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Hello and welcome back to Behind the Paddle Podcast with me, Paulson Victoria. We are continuing to read Ellie Middleton, How to Be You. So this is chapter 2, self-monitoring. I often feel as though, if anything, I am too self-aware. After a lifetime of seemingly getting things quote wrong, whether that's not laughing when a joke has been made, saying the quote wrong thing at the quote wrong time, or misunderstanding someone's intentions, without ever really knowing why, it has become second nature for me to constantly double, triple or even quadruple check my thoughts, words, or actions before I share them with the world, in the hope of avoiding any more wrongdoing. However, in reality, this is a learned or perhaps even trauma response, and my autistic and ADHD brain's natural state is to struggle with self-monitoring. Self-monitoring is defined as the ability to observe and evaluate your own thoughts, behaviors, and actions, and explains the ways that we all pay attention to what's going on internally. Like all the other exclusive functioning skills we'll work through in this book, some aspects of self-monitoring are vital to keep us safe and well. Thinking right back to our cave person days, it was important then that we knew we were behaving in a way that would keep us safe from external dangers and also in favour within our tribe. However, in our modern day lives we have become expected to monitor ourselves to incredibly high standards, and it's arguable that some of these expectations, which we'll explore later on in the chapter, would be better left behind. In this chapter we'll explore What is self-monitoring? Which systems have affected the way we think about self-monitoring? How can we support ourselves with self-monitoring? Five things to consider putting in place to help with self-monitoring. Growing up as an undiagnosed or unsupported neurodivergent person can mean spending a lifetime being misunderstood, questioned, and gaslit, which of course will have an impact on your ability to notice and trust your own judgments, thoughts, and feelings. Allowing ourselves to make or ask for teeny tiny adjustments can make a huge difference to the way we feel or the way we're able to work, process, and do things. What is self-monitoring? Our second executive functioning skill, self-monitoring, is defined as the ability to observe and evaluate our own thoughts, behaviors and actions. It describes the process of paying attention to our internal thoughts and processes, as well as our outwardly showing behaviors and keeping track of what is and isn't working for us. Our brains systematically keep track of what we are doing to improve our practices and our productivity levels, and aim to use this information in order to have increasingly better outcomes. This process of self-monitoring can be split into two main categories. 1. Self-observation. This refers to the process of observing our thoughts, behaviors, and actions, for example, noticing the way that you have behaved in a certain situation. 2. Self-recording. This refers to the process of recording our thoughts, behaviors and actions, whether that is physically or mentally. An example of this could be journaling, to record the ways that certain things have made you feel, or keeping a mental note. Self-monitoring might look like checking in with yourself and asking questions like, How do I feel? How is this task going? Or am I on task? And either observing the answers to those questions mentally or recording them in some way to use that information going forward. There are a few key traits of different neurodivergences which might affect our ability to self-monitor as neurodivergent folks. Interoception. Autistic people especially can struggle with interoception issues. Although we're usually taught that we have five senses touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell. In reality, there are a couple of extra senses that we have that are particularly impacted in neurodivergent people. One of those is proprioception, the ability to understand where our body is in space. And another is interoception, which I believe really comes into play here. Interoception is defined as the ability to know and understand what is happening within our bodies. Autistic people especially can struggle with interoception, and be either under or oversensitive to any sensations. This can show up in ways like struggling to know if we are hungry or thirsty, struggling to know if we need the toilet until the very last minute. Being either under or oversensitive to pain. Struggling to explain what pain or sensations in our body feel like. Struggling to understand how hot or cold we are. Struggling to know which feelings or sensations in our body relate to which emotions. Struggling to work out how we are feeling in general. Struggling to identify if we are feeling unwell until things become very severe. Being either under or oversensitive to sensations in our body such as our heart rate. If we naturally struggle to interpret our bodies' sensations, or we aren't receiving signals in the same way about what feelings we're having or what things our bodies need. This obviously makes it much more tricky to monitor our thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. We might try to ask ourselves how we're feeling, but in reality, we struggle to be able to work that out. Delayed processing Many autistic people report struggling with delayed processing, which means that it can often take us longer than the average person to be able to process what we think or how we feel about something that has happened or something that somebody has said to us. In her book, Safeguarding Autistic Girls, Carly Jones, MBE, she her, describes this as where an event occurs but we autistic people don't process and or display our emotional reaction to that event, be it happy or sad, at the time instead we do sometime after. If we don't immediately process our feelings and they instead show up sometime after the event, it can be hard to monitor where those feelings come from. Impulsivity. Neurodivergent people, especially ADHDers, might be prone to experiencing varying levels of impulsivity. We'll dig into this more in the next chapter. Inhibition slash impulse control, but I think this definitely ties into our ability to self-monitor too. Examples of impulsivity laid out in the diagnostic criteria for AGHD include, often leaves seat in situations when remaining seated is expected, often runs about or climbs in situations where it is not appropriate. Adolescents or adults may be limited to feeling restless, is often on the go, acting as if driven by a motor, often talks excessively, often blurts out an answer before a question has been completed, often has trouble waiting their turn, often interrupts or intrudes on others, e.g., butts into conversations or games. Impulsive actions can be broadly defined as the inability to withhold from making a response or a stimulus. If we're always diving right into things, this can make it difficult for us to have the time to stop and think about our thoughts, processes, or behaviors. Differences in reading social cues. Part of the diagnostic criteria for autism is having differences in nonverbal community behaviors used for social interaction. This means that we might struggle to understand and use nonverbal communication, such as gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact according to neurotypical norms, for example, struggling to understand and interpret what different facial expressions mean, struggling to understand and interpret the body language of those around us, missing subtle nonverbal context within conversations such as a change in tone, struggling to read between the lines, we can also be very literal thinkers and processors, and so we might take things that we are told at face value, or struggle to understand something to be true if it is not communicated to us clearly and directly. Without being able to understand and interpret all these hidden signals that the people around us are giving out, we are missing vital information about the way that our words, behaviors, and actions are received or perceived by other people. Knowing if something has been taken well or interpreted badly is vital feedback for us to be able to self-monitor and work out if these are behaviors that we should continue to use in the future, or if they are behaviours that we might want to change or improve in some way. Which systems have affected the way we think about self-monitoring? As with all the executive functions, we will explore throughout the book, although the ability to monitor our own thoughts, actions, and behaviors is a vital skill for us to have. The ways in which we currently consider deficits in self-monitoring are socially constructed and impacted by different biases within our society. I think it's really important we start off here by discussing ableism and the ways it forces us to monitor our behaviors on a constant basis. In our society, we have been led to believe that any divergence from the norm is wrong or bad. This shows up in ableism, which means that we look down on or negatively judge disabled people, or the traits that they have as a result of their disability. As an example, throughout the diagnostic criteria for autism, ADHD, and most other neurodivergences, the traits or experiences of neurodivergent people are framed as deficits. We are told we have deficits in social abilities, deficits in communication, deficits in our ability to focus or deficits in our ability to develop relationships. In fact, none of these things are actually deficits, they are just differences. I discuss this more thoroughly throughout my first book, Unmasked, as well as the ways we are forced to mask our differences in order to be safe and accepted in society. Masking is the act of hiding or disguising parts of ourselves in order to better fit in with the people around us. It explains the way that an autistic or otherwise neurodivergent person attempts to appear non-autistic or neurotypical by covering up their autistic or neurodivergent traits. It was initially and most commonly used to explain specifically the autistic experience, but more recently it has been adopted and used by the neurodivergent community as a whole. As Dr. Hannah Belcher Sheehe explains in an article for the National Autistic Society, masking may involve suppressing certain behaviors we find soothing, but that others think are weird, such as stimming or intense interest. It can also mean mimicking the behavior of those around us, such as copying nonverbal behaviors and developing complex social scripts to get by in social situations. It might look like camouflaging, covering up or obscuring neurodivergent traits, tendencies, or characteristics in order to blend in to a neurotypical social environment. Mimicking, copying the behaviors of those around you. Overcompensating, actively counterbalancing your natural traits slash behaviors by using specific strategies to maintain the appearance of functioning in the same way as everyone else. In the context of self-monitoring, I think it's really important that we consider just how much extra self-monitoring we are expected to do as neurodivergent people in order to fit into our society. Where other people might just go about their lives, not really having to question too many of their natural behaviors or ways of being, we are constantly monitoring. Whether we are making too much or too little eye contact, whether we are doing a good enough job of suppressing our stims, whether we are making the right facial expressions at the right time, whether we are showing enough signs that we are interested in the conversation, for example, by nodding or making encouraging noises, whether we are using a friendly enough tone of voice rather than our natural one, which might be more blunt and monotonous, and therefore perceived as rude. Whether we are talking too much about our special interests and therefore risking being told that we are annoying or self-centered. Instead of us having a deficit in self-monitoring, I'd actually argue that we could probably all be self-monitoring gold medal-winning Olympic champions. The reality might not be that we struggle to self-monitor. It might be that we're expected or forced to monitor so many more aspects of ourselves than any neurotypical person is expected to. And so, naturally, sometimes there are going to be a couple of behaviors that slip through the cracks. Additionally, allowing these behaviors to slip through the cracks, and therefore unmasking, should not be seen as a negative thing or a deficit, or something that needs to be worked on. It should be actively encouraged. In addition to ableism, I also think our patriarchal society and the misogyny within it have a huge implication for the ways that women and people are marginalized for their gender are required to self-monitor. As Gina Martin shared in What Defines Our View of Executive Functioning, girls are socialized to be agreeable, small, and facilitating, which is a masking of its own kind, and that plays heavily into how well they learn to mask their neurodivergence at such an early age. Presenting in these polite, quiet, and controlled ways requires a huge amount of self-observation and monitoring. This becomes twofold for women and people marginalized for their gender whose intersecting identities mean that they are marginalized by multiple systems of oppression. For example, queer women, trans women, and people marginalized for their gender and women of colour. We are even forced to self-monitor simply to keep ourselves safe. As Ellen Jones, she her, queer and autistic author, speaker and creator explains, the world demands that women and other marginalized people be hyper-vigilant at all times. Our safety is often contingent, not just on the ability to recognize potential threats, men following us on the way home, controlling behaviors, exploitation by a boss, but also on the ways we might be able to attempt to mitigate them. We are often taught that there are things we might have done differently and blamed for the outcomes. The truth is that no amount of self-monitoring can prevent discrimination. We try, as some thinly veined harm reduction, but it doesn't work. My experience is that autistic women tend to swing wildly between extreme hypervigilance and obliviousness, the latter often being a compensationary behaviour to the former. The responsibility shouldn't be on us, but it is. Demi Colleen Sheher, black and neurodivergent content creator and writer, adds, self-monitoring becomes a more complex tool when race is a factor. As a black woman with ADHD, cultural influence and outside perception can make reflecting on one's behavior a more confusing task. I found this particularly difficult when adjusting my behaviors in school and social situations. In an educational setting, I experienced prejudice from the teachers and would be unfairly punished for exhibiting the same behaviors as my white classmates, though I was mirroring their behavior, only I would be perceived as a troublemaker. It felt impossible to monitor my behaviors effectively, when the results and impact were so inconsistent, and I couldn't understand why at the time. The playing field was never equal, so the goalpost changed frequently. Following on from this, there are also aspects of white supremacy culture outlined in Tima Okunun's characteristics, which impact our views on self-monitoring. One of these characteristics is qualified, which explains the way that white people or those from dominant groups are inclined to feel inherently more qualified, entitled, or equipped than non white or marginalized people. They might assume their own inherent qualifications. To fix whatever is in front of them that is broken, read different without acknowledging their role in breaking it, or that it might not be broken at all. This characteristic is similar to one right way and explains someone's own bias towards always assuming that they know best. An example of this that many of us will be able to relate to might be when someone who is not an ADHD themselves tells us about their brilliant new planner or that we just need to set more alarms or write more to-do lists. They automatically assume, thanks to their internal bias, of being qualified, that they are best placed to tell us how to fix our problems when, in reality, they don't have any of the lived experience to be able to do that. Some examples of the ways the qualified characteristic affects the way we see executive functioning and self-monitoring. Those without lived experience of neurodivergence often consider themselves to be experts on neurodivergence, regardless of their lack of personal understanding. This might mean that they assume we are lacking in self-monitoring when in reality we just have different ways of working, thinking, and behaving, and so we'll naturally monitor ourselves in different ways. Those without lived experience of neurodivergence might define the ways that we should self-monitor work or function differently from their own lack of personal experience, which can cause miscommunication or misunderstandings, particularly in the workplace. Those who hold power may not consider how their behavior or expectations might be negatively impacting neurodivergent people, for example, that it could be the working conditions, tight deadlines, being understaffed, or having unclear expectations, which cause someone to struggle. They therefore incorrectly blame any difficulties on the neurodivergent person's ability to self-monitor or self-manage. This context and understanding might be helpful to carry forward while we look at ways we can support ourselves with self-monitoring, especially when it comes to masking, instead of carefully monitoring and controlling our every move, which would be unhelpful, harmful, and draining. We can reframe the idea of self-monitoring into something more like self-knowing. It's not about thinking, these are my natural ways of being, and they are wrong, so I need to monitor and change them. But instead, I have been able to notice that my brain works in these ways, so what can I do to lean into those natural ways of being to make life easier and better for myself? Self-awareness or self-monitoring can be an incredibly useful skill if we approach it with compassion, rather than attempting to fix things. The aim is to look at our differences, strengths, struggles, and weaknesses through a neutral lens and think, this is the way that things tend to flow for me. So how can I go with the current rather than consistently trying to either swim upstream or build a dam to stop the flow altogether? The tips over the following pages are designed to help you get more in tune with the way you self-monitor and therefore find ways of working with your brain rather than against it. But it's equally important as people who are likely to have spent a lot of our lives monitoring our every thought, word and action, that we don't get too caught up in monitoring ourselves to the point that we're masking, criticizing and shaming. We're aiming to find a balance between letting go of neuronormative shoulds that don't serve us, and picking up tips and tricks that can support us in making the ones that we need to follow work better for us. How can we support ourselves with self-monitoring? Similarly, to our working memories, which we explored in the previous chapter, being better supported with self-monitoring isn't completely reliant on us as individuals, but instead equally relies on us being supported and accommodated by the people around us and the environment that we enter. As we touched on previously, masking requires a constant and significant level of self-observation and self-monitoring. As Dr. Hannah Louise Belcher Sheeha explains in her book, Taking Off the Mask, we can't mimic others' behavior unless we have the ability to remember the behavior we have seen. We can't apply our learned social scripts to new situations without the ability to plan ahead and be flexible to new situations and changes. This puts a huge strain on our executive functioning capabilities and therefore takes away from our capacity to monitor the things that will actually help us. It also perhaps explains why masking or camouflaging is so exhausting for autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people, we are constantly using a strategy which requires a huge amount of executive functioning when our executive functioning capabilities are thought to be delayed or limited to begin with. If we have spent our entire lives doing all the background work that masking consists of and being in a near-and-off constant state of fight or flight, we haven't been able to stop and think, how am I feeling right now? We have been stuck in survival mode rather than having the capacity to focus on anything other than getting through the current danger. This more helpful sort of reflection requires us to be in a calm and safe environment where we know that we don't need to be on guard in case of any looming danger. Therefore, if we can find environments where we feel understood and supported and where we know that we are safe to unmask, we can let go of some of the unhelpful self-monitoring, like am I making enough eye contact, or is my tone of voice animated enough? And free up space for more helpful self-monitoring. This helpful self-monitoring might look like asking ourselves how we feel, what we need, what would help us, or what do we do and don't like. Many autistic people, especially those who have spent a considerable amount of time undiagnosed, report experiencing a huge amount of difficulty when trying to work out how they feel or what does and doesn't feel good. They have spent such a long time being told that their needs don't matter or are wrong, that they've lost the ability to trust their own instinct. As an example, if you are repeatedly told that you are dramatic or attention-seeking, for feeling upset or wobbled by things, you learn that your feelings are wrong, and before long, will start to cover them up completely and eventually push them down so far that you don't even recognize the feelings yourself. Growing up as an undiagnosed or under-supported neurodivergent person can mean spending a lifetime being misunderstood, questioned, and gaslit, which of course will have an impact on your ability to notice and trust your own judgments, thoughts, and feelings. If you are repeatedly told and convinced that your perception of events is wrong, your experiences and pain are fictional, and your needs are invalid, you will naturally begin to question your own judgment. Add this to the fact that our differences, interoception, can mean that we struggle to identify emotions or sensations in our bodies to begin with, and it's no wonder what trying to work out how we feel can be difficult. As Carly Jones MBE Sheher explains in her book, Safeguarding Autistic Girls, this can have dangerous consequences. If from childhood an autistic girl is told the music in the car isn't too loud, you're being silly, when it actually feels as if her ears are bleeding due to sensory issues, would she be more likely to accept that she makes mistakes when she's told by an abuser that her perceptions are wrong? With this executive function, I think it's really important to be gentle with yourself and trust that even if finding the self-awareness or self-monitoring feels difficult initially, over time you will begin to find ways of tuning into your body and your feelings and working these things out. Think of self-monitoring as a muscle which needs to be trained rather than something that you will see changes in overnight. The more that you carve out the time to sit with your feelings and ask yourselves these questions. And the more time that you spend with people and in places where you can begin to unmask and remove yourself from the fight or flight state, the more you will be able to notice how you really feel and what you really think. Some of my top suggestions on how to begin to unmask, which you can read more about in my first book, Unmasked, are as follows. Find ways of listening to your body. We'll get into this more in the tips on the following pages. Lean into your special interests, spending time throwing yourself into the things you love the most can really help you feel safe and most like your true self. Spend time with other neurodivergent people. What better way to start being more authentic than to surround yourself with people just like you? Spend time alone. Whenever you are interacting with the outside world, there is going to be an aspect of being aware that you are being perceived and therefore masking or monitoring yourself in order to try and control that perception and ensure it is a positive one. Before we get into our main self-monitoring strategies, tips and tricks, like in the last chapter, I want to quickly set the scene by reminding you of a list of things that are absolutely fine to do or ask for. Allowing ourselves to make or ask for teeny tiny adjustments can make a huge difference to the way we feel, or the ways we're able to work, process and do things. A list of things that are absolutely fine. Asking to have some time to consider how you think and feel about a request before saying yes or no. Asking to have some time to process how you feel about something somebody has said to you before responding. Asking to receive these requests or big or important communications via email or text message rather than verbally or face-to-face, so you have that time to process and consider. Spending more time alone to give yourself time to check in with yourself. Spending less time socializing with people you have known for a long time, and more time socializing with newer neurodivergent friends who you feel you can better unmask around. Not masking or forcing eye contact and instead looking wherever feels most comfortable for you. No longer monitoring or suppressing the ways that you might want to stim or self-regulate, and instead freely moving however feels good. No longer monitoring or altering your tone of voice, and instead speaking in a way that feels natural to you, even if that might be considered more blunt. Speaking freely or infodumping about your special interests rather than constantly trying to ensure you haven't spoken about them too much. Using tools like the Emotion Sensation Feeling Wheel by Lindsay Brahman to help you identify the ways that you feel. Finding ways of journaling, checking in with yourself and processing that suit you. Like recording voice notes on your phone as and when you need to, rather than feeling like you have to journal in a written diary for 10 minutes every morning, for example. Tip 6. The Mood for Food by Vanessa D'Souza, Sheehe, the autistic chef, master chef, semi-finalist, and content creator. As an ADHD with sensory processing difficulties, I am super passionate about making the world of food, cooking, and feeding yourself more accessible to neurodivergent folks. By self-monitoring, we can identify which parts of eating, feeding ourselves feel more difficult for us, and put a variety of things in place to work with our neurodivergent brains rather than against them. Below are some of my top tips and practical strategies which can be implemented to help with the challenges that can come with being neurodivergent, to ensure you have a balanced and enjoyable approach to food and feeding yourself. Autistic individuals. Use non-distracting utensils and dishware to reduce overwhelm. Stick to foods with textures, smells, tastes which are preferred. Have a comfortable eating environment specific to that person, i.e. eating alone to avoid being perceived, dim lighting, ear defenders. Visual schedules for meal prep. Having a visual schedule for meal preparation can help provide structure and reduce anxiety. This can include using pictures of ingredients rather than words slash text, or watching video tutorials rather than reading each stage of the cooking method. Routine and predictability. For those who need routine, structure, having a constant meal time wherever possible provides a sense of necessary predictability. Limiting food options. Respect and accommodate any food advertisements, preferences, whether that's when cooking for an autistic person or learning to be more compassionate with yourself. Have a limited section of choices to avoid decision overwhelm. ADHD individuals, meal planning and prepping, plan and prep meals in advance to reduce decision paralysis. Have pre-prepped ingredients like using frozen pre-chopped items to speed things up and help make things more manageable. Use dopamine serving plates or colorful patterns. Regular snack breaks. If you struggle with interoception, keep snacks close by throughout the day to maintain energy levels. Setting timers to eat them regularly. Same goes for water, as often it's first, not hunger, though I still cannot tell the difference myself. It's proven that a mixture of protein and complex carbs, for example, a meal of chicken with sweet potato fries or whole meal pasta with mince bolognese can help sustain attention and focus. Visual reminders. Incorporate visual timers or alarms to signal when it's time to start prepping or eating. Use visual step-by-step guides to keep you on track during the cooking or preparation process. This can help ensure things don't get forgotten about, especially when cooking, or the impatience of taking things out before they are cooked. General tips which work for me. No cooking cooking, keeping healthy freezer ready meals for executive dysfunction days, and dry packet meals like instant noodles, microwave steam veggie bags, and microwave rice for the days when you have little slash no energy but want to eat well. If you can afford it, choosing a meal delivery kit option, such as Hella Fresh, Gusto, or Mindful Chef can both take away decision paralysis and mean you get a nutritious meal. I always choose things that can be made quickly and it also means I don't need to do a big food shop and there is no waste. For those with dyspraxia, dyscalculia, or those who struggle with fine motor skills. Always buy pre-cooked, peeled, pre-made items. I love frozen chopped onions, frozen minced garlic, cut and washed veggies, which means I don't need to do as much work. Use cups as a metric instead of weighing in grams if you follow a recipe. This can be easier if you struggle with numbers. Tip 7. Honoring your sensory needs. Before I knew I was an autistic ADHD, I used to experience really intense bouts of burnout every six months, like clockwork. I would become incredibly overwhelmed, tired, tearful, and really struggle with my mental health. No matter how hard I try to avoid these periods of burnout and low mood, for example by eating well, exercising, going to therapy, and taking antidepressants, they would always catch up with me. Looking back, I now know that as well as being caused by the huge amounts of masking I was doing without ever realizing, this burnout was the result of not having a vital piece of information about the way that my brain worked. I didn't know that I was neurodivergent, and so I was missing one really key thing from my routine. Now I know that I'm an autistic ADHD and have spent time exploring what that means. I know that I need to schedule time into my routine to honour my sensory needs. Despite autism historically being framed as a mostly social and communication disability, many autistic people argue that the biggest difference in their experience is in the ways that they process sensory input. We can be over or under-sensitive to light, for example, struggling with the bright fluorescent lighting, such as in a supermarket or airport, or enjoying flashing lights like fairy lights or starlight projections. Sound. For example, being overwhelmed if there are different clashing sounds, like somebody talking while the TV is on, or seeking out loud sounds by playing music very loudly in your earphones. Smell, for example, feeling distracted if there is a different smell in your environment. I couldn't possibly let this moment pass without using the example of my brother Lewis hating cheese and onion crisps more than anything on this earth and having to move seats or even carriages on public transport if someone was to open a packet, or enjoying seeking out different scents, like having a very strong signature perfume. Texture, for example, not liking unusual textures of food. I personally hate fish and seafood because of the slimy texture, or seeking out different textures like really crunchy crisps. Touch or presence, for example, feeling uncomfortable when close. Or labels are touching your skin, or seeking out pressure in the form of a deep tissue massage. Since we can be either over or under sensitive to each type of sensory input and often a combination of the two at different times or in different situations, it's really important that we make time to honour our sensory needs with both sensory avoiding behaviors where we're limiting the sensory input we need to process and sensory-seeking behaviors where we're seeking out extra or increased sensory input. Over the following pages are some examples of sensory-seeking and sensory avoiding behaviors for each of the senses explored above. With space for you to add some examples of your own, I would also highly recommend that instead of just hoping that you get around to implementing things, which especially if you are an ADHD like me, seems unlikely. You schedule a regular slot in your diary or calendar for sensory seeking or sensory avoiding time. This is a really good chance to practice a bit of self-monitoring by checking in with yourself and working out which senses you need to avoid or seek out at that current time, which will change depending on how you're feeling or the day that you've had. For example, if you have spent the day in a busy office with lots of overlapping sounds and bright light, you will probably want to spend some time avoiding lights and sounds by lying in a quiet dark room or maybe listening to some white noise. So on one page it says sensory input, so you've got next to it sensory avoiding behaviors, and then sensory seeking behaviors, and you've got light, sound, smell, texture, touch, or presence. All draw up in tables. Tip eight, avoiding demand avoidance. One of the biggest self-monitoring discoveries since finding out that I am neurodivergent has been how significantly I am impacted by demand avoidance. Demand avoidance is something that many autistic people especially experience and describes the way that our brains will be incredibly resistant to anything that we perceive to be a demand. This demand, whether real or perceived, might be an exception, a request, an expectation, a request, or some other kind of external pressure, and when picked up by our brains, can activate our nervous system, send us into a state of fight or flight, and lead us to avoid the demand at all costs. Pathological demand avoidance or PDA was previously considered to be a unique profile of autism, however, more recently, the community have begun to reframe PDA as standing for a persistent drive for autonomy, as this feels more neurodivergence affirming than something being pathological, as well as more accurate in terms of our internal experience rather than viewing it from an outsider's perspective. We have also started to see demand avoidance as being another trait or experience that falls within the autism spectrum, which different autistic people experience to a greater or lesser degree rather than being a separate profile. Demand avoidance or drive for autonomy is something that has a huge impact on the way that I am able to live, work, and behave. One example that you might find easy to relate to, whether you are an autistic person or not, is when you are just about to empty the dishwasher and somebody says, Oh, please could you empty the dishwasher? Or even, oh, the dishwasher needs emptying. Suddenly, even though you are literally just about to start the task at hand, you might feel a very strong resistance to actually going on to do it. This is the case for so many aspects of my life, all the way from struggling to complete actual demands like instructions through to seemingly silly things like not being able to watch popular films when they are first released, because the buzz or hype around them feels like a demand that I should watch it. And so my demand avoidance immediately feels like it has lost some sort of autonomy and resists watching it. After self-monitoring and figuring out that I experience demand avoidance, I'm able to work with my brain instead of against it by removing demands from my life wherever possible. By doing this, I'm lessening the amount of times that my nervous system is triggered into resisting certain tasks, and therefore I am more likely to be able to get them done. Below is a list of some of the ways that I have put this into practice, with some space for you to reflect on your own examples of demands that you could reduce or replace. Ways I could reduce or reframe demands. Instead of having a set posting schedule for my social media accounts, for example, that I must post a quote every Monday, a video every Tuesday, and so on. I just allow myself to post as and when I feel like it. Instead of scheduling certain tasks in my calendar for a certain date and time in advance, which then feels like a demand to complete them at that time, I will put them on my to-do list for the week and then pick out the tasks that I'm going to complete each day. Instead of making a meal plan for the week, which then feels like a demand to cook or eat that meal on that day, you could make a list of the meals that you will eat throughout the week, buy the ingredients, and then allow yourself to choose which meal you fancy on the day. Tip 9. Safe word. Something else that you might notice once you begin to practice self-monitoring and get more in tune with how you feel, is that there are times when you become very overwhelmed. For example, experiencing autistic meltdowns or shutdowns. You might even find that these become more frequent as you begin to unmask and spend less time covering up the way that you feel. During both autistic meltdowns and autistic shutdowns, or other intense periods of overwhelm like anxiety attacks, or just stressful situations in general, you will most likely find it difficult to communicate with other people around you. This might be losing the ability to use your words completely and experiencing a verbal shutdown, or it might just be that while your brain is so overwhelmed, it's difficult to piece together the words you need to form sentences that are coherent or make sense to the people around you. These situations are not fun, understatement of the century. But one thing that I've found which can make them slightly more bearable is to have a pre-agreed safe word or code word with someone you feel comfortable with, so that even when communication becomes difficult or impossible, you can still communicate what you need to. This could look like agreeing with your partner that you will say, we need to get back to the car before the parking runs out. If you need to leave a social situation so that you can communicate the fact you need to leave without having to explain that you're struggling. Your partner would then know not to question or try to convince you to stay, and that by saying that, you were signaling that you needed to get out of there with as little friction as possible. Another example could be that you agree with your manager that you will say, I'm just going to collect something from the printer. If you need to leave a meeting or a loud office so that you can communicate that you need to go and take some quiet time to decompress without feeling like you need to explain or justify in front of your colleagues. If verbal communication is particularly difficult for you, you could even use physical gestures, like saying that you will tap your partner three times on their right arm if you need their help, or use communication cards, or AAC, argumentative and alternative communication, devices to communicate nonverbally. It doesn't matter what code word or signal you use. It could be a completely random word or phrase that nobody else in the room would understand. What matters is that it's pre-arranged between you and your safe person to relieve the need to communicate or express yourself in the moment. Below are some prompts to help you to work out what situations it might be helpful to have a safe word in, who your safe person or contact might be in that situation, and what word or phrase you could agree to use. So we have a table of three. We have potentially stressful situation. Who is my safe person? What could my safe word, phrase, gesture be? Tip 10. Interoceptive check in By Beau Miebach The Them. Inclusion and belonging lead atimo. I'm one of those people who can easily go about their day getting few or no signals from my body to drink water, eat, or rest. I used to end my days feeling cranky, headache, and upset, with no real understanding of why and how to feel better. Exploring my neurodivergence meant learning a whole lot more about how and why I function the way I do, and when I finally learn about interoception. I felt like years of unexplained headaches finally made sense. Interoception or the signals our body gives us to tell us if we're thirsty, hungry, or in pain is an important part of sensory processing that, as with many other things, can often look different for neurodivergent folks. I have what is called an under-responsive system, which means that I often don't respond to sensory inputs until they are really strong. For example, I may not realize I'm thirsty until I'm super thirsty. But there are other kinds of interoception differences, including over-responsivity, feeling sensations more intensely or for longer, and having discrimination difficulties, trouble telling how you feel or what you need. As with most things, there is no right way to experience sensory inputs. But where it gets tricky is if the way your body experiences sensations affects your ability to self-regulate or puts you at risk of serious harm, e.g., you don't feel pain until it's excruciating. Because in the past, my under-responsivity affected how I could show up for myself and my community. I started exploring ways to work with my system and found that the best way to meet my needs is to set interoception check-in reminders. I use Timo, a neuroinclusive planning app, to remind myself to check in with my nervous system. My free daily reminders guide me through a series of questions that help me tune into my body and meet any unmet needs, like, for example, going to the bathroom. For folks who are overreactive, these interoception check-ins can help you ground and ensure you're meeting your needs at consistent intervals. For example, if you know that you need around 8 cups of water a day, you can schedule four check-ins daily to make sure you've had two cups of water since your last check-in. People with sensory discrimination difficulties can also benefit from this method and use these check-ins as an intentional time to sit with their bodies and tune into what they need. This method has helped me and my pals along the spectrum of sensory processing differences. Be proactive about self-care and has made for happier, more grounded days, give it a try. Self-monitoring recap. Our second executive function, self-monitoring, is defined as the extent to which someone monitors their self-presentations, expressive behavior, and nonverbal effective displays. It describes the ways that we observe and evaluate our own thoughts, behaviors and actions, and the ways that we all pay attention to what's going on internally. This skill is important in making sure we act in ways that are safe, productive, and well received, but can lead to us over-monitoring our behaviours, such as when masking. In this chapter, we have explored what self-monitoring is, the systems which have affected the way we think about self-monitoring, some ways we can support ourselves with self-monitoring, 5 things to consider putting in place for self-monitoring. Your takeaway box. As neurodivergent people, we are often self-monitoring to a really high degree, asking ourselves questions like, Am I making enough eye contact? Or am I nodding enough and making the right noises to appear interested? This can be more unhelpful than it is productive and takes away from our capacity to monitor what's really important, such as how we feel. Our ability to self-monitor can also be impacted by growing up undiagnosed or unsupported in a neurotypical world. If you are repeatedly told and convinced that your perception of events is wrong, your experiences and pain are fictional, and your needs are invalid, you will naturally begin to question your own judgment. Know that it is only natural that your ability to self-monitor would be impacted, but that over time and with practice, you can get back to trusting and listening to yourself. Scheduling time into our diaries to check in with ourselves and make sure that we're getting our needs met can be a helpful way to bring self-monitoring back into our consciousness. The more you practice, the more you will naturally begin to notice. Okay, now that was chapter two. We'll be moving on to chapter three hopefully next week. I'm very happy with how we are doing like a chapter at a time. It's very nice. Long podcast episodes, but it's very nice. But yeah, this has been Paulson Victoria with Behind the Paddle Podcast. If you have enjoyed this episode, please leave a like and follow and leave us some stars on Apple, Spotify, wherever you are listening. And yeah, if you enjoyed this episode, if you want to hear any topics or any other books once we're finished with this one, please give me an email. And yeah, I think that's where that's it. Bye.