SIO525: Dude Who Said Autism Is "Extreme Male Brain" Walks It Back

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:13 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 525. What a number. What a great number. I'm Thomas. That over there is Jenessa. In what capacity are you joining us today?

0:00:18 Jenessa: In my, well, not medical doctor capacity, I wish, the plague has hit our household.

0:00:26 Thomas: And you're impersonating a doctor. No, I'm just kidding. You're kind enough to join us for an SIO. What are we going to be talking about today?

0:00:36 Jenessa: Today I have a little grab bag for you of just ADD, autism, things that have been hitting my feed, interesting news, papers from 2025, 2026, things things that are new and happening. I got weird news about researchers who are like apologizing for dumb bullshit they've said. Yeah. Yeah,

0:01:01 Thomas: That's fun. Yeah, I swear I see a study a day on Reddit about ADHD. I don't know what it is about our people. No, I do know what it is. For one, we're online a lot. And so people are just sharing the stuff on Reddit, I'm sure like disproportionately, but, uh, they're also, it's just like nonstop theorizing, you know, it'S just a lot of this causes this, you Know, Oh, this ADHD goes along with a certain eye condition. That's the one I saw today. I'm Sure. We're not getting to that. Cause that's hot off the presses maybe, but it is good to be.

0:01:21 Jenessa: I haven't heard that one.

0:01:31 Thomas: Yeah. Next month's SIO. So, yeah, it's I always think and we really do bother you with some amount of them. And I always think like, I wish I had someone to tell me, is this anything or not? And so I love a good grab bag of that. Essentially, I'm excited to hear about what's bullshit or not.

0:01:50 Jenessa: I got some cool stuff about sensory processing, curiosity, object personification. This is my favorite paper title ever. Object Personification in Autism, colon. This paper will be very sad if you don't read it.

0:02:09 Thomas: That's funny. I like that. I love when they get creative with the titles.

0:02:10 Jenessa: I love that one. Yeah. Some cool stuff. More of a meta thing about what are autism researchers up to? What are their attitudes about autistic people? Yeah, we got some cool stuff to talk about.

0:02:22 Thomas: Good stuff. I'm exciting to dig in. All right. Well, let's take a quick break and, you know, here's some annoying ads unless you're an an amazing patron patreon.com/seriouspod and then we'll find out if papers are sad and more all right well I'm grabbing them reaching the grab bag I grabbed a random one what is it I can't you tell me

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0:02:56 Jenessa: So this paper is titled Sensory Processing in Individuals with Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder compared with control populations. This one really caught my eye because we know about the idea that in autism, there are sensory processing differences. So hypersensitivity, avoidance of certain sensory stimuli. You might see some sensory seeking behaviors. So stimming, we would often call it.

0:03:27 Thomas: Oh is that what that is or is that

0:03:29 Jenessa: It really depends. There can be a lot lot of reasons behind stimming.

0:03:33 Thomas: What technically is that? What is stimming? Is that like flapping stuff or no?

0:03:38 Jenessa: Yeah, that would be the most stereotypical version of it is like we see autistic kids flap their hands. In more harmful versions, you might see a kid who's like biting themselves or hitting their head. And like, obviously, we want to avoid those behaviors, right? But some of the behaviors, yeah, are just like flapping your hands, which I'm really, you know, kind of who cares, like, let it go. But there's been more and more talk of like, like, hey, ADHD people kind of stim too. It's just, it tends to be more socially acceptable kind of behaviors that people don't always notice it, you know, twirling your hair, tapping your feet, tapping your finger, tapping Your Pencil, people may get annoyed by it. But compared to like hand flapping, people instantly clock that as like weird behavior. Like, like, what is that? What are you doing? Where a lot of the more ADD stims, it doesn't get clocked as weird. I don't know quite how else to describe it. Like, people just seem to accept it as it can be annoying in a quiet room, but otherwise, like, if that's a normal thing that normal people do, possibly.

0:04:11 Thomas: Yeah interesting is it just more common like does is Is there more overlap with people who don't typically, yeah.

0:04:49 Jenessa: Yeah, like I mean, hair twirling can be an anxiety behavior for people with anxiety disorders, or it can just be like a thing people do, right?

0:04:57 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. How do you differentiate there?

0:04:57 Jenessa: Like, it don't have to mean anything. Yeah, good question. A lot of these behaviors exist within a normal spectrum as well. I have always wondered about this because on the one hand, it might just be I have ADD and also I am autistic. That might be what's going on. I have always had sensory things there's a lot of textures that just you better get it away from me I can't stand it there's certain sounds that make me want to die you have to stop and get it away from and a lot times like certain sounds and smells I will notice them at like very low thresholds where other people are like acting like they can't even tell that it's there I feel like a crazy person. I'm like, how do you not hear that? How do you not smell that? It's driving me insane. So caught my eye when I saw this paper that was like, oh, sensory processing differences might be a thing in ADD. It's not just an autism thing. In the introduction, they give examples of some studies in 2002 and 2004. So like, this has has been known for a while that people with ADHD might be showing higher or lower sensitivity thresholds, that we might show more avoidance of certain sensory stimuli. So they did a big meta-analysis and

0:06:25 Jenessa: Looked for papers that first, just going through, does it mention ADD and sensory processing? So of course, that turns up like 6 ,000 papers. So how do you filter it back It had to include people formally diagnosed with ADHD. No more than 20 % of the population comorbid with autism, intellectual disability, other genetic disorders. So like trying to keep it as much to just ADD as possible. And the control group had to be a group without ADHD, so not some other clinical match like ADD versus anxiety versus OCD, whatever, like ADV versus a like control group with no diagnoses and no case studies. It has to be, you know, it has to have a control group. A study where there's a control room. When they pull that all out, they end up with about 30 studies. And sure enough, there's the effect. Sensory sensitivity and sensory avoidance, so avoiding negative stimuli, was higher in adults and children with ADHD.

0:07:06 Thomas: Gotcha. Mm -hm.

0:07:31 Jenessa: And in children with ADHD, they also saw higher sensory seeking. So like going towards those sensory stimuli, that's kind of that stimming behavior that I really like the touch of this thing. I'm going going to touch it, touch it. I really like the sound. I'm going to go towards that sound and play that song over and over again. That kind of thing.

0:07:54 Thomas: Right. So immediately, my first question would be, is this less about the sound or the texture or the whatever and more about both as an ADHD person and with possibly ADHD kids, nobody's diagnosed yet, but we'll see. The inability to tolerate for one anything uh the boredom unpleasant feelings or whatever but also I mean on the positive side kind of a seeking of that like you know dopamine kind of thing is it less about potentially less about like the sounds and the how do you tease apart quote -unquote normal person is also perceiving this thing the same way but doesn't have the part They might just be like, oh, that's kind of annoying. Whereas like my kids, especially, I think it's just more apparent in kids because they haven't socialized themselves out of it yet.

0:08:47 Thomas: It's also apparent in myself too, where it's like, if I'm in a place and something is annoying, I'm just so much more annoyed than most people. And I do feel like that's a bit of the ADHD thing where it'S like, I can't, you know what I mean? Maybe I'm wrong, but like, so I guess the two differences would be, are ADHD people like perceiving things in a different way, or is it just the inability to stay more chill about it?

0:09:13 Jenessa: So that's where it's important to separate these out is they find both. So avoidance is the behavior where yucky, ill, get away from it. Sensory sensitivity is just reporting ick so it's like the sensory threshold kind of testing of like I hear it I'm noticing and other people are not noticing so it is a little hard to tease that apart of I'm not noticing and others aren't noticing from I'm annoyed and others are not annoyed that's a little harder to tease apart but there is this group that is they called it like like, passive sensory sensitivity, which is, as opposed to avoiding, which is an active behavior, like, get it away from me. The sensitivity is just, I am irritated by

0:09:28 Thomas: Ah, gotcha. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Hmm.

0:10:02 Jenessa: This thing. This stimuli is getting to me. And they're in a more passive group where they're sitting, they're tolerating, but they are noticing these things at lower thresholds than other people. So it can be teased apart in that way, and we do see both. So that being said, this is summarizing a whole bunch of different papers. They admit there is a lot of methodological difference. So really, all these different studies are not necessarily conceptualizing it the same way or testing it with the exact same metrics. So really, we need more research is the thought going forward. And they're really focused on we want to understand this better. The point of this is not to stigmatize. It's to understand and support. They were really clear about that in their conclusion. And hey, it's a little weird. On the one hand, if this does occur across many disorders, it sort of makes sense that it's not necessarily in the diagnostic criteria.

0:11:04 Jenessa: But on the other hand, if you don't assess for this, and it's occurring in many, many people with ADHD, you might miss them. Like, what if they have almost all, they almost meet criteria, and also they have all these sensory sensitivities, and so you didn't catch them? Like, maybe we should consider updating that.

0:11:22 Thomas: Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Hmm. Can we stigmatize the annoying sounds though? There needs to be more stigma. Now, I take it back. If I had to choose, more stigma on annoying smells. If I to choose. Because sounds, I feel like there's more I can do about it. And also other people seem to be bothered by at least something like loud sounds a little bit.

0:11:44 Thomas: Although concerts are just too fucking loud. But when it comes to the smells, I'm sorry. I want a special police phone number just for when someone or something smells too bad. And no one's doing anything about it, sorry. Just it's so bad. I told the story on Dear Old Dads. Like I had a museum experience ruined because someone just decided they don't have to wear deodorant or something.

0:12:06 Thomas: And it's just like, that's not compatible with me. I don't know.

0:12:06 Jenessa: The one that gets me is the red onions I can't tell you how many men I have gone on a date with and on the first date they're like let me get red onions on this sandwich and I'm like no get the hell away you're gonna eat that and then try to breathe your breath on me absolutely not oh the sound for me that I'm like if I could delete diesel engines off this planet you mow your lawn outside my window thank god for New York gun laws I would have killed some people by now I can't oh that sound of just and they just do it for so long how much oh the leaf blower how many leaves could there be I had a neighbor growing up who would mow his lawn and then go get the leaf blower to blow the grass off the sidewalk.

0:12:42 Thomas: Leaf blowers. Yeah.

0:12:54 Jenessa: And I was just like, whatever happened to a broom? A rake? I will buy you a broom. Like, please.

0:12:54 Thomas: They have electric versions of those that are just as good and more efficient. Should be the law. Should be law. No more of this. Yeah.

0:13:05 Jenessa: It should. There's so much quieter and nicer. And oh, good God. Yeah. So I'm fully on board with this. This is absolutely, I don't know if it's ADD or autism or just me. It's part of my experience and it makes me want to die. So that kind of ties into the next one here. Hyperactive impulsive ADHD traits predict higher curiosity in adults.

0:13:36 Thomas: Interesting.

0:13:37 Jenessa: Yeah. So I sent you the link to the curiosity test they used. I did not know this existed. It's a short metric. So essentially what you do with a lot of these personality tests is you start out with like 400 questions and you find out like this okay we can get these questions are not relevant to the construct we're trying to measure and blah blah blah and you might get down to a questionnaire that's like 50 questions that really assess the thing I'm trying to assess and then there's always a short version that's yeah but if this questionnaire gets me you know know, 100 % of what I wanted to test. These 10 questions get me like 80 % accuracy of what I wanted. So this is the short version that they use the 10 question curiosity test.

0:14:27 Thomas: Oh, is this, are we doing Thomas and Jenessa talk about a test? Because I'm all for it. I actively seek as much information as I can in new situations. Pretty much probably a five on that one, I'd say.

0:14:32 Jenessa: If you would like to, yeah. Yeah.

0:14:38 Thomas: Kind of depends. Probably a five there. Two, okay, here's where I already, the question sometimes is just so hard. I'm the type of person who really enjoys the uncertainty of everyday life. I can't give that a rating. I got nothing on that. I don't have feelings about that. I don't know. Kind of is what it is, what it was. Yeah, exactly.

0:14:53 Jenessa: That is such a complicated question for me. I don't like unpredictability. When I thought something was going to go one way and then it goes another way. I am in like meltdown mode. So no to that one for me.

0:15:08 Thomas: Yeah I have too many things that like back pain, stomach issues, like too many things where like I'm worried I won't be able to sit down at the right time. But if so this is what I I have no idea what the answer would be. If I could control for all those, if it's like all right you're gonna have the right foods that you need, first time you're going to have the right then I love it. I love doing new stuff.

0:15:32 Thomas: That's cool but so I can't really tease You know what I mean? But like, I do have a hard time when it's like, oh, we have to go to a thing. Shit. All right. What's the is it?

0:15:32 Jenessa: Sure now I have to replan my whole day.

0:15:41 Thomas: What's going to be there? No, I don't care about the replaying the day for me. So I think that's a slight difference. I don't think I have that. I have the like, Like I just have like a lot of issues that I worry won't be taken care of. Like vegetarian, you know, heartburn, stomach. It's like I'm worried. Okay, will I be able to eat something? Will I, you Know, it's just a bunch of crap like that. So I would say controlling for that. I think I do enjoy uncertainty, but I also tend to just like fall into my routine, you know, so who knows?

0:15:52 Jenessa: Okay oh yeah yeah yeah I hear you. Oh yup. Yeah.

0:16:09 Thomas: Anyway, the test giver has now killed themselves and they're like, I'm going to another subject. You're not worth it. Three, I do my best when doing something that's complex or challenging. Oh, 100%. 100%. Five. Four. Everywhere I go, I'm out looking for new things or experiences. Hmm. New things or experience. I don't know about that as much. That's a weird.

0:16:28 Jenessa: Yeah it's too too abstract for me. Depends what you mean.

0:16:29 Thomas: Yeah. Everywhere I Go. I get. Kind of. It's not. Yeah. That's hard one to answer.

0:16:37 Jenessa: That's where my routineness comes in. If I'm like, if I'm in a new city, and I'm all like on tourist mode, I'm Like, yes, take me to the new restaurant. But if I am in my own place, I am like, I have the restaurant that I go to, and that is the place I go too. So like, it really depends.

0:16:52 Thomas: Yeah. I think for me, ultimately, if this is getting out of curiosity. Okay. If curiosity and exploration, I would say, like, I don'T know that I do that in that sense. But I will say that everything I'm doing, I'm constantly analyzing it and looking at it and finding everything I can within whatever thing I'm doing, you know, but I might not necessarily be like looking for a new experience all the time. You know, I don't know. It's kind of a I'm not sure if that's different. Five, I view challenging situations. Yeah, I probably. Yeah. Well, I should say one through five is one is very slightly or not at all. Two is a little. Three is moderately. Four is quite a bit. If five is extremely which is slightly different than like the normal scale I feel like so very slightly or not at all there's not like a super negative answer to any of these like oh no I

0:17:14 Jenessa: Hmm. Okay. Yeah, that's probably yeah they probably want you to just say three yeah right

0:17:43 Thomas: Hate it you know which is interesting so I view challenging situations as an opportunity to grow and learn I don't know man there's so many of these is like I'm too I'm too fucking old for this I don'T I get I have no opinion on this like I whatever I'll deal with whatever it is I'm too busy that's my answer six I like to do things that are a little frightening yeah maybe I don't know okay yeah I think so I again I'm just too busy I don' t but I'll I would but well okay if I didn't have kids I would I'll bungee jump I'll go I'll jump off a cliff I'll do whatever I'll skydive I like that stuff actually but now with kids it's like I'm probably gonna play it too I'm always looking for experiences that challenge how I think about the myself in the world yeah Yeah, sure. I mean, always is doing a lot of work there. It's like, do you have a job? You know, like what the check your privilege survey? Yeah, exactly. It really is. Like, I wonder, you know, that's actually genuinely an interesting question scientifically. And maybe this is just isn't that big of an effect or whatever, but like, is there some thought to like, Hey, when you're answering these questions, consider that you have plenty of resources and money

0:17:59 Jenessa: Depends what that word means yeah yeah yeah sometimes I'm tired but you know know yeah

0:18:53 Thomas: And don't want for or anything. And because I just feel like a lot of this might be canceled out by people who are like, no, man, I got a job. I got too much to do. I get kids to feed. I wonder. I don't know how much of that could be some amount of an effect, I would think. Because there might be people who are plenty curious, but are like, it's like those surveys they did with the, we've talked about them before, where it's people take the IQ test and it drops a lot when they're worried about the the next harvest versus when they've got bountiful resources.

0:19:25 Thomas: And so I wonder if there's any, you know, any thought to like try to control that somewhat by like putting the answer in a bit of a mind state.

0:19:21 Jenessa: When they're stressed right right

0:19:33 Thomas: But anyway, I prefer jobs that are excitingly unpredictable. I don't know, man. I just need to work, whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

0:19:33 Jenessa: Yeah job is a job that's unpredictable to me sounds like an aggressive scary boss who's gonna like rip the rug out from under me I don't love that answer maybe

0:19:47 Thomas: Well, I will say in my job, I get to talk about like all kinds of different things. So I, you Know, kind of.

0:19:55 Jenessa: Excitingly is doing heavy lifting they're like not unpredictable in a a terrifying way, but unpredictable in a fun way.

0:20:01 Thomas: Who likes an unpredictable job? Like you have to at least have some.

0:20:04 Jenessa: I have to pay my bills.

0:20:05 Thomas: Yeah. Also, you have to be qualified for it. It's not like you walk into a room. It'S like today you're a doctor. Now I know we're the worst. Yeah, these are a little too.

0:20:10 Jenessa: See, nobody else is doing this. This is the problem. These questionnaires are not designed for us. They want you to read it and just go, go, and yeah.

0:20:20 Thomas: Yeah I know. I feel like that's every every questionnaire and they're wrong. I frequently seek out opportunities to challenge myself and grow as a person. Yeah too busy. 10. I'm the kind of person who embraces unfamiliar people in Vincent places. I don't know. I'd say more than average, but not like a ton. I don'T know. All right. I DON'T know what's my score.

0:20:40 Thomas: If all fives was 50 and all ones was 10, I'd probably 30, 30, 40. I Don'T know it's interesting.

0:20:46 Jenessa: I think you're putting yourself a little... Some of those are, I'm too tired, but if I wasn't exhausted, I probably would be doing that. Yeah. That kind I think for me, a lot of these get hindered by the I am an anxious routine lover. But when I can overcome that, yeah, I'm very into a lot, you know, obviously, like, grow as a person, challenge myself, embrace. I study unfamiliar people.

0:21:13 Jenessa: That's my whole thing. So I got a PhD in studying unfamiliar people, so I feel like I kind of have to score myself high on that, right? Right?

0:21:21 Thomas: But for sure the tension between what I think of is more an autism routinized thing versus the ADHD curiosity. It's interesting to have both of those those things and they're kind of fighting each other. You're like, see, it just depends on who wins for a given day or situation. But I don't have that. I mainly have that I know of. I have the ADHD. So I do feel like I'm definitely more curious than the average frigging person. That's for sure. I'm frequently wondering why things are the way they are. Well, maybe this test is a perfect example. People can just take a test and be like, oh, yeah, I'll just answer that. I'm like, what are you talking about? There's so many assumptions here.

0:22:00 Jenessa: I have so many questions.

0:22:00 Thomas: Yeah. There's this this could mean so many different things. I'm very, and you know, it's like, I do that with a lot of things. Why is this rule the way it is? God damn it. Like why are we, hold on. Why are we waiting in line here when there's another thing that's open? You know what I mean? It's like all that kind of stuff. It's like I feel like I'm frequently going.

0:22:10 Jenessa: Why do so many places have double doors and one of them is locked? I'll never understand that for the rest of my life. It's been driving me crazy lately. They just do that. I don't get it.

0:22:25 Thomas: Yeah. And sometimes I'll have a sign that says like use other door and you're like, what happens?

0:22:29 Jenessa: Then why is it here?

0:22:30 Thomas: Yeah. Like what's wrong with this door I don't understand hmm

0:22:33 Jenessa: There's a couple of places in my city where there's no right turn not like no right on red no right you can go straight or left

0:22:38 Thomas: Wow even though it's not a like a one way or something wow they're just like fuck right turns here wow interesting never heard of that

0:22:47 Jenessa: There go straight into the shopping mall and then figure it out no turning right and every time I'm like I'm gonna do it I swear I'm going to take a picture of it for you it's maddening every time we get to this intersection we both complain about it but that's like I some people people just complain about it. And I'm like, I'm going to call the mayor. I have to know. Someone knows.

0:22:54 Thomas: Are you sure it's a one -way street okay okay that is weird yeah well that's a different thing I feel like like that's I feel like you that's a can -do attitude as well or something I don't

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0:23:30 Jenessa: So essentially, that's what this paper looked at was, hey, question. Some of this looks like it shows up a lot in people with ADHD, I wonder. And there was a moderately strong strong correlation, particularly on the hyperactive -impulsive dimension. So the inattentive symptoms, they had some correlation with it, but it was really, they combine in ADHD questionnaires, hyperactivity and impulsivity are like put together. Yeah, they don't feel the same to me.

0:24:04 Thomas: Know oh interesting yeah oh hyperactivity and impulsivity are put together oh and they're separated from the like the the I got you okay yeah that's interesting

0:24:14 Jenessa: Inattentive right so we used to have add was a diagnosis and adhd was a diagnosis and we've treated them like separate things and then for reasons that are not quite clear to me somebody decided like they are just the same condition it's just some people have the hyperactive symptoms and some people

0:24:30 Thomas: Yeah that'S weird now I've never thought about this distinction which is hyperactive versus impulsive which is because Cause I don't have the hyperactivity. I don'T think, I think that's always what I've not really had. I'm I, I could sit still all day, but I do. I, I would say I have impulsivity for sure. It's interesting. I feel like I pick my moments, but like, I'll just up and like get into a whole new thing, like just out of nowhere, you know? And that does feel very different than hyperactility to me.

0:24:55 Jenessa: Don't yeah yeah so I always see it as hyperactivity dash impulsivity like boom one thing and I sent you the questionnaire it's an 18 question thing for ADHD it's like the classic you've probably taken it before if you've been diagnosed and a bunch of them are really obvious attention type questions how often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations and I'm like I can't believe anyone ever has remembered an appointment or obligation without notes I don't know how that's physically possible right like how does anyone else function And then there's the really obvious hyperactivity questions that are like, how often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or feet when you have to sit down for a long time? Like, those are more obvious. But the ones that fit more less hyperactive and more impulsive in my read is like, Like, how often do you interrupt others when they are busy?

0:25:05 Thomas: Huh? Weird. Oh, Oh, I probably have. Yeah. Yeah.

0:25:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. You just have a calendar, right? Sure. Sure.

0:25:57 Jenessa: How often do You have difficulty waiting your turn in situations where turn -taking is required?

0:26:04 Thomas: That's funny because probably yes, but also at this stage of my life, I could easily see no. But when I envisioned that, I envisioned like, well, I'll just fucking do something else. You know, like, wait, is that, does that mean I'm good at waiting my turn or not? You know? I'm not sure.

0:26:20 Jenessa: Yeah, or like, here's, when you're in a conversation, how often do find yourself finishing the sentences of the people you're talking to before they can finish them themselves? Now, to me, that's just being an Italian New Yorker. Like that's not, that's not diagnostic. That's cultural to me.

0:26:35 Thomas: Well, sure. No. Yeah. That'S to me, the meme is like being an ADHD person when you already know what the the person's going to say, and they just, what's that one? I can't actually remember what the meme is, but it's just like agony. It's just yes, I already know what you're saying. I'm already done. Please be done with a sentence. That's all the time for me.

0:26:57 Thomas: I try to varying degrees of success to not actually say it, but I'm always there in my brain.

0:27:07 Jenessa: It's why I've struggled so much when I moved because in New York that is relatively culturally acceptable that like you're just helping to speed this situation along. It is like almost polite when they are like and if you just give them the word it is like yes, thank you, moving along. And other places I've lived it's like very impolite. I'm like, I'm helping you. I don't know what the problem is. You clearly are struggling to figure out what you're going to say, and I'm hoping. No, not acceptable in many places in the world, but it is acceptable in my family and where I grew up. So maybe we're just all ADD.

0:27:42 Thomas: Oh man, I'm just looking over this. I remember getting my diagnosis. I mean, I уже knew, but It's like, I've seen these things and And you're just like, yeah, man, obviously, 100 % of the time.

0:27:47 Jenessa: Yeah, like five on all of these, pretty much.

0:27:53 Thomas: Yeah, it's like pretty much. How often are you distracted by activity or noise around you? Yeah, man. Anytime there's noise, it'S annoying.

0:27:59 Jenessa: I mean, come on, we just said that, right all noises have to stop like no

0:28:06 Thomas: And I have to know what it is, too. That's exactly. Gotta know.

0:28:08 Jenessa: There's the curiosity I gotta figure it out first so it is fascinating too like when I read these I remember answering some of these with like lower numbers because there's like this classic stereotype of the hey autistic person when you fill out this questionnaire and they say like do you have a problem with x if your answer is no no, because I have a system to deal with it? The answer is yes, you do have a problem with these. They don't tell you that. So I was always just like, no, of course I don't have a problem with missing these appointments because I have a calendar and 74 alarms.

0:28:32 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. See, they need to tell you that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yep.

0:28:47 Thomas: That's the example. Oh, totally. That's the example I was just going to say. I was like, I never forget a thing that's in my calendar that I don't use. I've offloaded it completely. It's almost like saying, no, I never forgive an appointment. I have someone who tells me when it is all the time. You're like, that's not really.

0:29:02 Jenessa: I interrupt the conversation to put it in my calendar. Because if I wait 24 seconds,

0:29:06 Thomas: Yep. Yep, it's not going in there.

0:29:09 Jenessa: I won't put it in the calendar. And then you don't exist until we next speak.

0:29:14 Thomas: 100%.

0:29:15 Jenessa: If Google Calendar, if those servers ever go down, rest in peace, everyone who has an appointment with me. You'll never see me again. It's over.

0:29:18 Thomas: Oh, it is. It's over for us. Yeah. Podcast will never happen again. Yeah, yep

0:29:24 Jenessa: So, oh my God, never. When would we? I have no idea what's the next thing we're doing, when we'redoingit. All All our files are on there. Those are just gone. My whole brain is in there.

0:29:34 Thomas: The absolutely biggest thing I say with lydia all the time is like no we're thinking of it now do it now right now while we're think of it there's no and lydia's not doesn't have adhd I don't think or isn't diagnosed at least but I do feel like she could benefit from taking my my uh approach where it's like nope we're just thinking the thing is in your vision right now do it whatever it is grab it it's not going to happen later it won't exist later it never will will happen later.

0:30:03 Jenessa: I think for a lot of us, we develop coping mechanisms that in some way, it can almost be better than just trusting yourself and relying on it because occasionally everybody forgets, right? And I'm like, oh, no, I'll never forget because everything goes in the calendar, even the most mundane. Date. My closest family's birthdays, my brother's birthday is in my calendar. You think I don't remember that? Just in case. It's in there. Everything's in there and I check it before bed and then I set alarms.

0:30:24 Thomas: Or I'll always forget. I don't know. Oh, wow.

0:30:37 Jenessa: I had to have a system or else I will not make it.

0:30:41 Thomas: At the risk of us alienating anyone who's not ADHD in the listenership, which is pretty much four people. So how did we get onto this? What are we looking at here? What Are We Trying To...

0:30:51 Jenessa: So with this study, basically, yeah, if you scored high very specifically specifically on the hyperactivity slash impulsivity and I think it's really the impulsility curiosity was highly correlated with that so there might be a little something going on they go through a couple of possibilities for why that might be and like kind of there's a little bit of an evolutionary thing there of like it might not be so bad to have somebody in your group who's like, I'll try it. Yeah. You know what?

0:31:06 Thomas: 100%. Yeah. Well, no fucking kidding. Also, look, I know I am in a line of work where sound matters, but very frequently I'm like, like, well, I'm the only one noticing this thing. And then it turns out to be like, oh yeah, I was talking with my microphone up my asshole. Is that not how you're supposed to do it? I'll be like yeah. Good thing I said something. Cause no, you're not supposed to have the microphone in your ass. It's not where it goes. Or it'll be like, Oh, it wasn't plugged in the whole time. I don't even, I don' I'm talking to you with telepathy. I'll be like yeah, man, I' m glad I said something. And there'll be like 80 people on the recording. No one else says anything or notices it except me. Instead of low low stakes things, which are podcasting. If instead I'm like, Hey, I think there's a tiger right there. Like, does no one else notice the tiger sound? That's very much coming.

0:31:41 Jenessa: Hello? Yeah.

0:32:07 Thomas: And everyone's like, what are you talking about? God, this guy again.

0:32:10 Jenessa: I feel like that happens all the time where I'm like, Hey, what's that about? Just the other day I looked at, why am I looking at this? I I was looking at my washer dryer and I had to stand there for more than 0 .4 seconds waiting. It wasn't done yet. And I didn't want to walk back up the stairs. So, of course, I observed every physical object in the basement. And the plug for the dryer was just kind of semi dangling out. And I was like, oh, there's like metal electric, like the plug is not all the way in. If something ever touched any of that metal, the whole house is going to burn down. And it turns out it wasn't like because it didn't fit or anything. I just pushed it in. But like, who knows how long that just sat there. I lived here for two days and I was like, oh, we're all going to die. Let me fix this.

0:32:54 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, strong relate.

0:33:02 Jenessa: Yeah, I just notice stuff all the time. And some of it is sensory overwhelm and some of It shouldn't have touched that. But then other times it's really advantageous. I noticed it and I pointed it out and everybody's like, Oh, look at that. Let's fix it. It. So, you know, there's some pros and cons to a lot of these things.

0:33:23 Thomas: So I definitely see this one is a valid makes sense to me.

0:33:26 Jenessa: Yeah, it all kind of lines up that if you're just a little impulsive, it can be really harmful in some ways, but it can also be contributing to some curiosity and exploration. So you know we take the good with the bad. So cool stuff happening over there. On the autism front, this paper I will just mention very briefly the object personification. They were exploring this because a lot of people reported it in forums and they were like, oh, well, let's do a little study on it. It might seem a little counterintuitive because a of autistic people may, not everybody, there's a lot of variability. Some autistic people struggle to identify their own emotions. It's called alexithymia. So basically struggling to put words to your feelings, like not fully understanding why do I feel this way? That can also just be a thing that like, you know, lots of regular people experience. Like some people are better at describing their emotions than others. Some people are besser at understanding. You know, some people get upset and they're like, I know exactly why I'm upset and how to fix it. And other people are like, there's just water leaking out of my face and I don't know what's happening and like can't even identify that as sad. And so there's a huge spectrum. And some autistic people struggle with that. Some autistic people struggle with very specifically cognitive empathy, figuring out what somebody else's emotions are, not the expressive parts. So like, it's a huge misconception, the idea that like autistic people don't have feelings or don't care about your feelings. That's not true at all. Any autistic person just like other people if they know you're sad they're upset about that too and they don't want you to be sad but can sometimes struggle with cognitive empathy like not realizing you're sad

0:35:25 Jenessa: Not understanding why you are sad that kind of thing again not everybody huge variability so hey if that's true why are we seeing these reports of this this object personification clarification that you know as the paper title said this paper will be very sad if you don't read it and sure enough they did a questionnaire and pretty much everybody reports this in childhood anthropomorphizing this object this animal this plant this notebook has feelings yeah I mean animals literally like you know your dog probably you are

0:35:50 Thomas: I feel like animals a little different animals might actually have feelings yeah yeah

0:36:03 Jenessa: Correctly anthropomorphising to some some degree. But it seems to persist into adulthood for a lot of autistic people. And, you know, I can relate. There's a lot of times where like, God, Dan loves messing with me on this. He'll be like, Oh, no, I guess we got to throw this out. I'm sure it won't mind if we get rid of it. And I'm like, Stop it. No, I hate this. Like, Oh.

0:36:24 Thomas: Oh wow yeah see I don't have that one at all that's

0:36:31 Jenessa: I feel bad. I I feel bad about throwing out the poor notebook not in like the I don't get in the hoarder way I'm like no get rid of it we don't need it but I will have a moment of feeling very sad about the poor little object out in the rain kind of all the time I think everybody gets this a little bit right like I mean who heard about curiosity rover singing happy birthday to itself and like right like we all cried when we heard that story right I think um I I just will get that I mean you just draw a sad face on an object and I'm like oh no it's so sad now how horrible oh

0:36:45 Thomas: Funny wow yeah okay that's so interesting yeah okay but that thing actually has feelings so it's a little difference yeah interesting yeah I'm curious like what because like obviously yeah if you make an object into a thing that looks exactly like it has feelings I feel like that's maybe not exactly the point but I could be wrong

0:37:20 Jenessa: Sure yeah that would should do it for most people but everybody reports it in childhood to some degree and a lot of autistic adults and uh they checked for a gender imbalance and like gender did not explain this. So yeah, they had mostly men in the autistic population, which is kind of expected because it's more diagnosed in men. It is probably not necessarily more prevalent in men, but it is more diagnosed.

0:37:36 Thomas: Really that's interesting sorry you're saying there were just more men in the full test group

0:37:52 Jenessa: Correct. Yes. When they recruited, they got more men in their study and that's kind of expected. And that even when you correct for that, it didn't really change anything. So if if anything, they might be underestimating. So yeah, there's something going on there. They don't really have a clear explanation. It's a very recent study, but who knows? Synesthesia is more common in autism. So they propose maybe that's what's going on. Like, you know, if you're more likely to start assigning like colors and numerical order to random objects, maybe you're also giving them emotions too.

0:37:57 Thomas: Okay gotcha yeah yeah hmm that's interested I like that yeah hmm

0:38:32 Jenessa: Could be. I don't know. It's a funny one. Yeah.

0:38:33 Thomas: Yeah I have no insight into this one yeah Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, I mean, I somewhat have like the border perspective on it in terms of throwing away the old thing, but it's entirely, it's nothing to do with like the object's feelings. So I can't really, interesting.

0:39:03 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:39:03 Jenessa: So I got another one for you. This paper, I would highly recommend people check this out. I think it's written in a way that anybody could really follow along. Autism research is in crisis. A mixed method study of researchers' constructions of autistic people and Autism Research. So this one, what they did is they gave a survey to people who study autism and did their best to get it out to as many people as possible, you know, trying to hit as many labs as possible and very open -ended questions. And what they said was, you don't have to do any is, do you think this was a dehumanizing comment, an objectifying comment, a stigmatizing comment or an affirming comment, that kind of thing. And they define those in advance and then they go through and score it and you check inter -rater reliability. So do two researchers agree with each other that yes, that I agree that is a stigmatizing comment? That kind of thing. So what they're looking for is what do people studying autism think about autistic people.

0:40:21 Jenessa: And there's some really good stuff and there's some really concerning stuff. So like if I could pull a larger theme out of here, I think a lot of people are warranted in their skepticism of a lot research because if the person doing the research hates you, like it's kind of understandable that they came to a conclusion that you're bad and terrible and suck at everything and we should really try to find a cure. Yeah.

0:40:46 Thomas: Right, right. Yeah, it is one thing. I mean I feel like it goes two ways. It is like sometimes people research what they are really passionate about in a good way and then other times it is like race scientists trying to prove the races are, you know, it's like, that's a whole different thing.

0:40:57 Jenessa: So I'll make sure I read some positive comments, but these are exemplar quotes of some definitions here. So dehumanization, they defined as denial of full humanness, infantilization, compared to non-human animals, treated as lacking in rationality, refinement, cultural inability, or passive, fungible, machine -like. So here's an exemplar quote of a researcher, somebody who is actively studying autism as of the time of this paper, which was 2022. Autistic people may demonstrate an apparent absence of empathy for people's feelings, lack of responsiveness, awareness of social cues, or cultural norms. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's not the nicest, kindest way to talk about people. Example: objectification instrumentality denial of autonomy inertness viability ownership denial of subjectivity or fungibility is the definition exemplar quote without often comorbid intellectual disability and dependent upon the severity of their autism they are interesting often charming and valuable members of the community okay yeah that's really nice if they're not if they don't have an intellectual disability, depending on how severe their autism is, they can be interesting and charming. And like, you really thought you were being nice there for a minute.

0:42:24 Thomas: Yeah. What?

0:42:25 Jenessa: Or stigmatizing comments. So strongly stereotyping, risk-based language, strong othering based on normative expectations. The representative quote was, shut down from the outside world, rigid, emotional, fat. That is how a current researcher Researcher in autism described autistic people. When asked to describe what are they like,

0:42:41 Thomas: Fat. Fat. Wow. That's just what? There's just something wrong with you. Wow. Okay. Weird.

0:42:49 Jenessa: Your guess is as good as mine. Yeah.

0:42:57 Jenessa: So they went through and did an analysis of like how often they were seeing these things. But also, really, I think it is just worth reading to see there are tons and tons of example quotes in here of both really positive and really negative things. Things, and to see the headspace that a lot of these researchers are in, the diversity of the perspectives people are coming at it from, I found some of the quotes were really inspiring and lovely, and some of it was just really validating, honestly, that some of the research I read, I'm like, wow, this seems like this person maybe kind of just hates autistic people, and they're, like, willing to admit in a survey that they're like, yeah, they're just like dumb and fat. Saying it out loud. So it's really interesting when they ask about like, what do you think the causes of autism are? And that can be like a really subtle way to get

0:43:41 Thomas: Yeah. And that's what they're willing to admit. Yeah. Wow. Oh,

0:43:56 Jenessa: People to reveal what they think about it. So like, here's an example quote: there's no known cause of autism, despite a huge amount of research funding and time being invested in this question, it's definitely easier to answer the question of what doesn't cause autism, vaccinations, and poor parenting. Unfortunately, I'm sure people have heard the stereotype that it's vaccines. You may not be familiar with the really old school view that it's just a parenting problem, like a cold mother. That's why. Like, it super duper not true and led to a lot of people just blaming themselves for their children having struggles like no yeah

0:44:36 Thomas: Well, and I have to imagine since it's somewhat inherited, right? Right. Like, could there be that problem already where it's like autistic people, aren't they more likely to have autistic parents? And so then the stigma. So the stigma of people looking at, you know, if you're already stigmatized toward autistic people and then you're taking a look at their parents and you're like, ah, those people caused it. Yeah, exactly.

0:44:48 Jenessa: On average there it is I see it now or they just like act like their parent because of course they do and like maybe that's not the worst thing in the world you know you

0:45:05 Thomas: Yeah. I think this was a real missed opportunity. They should have used an RFK Jr. quote for every single section. It's like here's an example oh they'll never play baseball or just go read poetry or whatever the hell god I can't laugh every time I know it's funny to me every time god what an idiot oh he's so dumb

0:45:13 Jenessa: Could Oh my God, I'll never get over that it's so stupid. Yeah. I would really encourage people to check out this paper. I will, of course, link to it. There's really great stuff going on in here. And it just gives you perspective on the way people are approaching it, which leads me to one of the most famous autism researchers. Have you heard of Simon Baron Cohen?

0:45:49 Thomas: Uh, yes, isn't that Sasha Baron Cohen's brother

0:45:52 Jenessa: It's his cousin. Yeah, they are related. So he's a very famous British psychologist. He's studied synesthesia and autism. He is most famous for his theories on autism that autistic people have mind blindness and the extreme male brain hypothesis. Yeah, for people who aren't familiar, basically he hypothesized that, first of all, autistic people, again, on average for some people, depending on the questionnaire you use, tend to score lower on cognitive empathy, that noticing or understanding

0:45:53 Thomas: Cousin oh okay mind blindness oh, that's right.

0:46:33 Jenessa: Other people's emotions. There's a lot of new research coming out that might be a, you probably heard the double empathy problem, this idea that it's like, it might be more like we all just communicate very differently as opposed as somebody's doing it right and somebody's doing it wrong, but it depends. I would love to talk about the papers on that. I'll give you an example. There's a really cool one that looked at so if it's correct that just autistic people are bad at it, then what you would expect is in a group of all autistic people you should see really bad communication breakdowns, but actually in a couple of different study designs it was mixed groups where half of people were autistic and half were not, that's where the worst communication happened?

0:46:50 Thomas: I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Oh, communication. Yeah I guess it really depends on how you're defining things because like I mean when you take some of those tests and it's like identifying facial expressions you don't know whether that person's autistic or not you know like the facial expression you're looking at and those are tests that autistic people have a harder time with, right?

0:47:40 Jenessa: On average, that is one way that neurotypical people really focus on looking at each other's faces to identify each other's emotions. So if you have to navigate that situation, yeah, like, I don't want to make eye contact with you. I am going to struggle to figure out your emotions unless I look at your face, like, yeah, that's going to be an issue. And really what that is, a lot of this is examining is neurotypical people seem to equally struggle to understand the emotions of autistic people. But two autistic people are pretty good at figuring out each other's emotions. If the theory was just that autistic people suck at figuring out each other's emotions, they should just suck even worse when it's two of them, right? But that's not what we end up seeing.

0:48:24 Thomas: For sure. Right. I just wasn't sure when you said like communication problems. I don't know if that necessarily is the same thing as, yeah.

0:48:30 Jenessa: So there was one study, it was a really cool design. They did like the game of telephone where, you know, like I whisper something to you and you whisper something to the next person. The message got the most distorted when it was mixed neurotypical and autistic.

0:48:48 Thomas: So it has nothing to do with reading emotions, right.

0:48:50 Jenessa: Not necessarily. The other version they did was they had people like, so two people, you've never met, come into a room, talk to each other, and you both rate how well you think that went, but also observers rate. What do you think the vibe was? Do you think they liked each other? And two neurotypicals, people are like, A plus, great conversation. Two autistic people, it was slightly lower ratings, but people are like, good conversation. When it was one neurotypical and one autistic person, people were like, boo, terrible conversation. That sucked. Yeah. So that's what people mean when they say double empathy is that idea of like we're missing each other of like I communicate one

0:49:20 Thomas: That makes, now that makes sense, yeah, just the misalignment, yeah Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

0:49:32 Jenessa: Way you communicate another way. Yeah. I could be doing more to.

0:49:36 Thomas: I just know I think I've, you know, I've spoken to people to, you know, people who treat autistic people and it's like, I think there's a lot of validity to that, but there's also autism to a certain extent becomes a disability and there's definitely a degree to which, yeah, exactly. Like I think a lot of people want to say that is the entirety of what's going on. And I don't think it is.

0:49:50 Jenessa: I mean, this is where spectrums come in. Yeah, yeah.

0:49:58 Jenessa: But yeah, it's going to vary depending on so many spectrum things. And also, intellectual disability is often correlated with autism. So especially if you're somebody who treats people who are like showing up at a facility with autism, a lot of times that's people with the most severe symptoms. A lot of them have a comorbid intellectual disability. So they may be struggling with a lot of things for a lot different reasons. Reasons so like if you're looking at like an adult who's like low support needs going about their life doesn't have an intellectual disability we might see a different profile on some of these things it really depends on like 400 different factors but that's where like a lot of this gets missed really what he came in to say as his modern day apology for a lot of us was yeah when I said like first of all when I said autistic people have lower empathy like everybody thought I meant they don't care about people's emotions and that was definitely wrong he hasn't really responded to criticisms of like also maybe that questionnaire is super limiting and maybe that's like you've got a lot of problems and how you studied the other stuff but he's at least said like I meant cognitive empathy guys

0:51:14 Jenessa: Like not affective not emotional like not the like caring about other people. That was a big yikes. And he's still like, I stand by this research. I'm not going to ask anybody to forgive the guy, but he is saying like, yeah, calling it an extreme male brain was probably a mistake. That was probably a bad move. Which, yeah. I mean, because of course, think about, I remember when I was younger and thinking like, ugh, I might be autistic. Like, a lot of this is lining up. I've struggled with like socializing my whole life. I struggled with with, like, sensory sensitivities. I eat three foods. I like my routines. Like, I got a lot of things I'm struggling with that kind of line up with this. And then I learned about this, and I was like, well, I'm, like a really girly girl. I'm very feminine. Like I'm not a guy. And some of his early responses to this were like, Well, of course, I m not saying women can't be autistic. Your brain doesn't have to match your body. What? That's that's not an answer to that. That's like, like saying like what are you saying they're trans like that doesn't make it that's not what that means so no yeah he said well he's saying like using that terminology was not appropriate he was basically his old stuff was that um we know with emotional intelligence some people are more empathizing and some people were more systematizing and

0:51:32 Thomas: Probably a bad move. Yeah. That's good. Right. Yeah huh. Yeah yeah that's so he's disavowed that. That's good. What?

0:52:38 Jenessa: Men are more systemizing and also autistic people are so like maybe autistic people just have like an extremely male brain and like this was all just very over the top and like he had a habit of taking well I would quibble with a lot of his methodology but even if you didn't he would have like okay methods and results and then go over the top with you know his intro and conclusion would just take things to the extreme like he was studying synesthesia and was like there's so many more women than men I wonder if the the gene for it is fatal to the male fetus and then we just redesigned the questionnaire and it turns out there's just as many men as women it turns out men just didn't like your questionnaire and he said this at a time when it was like we didn't even have we still don't really have genes identified for this and he was just like maybe that's what's happening and it's like what why why with no? Like, stop. I mean, there was one study where he was like, somebody found that mirror touch synesthesia. It's like, I touch my arm and you feel it on your arm. They were like, oh, that seems to correlate with these empathy questionnaires. And he immediately publishes mirror touch. Synesthesia is not associated with heightened empathy and can co -occur with autism. So like already implying that empathy and autism can't go together. And so I have found you a a paradox here and then he like recruited people from an autism website but then kicked every autistic person out of the study and then was like oh but there's higher autism quotient scores in the mirror touched anesthesia group so that disproves this but they were all subclinical on the autism quotcient because you kicked out everyone who was clinical on the autism quotation emotion. So who cares about any of this? Like, he's just always been very aggressive in his research. But now he is saying he really got the most pushback when he was like, we're going to do a genome study of 10 ,000 autistic people. We're going we're gonna find a gene, goddammit. And he had a ton of pushback and took a tonne of feedback from the autism community. And his like, put out this whole article where he was like yeah I probably shouldn't have said that stuff and we're gonna start doing research now on um you know what turns out there's like a lot of cardiovascular disease in autistic people and like I don't know why but we should look into that because you know they want to live healthy happy long lives and like maybe who cares what the cause is exactly like if you talk to autistic people there's an overwhelming consensus of like people People want to be well and feel well and feel accepted.

0:55:09 Thomas: Yeah yeah put your focus yeah put your focus somewhere different. Yeah everyone wants that. Yeah huh

0:55:26 Jenessa: And like, what would you want differently from research? Like, of course. Right. What do people want? They want services. They want things that would help them cope with whatever it is they're struggling with. Nobody gives shit about like what caused me to be the way I am. Like, well, I'm here. So doesn't really matter to me how I got here. I want to just live a happy, healthy life. And so he took that feedback and is like, what we're turning towards is things that will make existing autistic people happier and healthier, not like abandoned the study. We are not doing the genome study and trying to, I don't care anymore what caused it. I want to help people. So, yeah, like a huge, you know, I don't know. I'm not going to tell people you got to believe that this guy's an ally all of a sudden, but it's yeah, it's huge progress from the guy who used to say autistic people had the extreme male brain. I mean, my God. Yeah, it really is. Like if he can turn around and at least pay lip service to neurodiversity and stop pursuing this like cure type research, that's huge. We could get anybody on our side,

0:56:11 Thomas: Very interesting sure hey I'll take progress I'll take progress that's nice yeah yeah no kidding wow oh well that's good news

0:56:47 Jenessa: I think, at that point. So, yeah, that is what I got for you today. There is way more in the grab bag if you want to do more sometime soon. June.

0:56:50 Thomas: Good news oh for sure hey and if anybody also wants to bother Jenessa don't bother Jenessa necessarily, uh send it to us thomas@seriouspod.com or find us on patreon you know uh facebook whatever and if you see like a study and you're like I'm curious about this, always happy to add it to my list of things that I throw at Jenessa and that's up to her if she wants to add that to her list of things.

0:57:19 Thomas: But yeah, no, absolutely. So interesting. I love this grab bag. Very interesting stuff. Thanks so much for doing that research for us.

0:57:19 Jenessa: Good talking to you.

0:57:50 Thomas: Because no, you're not supposed to have the microphone in your ass.

0:57:55 Jenessa: Gross.

0:57:56 Thomas: Now hold for dying for a moment.

0:57:57 Jenessa: Oh, my God. Dude, it's been like six weeks where we just like we get better for like three days and then we're sick again.

0:58:02 Thomas: Six weeks. Oh, wow. It's not even the diarrhea lettuce or anything. Cool.

0:58:09 Jenessa: No, no. It's all in my face. I got an ear infection like a toddler. And my doctor is just like, just avoid crowds. I work from home. There are no crowds here I literally, I'm losing my mind I bought 150 pack of toothbrushes and I was just like these are single use now we're throwing these out we're washing every dish we're it's just everything it's my nose my throat my ears my everything is messed

0:58:27 Thomas: Wait, do you brush your ears or has... Wow.

0:58:37 Jenessa: Up my lungs everything sucks and I like put the pillows in the dryer to try to sanitize them I'm like I'm I'm trying to sanitize everything in the house. I don't know how what is infecting this whole house, but I'm throwing the cat out next to like something's probably that might be it.

0:58:52 Thomas: Probably haunted. Hmm. Well, that sucks. Wishing you luck with all that noise, but you're kind enough.