In this episode Victoria and Natalie chat with Julie Green, author of Motherness, to explore the realities of parenting through autism both as a mum to an autistic son and as a woman who discovered her own autism later in life.

Biography

Julie M. Green is a Canadian writer whose work has been featured in the Washington Post, HuffPost, The Globe and Mail, Today’s Parent, and Chatelaine. She has appeared on CTV, BBC Radio, SiriusXM, and CBC Radio. She writes The Autistic Mom on Substack. For more information, visit JulieMGreen.ca.

Key Takeaways

• Autism in girls and women can look very different from the traditional stereotypes. Julie explains that while boys can be identified through visible traits like lining up toys or having clear special interests, girls may channel their autistic traits into more socially acceptable interests
• Many girls mask their differences by copying peers
• The importance of seeing challenging behaviour as communication, not defiance.
• How self-compassion and reframing past experiences can heal years of misunderstanding and self-blame
• The need for schools and systems to replace punishment with understanding and co-regulation.

Mentioned in This Episode

Motherness: A Memoir of Generational Autism, Parenthood, and Radical Acceptance

The Autistic Mom Substack

The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible by Ross W Green

National Autistic Society

Connect with Julie Green

Website: juliemgreen.ca

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliem.green

Substack: https://theautisticmom.substack.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-m-green-34bb1845/

Connect with The Autism Mums

Website – https://theautismmums.com/

Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theautismmums

Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/theautismmums

Follow us on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theautismmums

Transcript

Victoria Bennion:

[00:00:00] Today we are joined by author Julie Green, whose new book, mother Ness Explores

Life as both an autistic mom and the parent of an autistic son. We talk about

late diagnosis, what autism can look like in women and girls and navigating

challenging behavior.

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: Welcome to the podcast, Julie. It's great to have you here.

Julie Green: Thanks for having me.

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: So you are a mom to an autistic son, and you also discovered

later in life that you are also autistic. Can you start by telling us what led

you to consider that you might be autistic?

Julie Green: Oh my.

When I say it was a process, it took. Almost exactly 10 years, a very long

time. So needless to say, ooh, going back when my son was diagnosed at three I

didn't know much about autism generally, let alone. Autism in girls and women

and how that could look different. So it was very much a process.

Julie Green: The

information just wasn't even out there. It wasn't necessarily [00:01:00] that it wasn't on my radar. I don't even

really think you had Temple Grandin at that point. It was just, it was such a

learning curve just to learn about it with my son. And then. Every now and

then, I was just struck by these similarities, thinking, oh I was really

sensitive with clothing and oh, I was really certain noises and, the need for

routine.

Julie Green: So there

were some similarities with my son, but in a lot of respects, he was very much

the typical. Image that we have of a little boy, lining up the Thomas trains.

And that just did not really fit because I was fairly social. All these sort of

things. And then I think ultimately, I became involved in it was like the

blogging sphere back then, and I came across, I was writing about parenting and

I started to write about autism and our experiences, but I eventually did come

across an autistic woman through the community and got chatting with her and [00:02:00] realized in getting to know her that, oh,

okay, so this is this looks very different and.

Julie Green: She and

I were very similar, and that gradually led me to think, okay maybe I am also

autistic. And then again, took a little while longer for me to actually decide

to pursue being assessed. So at the time, even here in Canada, the wait list

wasn't that bad. I waited maybe a year through my GP and it was through our

oip, which I'm in Ontario, so our province has the equivalent of the NHS.

Julie Green: I

didn't, initially, I was thinking, oh, do I wanna go through with this and, pay

thousands of dollars and for what? Even if I am diagnosed, just, it was a lot

of, it was a long process, as I say, 10 years till it really fully clicked. It

clicked and then, officially got the diagnosis.

Julie Green: So I.

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: Did it help you when you looked back at past events? Did it

make more [00:03:00] sense of your life?

Julie Green: Oh, enormously. 'cause I think a lot of people are like, why do this? I was 44, so

why do this? It's not as though you're going to really qualify for any. Any funding or any supports, but I just think on a personal level, it reframes so much of you. You go through this process and it can take months if not years.

Julie Green: I, there

are still moments where you're, there are these realizations that, oh, this

thing happened in the past and oh, that wasn't. Because I was difficult or too

sensitive or too demanding or, whatever other names people call you and you

internalize a lot of this. Baggage and a lot of these other labels, I mean our

kids do too.

Julie Green: This is

why I think it's important for kids to, to understand that they're wired

differently as opposed to, my son was coming home and going, oh, I'm bad, and

they, the kids will pick up on that, [00:04:00]

those differences and people will label you with other things. And so I grew up

internalizing a lot of these other labels, so having that new information.

Julie Green: Just

helped me have more compassion and understanding. And just like this process of

getting to know yourself in a different way, even in my forties. Doing a lot of

repair work, I think. And yeah just reframing a lot of the narratives that I

had grown up thinking these things were personality flaws.

Julie Green: And also

just thinking, why the heck am I like that? Why do I need so much recovery

time? Why can't I do the things other people can do so easily? Why do I have

all this social confusion? So it just allows this framework to, to help you

understand yourself and, I don't think you can Yeah.

Julie Green: Put to

find a point on that. It's, it makes a radical difference at any age, but I. I

think it's worthwhile. I've had people come to me now and say I think a woman

in her seventies [00:05:00] or in her sixties

saying, yeah, this is finally occurring to me. And I don't think it's, I don't

think there's a time limit on that if it helps you reappraise yourself and feel

better about yourself.

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: So would say your life has changed since your diagnosis?

Julie Green: Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: I've had a son and a daughter just go through the process

son's younger and his struggles were very apparent, and when I was given a book

by a pediatrician, when he was waiting for assessment, I looked down the

checklist and I was like, oh, that's what this is.

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: But I didn't have the same revelation with my daughter when

we were going through the process. Uh, you mentioned lining up the toys, like

Thomas the tank engine, my son lined up cars But she didn't and he had delayed

speech and she had very advanced speech.

Julie Green: I mean,

it's a spectrum, but people still don't quite grasp it. I think so. Even within

boys, you know, there are things that my son [00:06:00]

was. Doing wasn't doing. there's still just so much difference. And you know,

some girls do present more in that typical way, , but other girls do not.

Julie Green: And I

think it's been this long process. I remember seeing, I think it was the

National Autistic Society in the UK that had a very good presentation. I can't

even remember who, who did it. But, , just the. the. variability in girls and

what it looks like. So, you know, you'll still see things like. social

difficulties, but it will look very, very, very different.

Julie Green: You'll

see the, the sensory issues you'll see it's same things, but manifesting in

different ways. And of course, this is before anyone knew about masking that a

lot of, not all girls and not all boys, but some people do. Have this ability

to camouflage and get by. So it's a lot harder, for those people to be

identified. But, you looking back, I had collections of things and I had things

I wasn't lining up trains, but I [00:07:00] was very particular about, people not touching things in my room. And even my

cousin, I adored her. I copied her again in all respects.

Julie Green: But it

was like she couldn't touch certain things in my room. And everything had to be

like this. I'd have these special interests, but they were things that are very

typical and expected in girls, you know, interest in animals and psychology.

And not necessarily trains or numbers or, but they were, things that were,

slipped under the radar and I was extremely shy but very, very quiet, So

because I wasn't a problem at school again.

Julie Green: This is

just, you are just shy. I was also an only child, so lot of things were

excused. A lot of the sort of spoiled behaviors that I, I guess would've been

things with me being very, like reacting and having emotions for changes and

rituals and that [00:08:00] sort of stuff. A

lot of those things were, excused or blamed on me being an only child.

Julie Green: So it's

interesting to see with hindsight, but very different to my son who would have

a lot of like very big meltdowns, big behaviors. Um, whereas with me, I'd often

get sick. I would internalize a lot and If I had been socializing for any

amount of time or all the sensory overload, I would just, the end result would

be like a shutdown or I would just get very ill, so it was treated very

differently.

Julie Green: So there

was no way back then for people, I guess, to know that this was. Autism

manifesting. It was just all these other things. It was shyness and it was

okay. She has migraines from a very young age,

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: That's interesting. My daughter struggles with migraines.

Julie Green: I think

now they've, in some cases there is a corelation

Julie Green: I hear

potentially that they, they are adding elements to the DSM. So, you know, going

forward when [00:09:00] people are assessed,

they are aware of things like masking. They are aware potentially of the

different ways that this can manifest in some

Julie Green: girls,

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: It's really good that people are recognizing it. Her school

that she moved to were actually very good, at identifying , that she was

masking heavily.

Julie Green:

Especially with. Girls and women, it's often manifesting in, anxiety,

depression, issues, which I had, but it never really told the full story. You

know, why this disabling anxiety? Well, it's sort of tied to something.

Something bigger. and again, all , the sensory issues.

Julie Green: When you

combine all these different

Julie Green: elements

and you're bigger picture, you can see that yes. It's, it is tied to something

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: now,

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: you've written a book, Motherness,

Julie Green: there it

is. It's out in the uk, on the

Julie Green: 23rd of

October, and the audio book

Julie Green: is now

out as well.

Julie Green: The

structure of the book, starts from , my pregnancy through to the time when my

son is 13. So it's a , big span of what I went through as a parent,

,navigating. All the, the struggles, the highs [00:10:00]

and lows, and there's a lot of funny stuff in it as well.

Julie Green: It's not

all doom and gloom, but basically all the, you know, trying to get

accommodations, all the highs and lows with him, but also casting my mind back

at how this manifested for me. Um, So each. Chapter is, is kind of on a

different topic. So there'll be one chapter that's about like issues, one about

meltdowns or shutdowns, one about like eating, basically all the, all the,

autism related topics and just how it's kind of a compare and contrast of what

he was going through as a child versus going back to some of my childhood and

early adulthood and how that looked for me. So it's sort of goes back and forth

and there's a little bit of, um, reporting and some studies in there just for

some, some context, but it's definitely a memoir. When I was diagnosed, as I

said, I was. Doing all this processing to make [00:11:00]

sense of things that had happened and looking in the rear view mirror and

going, okay, what well, how does that look for me?

Julie Green: And

thinking of all these different events and relationships that happened. So I

was, I was sort of writing things down and mulling over things, and I'd also

written a lot about parenting anyway. I haven't seen any any books deal with

parenting. When you're also autistic. So I've seen memoirs by women, late

diagnosed women.

Julie Green: I've

seen a lot of memoirs from parents who aren't autistic. and I think also just

as a parent, remembering all those early years and how isolating it was just

feeling very confused and very alone through the whole process and thinking. I

guess you kind of write the book that you wish you had, that's pretty much what

I ended up doing. In processing this, I thought, well, maybe, obviously if this

is [00:12:00] resonating for me, then maybe

it'll, it'll really land with other mothers who. Whether they're autistic or

not, but just, , helping them feel seen, do feel very alone. And I remember my

son had a lot of struggles with, um, being regulated, as I said, a lot of

aggressive meltdowns. And even within the autism community, I felt like there

were things that were taboo and that weren't really talked about, and we felt

very, very cut off. Even among people we knew in the autistic community who

maybe their kids weren't having similar behaviors.

Julie Green: So the

long and short of why I I wrote it initially to process what I was going

through, but then I think when you step back and you think actually there's. A

bigger story here that will probably land with other people and hopefully help

them. And so far it's been strange because it's such a, it's such an intimate

and private thing to write this and you're, you're obviously alone, you're [00:13:00] processing all this stuff and then. You

realize objectively that it's going to be in the world, but it still doesn't

quite seem real until people are messaging you . It's very strange. So I, I'm

glad it's there, but it's also a bit surreal to know that

Julie Green: so much

of my life and our lives are in there, but there's also a lot that I've left

out for personal reasons. but it is

Julie Green:

gratifying

Julie Green: to know

that it is out there and, and hopefully helping other parents and women

Victoria Bennion and Natalie

Tealdi: I'm sure it sounds like a book that is gonna help a lot of

people.

Victoria Bennion and...