[00:03] Debbie: Welcome to the Autism and Neurodiversity podcast.
[00:06] Jason: We’re here to bring you helpful information from leading experts and give you effective tools and support. I’m Jason Grygla, a licensed counselor and founder of Techie for Life, a specialized mentoring program for neurodiverse.
[00:19] Debbie: And I’m Debbie Gryglar, a certified life coach. And maybe most importantly, we’re also parents to our own atypical Young Adults Friends.
[00:30] Debbie: Hello. Welcome.
[00:30] Debbie: We’re excited to have you here. We have a special guest with us, Tatiana Matthews. Welcome to the show.
[00:37] Tatiana: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
[00:40] Debbie: Go ahead and tell our audience a little bit about yourself and what you do.
[00:45] Tatiana: My name is Tatiana Matthews. I’m a licensed professional counselor and a certified rehabilitation counselor. I’m licensed in the states of Georgia and North Carolina. I’m the clinical director of Atlanta Specialized Care. We have two locations, one in Atlanta and one in suburban Atlanta on the north end in Alpharetta, Georgia. I have been a practicing clinician since 1998 who has done a variety of things. And one of my most recent focuses and passion has been working with not only general mental health, but those who would identify as somewhere either on the autism spectrum, diagnosed with an ADHD diagnosis, learning differentiated, which many of us would call neurodiversified. We have multiple clinicians that practice underneath me in both my Dunwoody, which is in Atlanta on the top end, and Alpharetta office. And majority of us have not only an expertise in general mental health, but an area of focus on working with this neurodiversified population. And I’m proud to say that we were one of the ones in Atlanta that have really pushed for an awareness working with this population and really developed a specialty niche. We do serve a large number of neurotypical clients, but it has been our pleasure to really meet the needs of what I’ve always called the unidentified population that many mental health clinicians have limited knowledge on.
[02:29] Jason: Right. I heard some of your intervention specialty. Tell us a little bit about being an interventionist or what you do with intervention. What does that mean? When was that come into play?
[02:41] Tatiana: So when I utilize the word intervention, I’m not talking about a classical intervention to motivate someone towards change and getting into treatment. When we talk about interventions within our practice, we use evidence based techniques that show to have great outcome and efficacy. And so we utilize tools that we would identify as intervention so things that would create change. And so every clinician, when working with a patient at the onset, should have an assessment process where they’re looking at the total person and being able to identify a treatment plan with a series of interventions. And again, within our practice, we use research based interventions to reach certain goals that both the client and the therapists collaborate on. And we are constantly looking, do these interventions create some sort of measurable change?
[03:46] Jason: Right, so you work with the families you work with individuals. One of the things we’re hoping to talk today about is the diagnosis or co-existence of the neurodivergent brain and mental health. What are some of the things that you’re seeing, trends that you’re seeing that are common? What are you running into? Quite a bit when it comes to the crossroads of mental health and neurodevelopmental brains.
[04:13] Tatiana: So one of my designations as a clinician here in metro Atlanta that is different than maybe general licensed practitioners. And there’s actually two of us that have this designation within my practice, I’m also a certified rehabilitation counselor. And certified rehabilitation counselors are trained to look at the whole person. And so we evaluate an individual when they’re coming into our offices, not only from a mental health standpoint, a developmental standpoint, a physiological standpoint, a vocational standpoint, an educational standpoint. We also are looking at a spiritual component, what family support looks like. And as part of that process, our treatment plans always include what the individual is going to need to make progress in all of those areas with a sensitivity to their values and belief systems and meeting them exactly where they are. With that being said, certified rehabilitation counselors have an insight, especially when it comes to working with individuals who have a mental health diagnosis, but maybe struggling with other areas of their life. So within our practice, we frequently get referrals for folks who are coming in and they’re being referred for trauma, anxiety, mood, dysregulation. And we will find that very frequently, if this has been an individual who has been in treatment before, in counseling before an extended amount of time receiving support and things aren’t getting better, there’s usually an unidentified need, whether it is an autism spectrum disorder, some other co occurring mental illness that has not yet been identified. Sometimes it’s a learning disability, trauma typically, and this is beginning to shift in our industry, the unidentified need tends to be the identification of an autism diagnosis or some sort of neurodiversity that has not yet been addressed and considered as part of the treatment plan. On the flip side of that, very often we will see those who were previously diagnosed with either autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, some sort of neurodiversity, who are coming in and in knowing the amount of support they’ve received, whether it was occupational therapy, physical therapy. They’ve received other forms of mental health counseling. They feel different than a typical autistic, ADHD learning, differentiated young adult adult that we may see when there’s an unidentified need. Whether it’s either from the angle of we have not yet identified an autism diagnosis or some other neurodiversity or this has been diagnosed in isolation. The neurodiversity. But something else is happening because the progression towards development, despite all of the other supports, is not happening according to the kind of this typical outcome that we would see. There is a lot of comorbidity with autism spectrum disorders and neurodiversity. There’s even a lot of physiological diagnosis. We know that folks with heart disorders, congenital heart disorders, those born with hearing impairments, those born with Tourette syndrome, cerebral palsy, and Tourette’s is considered a mental health diagnosis, but it’s a neurological disorder. That group of individuals has a much higher likelihood of being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. We see that not only are those physiological diagnosis more likely, but there are many mental health diagnoses. And we have some really good psychiatrists who are nationally known here in metro Atlanta, that their passion and heart is really working with those on the autism spectrum. And I’ve heard many times these same physicians affirm sometimes this can be really tricky because the autism and some of these other mental health issues and neurological issues really can become a mishmash and it’s hard to depart what is what. So we frequently see things like some of the things that I just mentioned depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar, ADHD, eating disorders. We see a lot of posttraumatic stress disorder. That’s even how I got into working with autism spectrum disorders. About 15 years ago, there was a psychologist here in metro Atlanta that was really well known for working with this population and all of a sudden she was sending me all of these trauma patients because that’s an area of expertise that our practice has. And they were all late life diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder or some sort.
[10:11] Jason: Of neurodiversity where the trauma almost brought out the fact that, OK, they’re not coping with this trauma, this life experience, as well as someone else might. It’s really tripping them up. And then you’ve got anxiety and depression, the trauma and the neurodiversity going on. Those three legs are really common and sophisticated while they all interact.
[10:32] Tatiana: It’s true. And if you look at it, even like flip it upside down more than anything. The reason so many of these folks have been traumatized is they had been walking around with an autism diagnosis their whole entire life. So they were having sensory issues, they were struggling socially, they were super vulnerable to bullying. Mom and dad didn’t know how to parent them, they were doing the best that they could. The way they were parenting was super triggering. And so there was a lot of trauma just in being an autistic person who didn’t know they were an autistic person. And so that within itself and then the vulnerability for being taken advantage of. If you don’t have some of the social awareness or social skills that you may need, go ahead.
[11:28] Debbie: It’s such an important thing to be pointing out these co-diagnosis. It’s one of the reasons because a lot of programs will just focus on just autism. Our program takes your life. We just open it up to all neurodivergent, young adults because there is so many co-diagnosis and trauma and different things happening. And it is interesting that I mean, it is getting missed right there’s. The mental health component, the neurodivergent component, and then like trauma, different things happening. I always wonder why it is it that we’re just only focusing on one and not seeing the bigger picture? Why is it getting this? Do you think? I have my thoughts on it.
[12:09] Tatiana: But when you think about the plethora of other mental health issues that neurodiversity can mask addiction, so substance abuse and pornography addiction and technology addiction, tourette syndrome, trichotillomania, a lot of phobias and borderline personality disorder traits, and frequently psychosis, right? A lot of times those are so glaring that that’s what’s bringing someone into treatment. And unfortunately, it’s getting better. But the mental health community has not done their due diligence in learning more about autism spectrum disorders. So here in metro Atlanta, there is a very small population who really knows what autism looks like, that it doesn’t mean you’re nonverbal, no empathy, can’t identify your feelings, closed eyes, flapping your hands. That spectrum is a spectrum for a reason. And that if we did neuropsych testing here at Georgia Tech, we would find a lot of autism likely if we did it at the CDC here in metro Atlanta, we would likely find a lot of autism if we did it. We’re so lucky. We have all of these new film industry businesses coming to metro Atlanta. We’re making all these movies. We interviewed a lot of folks in that artistic realm, we would find a lot of autism. And those personalities are all very different, but they attract folks that likely fall somewhere on the spectrum. And so historically, our industry has really stereotyped what autism looks like. We don’t consider the full spectrum. I even see it sometimes with experts here in Metrolna where they work with more severely overtly autistic individuals. And so when you have someone where it’s really soft and subtle, they can miss it. And so he has not provided the training to the mental health community to identify autism spectrum disorders. And so these autistic individuals, or neurodiversefied individuals are showing up in front of experts who are experts in treating OCD and personality disorders and mood dysregulation and eating disorders and so on and so forth. But what they come to the table with those tools? Yes, they can treat many of the symptoms, but we have to have treatment plans that are individualized to the person. And if you are creating a treatment plan that does not consider the neurodiversity, it is like sending a kid with a learning disability to school with no IEP.
[15:15] Debbie: And it’s really sad because the ones that do have autism with maybe an intellectual disability and more like the more obvious symptoms and disability, they are getting a lot more services, but the population that doesn’t present as overtly disabled, but is just as much of a disability and struggles and needs support. And they have the most potential for better outcomes, but they’re not getting the right approaches or the diagnosis even.
[15:46] Jason: I was a counselor and it took me, I didn’t see my son’s autism. I had it in my head that he had trauma brain from drug exposure, adoption, neglect, and so I missed it. So I’m not judging anyone, but the mental health field has come a long ways in the last five years. It’s not even been very long. Maybe ten has started picking up steam for the last five years. We’re finally doing things like changing the DSM to diagnose that neurodiversity is probably a bigger umbrella than just autism. So we are doing a lot of good stuff and the mental health community tends to have their glasses on one view. And it used to be that co occurring diagnosis was almost always addiction in mental health and now it’s which four out of the ten possible things is at this time. Our clients are getting more and more sophisticated. Maybe they were always that sophisticated, but we’re starting to have a much broader, probably capable, effective lens to look through these diagnoses. And so it is getting better, but I don’t think, I don’t think our clients are actually getting more sophisticated. I think we’re just finally being able to tease out and see real clearly that okay, they’re here for anxiety and they have OCD. Maybe there’s some other issues going on as well.
[17:07] Debbie: So Tatiana, can you speak to how you do approach treatment differently when you realize I will.
[17:16] Tatiana: Well, I want to say there is like an excitement and an energy that is going to be super helpful for this population because what you said earlier was correct. Those whose symptoms are more likely to impact quality of life in activities of daily living. We’ve got the Market Center here in Atlanta, we’ve got unbelievable resources. Those where it’s a softer, it’s a later life diagnosis that is where we are limited in service. And here in metro Atlanta in the last year, there is a lot of desire for clinicians in a way that I have not seen. To learn more about neurodiversity. I think it’s tomorrow. There’s a big continuing ed here happening in metro Atlanta to teach more about neurodiversity in the clinical setting. I’ve got a lot of folks that call our practice and say, hey, can I hire you to consult with me on this case? Because I’d like to evolve in my skills with working with these dual diagnoses. And so the movement is going in the right direction and it has to because individuals can only get so much better if there is a missing piece to the puzzle.
[18:48] Jason: And they want to do good work, they love their clients, they want to be helpful.
[18:54] Tatiana: That’s right. And for a client to have been in therapy for a really long time. You’re my fifth therapist and this is the first time someone has said to me, maybe there’s an autism diagnosis here as well. Or maybe this isn’t just autism. Could this also be a bipolar diagnosis? And so we’re evolving. But even within my own practice, we have recruited over the last several years some unbelievable therapists. But there’s this typical theme when I’m bringing folks in that don’t have experience working with this population. I will hear individuals say after they’ve been here, we like to train everybody on working with neurodiversified population because there’s such a demand. And there’s a statement that’s typically made and it sounds something like this. So my substance abuse expert comes in and learns about autism and says oh my goodness, I’ve been working with tons of autism and I had no idea, right? My OCD specialist comes in and says oh my goodness, I’ve been working with a ton of autism and I had no idea. My personality disorder specialist says we’ve been told you can’t have a personality disorder if you have autism. They don’t lack that level of social awareness. And that has not been the data that we’ve acquired in our practice. Negative unhealthy coping mechanisms of the heart of personality disorders. And whether you are neurotypical or neurodiversified, if you have used all your tools up and you don’t have anything else to give, those unhealthy coping mechanisms are better than nothing. They keep you alive. And that’s where we say, yes, we can have someone that looks like borderline personality disorder and beyond the autism spectrum. So a lot of the stereotypical thinking of the mental health community is really standard. We’re beginning to shift it and break it up, but we have to be open to the concept of spectrum is tremendous, so it can look so different. You meet one person on the spectrum, you meet one person on the spectrum, right? Yes, there are specific characteristics, but if you are treating someone on the spectrum who again is not responding to typical interventions that you may be utilizing in helping them kind of bridge the gap where things that don’t come intuitively are difficult and stressful, you begin to assess is there more here? And so clinicians have to have a strong understanding of autism spectrum disorders to be able to one, identify if it’s co-occurring in a mental health disorder that brought them in or if you are treating an autistic individual, you have to be able to accommodate their neurodiversity while treatment planning. So I can give you some personal examples that I have observed in working with this population. Autistic female, we’re sending her for inpatient treatment. She is depressed, she has influxes in her moods, she has ups where she’s busy, busy, busy, hyperfocusing on all of our areas of expertise and then dips where she can’t brush her teeth, she can’t get out of her bed. Mom and dad are saying we’re paying all this money for executive functioning training. Executive functioning coaching. She has the skills, why isn’t she utilizing it and eventually becomes suicidal? Because despite the support around autism, she’s not making the measurable improvement that she would like to. So we send her to an inpatient setting with the suspicion of dual diagnosis, likely bipolar. This doesn’t feel just like depression. She’s been on SSRIs before for the anxiety, she’s been on antidepressants for the depression. And again, that’s right, our one stop shopping. You get the two for one anxiety and depression and there’s still the ups and downs. And so the individual goes into a group therapy setting and I get a call from the case manager and she says she’s a narcissist. She couldn’t stop talking. She monopolized the group about her specific areas of interest and her thoughts on the group topic and was extremely tangential, so rude, you know, unaware. And so my feedback to the clinician is and now, mind you, this is a very attractive young lady who’s very into fashion, so she looks very neurotypical, she’s very emotional because she is not someone who is detached from her emotions on the spectrum. Actually, she becomes flooded by her emotions. They had been told she’s on the spectrum. There’s a suspicion that there’s a bipolar diagnosis, she’s suicidal, but that information never gets to the group. Facilitator, who cuts her off in the middle of group therapy, shames her for her inappropriate social skills infers that there’s narcissism. And all of a sudden what was supposed to be a place to keep her safe and expedite recovery by giving her a whole lot of therapy in a short amount of time, became a place where she was traumatized and triggered more depressed. Again, so ashamed and misunderstood and like a fish out of water. And so we need to manage this population differently. And had that facilitator had the insight, this is not someone with a personality disorder, this is someone with autism, who is likely bipolar, whose engine is running high right now. And so she’s hooked into her area of interest and is a little manic and can’t stop talking.
[25:49] Jason: Right, let me share two thoughts. One, the autism community talks about autism burnout a lot, and I think there is such a thing. And I also think there’s probably a lot of bipolar hidden in this thing called autism burnout, but they don’t really look at the possibility of bipolar, but they get up and they try, try, and then they just can’t do it anymore because they’re being asked to do too much. And so they crash. And that’s got to be messy and up some diagnoses and to follow that. We’ve always considered if they come in with depression and OCD, that’s two issues to deal with. And they’re probably somewhat related, but with neurodiversity and neurodegency, it’s one plus one is three or even four because of the sophistication and the slippery mess of one diagnosis. Once you’re starting to really get into the OCD issue, then they switch over and they can’t get the insight because of their autism or their nonverbal learning disorder. And it’s so much harder to tease out the issues. And it takes some sophisticated experience. And I think most of us as parents go to a professional and think either you get it or you don’t. We kind of know that within five or ten minutes of working with someone, that’s going to be an interventionist. But we didn’t when we were younger. When we were younger, we just trusted the professional because they have a degree and I love professionals and they’re not all created equal and they don’t all have the same experience. So it’s good to shop around and make sure you know who you’re referring to and not just referring to a degree or even a program when you don’t know who’s there. Programs are really just made up of whoever the good people are there and good people transfer and leave good hospitals all the time.
[27:38] Tatiana: Which is why, with this population, case management is so very important that everybody is talking, everybody is collaborating, that we’re calling ahead and making sure that the staff of this inpatient facility or if it’s an area of expertise if I’m brought in to work with someone who is on the autism spectrum, and we’re really working on educating, helping them understand the way their brain shows up in the world, how to build on their strengths, because there’s always so many. How to accommodate and remediate for what tends to maybe get in the way or take away from quality of life. And they are also experiencing something that I’m not an expert in, I will refer out and the individual who is working on the specific thing that I’m not an expert in will work primarily with that and I will work primarily with the autistic piece and we just do a ton of collaboration. And when you refer, it has to be to someone who is willing to hear the autistic perspective. So it may be so. Case in point. I had the kiddo in my office today. It was Mum, dad, my client, myself, and he has been saying, I’m angry, I’m angry, I’m angry. And when I uncovered more about his frequency and saying I’m angry, it wasn’t so much this is also a kiddo with bipolar diagnosis. It wasn’t so much that he has irritability related to the bipolar diagnosis. We’ve got that pretty well managed right now. And actually that was the priority when he came in and Mum and dad were still wondering, like, is he still like, got a little bit of media going on that he’s irritable? It was really the autism. So it was that black and white thinking in that moment because something had changed that he had not anticipated or he sometimes says he’s angry when he doesn’t know what to say and he’s afraid he’s not going to have enough time to formulate his thoughts.
[30:08] Jason: Right. We have a lot of clients who still say they’re depressed, even though they’re not, because that’s just who they were told they are. And they really aren’t depressed anymore, but they’ve just decided they’re depressed too and they just don’t know their insights. Not very good, but that’s right.
[30:23] Tatiana: So the team has to be willing to really look at the symptoms and try to define what is what and it’s process. So that is a really key component in the one is the understanding of autism spectrum disorders, the other is fine tuning what the treatment plan is going to look like when you are dealing with someone on the spectrum. Another example that I have, I do a lot of EMDR in my practice, so I do a lot of trauma work. And some of my autistic clients absolutely love it. They feel like it’s helpful, get them where they want to go quickly. They realize there’s a decrease in their anxiety around events that were traumatic. Their thinking is changing. And others, the real concrete thinkers, it’s really hard and we get three or four sessions in and you recognize this isn’t going to be a fit for him or her. We’re going to need to maybe look at more of a CBTbased intervention to trauma. Even right down to when you’re utilizing eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing, which is the gold standard for trauma. The bilateral stimulation, the back and forth movement is part of how you get folks to process information. And you do that with either having them follow a light bar that goes back and forth, earphones that maybe go do do alternating, or even holding hand pads that vibrate. I’ve had some clients that will say to me, I can’t hold the hand pads. The sensory overload is super distracting and so we’ve got to use the light bar or vice versa. I can’t move my eyes back and forth that much. It’s really flooding. It’s making me feel very anxious. And so we have to have them close their eyes and use their hand pads. So if you’re not someone who’s well aware of autism spectrum disorders and you have maybe an adolescent who has come in to do an EMDR, the individual without that insight might just find that the client is noncompliant and may project beliefs under that individual that they’re not motivated for change when truly they’re flooded because their senses experience the world on high.
[32:53] Jason: Right?
[32:53] Tatiana: So another example of the importance of really knowing how autism shows up and being able to fine tune your approaches, your interventions to meet the need of the client.
[33:07] Jason: One of the biggest mistakes therapists and anyone who’s trying to help make is they often assume that because someone is good at social or they’re good at communication, that we just assume they are much more capable. That seems to be the immediate window to where someone out is their verbal, social, communication skill. And it takes experience. You can’t just learn that and read it in a book. You have to see it in their life and realize, okay, they’re talking big, but if you look at the whole picture and you look at their symptoms and you you look at it objectively. Their verbal doesn’t match with their functioning. And that seems to be one of the most common areas that people who are neurodivergent that put into a box of higher capability, less disabled than they really are, which does them a great disservice, and it helps them mask, and.
[34:04] Debbie: It becomes shaming because you’re like, oh, you talk so well. I think you’re more capable, and I’m expecting more from you. And why is it this working? You must not be trying hard enough or not, like you said, not motivated to change when it’s really like they need more supports to be able to be more capable in the right interventions.
[34:20] Tatiana: Well, and unfortunately, I have seen a number of times clinicians, psychiatrist, providers in general not get the autistic piece, and they get into patient blaming, and we start giving diagnoses like oppositional defiant disorder treatment resistant. You got it. And whenever I hear that, what comes up for me is the therapist quit, the provider quit. They weren’t willing to continue to look. Where is the unidentified need? What are we missing? Is it that there’s a higher level of care? Have we missed the need for medication? Is there a familial component to this? And the individual would really thrive if we had them somewhere outside of the home. Well, mom and dad are working on learning how to do some things differently. And so it is very, very rare in my 25 years of being a therapist that I have met a client who truly is unwilling to change. They may not know how to change. They may be afraid of change. They may be I got it. You got it. Not have the skills, have skills that are keeping them alive, but they’re not extremely healthy.
[36:01] Jason: I remember getting almost none, if none at all training in my master’s program for developmental disorders. All we did was mental health, and that did me a big disservice, I know, because I didn’t understand it. And the science and the research have come a long way since 25 years ago, however long it’s been. So I think we’re doing better, and then we have a long way to go. We’re big advocates of having neurodiversity being a rule out before you start to have any intervention if therapy becomes another trauma and another negative, because after talk therapy, they can’t go out and perform what they understand, they agree with, they say they’ll do. They have the steps, they practice in the office, and then they can’t perform. It’s just another fail biggest thing that was supposed to help us counseling. And I can’t even do that.
[36:58] Tatiana: One of the things that just came up for me when you were talking was the importance of testing. And it is probably the most glaring hole here in metro Atlanta. If you called multiple psychologists here in metro Atlanta, and I would guess this is nationwide. Most of them don’t have the batteries to look for autism spectrum disorders or.
[37:25] Jason: They don’t test unless you specifically ask for it. That was the shocking thing for me. A family paid almost $10,000 for a big in depth, totally comprehensive evaluation and they didn’t even test for autism. And that’s the whole reason we sent them. And I thought, why would I have to ask you for that when we are asking for a comprehensive psyche valve? Is it only mental health? Is that all the DSM covers is mental health? No, it’s crazy.
[37:53] Tatiana: Again, in metro Atlanta, it is very rare. We’ve got a handful of them that will consistently test it. They’ve got the batteries to do so. And again, we’re seeing the wave of change where it’s becoming something there’s a lot more dialogue on if a psychologist suspects it and they don’t test for it. And again, there’s a lot of them out there that will say, I don’t look for autism spectrum disorders, I’m learning disabilities and mental health issues only. And so if there’s anything tricky when.
[38:34] Debbie: I hear learning disability, I automatically think autism would be grouped in that. And that’s shocking that it isn’t.
[38:41] Tatiana: Yes, because that’s one of the other co-occurring diagnoses is learning differentiations. We know that there are Scatter scores when we look at neuropsyches for most of the autistic and neurodivergent population. So part of what needs to happen is the mental health community really needs to be receiving additional education as part of their master’s level and their clinical training. There is more discussion about it. It needs to continue to build. There’s more continuing ad that’s happening. It needs to continue to evolve. Treatment really needs to be specialized when you are dealing with a neurodivergent adult or adolescent or child, and considering they’re not responding to typical interventions, if we’ve got the diagnosis or the other side, which is we’ve got the mental health piece, but they’re only getting so much better, what’s happening, right? We are going to have to continue to collaborate where someone may be an expert in this area, but they don’t know about autism. So working collaboratively for the treatment of clients and providing the same sort of specialized treatment planning as we would again, a child who is receiving special education resource within the school system, right, treat them all like their oranges and forget that some are apples. We’re not going to get the outcome that we’re looking for.
[40:23] Jason: We’re just barely starting to hear presentations and research for autism and addiction or autism and psychosis and they’re just barely it’s autism and attachment. Those are all obvious things that those who have worked with them, those are all big deals, but we don’t have much but we don’t have actually that much research on it. I love hearing the passion in your voice. I wanted to ask what drives you to do the work that you do? What do you love at the end of an exhausting day when you go home, what made you feel like, oh, that part was so cool? What is it that you are passionate about?
[41:04] Tatiana: I’m for the underdog. Whenever I identify an area that there is someone who is not getting what they need in regards to support. So many years ago I saw there was this huge hole in educational children’s books that were geared towards sexual abuse prevention with people that kids knew. And so I was like, there’s a hole there. All these kids are vulnerable. For the underdog, I’m going to write a book. And then I spent a few years doing that and then I realized that all of a sudden, all of these trauma patients being referred to me were really autistic young adults, adults, children, and the mental health community, especially when I got into this about 15 years ago, didn’t know anything about it. And I was seeing all of these patients that were coming in who had wasted a whole lot of time, money and had trauma related to their therapy because someone didn’t understand how the autism was showing up with the mental health piece or how the mental health piece was showing up with the autism. And so I opened a whole other practice. So I had one practice that was in Alfred on the North End, and I said, I’m going to open up one in Dunwoody and we’re going to run groups out of there that are for neurodiversified adults. We’re going to do general mental health, but we are going to make sure that anybody in Atlanta can get to us in 20 minutes because there’s not enough providers that do this. So I’m, for the underdog, loves my excitement and fuels me and keeps me going is my ability to be a source of support and kindness for someone who doesn’t have enough of it.
[43:12] Jason: I love that as a group, I love that neurodiversity is a minority group and they’re coming up and getting the attention that they finally deserve.
[43:24] Debbie: And it is really so neat to see when they do get the help and resources and understood and kind of like un-shamed and all of that and to see the progress and it’s just life changing when they can get the help. And so I love what you’re doing, Tatiana, and you’re a big proponent of change in helping for this population and I love your passion for it and your competence in it. We need that big piece. So thank you so much for coming on.
[43:53] Tatiana: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate that.
[43:57] Debbie: And I think maybe one of the biggest takeaways for me, and I think for parents, is I hope you will when things aren’t working, when you’re trying stuff and it’s not working, let’s open up, take a look at other options, look to new, different resources and kind of trust your instincts on it.
[44:15] Jason: Don’t shut yourself down and just trust the professionals. Yeah, you’re the parent or you’re the advocate.
[44:21] Debbie: There’s a nuance and intuition to this, to be able to work with this kind of sophistication of symptoms and challenges.
[44:30] Jason: How can people get a hold of you if they want to reach out to you?
[44:34] Tatiana: So here in metro Atlanta, they can go to our website, AtlantaSpecializedCare.com. There’s a portal that they can reach out to us and we will get back to them. We pride ourselves on responding to every individual that reaches out to us within 24 hours. We do not turn anyone away. So, unfortunately, there is a mental health epidemic going on. So whether you’re calling our office for concerns about executive functioning or neurodiversity or other mental health issues, everything from eating disorders to addiction to trauma, we treat almost everything in our office. If someone calls, they won’t just be told, we’re not taking new patients or no, we don’t accept your insurance. We make sure that we assist those who call us if we’re not going to be a fit for them. We help them find the resources that they need, the referrals that they need. They’ll always get a call back so they can access us through our website. They’re also welcome to call us, the number 770-815-6853. And we will make sure that we stand up and help them through this tricky process because we do it all the time, every day. But you all both understand that a parent who’s never walked this road before, sometimes they just don’t know where to begin and we are here for them to help them begin.
[46:03] Debbie: Oh, wonderful. I love that. And what a great thing to know they can get help there. So thank you so much for coming on. I will link how to contact your offices in our show notes and so you can find Tatiana there. And anyway, thanks so much for this discussion. I think it’s very informative and we hope everyone has a great week and food for thought and we’re going to improve outcomes for this population. All right, everyone, take care. Bye. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Autism and Neurodiversity with Jason and Debbie. If you want to learn more about our work, come visit us at JasonDebbie.com, that’s Jasondebbie.com.
