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Many people who have autism are diagnosed at a young age. But today’s guest, Grace, wasn’t diagnosed with autism until she was 27 years old. In the months since the diagnosis, Grace has spent a lot of time reflecting on her childhood and young adulthood to understand why this wasn’t caught sooner — and in the process, she’s come to better understand herself and who she’s always been.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

I’m Nora McInerny, and this is “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.” In one of our March 2021 episodes, we talked with a woman named Cynthia about her experiences as an adult living with autism. Many people with autism are diagnosed at a young age. (According to the CDC, the average age of diagnosis is about 4.5 years old). Cynthia was one of those kids, diagnosed when she was a toddler. Today’s guest, Grace, is also autistic – that’s the language she prefers, so it’s what we’re using! And Grace reached out to us after hearing that episode last spring. Because unlike Cynthia, Grace wasn’t diagnosed with autism until she was 27 years old. It wasn’t a doctor or some other medical professional who opened Grace’s eyes to the idea that she might be autistic; it was a TV show. Nora McInerny: Was “Atypical” in your Netflix recommendations? How did you end up watching it, and when did you start to identify with that main character? Grace Keller: I think it was in my recommendations, just because I don’t remember really how I came across it. But I think it was from like, the very first episode, the moment that you find out that Sam is really into science, and especially Antarctica and penguins, like … I really related on that. And then I also noticed how the socially awkward aspects that you see in Sam, I also relate to that. And so I just, as I watched the series continue on, I just became more comfortable with, like, relating to this character. I just, I watch it, and I’m sitting there being like, “I get how he feels! Like, I understand that!” Or like I’ll watch it and I’ll be like, “That’s me! That’s me!” I think there’s this one scene where his sister is about to start school at a new school, and so he goes and buys a pack of pencils to be supportive and stuff because, you know, you need pencils for school. And I think an average person would see them be like, “Oh, well, that’s not really a big deal,” but I’m that kind of person where when I know somebody needs something like, I want to be supportive, and I’ll be supportive in the weirdest ways.
Grace knew from a young age that she was different from her five older siblings. At best, she often felt like she just … couldn’t connect with her family members. At worst, she felt ostracized by them.
Grace Keller: I always joke with people that by the time I was born, my parents just kind of gave up on being parents. They were like, “Yeah, she’s fed, she’s not dead, we’re good.” Because I’ve always felt like my mom especially has a really good relationship with my siblings, but my relationship with her has always just been kind of tense and awkward. My family in general, they’re very social with each other. So they’ll get together for family dinner and get together to play cards and stuff like that. And they would always wonder why I preferred to just hang out in my bedroom. And they’d always complain, “Grace, you never want to hang out with us. You never want to socialize with us.” But then on the flip side of it, it’s like, every time I do go to hang out with you guys, somebody feels the need to crack a joke that I found particularly upsetting. Or, I have one brother who, his show of affection was to punch me in the arm, which everyone else seemed to be fine with if he did it to them. But for me, it was like, it didn’t feel good. And they didn’t understand why he felt the need to do that, and I even remember asking one time, like, “Hey, don’t do that,” and everyone’s just like, “Oh, well, that’s just what he does. It’s just what brothers do.” And it’s like, that makes me feel not OK. If somebody doesn’t like being touched or punched in the arm or something, can we just please respect that? And I never feel like I got the respect from my family. Because again, my mom never saw the issue with the teasing. And sometimes, like, she would make jokes that would make me uncomfortable also. And so it felt like there was not really anyone in my family who kind of got where I was coming from, and saw that like, “Hey, maybe we don’t need to do this. Maybe we don’t need to make jokes like that.” My mom and my sister love watching “Gilmore Girls.” Like they had all the DVD collections, everything. Like, it was, it was intense. And so anyone that I know of who has seen “Gilmore Girls,” when I’m explaining my relationship with my mom, I’ll tell them that, you know, my mom and my sister are like Lorelai and Rory. They get along really well. They’re like best friends. And then me and my mom are like Lorelai and her mother, Emily. Like, it’s just, it’s not good. I just always accepted that I was the weird kid. Grace has spent a lot of time over the past several months reflecting on her childhood … and on why she thinks it took so long for her to get a diagnosis.
Grace Keller: I grew up in a fairly conservative family where it’s like, if your kid isn’t dying or there’s not a state-mandated vaccine you need for school, then you just don’t take them to the doctor. And I feel like the issues that I’ve always had that made me seem strange or weird were very quiet, you know? It wasn’t like I was throwing stuff across the classroom or yelling at people. It was … a lot of it was very quiet and more internalized. So it just didn’t cause a lot of issues that made other people think, “Oh, something needs to be looked at.” And then on top of that, the fact that I am a woman, and the fact that I grew up in the ’90s, when autism diagnoses were less prevalent than they are now, that also, I think, contributed to it just going unnoticed. In elementary school, I was in academic competition and enrichment courses. And then throughout school, I was ahead a year in math and ahead a year in science. And so even though later on in high school, I did start to struggle with certain courses, again it never really presented itself as enough of an issue for someone on the outside to think, you know, “Is there something going on with Grace that might need to be addressed?” I developed this tic in third grade where I would just get the really intense urge in my head that I had to shake my head. And it just, it felt like a pressure building up, and the only way to release it would be to shake my head. And I remember my mom telling me, you know, “Grace, if you need to get the hair out of your eyes, just use your hands.” And I was like, “It’s not the hair in my eyes. There’s something in my head!” Which I think freaked out my parents, because if your kid tells them there’s something in their head, that’d be pretty weird. And that was enough for them to get me in to see a neurologist in Seattle. And so we went to Seattle. I had this appointment. I feel like I basically just took a roadside sobriety test for a third grader, ya know? Where they had me walk a straight line. They had me, like, follow his pen with my eyes, do all that stuff. And he’s like, “Yeah, no, she just has a tic. She’s fine.” Nora McInerny: “She’s not drunk. We checked.” Grace Keller: Nope. And it definitely didn’t help that many of the things Grace loved and enjoyed were banned in her home when she was growing up.
Grace Keller: A lot of things like Harry Potter, Pokémon, stuff like that was not OK. I got the vibe that, you know, if you read Harry Potter, you’re going to hell — that kind of thing. Which I think was big in Christian families in the ’90s and early 2000s. And in junior high, I just finally reached a point where I’m like, “You know what? Screw it. I’m gonna check the books out from the library. I’m gonna sneak them home.” So I ended up reading most of the Harry Potter series under my blanket in the middle of the night with a flashlight. And like, I would hear my heartbeat and think it was footsteps. And I would like, turn out my flashlight and listen really close. I’d be like, “OK, no, nobody’s coming.” And I’d go back to reading. I feel like this is a very appropriate way to read Harry Potter, given the kind of relationship he had with his aunt and uncle in the series. Just, it seemed very appropriate. Yeah, anything that was anime or even in the style of anime, they didn’t like, they thought it was bad. And so I wasn’t allowed to watch “Avatar: The Last Airbender” when I was a kid, because they thought that was evil also. And I find it incredibly ironic, because coming from a Christian family, I think I’ve actually drawn one of the best parallels to the way that Christians understand the relationship between God and humans from “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” I’m just sitting here like, “If you guys would give this a frickin chance, you would realize it’s not evil. Like it’s … there’s actually stuff to be learned from this.” Friendships were hard for Grace, too.
Grace Keller: I remember I would make friends okay, but then after like a year or two years, especially if they moved away, that was one thing, but even if they stayed in the same school district, in the same classroom, like, I feel like my friendships just kind of broke down and just kind of fizzled out, and I didn’t really understand how come the people that I knew in elementary school, I wasn’t very close to in high school? Even though we’re still in the same school? And I still don’t understand. Because I feel like I have friendships now where it’s, like, things are starting to fizzle a little, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if there’s something that I did that led to this or if this is just how friendships are. We’ll be right back.
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When Grace is in her 20s, she starts living with roommates, and she figures out there are things that really, really bother her. But they’re also things that would probably bother most people, like … don’t let the recycling bin overflow with cans so it topples over and makes a giant mess. Ahem. Note to our son.
But Grace just assumes she’s being a jerk about it. Grace Keller: I just kind of hit a point, like, why am I constantly getting stuck on these things? Like, I’m not trying to be a jerk about things. And so between that and I guess watching “Atypical,” it was kind of like, OK, am I just being an asshole to my roommates or like, is there something going on here that’s keeping me from being able to just let it go? I started seeing a therapist, because I was having such issues with my roommates, and I was like, “OK, I need to get this figured out, because I’m obviously not doing a good job of not being a jerk to you guys.” So I started seeing a therapist, and I felt safe enough with her that I was able to mention, like, “Hey, I’m wondering if I might be on the spectrum.” And she was very quick to validate that, that she recognized things that were like, “Yeah, that does make sense, with your behaviors that I’ve noticed so far.” And so it then turned into trying to figure out do I want to be diagnosed? Like,, would there be a reason for me to find value in that? And then if I did want to get diagnosed, we then had to figure out which doctor would be able to diagnose me. And it turns out in the same city that I went to college in, there’s a psychologist that does autism diagnoses. And so that was something that we looked into. And at the time that we first looked into it, the referral fell through. I was on state insurance at the time and the doctor wasn’t willing to work with that because they wanted all this extra paperwork and… Nora McInerny: Love America. It’s one of the greatest places. Grace Keller: Yep, it’s fantastic.
Nora McInerny: It’s great. Ugh.
Grace Keller: So I just sat on this idea of “I might be autistic, I might not,” until I was able to finally get insurance through my employer after college and actually be seen by this doctor. If you’ve ever wondered what the testing process is like when you’re an adult being evaluated for autism, it’s … honestly very interesting! And thorough. And very, very long. Grace Keller: For the testing, there was the initial intake appointment where it’s just like, get to know the doctor, be like, “These are the issues that I’m seeing and what we’re considering.” And then I had to set aside time for a five-hour sit-down test with this psychologist. And it had so many different components. There were components that measured my, like, intelligence and ability to do things, like quantitative reasoning, memory, reading comprehension kind of things. And then there were sections of the test where he would show, like, an image and be like, “What’s going on in this image?” And I had to come up with the story of what’s happening. And he’d asked me, you know, “How do you think this person in the image feels?” And I’d have to explain why I thought they felt that way, which was not my favorite part of the test. And then just, there are a lot of like, puzzle-based tests and mathematically-based tests, which I did find those to be quite fun.
When Grace finally gets her results, they come in the form of a lengthy document explaining that yes, she has autism. Grace Keller: He would go on to write a report about how I answered every question, how I did with the intelligence-based part of the test and what his formal diagnosis and recommendations were. And it came out to be this 26-page packet of “Why Grace Is Autistic.”
Nora McInerny: A 26-page packet?!
Grace Keller: Yeah. I joke to myself it’s a page for every year of my life that I went undiagnosed. It was kind of a relief, because the entire time that I was kind of sitting on the whole “maybe I am autistic, maybe I’m not,” I felt like, well, maybe I think I am because I’m just projecting what I know about autism onto myself. But to have somebody who’s, like, actually certified to tell if somebody is autistic or not be like, “Yeah, you know, she is,” it’s kind of like that whole, “I’m not crazy, like I’m not just making this up. It’s not just in my head. I’m not just doing this for attention.” Because I have a history of people in my family calling me a hypochondriac. And so with the autism thing, as I was starting to wonder about that, I was like, “Well, am I doing this for attention or because it would be convenient compared to just being an asshole?” And it’s really assuring to be like, no, you are actually autistic. The things that stress you out stress you out for valid reasons. Nora McInerny: It’s almost like proof of something that you already knew. Like, you knew your brain was different and this is like a doctor being like, “Yep!” Grace Keller: Yes. Now it’s certified different! Nora McInerny: And I got the report to prove it.
Grace Keller: It makes me laugh. Every time I bring up the report, it reminds me in “Big Bang Theory” where Sheldon’s like, “I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested!” I always have that feeling like, “I am crazy. I have a report to prove it!” The first person Grace tells about her diagnosis isn’t her mom, or one of her siblings. Not her roommates or her colleagues. Grace Keller: It was actually my former microbiology professor from the university I went to, because that university, since it’s in the same town as the office where I was diagnosed, you know, I was there anyway. And I thought, “I might as well go by the college, see if there are people that I know there.” And she happened to be there working in her lab. And this was at the height of COVID. And so like, I had my mask on, she had her mask on, we’re, like, standing, like, nine feet apart, and we’re just, like, making small talk and catching up on the last six months. And there kind of was a lull in the conversation and I just was standing there, still holding my report, because I didn’t want to leave that in my car. I’m just holding on to my report. And I’m just like, “Oh, yeah, I got diagnosed as autistic.” And she just looked at me, is like, “Oh! Well. What really is there that you can do about that?” And I’m like, “It just helps me to understand myself better.” Nora McInerny: Yeah, it’s so interesting, it’s like, “What can you do about it,” because we want to like, we want everything to have a cure. Grace Keller: Yeah. I think as a society it’s like, what’s the point of being diagnosed with something if you then can’t do anything about it? And I really wish the perspective would shift to, “It’s OK to be diagnosed with something to understand yourself better,” because it’s not necessarily that there’s something wrong. It doesn’t necessarily need to be cured. It just helps you understand why you’ve always been that weird person. Nora McInerny: Yeah. I had an ADHD diagnosis in my 30s, but I also had a doctor who was like, “But you’re fine, because like, look, you’ve written three books and you have a podcast. Like, how hard can it be?” and offered me, like, literally no coping mechanisms or medication or anything and truly was like, “Yeah, but it can’t be that bad.” And I feel like having a doctor, who did the report, by the way, like who gave me all this information, I felt like, “Oh, now I have more compassion for myself and the things that I hated myself for.” Grace Keller: Yeah. I think I got that, too, when I got my autism diagnosis. Because one of the things I’ve always had an issue with is when I get really stressed, I’ll cry. And it’s, it’s ugly crying. It’s like everything that can make a fluid on my face just starts making fluid and it just pours out. And I’ve had to leave a college program because of that. I have been scared that I will lose a job because of that. I feel like people look down on me and are kind of demeaning if I am like that in public, because it’s like, “Well, she can’t keep your shit together, she’s crying like a baby, so we’re going to treat her like a baby.” And it wasn’t until I read an article that mentioned how people with autism, one of the ways it kind of comes out is when they do get stressed, they get really emotional and sometimes can start crying really badly, and so it’s just more of just understanding that that’s just a normal part of how my body works. And they may need to make some concessions and some space for it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m immature or I’m not capable. We’ll be back.
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Receiving that autism diagnosis has helped Grace understand herself. Has helped her realize that she’s not a bad roommate, or a bad coworker, or a bad friend. It’s allowed her to see herself for exactly the way she is. And it’s allowed Grace to see herself more clearly during moments when she isn’t feeling so great — moments when she would’ve previously shamed herself for having such a strong reaction.
Grace Keller: It validated the panic attack I had in a Costco one time. I don’t do well when there’s a lot of people around and there’s a lot of noise, which, Costco is just this condensed bundle of a million people making a lot of noise all the time, like from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. — like, all the time. And so every time I’ve been in a Costco, I would be in the store for maybe 30 seconds, and I’d suddenly feel just really dizzy and lightheaded, and whoever I went with, it just boiled down to I would just make sure I could see the back of them so that I didn’t, like, wander off and get lost somewhere. And then by the time I would get out, I would be so exhausted by the end that I just would not do well for the rest of the day. So I will never have a Costco membership, because I will never willingly go in, unless you bribe me with a hot dog. That’s the only thing from Costco that I am cool with is the one dollar and 50 cent hotdog and soda. I used to have just one of those small single serve blenders, but I feel like it was designed really poorly because the blade of the blender was in the bottom of the cup. And I do quite like smoothies. It’s one of the few ways that I actually manage to eat fruit. So I’m like, “OK, I need to invest in a nice solid blender that can do exactly everything I want.” So I got online and I did all my research. I’m like, “OK, I want the blade to be in the lid so it’s easier to clean. I want the cup to preferably be larger and I want it to come with multiple cups that I can just buy and also could buy extra cups.” So I narrowed it down to the exact blender I wanted and I’m like, “OK, this blender is at Wal-Mart. It’s in this aisle. I’m going to go there after work some day and pick it up.” And so I go to Wal-Mart one day, and I’m standing in the blender aisle, and it’s not there. There’s like the little, the little tag that says the blender brand on it and like, it should be right here and there is nothing. And I walked up and down the aisle like 10 times. I searched behind boxes. I double checked that there were no other blender aisles. Like, this is the only aisle that I have to search. And I looked on every shelf, checked every box and like, my blender is not here. It said it would be here. And it’s not. The one time I want unfettered capitalism to work in my favor, it doesn’t work. And I just eventually got to the point where I’m standing in the middle of the blender aisle in Wal-Mart and like, I don’t know what to do now because they don’t have my blender. I had already had this all figured out. And now what do I do? And it maybe took me a solid 30 minutes to realize, “Grace, there’s another store in town where you can get this blender. Go check that store.” But for some reason, when my mind had made the plan of, “OK, I’m going to go check Wal-Mart, see if they have this blender,” that was the only thing my mind had. And it didn’t allow for that flexibility of, “Well, maybe there’s a different story you could look at, or maybe you could order online,” because no, I wanted the blender right then. And it’s not just blenders, or the stress that naturally comes with making a big purchase. This kind of fixation happens a lot to Grace. Grace Keller: There’s a specific brand and flavor of breakfast burrito. And I can’t do any other flavor, even if it’s the same brand. And this is the same flavor that tends to be sold out the most at my grocery store. Nora McInerny: Goddamn it. Grace Keller: So then it’s like, well, I guess I’m just not getting breakfast burritos. Meeting new people in a way that allows her to feel connected to them can still be hard for Grace. Like even doing this interview, for example. Grace Keller: So for this interview, I knew intellectually that you guys are not mean. You’re very nice people. You’re humans who have had really crappy days and really good days. And so there shouldn’t be any tension. There shouldn’t be any nerves, because you’re all very nice. But that’s completely separate from the emotional aspect of, “I am freaking terrified, because I appreciate these people and the work that they do, and I really don’t want to make an idiot out of myself in front of them.” And so it’s just trying to hold both of those in my mind of, “Yeah, I feel terrified, even though I know I shouldn’t be. So let’s just see how this goes.” I think in a room full of people I’ve never met before, in person, there’s a different aspect to it, because I think I get more conscientious of like, how I’m holding myself, or the fact that I can’t really stay plugged into one conversation, and so I tend to end up bouncing around from one conversation to the next. It’s like if there are three conversations going on, I’m like, holding all of them in my head at the same time. And I never get engaged enough in the conversation to just really stick with that one. And so it feels a little more anxiety-inducing, and I think a little more isolating, that I feel like I can’t really plug in to any one group of people or anything, because my attention is kind of split between everything in that room. Even conversations with her family are tough.
Grace Keller: I have a really hard time receiving constructive criticism, even when I know it’s true, and it’s not intended to be hurtful. I think it goes back to that whole stress aspect, where when somebody mentions something in a critical way — for example, if I haven’t got my oil changed in a year and my dad mentions like, “Your car is not going to run if you don’t have oil in your engine” — and I’m like, “I know that. But the way you’re mentioning this to me makes me feel shitty, and it doesn’t motivate me to actually go and get my oil changed or go and get more oil for my car.” And then it just becomes this really bad feedback loop, where it’s like every time I see my dad, he’s like, “Did you check the oil in your car?” And it’s like, “No, dad, I haven’t,” and he’s like, “Well, you need to check it!” And then that just pushes me further away from getting to that point of being like, OK, I can check the oil in my car. Because it’s just stressful. I tend to get meltdowns when I get incredibly stressed or when there’s a lot of change that I wasn’t anticipating. And it starts out with like, a low level amount of stress, like maybe one thing didn’t quite go the way I was expecting. And then my stress picks up again when the next thing doesn’t go quite as I was expecting. And as I get more stressed, I get closer and closer to that point of ugly crying and my face just liquefies. And I also hit a point where I feel like there’s a disconnect between my brain and any ability for me to communicate. I can think things, but once I hit a certain point, I can’t really talk. And like I even, I won’t write or text either. I just … I can’t do it. And so I’m limited to just yes or no questions because I can shake my head or nod my head. But then as I’m continuing to be so stressed to the point where, like, I emotionally can’t contain myself, it’s like everything that’s going on around me is just pouring into that. So every noise, every person that walks by, all of that is just pouring into it. And so a lot of times, I feel like I just need to get out of that situation. I need to get someplace where it’s quiet and where, like, my emotions can just kind of run their course until I get back to a point where I can start communicating again. Something that comes up a lot when talking about autism and other developmental or cognitive differences is “accomodations” — making changes in an environment to help people like Grace feel more comfortable. Accommodations are especially important at school, and they’re a big deal at work, because adults spend SO MUCH TIME at their jobs. Grace receives her diagnosis six months after she starts her first adult job, and we are happy to report that her boss … is wonderful. Which is honestly what everyone deserves.
Grace Keller: I’m fortunate enough to have a supervisor who understands that work is not the only important aspect of life. And so she does really well in affording me the flexibility to say, “Hey. I’m having an issue. I need to take a break.” Even if I can’t say this verbally. Like, I have the flexibility at work to step out and take a break if I’m getting overwhelmed. And she’s been really good at just reassuring me that I am doing a good job, because I think one of the things I struggle with a lot at work is feeling like I’m not doing good enough or feeling like being prone to having meltdowns makes me a prime candidate for being terminated from my position. So she’s been really good reminding me that I’m doing a good job. And also, when she does need to offer criticism, she does it in a way that I feel is a softer blow than I think most people do. So even though she has to address something with me that I need to improve on, it’s always with the understanding that it’s not personal. It’s … she’s wanting to help make sure that I can do my job well. Accommodations look different for everyone, but in Grace’s case, it just means … being given space when she needs it, so she can center herself, come back and do the job (a job she’s very, very good at). Accommodations also mean being allowed to wear earmuffs while she works to block out excess noise. They’re just little things that make a big difference in Grace’s world.
Grace Keller: There was one specific time I had a meltdown, or was getting close to a meltdown at work, and I told my supervisor that I was going to eat my lunch in my car, because that’s, you know, I’m by myself. Things are more quiet. And I listened to the radio while I ate my lunch. And that helped me to just keep things from escalating to the point of a meltdown. But when I’m in the middle of a meltdown, I feel like nothing helps except just letting it kind of ride itself out. When Grace reached out to us, she hadn’t yet told her parents about her autism diagnosis, because she worried they would blame vaccines or ask her if she’d prayed about it or say something else that would offend her. Grace Keller: And I didn’t know if I was going to tell my parents at the time that I first contacted you guys. Which I think is a pretty telling thing, that I’m willing to talk to thousands upon thousands of strangers about this before I am willing to tell my own parents. I think it’s very explanatory of the kind of relationship I have with my parents, especially in regards to things like my health and my mental health. I have a family who is not very accepting of a lot of the conventional medical knowledge right now, and doesn’t have a lot of trust in most doctors. And so I was expecting a lot of pushback of saying, “Oh, no, you’re not actually autistic,” or maybe even jokes, stuff like that, just because my parents aren’t the kind of people that prioritize seeking medical intervention, or seeking the advice of a health care professional for things.
At some point between reaching out to us and sitting down with us for this interview, Grace decides to share the news with her parents. Grace Keller: I told my dad first. And it was actually the same night that he was going to a poker game. And so I told him, you know, “Dad, I’m autistic,” and he’s like, “You mean like Rain Man? Should I start taking you to my poker games?” And I’m just like, no, no, Dad, not like Rain Man. And it just, it felt like he kind of brushed it off.
Nora McInerny: Rain Man reference! Didn’t even know that was coming, but there we go. That’s what it’s like in our culture, right?
Grace Keller: Yeah. Where the idea of someone being autistic is either a 5-year-old boy screaming on the subway, or a 40-year-old man who can run an entire computer program in his head.
Grace tells her mom about the diagnosis a week before we first chat with her.
Grace Keller: I told her over a phone conversation. And we were talking about something else. We’re talking about, like, the Netflix password or something, she had forgotten it and wanted to know if I knew it. And conversations with my mom always tend to be awkward, and so it just kind of hit this quiet point in the phone call. And I decided to ask her, you know, “Hey. Did Dad tell you anything about me lately?” And she’s like, “No. Why? Is something going on?” And I told her that I had had some testing done last winter and turns out I’m autistic. And she’s like, “Oh yeah, he told me that.” Like, first off, thanks, Dad! Thanks.
Nora McInerny: Yeah. Hate when people tell stories that are not theirs to tell. I hate that.
Grace Keller: Yeah. And then her response was, “Well, that’s just who you are.” I’m like … it was nice to not get the backlash, but again, I just felt like it was being brushed off.
Nora McInerny: Yeah, this is like a big thing to you, and she’s like, “Yeah, yeah, no, I heard. I heard. I heard. I heard.” Like, how did that, how did that feel?
Grace Keller: Maybe just a little deflating. I mean, she got more upset when the Pier 1 in our town closed. Like, she got more impassioned about that than she did about finding out her daughter has autism. I kind of realized a while ago that I feel like my brain operates like a computer. There’s the hardware stuff, which is like, the brain cells and the gray matter and all that jazz. And then there’s the software, which is kind of the process that my brain goes through when it’s trying to do something. And so I’ll have a task, and I already know exactly how I’m going to execute that task. It’s like I have a piece of code written saying, you know, “Do this and do this. And if this happens then do that, and if this is present, do that.” So, like my drive for work, it’s: get out of my neighborhood, take a left. If I’m not picking up breakfast on the way, then I take the next right. I go all the way down and take a left and then go all the way down. And my job is in between the train tracks. If I am picking up breakfast on the way, then there’s a different piece of code that runs for that, for how to get to work. If I have to avoid school zones, there’s a different piece of code in my brain that runs for that commute. But then if there’s something that I haven’t already anticipated — like, if there’s major construction that I didn’t think about — my brain will still operate on the piece of code that was running. And so I might just be stuck waiting to get through this construction zone, rather than having, you know, dipped out a block early to go around it. Or if there’s something I didn’t anticipate that’s bigger than that, and the code in my brain can’t handle it, then it’s like my computer just crashes, and it’s like my brain just crashes, and it’s that blue screen of death. And I physically have to stop and take the time to kind of think of all the variables and write a new piece of code before I can start doing things again. Because I have to have that code, or I just won’t be able to do anything.
Nora McInerny: Having this report, knowing that this is a part of who you are, how do you feel about yourself as you are now? And in adulthood, as you are now, and your future, and future relationships?
Grace Keller: I think I feel more assured of myself, in kind of knowing that if I’m in a situation where, you know, something’s too loud, or my routine that I had in place got interrupted, I am confident enough to be like, “Hey. This is causing me some problems. I either need to take a break, or we need to figure out, you know, how to adjust my routine if this is going to keep happening.”
Nora McInerny: What are your hopes for this episode and the people who hear it?
Grace Keller: I think my biggest hope is I just want there to be the voice of another autistic person out there. Because I feel like in the history of society’s understanding of autism, a lot of the dialog has been led by people who are not on the spectrum. They’re either parents of children who are autistic, or they’re involved in a nonprofit. But they themselves don’t know what it’s like to experience being autistic. And I just kind of want to get to a point where we as a society can normalize autism and not necessarily see it as something that needs to be cured, because it’s not something that needs to be cured. It’s just a way that people’s framework that isn’t quite in line with the way our society is right now, I feel. And I think that we as a society would do better if we could just understand a little more about what it’s like to be autistic. And just be more accepting of when someone’s like, “Hey, I need to do this a different way,” or, “Hey, I need to keep this routine in place,” just being accepting of making these adjustments.
This has been “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.” I’m Nora McInerny. Our team is Marcel Malkebu, Jeyca Maldonado-Medina, Jordan Turgeon and, often, Megan Palmer. Our executive producer is beth pearlman. Executives in charge are Lily Kim, Alex Shaffert, Joanne Griffith. We’re a production of APM studios. I make these episodes in my closet. I’m also an author. You can Google and buy any of my books or not buy any of my books. I am one hell of a salesman. Salesperson. Saleswoman. And yeah! Okay, well, that’s we got, bye!
Grace Keller: Also, before we continue, I … I just saw a moth on my wall, and it’s really bugging me, so I’m gonna go catch it.
Nora McInerny: Go get it. Go get it. Let it outside. You get it?
Grace Keller: I did. He’s going to go on my insect collection later. Nora McInerny: My brother collects months. We actually had a giant one in our pool. Holy crap, like it’s the size of a hummingbird. Grace Keller: Yeah, I have one that large in my collection. Nora McInerny: It had a beautiful blue face. It was crazy beautiful. We kept it in a cup for a while. A little too long. I was like we gotta, we gotta … I was like, “Can we mail this to my brother?” And my husband’s like, “I’m not mailing a moth.” I was like, OK, well, I guess we’ll just look at it. Okay. I just thought I would ask. Sorry. Sorry, everybody. OK, so we were just talking about, like …”