thebruenigs
patreon
Matt's Mom, Noella
🕑 Added 2023-11-06 21:39:00 +0000 UTCBonus ep.
Comments
M
Wonderful. Thanks
Sarah
yeah i work with young kids and have thought a lot about the possible value of an autism diagnosis—formal or informal. aside from overt cases where a kid needs a diagnosis in order to receive accommodations, i think there’s value in letting parents know that their kid is spectrum-y just so they can understand things like stimming, sensory sensitivity, social issues, etc. plenty of parents would never think about stuff like “maybe his clothes are really itchy” or “maybe the fluorescent lights are driving him nuts” without the framework of autism. that said, there’s almost no delicate way to introduce this idea to most parents directly without risking them misunderstanding or thinking you’re trying to give their kid a diagnosis. the other risk of course is that helicopter-y parents do too much with that information or use it as an excuse for everything.
Leo
Matt’s lore is amazing. He has always been playing the game
William Kay
"I wouldn't take advantage of opportunities like that" made me think of the solar loan company lol
Tommy nono
My little brother was elected junior class president the same year Pete buttegieg was sr class pres. My brother created some really funny campaign ads much like Matt. Pete’s campaign was much more conventional.
Caitlin Still
This is true for me with ADHD too—self-knowledge alone can mitigate so much of the impact.
ABD
Noella! What a beautiful name. I can’t wait to listen.
Sam Harrison
What a naughty child he was. Delightful.
LP3
Great stories! Hope your mom had a nice time doing the ep.
Caitlin Still
All this good grades/bad behaviour content is way too relatable. Liz alludes to it too and I’m really curious to hear more. Anyway here’s to proving fuckhead teachers wrong, then and now.
Miles Van de Wetering
SUPER fascinating to listen to. She sounds _exactly_ like my own mom (everything I hear about Matt's life/'tism/etc reminds me of my own life haha... right down to the ill-fitting Christian daycare). This idea that the "label won't help" is the same thing my mom feels - I, like Matt, realized pretty late in life that 'the spectrum' was a thing that I was probably on. When I mentioned it much later to my family, a typical first reaction was "oh gosh, don't call yourself that" even though in retrospect it is/was pretty obviously true. FWIW I think that it's useful especially as a high-functioning autist to 'know' that about yourself, because it helps reframe social difficulties and failures as a particular kind of puzzle. It took me a very long time to realize that my subjective experience of social interactions was very different that my peers', and that there were certain 'rules' I could simply learn and follow (even if they were awkward, didn't make sense, whatever) in order to meet with much greater success. TL;DR: I think the label has helped me because it allowed me to analyze behavior (mine and others') much more clearly, and structure the process of adapting to social standards much more easily.
