Talking Twaddle with Allison Davies

Joanne: Welcome to Allison Davies on Better Being Me’s podcast.  I am so super excited to be introducing this lovely beautiful human into my podcast world, because we’ve had connections along the way.  From having a yellow ladybug panel back…only this year.  It felt like a lifetime ago, back this year. 

I’ve done her The Magic and Medicine of Music course, which is inspirational and motivational and why I sing a lot more now.  I also met her in person so happily, when she first arrived to Adelaide for the first visit.  She was supporting Maggie Dent in how to support anxious children.  And it was so nice to touch and feel in person.

Allison: My favorite thing. Oh, sorry, I just interrupted your intro, but I had to say the coolest thing about seeing you on that day at the conference was when Maggie’s person Carmen said, okay just go over there and I’ll scan you and they were talking about just scanning the ticket in.  And you were like what, like hang on people are getting scanned?  And it’s so funny how like – spot the autistic people, because can you just go over there to be scanned means basically, like what happens in an airport.  That’s what happened in my mind.

Joanne: Yeah.  Oh my God.  That was really, I remember.  I remember my whole face dropped.

Allison: Yeah.

Joanne: And I turned to you and we like held on to each other’s hands, and then you’ve gone, do you have a ticket? I’m like, okay I’ve got 

Allison: It is just so funny being autistic and not understanding something, and then getting it and you’re like, oh my God.  This that was a hilarious experience. Imagine not being that way and not not getting those funny moments 

Joanne: and Maggie Dent’s Lady, I’m pretty sure she just stood there and stared at us for a while.

Allison: She did.  She didn’t understand that we didn’t understand. When we got it she was like ha what?  So she had a hilarious moment too after that.

Joanne: But yeah it has been like a little joining of Kindred Spirits, I feel, you coming into my life. So I’m very happy. I’m very welcoming to blah blah blah welcome Allison. 

Allison: Oh, thanks for having me.  That’s one of my favorite welcomes.  Um that was really lovely.  I am stoked to be here.  Thank you.

Joanne: I can see your eyes darting around my background. It is rather busy, but we’ve got some knitting machine wool over here. Some threads and stuff.  I collect. I collect. I collect dead people’s haberdashery.

Allison: Me too, from the op shops?

Joanne: And estate sales and stuff, yeah.

Allison: Oh I’ve never been to an estate sale, but I go and get um dead people’s crochet hooks and knitting needles even though I don’t knit. 

Joanne: Yes.

Allison: So I have got this thing where for me crocheting is like it’s in English and knitting is like it’s in Chinese. 

Joanne: Yeah 

Allison: And crochet just happens so easy, it makes sense.  But knitting?  No, it’s like I cannot remember that that thing round the hole and down the thing, like the rhyme there’s a rhyme that goes with that.  I don’t remember it.  I don’t know what to do with a knitting needle. But I collect them.

Joanne: Yeah, I have many dead people’s stuff.

Allison: But I only buy second hand stuff really. So basically my whole house is just filled with dead people’s things. This actually brings us nicely into what we’re about to talk about.

Joanne: I love the Segway.  Naturally flowing but yes, so yeah, let’s talk about death for a bit, your grandma died over the weekend?

Allison: So my grandma died on Wednesday, um so one week ago right now I was on my way to see her. My mum called me to say that she just died and no one was in town. And so I live an hour away, so, and thankfully the kids were at school. So I didn’t have to take them, which felt really lucky.  And so I just went over and she was in a nursing home.  She was 97.  She was very old.  She was very ready to die.  And it was a very lovely gentle, I mean I don’t know if it’s gentle I don’t know what happens, but from all accounts the staff came in and gave her some lunch and 15 minutes later came back and she’d died.  So I’m picturing it as gentle.  I’m picturing it as close her eyes, and then just gently…also it’s Beltane right now, so in my mind because I follow the seasons.  I think oh the veil is thin between the human realm and the after world…the other world…

Joanne: The beyond.

Allison: Yeah. Um and I also, the thing I love in my mind about when I picture Grandma dying.  Is that she’d just had, she said she’d like some lunch. So they brought her some lunch. And then she died straight up just after right. So in my mind, I don’t, part of me wants to ask what the last supper was. But if I found out it would, because I am picturing champagne and strawberries and lobster. Like I am picturing her having her la…just a sip of champagne and a strawberry and then closing her eyes. And Leaving.  You know? 

Joanne: A beautiful death banquet.

Allison: But I can’t, I know if I ask them and they’re like, oh she just had a bit of stewed pairs or a sandwich. I’d be like no. No don’t, you ruined my my beautiful thing that I had going. So yeah, grandma died a week ago. It was her funeral. On Monday, which was when we were meant to chat and you graciously pushed it back to today. And I think what I wanted what are we going to talk? Like? Oh you ask the next question. What happened? That’s what happened.

Joanne: So my question around death is, I find it really. Like I really do struggle to understand my reaction to it. Um and the fact that it is like an emote the emotional reaction I struggle to understand, because logically I understand death. And as you said your grandma was 87 and and ready to go. But there is always an emotional response. And it tends to hit me, like I tend to get a delayed response. Funerals full masking the lead-up full masking. Lots of smiles and waves and giggles at stupid stories kind of thing. And then…and then the grief is like a month later for me. How is, how how, how many deaths have you gone through? I haven’t gone through, I’ve gone through two big ones.

Allison: I haven’t had many. So Grandma was my third big one. So my um grandfather, her husband, died 20 years ago. And then one of my very best friends died two years ago. Um, this was a different situation though because she had Huntington’s disease which is a degenerative disease. It’s a horrible cruel thing. She’d been in a nursing home as well for probably almost 10, or was she’d been in and out of care and then permanently in the in a dementia unit for many many years. And by, by the time she died, there was no, there was no she couldn’t eat or move or talk or anything. There was just a light in her eyes like when I’d come in. There’d be a spark in her eyes, but she was very injured and she’d fall. She she’d have her body would. She’d fall. She’d fall out of bed and things so she was it was like it was a relief. It was a real relief when she died. So I told myself that that’s why I didn’t feel really sad. 

And I don’t feel sad that grandma died because she was ready and she was 97 and what else happens when you at that age like this is this is what life is it feels like it’s the graduation or something. Like finally she’s made it. I don’t know it feels um, it feels just yeah, I don’t know the thing that confuses. I’m a bit the same as you I don’t feel sad that they’re gone. I do I do feel that I sometimes feel tender and aware of the beauty of life and the the fragileness of life. Or the, how life can just change, one minute she’s alive and the next minute she’s not And that to me makes me feel emotional and alive and tender and sentimental. And I don’t get sentimental over things. But you know when I went there after grandma died, I went and sat with her for an hour before anyone else arrived. And it felt, I cried, and I didn’t feel sad, but it felt, I did feel tender and it felt like we were experiencing one of those moments in life that doesn’t happen very often like, you know a birth or a death, but it’s a Powerful kind of thing. 

So I think I felt wrapped up in the realness of the moment. And I also felt, it felt so great like for that hour that I sat with her there was no such thing as thinking about the bills, no such thing about school pickup, like nothing else was happening in my life. I was just completely present. And that doesn’t happen often for me. So it felt really bloody beautiful.

Joanne: Yeah, it’s amazing how how how peaceful it is when you get pulled into those kind of moments, isn’t it? And it’s not something you can always manufacture yourself, but that that moment you really had no other choice rather than to be there, right? 

Allison: Yeah. The thing is, the thing that gets me after someone dies is that I never miss people. And this is also the same with like broken relationships that have ended that I’ve been in. I’ve never, and friends, like when friends move overseas or friends move interstate. I always tell them I’m probably never going to call you or text you ever. And I will think of you and when you’re in front of my face, I will love it like crazy, but I’m just I just don’t do long distance relationships. But the truth of it I think is that for me. It’s it’s an out of sight out of mind thing that I imagine is part of the ADHD or or Autism. I don’t know, I get all those things mixed up what it goes with what. Who knows? 

Joanne: Yeah, yeah what bit goes with what’s debatable. And I I can completely agree with you.

Allison: Yeah! It’s so nice not to miss people. I feel like it’s a form of, like it’s presence. Like I’m not I’m not thinking about someone I’m not relying on someone. I’m not pining over someone. It feels nice to go that was that, that was beautiful and now that’s moved into a different way of being, and now we’re here. Or now, they were here, and now they’re not and it just

Joanne: Yeah, yes, and it is hard to explain to someone that perhaps doesn’t have those same mentalities. Like you I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like I need to put on a show about how sad I am about something, so that I blend. But yeah, if I will love you as hard and as fast as I possibly can when you’re in front of me, and if you’re not in front of me, that love doesn’t go away. It’s just that I have nowhere to express it.

Allison: Yeah, exactly. I feel the same. The thing that I struggle, the big part of me, is the performance in all of this. Is me just nodding and smiling when people say things that do not make sense like – “Oh, he went too soon…” Too soon? What was meant to happen? Like? 

Joanne: Is there a time list that I didn’t get here? 

Allison: Yeah, or um, you know, “I just I just I just turn around and imagine she’s going to walk through that door.” Just something like what? Do you actually? I mean you don’t

Joanne: like the Zombie version or like 1950s version. 

Allison: There’s a lot of cliché-ish things that people say when someone dies like, “oh, she lived a good life.” I’m like what does that, because I can’t accept anything. I won’t agree with any well, I do do a lot of people pleasing, so I I do tend to agree with things that I don’t believe in all the time. But if someone says “she had a good life” in my mind. I’m like, what are you actually saying? Like, yes, she’s a good person. Are you saying she had an easy life? Saying that she had like, I just going to overdrive of like what’s the actual sentiment here? Because when it comes to real talk, I can’t I can’t, like I need to unpack it. 

Joanne: Yeah,

Allison: It’s not real talk it’s small talk. So okay. This is small talk. Alright, I’ll just say yes. Smile and wave.

Joanne: I think one of my things that I’ve had to let go of because it causes pain in other people, is when the person who has died to turns miraculously into a saint.

Allison: yes.

Joanne: like no, like I’m I miss this person and blah I’m like, well, that’s not the person I met who did you meet because the person I met was a bit of an a****** actually and I’m not real sad that that bit of them is gone. But I’ve had to let that go because nobody really likes to remember somebody…

Allison: as an a******

Joanne: It’s like oh, yeah, basically 

Allison: people even if they had like the worst relationship, and they were never friends, or they were on again off again, or they were enemies or whatever. They’d be like “he was a good man, he was a really good man.” And there’s no space there for, It’s almost like it’s disrespectful of the dead to remember that your actual relationship with them.

Joanne: Yeah. Yeah, and I’ve stopped having I’ve stopped reminding people because it’s not appreciated but it is something that I needed to work through for myself to though – well, let them grieve how they need to grieve. And if it is enshrining somebody in characteristics that they didn’t have when they’re alive, then okay so be it. Like I’m trying not to correct somebody on how they’re grieving.

Allison: Yeah. Totally, because I’m all I am all for everybody grieving in the way they need to and very very aware of that and I would never judge someone else. It’s just my own experience of it. It’s in my own head. I’m like Well, why do you say things like that? And and one thing I do sometimes feel confused about or maybe a bit shameful about even which even though I deeply accept my neurodivergence and the way I think and who I am. I sometimes do wonder if this absence of real feelings is a problem? Like it’s not that I have. It’s not that I have an absence of real feelings. I think I just have a different version of feelings that don’t always feel like feelings.

Joanne: I 100% agree with you because it’s not that I don’t have feelings. But what triggers those feelings or what enacts like enacts the experience of feelings is different. To, you know, the knee jerk reaction of I’m meant to be feeling something now, but I’m I’m not so maybe I’ll just smile and wave. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I get it wrong. I think, I think in that regard, because you experience things in so many different capacities, like your music that brings up real feelings for you. And like your synesthesia has spoken about previously where numbers are colors and so that is to me that is an emotion, that is a feeling. And while you may not be experiencing a feeling in the prescribed manner that has been taught to us from fairy tale to you know, romance stories, etc, etc. I think embracing all of who you are is, that is you’re feeling process. Like, that passion that you feel around music that the synesthesia that you have. All of those are embracing feelings and it’s just the trigger of how we have those feelings is different for us I think.

Allison: yeah, that is so true. And I and it’s like what you said about the prescribed feelings that we see all around us in like in stories and and movies. From from the moment where old enough to, you know, think about stuff we’re like being force fed these ideas of what love looks like etc. I said to my husband once I don’t actually know if I love you because I don’t know what it feels like. But all I know for sure is that I have the feeling of feeling in control or not in control and that informs every other feeling I’m having. 

Joanne: Yeah. 

Allison: And so my husband and our relationship and our marriage creates a way for me to really feel like I am in control. And I don’t know if that’s love, I mean I’m not saying I’m using him because he helps me feel in control. I’m not, like I feel so, the moment I met him I was like, oh I’ve been waiting for you. It was an instant. It was like just boom there you are. And the same from him. 

Joanne: Yeah 

Allison: and he and yes, so it’s definitely a very real thing, but I can’t work out what the actual…Because it’s it’s not like in the movies that feeling you’re meant to have, I don’t feel that feeling. I just feel in control or out of control and when I feel – when we’re together and he supports me to create an environment in which I feel in control, I just feel such gratitude and what I would call love.

Joanne: Mmm close enough.

Allison: Close enough.

Joanne: I think there…like nobody has ever explained or described love to me either. And it is such a…it seems to be such a pinnacle path that we are meant to be traipsing along. Like our journey in life is to be part of the family and feel loved and then become independent and find other people that love us and then expand our community by creating a family that love us. Like this is meant to be love love love love love. But, nobody said well actually it’s when your nose tingles and your little lip twitches. But I I know the boom, like I know the boom. I remember looking at my partner, and he was dressed as the town drunk for Halloween. And I looked at him and I remember the snap in my head. Like I remember the snap going “oh, he’s it” I’m like “okay.” So if there’s ever another snap that goes no he’s not it anymore then I guess I know 

Allison: Yeah.

Joanne: But I’ve just gone…all right…so that’s, that’s the snap.

Allison: What I wonder if this comes from an evolutionary survival mode, like the snap the boom, yes, you’re it. I just knew I needed this man in my life and all that’s specifically I feel to have a family with and to have children. And I don’t know if I could have, you know, I’ve had lots of amazing ex-boyfriends in my life who I thought I would stay with or have children with…not all of them… But Yeah, I now that I know what parenting is like and what I need and who I am. There’s no way it would have worked for me with anyone else and you know what? I’m going off track. I don’t know the track is. However, I have had wonderful partners in the past but they have emotional needs and I’m not there for that. Like I can’t be someone who can hold space for my partner’s emotional needs. Like, I can do it with friends…

Joanne: Yeah.

Allison: But not my partner. I mean I I can do it. I can hold space my husband’s emotional needs because they’re very minimal.

Joanne: You and me both, you and me both.

Allison: They’re not complex.

Joanne: I remember…so we’re gonna go backwards. We’re gonna go from Death to love and maybe into birth later on but… My partner Brad he is the same like he would be the typical stoic like if we had a definition of stoic then that is him. Like he… But more than that he responds to my needs. Like he sees my needs before I see my needs which is probably beneficial for our family. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need to be acting out something before I realize hey – I’m angry, or I’m frustrated, or I’m happy, or I’m I’m getting a little bit too excited right now and I need to bring it down again. Like it’s the behavior that informs me rather than a feeling in my body.

Allison: Yeah, I’m like that would sensory overwhelm. Like Leighton will say I think you need a hot bath, or I think you need to do this, go put your headphones on and listen to a podcast or… And I’m like, oh, yeah, of course. I’m I’m deeply overwhelmed right now. You know, and it’s not until sometimes he points those things out, but it’s almost always sensory related for me. And I don’t realise why I’m struggling, or why I’m unable to do the things, or why I’m just like on the kitchen floor in tears. And then I’m like, “I can’t cope with the world, I can’t live in this house, I just can’t even look anywhere because I feel like I’m just sticky.” He’s like like, okay just go and listen to a podcast.  Oh, that’s that’s all…

Joanne: It’s amazing, isn’t it?! Well maybe that’s the boom. Maybe that’s the snap. That’s the world saying this person is the one who gets…that’s gonna fill in the gaps for you. 

Allison: Yeah, you know what and the other thing about him is that when I realised I was autistic, I was 36. And I woke up during the night, I’d had a dream and in the dream I realised I was autistic. And I woke up with a boom, another boom, like woah what? Like like actually in the movies like I actually sat up. 

Joanne: Yeah. 

Allison: Like they do in the movies. And then I was like, oh my gosh I’m autistic. And then I laid back down and I spent the whole rest of the night just going over my whole life and everything made sense. And my biggest fear was that in the morning when I wake up, when Leighton wakes up and I tell him about this, he won’t believe it. Or he’ll be hesitant or he’ll…

Joanne: Yeah.

Allison: Even the slightest like mmm would have..I would have like hated it.

Joanne: Mmm.

Allison: But from the moment I told him he was like, oh whoa! Like he was just…he believed it, he was happy, he was excited. Like he didn’t question it once…even though he didn’t know anything. I don’t think he didn’t question it because he he understood, because he knows a lot about autism. Because he didn’t. And he just didn’t question it. 

Joanne: No.

Allison: Without even really understanding it. He fully believed me. 

Joanne: Yeah, like the person you need, right?

Allison: That’s that’s like that’s what dreams are made of. That’s positive gaslighting. Whatever that opposite of gaslighting is. It’s just been completely believed.

Joanne: Yeah. Yeah, and that is love like that is unconditional love, isn’t it? so maybe yes, you do love and understand what love is. It’s just that it’s not the warm fuzzy feeling that we see growing in movies, you know. Because I’m I’m always very weird about well the heart’s not actually feeling anything. What feeling is this space here for me like my head. That’s where, that’s where all the action is. And if it gets to my heart and my heart aches and something seriously is gone wrong, like it…

Allison: Yeah.

Joanne: it’s only happened once…that I remember. But it’s amazing how these kind of moments pull us into the present. Isn’t it? Like 

Allison: yeah 

Joanne: those boom moments.

Allison: totally Yeah, and and I guess whatever I feel. We’re the only ones talking about this. I mean, there’s probably probably who knows how many people at my grandma’s funeral yesterday are confused about their feelings as well and wondering why I’m not feeling this or why should we feeling this? Maybe everyone thinks that?

Joanne: maybe…

Allison: and maybe they just don’t talk about it. I don’t know if there’s a normal way of feeling and then everyone else is feeling something…a variation of it and wonder like what’s…what‘s

Joanne: That hurts my head…

Allison: Maybe, maybe the movies and the stories came up with this thing that this is how you meant to feel and maybe no one actually feels it. And everyone at the funeral is having their own emotional experience just because they’re humans.  But not necessarily sadness, or loss, or grief.

Joanne: I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to do, I don’t know what to do with that…I think you could be true. I went to, um…

Allison: There’s no way of finding that out. I’m not going to interview everyone.

Joanne: Interview everyone on their exit – now how were you feeling that? 

Allison: Yeah. And we we all know that they’re just gonna say the right thing anyway. 

Joanne: Yeah. Liars! I went to Brian Cox’s. I can’t even remember what it’s called now. It’s like the universe. At the beginning of the universe. Anyway, it was an awesome thing where we got to see the photos of the Hubble. Of like the galaxy and that just blows my mind because that’s…the the wedth, like the breadth of space, I cannot even comprehend. And you’ve just done the same thing to my mind. Like it cannot…you can’t comprehend how big space is. And then how small we are in comparison? But the the comforting thing was well, we’re all insignificant and that was okay because then I don’t have to worry about anybody else’s s***. I just need to worry about my s***.

And maybe that’s going to be the same as at the funeral…is if they’re all, if I’m going to be worried about everybody else’s feelings then maybe that’s too much for me. But if I’m what…I’ll just focus on me. 

Allison: Yeah. And all our feelings emotions are just quite literally energy in motion. So all of it just…all of us are just humans having a human experience. But the emotions, because we’re all in like a church together, the emotions move through one, are they gonna move through the next. And we’re all going to be experiencing this collective emotional response. And so I think that’s why we all cry and that’s why we all like, regardless of how I cognitively feel, I’m having a collective group emotional experience.

Joanne: Oh, yeah.

Allison: And that’s kind of beautiful.  I mean, yeah, that’s, even one-on-one with someone else who’s upset, you know, we we take on that.

Joanne: Hmmm yeah.

Allison: Feel it.

Joanne: And it’s very confusing. Not knowing that that’s what’s happening is really confusing. I remember being at my uncle’s funeral, and I hadn’t met him for years and years and years. And my dad was behind me, and he is not a man that cries, but I could just feel his sadness. And I’m a crier, so it doesn’t take much for me to just SOB, like openly. And it wasn’t because I was sad that this person had passed, because I…like, nothing in my life was changed. But like the sob that came out of me…it really just it was like an oppressive urge to get something out. Does that make sense?

Allison: Yeah. I talk a lot as well. You would have heard me talk about inducing tears. 

Joanne: Oh, yeah.

Allison: Inducing emotions. And I think because we we often, there’ll be something in our life that happens that does impact our life all the time, just small things. And we just don’t cry about them because it’s just like, you know something that’s random that’s happening in the moment, that we wouldn’t cry about but it has impacted us. And we have those things happening all the time. And if we don’t release emotion regularly, then it will come out at a time like at a funeral, because a funeral is just a big intu…induced tear-fest, basically. And so I reckon that the people at the funeral are not just crying for grandma or your uncle, they’re crying because they’re in an emotional place, a community of people who are all teary, so everyone’s having this teary experience.  But I reckon they’re crying about the things that have happened in their day, and their week, and their year, that are just still pent up inside. 

Joanne: Yeah, yeah.

Allison: They don’t have to be thinking about those things, but the pent up emotion from all those things is inside waiting to get outside. And you go to a funeral and it’s acceptable to cry, and people around you are crying, and all of a sudden you find yourself crying and… You’re just releasing, all sorts of things.

Joanne: Yeah. Yeah.

Allison: It’s healthy um…we should just go to funerals every day.

Joanne: I was gonna say, like just drop into random funerals and have a like a little cry, and then hugs. ‘Cos hugs are all around and I love hugs. I’m a big hugger. So lots of hugging and then you get to cry a little bit more. 

Allison: Yeah 

Joanne: Maybe that could be a new therapy like, you know, like funeral therapy.

Allison: That ah, it’s, there’s something in that like I don’t think it’s actually appropriate. However, it would be really efficient, effective.

Joanne: Yes, like a little weekly funeral drop-by.

Allison: Yeah. We should like create a new business.

Joanne: Well, maybe maybe it would be more appropriate if like they were like a lonely person who passed away and had nobody come to the funeral.

Allison: Yeah, I would go then.

Joanne: like a rent a crowd.

Allison: And I would actually cry for their loneliness as well, like for real.

Joanne: Yeah.

Allison: Because I…even if I’m not having the feeling myself, I can cry for the humaneness of other people and their experiences, even when I don’t get it. Even if they say things like “oh, he he had a great life” or whatever. I mean, I understand what that means in its basicness. But then I feel annoyed that the other person has said something basic, you know, and like I’ll unpack it. But then I can go into understanding their humaneness and I can feel that for them. 

Joanne: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when my Nana passed away. We’d made, I walked into her house, because I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. And I walked into their house once and she was sorting out her drawers. Like a paperwork and stuff. And I said, what are you doing? It’s a beautiful day. You could be doing anything else. She goes. I’m just a little bit worried that when I die that and they’re not going to be all sorted. I’m like, well don’t you worry about that! I’m on it. That is what I will do when you pass away. I will sort out your stuff. Because I love doing it anyway, so it wasn’t a problem. But I um, when she did pass away, the first thing I got home was I started to unpack her drawers. But mum wasn’t quite ready for me to be doing that. And I forgot that, I forgot that Mum exists and that you know, her mother has just passed away. And so she kind of went Er Joanne? What do you think you’re doing? And I’m like, I’m fulfilling my promise that I gave to Nana that I would sort out her drawers. And she didn’t have to worry about it and I assumed from that moment on that she never worried about her drawers because that was my responsibility.

Allison: Yeah.

Joanne: Not. You just forget other people sometimes.

Allison: I I definitely…I think it’s definitely a case of forgetting that other people exist, rather than discarding other people’s feelings. But I think other people see it as you haven’t considered my feelings. But I just forget, I genuinely forget if someone isn’t in front of me, I really do forget they exist. Even my own kids like Leighton has to tell me that it’s time for school pick up because it won’t occur to me. Like in those hours when I’m not, when they’re not there, I genuinely don’t, my mind just doesn’t go to them. Like I don’t, there’s no perception of that reality. 

Joanne: Yeah.

Allison: And as much as it can make, sometimes I I feel a bit that, I think I used to feel a bit of Shame around that as well, like that and the not feeling feelings the way I think I should feel them, made me think maybe I’m like a cold mother. But, I’m not. But it’s it’s really there’s a lot of good as well that comes from just being an out of sight out of mind person, because I can be just be like I’m here in this conversation with you now, and I don’t even know what else is going on in the world and it’s just… Or else I can be daydreaming, and this is my my biggest reality, I’ll just be in my head the kids will be talking to me, I won’t hear. I don’t even know they’re there. I’m just in my daydream in my head and I’m having a scenario in my head. And that’s my whole reality. And it’s not very practical but it’s bloody nice.

Joanne: Yeah it yeah, not very practical. I do have an alarm to tell me when school pickup is so that helps me bring it back down. And there is that danger of living too much in the imaginary, right? So, I don’t know about you, but I’ve I’ve kind of… I love efficiency and I love effectiveness. Beautiful things. And what I don’t like is, having to be anywhere on time for time, because it’s frustrating and it builds up a stress. But having to…having to be motivated by what is happening is easier to live with, than knowing that this alarm means I need to do this one thing. And it’s like straddling the two worlds. Like I know the world will continue, and to be on time for an appointment then all of this needs to happen. But I am so happy in my imagination. And it sounds like Leighton’s your alarm, would that be right?

Allison: Yeah, because if I had an alarm I’d actually smash it. 

Joanne: Yeah. 

Allison: I just, alarms are like my nemesis and remind…like I don’t talk to Siri, or anything, like… Also, I I think I’m a bit old-fashioned. I… there’s a lot of technologies that I just refuse to embrace. Like my parents at their house have this gate that opens automatically when you call it…

Joanne: When you call it?!

Allison: It’s got a phone number. You’ve got to call, wait. This is what happens…the gate…there’s a phone number for the gate. And you ring the phone number and the gate opens. And so this is like some kind of, you know, modern technology. 

Joanne: Yeah, 

Allison: Fine…fine. But I’m not putting that gate’s phone number in my phone. Like I hands down refuse to save gate in my mobile. So Leighton has gate saved in his mobile. And everyone else will call gate to open it.  But I did not asked for that kind of technology in my life. I did not ask to be part of a world that calls gate, by a phone, like…everything about it, I I just refused to be part of that kind of technology. 

Joanne: Yeah.

Allison: So, I will park on the road…

Joanne: Instead of having to like…

Allison: Which is not a big deal, but everyone thinks it’s…everyone’s like, oh Ali won’t call the gate. I’m like, no like what do you think? Who are we that it’s normal to call the gate? So there are things like…even alarm clocks, like so the gate is a very kind of… 

Joanne: That’s pretty high tech, yeah.

Allison: High tech version of this scenario, but the…no, no alarm for me. No, I did not ask to be part of a world…It’s even with text messaging. 

Joanne: Yeah. 

Allison: I did not, I did not consent to this. 

Joanne: Mmm. 

Allison: I just didn’t consent to having a text sent to me that I then have to reply to. You text me, but I’m probably not going to even read it. It’s it’s non-consensual technology. And I feel I’m like what we used to…I remember we used to laugh at Grandma and Pa like back in the day. Grandma bought a microwave. This must have been the 80s maybe, grandma bought a microwave and Pa was like anti like no way it tastes different. I’m not eating anything that comes out of the microwave. He only wanted it cooked in the oven, right? So Grandma started just tricking him and pretending she was cooking in the oven, but she was doing it in the microwave and he had no idea didn’t taste different or he didn’t notice. But we were laughing about how cynical old people are with new technology. And so maybe I’m that person. But I also don’t eat it out of a microwave, so… 

Joanne: Yeah, because it does taste funny!

Allison: And I’m…I yeah, maybe maybe I’m just that person who refuses to go there, but I just feel that um…that’s that’s just a weird part of the world that I can’t get involved in. Like text messaging, even messenger threads, you know, the family message threads and stuff…aw… So like you write something…someone else will write something and everyone will comment on it and then you write something and all you get is a love heart emoji, and I’m like…why is mine…? 

Joanne: What’s wrong with my stuff?!

Allison: Yeah like that…that was a cop-out. I don’t understand how to communicate on here. But I feel like you just copped out by giving me a love heart emoji instead of like actually responding. So I just can’t be part of this place. 

Joanne: So you’re just nope-ing out of there. I am…I love tech technology and I love all the gadgets and all the bits and pieces. But calling a gate might be like…I might just sit there with my phone one day and open and close the gate. They’re like, who’s this number you keep on calling? Oh, that’s the gate.  It’s just like…I don’t know how much time you spend on farms, but having to call a gate, that would have been so much quicker than getting in and out of a damn truck… 

Allison: Definitely. But you got to call it, and then you gotta wait for…it actually answers.

Joanne: What does it say?!

Allison: Oh I wish I had my husband’s phone right here now and I could call it and see what would happen.  Um, but I don’t know.

Joanne: Can I call it?  Will it open?!

Allison: I don’t know the number. So, if you call…when you call it, it’s…you gotta wait for the ring like in the end it would be easier to jump out of the car open the gate drive through close the gate jump back in and off you go. That would be quicker I think. Because you have to like…you have to get your phone out, then you have to scroll through to G and find gate, and then ring it, you gotta wait for it to ring, it rings like once and then I think it just goes to a recorded message saying opening, or something. But then it’s a slow open. It doesn’t just whip open. It’s like a slow moving <gate opening sound>

Joanne: Could you imagine if you could record the message though. We had…

Allison: Yeah.

Joanne: We had a card that my Grandpa recorded his voice into, like it was a Valentine’s Day card for Nana. And like after he passed away, about ten years later, I opened it up. I heard his voice and just crumbled into tears. Wouldn’t that be awesome if we could have Nana opening the gate? Be like, “oh hi Ali! I’m just opening the gate now.”

Allison: Oh, I would love that.

Joanne: Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Allison: If that was the case, I’d call it.

Joanne: Yeah, that’s right. Otherwise opening.

Allison: Yeah, just this um, I get a bit like…I don’t know what it is. I think the more tech there is, the more I fear that I will experience sensory overwhelm. For every new tech that I encounter, it’s just a step closer to something that feels very sensory difficult sensory-ly  difficult for me. Even though that gate in itself probably isn’t a sensory problem for me, but it’s an indicator of things that are changing that make…that yes, they’re meant to happen to make your life easier. But technology for me has ultimately led to lots of sensory… My sensory difficulties are really like one of my biggest struggles in life. 

Joanne: Hmm mmm.

Allison: And so I think maybe from an evolutionary point of view, newness and changes in the way that systems work and stuff. My brain’s like hang on, what what’s gonna happen next? 

Joanne: Yeah, because it is it is like a step further away from the end result like from… Farm to table kind of thing as soon as you start introducing technology, you getting further and further removed from the process. 

Allison: Yeah.

Joanne: Like you said calling the gate, although I mean, I would have got s**** and giggles out of it for hours. But it is just an experience of getting out of the truck opening the gate and then just hanging around and then closing the gate and uh closing the blah blah blah. But like there is a removal from the actual thing that we’re doing.

Allison: Yeah.

Joanne: And same with like using the microwave for cooking, I…my son eats pies like 24/7 mainly, and we cook them in the microwave. But the food that comes off the oven tastes better. Like, it just does and it’s almost like that technology is…and I know you love…the the most simplest process as possible. Like very mother earthy, is your vibe, kind of thing. So the more technology you’re introducing the further and further away you’re getting from that process. Maybe that’s something about it. 

Allison: Yeah, I think that’s definitely something to do with it as well. And also technology means that things don’t happen in the moment then they’re gone. Unless you’re on Snapchat, I guess and things disappear in 24 hours. However, you know, like if someone texts you… Like back in the day, if someone called you and you weren’t there, oh they missed you, fine.

Joanne: Yeah.

Allison: It’s done, that experiences over. Now, if someone texts you it’s this…there’s still an expectation on you to reply. And I don’t have the capacity to function in the world, on getting all the things done. I get a bare minimum done. You know, I really don’t…I really don’t even get food or meals done or like, you know, I have floordrobes. My my floor is my wardrobe and all the kids rooms and everywhere. That’s just…I just, everything I just drop everything on the floor. There’s no…and I don’t like that because that’s a sensory problem for me too. But I just can’t get s*** done. And so I can’t…this…it…adding text messages, or anything extra in the mix, where it’s still there waiting for you. Even if I’m like, right, I’m gonna ignore it today whilst I just try and cope with life. It’s still there tomorrow…this thing this experience never ends because there’s an expectation on me to be part of it. Non-consensually, I should reinforce. And so it just feels very like not something I can be part of in which…  

Joanne: Would you like the quill and the homing pigeon back, or are we…?

Allison: I want the quick quotes quill so it just writes down, you know the quick quotes quill from Harry Potter? My kids my kids…Harry Potter is a special interest in our house, of my kids. So therefore my husband and I know everything about it. They have a quick quotes quill which just writes quotes on her behalf, and she doesn’t have to do anything.

Joanne: Hahaha.

Allison: The quill just writes the quotes, just writes them, bit like an auto-replyer. 

Joanne: Yeah. Oh, I had I turned on auto reply to I think on one of my Instagram things and I assumed it just sent the first auto reply the first time they contacted me. But every conversation that my friends had they’d get this auto reply and I was just every second conversation with this auto reply. I’m like no, no, no, that’s that’s no, no, no. That’s not right! Bring it back down.

Allison: I I have an auto reply on my DMs or or at least on my Messenger on Facebook. That’s where most of my people are. But then if I get an auto reply from someone else I’m like, oh how rude. Or not how rude, but just like oh how annoying. I’m just gonna delete that message because I just don’t want it there. And I do it to other people. Ah, so weird.

Joanne: Expectations. Yeah, I think there is a big balance between the expectations of what we create for other people and what we expect. There’s always a big divergence between the two. And and that’s where our angst, and by where “our” I mean like the neurodivergent people. That balance between our expectations of ourselves and of others. The bigger the gap, the more stress we might find.

Allison: Yeah. Totally. I still feel very much like I’m allowed to do things and it’s acceptable and and necessary when I do do them, but if someone else does the same thing it’s unacceptable. And I still…I recognize that that doesn’t make sense, that is cognitive dissonance, but I don’t even care.

Joanne: Yeah. Haha, beautiful. 

Allison: If someone doesn’t take me back, I’ll be annoyed.

Joanne: You timing them? Like, how come…what were you doing for that long, that you didn’t get back to me?

Allison: But I’d never text people, but I do text people when I need something in that moment. 

Joanne: Oh right, yeah.

Allison: Like, I won’t text you about…oh what it…what what about coffee next week? Like, no. However, if I need something in that moment like desp, like, oh, can you tell me such and such’s number or something that has to happen right then. 

Joanne: Can you call the gate? 

Allison: Oh, wait, why don’t they have their hand on their phone? Like, why isn’t happening in me-time? 

Joanne: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s a big conversation to have isn’t it the me-time and the world time. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve had that conversation with a lot of my clients actually. It’s a thing. Now, I did want to know when we talked on the Yellow Ladybug panel, we talked about washing machines and the washing. Did you get a front loader washing machine or a top load of washing machine?

Allison: We’ve got a front loader washing machine. Which one’s better? Front loader?

Joanne: Front loader! Because you can leave that in there longer without it starting to smell.

Allison: Oh.

Joanne: Because it’s waterlogged.

Allison: Oh, is that why?

Joanne: Yeah.

Allison: Oh, that’s good news. Well, that’s what we have.

Joanne: Yay!

Allison: But it’s mostly my husband who does the washing, because he he remembers. 

Joanne: To take it out.

Allison: Well , yeah, I mean he remembers to do it as well. Like I forget to do it and forget to take it out and forget to hang it out and forget to bring it in. 

Joanne: Yeah. 

Joanne: The one thing I will do is fold it. I will fold it up and put it in piles, but then I won’t put the piles away. And the…then the piles get trashed and all that end up on the floor. And that’s where the floordrobe…why the floordrobe exists. But I do do the folding, because I’ll put like a podcast on, or I’ll put like an episode of something on my desktop, and then I’m just folding. It’s very relaxing actually folding the clothes.

Joanne: I love folding the clothes. Yes.

Allison: Yeah, but I do it in a way…I often will do it on the couch. And then leave the piles there, and then I get angry at the kids for coming in barreling onto the couch, and knocking all my piles over, that took me two hours.

Joanne: Yeah, how dare you use the furniture how it is meant to?!

Allison: Yeah. 

Joanne: It is currently holding our laundry!

Allison: Yes.

Joanne: Yes, 

Allison: Um and then it just doesn’t occur to me to put it away, like that…that is also a non-consensual part of the process. I just wanted to fold it.

Joanne: Somebody else can finish it off. Yeah I’m good at the middle bit, and not so great at the start, and not so great at the ending, but the middle process I’m it, I am it and a bit. 

Allison: Then both my kids are also ADHDers, so we don’t…they don’t finish things or put things away either. And so…we’re just…I remind myself that this is our culture, and it’s okay. But I do sometimes feel sad about, um having to like wade through any rooms, you have to wade through piles of stuff.

Joanne: I think that’s where my sensory starts is…if my environment is cluttered then I get frustrated. But also I’m in charge of that clutter, so… 

Allison: Me too. And it’s just a…it’s a dreadful cycle of like not…being overwhelmed from the clutter, but but then consequently not being able to do anything about it because you’re in overwhelm. And that’s why I find myself so often just on the floor just going I can’t live in this house. I I like I can’t even open my eyes. And that’s when my husband’s like, okay, let’s do something and he cleans and…

Joanne: Beautiful.

Allison: We covered a lot of good topics today. 

Joanne: We have. I feel like it’s kind of come to a natural conclusion, which is nice because I’m pretty bad at finishing stuff.

Allison: Oh, me too. I hate saying goodbye. Anytime I do a video, I’m like, okay bye!

Joanne: Bye! Bye!

Allison: But I’m not like…some people do on a full outro. 

Joanne: Oh yeah.

Allison: Like, they actually have a spiel.

Joanne: What’s your Spiel? Do you have a spiel?

Allison: Well, I don’t have one. I’m terrible. I just always go. Okay. Um all right. Well see ya. Okay. Bye and I blow kisses and I’m like bye! Like, I just, ending is hard.

Joanne: It’s not an ending, it’s just a pause and this conversation. And we shall return momentarily in the future. How’s that?

Allison: One day when you least expect it.

Joanne: We will be at your funeral. 

Allison: Ha! Yes!

Joanne: All right, that’s probably not the best place to end, but…

Allison: Especially if you’re a lonely person who doesn’t have any friends. We will come.

Joanne: Yeah.

Allison: That’s a really…like I actually think that that’s a very therapeutic idea, and I wonder if there are people…like, I wonder if there are lonely people who go to people’s funerals. For a sense of connectedness. 

Joanne: Well, there could be, I guess. You know the world’s pretty big.

Allison: I mean, there’s probably some people doing it somewhere.

Joanne: Somewhere. I know they do it, like Wedding Crashers was a whole movie. Maybe we could do like funeral crashers and see how that goes. Probably easier because people tend to ask less questions at funerals, don’t they?

Allison: Yeah, but they’ll be like…you…as long as you don’t try and make small talk with the family afterwards. 

Joanne: Yeah. 

Allison: Because the family wants to avoid…this is what I found on Wednesday. Even though, you know, I loved all Grandma’s friends. And there were lots of people there I knew and it was nice. But I was still like, walking around like making sure I didn’t get eye…lock eyes with anyone.

Joanne: Yeah, yeah. 

Allison: So that’s what happened. So you could easily go to someone’s funeral and even go in afterwards for a little sandwich. 

Joanne: Yeah sandwiches are the best. It’s the finger food. And for a church lady. I don’t know if your Grandma went to church. But for some reason church food tastes good.

Allison: Yeah, it was gre, it was church. And you know the ladies who made…who provided the food afterwards are from the church. All…I’m talking like the sponge cake was CWA standard. 

Joanne: Beautiful.

Allison: It was that soft. I had about three pieces of sponge cake. Because it was just light as a cloud.

Joanne: It’s amazing, isn’t it, like the CWA ladies? They’ve got to be getting on now because I haven’t seen a young one for a long time.

Allison: Yeah, it was good and they had just amazing old lady food like, you know, like the red the red lamingtons with the cream in the middle. 

Joanne: Jelly cakes, beautiful. 

Allison: Yeah, whatever they’re called. Yeah, and just um, yeah, all all the usual 

Joanne: I would have loved to have crashed your Grandma’s funeral.

Allison: Yeah.

Joanne: It sounds like a beautiful one. A beautiful place to be 

Allison: It was.

Joanne: Oh crap. Well, then there’s the alarm.

Allison: It’s time to say goodbye.

Joanne: Thank you so very much Ali, it’s been an amazing conversation and I’m sure we’ll chat again in the future. You’ve got lots of amazing stuff happening that we didn’t talk about. Um,

Allison: That was really enjoyable. I would…I just love to talk s*** and you know what not many other people will talk like the way we have today. There’s not many…that many people in my life who I could just talk like that with. And cover that many topics and really, like we solved a lot of the problems of the world really. 

Joanne: I think so, and created a new business. 

Allison: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.  

Joanne: So that’s amazing. Thank you. Love it. Now, this is the awkward moment in time.

Allison: OK! We’ll count to three and then say goodbye. One! Two! Bye!

Joanne: Bye!