seeking accommodation in a school context for his experience. One of the things that's just really stood out for me in that experience is just that these are the things that all of these kids need. Like a smaller teacher to class size ratio, more individualized attention, more focus on interests, rather than like, "Okay, class, this is what we're doing today, whether you like it or not." I think understanding neurodiversity can be something that's really empowering for everyone, just that isn't a right way of thinking or doing things. We're all different and that's part of what contributes to our strength.
Dedeker: Related to that, another one of our questions that we got in the Patreon group was asking about, "What kind of access needs do you have in your relationships and how do you discuss those with partners or possible partners?" First part, I want to just clarify that I'm assuming whatever is personal to you, you don't need to share necessarily on the podcast. Second part of this, I am really interested in talking about that conversation that you have with possible partners.
I know this is something that's come up a lot with clients that I've worked with of, "Yes, I have this anxiety disorder, and I'm starting to date. Do I put that right out in front? Do I scare everyone off as soon as I possibly can? Or do I keep it hidden away for as long as I possibly can until someone likes me?" That's something that also brings up a lot of angst for people as well wondering about those conversations about disclosure and access needs.
Stevie: Yes, that's a really interesting question. I have a real tendency to date often neurodivergent people, but by accident. The partner that I live with, for example, I waited until the third day and then like nervous we told him. He's like, "Oh, yes, me too." It is really a question of what your relationships that experience is. For me, I'm obviously, people unlikely to meet me without having that context now in part because I talk about it a lot, in part because I'm quite vocal about it on social media, and in part because it's quite central to my experience.
That's not necessarily the case with everything, for someone who has a well managed anxiety condition that they just remember every morning when they take their meds, and like, that's the main interaction with it. Well, I don't think that that's going to be something that needs to be announced at any point. We really do just need to move away with a lot of these things from the idea that, there's a normal, and there's a different, and the people who are the different ones are the ones who have to clearly label themselves, but the consumption of the normal ones so that they could opt out and slither away if they needed to.
Most people have a way of thinking or a way of processing information, a particular emotional and internal landscape that they work with and that that's just part of what you communicate when you're learning about compatibility. If you're using labels, like, "I'm autistic," or, "I have DAD," or whatever it is that you want to put that label on it, then like that's fine if that helps you.
You could also just say, "I get anxious sometimes when XYZ," or a way that I might describe being autistic, for example, to an employer, I might be like, "I really need to know in advance if I'm going to be needed to speak at a meeting." I don't actually need to provide a whole diagnosis for why that's the case. I can just express what it is that I need and that diagnostic side of the information doesn't actually need to be part of the conversation.
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: What you said right there is also just like, "Gosh, how?" Just the idea that I could for myself even just asked for like, "Hey, I need this thing for me to function best." We all do it to some degree, but it sounds like for you that's been more intentional and more considered. Like you keep saying, I think these would be really good skills for everybody too.
Dedeker: Absolutely.
Stevie: There was a real process that I went through when I first figured out that I was autistic. I did go through the formal diagnosis process and got to see this whole psychological report written about me. There was a whole process that I went through when I saw that where it was like, "Oh, I can exhale. I can let go of this desire to hold it all together and make it work and not let anyone see that I might be struggling with something."
That was really transformational and I think that you don't need to go and spend thousands of dollars on like psychologist assessments to have that experience. You can just accept that like, "You know what, I actually can't really deal very well with X, Y and Z, so I'm going to set some boundaries around that." Or, "I'm going to do these other things that make me feel better and make it easier for me to cope with that."
I used to always think that I was a terrible person because I would like, get on a train or a bus and I would instantly just be extremely cranky, and everyone who was on that bus making any kind of noise because I was sensory overwhelmed. I was having sensory issues and they were like rising to the surface, it's like this being a real irritable grump. I was like, "Okay, you know what, yes, I don't have a whole bunch of money, I'm just going to go and buy the best noise cancelling headphones that money can buy."
I did it, and I don't get angry on buses or trains anymore because I've accommodated my self and I just accepted, "This is what I need to go on buses. If I don't have them, I'm not going to go on any buses. If I do have them, I will." It's just a really liberating way of thinking about the world. I do think that it's something that's open for everyone. You don't have to be a special type of person to treat yourself that way and to give yourself that level of care.
Emily: That gift, yes. That's lovely.
Dedeker: That is interesting, though, that you highlight that because I do think that, for some reason, a lot of us still have, what would I call it, maybe some baggage around this feeling of, "I can't really ask for something. I can't really need something that's outside the normal."
Emily: We find ourselves to be selfish if we do that, I guess.
Dedeker: Well, there's that. I can't even ask for something, unless maybe I'm able to have this airtight diagnosis, let's say, or unless I've fully embraced that like, "Okay, this is how I am neurodivergent, and therefore, I have the the weight behind it to be able to ask for the things that I need," when again, it's just, I think like you said, it's almost like we can look at it on almost a smaller level of giving yourself those gifts or asking for the things that you need.
Stevie: Yes, totally. Non-monogamy in a way can actually be a tool for starting to do that. A lot of people get into non-monogamy because it does make you think like, "Okay, what can I break my relationship needs down into? What kinds of things do I actually need for validation? What kinds of things do I need for feeling that sense of having quality time with someone?" It's a similar thing with just other areas of your life?
It's like, "What do I need to feel like I'm not overwhelmed at work? What do I need to feel like I've got this side project in a way that's actually nourishing my life, rather than sucking out of it." Often, we can't necessarily do that. We don't have unlimited power, especially in the society that structured the way that it is today. We are able to make some small changes or to at least acknowledge why things aren't working for us and we don't have the power to fix it. That's also I think, can be really important.
Emily: You're providing this amazing resource for people with your writing and then also, even just like within the first 30 minutes of this podcast, I feel like I've learned so much already. As you said before, there's a lot of neurodivergent folks in the ethically non monogamous community and the polyamorous community. This is a question from one of our patrons. They asked, "There are many of us neurodivergent folks in the E&M community, how much effort to educate non-neurodivergent folks falls on the neurodivergent partner shoulders versus how much should the non-neurodivergent partner work on educating themselves?"
Dedeker: We are expecting a very precise answer of 60, 40 or 70, 30.
Stevie: That's amazing. It's amazing because I have a real tendency to ask my partners quantify things. There's like a 30% chance or is it higher than say 55%? Again, it's about taking it out of this framework of special different people who need special different things. Everyone needs to communicate. Everyone especially if you are doing something that is potentially going to add a layer of complication to your relational life.
I think about this in terms of kink, I think about this in terms of non-monogamy, you have an obligation on some level to know what's going to work for you and what isn't and to do your best efforts, your best endeavors to communicate that to the people that you're forming relationships with.
If you know, for example, that it's just not going to work for you, it's like date someone who already has seven partners and is only going to be able to see you like, I don't know, maybe once every other month, and you just know that's not going to work for you. It doesn't matter if that's about neurodiversity or if that's just about what you like from your relationships. You probably should at some point check yourself if you're running headlong into a relationship with that person and think like, "What's going on here? Is this actually going to work for me?" That's probably the best frameworks that I can offer for this kind of question, about whose job is it to do which parts of the educating. I think that if you have specific compatibility needs of any kind, then it's on you to communicate them. I go on bubbles sometimes, it's on me to communicate that to my partners, that I'm not giving them the silent treatment because that's a specific compatibility need.
At the same time, if we're in relationships with people, we do also have, in a sense, an obligation to learn about them. Maybe it's not best framed as an obligation, maybe it's just you talk a lot about the Guttman research. That's what's going to make your relationship work, is if you understand your partner and you have a functioning, they call it a map, of what their world is like.
Part of that is, if someone does have a specific experience that isn't within the mainstream of representations of what you're going to see in relationship literature, or media representations of people's relationships, which don't really represent anyone's experience. Then, yes, you probably are going to have a better relationship if you put some effort into learning about what that's like. I don't really think it's--
Emily: 60-40.
Stevie: Yes, it's not only 60-40, I'll say that.
Jase: Yes. I think that the way you put it though of, again, moving it outside of that framework of, "Here's the normal person and here's the not normal person. How do we balance those two?" Instead being more of this, there's two people or more presumptuously who are in a relationship with each other, and both of them need to be putting the effort into both explaining things about themselves, but also doing the work to understand and learn about the other person.
Not just take for granted like, "Oh, I know how they're going to react to this," or, "I know how they're going to feel about this." Instead, learning that in an ongoing way, forever. You never get to the end of that really, of learning how your partner processes things and how they feel about things, because it keeps changing overtime too.
Stevie: Totally. Even whilst that it's easier to get into how this person should react to this thing, and that their actual reaction, which is happening again and again, and giving you more and more evidence that that is likely how they're going to react, is getting overwritten by, "Oh, well, they actually should be reacting this way, because this is what--" Both neurodivergent and neurotypical people can get into that.
I have a really hard time understanding sometimes why people have reactions that they have, and other people have a hard time understanding the reactions that I have. I think that if you get into that, "What is the evidence that I've got before me about how this person is likely to react to this situation?" Step back and don't judge whether or not that should be how they react. I think that that's often a much better framework for both assessing if this is just an area of incompatibility, which is okay. Not everyone needs to be in a relationship with everyone else, that's my pity, tweetable tweet.
Jase: Amen.
Emily: Yes. Dedeker is like, "It's okay to break up."
Dedeker: That's the Stevie Lang version of, "It's okay to break up from--"
Jase: One last question on this section here that we got from our Patreons, does neurodivergence impact the way one experiences NRE, and if it does, are there any strategies that help other neurodivergent folk and their partners to navigate this?
Stevie: Again, I'm going to take this one from the autistic perspective. I think this will probably also be pretty relevant for folks with ADHD, but again, neurodivergent does cover a bunch of experiences that I'm not going to be able to speak to. What I will say is a couple of different ways that NRE is in my experience and that of people I know impacted by just the different ways that autistic brains might process something new and shiny.
One of those differences is going to be that the autistic brain, generally speaking, tends to have this tremendous capacity for focus. That can be amazing when I'm doing things like, "I've got to write this 8,000 word paper in two days." Most people will be like, "That can't be done." I'm like, "Haha, yes it can." Which is great, that's a great use of hyperfocus, but then it can also do things like, "Oh, I have this new partner, and now--"
Maybe a regular person with NRE might just be like, "Yes, okay, I'm thinking about them a lot," whereas my brain's like, "Oh, no, I need all the time, literally all the time." That can be petty overwhelming. It can, at least to me, now that I know what NRE is, it can definitely lead to a lot shame spiraling, and, "Why am I getting so caught up in this person, what's wrong with me. Didn't we listen to surviving and thriving and NRE three times already this week. What's my problem? Why am I in this very rational state?"
I think that often, people who have a similar kind of neurodivergence to me, that sense of feeling out of control of the logical part of your brain can be really unsettling, because it can make us really question, "Am I going to be able to navigate social norms? Am I going to be able to keep it together in a way that's not going to cause negative outcomes in my life?" That can lead to this whole cocktail of anxiety that I find particularly unbearable.
I think another really important consideration when it comes to NRE and at least autistic experience, is that, often, the excitement and fun of NRE can push us to blow past our boundaries in terms of things like social interaction. That can be a problem both for getting overwhelmed, but it can also be a problem for setting up a pattern of relating with someone that is ultimately going to be either unsustainable or harmful to us.
Leading to this situation where we spend three months literally not thinking about anything other than each other, and now one or both of us needs to pull back because it wasn't sustainable. I think that that can really cause some issues for feeling, I guess, on the one hand it can lead to the person who is doing that pulling back feeling like, "Oh, I'm a terrible partner, maybe I never actually felt anything," and blah, blah, blah, and that whole dilemma.
Also, for the person who's on the receiving end of that treatment, that can be really distressing. I think that that can be a problem for anyone who's experiencing NRE, but I think that, at least in my experience for autistic folks, that whiplash effect can be even more pronounced and can lead to even more discomfort.
I think the final thing that I'll say is, I do this support group for autistic, kinky, queer people. It's been such an interesting space to have conversations about things like this. Something that someone brought up in that space was that, and we were all vibing off this idea, is that NRE can almost a way of steaming. What steaming is, is basically it's short for self-stimulatory behaviors.
It's things like playing with this slime ball that I have here, or using a fidget spinner, or a weighted blanket, or anything along those lines that provides a sensory input that's comforting or grounding, or exciting, or add something to life that helps you deal with the other distressing aspects. I think NRE can actually be this really potent cocktail of stimulation, and it can help you blow through or overlook different aspects of your relationship life that might be challenging.
On the one hand, that's great, NRE is fun, but on the flip side, that can get into a pattern where it's like my relationships get hard after NRE because maybe I don't know the tools that I need to communicate about what I need for my relational accommodations, or maybe I don't have the skills yet to really judge compatibility early on.
It's easier to get into this pattern of using NRE to push through my social awkwardness and challenges, and then it has all of these fun, steamy, shininess to it as well. Now, I'm just getting myself into a pattern where I'm three months of this, three months of that, three months of the next one, and not necessarily addressing maybe some of the deeper patterns.
Dedeker: That's such a through and really fascinating, really deep answer. I just want to say thank you so much for covering all that ground. That was so, so fascinating. We're going to take a really, really quick ad break. We're going to be hoping back in with some more questions for Stevie. In the meantime, during our break, you're going to find out different ways that you could help support this show and help keep information like this coming to people for free.
Emily: We're back. We're going to move on to the questions that are categorized for those who are neurotypical. People asked how they can be better allies in the polyamorous community? Because, as we've talked about multiple times, there are a lot of neurodivergent people in the ethically non-monogamous community. What are some tips and tricks? What are some things that we can do besides listening to this amazing episode?
Stevie: I think that it's honestly doing the work and the stuff that we talked about right at the start, about acknowledging that things like steaming, having needs in terms of communication, having specific compatibility needs about what is going leave you feeling like you can basically function happily along in a relationship, it's not something that's just for special kinds of people. I think that that's the hardest thing to do, but it's also the thing that's going to shape all the other stuff you do in the right ways. Because I think often, especially with words like allyship, we can end up in this idea that we're looking at some people who are very categorically different from us that they're very hard to relate to, and that we have to use these special tools to engage with.
I think that that's not really where the neurodiversity model is going. It's more about the idea of diversity being something that includes everyone. I think, getting your head around that, doing some reading about the social model of disability, I think can be really empowering versus people who might feel that they're disabled or people who feel that that's not relevant to them. It's still, I think, a really helpful way of looking at the world. I think that that's probably the most most important part of it.
Then from there, I think that gives you a different way of looking at things like communication, because then you'll look at something like the Gottman's research, which is really amazing research about what makes relationships work. Instead of seeing it as like, "Oh, well, this is how you have to communicate," which is often I think, what a lot of people can take away from relationship research. It's like, "Okay, well, this is how I communicate and this is how you communicate. How can we apply this tool in this context?"
Jase: Customizing it for you. I love that.
Stevie: Yes, totally.
Dedeker: Like we sometimes like to say, "Customize and don't weaponize."
Emily: There you go.
Jase: Good one.
Stevie: Yes, exactly.
Emily: Dedeker, you're just full of one-liners today. It's beautiful.
Dedeker: When I go in my '90s style tour of schools around the country.
Stevie: Oh my gosh, that would be amazing.
Emily: Things are going to have to change a lot for that to happen.
Dedeker: We'll be one of those troops that goes to schools and does little skits about good relationships and good relationship communication, and then at the end, will break out into a really bad '90s style, white person rap about, "Customize, don't weaponize." It will be cool.
Stevie: I like it. You can put it on VHS, the bigotry like, "Just say no."
Emily: Nobody will be able to ever watch it again.
Jase: Totally. Maybe we can have puppets involved. Those were hot in the '90s
Dedeker: Puppets, and just all of the '90s tropes of school tours all in one tour.
Jase: Jump ropes and stuff. I love it.
Emily: Beautiful.
Dedeker: It'll be hot with all the millennial parents.
Jase: True.
Emily: Oh, for sure.
Dedeker: That's how we'll do it. We got this other interesting question about boundaries, everyone's favorite topic.
Stevie: Our favorite.
Dedeker: This person says, I would love some input on establishing and maintaining boundaries with neurodivergent folks, knowing that sometimes a, "Reasonable boundary," may cause an upset. What I will add to this is, again, extending this to this just being applicable to everybody regardless of how your brain works, how do you handle that situation where your boundary is my trigger? Because it seems like that happens all the time in relationship?
Stevie: It's just hard. I think there was a certain point in my multiamory listening career where I was just coming into Polyamory, and it seemed like this whole new way of doing things, like all these smart people had the answers for everything. For a while, it was working that way. I was like, "Oh, my God, my relationships are so much better than they used to be because I'm communicating and setting boundaries."
It honestly feels amazing if you've come from a really messy, dicey relationship history like I have to certainly be like just having an open communication with someone about a relationship issue. I think that also then comes a point in one's Multiamory listening career, or Polyamory escalations, just general relationship evolution, where you're like, "Oh, some things are just hard, and sometimes there is no answer."
Sometimes it's just the case that either, "This was an incompatible relationship, and it always was, and now I'm going to have to accept that and deal with it, and that's going to really, really suck." Or, "It's not an incompatible relationship overall, but this is an area of incompatibility that's just going to be there and there's not going to be a clear and comfortable answer to that.
I don't think, at least for me, that there's really been much that can take away the discomfort of that. Either of those situations is going to be really yucky. I think that it just comes down to that approach of not judging what other people's reactions necessarily are, of judging what other people's boundaries are, but just looking at your own self and think, "Is this compatible? Is this something I can do without getting into self betrayal territory?"
Or, "Is this something that I actually just can't, and I'm going to need to come up with either a different set of boundaries that are going to take me away from this painful situation," or, "I'm going to need to accept that there wasn't actually the compatibility that we needed there to start with." I think that's the work that everyone has to do. Both people who are neurotypical or people who are neurodivergent, that's just a challenging, yucky situation.
Dedeker: That point shows up in the Multiamory creating career as well. It's my milestone.
Jase: I'm going to move on to this next question here. I think that in light of a lot of what we've talked about, we can modify it even a little bit too. The question was, "it's that for neurodivergent people, face-to-face communication is often difficult. How does one best navigate consent, and the four F's of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn with neurodivergent partners?" I could maybe even say, we could modify this to just say, rather than being about neurodivergent, or not, but to just say, if you have a partner who has a hard time with face-to-face conversation. What are some techniques for navigating these sorts of things?
Stevie: I think that the first thing is taking away the judgement around communication styles that aren't face-to-face, speaking with your mouth, because for some people, that is actually not the most authentic way of communicating. For me, doing the mouth talking in the face-to-face context is the least authentic. That's the one where I'm most likely to say things I don't mean, have emotional reactions that don't make sense to me.
Just generally be confused and overstimulated by my environment and ends up making a complete either fool of myself or accidentally, horribly upsetting someone by saying something that's completely tactless and tasteless, but I don't realize it. I think that just removing the judgement from that space is a really big step that not everyone finds face-to-face, like, "Oh, you've got to do it in person, or whatever it is."
Not everyone is going to find that that is the most authentic, helpful, or even useful form of communication. Once you've done that, then I think it's about working out what does work best for what kinds of conversations and what kinds of communications. Consent was one of the things that was brought up there. For some people, that might be a requirement, that if I'm going to do X, Y, and Z with you, I need to, have a conversation with you where I feel assured that you're consenting to this.
That's a very reasonable boundary to have. You're allowed to have that boundary, you can also find that that boundary might be inaccessible for certain people. That that might not be something that everyone's going to be able to do for you. If that is something you want, and it's not right there at the level of a deal breaker, then maybe it's, "Okay, how about we hop on a texting platform and we go back and forth in some detail textually about what's going to happen, and what we want the scene to look like, what we want this experience to look like." Then speak it out in that format, and maybe that will meet that person's needs for feeling like what's happening is being consented to.
I think that asynchronous communication, which is basically texting and then waiting for a response, as opposed to what we're doing now where I'm talking or responding, et cetera. It can be a really challenging thing for people who have anxiety for whatever reason, because that might be rejection-sensitive dysphoria, which is this experience that a lot of folks with ADHD have. There's this particular sensitivity to perceived rejection.
For someone who's having that experience, even waiting a couple of minutes between texts, could elevate the level of anxiety to something that's just like not going to be sustainable. I'm bringing this in the context of fight, flight, freeze, fawn. That waiting might trigger someone's full-on response so that whatever the response they get back, they're just wanting to reestablish that connection at all costs, rather than communicating what's actually on their mind. Or, it might just lead to complete shutdown, like eye contact, "I can't do this."
I think all of that is super valid. Everyone gets to work out how they want to communicate, but it's also the fact that not everyone is going to be compatible in how they do things. I think having these conversations early on in a relationship is a really helpful thing. Again, this could look like, "Hey, I'm autistic," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Or, it could look like, "I really can't have a serious conversation over text. If you want to bring up an issue in our relationship, I would really love it if you could just call me or if we could hop on Discord and chat back and forth, but both be focused on the task rather than leaving gaps between messages." I think that's the best they can do it that one, but feel free to ask any follow-up since they're already.
Emily: No, that's great. Somebody also asked I'm dating someone who says, "Their ADHD contributes to their struggles with time management and communication, and they're trying to figure out a way to navigate to be supportive, but also feel like there needs to be accountability for that." It just I guess it questions regarding things like time management. Communication, you've talked about a lot, but I guess that specific time management one if you could address that.
Stevie: The word that stood out to me in that was accountability. I think that sometimes when we're talking about neurodiversity and relationships, it can slide easily into the like anything goes terrain, where it's like, you can do whatever you want because all of our brains are different. You get to just be your amazing, unfiltered self at all possible times and moments. I don't want to give the impression that that's what I'm saying.
I think that everyone's brain is different and attempts to try and get someone to communicate, process, do things differently than the way that comes naturally to them are going to have consequences in the sense that it's either going to be really challenging for that person. They're only going to be able to maintain it some of the time, which you're going to need to come to terms with the fact that that's not going to be something that comes naturally to them no matter how much you want it to.
Similarly, it's going to have costs and consequences to the person who is trying to change their communication style, because now, they're in a situation where they're basically masking. That is going to lead to, exhaustion, discomfort, whatever that's going to be displaced elsewhere in their life.
Now, for me, personally, I have relationships with people that do not feel comfortable all of the time because I'm a human. Sometimes I do have to mask in relationship contexts and that's fine. That also means that I need to set aside time and space in that relationship where I can recover from that masking. For example, doing a radar, that is going to be, like if I'm going to sit down and have a whole radar with someone, that probably means that I'm not going to then have the energy to communicate with them for the next two days, so what's going to work?
In some context, I found that actually doing that really focused, intense processing, and then having time away from each other, is what's necessary and going to work. Then in other cases maybe it's not worth the two days away from each other to do all of that processing in one go.
If you're finding yourself in a situation, if you're neurodivergent, or neurotypical, where you're consistently misunderstanding someone or you consistently hurting someone, and where the way that you do things is consistently leading to distress for another person, I think that that's time to really start thinking about your compatibility with that person because there are a lot of different types of people out there in the world.
There are some people, for example, who also struggled with time management for this particular question and where this wouldn't necessarily be felt as like a big source of disrespect. Whereas for other people, like when you talk about this all the time in the podcast, showing up late is extremely disrespectful and hurtful, and whatever other challenges and deep layers of feelings of abandonment, and all of that kind of thing you're going to come up around that.
If you're consistently finding yourself in that situation, it's really on both people to like assess the compatibility of that situation. It's not the case that you can just like go, "Oh, well, I'm neurodivergent and so you have to put up with this," because that's not the case. It's always about compatibility and it's always about finding what's going to be sustainable and doable for both people.
Dedeker: Like you said, not everybody has to be in a relationship with everybody else.
Stevie: Yes, absolutely.
Emily: It's where you say, "it's okay to break up".
Stevie: That's going to be hard. That's going to suck sometimes.
Jase: Absolutely.
Dedeker: Well, Stevie, this has been such a rich episode. We so want to thank you for answering so many people's questions and really sharing your wisdom. First question, as we're coming to a close here are there any good groups or good resources that you could suggest for polyamorous, neurodivergent folks and their partners?
Stevie: Oh, I'm going to be a real nod and say the Multiamory Patreon Group on Facebook. No, but it really is.
Dedeker: Oh, gross.
Stevie: Teacher's pets.
Emily: Yes, thank you. Also if y'all out there want to contribute to episodes like so many of our Patreons did, then come to the Patreon group because it's providing many things.
Stevie: There's also a lot of neurodivergent people on there who give amazing advice which I think has been really valuable for me. In terms of other spaces, not a lot of coming to mind. I think that there's not a lot of specific neurodivergent and non-monogamy talk, but in non-monogamy spaces, you will often find a lot of neurodivergent people. Just finding the good ones, if those can be really helpful.
Jase: Then what about resources for learning about, what was it? The social model of disability or the community model of disability? What was the term?
Stevie: Social model of disability. That's something you could just google. I'm not going to be able to remember the name of the scholar who came up with it off the top of my head. I can email that to you and you can add it to the show notes. I think for just general autistic getting your head into this way of thinking about things from a neurodiversity perspective, there's a great website that's put together by a lot of people who are autistic, that's called Neuroclastic.
It just has a whole bunch of different articles on there about all kinds of different aspects of autistic experience, that for people who are specifically looking for that, then, that I found is a really good place to point people to because it is just so full of different things and different ways of experiencing autism.
Dedeker: Well, and then let's also talk about you. Where can our listeners find more of you more of your work? Is there any projects or anything on the horizon for you that you'd like our listeners to know about?
Stevie: You can find me on Instagram, so it's @_steviewrites. I also have a Patreon. I'm currently putting together a workshop on transmasculinity in sex and dating, so that should be interesting. Mostly I do my day job. Unfortunately, I don't get to spend as much time talking about these things as I would like to.
Dedeker: Excellent.
Emily: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for all of this, Stevie. This was incredible. We're going to continue our conversation with Stevie in our bonus episode for Patreons and that is going to talk about neurodivergence and the intersection with kink. I'm really interested to learn more about that. Then, our Instagram question for this week is, "How do you relay your communication needs to your partners?" Really interested to hear what all y'all out there have to say about that.