My goal for this podcast is to educate all people to help them understand the autistic experience. I share my experiences living as an autistic woman in order to help people of all neurotypes understand what it's like to be autistic, and to create a world where all neurotypes are respected and understood.
In this episode, I interview my friend Taylah to discuss the realities of living with cerebral palsy (CP), the most common motor disability in childhood, which affects the motor cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. Taylah shares candid, humorous, and deeply insightful perspectives on navigating daily life, mobility challenges, independent living, and the systemic and social hurdles faced by individuals with disabilities.
Key Discussion PointsUnderstanding Cerebral Palsy & Mobility:
Clarifying that cerebral palsy affects movement, balance, and posture, requiring immense physical effort and strength for everyday tasks like transfers.
Taylah's use of a manual wheelchair over a power chair for accessibility, and the ongoing challenge of navigating non-ADA-compliant older buildings and infrastructure.
The Problem with Public Assumptions & Infantilization:
Addressing the major pet peeve of being infantilized, spoken down to, or having strangers bypass her to speak to a companion.
Challenging the misconception that physical disability equates to a lack of cognitive capability or independence.
Discussing the frustration of unsolicited pity and the importance of treating people with disabilities as capable peers.
Independence and Moving Forward:
Taylah shares her upcoming transition to living independently in an apartment with her best friend and starting college in August, pursuing goals of becoming an author or journalist.
The realities of public transportation (like DART), fighting for adequate physical therapy, and dealing with institutional gatekeeping or insurance hurdles.
Family Dynamics & Boundaries:
Navigating the delicate balance of family members (and well-meaning grandmothers) learning to let go and encourage independence rather than over-protecting.
Coping Through Dark Humor:
Highlighting how humor, from falling out of a wheelchair and losing "dignity" to cracking jokes about aging joints, serves as a vital tool for resilience.
Key Takeaways & Call to ActionPractice Patience and Kindness: A core message from Taylah is to slow down, ask questions instead of making assumptions, and lead with genuine patience rather than patronizing help.
Infrastructure Matters: Better public transportation reliability, accessible housing options, and inclusive educational/work environments are essential for true accessibility.
This episode is a guided walkthrough of borderline personality disorder (BPD), aimed at listeners who want to understand what it actually is rather than the caricature. It opens by clearing up one of the most common confusions in mental health conversations, the mix-up between borderline and bipolar disorder, and explains why the shared "BPD" shorthand makes things worse before settling in to focus entirely on borderline.
From there, the episode lays out the nine DSM-5 criteria one at a time: fear of abandonment (real or imagined), unstable relationships that swing between idealizing and devaluing people, an unstable sense of self, self-damaging impulsivity, recurrent self-harm or suicidal behavior, intense mood swings, chronic emptiness, difficulty controlling anger, and stress-related paranoia or dissociation. Each criterion comes with real-world examples to make it concrete.
What sets this episode apart is the lens it uses. Rather than describing BPD as a set of behaviors or character flaws, it grounds everything in neurobiology and Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Listeners learn how a "thinking brain" that struggles to integrate opposing emotional states can drive the idealization–devaluation cycle, and how a hyperreactive fear center (the amygdala) that the brain can't fully calm down can fuel emotional overwhelm. Throughout, the episode reframes nearly every symptom as a protective coping response to deep pain, like survival programs that often formed in childhood, which reshapes how you hear behaviors that might otherwise look like manipulation.
The second half explores the four subtypes of BPD:
impulsive, quiet/discouraged, petulant, and self-destructive, showing how the same diagnosis can look completely different from one person to the next, and tying each to a distinct picture of what's happening in the brain.
Many people, especially autistic people, or people with bipolar disorder, or ADHD, have a neurological baseline where glutamate (the brain's "go" signal) runs high and GABA (the "brake") runs low. Alcohol temporarily patches that imbalance, which is why vulnerable populations are drawn to it at disproportionate rates.
The catch: alcohol is a neurotoxin. When it wears off, GABA crashes even lower, glutamate spikes even higher, and every symptom gets worse. Repeat this enough and you're looking at hippocampal atrophy, suppressed neurogenesis, blunted reward circuits, and memories that simply never encode, which is why being around heavy drinkers can feel like being gaslit.
Addiction isn't a willpower problem. It's a nervous system trying to fill a real neurochemical void. Movement, nature, and other GABA-supporting habits can build new neural pathways over time, but the alternative has to come before the substance is taken away.
What this episode covers:
This episode explains the systemic effects of spanking - not just that it's harmful, but how it creates lasting patterns. I'll show you:
Key statistics:
Sources:
Who I am - my personality - are not separate. I share a short anecdote about how I'm not separate from being autistic, and share the HUGE news released in 2025 that impacts all autistics every day.
I discuss the neuroscience behind how autism involves increased glutamate from reduced activity in an enzyme called EAAT2, reduced GABA, reduced GABA sensitivity, and reduced vitamin D, this study here:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1562631/full
In this episode, I unpack my suspicions about how the autistic brain might produce oxytocin differently from the allistic brain, and what that could mean neurologically and behaviorally. Connect with us with PATTERNS not with PERFORMANCE.
Additional Note, discovered later on:
Active B6 (aka P5P) is a crucial co-factor for L-Tryptophan -> Serotonin conversion, so ensure this cofactor is met for optimal conversion.
This episode explores how I found solutions to my lifetime of sensory issues which I accepted as normal.
L-Tryptophan allowed me to create enough serotonin in a rate-limited lower risk way to be able to nearly resolve sensory issues & might have strong potential to benefit the autistic brain.
In this episode, I share personal experiences with psilocybin macrodoses, explore how mushrooms reveal the underlying structure of your own neurology, and discuss harm reduction strategies and key risks to be aware of.
Endometriosis is a condition resulting from the appearance of endometrial tissue outside the uterus and causing pelvic pain.
Endometriosis is a common comorbidity with being autistic that significantly impacts the body and brain, and causes massive issues with electrocution-type pain, bloating, organs being tied together - and a history of this pain being ignored throughout hundreds of years for women everywhere.
In this episode, I share a few of my experiences of body shame abuse, list a few things that perpetuate further problems, explain how people's fears and projections from their protector parts creates trauma, and share ways that you can break out of body shame abuse trauma circuits.
In this episode, I explore a therapy modality called Internal Family Systems (IFS) and how helpful it is!
EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and Reprocessing) is also a fantastic addition to IFS in order to resolve trauma.
In this episode, Adam Grant and I have a funny, light-hearted discussion about the ways autistic and ADHD people accommodate others, the social barriers within the workforce and interview process, and some strategies that can be used by neurodivergent people in the workplace.
Adam and I present our viewpoints about the struggles of indirect language and the harmful outcomes that indirect language causes. We discuss also what it's like to translate from a systematic bottom up processing to translate that into a top down understanding.
Adam discusses some of the systematic barriers as a manager working in tech, with masking, rejection sensitivity dysphoria struggles, and the inherent translation layer between neurodivergent people and others.
We discuss the importance of accountability, we ways people protect their reputations, and how easy it is to fall into self-rejection traps from the misunderstandings involved in the double empathy problem.
Adam shares his desire to connect with others and learn from them and share what he has learned, but he's concerned that doing so could make others feel belittled.
He talks about how often neurodivergent people have to figure out their own strategies in isolation, how challenging it is, how alienating it can be too.
My goal is to give everyone a reminder that you are allowed to be yourself, that your problems are not in isolation - there is always and will always be another person going through similar challenges to what you're experiencing.
We also discuss the purpose of small talk, how most people get dopamine from small talk, and hopefully making small talk a little more palatable!
Adam explains how you can 'read breadcrumbs' to form better relationships with others.
We talk about a few different books, including 'How To Win Friends and Influence People' by Dale Carnegie, and how helpful it was for both of us to use as a guideline to social interactions. We also discuss the value of mimicry to help people to feel safe, comfortable, and included with others.
Thank you so much, Adam Grant, for being willing to publicly share your struggles, sharing your experiences as a tech manager, and bringing such a wonderful humorous discussion into our lives! It has been a pleasure having you on podcast!
If you enjoyed listening to Adam share his ideas, checkout his YouTube Channel below for more work tips! ~
https://www.youtube.com/@AdamGrantDotInfo
In this episode, I shared my heartbreaking experience with accidentally joining a cult, leaving a cult, and the red flags associated in general with cults.
Dallas Dance Collective / Ecstatic Dance Dallas is NOT a safe organization allowing people to dance.
It is a cult that has sexually assaulted women countless times in the past.
It is an organization that people use to violate women, people, and ignore boundaries.
I discuss specifics about the man who touched my inner thigh, the other instances of red flags in this organization, and what you can do to protect yourself against sexual assault and cult dynamics.
When I was trapped in this cult, it was like I became a completely different person who could only echo the beliefs of the group.
I am autistic & autistic people are typically resistant to group think scenarios.
I naively thought the organization was solely for dancing.
I did not realize how many people AND organizations are interested in harming me.
That is how compelling and harmful cults are, and it can happen to anyone.
Some of the red flags I discuss are:
Cult Dynamics:
Other red flag phrases, copy pasted from actual messages sent to me:
Long story short. Actions define our patterns which can become our reality.
When someone takes actions that indicate that they do not care about respecting boundaries:
Trust the patterns. Get out. Help is available.
In this episode, I interview two wonderful people, Grace, and Dash, about their experiences in what it is like to be autistic trans women. They both discuss a little bit about what it was like to discover that they were autistic, and share first hand what the transitioning process has been like, some challenges with it, and share their wonderful journey to self love and self acceptance. :)
Dash talks about how realizing she is autistic is helping her experiences as a preschool teacher. Having a first hand understanding of the autistic kids that she works with means that she can be the advocate that so many of us autistic people needed as children.
She shares her struggles with under stimulation and talks about various career related challenges.
She dealt with quite a bit of bullying when she was a kid from teachers and students alike; motivating her to become an advocate for the next neurodivergent generations.
Both Grace & Dash are trans women, and they share a snapshot of exactly what being trans feels like.
They share their ideas about how the world could be improved, and all of us hope to contribute to a better general understanding of the myriad of issues that so many trans people experience.
Grace mentions how HUGELY positive her transition has been for her to unmask and learn to recognize who she truly is - being freed from the box of social norms.
Dash shares her perspective on her anxieties around hormone levels, doctors who don't really understand what it feels like, along with a general gap in trans-related medical knowledge.
Both Grace & Dash are wonderful people, and we are honored to have them share their stories and ideas!
In this summary, I discuss some of the up to date research regarding the idea that neurotypical brains commonly synchronize together, whereas autistic people do not synchronize in that same way to neurotypical people. I also explore and ask different questions about how this type of synchrony can occur between two neurodivergent individuals. I also discuss the five types of brain waves that can be filtered out of EEG sensors, and how those EEG readings can sometimes be used as biomarkers when it comes to ADHD and OCD. In summary, I study the big picture of how to bridge the gap of communication between allistic and autistic people, studying and questioning the current deficiency view of the way society calls autistic individuals. I also ask you to consider - what aspects of the way you socialize are based on a subconscious framework that has gone on unanalyzed for your entire life?
In this episode, I interview a wonderful lady named Christina who is diagnosed with ADHD, and also is suspected autistic level 2.
Her own daughter's diagnosis became the catalyst for her own self-understanding.
At age 40, she shares how she lived her whole life up to this point without knowing why and how she was different.
She grew up in the 80's when autism research wasn't well-established and well-known.
She shares a snapshot about her experiences with socializing, the struggles of connecting with others around her, and some medication struggles as well.
She explains her unique perspective; her desire to connect with people yet the dichotomy of trying to do it in an environment with no autism awareness.
In particular, she explains what it feels like from a first-hand perspective to be nonverbal, the ways others misunderstood her intentions in those non-verbal states, and how often she became a target as a result.
We also discuss the ideas of parallel play, social interactions, sensory issues, dissociation, masking, the effects of masking and how it can cause burnout. She doesn't drive, for a long time she couldn't make eye contact, and she learned to mask from a call center. She struggles a lot with spatial awareness and directional sense.
Supporting her daughter who is also autistic, who she can recognize her own self's traits within, she inspires us all with supporting her daughter's diagnosis, supporting her from a first hand perspective, and the beautiful beginning for her own self love and acceptance. :)
Thank you, Christina for being willing to join the podcast!
Today, I interview a lady named Melissa.
Melissa is self diagnosed with autism & she shares many of her struggles with sensory issues, social challenges, and shares a snapshot of how she experiences and goes through life.
We discuss many topics like masking, fitting in, the social stigma of being autistic, the cultural disconnects associated with speaking differently from people around you, along with Melissa's ideas for what she wishes society could do differently to better accommodate autistic people.
Trigger Warning: Sexual Trauma & Humiliation Wound
In this episode, I interview Angel - non autistic but traumatized.
There is a lot of common overlap involving PTSD & common neurodivergence symptoms and it can often be difficult to distinguish between them. PTSD itself even is a form of neurodivergence that often gets looked over. Many people who have PTSD often do not even recognize what they are dealing with because the traumatic patterns are so normalized in their own experience that they don't realize how much they struggle from situations that happened in childhood.
Together we explore the ways in which trauma has affected her life and the intensity of her own inner critic.
Angel is diagnosed with Depression & Anxiety and she struggles to set routines and deals with a lot of executive dysfunction issues. She deals with the effects of trauma that happened to her at an early age & is learning how to cope with it and reframe it in order to separate this harsh inner voice from who she truly is.
Within this episode, she illuminates more of this harsh inner voice & finds the courage to speak about the intensity of the trauma she has experienced in a safe environment to be able to express it.
She shares her story and together we talk about the effects of Abandonment & Humiliation Wounds, how trauma trickles down from parents to their children, the effects that sexual trauma has, the way her Christian upbringing encouraged her own self suppression, and the problems it creates once repressed memories surface.
Trauma always trickles down & she recognized a lot of the same patterns she is dealing with were linked to her parents & others in her early childhood. It is incredibly brave of Angel to be able to speak up about her subconscious beliefs regarding sex, intimacy, love, and it is truly a reflection of the importance of sex education & compassion at a young age.
Angel explains from her point of view how much shame she feels surrounding sex or anything related to it & demonstrates the importance for all of us to have these tough conversations to face the pain we have been through & being able to disconnect our identification of who we are a part from the traumas we have experienced.
These traumas that she faces are shared among many. It is important to recognize that whatever traumatic experience you are going through - you are not alone in this experience.
Thank you, Angel, for being willing to share your vulnerability with a larger audience.
You are so loved by your community & your willingness to fully process & feel your past experiences without avoidance is incredibly honorable.
Warning: Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria Trigger. If you have a deep rejection wound and are not ready to shift it; this will be triggering.
In this episode, I explore the very common rejection wound with specific examples and ideas around healing it.
Most autistic people suppress their autism - often at a subconscious level - because they know that somehow they're different but they get trapped in a rejection wound and they feel like they have to hide their autism in order to be accepted by society.
I'm here to tell you there is a way out - self love, self expression, and recognition that everything you experience is your subconscious patterns on display. Recognizing total oneness and taking responsibility of your experience is what can liberate you from these painful rejection patterns.
In this episode, I propose that we as a society begin to redefine what social awkwardness means.
I discuss the typical definition of social awkwardness and offer an example for you to consider.
Maybe we shouldn't judge the differences of others & instead should look within to truly understand why you feel uncomfortable around others who are different.
What is it about a flat tone of voice that is so frightening to you?
Why do you feel so compelled towards creating more conformity; when variety is where true growth occurs?
Why do you feel uncomfortable past the plateaus of deeper thinking?
In this episode, I discuss what Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria.
Most autists have a deep rejection wound. A rejection of self and self expression because autistic traits are rarely understood by neurotypical majorities and are often immediately rejected.
However, like everything in life, the outer is always a mirror of the inner world.
If you can shift your inner world to confront your deepest fears and dive towards everything that makes you uncomfortable emotionally, you can become more aware of your own dysfunctions and heal them.
The ego often loves to mask itself making it difficult to discover your own wounds.
Read the book Heal Your Wounds, Heal Your True Self by Lise Borbeau to become aware of the 5 key wounds (Rejection, Injustice, Betrayal, Humiliation, and Abandonment)
And listen to this episode to dive deeper into understanding and healing your own self rejections along with some examples of that.
In this episode, I examine all the ways that autism disabled my life - ways that I was never aware of until they were gone.
Texture issues from autism restricted my deep breathing and impacted my sleep as well because I was unable to filter out noises.
Now - I'm breathing deeply, I can sleep at night because my brain can filter out noises finally.
My entire life has changed from this experience and I have hope for hundreds of thousands of other suffering autistic people.
And above all - a new level of emotional human connection is available to me and I can feel the emotions from other people's faces.
Mushrooms - Psilocybin - is truly the medicine to cure the disabling aspects of autism without changing the underlying personality or the autistic strengths.
I hope to create a new world from the inside out where both autism and Psilocybin are actively studied, legalized, analyzed, and fairly understood.
In this episode, I share my miraculous success story of how just 1 gram of psylocibin mushrooms has changed the course of the rest of my life, relieved 95% of my most disabling autism symptoms, and given me a framework for what freedom truly feels like.
Life is so beautiful, such a gift for us to experience ourselves. :)
Today I interview an autistic lady named Rel.
She grew up from a very different background and culture from me; yet we share many similar struggles with autism.
In this podcast, we explore some of these similarities and differences to illustrate what autism in women truly looks like and how to advocate for oneself.
We discussed many topics like masking, fitting in, the social stigma of being autistic, sensory issues and how it affects her life.
She also grew up undiagnosed like me, and it wasn't until the age of 26 that she received a diagnosis.
I hope our conversation teaches you more about what autism looks like, the differences in communication style between two autistic women, and a renewed understanding about what autism acceptance entails.
Her Youtube channel is listed below if you'd like to hear more from her perspective!
https://youtube.com/channel/UCUCmwzzNa5u3HibgVT25rXg
Autistics people very often have heightened affective empathy & sometimes there is a disconnect between feeling what others are feeling and knowing why they are feeling that way.
I challenge the notion that autistic people have reduced cognitive empathy - because cognitive empathy can exist independently of facial analysis, social cues, and a display of empathy.
In this episode, I list the myriad of linked comorbidities from a physical perspective caused by autism.
Autism affects more than just the brain. Everything that affects the brain also affects the body.
I absolutely encourage you to learn to become more aware of your body states - and gain an emotional awareness of self in doing so.
There are a lot of internal physical things that doctors ignore and don't understand when it comes to autism - especially autism in women.
A few of the most notable, besides sensory issues which I've spoken about in detail in previous podcasts:
1) Digestive Issues / IBS
2) Delayed reaction time, delayed emotional processing
3) Increased inflammatory biomarkers / joint pain
4) Sleep terrors / Sleep issues
5) Increased prostaglandins
In this episode, I cover the following topics:
NT Socialization vs ND - my experience with my best friend
power of autistic visual focus, attention to detail, neuroscience of how this is structured - my experience with how I see the world, daily life. It's like a small circle that can be moved around to look at different things, whereas NT see the entire square.
autistic people actively take in more information and it can be overwhelming
autistic hyper focus & hypersensitivity
how sensory issues are at the root of most autism symptoms
how a manager can successfully work with an autistic employee:
Takeaway: Written expectations, written feedbacks, clearly defined requirements, routines and consistency, and individual projects.
In this episode, I go over the most common responses I get to telling people I'm autistic, along with what NOT to say and why you shouldn't say it.
One that I forgot is - never tell someone they don't look autistic. Autism does not have a look. People seem to think it is like Downs Syndrome when it isn't.
In this episode, I talk about the many biases against autism research, and I do a deep dive explanation of how the right anterior insula ties into orbitofrontal cortex, along with some inspiring stories of healing and rewiring the brain.
You are enough already as you are in this moment.
Do not believe the many biased researchers who tell you that you're deficient.
Yes, autistic people struggle. Yes, sometimes life can be harder for us than it is for others.
But you have the power to be the best version of yourself and you're not bound by the way others perceive you.
In autism, the cerebellum is hypoactive and does not have as many purkinje cells and this impacts motor skill development, emotional regulation, short term memory, spatial awareness, and many other things.
In this episode, I talk about what I've struggled with and acknowledge these struggles and vulnerabilities that I experience and likely will continue to experience in my life.
Buying and wearing clothing is a huge source of stress in the autism community. It's more than wanting to wear clothes that feel good - trying to force an autistic person with sensory issues to wear triggering clothing feels about as painful as stepping on a tac with your bare feet.
In this episode, I talk about these struggles with clothing, what that looks like for me, and a few solutions I've found to help ease the struggles.
In this episode I talk about gender nonconformity, how it is more prevelant in the autistic community.
Neurodivergent people are a lot more likely to be trans, nonbinary, and GNC. This adds an extra layer of vulnerability on top of being autistic that is rarely talked about or considered.
In this episode, I explain how it feels to dissociate - aka shutdown - how responding verbally is very difficult when I'm in the middle of a shutdown, and the wide variety of triggers that cause it along with strange feelings that go along with it.
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There are many differences between how autistics socialize versus NTs. I talk about some of these differences in today's podcast.
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Find me on Spotify and Apple Music for music specifically geared towards the flow state!
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/kelsey-cameron/1169653082
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/kelsey-cameron/1169653082
Being autistic has so many strengths, we have a unique ability to be ourselves unequivocally without conforming to a social norm.
Who you are is a beautiful person! You ARE worthy of love and all the joy in the world.
One act of kindness can go such a long way.
Being autistic in itself comes with a sense of freedom - freedom of expression without concern of judgements. And anyone can experience this freedom if they choose to align with themselves instead of doing what everyone else does out of fear.
"The world is a beautiful place! The more you can recognize the beautiful aspects of your world, the more of them you attract into your life.... and I firmly believe these patterns underlying everything reveal to us a reality none of us can fully perceive"
Find me on Facebook for free weekly music!
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Find me on Spotify and Apple Music for music specifically geared towards the flow state!
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/kelsey-cameron/1169653082
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/kelsey-cameron/1169653082
In this episode, I explain how and why executive dysfunction is so prevalent in autism, and I share my experiences with it.
Neurotypicals can struggle with executive dysfunction too - but autism significantly increases the likelihood of some kind of executive dysfunction because of a combination of sensory issues (likely related to the insula and amygdala connections in the brain), combined with a worse short term memory.
Every day I look for ways to either improve my short term memory or find workarounds for it.
Sensory issues are often easier to solve with accommodations than immediately forgetting whatever I was doing two minutes ago.
I find that the best ways to overcome struggling are to first identify WHAT you are struggling with, then identify WHY you are struggling with it. And instead of pretending to be okay - remember that you CAN and SHOULD ask for help and accommodations when you need them.
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Find me on Spotify and Apple Music for music specifically geared towards the flow state!
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/kelsey-cameron/1169653082
This episode and future episodes will help you understand yourself at a deeper level & learn how to unequivocally be YOU without apology. :)
In this episode, I talk about the struggles that autistic people deal with throughout our lives.
Why is it important to you, to know who you are?
I discovered that I am autistic at the age of 26 - after spending years of my life wondering why I am different from everyone else - and believing that I was an alien that no one would ever really understand. Turns out, there are millions of people like me, living a similar, intense, beautiful, life experience.
How would you feel if - everyone around you spoke a different language that you could not understand or even conceive of?
And what would it be like for you if you could strip away all the negative self talk and judgement that you've been stuck with for so long?
Find me on Facebook for free weekly music!
https://www.facebook.com/mypianocreations
Find me on Spotify and Apple Music for music specifically geared towards the flow state!
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/kelsey-cameron/1169653082