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Teens Uncharted: Things that make a kid feel weird are actually the things we should be protecting. So much of adolescence is spent trying to figure out where you fit in while simultaneously being terrified that someone might notice all the ways that you don't. And as the adults in their lives, I think we sometimes get so focused on helping teens succeed, cope, and belong that we often forget to ask whether we're accidentally teaching them to become a little less of themselves in the process. So today I'm talking with Cynthia Baseman, author of Weirdos Welcome, about belonging difference. And what happens when we stop treating weird like something kids need to outgrow. Because maybe our job isn't actually to help teens fit in better. Maybe it's to help them become comfortable enough with who they are that fitting in matters a whole lot less. So let's get into it. Welcome to the show, Cynthia. I'm so glad to have you here today. Charity, thank you so much for having me. It's it's a pleasure. I'm so I'm so excited. I always am looking for books and I'm looking for young adult fiction, novels, anything to kind of help teens understand their experiences and give them a narrative. And I'm so glad you're here today because I'm so excited to talk about your book. And I'm excited to talk to you about it. It specifically because of you who works with teens all the time and their parents. It's it's it's wonderful to be here. Yeah. Thank you so much. So tell me, what inspired Weirdos Welcome? Weirdos Welcome was inspired really by my kids and my niece. It's not an autobiographical book, but it was really the fact that they're all neurodiverse that got me thinking about what that was like specifically in the high school arena. Why high school? Well, because that's that's the time. Any any any chink in the armor becomes a pothole. Any difference becomes glaring. And it can be such an unforgiving environment and and become really, really miserable. And that's conflict. You know, that makes for a great story when you have challenges, conflicts, fights, indecision, anger, all all the emotions, all the feelings makes for makes for a a really good read and it also brings attention to something that is really important to me. Yeah. I I love sorry, I'm loving that you use the word feelies because I'm just like that is like so classically teen where you're giving names to all of these things that kids go through, right? All the things that teens struggle with. Like it is so like if you could if you paid me money to go back in and do like another area of my life again, you couldn't pay me enough to go back and be a teen again. Yeah. Well, everything is for the first time, right? Charity. I mean the the Everything is new. Everything is huge. All the emotions are ginormous. Also, they quickly. Like as adults, I think we have learned ⁓ that idea for just from experience and just you know been on the road longer. We know that things can change. We know that when you turn
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that corner, that it could be something completely different. With kids, when they're in it, they're in it a hundred percent. And so if it's great, they are flying. They're so happy, they're so excited. If they think someone they like likes them back, it's there's there's nothing isn't as intoxicating. Okay. On the flip side, if that person they think suddenly doesn't like them. There's nothing worse. They're they're in their own hell. It's a just it's just pure torture. And there's there's that lack of, you know, experience which tells you it's really, really bad right now. But you know, just wait five minutes and and and it could be a lot better. Just just just give it five minutes. So it's it's fun to write that stuff. It gives me as a writer a lot of a lot of freedom to explore what is big in a person's life. Like ginormous. It's it's it's it's it's it's Mount Bulvey. It's it's it's San Gergorn Gergonio, you know, these are like big mountains here in LA. It's like that, okay? Yeah. So Weirdo's welcome ⁓ and I apologize because I haven't read it yet, but I'm very excited to. So I ordered my copy. ⁓ and I'm gonna I'm gonna read it. But Weirdo's Welcome sounds like it's a young adult love story. And it is. And it is. I didn't set out to write a love story charity. I set out to explore two people. one one is is a young lady who flies her freak flag and she is so curious about her diagnosis and what that means and what it's gonna mean right now, what it's gonna mean for the rest of her life and and and who she wants to be based on everything she sees through the lens of autism. Then you have this this other kid and he is the cool kid and he is ⁓ in sports and he's journalist and he's like everyone thinks he's the nicest guy at school and he's so cute and he is hiding everything. He doesn't want everyone to know how anxious he is and he's got severe anxiety and he has OCD. And he doesn't have a name for that. All he knows is that he's different. He feels tortured and horrible and sometimes doesn't know how he's gonna get through the next ten minutes. You you take those two, right? I wanted to just explore them as friends and then they had something that drew them together and I wasn't sure what that was gonna be and whatever. I start writing and then, ⁓ like these two are gonna fall in love. And I I honestly did not know that as I began this story. So it was kind of a fun discovery when I got into it. Yeah. I didn't know I was going to be writing romance. I I really didn't. I thought this was more like a social justice, environmental, with an environmental activism component because they do bond over a oil well platform that's near their school and why it should not be ⁓ why it should not be there. That that those were like the big pieces I had. But romance turned out to be really, really fun to write. I I love that as you're talking about this, you're kind of like, I was even surprised about like where the book went and and how these characters got together. ⁓ because I think I always have this impression of authors and writers that it's like, ⁓ you already know how it's gonna end. But I think you're you're giving us the layer of like sometimes you don't know what you're gonna create and you don't know how it's gonna fit together. It's it's this book took me seven years to complete charity. It w involved a lot, of lot of research and I I you know, it was like bit by bit. I had to like conquer, you know, a little bit of terrain at a time before I went to the next level. And as I did that and got more and more into my characters, then they start telling me. Then I'm like I'm I'm just like a a pen. Like they they're talking to me and I'm just I'm just I'm the conduit, you know what I mean? And that that's that's what what happens when I get really into a story. It's the best. I love it. I love it. I'm I'm curious. ⁓ I was gonna ask you if this was a lot of personal experience of watching your kind of sons and your family go through some of these situations in high school or if it was a research base, but it sounds like you did research it. So then I'm wondering what you kind of found in your research and how you identified what to really focus and highlight in this book. Well, I think it was a little bit of both. I mean it was definitely it was it was definitely seeing my neurodiverse sons grow. Growing up, going through high school and what that experience was. Then it was my niece and her late diagnosis, and looking back and seeing, okay, so lots of stuff's making sense now. a lot of the conflict and the drama and the tears and the agony that she had gone through. And what I did was I I used that as a jumping off point. And then I found other people and to talk to, young people. And and sometimes they're parents too, because you want to get that side of the the s the the the research, even if that doesn't all make it into the book, you still wanna kinda know what what the family dynamic is and also the dads too. But I ended up talking mostly to moms and daughters. And that I had to satisfy myself that I had really had sufficient time to understand the experiences that they had because some of it is like searingly painful. And I had to to to keep reviewing and talking and asking questions and lots and lots of listening until I felt like I could be objective about the things that I was hearing. Because at at first it's almost like, ⁓ wow, I just felt the you know the slap, you know, glance my face or I felt the the shove you know because it's it's really a hard thing to hear like people can be extremely cruel to one another and it you know it it does shake your confidence in humans when you hear about those instances I needed to to to keep looking at it listening and then when I heard enough of these stories it became I became ready to write this character And that's what happened. So it's it it was a little it was heavy research, but it started it started here at home. I actually I I
think that there is like so much value and people sharing these kind of intersectional conversations where ⁓ you're exploring different concepts, not just as a parent who watched your kids go through it, but as like they are able to share reflections in adulthood and then as an author and as someone who's researching all of this and like it's just such a cool pocket. And you had like you had pieces of all of it. I imagine I can totally understand why it took seven years to write it because I feel like I don't have the data on this, but I feel like if you're a later diagnosed autistic or a later diagnosed ADHD, it can take years to get that diagnosis, years to understand what's happening for you. And then of course when you look back, you're like it makes so much sense. Even with an early diagnosis, it is still a ⁓ it is still a mountain to climb. I think you know this because of your field, but there is a lot of back and forth between parents and their child, parents not agreeing about their child and what what that what that looks like on a day-to-day basis. There's a lot A lot to unpack here when someone is given a diagnosis. For both you know anxiety, OCD, as well as autism. There's there's a lot to unpack there, and and sometimes there's just such resistance on the part of a parent. They don't want their kid to be different. All they want is for them to be the same. And if they are academically inclined, then it's like, hey, what's the deal here? You're fine. Everything's good. Why are you only eating foods that are colored white? Or whatever their thing is, you know? Why why why is this smell bothering you so much? Come on, roses smell great here, smell them. And that could be like ⁓ my god to someone who has sensory issues and they don't like the smell of roses. That is such a like a ⁓ aggressive and like kind of almost like an assault for someone not to understand when they've told you, hey, I don't like that scent. That that is not a good thing for me. So I'm I'm just giving you like a little tiny example of the misunderstandings that can happen and that's even with an early diagnosis. So you had you had said, and I think that this is something that we talked a little bit about too, that obviously the way that a girl is gonna present with like mental health, autism, ADHD, etc., is very different from how, you know, an AMAB folk, you know, would an assigned male at birth. And so I'm curious like how you decided to write those two characters in the book and kind of really showcasing and maybe showing people the differences because we know that girls are always usually passed over for diagnoses because they're like, you're fine, right? Like you're socially, you know, doing the things, but we know that there's a diagnostic difference. So I'm curious how that kind of showed up in the book for you and how you chose to highlight different things. Well, you just landed on the most important trajectory of Ray. Her whole point and and and she talks
about this very early on is that she wants to find other girls like her. She knows they're out there, but she hasn't met them yet other than online. And you know, that's ⁓ that's a whole nother thing with the mom and you get off the computer and blah blah blah blah. But she knows they're out there and she really really wants to find them and she she has this thought, she starts a blog to to talk about what it's like. It's it's ⁓ called Audi Freak. And because she's called Freak all the time. So it's called Audi Freak, and she blogs there. And I think that that is her goal in this book. Find others. Because if she can find others like her, she believes that together they have superpowers. That that that that that understanding among that group could change the world. And it's it's so fun to see her going for that. And The the other character, Braden, with his mental health issues, they they get more and more intense. I mean, he is he is a guy that that you absolutely love because he's got a big heart and he's always trying to help other people and make them laugh and make them feel good. So you you really love him. So it's a little heartbreak when you see that. he refers to himself with this sense of the me beneath the me. And if people knew the me beneath the me they wouldn't they wouldn't like him. That's how he feels. So that is ⁓ his his ⁓ meeting Ray is so perfect in the sense that they don't belong together. He's like the cool kid at school and she's the freak. They don't belong together. And it it you ⁓ originally you think as you're reading he's gonna save her because that's who he is. He's he's like the cool guy and he's gonna save her because she's the outlier. And that's not really what happens. I'm not gonna spoil it. But that's not what happens. I was gonna say you can't give us a spoiler now because I have to read it first. I had to read it first. So I'm I'm curious when you're writing about this experience for these two teenagers and you're pouring into the research and you're really building this story. Were there parts that kind of gave you a different experience or a different understanding of what your sons and what your niece maybe went through? Definitely do. And part of that has to do with the fact of time. Research, time I'm not so close to the events of high school anymore. And therefore I can look back on It and say, Hey, I did what I did at the time with the information that I had. I I can't beat myself up for maybe not moving faster or doing more or seeking out more support because I didn't know at the time that those were the steps to take exactly. And so maybe I dragged my feet longer than some. However, you can't beat yourself up over it because you you make these decisions based on what you know at the time. And that's what I did. What I knew at the time, those were the steps I took. Now I do see more of how these things were happening sooner than I had really noticed. And I think our society's better at that now. I
I think there's less resistance to it. And I think that even teachers and and just the community at large is more sensitive to these things. So I think that maybe all of us together can help the neurodiverse better than say ten years ago. 20 years ago. I just think we've come a long way. I I think so too. I I think that there's so much ⁓ there's so much information in a diagnosis and I think there's so much information in testing and receiving services. ⁓ and I like to tell parents sometimes like you can get the testing done and it may not tell you what you thought you knew. It might give you different information that's gonna help you move forward in a different way. but I I do think we are getting better, we are getting faster, we are like much more aware. of how ⁓ you know ADHD autism OCD anxiety presents in like younger populations and like we know that the the faster people receive treatment and accurate diagnosis and treatment sometimes like the faster we can kind of get through some of that ⁓ and get them to the point where like they have the skills, they have the strategy, the family has the support. And I I do think it's different even thinking about my childhood, right? Like there are lots of people that were just kind of chonked up as like unstable, wild, crazy. And now you think about it, I'm like half of us were ADHD and didn't even know it, right? Until we're in adulthood, getting the diagnosis, able to do those things on our own. You know that impulsivity, you know, which is which is part of all that. And there's this t-shirt that there was a kid used I know he used to wear. It said, it seemed like a good idea at the time. All right. And I thought of that a lot. Because that t shirt's so perfect for those that have ADHD and have that impulsivity reflex, guys and girls, you know. and then it's only ⁓ when they look back like Yeah, okay, I get that that was not the best decision for me at the time. But th i y in that moment, yeah, it it made perfect sense. So yeah, when you talk about the labels, wild, ⁓ you know, unstable, all that stuff, it's all it's all they're they're they're not helpful labels because they're they're not speaking to the person really. It's it's an easy categorization, but it's a snap judge. Judgment and when you do that, you're looking at things with eyes that are judgmental. I hate to say it because we all do it, we're all guilty of it. It's human nature. We're we're wired to ⁓ assess a situation very quickly for our own survival. But in today's day, it's not as useful because it forces us to make quick decisions. If we have the more compassionate and curious eyes, then it's gives us time to assess a person a little bit differently and like, ⁓ yeah. this person and they're amazing and ⁓ they're really smart and I would have never thought to solve this problem the way that they did and it really it's really effective and it really works and they're really productive and I love them. This is very different one from the other. So hopefully we're getting more of the prescription for the curious l eyes and lenses than the the the the snap judgment ones. I I hope so. I think that's the more I talk to people that work with teens, that is almost one of the most common things I hear is like curiosity is going to like be its weight in gold, right? The more curious we can be about stuff, the more curious we can understand things. It's really gonna help us like figure out how someone's brain works and why they're thinking about certain things. And if if we were all given the same problem, we are gonna solve it in a thousand different ways. Right? ⁓ and no two people are really gonna be exactly the same. There might be some like logical thought patterns that are, you know, different people follow, but ultimately at the end of the day, we're all gonna serve or solve problems like differently. And so I think that just speaks to like our brains and how we're gonna think differently, we're gonna act differently, we're gonna feel differently about different things. and I think being curious really helps you understand like how do those things connect for you. And what a boon to society when you have neurodiverse minds and brains working to solve the very big and complex problems that the world has. Thank the higher power for these people, because they are not. neurotypical. They are going to find a different way in to explore what's wrong and to help fix it. And that is the other side of the coin of what we're talking about, which is how exciting it is that there are people out there who don't all think the same, who are all gonna look at the same problem a million different ways. And that gives me such a feeling of optimism that we are going to break through some of these really big issues that the world faces right now. So much value in the neurodiverse population. I think that is just starting to explode. I agree with you. I'm I'm curious because I think that so I have a lot of parents that listen to this podcast too, ⁓ to get kind of insights about parenting teens and what all that takes. And it's interesting because I think that hindsight's always 2020, right? Like we're always gonna be able to look back after five or ten years and be like, ⁓ yeah, like I did the best I could, or you know, etc. ⁓ and I think at the same time there are so many parents that carry so much like sadness and shame and grief about like not being able to do the thing or they Look back and they're like, I should have known. Right? Do you have a perspective on that? Do you have anything you could share with parents who are going through those tough feelings of like I could have done more? Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself in a very intentional and real and deep way. Because dwelling on the things in the past where you you you did the best that you possibly could with the information that you had at the time, you have to cut yourself slack. People are always talking about, you know, hey,
it's important to ask others for forgiveness when you've done something that you know is not cool. But we don't talk enough about forgiving forgiving ourselves. It's really important. And the weight and energy of not doing so diminishes your life. I can't tell you what by what percent, but I I think it's pretty huge. I really do. And all that energy and and darkness that is spent in the beating up of yourself is is just not. helpful. You're not you're not serving yourself. You're not serving the ones that you love so much. I I think that is like such an important piece of it, right? I I think as a parent and when I work with parents, I know that there are so many parents who are really they're doing the best they can. And I think when you have more information, more resources, more h hindsight, more information, all of it, it just it really helps you build, you know, a better understanding. And I've always been inside the line where it's like, if we know better we can do better. And I think sometimes when you're stuck in the systems and you're kind of going through the motions and you're feeling like every day is kind of survival You are doing the best you can do at that period of time. Right. And I think that like, you know, it's okay to forgive yourself for maybe not picking up on something or not noticing because we're dealing with a lot as a society. But it's kind of cool that you can have that conversation and that outlook now. Cause I imagine maybe when you were going through it, you were like, I don't understand any of this, and now you do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is this is, you know. years in the making to kind of form these opinions and and and have a sense of what happened and why and what it means. But when you're in it, you are kind of in survival mode. You really are. You're i i it's not like you carved out this por portion of your life and you said, ⁓ yeah, I'm gonna save this little pocket for when this sort of thing happens. No. We're working, we're taking care of ⁓ our jobs and our responsibilities and you know the average stuff. Is my kid safe? Did he get home? Did he ride his bike home and he's he's back safely? Or did I turn in the things I needed to do for my job? ⁓ am I being a good partner? Am I being a good friend? Am I being a good daughter? Am I being a good sister? I mean there's so many things in the life you don't expect this. Boop. To pop into your life like, ⁓ wow, my kid is is struggling. And this is not the ⁓ I'm worried about a test or ⁓ this boy doesn't like me at school or something else is going on and it's it it just drops into your life one day, you know, maybe the signs were there but they weren't significant enough to to to push you to act on it. And so when it's there It's ⁓ it's pretty overwhelming. And you know, for that period of time until you decide what you're gonna do about it and who who you gonna tell and who are you gonna talk to about and ⁓ I don't want people to you know talk smack about my
child and what do I say to the teacher and you know all that stuff like you have so many decisions to suddenly make. It's a lot. It's really a lot. Do you do you have any advice if you're if a parent who's like dealing with this right now is kind of in it? What is advice would you give them? Well that's a tough question, Charity, because I think that while there are a lot of similarities, you know, in the the parent-child experience, I really think that those are the tools that you as a professional clinician provide. I'm a storyteller. I try to I try to shine a light on people, the bridges that that are there and the walls, the walls that we put up and I try to break that down a little bit with storytelling. But as far as actually giving advice, I don't think I can. I mean it's not it it's not my it's not really my my my my wheelhouse and ⁓ other than than to To tell them that you can't be hard on yourself. It doesn't serve you. It doesn't serve your kid. To be good to yourself, to be strong, and to do the things that that that make the ground you're standing on solid, whatever that is for you. But other than that, I I think I should steer away from the advice. I think that's really beautiful advice though. Because I I think that there is so much pressure with parenting. There's so much pressure in child rearing and supporting teenagers. And I think if if the message we can bring is that we can still love ourselves through those challenges and that we still have needs and we deserve those things as humans and we're doing the best we can, like I hope that can just help remind one person that like they're valuable, right? Even if even if they're not perfect, even if if everything feels like it's survival, like you still bring value to this. More than value. I mean as a parent it's it's your your role is is so crucial and ⁓ I I I think that what you do is beautiful because you remind people of that, how needed they are. Yeah, they really are. And I'm actually like I'm I'm so curious about ⁓ how I'm gonna feel reading your book because as as ⁓ obviously a clinician now, I went through we all survived teenhood, right? We're here we survived teenhood. I'm curious, like did you find yourself identifying more with like the teens you wrote about or like with the parents or like did you see yourself in any of the like dynamics. ⁓ absolutely. At at any given moment, I I am that character, whether it is one of the kids or it is a parent. Yes, I am. I it's I think I think that happens a lot, you know, when you're writing because you get so deep into that character and you really they become very real to you in a sense. You you know how they would speak how they re how they would react to things and ⁓ yeah. s some would say you are that person. But they're very different people in the story. But you you do, you become them for a little while. Yeah. Or a long while. I think it probably is one of the things where it allows you to almost like re-experience teenhood and parenting teens in like a whole different lens now that you get to write about it and you have some space from that period of time. Definitely. I mean the space the space is is there and it gives you d the the much needed objectivity to write about it. But let's face it, charity, if you run into people from high school, come on. Are you not literally back in high school in that moment? Like we are talking about the same things. I I have I have a bestie. She lives in Long Beach. We have known each other since we were 16 years old in the same English class where we met. And we're talking about this or that. And ⁓ I'll say, ⁓ my gosh, I ran into Derek, or I ran into whomever. Brian, Brad, whatever. And inevitably the qu next question she asks is, are they still hot? I mean, this is, you know, we have our own families. We're married. It's not about who's hot anymore, but when you're talking about high school and you run into somebody, I'm sorry, you are 16 again. You go right back, right back. And it is a really, really super fun time to write about. And it's a super fun time to read about because as as this very old wise professor writing professor told me you can always write about young people because old people were young once and they relate to it. And so it is a pretty fun pretty fun genre. I love that. Cynthia, I'm so excited to read your book and I can't wait. I I and I'll share my insights too, because I'm curious to see who and how I'm gonna connect with these characters, like being someone who works with teenagers, ⁓ and I can't wait to recommend it to people. 'Cause I I do think the really cool part about this to me, is that you're really honoring this intersectionality between like mental health and neurodiversity and young love and like what does it look like to parent that and support that and like I think that even the emotions you listed in the beginning are are are happening all the time for teenagers, right? But I think so many times parents are like, ⁓ you're fine, right? Like, it's just like part of teenhood. And even though that's true, it doesn't make that experience like invalid for them. And so I love that you're giving words to that. I love that you're giving that like story you know, a narrative that people can read into. I I hope that that the kids who have always felt odd and out of it and not part of things. I I hope that this seeing them not as like sidekicks or something, that their main characters will will give them a a better feeling about themselves. I I hope. Yeah. Well, we are the main characters in our own lives. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ I love it so much. Well, Cynthia, we have to wrap up. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm gonna drop your link below because I know you have several places people can buy the book. Mine is on the way and I'll keep you updated ⁓ as I work my way through it. But ⁓ everybody should go out and grab their copy of Weirdo's Welcome. ⁓ I'm so excited to get mine. Charity, thank you so much for the support and for talking to me today. I love talking to you and I love your show. Thank you so much. I I feel like I could talk to you forever and that's a problem. It's a good problem. It's a very good problem. It is a good problem. I feel like we could have some really fun conversations. So, ⁓ but thank you so much again. I'll drop everything below for people. ⁓ and again, thank you to all of our listeners, and I hope that this helps ⁓ connect to teens and to parents who are struggling with this right now. All right, everybody. Have a good weekend. We'll see you next time.