Autism and Grief: Why Closure Is a Myth with Christopher Carazas | EP 509

Close your eyes and imagine. What if the things in life that caused us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, are challenges. Challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried, but what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth, and I am your host, Brian Smith. Hey there, welcome to Grief to Growth, and whether it's your first time here, or you've been here for a long time, I want to say welcome. I'm Brian Smith, and this shows about making sense of life, especially when life stops making sense. We talk about grief, loss, and the questions that keep us up at night. Who we are underneath all this? What does it mean to keep living after everything changes? And how do we grow around a wound that never fully closes? I bring on guests who've walked through the fire and can help light the way for the rest of us, no matter how dark the path feels. Today's guest is Christopher Carazas. He's a writer who refused to let his survival become a tidy story. Chris is a social impact strategist and the author of Now That I'm Still Here, a memoir of ruin and resurrection. And through his sub-site newsletter of the same name, he writes about survival, storytelling, mental health, humor, and hope after ruin. His work says that the intersection of grief, neurodivergence, and a long, unglamorous aftermath of psychological trauma. And he writes about it without the bow on top, without pretending any of it is neat. In this episode, we're going to challenge some of the things you've probably been told about grief, that it's a phase, that it ends, that there's a version of, quote, moving on, waiting for you on the other side. Chris sees grief differently, not as something the process is set down, but as infrastructure, something that becomes load-bearing, that quietly shapes every decision that follows. We're going to talk about the myth of closure and how the pressure to, quote, move on, often serves everyone but the person who's grieving. We'll get into what it means to survive without turning your pain into a redemption arc, what it's like to grieve the future you imagined and not just the person you lost, and how grief lands differently for neurodivergent people who spend a lifetime masking. We'll talk about survivor's guilt without the spectacle and about grief as a relationship you learn to live inside rather than a problem you resolve. So if you've ever been told that you should be further along by now, or if you've quietly wondered what's wrong with you because your grief refuses to resolve and something clean, this conversation will be for you. And if you want to continue the conversation after the episode, head over to griefthergrowth.substack.com. There you'll find an article about today's discussion where you can comment and connect with me and other listeners. So with that, let's get started on welcoming Chris to Grief the Growth. Hey, thanks for having me here. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to have this conversation with you, Chris. I noticed the subtitle of your book is a memoir of ruin and resurrection. So can you take us back to what is the ruin? What was the moment that your life actually fractured? So I grew up autistic without really knowing. I was autistic until I was literally in my 30s. I didn't get diagnosed until 2020. And by then, I had already built a life. I had bought a house in Maryland, where we were living and working at the time. I had a good job with a federal subcontractor. I pretty much had accomplished everything you needed to do as an adult. And basically, your stereotypical American dream. As soon as that diagnosis came, two things shifted. First of all, everything that I had experienced growing up was feeling different and just awkward. Finally had a name. I understood, okay, this is the framework that is me. Now I know what to address. But then almost immediately after that, the abuse started. Started with my mother-in-law saying, oh, you're an embarrassment to the family. My daughter shouldn't be married to someone on the spectrum because it's going to affect her mental health. On almost a daily basis, I was told this. More so, too, that I should end it. The world would be better off with someone less on the spectrum in this world. Because all we do is mess things up and we're exhausting for the people around us. My wife also said this, which was perplexing to me. Eventually, if you hear this every day, you start to believe it. And something shifted where I would start to believe these thoughts and it was no longer their voice saying these things. It was my own voice. As a result, there were two attempts. Thankfully, I failed at that. And after almost a third attempt before I did anything, something in me was like, I really don't want to do this. I texted my sister and told her everything. She was like, hey, back and back. I'll be there in the morning. She drove from Massachusetts to Maryland overnight to get me. And that's when I pretty much lost everything I worked for. I lost my marriage. We ended up selling our house. By the time everything hit me, too, I lost my identity. I was deeply entrenched in that lie of worthlessness. And so I had to pretty much restart. How do I rebuild everything I lost? Plus, get better in terms of my mental health. And so it was a long... It still is the wrong road back. I'm certainly not where I was before. I'm certainly not where I want to be. Though I'm further along that path than I was just last year. And yeah, so that was a critical inflection point where I got diagnosed and basically that was the catalyst that pretty much broke my life apart. I now have a house. I live a mile from my sister. I live next door to my brother and it's one day at a time. First of all, I'm so sorry for what you went through. That just sounds awful. I'm glad that your attempts failed and you're still here with us because we need you in the world. And there's a couple of things I really want to unpack here because we have misunderstandings about grief because some people through grief only means the loss of a person. You've gone through some very serious grief because losing your marriage, losing your identity, as you said. And I imagine getting that diagnosis kind of a dual-edged sword, right? On the one hand, now I know I have a label for what this is. But on the other hand, now everybody puts this label on you. And says, now you're this category of person. So let's take it one at a time. One thing about autism, I think most of us don't understand what autism is. And we say on the spectrum, and pardon me if this is disrespectful, but I think we're all kind of on the spectrum. I think we're all neurodivergent. We're all different. But there is a spectrum. And so when you get to a certain point, we call that person autistic. So if I'm wrong, let me know. Explain to people what autism actually is. So I'm going to oversimplify this. Basically, it's not a mental health disorder, but it's just a mental disorder that has a lot of different kinds of components to it. One of them is social awkwardness in terms of not being able to understand social cues. It's like, I always put it this way, it's like a set of instructions that everyone else seems to have gotten in terms of social cues, but I didn't get it, that everyone else seems to understand what tone to speak at or how to phrase things, why we tend to be very deadpan. And it's like, why are you upset when I said this kind of joke? But when Bobby over there said that same kind of joke, everyone laughed. Right? No one can tell you're joking because you're very monotone, very serious. So yeah, it's just, yeah, so there's that social awkwardness, there's this kind of strict adherence to routine. So we tend to be very, there's going to be wrong way to put it, but in our quotes, robotics, we like to wake up at a certain time, do things like very strict routine. And when that gets interrupted, we can become very dysregulated. Our whole day is kind of like, and we don't know how to self-regulate if it's an exchange. We like plans, we like order, we like just that deep sense of structure, because that's how we can maintain predictability. And the unpredictable, the unknown is like really screws with us, with our mind. And there's a lot of social anxiety that comes with that too, in terms of like, did I say the right thing? And we like re ruminate and revisit and stress out about even just the littlest things that everyone would be like, bro, that's fine. So some of us have it worse than others. So like, I'm level one, so I don't need minimal support. And then there's the other extreme that people might know the reference of the rain man, where it's kind of like, quiet and very, like, pretty much nonverbal. And they're just in their own little world. So yeah, that's pretty much, that's an overly simplistic way of framing autism. Yeah, no, thank you for that. And as I've looked at it, because I'm fascinated by it, there's a huge spectrum. There's a recent podcast that became huge called the telepathy tapes, which I don't know if you're familiar with, but they studied these autistic children, nonverbal or minimally verbal, most of them nonverbal. So using like, speak to spell type of things. And these kids have amazing abilities in terms of like, extrasensory perception. And when an autistic, a lot of people will look at autistic people who are nonverbal, especially and think, well, they don't know what's going on. They're just processing things differently. And there is, as you said, there's a huge spectrum. There's a person like yourself who functions fairly normally, you know, for a couple of decades, and then you get the diagnosis. And then there's the kid that, you know, never speaks. So there's that big range. But I just see these people who process things differently. I think it's a processing thing. It's like, and I just recently, it's kind of while we're having this conversation today, just a couple weeks ago, I met a woman on Substack who's autistic, but she's super high functioning, like numbers and stuff like, like a genius level. But you know, has these other, but we will call deficits. Yeah, I'm, I'm kind of the same. Well, I don't know, I wouldn't, I don't know if you would label me genius, but I'm, I'm in that kind of thing where I'm a number expert. I studied finance. Yeah, she's in finance. Yeah. And I do math in my head. It's like, it's just like, it comes a lot more naturally to me than than words do. And, and, you know, it's, it's, I think, language or writing has, one of one of my deficits is being able to or not able to fully verbally express like feelings. And like, it's not that I can't feel them. I certainly do feel them, but it's like verbalizing it in real time. It's, it's so difficult for me. And so that's why I like, I fell in love with numbers because it's numbers are numbers. They, they have no, it is what it is. So it's very black, whereas verbalness, there's, there's that gray. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So you, you write about loss and grief and how it's different for a neurodivergent person. So tell me how, how do you think it's different for a neurodivergent person versus a quote, typical person. So I'll frame it in something that most people can relate to. It's so in between my marriage falling apart and today, I, I met a woman. Her name was Katie, which is a picture, a picture of us. And she was fantastic. And I think, I don't believe in a higher power, but I think the universe sent me her after the, to know what kindness was all about and what love really was. And, you know, she, she was very instrumental in me getting better, quicker. And, you know, she ended up getting sick and passing away. Yeah. So it's been a little over a year. She passed away April 13th of 2024 and due to complications with pneumonia. And it's that, that kind of loss, at least, at least for me, I can't speak for everyone on the spectrum, but it's, I don't know if like everyone feels law, that kind of loss very deeply, but I think what happens to us on the spectrum or people that are on the spectrum are a little bit more neurodiverses. We feel a lot more deeply, not that it's a competition or anything, but like a lot of it like doesn't, you know, it doesn't make sense. Like we ruminate on it so much more and so much longer than a neurotypical person. And like, at least from my experience, like the, the grief process as presented by like all the, all these, all psychologists, it seems to be like a very circular process. Right. All right. I think I lost. I'm sorry. I was talking to someone else. Go ahead. It's very much a circular process of like, you know, the strangers of faith, but like, for, for me, it was like, like a mosquito trapped in, in, in a jar. Like I had no idea where I was like, and like, even though, even though it's very painful to have lost someone so, so special, Mike, like I couldn't even cry. Like, and I was like, what the hell is wrong with me? Like, it was like, literally, it did feel like my heart ripped out of my chest. But like, I had a hard time expressing and showing that, that emotion. And, you know, then I was like, well, what the hell's wrong with me? If I can't, like, did I really love her? Did I, you know, it's, but it's just, it's just the way I processed it. And a lot of, through some of the, through some of the phases of grief, I, I processed it a lot faster than, than others. Like, I was, like, I was able to rationalize, like, it happened. So there was like no denial phase, right? Like, like, yeah, she was saying this, then the other. Like, it was very, very rational. But the, the emotional components still stay with me till this day, like the anger portion. And it's, and even then that's rationalized a little bit, but I have a hard, hard time letting the emotional things go. Like, I'm, I'm not angry that she passed away. I'm not angry at the doctors. I'm not angry at her parents making the call to, you know, it's a difficult difficult call for any parent to make. They'll be like, let's throw up a place for court, right? I wouldn't wish that on anybody. So I'm, I'm angry at the fact that why did this happen to such good people? He comes from a fantastic family. She was a fantastic person in her, in her own right. So like, I have a harder time letting the emotional side of the great process go. Whereas the other part is like, more, more rational and more logical and more like there's closure in certain areas. Whereas the other one, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I, you know, I write about grief and talk about grief. And just recently I was writing about why we feel grief, like physically, that, you know, the cortisol spikes and all this stuff that actually literally goes on with our body, especially people that lose spouses or are really close partners, you, you, you can become like chemically attached to them. And regulation when we're going through grief is becomes even more important, you know, to be able to self-regulate. And I talk, I talk to you about techniques to do that. I imagine if you're on the spectrum and you have difficulty regulating anyway, that then grief would be, as you said, compounded. And, you know, crying, you know, I'm not a person that cries very easily or very often. And there've been times I thought, why am I not crying? You know, I've lost someone. And, and so we all, we question ourselves, right? And my, but did I really love this person or not? And just actually, frankly, just last night, I was at this event for parents who've lost children. And because my daughter had passed, has passed away. So we're part of this group. And we get the word that this little boy who had been at this event for, I'd seen him like two or three times, bright, beautiful boy had just passed away like three weeks earlier. And I noticed, you know, the women in the room, mostly were just crying. My wife was crying. You know, the other women were crying and stuff. And most of the men weren't, you know, we were just, we just weren't. And this morning, I was actually writing about it. And the tears just started to come. And I was last night, I was like, why am I not crying? You know? And then today I was like, this, you know, this. So my point is we all process things differently. So there's no right way or wrong way to process that. And, you know, your body responds differently than say my body does. And yeah, that's like, yeah. So there's the, everyone reads differently. And I like the way you put it where, you know, beef is compounded for us on the spectrum, you know. And it's, it was, it was very hard or it's still very hard for me to, I think about her a lot, right? And I visit her a lot. I mean, her, I wish she's buried is like diamonds from my house. But I am so thankful. I kept, she used to hide little notes. I have it on my little bookshelf over there, a little stack of them. But she would write thing, leave me notes hidden all around the house for me to find. And like, she left one on my fridge saying, you know, eat food, coffee's not breakfast, moron. You know, like this sensational sense of humor that was very fighting, but loving at the same time. I've kept them. And whenever my mind starts going back to hearing my ex-wife's voice, so saying like, hey, you're worthless. This metal, I'll take it. I have them, I have stack strategically placed around the house. I'll just open it. Open one of them in the reminders of her saying like, you know, she was always these things like, hey, you're worth it. Don't forget how special you are. And so, or I love you, or you are you. It's the number one reason why I love you, kinds of things. So it's kind of like she speaks to me still. So I use that to kind of overshadow the abuse of what happened before. I know you write about, you know, there's this thing about like, we become better people after grief or survival turning into like a triumph story. And I think you kind of push back against that a little bit. Explain that to me. Well, it, for me, it's, I get really annoyed with, I don't know if the movies did this or, you know, sensational stories that say like, I, you know, person next went through hardship and now they're, you know, there's like, ah, you know, they've overcome it. And like, that could happen to people, but that's like very, like, it's not as easy or as linear or as possible as the stories make it out to be. It's so, that recovery, in our quotes, that recovery storyline is so linear that like, you know, they break it down by stuff like this happens, this happens, this happens, and now this person is back. And they've overcome it. And I don't, like, how do you overcome, like, I'm changed by the fact that I went through all these years of psychological abuse and got driven to do something I wouldn't have done normally. You know, it's, so like, you don't ever overcome something like that. It still lives in you. Or in my ladies, in Katie's parents' case, they'll never overcome the loss of a child. You know, it's, and one day, I mean, you know, I'm about, what, two years out of this, this abusive marriage. There are days when I so easily fall back into where I was just three years ago or four years ago. And there are other days where I feel like I'm on top of the world, you know, and moving forward. What I do notice is, you know, in the times where something happens and I get triggered and my mind goes back to those moments with my ex-wife, it used to be that it would ruin my entire day, sometimes entire days, right? And now, that recovery time is a lot quicker. Sometimes I, like, I bounce back in an hour. Or, okay, maybe it's half a day. It's not the entire day. It's not a stretch of days. And like, no one really talks about that. Like, and how nonlinear it really is and what the struggle is and the will and the willpower it takes to get up every day out of bed. And, you know, it's not, recovery isn't as glamorous as it seems to be. It's made up of little micro moments every day. It means today I got out of bed and the next day I got out of bed and made the bed. And then I got out of bed, made the bed and took the shower today. It's just little micro moments of that compound themselves to a bigger thing that, okay, now you're a little bit stronger. You're a little bit stronger today than you were yesterday. You're always going to be wearing that backpack full of stones. But the weight of it is going to be a lot easier to carry as you continue to grow as a person. Yeah, I think that's really, really well put. You know, there's a saying, time heals all wounds. And that's one that I push back against because we have to do the work, as you said, and it's not easy and it's not linear. And it does take discipline. And if you feel, if you've been told that it's linear and you've been told there are these five phases and you go, I'm through phase three, but now back at phase one, you feel like you've taken a step back. That's not true. And I have a lot of clients that will say that to me. I feel like I've gone backwards. I got through the first year. I thought it was supposed to get easier. The second year is even harder. So I think you have a much more realistic view of what grief is. And I completely agree with you. It's not something that we get over. We go through and it's done. It's on the other side of us. I like your idea of its infrastructure or something that becomes part of us. And you're right. But I also love the way you said it. It's like those moments, as we get farther out, don't take us down like they used to. We're not down for a day or a week or a month. Now we're down for hours instead of days. So it does get easier, I guess, in a sense. But I also love your thinking about the backpack because I say kind of the same thing. I'm like, people say, well, does it get easier? I don't know if it gets easier if you get stronger. I actually think it's both. I think we can put some of those rocks down, like the anger sometimes and the guilt that comes along with it. But there's also going to be a part of it that we're always going to carry. We're always going to miss that person. We're always going to want them back. You're probably always going to hear your wife's voice in your head. It'll get quieter. But you're going to hear that in your head. That stuff really gets to us and becomes part of us. And now, for instance, when I hear my wife's voice, I have the awareness that now is like, hey, this stuff is happening again. And I'm able to recognize what it is. And sometimes I have the self-awareness of like, dude, we got to pick up one of those cards and read those. Exactly. Go outside and take your dog for a walk or go play pickleball, right? There are other moments where it's like, I sit in it and then it's like, and it takes me a while to recognize what's happening. And then when I recognize it's like, damn it, Chris, why did it take you so long to recognize this? It can be hard or it can be easy. It just depends on the moment. Yeah, it is. But I wouldn't have necessarily been able to do that a year ago. It's certainly different. In that sense, it does become easier. Like if you implement, I mean, I'll put it this way. I went and got help, right? And they gave me tools to recognize and pivot. And that takes discipline. So if you implement that discipline, if you have the discipline to implement the tools to manage grief, to manage to just pivot where you are in that moment, that does get easier over time. But it's still going to be there with you. But yeah, you're right. So at some stones you do, you can't put down like anger or guilt, but it's very hard. And that will take time. Yeah, I love the fact that you're so realistic about it. And we talked about this a little bit earlier, but there's all types of grief. So when we lose a person, there's also a secondary grief that comes along with that, the perceived future. So I know you talk about that as well. Yeah, and that's the thing about future. There was a future Katie and I could have had. We could have, in my recovery journey, we could have built a life together. In whatever capacity, we could have been friends, like decided that we were better off friends than the romantic couple. Or there was another forego, we become lifelong partners. So there were a lot of, one thing is true, we both like being adventurous and go on little winery trips or take a road trip somewhere and go walk in the woods. And so definitely that would have been part of our future. And a lot of hilarious stories along the way. And so that's the part I agreed. The other part I agreed too, in my marriage, I had a house. And there was a life that could have been built. Remodeling that house or that house had great potential and could have built it into something more. And then that's when I spiral in a good way. Why did I allow this to happen? Is it really my fault? But I use it more as a growing opportunity now, in the sense of through my journey, I shifted that portion of grief and questioning like, hey, why did this happen to me? Why did this happen for me? And implying that I have something to learn from this experience. And what are those burning points? Like for me, one of those things was there were a lot of red flags along the way that I didn't listen, that I chose to ignore. And why? And so that's like a lot of learning that comes with this group. Sure, sure. It's interesting because I heard you earlier say, I don't believe in a higher power. But then you said, I think the universe sent Katie to me. And you said, why this happened to me? And you switched that to why this happened for me. So what are your beliefs in terms of universe, higher power, source, whatever? So I used to be religious. I used to go to church. I was heavily involved in my youth group when I was a teenager. I even played on the work with the community, et cetera. And it was around the time where what was happening with the Catholic Church was really big. And then there were other subsequent things. It started to stop making sense to me. Like overall Christianity or religion as a whole preaches, love one another, be kind to each other. But when we are presented with someone who is different from us and or leads a lifestyle that is different from us, like people in the LGBT community, all of a sudden some religious people get like, oh, no, that's sinful. We hate them. And you hear no stories of a baker in Colorado not making cakes for weddings for the LGBTQ community. And like, why are we making a big deal? They're people, right? And we're not here to judge anybody. That's not our rule. We're just here to... We all want the same thing. And so I wouldn't necessarily say I think the proper way is I don't like religion because it makes room for weaponization of other people that aren't in the same group. Oh, yeah. I completely agree with you. I mean, I don't think it's an objective fact that religion has done great things for society and has done awful, awful things. A lot of the atrocities throughout the years have been fueled by religion. So there's interesting because there's this category. I don't know if it's growing or not, where people are calling themselves spiritual, but not religious. And I have friends that are chaplains. And I guess even in hospitals and stuff now, it'll ask you what religion you are. And people are saying spiritual, but not religious. And that's kind of what I'm hearing from you. It's kind of like I do believe there's a higher order to things. I do believe the universe sent me this. I do believe the universe is teaching me things. But I reject that. You know, what those people are saying that we should judge other people. So, yeah, I think it's a growing sentiment. Yeah, and I think that's my beef with, it really is with religion. It's so used as a divisive factor rather than... Why don't we take the overall general principles of each religion of being kind to one another and not lying, not stealing. And why don't we just all get along through that commonality. I don't care if you're a Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, whatever the heck you are. I don't care. Just be kind to one another. And like, but yeah, the whole religion thing makes me make me a little... Yeah, I agree with you. I was raised as a fundamentalist Christian in the Pentecostal church, very extreme in a lot of ways. And I've walked away from that. But I still am a big believer that we're all the same, that we all come from the same source, that the universe is here to teach us things and being open to that. But also, I love your approach. It's like, well, I'm going to be realistic. It's not like life is a cakewalk. And when I'm working with people, I have to be very careful, because I don't want to ever... It's called spiritual bypassing, to say, okay, well, don't worry. This thing that happened to you is really great. And you're going to become a better person for it. So just be, you know, it's going to be all sunshine and roses. It's a hard road that we have to travel sometimes. And that's the road that you're on, the road that you're expressing and you're learning and you're teaching others as you go through it. Yeah, I had a nice conversation once with my friend Jade. Jade is this fantastic. And I wish I could point Americans to her, but she's French. I speak French. So we were chatting one day and she asked me a question. Like, when I was going through this, I was in the thick of it. Like, she asked me what my lighthouse was. And I'm like, what? Like, what do you mean? Like, lighthouse thing. And like, what's one thing that you want to use as your guiding principle as you go through this journey? And it took me a long time to come up with an answer. Like, family. Family, I want family to be my, but what if something happens and they're all gone tomorrow? So I ended up finally settling on peace. I want that. And everything I do is aspiring to that. Like, how can I... Like, what does peace mean to me? And how can I work every day to get that peace on a daily basis? So it's... And one of those things is analyzing things as they happen. Like, is this something I'm going to worry about in my deathbed? Yes or no? And if it's not something I'm going to worry about, then it's like, I'm not going to let it go. Like, so, yeah. Yeah, but I love chatting with her because she always challenges me to think a little bit differently outside the box. And that's also been helpful. Yeah, that sounds very helpful. It sounds like you've learned a lot there. So for us, if we know someone that's neurodivergent and they're going through grief, what would you like for a neurotypical person to know? I think the first thing is approach it with a little bit of empathy and looking at things from their worldview. It's a little hard to do, but rather than... So I just had this conversation with a friend of mine not too long ago who has enough to stick with others. Like, rather than asking questions and being... In trying to be supportive, we try to fix things and ask a lot of questions. And that can be very overwhelming for someone on the spectrum because oftentimes we don't know because we're struggling with the emotional part of it or just even the processing side of things. So I know someone like my sister wants to be helpful. Just be present, show up with no agenda. Just be present, hang out. Like, do something, go on a walk. But in doing so and being present, allow your neurodivergent family member or friend to open up slowly in that room by just being present rather than forcing the subject every time you get together because we don't know. And by allowing us to just process it and open up, we will come around and we will talk about it. But yeah, just be present. Be in the moment. I have to tell you, that advice is more universal than I think you know, Chris. But it's the same thing with neurotypical people. We get so dysregulated when we're in grief and we don't know. We don't know what we want. We don't know what we need. We've got all these emotions swirling around. We've got emotions. You've got anger. You've got guilt. You got anger. You don't even know who to direct it to. Do I direct it to the person who left me? The person who died? Do I direct it to the doctor? Do I direct it to myself? Which I call guilt. That's anger turned inward. So it's the same thing with neurotypical people. It's like we want to fix it for people. We want to wrap it up, get it behind us. And I love your advice. Sit with them. Just be with them. Go for a walk and let them let people open up as it comes to them. Because I think that's one thing that we do have in common when this hits us is we become dysregulated. This is a word that I'm coming across more and more as I'm studying grief and how it affects our minds and even our bodies. I was talking with a client just the other day and she's like, I can't eat. I can't sleep. I don't like being in the place where we share this space and you just become off. And when you don't sleep, then we become even more dysregulated. So I think that's something, hopefully, I love what you said about empathy. Try to empathize with people who, again, have maybe even more difficulty processing emotions than we do even in the best of circumstances. Yeah, and I would also say lower your expectation. And what I mean by that is, you don't know how long it's going to take for that person. Like, you could be someone that a year and boom, it's done, or months and it's done, right? That could be the case for someone neurodiverse too. But it could also mean it takes them two or three years. So lower your expectation on the time frame and don't say things like six months out from now, you should be over this by now. And you should have had closure on this subject already. And you don't know what closure means to somebody or how long it's going to take. So lower the temperature and just let them write it out. Let them get their own pace. Yeah, I think that's wonderful advice. So we talked earlier about when you got your diagnosis. Do you find it helpful that you got the diagnosis? Or would you rather not have had the diagnosis? And I guess maybe it's a mixed thing. So how do you feel about, now you have this label? If you would have asked me this a year ago, I would have said mixed. I would have said, it's nice that everything I struggled with finally has a name, but the bad side of it happened. Now, I'll stick to this answer of everything I've dealt with finally has a name and I know what to address. Because what happened, the aftermath of getting the diagnosis really isn't my problem. It was their problem, right? And I don't know why the diagnosis made a difference in their mind that I was worthless. Because if I hadn't had a diagnosis, things would have been status quo. Like I still had the house and I still would have been. But now it's more of I'm thankful I have it because I'm learning more about what it means to be neurodivergent and how my mind works. And finally being able to self-advocate for myself in the sense of like, if you're finding me socially awkward right now, let me know because I'm not going to read you or if something I say makes you uncomfortable or angry, let me know. Because 99% of the time, I'm not trying to make you angry and I may not know that you're angry. So you could say, hey, Chris, you said this this way and this is how I took it. And it really made me angry. Did you mean it this way? And then I can clarify and say like, no, this is what I meant. And then it's like, oh, okay. So it's given me a chance to self-advocate and meet people where they're at but have also people meet me where I'm at too. And so overall, I'm really thankful I got the diagnosis. Good. I'm glad to hear that. You know, it's interesting. I said it's crazy. I just met this woman on Substack a few weeks ago and she writes about being ADHD and autistic and very high functioning person though. And as I'm reading her stuff, I'm like, I can relate to a lot of it. Just like loud noises, super bright lights bother me being in a room where everybody's talking at the same time. I'm like, yeah, me too. Me too. And I remember when I was a kid and they would call me like sensitive and stuff and I was an introvert and I read a book I was probably in my 30s called The Introvert Advantage. And it talked about all the great things about introverts and how we're better, more sensitive people. And we've actually been a lot of a lot of leaders of introverts and stuff like that. And I've read that book and I'm like, okay, I'm finally comfortable being an introvert, you know, and I'm not trying to be an extrovert. And when I hear about people on the spectrum, you know, we think about the what we call deficiencies, but we don't a lot of times talk about the capabilities that people have, like the ability to really concentrate on things. You know, a lot of times, you know, gifted at math there's a show called The Good Doctor, which I think portrayed autism pretty well because they showed the difficulties he had, but also the great abilities it had. So this is a lesson, I think, for all of us to look at people as individuals, you know, and if you don't understand something, ask questions. Yeah, I love that show, by the way. Yeah, I love that show. I'm so sad that they canceled it, but, yeah, like asking questions and I think that would be a good thing to do with someone who's neurodiverse too, because like you may never know when they're uncomfortable and sometimes they may be reacting to something in the environment that's making them uncomfortable. Like for me, I hate bright lights. You know, I like the warm light and sometimes if I'm in under fluorescent lighting, or noises, like they're just gonna make me sound weird, but I'll preface it with I love kids. Kids are great. I don't have any because I have a lot of sensory issues around them, like the pitch of their voice. They can't help it because it's just a pitch of their voice makes me so uncomfortable and cringe. I can't be around that for a long time and I get very nippy because I'm having a hard time. But I'll play with them, I'll make them laugh and then I'll have to go away for a little while, like settle down and then I'll come back and play with them. So, yeah. I understand that the sound of babies crying drives me up the wall, even in a movie. I'm like, would you stop that baby? And my wife's like, what's wrong with you? I'm like, it just drives me nuts. I don't like white lights. Like I hate fluorescent lighting. My wife will walk in the room even now, she'll turn the lights. I'm like, I can see why are you turning the lights on? So I can relate to a lot of what you're saying. I'm not claiming to be autistic, but I can relate to what you're talking about. There's certain things that other people filter out or other people don't hear or don't even notice that people that are artistic do. My daughter, my daughter who passed away, again, not in my sense, she's autistic, but had real sensory issues like certain clothes. She would say it hurts, like the seams on the inside of socks. She couldn't stand those touching your toes. Or some stitching on T-shirts like make it so itchy that I can only get cotton stuff. Yeah, I can empathize with your daughter a lot. So yeah, and I guess my point is, like you said, if we understand everybody's got issues and we have certain things that bother us and understand it like for an autistic person on the spectrum, that might be just turned up like a lot of notches. So yeah, I think it's great that we're starting to get more awareness of this and I'm really glad if you haven't heard the telepathy tapes, check out that podcast because I think it's got a long way to help people understand some of the, it's like the more quote deficits people have in one area, the more ability they have in another area. Yeah, and for the enhancements are so different. Like for me, I speak like five languages is one thing for me. Numbers and music is where my strengths lie but ask me to understand why someone's angry and something like, I don't know, what's wrong with that? Yeah, so yeah, or ask me to be around a bathroom that has a blow dryer running or the hand dryer. No, I can't tolerate that. Yeah, yeah, like I said, I can relate. So I'm really glad we had this conversation today and I'm really glad that you wrote this book from the perspective that you had. I think it's much needed to help people understand the different types of grief to not sugarcoat it not say, you know, this is it's going to be over in six months or whatever. I think there's very much needed. So thanks for doing that. Thanks for being here today. So Chris, remind people of the name of your book and if people can reach out to you, how they can reach out to you. Yeah, so the name of my book is called Now That I'm Still Here, a Memoir Run in Resurrection. You can buy it anywhere books are sold or on my website, chriscarazzas.com and you can find me on Substack too. I use that more than I use Facebook or instantly. I have no idea how to use Instagram. Yeah, me either. Yeah, but my Substack is ccarazzas.substack.com. I think that's the way they do the links now. Yeah, so you can like send me a message there or send me a message on Facebook Christopher Carazzas. Yeah, and you'll know it's me because I'm a picture of my German Shepherd on there. Okay, all right, cool. Well, I'm definitely gonna right after we get off here, I'm going to follow you on Substack. Great, great to meet you today. Thanks for being here and enjoy the rest of your Saturday. Thanks you too, my friend. All right.