Aces Up Your Sleeve
Join Kade and Sabrina, two a-spec autistic therapists, and their special guests as they help you navigate relationships.
Aces Up Your Sleeve
Community for Neurodivergent Therapists
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This week, we’re exploring how neurodivergent therapists can find, build, and sustain supportive communities both online and offline! These questions get asked in a lot of the shared spaces we’re in, so we’re offering our thoughts and ideas, as well as real groups to join. We’re talking all about how to foster meaningful connections *and* professional growth. It can be tough out there for ND therapists like us! We’d love to know what your favorite ways are to connect with others? And if you’re not a therapist: don’t worry! The tips and sentiments we’re sharing are pretty universal for anyone who’s seeking community.
On Upping the Ante, we’re sharing some tips for therapists and business owners around systems for productivity, the role of accountability partners, and the usefulness of body doubling. We’re also talking more about building and shaping community, including the importance of conflict resolution and handling disagreements in community spaces. Check the show notes for links!
GEMS Neurodiversity Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gemsneurodiversitycommunity
Autistic Researchers Researching Autism (ARRA): https://www.facebook.com/groups/236272016838118
Embracing the Muchness - ADHD Education: https://www.facebook.com/groups/embracingthemuchness
IFS Therapists/Practitioners Working With ADHDers & Autistics: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ifsadhdautistics
LGBTQIA+ & ND Affirming Play Therapists: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lgbtqiandaffirmingpt
To ask us questions, fill out the form at www.neurokink.org/auys
Find more content on Patreon (18+): www.patreon.com/AcesUpYourSleevePodcast
Sabrina at www.radicalingingishtsconsulting.com or @radicalinsightsconsulting on social media (FB, IG)
Kade at www.cryptidlearns.com or @cryptidlearns on social media (FB, IG)
This is the Aces Up Your Sleeve podcast, and we're the Aces Up Your Sleeve in relationships, from romantic to workplace, parental to platonic, your relationship with yourself and everything in between. Let us, two autistic aspect kinky therapists, be your secret weapon in neurodivergent life.
SPEAKER_00This is your disclaimer. This is not therapy or therapeutic advice, and we are not on the clock. This is for entertainment purposes only. This is not a replacement for therapy. What you'll hear are our thoughts on different topics, what we might do in the situation, and how we've supported others through similar things. And we are very excited today to be answering some questions about finding community. Um, and to start that off, we're going to talk about our community over on Patreon. We are just announcing that our Royal Flush Tier Zoom hangouts are going to be starting in August. And so what this is is if you are a Royal Flush Tier um Patreon patron, whatever. Yep. Or higher. Or higher, you can join us every other month to hang out for a little bit and talk about anything. Um, you can ask us questions. Um, we would love to get to know you, chat with other listeners uh who are also at that tier or higher. And yeah, we would just love to have you. This is a great way to build the community. Our first one of those will be on Sunday, August 9th at 2 p.m. Pacific at 5 p.m. Eastern. So come on over, join us there. If you are hesitating, wondering, you can head over to Patreon and just look at what the different tiers offer. Some have like little mail options. We've got the Zoom chat, you can vote on topics, things like that. You can always kind of hop in and out as as you see fit. If you'd like to come and join us, you there is still enough time to sign up. So make sure that you do so if you'd like to come hang out.
SPEAKER_01And I'll just put it out there. You know, that means there will also be one in October and one in December. So I don't know. I I like a good themed party. I don't know how you'd feel about that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, we'll come in costume for oh yes.
SPEAKER_01That brings me a lot of joy. Maybe we can do some fun stuff for those too. Cool. Well, we'll jump right into questions. The first one is not so much about community, but just somebody's curiosity. Was that Sabrina named after the teenage witch by any chance?
SPEAKER_00Um, so I don't know 100%. My name story is a weird one. I was adopted, and my like I have two older biological sisters who chose my names. So my first name was chosen by the younger of the two, and my middle name, Lynn, was chosen by uh my oldest sister, and that was after our aunt, who um was like a really important figure in my sister's life. Um my first name, I believe it likely was because I was born in '96. So my guess is that it was probably like, you know, kid naming.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, when I saw this, I was like, let me actually look up if it's even possible that you're named out. Because I was like, well, who came first? Our Sabrina or this other Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.
SPEAKER_00Well, because the Teenage Witch is after the Archie character.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's right. So the show didn't air until September of 96, but it's based, yeah, so I guess technically.
SPEAKER_00Also, are you thinking the um Melissa Joan Hart show? Because there was a movie that aired before that show, but there was also an animated show.
SPEAKER_01Gosh. Okay, so yeah, maybe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's like a whole bunch of lore. I really enjoy Sabrina the DD Twitch as content. It is hard for me to watch because every time that someone like if Harvey's like Sabrina, I'm like, what? And I'm just like in my room alone. Cause not there aren't a lot of Sabrinas that I've met. I've met maybe four or five uh five or six, like enough that I can count on one hand. And so I don't often hear the name that's not talking to me. And so yeah, but uh to my knowledge, I think that there is a possibility that I was. Otherwise, I don't really know where she came up with the idea.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_00Oh, cool. The little random facts about Sabrina, yeah. I've also one time this white lady was like, Oh, like the Audrey Hepburn. It like they meant the Audrey Hepburn movie, but I was young and autistic, and so I looked up who Audrey Hepburn was, and I was like, I don't look anything like this white woman.
SPEAKER_01So you're thinking they're saying like doppelganger, and actually they're saying some character that she had in the world.
SPEAKER_00They were saying, like, oh, you look like Audrey Hepburn, or like you're like Audrey Hepburn, or something like that. And I was like, I don't see it, but I think once I got older, and I what's wild is I had already watched the Sabrina movie, the Audrey Hepburn movie, but once I got older, I like connected those dots differently, and I was like, oh, I bet that's what she meant. Sure. That yeah, makes way more sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. There you go.
SPEAKER_01Well, onto those questions that are a little more community focused. I've been seeing it go on a lot of therapists' Facebook group pages, uh, a lot of like Instagram discourse, a lot of TikTok folks are just saying, where do I find other neurodivergent therapists? So in general, we can answer that. And if you're a listener and you're like, I'm not a therapist, this doesn't relate to me. I would say that finding community supports us all. And building community that's actually interactive, engaging, and built for repair instead of like closing people out really benefits all of us.
SPEAKER_00I agree with that. I also will say, like, as a person who has a therapist, it's important to me to know that my therapist has therapist community. Not that you necessarily have to get like all up in your therapist business, but like I know that my therapist goes to consultation, I know that my therapist is in therapy, my clients know that I'm in therapy. Like, it is important to me that those types of things are acknowledged because like if you're practicing an asilo, not only can that be detrimental to your clients and and your clinical work, but how are you gonna help me build community when you haven't built any? Like, what's your plan there? You know?
SPEAKER_01And not that it's easy to build community, so if you don't have it figured out yet, that bitch is laborious. Yeah, right. Ever evolving. The amount of people on the I feel like it's just called neurodivergent therapists uh subreddit that are saying, like, my supervisor doesn't get it, my like colleagues don't really get it. Uh is anybody else out there neurodivergent? Is anybody out there um, you know, a therapist who struggles with OCD? Like, how do I help others if I can't figure my stuff out? The amount of people looking for community and supports is huge.
SPEAKER_00It's so interesting too because like everyone's looking. I think there's that very common, and I'm sure we'll talk about it, but like we do know that it's gonna take effort, right? Like, it's gonna take putting the time and effort into like not being too scared to say hi and like putting yourself out there and speaking up for what you want and what you need and what you can't do and what your limits are. I think it's it's such an interesting thing that so many people are looking and yet everyone is still looking when it's like very clearly there are lots of neurodivergent therapists because there's enough to have a subreddit and an 8,000-person Facebook group. More than one 8,000-person Facebook group. And you know, like so it's there. So what's happening that nobody's connecting? Like, that's what gets me really interested.
SPEAKER_01And I wonder if uh we could go there now and then answer the more structured question in a minute, but I wonder if a piece of what's happening too is you join the community, you look around and you go, huh, this isn't exactly what I was hoping for. And so you go to try to find a different community, and you just kind of hop around being like, are any of these gonna be what I need? And what I would encourage people to consider is if the space is pretty good, pretty supportive, people are not attacking or harming each other, it's just not offering, you know, maybe you're like, I need face-to-face, and this group has never once done like a Zoom or in-person thing. What would it be like to stay and try to start it? You know, reaching out to whoever's leading the space if there's a leader and ask, like, how could I get this going? Because I love what you've got here. I just really need, you know, face-to-face or body doubling or whatever the thing is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I also think to that point, like, A, it's not like you can't have more than one. So it's like, okay, well, I'll keep this one for not face-to-face, maybe I'll also look for a face-to-face one, but I'll keep continue building this. I absolutely don't actually mean nobody is doing it, because of course people are. But I agree with you that I think people hop. If I can get on my AI soapbox for two seconds, it'll be longer than two seconds. Sorry, everyone. It's hard for me. I'm disabled, it's hard to get on and off the soapbox, so sometimes I just stay up there for a bit. Um, but it's one of my big concerns with AI in terms of like what it is teaching us to expect from engagement, right? The way that it is like, you're the smartest. What uh there was a guy, Eddie Burback, oh, I don't remember his last name, um Burback or something, who did a thing and he was like, Can I essentially like get into the kind of feedback loop that AI does in terms of like AI psychosis? And so he's like, Can I get it to the point where it believes that I was the smartest baby born in 96 and like have it like fully and it did like it was like someone is definitely after you, they want your ideas because you are the smartest baby born in 96, like you're the smartest baby ever born, and and because of that, you have very unique ideas that people want to steal. You are right to be concerned that somebody is following you in this store. You should get out now, was like literally feeding into because it's always trained to only say yes to you, right?
SPEAKER_01As much as it can say yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00As much as it can say yes to you, and to even when it says like, oh, I don't know about that, like it's in this way of at least from what I've like seen in videos and things, it'll be like, Well, that's a really, really strong start, and you're so smart, and this is a brilliant way that you're showing a unique perspective on da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And here are a few minor tweaks that could take you from great to outstanding. And it'll like it still does this kind of like big hype up thing, and I've already started seeing how it is affecting how people will take feedback, how people will um because that's part of building community is being in spaces with people who have different needs than you, right? This is my partner I do it all the time. I need way less light than they need. In fact, too much light hurts my head, right? I have very, very good hearing, they cannot hear out of one ear. And so, like, the sound in our home is really different. I really struggle with like changing plans. They have a very go-with-the-flow kind of like upbringing. There is a lot of these little types of things that like we have to negotiate and navigate every day and try to like, okay, well, I can flex a little bit here to have more lights on. Can you flex a little bit here to have like less than two sounds happening at once? Like, can we do one sound happening at once? And then I can like actually be part of this, right? And those little negotiations that I think AI is really starting to already undermine the capacity for people to do that. And especially, I think, for neurodivergent folks, especially for autistic ADHDers, there's a big kind of social movement around like nobody ever meets your autistic ADHD needs and you deserve for them to be met. And I agree with with the second part of that, right? I do think that then we also have to contend with the fact that your needs and another ADHD's needs can be in conflict, and neither one of you is better or worse than the other, and neither one of you deserves to have your needs met more or less than the other person.
SPEAKER_01Agreed. And it's tough when you run things through AI, it looks like it will just kind of you know I have a local friend and I won't air all his stuff, but when he he's like trying to date, and so when something goes really wrong in whatever dating capacity, he plugs their texts or their messages or like a summary of what they talked about, and you know, where where did I go wrong? Where did the other person go wrong? What do I do next? And almost always the AI is like, you didn't do anything, or you know, the very minimalist littlest thing was you, but everything.
SPEAKER_00You were too open and honest and pure with all your feelings and how like and it's like that is not real feedback, right? It is not going to help you grow anything. And and in order for repair to happen, it has to have the element of I know what I did and my part in this, because there aren't interpersonal conflicts that happen with just one person at the only source of it, right? I know what my part was, I know what your part was, you know what your part was, you know what my part was, and now we negotiate how to move forward. That's what repair is.
SPEAKER_01And so I think if people are joining communities and running, like, here was the comments, I feel like I'm being attacked, where did I go wrong? Through that lens, AI is gonna feed you some things that may ultimately not be very useful for you. And, you know, if you reach out to a friend with the same types of questions, human error, you still might get some stuff that's not super helpful, but hopefully you would get the support that a friend can provide with that like human understanding of this the context, the scenario, your past, your history, uh what they know to be true of you. Yeah. Yeah. Or the other people, you know, sometimes you've got a friend who knows everybody in the situation and can be like, Yeah, so you did mess up here and there if we remember that so-and-so has this in their background and has some trauma around, da-da-da, or you know. So yeah, not to go on the AI route too much, but if you're looking for community, I would suggest look for people, look for, you know, actual humans who want to engage with you and have things in common with you.
SPEAKER_00I would also say any areas where you can figure out how to tolerate two people not agreeing on something. Like, not necessarily active disagreement, though that's an important one too, but just like share space with other people. Like go to the fucking library and sit in a shared space where like other people are doing shit and are meeting their needs and you're doing shit and meeting your needs, and it's not always perfect, but it is true, right? Expanding your capacity for that, we absolutely have to do that. Like, that's a non-negotiable if you want to have relationships with other people, which community is several interlocking relationships, right? Um, whatever those look like.
SPEAKER_01And a little more unique to therapists, like neurodivergent therapists. I know when we join these communities and we see some therapists being very strict about ethics, you know, inevitably someone will post a question like, Oh crap, I just uh sent an email I meant to BCC everyone, but I CC'd all my clients and now all their PHI, like everybody's got each other's emails. What do I do? And you have those people in the comments who are like, How on earth could you let this happen?
SPEAKER_00Like just berating and turning you to the board, and it's like, babe, I'm anonymous.
SPEAKER_01Like, I don't post anything. If it's your name, I mean you know what I mean. Yeah. But that fear is very real. And I would encourage you to think about what you want to get out of the communities. So before you even set foot into one, what are you hoping for? Because if it is ethical advice, if it's case consultation, uh this is you're gonna want a specific type of community. You're gonna want an actual consultation group or a supervision relationship or group supervision group. If you want camaraderie, if you want, hey, how do you all get your notes done in a timely manner? Hey, where do you find a resource for this? Hey, what do you all do in your downtime and how do you like stop thinking about work? Those types of community, maybe you are looking for a Discord or Facebook or subreddit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that it's one of the things that, like, in general, I'm a big fan of what is the ultimate goal? What's the goal? So you want to go and tell this person this thing, what's your goal? Right? What outcome are you seeking? What like where are we aimed at, right? And same thing is true with in general building community. You need to know, like, like Kate said, like, what is my goal with this community? Is it because I think a lot of times like people undervalue online community, which really sucks for disabled people and for rural people and for um like all of this stuff, I do think it's still important to get out into your like physical location community as much as you can um and connect with those people. But also when it comes to online, you then need to be even more specific, right? What am I seeking to get out of this? And is this the right container for that? If I'm seeking a deeply nuanced and personal conversation, I'm going to my group chat of three best friends who have like a similar value set to me. Not because I'm looking for an echo chamber, but because I'm looking for like a very specific type of conversation around this thing, right? There are times all very often that my partner and I will look at each other and be like, I would only say this to you because like you will hold the form of nuance that I am looking for in this conversation. And I think that like when I if you started to go in like, all right, hey, giant 8,000-person Facebook group, I'm looking to have a hugely nuanced conversation. Unless that Facebook group has been very carefully curated from jump, it's unlikely you're gonna get that, right? Same thing. Hey, Reddit thread with thousands of people.
SPEAKER_01With people who can pop in who aren't even a therapist and just they're just curious what goes on. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like very deeply unmodded, right? Here is a really thing, a thing that I'm super sensitive about. I would like you to hold my feelings with some form of safety.
SPEAKER_01Sadly rare to happen. Yeah, you might get a couple really sweet, compassionate comments, but you'll also get a bunch that aren't. Especially if there's an anonymous option.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So sometimes I actually like the those bigger spaces to find like, okay, who can I clump off and go off with over here to create what I'm looking for? And then that takes some trial and error.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, yeah. Cause then you're in a group project of building a community together with people you've just met. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yep. And who like claim to be aligned within this one thing, but that doesn't mean that there's any alignment with these things over here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I don't know how deep we want to go into this. Maybe we go into it more on the on the bonus content, but Sabrina and I were part of a very large group, uh, that the values were just not aligned amongst all the moderators and admins. And so our use of that space, our roles in that space has has changed a lot over time. And I think keeping that in mind too, that even if you join a community and say you sign up for a committee or you sign up for some big role, and you start to realize, wait a second, uh this doesn't align with my values actually, or I'm being taken advantage of, I'm doing all this labor and not getting anything that I was told I would get or that I was hoping for, or I don't have time anymore. You know, whatever it is that happens that changes your your want or capacity for engagement in there, it's okay to take a step back and decide if you can still use that space in other ways that are beneficial to you, or if it's better to just head out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it it's one of those things, especially me like with my borderline and with like RSD, like it can be hard. Like there's a grief process. And, you know, that space that you're talking about, like I was an admin for a few years, and my version of admining is checking the group every day and like interacting in the group multiple times a day, and like really putting a lot of time and effort into it. That's just how I do things. Like, I know that about myself that I uh I will follow through with things with an intensity that means that I have to be really mindful where I put my energy, right? Because like it's going to be intense regardless. Stepping down from that in order to keep myself safe also meant that I had to like lose access to doing those things, right? And lose my like ability to engage as much slash as effectively, and especially then to then watch the group do the things that like are very much not values aligned, right? And so like it falls further and further. It kind of like almost reminds me of the people who are like, oh, like I'm going to flee the United States because of all the things that are happening right now. And it's like, okay, be prepared to look back at your home, like your place. This is one of the reasons I would never move, right? It's like my ancestors built this place by hand, babe, by hand, right? By labor, right? I'm not ever going to look back at this place that I have fled and be like, well, I guess it's theirs now and they get to do whatever they want. No, fuck that. I'm a fight. And I can't do that for everything, right? Like, if I'm gonna do it for the whole entire fucking US and I can't do it for a Facebook group, fine. But like, there is a grief process that goes through that. And it's one of the reasons why I do work so hard at like, can we figure out repair? Is this possible? But it you also have to be really mindful that you don't try to repair with someone who's has no intention of actually repairing with you, right? Whose version of that is some kind of twisted, we just need to move on and never think about it again kind of thing. That that's that's not a version of repair.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah. Continue doing what they've been doing to harm you, that's not repair. Exactly. Um, I will say, you know, Sabrina and I have created a group for mostly therapists, but healing professionals, uh, the Gems Neurodiversity community on Facebook. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes. And in that vein, shifting the conversation more towards building community. So maybe you want to start your own. So Brianna's got more experience with this than I do. You know, I've helped with like a local Pride event and community for quite a few years and starting in 2013. I'm brand new to starting Facebook groups and communities, but it is hard work from what I'm already seeing. Like even our Gems group, if you pop in there when this episode comes out, it's still pretty darn new and we're not totally sure what we want to post in in the space and do with the space. We have some ideas. We don't have like a huge structure to what we do in there, but you know some of that is exciting because you can come in and make it what you need and and some of it can also feel like what should I post in here that's different than all the other groups that are out there?
SPEAKER_00Echo, echo, echo. Yeah, no, there's definitely like I've been running these digital streets since I was like 12. You know, maybe even earlier. Like since it was possible to be on like pretty consistently. I have usually found because I'm so extroverted I usually can't find quite enough people who are as interested in being like, hey, let's just talk for hours and let's do this. And so like being online especially in like bigger more open spaces means that there's almost always something going on that I can like tap myself into and kind of like fill that social need. And then especially because like fucking every person I know is like a night owl and not a morning person. And then half my friends live on the wrong coast. And so like I'm hugely a morning person. Okay. Well I'm up at 6 a.m. Nobody else is conscious or will be for like four or five hours I guess I'll be on Facebook. Right. And so like that is the need that it meets for me. Right. Yeah I've I've run several different Facebook groups and the early sieges are hard. What get ends up being really really hard is when you try to do it all by yourself. Right. And so like going as something that's already established tends to be a little easier. I would also say that's probably true in real life in terms of like we don't need to reinvent the wheel every time. And then there are also going to be times when it there are uh good reasons to reinvent the wheel there's an org I know of that does decent work does different work than I had thought they did. And so now I'm thinking of like okay I I will do some more research and see if an org does the work that I want it to be doing. I'm going to have doubts that they will because it's about supporting BPDers and that's just usually too stigmatized. And so like what does it look like to like join something that already exists and how do you like find your place and like have whatever vision you have but also recognize that there's already a vision at hand right and then also you know like Kate said like we don't have a lot of structure for our gem space but what we do have is a lot of like very intentional values and guiding principles let's call it right like hey we want this to be more discussion based space because we want it to be about learning and about community engagement in that way and not every other post is a referral every other post is a marketing post. There are really great groups who do that and it also can make it harder. Right. It just makes it harder to have the the conversations right and so I think having a similar value set to whoever else is also helping you with the thing can be really helpful.
SPEAKER_01Do you have any other quick tips for people who want to get started with their own like specifically Facebook community?
SPEAKER_00So Facebook as much as it's a Hellscape is one of my favorites in terms of like group functionality. I do not think that any other app or social media has figured out how to do groups as well as Facebook does. And so there's a lot of power in that. The fact that you can set rules the fact that the mods have the types of powers that they have the fact that like the feed is set up how it is right where it's going to show you different people's posts but all of the comments are attached to the post and you can follow the threads of that pretty easily without getting lost all of that is is really impactful. And for that reason I really like groups honestly the biggest thing that I have seen fail groups is not having a clear understanding of what is acceptable in the space and what isn't. And that's a very black and white thing for me to say like for people who know me I'm very not black and white like that. But I think that it's actually very important to be very black and white and add in your shades of gray as people have gotten accustomed, right? So it's like hey if marketing is only on Monday and we only do that, hey, let's get really specific please only submit your marketing on Monday. I don't want it sitting in the queue taking mental energy every time I see it and I have to scroll through and try to find other things let's just submit the post on Monday. And if it's not submitted on Monday there is nothing wrong with that. We will just be declining it until Monday when you can resubmit. And that's going to help it's about like really looking at like what do I have the energy for where are my energy sucks. So looking at a full queue of 50 marketing Monday posts also that means that on Monday the first thing I'm going to do is spam everyone gross. That doesn't feel good I don't always love a specific marketing day because it does feel very spammy and it but I also know as a person who does use marketing Mondays it can be helpful to remember like oh yeah it's Monday let me go ahead and get all my stuff done or oh it's Tuesday and I was just looking for a group for this let me go look it up and see if anyone's running one or oh it's Monday I'm going to avoid Facebook because I know it's all spam posts and item I'm not looking for anything this week, you know? Yep. Which is the risk that you run, right? Is that like then how are we actually building a useful space for people if they are actively avoiding the space clearly there's a misalignment in goals here. Right. I think it's really interesting because there are some like marketing only groups like it is a group that is just for hey tell us about your upcoming CEU event for example that do pretty well right so like clearly there's a need for that space but I I think I guess maybe this is it right no space can be everything to everyone. You have to pick right and this is I was talking about it in my supporting fat clients webinar. I was talking about it on my Instagram the other day like we will always exclude people there like there is no way not to exclude someone if you invite someone who's violent and someone who has had violence done to them you have already excluded the person who has had violence done to them. They're not going to show up or not be safe if they do because you have also invited the violent person. That also effectively comes down into if you have ableists that will not be a safe place for disabled people and at some point you have to make a decision right like am I going to say there is no ableism around in the space and then follow that the fuck up and actually not allow ableism in whatever way you decide to do that. We educate it out of people or we block or we ban or we delete comments or we don't delete comments like whatever that looks like for you that's fine. But you have to be really clear about that because that also means that people can consent to the space easier. You can't consent to a space that doesn't know what its rules are. You can't consent to a space that isn't clear about how do we handle things because if you say like okay well I can be in this space it's okay with me I can every once in a while see an ableist thing but I really don't want to see it that often and the space like hey we don't do ableism well if they are letting a bunch of ableism happen and they're just going back and forth with the person in the comments that might be triggering to you and isn't what you signed up for. But they weren't clear so you didn't know what you were signing up for really.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? So I think that it's really about like getting very clear about what are we building here and then people can opt in or out appropriately.
SPEAKER_01Totally makes sense. So biggest tips would be around structuring the space the kind of policies and procedures and then interacting and engaging frequently is what I'm guessing. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah to actually build it like if you're like hey I want to go actually make a Facebook group plan to post by yourself into the ether with no response frequently we don't actually do it enough in our group right now. And I was just thinking about that earlier today that um I should probably make a post this week. But really ideally I think we'd be posting three or more times a week in that group and with expectant crickets right like just into the void and because more active groups will get pushed into people's feeds higher. Yeah. And then also remember as someone who engages in the group right if you want a group to grow if you like a group and you're like I like what this group stands for but it's pretty slow, it's pretty quiet, engaging even if that's just liking people's posts if that is um yeah I will say the sad react and the angry react tend to make things lower. So the algorithm will uh punish those posts versus a wow react or a heart react a care react things like that go in and actually like once a day search the group by name go into it like a post. If you've already liked all the posts in the group comment on something. If you're not like I can't make a post myself that feels really overwhelming that's okay. Go in and just hey I'm just I'm just commenting because I really like this group. Ignore me. You know like yeah even that it'll just it'll help the algorithm to see like people enjoy this group and it will push it to more people good advice.
SPEAKER_01I think that that will help communities grow um while we're on the topic of like specific communities outside of our gems one of course we have to plug Bobby Joe Mullikan's group she's been on the podcast before she's got Embracing the Muchness which is an ADHD education group. So a little more specific on the type of neurodivergence but knowing Bobby Joe all are welcome. The focus is just heavily ADHD slanted of course.
SPEAKER_00And if you've got like overlapping like this thing overlap with ADHD that would definitely be a good group for that as well. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01And in her group she does she's very frequently posting and has some stuff on different days in there that you can go and do and yeah it's over 400 members close to 500 at the time of recording. So not huge it won't feel like you're in a sea of other people but big enough that you'll get some good responses. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It is like the number one hard thing. It's the same thing as like um new therapist directories where it's like okay but are the clients there and it's like okay all the clients are on psych today quote unquote. And like I do still see in like my layman groups people recommending psych today but also we all know that psych today is owned by venture capitalists by this point. I mean like functionally right but I do also get that like it can be hard because if there's no therapist on the directory then no clients are going to be able to functionally use it which means that there's no clients which means that therapists are going to be like well I don't want to pay money for a thing that I'm not going to get clients from someone has to take the leap. This is true in all forms of relationships. Someone has to take the leap and be vulnerable right financially or time-wise or energy-wise to put the thing forward and then that is when you're going to hopefully see dividends up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah another group to recommend to is a little more specific for like play therapists but Heather Fairly Denbro and I started one called LGBTQIA plus and ND affirming play therapists. The and is like the ampersand symbol before we opened it kind of in line with what you're saying we talked about what do we want this space to look like and how are we going to take the lead. So that's helpful for me because then I also know my role. So we've got of course marketing Mondays but then Tip Tuesdays where everybody in the group shares their tips that they've been thinking about or use them. We exist Wednesdays where we highlight LGBTQIA plus or neurodivergent folks or both and just say like here throughout history here we are or in fiction and in media like here we are. Thoughtful Thursday follow Friday Saturday we just welcome all the new members and kind of say hey and then we have Community care Sunday where people offer up what they can for free and others say what they need and see if we can fill some needs. So I love that. Very small group though like under 60 at the time of recording. But if people are into expressive modalities and want to be in that type of space we'd love to have you. We'll put it all in the show notes and maybe by the time this comes out gems will also have a little more structure as we keep talking about it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I definitely like the weekly like I'm in some really good groups that have the kind of like wins Wednesday, right? What were your wins? Or I in my weird little business group that I that's like I'm not really trying to necessarily like grow huge right you know it's what the fuck Wednesday right just like hey what are we doing? I think that those can be nice because even like in one group I'm in they have an automated thing that's just like hey drink your water take your meds eat something the day you know don't forget. And you know every once in a while just like oh when I see it oh yeah I I I just drink some water oh man I it definitely is hot because my lips are chapped. I am I am very dehydrated. That's a good reminder, right? Like just those little bits of engagement show the algorithm that you care about this content and also shows other people like hey this is a worthwhile thing. Don't forget. So yeah I'm a big fan of of those types I also think like especially while you're building it can help to kind of be intentional about those types of posts. I will also say Bobby Joe speaking of Bobby Joe has another group that is for IFS therapists IFS therapists slash practitioners working with ADHDers and autistics.
SPEAKER_01Nice.
SPEAKER_00Knows how to name something that Bobby Joe. Very clear. Very clear. And that one is a little bigger it's 2.1k members and it's pretty active so any anyone who does any kind of parts work or is interested in it it's really a great a great group for that and worth checking out. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01I know we're almost out of time but this one I just pulled from Reddit because it it echoes what I see a lot especially from newer therapists who are neurodivergent and don't have community yet. Thought we could just give it a couple, you know, maybe a rapid fire answer but this person said hi all I was recently diagnosed with autism and suddenly feeling very unsettled at work and at home. I honestly don't know what population to focus on at this point. Families, couples and kids were my main focus the last couple of years, but I'm trying to honor my own needs and those populations are usually super draining for me. I would love to work with fellow autistic adults or teens, but I'm not formally trained in any of it. Any other autistic therapist out there with a fulfilling career I'm starting to think this diagnosis just dooms me to a constant uphill battle in this profession.
SPEAKER_00Well I'd say there's about probably somewhere between seven and nine thousand autistic uh therapists in that one Facebook that uh there's a lot of us that we're not engaging with as much. I think most of the people there probably would identify with some level of of uh experiencing autism. Yeah I think there's definitely a lot of people who have fulfilling careers in it. I think definitely get training um because lived experience is great and very very important and not something that people can get through training, but training is also very important. Like just because you live it individually in your life does not mean that you have uh a full clinical knowledge and understanding there. But I think it's very worth doing that. And I think a lot more clients adults especially but even teens are finding more and more that they want to work with someone who's got a similar neurotype or who has experienced even just like experienced late in life diagnosis or like those types of things in the same way that like they might want to work with a trans therapist or they might want to work with a plaque therapist or they you know all of these things that shared identity can be important folks.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely and you know as you were saying like the other group has quite a lot of autistic therapists I just went and looked up um autistic counselors and psychotherapists which is another group that I'm in over 2,000 members. The Autistic Researchers Researching Autism group has over 8,000 members. They're not all in the mental health field but a lot are so if you're looking for more autistic people to ask this question of, they're there. And I would wager that some of them do have a fulfilling career as they would define that. I know it can feel very hopeless at first whether you know you're autistic or not and you you're like wow my interests are changing my capacity is changing my abilities are shifting very common and I think many of us find ways to have fulfilling careers whether we're working mostly with autistic people or we're switching more into an education or supervisory role. Really depends on what what brings you joy. It sounds like you know what Sabrina said around getting some training to work with autistic teens or adults would be good. And it sounds like that's where your interest lies so I wonder if you surrounded yourself with other therapists who are autistic and wanting to work or working with those populations if that would help you hold out a little hope for the future.
SPEAKER_00Definitely get some consultations. You know there's tons of trainings going on that you can like you don't have to be autistic to take the training but a lot of people who do are or are at least interested or what have you um and especially if it's a training by an autistic person like you're gonna get a lot more out of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah it's very very worth it yeah yeah you don't have to go to like the PESI they have like a CAC certification it's like certified is it autism counselor? I don't know. Something like that where they give you a certificate and it yeah you don't need that I don't have that I could submit and qualify but no thank you. I'm uh I feel very confident in my skill set there. I don't need their uh paper.
SPEAKER_00And I don't know that clients know the different like they're not up enough about I don't know. I would definitely recommend like starting with figuring out where the other autistic therapists are hanging out. And because you know a conversation that happens in in most autistic therapist groups that I'm in pretty frequently is like people tell us that we are not good at emotions or like social uh communication challenges and things like that. And there's a lot of like misinformation out there. And so it's worth getting the information from those of us who are in the field and have known that we were autistic and in the field for some time.
SPEAKER_01And lots of us are happy to recommend trainings as well. So if you're like I don't even know where to start with who to get trained by or where to begin yeah we could all weigh in on on those things. So I hope that person does find some community and some hope because that's a hard spot to be in for sure.
SPEAKER_00I will say going down um Instagram follow holes can be helpful. Again Instagram is not my favorite for like actual group engagement and creating like relationships with people like individuals though I will say like as much as people whatever I got my partner on Facebook I got my job on Facebook which I love and has like led me to many friendships. I'm at Cade on Facebook like I really have unfortunately a lot to thank Zach for like it's gross and I don't like that but like there are some really good relationships that you can build and a lot of times I'll even just have people be like oh yeah we're in a lot of the same Facebook group I see you posting all the time. They've done that to me for years. When you are actively actually engaged it is easy to keep track of you right not in like a scary threatening way just in a like hey I recognize the name and I recognize all these things. Oh I started that point somewhere and then I got really off track of it.
SPEAKER_01To finish the thought maybe this was where you're going maybe not what it makes me think of is if you're active a lot in online spaces you're gonna build some people who recog you know rec brand recognition they're gonna notice you they're gonna think of you they're gonna refer to you they're probably gonna reach out to you at a certain point. Also you can do that in state based or county based therapist groups as well like hey I'm an autistic therapist in Washington anybody else and start to get to know you know or create your own group for autistic therapists in Washington.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. I would definitely um I remembered what where I started that but I would also just definitely say like yes I'm in the big international groups but I'm also in lots and lots of like very area specific groups and that's just as meaningful. What I was saying earlier though was go down the Instagram follow rabbit hole where follow a couple people who like really really values align with you who like are making good content and like all the things about what you're interested in and then go through their follow lists. Who are they following? And you'll start to notice every time that a new post comes up on your feed because the algorithm is smart, right? Every time a new new a new post posts up on your feed, you'll go to follow that person and they're followed by 16 people you follow. And you're like ah okay like I found the like the niche right into where I fit and like this is going to be the arc of good information that like kind of is all aligned with the way that I'm looking at the world right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. See who they're following or who they're reposting. Yeah.
unknownCool.
SPEAKER_01Well last time we covered this topic we did answer some uh autistic therapist questions in our bonus content. This time though on Upping the Ante, we're gonna talk a little more about the systems we use to get things done as therapists, you know, focusing a little more on how as a neurodivergent therapist do we do things and other tips about building support, networking with other neurodivergent therapists maybe we'll share a little more about some of the trials and tribulations and successes that we've had as we navigate you know the online and in-person world of networking with other neurodivergent mental health professionals.
SPEAKER_00And I'm sure we'll also talk some like not just about how we do things as therapists but also like as entrepreneurs who both own businesses and run a podcast clearly and you know all that good stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So everybody can expect new episodes as usual on Tuesdays each week. You can find me over at CryptidLearns Sabrina is at radical insights consulting on Facebook or Instagram. If you put a dot com at the end of those you'll get to our websites. Follow the podcast on Facebook or Instagram at AcesUpySleeve pod. That way you can interact with us and see when new episodes release. Also hop over to our Patreon and like subscribe over there. There's a free membership tier you'll get little email notifications when we upload things and if we ever do any extra announcements or community based stuff you might see those as well. If you have questions for us you can visit neurokink.org slash AUYS and send them to us. And we're gonna jump over to the Patreon so that we can record Upping the ante which is the exclusive bonus content. Uh tiers start at $4. Patreon.com slash aces up your sleeve podcast is where you can find it. We'll see you over there. Bye bye
