A Guide to Healthy Relationships for Autistic People with Dr Amy Pearson

In the latest episode of the Middletown Podcast, we chat to Dr Amy Pearson about her research on autistic people’s experiences of relationships. She and her team at Durham University created a guide to help autistic people recognise healthy and unhealthy relationship traits.  

Find out more about the Autistic Guide to Healthy Relationships here: https://www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/latest-news/2024/04/autistic-guide-to-healthy-relationships/

Transcript

Why Create A Relationships Guide

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome to the Middletown Podcast. I'm Kat Hughes. I'm a researcher at Middletown, and I'm also autistic. In this episode, I chatted Dr. Amy Pearson. Amy is a brilliant autistic autism researcher who's done lots of work addressing practical real issues faced by the community. You might remember from a previous podcast episode where I chatted to herself and Kieran Rose about their great book on masking. For this episode, I'm talking to Amy about a guide created to help autistic folk navigate relationships and better understand how to stay safe. We chat about red flags in relationships, how to support a young person in an unhealthy relationship, and what healthy relationships can look like. This episode is likely most suitable for people supporting autistic young people who are around 16 plus, or for autistic adults themselves. I think it's such an important topic, and I was delighted to discuss it with Amy. I hope you enjoy our chat. Amy, it's so lovely to have you back on the podcast. It's lovely to chat to you again. I want to talk to you about the guide to healthy relationships that you and your team have put together. And I suppose I like to start by asking what inspired you to put that together?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me, Kat. That's such a good question. Um, it was something that came about as a result of the research project rather than something that we planned to do at the start. Um so we knew we wanted to, what whatever came out of the study, we knew we wanted to produce something that was public-facing, that was going to be accessible to autistic people, to kind of tell them what we did and what we found. Um but what we didn't plan on was getting such a wealth of information from the people we spoke to about what healthy relationships do and don't look like. So we planned to interview them about their experiences of intimate violence and accessing support and recovery. But one of the really important things we thought that came out through that process was people identifying those warning signs really early on in those relationships. And then also talking about some of the things that that really helped them recognize when a relationship was healthy by comparison. Um, and it felt like we we just needed to do something with that information, like it was going to be something that could be so useful to people in the future. Um, and also something that I think some of the people who took part in the study felt like they wished they had had. Um and so that's that's how we decided to do it. It wasn't something that was kind of pre-planned as an output, but something that we very much, as time went on, we knew we had to put together.

Value‑Neutral Neurodiversity

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah, absolutely. And I I love that as you were approaching it though, you knew you wanted to do something practical that that ordinary folk could access, which I think is so, so important with research. Um, and I will get to the the guide in a minute, but I I want to talk to you about sort of how you kind of ground the work that you do because I know what you do is is neurodiversity informed, but I've heard you talk about how you view view that as value neutral, which I think is a really important approach to take. So I'd love to hear a bit more about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah, so I I I find that really important as well. Um I think there is a huge difficulty, right, with finding a middle ground sometimes when talking about neurodivergence, because we've had a really long history and ongoing history of stigma and dehumanization, of being treated like we're abnormal, like we're lesser, um, and like we're defined by our impairments. And I think a lot of people, as a response to that, have really pushed the idea that we need to focus on people's strengths. And I don't disagree with that as a whole. I do think recognizing people's strengths is really important. Um, but for me personally, I think that taking a strengths-based approach almost emphasizes that we are lesser, right? It's like you have to, in some way, make up for the fact that you are impaired in other areas. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that we can have significant strengths. We can also have significant challenges. That being neurodivergent isn't a superpower. Most of us are a bang average, unfortunately. Don't have, you know, an array of special talents. Um, but neither of our lives are an inherent tragedy. We're not defined by deficiency, and we're also not defined by somehow being superhuman. We are just different. We exist in the world in a different way to kind of the average person or the assumed normal person. And that is not a good thing or a bad thing. It is just a thing. Um, and so it's important for me that we move to de-pathologize people. We don't need to talk about people in really kind of dehumanizing and really stigmatizing ways, but we don't combat that, right, by saying, like, actually, autistic people are excellent at everything and they're brilliant and they have such special skills that they can use to contribute to society. That's still focusing on our productive worth. Like we should just be allowed to exist.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Yeah, absolutely. And it's just seeing people as the human beings that they are and fully rounded within that, which I think is so, so important. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and then I know you've talked about sort of stigma in relation to sort of relationships, and I'd love to know a bit more about how stigma might impact autistic people in relation to sort of unhealthy relationships.

Stigma’s Impact On Relationship Risk

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah, I'm I'm gonna try and keep this relatively succinct because I could talk about it all day. Um, it's one of those topics that I think it it really sits with me a lot. So I think autistic people from a really early point in life, regardless of whether they are identified as autistic or not in childhood, experienced being judged for the way that they are, of being corrected for the way that they are. So being told that everything they do, you know, the way they eat, they play, the way they interact, the way they interpret information from other people, isn't right. Um, they're invalidated because of that and treated like they're other. Um, and this is something that the people we've interviewed of a variety of different studies have really highlighted that from a really early point in life, other people picked up on the fact that they were different and then treated them like they were different, but also like that difference was a bad thing. And so that really, from that early point, starts to feed into people's perceptions of themselves. They start to feel like if everyone treats me like I'm less, then I must be. Um, but it also makes it really difficult for people to spot unhealthy relationship behaviors. Because if you've always been treated poorly by people around you and they frame it as you being the problem, then it becomes really easy to internalize the idea that it's normal to be treated like that by other people. And so from this really early point, we're effectively setting people up to feel like victimization and abuse is really normalized. Um and it's really hard to push past that and unpack that as an adult, right? If it's something you've experienced your entire life, it might be really traumatizing, but at the same time, recognizing that you deserve more than that can be a massive challenge when you've never had anything different.

Early Red Flags Versus Neurodivergent Nuance

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, that's something that that usually resonates with me and when I've seen you talk about it and heard you talk about it now, definitely. Um, uh even from early childhood, the idea that you know you have to have sort of as many friends as possible means that you're almost kind of accepting people who are treating you terribly, but it's a friend and that's all that matters. So yeah, I I think it's a really important thing to sort of take a step back and kind of think about how we talk about that sort of thing, definitely. And then you talk about red flags in um relationships and and and around sort of abusive relationships in particular. Um, can you tell us about what some of those red flags that have come up are?

Control, Coercion, And Gaslighting

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, so this is one of the things that actually, when we were developing the resource, we noticed a couple of kind of, I guess, bits of nuance within the process for neurodivergent people and autistic people, probably specifically. Um, but I think some of it could apply to people who were ADHD as well, as most of our participants had a dual diagnosis. Um but so people talked about signs kind of really early on in a relationship that might be an indicator that it could potentially become unhealthy. And some of those signs alone could be things that could be attributed to being neurodivergent, right? So some people talked about having a really intense, overwhelming attraction to somebody else, um, of kind of becoming really deeply interested in them really quickly, um, and having that sense of resonance, you know, when you meet someone who thinks the same as you, who processes the world in the same way that you do. Sometimes that can be like, oh my God, I've met one of my people. Um and you just want to be around them all the time and like you become really close very quickly. And that on its own isn't a red flag, right? That's a it's a difference in our communication style. But it can be really sometimes difficult to disentangle that from something like love bombing, when someone might be really overly kind, um overly effusive about you and your characteristics for how positive you are, how wonderful you are, how beautiful, how funny, how clever. Um, because they're then kind of trying to get that closeness to you at that early point that they then use to manipulate you. So one of the things we talked about was on its own, having that deep kind of personal connection with someone isn't necessarily a red flag. But if it comes along with things like controlling behavior, trying to force you into making decisions about the relationship very quickly, um, showering you with lots of gifts or making very grand sweeping gestures, um, telling you that you know, you know, you're the only person they could ever possibly love, or the only person who's ever meant anything to them. Um they might feel like a relationship is moving too fast. It might be an indicator that this person is maybe being a little bit too controlling, um, and that it's important that you can take a step back from that. Sometimes we do get really frenzied when we meet someone new and taking a step back and being like, actually, maybe we might need to slow down a little bit. Um can sometimes just give you a bit of time to think about it. So I think that thinking about those nuances can be really important for neurodivergent people, particularly if you have had lots of very unhealthy relationships. Um, you might spot red flags that aren't red flags, but you might also miss out on red flags that are like waving themselves really vigorously. Um, so those are some of the things we talked about at the start. Later on in a relationship, while a relationship has kind of has been more established, things like controlling behavior and coercive behavior, so telling you what you can and can't do, what you can and can't wear, who you can talk to, who you can spend time with, um, and engaging in really invalidating behaviors, you know, and gaslighting people about that. So telling them they're misinterpreting the situation, you just don't understand social cues, um, those kinds of things can can be a really strong indicator that a relationship is really not very healthy.

Excitement, Fear, And ADHD Cues

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Yeah. And did any of your um participants talk about sort of alexithymia and how sort of their understanding of emotion impacted how they recognized um whether or not there were red flags in relationships?

SPEAKER_00 11:36

So they did. They talked about alexithymia, but the other thing they talked about actually that I think had the bigger effect was the ADHD. Um so quite a lot of the people we spoke to really struggled to tell the difference between excitement and fear. And so when they had kind of some of the people that they'd met that they got into quite dangerous relationships with, they said at the start it felt quite exciting and passionate. And I thought, like, oh, there's, you know, there's such a strong bond between us. And then actually they recognized that that wasn't excitement, it was danger. Um, and actually they talked about how when they started medication, it became much easier to recognize that because they it was their impulsivity was dampened. So they didn't find it quite as challenging. But people had really struggled with that emotional processing aspect of it. And this is something, again, that's come up across multiple studies that we've done. It particularly impacts on the healing process as well. Because if you really struggle to recognize how you're feeling about something and you get out of a dangerous situation, a really traumatic situation, sometimes it can take a really long time for that to actually come to the forefront and to recognize how it made you feel. And so people would kind of they'd come out, they'd feel a sense of relief. And then it would be months, years later, that actually they started to have that that traumatic response. And it was really confusing because it's like, why is this happening now? Um, but it's kind of like having that distance and safety sometimes what prompts people. So I think that in conjunction with spotting things in the moment can be super difficult. And I guess the other thing that feeds into that is often people are they're trying to survive, right? So they're they're often they feel very irrational, so they already don't trust their own emotions. And if you struggle to identify your emotions at the same time, it just creates a bit of a vicious cycle.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, it's it's something that resonates like I'm I'm very lucky that I haven't been in in sort of a very unhealthy relationship, but I've certainly been in sort of relationships that weren't good for me and friendships that weren't good for me.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

And it might be like the one in particular I can think of a decade later, I realize, oh, I wasn't happy in that, but it took me that long to fully process it.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

So yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And then is there anything that people who are external to the relationship can do to support people through that?

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Yeah, so our our participants talked about one of them actually referred to it with this really lovely metaphor, um, which I think is a great way of phrasing it, which people need a hammock, not a hammer. Um, so all of the participants talked about a need for a really gentle and soft approach in supporting people. If you recognize that someone's experiencing abuse, often the best way to support them isn't to march in there and say, you're being abused, this is really bad. This is what you need to do to get to safety. It's to provide someone the comfort and the space for them to open up to you if they feel like they can, but provide them somewhere to go, someone to spend time with, just a soft landing place. So the participant who used the metaphor talked about a friend of hers who, you know, she reached out, she was really struggling, and he just offered a sofa for the night. He was like, you know, if you need somewhere to stay, come over to mine. Um and she was like, he didn't push, he didn't intrude, he just gave me the space to have somewhere safe to stay. And actually, that was a massive thing for me, just knowing that there was someone there. So I think just providing that support, it can often feel like you you want to intervene, right? And you want to jump in and fix things. But these situations are really complicated, they rarely play out like they do on TV, where someone might make a phone call and then suddenly the police get involved, and you know, mental health professionals become involved and everything gets fixed. Often it's a it's a protracted time, it's finding a safe time to leave the relationship. And until someone can get to that point, just being there for them and really letting them know that you kind of you've got that soft place to land makes a massive difference.

Orange Flags And Leaving Kindly

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah, that makes sense. And something that that you talked about in your guide that I haven't seen in other places that I thought was really lovely was the the idea of orange flags in a month's video. Um, can you talk a bit about that? Because I think that's really clever.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Yeah, this was one of the things that, like, while I was analyzing the data that I actually thought was quite important that doesn't really get talked about, which is the idea that a relationship can be bad without being abusive. Um, and it's still okay to leave those relationships because they're making you unhappy. And I think sometimes people have this perception that like, you know, you meet someone and things are fine, and then you know, maybe you're not well matched, you don't have the same values, maybe one of you is really struggling with something and like it causes friction between you, but you push on with it because you think, well, there's they're not treating me badly, so there's no justification for hurting this pe this person's feelings. And actually, like you have agency, you can choose not to be in those relationships just because they don't serve you, they're not something that you want to be in for the long haul. Um and so we thought it was really important to point that out and also just to sometimes highlight the nuance around it. So one of the participants in particular kind of inspired this, talked about being in a relationship with someone after they'd gotten out of an abusive relationship. And they were both struggling with their mental health. And they were saying, you know, my partner at the time was really struggling with their mental health, they weren't managing it very well. Um I kept trying to fix things and I couldn't really fix things. Um, and eventually I recognized that actually this it wasn't really healthy for me. Like I couldn't support them in the way that they needed. Um, and that the time they weren't in a place where they could engage with the help and support that they did need by themselves. And so they ended it and they were like, they weren't a bad person. It was just that we weren't very good for each other and they they really weren't well. And I think sometimes the nuance around that, like, it's very easy, I think, for people who haven't been in complex situations to say things like, well, you should support someone no matter what. Um, and actually, like that, if that's making you feel really unwell yourself, if it's something that's having a really negative impact on you, you don't have to stay in that situation. And sometimes that can also be helpful for the other person. Um, like, you know, going in things around codependency, like those those kinds of relationships can be really unhealthy. They're not abusive, but they're not good for either of you. Um, and so just reminding people that they they do have autonomy, they can leave those relationships, even if there's not kind of a big blow-up reason to do so.

Advice For Young People: Boundaries And Consent

SPEAKER_02 18:27

I think that's incredibly important and really bully to have included, definitely. Um, and then would you have any advice, particularly for young people who have found themselves in an unhealthy relationship?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah, I think it's really hard for young people because a lot of a lot of the behavior we see online around relationships is really unhealthy, but it's very normalized. Um so things like really overly controlling behavior, very jealous behavior, and quite often coercive and manipulative behavior is sold to young people as something that, like, that's romance, right? This is what romance looks like. Um and it's not. I think talking to a trusted person um about you know struggles that you're having, trying to reach out when you can and talk to people, even if you know you don't want to leave the relationship or you're confused about a previous relationship you had, um, is a really good place to start. Um, to start to kind of, you know, make sense of what's happened, and I think also to start to develop some of that awareness in terms of what those red flags might look like for future and what you might need to do to protect yourself and set boundaries. Um, one of the other things that I think is quite important, like we talk about in the back of the guide, is that boundaries and and respectability right is for or san for other people. So when we think about healthy relationships, we think about like, do I feel safe? Do I feel respected? But we also think like, does the other person feel safe? Do they feel respected? And I think sometimes discussions around boundaries online in particular can be like, I've got a boundary, which means you have to do X, Y, Z. No, no, no, no. Boundaries are for you, they're not for other people. You can't control how someone else behaves. As much as we might like to think that it would be great if we all had a say over how people were, because it would make the world much more predictable and much more certain. We can't, but we can say, I won't put up with this, I won't be around this kind of situation, I won't let you speak to me like that. Like if you talk to me like that, then I will leave. Um, so thinking about how to build up that kind of that sense of protecting your own boundaries. Um, I think for young people in particular is really, really important. And also having a really good understanding of consent, um, and practicing using your consent as well. Like getting comfortable with saying, no, I don't want to do that, no, I don't want to hug, no, I don't want you to touch me. Um, and recognizing that like that no is a full sentence, right? You can just be like, no. Um, because that's one of the things that our participants really highlighted, particularly when they were younger, was that they felt like they knew what consent was. They had a really good intellectual understanding of consent, but they thought that was something that other people got to have and not them.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

That that is such a powerful statement, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yeah, it was it was really important, like I think recognizing that. And this is for me one of the crucial things like about thinking about how we work with autistic young people, is as we know, like so many interventions that are pitched at young people. It it very much trains them to ignore their own autonomy and ignore their own boundaries, their push to do things that they don't want to do. And what we're telling people is that your consent doesn't matter. Um And so it's only logical that then carries through into their relationships. I think focusing on consent is something that practitioners really need to be mindful of when working with autistic young people in particular. So talking to them about consent, asking for consent when you work with people, just to reinforce that they do have it. Because I think it's really very easy when we're telling people you have to do XYZ for them to stop recognizing that they can actually say no.

Green Flags: Safety, Trust, Authenticity

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Yeah, absolutely. Incredibly important. And my my very last question for you is because we've we've talked sort of about the darker and more difficult side of relationships, but obviously a lot of us are in really lovely, happy relationships as well. So what are some of the green flags for good, healthy, happy relationships?

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah. So I mean the the big one is safety, right? Feeling safe in a relationship. And this was the big quote that stuck out to me, and the one we we popped into the resource was someone who was talking about their husband, their current partner, and they were talking about bad relationships that they'd had. And they say, one of the things that really solidified for me that this was different was that we argue and I'm not scared. Um, and I thought that was such a powerful statement, like recognizing that you can have conflict within your relationships, but that's it shouldn't feel unsafe. You can disagree with someone and there's no danger to you for that. And I think that's a really powerful thing. But feeling safe, feeling respected and like you have dignity, feeling like you can express yourself authentically, like you don't have to be a certain way in order to be acceptable to that person. You know, a lot of us spend so much time masking that it can be really hard to let that guard down. So feeling like you can be your authentic self and you're not going to be invalidated, you're not going to be told that there's something wrong with you, you're not going to be stigmatized by somebody, is obviously really, really crucial. Um, but safety and trust, everything I think comes down to that in the end.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. This is a conversation-based interview designed to stimulate thinking and hopefully support the development of practice. It's not intended to be medical or psychological advice. Views expressed in these chats may not always be the view of Middletown Center. If you'd like to know more about Middletown, you can find us on X at Autism Center and Facebook and Instagram at Middletown Center for Autism. Go easy until next time.