ο»ΏHello in this week's episode of midlife a f me and my delightful son, who is known at home as Bug will be talking about what it was like to be a kid with a mum who had problematic drinking, what it's like now with a mum who doesn't drink, what it's like and what our family journey has been around neuro divergence, and also we're going to talk about what it's like to be trans and the things that trans kids need us to know.
That's it. We'll see you there. If you're a woman in midlife, whose intuition is telling you that giving booze the elbow might be the next right move, Then Midlife AF is the podcast for
you. Join counsellor psychotherapist, this naked mind and grey area drinking alcohol coach Emma Gilmour for a weekly natter about parenting quirky teens, menopause relationships and navigating this thing called midlife alcohol free. If you're feeling that life could be so much more that you're sick and tired of doing all the things for everyone else. If your intuition is waving her arms, manically at you saying it could all be so much easier. We didn't have to keep drinking. Come with me. Together, we'll find our groove without booze.
Emma: And welcome to this week's episode of midlife AF, where I will be interviewing my delightful son who goes by the name of Bug in our family. Are you okay? If I call you Bug in this podcast? Yes. Cool. So Bug and I are going to talk about a few different things. We're going to talk about what it was like being a kid growing up with two parents with problematic drinking. What it's like now, things have changed. We're also going to talk about our journey as a family around neuro divergence. And what I think is going to be particularly helpful and interesting. For other parents of teens who might be exploring this, too, or might be talking to their parents about this, what would we call it the Bug? Being gender
experience being gender being trans being trans?
Bug: Yeah, I mean, I have to skirt around the top trends. No, but it will be. But some people won't be trans. Trans is an umbrella term. Is it? Yeah, it's another term. Transgender is an umbrella term that encompasses everyone who's not Cis basically. Okay.
Emma: That's really interesting. So there's so many interesting things we can learn from Bug. So buckle yourself in, we're gonna have a very straightforward conversation and Bug may also correct me as I might get things wrong, because I'm learning. And that's also really fine. Okay, so we'll start off where we said we'd start off. So Buggy, Bear. Yay. Is there anything that you remember particularly about when I was still drinking? And what impact did that have on you as a child?
Bug: When I was growing up, you actually stopped drinking when I was quite young, like, about 11 2020. Strong. So you would have been 11 Turning 12? Uh huh. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, well. One thing that I do remember is I can whenever I think about a lot of my memories as a kid I have, like, you know, when you have smells that come with memories, yeah, a lot of the time a lot of memories of me at night in our house or really anywhere. There's the smell of wine that accompanies it, because a lot of the time I was around you and you would always have a glass of wine with you. And so that scent just really kept with me throughout my childhood, it was just a very familiar thing that I always smell. And I didn't. I didn't necessarily like the smell of it. Yeah, yeah, that's one thing it was. A lot of the time I knew my dad would be drunk by the end of the night, especially on a weekend like home tonight? Um, like, especially Fridays, and Saturdays. Yeah, especially Fridays. Um,
What was that like for you? It was rather annoying, because I would want to be tucked in, I would want to be tucked in. And you would be like, I'm busy. Yeah, I'd be like, you can read me a story. Time. You want to read me a story, and it was really my style. But
I'd say it took away from a lot of our family time. Because a lot of the time when we would be doing stuff together, you and dad would be drinking?
Emma: Yeah. Very true. And have you? Is there anything different? Does it feel different? Uh, have I changed not drinking? Does that feel different to you? And you don't need to praise me? I suppose it's not. I'm interested in what your experience was like, and if it's changed or not. And yeah, that's it,
Bug: I feel like you will present a lot in a lot of situations. Because obviously, you're not drunk, or you're not, like, preoccupied with, like, the drink that you've brought with you. Um, and I feel like, because it's also kind of a combination of you switching jobs, switching career paths. But I feel like you have a lot more time to spend with both of us. Which is really nice, because you're not spending it drinking or at work. And it's just, it's really nice to be with you with more nice things to say. Because, like your present, like physically, and also like, emotionally and mentally, yeah, more present for sure.
Emma: I know, I still struggle with it because I like it, I know that work in the place that I escaped. Yeah. Because it was kind of, I don't know, it's an escape place for me. I enjoy my work. So that can be a bit problematic as well. But we're doing our best trying. Yeah, everyone's just doing their best. That's it. And that's one of the great things that you've taught me that I talk to people about, that you taught me from a very young age is that concept that everyone's just doing their best. So thank you for that. Do you want to talk a little bit about our family journey to uncovering our neuro divergence?
Bug: Yes, I would love that. I'd be lovely. I'm not even know what that impression is from. Um, but Well, I suppose it would start when we were like little because remember, you talk to me about how you used to listen to books about neuro-divergence when I was little. So why did you stop that, but I'm questioning you now.
Bug: No, I remember reading a book called Smart But Scattered which I think is again, I haven't revisited it, but I think it has. I think it's definitely related to kids with ADHD, maybe neuro divergence, I probably need to look at it a bit more. And I remember them having a sort of like assessment thing and but I think for me, the journey into neuro divergence was very much driven by you. Yeah. And you're kind of insistent a bit like many many things in our lives. You're saying to me, Mum, I think I might have ADHD and I'm going. No, that's ridiculous. A bit like I did when I was back. That's ridiculous. Your back is fine. No, your child has scoliosis.
And You know, we ended up going and seeing a paediatrician and the way you were diagnosed with ADHD. Yeah. And then you were very insistent, as well that you were autistic. Yeah. And I don't mean Dad, we're really like, we're sure Bugβs not autistic. And we were like, Bugβs gonna be really disappointed when he gets the results back. And they say, uh, he's just ADHD because he's so invested in being autistic. And then, of course, they came back and said he was autistic.
I remember the call, right? Then, I kept feeling like, oh, you know, you gotta, you gotta prepare yourself for like, you know, like you like, you could be wrong. And then I was like, No, I just don't, I want to say, and I remember sitting in the cafe after we got the results back. So we went to a little cafe afterwards, to look at the papers. And just, I just feel pleased with myself, you guys are just like.
Emma: And so we discovered that you were ADHD and autistic. And I think it's important as well, that we talk to the audience as well about why terminology, like ASD isn't something that we use or it isn't. Do you not? Are you good to talk to ?
Bug: Yeah. Well, they used to tell me that we don't use these aspects. Oh, yeah. But also ASD is more implied as a disorder, whereas it's not a disorder. It's a disability. Exactly. And Asperger's is an old terminology. Similarly, when people find out their kids are autistic, they preface it quite often with oh, you know, but just only a little bit, which is, on level one thing or a little bit autistic, you either are or you aren't autistic. And the other thing, it's not a straight line spectrum, it is more of a pie chart with a bunch of different little triangles that are the different symptoms, that change in severity. Someone might have really bad sensory issues, but be pretty good at socialising and maintain good eye contact, someone might have really low, really, really like they just don't have a bit of any sensory issues. But they might be okay, socialising and graded eye contact.
And also, what a lot of people in the community talk about is the fact that you know, how you are on one day doesn't necessarily reflect how you are on another day.
Yeah, it's very, it's very flexible, it depends. Like some days you can be firing on all cylinders, feeling like you've got everything under control. And some days, you know, quite the opposite.
Emma: But one of the things that's been interesting for us in this journey has been I don't think as a family we had any we I don't think that we necessarily made like, I don't think we would never cease to be autistic. And I know that some families are nervous to be autistic. I don't think we want others to be autistic. I think that we thought it was a problem that would be a problem for us. Yeah. And in fact, I think we found it quite empowering actually, as a family. Yeah. And actually, the label, the labelling, and everyone's different on this, but the labelling has been useful for us. And helpful, you know, in order to get funding for more support and just to understand ourselves a bit more. It helped us. I love to swear on the podcast. Yes. Bug does work some shit out. Yeah.
And part of our journey into our way of parenting which is different to a lot of other people's parenting is So we we have had to let go of a lot of things that traditionally people hold very tightly onto, and swearing and things like that it's kind of one of those things where it's like, it's just a hill that you're going to die on, is it going to be something that you want to want to make a stand on, there's some things you want to make a stand on. And other things that you just have, you just let go right?
Bug: Pick your battles.
Emma: Pick your battles. Exactly. And what we, before we got the diagnosis, what we were trying to do, was to get our kids to behave in the neurotypical way, which is, you know, control base. So like, I want you to do this, therefore, you do this, if you don't do that, then you are not a good case, you're not, you're not doing what you're supposed to do. And that was really, really damaging to our relationship with each other, because all we spent our time doing was nagging. And all the kids spent their time doing was not being able to do what we were asking them to do. And so they ended up feeling crappy about themselves. And we felt like we didn't have a relationship with them other than just to be nagging them all the time. Their mental health was declining, our mental health was declining, we were all getting really burnt out. And it wasn't working for us. So we had to look at a different way. Which might explain some of the things that we talked about, between me and Bug, because I think one of the most important things for us as a family is that we show up authentically. With that we can show up authentically with each other up ourselves, warts and all. Make mistakes and apologise for being so wrong with warts, nothing.
So that's been our sort of journey into neuro divergence, hasn't it? I mean, in a nutshell, there's a lot of different things that we can talk about. We can talk about society and all those kinds of things, school and all those kinds of things that said you just for people listening Bugβs just made a beautiful sculpture out of putty, slime or putty or whatever you
I want it. Yeah, it's putty. I don't like slime.
Emma: And then the next piece that we were going to talk about, which I think is really interesting, because I've had a few parents say to me all, you know, I'd really like to know more. And I've had a psychologist friend who said we'd love to know more. I'd like to understand more about being trans. And what that means for our young people. Now, also the connection between Neuro-divergence and the propensity to identify as trends. I'm using trends now. Instead of what I would have done before was probably gender diverse. Is that wrong?
Bug: It's not it's not wrong. It's not wrong, necessarily. It's a perfectly fine term to use. It's just like it's good to normalise the word trans.
Emma: Yeah. Because it is in the same way that autism has, you know, Rain Man, as you know, kind of probably what a lot of people of my generation think of autism as being like trends has you know, this kind of like Robin Williams in the call that was Mrs. Doubtfire?
Bug: Mrs. Doubtfire? That's not transgender. That's a transvestite.
Emma: Yeah, so that's, but that's what a lot of my generation would think that that's what trans is for a lot of my generation. So can you explain the difference between that please?
Bug: Well, actually, I could go into a very detailed explanation of our simple Okay, so a transvestite is someone who enjoys dressing or acting in a way that would usually be like, you'd usually be done by the opposite sex or gender. And then they are Nate and they identify us. And that is not anything to do with your brain. It is just people enjoying wearing different stuff. It's just people cuz your gender expression, your gender identity is very different. It's just I'm expressing their gender in a different way then society's not.
Emma: Okay. So there is but their gender is still what they were assigned at birth. It's just their preferences.
Bug: No, no, not necessarily. Oh, it's like, for example, I'm kind of a transvestite. Like, you know, I, I didn't fight, I'm trans man, but I still love prancing around in my little dresses and skirts and wearing makeup, but in a performative way. That is how I like to express my gender. But it doesn't, really, but it doesn't represent my gender necessarily.
Emma: That's interesting. So yeah, I'm learning so much already. So tell us a bit about are you able to talk about the high occurrence of being gender diverse? And being neurodiverse? Because I know from my reading, that there is a connection?
Bug: Yes, there is a link to it. A lot of the time, autistic people are more likely to identify as things like non-binary or genderqueer. Because it's autistic people are more likely to disregard a lot of social norms and social ideas, because they like, just don't understand why they can't do that as well. It just doesn't. Actually the thing is, it really doesn't make sense. And so when autistic people try to rationalise it, it doesn't make sense to them. So they disregard it. Because a lot of the time, a lot of autistic people think quite logically. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma: And I know, having studied the PDA side of things, that it's pathological demand avoidance. There's something in there as well, particularly around, you know, people telling other people what they should be. Yeah. Does that apply? Because I know that's an ADHD thing as well. Is that sort of, like, in a quest for autonomy and not being told what to do?
Bug: Yeah, I think that probably does play into it a lot.
Emma: Yeah. Okay, well, thank you for that. So let's talk a little bit more about whether you feel comfortable talking about your own journey with discovering your gender?
Bug: Yes, I am. So I've always kind of felt different from clouds. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, so I've always kind of felt different within myself, especially around other girls, I'm using quotation marks because I never was a girl. My brain was always a boy's brain. Because they've done studies on this. They have done studies on this. And transgender people, actually, when they do the brain scan there, they have the brains of the genders that they were the genders identify us with. It's really interesting. It's really interesting. It's a really interesting study. Yeah. Um, but um, and that also kind of comes along with being autistic. I didn't really like, understand a lot of things about them. And I've always kind of been kind of tomboyish. Kind of, yeah, like I've always had relatively short hair.
Emma: You've just up to me, you've always been working there girls, and delightful. And I remember when you were in grade four, and you finally had that teacher who was like, back at his cronies. And because Bug found, what grade does it you found that your good friend grade two or two besties, they're all like, the most amazing kids. Very, very different to the kind of the standard. And I know No, no, kids are standard kids, right.
But this is just like a typical child. Everyone's different.
Hug: Yeah. But they were just like, different and they and they and they clicked and so bugs were very lucky in his journey. And also because I think he's a very cool kid, of finding other kids who appreciate his quirkiness and he appreciates that quirkiness. Yeah, I always had a try and really haven't. Really since that age.
Emma: Yeah. It's kind of a last for a little bit. Yeah. And I found my people and I,
you found them ever since. I mean, yeah. And you sort of attract your people? No, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. And so what would you say you were, we were talking about your journey. So you're always a bit that looks like a womb. Just other people listening Bugβs making things out of clay. So you will feel it, you felt sort of a little bit different to other people, you didn't feel like the other girls, the typical girls. And then what else?
Bug: Well, um, and I actually did have, like, because I'm dressing very, like you always like to love history. And you'd always be in like big flowy skirts and be like, I loved
him. I love history, stills my special you do like somebody from the olden days, and we'd be like, we'd go to like, sovereign Hell and Back would be the only person I can fool like 1800 stress. The 1800s were such an interesting time.
Emma: But when did you sort of really start identifying as a different gender from the gender that you were born to? When would you say that you started sort of articulating that to other people?
Bug: I'd say grade five. Yeah. I remember the first thing I identified as was gender fluid. Yeah. Which I actually hadn't told you at this point. I came out to you. I when I was non binary, which was a bit later in grade six, I think. Yeah. Um, but I told my friends, I thought I was gender fluid. Because I, this is actually I think this has something to do with, like, because you, obviously, I've always been surrounded by really big feminists like you. I love you. I'm a feminist. I'm a feminist. I'm a feminist. I love women. I love women. platonically. I love women. Go women go lady. Girl bosses that slay the day away. But, um, I, I feel like I really internalised a lot of that, like, they would think I really, there was, for a long time, I really didn't want to come to terms with the fact that I was a boy. I always skirted around it like I like, my journey was I'm gonna fluid I'm gender fluid. I like to identify as a man a lot. But like, I also identify as a woman and sometimes non binary. And then I was like, I don't know, I'm non binary. Okay, I am non-binary. And then I started flitting between so many other times that are fake, and they're totally bad. All of these are totally valid times. There are so many people that these times sit so right with, like, gender queer. I am genderqueer. Ly. And I'm like, non binary, gender fluid. Like, by agenda, try gender. Like those are all super valid. There's a lot of people that identify with those and they're not all good people. But this lay agenda. Um, but I was just, I just didn't want to accept the fact that I was a man because I did feel a connection to femininity, which I do express now with my dresses and stuff. But I think that's because I just grew up not with a man hating Lee but just so proud of being a woman that I didn't want to let that go.
Emma: Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. And I think that's some of the reason why it can be quite difficult for women when they're sons or females assigned at birth. It's those who identify as male tell them because they can be a bit like oh, no, you're going to you're going to the patriarchy. Which is silly as well, because it's but it comes up for people a lot. Yeah. Because I've had people that I know talk about it. Can you turn off
the heater? I'm like
yeah. Sorry. Distracted. Alright. Um and then I suppose really, you told me and then you've kind of grown into your, your, your, you know, being really open about your trends? Yeah, identification and your I've always found the pronouns quite good. confusing because I struggle with remembering things. So it's problematic or just pronouns in general. Yeah. Just you, you regularly He/Him yourself?
Bug: I do and I He/Him everybody. Not that that's an excuse tonight. But it is a reality. Yeah. But talk to us about pronouns a little bit and how important it is to ask and to try this thing just with pronouns is it is basic human respect. That's the thing. It is like, the cause you see, when you see someone is human, you use she here, she had a she, he they, um, but if you don't see someone as human, you call them you don't see if you don't see something as human, you call it as you use it. And that can be really powerful. Pronouns can be so powerful, because if you're not addressing someone by the correct pronoun, then they kind of feel like you don't see them as who they are.
Emma: Thank you. That's helpful. And, you know, it's important as well, I think, you know, when we get corrected to take that on board. Yeah.
Bug: And also apologise. One, sorry, and then correct yourself. That's good. Don't be like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll never do it again. I'm so sorry. Because you probably will do it again. Just feel worse. So just go, Oh, I'm sorry. Insert correct pronoun, continuous sentence.
So tell us a little bit about what is helpful for a young person who is starting to voice their true gender to their family, what is what would be helpful, most important thing, listen, listen to them. You don't have to understand it. You don't have to, you don't, you don't really have to get it. But it's just important that you listen to them, because they know themselves best. Listen to what they're saying. Take it on board and ask questions if you have them. Because a lot of the time they're like, more than happy to tell you because they're so happy that you accept them because there's so many people that wouldn't. And you know that that shouldn't be the reality. Everyone should be accepted, of course, but it's just so important to listen.
Emma: That's what I think it's a really important thing for a human to be listened to, isn't it? Yeah. To be listened to and believe you'll have your experience, it is believed . Yeah. Um, is there anything else? I think we've probably covered most things. Is there anything else that you would like to share or talk about with regards to gender or
neuro divergence? We can do another podcast if we want to? Or if anybody's got anything they want to ask back? Oh, my God, we should do a Q & A episode. Send your questions or send your questions in and get back to answer them. I'll answer them that's so well, blown away. Everyone will be speechless. Buggy, anything else that you want to share?
Bug: I'm really, to be honest, I think we covered a lot of really good stuff here.
Emma: No, great. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for coming on my podcast. I really thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of midlife AF with Emma Gilmour. If you enjoyed it, please share on Instagram for your friends and tag me at hote rising coaching. If you want to help me grow the podcast please review the episodes for me on Apple podcast that really helps. If you would like to work further with me please go to my website www Haute rising coaching.com for my free and paid programs or email me at Emma at Hope rising coaching.com sending a massive cuddle to you and yours for me and mine and remember to keep choosing you
